Fostering a Child- How Not to Fall in Love

It was November 3rd.  She arrived to me in the social worker's arms in nothing but pink sweatpants and a blanket reeking of smoke, her eyes peeping out from under her wayward curls.  The bottom of her feet were so black with dirt it looked like she had played outside barefoot for a million years.  At 16 months old, you don't really care about that.

"I couldn't do it.  I couldn't let them go."

"Better you than me, my heart would be ripped in two if they went home."

Not a lot of people understood my willingness to take a chance of loving a foster child who might leave one day, but I dived in with all my heart. 

That little girl with the curly hair stayed for over a year, eventually calling my husband and me, 'Mommy and Daddy'.  She got used to being bathed everyday.  Her blanket had been washed.  She now refused to leave the house without a hairbow holding back her curls.  But, even after living with us several months, as we played at the park one day she dropped to the ground and tried to hide as she heard a police siren.  She had seen and heard a lot in her almost two years and we couldn't wash that away.

And then the call came.   Our time was over.  We loved her like she was ours but she wasn't. And yes, our hearts were broken and I think in ways hers was too.

Thankfully, we did see her again.  Our foster daughter came back to live with us at age 6.  She knew more than any child should and once again, she was sent back to where she came from after a year.   My youngest son forever told everyone he used to have a sister, but she ran away.  He knew the truth, but the run away part made a more dramatic story. (And he LOVES to make me look like a crazy lady). 

We had let our foster license lapse by the time she was put into foster care the third time but kept up with her situation as much as we could.   She is now a sweet, beautiful soon to be teenager and, despite not always living in ideal situations, she has grown into a strong person who makes wise decisions.

My plan was to adopt her and be hers forever, but sometimes my plan and God's plan are different.  I have to think that those years she was with us provided a glimpse of a normal life and maybe that was all our part was supposed to be.  God's plan for me was to give me two wonderful, VERY mischievous boys and I thank God they're mine.

Do you feel led to foster?  Your heart may never be the same but I can tell you, it will mend.

Or is there a different plan calling you that makes you feel uncomfortable?  But it keeps nagging you?  There are so many small ways to serve others that may be on your heart that isn't as big of a commitment as fostering but still.....it's inconvenient, it's time consuming, it's UNCOMFORTABLE. 

Do it anyway.

You'll get as much of a  blessing as the person you are serving.

How do you foster a child without falling in love? 

You don't. 

And that's okay. 

❤️, Elizabeth

The Foyer - A Messy Girl's Best Friend

Someone just drove up the driveway.  Unannounced.  You glance around.  There's little boy's underwear laying in the floor (don't ask me, I just live here).  Dirty dishes are overflowing in the sink.  It looks like a wild party went on last night, but the only people here were you, the hubby and the kids.  

Please, for the love that's all good and decent, please don't get out of the car.

Well, good times.  They got out of the car.  Oh, shoot, they want to come in the house. 

But, guess what? For the first time in my adult life, I have a foyer. 

Foyer is also code word for:  STOP where you are, don't come any closer to the real part of the house, just stay right here, sister.  I'm neat, I'm clean, that's all there is to see.

That's right, take it nice and slow.  No sudden movements.

With that said, welcome to the foyer!  I'll give you a tour, but it stops at the boy's underwear, deal?

Below you'll see a snippet of the dining room and rugs which were inherited from my grandmother (the famous MomB). 

Is that a Hershey kiss wrapper in the floor to the upper left? 

Oh my goodness, it is.  Geez.  So much for the clean foyer.

To see MomB's buffet makeover, click here

The buffet is on your left as you walk in the door.  The ceilings are 12 feet and we had a hard time finding a mirror to fill the space, but we lucked out when a friend/antique dealer found this one. I love old, French style mirrors.  Old French style anything!

And I love having books all over the house.  Fake books, real books, poetry I'll never read, it doesn't matter.  I'm addicted to reading (except poetry, sorry) and would love to design a library in the house one day.  Considering we don't even have landscaping yet, it may never happen, but it's fun to think about.  ☺️

As you walk in the front door, the piano is on your right.  It was a gift to me from my parents when I was around 15 years old.  The house plan called for this to be the dining room but we changed things around so we'd have a place for the piano.  Did you know there aren't any house plans with a 'piano room' listed?? It was so hard to find a plan that would work with all the open concept plans available nowadays, so the dining room is now the piano room, the living room is now the dining room and the changes trickle on into the kitchen.  In a future post I'll lay out the original plan and show the changes.  In the first house we built I was so afraid to make changes to the plan, but I think all the HGTV shows gave me the courage to knock down some walls for this house!  I'm having Fixer Upper withdrawals, wish the new season would hurry along!

Did you know I get a piece of bacon if I lay really still like this?

