where i went

Hey guys.  I know I pretty much dropped off the face of the planet as far as blog writing.  I'm sorry.  Things have been pretty rough lately and I really haven't felt like faking it.

My husband (Andrew) and I are currently separated and are seriously contemplating divorce.  It all happened suddenly and I have not felt like doing home projects since.  I mean, why do a project for a home that you're not sure will be your home soon, right?  Doesn't make sense.  If you are a friend and are hearing about this for the first time as you read, I'm sorry I haven't had the opportunity to tell you.  It is not a secret, but I don't really like sharing important things through text messages.  You may already know what is going on, but if you don't...well honestly...it's personal.  If we talk in person, I may or may not share with you the details and that's my business.  I would rather you keep comments of advice to yourselves (which is why I've disabled the comment bar on this post).  I am seeking Godly counsel and have support of friends and family, so please do not worry about my well being.  I'm a fighter and will be fine...eventually.

So now everyone knows.  I don't know what's to become of my blog, but I will say that I have had so much fulfillment and joy in this little project.  Thanks so much for following along.  If I don't return, have a great life!  I'm on Facebook and Twitter as well, so if you only follow me through here, feel free to connect with another source of social media.

so many ideas, so little time

It's wedding season.  The busiest wedding season I've ever seen!  That's not a complaint, believe me.  I'm loving my job more and more every day.  But there is this side of me that needs to make stuff.  That side is a little neglected right now (if you can't tell from the lack of blog posts).  My list of DIY projects is through the roof!  I will most likely only have time to finish one or two of these before work slows down in November, but I thought you'd like to see what was on the radar.

1.  Autumn is coming!  Just this morning, I woke to a cool breeze for the first time in months.  I've never done decorating for the seasons, mostly because I feel like a lot of it is dated and tacky.  Just being honest.  But I luuurve these two pumpkin DIY ideas.  The first for inside and the second for our front porch.  So cute!

Velvet pumpkin tutorial found on Martha.  Who else. ;)

Painted pumpkins found on Pinterest

2.  You KNOW I love me some succulents.  I have been wanting to do this awesome project for the longest time!  I just read through the instructions last night and realized I can use clippings from my overgrown succulent garden outside, so it will cost me next to nothing.  Score!

DIY instructions for an indoor succulent picture frame found at Better Homes and Gardens.

3.  This scarf necklace from Anthropologie makes me happy every time I see it.  The only thing that doesn't make me happy is the price - a whopping $148.00.  I will be making this one day for less than $20 in materials, thank you.

4.  I have been looking for the perfect accent pillow for our master bedroom for a year now.  A year!  I have finally realized I'm not going to find it.  Instead, I've opted to take a grey bolster pillow I found at West Elm and add a french knot treatment to it to create something like this.  Obviously in yellow to compliment my color scheme. :)

French knot tutorial found here.

5.  I really need to finish my family tree project.  I know.  I haven't lost excitement for it at all, believe me!  But finding things that explain who a person is without being tacky or too obvious is a challenge!  I'll be including techniques like quilling and vintage printing like these pictures very soon in the next few shadowboxes.  

6.  I need this in my foyer before the weather turns bad and Andrew ruins our hardwood floors.  An easy thing to make, so I'm sure it will happen sooner than later.

Martha's pebbled tray for winter shoes found here.

7.  I know this is not a new idea.  In fact, it's overused and uninspired.  But I've never done it before and I really want to try!!

Bokeh shapes tutorial found here.

8.  You've seen this image on Barker House Love before, but at the time, I just thought it was cool.  I've now decided that I must make it. :)  There's no tutorial on this that I could find in all of internet-land, but it seems pretty straight forward.  The only thing I may run into is it turning out uneven or running out of pages.  But we'll see I guess!

9.  This leather mirror from Serena & Lily is stunning and so sophisticated.  It's also $295.00.  Sigh.

I'm thinking I could take this mirror from IKEA and add a belt to it, though.  Eh?  It's only $20, so if I hate it, no biggee.

These are all things I'd like to finish before Christmas season.  I know, I'm dreaming.  But I have a whole new list of things to make for the holidays!  

back from Portlandia

Andrew and I took a mini-vacation this past week to visit his brother on the west coast.  It has been lots of fun reconnecting with Aaron and his wife, Adrienne, but I'm glad to be back in the swing of things here.

