Momma's grin

I look like my mom...This picture is actually taken from the webcam on my work computer. I have a picture somewhere of my mom taken when I was in high school and she has this EXACT same expression on her face. The cheesy grin with the raised eyebrows is so HER! Ha ha...I miss her face!! I am glad the holidays are getting close. I feel myself getting more sentimental every day. I never thought I would be so sappy. Sheesh. Is it just me? I used to worry that I would turn into my mom...now I worry that I won't turn out that well. What are your thoughts? How has your relationship with your parents changed as you've gotten older?

sock bun success!!

I wanted to try this new hairstyle on Elle-belle...The Sock Bun! It's super cute and makes her hair look SO thick! Do you love it? I got the idea on someone's blog, but after spending about 45 minutes looking through my regular blogs and their blog links trying to give credit where credit was due, I realized that this isn't exactly a copyrighted idea...there were a billion results when I googled it. So, my bad, I can't find the post that provided my inspiration.

This one was a cakewalk and the results were stellar! Have you tried any new hairdo's lately? Do share! :)

Grandma's Birthday

Today would have been my Grandmother's 106th birthday...I can't believe she has been gone that long! She died when I was 17. She was a very interesting lady. She lived with us for 5 years after my grandpa died and it was quite an experience. Our house had been pretty full, but my 2 oldest sisters were in college and my oldest brother was getting ready to graduate so we turned Mom's office into a bedroom for her and she lived off the den right by the front porch.

She would just sit on the porch when the weather was good. Her health was poor and she was already just a little touched in the head. She never cut her hair and she wore it in an old danish style with two long braids wrapped around the top in a ring. She stopped putting it up after a couple of years and she would just wear 2 long braids. My friends thought she was American Indian.

She didn't refrain from expressing her opinions. My dad was an only child and we were her only grandchildren (7 of us). Kim was her favorite and I was her second favorite and she really disliked Candi. Sometimes Rachel would make a dessert and become the 2nd favorite over me, but only for a little while. It was not good, but we were her only family. At the time, we just all said she was crazy and maybe that's all it was.

When her health deteriorated even more, we had to place her in a nearby nursing home. She wasn't there long before she passed away...only a few months, I believe. Those were hard days for my Dad. He visited her every day on his way home from work. He's like that. I hope I am just like him one day.
Grandma made life hard on my mom. She never thought my mom was good enough for my dad. She criticized her an awful lot. My mom is an incredibly selfless woman. She is brilliant and witty and kind and didn't deserve to be disrespected, but she NEVER complained about it. I didn't realize how much of a sacrifice those years must've been for her.

I look forward to getting to know my Grandmother in the next life. She had a hard life and I know that she will be different person now that she is away from all her mortal cares. Even though people have problems, you still love them and value your relationships with them. She was always good to me.

"Before" pictures...AKA: My house now

I just know I will lose these pictures if I don't post them now! I have a lot of aspirations to renovate this house, but most of the projects can't be started yet for various reasons, so here is what the house will look like for a while. I do like the clock that Paul hung on the wall between the dining room and living room. We found it on clearance at Target a few weeks ago. Also, the gun in the photo is a replica of a civil war gun. Totally harmless, in case you were wondering. :)

I really want to paint the brick on this fireplace and replace the wooden blinds with roman shades.

Our furniture is hodgepodge...it's comfy, though!! What I WANT is a cool patterned armchair and a big L-couch...someday!!

Paul and I can't agree on whether crown molding would work on the vaulted ceiling..I say "yes!" We also need to paint all the wooden baseboards and windowsills white. One project that may happen soon is to paint the tv wall a nice beachy blue color. I have picked the exact shade out already!

I remember how excited I was when I first bought this couch 10 years ago. Sigh. It's seen better days!

Can you see how the chair railing in the dining room stops where the laminate floor transitions to carpet? I don't like that. I also don't like laminate floor or carpet! I want stone and hardwood. I am gonna save my pennies.

