Bama Wins....And Other News

I fell off the face of the earth.  I am back.  Thanks to the two people who missed my witty banter on this blog and sent emails to check on me.  I am fine and ready to catch you up on what has been happening around here! 

Certainly the most exciting news is that our team won the NCAA College Football Championship!  Can I get a Roll Tide?? 

Oh, here's is one now! 

We had our normal celebration party for four!  That means we got out some decorations.

We set the table with our Alabama stuff.  I just like looking at it!  Makes me smile.

It was Harry's night to cook and he whipped up a big batch of fried rice. 

The family loved it.  Well, I think they did!  A picture is worth a thousand words, right?  No really, it was great!  These boys were just giving him a hard time.  Good job, Harry!

We raised our glasses before kickoff and hoped that Alabama would beat LSU in the big game.  I yelled the following sentence at the television approximately 78 times during the game...

"Put the damn ball in the END ZONE!" 

It was not my best moment, but it was sincerely my most fervent wish for the evening.

Finally, the boys managed to seal the deal with a touchdown run by Trent Richardson.  His last as a member of the Alabama Crimson Tide.  He will be missed.  It was a terrific defensive game and the first shut out in a BCS bowl ever!  Way to go Bama!  We shook our pom-poms and watched ESPN for two days straight!  Nothing better than waking up the next day and getting to listen to the sportscaster talk about it all over again.  I also watched this You Tube video (click on You Tube) approximately 424 times.  Gave me chill bumps all four hundred and twenty four times.  I can't wait for college football to start up again! 

In other news.....

I have the "clean out, clean up, get organized" bug that I seem to get every January.  Here is some photographic evidence of my activities.

I have been dying to paint this wall.  This before picture isn't really fair because I had already taken down my pictures when I remembered I wanted to grab the camera and take a photo.  It looks particularly naked and bare.

I also wanted to paint this small wall by the back door, which was just all kinds of dingy and banged up.  That builder's grade flat paint is just hard to keep clean and fresh. 

Here is an after picture!  Love it!  A couple of hours and half a gallon of "Mission Hills" paint and it is clean and crisp!  I didn't even tape anything off!  Mad painting skills...at least from a distance!

I didn't get a close up photo of the back door, but you can see it from here!   It really was not that shocking of a change, but just feels so much better to me!

Also, this weekend I transformed the guest room closet into my craft area.  The guest room closet was home to suitcases, clothes waiting to go to Goodwill, quilts and blankets, and Sacred and Sentimental stuff I will never part with.  I sorted through everything until the only thing on the floor was some suitcases.  They would have to stay, but the rest of the closet was going to be used to organize my craft supplies.

Ta-Da!  I built this little shelf unit to hold my paper, paints, and some other random supplies that I can't ever remember that I even have.

Super easy to see now exactly what I have! 

I copied this idea from Pinterest!  Put all my ribbon on a multi-level pant hanger.  Now I can see all my ribbon and it is super easy to pull off a little to use!  Super smart.  I will be getting another one of these!

I have a three drawer rolling cabinet and a couple of clear bins with supplies.  I have a 24 pocket over the door shoe hanger on order that I am going to fill with miscellaneous gems, stickers, notions, and stuff. I will take a picture of that when it gets here!

Then I painted and hung a pegboard in the closet.  It holds my tools and stuff.  There is a lot of "stuff" in crafting.  Just odds and ends and things and stuff. 

I love it.  I go in there all the time and just look around.  Oh, I also hung a organizer on the wall for my receipts.  I have to save those for Lakeside and now I have a handy dandy place to put them!  You can also see in this picture the coffee mugs with little lids that I got on clearance at Michael's for .59 cents!  I am saving those for next year!

I also painted this six foot board to put across the dresser and a little stand.  It is serving as my desk to hold my new Cricut machine!   Perfect for doing my crafts on!  And...when we have company I can easily pick the board up and put it in the closet!  

In other crafting news...(This post is a little estrogen heavy....but I did start with football so sit tight!)

I made these Valentine wreaths for the Lakeside employees.

I made nine of them.  They were hard. 

I was originally  hoping that this could be the craft for the residents, but there was entirely too much cutting involved.  My hand was locked up after doing nine and I had Hubby helping me!  When I tried to think about cutting enough felt strips to make 50 wreaths, it made me cry and it made my hand ache and ache.  I had to take two Aleve just thinking about doing it.

Instead, we made these little door hangers with ribbon and foam hearts.  They were able to make them in approximately 39 seconds.  Super easy!  Almost too easy.  I did get some good feedback that they liked them.  Then we played Bingo and it was awesome!  Had plenty of volunteers and it was a great day at Lakeside.

In even more news...

Picture of Chip cooking dinner!  He did an awesome job!

Chip plays basketball!  Their team won 31 - 12.

Hugh Hefner cleans Bama's cage!

He is still alive and eating crickets like crazy.  Here he is up close.  See Chip's face through the plastic?  That's kind of a cool picture, isn't it?

Boys climbing the tree in the front yard.  This was on their Dad's watch.  I think that is a little high.

We have a Ghetto Ping Pong table set up in the dining room.  Basically, that means we have a temporary net stretched across the table.  We move the chairs against the wall and waa laa instant ping pong table.

