Interior Design Color Trends...it's fun to be ahead of the curve.

Check out this cool website for Colour Lovers! I do love color!

This link shows one of the latest trends in interior design colors. Green and White!

I've had those colors in my kitchen for a couple of years and have been adding more as I grow more in love with it. Here are a few pics from my kitchen below.

If I could afford it, I'd change the colors in my house nearly every season. I try to keep neutrals for the permanent areas like walls, floors, etc. so I can have as much flexibility as possible to change colors around. My biggest hurdle right now is my red (Pottery Barn) sofa that I bought at a yard sale before we moved in to the house. The sofa itself was a great price and is an awesome piece, in a slipcovered style. I thought I'd be able to buy more slipcovers for flexibility, but it turns out the slipcovers cost more than I'd normally pay for a new sofa, so that hasn't been in the budget. I don't really prefer those really loose slipcovers with no definition, but I was glad to see recently that Pottery Barn has come out with a more tailored slipcover that's not as expensive as the standard ones. They're still over $100, but I hope to be able to get one of those in a neutral maybe sometime this year. Then I can go crazy with my accent colors any time I want and look for inexpensive pillows, and decor on clearance and at yard sales, etc. That would be so much fun for me!

By the way, I bought this green & white tray and bowl at Target (on clearance) for a total price of $6. Cool thing is that I can use it for decor, and also for serving pieces.

I just used it last night, in fact. I'll be posting later about our get together with some old friends. Suffice it to say for now that there was much singing and music. There were 3 guitars, a banjo, a mandolin and harmonicas (all Terry's) until nearly 2 am! What a blast we all had! I love it when lifetime musicians get together and jam. You can just see the joy that comes thru in their hands and voices. This is what God created them to do and they are in "heaven"! Imagine what heaven will really be like with all those amazing musicians there! WOW!!! Can't wait.

Our house is almost finished being painted too! It turned out a little lighter than I expected but it's growing on me. We also repurposed an old french door to be a gate to our little atrium.

More to come on all this...

Have an AWESOME EASTER!!! Filled with the love of family and friends and the joy that comes from knowing that God loves you more than life itself! Ponder for a few minutes how that can even be possible...because it is!

A Fresh Coat of Paint for the Old Lady
Our house has really needed a paint job since we moved in several years ago. We even had other colors picked out and got a few estimates last year, but for some reason never got it done. I don't even remember why.

Last year I had chosen a light tan with off white trim and a touch of a deep steely blue, but during the time between then and now I've just grown sick of beige. I will say that 9 out of 10 houses on our street and probably in our neighborhood (really, in all of Phoenix) are some shade of beige or tan. We live in the desert after all, so I guess it's understandable.

Right now the house is beige as you can see, with a faded out, peeling mauve trim. Lovely, right? It may be lovely on some houses, but not ours. The photo above was taken last year at the peak of our (African daisy) wildflowers that pop up every spring. We had less this year and they have already died so the yard is full of brown dead plants about ankle deep. We are in desperate need of a face lift!

So, because I LOVE color and get bored easily (with beige) , we're going with this color scheme. It was really the photo next to it that caught my attention. Even though you don't see any of the "Sea Fern" green and very little of the "Pale Sagebrush" in the photo, I love the look of the green plants against the white trim and pale green walls. I'm hoping that it will enhance the small amounts of green that we'll have in our front yard in the desert landscaping (when it's in). Plus I hope these will be nice cool colors to highlight any desert flowers that bloom.

The dark green will only be around the front door, on the plant shelves under the front windows and MAYBE on the corbels that stick out up at the roof line. Our painter suggested the corbels, but we're going to try one first and see how it looks. Eventually, I'd like to get some shutters for the front windows, but that will wait for another time.

Fortunately, we're on track to have the job started this week and not a day too soon. They start with prep on Monday and I am so excited! Not sure how long it will take, but looking forward to the finished product. I'll take a pic when it's done, as long as the lack of landscaping isn't too distracting.

