happy birthday baby...

today my baby turns six!! born 7 weeks early, she is the probably the strongest little person i know. she has such an amazing senese of herself and also the greatest comedic timing! i cannot imagine life without her. she makes me a better person everyday and i have love, love, loved watching her grow every single day of the past six years! happy birthday sidney elizabeth!!!

happy halloween to every body else!

friends...

love is the perfect word to describe this darling mini collection for children at anthropologie (probably my favorite "big" store) from my friend rachel faucett of handmade charlotte. rachel is one of those amazing people who always lights up a room and is instantly best friends with everyone in it... in the most genuine way. she also has an amazing exuberance for life and always seems to make the most of whatever she does (which is a lot!). i'm so happy to see her beautiful work showcased as it should be! plus, is it strange to admit that i totally want a pair of those bloomers for myself? nevermind, don't comment on that, just check out rachel's lovely collection...

how much do i love that coat?! it is amazing! congrats rachel!!!

in other news, i wanted to share a new deer i made for the holidays that i put in the shop yesterday. i usually share my work here before listing them but this week i am running around like mad trying to get a lot of things done (including paint my hallway in the middle of all of it). the holidays are creeping up on us quickly! i'm so behind this year. I have been busily cutting out animals for the shop and i hope to have quite a few more things before christmas arrives. i hope you will check out this new little friend in the meantime...

finally, i just want to say a special thanks to you, my friends, for your kind words and thoughts last week.

 xooxoxo

ten...

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

i guess the thing about life is its unpredictability. we make choices, but they are clouded by the present and our view of them will always be changing with the future. we can't go back, as much as we may want to. you never know where this life may lead you. you can only do your best and take one step at a time.

i am remembering reece today. today i should have a boy turning ten. ten! what an amazing age, that just becomes a marker instead. today i will think of you and what ten should look like, and then i will let it go because that is not my path or yours after all. tomorrow we will buy an apple tree and plant it for you. it will be another way to remember that carries into the future instead of staying in the past. it will be something that can grow and be nourished. that is the way love is too. 

xoxo

etsy favorites...

pendant light large 10" glass globe, from blue moon lights

i wasn't sure what title to give to today's etsy favorites. we have been having unseasonably warm weather this week, but today we woke to rain on the roof and cooler tempatures. the low will turn into the high today and drop more tonight. we are expecting unseasonably cool tempatures and our first frost. i guess it is time to bring in my lemon trees. how has the world spun around so quickly to get me back here? i realized we have now lived every season in this house.. already! my daughter asked me if we had christmas here last year. already, this is the home she knows and is forgetting what came before... but no, once we have have christmas here i think it will finally feel like home for me. but today i am not thinking about christmas. i'm planning a halloween birthday party for her, thinking about how my husband will have to get the ladder out to fetch the halloween decorations out of the attic that we just put away. i'm also enjoying the pops of color i see out the windows, a contrast to the gray gloomy sky. i'm trying to hold onto it just a little bit before the world starts to spin again.

handmade purple harem pants, from cloud9jewels

beautiful glass cloche bell jar, from klinker

bistro cutting board, from grayworksdesign

vinatge folk napkins, from cottagefarm

extra large enamelware tea kettle, from woodlandherbgarden

meet charlie...

meet charlie! he is the newest member of our family. we adopted charlie from the lifeline animal project, a great organization that rescues animals from kill shelters and finds volunteers to care for them until they are able to go to a forever home. the people that give their time and energy to these types of orgnaizations amaze me! charlie was found wondering in the woods and wasn't in very good shape. most seriously, he had heart worms, a condition that is easy to prevent but difficult to treat. we were lucky that lifeline rescued him and placed him with a wonderful man who cared for him through the treatment process, which takes months, before he could be ready for adoption. he treated him like he would his own dog, even though he knew he couldn't keep him. we are so grateful to him because we saw this beautiful dog at one of their adoption events and immediately fell in love!

