When I grow up

Hello all, I'm writing from Sunny Florida where I'm spending the night for work.

We're here in The Villages, which is about an hour away from Orlando. I haven't experienced the atmosphere here before- but man, I totally want to be this cool when I grow up.

They drive golf carts instead of cars! For every car we saw parked, there were at least 30 golf carts. And this is not your father's golf cart either.

Look at these babies...

I even saw Jeep and Corvette models!

The maroon Rolls will only set you back 15K. ONLY!

Like I said, when I grow up!

Back on Saturday with the winner of the GIVEAWAY!

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I took my hellion sweet puppy dog Alex for a walk to the park Tuesday afternoon. The cold air makes him frisky and he was in desperate need of some exercise!

Apologies in advance for the not as wonderful quality of pictures. I am hoping to upgrade to a Droid or Iphone sometime this year. The pink crackberry is about dead.

The snow had melted on the roads some, but there was still a wonderful blanket of white!

Alex was excited, and kept trying to pull me along. Come on Mom, Come ON!

The slushy mixture on the path meant I had some trouble keeping my balance. Alex was kind enough to show me the benefits of "four paw drive" and had no trouble at all.

It was so pretty all white .

While we were walking, it snowed just a little bit more. It was magical!

It was so quiet, Alex would stop and listen at the slightest sound!

We had a great walk! What fun did you have in the snow?

Yay for Snow Days!

This is what I woke up to this morning!

Yes, I live in Atlanta. So I get REALLY excited when it snows just a little bit. And when I go to bed with this:

I get super-duper excited!


I called Mom last night, about 9:45, to share my excitement. After she woke up enough to realize I was happy and not in trouble, she told me I sounded JUST like I did when I was a kid and school was cancelled.

Well, duh! 4" of snow means a day off work. Another "Saturday" to stay home and play with projects! And I was productive!

Alex was a fan too! He loves the cold weather, but gets confused by the snow on his back. He'll come back inside, and shake shake shake. Then run around like a hooligan all hyped up on sugar. It was so funny to watch!

It looks like I won't be able to get to work tomorrow either. The road out of my neighborhood and the main road to the highway haven't been touched by sand, salt, or plow as of 6 pm. Which I found out when walking to the drugstore on the corner to hopefully get some milk. I just wanted milk for tomato soup and snow cream!
I walked a half a mile, in the snow, while it was sleeting, to the store. I wasn't about to walk the mile it was going to take to get to the grocery- there's a big hill and we're already getting ice! I wasn't about to drive- as Mom said "You don't make more than your insurance deductible in a day!"  But I bundled up and passed the walk talking to my sister.  Only to get to the store and find out they're closed.  Story of my life.
Luckily, I found a can of evaporated milk WAY in the back of my pantry. Hopefully it's still good and I won't get sick!

Merry Christmas!

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas filled with family and friends, good food, fun times, and most importantly love.

Merry Christmas!!!

Gingerbread Houses

This past weekend, I had my annual Gingerbread House decorating party.

This is a tradition we started way back when I was a child. Mom would make graham cracker houses, and my entire class would come over to decorate.

This year, a few good friends came over for decorating fun. Everyone was given a basic house to decorate, expand, or renovate as they wished. We had both royal icing and melted chocolate for "glue".

I think we had some pretty good results:

The finished products!

We had a hot tub from Kris

And a doghouse (center right)

 Prince Charming won for most construction on his lot- with a picket fence, carport (with car!), and a shed.

 

 Leslie had the cutest snowman in a celery sled!

 Kristen got into the spirit with a red and green theme:

Here's mine:

The front of Kristen's and a little bit of Janet's

I think they look so great! I can't wait for next year!

How NOT to build a bonfire

While I was at Sissy's for Thanksgiving, we I decided we needed a bonfire to roast marshmellows.

Background: Sissy and her boy, Honey-do, have been having "bonfires" in her grill the past few weekends. Once I heard about it, I wanted a burnt marshmellow of my own. I love making smores.. I mean, eating the pieces separately- burnt marshmellows crispy on the outside and gooey inside, melty chocolate pieces, and crispy graham crackers. But primarily the marshmellows.

