Thursday, July 30, 2009

Last Day of Free Shipping!

All those well-laid plans I had for when Kiddo was gone? Yeah...um...I really didn't do much. Like, NOTHING. I mean, I did get some much needed shopping done, but even then didn't get everything I needed, for school or for tassels. Hobby Lobby didn't have the ribbon I needed, nor did it have the pretty aqua fringe I needed. I left a bit frustrated and worried that the tassel I was going to work on wasn't going to look the way I wanted it to. And by the time I got the shopping done, Kiddo was well on his way home. He had a blast at camp, and is hoarse from all the singing, yelling, and talking he did. He and his friend, Jon, have a new secret handshake, and I'm grateful for their new-found friendship.

On a totally different note, today is the LAST DAY OF FREE SHIPPING in my Etsy shop! I've added a few more pretties, so feel free to browse around.

On another note, I was looking around at all the things I need and want to get done around my house, about to get overwhelmed, when an idea struck me. I could let YOU decide what my next project is! This way I don't have to make a decision...I let you make it for me! In the next few days, I'll get some ideas up for your inspection, then you can let me know what you'd like to see. This way, I have accountability, and I'll know I'm doing something you might actually care about seeing.

Let's see, will it be a new latch-hook rug? Or maybe some macrame? Ooh, I know you'd love to see what I can knit with all of the dog hair I can sweep up!

Just kidding. My macrame needle broke.

Y'all have a good weekend!

Monday, July 27, 2009

Hmm...what now?

See this? This is the bus that is taking my child to camp for three days. What in the world will I do with all my spare time? Well, I could work on this...or this...or these...and I really need to work on this...and this...and even this...and thi...oh, my....I think they're multiplying.

And this...uh...no, wait...He's perfect just the way he is.

And, even though I have a lot of projects going on and even more than need to be started, more than likely, I'll just go shopping. And make a couple of these...And visit with Momma. We've been playing cards the past couple of nights. She wins almost every time. : P

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Shalupies

I bet you're wondering how in the world to pronounce that, aren't you? ShahLOOpeez. There you go. don't know what shalupies are? Well, I'll tell you, but you have to promise you'll still think I'm sane. My husband does not.

First, you take your basic taco salad...

Looks good, huh?

Then, you add the Smith family secret ingredient. All of my cousins do this. My Mimmie did this. I didn't know you didn't do this in other homes. It's just what we did. You add...

English peas. The big ones, not the little baby ones. And you don't warm them. You open the can, drain them, plop them in a bowl, and serve them on the table with the cheese and salsa.

Have I lost you yet? Well, how about now?

And that, my uninitiated bloggy friends, is how you eat Shalupies.

You're welcome.

Okay, I bet your family has a weird way to eat something. Please tell me that my family wasn't crazy. Sound Man, you have no say so.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

31 Days of Praying for My Husband

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that I brag a LOT about my husband. Katy Lin at The Great Adventure started a meme called My Husband Rocks! Fridays over a year ago to celebrate why we love our husbands. Since my husband does rock, I started participating in it, and I've enjoyed it so much.

As much as I brag on him, there is one area of my life that I have let fall to the wayside. It's the area of praying for him. Oh, I pray for him when there is a need, like if he's sick, or if he has a big thing at work, or if he has a relationship that needs help. But daily, ongoing prayer for the love of my life has not been a priority. This is something I want to remedy, and once again Katy Lin has provided a way to do that.

Yesterday she started "31 Days of Praying for Our Husbands," not a new idea, but one I had not seen in the blog world yet. I'm glad she decided to help us along in this journey! She uses prompts and Scripture to guide us in our praying. I love it! And the button is cute, too!

Not only do I expect to get closer to my husband through this, I expect to get closer to my Lord. A double blessing!

On another subject, once again thank you for praying for my Mom. She is much, much closer to me now at a rehab center not 10 minutes from my house. Compared to 30 minutes away, that's like she's in my living room! If you have been praying, continue to pray that her physical therapy goes well and she's up and moving the way she should be soon. She's improving every day!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Very Little Update...

First of all THANK YOU for those of you who have prayed for my Mom! She came through the surgery beautifully. The doctor said it couldn't have gone more smoothly. God is good! She is having the regular bumps in the road that come with being sovemshty years old (I'll never tell! Okay, maybe I would, but that's another post) and having just had surgery. Needing oxygen, drips, etc. But she is already up and using her walker and sitting up in a chair for an hour or so at a time. Good stuff, but keep praying for her.

