Life DIY: 40 days

Fun Ash Wednesday Facts:

• It is the first day of Lent, occurring 46 days before Easter. 
• According to gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke; Jesus spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan.
• Ash Wednesday is so called from the practice of placing ash on the forehead as a reminder and celebration of human mortality, and as a sign of mourning and repentance to God for those of us who so choose to participate. 

Every year Catholics around the world, (and Christians who choose to participate), will spend the Lenten season in self inflicted fasting of some sort to remember our humility, Jesus' sacrifice, and the ever presence of God.

Most years I give up some sort of food I love, dessert, pop, sometimes even meat, and usually its a tough road. This year, however, I have decided on something different. 

When life occurs and the day to day bears down, we forget sometimes what matters. We go through the motions. We go on with our routines and we forget that we should be thankful for every day we are on this earth. So I have decided to give up some TIME. Sweet precious time. I am not sure to the exact amount, 10, 20, maybe even 30 mins. For a busy working mom of two 30 mins is like gold. How will I utilize that time you may ask? Easy.

With Prayer. Prayer is such an easy thing, yet so often we use it when it is necessary. I, and my little family, plan on spending a few mins everyday in prayer, meditation, reflection. It will be tough. Little boys, big and small, are not one to sit still, but prayer does not always have to be so formal. It can be done at the dinner table, during a few minutes of play time, and story time.

How hard will that be? To STOP for a few minutes in this fast-paced world and think, think about life, where you have been, where you are, and where you are going? To think of all those who are sick and suffering and offer a piece of yourself for them, even if it is just time & prayer. It is a powerful thing.

Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart. 

-Mahatma Gandhi 

Sanctuary from the Storm

When Greg originally chose this deep brown for our bedroom, I acquiesced. I figured I would give him one room where he made the color decision. I went with it for awhile, agreeing to the dark furniture and testing out my interior decorating mettle. I was very limited in the colors that I could use and the result was more darkness. Elegant, but dark. Bedrooms should be sanctuaries from a day out in the storm.

I kept Googgling "Spa Master bedrooms ideas" and envying all the different ideas. After two years, I think I just got tired of having our room be so dark. 

Just a little background on my OCD personality...

I use to change and completely re-do my room at least once every 3 months in high school. Full revisions, moving the pieces of furniture in my room (bed, bookshelf, dresser+mirror, & desk), and emptying out drawers, purging anything I didn't want anymore. I would get so obsessive that once I started I wouldn't sleep until it was done. My dad would come home at about 1AM and find me wide awake in my room in the middle of all the chaos. He would tell me to finish tomorrow and go to sleep every time, but I never did. 

It has been a long time since high school but that obsessiveness still lingers and I guess it was long overdue.

So in normal project fashion, I started with my usual, "So Honey, I've been thinking...." which he responds with a usual, sarcastic "Oh geez, what?" and a denial. This is followed by a week or two of repeat pestering until he finally agrees to repaint the room a brighter color. 

So we moved things from the walls and repainted the room a light gray. So light, in fact, in certain instances it was almost white. (I wish we had gone darker, but selling Greg on painting the room a 3rd time wasn't going to happen) but it definitely brightened up the room.

We were pretty set on not wanting to get new furniture but we did want new side tables to go with our Spa-like decor. I had always wanted a large round side table and I came across one at Target on "clearance." (We sure do love those red stickers!) Unfortunately, we found out it was not tall enough :( 

So, what do you do when the table you purchased is not tall enough? You go to Home Depot and add some railing toppers! The were the perfect diameter and three of them gave us the length we needed. Perfecto!

We painted all of it white (Tidally Wink, left over from Jacob's nursery if you want to get specific) then sanded it down to get that "distressed" look.

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We also upgraded to fancy side lamps, changed our fabric headboard to a simple gray color, and curtains to a dark gray

Curtains were added to the window behind our dresser to complete the look in the entire room.

Here is the results! Our personal sanctuary from the doom and gloom.