charlie is an australian shepard/border collie mix, which is the kid of dog i had growing up. if you are familar with these dogs, they are very smart. they bond strongly with their owners as they are bred to be working dogs and follow commands. charlie seems to have had very few lessons in commands before ending up at lifeline. he is very sweet and willing to learn but he definitely needs more training and some redirection for those sheparding tendencies... other than "look how i can make the chickens run!" or "i must stand here and stare at the cats for an hour to make sure nothing happens to them (or until they move and then look how i can make them run!)". in the mean time we are enjoying a dog who likes to get lots of hugs, has endless patience for the kids, loves walks and meeting other dogs! we took him to the farmer's market this sunday and he was so excited to meet everyone he saw (and try to steal a few snacks). we have another dog who is very elderly, and it has been difficult watching her go down hill so suddenly. charlie is very respectful of her position in our house and it is really nice for all of us to have some young dog energy again... chicken chasing and all.

plus, how can you really resist those eyes?

camping...

the kids had a fall break from school this week and since it was my husband's birthday we decided to camping for a few days. we stayed right next to a beautiful lake, on top of a mountain in north georgia. it was truly amazing, especially the leaves which have only just started changing here in atlanta. the weather was perfect, and the rain held off until the last day when we had to pack up and leave ealier than intended. there were many other kids camping and the kids instantly made new friends. i don't have that much camping experience so i was quite proud of myself cooking over an open fire... i made lentil soup and a delicious apple slump from the apples we picked the week before. we fished, but didn't catch anything. we hiked around the lake, went for a late night walk with glow sticks and generally had a lot of fun. i think we are all looking forward to it again...

seriously, who couldn't get used to this kind of life?!

happy birthday...

happy birthday to my love! i can't imagine life without you! i know you will hate that i posted these, and i will definitely get this look... but i couldn't resist (and i know you will love me anyway;)!

xxxxxxxooooooooooxxxxxxxooooooo

love, cary

(and jack henry and sidney, who i think took these photos that i found)

little projects around the house...

i've been working on a few projects around the house lately, just little things on a long list i am trying to get through (before taking on a few bigger projects). i have been hanging up some new prints. this one above is from abby try again, whom i love (and she just had a baby, congrats!) i love to buy prints from artists on etsy and other places, but often it is difficult to buy frames that fit... plus, i'm lazy... and cheap:) so, i had this frame but the print was slightly too small, so i added a lovely piece of grey linen. i actually really love how it came out! i think it looks even more special! this one is hanging in my kitchen, above a shelf. you can also see to the right is my "new" living room. we decided to move the living room to the room next to the kitchen and it gets used way more often now. i also love the bay windows and fireplace in here...

i'm currently recovering one of the couches, which is taking forever (because i rarely work on it). so it's looking rather shabby, or i'd show you a larger picture. i'm going to paint the walls grey, hang some art and find a new light fixture... eventually. 

another little project... i liked how the print in the kitchen looked, so i decided to do another in the hall. i framed a calender page from the month and year i got  married. i have been hanging onto it for almost ten years now! see, i eventually get to things. i like the little personal touch of something special and unique to us, that people will see when they first enter our home...

you can see a little bit of the "old" living room, which will become the "library". also, see the lovely temple bells i have hanging on the front door? i found those at a local vintage store and they make the sweetest sound when someone comes in. i need to replace the old twist doorbell though. it no longer works but people still come to the door and twist it thinking it does... all you hear is a little mechanical grinding noise to know people are there!

i found this little tobacco box at the same vintage store (my favorite kudzu). i have been searching for a nice little shelf to hang over my kids' play kitchen, which is in a corner of our kitchen. i was going to make something but decided this little box would make a perfect shelf...

it is right outside the playroom, which is my children's favorite spot in the house. they spend so much time here. i don't think i have really shown it before? here are a few little peeks in. the fall mantle and their little book and music shelves...

this is probably my favorite piece of furniture in the house and the most used... my childrens' art table, which we bought from some neighbors. they previously used it in their speciality foods store, but i think it is an old bakers table. the zinc top is perfect for art projects...

finally, i have been fixing up the downstairs bathroom a bit. we will eventually make this into a smaller half bath, and extend the space to use as a dining room. so, no major changes will happen to it now... just making it a little prettier in the meantime with a little sink skirt and new curtains, which i made just this week...

we have a long weekend ahead, as it the fall break at school. we are going camping and it is my husband's birthday! unfortunately, my daughter is home with a fever, so i'm crossing my fingers that all will go on as planned.