A snapshot or two from the trip:

Aaron is an extremely talented shoe designer and Adrienne is a full-time artist.  Both of their artistic work is pretty amazing.  I may be highlighting their work sometime in the future, so don't touch that remote!

This one's for you...

Thank you!!!  I am so excited to say that this humble little blog is getting some not-so-humble traffic!  I don't pay all that much attention to blog stats and such - I just like writing and when I started Barker House Love I just hoped that at least one person would have a good time reading it.  So, I was jaw-on-the-floor blown away when I saw that last month I had around 2,000 hits on Barker House Love.  Of those 2,000 people, there were readers from all over the world.  I'm talking the United Kingdom, Cambodia, Australia, France, Japan, India...just to name a few.  Seriously?!

After doing a happy dance around my living room, I suddenly realized that this little project of mine has grown past what I envisioned it to be.  I've been thinking about how to make this blog something that you, the reader, would come back for again and again and have decided the easiest way to figure this out is a poll (or three).  I'll be doing one a week.  If you could take a few minutes to answer the poll on the right side of the blog, it would help me out so much!  I want to know what makes your heart go pitter patter.  What will make you come back again and again?  If you choose "other" or something that requires explanation, leave me a comment below and I promise I will read and consider what you've said.

Again, thank you so very much!!!  Sally Field gleamed as she said what I feel right now about your readership:

Book List

Hello, my name is Rachel and I'm a bookaholic.  And proud of it.

Things I've been reading lately:

The Hunger Games Series - Suzanne Collins

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

Same Kind of Different as Me - Ron Hall

Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling

Macbeth - Shakespeare

On my list to read soon:

Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen

Bossypants - Tiny Fey

Heaven Is For Real - Todd Burpo

Pride and Prejudice (again) - Jane Austin

The Power of Your Words - Robert Morris

Any other suggestions?  I love memoirs, fiction, you name it.  I think I need a library in our next house. :)

never say never

For those of you wondering, no I don't have Bieber fever.  I crack me up. ;)

I've been thinking about my mom a lot recently.  She's retiring at the end of this school year and I'm very much looking forward to more visits from her!!  While I have always loved her very much, we haven't always seen eye to eye.  You see, she's an extremist and I'm all about balance.  I'll give you an example:

My favorite color is yellow, for those of you who have never read my blog and don't know me.  When I decided to do my bedroom in yellow, I did not paint the walls yellow and buy yellow carpeting.  hahahahaha  Thank God, right?!  Instead, I used very neutral colors to balance out pops of subtle yellows throughout the room.  I think it looks quite balanced in a cheery way.

In contrast, my mom's favorite color is purple.  While I was just a little tike, my mom decided to re-do her bedroom in all purple.  When I say purple, I mean PURPLE.  Purple everything.  Purple walls, purple carpeting, purple bedspread, purple wallpaper border, silk purple flowers on the wall as decoration.  Sigh.  Seeing that room made me hate the color purple. haha  The only other color she added to the room?  Brass.

Did I mention we are different?

For years, I made fun of that room.  I made fun of that color.  I said I would NEVER bring purple into my house.  Aaand here comes the title...

Never say never.

Fifteen years later and purple is one of my favorite colors.  Gasp!  While I still won't plaster my walls floors and furniture in the same color, I've decided to bring some color into the house in honor of my eccentric and wonderful mom.  Here is my mom's section of the family tree for my hallway.  I love the way it turned out and it SCREAMS my mom's personality in a playful and beautiful way.

Love you, mom!

