~Word of the Week "Week 4"~

Thank you for joining me for the fourth installment of my word of the week. Remember, if you use the word of the week in one of your posts, let me know. I have really enjoyed reading them.

This week's word of the week is ~Courage~.

When we think about the word courage, we naturally think about firemen, policemen and service men and women. While I firmly believe that these people are courageous, there are many other people we know who are just as courageous.

A mother who would give her life to protect her children...that is courage.

A person who is facing a potential life changing illness with beauty, dignity, and grace...that is courage.

Someone who thinks of others before his or herself...that is courage.

A person who takes a leap of faith and follows a lifelong dream no matter how crazy it may seem...that is courage.

A person who faces his or her fears straight on and does not back down...that is courage.

We all have courage in us and we have all done courageous things. You may think you have never done anything courageous, but you have. Never doubt that!

We all have people in our lives who we think have courage. I, like all of you, know so many people with courage. One of those people is my grandma. She has shown courage to me and so many others in the darkest times of her life. She buried a child, went through a divorce, survived breast cancer and colon cancer, she buried the love of her live and then made a life changing decision to sell their home and move to a place that would be easier for her to take care of. She had never spent a night alone and at the age of seventy-three she concurred that fear. She faced all of this with an unyielding sense of humor, strength, and grace. Now that is courage!


I just hope one day that I will have as much courage has she does. Courage to live my life, to take care of the people I love, and to not have any regrets. That is my hope for all of us. To live our lives with courage to stand up for what we believe in and hold near to our hearts.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will continue to come back as often as you can. Always remember, "Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow."

All My Best,
~Dan~

This post is dedicated to my friend Colleen. May others continue to be inspired by your courage.

~Jeff Bought Me a Saltbox!~

I thought that might get your attention!

We went to a local craft store last night and I was walking around and spotted this saltbox house.


You guys know how much I love saltboxes! Jeff saw me looking at it and he wanted to buy it for me. I told him no several times, but he insisted. That is the kind of guy he is. If he thinks I want something, he is not happy until he gets it for me.


I do love it. It was made by a group of women. I have several of their buildings. I have a barn, a school, a wash house, and two other houses. They are all wonderful!


For now, I have placed it in the music room. I am not sure if it will stay there or not. I really like it and I cannot thank Jeff enough for buying it for me. It will serve as a wonderful reminder of my dream to one day live in a saltbox of my own.


"Where is home? Home is where the heart can laugh without shyness. Home is where the heart's tears can dry at their own pace."

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can.

All My Best,
~Dan~

~Paycee's New Chew Toys...I Mean Rugs~

This weekend I decided that I would like to get new rugs for the dining room. Actually, Paycee helped me decide. She has been working on destroying the rug in front of the door since April. Friday she did it in with a little help from the vacuum. I had been wanting to go for a more Colonial looking rug anyway, so I guess I shouldn't be too upset with her.


These are the rugs I decided on. They came from Home Depot. They are the same rugs that I have in the music room, master bedroom and master bathroom. You know how I like consistency. I really like the colors of the rugs and love how they look in the dining room.








Paycee swears she will leave the new rugs alone. She really is a good girl and most of the damage was done when she was just a puppy. She said it was just her way of trying to make her home more Colonial.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can. Always remember, life is too short to sweat the small stuff.

All My Best,
~Dan~

~A New Chair!!~

I am so excited today! On Saturday I got a chair that I had been wanting for several months. The chair is by Johnston Benchworks. The fabric is navy and mustard. The legs are black. I put it in the music room. I really like how it looks in there.


I got the chair at a shop called The Olde' Homestead. It is located in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. It is a great primitive/Colonial shop. If you live anywhere near Mt. Vernon, you should go. They have a lot of wonderful items and they are so nice.


I had a stool with black legs that I am using as a footstool. I placed a sampler pillow in the chair and put a basket on the floor by the chair. Never mind the record player. I have not found a place for it since we painted.



Here is a close up of the fabric. I just love it! What do you think?



Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I really appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can. Always remember, "A stumble may prevent a fall."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~Word of the Week "Week 3"~

Thank you for joining me in my third installment of my word of the week posts. Remember, if you post about the word of the week, please let me know. I have really enjoyed reading them.

This week's word of the week is ~Patience~.


It has been said that patience is a virtue. While I agree with this statement, I would also like to add that patience is hard work. I know I struggle with having patience everyday and I am sure most of you do too.

We have to learn to be patient from the minute we are born and it continues throughout our lives. It seems like it is a constant battle though. When it is winter, we cannot wait until spring. When it is summer we cannot wait until fall. When we are a kid we cannot wait to be an adult. When we become an adult we cannot wait to start our careers and then as we continue to work we cannot wait for retirement. It seems like all of our lives we are looking for something to end so that something better can start.

