....anddddd we are back!

Hello my darling readers. how have you all been? Me? Am doing great. We arrived from India about three weeks ago and are happy to report that regular programing in the Johnson household has resumed. I came back to a house which bore a really neglected air about it . Hubster had been only cleaning the bathrooms and changing the bed sheets. Thats it and oh, he just about kept my plants alive. Small mercies I suppose...

I have a long post scheduled on my trip home. The family reunion, the big fat Indian wedding of a nephew, the travelling, Christmas with family and the bad, bad winters. Suffice it to say, I somehow survived it all and when it was time to head back home in Dubai, I was so ready! Me and the son came back with nasty flu and various kinds of germs in us and are infact still not fuly recovered. But then that is an expected part of traveling to India so really I am not complaining. I have been very, very busy settling down and because this trip was a longish one, it took me some time to shake off a strange kind of disoriented feeling. I however had no time to sit down and introspect, the house needed serious TLC. For somebody like me, who is very houseproud, it was all too much to take. The clean up was daunting. Weeks of accumulated dust, empty pantry and an empty fridge, linen closet in a mad, random chaos thanks to hubster rummaging there for clean bed sheets and towels, plants dying on me, shower supplies over and so on. I plunged right in and so far am doing great getting the house in order. Over the weekend in an unusually morose mood, I waited for hubster to take us out for an outing and he surprised me with a shopping trip to ceebrate my return from India because he knows retail therapy will make me get up from the dead too!

Off we went to our favourite mall close to our house. We went to the Mirdiff City Centre and headed straight for the home decor stores. I had nothing planned as such. Just browsed around and found myself gravitating towards all things red! Two hours later and armed with some pretty loot we back home and I got to work in the living room. It was 1.00 am but I could not to be stopped. Hubster looked on indulgently while Yohaan as usual drove me mad asking me to count all the things we had picked up. My little man is obsessing about colours and numbers these days. Gawwddd! Dont even ask. Another day maybe.

I finished my living room makeover. Changed the layout after a little more than a year. It has become a bit cramped but looks nice nevertheless. I shall post a mini series of before and after pictures to give you all a perspective of the changes I made.  And I have tons of red all over! Which also brings me back to linky parties! Yayyy for Patricia of  coloursdekor and the weekly link up parties she hosts. I missed joining the linkups every week while I was away I only got around to visiting her blog tonight and was pleasantly surprised to find the theme of this week to be the colour RED! or a  post on love (and I am guessing much mush too....). .What a fabulous conicidence!  Just as I have finished changing my living room from mainly blues to red. Now dahlings, enough of me rambling on and on, lets hop on to this linky love partayyyy! I present to you some pictures.

My favourite shelf in the house gets some TLC. I got all my red spined books and stacked them together.

I stacked each shelf with colour coordinated knick-knacks with books. You can see black, red and blue shelves.

Just red bottles which I had originally planned to group here looked OTT so I added some other spring colours to tone it down. All red looked like it was still Xmas!

My new table placemats all in red and one of them being used for the topper. Also picked up this darling little mounted red ceramic cart like thingy, love it!

A close up of the same, isn't it cute and err, a lil christmassy too, but never mind that!

                     New Cushionios! I got a set in plain red too...forgot to take pictures though...

And finaly, take a look at that tiny little hand made appliqued heart motif , which I had made two years ago for my christmas table setting. I put it up here because the all  black top tier of this shelf got too edgy for me and the red adds a nice pop of colour.

That's it guys. I am done for now. At least I have begun blogging again huh? i am on a major roll over here cleaning/organising my house and basicaly wanting to start afresh in the new year. I have some wonderful plans for the boy's room, he needs to be seperated from me now (I suppose) and shall be a proud owner of a bedroom all for himself. I have also resolved on going easy on www surfing. I simply dont have enough time and while I was away it hit me hard as to how much time I really do 'waste' sitting with my laptop! Being a home maker when you have tons of exciting plans for your house and more importantly the husband gives you the go ahead, \is seriously fun!! I hope you all are having a wonderful year so far. Be back for more stories about my winter holidays in India.