So Honey-do and I went out into the woods Thursday afternoon and gather up wood to have our bonfire with. 

Friday, it rains all day. But it stopped just as it was getting dark. I'm not about to let a little thing like humidity get in the way of having my marshmellows. Honey-do picks up dry firewood from the store, and off we go.

We used fatwood and newsprint, and at first it looked really good.

Then it burnt down to nothing. So more fatwood and newsprint, and it flares up again. And burns down and is almost out.

So, now out of newspaper, I start tearing up cardboard boxes from the recycle. Honey-do gets the charcoal chimney to hopefully get things going better.

And it looks really promising. Until it burns to nothing.

So, not to be deterred, Mom gets the lighter. And we light my marshmellow on fire with the lighter.

It was crispy and yummy and gooey and I loved every minute of it.

Sissy says on facebook: How to tell a good boyfriend- he builds your sister a bonfire in the rain because she wants one.

Honey do is definitely a keeper!

Lessons learned: Buy Sissy and Honey-do a firepit for Christmas. Don't build a bonfire in the rain. Wet wood doesn't burn well.

Of course, the afternoon after I leave, they have a bonfire and have marshmellows. Without me. Murphy's Law.

What a sweetie

Prince Charming Z and I went to Florida last weekend to meet his extended family. His grandfather's house backs up to a lake/ pond. Since Z's hobby is photography, we went down to the dock around sunset to take some photos.

It was a fun time, being unplugged from the real world, just relaxing and watching the sun set over the water.



This is one of my favorite photos from the evening.

But what melts my heart is the blog post he wrote to go with it:

"Made the long trip down this weekend to see family. I brought a gift with me this time around, my girlfriend. She just may be a keeper after handling all that my family threw at her."



I think he may be a keeper with words like that. Prince Charming indeed.
Check out the rest of the photos here

I've BEEN FEATURED!

I was featured at:

 
for my redo of Annie!
 
Allison always has great ideas! Her Catch a Glimpse party happens weekly on Thursdays , so go check it out!

And a big huge thank you to Allison for featuring me!

By the river and through the woods

We had a gorgeous weekend here in Atlanta! It was so  nice I tried to spend as much time as possible outside!

Sunday afternoon, I dragged Prospective Prince Charming Z to Ikea for some more boxes for my bookshelf. ( Pictures to come). Since he was such a good sport, we went to Pinkberry for some yummy frozen yogurt.

Then I felt like we needed to work it off. Z lives near the river, and so we decided to walk/ hike on the Chattahoochee nature trails. If you live in Atlanta and haven't been- they're GORGEOUS! 

So off we go. Except, I'm not really dressed for a hike. I've got my cute brown crocodile flats on, not tennis shoes or hiking boots.  Which would not be a problem, except to get to the Chattahoochee trail, we had to go through this other trail. Which was not really a trail at all. So here we are, climbing over rocks and trees,  trying not to fall in the river as we scale this really huge rock that goes almost all the way to the water. Yeah. Spontaneous Adventure.

So, since this trail is not quite a trail, all I can think are two things: One: What if one of us falls and breaks a limb. How am I going to tell EMS where we are?  Two: Snakes!
The EMS thing, I never did figure out. But the snake part I did.

I've always been told snakes don't like noise, so make a lot of it. But we were concentrating on not falling down, not exactly having deep philosophical discussions about the meaning of life. So I made up this little rhyme and kept singing/saying it to make noise

"Snake, Snake Go away, Come out again another day!"

Z found this "cute."

We did eventually find the real trail and have a nice long walk. I made sure to tell Z that marked trails that are reasonably flat, with gravel or mulch or some such covering are more what I was thinking of when I suggested a walk. I think he agreed with me.

But yay for being spontaneous and going on what turned out to be quite the adventure!

Annie update: She's sanded down, and waiting on her primer coat. Work is a bit crazy so I'm having trouble finding time to work on her.