This room would look snazzy with some 2-tone paint colors! There is also a horrible border that needs to go...I didn't get it in the shot but it's awful. The kitchen is awful. The cabinets wouldn't be bad with a coat of paint, but the counters need replacing and we need to install a backsplash. I really like having projects on the horizon...wish the horizon was a leetle bit closer, though!

This is the hallway from the living room to the bedrooms. The wooden doors are very cozy, but outdated and it makes it really dark.

The bathroom is basic. It just needs new sink hardware, a new mirror, painted vanity, and a hanging cabinet with some colors and accessories... it probably will be my cheapest project!

I love that they built this bookcase into the living room. It just needs to be painted and some nice molding to make it perfect.

Mantel accessories...I have some ideas...I love Steinmart's homegoods section...I will do this last just in case I change my color scheme or something...

Ellie's room looks about the same...except she now has a doggie crate in there with her!

Her books and accessories.

TV Wall Mount

Paul has been working on getting our TV mounted to the wall. First he installed surround sound and added the higher outlets. He has mad electrician skills for a layman.

He figured out the cheapest way to mount it. It still cost about $50 for all the brackets and hardware. First he went to Home Depot...they don't have a good hardware selection so he had to go to Lowe's instead.

He bought 4 metal brackets and attached 2 to the television (it had the holes already in place) and then we measured EXACTLY to put the other 2 on the wall. The ones of the TV just rested on the ones on the wall and we put little bolts to hold them together.

The hardest part was getting everything plugged in properly while holding the heavy TV.

We also repurposed my dining buffet into a TV stand. We pulled the fronts of the drawers off and reattached them with hinges. I lined it with some pretty japanese paper and VOILA! Isn't it pretty?

I inherited this from my parents and love how it's now a focal piece in my living room! Isn't my hubby handy?

The Fallacy of Self-esteem

When I was in middle school, we had assemblies on "creating good self-esteem". We would get worksheets where we listed what we liked about ourselves. They would send us home with handouts for the parents that listed things to say to your children like "You're terrific!" and "Great job!". It was all an effort to make us feel good about ourselves. Despite these assemblies and handouts, I had peers committing suicide, getting pregnant in high school, and abusing drugs. I remember talking to my mom about having low self-esteem and she SHOCKED me by basically saying that self-esteem wasn't important...She said that as far as she could tell, it was CONTRARY to God's plan that we have good self-esteem.

She didn't mean we shouldn't love ourselves or anything like that. I have thought about this a lot and she was SO RIGHT! Christ teaches us that the first commandment is to love God and the second is to love our fellow man. Never does he mention self-esteem except to say that we should love others as ourselves. Oh how tricky is Satan and his philosophies of men. While we were all trying to develop good self-esteem, we were neglecting higher priorities like service to others and obedience to God's commandments. Things that naturally lead to good self-esteem...because we then understand that we are God's children and that we can do all things in Christ. We were being taught that self-esteem can be created through pretty words and that EVERYONE was "thumb-body". Everyone is valued, but we need to live our lives with PURPOSE. We have work to do. And that work will bring value and confidence to ourselves and our children.

Now that my daughter is in middle school, I find myself worrying about her self-esteem...but I shouldn't. I should worry about how she esteems God and others. If she esteems them as high or higher than herself, she will NATURALLY have good self-esteem. She will know that she is a daughter of God and she will work hard because of the love she feels for Him and her fellow man. And it won't matter that someone in class teased her or she doesn't have the right shoes or the designer blue jeans.

What do you think? Does self-esteem seem contrary to happiness?

I just found this very interesting post on a similar train of thought here. Interestingly, it was written about a week after I first penned my post...Great minds think alike. Ha ha. J/K. That was just my narcissism talking from all those years of self-esteem training.

