Awards Season!

When I decided to stay home a few years ago...Pre-Revived Vintage, we were in a very blessed place and could afford to have me do so..to be here for Mad and the Mister and just reprioritze our life... However, 9 months later, after I organzied my pantry with cute labeled jars and containers, learned how to cook and cleaned out the deep freeze...the wave of responsibiliy floaded over me and I *felt* like I *should* be working, ya know...a real job. After all, my baby was in school full time...8am-330pm 5 days a week and it wasnt fair for me to place so much responsibliltiy on my husband to soley provide for us while I pittled away at home with no baby-babies to take care of..right? Its what I heard ecco'd to me thru some friends and family..strangers and even myself..I whined the Misters ear off about my feelings of responsibility Vs. my feelings for doing something Im really passionate about it..and thank gawd....thank GAWD he supported me MORE than I was willing to support myself. I almost said yes to 6 job offers that found there way to me soley to silence the naysayers and my own head and when the last one fell into my lap, I again whined to The Mister about the Universe giving me another opportunity to really tell me I should be out there. He finally called BS. He said it was the Universe's way of making me think about what it is I *really* want to do by giving me this choice yet again..He didnt say it quiet that Ghandi-esque tho...he's witty and brilliant and hilarious and calls everything exactly like he see's it. It would have been much more short worded, very blunt, exactly right, left me laughing and spoken during a commercial for the hockey game or right before he fell asleep, I cant remember which, but soon afterwards:
Enter Revived Vintage.

I work now, one million percent harder and longer than I ever did outside of this house..but I love every single second Im working on my little furniture revival business..and yes, somedays, my bathroom is embarassing, my laundry is a mountain, Ive been sitting on my laptop responding to emails well past midnight and its cereal for dinner (again) because I do struggle with finding the balance and fitting it all in..And sometimes, when I feel like Im dropping more balls than Im balancing, the mom-guilt is creeping in and I feel like I am a complete trainwreck..I get left this on the dashboard in my car:

*I LOVE HER so much*
 Clearly I really need to lay off..take 'er easy..ease up on myself...and yes, she does have her Dads sense of witty-ness..My Bunny is an only child.

Madi asked for a desk and new bedside table...well, awhile ago. The desk was going to be a Christmas gift...then a birthday gift...but it ended up being just a random Thursday new furniture-thing. She had a desk..an IKEA plain old crappy boring one that she used to hoard her clean laundry piles on..but as the older she gets, her sense of herself is growing and evolving, so a new desk in her own space was important. She found this one on Kijiji..

She picked out her favorite colors and went thru my hardware stash, choosing what she wanted. Then bugged me for weeks with "is it done yet? Mom! Mom? Is it done yet?"

Polka dots are her favorite "design", but just the purple ones reminded me of Barney (anyone even know who that is anymore?) Craig said they reminded him of Dr. Seus, which is actually so much cooler than Barney, so out came the gold paint to "grow it up a bit" with more polka dots making polka dots...good thing she loves polka dots..

"pull" pulls...I love them.

Fishes. I love them too...I love every-single-thing she chose for her desk..

She wanted a little shelf above it, painted in her other favorite color: lime green. Enter the wood shelf that I made in high school wood shop...frick..how the hell or why the heck I still had this is a mystery to me.

and ya know what......clean laundry piles dont live here anymore :-)

Sidenote:

Did I ever show off what I got for Christmas?

Doing your best IS the best....The lesson *I* just recently learned from my brilliant old soul of an 11 year old.