I Get Busy Sometimes

Such as last weekend. I busted my hiner cleaning, purging, and making a nest. Sometimes I think, "For What?" Other than the layer of dust is thinner, can I really tell I worked all weekend? So in protest, I was pretty much lazy at home this past week.
So today I hit it again. First I have errands to run. Right after hubby gets home from the vet with Kota Dog. Kota Dog hasn't been feeling himself this past week, so a trip to see what's wrong is in order. Can't really pinpoint anything, but he's just not acting himself, but acting like a lazy old man. So off they went. It's driving me crazy sitting here waiting.
Lsst night was graduation for our school. When I say our school, I mean the HS youngest son graduated from, hubby coaches football at, and the school that my school shares a campus with. 283 grads. Awesome kids. They earned 1.8 million in scholarships. A third of them earned the Florida Bright Futures Scholarships, 3 earned football scholarships, several baseball scholarships, a first ever, girls soccer scholarship and our very first in the history of the school, National Merit Scholar! Impressive group!
Here's a pic of me with one of the grads and his brother. Jason is on the left, and Michael on the right.

 

I've known these boys since they were way small. I remember buckling Jason in his car seat. He's one of hubby's linemen and is headed to Millsaps College to play football on scholarship. Can you guess their school colors? All the boy ever wears now is that purple! Michael on the other hand, is older and still growing. He's 6'7" now! They have a younger brother, Matt, who is 6 ft and he's only going to be a freshman. Their mom, Johanna, and I worked together in PreK years ago. Since then we've done scouts together, school projects together and football together! Jo is the sweetest soul and we get each other because we both have 3 boys! And all six of them are so handsome!
That was the highlight of my week, standing between two such handsome young men. Of course, now that they are grown, I passed on my two bits of advice and asked Micheal to marry me. Micheal drives a very, very nice Lexus! LOL! He said we couldn't get married since it went against the advice I'd just given him. (why please one? when you can please sooo many!) Bad I know!
Okay, I'm off to see what trouble I can get into.

3 Days in the Life

I tried so hard not to leave the house this weekend. I was thinking about maybe going to the beach on Monday. Of course, that was our yuckiest day, so the day I wanted to leave the house I didn't.
Saturday was an off and on rainy day. I stayed in my jammies til after noon, but I cleaned house in them. Cleaned the kitchen top to bottom, inside and out. I pitched and I repurposed. All my cookbooks are in one place now, on a bookcase. I'd take pictures, but yard sale junk is piled in front of it. I think I have 70 cookbooks if you count those little ones you pick up at the checkout. I still don't have the one I really want. My brother still has it, it was my mom's. But I did google it and I can buy it on the web. The United States Regional Cookbook (C) 1947. It has all the good dishes in it that my mom cooked.
When I finished cleaning the kitchen, I decided to wash all the curtains in the house. So I did. Except the living room curtains, I had to leave something for this weekend. All that was done by 2 p.m., so Rick and I went to Foley to pick up an order at the Scrapbook store for a friend. She's on vacation, and the order was Owires for a class she's teaching in a few weeks. The big local crop is the first weekend in June. She's teaching, I'm teaching. Wanna come? I think there are still openings.
Sunday, was a lazy day. No major cleaning really, unless you count all the ceiling fans in the house, and the windowsills. I planted a few flowers I'd bought. Rick and Patrick were reading so I grabbed my book and finished it, Blue Dahlia and started another, Red Lily. Both by Nora Roberts. Family reading time, how sweet.
We also did grocery shopping. That's always fun.
Monday, I played in the scraproom and did laundry. Rick fixed my laptop, and worked in the yard. We are so exciting, aren't we? We grilled steaks, twice baked potatoes and asparagus. I am tired of cooking. I cooked all weekend, breakfast and supper, all three days. Some people who know me have passed out reading that. and for those who haven't, I actually cooked Thurs, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I made Patrick make wings tonite for dinner.
That's it. Now I have to go thank the hubby for fixing my laptop and drilling holes in all the dominoes for the class. Is that TMI?

P.S. The lilacs on the blog header are from my hometown in IL. My friend, Julie, was home this past weekend and took the picture. I snagged it from her facebook page. Thanks Julie!

Memorial Day

This solemn day honors not the men and women who fought for our freedoms, but the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Please remember them, and their families, as you enjoy the freedoms they have so unselfishly given you.

It's Raining!

