Charleston, SC

This is late in coming but I wanted to post some pictures of our recent trip to Charleston, SC. Charleston is an interesting city. It has so much history associated with it and the architecture of the churches and homes there is beautiful. Here are two churches in the city. This first picture is very indicative of a regular Charleston street with the palmetto trees and the homes right up next to the road.

One of the places we went while there was a rice plantation. The building you see in the pictures below was actually the hunting "cottage" that was moved to the site after the main plantation home burned down.

The plantation included beautiful gardens and a petting zoo.

We also went to Fort Sumter where the Civil War started. It was interesting to learn the history of the fort, especially since this year is the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War!

Finally, I decided to try out South Carolina barbeque which is made with mustard. It was good but definitely not as good as North Carolina style barbeque.

{FYI: If you are thoroughly confused about barbeque styles in the South, please go HERE

for a brief and hilarious tutorial.}

House Stuff, a Coupon Trip, and a Bonus Pic

A couple of weeks ago I saw a project on a design blog that I just had to try. The blog showed how to paint your ceiling fan. My husband was kind enough to go along with my crazy idea (as he usually is) and even did most of the work.

The original fan was brown and gold and we wanted it to be silver and black to go with the rest of our living room. David took off all the blades and taped up the ceiling with lots and lots and lots and lots of paper so we could spray paint the fan. Meanwhile, I painted the blades black and then spray painted the fan metallic silver. Of course, without the main light in the room we had to do this all in the dark with only a flashlight to see by. I know, we're crazy!



But it was worth it! The fan looks completely new and really pulls the room together. I'm so glad we took a leap of faith and just tried it!

We also recently got a "new" chest of drawers from our neighbors trash. They had this piece of furniture sitting outside for a week before putting it out by the road and I was literally SALIVATING over it. Every morning I would wake up to see if they had put it in the trash yet so I could have it. Again, my husband went along with my craziness and when they finally did put it out by the road he helped me carry it to our house at eleven at night.

It gives us a bunch of extra storage in our office and is a very nice piece of furniture. I still have no idea why they got rid of it but we're glad they did!

I haven't posted a coupon trip for a while and I had a pretty good one today so I thought I'd share.

See all those box tops, Gracie? Those are heading your way soon....I'm determined to win the favorite aunt title if I have to eat pizza rolls for the next month!

I got: 4 boxes of instant potatoes, 3 boxes of golden grahams cereal, 3 boxes of kleenex, a box of the new Kellogg's Crunchy Nut cereal, a bag of dried cranberries, 5 containers of juice, 2 tuna packets, 2 boxes of Glade plug-in refills, 3 boxes of Hot Pockets, 4 Totinos pizzas, 3 boxes of Green Giant veggies, Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, 2 raspberry lemonades, a bag of Sorrento string cheese, a gallon of milk, and 2 packages of Hormel pepperoni.

I spent $41.92

I saved $74.90

It wasn't the best shopping trip ever but we got a lot of things we needed and several items David can use for lunches at his new job. (Yay for a real job, at least until tax season is over).

Finally, here's a bonus pic of where David was the entire Duke/Carolina game:

Yep, he stood in front of the tv and didn't sit down for three hours....and he was not a happy camper when Duke won by coming back from a 16 point deficit.

Just Four Years Ago I Was Standing Alone

Not only was yesterday my wonderful father's birthday (Feliz Anniversario, Pai!) it was also the day that David asked me to marry him three years ago.

Four years ago when I came to North Carolina I didn't know anyone. Strangely enough I wasn't scared. I knew without a doubt that this was where the Lord wanted me to be and I was excited to begin the next stage of my life.

Just one week before I left for North Carolina I was in Washington DC for work. I had a friend take a picture of me near the NC pillar at the WWII memorial. This picture felt like the beginning of my new adventure.


Just last month, David and I were together in the same spot and we took a similar picture. So much has changed in just four years. I'm so grateful the Lord brought me to North Carolina and to David. Even though we are incredibly different in so many areas, we fit because he makes me feel comfortable about being me. I'm so grateful to be married to my best friend. Thanks for asking me to be your wife three years ago! I love you!

(Ok, gross, too much mushy stuff! The things I do for you, David!)

Is it too late to post about Christmas?

OF COURSE NOT!!!!

I found some fun wreaths to make for Christmas, including this wreath that is simply made with pages of a book. It cost me a total of one dollar and looks really nice in our front entry hanging on an old shutter door that used to be in our house.


I also saw this easy Pottery Barn knockoff of a twine star. All I did to make this was find five branches in our back yard, cut them the same length, wrap them in twine, and glue gun them together. (This picture makes it look a little wonky. I promise it looked better than it does here.)





This Christmas season I also was brave enough to tackle our dining room linen closet. Until now this close has been used for gardening tools/camping gear. We had done absolutely NOTHING with this closet. And when I say nothing I mean there was still some dog food in there from the previous owners of our home. So, again, we had done nothing but just shove stuff in this closet to get it out of the way.

Because I think it's a little ridiculous to have such a nice feature as a dining room linen closet I figured I should actually utilize the space as such. So after many prep talks (SO DIRTY!!!) I convinced myself to take two days and do this. I had to clean, clean, clean, and paint (two coats, darn it!). But I'm pleased with the results and having our dining linens in their own closet does save space in our kitchen. Here are some before and afters of the process. I'm mad at myself for not taking a picture before I had cleared out the closet, but what's done is done.


