Fall has arrived!

On my most recent trip back to Kansas, I brought the remainder of my fall and Thanksgiving decorations. And this week everything that spelled FALL was out in my house. Ahhhh....I love fall! The colors, the leaves, the foam veggies, pumpkins and gourds that can decorate ledges, stairs and tabletops!

Back in February, when Luke sent me photos of our house, I took one look at the loft ledge and stairs and thought one thing: DECORATING! And the first time I saw our house in person, my initial thoughts were confirmed! Yep, it's a perfect seasonal decorating spot! At Dad's house, the ledge above the fireplace was my favorite spot for displaying all my decorations and my new spot now? Yep, that loft ledge!

And.....toward the end of the fall/Thanksgiving season when all the decorations are discounted, I'm grabbing more haystacks! Yep, definitely need more haystacks....I've got some more ideas for next year! ;)

The only sad thing about this new season we're in is that summer is on it's way out. That means colder and colder weather. And I have a feeling it'll be much colder in Colorado than Kansas.

Headed to Kansas for a few days

This week, I'm headed home to Kansas for a few days. My main reason? Well, two actually. My hair is in dire need of highlighting and a trim. And I have a dentist appt. I scheduled over a year ago. I know, I know....I have yet to make the switch to Colorado Springs for either one.

 The really funny thing about the whole-go-home-to-get-your-hair-done thing? Terri, one of my friends from Dodge, drives to Colorado Springs to get her hair done. And me? I drive from Colorado Springs to Dodge to get my hair done! When we discovered our criss-crossing paths, we just about died laughing! AND decided maybe we should switch salons...you know, since we do live in each other's cities. Makes sense, huh?

I'm also hoping to fit in some visiting time with Dad, Erinn, Grandma and another one of my friends, Jean Ann. I'm going to be there four days (including travel time); I think I'm trying to squeeze quite a bit in! Plus I plan to do some cooking/baking for Dad while I'm home. Leave him with a week's supply. The last couple of days, I've been cooking/baking to leave Luke with a fridge full of food. Now I'll take my very same list and do the same for Dad's fridge. ;)

Then I'll also have to find some time to find a couple things that I left behind in Kansas (or at least have been unable to find here since I moved). And pack my car full with more of my stuff. Like shipping envelopes and boxes. And teaching/classroom supplies. And like ALL the boxes AND boxes of lights from my wedding! I'm confident that I have enough to cover our house in icicles and half the houses on our street! And those are just icicles. That doesn't count the 20+some boxes of 400 count single strand lights. Add those in and if we actually turned ALL those on at the same time? Our neighbors I'm sure wouldn't appreciate the results of an electricity surge and blowout. :)

Every time I go back home, Luke keeps asking me just how many trips I have of my stuff to bring back with me. In June, I told him just a couple. Since then I've been home three times. And I think as of this trip, I'll just have a couple left. I think I should have moved with two trailer loads instead of one trailer load and half a dozen car trips. Oh well. It will all eventually get here. And now that I've moved out, Dad has PLENTY of room to store it til I need it. ;)

Our purple family room

Ok, so.....the majority of the walls are tan, right? Tan and chocolate brown throughout the house can get kinda blah, so every room is based on those two colors, but with an accent color woven in to brighten things up a bit! The family room's color is purple. All the walls are tan except for the one accent wall which is purple. Not royal purple. Eggplant purple. My words for it? Rich. Elegant. Luscious. For this wall, I found this brilliant idea at the paint store (believe me, making tons of trips to Sherwin Williams for tan paint samples gives you plenty of opportunity to browse their "ideas" section while waiting on mixing paint!) This is a multiple step process and also a first for Luke and I for doing this kind of decorative faux painting. An interesting challenge! Here's my sample swatch I did on cardboard:

First, we (actually, Luke....I took pics! ;)) painted the wall a medium color of purple. Yes, I know.....I agree. I looked at this color after it was on the wall and thought...ummmm, I hope this works! Cause that color certainly isn't right! But for what we were doing, we had to have a light to medium color of purple to show through when we got to the second coat.

