My first post...

Many months ago, I "stumbled upon" a decorating website that changed my life. I had been in a deep depression for a long, long time as my dear Mama had fought a long illness with Alzheimers & had finally succumbed to it some months before. I had shut down. Not being able to talk to Mama, not just after her death - but during her illness - made an enormous hole in my heart and in my soul. Piles and piles of clutter built up around me. While the kitchen stayed clean, as did all of the necessities to keep a healthy home -- dust settled up in layers on the windows. The yards went unattended. Well thought out home cooked meals turned into my wonderful husband cooking 99% of the time. In losing Mama, I had also lost myself and I.simply.stopped.caring.

Somehow this new blog that I'd found, this blog about home, about family, about creating - ignited something inside me. I was hooked! From there, I discovered a great many other blogs, and found myself waking up eagerly each morning with a cup of coffee in hand, ready to soak in whatever new information was put out there by these domestic divas. These women who blogged about home & family evoked this deep sense of comfort inside of me that I'd not felt since before Mama became ill.

Slowly, slowly, I found myself coming alive again. I started first making "mistreatments" Nester Style. I cut up a beautiful red tablecloth I'd found on clearance at Target sometime before and made mistreatments for my living room. Feeling quite empowered, I took myself to the Fabric Store and bought more fabric - and trimmings - and I hot glued it all together and made even more mistreatments! Window after window, I started feeling like my old self again. It felt great!

Slowly, the piles of clutter started dwindling, and out of the chaos emerged a home on the brink of something truly fabulous. With each mistreatment that I hung, with each chair that I slipcovered, with every piece of furniture I painted, I felt myself connecting more and more with my Mama.

Now, Mama wasn't much on decorating, except for holidays. She was pretty set in how her home looked in regards to decor. But she loved to garden. She loved working outdoors. She kept her home clean and tidy -- devoting each Thursday to laundry, each Friday morning to cleaning her little old brick cottage and each Sunday she devoted to God. She was an amazing woman, with an incredible zest for life, God and her family. But make no mistake -- she was also fiery - having that fierce Southern Sass about her - and would've kicked my butt if she'd have seen how I let myself & my home go.

And so, it is here that I begin my blog journey with you: Amongst ever dwindling piles of clutter, deeply abused windows & slipcovered furniture. While my home may be in the Suburbs, I will continue to pay homage to the little, unpretentious, old brick cottage in the pines that so inspires my soul. It is my way of feeling connected to her, even though, I know, she's gone on to a much bigger castle in the sky.