Yard Work

Today is the fourth time that I've mowed! It's just barely a month after spring has "sprung" and the grass is green and growing.

So, it was finally time... Time to pull out the weed whip and attack the edges of the yard and trim things up. You can see all over my legs are bits and pieces of the plants, but also I got cut up too. There was a casualty as I sort of knocked down one of the irises. Oops.

It was nice to be outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!

Ginger

Did she really think that we couldn't see her? This isn't the first time she's done this and won't probably be the last. She's so big that it's very unrealistic that she could make it under the carpet and we would "miss" her. But, I guess it's good for a laugh!

TGIF!

Visiting Bicentennial Mall

While we were in downtown Nashville on Saturday, we went to the Bicentennial Mall - which incidentally is a park that was created to celebrate Tennessee's 200 year birthday. We saw lots of people walking and running so I imagine that it's a place that people exercise at.

This is a view of the Capitol building.

I'm pointing to the county we live in, Wilson County.

Here's a closer view of the Capitol building.

Barry's by our town on the huge map of Tennessee.

Here's the map legend. One foot equals about 2 1/2 miles.

It was pretty cool to walk around the park and see the various of things that they had about the state and the history of it. There was a wall all along one side that had points in Tennessee's history cut into it. There was also a WWII memorial and a very cool bell display with 96 bells for each of the counties. We learned a lot.

The Easter bunny...

The Easter bunny never made it to our house :(. I was so sad.

But, Lover-Man to the rescue!!!! Not only did he get some Easter candy, but he got it on sale!!!

Yum!

Weekly Card Post

I had a productive day on Sunday and got a few things made up. The first here is a card for a co-worker at my husband's office.

This is a regular sized card (4"x6"). I used patriotic colors as he is ex-military. There's four different papers and some vellum alphabet stickers.

This card is for Barry's sister and family who just had a new addition born on April 11. I used four different papers and just wrote Congratulations on it. This card is about 3" x 5".

Here's a birthday card that I made for a co-worker. Again, I used 4 papers, some purple organdy ribbon, and a chipboard circle with a "t" on it. This card is 3"x5".

To go along with the baby card, I made little mini cards for each of the other siblings. The top one I used camouflage paper, cut out some stars, and put a "B" on top. To the right is another boy card that has 3 different papers. I added the frog sticker with 3d tape and then the letter "H". The last card was for my neice. I used three papers and used another chipboard circle with an "a" on it.

All in all, it was a productive afternoon and I'm set for the week with my cards.

A Night on the Town...

We had been given a free night at a local hotel by my boss for Christmas. He said we could pick any night that we wanted. So, we decided that this weekend was a good one -- since it was a long weekend and it was Barry's birthday. We stayed at the Embassy Suites @ Vanderbilt.

The view from our 7th floor room...

The room included a separate living area (see below). We also got a buffet style breakfast with cooked-to-order omelets along with the room. It was delicious!

Doesn't it look like fun?! We had a great time!

Celebrating...

We started the day with a family tradition --the birthday sign being hung.

Then we were off for errands. We went all over Lebanon getting things done. Then, we went into Nashville for a fun weekend!

We went to dinner at Maggiano's. Barry had been before with his work, but it was a new experience for me. It was Italian food and we both enjoyed what we ate (even had leftovers).

The waitress was so sweet to bring out a special treat for Barry.

Then, we got a special dessert -- chocolate pudding pie. YUM!

We didn't get to eat it all -- we were stuffed. But, it was the great end to a fabulous birthday!

Happy Birthday, Barry!

Well. I've tried twice to get this to come in right, but I guess it's determined to be sideways! :)

It's my lover's birthday!!!! This year is extra special because we have the day off and a bunch of cool things planned to do. I've got dinner reservations, a fun overnight stay, and some unusual errands to do.

Barry brought this cookie (along with regular sized cookies) to work on Thursday. Woo hoo!

Happy birthday!!!

Giving thanks

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God I will give thanks to you forever!

Psalm 30:11-12

How many times do we thank God for all the things that are going well? Earlier in the chapter David said, "When I was prosperous I said, 'Nothing can stop me now!'" How many times do I forget to say thanks when things are going well? Yet, when I see God's hand dramatically pull us out of a situation, I am more willing to give thanks. What about the day-to-day things?

If I have an attitude of gratitude all through the day, I am more apt to live in a way that would be pleasing to God. Isn't this a good change?!

Picture is from here.

Easter Creations

This was a combined effort of both Barry & me! I used the template design from CPS. He glued down the four rectangles and then I did the rest. I added some pink organdy ribbon around the Happy Easter paper. I used 3d tape to adhere the circle piece to the card.

I made two different variations of these cards for a total of 8. We did four of the combined effort cards on Monday night and then I made the other four Tuesday night. For these ones, I just changed the organdy ribbon to be purple and the paper to be Easter eggs.

We sent these cards to family members to celebrate the real reason for this holiday. If God didn't send Christ to die on the cross, we'd still be dead in our sins and headed to an eternity in hell. He is risen indeed! Halleluiah!

Now comes the cutsey thing that I made! I used directions that I found here and then adapted it a little since I didn't have an orange pen to make the nose. Since my intention was to make it for little ones, I decided to have a male chick & a female chick - hence the bow for the girl.

Here's a cute little clutch! :)

BBQing

We had hoped to BBQ a couple weekends ago, but the weather didn't cooperate. So, it was 70 something Monday and we decided to go for it. Unfortunately, it was so windy that Barry had a challenge keeping the coals lit.

