An apology to our sons...

....because as of today when I visited the pool store (for the second time in 3 days I might add) I am pretty sure any hope of you inheriting any money from us went "down the drain", if you will.

Your Dad has taken apart and rebuilt the vacuum (more than once) like some kind mechanical wizard. Diagnosed why sand was spewing into the pool and then repaired it. I am pretty sure if the car business fails he has a shot as manager of a pool store.
The chlorine, acid, salt and algae eater we have poured into this pool would probably be a normal summer supply for at least 5 pools.
But not to worry boys, when your Dad and I die then YOU will be the proud owners of the green swamp!

My first lesson in small town ways

We have moved, well I can't really consider the moving process complete since we still have stuff at the old house, so I'll say we are living in our new hometown of Snyder, TX. Population 10,000. Not tiny...but certainly smaller than anywhere I have ever lived. People say the bad thing about small towns is that everyone knows your business.

Hub's used car lot is booming, way more than he and his business parter ever expected this early in the game. It is a blessing, but they are exhausted and stressed out.

I, as I have prattled on about previously, am tired. Worn out by moving and all the craziness that ensues from it.

Yesterday I decided blonde rascal and I would run some errands for a little change of pace from the unpacking nightmare. We went to the library to get a library card, hardware store to get some dynamite filter sand and acid for the pain-in-my-arse-pool, post office, cool juntique store....

A hairdresser at the salon where MIL gets her do done, through casual conversation with MIL found out we were moving to Snyder and happened to have a good friend in Snyder, also a hairdresser. She claimed this hairdresser was a master at color. This was months ago, MIL gave me the woman's name and the salon she works at here in Snyder. Of course I have long since lost that written piece of info. I remembered the woman had a different name that started with an X and thought I knew where the salon was.

During our errands yesterday I decided to stop by that salon just to see if I could in fact find her. I am in desperate need of a cut and color, not to mention numerous other beauty routines that have fallen by the wayside during this move.

I found her there and much to my relief she had cool hair and good color. I told her about her friend in Lubbock recommending her and she asked what brought us to Snyder....a question that all locals ask. (Should I be concerned that they are questioning why we would move to Snyder?)

I told her that my hubs was the owner of the new car lot on 37th street. Everyone knows about that.

She said..."OHHHH y'all bought Kelby's house" Turns out Kelby (the previous owner of our home) who is also a hairdresser, used to work at that salon before they adopted a baby.

Then she said "You have a son...."

I said "yes, this is blonde rascal our 9 year old son."

Hairdresser: "No, I mean an older son"

Me: "We have a 21 one year old Marine"

Hairdresser: "Yes! I cut a girls hair who has been talking to him online"

Me: "Huh?" (Perplexed, thinking how can she know all this?!? The Marine had told us months ago that he found a girl from Snyder on Facebook that he had been talking to. That is how he rolls with the ladies, he has one in every city in the 48 contiguous. He has been gone over a year, way before moving to Snyder was even a thought in our brains....and he already has connections with the babes in town.....that's our boy.)

Happily for me, the hairdresser then told me that this girl is a great girl from a wonderful Christian family. Went on and on singing her praises. THAT made me happy, the Marine needs a good, morally upstanding, sane, girl...so I took note.

There it was, my first surprising lesson in the small town grapevine.

The moving gods are funny

I don't specifically remember the moving gods while studying Greek mythology in high school. But surely they exist, right? How else can the nightmare of moving be explained? The moving gods and I, however, do not share the same sense of humor.

We are 90% moved out of our old house. All furniture moved, all that remains is the garage, attic, barn and miscellaneous annoying crap in the closets. Our house has not sold...which is ideal at the moment so we can move at a leisurely pace. But, Dear Lord, we are about done moving so please send that buyer now!


*I can never find an extension cord when I need it, for example Christmas. Whilst moving, I have found no fewer than 627 extension cords.

* Cleaning supplies and old towels (being saved for messy cleanups, dog bathing... you know the ones) multiply like rabbits.

*I have not had our mail forwarded yet (yes, we still pick it up about once a week when we are there moving stuff). The only address I have gone online to officially change is ....People Magazine. Priorities.