Each of my family members will get a framed piece of art to represent them in my hallway, if you didn't already gather that from recent posts.  My mom loves things symmetrical, is a perfectionist, loves purple, and is a choir director.  This image says this without screaming it.  I can't wait to show you the other ones I'm working on!

from brunch to vow renewal

It's no secret that I love a good punch of yellow, but something you may not know is that Andrew and I eloped.  Don't stop reading because you think that last sentence made no sense! haha  The two subjects do have something in common, I promise!  Stick with me.  I was reading the lovely Coco + Kelley blog the other day when I happened upon this lovely dose of inspiration called From Fantasy to Fete: Citrus Brunch.  Here's a few images from the post:

Gorgeous, right?!  The idea is an upscale casual spring brunch, but when I saw these images my mind went directly to our elopement.  Still confused?  OK I'll break it down for you.  Andrew and I have been married for almost eight years.  We were very young when we got married and decided not to go into debt for a wedding.  Instead we eloped to Jamaica.  I have no regrets about this decision whatsoever, BUT I always had it in the back of my mind that we would do a reception of some sort with friends and family after things settled down.  Nothing fancy, just enough to get people together to celebrate.  Fast forward almost 8 years and we still haven't done this!  

A ten year vow renewal seems like the perfect answer.  If I was to start planning for something like that right now, I would probably rent a beach house on Bald Head Island for the weekend and invite friends/family to join us on the back deck to enjoy brunch.  The decorations would look something similar to this. :)

See, there's a method to my madness. :P

a special art project

Going to Ghana this past winter adjusted my thinking.  The cliche way to say it?  It changed my life.  I don't ever want to forget how I felt there.  While there, I took tons of pictures of doors and collected bottle caps.  Random, I know.  I didn't know why I was doing it.  I just knew something would come of it eventually.

Chanda and Jake (the amazing couple that is living at The Father's House for a year) recently came back to America for a few weeks.  When Jake saw me, one of the first things he said was "We've been saving bottle caps for ya!"  He held up a plastic bag filled with these colorful momentos of Africa and tears filled my eyes.  I remembered at that moment my time in Ghana.  It's so interesting to me how an abstract piece of "junk" can bring back memories; make you feel so much.

I am so excited to finally be able to do something with these little works of art!  I started by laying them all out to see what I had...

I always planned from the beginning to do something very random with them, but once I started playing around with them I ended up with a fun pattern that I think looks much more deliberate.  Add a $20 shadowbox from IKEA and voila!

This colorful shadowbox will grace our hallway and will be the first thing we see as we enter into the house from the garage.  I'm hoping this piece will help me remember my time in Ghana for years to come.

If you haven't heard about my trip to Ghana yet, you can read about it here, here, here and here.  You can support the efforts of The Father's House by going here.  And you can attend a crazy fun concert that I'll be photographing here - proceeds go to The Father's House!

Andrew. Is the man.

Look what my amazing hubby made me for dinner.  From scratch.  I almost cried when I saw it.  Indian food!!!!

The Biltmore Mansion

One of these days, I will give up trying to be an adult.  Let me explain...

Andrew and I didn't get a chance to celebrate Valentine's Day this year.  We wrestled for a while to find something fun to do a few weeks later.  First, we thought a weekend at the beach (too much travel).  Then we thought skiing (too cold).  The only thing we knew we didn't want to do again is what we always do when we have a day off - go to an indoor water park.  We decided we were too old for that stuff.  haha  So instead, we ended up deciding on the opposite extreme - we took a day trip to Biltmore in nearby Asheville North Carolina.  It was my first time seeing the house and grounds.  While it was beautiful, it wasn't really my thing.  About halfway through the house, I was thinking "we could totally be going down a water slide right now.  Instead, I'm looking at paintings of dead people that weren't very interesting."  Sooooo, there you have it.  Inside the mind of an adult who thinks like a child.

They wouldn't let me take pictures inside the house (boo), but I did manage to get a few shots on the grounds.  Pretty.

I would die to do a bridal shoot here.  Any takers?

The most interesting part of the day was while we were waiting for the sun to set to get a good shot of the house.  This was Andrew's reaction to my command: "Look regal or something.  Like you belong in a photo with a mansion."

We are so not adults yet.  Thank God.

On the upside, a day trip to the Biltmore didn't fill our budget for Valentine's Day, so we also went to Cirque Totum.  Which we LOVED.  Andrew wants to be one of the musicians in the show.  I want to be one of the frogs.  Did I mention we acted like kids yet?

Sneak Peek - what I've been up to

Sorry for the lack of posts, peeps!  Wedding season is picking up and on top of that I've had a few personal photo shoots to edit.  Here's a sneak peek of what's coming soon on the Millie Holloman Photography blog!

