The Love That Breaks a Heart

 

“If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. 

And it never faded, and it never got stale. 

And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.”  ~Daphne du Maurier

 

 

 

Days meld into evenings.

Snowy mornings fall into frigid nights.

Life moves, 

flows, 

pushes forward.

 

 I find myself moving with it ~

sometimes reluctantly.

Dragging my feet; reaching back.

Arms outstretched.

Wanting to stay in the moment

and not step into the next one.

I feel like with each passing day

more life is left behind.

I feel anxious and nervous about the future. 

 

I don't want to forget.

 

I am so afraid of forgetting.

Their voices. Their touch. Their smiles. Their laughter. Their tears...

 

Bloglandia hasn't seen much of Heaven's Walk these past months.

My heart still struggles with emptiness. 

My feeble attempt at putting words to paper fail miserably.

The void is tangible, presses down hard.

Depletes me.

 

I know deep inside that I continue to be blessed abundantly ~

with my loving husband, my Maizie Grace, family and friends. 

Living in this old farmhouse surrounded by woods and water, 

rooms warmed by a big furnace,

healthy food lining the pantry shelves,

beds piled with down comforters,

patchouli scented air...

 

all huge blessings that make me bow my head in gratitude.

 

 

 

God makes his presence known with peace and comfort.

I close my eyes and breathe him in deeply.

Praying.

But a part of me is missing.

Torn away.

Exposed.

Lost.

 Floundering.

Seemingly treading water;

pushing myself back up to the surface to gasp for breath.

Between chores...stolen gazes out the window....

purposefully remembering.

Knowing the pain will hit sharply

like a punch to the gut.

The moments come unexpectedly,

blindsiding me;

making my soul curl up in a fetal position.

I reach back in time and allow myself to sink into the memories.

Reliving the shock, painful decisions, and sadness.

Beating myself down with the "whys" and "what-ifs".

Not a place where I want to be, and I try to push away from it,

but it's a place I keep falling in to time and time again.

I touch my dad's lilac painting setting before me in my studio.

I pull his coat on over my shoulders to go shovel snow in our driveway.

I run my fingers across my mother's handwriting on a birthday card from years past,

and clasp her diamond necklace around my neck.

 So much has happened over the past eight months.

Eight months?  How could it be eight months?

To a broken heart,

it seems like yesterday.

The pain is still that big and encompassing.

It swallows me whole.

How long does a heart grieve? How long does the soul ache?

I want to go back in time...

 

I don't want to forget

but

I don't want the pain of remembering.

 

Yet still...

I want to remember.

Clinging.

Surrendering.

Responding to the tugs of divinity within.

 Healing through tears and sleepless nights.

 

The [Holy Spirit] knows the beat of your heart when you have forgotten how to be.

The [Holy Spirit] knows the lyrics of why you are loved - when you can’t remember quite how to live….

The [Holy Spirit] will sing your song - God’s song for you - when you have long forgotten the words to His Word – to yourself.  ~Ann Voskamp

 

The world around me seems loud, crude, and invasive.

I want to shut it out and escape.

 It doesn't understand.

I feel God hiding me in the shadow of his hand.  

Protecting.

Comforting.

Healing.

 

“God speaks in the language you know best - not through your ears, but through your circumstances.”  ~Oswald Chambers

 

"May our loves never leave us, at least not for long.
May our passions not be buried so deep by our pain and brokenness that they become impossible to recover.
May we know God and in turn, know ourselves." ~ author unknown

 

 

 

~  Eucharisteo  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar.

 

 

 

 

Faux Russian Folk Beds & Shabby Vignettes

The guest room has been sitting like this all summer long.

The twin bed mattress/box spring brought home from my parents' house 

jammed at the foot of the double bed between two large dressers.

The room pretty much unusable...except for The Husband's desperate attempt to wriggle around them to get to his underwear drawer (poor guy),

and me vaulting over them to put laundry away (Kodak moments).

I've been nudging (i.e. nagging) him to build me a couple of Russian folk beds for this room,

but time has been escaping us both with the holiday seasons.

It must have been the antibiotics/pain killers that I've been on for a tooth infection

(which is a whole 'nother story)

that finally motivated me to do something about this mess.

This room needed to breathe again.

So, using my super-human strength (once again most likely from the pain killers),

and with a bit of grunting and groaning, 

I hauled the double bed's ancient mattress and rusty box spring

down the stairs, through the French doors in the kitchen, 

across the back porch, and out to the fire pit.

By "ancient", I'm talking about some sort of coir-like material laid over the springs and wrapped with some sort of cotton batting.  

Not cute ancient....and just plain icky ancient.

The room now looked like this.

I have always loved the painted floors and woodwork in this room
because your eye, instead of being "stopped" by wood trim, goes through the windows and focuses on the beauty outside. It makes the space appear seamless.
I just may do it in the library room someday.

