Family, Fun, & Furniture!

We've been having SO much fun the past two weeks! It's been busy, but awesome! In the last blog, Busy Little Bees, we left off with us at the charity event on a Sunday night. My mom, Mary, came in that same night to attend the event and stay the week. If any of you know my mom, then you know how much fun she is! We had a great week with her (and are trying our best to convince her to move to Greenville)! We went shopping, out for drinks, and (of course) to Fall for Greenville. It's like the Taste of the Town, but a bit bigger. Restaraunts have delicious samplings of their food, there are bake-offs, cooking demos, music, and tons of people! It's a must when you live in Greenville. Here are some pics of us at the event!

After Mom left, the house was quiet and empty, but we knew a few more visitors would be on their way once the weekend arrived. My brother-in-law, Jessie, and sister-in-law,Stephanie, came up along with the newest addition to our family, Baby Carter - he's 10 weeks old and absolutely adorable! (I wish we would have really thought to take pictures while they were here.)

On Saturday, while the other Whiteside family went to the Clemson football game and since it was a bye week for our beloved Gamecocks, our Whiteside duo hit a yard sale, some antique stores, and Target!! (What would a weekend be if there weren't TARGET!?) We did awesome at the yard sale! I've been dying to attempt a go at yard selling, but couldn't find a Saturday that I had time to go or (truthfully) wanted to wake up early for. This was a good Saturday to go though.

High schools in Greenville have spirit week (just like schools everywhere), but these schools do something truly amazing during their spirit week! Each school picks a charity to rally behind and then works to raise money during spirit week by hosting car washes, profit share nights with local restaurants, silent auctions, and all sorts of events and activities during and after school that will help add to the funds. And I'm not just talking like $500 bucks - I mean like $200,000! That's a lot of money and can really help an organization. It's really big here and each school uses it for braging rights against their rivals, but most importantly - the charity they pick seems to really make an impact on the students!

This is the second year the organization I work for has been picked by a high school - it's been two different schools, but I am always so impressed by what these kids do and the passion they have for the charity they're helping.

This high school hosted a huge yard sale as one of their events. So to show our support - we headed over to the yard sale and snagged a really nice piece of furniture. It was such a great deal and all of the money went back to our charity - double win!

 BEFORE

You will NOT believe what I turned this piece into.....

 AFTER!

If you guessed a cat litter box - then you were right!! I found this idea on Pinterest.com (a true obsession full of genius ideas - if you're not on it....you should be). I hate litter boxes and with a small two bedroom home, it's hard to find a spot where the box isn't in the way or out in plain sight. I've been searching for an answer to this problem since we before we even bought the house. When I saw this great idea, I had to act fast! With Josh's help - I bought, sanded, primed, painted, and repurposed in 3 days. I think Tank is happy with his new space too!

I also found a little bit of time to redo this awesome chair! It turned out so much better than I even imagined! Now if I could only sell the furniture I paint instead of wanting to keep everything I do for myself!

BEFORE

 AFTER! 

I just LOVE this chair! 

Busy Little Bees

So, it's been a while since I've blogged. My apologies to those of you who have been left with nothing to read/do while at work...you know who you are and I'm not judging! Hahaha! I definitely intended on blogging sooner than later, but time slipped away from me.

Let's see, where to begin. YES, I know - last Thursday the furniture Gods smiled upon us and blessed us with our new couch! We were lucky to have only waited six weeks instead of the original eight we were told! And it was a looong six weeks at that. 

It had been so long, we forgot exactly the color of the couch or maybe we just thought the color we ordered was actually totally different than what had arrived. Either way - when we purchased the couch, we had an 86 year old sales lady (bless her heart) who argued that since the color of the fabric swatch was titled "steel" - that meant that it was the grey we were looking for. 

We took the swatch outside the store, we held it up to the light inside the store, we put it next to other colors, we stood close to it, we stood far away from it - we did everything we could to try to see the grey, but we swore it looked more on the side of green to us. 

Our little sales lady told us it only looked green because of the olive stitching used on the side of the fabric swatch - all of the swatches had the olive stitching. So, we folded the stitching back and repeated all of the outside, inside, close, and faraway tests we did the first go round. By the end of it - we thought we saw grey. Right?? Truth be told, it's just super difficult to know what a fabric swatch will end up looking like on the entire couch.

When the couch arrived, there was no denying it. Instead of a grey couch, we own a green one! Why, oh why is this house insisting that I like the color green??? It's not that I think green is ugly, it's just that green is not really my thing. But of course it seems that everything in our house is green.

Our kitchen cabinets are green.....

....and although it's hard to tell in this picture, the bathroom is painted green - and there's no changing the paint color - there are little tiles in the bathroom that are a lovely shade of green and they match the walls perfectly. 

Needless to say, that the green couch matches the house and I'm learning to love the color green. At this point I don't think I have a choice!  Here's a picture of our new couch. The animals are extremely happy to have a couch! (And no...we didn't get a new dog. The little white one is my mom's.) Now, we need to find a coffee table. We sold the one we had in our yard sale before we moved. The trunk is subbing in for now.

The Friday after the couch arrived, we had another special delivery! My dad came to visit and brought with him the makings of what would be our new shed. Pa (my dad's dad) builds them and when we bought the house, we knew we would want one of his sheds. My dad and Josh worked on this shed all weekend. It turned out AMAZING! Thank you Pa for the shed and thank you Dad for your hard work putting it together! It fits perfectly in our back yard!

Here's a picture of our shed. We'll paint it in a few months to match the little blue bungalow!

Even though the shed was completed Sunday afternoon, there was still  a lot of work to be done. We said bye to my dad and headed over to help with registration and celebrity check-in at a big charity event that the organization I work for benefits from.

I know Josh was tired, but he was acting like a kid on Christmas Eve. There was a bit of anticipation in his eyes. Every year George Rogers attends this event and this year, Josh was ready - he brought a mini Gamecock helmet for George to sign. There was word going around that George wasn't going to be able to make it this year, and I watched disappointment come over my sweet husband's face. (All together now- "aaawwwww") 

But when a black SUV pulled up late that evening - hope was restored! Even though George had spent all day signing a number of autographs and had more to go for this event, he was still SO very kind and took pictures with us and even signed Josh's mini helmet! We absolutely love George! He's such a nice guy! 

Here's a picture of us with George and Josh's autographed helmet.

And here I am the next day at the golf tournament for the same event. I sat next to George's trophy all morning. P.S. It's super heavy!