Bona Fide

A few weeks ago, we celebrate John’s official swearing in to the Mecklenburg County Bar, the final step in making him a bona fide attorney.  After a long three years of school, a stressful summer studying for the bar, and a seemingly endless 5-week wait until the “Congratulations!  You passed” letter arrived, we were sure glad for this day to serve as the culmination of all that hard work.

Even though the Mecklenburg bar is very large (about 250 people were sworn in that day), each new potential admittee is introduced by a current member of the bar. The member tells a little bit of background about the person and where they are working (or hoping to work in about 50% of the cases- yikes!).  I thought this was a nice touch given how much time and effort each person put into getting to that point.  Many stories were ordinary, but some were so remarkable.  The one that stands out to me is the high school graduate who started twenty years ago as an assistant at the firm, got her associate’s degree at night, graduate magna cum laude with her bachelor’s, graduate with honors from law school and, as her mentor said, “in about 10 minutes was going to be his new partner.”

The judge John is working for introduced him to the bar, which was really special because all of the local, state, and federal judges from the Charlotte area and district preside over the swearing in ceremony too.  No one else had a judge introduce them to the bar and the audience was duly impressed (as they should have been!). The judge said some really nice things about John and the job he’s doing for him. And I was glad to finally meet him!

John and his parents…

and the happy couple!

Crafty Spurt, Part 1

In our bedroom, the bed it centered on the largest wall, which leaves the largest amount of wall space above it.  Since this glaring expanse called out to me each day, I started looking for a high impact, but low cost solution to fill it up. Even if I didn’t get it at first, I’ve completely fallen down the Pinterest hole now, so I knew that would be a good place to start looking for inspiration. 

I first spotted these large geometric prints in minimalist frames back when we went to the registering party at Crate and Barrel.


And then, when these pictures kept popping up on Pinterest, I knew I had found my solution.

    Source                                                  Source

Using the directions from Frugal Life Project (right picture), I set off in search of my supplies:

• 9 sheets of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper from Michaels- $4.00 total
• 14 12 x 12 canvases from Michaels- $18.00 total (I got so lucky with these!  Normally, a two-pack sells for $8.00, but they were running a one-day sale on the 7-packs for $10.00 each, plus an additional 20% off your entire purchase)
• 2 packs of Command picture hooks- $10.00
• Already owned: craft glue, Gildden paint sample, and foam brushes

I knew I wanted the scrapbook paper to be in shades of blue and green and I tried to chose some that were bolder and some that were subtle for contrast.

I started by painting the edges of the canvases with the deep navy Gildden paint sample that I got for free at Wal-Mart a while back.  I love navy and I thought since you would be seeing so little of it that it would act like a neutral while complementing the blues and greens in the papers.


I forgot to take a picture of the next steps, but I added the craft paint to the canvases and then smoothed out any bubbles with my old Wake County library card.  I should have thought to thin out the paint with some water so it would be easier to apply, but I didn’t.

After letting the canvases dry for a few minutes, we got busy trying to arrange and space the prints using the leftover craft paper from painting the edges- another handy Pinterest trick.


Check out my handyman!  If you use this trick, don’t be like me and actually cut even 12 x 12 squares to accurately gauge the correct proportions. And now for the finished product!


Overall, I think it turned out really well.  It definitely fills up the room and adds some visual interest.  The Command hangers made it super easy to reposition the canvases if they were looking a little crooked.  Eventually I might replace some of the pieces of paper with ones I like more, but for now I really like it.

Oh, wait, there’s just one little thing missing… our bed would never actually look like that.  And, no, I don’t mean because it’s made.  This is how it actually looks!


Hello Sleepy Bear!  Wave hello to the good folks, Sleepy!


Sleepy is just eight months younger than me, and though John keeps trying to send him to the bear retirement home in Florida, he’s too smart for that ol’ trick.  Sleepy is most definitely Real and probably the first thing I would grab in the hypothetical fire.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. "…You become. It takes a long time… Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
– The Velveteen Rabbit