Anyway, I had visions of this...

my favorite Rachel Ashwell boho-inspired room

with simple Russian folk beds, a happy calamity of fabrics tossed next to each other,

and vintage Oushak rugs spread lazily across the floor.

In my mind, I just KNEW that I could squeeze that bed into the corner creating a cozy "L" shaped folk bed. 

One way or another.

(I possessed super-human strength, you know.)

I moved those mattresses around and around and around the room.

Each time getting stuck on the dressers.

I stood back and channeled the geometry I had learned in high school.

I measured and re-measured.

I pushed and squeezed and manipulated those mattresses to no end.

But it was not to be.

(Insert sad face here.)

The room was too small with the dressers in there,

and they had to stay.

 So....{sigh}...one folk bed would have to do.

After pushing and pulling and sliding the box spring up the attic stairs

(which was quite an Olympic event in itself),

I got to work on making the room pretty.

The base of the pallet bed is still on the docket to be built next month sometime,

(I asked for 2x4s for Christmas, believe it or not.)

so I just used a Hollywood bed frame for now and placed the mattress on that. 

I used my favorite RA 'Somerset' duvet and pillows and added in SSC 'Mon Ami', a vintage striped down filled pillow, and some white ruffles to the mix.

The room felt larger and more spacious and just plain cozy

(and I could still sleep in here if The Husband's snoring got too bad some nights -

 happily sprawled across all of those smooshy pillows).

In my foggy, pain-free state-of-mind,

  I was quite pleased at how it turned out.

I would still like to get my hands on some of that faded gray French ticking material 
that RA has on her folk beds in her boho-inspired room...if anyone knows of a source.

While I was experiencing happy delirium upstairs,

I peeked outside and saw that the turkey boys were in the back yard 

deliriously happy with finding my water garden.

I had been wondering why I was having to haul buckets upon buckets of water out there to top off the pond every week.

Now I knew.

Nothing better than happy turkeys slurping away in your back yard.

Back inside,

feeling so much better about the guest room

(and floating back up stairs just to look at it again and again),

I plunked my favorite 'Rosita vendela' roses into vases throughout the house...

...and captured some vignettes from around the house...

before promptly passing out on the love seat for a long nap.

If I don't see you before the blessed Christmastide,

I pray for you 

peace

joy

and

glorious love

that only comes 

from the One Above.

Merry Christmas Blessings

~  Eucharisteo  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar.

Boho-Funky Prairie Shutters

As early spring sunshine filtered through the studio window,

sitting amidst pretty roses and prairie curtains...

RA curtains in my studio. These are staying here.

I brainstormed.

I drew sketches.

I played with pieces of wood.

The Husband and I trekked to Home Depot and spent hours sorting through planks

and picking through hinges.

And then we started playing.

Imagining.

Visually laying out the plan.

Prairie shutters were on the docket for the day.

Another dream was coming to fruition,
and I could barely contain myself from doing the happy dance ~
while The Husband threw numerous raised eyebrows my way.

However, we had to finagle these shutters.

Get creative.
Really creative.

Since our sofa backs up against one window and the chaise arm is close to the other window,

we had to rethink having full planks

because we wouldn't be able to open them all the way.

Bummer.

So I decided to design a 3/4 over 1/4 shutter for these windows. 

Something different.

Something a little funky bohemian.

Something that could be opened up behind the furniture.

The top double 3/4 length planks would move as one piece.

The bottom tri-fold planks would fold in together to clear the furniture

and then could be folded out again to lay flat against the wall. 

I stained them with Minwax 'Early American' first

followed by a light coat of homemade chalk paint in the same creamy white shade I've used throughout the house.

Of course, I didn't have any of my favorite 'prairie pink' paint that I used on the kitchen and bathroom shutters (that you can see here and here and here).
So, I pulled on my creativity cap and mixed and stirred and mixed and stirred
like a mad scientist.
Adding a little brown, a little black, and a little white to a base of bright pink "oops" paint that I nabbed at The ReStore last month for $10.

(I never said I was a neat painter, you know....)

The soft lilac-pink shade that I was waiting for gradually appeared,
(in the bottom can above)
and I swished it haphazardly all over the shutters.

At one point, I thought I was finished with painting them and was ready to move into distressing mode.
But just to be on the safe side, I thought I'd haul one inside to see if it was "pink" enough for me.

Nope.
Not by a long shot.

I lugged it back outside to the work room,
and as I retrieved my pink-covered paint brush,
I mentioned to The Husband,
"They aren't pink enough.  Gotta add more."

The Husband:  "I kinda thought that myself."

Wow.
Thank you, Lord, for a husband who doesn't mind pink!

Palm-sanding and random distressing revealed a vintage look,
followed by a waxing and buffing of clear Annie Sloan Wax to seal it.
I let them set overnight.