Landscaping (front yard only for now) is next on the list and we're hoping to get it done before it gets too hot. I hope to get some estimates while the painting is being done so they can start right away when it's finished...we'll see. So if you know of any good & reasonably priced landscapers, please let me know. We need a little help with design, although I have lots of ideas. I'm just not sure what will work and what won't. I love the process though!

So, next time you see the house it will be a cool shade of green. Can't wait!

Happy 27th birthday - Amy Teegan Schubert!!

Amy, I know that you're leaving on your birthday to travel to London, so I decided to post this a day early so that you could see it before you go.

I'm so excited for the new adventures that you get to experience this year. London and Italy in the same year. Wow! I'm jealous, but can't wait to hear the stories and see the pictures.

But today our focus is you and the special woman that you are.

On the day you were born (two weeks after your due date), I got just a quick glimpse of you, then Dad was led into the nursery to watch the nurses clean you up and check your stats. For some reason you didn't look anything like l expected, but since Dad was with you, I knew you were ours. I remember that beautiful round little face. You were perfect in every way. 8 lbs, 8.5 oz and 20 1/2 inches long. Always a quiet and happy baby that slept a lot and was easy to care for. You made my transition into motherhood very easy. I took you everywhere and you were content wherever you were.
Originally I was concerned with having a girl first, because I thought Dad would be afraid to interact with you. But actually (as God knew) it worked just the opposite way. It was love at first sight! Since you were his only child (at the time), he learned to care for you, play with you and enjoy you splendidly. There were times when he was better at putting you to bed than I was, because I was working in the evenings (as a waitress at Coco's) and he was home with you more at that time of day. You were Daddy's girl and you have always had him wrapped around your little finger.

Of course, being the first grandchild on Dad's side and the first girl born to his family in 3 generations, you were quite the center of attention. Your 4 grandparents and dozen or so aunts and uncles couldn't wait to play with you!

I included the picture of you, Kevin and Uncle Ted to give an idea of how excited Ted & Kristi were when you were born. They used to bring me pickles and ice cream every week while I was pregnant with you. They were your biggest fans and your chief babysitters and have some great stories to tell. We loved having them nearby and I'm so glad that they live so close to you now so you can still spend time together.

In looking thru some of our old pictures, I had a hard time choosing just a few to post. There are so many that bring a smile to my face. These are just a few that are windows into your personality.

Everyone who knows you knows that you have ALWAYS loved to read! I know I have a picture of you in diapers looking at a book, but we'll just have to post this one from a few years ago. It's a good thing your grandmother worked for a bookstore.

I love that you are creative. Someday I'll have to get out the drawings you did in your early childhood and post them. The amount of beauty & detail was amazing! Now you use that same creativity in your photography and it shows. And look at the concentration you had hanging tinsel on the tree, just like Grandma Irish taught you...one piece at a time.

While you were somewhat cautious, you still loved to try new things and were never afraid to pursue a new adventure...like sledding without a sled!

You have always been independent. When I saw what you were wearing in some of these photos, I wondered why I had dressed you that way. But then I realized that from a VERY young age, you wanted to choose your own clothes and I let you, so I can't take the "credit" for those lovely outfits. The good news is that you don't feel the need to follow the crowd in anything. You take the time to think things thru and make decisions on your own and don't worry about what others think about your choices.

I am still in awe the way God blessed you in singing and acting. Those are things that I love to watch and you do them so well. Thanks for those years of using those gifts to bring joy to others. I hope someday you share them again.
I love the way you love children and animals too. I know that someday you'll be an amazing mom.

I am so proud of the way that you look straight to the heart and choose your friends wisely.

In that same way, you fell in love with Andrew. You knew that he had a heart full of love and kindness. Who else would make a scrapbook page for your proposal! Dad and I are so glad you two are together forever.

