A Starting Place

I am a bit design bi-polar.  When it comes to fashion, I love the harder rocker type fashions, and I love the soft bohemian dresses.  When it comes to my home, I love bohemian glitz and flare but also really love the look of a clean, rustic lodge.  Add in the fact that Doc likes modern modern modern, and we have three crazy styles to try to combine into something we both love.

For those of you who relate, or those of you who don’t really know what type of style you like – try this.

HGTV has a “What’s My Style” quiz you can take.  You select pictures you like of different rooms and it can give you a great starting point for what to Google image search when idea searching.

When I took it for me, I ended up with “Rustic Charm” and Doc ended up with “Mid-Century Modern”.  After looking over room ideas for both, I retook the quiz looking for something that matched several “likes” for both of us.

Our combined style is a bit more “Asian Zen”.  I think zen-like is a bit more accurate.  We love worldly touches like Hindu statues and Indian accents.  We love natural elements like real flowers and plants, dark natural woods in furniture, and wood flooring.  We also love bright pops of color, earthy tones, and the fresh lines and organization of “zen” like rooms.  Here are two bedrooms we like.  They aren’t perfect, but they are a better starting point for us in trying to figure out a fluid look for our home.  We particularly like the cozy look and feel of the orange bedroom with the large leafy wall decal hanging above the bed.

Dining Room–A Wedding Reminder

After thinking about how we want to arrange and decorate our new home to reflect our family, we decided that our dining room would be a great little room to turn into a nostalgic reflection of our wedding.

Here is the starting room:

None of that furniture belongs to us.  Our plan for this room includes removing the carpet and replacing it with bamboo flooring. Painting the walls a mossy sage color.  Similar to what you see in the Five Oaks Lodge picture above on the back wall.  We are thinking we will leave the white curtains (they come with the house). 

 

 

 

 

 

We will replace the ceiling fixture with a black iron fixture like this.  And replacing our current table with something nice and dark, sort of like the one pictured below. 

Then we’re going to hang our framed accent pictures from our wedding on the walls and put our black electric piano against the back wall.  I’d love to hang wall vases and fill them with flowers that mimic the flowers at our wedding as well.

Nature Reminds Us That She is Powerful

 

Today, nature struck Japan in full force.  The videos of the earthquakes made my heart stop and I felt tears welling. 

When I watched a video of the tsunami that followed washing away so many lives, I couldn’t help but cry.  So many lives erased, ruined, or completely destroyed.  So much that people had worked for and built, just flooded into oblivion.  We are so insignificant, so inconsequential, so tiny, so helpless.

I think of children, terrified as they drive away from their homes.  Parents, trying to bravely evacuate what they’ve built. Those who could not evacuate, knowing what was coming and that they would not escape. I simply cannot imagine, and I hope my family never knows something of this devastation. 

My thoughts and wishes are with those who have lost ones they loved and with those who must start over.  May they find peace.

Speaking of Paint…

When you want to “go green” and paint your house here are the best options I have researched so far.  Basically, what you are looking at is VOC levels.

VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound.  You can read about it on VOC levels.  The basic concern is that the VOC is still released long after you paint, despite if you can smell paint fumes or not.  The scariest thing to me is that the EPA released a study showing more pollutants inside of homes than outside, regardless of where the home was located.    Guess it’s true what they say about needed “fresh air” from outside! 

 

Anyway, the paints that I’ve seen recommended online are as follows:

 

From Benjamin Moore – Natura paints

These contain zero VOC and come in many colors.  You can find it at stores that used to be ACE hardware.  Westlake Hardware in Tulsa carries it.

 

 

 

Olympic Paints

This is the only paint that contains zero VOC that I know of and is sold in a nation wide chain store.  These can be found at Lowe’s and at Home Depot.  You can get the zero VOC paint in any color Olympic has.

 

 

 

From Sherwin Williams – GreenSure

This mark is found on paints that contain low or zero VOC.

 

 

I’m not sure about pricing on these products yet.  I’m sure they are slightly more expensive.  Most likely, we will be using Olympic because of the color availability that goes along with it, so I’ll price it for you when I get to buy it and paint my new home in a few weeks!

 

The Gypsies Put Down a Down Payment

It’s finally happened.  We have moved every year we have been together.  In the last 6 years, I have moved 8 times.  In April, we are moving – with the intent to NOT move for at least 3 years.

We are now under contract to buy our first home!  We picked out a lovely little cookie-cutter factory made number down in South Tulsa/Bixby.  It has open spaces, clean lines, and neutral paints everywhere.

Don’t worry.

That won’t last long.

Get ready suburbia, the hippies are moving next door.

And don’t worry, I’ve taken the plunge and began putting together decoration ideas for a home I don’t really own yet.

Indulge…

Living Room Inspirations

 

 

Curtains

Pillows

No more bland wall paint-free environments.  We’re going to liven up our home. 

Natural Birth Books

 

When I was pregnant with Little Bird, there were many books that I turned to when I needed encouragement and confidence.  I knew I wanted a natural birth, but was worried I might not be able to do it, especially with the overwhelming amount of people who seemed to believe it was a bad choice to have a natural birth, or that there was no reason for it.

So here are a few of the books I found encouragement in:

 

Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth

Really, anything by Ina May is a great book for encouraging un-medicated childbirth.  Her books often feature birth stories.  This book in particular is half birth stories, giving you many ideas of the ways natural childbirth can go.  She does a wonderful job of dispelling fears that your body “can’t do it” and taking some of the fear out of the pain that goes along with it.  She has a very spiritual approach to birth. (See also, Birthing From Within)

 

The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth

This was my favorite.  It goes through different interventions, their risks, and ways to avoid them if you are not comfortable with it.  When I read it, I did not find that it seemed critical of people who decide they are comfortable with interventions and medication, but simply wanted women to be more aware of what to expect.

 

 

Husband Coached Childbirth

If you read 3 books, add this one in.  If your husband/birth support person reads one book, this should be it.  It is written by a man who fully believes in a father’s role in the birthing process and he does a wonderful job of exploring what to expect and dispelling fear as well.  This is particularly beneficial if you partner feels like they don’t understand what is expected from them during the delivery of the child.

 

Other resources:

Doulas in your area will normally have wonderful recommendations.  If you take a child birth class on natural birth, they will often have recommendations or books to loan to you as well.  I was exposed to these books when I took Pure Birth classes from Melissa Morrill at Pure Birth. 

Books to avoid:

Anything that causes overwhelming fear or makes you think everything ever is wrong with you or your baby.  Pregnancy is stressful enough without reading books that feed into the natural fear that goes along with doing something new and life changing.  For me, What to Expect was one of those books.  Anytime I read about something that could be wrong with me and baby or could go wrong in labor, I started to feel very panicked.  While I believe this was largely due to having miscarried with my first pregnancy, it certainly wasn’t helpful.  I decided that I would stick to my OBGYN, midwife, and supportive books and felt much more positively about my pregnancy from then on.

 

Additional Note:

Who has my birth books? I started loaning out my library and cannot remember who had them last!

Evergreen

Today, a box arrived at our apartment.

 

 

 

 

I was a little surprised to see that FedEx had stopped by, but I opened the box anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside, what did I spy but….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SAMSUNG EVERGREEN! 

 

This phone and its packaging are made from recycled materials!  It is a messaging phone so I can call and text with it.  No smart phone for me.  Not yet. I’m not ready to be so connected to small piece of hardware.

But I love my earth friendly upgrade!  Now I can hug a tree and text about it!