“Yes?” I say, walking over to her and a plush horse with a rainbow mane and tail. Some of us know this horse as Starlight, Rainbow Bright’s beloved steed.

“I was just thinking we could get some magic dust to make this horse big and can talk.”

“I love your imagination.” I crooned, as I brushed back her hair and kissed her on the forehead, “but I don’t think horses can talk.”

“But where can we get some magic dust?” she continued. I confided that  I wasn’t sure that magic dust existed but she was determined. “But how can we make this horse big and can do things regular horses do?”

“You can do anything in your imagination, sweetie.” It was at this point that her precious face crumpled and she began to dissolve. I crouched down to embrace her, and she sniffed, “But I’m not magic, I’m just an ordinary girl!”

“That’s the best thing you could be sweetie.” She was not to be consoled, but agreed to try to fall asleep, that maybe she could dream of where to find the magic dust.

Funny thing is, these little moments are indeed full of magic, and despite myself, it breaks my heart that magic can’t quite bring her horse to life. But it does infuse me with it, and today, like most days, I badly needed an infusion.

I just hope that pink stays bright after it dries.

Yet another cool thing to do with our chalkboard wall. My little sweetie went off to preschool today. She wouldn’t have even remembered to say goodbye if her teacher hadn’t reminded her. On her end the day was a success. I showed up 5 minutes late to pick her up and she was already asleep on her nap mat.

For my part, I sort of milled around the living room for 5 hours, wondering what to do with myself in her absence. It was so quiet. And Bode was so…needy. He missed her terribly, and I was made very aware of how much she entertains him during the day. Nonetheless, we’ll find our mode.

Next I will continue my campaign to do the same to our living room…assuming we can achieve a positive outcome

Originally I wanted to do it all at once but James just wouldn’t agree. I just didn’t want to spend all that money to rent the sander twice. Turns out, a local company was charging FAR less than Home Depot so I feel a lot better about breaking it into two parts. So instead of paying $50 for 4 hours of rental time we found one much closer to home that was $50 for the whole weekend. Yay! Stay tuned for the results.

Anyway, so our bed. Now gone. We moved our guest bed, a double/full sized bed that was residing in a guest room area of the basement, up to our room and are sleeping on that until we get a new queen mattress. I just love that full mattress. Haven’t been able to find such perfectly squishy, yet firm mattress since and I no longer have any record of who I bought it from. I just know that I got it on eBay and that it was made in the USA. Anyway…here’s how it all went down. I give you…the cutting in half of a king sized memory foam mattress:

Yay!

For the record, we did have to trim a bit off the end for the half-mattress to fit into Dagny’s bed frame. Better to have too much than not enough, right?

The first thing we finished was the hanging of the Fintorp bars and Grundtal shelves I bought at Ikea. I think it looks just like I envisioned…which in real life has a different feel than my original sketch. I like it though, and it has freed up almost an entire cabinet.

If you have any braiding tips or tricks, please share in the comments below!