when-harry-met-sally-ish thoughts

I was at the pool the other day, and there was a family beside me in the pool - a man, his wife/girlfriend (I didn't see any rings, but he was calling her "babe" and the kids were calling her Mom and him Dad), and two kids. The wife/gf left to go back to their condo, so the kids were playing in the pool and the dad was sitting in the lounge chair. He had called someone, asking how they were doing because he knew they were facing a tough time. I gathered from the conversation that this person was either facing a separation or divorce or something like that, and he was offering encouragement and support. It concerned me, though, when he said, "you'll come out of this stronger, prettier, and better." I realized he was talking to a woman. Now, you may be saying, whoa, Melody, what's the big deal? He's just a friend, helping another friend. Now, I know there are extenuating circumstances, and I can't jump to conclusions, especially when it comes to strangers. But I can't help but think, you are asking for trouble if you are married and you are talking to someone of the opposite sex about intimate details of your life. In fact, I have a good friend whose husband began an affair by talking to another woman about her marital problems. It opened the door for an emotional bond, which then turned into a physical bond. I know it probably seems weird for me, being single, to be worried about how married people behave. But one of my goals is to live like I am planning to marry. I don't do anything by myself with a guy unless it is clear that it is a date. Thus far, no dates, so no alone time with a boy! Call me old-fashioned, but by opening myself up to a close friendship with a guy, I'm putting my heart out there without receiving some sort of commitment in return. What do you think? Can guys and girls be friends without one or the other expecting a relationship to come out of it?

The Big Summer Project

I wanted to remodel/redecorate my bathroom this summer because I thought it needed a more grown-up look. I had redecorated it when I moved back home after college, so it was time for something new again. Here is what it looked like before:

Can you tell I was going through an "I love Hawaii" phase? Ever since I went there in college, I loved everything tropical! I still do love Hawaii, just not on every single thing in my house. I did the border myself using sponges I had cut out and acrylic paint.

The first step was painting the walls a new color. I chose a tan shade, mainly because we already had a bunch left over from when we had the house painted a year ago. The light fixture has been there since we moved into the house in 1995. My parents had actually already bought a new light fixture for this bathroom when they remodeled their bathroom last year.

I definitely wanted to change the color of the cabinets. I thought about painting them white, but that would have been a lot more work and I didn't know if it would look right with the beige countertop/toilet/bathtub. So I decided to stain the cabinets darker. If I were to do this in the future, I'd probably get someone else to do it! It was hard and it didn't quite turn out the way I expected, but overall I'm satisfied with the results. I also put on new brushed nickel knobs. You can see a little bit of the old flooring in the before picture, but most of it is covered up by the palm tree rug. My parents actually paid for this part of the project. It was the most expensive part!

I chose to keep the white shelf I had in my bathroom, because I wanted to save money and I didn't see the purpose of buying a whole new shelf. It also took me a while to find the decorative items to put on the shelf.

It was hard choosing a shower curtain, because there are so many out there! I knew I didn't want anything too dark, cause it takes away too much light in the shower. I used to have two towel racks, but I didn't think all that was necessary, so when I changed the hardware to brushed nickel, I got just one towel ring.

The last part of the project was figuring out what to put on the opposite wall. I made some Scripture pictures and put them in a frame.

Whew! It was a bigger project than I had anticipated, but it was worth it. I like my classy new bathroom!

scripture picture frame

One of my projects this summer was redecorating my bathroom (it's coming in a future post, I promise!), so I decided to put Scripture on the wall. For a while, I thought I wanted to get a quote in vinyl lettering, but it turned out to be too expensive and I could never really find what I wanted. I'm a big believer in surrounding myself with God's Word. Deuteronomy 11:18 tells us to tie God's words as symbols on our hands and bind them on our foreheads. For me, this is one way to do that. Some people might think it's weird to have Bible verses in the bathroom, but hey, if I'm gonna be in there, I might as well have something worthwhile to think about, right? I finally decided to just get a frame and put my own pictures in it. I liked this frame - it has glass instead of a mat so my pictures could be as big or as small as I wanted.

Step 1: I used pictures from flickr and used the iPhoto editing to give them all a sepia tone. Then I copied and pasted them into Word and inserted the Scriptures that I wanted. I printed them out on glossy photo paper.

Step 2: I cut them using a paper trimmer so the edges would be straight.

Step 3: I measured the frame and placed the pictures so they'd be centered.

Step 4: Put them all in the frame with double-sided tape and voila! Here's the finished product!

I love this because it was cheap (basically just the frame) and I can change the pictures and Scriptures as often as I want! So how do you "tie these words as symbols on your hands and bind them to your foreheads" - how do you surround yourself with Scripture?

Bye Bye Brulets :(

Valerie and her husband Jason moved to Raleigh this past weekend because Jason is going into seminary. While I'm so proud of them making that decision and I'm excited for them, I will miss them so much! It makes me feel better to know that God has planned this for their family, and He is going to bless them in ways beyond what we could ever imagine. So a couple weeks ago, we had a party to celebrate Valerie's birthday and what the Brulets mean to us. We went to Valerie's favorite Mexican restaurant, Margarita's.

Then we went back to the Broussards' house for a movie. But this was no ordinary movie, my friend. This was the coolest movie experience ever. We used a laptop, projector, and huge speaker and watched the movie in the backyard! I can't take credit cause it was Laura's idea - she comes up with some fun stuff! We had movie theater popcorn, drinks, lawn chairs, and blankets. Before we watched the movie, we showed Jason and Valerie a powerpoint we had made, which had pictures and what we will miss about them.

We also had some birthday cake for Valerie. It was so much fun getting together with friends and doing something different. We will miss you, Brulets!

Hannah's baby blocks

I have a little niece arriving any day now, so I decided to do a quick little project for Hannah. My aunt gave Lisa some baby blocks to make Hannah's name, but they were all different colors and didn't match the nursery's color scheme. So I told Lisa I'd paint them for her. Here's how they looked before:

And with a little bit of white and pink paint, a paintbrush, and a steady hand (or maybe not so steady, cause I did mess up several times), here's how they look now:

I can't wait to be an aunt! I always love on babies, and this one will be no exception! Come on, Hannah, get here already!