Time and Freedom Lead to Cool Stuff

I have a maid that comes in 40 hours a week to clean and who also cooks dinner for the family (you can imagine how excited Van is about at one!). That gives me a lot of extra time and helps me not feel guilty about not cooking. Both of the kids are in a summer camp program at what will be Kayleigh's school this year. That gives me freedom. I'm not sure what to do with all that!

Mainly, I go exploring of late, and I've really been having fun checking out the local handicrafts and home accessories. Last week I went to Al Jasra to their handicraft center. Neat place. They basically have different little studios where people are doing their craft ... pottery, dow making, rug weaving, painting, doll making ... and then at the end there is a gift shop where you can buy any number of said crafts. I was passing one studio and there was a guy sitting with some people around him. He motioned for me to come in, and it looked like a fun group. This guy was a basket weaver and he was making little souvenirs out of grass.

I was alone, but he asked if I had a family and proceeded to make a ring for Kayleigh and a really cool litte camel for Connor.

I wasn't impressed with anything in the gift shop, but it was a fun time playing with the weaver guy and the other folks there who were also taking a look around.

After that, it was only about 9:45am, so I sought out a pottery place that we had seen in our many trips to the car dealerships. Very cool place!

There are some really nice things there. I'm not sure what you do with some of it, but mostly they have a lot of pots for plants and things. I really liked these (the vase-looking things below) ... they are about 3-ish feet tall and I guess you just put some kind of tall decorative feathery plant thing in it. I didn't get them ... I decided that if I could figure out what to put in them, then I might get one.

At this point, it was already 107 degrees F outside and I was ready to not be in the heat anymore. It was still morning and there was more heat to play in later. So, I went to a local indoor furniture place that has the most amazing pieces of furniture that are made out of old doors from houses that no longer exist. They do all kinds of things with these doors. I didn't take any pictures there, but when we buy some of that cool furniture, I'll share pictures with everyone. ;)

I DID, however buy this cool little dresser today. It's about 4 feet tall and just the neatest little thing ever. I've had my eye on it for about 3 weeks now.

I'm not sure exactly where I'm going to put it in the house, but I don't even care about that right now. I'm just so excited to have it. It's a shame. I'm nesting and I have nothing here to nest with. At least I'm finding cool things to play with in the mean time.

So, now you all know what I do in the mornings when I'm not sitting here at my computer. Once it cools down I'll go out and take lots of pictures to share. For right now, though ... I'm having fun shopping!