This is natural and I think it is good to have goals for our lives, but sometimes we need to rest in the moment. So many times in life we get so busy waiting for the future that we forget to enjoy the present. There will never be another January 23, 2011. When we think of it that way, maybe it will be easier to try to enjoy the day and not think about January 24, 2011.

We all need to work a little harder at being patient and enjoying the season that we are in. Every season has its good aspects and its bad aspects. We are all in different seasons of our lives and we never know when the season will change. So why not sit back and enjoy this time of life?

Everything in life seems instant. If we want to communicate with someone we can text them, e-mail them, or call them. Gone are the days when someone may not be home. We all carry our cell phones around with us everywhere we go. When we don't have it with us we feel lost. We can get our lunch and dinner almost instantly without having to get out of our car. We can watch any movie we want and not have to wait for it to be shown on television. I think in a lot of ways the world and its technology has made us impatient.

So in the week ahead try to find time for yourself and the ones you love. Alleviate all the distractions in your life and spend time talking, reading, or just resting. Try to enjoy the season of life you are in even when the kids are crying, the boss is yelling, or your back is hurting. Try to show patience with everyone and everything in your life. I think we will find that it makes everything seem a little better.

The picture I selected to represent patience is a picture of Parker. She is so patient and never gets upset when she isn't getting attention or when her brother and sister are playing too rough or taking her toys. She accepts attention and love when she gets it and never becomes impatient.


Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can. Always remember, "The greatest prayer is patience."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~How Dry is Your Sink?~

I wanted to share with you a couple of pictures of my dry sink. It has been in a closet for a while so I decided to bring it out and try to find a place for it. I have struggled with finding the right thing for the corner of our basement family room, so I decided to try it there. What do you think?


I am still not sure. I filled a firkin with some ornamental grass I cut from the yard. Then a placed a sampler and an old green fan on either side. I hung a quilt my great grandma made out of my great grandpa's ties on the back.



I am thinking about painting the dry sink black because the current finish is not too good. Plus, I love black. I would love to hear your opinions.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can. Never forget, "Patience is the art of hoping."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~With a Song in My Head~

Have you ever had one of those days when you have a song in your head and no matter what you do you cannot get rid of it? Well, today was one of those days for me. Everywhere I went and everything I did was done to a certain song. The song I am talking about is Tammy from the movie Tammy and the Bachelor starring Debbie Reynolds.


To hear this wonderful old song, click ~Here~. I have to warn you though, it will be in your head all day. I guess it is a good thing it is a great song.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope that you will come back as often as you can. Always remember, "A friend hears the song in your heart and sings it back to you when your memory fails."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~Word of the Week "Week 2" & A Blogiversary~

This is my second week for my new word of the week post. I will be selecting a new word to celebrate each week. If you choose to write about the word of the week on your blog, please let me know. I have really enjoyed reading the posts that you have written, so keep up the good work.


This week's word is ~Faith~. So many different thoughts come to my mind when I think of the word Faith. My grandma always taught me that we should have Faith the size of a mustard seed, and I always try to remember that. This is one of my favorite quotes about Faith.

"Faith is believing in something when common sense tells you not to."

There is a lot of truth in that quote. We all have Faith in many different things. We have Faith that the sun will come up tomorrow. We have Faith that the spring will come again. We have Faith that we will wake up tomorrow. We have Faith that we will return home after work. We have Faith that we will live to see our children and grandchildren grow up. These are the things that we usually take for granted. They are what I think of as "easy Faiths".

We should also have Faith in the "hard Faiths". We should have Faith that God will heal us when we are sick or someone we love is sick. We should have Faith that God will heal our broken hearts or spirits. We should have Faith that there will be peace on earth one day. We should have Faith that there will be an end to world hunger. We should have Faith that the evil in people will be overcome by the good in them. These are all things that we should pray for and try our best to assist in them coming true.

This is the picture I selected to go with the word Faith:



I hope that it reminds you that even though we are muddling through winter, spring will come again. That is so true of life. You may be experiencing a cold winter in your life right now. With Faith in God and the love of family and friends you will soon be experiencing spring again. Just keep going and things will get better soon.

I am also celebrating my one year blogiversary. I cannot believe that I have been blogging for a year. To read my first post, click ~Here~.