humor and heartbreak

No matter what other people might think, I believe that I was once funny. My peers used to think so, long ago when I lived in my "life will end up as a fairy-tale" bubble. Mine was the sharp-witted, sarcastic kind of funny. Lately, however, that humor just falls flat with me. Perhaps it is age, perhaps the recession, perhaps my divorces, or my inferility, but whichever of these caused it, it comes down to being broken-hearted. Not like the 16-year-old girl who is dumped by her boyfriend kind, but the soul-wrenching, "how-is-this-my-life??" kind. This broken-heartedness has created a rift between myself and someone that I REALLY, REALLY loved. My old self. I just don't like that girl that I used to be very much anymore. And she would NEVER get me. We are barely on speaking terms these days. I rarely can read my old journals and am so IRRITATED with the banality of my old self when I do. And not just my 7th grade self either. My self. My husband has a phrase he uses whenever I start talking like this. He simply says "you are a Cosgriff" and lets it go at that. He is referring to what he has labelled "an inferiority complex". This is his way of getting out of a conversation like this:

Me: "Honey, I have no friends."
Paul: "ugh...here we go again!"
Me: "I am serious, no one likes me."
Paul: "...says the girl who just got invited to dinner with friends last week."
Me: "They were just being nice. They don't really like me"
Paul: "You are SUCH a Cosgriff."

He will then roll his eyes and play with Walter, our psychologically-perfect puppy.

But, I really do regularly feel this way. And my husband is right. (A very common and annoying habit of his). It isn't that people don't like me, it's that I can't imagine them liking me. And I am getting on my own nerves with it. So I am breaking up with my past self. No more journal-reading and introspective trips down memory lane!! I am done with psychoanalyzing my life.

Bad things have happened. I have some empathy now. I feel bad for people and I know they are most likely doing the best they can. I don't want to make them feel stupid anymore. And thus, I don't know how to be funny anymore. I really wasn't that funny to begin with.

Has your sense of humor or lack thereof changed with age like mine?

ECPI Heartwalk

Ellie and I participated in Charleston's "Heartwalk" this past weekend along with my coworkers. We had a lot of fun and there were close to five thousand participants this year. Here are some fun pictures that were taken. We had a fun group!

Genealogy? Me??

I have caught the bug. Seriously. I never thought I would be interested in family history. It isn't because I don't know how important it is. I have always known, but my parents were always doing it and I was a little jealous that all that time was being poured into (gasp) "dead people" instead of ME (their very dramatic and overly-sensitive little angel-girl!). Seriously. I was jealous of the time they spent doing family-history work! As I got old enough to get over that (~17 or so), I felt like they had already done all there was to do. Or that was the excuse I made. I have kept that excuse like a security blanket in the back of my mind.

Recently, however, there has been a change in my heart. I don't know where it stems from, but I cannot stop thinking about my ancestors! I spend hours poring over my genealogical lines and have been doodling family groups all over my scratch paper at work! It's soooooo cool! I love to read the biographies of my ancestors...particularly those who converted to the church. Their testimonies and strength give me such incentive to stay faithful. Their hardships make my life look like a complete cake-walk! Their accomplishments motivate me to do more. I don't really know if I will ever contribute to my own family history work...I hope I can figure out that part, but I have already been blessed by reading their stories!

Getting big!

Even though I got a sweet new camera as a surprise gift from my husband, I am having problems uploading photos to my computer so I am still using my cellphone camera for the shots in this post.
This school-year has started out VERY WELL for both Ellie and I!!! We committed before her 1st day to have a "daily debriefing" before homework and chores every afternoon and it has been a great success. All we do is grab a snack together and sit on the back porch away from everyone else and she tells me about her day...and occasionally I tell her about mine. Hers are generally MUCH more interesting than mine. I LOVE this time with her and she seems to love it too! This year she is taking piano at school instead of playing flute in the band and she really loves it. They have the technology that allows the teacher to "plug into" any piano in the room and listen to each student individually. Ellie's band background has been very helpful and she is progressing well. I am so proud of my little biscuit!

Here is Walter and Eleanor together. I took about 25 shots and this is the only one that wasn't blurred by their constant motion. Walter is big, but he is definitely still a puppy!! He is a great dog. Very snuggly, sweet, and loyal. His sister is more of a jumper and drooler so I feel like we got the pick of the litter (I am biased, of course). Here is a shot of our fireplace at the new house...ummm....I am not finished decorating...note the lack of window treatments, but I realize that I had no new pictures of our new place on my blog!
My 7th grader! She just seems so much more grown-up this year...and we are all happier because of it! :)