If You Love Beautiful Art......

Foxgloves

My cousin, William F. Reese, is a masterful and well-known artist who lives, paints and owns a gallery and teaches art classes in Washington State. After 13 years he has completed his new book. Included here is a sampling of his work. I hope you enjoy it and visit his website. With 78 full color plates this book is a real value. Here is an excerpt from the brochure I received (I have added in the art work for you to see.)

“The Painter’s Process” by William F. Reese, forward by Mary N. Balcomb. This book covers Reese’s philosophy and his own discussion of the process of painting. Reese explains his own approach to such subjects as color, composition, edges, and infinity as it relates to perspective among many other topics. Plus a Q and A section with subjects put forth by others.





8”x10” 157 pages 78 full color plates
Hardcover $80 SoftCover $60 plus state sales tax in
Washington and $5 shipping in USA
Blueraven Publishing 509 884 9246


www.williamfreese.com
wmfreese@charter.net

If you stop by Bill's website tell him his cousin sent you! Thanks and enjoy!

Guest Room Amenities

Photo by Audrey Hall

There are many ways to make your guest room special. Not only should the room be beautiful but adding elements to offer your guests the ultimate in comfort is essential. The guest room in your home is truly the place where little things mean a lot.

When guests come for a visit they are usually just happy to spend time with you and to have a warm bed to sleep in for the night. With a little thought and preparation you can turn an ordinary night into an extraordinary experience for them.

Your guest room should always have an alarm clock, extra blankets and pillows and a night light. Not only should it be sparkling clean but fresh flowers and anything you can add to increase their comfort is great. Crisp fresh linens, plush over-sized towels and fragrant soaps are always a welcoming luxury. How about having some current magazines and best sellers and a comfy throw on the bed for an afternoon rest. In your guest bath a basket with essential toiletries is great in case they have forgotten something.

I like to have some postcards of our area, some stamps and a nice pen for them on the writing table and a local map and guide book for their use. I also leave out our guest book so they can write a little memory of their time with us.

When we visit our daughter's home she always leaves some special treats for us like chocolate, nuts, some nice crackers or fruit and some bottled water. Some pretty glasses can be a nice touch too. All these things can turn a nice visit into an extraordinary experience. Remember what they say though..don't make it so wonderful that they never want to leave! But do make it an experience they will never forget!

Preventing and Postponing Procrastination

Over the years I have noticed that people seems to accumulate so much stuff that when moving time comes they are beyond overwhelmed. I have often thought about the many years we have lived in our home and how when the time come to move I want to be ready. So I am constantly weeding out and donating things we no longer find useful, beautiful, etc.

Recently I entered a home that was out of control in this department and it reminded me once again to spend more time each day just reordering my home. Often times we will look at something like a pantry or closet or something that needs doing and actually spend more time putting it off than it would require to just jump in and do it. So yesterday I reorganized my pantry and my bathroom closet. It took some time but not nearly as much as I had envisioned. It was such a freeing experience.

Now I know exactly where all my grocery items are and what I actually have to work with in preparing meals. This will save me time and money and also free up my to do list and fretting about it.

My husband and business partner, Jim, has a saying that I think applies to having certain lifestyles. He says, "Be careful what you get use to." This applies to so many aspects of our lives, but for our purposes here it is so easy to just overlook the clutter and disarray and then get use to it. In that getting accustomed to something, we often do not realize how much it slows us down and interrupts our accomplishments, saps our energy, etc. I have found that once something is in order, it is easier to maintain it than to spend time tripping over or looking for your stuff.

For most of us ordering our lives is a daunting task. For my clients I recommend a few things. You have to sort through your things one by one and make a decision. Keep it, toss it, or donate it. It is a long process for most of us and you cannot "eat the elephant in one bite."

Try to stay focused on one room at a time, or one closet, one drawer, etc. Set your kitchen timer and clean out a silverware drawer in 15 minutes. Flitting from room to room or project to project can be counter productive and frustrating.


I like to keep similar things together like brushes and combs, hair equipment, make-up, etc. The little bins just keep it from all running together and gives us a place to return the item to after using it.

One or two projects at a time is enough. Find some containers to group items according to their use. Yesterday I went through our over the counter meds and organized them all into kits by putting them in plastic bags. All the cold meds in one bag, all the flu meds together, etc. It is much better than rummaging though all these half used boxes and bottles of stuff when you are sick. Now we can just pull out the plastic bin and get what we need without disturbing every things else.

Organization is maintenance once you get to a point of being on top of things. I know we have heard this before but the goal should be to 'have a place for everything and everything in its place.' Honestly, it makes such a difference in what else you will accomplish each day. The important thing is just get started with some aspect of it and once you feel the difference you will be motivated to continue. Every woman, no matter what stage of life she is in, is busy. That is just part of the culture we live in these days. Rarely do we have huge amounts of uninterrupted time. We have to learn to seize the moment and do things bit by bit.

I didn't take any before photos as I had no idea these projects would become a post until this morning. But I do have the photos of the results from this morning. I feel a sense of accomplishment just looking at the pictures! Little things can make a big difference in how you feel. Again, your environment sets the tone and mood for everything else. Feeling good, decluttering and accomplishing more by working smarter ~ is the goal.

