taking one for the team.....

austen had his last baseball tournament last weekend.  it marked the end of his season this summer....

but he will be remembering one of his games for at least a couple of more weeks.

for sure....

 he was hit by a pitch in one of the last games.  those little squirts can really throw the ball hard.
we love that it is the perfect ball shape.

i'm not sure if the red zig zag is from the stitching on the ball  

or

maybe a little harry potter action...

hmmm, i don't remember voldemort being there...

and yeah, he's going to kill me for posting a picture of him in his boxers.....but, he is going to be graduating high school in 4 years and i need pictures for his grad party slideshow.
shhhh!

the lovely days of summer.....

since the weather around here has become a bit more temperate, it is starting to feel like a real summer.  

this has to have been one of the most unusual years for weather in our little corner of michigan.

winter was unusually snowy, probably the most snow i remember since i was a kid.

spring was unusually cold and wet and we were left feeling like it would never get warm....it was kind of like the dementors had invaded our city.  

summer came and we went from cold and wet to hot and humid.  i think the weatherman said that our area had seen more days in july over the 90 degree mark than below it...and my electric bill confirms that fact. totally not normal for southeast michigan.

last week, after not having had rain for about a month except for a little rain shower twice, we had 

a storm that dumped  6-7 inches of rain in one night, caused a power outage and flooded our basement.

fortunately, we don't have a finished basement.  we use it for storage and since we had had a flood when our house was 4 years old and the 4 year old sump pump broke, we got smart and put most of our stored things in plastic bins and up on shelving. 

we only had carpet in a small are of the basement where don has his exercise equipment.  

 there is still a bit of organizing to redo since we tried to get some of the stuff up off of the floor in a hurry.

 our poor neighbors weren't as lucky.  they had a finished basement and their back up battery powered sump pump (that they installed in the event of a power outage) failed as well.  there was just too much water.  too fast.

our neighbor curtis came over to the house on thursday morning and told us to check our basement for flooding because theirs had flooded.  when i went to their house a few minutes later, they and their kids were bailing water out of the basement egress window.  what a mess.  i was too overwhelmed to take any pictures of this debacle while it was happening, but lets just say it sucked!  

today, things are back to normal for the most part.  

austen is done with this:

(ooh, just look at that face, that determination)

(good form)

  and they got second place in last weekend's tournament.

it was a fun season, they lost more games than they won but the boys were great.  i was a great baseball mom and never missed a game and i will miss the other moms and dads.  

football starts soon though, so i will be just as busy with that, i'm sure!

for right now, i am going to happily live what is left of summer and enjoy the little things....

i think they peeked into my kitchen......

to get their inspiration from my current makeover.  

i say current 

because my brother-in-law is convinced 

that we are losing square footage in our house because of all of the painting 

we have done in the 11 years we have lived here.

i got this

 in the mail the other day.  it was in with a request for a subscription 

for house beautiful magazine.  those colors look very familiar... 

 this is the new flooring we are putting down in the kitchen.  soon.  you hear that don?  soon!!

here is the backsplash tile...

this is the dresser i just painted for the kitchen and the blue mason jars that i love.

the walls are a light grey

the cabinets are in the process of being repainted creamy white for the top 

and medium grey for the bottom

the kitchen table and chairs

the new rug....

great minds think alike....  ;D

progress....

remember this dresser?

a craigslist find from a few months back.

it came with this mirror

 and, be still my heart, these handles....

why doesn't anyone reproduce these handles?  they are gorgeous, don't you think?

i would have bought the dresser just for this hardware.  

anyway...$40.00 for the dresser and mirror....

and those beautiful handles.....

since i am lightening up my kitchen, i thought this would be a great piece to replace the black console table that was in there before. 

so i brought it in so see if it fit in the space.  it fit perfectly

so i started painting it.

 rather than painting the whole thing the same color, i opted for a white top and colored bottom. 

i used the annie sloan chalk paint in old white for the top and 

duck egg mixed with the old white and louis blue for the base.

 the detail was much prettier painted than it was in the less than attractive white with gold overspray....

the detail on the drawers is pretty too.  

but then disaster struck....

i tipped the dresser forward to touch up the paint on one of the back legs and all of the drawers slid out and landed on the floor.  

this was the result..

 crap!!!!

 oh well, nothing that i couldn't fix with a little carpenters glue 

 and a clamp....

good as new!!  

i sanded to distress around the carved detail and the edges;

i didn't paint the hardware.  i love how it pops against the color and brings down the white top.

i know that the handles are on differently, i wasn't sure how i wanted them to go.  i will stick with the way they are on the left side.

i painted the market fresh sign onto a broken dresser drawer front

that i pulled out of someone's trash.  its the one in the back that says "pants".

i painted it and stenciled the letters on.  i love the way it looks.

this dressser helps also, to lighten up the kitchen a little more. and it adds 6 drawers of storage.

and who doesn't need more storage in the kitchen, right?

what do you think?

oh, and i got this rug at ikea for $19.99.  i got it mostly to cover up the paint marks on the floor under the table. 

 when don painted the base of the table for me, (he was bored when i was out one day) he didn't use a drop cloth....(yes, that is the drop cloth right next to the table) but we are replacing the flooring anyway.

i will be painting the mirror that goes with it too and replacing the black one there.  i am just trying to decide if i want to paint it old white like the top of the dresser or duck egg like the base.  any suggestions?

i am also linking up to robyn's blog for the mountain of giveaway for annie sloan chalk paint.  i could sure use some more and if i don't have to pay for it, that would rock!!!

i'm a hottie.....

as i'm sure, is everyone else in the country this past week....

the temps have been dreadful for about 10 days.

high 90's and last thursday we hit 99 degrees.  the heat index was 110 degrees...

it hasn't gotten much better in the last few days.  it is almost too hot to do anything.  i have been taking my morning walk between 6:30 and 7:00 am and i come home in a dripping sweat.  and the dog starts tugging at the leash to go home after the first lap around the subdivision,

even though he knows we always go 3-4 laps....

he plops down on the kitchen floor when we get into the house and tries to flatten himself to get every square inch of his body onto the cool floor.

I have been very grateful this past week for: 

central air-conditioning

the neighbor's pool

air conditioning in my car

electricity to run the air conditioning

shade

air conditioning

the chance to see this

and this

during austen's baseball tournament in grand haven, michigan....an adorable little lakeside town on the west side of the state where we had the opportunity to spend last weekend.  

poor austen baked in the sun during his games

which were played in a school yard surrounded by a parking lot, a street and fortunately for me,

some trees right next to the field which kept us nicely shaded and cooled.  

they (the team) didn't do too well, only winning one game out of four but we had a really fun weekend with breakfast out at a great little restaurant in town, a great hotel with a pool, a team picnic with food that we all brought and great company with the other baseball moms and dads. 

the night before we came home, we headed to the beach and pier for some sightseeing and an ice cream cone....

i only got a few pictures of the pier but i loved this one of austen who is getting tall enough to block dad's face.  

and this one of both of my guys

and austen got this one of us

as we were leaving the pier to go back to the hotel.   

it has been too hot to do any painting lately, i just don't have the motivation or desire to fight the heat. 

i did finish up this cute little table before i left though...

painted in a striped beachy style.....

and i am getting ready to let this one go.....

a sweet little craigslist find for $20,
repainted and dressed with a paint drop cloth.

 it started out looking like this

and i will be sad to see her go......