*A/C in old house went out. While we were packing stuff and it was Africa hot outside. Pleasant. The up side was that when we listed our house with the realtor, we purchased the home warranty to entice buyers. Thankfully that warranty goes into affect at the time you list. So the new fan motor for the A/C only cost us a $60 service call.

*The garage refrigerator went out after we moved it. Not a necessity by any stretch, since it just holds the overflow...and well, beer, which IS a necessity when moving while it is Africa hot outside. I digress. The garage refrigerator still had a lot of Pedro in it. Did I mention we moved the fridge last Sunday and realized it was not working....8 days later. Nice. Hubs and his buddy loaded the fridge onto the trailer by scooping it up in the bucket of the tractor, which may or may not have had something to do with why it is not working now....I'm just sayin'. Redneck moving may not always be the best method.

* I celebrated moving/unloading/organizing the entire kitchen in the new house, by actually cooking dinner and making a cake for dessert. Only to have the kitchen sink stop up. Hubs could not make it budge, so the whole nasty mess of dishes had to sit out until the plumber came the next day.

*A huge tree limb on a tree in our backyard came crashing down from a large gust of wind. Didn't land on anything luckily, just another untimely check mark on the the to-do list.

* The swimming pool a.k.a. science experiment gone awry is about to be the death of me. We bought this house with a nice new shiny year old saltwater pool. I was a little leery of having a swimming pool....I mean you have heard pool owners complain of the upkeep. However, "they" say saltwater is very low maintenance. Take my word on this dear readers, just join your neighborhood pool. Never, ever, never get a pool in your backyard. I think we have made it full circle in the learning curve of the chemicals...to the tune of about $500 in the past month. Now the sand filter went haywire, spewing sand into the pool. Not to mention, not properly filtering the water at that time. The pool was green so we could not see the bottom of the pool much less sand on the bottom. Hubs read about the sand filter on the internet, disassembled it and now it needs more sand. Did I meantion we live in a town of 10,000....no pool store readily available. Then the automatic crawler vacuum thing wasn't sinking to the bottom of the pool. More internet reading and hubs determines that sand effects the vacuum. We might have to buy a manual pool vacuum to get rid of the sand. The pool brings new meaning to the term money pit.

All of this to say...a few more days of this and the pool is going to be filled with dirt and my hair will be completely gray. In the mean time...we are enjoying the pea green swamp. Someday I am sure I will love the pool....maybe.

On a much more entertaining note....One of our barns has a little potty room in it. I opened the door yesterday and was very disappointed to see that someone had made a mess and been wasting toilet paper. For shame.

However there was no human being for me to scold...Dang mice.

Incidentally, our house cats now reside in this barn. Don't be alarmed, it is insulated and perfectly suited for large amounts of cat hair, hairballs and litter boxes. Anyway, justice was served as there was a mouse carcass on the floor with a perfectly content cat licking his paws nearby. Don't chew my Charmin.

In amongst all the weariness and headaches of moving...we are enjoying our new digs. On Father's Day evening we took a ride around in the Gator. Well hubs and I were in the Gator, blonde rascal chose his own means of transportation....
That is until we came across this......in all my excitement at seeing this I didn't take time to focus very well....Yep, it's a bobcat. Totally cool. It was at this point though that blonde rascal ditched his dirt bike and hoped in the back of the Gator with us!

Here is a little tour....
The road leading up to our property is a little hilly. I am looking forward to running that...when I regain my running mojo which the act of moving has temporarily robbed me of. Not to mention, where are my running shoes?

The rugged open landscape is calming.
Our property is, as is our entire neck of the woods, surrounded by these wind energy turbines.

Interesting.......old and new wind power, side by side.

That is all for now friends....I am off to unpack something or study the extra large, in ground petri dish in our backyard. Sigh.

"One time, at church camp..."

Our bus caught on fire. Really it did. It was all good though...no injuries, deaths, explosions or hysterics.

I didn't take my camera to camp...but this event totally warranted using my Blackberry camera. I mean, I have a blog to write and all.

We were about 6 miles from the camp and the engine starting smoking profusely. We were on the winding roads in the mountains of New Mexico, other vehicles were pulling onto the shoulder of the road because of the massive amounts of smoke we were producing. There were flames coming out of the engine, but we made it to the side of the road and evacuated the bus without incident. Praise God!