I stayed with her Tuesday night and last night and I will have to say that waiting on a patient on morphine, even if she IS your mother, is quite the entertainment. She remembers nothing, but when I told her what she said and did, we were both cracking up. She seems to have an affinity for clouds. Don't ask.

Anyway, she is hopefully getting to move to rehab tomorrow. My sister is with her tonight and tomorrow night to allow me to get some rest. You know you get NONE in the hospital. I'm SO grateful for my sister! She took Kiddo home with her Tuesday morning so Sound Man and I wouldn't have to worry about who to ask to keep him this week. And now she is there at the hospital. Which reminds me, I need to call to check up on them.

Thank you again!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Praying for Momma

I will more than likely be out of the bloggy loop for a little bit. Momma is having surgery on her leg today. She has cancer and there is a spot on her thigh that is severely weakening her leg, so she has to have a rod put in to support it. It is very important that she have this done, or else her leg could break very easily. We all want to get this over and done with so she can stop worrying that her next step could break it.

So, in trips to the hospital, running Kiddo here and there, and trying to keep a semblance of order around my home, I will probably put blogging low on the priorities list. I would so much appreciate your prayers for my mom. I know she would, too.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Kiddo's Loft Bed...FINISHED!

Edited 7-16-09: I know I'm cheating, but I had to show this off, that's why I'm linked up at A Soft Place to Land's DIY Thursday. There are SO many other DIY projects linked and I can't wait to read up!

A few years ago, Sound Man and Kiddo decided they wanted to build Kiddo a loft bed to usher him into non-babyhood. Or something like that. Sound Man got plans off the internet and started gathering the materials he would need. And gathered some more. And gathered some MORE. Then started cutting...

Kiddo looks so little in this picture. Do they grow that much in a year? After they finished cutting all the boards, naturally they started construction:


And then....my Momma's cancer returned. We had to move kiddo from the guest room back into his room (as well as Jonathan's giant kennel!) while Momma was staying with us to have her radiation treatments up here. We placed his mattress underneath the bed until Sound Man could get back to the project.

Bless Kiddo's heart, as we say here in the South. But he really did like it...for a while. Then when spring came, Sound Man decided it was time to start working on it again. He had hit some snags in construction when he couldn't find the type of wood he needed, but finally found what he needed to get back to building. And build he did...

The ladder and rails for the top finished, they were basically through with construction and only had to sand stain it to be done. Well, any of you who have sanded an stained anything of substance know that that process can take a loooong time, depending on how many coats of stain and sealant you need.

But once they got started, they have worked every spare moment they could...

I just realized that I don't have any of Sound Man working, and I know I took some of him. He and Kiddo really didn't let me in on much of the process because Kiddo wanted the finished product to be a surprise.

And what a surprise! It looks gorgeous. He used the same stain he had used on Kiddo's dresser (which had been my Mimmie's-according to my Momma-then my sister's, then mine), so he has matching furniture!

We were going to wait about painting the room until a little later, but my Momma is back with us while she has surgery on her leg, so once again Kiddo was out of a bed (we had moved him back into the guest room to finish the bed). Finishing this project was top priority! Sound Man has worked every spare minute he had getting the bed finished and the room painted. I'm going to wait to show the completed room until after we get everything back in and hung on the walls. I will say that every one of us are pleased with the way the colors turned out.

Kiddo's bedroom now looks like a growing boy's room, not a baby boy's room. And while that makes me sad in a way, it's just a rite of passage that he got to enjoy with his wonderful Daddy. He has learned lessons not only in building, but also in doing things with excellence, patience, and persistence. Which leads me to say that...

Now, to see how other husbands rock, go to Katy Lin's blog, The Great Adventure. Katy Lin started MHR and I'm so thankful she did!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Gnocchi and Games Night

Now, tell me. Honestly. How many of you know how to pronounce the word "gnocchi"? Well, according to my friend, Lisa, whose family is as Italian as it gets, it's nyo-kee. No matter how the servers at Olive Garden pronounce it (Guhnohchee, Guhnockee, etc, etc). Anyway, Lisa and her husband Jeff invited us and several other families over for some homemade gnocchi. She invited us to bring whatever games we had to play, as well.

Lisa had to cook the gnocchi in batches so they would turn out just right. Oooh, and just right they turned out. Paired with her homemade meat sauce, MMM-mmm-MMMM!

