I'm still around

Let's see...

Working hard. My dear hubby's work sent him off to Louisiana for a few weeks. That left me to get ready for the garage sale on my own. And to finish up many home improvement projects, and shop for materials for others he will need to finish upon his return.

The garage sale was fairly successful. There was a festival in town this weekend so we didn't have quite as much traffic as we have in past sales. We are thinking of selling again for one more day this next weekend before hauling it all off to the Goodwill. I'm not totally sold on that idea as I would like to haul it all away now but we shall see.

While going through the house preparing for the garage sale, I started painting the kitchen. I had painted it a bright golden yellow 8 years ago when we moved in. It's really needed a new fresh coat of paint. Dear hubby wanted to buy some new dishes too. A lot of what we have had in life were hand me downs or thrift sale type items until we married 8 years ago. We've purchased things over the years that reflected us. Dishes were apparently next of his list. Here's what we ended up with (we bought them just before he left) -





I like the stoneware but was a little concerned it would give the kitchen a fiesta/Tex/Mex flavor with that color combo. Our house is decorated more... hmmm... eclectic country? lol! So out with the gold and in with the...





It's a pretty robin's egg blue/craftsman blue. Dear hubby hasn't yet been home to see it so I'll be curious to see what he thinks now that its up on the walls. The corner there is too high for me to reach so its left unpainted until he returns.

We have a three bedroom house without an extra room for all my scrappy stuff like some people have. So I have always claimed a short wall in our bedroom as my space. It's not very pleasing to the eye to see all my messy stuff piled on brown banquet tables in an organization method that looks in disarray to the untrained eye... so I took care of that before our vacation. JoAnn's was having a clearance sale and I found some vinyl and some really cool kind of french country fabric. I brought it all home and covered the tops of the ugly brown tables with off white vinyl and sewed some skirting to hide my under table storage needs. It has worked out like a charm AND it looks so much better since it is in my bedroom. I promised a few pics so here they are-





And speaking of scrappy things, the only thing I had time to put together since last post was one hybrid card. It turned out pretty cute though-



I hung two lights this week too. The chandelier is so pretty. And I changed out the light above the kitchen sink to a pendant since I have the kitchen torn apart. I'm in love with the new lighting. I'll get some pics of those for an upcoming post. :)

So yesterday... I must share this with you... I was contacted by an old friend from high school who sent me a link to our upcoming 20th reunion website. So I go to check it out and there is a picture of me from high school. My hair was permed and fried and sprayed up high. Come on now, you know what I'm talking about. The higher the better and we would "flair" out the sides too. I should look for the picture to post- lol! But I digress, so my darling daughter walks up and looks over my shoulder. She starts busting up laughing and asks me if I dressed up there for an 80's dance? Of course I have to explain to her that that was not for a dance but how we all did dress because I did grow up in the 80's. She was holding her side laughing hysterically at me for several minutes. So glad I could be such entertainment. Yes I felt really old last night. *giggle*

Speaking of old, we got a Wii fit yesterday. Yay! They seem to be pretty cool! I'm overweight which is not secret. The kids couldn't wait for me to get on it and to see the little Mii get heavy. Yes they make your little character fat if you are. However, the joke was really on them because after the little analysis, it said I was fit and 3 years younger than I really am. Oh Yeah! Lol!

Okay I've probably bored you to tears with my rambling at this point so off I shall go. Thank you for checking in on me. I hope you all have a super super super cool week!

One word

Simplify.

I think as I am getting older and hopefully a little wiser, I am learning to focus on the most important things in my life. When I turned 35 it was a difficult year as far as "getting older". And I don't think it was so much that I was getting older but my kids were too. At 36 I got out of my funk and clean out a lot of "stuff" I'd been holding on to. Cleared out a lot of clutter in the house, garage, storage, etc. This summer on my quest to focus a little more on myself, I have found the need once again to simplify life.

The end of last week and all of this week I have/am moving from room to room or box to box and asking myself if each item is used, purposeful, or sentimental. If it isn't it is going into a garage sale this weekend. It is SO MUCH WORK. But the benefits of simplifing will so be worth it.

And moving on to scrappy things... Here's a sappy lo's I did this week.



And here's a couple of pics of a tag book I made my dh. It's full of pics of our recent vacation. He's on the road a lot so I thought this would be a fun way for him to keep some of those memories close.





