Home Sweet Home!

From here...

To here!

Finally-- our newest (oldest) home. It's a house built in 1913 that has been cut into a duplex... Though if you see the front, it looks like it's all ours :-). We officially have all the furniture in, but there's still a LOT of work to do! And on top of the TONS of boxes we lugged out of the storage containers, my first bridal shower was this weekend, so we had EVEN MORE boxes to unpack.... OH, the burdens I have to bear ;-). In fact, one of my favorite things about the new house is our adorable little display shelf in the kitchen, where I'm showing off all of our beautiful new things!

And in the backyard (which my best friend who lived here before me recently seeded with grass) a little bit of surprise spring peeking through!


Now, there's a LOT of work to do, and even MORE gardening and fun stuff to do to fill up my new front porch and back patio.... and a wedding to plan, and a job to go to... and, and, and... aahhh!!! I'm a busy gurl!

On the Road Again...

Well, here we go again-- our third move in 4 months. At least this one is into someplace we want to stay... at least for a little while. The first move: from our tiny apartment in Los Angeles to my parents' house. The second move: OUT of my parents house, into what I like to call "the halfway house", a crappy even tinier apartment in suburban Plano. This move: from Plano to our reasonably large 1915 house/duplex in the heart of a historic area of Dallas. Not quite a farm, but if this house had land around it, it would be perfect!!! Huge high ceilings, BIG windows everywhere, a big farmgirl porch, and a little yard for the doodles. Who could ask for more? Well, me... but we'll discuss that later!

Will post photos as soon as I'm there before midnight and not unloading furniture! hahaha...

Changing...

Me about a year ago......................me today

I tried to write a mission statement about changing and metamorphosis, but really this is just a change of outer appearance that's mirroring a change in internal structure. I still dress as "city girl" when I'm at work. But when I get home, things are changing...

Aprons...

They're multipurpose! They keep my clothes clean! They have giant pockets for me to put all my crap in! They're aprons!



For my first sewing project since I was 10 and made a pair of polka-dot kullottes with my grandma, an apron. This shamefully took me two days and completely demolished our tiny apartment ( I'm a little bit messy during "craft time"), but I did it!! Next on the list: Rugby equipment bag for my honey-dear...

Friendship Quilt

This is one of my Mamaw's quilts that my mom gave to me when I moved back to Dallas. It’s a “friendship quilt”, with 25 different squares, each embroidered with a woman’s name(or in some cases a mother and daughter or family’s name). Though I know almost none of the many women’s names that adorn the squares, I have a ball imagining the camaraderie and conversation that took place while it was being made. The only name I do know, Cora Lee, was my Mamaw’s sister, and I can only assume that this quilt was given to my Mamaw when Cora Lee passed on. It is dated 1934, and for those of you out there that continue on in this art, let me encourage you to sign and date your items. My mom has many quilts that have been given to her by both of my grandmothers, but as far as I know, this is the only one with names and dates. This really provides a living history, and for me, 70+ years later, after the real history has been lost with age, the makers long gone, a clue to its origins.

There is another quilt in my mom’s cupboard that is smaller and made up of thousands of tiny 1”x1” squares. This is my next favorite, for the history that it suggests. All of the different fabrics make me wonder what each of them was for. Was this plaid a shirt for my great grandfather, Dad? Was this floral a new dress for my great grandmother? Is my grandma’s baby blanket memorialized with this tiny chenille patch? I just find it fascinating.

Frisco also enjoys quilts...

and lastly, the sugar molds I promised yesterday... These will be filled with flowers and candles and used as centerpieces on the long tables.

Vintage Linens

I posted a photo earlier of my wedding site, and part of my wedding "decor" is going to be haybales for people to sit on at the ceremony with vintage linens on them... so we went vintage linen shopping. 4 hours later and laden down with about 30 pounds of hand embroidered vintage and reproduction 40's and 50's tablecloths, dresser napkins, and dish cloths, we were ending a VERY successful day of wedding planning. Along the way we also picked up a couple of sugar molds (I'll post pics tomorrow) for the flowers on the tables, and a couple of AWESOME "honeymoon cowboy hats" for my man and me in Jackson Hole this summer!

Doggies

The rest of the family (and me)...
These are our loveable, soon to be totally inappropriate farmdogs, Nova and Frisco. We're "dog people". We coddle them, recognize their faults, and promptly ignore them. We're partly looking for a farm to appease them. Take that as you will...

I got Frisco a little over two years ago from the Pound in Plano, Texas. He was a bundle of matted brown (yes brown!) fur, and the best out of the bunch at the shelter. I flew him home to Los Angeles two days later, and he did wonderfully! Since then he has been second in command chez Lacy. The other man of the house keeps trying to boot him to third, but has yet to succeed.

Nova, the rougher and tougher (only on the outside) of the two, my fiance found roaming the streets of L.A. He was driving along and saw her almost get hit by a Chevy Nova (hence....). He parked, ran after her, and after twenty minutes of chasing and cornering, she gave up and just came to him. I met her three days later at the airport, and she was already hopelessly in love with him. This love affair has continued and grown, as has her annoyingness, and she leads the pack in whining and howling.

They're scruffy, they don't play well with others, they're our little bundles of joy!

Comanche Farm

Gotta love Texas skies...

Well FINALLY I remembered to bring my camera to work and download pics of the farm we saw this weekend! It was so great just to be out there running around in the country, let me tell you! I don't know if we're going to try and bid on the farm, it might just be a little too risky for us right now. But what the experience did show us is that we LOVE this area of Texas, we DO want to try and really do this, we can buy land without a house and build, and I am a much nicer person when taken out of the city... haha.

That's the pole barn on the left and the "ruins" of a house left to rot for a couple of years on the right... There was also a dairy barn, but since I know close to nothing about dairy barns, I can tell you approximately nothing. There was some big vat thing. My guess? It was for milk. haha... and lastly, my attempt at "artistic photography"...