Yes, it was painted pink.

But it was worth it! Here's the after picture. So CLEAN!

One of David's cousins also got married in Washington DC right before Christmas. We drove up there for that and had fun spending time with David's relatives.

Here we are at the national Christmas tree. Um, so I guess I can say I've been there, done that....but the tree (you can't tell in this picture) was blue. It was pretty ugly....I'm just saying.

On the National Mall in front of the Capital:

Here's the happy couple. Can you guess which one David's related to? Nope, not the bride even though she definitely looks more like David than Bubba does.

We're so happy to have Lauren in the family. Other than me, she is actually the only other female in-law in David's entire family (on both his mom and dad's side). I'm happy to have someone to hang with!

Lauren was freezing but she braved the cold to get some pictures of her gorgeous dress.

Here's David being a helper and holding Lauren's muff while she takes pictures. You look so cute, honey!

This post is dedicated to Brittany Haderlie.

Thanksgiving 2010

Here's some pictures of our Thanksgiving...better late than never, I guess!

You can tell they're related to me!

After dinner I had the kids play pin the feather on the turkey. They were pretty good!

Everyone was nice enough to come to our house for Thanksgiving!

We had food...

and more food...

and more food!

And desserts...

and more desserts...

and MORE desserts. For thirteen people we had a total of eleven desserts (apple pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate chess pie, chess pie, chocolate trifle, pound cake, chocolate pound cake, pumpkin cookies, ice cream, chocolates, and chocolate covered potato chips). Welcome to a Johnson holiday!

We hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful and dessert-filled as ours!

Thanksgiving Decorating Mania

I love reading decorating blogs and I religiously stalk the Better Homes and Gardens website. So many people have such creative ideas for decorating their homes and I love to see all of their amazing ideas. Occasionally...haha, ok, let's be honest, all the time...I steal their ideas to use in my own home.

This weekend I caught the craft/decorating bug. Our home has basically been devoid of any Thanksgiving decorations and, since we're having Thanksgiving at our house this year, that would just not do. So, much to my husband's delight (read: disdain) I headed to the store to stock up on supplies for several crafts I'd been wanting to recreate.

To make the below craft I purchased a pack of IBC rootbeer, a bundle of straw, and some stickers. I made my husband drink the root beer (he was such a good sport to suffer through for the sake of my craft), sent the bottles through a dishwasher cycle, wrapped some yellow and brown paper around them, stuck the stickers on, and shoved some straw in each bottle. Pretty simple although it cost a little more than I thought it would (who would have thought a pack of stickers would cost me $4.99 and my first child!).

I got the idea for my second craft from Better Homes and Gardens. I simply took some bundles of dried greenery and wrapped a ribbon around them. I hooked them to the railings with my secret weapon--a twisty-tie! (That one's for you dad!) I am IN LOVE with these bundles and these pictures don't do them justice. Just imagine the most adorable thing you've ever seen....and these are cuter than that!

The next picture isn't really of a holiday craft but I wanted to show you my newest piece of furniture, the black drawer set. "How cute," you say or "That's nice," you might reply. But what would you say if I told you I got it FOR FREE off the side of the road at ten o'clock at night and, on later inspection, found a prison release form in one of the drawers? Well, in that case, you might cry that I had better lock my doors at night.....but more than likely your heading to get your car keys right now in the hopes that while driving around you'll spot a similar find. The drawer was in a little bit of a rough condition but after some nails and a new coat of black paint it looks as good as new!

Ok, now for the most important part of decorating for Thanksgiving...the TABLE! Here's some pictures of the semi-done table. My husband thought I was absolutely crazy for setting everything up a week and a half early but I'm OCD like that! The tablecloths are courtesy of my wonderful mother-in-law, thanks Heather!

The runners are simple two wide strips of brown satin ribbon laid along the table side-by-side.

And I made the SIMPLEST centerpieces, also courtesy of Better Homes and Gardens. We used some vases we had from our wedding, bought 6 white candles at $0.25 each and filled each vase with corn kernals. This was so simple, hardly cost anything at all, and looks so beautiful.

Last (but definitely not least), have you ever experienced that feeling where you see something and you just can't get it out of your head? That's how I've felt for the past year about this picture. I saw this on Better Homes and Gardens and fell in love with the wreath. Well, after a year of wishing I finally just gave in to my innermost desires and made it.

I started with a 12 in. wreath, some pussy willows, some sort of brown nut looking things, feathers that I happened to have on hand from a pheasant I once shot (you know, something we all have laying around the house), ribbon, and a glue gun.

After laying out where I wanted things, I just glue-gunned them onto the wreath. [Too bad I had bought the incorrect size of glue so I had to cut them into quarters and hand-feed them through the gun! Ugh!]
Here's the wreath about half-way done.


And here it is completed and hanging on my yellow wall in our front hallway. Gorgeous!

So, after doing all of this in one day--haha, yes I did say I did this all in one day--I feel like my home is ready for Thanksgiving. Bring it on!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday next week and enjoy being with family. I'm so blessed to have family here in North Carolina with me but I'll miss all of you who are across the country. Love you!