Not perfect but perfect for me

 My husband and I married in 1993 and had our first child in 1996.  During this time, home making was portrayed as having the perfect house, making the perfect meals, entertaining while looking like you had just had a lovely massage.  It had to be super clean, tidy, beautiful furniture, everything always in its place.  Woman were encouraged to make homemade dinners, decorate their home with expensive made at home crafts and look perfect while entertaining.  

I remember one time watching someone making a craft that I thought I might actually be able to do.  Their recommendation was to use the absolute best ribbon that you could afford.  I thought to myself, I don't think that they are talking about dollar store ribbon.  That was all that I could easily afford at the time and I didn't really think that it would be worth saving for months for better ribbon on something that probably would be destroyed by the cats!

So for a long time, I just didn't even try much when it came to decorating or making a home.  The home I made was comfortable, lived in, safe when the kids got wild and dogs went crazy.  And while it doesn't always look perfect and often my pictures have dogs in them, it is perfect for us.  

I have wanted to decorate our bedroom for Christmas for quite awhile.  Last year, I purchased some pillows and have thought long and hard at what I could use around the house to accomplish this task.  While it isn't completely done, I think it is the perfect start for us.  I hope you enjoy......

This is Lemon Pie.  She apparently is enjoying the Christmas flare to the bedroom too.  Actually, I think she is on patrol- watching for invasions in the backyard.

While the quilt isn't looking smooth and perfect, this is what our house usually looks like!  The dogs enjoy laying on the bed and it is their favorite wrestling ring.

I love this little rustic tree.  I just found it a month ago and bought one for myself and for my daughter.  I planned on buying some ornaments for it however I haven't shopped much this year.  So I printed out some vintage Christmas images, added some glitter and twine-voila!

Dog Central

 If you are a pet owner, you soon find that all of their "things" often take over certain spots in your home. We used to just place the dog items on a window sill close to where we let them out to potty.  It worked well with previous pets but this summer we adopted a lovebug who had been a stray and often did not have access to food.  She will eat almost anything and we didn't want to give her easy access to treats however we wanted easy access to the treats!

My son had an old small bookcase that had seen better days.  I decided that with a little bit of work, it would become a nice dog central.  

This has a ton of storage when compared to our window sill.  I took peel and stick removable wallpaper to cover the stained shelves and the top.  It looks far better than it did but it also is very easy to clean off.  A quick wipe and it looks great again.

I used a plastic scraper to get any air bubbles out of the wallpaper.  It was far easier than I anticipated and I was glad that the design on the wallpaper was very forgiving.  If you choose something with a distinct pattern, you will need to watch to make sure you line up the seams correctly.  

We already had the coat hook in place.  I would like something taller- we put this up when our kids were little.  You can't see it but we do have a small plastic garbage can next to it with a large golf umbrella inside it.  Our new four-legged critters are not fans of rain so we have added that to the mix for those rainy potty breaks!  We keep a towel on hand for wet or muddy paws.  We have their food in the plastic ice cream container and treats in the upper basket.  The lower basket holds their winter coats.  

Just a day in the life.....

 

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Nothing fancy here- just enjoying our rural country life, watching the wildlife and plugging along.  

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