Expecting The Unexpected

It is true that I do take a camera almost every place I go. Because you never know what you will see or how you will see it, or what you might miss.

I love photography because it has brought me a whole new way of looking at...well everything.

I notice people and things that might have slipped past me if I weren't looking at everything "as if ", through my camera's lenses.

There are a lot of photos that are only in my mind, because I didn't have a camera with me at the time. So I remedied that as best as I could like this.

As you may well know I encourage everyone to take a camera, for those unexpected things. I however often don't follow my own very good advice. And yesterday as I headed out the front door moving with determination up the the street on my way to church, I happened to glance down only to see a child looking up at me from a very unlikely place. I stood there a second and looked, silently debating weather to go back and get the little pocket camera I usually have with me or to continue on and take a picture of it when I got back.

I turned around and got my camera because...

Like a river, it may not be the same one I passed on the way home.

Here are a few other reasons I take a camera with me for those unexpected times.

Finding the expected as well as the unexpected is some of what helps us discover the beauty and joy there is in life.

Grab your camera when you head out the door and see what you can find :)

This One Old Dresser

Honey hopes I'm soon finished with this years Summer changes.
He does not take change well, even after all theses years of me changing things all the time.
I stopped rearranging furniture for far to long, just changing out the month-to-month decorations, I suspect that he became too comfortable with all of that.

Every time I start talking about painting this, or moving that, he throws me pained looks, or, leans his head back shutting his eye's, then shakes his head, ever so slightly and says something along the lines of, "Nooo...just leave it like it is." Or, "That's an antique. It will ruin it's value to do that."  Sometimes he just looks at me and acknowledges, "It doesn't matter what I say, your going to do it any way aren't you."
I generally just smile, nod, and do what I want.
Then at the big unveiling, with over exaggerated flourish, complete with the hand moves of my best Vanna White impersonation, he always looks just a little surprised then says, "Well, that looks good. I like that." 

Alright, it's worked that way with everything, except, the 'Ivy Green' table. That one, is going to take a long while for him to say anything nicer than, "Well at least its in the corner where you don't really have to see it. Don't do that color again. Ever."

I have been warning him that changes would be coming to his Grandma Al's old dresser. The treasure that was found, lost, forgotten, buried in the back, dark, dank corner 'room', of the five foot, hand dug section of the little bungalow basement. Along with some other fabulous finds!

 
It had, at one time, been none to carefully painted, that certain shade of turquoise my mom loved, the one that must have been the only other color made, besides carnation pink. From the 1920's or 1930's or before.
Then sometime later on, in a quest to revive that old dresser, it was painted yet again, more sloppily this time, and white. A lot of the turquoise still visible.
The little glass pulls still hold a fair amount of both colors.  
I have had the dresser for quite a few years now. It resides happily in my dinning room these day's.


Now you must know this about me. I do not like just plain white. I like color. Lots of color.

So when I saw this post over on Kelly Rae Roberts  blog. I knew I wanted to give that little dresser this look!
It has taken me a while to build my bravery in this attempt. I started to let Honey know that it would indeed be changing sometime in the near future. I showed him what I was planning.
Then I went to that too cute re-created antique shop, it was all over then, an all out search for things around the house and garage needing new color, new life, was launched in full force!

Honey began to sweat.

I began to rub my hands together and accumulate paint.

I am happy that bright color has been introduced back into the house.
It seems that somehow, everything became white (ugh), varying shades of brown, and dark colors.
I was becoming blah.
Somehow it started giving off the feel of Grampa's little basement apartment. Without the nummy fresh baked pie smell. And I had become settled into it, like toes into a warm blanket on a cold winters night.

This needed to be remedied. And soon!

So this week, while Honey slept, the dresser under went it's transformation...

I left all the old paint, scratches and dings that the years have given it. I left the turquoise and white paint on the little glass pulls. I left the little wooden wheel's with the rusting works.

I like it!
Honey likes it!!

Now I'm just trying to decide if I should do the side panels to match the drawer fronts, or if I should leave them plain...

What do you think?

Next project.
To paint an old wooden chair I found in my Grampa's attic...'bauhaus gold'!

Then...

"Oh Honey? What would you think if I..."

;)