having it all was too much

First off, let me say that I am beyond amazed that so many of you tune into my little blog each week. My goal when I launched was to have 10 readers in the first month. Not quite 2 months in and simplyCRAFTED has passed 6,000 hits. 6,000 times someone has thought, "huh. this might be more interesting than whatever else I'm doing right now." It's humbling and I am so very grateful. Many of you have reached out through email, Facebook, phone, and even good o'l face to face conversations to tell me about how you can relate or are going through something similar to what I'm babbling about. 

I think what strikes a chord with so many of you is this epic, ongoing struggle of trying to cram everything into our lives and just not having enough time (or energy) to do it. For me, it was the pull between doing the creative work that I love vs. spending time with my family (whom I of course also love). For some of you, it may be the same age old work/life balance dilemma. For others it might be the desire to follow your own dreams vs. what others expect of you. And there are countless other combinations that I don't know about.

Whatever the reason, we all have a deep seeded need to live a fulfilling life, to find and live out our purpose, and also to pay the bills (minor detail) which drives most of us to overcommitt and over stretch ourselves to try and squeeze it all in - sometimes to the breaking point.

coffee cake muffins with vanilla cinnamon sugar topping

I've posted about 5 recipes on the blog so far. 2 of them have been muffins.

I'll stop posting about muffins when they stop being delicious.

thar she blows! boys' bath update

DIY season continues at Casa de Lenney. Next on the hit list - the boys' upstairs bath. You may remember from our house tour: part 2 that this is the only upstairs room that we haven't really touched.  This room serves as the kiddo's bath and a guest bath, so it needs to be fun for the little dudes but not over the top childish for visiting grown ups.

This bathroom has a few things going for it. It's not horribly small, the tile is basic white (no crazy pink tiles to try to battle with), and it has a skylight over the tub, so the room is bathed in natural light most of the day. Since the major surfaces are white tile (floor, tub surround, and vanity) and there's ample daylight, we can do some bolder colors in here and the room can totally handle it.

Here's what we're thinking at the moment (and some of these are freebies!):

oh yes, wait a minute mr. postman

The weather has turned, and it's DIY season in Texas. We moved into this house nearly a year ago, and as I mentioned in the house tour post, curb appeal was not what drew us here. Boring ranch. Beige on peach on beige, and in need of a major update. I was 2 months pregnant and pretty consumed with unpacking/nesting/travel for work/short bout of bed rest/nausea/toddler tantrums/exhaustion, so strangely enough, didn't make it to updating the exterior of the house. The outside hasn't seen anything more than basic maintenance (from the hubs) since we moved in. 

But no more! We don't have a ton of money to spend out front, so we starred with a seemingly small but packed-a-punch update with the mailbox. It's the first thing you see as you drive up, and, well....

Yeah. It was leaning really badly. So that was the first item to fix, followed by painting, staining, and planting. Here's how we did it. 

DIY tent + nap mat

A reader recently asked me how I created the A-frame tent in H's room from the house tour:part 2 post last month, so I'm going to share that along with the how-to on the matching nap mat. That's two..two..two tutorials in one (post)!

How the fabric for both came into our lives is a pretty interesting story. Remember the huge Missoni for Target craze? Well, some poor Dallasite must have gotten a bit carried away and bought a matching Missoni duvet, pillows, shams, and curtains. That's a whole lotta zigzag for one room. They obviously realized this and returned it all after the fad died out. I found it all on a clearance end cap, but with no bar code or price tag. The cashier couldn't find a price for it and asked, "would you take it for $10?"  Um, YES. A queen sized duvet for $10?! Perfect. I used one side for the tent and nap mat, and there was enough left over to make a sweet table runner. The back fabric will make it's debut appearance at Henry's third birthday party. Stay tuned. 

If there was no photographic evidence, I'd never believe Henry was ever that little. Or bald.