God has filled you with beauty and gifted you in so many ways. I truly believe that with the Lord's guidance, you can do anything that you dream of doing and I look forward to seeing where He leads you.

Have an absolutely fantastic birthday my precious daughter, and a year filled with the joy and love of your family and friends.

Shredder's Latest Antics

We've been trying to figure out what's up with Shredder. She's been doing all kinds of things that we haven't seen her do before. Maybe she's becoming senile or maybe she's just being more adventurous in her old age.

I caught her on the kitchen counter in the middle of the night even when I was sitting in the same room. She's also been climbing up on the bathroom counter. No idea why!

We've seen her fairly regularly drinking out of the swimming pool. Fortunately it's a salt water pool so the chlorine's not quite as strong as in other pools. I hope she doesn't fall in.

And she's been sitting on Terry's lap more, even though he says he doesn't like it.

Crazy cat!

Hand in Hand beginnings...

My friend Barb has recently created a group on Facebook for those who were involved or interested in the Christian ministry called Hand in Hand from back in the 70's and 80's. She asked those that were involved there to post a bit about their story and I decided to write mine.

Unfortunately, FB doesn't have the capacity to post this much info at once so I decided to do it here then just link to it from FB. If you have an interest and some time, go and look at some of the old photos from those hippie days. They are quite entertaining.

Hmmm...where do I start? My family moved to Phoenix from a little town in Ohio just a few short weeks before I turned 16. That would have been around June of 1974. After I was here a few months, I learned about Hand in Hand from a connection I had in Ohio that published a “Jesus Freak” Newspaper. The guy's name was Craig Yoe (Google him sometime-he's a crazy man even now). I had been going to a west Phoenix Assembly of God church and wasn't thrilled with the youth group. They were all very lukewarm for Christ, having been raised in the church (not that it’s always the case). I had only been a Christian for a year, so this was NOT the place for me. Once I started coming to Hand in Hand I felt like I was home. I was thrilled to also find out that there was a church meeting there on Sunday mornings that I could attend. So sometime in the fall, I started going to Open Door and getting to know the gang.

I was one of the few single girls in the group of “regulars” and once I settled in, I became the resident kid sister to all the guys. They all seemed to be comfortable telling me about their girl problems. (What was I, chopped liver?) Really it was great. I developed some very precious friendships during that time that I still enjoy today.

Sometime in the next year or so, I really don’t remember when, Bernie decided that he wanted to start a folk band and he asked me to be a vocalist. Shira consisted of Sharon (Chesnut) Haugen (vocals), Jay Haugen (vocals & guitar), Lee Chesnut (vocals & guitar), John McDonald (vocal & drums), Apryl (Mott) Ballard (vocals), Dan Malmgren (banjo) and me (vocals).

Most of the members had a lot more musical training than I did, but I loved to sing. Problem was that I sang all the time in my car with no music, so when the notes in the song were out of my range, I’d just change the key that I was singing in, and never even realized it. I also never learned how to find a harmony in a song except in choir when there was always a group around me that I could listen to. So I’m sure that my contribution to the group was quite challenging for Bernie. I loved the experience though and am so thankful to Bernie for taking the time to work with those of us who were novices. What a patient saint he was!

God, of course, thru Hand in Hand was also key in me marrying my husband, Terry (the one with the blond hair & beard in the photo). I won’t go into the whole story, but suffice it to say that I was in a season of life when I was trying to “keep busy”. Because of that, Bernie invited me to come down and hang out at the HiH building to watch a new band practice. They were brand new and mostly a bunch of guys that I didn’t really know that well. Toni (Skiles) Brunner and I would go down and make coffee for the guys during practice and just enjoy Glory Road’s music. As you’ve probably guessed, Terry was one of those guys. Our friendship started there and was deepened in the times that I gave him rides home from practice. He didn’t have a license at the time (long story) and I lived closest to him, so I’d give him a ride home and we’d sit out in front of his apartment (that he shared with Dennis Martin) and just talk about all kinds of things…including other girls that liked him, for hours and hours. Long story short, that friendship turned into romance and here we are still together 31 years later. He’s still playing beautiful music and I’m still making coffee for him.

