Spring has Sprung in the Trailerhood

I * AM * SO * SICK * OF * WINTER !

Anyone else ?

* Side note - I have watched this movie a

bazillion times with the girls .

STILL*LOVE*IT !

I have never been a fan of winter ...

Yes , I have lived most all of my life in this tiny , frozen  part of Iowa . Doesn't matter , still dislike winter ..

And yes , I know , I've had plenty of trips this year to warmer climes this year . Somehow , it makes me yearn for warmth even more . 

Soon , Mother Nature , soon . Please .

I had finally had it yesterday . The sun was shining . I decided if Mother Nature wouldn't cooperate , I would make my own spring . Well, inside at least . I'm not Elsa you know .

Remember my after Christmas / yet still winter display ?

SICK*OF*IT !

Time to pack it away !

Springtime in the Trailerhood ! 

That beautiful ceramic bunny belonged to Country Boy's Grandmother . It's a treasure .

The little ceramic eggs were made for my kids by my Mom's best friend when they were young. They were given eggs for their first Easter and for several years after . When they started homes of their own , I gave the eggs to them , but kept one of each for myself. Over the years , I have had to add new eggs , two grand daughters and two son-in-laws ... hoping to add more in the near future ;)

It's even prettier at night with the itty , bitty, teeny, tiny lights on .

I had to continue the spring theme to the china cabinet too .

Had to have a bit of St. Patty's in there.

I love St. Patrick's Day . (but not Guinness or Jameson )

I love McCoy pottery too .

Could you tell?

I had just been thinking it was time to part with the little flower pots. I don't use them (much) . Then I was looking for something different to put the kid's eggs in ... TA-DA ... guess I won't be parting with them after all .

This should be the last decorating post from the Trailerhood ! 

But I'm ready for a change :)

With Pinterest anything is Possible

Hey Y'all !

If you follow us on FB , you will know that our Baby Girl is getting married soon ...very soon.
( And if you don't follow us on  FB , you really should )

Our Baby Girl is very frugal and was raised to be a DIYer .

Not to mention a crafter , decorator,  junk lover and repurposer.

Remind you of anyone ? :)

Anyhoo...

She started a Pinterest board for her wedding ideas . I do love Pinterest , but it seems to have created a crafty , decorating monster ! ( just kidding about the monster part )

After a couple shopping trips to Micheals and HobLob , it was time for a CRAFTFEST !

Project #1 , She pretty much did this one on her own . ( She didn't need me for this one AND I was making lunch )

 We are kind of a non-traditional family. So nothing about Baby Girl's wedding will be traditional .

Can I just say how proud that makes me ?

Anyhoo...

Back to project #1 Non-traditional guest book ... not a book at all ...a canvas .

A large white canvas , some embellishments ( colored with distress inks ) , and ta-da  a guest canvas for people to sign and for her to display .

I love the way she colored it with an ombre effect. I'm kinda into that ombre thing :)

Next up was to revamp the card box I made for Wild Child's wedding last year .

We took the paper off, the embellishments were already gone , where, I have no idea .

Baby Girl gave it a new coat of paint , some lace and ribbon , and of course , some BLING !

This was her (p)inspiration - 

And THIS is our creation -

We saved our biggest project for last .

Her (p)inspiration -

By the way , that is available on Etsy for $126.99 :)

Our creation -

Beautiful , huh ?

We figured we had under $15 in it . Plus time .... LOTS of time :)

Time on Pinterest : HOURS 

Supplies : $50 ( approx. for all 3 projects )

A day spent crafting with my Baby Girl : PRICELESS  

Just wait till you see her Pinterest decorating ideas for the wedding  ! 

Yikes :)

Fireplace Update

Hey Y'All !

Life has been crazy busy for the CBS family !

But who's life isn't , right ?

I wanted to share my latest project at the Home Farm .

My fireplace makeover .

My in-laws had replaced the firebox a couple of years ago when they had a chimney fire. The fireplace used to go around the corner with a screen around it . While this one is not nearly as attractive , I am told it is much more efficient ... * shrug * ....ok...