Darling daughter and I are hanging out around the house today. We are going to watch a movie we rented last night while eating lunch. Then, and I'm very proud for this, we are going for a bike ride. I have been walking a biking a minimum of two miles a day about 5 days of the week for several weeks now. Even though there are some days I really don't want to, I do any way and I feel better for it. I just need to keep with this until it becomes habit. :)

With the plans of the garage sale and some home improvement works in progress, the house is a complete mess right now. Lol! So in another week, I'll have some things finished up and will takes some pics of my scrappy table skirting, the new chandelier when it gets here and hung, and a new pic of the kitty cats. They are getting so big. They are having a ball right now in the house because of things being in disarray. They act like its a giant playground.

So wrapping up my rambling here- thank you, thank you, thank you so much for stopping in! I hope you all have a super wonderful week!

Staycation

Well we are back in action. We did go camping but it was here. We had a wonderful time. We spent tons of time together and away from tv's, computers, and telephones which was much desired. And we had longer time than I expected because dear hubby ended up with two extra days. Yay!

We went boating (Yes he got it all squared away finally!), fishing, tubing, biking, hiking, bowling, shopping, out for icecream. We built horseshoe pits at home, a new porch and replaced the steps to the porch. While gathering supplies for the porch project we also ordered a new chandelier for the dinning room which has a really cool light in it now, however, it is very dim. The new light should allow us to enjoy more playing cards and games after dinner. Can't wait until its in and installed. :)

I've been a scrapping fool and last two days. lol!







And it is really so nice to be back and feel rejuvenated! I hope you all are having a super summer too! See you again soon with more pics and schtuff.

Time for a

vacation. It's a shorter one but a vacation none the less. Plan B did not work out because they are booked on the weekends. So we are setting up camp close to home until hubby gets the boat trailer rewired. It's okay, we live near a lake and plan on taking it out here. Next month hopefully we can do a longer camp at our favorite lake about an hour and a half from home. Anyway, we'll be out until mid next week.

I've been a little crafty this week.



This is a hat box I decorated to match my craft area.



And this is a gift tag and card I made to coordinate for a gift set.

Switching to another subject... You gotta try these!



I bought a couple boxes in June to use this summer since the prices of everything are going up up up and we would be home a lot. I can't say enough great things about them. Everything really does last longer and there is less that goes to waste. There are 20 bags for $9.99. They are reuseable so one bag is probably enough... :)

The last three days it has teetered at 100 degrees. The weather is so wonky. Last weekend it was raining. I been out every morning and night to do yard work this week. The yard is shaping up but boy is it humid. It really zaps your energy. Now if it were in the upper 70's or lower 80's I'd love it.

Thanks for stopping in. I hope you are all having a fantastic summer and staying safe and cool! Bye!

Trying it again

Blogger is still giving me problems. But I keep trying. So what's up with it? When I first started with blogger I had a lot of problems but they made some upgrades and I that seemed to do the trick for me. But lately, its back to square one.

Moving on... How was everyone's fourth? I hope you all had loads of fun! Earlier in the week we bought Boom Blox for the Wii. We stuck around home - had a friendly Boom Blox competition, a BBQ, and set off some fireworks. Here's some pics of our favorite fountains this year...







Speaking of the fourth... here's a lo from last year that I scrapped last week-



So are there any other Jane Austen fans here with me? I found P&P audiobook (unabridged)on i-tunes this week for under $8. I couldn't believe the price. (My dear hubby is on the road A LOT so only does audio books. He spends $8. to rent them so I know that this is a good deal!) I thought it would be great to listen to on my i-pod when out for my walks. :)

Last week darling daughter and I were working on sewing projects. She finished her blanket yesterday and I got the skirting sewn and up on my craft table. Both projects turned out great. I'll have to take some pics to share next post. Darling daughter got a little impatient during this project because she thought it was something she could sit down and do in an hour. lol! I was really proud of her though because she stuck with it and worked on it all week long.

I'm hoping this post will go up without a hitch. Here's the lo I couldn't post last time. Darling daughters school field trip-



We pulled the boat out last week and cleaned it up. Thursday we were going to take it out on the water, however, dear hubby found that the lights on the trailer were not working. He spent the afternoon trying to find the problem without luck. Poor guy... we are going camping later this coming week and I think its going to be without the boat at this point. We usually spend so much time on the boat in the summer but this year we haven't even been on the water yet. Things don't always go as we plan, right?!? It'll be okay... We're hoping to get in to the campground we used to stay in before the boat. We always enjoyed that campground and its just down the road from the other. Let's hope plan B works out for us. :)

Well, I'm home for the weekend all alone. I have housework to do and then I'm hoping to do some hybrid projects. I really should be doing some yard work but today I'm saved by the rain. Yay! lol!

Thanks for visiting! I hope you all have a super weekend!