O.k. sometimes he makes his own coffee. It is the 21^st century after all.

Chris & Christina's Wedding Shower
Last Saturday we helped with a wedding shower for Chris and his fiance, Christina. Chris is the son of two of our favorite friends and we have known him since he was born. It's been so much fun watching the kids that we've known since birth grow up to be amazing adults. It's exciting to see them take steps like going to college, joining the workforce, searching for their path in life, traveling, falling in love, getting married and even beginning to have families of their own. It's always a blessing to see where the Lord is leading them in these early days of their adult lives.

Jay and Sharon hosted the shower at their beautiful home for some of our closest friends, and a few Thrush family members. It's interesting that this group of our closest friends all met around the same age that our kids are now (or even younger). We cherish these friendships that are taking us thru all seasons of life. It's amazing that we've all known each other for nearly 30 years. Wow!

It was a beautiful spring evening here in Arizona. Perfect weather! Jay served 3 of his homemade salsas with chips, grilled up some delicious chicken and we enjoyed lots of other salads, sides, homemade rolls & brownies and other goodies as well.

We got to watch them open some gifts, then loved listening to them share how they met and fell in love. What a beautiful story!

Here are a few of my favorite photos from the evening. If you want to see more, you can watch the slideshow here.

Worship Team Breakfast
Saturday morning Terry and I went to a worship team breakfast meeting and I decided to take a few pictures just for historical purposes.

The worship team at Open Door Fellowship is a wonderful bunch. There are musicians, vocalists, sound technicians, A/V technicians (that set up & run the slides for the worship songs) and others.
This morning was a low-key meeting and a great breakfast. Lori is working on helping Randy with the logistics on Sunday mornings to try to free him up from the details. Her husband, EJ generously agreed to make us all fresh waffles that morning as well as sausage, OJ, coffee, etc. What a prince!

Randy & Lori led the meeting. We are so blessed to have someone like Randy who works so diligently to coordinate all the details of every Sunday morning...beginning with choosing musicians, selecting songs, then music and tech rehearsals on Wednesday nights all the way to praying, leading, singing, playing and troubleshooting everything that goes on for 3 services on Sunday.

What an amazing man! And right now, that's just a small part of his weekly responsibilities. I'm not sure how he does it all, but I'm thankful that God has given him the strength to do it. I pray that he'll be able to continue to focus on the things that God has so wonderfully gifted him in and find help and support for the things that are a drain on him.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! See below...

This was our dinner tonight. The traditional corned beef and cabbage. One of the easiest meals on the planet. Throw it all in a crockpot (except the cabbage). Add a few bay leaves, cover it with water and let it cook on low all day. Throw in the cabbage for the last 20 minutes or so, then serve it up. Easy and oh so tasty too.

So, I'm bummed that when I wrote my St. Paddy's Day post and tried to save it for a future date 3/17, it actually posted on the day I wrote it.

If you haven't seen it, please click here and you'll find it. Sorry about that. Hope you had a wonderful day!

The luck o' the Irish to ye! (although I really don't believe in luck)

Reminiscing...
If you have some time to kill, visit the Facebook Group called Hand in Hand (Phoenix, AZ). It's a collection of friends that experienced the old days of the Hand in Hand Christan evangelistic ministry in the late 70's. Terry and I were both in bands back then. There are some pretty funny pics there.

Our friend, Bernie Rolfe has also created a website with lots of history and even quite a few recordings from that season of life. There are photos there too.

Terry's band was Glory Road, and the band I was in was called Shira.

Enjoy!

Valentine Branch
I'm finally getting around to posting pics of my branch decorated for Valentine's Day.

