B”H
Hello every one! Last week I sent my oldest off to sleep away camp for four weeks. This is a first for me! I feel like I’ve entered another stage in motherhood and according to my husband I have now suddenly become a “worrier.” Well, not only is my son away for the first time, and I have not heard from him (he’s only allowed to call twice in a month and I did hear from his counselor that he’s fine…phew!), but my husband has been traveling in China for three weeks. So, yes, while I would not call myself a “worrier”, I am definitely suffering from a “healthy dose of anxiety.”
Some people eat when they are nervous. Do you know what I do? I fix things around my house!? Yes, all those small decorating projects that roam my mind… I tackle them! Especially, when my husband leaves town, I get super busy with the house. I don’t sleep well anyways when he’s not here, so why not be a bit productive. So these days, I guess since my son is also away, I’m on a roll.
I’ve already moved the living room furniture four times this past week. I think I’ve finally found a furniture arrangement that I like. I also ordered end tables for my new couch, both of which I’ll show you soon. I painted the frame of a chalk board and installed it on the wall. If I told you how long the chalk board has been sitting in my office- you’ll laugh. B”H it’s been less than a week and it’s gotten plenty of use!
I also had a pile of my kids art work that needed to be framed. So I went and got frames for most of them. My favorite two sources for inexpensive frames are Target and Michaels. This week they had a discount on all frames at Target, so I managed to get a few. Michael’s also has a great selection and you can often find sales and or a 40% discount. Here’s a few the ones I framed. I did a few more and there’s a bunch that I still need to do. I’ll show you once their on a gallery wall in the play room.
Who needs to spend thousands on art, when I’ve got these beauties? Don’t you think? ;-)
While I was on the framing frenzy, I decided it’s time to frame my wedding picture- yes, my wedding picture! We ordered it for our tenth anniversary which was earlier this year and I had still not framed it. Well it took me ten years to order the picture, so a couple of months to send it to the framer is not that bad.
Shabbat is particularly challenging when my husband is so far away. It means Shabbat comes in for him in China while I’m still sleeping on my Thursday night (I’m usually awake waiting for his call ie. fixing something around the house). So if I do speak with him, that is the last I hear from him, until the end of Shabbat for me, on Saturday night- his Sunday morning! And of course this was my first Shabbat without my son, about whom I had not heard anything, nor had been able to find him in a picture on the camp’s website. Anxious!? Na! Not moi!
So, on Shabbat I fell asleep as I was putting my kids to bed. I must have woken up like half an hour after Shabbat had ended, around 9:30. After I heard from my husband- who was about to get on a plane within China- and stalked the camp’s website to see if there were any pictures- of course not!- I pulled out the painter’s tape, the primer, the roller and went to work.
My kids have enjoyed this kids’ table for almost six years. It’s a great table, but it was starting to look terrible as my younger kids had managed already to scribble on it and so on. I remembered this post from Jenny from a long time ago and I decided to finally give the kids’ table a little makeover. I can’t show you the end product yet, as it takes a few days for the paint to be ready- you need to wait a few days, then cover it in chalk, wait a few more days to wipe the chalk down, and then it’s ready to be used. I have painted chalk walls before and have been impatient when it comes to this and trust me, it’s not worth it to be impatient. If you want good results in terms of erasability, you have to wait. But, other than that, using chalk paint is the easiest thing.
First I primed my table, with two coats of primer. I was a bit of a rebel and did not protect the floor or anything. No big deal. You can still see the mess of toys lying around from Shabbat.
What is better than one easy DIY in a night? Two of course! While the primer, tape, and roller were out, I remembered my sad looking Shabbat candles’ counter and decided there’s no reason to wait. I did tell you here that I was going to tackle this as soon as everyone was in camp, right? So on to the dining room I went.
The counter had a few silly holes (I guess someone must have wanted to get wires through at some point, maybe?) so I pulled out the speckling paste and found it was completely dried out. Mhhh, ok so wood filler. But the wood filler was also acting up so I said, painter’s tape- who cares about two little holes, just cover them with tape and carry on! I told you I was being a rebel!
Now what’s better than two DIY’s in one night? Two DIY’s with a cup of wine! As I headed to the play room to keep working on the chalk table, while the primer in the dining room dried, I remembered that I had not made Havdallah!
I had meant to pick up a new havdallah candle this week but of course I forgot! How could I not, when I was busy moving furniture and choosing frames!? Thankfully, one of my students gave out these tiny havdalla candles as part of a mini havdalla set at her Bat Mitzvah, which came super handy.
I did three coats of chalk paint and I lightly sanded bubbles out with a sanding block, before applying the third coat. I’ll show you the final results soon. I’m also happy to report that while my husband was back on a plane within China on Monday night, I tackled the faux marble on the counter and I am incredibly pleased with the results! I still have to do the resin coat on it- which is probably the trickiest part, but I’m sure it will be fine. I can’t wait to show you the final product. I’m so excited.
So, how’s that for dealing with a “healthy dose of anxiety “;-)?
Have a lovely week!
P.D. Disculpen por la falta de español, pero mi cerebro esta frito. Como ven, no he dormido mucho en los últimos días ;-)
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