After church service on Sunday morning, we had a very quick lunch
(because I was so anxious to get these beauties up).
I don't think I've eaten a piece of left over seafood pizza so fast in my life.

While refraining once again from doing the happy dance,
we used t-strap hinges that I had painted with Rustoleum spray Chalkpaint
to attach them to the wide vintage oak trim that surround our windows.

We installed the bottom shutters first,
and my toes began to tap....

and then we tackled the top set.
My legs were now twitching to the music in my head.

You can see how the top shutters can swing open freely,
while the bottom sections tri-fold in on each other
clearing the arm of the chaise.

They kind of remind me of a little picket fence.  :)

Ok, I can't stand it any longer.
I'll take a moment to do the happy dance
while you take a look at our work.

{Cue happy feet!}

Thinking of moving the RA banner to the other side of the sofa by the lamp.  Thoughts...?

A peek through the shutters at the springtime decor on the front porch.
(The snow is just about gone now, thank goodness.)

The large tri-fold door filled with rose prints that stood in the corner behind the table the alabaster lamp is on was finally moved and stored in the attic for now.
The absence of it made the entire room feel larger.

I wanted the prairie shutters to take center stage now.

And even though the grocery store brand sheer drapes that hung on the windows previously weren't heavy or stifling by any means,
without them, the room felt lighter.

The shutters will provide privacy at night,
and are the perfect shabby prairie chic way to keep out the cold winter winds
and hot summer sun.

I love the clean, airy, prairie look they lend to the living room.
There's just something homey and comforting about opening them each morning
and closing them up at night.

The Husband:  "You know...they're even cool when they're not closed all the way."
Me:  "Really.  Who are you and what did you do with my husband...?"

A little pink.
A little boho.
A little funky.

A lot prairie.

And Husband Approved, too.



~  Eucharisteo  ~

[Thank you, Tausha, for your barn-room inspiration for these shutters!]


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Gathering Roses

'Somerset'.

I fell in love with this fabric a long time ago and purchased a chair slip in it for the kitchen.

I just HAD to have some of that gorgeous color in this old house.

My head and heart were telling me so.

When I saw that my friend, Tausha, had purchased a duvet cover and pillow sham 

and had casually thrown it over her sofa bed...

the pink roses tumbling over the overdyed purple-denim background

draping onto the floor...

I swooned.

I groaned.

I whined.

I wanted it.

My head and heart were in total agreement.

So I took some of my hard earned money that was being saved for something really really special

and bought some fabric.

I flew over to my oh-so-talented friend, Randi's house and begged her to stitch up a king-size fitted sheet 

to cover the cushions in the living room.

You see, a duvet cover was permanently affixed in my mind.

But the more I thought about it, 

the more I realized that I wanted to be able to look at this gorgeous fabric all the time,

not just at night when I climbed into bed.

I wanted to walk past the living room and see those faded roses strewn across the sofa.

I wanted to see that deep, rich, cozy overdyed purple-denim shade warming the room.

I wanted to sprawl across it while watching television.

I wanted to lay my head in the middle of it.

Yes...I'm quite obsessed like that.

A king sized fitted sheet works perfectly as a cushion cover on this old sofa.

I usually have a 'Mon Ami' sheet tucked on it which is just perfect for spring and summer.

But 'Somerset', with her rich, warm shades is dreamy for winter.

Sweet Randi worked diligently at getting the project completed in just a few days.

She knew I was chomping at the bit to feel that luscious fabric in my hands again.

I tucked it in and smoothed it out.

I squashed down-filled pillows into the shams.

I threw pillows here and there around the room waiting for the perfect combination to appear.

And all the while....

my head was singing

and my heart was sighing.

As I stood back with a smile on my face and started taking photos of my now warm and cozy room,

my head started talking with my heart again.

Yeah.

They chat quite frequently.

It's where many of my ideas come from.

The ideas that make my husband raise his eyebrows in wariness

and squint his eyes in despair.

Head:  You need prairie shutters in here.

Heart:  Oh! I agree!

Head:  You need to ask hubby about getting it done as soon as possible.

Heart:  Oh!  I agree!

Head:  You're going to Home Depot next week to pick up replacement windows for the attic.

You could get the wood then.

Heart:  Oh!  Great idea!  I agree!

I can really get myself in trouble listening to them, you know...?

{That happens quite frequently, too.}

I see more prairie shutters as another texture in here.

Earthy, rustic statement pieces.

A beautiful backdrop for 'Somerset'.

Head:  Oh...by the way....you need to ask hubby about hanging that chandy from the medallion in here, too.

Heart:  Oh! I agree!

My husband hasn't a clue that I have these conversations with myself while decorating.

Poor guy....

In the meantime,

you can find me gathering overdyed roses in my living room,

and trying to quiet the little voices in my head...

~  Eucharisteo  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar.