Long time, no see!!

Long time, no see!! I've missed you!!

   Life has been incredibly busy, and unfortunately, creating a blog-worhty post or several blog-worthy posts is a priority has been resting on the back burner for about a month, although it shouldn't be. During the last month, I've had several school performances, and prior to that, dress rehearsals and pure craziness, and a couple of weddings. Now, with 7 weeks left of school, It's a feverish race to the finish line, and there are still so many activities, performances, projects, and events left, but because I'm tremendously excited about the commencement of what I'm absolutely committed to making the most amazing, eventful, and creative summer ever, I feel that the momentum of my enthusiasm and energy with pull me right through to the last day without a moment's hesitation. This summer, I plan to artistically take organization to a whole new level, create some awesome innovative lesson plans that are sure to result in success, place more focus on my awesome flute students, and devote myself to some great DIY projects, as well as spend more time making and performing music. (Below is one of my students Creativity Projects, a homemade I-pod cake!! Isn't that ingenious??)

    I don't feel that I will be as busy as I've been the last couple of years; Last year was the whole moving saga, which definitely took a significant amount of planning, preparation, and physical strain, and I'm totally glad that's over!! Normally I'm involved in summer band, which is almost a full school day, four days a week, but I'm only going to be subbing for the summer band program this summer. I'm going to be teaching flute lessons a couple days a week, which I love!! Hopefully, this will be our last summer without a baby botbyl...we'll see. I'm also planning to visit Ashley and Dan (my sister and her boyfriend) in Pawley's Island, South Carolina, in either late June or early July, which I'm looking extremely forward to!!

Just thinking about the gorgeous inspiring colors and whismy-ness (just made up a word) of the warm summer months is wonderful!! Have an amazing weekend!!

A little birdie told me...

In honor of the exciting arrival of spring...and a brand new month, I would like to create an interesting post about my obsession with decorating using adorable birds (after realizing that I have a slew of birdies popping up in just about every room of our house.) To me, birds symbolize freshness, new life, creativity, and whimsy, and there are various ways to showcase birds in decor in and outside of your house!! Here are a couple...or more than a couple...of my favorite purdy birdies that made this spring blog post cut!! 

Enter Birdie #1 :

 

Birdie(s) # 2 : These Birdies were DIY!! I've been trying to integrate more of my own artwork or creations into my gallery walls!!

Here are more adorable birdies...

  This one is a little tiny birdie!!

 The birdie above is my newest addition!!

 Hope you had an extraordinary weekend!!!! Happie Bird Watching!!

Searching for doors of opportunity and accentuating the positive...

You can never be too prepared for what life is about to throw at you!! With that confidently said, I'm completely a hopeless case, because I spend many hours every day meticulously planning and preparing the best way I know how for that which lies ahead, even in a general sense, and I've become quite a control freak, and frequently find it exceedingly difficult to loosen the reigns a little, and let God take control. The most we can hope for is to prepare ourselves as much as possible for a variety of circumstances, to learn to be as extremely flexible and open-minded as we can, while excitedly accentuating the positive whenever possible and searching for new opened - or even unopened - doors of opportunity.

I've been observing behavior for a while; In fact my job forces me to do this on a daily basis, and I find it extremely interesting that there are so many different viewpoints from which to look at life. Some people actually choose to be miserable, because they're scared of enjoying life, or feel guilty, like I some times do when I fear that I'm not working hard enough or not worrying enough, or whatever the case may be. I've realize how important it is to experience (and work toward experiencing) freedom, happiness, weightlessness, and creativity, even while doing the simple and mundane things, and while working really hard...and whenever we possibly can, and that it's not worth being upset, worried, guilty, paranoid, or feeling unworthy or like you're not doing enough. How difficult is it to not allow yourself to be effected by the beliefs, behaviors, and actions of others, or to let things get you down?? Extremely hard!!

I'm constantly trying to view life in an extremely positive way, even when things aren't going my way, and one of my continuous goals is to focus on positive aspects of life, things that I love and cherish, things that inspire and motivate me, things that push me further...and to integrate freshness, happiness, curiosity, interest, quirkiness, and art into an otherwise uninteresting or ordinary situation or daily activity. There can be art, creativity, happiness, freedom, love...all those wonderful descriptors and words present in normal every day things...we just need to train ourselves to look for and create them, and to not miss an opportunity to create them. If we commit to making our lives more interesting and positive, and wire ourselves to squash the negative right away, we will begin a whole new cycle, which will hopefully keep evolving in the right direction...I would definitely like to focus on that idea, no doubt!! This is just something my mind has been trailing off to lately...(What interesting thoughts has your mind been trailing off to lately??)

I've decided to make a commitment to search for and recognize the things or aspects of life that make me and others truly happy, truly free, truly able to be the best people we can possibly be, and to not take for granted the things and individuals that I'm blessed to have in my life. How often do we really think about the people that we come in contact with on a daily basis and how we can impact them in an amazing way, maybe helping them to experience something they've never felt, seen, or heard before...to experience life in a whole new way, or uncover concepts or ideas that may never have occurred to them before. This whole idea of slowly, (step by step), transforming ourselves and our lives into something incredible fascinates me for sure. I find it difficult to keep moving in what I know is the right direction, even if I sometimes feel as though I'm trudging through quicksand or swimming for my life against a strong (tempting...even persuasive) current. Creating an extremely well thought-out list of things that truly inspire me, and making it an important point to focus on the items on this list whenever I'm "trudging through quicksand" is definitely a great way to re-channel my energy towards something positive and continually recognize, acknowledge, and accentuate everything I've been blessed with in my life. 

Starting this April, I will come up with and include on my blog a list of inspiring and wonderful thoughts about things I love, which will be one of the ways that might help me to appreciate and improve life, while helping others to do so as well. Every month I'll do a little segment on these awesome aspects of our lives for which we feel blessed...

Spring Fling and Foyer Progress!!

Spring is definitely on its way!! I can feel it, and am totally ready for it!! I already have red, orange, and yellow spring flowers out in green-gray urns to the left and right of our front door. They've blown away three times since I put them out a little over a week ago, but I keep putting them right back!! A little wind is not getting in the way of me giving spring a huge bright warm welcome like it deserves!! This morning I put together a home-decorating diy to-do list which includes giving our brassy dining room chandelier one sassy french inspired makeover and creating simple modern art for our master bathroom, (which has recently been painted a gorgeous warm caramel color), as well as general updating and experimenting. I decided to dive head first into home improvement/decorating projects this summer, since I may not be as busy as I previously planned, and because this will be the 1st time we're experiencing the beautiful spring and summer months in our new house and neighborhood, which I'm absolutely certain will inspire us to come up with interesting projects!! I'm also hoping to stumble across some amazing but cost-effective (hopefully granite) counter tops for our kitchen, and am planning to have a glass tile (and possibly stone) back splash installed above the new counter tops, and possibly in our master bathroom above the tub as well. I'm getting extremely excited just thinking about all this!!

Next order of business, I would like to briefly report on the progress we've made on our entryway/foyer, which we've just had professionally painted, after we spent about a week scraping wallpaper off and patiently sanding till smooth. 1st, you'll see a couple of pictures from our home inspection back in June about a month before we moved in, followed by our current progress. Finishing this area of the house is definitely among my goals for the summer!! :

Before

Current/Progress

I totally love taking detailed photos of that awesome vintage door!! It's my favorite thing in the room!! Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!!