It's all over.

You know what these are pictures of? Yep. All of my Christmas stuff, packed sadly away in the top of my closet.
And if you remember from last year--taking down Christmas trees and all of the other stuff means rearranging furniture and (hopefully) putting up (or out) whatever new little decor item I got for Christmas. This Christmas I was originally asking Brian to build me a desk for the front room (which I am currently in the process of re-purposing. I sold the couch and coffee table to make room for a desk). However, I have decided that I would like it to be made of cherry and unfortunately, cherry is not that cheap. You likely know that most furniture pieces you see in stores may be stained to look like cherry, but very few of them are actually made of it because it is so expensive. But anyway, we've been hoping to get a great deal on it somewhere. The legs, however, we had been hoping to buy online because the lathe Brian used on the feet of the armoire is not powerful enough to turn four full legs. I can imagine this is really boring to you. But anyway...the few legs we found online that may have worked for the style desk we would like (see below) are all over $100 a piece. So needless to say, my desk dreams are on hold for a while.












But anyway....
As far as decor goes, I ended up getting this fabulous piece of wall art (it's a cut out of the the United States made from slats of antiqued mahogany--and this time he didn't make it) from Brian, and some great bright green decorative books from my mom. And those items were plenty to get me excited to clean up and rearrange. So my ferns came down, the armoire and the couch traded places, United States thing went above the couch, and I put some of the ferns back up on either side of the armoire (and I may put up more). And I love it. If I scrounge up the energy, I may paint a block of white behind the United States thing just to make it stand out more.





































Oh, and I've already decided on the first item on my 2010 favorite things list:
these little puppies. Incredible.
These little suckers may be more expensive than nails, but they work like a champ and I am no longer going to have to be straightening my ferns every time I walk into the family room. Ahhh....

Oh, and in case any of you care (likely not), we cut out the doorway (that Brian had framed into the wall when we built the house) that connects the front room and the dining area. Big whoopi, I know.

That painting behind the table and chair (that are pretending for now to be my new desk) is what I gave Brian for Christmas. Have I already mentioned that he's gotten really into politics this year? Well, Glenn Beck happened to show a video montage thing that had this painting in it and Brian commented on how much he liked it. And when Brian mentions that he really likes something that would just happen to look good on a wall...you get it. :)

As for everything else....
I did the majority of my work in figuring out our 2009 taxes on New Year's Eve day. Don't ever do that. It totally ruined my day, and I'll tell you what--there was no celebrating that night, either. Why do [honest] self-employed people get so crapped on? Sorry for the terrible language. I better stop talking about it.
And Camp goes back to school tomorrow. Thank darn goodness. It's been real, and it's been fun, but it aint always been real fun--if you know what I mean.
So that's about it. Happy New Year.