First up, my baby brother's proposal at the Newport Aquarium.  Scuba divers included.  You don't want to miss this one!

And the gorgeous staff at Freedom House Church.  They made my job so easy.

Hope you enjoyed your little teaser.  I promise to be more diligent with blog posts!!!!

emotion to action

I've been reading comments on facebook and on my other blog about my trip to Ghana.  First of all, if you are one of the people who left a comment - thank you!  It is really wonderful to hear that my images and stories have helped some of you connect with what is happening over in Ghana.  

I have been back for a little over two weeks now, but I have to tell you.  Part of my heart is still there.  I pray for the ones left behind every day.  I pray for the 8 rescued boys every day.  I pray for Jake and Chanda who are living there for a year.  Every.  Day.  Sometimes I think, "why couldn't I have stayed just a little longer, God?".  But then I'm reminded of what I felt like God spoke to me on the plane ride home.  The only reason I want to stay is so that I can get hugs from those boys every morning.  I can't offer them food or clothing while I'm there.  I couldn't give them the education they need.  So really, my wanting to stay is selfish.  Ouch.  I can do SO MUCH MORE from here.  I can make money to help support my family and donate to The Father's House.  I can gather needed materials that aren't available in Ghana.  I can raise awareness with blog posts (hint hint) so that my readers can donate as well.  :)

If you have commented on one of my posts, or wanted to and didn't, I'm talking to you right now.  If you cried over the images of the boys in the lake or were moved emotionally by my story, I'm talking to you.  Even if you were the one who cringed a bit when I started talking about child slaves in Africa and quickly changed the subject - I'm talking to you.  All of that emotion, whether positive or negative, was God-given for a purpose.  It's purpose?  In this case, I believe it is conviction.  But how much emotion will it take for us to step into action?

One more story. :)  I heard a Christian singer say on the radio recently that he was praying deeply about the Nashville flood victims of this past year.  He prayed that the Lord would send people to help and that people would be generous with their money.  Then he heard God pretty much say back "aren't you people?".  So he kept praying, but he also gave 'til it hurt and got his hands dirty in the rehabilitation of Nashville.  Awesome, right?

This is a call to pray, and to continue to pray, for the children of Lake Volta and for The Father's House.  But just like that Christian singer, it is also a call to put your money where your mouth is and help sponsor a child.  Some of you have already done what you can.  Thank you!!!!  Some of you just cringed at the word "money".  I totally get it and I'll be the first to say that is sometimes my first response as well when asked for money for anything.  But that "cringe" emotion could just be conviction and I dare you to talk to God about that!  I am not, and will never be a salesperson, so I don't want to shove this down your throats.  But this is too important for me to shut up about.  Someone has to speak for those children.  Please pray and consider giving to the Father's House. 

You can give to this amazing cause by going to the Father's House website. :)  You can also support the cause by attending Ghana Rock!  Tickets will sell fast, so make sure to grab yours while you can!

Trust Your Instincts

"I am not crazy!"  I shouted this at the top of my lungs.  It was 11:30pm.  I was lying in bed.  Andrew was snoring, of course.

It all started when I told Andrew of the idea I had for a tree topper I had in mind to make.  I told him I'd love to do something relating to Jesus without being corny or too literal.  So, how about a crown?  A white, snowy, almost mystical crown.  You know, like something you'd see in Narnia or an old book of fairies.  I explained that all I'd have to do would be to cut branches and spray paint them white then add silver and cream touches like balls of wool felt or ornaments or glass balls.  I didn't get through my whole explanation, though.  You see, he was looking at me like I was certifiable.  A crown for the top of a tree.  Yeah, OK.  Whatever you say, Rachel.

So, I dropped it.  I thought maybe I would just buy a star like everyone else on the planet.  Then, at 11:30pm at night while lying in bed looking through anthropologie.com, I came upon this:

This amazing piece of art is available for a mere $428.00 from anthropologie.com.  It's a tree topper and if I could have put a picture to what I was trying to explain to Andrew, this would have been it.  I was planning to make mine for about $12, though.  My screams woke Andrew up, which was so convenient. (hehe)  I then proceeded to rub the $428 price tag in his face until he began to snore again.

