Dresser Redo - DONE FINALLY!!!

Remember this?

This is my $10 dresser from Goodwill. I found it months ago and have been working on it my spare time.

I wanted something tall, a bit narrow and with drawers to use in my dining room. I was looking for a buffet, but this fit the bill perfectly.

It had great lines and those nice dovetail joints, and the drawers were fabulous.

The paint was hard to get off, so I stripped it, and sanded, and stripped it and sanded........

It will eventually go into Olivia's room when we move around the upstairs, and I wanted it to be a nice, fresh, neutral color, so I painted it "Camembert" - the same color as the bottom of the dining room walls and trim. Her room will be in chocolate brown and pale green, but since the dresser is going to be in the dining room for a while I wanted something to snazz it up a bit.

The "H" is chocolate brown and the embellishment is a pretty pale green.

I added green glass knobs.....

And finally put it in the dining room this weekend. It holds my formal silverware, all my table cloths and other table linens (arranged by season of course - yes I'm that dorky) and still has plenty of room to spare.....

I painted it inside and out (I wanted the drawers to be nice and fresh) and coated all the runners of the wooden drawers with candle wax so they'd slide easier. There's no metal hardware at all in the drawers - it's wood on wood.

It's the perfect size for the dining room and looks pretty when you come through the front door.

Hopefully, the "H" makes it seem NOT so much like a bedroom dresser.....

I also found some great stuff at the Habitat for Humanity Restore (where I could spend a LOT of time if I'm not careful) so I'll fill you in that soon.

We're having a "Thank You" party next Saturday for the volunteers from the benefit concert so I'll be busy with that this week.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day!

Thank you to all those men and women who have served our country.

Linking up to Met Monday at Between Naps on the Porch!

GRADUATION!

On Monday we all traveled to the Meyerhoff in Baltimore for my Graduation. I'd never been there before, so that in itself was a treat!

Brian and the girls, my parents, my brother and my boss all came to cheer me on.

The girls were soooo good. It was a long night, but everytime I looked up at the balcony (they had GREAT SEATS!) the girls would wave, and give me "thumbs up" and blow kisses.
They were very excited to be there.

Finally, after an hour and a half, they decided to give me my degree....

There I go!!

My family started hootin and hollering when they announced my name and I looked up.
I even heard "YAY MOMMY!!!"

LOOK! HERE IT IS!!!

Yes - its my real degree. I opened it up to check!

Me and Katie - Love this girl.



So, there you have it. I'm all done.

Now, I just need to figure out where to go from here.....

I got my hard hat!

It's a tradition at the Edward St. John School of Real Estate to give all Master of Science in Real Estate graduates their very own hard hat.

I have been waiting for this for two years.
I've always wanted my own hard hat.

Seriously.

We traveled to the Hopkins Club for the ceremony, where we were served food and drink and surrounded by Alumni, professors and administrators. I brought mom and dad who were stopped every ten feet when someone would notice their "HOPKINS" name tags and asked their affiliation to the school.

Their response? "Oh, we own it."

Such fun :)

We all got our hard hats.

And yes, I realize that I am wearing it too high on my head, but I didn't want it to mess up my hair, so.......

Although not all of the classmates that I have been attending classes with over the past two years were there, most of us will graduate together.

The crew.


These girls are the best thing that has come of Grad School for me. There were five of us and although we all come from different backgrounds, we all gravitated towards each other.

Not because we were "women", but because we all would except nothing less than the best. Because we knew that our teammates would get the work done, that we wouldn't have to pick up anyone's slack and everything would be done on time.

On every group project, there was some combination of us.

And on every group project we kicked butt.

Early on a professor nicknamed us "The Cabal".

The name stuck with us throughout the program, good or bad.

I am lucky not only to have worked with these lovely ladies, but to have them as friends.

They are what I will miss most about the whole experience, but we already have brunch planned in a few weeks and we all talk at least once a week.

Graduation is on Monday and then that's it!

Ugh.

Sorry!

Dealing with graduation stuff (YES -I'm graduating), two kids with the stomach flu (which may prevent me from attending said graduation) and work that is piling up so I can't see my desk (dammit!).

Murphy's Law is kicking my ass.

What's been keeping me up past 10 o'clock

And seriously - since school has been over I have been in bed no later than 9:30 every night. And sleeping like a baby. (although really, that's kind of a stupid analogy since babies get up every few hours, but I digress...)

I have a new project. I'm not done yet and I'll wait until it's done for the reveal.

(Mainly because if it turns out craptastic I can just "forget" to post it.)

Here's a little teaser though.....

What we’ve been up to…

It’s been a busy week here at the Henry Household! A friend I know at the local radio station called and offered us VIP tickets to the circus here in Frederick for some family fun time after the craziness of the concert. I was so touched that she thought of us :)

The circus was at 7:30 and Sydney had soccer practice until 7:00 so we hustled home, hustled to practice, (Sydney) hustled around the field and then we hustled it to the fairgrounds…..

Love the trapeze. Although I typically watch with my hands over my eyes…..

The TIGERS!! They were a little pissy that evening and were snarling and misbehaving. I was thankful for the giant cage surrounding them since we were in the front row….

My beautiful babies…..

These girls were cool– soooooo flexible!!!

They're sick of me taking pictures at this point….

This lady blew my mind.


Happy Elephants!



Doesn’t he look like he’s smiling?



Friday my baby girl turned SEVEN.

How did that happen?

*sigh*

In all the craziness, we didn’t plan an actual birthday party, so she wanted to go on a picnic at the park. After going to THREE (!!!) different parks, we finally found one with a pavilion that wasn’t reserved. It ended up being the best park and it’s not far from us. I just hadn’t been there in years and I was pleasantly surprised.

The Birthday Girl!!!!

The birthday girl’s boo-boo.
This is what happens when you try to run after your sister.
On blacktop.
In flip-flops.



It was so WINDY. And cold unless you were standing in the sun. But the sky was blue and the sun was shining.
We ate friend chicken, potato salad, “double eggs” (aka deviled eggs in Sydney-ese) and pasta salad.




Bubba love. Quite possibly one of the cutest little boys EV-ER. And Sydney’s bestest bud in the whole, wide world.

The two grandfathers – Pop-Pop (Henry) and Poppy (Hopkins)

Bocce Ball

Softball.
I broke a nail. I am the least athletically inclined person I know and am deathly afraid of balls.
I know, I know.



Beth playing outfield. Can you believe she has cancer? She played HARD. And unlike me, she IS athletically inclined and played every sport all through high school.
She also doesn’t mind getting dirty.
It’s a wonder we’re friends…..

Misou – she’s about as good at sports as I am!



Mom up to bat.



She swings! She misses!

And proceeds to spin around in a circle.
Yup. I get it honestly.

Mom-mom (Henry) up to bat.
This was right before I threw the camera down to go make sure she was OK after she took a huge nosedive while running to first.

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.

But she got up and headed for second base!

Beth up to bat.

It turned out to be one of those days that you never expected could be so much fun. We were there for hours and had such a great time!
It was a great way to celebrate the birthday of my munchkin. She's such an amazing kid.

I have pictures of our celebration after we presented our thesis’s (thesii? Thesises?) but they are on another camera which I cannot locate at the moment…

Also, I’m working on a project and should have some pictures soon.
I am having so much fun with it!!!