About Me (Kristi)

Welcome!!  I am so grateful that you have stopped by this little blog of mine and I hope that it uplifts, motivates and empowers you to be creative!

Hi! I’m Kristi and I hold many titles:

Wife to Donnie

Mother to Dylan, Mary & Trevor

Daughter to Randal & Susan

Realtor

Housekeeper

Laundress

Cook (notice I didn’t say Chef?)

Banker

Therapist

Gardener

Organizer

Chauffeur

Doesn’t this sound like your life, too? Life is so busy with work, family, church, housework, etc, etc…we sometimes need an outlet to express and enjoy ourselves. That’s what this blog is for me. I don’t go for the all-white décor but loooove color (orange is my #1). I live in the South but don’t drink sweet tea. I like trends but prefer to stay traditional. I want to be ME and I want to inspire you to be YOU.

I live in Georgia and feel that I have the best life ever. I have a wonderful husband (although he stares aimlessly in the refrigerator way too much!). My oldest child has graduated college and is working and my twins are currently in college. I enjoy my 15+ year career as a Realtor and get to work with wonderful clients. We’re not perfect but it all comes together perfectly. I keep a sign in my kitchen that says “It’s A Wonderful Life”. That’s my mantra….regardless of what’s happening around me I am appreciative for the life God gave me.  Sometimes it’s just your perspective. What are you focusing on? Are you grateful for what you have? I choose to focus on the good. I choose joy. I choose to look for the positive.

I love the simple things in life:

Watching clouds

Having a clean house

Getting a new magazine in the mail

Family time

Checking something off of my “To-Do” list

A good meal with friends and family

Watching football on Sunday afternoons (Go Falcons!)

My quiet time each morning

Walking through the yard admiring plants and flowers

The National Anthem (I tear up every time I hear it)

History

Listening to “good” 80’s music

Swinging on my mom’s front porch swing

Having all of my family at home

A Harry Potter weekend

Yard sales

 

I prefer to be home more than anywhere else and wouldn’t leave my house if it wasn’t necessary. I spend my days trying to make my home a place where my family wants to be. We rarely travel anywhere but my favorite destination is Disney World. We recently spent a week at Disney World and I was surprised that at the end of the week I was not ready to leave! It was definitely magical to me and my family.

 

Projects, crafts and gardening are my passions. Me and my daughter, Mary, seem to get withdraws if we do not visit Hobby Lobby on a regular basis. We have MANY projects listed and supplies purchased but haven’t gotten them all done yet. My hope is that this blog will make me accountable for all of the projects needing to be done. If I have readers expecting new ideas, then I will use that as motivation. I look forward to sharing these with you as they’re completed and hope that they will give you ideas to do some projects of your own.

 

I know you’re not a therapist but I must confess some things about me to you before we go any further:

 

1. I make a daily to-do list. I write the list in a notebook and then file the notebooks when they’re full. I have boxes of these notebooks in the basement and a sideboard in my house crammed full of the most recent. If I do something not on my to-do list???  I write it down and check it off. (Crazy, right?)
2. I hate condensation on a glass (cup sweat). It totally grosses me out! When I have a cup with condensation I must have a napkin to wrap around it. I love the new Yeti cups because they never have cup sweat!
3. I do not use a kitchen trash can but choose plastic shopping bags hung on the back of a chair or doorknob. It’s easier to dispose of smaller bags. Guests always walk around my kitchen looking for the trash can. Look all you want….my Walmart bag is hanging on the chair!
4. I can listen to 80’s music non-stop.  Sorry, kids….

 

My favorite childhood memories are with my cousins. We grew up together and always had fun swimming, vacationing and going to church together. We spent a lot of our time at my grandmother’s house. We called her Memaw. Memaw cooked wonderful meals and always had a cake or vanilla ice cream for dessert. She loved baseball and was a huge Braves fan. I would go over to her house on summer evenings and watch the Braves on television while playing dominoes and eating vanilla ice cream with her and Papaw. After I got a job and had some money to spend, I would buy Braves tickets for us and we’d travel into Atlanta to watch the games in person. Before they put the lights up in Wrigley Field, I vacationed with them to Chicago just to watch a Cubs game. We saw Harry Carey and got to sing with him during the seventh-inning stretch. Memaw’s name was Mary. When my daughter was born, I named her Mary. I think this is one of the best decisions I ever made.

 

I met Donnie while working at a local bank. He came in with an overdrawn account. (This in itself should have been a red flag.) He stole my heart and we’ve been together ever since. To keep with the “bank” theme, he proposed to me over the phone and then dropped off my engagement ring through the teller window at the bank! We were married the week before Christmas 1990.  Donnie wears many hats himself.  His passion is music and he is a great guitarist.  He was in several bands in the 80’s & 90’s.  He now owns a sound installation company and works with schools, churches, governments and event venues to provide sound systems.  He is also a full-time paramedic.

 

My original dream was to be in journalism. I was a fairly good writer in school and wrote for the school newspaper. I had planned to attend college and major in journalism. I loved football and admired Phyllis George from the NFL Today. I wanted to be Phyllis George. Women were not very active in sports journalism at that time and I realized that very early and changed my mind about journalism…

 

My next dream was to major in horticulture. I then discovered that I’d have to take a lot of math and science classes in college (not my idea of a good time). I also talked to professionals in this field and found out most work is done in the hot summers. It gets very hot here in Georgia and I entered college in the late 80’s. There was no way my huge hair would survive the heat and humidity!

