I know this isn't garden junk, but I've been making jewelry from silverware. Maybe you could try that. Over on Crafts and Decorations I have some spoon pendants and beaded bracelets posted. I even made some lapel pins from silverware. I plan on using my grandchildrens photos in one, and you might be able to make a pendant with your mother's photo( a copy of course :) ) and some of her little things inside it. I used my grandmother's tatting in ones for myself,and pieces of old crochet and tatting I found at yard sales for ones I'm selling. You could put in small pieces of her old jewelry,or just anything that reminds you of her. I hope this helps with some of the silverware. Here is a link that might be useful: spoon jewelry

Hello Taunia, Do hope the summer is finding you doing some fun things. I can't imagine what you are going through, so I'll not say "I know"because I don't. I have a couple Bible verses which have helped me in the lose of my parents and 3 brothers. Proverbs 20:22 Since the Lord is directing our steps, why try to understand what happens along the way...........Proverbs 25:2 It is God's priviledge to conceal things. I think my favorite is : "Do not let these things which may not in the present be understood weary your soul, but know that sometime, someday, somewhere, you too will understand. from Edgar Cayce. Hope you understand, I'm only sending you some verses, I'm not attempting to "preach". We each need our own time to grieve. None of us ever grieve in the same time frame. So, be good to yourself! Remember, we have tears to help wash away the pains of living.

I know how you feel. I've gone through the same thing. I lost my mom to lung cancer when she was only 47. That was only a few years ago, and I'm still angry that she's never going to get to see me get married, or meet my kids. I would love to believe, as I deeply envy those who have unshakable faith. What a comfort it must be. But my rational and logical mind have a hard time accepting it. I do agree with Lydia though. I believe we choose our life lessons before we get here in order to grow. And while sometimes it becomes unbearably painful, you'll come out of it a better person even though that may be hard to believe. I saw changes in how a terminal diagnosis affected my mom, and, amazingly, they were for the better. I remember she told me once that she was amazed at how many people were smiling at her now, and at first she thought it was because of her bald head, but then she realized it was because she was smiling at THEM first. She lived each day to the fullest, and she also adopted religion for the first time in her life. I saw the amazing comfort that was for her. And for me, dealing with my mother's death, I realized how strong and independent I really can be. It also brought our entire family much closer together. So while I miss her terribly, I can still reflect upon the positives. And I know she would want me to stop mourning for her and to get on with my life. Another thing that helped me a lot was to look for little signs. I collect perfume, and my mom only wore one perfume in her life. A few weeks after she died, I noticed that one of my bottles of perfume was on the floor. I didn't think anything of it, and I picked it back up and put it back on the dresser. The next day, it was on the floor in the same place. Thinking that was strange, I then moved the bottle a good 6 inches from the edge, and I also added a tiny little bottle of her perfume next to mine. The next day, they were both on the floor in the exact same place. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was one of my cats, I don't know. But it made me smile and brought me a lot of comfort knowing that perhaps she was there and telling me she was ok. I hope you can find some comfort soon.

Suero beat me to my question. Our great room only has windows on the back of the house and there is a screened porch directly on the other side of those windows. The exposure is pretty much due West so we do get a fair amount of light. Our FP wall faces North so any windows on that wall really wouldn't bring much light in anyway. The blueprint that Paint Chips edited above is a good rendering of what I might look to do. Our window wall has a bank of 3 double hung windows with fixed transoms over them and a single door also with a fixed transom above. This maximizes the available light, especially since the porch which is 12' deep beyond the back side of those windows limits what light can get to the windows in the first place. As far as the ceilings-I don't know what kind of moldings and trim you are using but an alternative to the tray ceiling might be to trim out or coffer the ceiling. We have a coffered ceiling that gives us 9 rectangular "pockets" of drywall surrounded by heavy moldings. We painted the drywalled sections of the ceiling to match the wall color and it really pops against the trim. I wish we had some recessed lighting in there but I have resisted tearing the ceiling up so far. I'll try to get a couple of pictures up from home later.