American Honey Home: 2020

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Broken Hearted

It's funny that 2 out of my last 3 posts were about my job and 2 of my most favorite events. It's funny or ironic? More like sad and depressing and unbelievable. Those are the things that I have been feeling since the end of June. I thought I would be safe from losing my job because of the Corona Virus but I was clearly wrong. In March, I started out working from home full time and then I worked 50% from home and 50% in another department. And then I worked 50% from home and was furloughed 50%. On June 22, I was told that my position and my department were being eliminated and that I no longer had a job. My whole world came crashing down around me. This was the worst possible thing I could imagine. I LOVED MY JOB. I gave my heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears to that job. I planned to work at the job for the rest of my life. But what hurt more were the lies that came about after all of this happened. People who were supposed to be my friends hurt me in ways that I never thought possible. I won't go into details because I don't want to get political but what was done to me and 2 of my co-workers during this whole thing is a complete act of reverse discrimination and back stabbing. Honestly, I want nothing more to do with that college ever again and it's the college that I graduated from and spent 13 years of my life at. If karma is a thing, I hope everyone involved in what they did to me gets what they deserve.

I have a new job and I hate it. I took the first job that I was offered. It was the highest paying job that I was offered. It's a retail job so I have to work Saturday's and holiday's. I am better than this job but for now it is what it is. I am currently looking for another job at a different college and I am hoping and praying that I get it. I don't want to work retail. I just smile and pretend that I am happy but I am the complete opposite of that!

It breaks my heart that I am no longer doing the job that I love. No longer will I share the holiday party theme and decor with you. There will be no more scholarship gala posts. I have never been in such a low, dark place in my life but I am hopeful that things will get better eventually. Please say a prayer for me that things get better and that I am happy, doing what I love soon.

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Dining Room Hutch Makeover

How is everyone doing during this crazy time in history? Everyday I say those words..."This is so crazy!" I work at a college as an event coordinator so we had to cancel all of our external events and our students are moved out and taking classes online. I am working from home 4 days a week now while 3 of my co-workers are working in facilities helping clean dorms. Although all of the students have been sent home, there will be about 200 still on campus who can't go home so the campus won't be completely shut down. Working from home means lots of online meetings using video chats. When you are doing video chats, you see your home from a different view. I have had my "office" set up in the dining room and I quickly came to the conclusion that my dining room makeover needed to happen NOW!

These photos aren't so good since they were taken with my cell phone. I was going to take more today with my camera but it is pouring down rain and dark and dreary out so these will have to do! I knew that I wanted to paint the built-in hutch in our dining room white, I just never got around to it.

BEFORE:

My husband is an Auto Body Paint Technician (he paints cars) so he is very good at taping things off and painting them perfectly. He took off all of the doors and drawers while I worked on the inside stuff.

I am glad we took on this project yesterday when it was warm and sunny out. Today is the complete opposite and it would have been a mess!

I am not the best painter but I just taped off the sides and went to town. It took about 3 coats of white paint to get it to where I wanted it. I thought about doing a faux shiplap treatment to the inside but I was too tired and just wanted to get it done. Maybe I will get around to that another day!

I got all the painting done and got all of my stuff put back in after dinner. Then it was time for Cody to put the doors and drawers back on. I want to put chicken wire behind the glass and we have knobs to put on the drawers and doors. Those things will be a project for another day as well!

And here is the finished project again. This was all in a days work and it turned out better than I imagined! I am so happy that we took this project on finally. Now I am ready to tackle the laundry room or our bedroom. Stay tuned!

Linking Up With:

Love Your Creativity

Make It Pretty Monday

Inspire Me Tuesday

All About Home

Keep In Touch

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

2020 Scholarship Gala-Purple Reign

Last Friday, February 28, was the Scholarship Gala for the college that I work for. This years theme was Purple Reign. We wanted to do an 80's prom theme but no one was on board with that. This was the next best thing! I totally embraced dressing up in my best 80's gear and created the best 80's playlist to really set the mood!

Since the invites had triangles, I wanted to do something with triangles for the centerpieces. I had a vision in my head and I needed to figure out a way to bring it to life. Thanks to my parents and their woodworking skills, my vision was realized!

These triangles were built using 1x4's that they made into 2 feet x 2 feet x 2 feet structures. We stained them with Dark Walnut stain. For the flowers, I ordered 10.25" casket saddles. Yep, casket saddles were the perfect vessel to put the flowers in and sit nicely on the triangle. The flowers were donated again this year, I just asked that they be bright colors. They didn't give us enough so I had to go buy more but they were bright and beautiful!

We had about 580 guests in attendance and raised over $500,000 for student scholarships. We not only met our goal but we exceeded it as well!

We had a silent auction with about 90 auction items.

We also had a live auction with about 15 different items. One of those items was this cute little Golden Retreiver, named Judson. Even though I am totally against auctioning off dogs, we did get to spend a lot of time with Judson and he went to a good home and friends of mine so I know he will be loved!

This is one of our biggest events of the year and we always manage to pull it off and make money for students to attend college. Every year is always better than the last, or at least it feels that way in the moment!