I really never thought anyone would read my blog and I have been blown away by the positive response and the many words of encouragement that you all have sent my way. You have accepted me and made me feel important and worthwhile. I can never thank you enough for that. I have met so many people that I would have never known had it not been for blogland. People who I consider friends even though we have never met in person. To celebrate my blogiversary, I will be having a giveaway some time this week. So keep checking back so you can enter.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope that you will continue to come back as often as you can. Always remember, "Love is an act of Faith, and whoever is of little Faith is also of little love."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~The Light Through My Windows~

When I decided to paint our house this past fall and try to achieve a more Colonial look, I started looking around and realized that the lights and ceiling fans did not fit in with my new decorating style. I started looking online at some of the lights people had and then tried to find those lights to buy. To my dismay, I realized that they were quite expensive. Then a catalog arrived at my door from Country Store of Geneva. I started looking through the catalog and found some lights that I liked. They were not cheap, but they were more in my budget than some of the others.


The first light I picked was the sturbridge light. I chose the antique tin finish. It gives off a lot of light and has an extra light in the cone. I chose to hang this light in the keeping room, master bedroom, kid's bedroom, music room, and the sun room. I really like it!


The next light I chose was the saddle light. I again chose the antique tin finish. I hung this light in the halls and laundry room.



I chose to hang these lights called witches' hats in the master bathroom. They are the antique tin finish as well.

The next issue I had were our windows. The windows we had before were the white vinyl windows with the grids inside. I liked them and thought they looked great. However, soon after we moved into our house. We started noticing that the windows were getting foggy. Then we started noticing that something that looked liked mold was growing between the panes. It started out on one window and quickly spread to 13 of the 15 windows. We looked all over the windows to find a manufacturer and couldn't find anything. The windows were only about five years old. We contacted the previous owners and they had no record of where the windows came from or who made them. We contacted the builder and again hit a dead end. This went on for over a year. In the meantime, the windows got increasingly worse. Final we decided we would replace them.

By this time I knew that I wanted to paint our house with the Colonial colors so I chose windows that were vinyl on the outside and wood on the inside. I also wanted the windows to have grids on the outside of the panes. I did not want the grids to be removable. This made painting more difficult, but I love the way they turned out.









As I type this post, my mom is making curtains for all the windows. You will have to check back to see how they turn out.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will come back as often as you can. Never forgot, "If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~The Story Behind the Paint~

I have received so many positive comments about the paint job that we recently finished that I thought I would share a little bit more of how it came to be. Many of you have also been asking about the type of paint I used and the names of the colors. I will be sharing that with you in this post as well.

It all started in November 2009. I was looking through this magazine and came across a house that I feel in love with.


The house belongs to folk artist Kathy Parker. I loved the way she had decorated her house. It was simple and tasteful. I showed the pictures to Jeff and he liked it too, but was afraid to say too much. He knows by now how I operate. He read the article and told me that Kathy's house was once painted in bright colors and she had painted it more Colonial. I told Jeff, "I could do that."

I had started to grow tired of the bright colors that I had used. As some of you may know, I had lived in apartments for many years. The walls were always the same color...white. I always said, "When I get my own house, I am not going to have any white walls." So, when I did get my own house I painted all the walls a color. I did this in the next house and the next house. Now I wanted something more calming.

In April of 2010, I started writing for A Primitive Place Magazine and had the opportunity to see so many beautiful houses. Most of them were painted in the Colonial style and I realized even more that I wanted to be Colonial too. During the summer, I pleaded my case to Jeff and after we saw the saltbox that we were hoping to buy he was convinced.

I had so many questions. What colors do I use? How do I transition from room to room? What if a door is a different color from the trim in the room it is opened to? I decided to go straight to the source...Kathy Parker. I got in contact with Kathy through her daughter Johanna Parker who is also a folk artist. I asked Kathy all my questions and she decided she needed to call me. So, one night she did! She called all the way from Washington state to talk to me about my paint colors and to answer all my questions.

The first thing Kathy said to me was, "You have a lot of painting ahead of you, kid." She was right. She explained how she had painted her house and how she had chosen her colors. How she made the transition from room to room, and that it is okay for a different color door to open into a room with a different trim color. This took some convincing, but she got the job down. She suggested some paint colors and shared with me the paint colors she had used. By the time we ended the call I had made a new friend and she had me convince to go for it! I can never repay Kathy for all her advice and being willing to talk me through all the questions I had. She is a great lady and a wonderful decorator.

So here is what I did. I chose to use Martha Stewart Living Paint for the walls and the trim. I used the eggshell finish. It was great paint and I would highly recommend it. I decided to paint all the walls the same color for consistency. The name of that paint is Sisal. It is a very light ivory. I was worried it would be too light, but it turned out great.

I then decided that I needed to narrow my trim colors down to three. You know how I like odd numbers. I knew I wanted a barn red, gold, and either a Colonial blue or gray.