So there you have it. Well, have a good one! I'm off to do the dishes and pick up whatever candy wrappers have made it to the floor so I can show you the kitchen soon.  Do your kids trash your house or is it just mine?? 

Wait a minute.  I think it was me that ate Hershey kisses in the foyer. 

Oopsie.

❤️, Elizabeth

Charlotte's Pesto Chicken

My husband. 

He's not....I mean he's not really.....

Oh dear, I can't even say it. 

Sniff.  Ok.

He's not a foodie.

He eats for, get this,  NUTRITION.

I know.  I can't get over it either.  Now, thank goodness, he does have a little sweet tooth that may tempt him occasionally, so at least we have that in common.  And, great news, he does have a few favorite meals.

This is the one I make when he's had a hard day and I want him to come home to a clean house and yummy but healthy meal.

Or maybe the day after I forgot to pay the bills and he tried to shower with no water.  Good times.

Enjoy Pesto Chicken, based on my awesome sister-in-law's recipe. (Or maybe the whole thing is hers, I can't remember ☺️).

INGREDIENTS

• Pasta (I rotate between spaghetti and penne noodles)
• 6 oz jar of Sundried tomatoes (I use about 3/4 of the jar)
• 8 oz can of artichokes (I use 1/2 - 3/4 of the can) -In my little Kroger there are no other size options. Save rest for pizza.
• 6 oz jar of pesto, divided
• 1 lb of grilled chicken tenders
• parmesan cheese to taste

First, boil your pasta. Today I used spaghetti. The amount below made four good size servings.

Next, grill your chicken tenders.  (I usually cook a whole chicken and store individual portions in freezer baggies for meals through the week so sorry, no chicken pic).  Grab your sundried tomatoes, artichokes and pesto.  Mushrooms and onions are good too if you want more veggies.

Cut up your veggies.  Cheat and use scissors.  When family members walk by wipe your brow like you are killed. 

Saute the tomatoes and artichokes with a little of the olive oil from the tomatoes.  Cut the chicken into bite size pieces and throw it in.

Here's where I may lose you but stick with me.  Take half of the jar of pesto and stir it into the chcken mixture.  It looks disgusting for just a minute but after you stir it in you can see the potential.

Hang in there! 

Oops, I about forgot about the boiling pasta.  When it's done, drain it and put it back in the pot where you cooked it.  Mix in the remainder of the pesto with the noodles. 

Combine the noodles with the chicken mixture. Add parmesan cheese, as much or as little as you like, and you are home free!  Great with a Caesar salad.   Great for pampering your spouse.

Just don't forget to pay the water bill.

Y'all can keep your green stuff.  Just no.

MomB's buffet

This is MomB, my grandmother.  I know, she was a hottie, right?  We called her MomB because her name was Beatrice and she was way too hip to be 'Granny'.  So, MomB it was.  She was one of the first people in my life who caused this whole house obsession because her home, well, just wow.  It was a huge, two story southern home with a wrap around porch with stone columns nestled in a tiny town surrounded by the enormous mountains of Kentucky.  The town was home to formal southern belles who served their snacks on silver trays and dressed for dinner.  She was something else.  It broke her heart when she had to sell the home due to poor health.   She generously gave several pieces of her furniture to family members, which is how I ended up with the Willett buffet:

The cherry buffet

I was reminded that this was a cherry buffet and she couldn't understand people painting furniture, especially cherry.  'As you know, you and I would NEVER paint a CHERRY piece of furniture! HEAVENLY DAY!' (She used that 'Heavenly Day' phrase often, as in OH.MY.GOODNESS!)

Oh dear.  She had a way of including you in her opinion even if in your mind you were thinking, "I would love to paint that cherry buffet!"  But, at the end of the day, you wouldn't DREAM of painting that cherry buffet.

Well, folks, I painted the cherry buffet.  Oh, Heavenly Day. 

And here it is.

the painted cherry buffet

I used Annie Sloan chalkpaint in French Linen and then Annie Sloan's soft clear wax.  Once the clear wax dried overnight, I used Annie Sloan's soft dark wax to give an aged look.  This was my first true attempt to chalkpaint and wax furniture. (We won't talk about that other time...)  I was told to use the wax sparingly, that if you wiped your finger over the waxed area before it dried and you could see a finger mark that you had too much.  So that's the method I used.  Wax on, wax off, yep, I felt like the Karate Kid.   Probably the best tip I received was that if the dark wax wasn't quite looking the way you wanted, take a little clear wax and go over it.  It almost acted as an eraser, which believe me, I needed occasionally throughout this project.