Everyone else brought the fixins for salad, bread, or dessert. Jamy brought homemade bread. I mean melt-in-your-mouth homemade bread. I made Chocolate Chess Tartlets. I will have to make them again because they were gone before I could take any pictures. Mostly before we got them to the party. And Amber brought Sopapilla Cheesecake. Oh. My. OH. MY.


The grownups ate in the kitchen and we sat the kids in the dining room (don't you love these high ceilings and that wall color? I want this for my kitchen. The wall color that is...there's no hope for my ceilings), and after we had eaten our fill, sent the kids upstairs to watch a movie or destroy bedrooms, whatever.

Then the fun really started. Okay, so this picture doesn't show how much fun we had, but trust me. I won't give details to protect the innocent (and since four of the people in this picture are on our church staff), but we laughed until we cried. Peed our pants was more like it. I have not laughed that hard in a long, long. loooooong time.

Have you ever had a game night with friends? If you haven't, you absolutely should. Everyone I've talked to or facebooked since then has said how much fun we had. You get to know people you didn't know that well, and you make new memories with the ones you do know well. I am so thankful Jeff and Lisa opened their home to us.

"A good time was had by all!"

Monday, July 6, 2009

Fireworks Up Close and Too Personal

I lurve fireworks. Be it New Year's or 4th of July, I love fireworks. The bigger the boom, the better. I have memories of being a child on the sand at Gulf Shores, Alabama watching the fireworks from a mile down the beach, the boom happening seconds after the explosion because we were so far away. Memories of sparklers in my hand, waving them around making light streaks in the air. Memories of my toddler, scared of the noise, sitting in my mother's lap, with his daddy's fluorescent earmuffs on so he could watch the beauty without thinking it was a beast.

But this year, I have a new memory.


We went to Snowden Grove where we have watched fireworks for several years. We have watched them from pretty much every spot around the park we could. For the first few years, we watched them on the lawn in front of the stage, then in years when we didn't go in the park we've sat in parking lots around the area to watch them.


Last year, we went to the Parks and Recreation Office parking lot, which is right beside the park. It was great. We didn't have to deal with the traffic of the park (which is horrendous), but still had a great view of the show.

We decided that we'd do the same thing this year. Only this year we came prepared. We drove my husband's pickup, took our armchairs, baseball gloves, and iced drinks and headed out. I had my folders to organize while I watched the boys play, sitting in style in the bed of the truck. So redneck, as my husband says. Now that's an oxymoron. Sitting in a portable armchair in the bed of a pickup sorting through design ideas.

Anyway, back to my story. Sound Man got some gorgeous shots of the sunset...

Made Kiddo and me want to start singing, "Nants ingonyamaaaaaaa!" (and yes, I had to look that up).

And then the big show started. We ooohed and aaahed over the brilliant explosions, each one getting a different response than the others. I had my favorites, Kiddo had his, and Sound Man quietly took pictures of them. Almost 200 of them!

During the show, I kept hearing what sounded like sand or dirt landing on the cars around me, and felt small little things hit me every once in a while. There were several families with small kids around, so I just figured one of them must be throwing dirt. But toward the end of the show, something huge landed in my lap. Thinking some punky kid was throwing stuff, I picked it up, looking around for whomever might be so mean to do something like that. Sound Man picked it up, sniffed it, and declared that it was part of a casing for fireworks! Kiddo had something land on him, too, and upon inspection we realized that it was part of a fuse! The bits we were hearing and feeling were pieces of fireworks!!! We stayed where we were, but I nervously tried to watch to make sure we didn't get pelted. Then a fire started where the fireworks were being shot, and the show was suddenly over. A disappointment, since the finale is always AMAZING.

When we got home, we were able to closely examine just what came flying at us:

Kiddo is holding the fuse that hit him, and the piece that hit me is the biggest piece. They weren't hot, but still. Falling from that far in the sky could do some damage to the eyes if they had hit just right!

So, we left this 4th of July with yet another fireworks memory. One I am not sure I want to repeat!

Saturday, July 4, 2009


~Happy 4th of July!~



~God Bless America!~


Friday, July 3, 2009

Etsy Sale!

Are you sick of my blathering on and on about my Etsy Shop? Well, I can't help it! I keep adding more and more and right now is a GREAT time to buy, because I'm offering FREE SHIPPING in the month of July! Even if you didn't get your Uncle Sam Tassel before the holiday, I have several others that would be cute all year long, patriotic or not.

Do you realize Christmas is less than six months away? You knooooowwww, tassels make wonderful gifts!

Have a wonderful Independence Day weekend!