I'm not sure who did the work , but it was quite obvious the brick had been filled in .

I thought about painting the brick , but I didn't really want it a " stark " white .

After several hours of Pinterest searching , I decided to whitewash it .

There are several posts with instructions, I can't even tell you which one I used , they were basically all the same.

I mixed 2 parts white trim paint with 1 part water  ( well approximately , if you know me , you know I NEVER measure ).

I painted 2 or three bricks at a time , them blottted with a rag .

 OVER and OVER .

And over again . 

This part was quite messy .

I really am quite happy with the end result .

Not stark white at all.

You can still see the variation in the brick .

But , that's OK with me .

I think it brightens the room now .

What do you think ?

The Home Farm

As you know, a few weeks ago , we lost my County Boy's father .

That's when we knew .... well... we  knew ... but we had to face the fact , they wouldn't be going back to the farm.

Country Boy and I had never really thought about living there .

I never wanted to .

It was my mother-in-law's house not mine ....

My kids were worried .

They didn't want anyone else living in Grandma's house.

My sweet nieces were sad ....the farm had always been their "constant .. the place they knew there was love and wonderful food and peace of mind.

What were we to do ?

We talked it over . Talked to the siblings . And quickly came to the agreement . We would buy the farm .

Well... not the WHOLE farm .

 Those days are passed for us .

Just the 5 acres the building site sits on .

So sometime soon ( hopefully this spring ) we will bid farewell to the Trailerhood  .

Some renovations need to be  done , although CB would like to move in like it is ....

I need color on the walls . Some new flooring . Just a few spruce ups .

But here is what I'm super excited about ...

The barn ....

The barn they milked cows in for many years .

I have visions of a new , larger shoppe , with a work space .... 

I may be more excited about the barn than the house ...

Strange but true .

My mother-in-law also had chickens .

Lots of chickens . Up to 500 most of the time . She sold eggs to everyone in the county.

I will only use a small part of her chicken house for my flock . But I will be able to expand a bit ... dreaming of  that too .

I walked around the yard the other day ( there was no snow then ) I found the perfect spot to move the Hosta garden to. 

It's close to the old outhouse .

Outhouse turned garden shed . How lucky am I ???

And then there is this ...

A Curly Willow tree .

One of many trees in the grove .

BUT IT'S A CURLY WILLOW !!!

My excitement knows no bounds ! 

It's the simple things , right ?

Well ... it should be .

So ....

There's our update .

Big changes are coming for Country Boy Salvage .

Soon it will be adventures on the Home Farm instead of the Trailerhood..

Can't wait for this next chapter !

Peoria - Wine , Woman and JUNK

A couple weekends ago , I took a little girls trip with a few of my besties .

Our friend Kristin  had moved to Peoria and we hadn't been to to see her new home .

Plus we were going celebrate Rhonda and Kristin's birthday's .

She had had a hard time with her builder  and we were anxious to see how it came out.

Kristin KNOWS what she wants ( this is her 3rd build ) and no builder was going to tell her that was not how they did it in Peoria . Really , who was paying this bill ! Needless to say they won't be best friends ...  EVER

Her home was beautiful , as we expected .

 She has excellent taste .

Custom painted cabinets , hickory floors , granite counter tops .

What I love most is the mix of trendy , personal , vintage and art .

She loves antiques , pastels ,comfort.

 So did we .

 She ( and her husband ) spoiled us all weekend !

 Kristin wanted to give us the Peoria tour.

First she took us to this great old Sunbeam bread factory that had been turned into a center for antique shops and artists.

It had a glass blower , jewelry makers , fiber artists and more.

L*O*V*E*D  IT ! 

I love it when a city has the fore thought to save and repurpose old buildings like this . 

Can you tell I was more interested in the antique shops than the art ....

We had lunch at a fun, quirky place down the street .

Then more shopping .

She took us to an antique store that she really liked , but all of his antiques ( or most of them anyway ) were stacked in an over flow building ...

Why ?

Because he had the whole store filled ( and I mean FILLED ) with Christmas trees !