Chip wants to play every ten minutes or so. 

So that is a little bit of what has been going on around here this week!  What have you been up to?

Kyle's Senior Pictures

This afternoon I had the pleasure of taking Beth's oldest son Kyle's senior pictures.  It was so fun...yet I teared up more than once.  You see, I first fell in love with this little guy when he was in second grade and looked like this....



He's the handsome dude in the front.  He was so little.

Here he is with little Chip.  They have always been buddies.

Now, he is graduating, visiting colleges, getting all grown up and stuff.  Looking at him through the viewfinder just seriously moved me. 

I thought so many of the pictures were wonderful.  I am going to share the best of the best below.  Tell me which one you like the best.



Ten Random Tidbits

I was on such a great blogging roll, but have stalled out.  I have lots of little things going on and keep waiting to download pictures from my camera to post about them.

Well, the heck with that.

I am going to lay it all for you with a "Ten Random Tidbits" edition, no pictures, and move on!

1.  After a recent housekeeping exercise performed by one of my boys, it became apparent to me that I was not preparing them well to be able to survive in the wild...or living in an apartment or home on their own.  They most definitely need more guidance and practice in these areas.  That spurred me to mandate that they both pick one night a week to cook dinner.  I will be right there with them in the kitchen, but they will be doing all the work.  Chip started us off with Spaghetti and Meatballs on Tuesday night. When I say Spaghetti and Meatballs please do not get any notion that any of this was made from scratch. Frozen Italian meatballs, Prego Spaghetti Sauce, HEB frozen garlic bread and pasta. One of my boys favorite meals.  I know...they are so weird.  Chip did every single step (except pouring the boiling noodles into the strainer) and he rocked it.  He was so proud of himself.  Harry's night is Monday and he is making....drum roll....Fried Rice.  He said he already knows how to do everything but cook rice in the rice cooker.  That couldn't be easier, so once I explain that to him it looks like I will be loafing around in the kitchen supervising!  Yea for life skills!

2.  Skylanders figures....where oh where are you?  Sold out all over town.

3.  I'm painting!  Finally!  I bought paint and filled holes in the living room wall last night.  Once I hit the publish button on this post I am going to get busy!  I love fresh paint!   I hope to take some before and after pictures to share, but don't hold me to it.

4.  Leak under the kitchen sink discovered last night at 10:15.  YUCK!  I think it was the spray hose deal which was spraying weird yesterday and needed to be tightened up. I am letting it dry out under there and see if any more water shows up.  What is with the plumbing issues?????

5.  I have cleaned out the guest room closet and am transforming it into a little bit of craft heaven.  I am putting up a pegboard where I can keep my craft tools (glue gun, scissors, tape, etc.), putting in a little short bookcase to store fabric, paints and papers.  I have also purchased an over the door clear shoe organizer to put all the little pompoms, googly eyes, gems, pipe cleaners, etc.  I bought a four level pant hanger to store my ribbon.  It rocks.  I am also painting a long wooden board to serve as a makeshift temporary work surface in there. I can put it across the dresser and the nightstand to make a work surface for my Cricut machine and other things when I am crafting.  When we have company, it will be easy to put the board in the closet and clean up the craft clutter.  The best news is that I won't have to do my crafts on the dining room table.  I am totally jazzed!  It is going to be awesome!

6.  Weather here is spectacular.

7.  Getting back into the exercise routine.  Walked everyday with Martha in the wee hours of the morning and then we doubled up and biked yesterday afternoon.  It almost killed me.  I haven't biked in so long.  I am terrifically sore today.  I so wish that being sore was not the reward for a good workout.  It really should be the other way around....If you workout you feel wonderful and if you don't you are sore and stiff.  It is not a very good reward for working out to be sore and stiff.  I'm just saying.

8.  Chip has his first basketball game today.  Can't wait.  Go Thunder!

9.  Yesterday I was walking through the living room and a wild green lizard was walking across my  floor.  At first I thought Bama had made a great escape, but this was a lizard from outside.  I tried to catch him, but he was under the couch in a nanosecond.  I had to leave to go get Chip from school and when I came back he was no where to be found.  Hmmm.....I wonder if he heard crickets were being served, dusted with yummy calcium powder, every other day.  Would that be something if I found him on Bama's cage?

10.  Whenever I am out of something (which is often) I call my awesome neighbor Karen.  Now when she sees my phone number show up in Caller ID she answers with "Are you cooking again?"  So yesterday, I was going to try a new recipe.  I had glanced at the ingredient list and it seemed like regular staple items I should have.  Well, dang first ingredient I needed was cornstarch.  Everyone has cornstarch, right?  I could have sworn I had cornstarch.  Well, I didn't.  I called Karen and of course she does.  As I am walking across the street to pick it up, I actually laughed out loud, because I thought to myself "I really should have looked at the rest of the ingredients before I came over here, I will probably need something else!"  Thank goodness Karen loves me or she might not ever answer the phone!

That is all!  Time to paint!  Time to transform a closet into a wonderland of craftiness!  Time to watch some basketball!  Time to get the heck off the computer!!!

Have an awesome weekend!