Next, mix the dark purple with a glaze which weakens/lightens it and makes it a little bit more transparent than just plain paint. Isn't the swirl beautful?!?! I'm still trying to figure out a way to imiate that swirl into a paint pattern for my kitchen; it's perfect for my chocoolate dessert theme kitchen! But that's another room and another story.....

Then, quickly paint a coat of the dark purple glaze and immediately brush the area with a wallpaper brush to get the wide sweeped brush look! See?

And once it's finished and dry.....it looks something like this. The color is a little bit darker than what this shows, but see the sweep brush pattern?! It's a challenge to do because you have to work so fast before it drys to brush it, but the pattern looks neat!

Freebies this week!

I knew I would like the additional choices of shopping here in Colorado Springs vs Dodge City. And I've found it quite fun to see what I can get that we need and use for free or very little here. Amazingly, it's quite a bit. Here's my pic of freebies for this week:

How much smoke does it take to set off the smoke alarm??

When we moved into this house, we discovered there were smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors EVERYWHERE! Just about in every room it seemed. Even in our unfinished basement. One by one, as they started beeping continuously, we changed batteries in ALL of them. So they should all work, right?

Last week, I unintentionally tested them. And guess what? Either they are defective or there has to be some very dense smoke before they go off!

At Dad's house, the smoke alarm in the hall would go off if there was too much steam coming from the bathroom or if I barely had a tiny bit of smoke coming from the kitchen, which was yards and yards away! Ummm, here? The closed smoke alarm is just a couple yards from the kitchen and the thing STILL didn't go off!

And believe me, there was smoke! If that hard-to-breath-white-stuff filling the air wasn't smoke, I sure don't know what is!

And, since I'm sure you're wondering, no, dinner was not burned. The chicken I was cooking was perfectly perfect. The pan, however, needed quite a bit of scrubbing. :)

Oh, and I've added matches to my next shopping trip. If a smoking match directly under the smoke detector doesn't trigger the alarm, there's a problem! Guess it's better to find out now than when there really is a fire! (and nope, I'm not planning any fire, anyway!)

Finding the perfect shade of tan...

As you can see it was a challenge! My theme color throughout the house has been chocolate brown. But of course a room fully painted in chocolate brown is just a little bit too dark! Therefore I wanted to paint the majority of our house in tan. Not off white. Not ivory. Not gray. Not flesh tone pink/tan. Just a pretty color of tan. Not too dark. Not too light. When you're looking for just the right color, never underestimate the validity of samples. From now on, I don't think I'll buy a gallon of paint without trying a sample first. With our blue, teal and brown colors of our bedroom, our first trial samples colors were perfect! Those were the colors we went with--no doubt about it. But this tan?? AHHHH!!!!! Trying to find something that wasn't too pink, gray or yellow was a challenge!

Only after 10 samples and four trips to Sherwin Williams in two days, I finally found "the one". It took painting all those samples on four different rooms in our house to check lighting and coordinating other colors to make sure it all blended well together. Yeah, I know...I'm a bit obsessed about making sure it's just right. But I didn't want to paint the majority of the house with this color and then regret the color every single time I saw it. And I LOVE the results! Our family room, front living room, kitchen, hallways (up and downstairs), stairway and loft are that warm tan color. Ahhh....it's lovely! And my sewing room, the laundry room and downstairs bathroom will be tan at some point in the future as well. Once we found the tan, painting portions of our house are a bit challening. You see, we have a front living room that has a vaulted ceiling. And it needs tan paint clear to the top of it! Ummmm, hmmmm. At that point, creativity comes into play. And a tall, strong and willing-to-do-whatever husband. :)

But the results are beautiful!!! I LOVE IT!!!!

Welcome to my new blog!

Welcome to my blog! I'm glad you found your way here!

Who am I? My name is Serena and I am a child of God. As a young girl, I recognized my need for a Saviour and trusted in Jesus Christ for my eternal salvation.

What is my purpose in life? To serve Christ each and every day in everything I do. My greatest desire is to bring glory and honor to Him. One of my favorite Bible verses is Isaiah 40:31, "But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." I know in and of myself, I can do nothing. But with the Lord enabling me, I can do all things for His glory!