He had taken many down ( it was, after all , mid January ) . But there we SO MANY LEFT . Even the ceilings were covered with garland and lights . Julie and Rhonda had to leave , they said all the lights made them sick ....

Of course , I had to snap a picture of his wine bottle tree ! 

I had never seen one that held more bottles than mine before ! 

IT*WAS*AWESOME !

Kristin had made dinner reservations for us at a local winery .

 All I really wanted to do, was take a nap !

We got all fancied up and out we went .

I would love to see this place in the summertime !

The wine was good , the food was OK , and the music was AWESOME !

Even though we were celebrating Rhonda and Kristin , for some reason ( I am blessed ) I got a gift too ! Lucky me !

Kristin's husband travels frequently to Japan for work . She rarely goes with him,  but last summer she decided to go with him . 

Personally, I think she needed to get away from her contractor ... STAT !

Anyway.....

Lucky us ! 

We were given these adorable Kokeshi dolls . 

I just love her . She makes me smile whenever I look at her .

I have long admired Kristin's collection of Kokeshi. Even though I had never heard of them until I saw hers :) 

Sweet . Yes ? 

Kokeshi are Japanese dolls hand crafted from wood. They don't have arms or legs and they are beautifully hand painted .

Kokeshi have been made since the early 19th century to sell to tourists visiting the hot springs in the northern region of  Japan .

There is another story ( unsubstantiated ) that the Kokeshi were given to a wife by her husband when a female child died .

We all decided to go with the story that they are chotskies made for tourists .

We had a fabulous and much needed girl's weekend away . 

I don't know what I would do without these chicas in my life .

P.S. Kristin made that beautiful quilt behind us !

Yes...

I am blessed .

We are Blessed

Hey Y'All

Last week was a tough one .

My Country Boy's Dad passed away .

2 weeks before his 90th Birthday.

We knew he was declining . His memory wasn't what it used to be . But we were still shocked . It's been pretty hard on my Country Boy.

When life gives you blows , you also realize your blessings . We both agree our two biggest blessings are our family and our friends . It's tough times like these when you find out just how much .

The grandchildren ( our nieces and nephews and children ) all came home ( we were missing one ) and it was really a special time for them . Watching them all interact as adults is amazing to me . Wasn't it just last week Dan and cousin Ryan were playing lawn darts ( REAL lawn darts ) at Grandma and Grandpas ? Or yesterday that Raychel , Dan, and cousin Scott  formed a band and were putting on a show for us . Or my crazy Brown girls were pulling in the yard with their Mom , cat in tow , for the weekend ?

The stories , some we had never heard before , (like the lawn darts ) and the memories had us laughing through the tears .

My niece Tisha ( our jazz singer ) , sang a beautiful song for her grandfather's service called "The Field Behind the Plow " . Music has always been a huge part of Garbes life . It was fitting tribute to a man that spent his whole life farming. This is my favorite verse .

For the good times come and go, but at least there's rain
So this won't be barren ground when September rolls around
So watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows
Put another season's promise in the ground
Watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows
Put another season's promise in the ground

As special as the song was , so was the poem her sister Lara read .

Pretty sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room . 

Close the Gate

For this one farmer the worries are over, lie down and rest your head,
Your time has been and struggles enough, put the tractor in the shed.

Years were not easy, many downright hard, but your faith in God transcended,
Put away your tools and sleep in peace. The fences have all been mended.

You raised a fine family, worked the land well and always followed the Son,
Hang up your shovel inside of the barn; your work here on earth is done.

A faith few possess led your journey through life, often a jagged and stony way,
The sun is setting, the cattle are all bedded, and here now is the end of your day.

Your love of God’s soil has passed on to your kin; the stories flow like fine wine,
Wash off your work boots in the puddle left by blessed rain one final time.

You always believed that the good Lord would provide and He always had somehow,
Take off your gloves and put them down, no more sweat and worry for you now.

Your labor is done, your home now is heaven; no more must you wait,
Your legacy lives on, your love of the land, and we will close the gate.

Nancy Kraayenhof

We are blessed ....

With Friends 

With family 

With tears

With laughter

With memories

With tomorrow