pace of nature . . .

3 months since my last post . . .

and an interesting 3 months it has been.

I've been on a spiritual journey 

which has taken me on a bumpy road. 

Somedays have been good, somedays have been full of struggles. 

But overall the Lord has revealed a lot to me which has helped me personally and given me some insight on not only the past 3 months, but the past 3 YEARS.

As He has taken me down some twist and turns, 

I have been overloaded with some amazing insight 

that consumes my every thought and prayer.

Meanwhile, la famille bizarre is here at the Frio River down in Leakey, Texas. . . (taking sometime to get away from it all) which has proven to be exactly what I needed.

3 years of lots of questions and no answers.

3 months of goodness and glory revealing itself a little bit at a time!

What perfect timing as I am surrounded by all things nature . . .

(simplified bee)

design + decor :: office inspiration

I've been spending all of my spare time swooning over AMAZING office spaces!

Inspiration boards . . .

blue and whites . . .

rich glossy colors . . .

organization . . .

graphic fabrics . . .

and organized chaos. 

Love Love Love!

remodeling :: office space inspiration

Good news!

I'm finally getting an office here at the house!

Before I left to go out of town this past weekend, prep work was being done.  When I got back and walked inside the house, not only could I immediately see the painted white walls all the way from my kitchen, but I instantly realized that seeing the drab dark paneling (i have no idea why we never put up a shade on the door) and piles and piles of stored junk had been such a burden to me over the past couple of years.

(view from the living room)

It's amazing how a little paint can make such a drastic change!

Even better news!

I went to Lonny Mag website to look at some of the work space inspiration pictures that I've been swooning over for awhile, only to find that 

1. the May/June issue just went live yesterday (talk about good timing)

and 2. it just so happens that they have a huge spread on decorating their new offices. (double good timing)

They haven't posted pictures from the current issue in their gallery just yet, so no pictures to post . . .

but of course, more to come!

design + decor :: refurbished lamps

Anything refurbished makes me giddy, so take a look at these babies . . .

These poor things were so ugly. I bought them at a garage sale about a yr. ago and despite their lack of luster, I fell in love with their shape. So away they went into our garage (along with all the other refurbishing hopefuls) and stayed nicely put for a year. 

But during my spring fever stint a few weeks ago, I pulled them out, painted them a bright teal blue and rewired them. 

Oh, wait.  That's where it all went wrong. I TRIED to rewire them but for some reason I wasn't doing something right. After a couple of small shocks and a large one that travelled up through my arm and straight to my heart (literally) I realized I was playing with danger. I could actually hear DJ Lance on Yo Gabba Gabba singing "Danger, danger, danger. Be careful when there's danger. Look out, look out. everybody watch out!"

So I put it down and pouted for the rest of the day! 

But guess who came to town that weekend!? 

No, not Santa! Better than that.

My brilliant engineer of a dad! 

(hence the man hands in the picture)

And of course, the sweet man that he is not only rewired them correctly for me, but he also

1. praised me on my work 

2. reassured me that the instructions I was following were not correct

and 3. taught me a 'lil trick that all engineers know about how to stand with one hand firmly griping your thigh so that if you DO happen to get electrocuted then it won't jolt your heart which would give you a greater chance of living. (sorry about the run-on sentence)

(I love that man! He even knows the correct way to get electrocuted! Those that know him will find that particularly amusing.)

  

So we've been enjoying my refurbished lamps for awhile! I just love the jolt of color!

And yes, those are original Dorothy Draper chests. . . 

those are my little pieces of heaven that I stumbled upon. (which is a whole post within itself.)

design + decor :: toile toile toile

So here's another one of those things marked off my list.
Not so much a honey-do list, but more of a
"there's a million things going thru my head that I'd like to get done" list.

 I am working on a very exciting new retail venture (more to come on that), but in the meantime 

I have been collecting inventory
which has (not surprisingly) taken over my house.

Our current dining room
table and chairs being one of them . . .

The table is on the list to be redone but I seriously could not look at the 60s/70s era fabric on the seat cushions for another minute. YIKES!

So I am proud to say that I have officially marked that one off of my list.
I was so eager that I didn't even take the old fabric or cushion off. (obviously that would be the Martha Stewart way of recovering) There were so many staples that I wasn't about to spend a week on this job.

There are lots of fabrics that I played around with but for some reason I couldn't get away from the french toile pattern.
So I flipped those ugly babies around and started stapling away.

Toile. Toile. Toile.

So there you have it.

recover dining room chairs

DONE.

gardening :: fresh start

Gardening. Always LOVED it, 

but never had the much needed time to do it.

It's been a desire of mine for awhile but I think a much

needed necessity for my mother-in-law. She's a great gardener and 

has been without this hobby of hers since she moved here with us a few years ago.

SO . . . WE MADE ROOM FOR A VEGETABLE GARDEN.

 By the time we got back from our little spring break getaway, 

she had already planned out and planted our (I mean HER) garden.

You could say that we were all thrilled when we 

spotted our (I mean HER) first little baby tomato.

Even the kids were dying to have a picture with our (I mean HER) first producing plant.

   

          I hope we get to eat it before these crazy TEXAS squirrels do!

i live in a circus . . . i mean, farm

Well, my blog is called la famille bizarre for a reason.

I knew this when starting this whole thing but I am learning more and more each day just how appropriate it is. Besides living a crazy and completely unpredictable life, also known as our own little circus, I've recently had to just accept the fact that our humble abode is beginning to resemble a farm.

Let me introduce you to our city-fied farm animals . . .

1. Indie (aka Indie Rock, Indie Roo)

Thinks he's a 200 lb. sheep dog but truly weighs in at just under 5 lb.

2. Miley (aka Miley Cyrus)

She's a friend of Indie's that loves to come over and play

3. Gretta (aka the apple of Eric's eye)

4. Keene (aka Hans Von Keene)

Both are loveable, hyper and ALWAYS wet from the pool. If you could only see my reaction as they shake mud all over my flagstone patio and WHITE adirondack chairs. Wow. I just don't even know what to say about these kiddos. 

 But wait! It gets better!

5. "the quail"

Yes, that's right. Eric has bought quail to trian his dogs with . . .

LOTS of quail!

Sorry, but I don't have the energy to conjure up any adjectives in order to describe the stinch!

And that leaves us one more on the farm . . .

6. Cottontail (another dog training tool)

I'm not sure if I should mention there were others . . .

GEEZ LOUISE!