What's in a Name?

Some have wondered how the name for this blog came about.  So here is my story, and I'm stickin' to it!

My son and his family bought a new home in January.  Before that time they lived in an adorable little house near our quaint, brick-paved, mom-n-pop shops downtown.  A kid-infested park practically shared their backyard and they were literally minutes from grocery, hardware, bank and Joe's work.  The house was perfect for Joe the bachelor.  It was 1000 sq. ft.of easy-comfort-living.

When he married Tara two years ago she moved in and made the bachelor pad yummy, homey and perfect for their little family (Tara brought two terrific children to the marriage).  Ashton and Brock walked to school only blocks away and played with the endless stream of children who inhabited the neighborhood.  But in a blink of an eye life changes.  Tara and Joe added to their family almost before their wedding vows were neatly tucked away in a keepsake envelope.  Sims was born June 1, 2010 and Joee will join him June 16, 2011.  All too soon the adorable, charming house was holding them too tightly and with only ONE potty, bladders were held even tighter.

Speaking of holding it, that's what you're going to have to do as I work my way toward the focus of this post.....

After months of visiting more houses than they were able to remember, Joe and Tara signed a contract on a house in the very neighborhood Joe lived in when we first moved to Oklahoma from Wyoming 20+ years ago.  It is a four bedroom, two bath, two-story home on a lovely tree lined lot.  The children each have their own bedroom (except for the wee ones).  Their parents have a closet which actually holds both dad's and mom's clothes and when face washing and teeth brushing happen in the morning, there are no more traffic jams.

I helped Joe and Tara get their new house in order.  We unpacked boxes, moved furniture, loaded cupboards, moved furniture again., painted walls, hung curtains, made beds and moved more furniture.  In fact Tara is still moving it.  It takes a while to fit everything in place until it feels like home.

The house has a front parlor-type room that Joe and Tara decided would be their family game room.  A place with little furniture and open floor space for wrestling, game boards and sprawling art projects. Ashton and I spent one day concentrating on transforming parlor to play by painting some furniture pieces to use in the space.  Tara had fallen in love with a rustic cabinet she found at the Salvation Army.  We teased her that it looked like an outhouse and she said, "Just wait and see.  It will be perfect in the game room.  And she was right.

Ashton and I painted over the rough surface of the "outhouse" with watered-down red paint. We then dry-brushed on some white paint and that was that! Wala!

I took an old picture frame and painted it apple green.  Ashton painted a foam board, cut to fit the frame, with chalkboard paint.  Before we affixed the chalkboard to the frame, I rubbed over the green paint with a gel stain and then wiped it off, leaving dark steaks and embellishing the decorative elements of the wood.  I was happy to have an eager student in Ashton and was proudly announcing the term of each painting technique we applied.  She asked why I had put that brown stuff on the frame and I told her it was called antiquing.  "It's what you do to give a piece character." I said.


Brock, then 8-years-old , was eager to help us, but we wouldn't stop what we were doing long enough to give him a brush.  After little response from the painting duo, Brock ran to his room and retrieved a longhorn wall hanging his Papa had made.  He lugged it downstairs and placed it on a section of the drop cloth we had covering the carpet and asked if he could please paint THIS!  I gave him his favorite orange color a small brush and away he went.  As he was painting in random strokes, very much his own method, he told his mom that he was unique-ing it.

Thus the name for my blog was born.  I decided that Brock had created a more accurate term for what we were doing that day in their game room as well as what I wanted for my blog.  I wanted it to be a place where I brought daily, uniquely fleeting moments of life and all the millions of miracles that tug at my heart.  I love painting anything, including my face.  But as the years add up there is less area to paint and a whole lot more antiquing going on.  Oh, in a blink of an eye, life changes.  Thank God!  More and more things to blog about and more and more for you to read. Thanks for indulging me and sharing my you-nique-it, an-tique-it life.