As the kids were exiting the bus, one boy ran by and excitedly said "This is so much better than last year!" That cracked us counselors up, it became our motto for the week.

It just so happens that where we pulled off on to the shoulder happened to be right in front of a cattle breeding facility...interesting. However, the scenery was gorgeous.


Blonde rascal monitoring the arrival of all the emergency vehicles.

We called the camp and they sent vans to retrieve us and we all made it safely to camp.

It was a great week and the kids naturally had a blast. Me? We had an awesome group of counselors...and we had a blast too!

I am glad to be home....and back to my regularly scheduled moving madness. However things are beginning to take shape....sort of.....around here so I hope to be back to blogging more often..... soon!

Alive n' kickin'

I am still here. We have moved, for the most part and the new house is a disaster. The typical moving scenario....too many boxes, where to put stuff, general disarray. But alas it is summer so who cares, right? I have long, hot days to schlep boxes around.

Blonde rascal and I leave tomorrow for church camp in New Mexico. Pretty much a welcome hiatus from the moving mayhem for me!

I hope to be back to blogging next week. (fingers crossed!) So much to share..."Murphy's Law moving edition", our swimming pool that I just might fill with dirt before too long, adventures in the new life of being the owners of a used car lot in a small town, the many injustices/calamities of a city girl helplessly making her way in the country, hopefully quilting...or at the very least getting the quilty cottage organized. The list goes on and on. I know you'll be hanging on the edge of your seat waiting to hear about it all!

In the meantime, don't be jealous because I am going to camp with a bunch of sweaty rowdy elementary age kids for a week. : )

It's a par-tay!

The Nester, of "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful" fame, is hosting a lampapalooza party! I have been on a lamp kick lately so I thought I would join in on the fun. I just did 2 posts on lamp re-dos so I will link to them here and here.

Next on my list, like THIS weekend, is a fabu burlap lampshade re-do. Just like what Rhoda did. I think I have the exact same buffet lamps that she does. I got them at Lowe's years ago. The silky shade is a little too formal for me, so bring on the burlap!!

Now go visit The Nester! Now, go now! Soak up some ideas to try out yourself at the lampapalooza. Her blog is chocked full of lots of incredible ideas. Easy ideas and best of all she gives you the OK to do your own thing...throw caution and any preconceived "decorating rules" to the wind!

The craziness before the calm

Blonde rascal's last day of school is this Friday. As we all know, the last week of school is jam packed with stuff.

Last week his class presented their "Living Museum" project. Very fun idea, research someone who has contributed to society and then present yourself as that person. SO cute.

Here we have adorable Emily who chose the smart Sacagewa.
Landon chose the stately Teddy Roosevelt.
And then, then there is my boy....Yep. Johnny Depp. Trust me it was a stretch finding what Johnny has contributed to society, other than entertainment. I could hardly tell blonde rascal to say that Johnny drives a Prius and supports the legalization of marijuana, now could I?!? Anyway it all worked, I just made up some stuff about Johnny Depp....kidding!

It did make me giggle that he chose him. I was like do your thing boy....don't be like everyone else and pick someone dull. Enjoy your research!

In college, I was a communications major. I had to give LOTS of speeches. The O-N-L-Y speech I remember in those 4 years was one where we had to pick someone notorious to research. I chose Charles Manson. It was faaasssinating. Everyone was scared of me after that, but I got an A. The research was enthralling, how he could brainwash those young people. Watching "Helter Skelter" did in fact scare the crap out of me. That was just an added bonus, as I do love a good scare.

So who am I to fault my little progeny for choosing someone interesting to research? Keep it real, always keep it real son.

(By the way, he got a 100%.)


Last Friday was Buddy Field Day. Lots of sweaty kids.

This game made me laugh...what is it called...bats in the belfry???Dizzy and weaving running children are funny! They were like little miniature drunks.

B.R.'s teacher is priceless. We love, LOVE, love her. She was totally worthy of me making her a quilt as an end of the year gift. However, insert us starting a new career and life 90 miles away while still living here...and the time somehow slipped away from me. Instead, I have had this blog bookmarked for months. I copied her and made this cute gift....
Finally, yesterday was award day. I won't bore you with how fabulous and brilliant my son is, he is you know, by rattling off all of his awards. I'll just show you how cute he was...

