While the cat...I mean husband...is away,

the mouse...I mean wife...will play.

I don’t know if other people do this, but whenever Tony travels, I often like to tackle some project while he is gone. Usually it is because I want to do something a bit unusual that I think he will make fun of, or pooh pooh the idea, so my thought process is along the lines of, “If I do it while he is gone, he can’t do anything to stop me!” And usually, he ends up liking what I have done. He just has a hard time visualizing things the way I do. His mathematical scientific mind sees things in black or white...smart or dumb...with not much in between, and he often looks at me like I'm crazy when I share some idea with him. Doing things while he is gone has always worked out quite well for me.

Here I sit on a rainy Saturday morning, the window next to my desk is open because it's unseasonably warm outside, I am eating a pumpkin muffin and enjoying a cup of coffee while scheming and plotting a couple of transformations I am going to make while he is in Atlanta this week. He is leaving in the morning and won’t be home until Thursday. It may sound terrible for me to say what I am about to say, but I am sort of excited. I’ve had a couple of things up my sleeve that I have wanted to do around the house...that I have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to take on, and this is it!

I’m not going to say what I’m going to be doing to my hallway right inside the front door:







but it is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but have been too chicken to do it. If it turns out the way I envision, it will be amazing. But, every time I think about it, I hear Tony in my head saying, “you want to do WHAT???? Are you crazy?? That is a dumb idea and will look STUPID.”

It just might. If it does, I’ll fix it before he arrives home on Thursday, but I’m going to go for it!
(And the dog leash hanging on the banister and the pile of shoes will be gone.)

I’m also taking on a trash-to-hopefully-treasure project and turning this beat up old table


into a thing of beauty. I hope so anyway! It has been in our entry way since the day we moved into this house nearly 18 years ago, and it's time for a change. I'd like to throw it in the trash, but I can't afford a replacement, so I'm giving it a makeover that will hopefully rejuvenate it.

I can’t wait to get started!