I grew up in southwestern Kansas with my parents and two younger sisters. I was given a strong Christian foundation in life by a father who strove to be the provider and spiritual leader God desired him to be. I am so thankful for the 23 years God gave me with my wonderful mother before she passed away on November 3, 2006. What a spectacular example of a wife and mother she was to my sisters and myself! Even though my sisters and I are now married/engaged and live in three different states, we still love those times when we can get together and laugh, shop, watch movies, laugh some more, eat pickles, drink diet mountain dew and laugh even more! There are only three requirements when we get together: The Andy Griffith Show (preferably the funny Barney Fife episodes), a full jar of pickles (Claussen are the best, second only to Grandma's) and Diet Mountain Dew (a 24 can pack). Add laughter and we're set for a fun-filled evening!

At the age of 16, I started working in a locally owned fabric store, which not only sold fabric, quilting supplies and sewing machines, but also did custom sewing for weddings, proms and special events. In the seven years I worked there, I learned to sew, quilt and teach sewing and quilting classes. In November 2005, I decided to branch out on my own and started my own business online, Embroidery Treasures. It started out small just selling a few quilting supplies and then growing into teaching online machine embroidered quilt classes. The latest quilt I taught numbered over 200 students from the United States, Canada, England, Africa and Australia! 

Ever since I was a young girl, my desire was to be a wife and mother someday and my constant prayer was for God to send someone into my life to be the Godly man I desired. And I always added one more thing—please Lord, let him be quite a bit taller than I am. God answered that very prayer in every single way in bringing Luke into my life in November of 2009. Through hundreds of emails and a few visits between Kansas and Colorado (where Luke was living), I saw someone who possessed the Godly character and spiritual leadership I desired in a spouse. Not only that, but at 6' 5", he was tall!

Luke asked me to marry him on my birthday, May 16th, 2010. In the following twelve months, I was planning for that much anticipated day of my life - May 21, 2011 - when I would marry the wonderful, godly man God brought to me whom I love so much. That day was so exciting, thrilling and passed by entirely too quickly! For my wedding, I chose a Scripture verse that described our relationship perfectly. Jeremiah 29:11 "...for I know the plans I have for you..." He did. Even though my plan was to be married years before I was, God's plans were higher and much greater than mine. In His timing, He brought the person that fits me perfectly, someone with whom I'm thrilled to spend every single day of my life! After Luke and I were married, I moved to Colorado Springs to begin this new chapter of my life with him.

What else about me? I keep to a schedule. I'm a planner. I organize just about everything. And yep, I color code it all too. Sticky notes, colored markers, notebooks and binders are a must; they're the basis any project! Sterlite and Rubbermaid containers and tubs? I think I have stock in each company with just how many are in my house. I have a weakness for Diet Mountain Dew and fluffy white food such as oatmeal cookie dough, white cake with air puffed white frosting and popcorn. And pickles; can't forget those. Plus I have a thing for clean kitchen counter-tops. They get wiped off after every meal and many times in between.

I enjoy cooking and baking and yes, even keeping my house clean and vacuuming. And of course organizing all of it. And before that, planning just how I'm going to organize it. ;) Just about any day of the week you'll find me researching any given subject online, stitching in my sewing room, snapping photos with my camera, playing with my two cats, participating in church activities, curled up in a blanket reading or figuring out any electronic gadget. Except for Monday; that's clean the house and laundry day. And Thursday; that's shopping day. :)

One other verse I incorporated into my wedding which has now become the theme for my blog is Psalm 37:7 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." It's true. When I'm delighting and being content in Him, He blesses me with some of my greatest desires. No matter what my earthly circumstances are, my true source of joy can only be found in Him alone.

So, take a peek inside my blog and you'll get a glimpse inside my life, my family and my hobbies.....some posts will make you laugh, others will cause you to ponder and a few might even make you cry. But remember, it's life through my eyes. It's God's sovereign hand in the memories of yesterday, the adventures of today and the dreams for tomorrow that make life worth living! I hope you enjoy reading!

My other websites/blogs:

Wings As Eagles - my old blog

Embroidery Treasures - my business website

Facebook - photos, notes & everyday life