One Post, Two Little Projects.

While I've been busy with dance competition season (which, thankfully, is almost over), swimming and gymnastics lessons, trying to get us settled into the new house (I'll post a few pictures, soon.),and working on getting all the paperwork ready for my trip to Africa, I've completely forgotten that I also needed to post about a couple of my recent projects! Don't hold your breath because they aren't all that awesome, but they do include dressing up one of Diva's bookshelves, a second redo of the kitchen table that I refinished quite a while ago, re-purposing my old dresser, and making a totally cool headboard (okay, the last two aren't finished yet, but I am hoping to get the dresser done this week and the headboard done before the year is over).

If you follow me on Instagram, you've probably already seen the pictures, but since I know there are people who still aren't on Instagram (cough, cough...my sister), I'll go ahead and post them here to give you all a little break from all of the posting that I will be doing about my journey to Africa.

Project #1 is hardly worth mentioning and I think we've all seen it a million times on Pinterest so I'm not even going to watermark it, but since it technically does qualify as a restyle, I'll post it anyway.

I simply took Diva's boring white bookcase and added a little shelf paper that I got from Target to the back to give it a little something extra. It was very quick and really easy, though I do advise having a credit card with you to smooth out any bubbles and also that you take a deep breath when the pattern doesn't line up perfectly between the two, or more sections you have to use to cover the back.

I didn't take a "before" picture, but I'm sure you can picture the white back that it used to have.

Project #2 was a quick restyle of the kitchen table that I had previously redone clear back in 2012. When I say quick, I mean it. I literally did it in two days, just a few days before we moved into the new house. I didn't really plan on it until I realized that the extra paint I had left over from painting the dresser (which was also painted in the same time frame) would would also look cute on the kitchen table and because I had already decided that I needed to replace two of the chairs, one due to the Tyrannosaurus Rex incident the week that I finished the table the first time and one because I just couldn't find any chairs that would work with it (Surprisingly enough, it's hard to pull off mismatched chairs!), I figured I may as well give the table a new look, too. So I slapped some paint on there, decided it looked pretty good, and kept going. I also put about five coats of polycrylic on it to try to protect it from the ridiculous amount of wear and tear my family puts on furniture.

Here's what it looked like after the first time I redid it:

and here's what it looks like now:

The ladder back chairs were already white, so I didn't need to do anything to them, but the other two chairs are"new" ones that I found via Facebook. They are actually the very chairs that inspired me to go to Africa. They were originally a dark aqua blue, which didn't look quite right with the table, so I decided to paint them white. Only this time, I had a friend of my sisters paint them because I needed them sprayed to match the other ones, and there was no way I was going to spray in my new garage!


For the table, I used the chalk paint recipe that I always use mixed with Sherwin Williams "Watery", which is a great soft blue from their coastal collection and goes with the whole cottage-like atmosphere that I'm trying to create.

It's Been 5 Months and...It Still Hurts.

Wow! Has it really been that long since I last posted?
  
{Don't you love how I say this every time I get back from a break, like it's a surprise or something?}

It's been over 5 months now since we all said goodbye to Harley and it still really hurts. In fact, I still cry almost every day and the last few moments I spent with her, as well as the psychotic breakdown I had after she took her last breath, still play over and over in my mind on a loop.

I still forget that dropped food on the floor won't be quickly whisked away by her, that she'll never again open the bathroom door with her nose while I'm in the middle of peeing, jump on the bed to sleep right next to me during a nap,or protectively growl at men that pass me by while I am running.

It's enough to make me crawl into bed and never want to come back out.

However, I do find myself smiling or even  laughing out loud when a funny memory of her decides to pay me a visit.

(like the time she got out of the backyard, trotted down the street, wandered into the backyard of a neighbor and then walked through a door that they had left cracked open before making herself right at home by jumping up on the couch in their living room in order to take a quick snooze. Luckily, they were dog people) 

I also find myself dreaming about her occasionally and even though it can be hard to wake up and realize that she isn't at the foot of the bed anymore,  it's also strangely comforting.

I guess that's what coping looks like, and maybe it's healthy. However, I'm pretty sure that my weird obsession with posting old photos and videos of her and us on Facebook constantly isn't and I'm also pretty sure that some of my Facebook friends are ready to hit "unfriend" if they see one more depressing post about my dead dog.

Mitch and the kids started begging for another dog, pretty soon after she died. Thus far, I've refused their constant requests for one. Most likely due to the fear of going through this pain, that I was completely unprepared for, again. It also feels wrong to "replace" her so soon. I'm certain there's a specific rule on how long you should wait, but I haven't found it yet. I am also worried that I would compare the new dog to her, or not treat it as well as I treated her.

As hard as I try though, I can't deny that a big part of does actually want a dog again and wouldn't be horribly upset if I found one on the porch someday. I just don't really want that "someday" to be tomorrow. I'm not ready yet.