HERE I AM!!!

WOW!!!!
It feels like I haven't been on the computer for ages!!  My sister left yesterday (phew!! LOL), and my computer hasn't been working right since last week.....well, it's my internet! :-P  I'm writing this post in my notepad, and hopefully I can paste it into my blog - but if I can't, at least I won't lose it, right?!!

So, peace has come again to my little home! :-D
I loved our visit, and last Friday, when the kids were up in the mountains, Brian and I drove up there for the day!!  It was so fun!  They were all coming back to our house that day anyway, and we thought it would be fun to do something different -- it WAS fun! :-)  It took a little more than 2 hours to get there, and we drove through several really cute towns with quite a few antique stores.....there wasn't time to stop then, but I told Brian that we would have to go back up there again just to stop in those stores!

Here are some pictures of our drive up......

It was even more beautiful than these pictures show!

The great thing is that it only took about 1 hour to get up to the fun things to see, so we could definitely do a day trip!  And the resort was a little small, but I liked it that way!!  There was plenty to do, for free: indoor swimming pool and hot tub, mini-golf, paddle boats, fire pits.....and we didn't even have the time to check out the little mountain town that it was in!  There was more fun stuff there!!  We only drove through it, but I loved it - I found myself wishing that we could stay and look around!  It reminded me of the little mountain towns we camped in when I was a girl, in the White Mountains, NH!!
*SIGH!!*  I can't wait to go back up there! :-D

So while my internet has been inactive, I've been looking at my favorite pictures and magazines.  It's so fun to turn back to that after a brief hiatus!!  I feel refreshed and inspired!  While my sister was here, I got a great idea -- I want to repaint my island!  When we built it, I based it on a design that I saw in one of my decorating books, and it was painted green....

.......but I have never been exactly satisfied with that color.  The color looks darker in real life - the flash really brightened it up - and I never "aged" it, because I knew I had to change it!  I loved it in the book, but it just doesn't fit in my kitchen, with my other colors - mustard and red....and I didn't want to paint it a matching color (no way!), so I was stumped!  (pay NO attention to the hideous floor that always distracts from my kitchen pictures! :-P)

Here is what I saw while looking through my files.....

WON'T THAT BE PERFECT??!!!!
I love it, and I think it's going to be the blackish-brown I used for that little drawer chest I just made, Sweet Molasses!  I'm so excited to have found the right look, now all I need is a quart of that color.....or maybe just another sample size...??

So I guess I can add another item to my list from my last post.....oh, and I forgot that I want to sand those cupboard boards that I stained right before my sister got here, that should be on that list too! LOL
I have some things to work on now!!

The weather has been wonderful!  I've been able to keep my windows open for most of the day today, and each night for the past 3 nights.....oh, what a relief!!!  And I'm getting pretty excited about the fall coming, and maybe picking up my crochet again to finish those quilt/blankets (remember?).  Although, I simply cannot believe that we are at the end of 2012 already.....how did that happen???  Where did all those months go?

Well, let's see if this will post, shall we.....it should post on Sunday night, August 20!  I'll be back to posting regularly now.....it feels great to be back!!! ^-^