Oldcastle Surfaces Featured My Granite Countertops

Back  in the first week of December, I was contacted by Laurel Clarke of Oldcastle Surfaces, a granite countertop company in the southeastern U.S.  Laurel had seen my "before and after" kitchen post and wanted to know if she could feature pictures of our countertops in Oldcastle's new granite colors chart.

Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, also known as Three Kings Day or Twelfth Day, in Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican churches.  We're Protestant, so this religious holiday is not officially celebrated in our churches; I never knew what it was when I was growing up.  But I think it's a lovely observance, and I now consider it the official end of the Christmas season at our house.

Favorite Chairs

I was recently contacted by Chloe of One King's Lane to ask if I would write a post featuring a statement chair in our home.  She included a link in her e-mail to a resource page on the One King's Lane website, along with some basic questions for me to address in my post, such as:  Which era is my chair from?  Is it a centerpiece or an accent to the rest of the room?  What design elements (pattern, texture, color, etc.) of the chair do I love most?   

It took me a while to decide which of our chairs to write about.  I don't have any of those wonderful French accent chairs that are so popular at the moment and so timeless in their classic appeal (unless you count our French Provincial dining chairs).

We have two vintage, mahogany ladder-back chairs that we use as accent chairs in our foyer and living room.

A Fresh New Start

Happy New Year 2014 everyone!!  I really had intended to write a New Year's post yesterday, but simply could not find the time.  I may have mentioned in a few of my recent posts or e-mails that my husband took an extended vacation from work over the holidays.  He works on many IT projects (usually concurrently) at his job, and 2013 was a tough year.  They were so busy, he was barely able to take any time off during the year because of urgent project deadlines.

It's Still Christmas at Our House

We'll be leaving our Christmas decorations up until at least January 6th.  We haven't had a chance to invite our parents over to see our trees, and we hope to do that next weekend.  Yesterday, we helped our son move some of his things to Greensboro, where he'll be renting a house with two of his friends.  We'll get the rest of his furniture moved later this week.

What a busy holiday we've had and not a lot of time to take pictures of the house.  I like to see how things look different from one year to the next.  We did get a few pictures of our family room.  This is how it looked on Christmas Eve with all the neatly wrapped packages (I never get mine wrapped weeks before Christmas like some folks do).  :)

♪New York♪ ♫New York♪

Hi everyone!  Did you have a good Christmas?  Ours was very nice, though somewhat hectic.  It seems like it's always harder when Thanksgiving falls so late in the calendar year.

Today, I want to finish my story about our trip to NYC in 2005.  You can read Part One Here.  In the first part of my post, I wrote that I was worried we would freeze up there, and so I kept going back to the stores and buying more cold weather clothing.  :)  Well, it was kind of funny, because the week before we were there, they had some really cold weather.  But it warmed up just before we got up there, so I think it may have been a little warmer in New York City than it was here in North Carolina.  The only day I felt really cold was the day we were at the harbor, and I guess we were getting the cold breeze off the water.

Merry Christmas 2013

I want to thank you for reading my blog this year and for commenting and letting me know you're interested.  Your interest inspires me and I thank you for your friendship.  I wish you Peace,