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Kristen Anne Glover

Five in Tow

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Get ALL the Books NOW!

The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle

Click on the photo to order the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle before it’s too late!

I am not a very good salesperson.  I have, at various times in my life, tried to eek out an existence by selling things to other living, breathing people.  I hated every minute.  I still have nightmares about “up-selling” desserts to customers who have just eaten so much of their dinners, I am afraid I will have to roll them out the double doors.

However, when I was asked to be one of the bloggers who helps to promote the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle, I was elated.  I read through the list of books (you can see them for yourself here) and the incredible bonus items and started drooling on my keyboard.

I wanted this bundle for ME!  I also wanted to buy it for Christmas gifts for certain loved ones who better not be reading this post, and for that friend of mine who just had a baby, and…

It didn’t take me long to see that the The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle was something I could support 100%.  In fact, I even wrote an essay–an essay, people–to tell the Bundle People why they should pick me to help promote their goodies.

It went something like this, “Please pick me because I love everything about this so much.”

Perhaps you already read my previous post about why I think The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is so awesome.  In fact, the only thing I don’t like about this group of books is that I had to wait FOREVER to get one.

But the wait is over!  Today is the day!  All week long, from Monday through Friday, this deal is live.  YOU CAN GET ALL THE BOOKS NOW!  I’m so happy.

I'm so happy!

Get all the books now!

If you have ever wanted to make the switch to a more healthy lifestyle, or if you’re already fairly healthy but you’ve gotten in a rut, or, if you’re like me, and you just like to keep learning and getting better at caring for your family, then you need this e-bundle. You won’t regret purchasing it, either, because you will receive over $150 of awesome bonus items, including $25 of free laundry detergent, $15 of handcrafted skincare, and more.

But let’s get back to the books for a sec.  Can you even fathom what 86 e-books looks like?  Check it:

The bibliophile in me rejoices!    

But maybe you see that cloth diapering book and you think, “Gee, I’m so never going to cloth diaper anyone ever again.”

No worries.  You can gift the books you don’t need or won’t use.  Just be nice about it.  Don’t give The 60 Day Juice Fast book to your best girlfriend by saying, “I saw this and thought of you.”

The 60 Day Juice Fast

There’s probably a better way.

You can also buy the bundle with a friend and split the contents, but I wouldn’t want to be in your house when you have to figure out who gets the laundry detergent.  Just sayin’.

During the five days of this sale, I’ll be sharing my own healthy living tips, talking about how to eat well on a budget, and even trying out some of the recipes in some of the books to see if they pass the kid-test.  You can get in on the fun by sharing some of your own tips on the Five in Tow Facebook page.  I hope you’ll join me!

If you’re like me and you want to get all the books NOW, just click the button below and the good people at the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle will take good care of you.  Promise.

Health and Beauty, Home Leave a Comment

The Truck Didn’t Come

Home is where the Army Sends You

We woke up early because it was the day a semi-truck promised to pull down our street, big and bright and beautiful to two boys who still had a week of being four left in their bodies.  Semi-trucks are always worth getting up early for, especially if they intend to park right in front of your house, close enough to touch.

The kids scrambled out of bed and stood in the empty living room, noses to glass, waiting.

But the truck didn’t come.

They pulled themselves away from the windows long enough to devour cold cereal from four borrowed bowls and a mug.  Then they raced upstairs to put on shorts and t-shirts so they could stand under the hot sun and bake a little on the sidewalk while they waited.  Any second now, it would be here.

But the truck didn’t come.

Jeff packed up the folding table and chairs we’d checked out from the military lending closet at Ft. Bliss and filled the minivan full to bursting with the foam mattresses we had been sleeping on all week.  The kids followed him to the garage, begging to be allowed to use them to slide on down the stairs just once before he took them back.

Foam mattresses

“Don’t you have a truck to watch for?” he said as he stumbled out the door.  They watched him go and listened for the rumble of eighteen wheels barreling down our street.

But the truck didn’t come. 