The rain started last night, around time I got off of work, of course! It didn't stop me from a little retail therapy and then dinner out with two of my favorite guys.
I checked out the new Anna's Linen's here. Well, it's been open about six months, but I've not been in. I'm thinking about changing the curtains in my living room. Right now I've got country ruffle curtains up, ages old. It's time for change, they don't match the walls or the furniture. I can move them to the scraproom. Or my bedroom. They'd be fine in either of those rooms.

I went through Hobby Lobby too. I thought it would be a brief trip, but I ended up spending over an hour. They've changed out alot of the home decor stuff, with 4 rows of 66% off old decor. But I didn't bite on any of that. Just picked up some stuff for class I'm teaching in a few weeks.

Dinner was just Sonny's BBQ, guys choice. Not fancy but ran into a few old friends. Patrick likes going there as he used to work there and knows most everyone. A couple of Rick's football players work there too, so it's like old home week.

Today is rain, rain, sun, rain, rain..So I'm getting alot of cleaning done. I'm working on the kitchen. Cleaning cupboards in and out. I have two shelves filled with old tins and milk bottles for decoration. It's time for their yearly dusting. Rick is off working on a car. When he gets home we are going to try to run a few errands. Well it's time for me to get back to cleaning..

TGIF!!

No big plans for this weekend really. We're in for lots of rain, but I'm looking for some beach time, maybe Monday. I have a book I'm reading that I can finish, two classes I'm teaching in two weeks to work on, and there's always this house I can clean.
I just need some down time, some creative time, some beach time and a little hubby time. So it will be a great weekend! I hope yours is too!

Hump Day!!

It's a beautiful day here in the Panhandle. The breezes are unbelievably cool and for the first time in recent recollection, we have our air turned off! Usually that only happens if we have no power, like after a hurricane! Our air runs from May 1st til about mid October.
But this week is an exception. Our lows have been in the 50s and 60s, while the high has barely hit 80. I am so loving this weather!!!
Today is supposed be bring rain, but you couldn't tell by right now. It's sunshiney. They say it will rain most of the weekend, which we need. But it messes up plans to work in the yard and on my flowers.
While I didn't vote, so I'll have no right to complain. I do hope Kris wins American Idol. I have been an Adam fan from almost the very beginning. The boy certainly has talent. But I don't think he's truly an American Idol. Kris has appeal to a broader spectrum of people. Adam, will no doubt, have a very successful career. But Kris is the Idol.
Did a bit of retail therapy last night. I had a $30 off coupon and a $50 gift card, so I went to Coldwater Creek. I LOVE that store! I was hoping to find a blazer/jacket but I'm just not liking the shorter blazers in style this summer. So I found a nice blouse and a few tank tops to layer. The blouse is made of bamboo! How cool is that?? It's soft, but we'll see if it's cool like cotton.
okay, off to work.....

Fun Scrappy Things!!

Our order is finally here from Copic. I guess there was a hang up shipping from Japan, but our order is here! I'm so excited! I now feel like I have enough colors that I can really begin to create and share what I learned in Copic Class.
The black pens are Spicas (Spee-ka). They are a glitter pen with real bits of glass, not plastic in them to make your creations sparkle and shine. While you know I am not a blingy person, I do love a touch of glitter here and there. I have all the colors and 3 clear glitter Spicas, so I can make anything sparkle now! Of course they just came out with 12 new Spica colors. Yes, I've ordered them! If you are interested, let me know. My friend, Sharon, at Imagininks, can order them for you.

 

Another big biscuit in my day was the arrival of my name stamp. Do you see my name?? I love the definition she chose to!
This stamp is from another Sharon. Sharon from Cootie Coo Stamps in High Springs, FL. I had almost forgotten the stamp, when Sharon called me last week. She'd lost my phone number to call me to tell me it was in. Then she had phone trouble. When the repairman came out to fix the phone, they moved her cabinet and out fluttered my piece of paper with my name & phone number. Yea!!!!!!

 

I'm excited about the 3 day weekend coming up, so I can play with the new toys!!!!!!

It Was Such a Lazy Weekend!