This is the first color I chose. It is called Kiln. It is a red with quite a bit of brown in it. I painted the trim in the dining room, the music room, the laundry room, and the sun room this color. I love it!



The next color I chose was the gold color. It is called Cornucopia. I painted the trim in the halls, the kitchen, the kid's room, and a bathroom this color. I love how the Kiln and Cornucopia look together.



The final color I chose was the Colonial blue. It is called Mariner. I painted the trim in the master bedroom, master bathroom and another bathroom in this color. I like how it turned out, but sometimes I wish I had chosen gray...Shhh don't tell Jeff.


These are the two ways that I made the transition. It involved a steady hand and lots of patience, but it made the transitions seem natural.





We started painted on September 4th and finished on November 25th. It seemed like it took forever, but considering all the painting we did and the new windows and lights fixtures which I will share with you in a later post, we did really well. It was worth all the work.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope you will continue to come back as often as you can. Always remember, "Be swift to love. Make haste to be kind."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~Word Of the Week "Week 1"~

Since we are in a new year, I decided I would try something new this year. Every Sunday, I am going to have a word of the week. This will be a word that hopefully will inspire and remind us all about the most important things in life. I will also include a picture in each post that I think represents the word of the week. I invite you to join me in the word of the week on your blogs. It is simple. Just take my word of the week and write what this word means to you. So, here we go!

The first word of the week is ~Love~.

Love is a word that we use everyday. We love our homes, our jobs, our pets, our mates, our decorating style, our children, and our families. To me love is one of those words that can mean so many different things and apply to so many different aspects of our lives. I believe that nothing clearly defines love than the following Bible verse.

Love is patient, Love is kind.
Love does not envy or boast.
Love is not prideful or rude.
Love is not quick to anger.
Love does not rejoice and wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

Let's make it our mission to show a little more love this week. Try to see love in everything we come into contact with this week. Even the things that may seem unlovable. We all have so much love to share, so let's share it instead of keeping it inside.

The following picture represents love for me. It is a picture of Parker and Peyton wearing their love t-shirts sleeping on the couch. I think they even look like a little heart the way they are sleeping.

If you choose to write about love on your blog this week, please let me know. I would love to read it.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I appreciate you stopping by and I hope that you will come back as often as you can. Always remember, "Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~Back to School Once More~

I started thinking that I have shared every corner of our house with you. You have seen it painted and repainted. You have seen it decorated for Christmas, birthdays and other holidays. However, I have never shown you where I spend the majority of my days between August and May. So, I went to school today armed with my camera to show you were Mr. Weaver spends his days.


I love to decorate my classroom with bright colors and I do not like to leave any space blank. I think a colorful and stimulating environment help kids learn.


I also believe in keeping my room neat and organized. I know you are shocked! In fact, these pictures were taken during the middle of the day. When the kids were at recess.



I also try to keep the room sterilized through out the day. The kids and I use Clorox wipes on every surface a couple of times a day and there is always plenty of Germ-x on hand...literally.



I like to have a little bit of a primitive touch with these schoolhouse pictures that are hanging by my door. They make me feel a little more at home.







This is our little reading area. The kids love to sit on the bean bags and read books during a quick break.



I hope you enjoyed going to school with me today. I enjoyed taking you along with me.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I hope you enjoyed your visit and will continue to come back as often as possible. Always remember, "What we learn with pleasure we never forget."

All My Best,
~Dan~

~A Mantel Redo Once More~

As the Christmas season comes to an end and the festive decorations come down, I always struggle with the emptiness of our house. It seems like everything is boring and dark. This year to try to bring new life to our house I decided to redo our mantel in the dining room. I tried several different ideas and this is the one that made the cut.


The first thing I did was hang a hooked rug that was in the dining room, but in a place where it was not as noticeable. This alleviated the glare from the light that was always there when I hung a picture with glass in it.


Then I selected three baskets that were similar in color and in size. I like to group items in odd numbers. For me it just looks better.



Then I selected two crocks that were similar in height and width to place on each end of the mantel. I then decided that I wanted to make some kind of arrangement in the crocks to try and mimic the two trees on the hooked rug.



We have some ornamental grass in the yard that had not had the tassels cut off yet. I cut the tassels off and placed them in the crock. The tassels worked as a filler. Then I cut branches from a tree and used the smaller twigs from the branch to add depth to the arrangement.



I really like how it turned out and the best part of all is that I got a brand new mantel look without having to spend any money.

Thank you for visiting Yesterday Once More. I hope you enjoyed your visit and will continue to come back as often as you can. Always remember, "Smile...it improves your face value."

All My Best,
~Dan~