God Bless This Mess!

Who are these guys and what are they doing with this china cabinet?

Well, the young man in the red t-shirt is my nephew Jacob and the unseen man on the other end is Josh.  These strong men are moving my full china cabinet from my front room to my kitchen.  That hutch is filled with crystal, silver and china and they picked it up, walked up a step around a corner and into the kitchen, without so much as rattling a dish.  They are my heroes!

Actually, they are just two of a team of heroes that descended upon our house this past Saturday.

It all began a few weeks ago, over iced tea with some friends.  I was bemoaning the state of our front room, formerly our living room, now functioning as our home office.  It had become completely disorganized and was an impossible space to work in on a daily basis, made worse by the fact that our precious pup had ruined the carpet in there.  No amount of carpet cleaning, Febreze or candle burning could mask the odor. 

This is a before shot of the room as we attempted to assess the situation.  Trust me, this picture does not show the mountain of madness lurking behind the camera.  We evaluated the amount of storage (virtually none) and the overabundance of desks (four - why, I'm not sure).  A plan of attack was set for September 18 and last Saturday, the crowd descended on our home.

Following the furniture removal, the next item on the agenda was carpet removal.  This was the moment I had been waiting for.  That carpet was rolled up and out the door in no time at all.  What a relief!  My dear friends had volunteered themselves and their husbands for a Saturday work day at the Rutledge home.  I don't know what their husbands said when they were first volunteered, but they showed up Saturday with work gloves, shop vacs, tools and smiles.

Time for primer. 

I had a border running around the perimeter of the room that I had written with Sharpie.  I love the sentiment, "faith, hope, love", but I'm done with the script border and the color, which I loved when I painted years ago, seems muddy and dark to me now.  On to cleaner and brighter days!

I am loving it more already, and this is just the primer!  These guys got two coats of primer on the walls in no time flat!  Now I have to head to the store and choose just the perfect wall color.

This little front hall almost broke us.  Even though it is a fraction of the size of the living room, it was wallpapered by 'yours truly' with sheet music.  It took every bit of wetting, scraping, clawing, sanding and sheer grit and determination to remove that paper off the wall. 

These three are smiling on the outside, but on the inside they're thinking, "why didn't she just leave the wallpaper alone?"  Are those weapons they're holding?

I have to give a special thanks to my daughter Rachel.  None of this would have been possible without the 'Child Whisperer'.  She allowed moms and dads to work away while her adoring fans followed her around for the day.  Rachel, you rock!

Within a few hours the team cleared the furniture from the room, removed the carpet, gave the room two coats of paint and stripped the wallpaper from the front hall.  I can't even imagine how long it would have taken Steve and I to manage all of that on our own.

Our front room isn't done yet, but it is well on the way, thanks to our fearless volunteers.  We will continue to post pictures, as work progresses.

And...as if the work on the room wasn't enough, this bed has been hanging out on my back porch for months, badly in need of sanding and a coat of paint. 

 Here is the beautiful finished product, ready for Rachel's room.

At our church, we talk a lot about living a life of community and what that really is.

Well, I've shown you what it can be.  It can be getting dirty.  It can be holding a paint brush or a hammer.  It can be showing up for each other.  It can be meeting practical needs.  It can be eating together, laughing together, hanging out together.

I have one last picture to show you.  It's a picture of angels.  I took it at my house last Saturday.

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
Philippians 2:1-4 (MSG)

Alpha Dog

Spoiler Alert!  If you are an animal lover, you may not want to read on.

I'm over my pets.  I am done.  I have never been what you would call an animal lover, more like an animal 'liker'.  Now, I am at a point where I can barely tolerate the beasts.  I know, for some of you who adore all living creatures and bring home every stray, this is hard to read.  There are others of you, however, that are wondering why I ever allowed four-legged creatures into my house in the first place.

The cat came first.  Skipper arrived as a kitten - so cute and black and cuddly.  She grew up.

Now she is confined to my bedroom when she is in the house, well, our room, since I do have a roommate of 29 years.  Why our room, you ask?  I'll get to that later, since it relates to the dog.

Back to the cat.  She curls up in the middle of my our bed and every time I walk in the room talks to me, (yes, that's right, talks) begging for attention, wanting to be scratched, petted or cuddled.  I'm not a petting, cuddling kind of person.  She is getting on my nerves.  To make matters worse, my husband has become a cat person.  Really.

 I came down the hallway the other night and heard him whispering to someone in our bedroom.  "Does that feel good?"  I stopped dead in my tracks.  Who on earth was in there with him?  I turned the corner and there she was, the little tramp, purring so loudly the neighbors could hear, while he scratched her behind the ears.  He never scratches me behind the ears.

He was always so proud of the fact that he was a "dog guy", but now I fear that he will become that crazy cat man you always see on the 6:00 news, with twenty cats and a city ordinance against him.  It's a slippery slope.

Skipper's not satisfied staying in at night either.  She settles in for a while and then, when she's sure that I'm fast asleep, she sits right on top of me meowing until I let her out.  She doesn't bother with her best friend Steve.  He sleeps like a log and only wakes up if the house is on fire.  If I leave her out, she sits right outside our door begging to come in.  She is one fickle cat.