I can't explain it, except for maybe I just needed it. I was super lazy this weekend. Not that I didn't have a list of things I needed to do, I just didnt' do them!
Instead I putzed around on Saturday, scrapped a bit, had breakfast out with hubby. Ran a few small errands, but didn't go to Micheals, JoAnns or Hobby Lobby. I don't even remember what we ate for dinner Saturday night. I guess it wasn't memorable and there are no leftovers to check. Kinda scary.
Sunday was super lazy, super duper lazy. I went with hubby to Home Depot, then came home, plopped myself on the love seat with a book and read about a half hour, then slept for 3! WOW! I never sleep that long during the day.
I did find out that one of my secrets wasn't kept. Her hubby just couldn't wait the few days until her birthday to tell her. My dear friend, Julie, who I've known since Jr. High, is coming to visit. Her birthday is the 20th and her hubby and I have been working out details for her surprise birthday present, a plane ticket to come to Florida!! Julie lives in Virginia and has traveled all over, but never has been to any part of Florida.
We haven't seen each other in 30 years, but have communicated off and on through the years. We reconnected a few months ago on Facebook, and now she's coming to visit!!! Just a quick weekend visit, and we'll probably spend most of it at the beach. I have to wait a whole month til her visit, I can hardly stand it!
We have a lot of catching up to do, it's going to be great fun!

TGIF!

I can't believe I haven't blogged all week. Not that anything exciting has happened. Not that I can talk about on here, yet...I don't want to reveal any surprises before their time. But I'm getting a visitor!
The next few weeks will be super busy, but I'll try to post as much as I can!!!

Mothers Day Rocked!

I have to admit, I don't always look forward to Mother's Day. Especially lately, since my boys have scattered in different directions and this house is so much quieter than it used to be when three boys reigned supreme. I wasn't even looking forward to this Mother's Day to tell the truth.
We'd all just been together for the wedding last week. I didn't think anything could top that. It was such a great weekend. I knew that Dan & Felicia would be working this weekend, especially Sunday, since they work in the food industry. I doubted Kevin would drive home, especially since Erica was in Orlando at her parents, seeing her sister, BIL, and new nephew, who'd just arrived home from a tour in Japan. I'd resolved that it would be a low key day, and I'd planned to spend it scrapping.
So Saturday we cleaned house all morning, Saturday afternoon I hit the beach with my friend Linda. We took her hubby's new, old yellow Jeep. He threatened us both over the phone from Texas, that we'd best not go sand duning, we'd best not get stuck anywhere, and we sure wouldn't get the top off of it. Well Linda had the top off before I even got there. But we didn't go sand duning. But we did call him back and ask how to get unstuck, just to set his heart racing. It was a wonderful day at the beach and we sat and chatted the afternoon away. I thought that would be the highlight of a low key weekend.
But not, I woke up Sunday to an extra son on the sofa. Kevin drove home from Tally, just to spend the day with me! I was charmed! So he did, he spent the day.
We started of at the commissary, I needed groceries desperately. He benefited to, since they were having their case lot sale. We stocked up on TP, Body Soap, Granola bars and water for him. We bought odds and ends of stuff we use. After we got home, he even helped put the groceries all away.
The boys made me lunch, waiting on me hand and foot. Such a strange feeling. After lunch we went outside and I lounged on the swing, reading my book, listening to the Cub's game and napping, while the guys did odds and ends in the yard. Kevin scrubbed the upper deck furniture. It looked so nice when he got done! Patrick baked me chocolate chip cookies and made potato salad for dinner. Rick grilled brats and it was a perfect ending to an almost perfect day.
We get to continue it as Tuesday Daniel & Felicia will be over to celebrate again! I just love Mother's day! This celebration can go on and on!

Cracking the Whip

My house is suffering from the busyness of the past few weeks. After all,a wedding in the family has priority! But this morning all that is changing. I'm making the list, checking it twice and cracking the whip.
With three adults working together, we should have this mess cleaned up to my satisfaction in a few hours. I'm not asking for washed walls, and windexed windows. Just run the vacuum, dust, mop, clean the bathrooms.......then we can start this mountain of laundry!

No More Cool Breezes

At least for awhile. I realized this about an hour ago when I let the dog out at one a.m.. For the past few months when ever I let the dog out in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, I cherished the greeting of the coolness of the day to my face. Until just now.
I opened the door, briefly pausing to feel that rush of cool air. It wasn't there. Instead, I was greeted with the heaviness and warmth of that all to familiar muggy, summer air. I'm afraid I won't see another cool breeze until October.
So summer has arrived for us. While most of the nation is waking from under the snow, and delighting in the blooming flowers of spring, we've turned hot & wilting. Is it too late to move north for the summer? I could, if I bought a plane ticket every weekend, flew north on Thursday night to enjoy a cool, northern weekend, only to fly home Sunday night for work Monday.
I don't miss the cool breezes during the week. Our building is like a deep freeze all summer long. I have known people to wear long johns to work in July. So I think I'll become a weekend snowbird. I love my weekends.

