The Boutique Experience

Next time you're driving around Salem and feeling the deep, burning desire for some new jewelry, you should stop by the Mission Mill.

You may just find yourself standing outside the big, white doors, opening them, and walking into an adorable store called Danner and Soli.



You would walk in and say to yourself about a million times, "that's so cute!" as you meander through the store full of home decor, handmade clothing and bags, and tons of seasonal items.

You would eventually find yourself at a gorgeous display of all kinds of jewelry (remember, that's why you're there). Then you would look closer and...

You'd see MY JEWELRY!!!

Connie had this cute apple crate and I hammered a bunch of well-placed nails in it. Each nail has a few varieties of a letter of the alphabet. The chains to the right are not the ones that will normally be sold with them. There will be some ribbons and chains in the future. Customers will be able to purchase charms individually and add a necklace, if they want.

I'm pretty stoked about this little adventure. The owner is a friend from church who stumbled upon someone wearing some of my charms and asked the lady about them, curious about trying to sell them in her shop. Turns out we're in Bible study together and I emailed her, and now here we are! Danner and Soli is seriously a great store. I came in today with 66 charms to sell and left with a new pair of earings that I had been eyeing for a while! There's even a bunch of awesome stuff on sale right now. Yay! I'm so excited I have some stuff I've made for sale in an awesome store! Thanks to all you friends who have encouraged me to pursue this fun new hobby.

Home Improvements

We've been doing some minor work around the house, just trying to improve it a bit. The biggest project we did was add wainscoting in the hallway. Two very good friends (thanks Russ and Ryan) came over and gave up their Saturday last weekend, helping Rich put up this very pretty addition to our home. I think they did such a great job!!

Our dining room is really just a dining nook. We are planning on putting the wainscoting in there, as well, but it didn't get done last weekend. So I painted all the walls, rather than just the top half and the wainscoting will hopefully get done a month or so. The color is "Chocolate Truffle" and I wish I had done it the day we moved in! I think it does the trick of making it feel like more of a separate room. This is the best picture I came up with..

Lastly, the girls' room used to be "Raspberry Fizz" and then I moved them to a different room and painted over it with grey for the guest room. I missed it too much!! This time we added a chair rail and painted the bottom-half white. It helps make the bright pink a little more palatable to the general public. We girls in the house can't get enough pink! Avery often quotes me, saying "you can never have too much pink." Gramma Ginny (Rich's mom) paints signs and custom-made this one just for us! It's perfect!

As I've said to many friends and family, we are not "project people". It was a big deal for us to take these on, but I'm so glad we did. Of course it's easy to say now that it's all over. And I'm really sick of painting.

Deep thoughts from a Walmart shopper...

I went to Walmart today with my daughters. Avery had some birthday money to spend and I needed some paint for my dining room (yes, I buy my paint at Walmart!). We wandered the whole store looking for the perfect $10 item for Avery's birthday (she ended up with a metallic-blue wig. I was hesitant, but it's absolutely adorable on her!). As we walked by the giant ball basket-thingy, Allie had to test just how bouncy the balls really were. So she and Avery each took a turn with a ball and then, as I was putting it away, several more balls came tumbling out and I made a move that looked something like a very ungraceful jumping jack, trying to stop every ball that was escaping. About ten minutes later, I was standing at the paint counter and noticed another young mom turn the corner in front of the giant ball basket-thingy. I watched as her two young daughters, who appeared to be near the ages of my own, each took a turn with a ball. Then the mom pulled the same move I did as she tried to capture the runaway balls that were evidently just begging for a new home. It was so funny to observe another mom in the exact scenario I had been a pawn in just moments before. Later, I took the girls to the bathroom and met this mom and found out her daughters are 6 and almost 4. I told her I watched her at the balls and we had a little laugh together.

I was already planning on sharing that little story, but was planning on ending it with the bathroom scene. It struck me, as I was talking with my girls at bedtime, that it's the perfect example of just how much we moms share in common. Since I'm sure of this fact, I'll share another more serious struggle in the Rowzee household. We are having a very real struggle with anger, heated words, and fighting. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone! The sibling fighting is enough to make any mom want to jump straight out the window and end her misery. My children have entered into a new era of fighting. A couple of years ago, it was simply taking a toy and giving a little swat at sister and it was pretty much over. Now it's joined with a quick temper, name-calling, and really angry voices. Thankfully my children haven't been exposed to names too terrible yet, but they are said with such angry tones!!

Anyway, that's just part of the problem. My newly six year-old has always been really passionate and verbal and is now struggling with the desire to be disrespectful and dishonoring to her mom. It's pretty hard to hear. I've prayed aloud with her a hundred times and a thousand on my own. God is still teaching me and growing her in His timing, because it hasn't changed a whole lot. ANYWAYS, all of that to say, life as a mom can be pretty tough.

God gave me a window of hope today. I bought two jars and filled one with marbles. I drew a smiley face on the full jar and a sad face on the empty one. Avery will begin each day with a full "happy jar" and be asked to move a marble to the sad jar every time she is rude to her sister or disrespectful to mom or dad. Daddy will deal with discipline according to the number of marbles in the sad jar. Today, on her first day, she ended the day with 3 marbles in the sad jar. I definitely saw resignation and remorse in her eyes when she had to move a marble. Score one for mom!!!

As I put the girls to bed, I read from Galatians 5 about the fruit of the Spirit. Avery can tell you all 9 of them and Allie knows quite a few. I explained that just like an apple tree should produce apples, a follower of Christ should produce evidence of God's Spirit being in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Before I ended it, though, I explained a few of the examples given in Galatians 5:19-21, the works of sin in our lives. These include idolatry, hatred, fighting, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfishness, and stirring up trouble. They had fun giving examples of both fruit of God's Spirit and of works of sin. I'm encouraged by their hearts as we discussed this pretty profound truth: each one of us is producing either fruit of the Spirit or works of sin at any given time. Wow, I'm once again blown away by God's amazing Word!!!

