Dealing with Dinner

I just haven't been feeling the kitchen lately.  Not like me- chalking it up to laziness/stress/lack of motivation to menu plan lately.  This week was an easy one- Monday night end of summer dinner at the pool, Tuesday night steaks at my parents' house, last night church, and tonight breakfast for dinner courtesy of the Fresh Market.  I always forget about their Thursday meal deals, and am just thrilled when it's something I want-

Done and done.  Now just to choose what kind of pancakes I want. . .

In other events of note-

Dell Harper got new shoes for school.

"My shoes like Daddy-shoes!  I love them!"

And Deeds likes hummus.  A lot.

And that's pretty much it.  My life is thrilling, is it not? Ha!

(Note, this post is in no way sponsored by the Fresh Market.  If they want to throw a free meal deal in my direction, that would be cool, but I just really love those meal deals!)

Updating

So I'm starting to get my head screwed on.  Thank the good Lord above that school is back in- working from home without it is a rather Sisyphean task.  I have had that anxious feeling in my tummy off and on for the last week or two.  I finally chalked it up to stress- my to-do list has overwhelmed me. I end up acting like a chicken with my head cut off and accomplishing nary a thing.

Crossing things off my list feels so good- I'm so guilty of adding things I've already done, just so I can cross them off.

So happenings-

Kiddos are lovely.

House is painted.

We had a fun housewarming/birthday celebration week before last.  Having just moved is quite freeing- it's like being in a bathing suit post-baby.  Perfect excuse to be a bit of a mess, right?

Babyled weaning is going swimmingly with Deeds.  It's just so much fun- he likes everything but avocados so far.

Other than that, things are just muddling along, getting into the school routine and socking up the last pool days.

The other night at Wednesday Night Supper, one of the cooks said that she could just fry up one of Deeds' juicy fat thighs like a piece of chicken and eat him up!  I completely agree.

Edited to add- this post was written over a week ago.  Then our internet and cable went out before I published it.  It's taken about a week to replace our squirrel-munched-upon line and get our cable back. A week of no-show appointments, multiple phone calls, and a lot of curse words.  All thanks to Morgan- I might not watch television much, but I do need my internet.  Especially with working from home.

Anyway, back to the to-do list.  At least I can cross off (half-hearted, mundane) blog-post off my list!

House Plans- Keeping Room

It's tempting to hide all pictures of the new house until everything is "done", then have this huge reveal of my perfect house.  Which will never happen.

So I will tamp down any feelings of fear or insecurity, and show y'all the before and what I am planning on doing with each room.  I always like to see plans and progression, so hopefully you do too.

Besides the backyard and the closet I use for toys, I believe the keeping room is my favorite part of the house.  Kingsley and Margaret (and assorted other gals who occupied the upstairs bedroom) had a sitting area in their tiny kitchen in a post-collegiate house in Peachtree Heights in Atlanta.  I loved that room!  It was so cosy to sit in the keeping room and chat to whoever was cooking (or, ahem, much more rarely, washing dishes).

 So excuse my iPhone night pics and random stuff everywhere (must quit apologizing- confidence in all things, right?).

 So the couch is facing a wall with a TV.  We just bought the sofa from IKEA, and assembled it the other night.  I'm a fan- never thought I would say that about a white sofa, but cheap, washable, easily replaced, bleachable slipcovers have won me over.

However, I took a packing break to go to my favorite antique store with my mom last Saturday, and happened upon these loveseats.

Twins!  With just the right proportions.  Basically the Wakefields of loveseats.  And (drum roll, please)- $150 for the pair!

So now it's time to reconfigure.

I'd like the loveseats to face each other like these couches-

First, the loveseats obviously need to be recovered.  The upholstery is in good enough shape that I think I can get by with custom slipcovers for a third of the price of reupholstering.

Have any of y'all ever used Crypton fabric?  You know by now everything in my house needs to be golden retriever and child friendly.  We like to get messy.

I'm thinking tailored slipcovers in this Crypton fabric.  Morgan keeps talking about navy.  The guy is just dying for a navy couch.  All I can envision is a navy couch covered in blond Buddy hair.  But this just came to me (blogging is so useful for organizing one's ideas and/or brainstorming)- what about doing contrast welting?  The cushions would be piped in navy?  Kind of like this-

Or in this ticking?  I just adore it!  Although, I'm really feeling ticking for the living and dining room- story for another day.

 Have you seen the Tilton Fenwick fabrics for Duralee?  I LOVE them.  What about this stripe (Eze in Sapphire, in case you are curious) for the little side pillows on the couch?  We get our color, but I get a more versatile look for my loveseats.

Then eventually, I want to add some kilim rugs for color and texture on top of the seagrass-esque jute rugs that are currently there.  Like this-

It's my birthday today, so please feel free to send me this one from Overstock-

Whew.

I have a lot of work to do.  The IKEA couch and Morgan's leather chair are going to move down to the family room, where our sectional currently resides.  The sectional is down-filled, which sounds lovely, but ends up looking saggy and dumpy in reality.  Back to my favorite furniture store it will go (Thanks, mama for the loan!).

Oh, I do apologize for the lack of links and sources- I saved all of this on my phone while feeding the baby, and forgot to save links.  I will try to backtrack and find all my sources.  Just not right now.