I eventually changed my major to History in hopes of becoming a high school teacher. By the time I had changed my major to History, I had been married for a few years, working and going to school in the evenings. Dylan came along in 1993 and my college career was over. I loved being a mom! I home schooled Dylan for 1^st-3^rd grades and put him in public school for 4^th grade. He spent most of his teenage years skateboarding through our small town. I forced Dylan to take a summer golf camp when he was a teenager and he has been hooked on golf since. He is the only one in the family that loves football as much as me–but he knows a lot more than I do. Dylan enjoys fantasy football and is in several leagues. (FYI…I was in Dylan’s first fantasy league and won against a league of teenage boys. Thank you, Peyton Manning!! My name was Bartkowski Babe. Old Falcons fans will get it.) Dylan is a recent college graduate with a major in History and a minor in Business.  He plays golf every moment he can.

Dylan recently married Kaytlen and she brought along our two grand-pups, Molly and Chubb.   Kaytlen is an interior designer and currently works with a commercial design company.

Here’s a photo of Mary, Kaytlen and me when Kaytlen graduated from college.

 

 

Mary and Trevor were born in 1999 and totally changed our world. I think I was a walking zombie for the next several years. I am still waiting on my “I Survived Twins” t-shirt.

 

Mary is a minute older than Trevor. She’s a talented dancer and loves to perform in community theater. Mary is sassy and very entertaining. She is her own person and has a unique style. Mary was diagnosed with ADD several years ago and we chose to home school her during her 10^th & 11^th grade years. She went back to public school for her senior year and graduated with an A average. She worked very hard and proved to herself and everyone else that she is a fighter and can do anything she sets her mind to. Her plans are to complete college with a psychology degree and be a therapist.

 

Trevor is the child that is most like me. He has strong likes and dislikes and never compromises. Trevor prefers to be home and enjoys solitude. He is inquisitive and questions everything. He played on the tennis team in high school and also competed in literary competitions. Trevor is a good writer and has plans to graduate from college with a degree in film in hopes of working in the movie industry.

 

If you were to look in my closet you will find more magazines than clothes. I have had this obsession with home magazines for years. My first love was Southern Living. I expanded to Martha Stewart Living in the 90’s and then to Country Living and Southern Lady. There are many more but these have remained my favorites. I have torn pages of décor ideas, crafts and recipes stuffed in drawers and have some of my favorites filed in binders. Even though I  use Pinterest daily, I still get my magazines and tear out my favorite pages.

 

(Check out my Pinterest page HERE)

 

We purchased our current home about ten years ago. It is a brick traditional home circa 1941. Most people would call it a Colonial style home. I say it’s a Federal style. Either way, I love it. It is located right across the street from our first home. When our neighbor passed away, his family offered to sell us our current home. Our first home (we call it The Yellow House) is a 2 Bedroom/1 Bath and our three kids were being stuffed in a bedroom together at the time. We were elated to purchase this home. During the moving period, I would box up items and move them with my garden wagon across the street to the new house. We’ve spent many years working on our home and still have many items yet to be completed but it is home. We’ve kept The Yellow House as rental property, painted it (but still call it The Yellow House) and now Dylan and Kaytlen live there. We’re just like Everybody Loves Raymond!

 

The best part of living on our street? The city’s Christmas parade goes right by our house! How cool is that?

 

I have an obsession with Christmas and Mary only adds to the Christmas frenzy at our home. Last year, we had ten trees. We would have more if the house were bigger. I love Christmas trees! Again, I don’t go with the trends…my trees are colorful and full of all kinds of ornaments I have collected throughout the years. My favorites are the snowman tree, family tree and the tree in my bedroom. I will be sure to share more photos during the holidays. Mary is Christmas-crazy, too and crams as much yuletide joy in her room as possible. She currently collects nutcrackers and has three trees in her room. She is also in charge of the exterior illumination at our house….the brighter and tackier, the better.

 

I cannot believe I have gotten this far without mentioning the rest of our family. Lucy is our beloved dog. She is a full-blooded Weimaraner. I say that a pet is a reflection of the family they live with-and Lucy is evidence of that. She is a nut. She does not know how to bark but lets out this squeaky, crazy-sounding whine. She is afraid of cameras, refrigerators and Frisbees. She gives us so many reasons to laugh and a lot of material for stories.

 

Sugar is our cat and the current boss of the house. She is an indoor/outdoor cat. She uses humans to do her bidding and only gives affection when she’s in the mood. She’s paranoid and thinks humans are trying to kill her most of the time. Her hobbies include staring at doors until they open, waking humans up by 6:00AM and waiting at her food bowl for a refill after Lucy has come by and eaten everything in it.

 

I hope I haven’t frightened you away! Your time is so important and I do appreciate you taking your time to get to know me better. I hope that you will continue to stop in and spend some time with me at Mulch and Paint. I cannot promise you perfection but will always try to motivate you and cheer you on. As we say in the South, “y’all come back now!”.

Thanks for stopping in!