I added a metallic heart garland this year and I left up many of the snowflake decorations that were up there for the winter holiday season, since February is a snowy month in most parts of the world.

I must say that the Valentine decorations are one of the sets that go best with the red sofa and other red accents in the room.

My pastel Easter Egg decorations are up now and I'm not sure what I'll do after that...

Any ideas?

If you haven't visited recently, be sure to scroll down and see the last post of Coffee Cup History below.

Coffee Cup History - Continued...

I'm sure this coffee cup will be familiar to you. It's from "Friends", the TV Show.

I bought this cup at NBC studios when I had a chance to go to a taping of the show with one of my own friends (Kathy Oatey). We were there in one of it's last seasons in production. It was a special privilege to see the cast and their relationships with each other in real life while on the set. There were many laughs and a long night of taping, but I'm happy that I had the chance to witness that little bit of history.

Honorary Irish - Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As mentioned in my profile, I have Irish blood, but probably not too much of it. I am told that I'm English, Irish, Dutch, French, German, Indian and Italian. I don't remember much of the specifics about my heritage except that one of my great, great, great grandmothers was full blooded Ohio Indian. Really! I have some other documentation somewhere about the Perkins side, but know very little about my mom's side (Crider). You see, my mom's birth mother was an orphan and I seem to recall that at some point the orphanage burned down and all the records with it. Also in those days it was very difficult to track down heritage when you didn't know your direct relatives.

Anyway, I consider myself to be honorary Irish. We have lots of red heads in my birth family on both sides and I always wanted to have a red headed child because they are so unique and beautiful. Both Amy and Kevin ARE unique and beautiful and when either of them have colored their hair in some shade of red, it looks wonderful with their complexion! (a hint at their Irish heritage, I suppose.) Also, Kevin can pull off a very convincing Irish brogue when he wants to. (It's in the genes.)

Terry has quite a bit of Irish blood (as well as had red in his beard before it turned gray - which is a sure sign). His mother's maiden name was Manion and has direct relatives from Ireland. Rumor has it, they're related to an Irish Statesman.

Did you ever hear of the miniseries in the early 80's, "The Manions of America"? That was probably their family, although I seem to remember the show being a bit racy and his family was filled with good Irish Catholics with lots of children, that I'm sure led spotless lives. I don't remember watching the miniseries due to some scheduling conflict (since we didn't have TiVo or Netflix at the time) but when I just looked it up, I discovered that Pierce Brosnan (now there's an Irishman!) was in it (well before he was famous in the U.S., I think). I checked to see if Netflix carries the miniseries, but it's not there. Maybe we should campaign to get it on there.

Terry's Mom and her 3 sisters have even traveled to Ireland to find the remains of the "Manion Castle"...which is clearly no more than a small pile of rocks. Ireland is probably at the top of the list of places that Terry and I want to go someday (soon I hope). It just seems so magical, green and lovely.

I also recently found out that our good friends, Randy and Linda will be visiting Ireland as part of their trip to England to see their daughter, Miranda who's in college over there for a semester. Needless to say, I'm so excited for them all and can't wait to hear the stories and see the photos that they bring home. Hopefully it will give us a few more folks to get tips from when we go over there ourselves.

Oh, one other little St. Patrick's Day tidbit. The pastor at our last church was from Ireland and according to him, over there the holiday isn't nearly as popular as it is here. Americans just like an excuse to get drunk, I think.

I hope you all have a tip top St. Paddy's Day...and the luck o' the Irish to ye!

Spring Flowers

This spring we were blessed with a new surprise. Along with the gorgeous orange African Daisies that cover the front yard for a month or so every year, God has added to our front yard garden these lovely purple spires, which I believe are Desert Lupine.

If you look closely at the base of them, you'll also see a dainty little blue flower peeking out as well.

What a wonderful gift that we look forward to each new year.

I only hope that we can recreate this after our new landscaping is finished. Good news is that I save some seeds from last year and will gather more of the Lupines hopefully this season.