OK, I know you've all fallen asleep by now, but I had to share one more Walmart observation. A few minutes after I observed the other young mom who was attacked by the killer balls, a dad rounded the corner with his two young boys both in the back of the cart. The boys were around 2 years old and standing up, but dad didn't seemed concerned (like us moms who are constantly bugging our kids to SIT DOWN if you're going to ride in the back of the cart!). He walked by the giant ball basket-thingy, picked two balls out, handed one to each boy, and walked on, never to be invaded upon by the runaway balls. How do they do it?!?!?!?!?

New project: what do you think?

So, I've had an empty wall above my bed since we've moved into this house over three years ago. I don't put pressure on myself to have everything decorated perfectly because I just don't care that much. I like pretty things on my wall and I appreciate beautiful decor, but I don't have the money or motivation to have a perfectly decorated home. However, I want to continue looking for ways to beautify my home.

I had some canvases sitting around and had been planning on painting something to put above my bed. I noticed some cute artsy pieces at the craft store that were covered with fabric instead of painted. So I set out to find some fabric that I could afford to cover three 16x20 canvases with. I finally found some at Walmart. That's right. Walmart. Want to know what I paid for it? $1.50. Yep! I already had the canvases, so my cool new wall art only cost me a buck-fifty! I'm kind of proud of it!

What do you think?
(positive feedback only, please :)

Brownie Bites

So, over Christmas my friend Alena shared a yummy desert with me and I just had to get the recipe. It was basically a brownie bite with a fun surprise inside. Since then, I've tried several versions of it and last week, I hit the jackpot! It's very simple to make: mix up a brownie mix as the box directs, add evenly in a mini-muffin pan (very generously sprayed with cooking spray), and then add a Hersey kiss to each one, not completely hiding it in the batter. Then bake them for about 20 minutes. Alena's were delicious with a peppermint Hersey kiss in the middle, then with an added topping made of heavy cream and chocolate chips. I couldn't find the peppermint variety, so I tried a mint truffle Hersey kiss first. It was pretty good. A few weeks later I made them with a carmel kiss in them. Again, pretty good. Last week, though, I just loved them. I admit that these kisses had been in the cupboard since the first time I was going to make them and Rich went to the store for me. I didn't like his choice, so I never used them. On a whim, I decided to make some to bring to my brother's house and went ahead and used the dark chocolate kisses I had available. They were the bomb! Oh man! Yum! I don't even bother with the chocolate topping - it makes it much less complicated and it's still delicious. So, there's a tip for a quick, already-have-the-stuff-in-your-cupboard desert to share with company, or just your own family who totally deserves a fun treat sometimes!

Old Friends

There is just something about having a friend you've known more than half your life. Even at 10 years old, having a friend for five years would be pretty great. I'm sure at 80 years old, having had a friend for more than 40 years would be amazing. As I am 31, having a friend whom I've known since I was 11, which makes it a 20 year-long friendship (and counting), is pretty super. Having moved a lot as a kid, which I explained in a previous post, surely explains my fascination for knowing someone for very long and continuing to be friends. I have so many people in my memory who live all over the country and were important to me at one time, but became memories almost as soon as they became friends. However, we all have people like that in our lives. Don't you remember every school year - you were in a different class and almost had a whole new set of friends every year? What ever happened to those people??? Ahhh... the wonders of Facebook! :)

Anyway, I wanted to write some thoughts and give props to my friendship with Leslie. I walked into Sunday School at a new church, in a new town, in a new state, in a new region of the country one morning, looking for a girl named Leslie. Her step-dad worked with my dad in his new job and Larry had invited our family to his church. Leslie was my age and I was going to be her guest (she was set for a prize for having a guest in SS:). That was it! Almost instantaneously we were best friends. We were in fifth grade. I've never had a friendship like I had with her during those years. This is mostly because of the time of life we were in. Junior High is brutal! We didn't go to the same school, as the church we attended together was in a different town from me. I lived and went to school in Clayton, NC, and she lived and went to school and church in Garner, NC. But we talked for hours on the phone every night and spent just about every weekend together. I didn't do anything without Leslie by my side.

Boy, what an amazing security for a junior high/high-schooler to have - a best friend who is totally loyal, totally committed to you?? With everything that's going on with your body and brain, to know you have a friend who absolutely adores you and loves you to the core? Someone you know wouldn't want to spend time with anyone else, rather than you? I'm sure it had a huge influence in shaping who I am today. I can only pray that my daughters have friendships like that someday. I believe encouraging selflessness in friendship right now, teaching how important it is to be a good friend, and exampling good friendships in my life for them to see can help them toward that goal.

I was remembering recently the night Leslie and I said goodbye as I was moving again, this time from NC to Oregon - literally one coast to another. It was over Christmas break of my junior year in high school. Talk about SAD! Our friend Velvet was also there and we just sat for hours in my empty bedroom, talking about memories and crying. However, we still have a beautiful friendship. It isn't what we dreamed - rooming together in college, living next door as wives and mothers... But we still love each other and talk regularly. We both got to see each other get married. I went to visit her in NC a year and a half ago right after the birth of her third daughter. I actually held my beloved friend's baby girl!

What a gift! We had such a wonderful few days together as I bonded with her sweet children. Now it's her turn - she's coming to see me in April! Boy, do I have plans!! I can't wait for her to meet my daughters (funny, we both had all girls) and see my life up close. I love you, Leslie!

You know you're a mother of young kids when...

You know you're a mother of young kids when you are CONSTANTLY scrubbing food and who-knows-what-else off you kitchen table and chairs.