Crazy Girlfriends

I think one of the best things I've discovered in the past decade is crazy girlfriends. I'm having more fun than I've ever had, with the crazy girlfriends I have.
They come from such diverse groups. My school friends, My Hilltop friends, My Chickens friends, My Facebook friends, My monkey friends, My Blog Friends, My Scrapbooking Friends, My Navy wife friends, My football mom friends, soo many friends, but never too many friends. Someday I'm going to have a big party and invite ALL my friends.
I really want all my friends to meet each other. They are all so much fun, it would be just one big laughing, fun, silly party. Us all, just being friends.
My friend Jules recently did a scrapbook page of me and my best Roomie, Cruise, Hilltop, Hockey, Parasailing Friend, Val.

Val has always been my cruise roomie, for as long as I've been cruising with the Hilltop girls. We didn't even know each other til we roomed together. Crazy I know. We got together because one of our other friends, our fearless Hilltop Leader, Linda, thought we'd make good roomies. She was soooooo right! We've been all over together, and even parasailed in the Bahamas, danced on a bar, okay that was Val, not me, and have had some crazy fun together!
I met Linda, through my good friend Jules, who I'd only met online at a scrapbooking message board, but I drove 4 hours to room with at a crop that Linda was putting on, in the woods at a state park. Crazy huh??
Jules is a very talented scrapper, someone I always look forward to learning alot from. She's crazy fun too, but laid back fun also. She's also a wine friend, which wine friends are good to have too. Thanks Jules for doing the layout, I love it!
It's great to have crazy, talented friends! And all these friends? All your fault! LOL!

Did You Know?

It's football season?? Spring football that is, started May 1st. But not for this family, we had to do wedding stuff May 1st and 2nd. I took alot of grief from Rick's fellow coaches about having a wedding during "the spring season".
So I guess we plan our lives around this for a few weeks. If I were a good wife, I'd plan everything around football. Which I kinda do, but not. Sometimes he says he will be late tonite, and I just say, "Aww, I'll miss you." or "I'll tape Idol for you" but inside, my heart goes pitter patter because I will have a few hours to myself, to do what I want. LOL! But I try to make all the important stuff. Thank goodness I'm out of the baby stage, I would hate to say "Dear, we have a baby due in the middle of playoffs".. Can you imagine the havoc that would raise??
So this morning I woke up to croaking frogs. At first I thought, what the heck is that noise? Then I remembered, the frogs must be back. I think they use our little water garden to mate or something. Oh great! I just realized, I'm running a no tell motel for f--king frogs. With that I'll leave you.

Wedding Bliss

We survived the weekend wedding! All went well, but not without a hitch. The groom was a little late, causing the bride to panic. But the day was as beautiful as the bride, and all in attendance agreed it was a day to remember. These are just a few pictures from my camera, I wish picasa would allow you to post more than four. But here are some of my favorites.
Was he on his knees begging forgiveness for his lateness? We'll never know, the bride isn't telling.

 

Felicia is such a tiny, petite, little thing. Dan scooped her right up for this one. They are so cute together, I don't think either of them stopped smiling all day.

 

The whole fam damily as I call them. At least now I have one more feminine voice to balance all the testostrone I've been living with all these years. Plus she scrapbooks, so that's an added bonus!!! I just love her!!!!
Hubby, me, Dan & Felicia, Kevin and Patrick.

 

Me and the Hubby. Gosh I love him more than on our wedding day! He looked pretty sexy in his Cuban shirt, as did all my handsome men.

 

Hopefully more later, I've got to get to work!

I've Been Scrappin' Again!

I've been busy working on some scrapbooks for my friend, Georgia, who lives in Texas. Every year Gerogia has a "Girlfriends" party in honor of her best friend, Sally, who died of breast cancer. One of the highlights of the party is the books she makes every year, highlighting girlfriends. So this year, Georgia asked me to make a "few" for her soiree.
These are just the covers of a few. Each book had 1o pages, 5 front/back. I filled them with quotes, embellies and such, all honoring friendship and thankfulness. I apologize in advance for the blurriness of some of the pictures. I should have checked before I packed them up for her.

If you want to read more about Georgia's quest just follow the link here If you want to help make a book for next year, let her or I know. It's all about the girlfriends', we all know about how great they can be!

Ah the Weekend!

