my dressing table....

Sometimes I just like to look at the things I have been given and think how lucky I am to have such amazing friends who give me gorgeous bits and pieces..............


My darling vinatge style hanging photo tree with pictures of all 5 of us in and my gorgeous mannequin tree and perfume bottle......


I love having them on my dressing table ...I just hate dusting..............

Mr T's great plans................

So, I let Mr T have a sneak preview of my blog - well I figured he would feature quite a lot in it along with baby T, middle T and older T and the inevitable happened....he decided to completely revamp the house if 'people' were to be looking at it - decorate the dining room you say....

So instead of my list reading wallpaper, curtains, new curtain rail and table and chairs it now reads knock kitchen into dining room and block off 3 doors to make one large entrance ....then completely redecorate all the way through......

My ever growing Cath Kidston Spray Flowers china collection

This seems very drastic but makes sense as I love my kitchen but my dining room tends to be a glorified laundry room, it gets the sun during the day so is ideal for drying, and it is spacious so ideal to pile up ironing....if knocked through it would make an amazing family kitchen room BUT can I cope with the stress of having it done AND as my kitchen has a definite Cath Kidston influence can Mr T cope with that running through into the other room as well.....only time will tell.....first to work out is the cost...............secondly where will my enormous mounds of ironing go......better get started..........

New Years Resolutions Day 12....

Having thoroughly been through Mrs Frugals ideas on www.frugalfamily.com I have made myself a shopping list from the menu planner for the coming week, as she suggested, I then took my shopping list to the supermarket and spent twice as much as usual.....

But, I do have more items than I normally buy so I think it will last longer than a week - I have hidden items bought for packed lunches - to stop them being eaten as late night snacks (Mr T and older T!!) Middle T thinks crisps should be tucked into until the cupboard is bare - so they have been hidden as well - just hope I remember where I have put them or could be finding them next christmas when I sort the cupboards out.....

So the test will be whether we can keep to the menu planner or if life gets in the way..........

Whilst planning I also took a hint from a favourite book of mine The Life Audit by Caroline Righton. She suggests  making  a list of all the rooms in the house and then list all the things you want to be done.

I have started with the dining room which Mr T painted before xmas but is still looking very unfinished.... items to be finished include curtains, curtain pole, tie backs, wallpaper feature wall and table and chairs.....so still quite a bit to do....but the plan is that you look at your list and break it down into dooable chunks...... So here goes............

From every acorn grows a great oak tree......

Well today has been a learning curve, New Years Resolution to build my own blog and link to all those other vintage, shaker, new england style bloggers out there with their gorgeous ideas, how to do it blogs and crafty plans for the year.

So here goes, boys back at school and a little free time to start planning this seriously................