Corn was on sale and we couldn't resist!

We had pork and beans along with to make this a wonderful American BBQ dinner.

Patience

Friday coming home from work, I was exasperated. It's been almost 2 months since they announced the changes in my department (Feb. 21, 2011). I was complaing to Barry that I'm so tired of not knowing what's coming and wish that the bosses would make up their minds.

Then, Saturday, April 16th's reading from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young hit me hard. Do I really think that I know better than God? Do I think that I could have done better? Wow. So convicting.

Monday morning, I was again thinking about all of this and other things and God brought my eyes to this verse: "Wait patiently for the Lord..." Psalm 27:14. I'm trying to leave these things in God's hands. Change is coming!

Broken TV

Over a year ago our television broke. It lived a long good life for about 10 years. When it died, we figured we'd put it outside when they did the spring clean up. Unfortunately, every week when we went to put it out, it was raining. So, it stayed in the garage all year long -- a huge paperweight. We got ready to put out the items this year and the first week we put out a broken fitness machine. Within an hour or so someone had picked it up. So, since we knew that the TV would be enticing for others to stop and see what it was, we decided to put a sign on it to deter people from coming by.

Here it is in the garage.

There it is hanging out by the road.

When we got up this morning, it was still there. I think it's safe to say that it was picked up.

Cranberry Hootycreeks

I came across this recipe when I was checking out somebody's blog -- don't know which one, but decided because it had white chocolate chips in it (and I had a bag of them already) that I would give it a try. Then, I found that dried cranberries were BOGO at Publix - bingo! So, for birthday lunch this week, I made these cookies.

I looked and looked to see what a hootycreek was, but no one has an answer. I guess it's just a recipe that's been passed down. It looks like it's something people like to have at Christmas and it's an easy recipe to do in a jar as a gift.

I had good comments even though this is a funky name!

A special project

So, back in March, our good friends David & Judy left to move to St. Louis. (You can see the post here.) I had decided to go back and get pictures from over the last couple years from things that we had done together and make a little book. Here is the result of what I came up with:

I started off by laying out the pictures and picking paper to go along with the topics of the pictures.

Then, I went through and glued down the paper and used special scrapbooking tape to adhere the pictures.

I added the embellishments and wrote the dates.

Here's the cover! I used 5"x7" cards and I plan to staple the 2 cards together with a special binding stapler that we have at work. I think it turned out okay.

Strawberry Muffins

A couple weeks ago, strawberries were pretty cheap and so I decided to stock up. (In fact, I think that I got my fill of strawberries for a while.) I had a pint that was getting close to going bad so I decided to make some muffins to take to work. I had made some strawberry muffns before, so I looked through all my recipes, but ended up getting a recipe from allrecipes.com.

The cool thing about allrecipes.com is that people write in comments about recipes and offer suggestions. So, I did this recipe and did as they suggested -- adding 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. I had decided to double the recipe and did a trick I learned long ago. Put the batter in baking cups like you normally do and put them in the freezer. After 24 hours, you can remove them from the pan and store them in a container.

We decided to have the muffins this morning for breakfast so all I had to do was put them back in the muffin pan and defrost overnight in the fridge. They were ready to bake for the normal time and turned out pretty good.

The Heat

We had no idea that it was going to get this hot. In fact, I had mowed around 11am and it was 78 degrees. I got warm, but who wouldn't? The temp kept going higher and higher and forced us to change our plans.

We had invited a couple over to have dinner, but when the inside of the house was over 80 degrees, I knew that wouldn't make a very comfortable situation. Instead, we went for ice cream and sat in air conditioning for a couple hours.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the same!

Woo Hoo! I won!

I can't believe I won! I won 2 tickets to the Southern Women's Show that will be in Nashville next weekend. I asked a friend to go with me and she is super excited. She said there were all kinds of freebies and just neat things to see.

Take a look -- you might want to come too!

Big Storm

So, we came home Monday to find a big branch in the driveway and lots of other branches all over. Isn't this a huge pile?! Thankfully the city will come and pick it all up.

While we were outside Tuesday afternoon picking up all the branches, we planted two azalea bushes that we got while at my mom & dad's over the weekend. The bushes were only $2.50 each!

Doesn't it look pretty good? I think that we'll only focus on the front portion of the house this year. We had already planted a few pink flowers in the front too.

Big Savings

We had a pretty decent shopping trip Tuesday night. Our total spent was $20.89 for $54.58 worth of items. That's a savings of 62%. We didn't have as many food items this time, but more personal care items.

These items were about $1.00 or less.

V8 - 0.97 each

Goldfish Grahams - 0.30

Japanese noodles - overage 0.21 each

Pond's Towelettes - $1.06

Dial handsoap - 0.30

Garnier Fructis shampoo, conditioner - $1.17 each

Dove Men Body Wash - $1.16

Jolly Time popcorn - $1.00

These were the best savings:

Japanese noodles - 0.79 , coupon for $1.00 = + 0.21 overage (total 0.42 overage)

Dial handsoap - on sale $1.00, coupon for 0.70 = 0.30

Goldfish - shelf price $2.19, sale $1.00, coupon for 0.70 = 0.30

Casting Crowns Concert

We had the opportunity to go into Birmingham and head to Stadium Fest -- a free event. The whole reason why we went was that Casting Crowns was going to play.

It was pretty awesome... can you see Mark Hall in the middle there?

This was the cutest sight -- he was so enthralled with Papa singing along!

They put the words up on the big screen so that we could all sing along.

Having fun dancing and singing!