Today, I turned 41 and I found myself thinking about how the world has changed since I came into it in 1978… I saw my first VCR at the age of four.  I watched Dumbo and thought it was the most magical thing ever. My brother and I played Frogger on Atari, hooked up to a boxy, wood-encased TV with a turn dial. It was a major crisis when my tape player ran out of batteries and I couldn’t listen to my Annie tape as I fell asleep. Cabbage Patch dolls were the thing. ET was the first movie I remember seeing in the theatre. $2 bills were still in circulation. We loved The Muppet Show, Little House on the Prairie, and The Greatest American Hero. When we went on road trips, we didn’t go through a drive-through, but we found a pretty spot on the side of the road,

When I was organizing my decorating book collection on the new bookshelf in my office, something struck me.  Most of the books were written by people who I now consider friends and professional acquaintances.  When I was first joining decorating book clubs 18+ years ago to start and grow a collection, I never would’ve guessed that.   And today, I am celebrating adding another book written by a friend to my shelf.  Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room is launching her new book, Dwelling, this week. In full transparency, I haven’t had a chance to read it from cover to cover, but I took some time and hopped around to each chapter to do some skimming and quick reading.  What I love about this book is I was able to do that and still walk away with some encouragement and great ideas. What I also like about this book is it focuses

Those who have followed my blog for a long time know that I don’t ever just fall off the map when it comes it putting up blog posts.  It’s even rare for me to take planned time off from my usual 5-day posting schedule.  But, last week, I fell off the map. A few hours after I posted about recliners and shared that worst with my shoulder was behind me, Jeff was driving me to the ER because of a fever.  I had a cortisone shot and a procedure done to break up and remove calcium in my shoulder tendons and I was concerned the fever was a sign of infection. Fortunately, it was a light night for the ER, so they were able to get me straight to a bed and started assessing my shoulder, ruling out any other potential source of the fever.  Blood work indicated that my