I will not be buying a star for the top of our tree like everyone else on the planet.  I will be making a tree topper next year in the shape of a crown, and it is going to be fabulous.  And that's that.

Trust your instincts.

Christmas is coming!

My dad was a fanatic about Christmas.  He owned 13 trees.  Every year, he turned an entire room into a life-sized walk through of a snowy scene.  He called it his winter wonderland room.  He also had a 100,000 light display in his front yard that made the paper.  I didn't know my father very well, but I know that my love of Christmas and all things handmade comes from him.

Here's a few things that have inspired me in my Christmas decorating efforts this year:

No, I will not be using miniature plastic deer in my decor.  But the apothecary jars I bought for April's shower will look lovely on my dining room table filled with pine cones, ornaments and other lovely Christmas things.

I'm definitely wanting to do a wreath this year.  A traditional wreath?  Nope.  Something more like this...

...or maybe more like this.  Yes, more like this.

The colors in this next pic are spot on with my inspiration for the tree this year.  This says snowy white winter wonderland wrapped in a warm blanket to me.  I'm feeling the monochromatic look this year, but rest assured my house will never lack in the color department. I have a full sized tree that will look beautiful with this scheme, but I also have two other trees.  More on those later. :)

This could be my favorite ornament ever. LOVE!!!!

I'll be sure to post pictures of the finished product of all my Christmas adventures soon!  Anyone else doing something new or different for decorations this year?

Happy Day of Thanks

Whether you're spending this Thanksgiving with family, friends or a microwave dinner, I hope you remember to take a little time to thank God for His amazingness.  Have a good one!

Thanksgiving

Emma is in recovery.  We still have no earthly idea what is making her break out into hives, but her medicine is seeming to work at least enough to avoid more ER visits.  She is such a trooper.  They say that dogs that go through this can sometimes get so distraught about the itching, they will scratch and bite themselves until they bleed.  Makes me cry just thinking about it.  We have a visit in Charleston, South Carolina, with a dermatologist soon, so hopefully we'll be able to get to the bottom of it.  Until then, here's a quick shot I took of Emma as I was prepping for April's baby shower.  Her look says "why are you not playing with me?!" haha I love her so much.

I hope you all enjoy a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving this year!  

falling into nothing as the earth stops rotating

My life has come to a complete halt.  A week ago, I woke up early to find my puppy had an extremely swollen face, muzzle and neck.  She was having trouble breathing.  The world began to revolve a bit slower at that moment.  I rushed her to the vet ER and they said she had a severe allergic reaction...to something.  They could not say what, but they expected after a steroid shot and benadryl, she would be fine.  And she was. For four days.

Andrew found her the second time, again it happened over night.  I was away for work and he called me early.  As I slowly woke from a deep sleep, he left me a voicemail that I'll never forget. "It happened again. We're on our way to the ER. Pray for Emma."  At that moment, I felt so helpless.  I was a four hour car ride away and could do NOTHING but wait for the verdict.  Would my puppy be ok?  Andrew called me 90 minutes later, saying they gave her another dose of benadryl but couldn't give her a steroid because she had a mite on her back.  Fine, whatever.  As long as she's safe.  By the time I heard from him, I was already on my way home from the coast.

The very next day, I noticed her muzzle and neck starting to clear (yay) but that she had a bunch of patches of raised hair all over her back.  Then her neck.  Then her chest.  Eyelids.  Forehead.  Muzzle.  I thought I was seeing what had given her a swollen muzzle.  It must have been bug bites.  Right?  As the  day progressed, the "bites" got bigger and bigger.  Until I realized.  It wasn't bites.  It was happening again.  Except this time, it was everywhere.  Our third trip to the ER left us feeling helpless and hopeless.  The only thing the doctors said was that things like this were rare and hard to diagnose.  It could be anything.  It doesn't have to be something new to her.  She could have developed a new allergy to something that has been around since she was born.  Dogs can be allergic to bug bites, vaccines, medications, food, dust, pollen, other dogs and even people.  ALL of which she has been exposed to in the last week.  The only thing we can do is monitor when the breakouts start and count back twenty to thirty minutes to see what she was doing then.

At that moment, the earth stopped rotating.  I stopped breathing.  Nothing else mattered except keeping Emma alive and figuring out how to stop this terrible thing from ever happening to her again.