Lunch came and went and so did every entertaining activity we could think of to do in an empty house.  A few discarded Matchbox cars spun idly to a stop on the bare floor, wheels to the sky, mimicking the dead June bugs the boys were collecting in the garage.  I bought a necklace I didn’t need online and Jonathan burned pricker bushes with his magnifying glass.  Faith read the same book for the fifth time.

But the truck didn’t come. 

Long into the afternoon we waited, watching the shadows of the neighbors’ houses stretch out across our lawn like lazy cats.

Suddenly, the shrill call of the phone broke the silence.

“How is the move going?” asked the chipper voice of our moving coordinator.  She reeked of happiness, the exclusive kind of happiness that comes from sleeping in one’s own bed the night before.

“Um…they’re not here yet,” came my reply.

“What?”

“They haven’t arrived.  Our stuff hasn’t arrived.”  I let my mind wander to a thought of my beautiful bed, and sighed.

“Oh.  JustasecwhileIchecksomething.”   She rushed to hang up the phone and left me listening to the hum of the dead receiver.

The truck was not going to come.

I knew it even before the moving-coordinator-who-got-to-sleep-in-a-real-bed called me back and told me so.  I knew it, but I could hardly believe it.  It seemed a cruel trick to play on a woman who had been sleeping on 2 inches of foam for days when she wasn’t even camping.

I wanted to cry.  How could I get settled without our stuff? 

I thought back.  Three weeks before, that truck had pulled away from our house, loaded down with all the things we call ours.  Everything we owned was neatly packed in cardboard and bubble wrapped and inventoried so we’d half-know what to do with it when it arrived on the other end of a seventeen hundred mile journey to our new home.

The truck didn't come

Which one of you has my stuff?

I had stood by a window and watched as the crew slowly drained my house of all its possessions.   I thought of my new house, which was two-dimensional in my mind, flat like a photograph of a place I had seen but never really been.  It was hard to imagine what it would actually be like, and harder to imagine how I would make it feel like I belonged there.

“How do you make a place feel like home?” a friend had asked, but I fumbled at the answer.

“I’m not really sure,” I said.

“Some people like to hang up curtains right away,” she offered, but we looked at my windows, still curtainless after five years in the house, and we both knew that wasn’t my thing.

“I guess I’ll just get unpacked as quickly as I can,” I told her.  “I think once all of our stuff arrives and I get unpacked, it will feel like home.”

But the truck hadn’t come.

And all of the things I had counted on to make a house a home where stuck somewhere between Washington and Texas.

Except six. 

That night, those six people sat around a rickety card table in an empty house and shared a beautiful meal made by a new friend in honor of what we thought would be our moving-in day.   It was a meal the kids declared the best thing they’d ever eaten because my ability to microwave soup and Minute Rice were no match for Mrs. Harvey’s baked spaghetti and homemade bread.

We wrestled the black foam mattresses back up the steps after driving back to the military installation to re-borrow them,  and arranged all five kids in the largest room.  Sleeping on foam mattresses in a great big room is loads of fun when you are not yet old enough to know that sometimes, you wake up and your back hurts.  Giggles erupted down the hallway as Faith recounted our made-up leprechaun stories and Micah declared Paul the winner of his stinky foot contest.

Epic Sleepover

It occurred to me, as I arranged my bones over my borrowed bed, that home is not about the stuff.

It’s about the story.  And all the time I had been waiting for our stuff, the story was already being written.

God has opened up a fresh new page and started writing the words He loves to write:  “In the beginning…”

 It is beautiful to be in the beginning with God, to be nestled into the pages of the story He’s writing for us and to know that we are wanted right where we are.  Any other place on this earth would never feel like home now, whether all of our boxes arrived or not, because God is not writing the story anywhere else.  He is writing it here.

(With the exception of my bed), none of the stuff really matters.  We are here.  We are safe.  We are together.  And we have one grand adventure unfolding right before our eyes.

Home is where the story is written. It is the place where God molds the characters and reveals the plot.  It is where His story becomes our history.

This story, so full of the thoughts and intentions of God, will be told around angel fires long after the stuff has crumbled into dust.

The truck didn’t come.  But the story is off to a great start. 

The Truck Came

Finally!