Now, let's deal with the dog.  Even worse than the cat, she is my nemesis.  We got her from a local animal shelter and I felt like we were really doing a good thing, rescuing her.  What was I thinking?  Dogs come with dog hair.  Who knew.

Dog hair ends up everywhere, even places the dog doesn't go.  It is the bane of my existence.  Far worse than dog hair, however, is dog poop and dog pee.  That is the delicate Christian blog way of wording it.  I have other words for it that I won't share with you today but if you happen to be at my house when Casey "has an accident", you may hear those words.  They are angry words that I use when I have had enough of cleaning up after this mangy mutt.

Now, I told you that the cat curls up on my bed, well, the dog sits right in my spot on the sofa.  She sits there and looks up at my as if to say, "What are you gonna do about it?" 

I look right back at her with my best alpha dog face and, needless to say, she moves, leaving her little doggie hairs behind.  We have dog hair removers placed strategically throughout the house.

There's the dog hair, the dog poop, the dog attempts at domination, the dog odor, and of course the constant, relentless, unending chasing of the cat by the dog.  This is why the cat resides in my bedroom.  The dog will not leave her alone.  She lives and breathes to chase that cat.

All of these things are reasons enough to be done with the dog, but the final straw came last week.  I was in the backyard, picking up little doggie treasures from the lawn.  I could see something buried in the dirt.  It was black and I peered closer.  I finally pulled at it and could not believe my eyes.  That crazy dog had buried my bra!  This is the honest to goodness truth.  I decided then and there that my little beagle is a pervert and a thief.  She has to go.

I have calmed down since then and reminded myself that when we brought these little creatures home, we committed to them for life.  My daughters leave hair all over the bathroom floor and I haven't gotten rid of them (yet).  The men in the house are always stealing the remote and I haven't told them to hit the road.  We put up with each other, in spite of the things that drive us crazy.

They're just lucky that they have me.  I'm the only sane one in the house.

Bonjour!

Today I am dreaming of all things French, as my sweet daughter just arrived back home from a business trip to Paris.   Rough business, huh?  Ashley works for Made Goods, a company that manufactures and sells the most gorgeous mirrors and chandeliers to boutiques and designers.  Part of her job is traveling to home shows and her latest trip was to Paris for the annual Maison & Object Trade Show filled with beautiful treasures from around the world.  I tried to get them to take me along as a mirror putter-upper, but these mirrors are way too heavy for me.  Maybe next year I can go along with my Windex bottle and some paper towels!

(I have to make an apology here, I have no idea how to place the sweet little accents over my e's, as is proper in many French words.  I tried to figure it out and could not, so apologies to the French and those of you who speak French for the absence of proper accents on words.  It was really bugging me, but I'm over it now.)

While most of her time there was spent working, Ashley did have time to see some of the sights and apparently she ate very well while she was there.  One of the highlights of her trip was a visit to the world famous La Duree tea salon.

This is a sampling of the pastry counter inside. It almost makes me weep.

This Parisian tea room was founded in 1862 and it was here that the decadent double-decker macaroon was invented.  I have never been to France, but if, rather when I go, this will be what I spend my money on.  I will arrive back at home weighing twenty pounds more than when I left.  Just thinking about croissants and pastries and every other delicious French delicacy is adding pounds as I'm sitting here typing.

Well, Ashley knows her mama well, and she did not leave La Duree empty-handed.

How cute is she, looking so French with her little green bag?

That little bag contained some treasures.  All I can say is - oo la la!

For starters, there were macaroons for her sister, which Rachel was sweet enough to share.  As Rachel described the rose macaroon, "It tastes just like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they said it was like eating a real flower!" A-maz-ing!  I would show you a picture but we gobbled them up before I could grab my camera.

Now, I know you will be jealous when I describe what Ashley brought back for me.  Because you probably just ate a piece of cold pizza, or a peanut butter sandwich or a cup of yogurt, but sometimes, when you get something real good, you've just got to brag.  I am sorry if I cause you to sin, but here is a sneak peek.  This is just the packaging.

I know, the boxes themselves look good enough to eat!

Before I get to my Laduree goodies, Ashley also visited Fauchon, and bought me a jar of melt-in-your-mouth lavender honey that was delicious on my toast this morning.  Yum!

Now, in the pretty blue box was a jar of Caramel au beurre sale, caramel butter sauce. It is so rich and delicious that I haven't decided what other ingredients are worthy of its presence, so I just keep sticking my finger in the jar and licking it off (don't tell my kids!)

The jar inside the purple box is the piece de resistance.  I was born for these kinds of delicacies.  I should live like this every day.  I could get used to this!

This was not Ashley's first choice.  She had picked up something else, but the all-knowing French saleslady shook her head and said,  "Non!"  She picked up this treat and told Ashley this was the one she must buy.  Like the obedient American she is, Ashley bought it.  That lady knew what she was talking about.

It is called Delice au The Marie-Antoinette.  This incredible delicacy is a spread for toast or bread and is hard to describe, except to say, it tastes just like you would expect Marie-Antoinette to taste - rich, delicious, sweet, citrusy, but a bit tart and exotic.  I have never tasted anything quite like this before. 

It's good to be queen!