Amazing yard sale!

Well...last I left you I was concerned with all of the rain that might ruin our yard sale. God is good and always in the details because NO rain fell. As a matter of fact, it was even sunny at times. My mother-in-law and her sister worked two days straight and sold over $200 of my "stuff" or more appropriately called "junk!" I still have enough "junk" around my house to sell, so I am planning on having a sale in the fall. It has been a hard task to whittle down what was in our home in Alabama and fit it in our "smaller" house here.

I have yet to put out many knick-knacks and very few things are hung on the wall. I have been waiting until I could find the time to paint the walls and have just now come to that point. For those of you who were in my home in AL, you know how much color I had on the walls - for those that weren't...well, it was A LOT! The beige walls and beige carpet here are pretty, but are on the boring side. I have decided on a deep yellow for my kitchen and living room...or so I think. :-) At this point I have a couple of paint chips that I keep moving around to the different walls so that I can stare at them and decide if that is REALLY what I want to do. Face it, with 3 kids I don't have time to redo it...so I better be SURE!

Along with picking out paint colors, I have dedicated myself to the finding of a new couch. We still don't have one and frankly...I hadn't been ready to get one. Our living room downstairs is an odd shape - it has a very pretty limestone fireplace at an angle in one of the corners and although it looks nice, it doesn't make it so easy to place furniture. I spent Saturday am, mapping out my living room on grid paper and placing furniture all around just trying to figure out where in the world I was going to put the couch and how big/little it needed to be. I even went over to the model home - it is EXACTLY the same floor plan as ours - just to see how they placed the furniture in it! I'm telling you - it shouldn't be this hard! I think I have settled on one at Ashley furniture that is a very pretty burgundy color - it should look great w/the recliners that we already had and the deep yellow paint chip on the wall. I will probably go and get it tomorrow - there is a BIG 4th of July sale. I'll be sure to keep you posted because this is such riveting subject matter - you may not be able to sleep w/o knowing. (yes, that was sarcasm - ha!)

We made a trip to my parent's last Sunday - Kyle did some work for them on the wood on their home and storage shed - AND we did a little shopping at IKEA. They have one of those GREAT BIG stores in Round Rock, TX...just about 15-20 minutes from my parent's house. I had already made a trip there a few weeks ago and kinda scoped it out - got the lay of the land so that I could go back and conquer exactly what I needed. Because you know, shopping w/a man and 3 kids, you have to be ready just to go in and conquer. Well, 2 hours (ugh!) and about 15 boxes later, we came out with a new computer/craft area desk and MOST of the components of a new entertainment/wall unit (of course one piece was out of stock so I will pick it up at another time). That was the easy part - for those of you familiar w/IKEA - everything comes unassembled - so Kyle will be working as a carpenter on furniture assembly in his spare time. At least there is a payoff for that in the price of the merchandise!

In the tradition of years past, we will spend the 4th with my in laws - this time in TEXAS instead of Alabama. We will have to find another location for fireworks which is sad. Kyle looked over at me tonight and said, "I'll have to get up early in the morning and go park my truck at Sportsman's Park."...just reminiscing about all the years he DID do that so that we would have good seats. He would really get up early and go park his truck down there on the morning of the 4th! Sportman's Park may be small, but they put on a terrific fireworks show! Plus, you can't beat the 'holler' for some unique people watching! :-)

I hope all of you have a terrific 4th of July. God bless America and God bless you as well!