Sometimes I feel like I work harder on the weekends than I do during the week. There's always something to do around here, it's a never ending vicious cycle! Rick has been working hard in the yard, meanwhile, the house keeps me busy.
Since we've been enjoying the cooler spring temps by keeping the windows open, I have lots of dusting to do today. Bathrooms to clean, floors to mop, well, you know the routine.
Sometime this weekend I need to find a pair of shoes to match my dress for the wedding, and get the guys Khaki pants. Nothing like last minute prep here. Now wonder I dreamed last night I was trying to get my luggage to the airport so I could ride a horse cross country (not fly in the plane with my luggage) and also trying to get the keys back to the cabbie, since he let us "use" his cab to take the luggage to the airport. Meantime trying to circumvent getting through the crowd in a flea market type atmosphere in the airport. Wow! I'm not eating McDonalds any more! I haven't had any McDs since Christmas and ate it twice in as many days. I think that's what brought on the crazy dreams.
Okay, so down to business, off to clean, and hopefully a nice dinner tonite somewhere.

It's Hump Night!

I wish! Actually I'm alone in my hotel room blogging, waiting for our exciting meetings to start tomorrow. So the only thing I'll be doing tonite is sleeping..
This morning I had a nice surprise when I let the dog out for his morning run. A few years ago I planted a clementis vine beside our pool deck, next to our patio. This morning it bloomed!!! It looks like it will bloom a few more days as it has several buds on it also.

 

A few coworkers are with me on this trip and we went to one of the guys houses to pick him up. Once we got there, we didn't want to leave!!! Henry lives on the bay and this is his view from his living room deck. He can watch the Blue Angels fly from several rooms in his house.

 

This morning there was a sailing regatta going on, can you see the sails?? In the background are the builings out on Pensacola Beach. We seriously didn't want to leave. I think all of us could have just spent the afternoon with an adult concoction in hand, watching the boats sail by.

 

Here's another picture from his house. His original house was totally destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. His new one sits on stilts. I volunteered to house sit anytime he needs a housesitter! I told him I wouldn't even have wild parties. I'd just sit on the deck and while the day away. Couldn't you??

It's not been a week!!

Almost, but not quite. I'm sorry. I'm just not a good daily blogger. Of course you know I lead a boring daily life.
The weekend was dreary, but that didn't stop Sharon, Ann and I from making a quick trek over to Alabama to Gigi's. The trip was worth it, She had in the new Graphic 45papers Fashionisa, Transatlantique and the child's paper. Had to have them!
Sunday was more of the dreariness, but I did get the guys shirts for the wedding, which is only two weeks away!!! They are wearing the linen cuban shirts and khaki pants. The ones I found were white with a Khaki stripe down each side. Rick's shirt is a little different, since he's not in the wedding party technically.
I also got my dress, it's off white with big poppies on it. I also found a little cream colored
crocheted jacket to match. Just in case it's breezy that evening on the beach.
Work had been just that. Tedious, getting ready for the end of the year reporting. I leave tomorrow for 3 days of meetings in Tallahassee again. How fun! Hopefully we'll be gack early on Friday!!!
Speaking of the saltmines...it's time to go!

Bad Blogging

Truly, I lead a boring life. So not much to say, but I will.
The last couple of days I've had the spring allergy sinus headache. I've been eating antihistimines and tylenol. That dulls it for awhile but it roars back with a vengence after awhile. Today, I had an appointment for facial and I almost didn't go. But the girl who does my facials is phenomenal and soon she'll have enough facials done that she won't be able to do any more (she's at our vo tech school). But I went anyway and I'm sooooo glad I did!
Truan did wonders and cleared my sinus headache all away! I didn't tell her about my sinus pressure, I really think she felt it. She really concentrated on my sinus area, by the time she was done, I had quit hurting. So AWESOME! I quick booked another facial for in a few weeks. I have to take advantage of a good facialist when we get one! I told her she had a true gift and tipped her tremendously!
Still trying to talk the Big P into adding Massage Therapy into our curriculum so I can take advantage of that too!
The super came by to visit our school too. He came to congratulate our high school's first ever National Merit Scholar finalist! HOw awesome is that? Our high school has only been around 7 years.
About 5 minutes after the super made the big announcement, I heard the girl in the main office (next to me) just a hollaring and carrying on like she was panicked. Nothing rattles her, so I had to go see what was wrong. Apparently a piece of "paper" was sticking out from under a cabinet in her office. She used her shoe to pull it out from under the table. It wasn't a piece of paper but one of those glue mouse pads that the county had put down to catch some mice. It had done it's job because there was a live mouse stuck to it! Ann couldn't get her shoe off the pad or off her foot. She was freaking! She finally got her shoe off and then we got her shoe off the pad. Finally the custodian came and took the mouse pad away.
It was our laugh of the week.
So maybe life isn't so boring...sometimes it just feels that way.