Once the dark wax dried, I accented the trim around the drawers and the spiraled corners with gilding wax by Cire A Dorer (found at the same store that sold the Annie Sloan paint, so I guess it's as easy to find as AS paint?).  It was pretty neat because I literally dabbed my finger in it and just swiped it wherever I thought might look good.   It was so easy to use that I got a little carried away and started walking through the house, dabbing gold accents here and there.  I ordered new gold handles from Ebay and slapped some paint on them, not really taking care to completely paint the handles so some of the gold peeped through.

Since I'm the type that would, in addition to doing a terrible paint job, accidently spill the paint then step in it and walk through the house, I was pleasantly surprised this project turned out pretty good.  Even the hubs like it.  Heavenly Day, I think MomB may even approve. 

Nah.

My dear MomB has passed on, and although painted cherry would have NEVER been her cup of tea, at this point I think she'd want me to enjoy her furniture, however I need to, in her honor. 

How do I get myself in these situations?

Thank you, MomB.  I love it.  And you. 

Oh, Heavenly Day.

The Old Homeplace (House Exterior)

So I'm singing, 'Welcome to My House' by Flo-Rida really badly right now, but I can't help it (at least my other half can sing).  When the hubs and I planned to build this house, I wanted it to be what my dad always described as the old homestead.  Not physically like Dad's old home but the kind of place family gathers for generations.  I pictured family mulling around everywhere, eating meals of fried chicken and homegrown green beans, homemade pies and cakes.  Hmmmmmm, gotta love the South, there goes that diet.........and plenty of room for kids to roam and play outside, maybe even a pool someday?  An old homeplace, you know? 

We agreed upon a French style home, although a departure from the house in the movie, 'Something's Gotta Give' that I had first envisioned (Ohmygoodness if you've never seen it, google it, it's the best!), it turned out to be the perfect choice for us.  It's fun to have pops of elegance here and there but still be casual enough for old vintage worn rugs and chippy paint.  In almost all design decisions I make, I try to have an inspiration photo.  Along with the help of a wonderful designer/friend, we choose the color of the exterior of the home based on the home pictured below. 

Source unknown, please advise if you can give credit for the photo

Our climate here in Kentucky could not accommodate the treatment on the brick which I assume is a mortar wash.  Oh, how I would have loved to do that! (But that's another post).  I love the old world look of this house.  We have yet to add our shutters but this is probably the look and color we will go for, along with similar landscaping.

 We took a houseplan that was as close to what we wanted as we could find, and by the end of it had reworked at least half of the house. It was great after years of searching to have the exact house we were looking for:

1. One story, although we ended up with storage and a bonus room upstairs.  I hurt my back a few years ago and stairs are not my friend.
2. Tall ceilings - The ceilings are 10' - 12'.
3. Room for the baby grand piano that I was given as a teenager.  I never thought I'd design a whole house around a piano, but it's a space sucker for sure.
4. Three bedrooms with their own baths.
5. Large dining room (for all that food, right???)  Ok, I'd admit I have a problem, but let's move on.
6. Character, as much as we could afford.  Turns out character is expensive.  Boooo.

Front steps after the rain.

Our driveway is gravel.  We plan to pave it but I really enjoy the sound of driving home on gravel right now for some reason.  (I'm sure it has nothing to do with not having to pay for the driveway). Plus I can tell myself that's a French style driveway, right??

Ellie and the bad hair day.

I LOVE looking at houses and getting ideas, which is one reason I started the blog.  I have lived in apartments, a duplex and several houses and I can honestly say there were aspects of each one of them that I loved, no matter how small or large, simple or fancy.  Any house can become a home with your own touch on it.  And it doesn't have to be perfect, mine certainly isn't!  What's your style?  Are you into the vintage look?  French? Or a huge wrap around porch like the house in 'Something's Gotta Give?' I'd love to see your house sometime! 

The Lottery

I won the Lottery. 

And I still don't have the perfect wardrobe or house. Not great legs.  Not spiritually where I want to be. Could be a better mom.  Could be a better wife. (All comments made by my family members at this point will be changed to glowing reports of my efforts).

And it's because I only think about the changes I need to make and yet do the same uninspiring things every doggone day -like surf the web- (what the heck am I looking for??) instead of making decisions in my life that will make a difference. (But not perfect. I can't adult most of the time, don't make me do perfect).

Today is the day!  I am making those differences!  And it's not even Monday! (Are you serious right now? Nobody starts anything unless it's on a Monday. Sigh). I have new goals, like healthy eating and exercise, becoming more prayerful and I'm finally taking some chances.  As in starting a blog about things that really don't go together like how to have a good marriage and decorate your house and how to survive your children when they are smarter than you. 

And by the way.  I never won any cash, it's not that kind of lottery, but I have been granted freedom and choices and the same 24 hours everyone else has.  I am choosing to be grateful for my life and enjoy my winnings.

I won the lottery. 

And I bet you did, too.