Reuse decorations...

I just read an article about this year's decorations at the White House.  They really are beautiful and as a bonus 90% of them were re-used from prior years.

Santa on books - 1991, Maryland

Which got me to thinking about how many of my decorations were "re-used."

Russian carved santa - Moscow, 1993

This year, except for the Poinsettias almost all of my decorations have made prior appearances!

Santa Smoker, Germany 1984

When I traveled often I bought a Santa almost every year so I have santas from Germany, Russia, England, Poland, New Mexico, Virginia...well, lots and lots of places!

A lighthouse star from my Mom, 2005

My tree ornaments range from German, New England seaside, to scottie dogs (yes lots of scotties!)

Plus a few sewing related....tiny thimble ornaments!

Christmas Music Magazine, 1927 (framed in 2010)

I even change out some of the pictures on the walls.

Today I'm making some fun table runners using Cowboy and truck fabrics...

need to add a few new things to the mix!

Painting...today?

So just as my husband was leaving for a short guy-roadtrip with his buddies he tells me the painters are coming over on Monday to "measure and pick out colors and stuff."  Now I was just happy we were having folks come in to paint instead of our usual do-it-yourself which usually translated to "Siobhan does it after banishing her DH to the other room and swears she will never let him do another DIY project."  (last time our Scottie dog had a blue streak down his back like a rocker skunk for months...)

I was about to chalk this up as my first "live with more wisdom" step in 2014..but then the doorbell rang.  There stood the painters all set to start painting.  No I had done no prep or cleaning or straightening up like I would usually do.  Heck, they were early.  I was still in my pajamas.

So it was an interesting Monday.  I picked out colors (pretty much the same as we have now!) and they got the cabinets off the wall, prepped in primed in about the same time it took me to get over the shock of it all!

This blog is supposed to be about quilts...I know.  Today was supposed to be spent quilting and that didn't happen either...

I did however clean a closet...really I was looking for the cabinet hardware I bought in Poland about 8 years ago...didn't find the cabinet knobs but I did find some fabric I was missing!  A bag of Cherry wood fat-quarters, a couple of scrap bags, and some block they had used for their display that were on sale!

What do you think...Monkey wrench only on point

Or mix the Monkeys and the basket blocks?