 

 

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Painting Tile and Other Ways to Save an Ugly Fireplace

When we moved into our house, I loved the view.  I loved the neighborhood.  I loved the potential.  But most everything else needed a lot of work.

We have been here nearly five years now (gasp!) and in that time, we have knocked down walls, pulled up carpet, blasted a hole in the foundation and put in a staircase…

But.

We have never gotten around to fixing one of the most hideous features in the house: the fireplace. 

DIY Paint tile

The way our fireplace looked when we first moved in…and the way it stayed until about a week ago.

Sometime, somewhere, someone thought a fireplace should be tiled in black faux marble with white grout.  Sometime, somewhere, someone thought gold trim would be a great accent on said fireplace.  Sometime, somewhere, someone realized this was a bad idea and tried to fix it by applying fake board and white trim to the mantel.

That did not help.

We bought the house with the horrible black tile and white grout.  I spent many nights nursing twins on our sofa and staring at that fireplace until I developed a tick in my eye.  I hated it so much.  But, other projects always took priority until one day, I actually showed up in the living room with a crowbar.

Just before I ripped the first glossy veined tile off the wall, a thought occurred to me.  Why not paint the tiles?  If it doesn’t work, you can always rip them off then.  But if it does work, you’ve saved yourself a bunch of time and money.

And that is exactly how I went from the photo above to the photo below for less than $10.

Painting Tile

A lot of bang for my buck

Here’s how I did it:

1) The previous owners had attempted to hang something from the fireplace using double-sided sticky tape.  Bad idea.

DIY Fireplace makeover

Because of the damage, I had to tape off the surround and spray paint it (in the house) using an oil-rubbed bronze color.

Spray paint gold trim

2) I did the same thing with the fireplace screen in order to rid the world of one more piece of fake gold trim.

Spray paint gold trim

God trim= endangered home decorating fad

This took many, many coats.  In retrospect, I should have coughed up the extra few dollars for the more expensive spray paint.  I used Krylon brand and was not impressed.  DO NOT USE THAT PAINT.  The paint did not want to stick, even though I lightly sanded the trim, just in case.  Also, it flaked off with the slightest touch.  Not cool.

I’ve used Rust-Oleum for lots of projects (including drawer pulls) and have never had that problem.  So, I’ll very likely have to re-do this portion of the project because I was cheap.  In the end, it was not worth a $2 savings.

3) While waiting for coats of spray paint to dry, I sanded the tile lightly then painted it with one coat of oil-based primer.  I had some in the garage so this did not cost anything.  If you have to buy it, go with Kilz brand.  Don’t settle for anything less.  It is not worth a bad result.

*P.S. I’m not getting paid to say good things about these products.  They just work!

How to paint tile

The surround after primer. It already looks the best it has in 5 years.

4)  The next day, after the primer had dried completely, I painted over it with white enamel paint.  I wasn’t sure what color to paint the tile at first, but I was hoping that painting it white would create a built-in look.

Besides, I had leftovers of the white paint.

However, enamel would have been a good choice anyway.  This surround is not going to have to stand up to a lot of wear and tear, but I wanted to mimic a tile feel, and enamel paint is pretty close.

This took three coats of paint.  If the tile had been a lighter color, two coats would have been sufficient.  But that lovely black tile died hard.

5) We picked up some trim pieces at a local building supply liquidation store.  The wide 4″ trim piece cost less than $3.  It was just a little too narrow, so I purchased a coordinating trim piece for another $3.  The handsome hubby helped to cut it and I nailed it up.

I painted the trim with the same enamel paint for a cohesive look.  I did sand between the coats of paint on the top layer of the mantel because of some damage done to the top of the mantel (perhaps that’s why the previous owners stuck that fake wood on it!) but sanding is not always necessary.  If you want a smoother look, sand.  But I found sanding wasn’t really necessary for most of this project.

Mantel Makeover

6) The end result is so beautiful, I wish I had done it years ago.

DIY Painted tile

Painted tile

What do you think?  Are you going to go paint some tile, or would you rather know how to make that wreath?

Decorating, Uncategorized 60 Comments

I believe you can find grace for the mother you are and help to become the mother you long to be—a mom who has the freedom to choose the better things and enjoy her kids right now.

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