The doctor said to think about what happened each time she broke out in hives.  So that's what we've been doing.  Each time, she was sleeping.  Soooo, she's allergic to sleep.  Or not.  Right now, we think she may be allergic to her blanket or the detergent used to clean it.  But that is only a guess.  We really have no idea, to be honest, but clutching at something is better than falling fast into nothing.  My dog is my child.  We don't plan to have kids, but I treat Emma like the daughter she is.  If you don't like dogs or don't understand the connection, go back through this post and insert the word "baby" for the word "dog".  If you have ever had a sick child, think about if the doctors told you they couldn't figure out what was making your child sick.  It would kill your insides.  That's how I feel right about now.  I hope that my happy ending to this awful week will come in a blog post soon.  If you are a praying person, please pray that we figure all this out and that Emma returns to her normal, not so puffy, self.

Shut The Front Door

I need to live on the coast.  They're not afraid of color there.  I've been going back and forth about whether it would be a good idea to paint my front door and shutters or not.  I want to so so so bad, but I'm afraid we're gonna be the odd ones out in our neighborhood as no one has anything but neutrals or traditional red on their front doors.  

I doubt I'd ever be crazy enough to try one of these...

...but what do you think about a really really dark purple eggplant color?  Yay?  Nay?

...and we're back!

I had the most amazing time with my hubby touring the Eastern Caribbean, but it's all over now and I'm definitely feeling sad about it.  What could be better than a new ocean view every day from our balcony, touring distant lands by day and being entertained by blue men by night?  Nothing, I tell you!  Nothing!  It was by far the best vacation of our lives and quite possibly one of the best weeks of our lives.  Here are a few images from the amazing trip.

We toured with Norwegian on their new cruise ship, the Epic.  Even the stairways were beautiful.

They had the tackiest club called the Bliss Lounge!  Hilarious!

We saw so many great shows on board.  Blue Man Group, Cirque Dreams, Second City, a comedy magician who reminded me of a gay Steve Martin, Bernie Martini the piano man, a murder mystery lunch, Howl At the Moon dueling piano bar, Fat Cats Blues and Jazz, the list goes on and on.  They also had an ice skating rink, two bowling alleys, rock walls, three water slides and eleven restaurants on board.

Andrew was a little nervous about getting sea sick, but he did great. ;)  This was our balcony view.

This was also our balcony view.  I love the net of white here.

Every day and every night I made sure to take a picture of the skyline from the balcony.  This was our view of night one sailing to St Maarten.  I love that you can see the moon in the corner!

The first port day was in St Maarten.  We took a tour of the entire island, the Dutch side and the French.  A couple we met on the tour was nice enough to take this picture of us with my camera.  This is the ONLY decent shot of the both of us we got on the trip.

But I got lots of good ones of Andrew!  We took a break half way through the tour to go to a restaurant.  I was expecting authentic French cuisine there, but low and behold we found a creole restaurant instead.  I had my hopes on French, but it was GREAT food (Andrew is at the restaurant on the left) and we also got to go to an amazing French restaurant on the ship.  I even tried escargo for the first time.  Snails are YUM.

St Maarten is known for some of the most beautiful beaches in the entire world.  We wanted to show how excited we were in a pic, but Andrew was having wardrobe malfunction. :)

Favorite shot all week.

We toured with a Jewish family who practically begged me to take pictures of their daughter after finding out I was a pro photographer.  She is adorable isn't she?

That evening, we were out on the balcony and noticed a tiny  boat pulling up to the side of the ship.  After seeing people hoisted onto the cruise ship we realized they had been late getting back on board and had to get the coast guard to escort them.  Oops.

St Thomas from the balcony.  I didn't go out of the ship this time.  Andrew did a helmet tour and I got a much needed massage.

Nassau, Bahamas.  This was the last day of the trip.  This strip of land in between two sects of the ocean blew me away.  I would die to live here.

Atlantis was very cool.  We did the aquarium tour and then the "aquaventure" which is their amazing amazing water park.  Holy cow that was an awesome day.

The foyer in Atlantis's largest tower.  Crazy, right?

Hope you enjoyed looking through these almost as much as we enjoyed being there!