Winter in the living room

 I'm feeling slow to blog lately.

It's just that everything feels uphill right now, so I just don't even want to stop any momentum on any subject to sit down and blog. 

I'm just now am finally getting to the point where I am able to start making "life recoveries" --- recovering the mess that pregnancy left me with.

Being that sick took away most of my normal skill set, it added tons to my normal inabilities, changed a lot of our habits as a family, and really confused my thoughts on a lot of things. It's not a fast fix when everything gets messed up. It took me about 5 months to even feel remotely like I could think about fixing things. And with the holidays right then, I just stayed on the bench till those were done.

So right now I've been kind of wanting to shut out the world and just focus and buckle down. I feel frazzled and very sensitive.

The good thing is, things are coming together. I'm proud of the progress we are each making. It's just that spurt where the exertion is so hard you can't talk.

But for now I'll show you my living room and a couple winter decorations.

 

Since Blake made his lapsteel guitar, we've had no place to put it. You can't hang that kind of thing on the wall. And we've been kinda piling up a few other things in the back corner of the living room making it messy. I started thinking we'd need to build a piece to house the stuff. The room and fireplace are so narrow most furniture look silly there.

But the mess was too annoying to wait for building time. 

My mom was in town the other day and I went to every single thrift store to see what I could find. Every thing was coming up short. I went back to look again at a "meh maybe it be ok for a bit" piece I had  seen. I prayed first. And then instead of the other piece, this shelf that I had totally ignored jumped out at me.

It was 50% off so it cost me $4. I figured if it didn't  work, oh well, at that price. At the store I was not confident in the design concept at all. I felt silly buying it. 

But once I got it all said and done it's shockingly awesome.

(Moral of the story: don't be afraid to try and fail. And don't be afraid to pray about the little things.)

Something else new over here are my "winter lights." I read this article about winter in Norway and it made me want to keep the winter coziness of Christmas around the rest of winter. (http://m.fastcompany.com/3052970/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/the-norwegian-secret-to-enjoying-a-long-winter)

So I brainstormed (Pinterest searched) for ideas. And here's what I have right now.

 They help keep the cozy comfortable glow around when the sun goes down too early still. I LOVE IT. If I had more strings of lights I'd do more, but they seem like they are all going out at once on me.

I want to try to find time to make some valtines decorations soon to. 

I really like that our house is to the point where decorations are an option.