It is hard to clear out many years of accumulated junk when it is time to redesign or to relocate. Also all the clutter makes cleaning so much harder. One day at a time is a good motto. Make it a way of life.

Then you will have time to do the fun things..for me, I love watching movies. Jim built this 'just the right size' shelf and I organized all of our DVD & videos alphabetically for easy access and more time to relax and kick back at the end of a busy day.

This is a quote from the book, Eat, Pray, Love that I really like.

"The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement."

For me, what that means is that the end result of your hard work is having some leisure time to just relax and do nothing. And to that I would also add, in a lovely and peaceful environment.

Enjoy the view!

Remember Show and Tell?

There is a blog I really enjoy written by Kelli and I think you would too! Each Friday she hosts a Show and Tell blog party. People are sharing their treasures over there today and it is really fun.

Most times Kelli is sharing her paper crafts and her home all all things domestic. She is really neat, I like her! I just love meeting new people on the blogs. Very fun stuff.

20 Little Things To Love About Christmas

Whoops!

Melissa, over at the Inspired Room is doing a List Party. Just write your 20 favorite little things to treasure about Christmas, follow her instructions and post it. It is fun to see what other people love best about the holidaysand to recognize what brings us joy in this Season.

Washington's Beautiful Tree

1. Christmas Home Tours, both in person and in the Blogsphere
2. Watching the first Christmas Tree Lots go up and the fragrance of the trees
3. Keeping in touch with others and taking photos to preserve the magic moments
4. Finding just the right gift & especially while shopping with the girls!
5. Tire traction on non-icy roads, rails and runways
6. Christmas music & Christmas movies
7. Hearing the Salvation Army bells ringing outside the stores
8. Santa pictures of the kids and their letters to him
9. Candy canes, peppermint ice cream, and Christmas cookies
10. Outside Christmas Lights~From the ridiculous to the sublime
11. Shops featuring their Christmas Bling
12 Hot chocolate, ginger bread men, a warm fuzzy throw & The Preacher's Wife
13 Being with Family and Friends more than usual
14. Utah's white Christmas & wearing a warm neck scarf in the glistening snow
15. Glittery, glitzy Christmas decor & flocked Christmas trees
16. Stockings & stuffers & the excitement on the grandkids' faces
17. Christmas scented candle light & crackling fires
18. Any and all Christmas Trees
19. Memories~And Making Them
20. The Reason For The Season

I guess some of those things are not "little things," but I love them!

**Rethinking #18 after looking and voting at this site.

Hooked On Houses Blog Party

Hooked on Houses is having a blog party. Go on over and check it out. There you will have an opportunity to peek into some beautiful homes decorated for the holidays. And enter your own as well! I entered mine just for fun!

Your Christmas Table

It's Christmas!

Just about every year we have a Christmas Home Tour that includes our home. I love being able to participate in them because it challenges me to find new ways of using the same treasures I have had for years along with the things I pick up here and there each time I leave the house every year. I love collecting Christmas things and I hope that someday they will find a nice home with our children and grandchildren and that they will be cherished by them too. I don't have a ton of things to hand down to them but I do have Christmas~ in a big way! Jim can attest to that as he hauls down box after box! I have no secrets from him!

One of the first things I started my collection with was our silverware and Christmas dishes. When I went to work after Laura got into school, they were the very first things I bought. We had been having Christmas for several years at our home and I really longed for a table that was uniform and pretty with matching glassware, etc. (In those days the mix and match we do now was not chic it was just plain old hodgepodge). Prior to purchasing our tableware, it meant always using stuff I would scrounge by running around borrowing from the older relatives. So with my first few paychecks I bought these dishes and the silverware. The red "Depression Glass" (an oxymoron because they make me so happy) ruby glasses are a collection that took several years to find in my travels. I have always been in love with them!

It is such a pleasure to have enough
place settings for everyone.

I have our dining room table set with
them right now for the home tour.
I just love these dishes because they
hold memories of about
25 family Christmas dinners so far.

This is my centerpiece that came from an estate sale
and tomorrow I am going to fill it with ornaments.
I really need to spend all my time now working on
the menu for next Sunday, etc. but I'd rather
fool around with the centerpiece!
(Or be blogging!)

I had a whole box of ornaments I found after the
trees were done, so they can go right in here. You
usually see glass containers like this with just round ball
ornaments but it is fun to put all different shapes and sizes in too.

OK, Now I'm Ready!

The Finished Look
Can You Come to Dinner Next Sunday?

Jim and I love entertaining our extended family each year and creating an inviting place for them to relax and enjoy Christmas. What do you like to do around your Christmas table? There are about as many different beautiful possibilities as there are tables. Being creative about it is the fun part. And putting a bit of yourself into it! It doesn't have to be fancy, or elegant, or even matchy anymore~it just has to come from your creative gifts and your guests will leave with some happy thoughts about how they 'felt' in your home. Everything that you do creates a memory for someone. Isn't that an exciting thought?