....getting congratulated by his fantastic principal.....


...and exiting stage left. Done with 3rd grade! It is bittersweet because we are so ready for summer but at the same time we will miss this school. We have had a wonderful experience at his school. However as he starts in the fall at a new school in a new town we will love it too. A lot of my love for his school came from me being involved and volunteering. Getting to know and build bonds with the teachers and staff. Which I plan on continuing at his new school! Besides all that, even if we had not been moving to another town, the district changed the boundaries so he would of had to go to a different school next year anyway. Change was in the cards any way you look at it.

Saturday we are having a garage sale at MIL's house. Not fun, never fun. It does make moving easier because as I tire of packing... I just say forget it I'm selling it! Plus whatever paltry profit I make gets turned into a decorating fund for the "new" house. Wheee!

Remember

We have had a relaxing weekend at the "new" house. Well....if you call moving boxes and some furniture....horses and hay...relaxing!

This house has a flagpole. I have always wanted a flagpole!!! Just in time for Memorial Day I bought a flag to fly. Hubs, my little Eagle Scout, raised the flag for us.

Today I will remember those who have fought, are currently fighting....

...and those who will soon (sniff, sniff) fight for our free country.
The Marine flew to 29 Palms, CA yesterday for a months worth of desert training. His company is combat ready. They will deploy to Afghanistan in late summer or early fall.
I am so proud of him I could just burst.

Have a wonderful relaxing day!

I love fellow bloggers... and good customer service

A few months back I stumbled across "Cynthia's Cottage Design" blog. It is delightful....her house is soooo very charming. It is like a cute one of a kind store, I would love to leisurely walk around in it, admiring everything!

I think I read through all of her posts in one day...I am sure that was AFTER I had cleaned the house top to bottom, had dinner all prepared, bathed the dog, watered the steers...I would never sit idly on the computer vegging out. Har.

I came to this post and coveted the Susan Branch print about the small house. Our "new" house is small, I am a Susan Branch fan, it caters to the warm whimsical feel I want....so I had to have it.

(By the way, I dare you to read that post and NOT want a dutch door! I would die for one of those. Hubs would think it is impractical. I say practical schmactical.)

I emailed Cynthia and asked if she remembered where she got it. In the meantime I did my usual search...E-bay, google, SB's website and turned up nothing. Cynthia kindly emailed back saying she got it at a Hallmark store, not very recently unfortunately, and gave me the name of the company named on the back of the print. I googled the company and they were out of business.

I figured it was a long shot but I emailed Susan Branch's customer service dept. explaining what I was looking for. I got an email back THAT day that said the print was no longer in production but that they would look for it in the warehouse. I thought that was an impressive turn around time for a response, but figured I would never hear from them again.

Much to my delight they emailed the next day saying they found it and for me to call them. I called, paid, praised them for their stellar customer service and 3 days later I got the print. Kudos to the employees of Susan Branch!

This weekend while I was spray painting anything that stood still, I rummaged around in my box of picture frames, found a gold one that I did not like...and the rest is history!

(Go ahead, click on the picture to see it close up. That farmhouse kitchen is sugary sweet adorable, no?)

Thanks Cynthia! Thanks Susan Branch! Call me Susan... let's do lunch! ; )

I'm a lamp tramp

I can't help it. I guess it is all the little nooks and spots in our new house that just are screaming for some warm lamp light. I have been buying up inexpensive lamps any chance I get. And then there is painting and re-shading the lamps I already have.

There was a rubbed oil bronze blah blah blah lamp at the WalMartz that I really wanted, but even it was $49! I know in the grand scheme of snobbish decorating finery, $49 is dirt cheap for a (cheap) lamp...but in the world of a family whose main bread winner is now self employed, $49 is a lot for a WalMartz lamp!

This weekend at the "new" house, now that all the walls are painted (praise God) I went out to the barn and rummaged around in the boxes of junk we had already moved and cracked open some spray paint.

Remember this piece of work that I showed you guys a few months ago????You all agreed that it was ugly....and I have no argument there, it IS ugly. It was on clearance at Stein Mart because it was ugly. They then marked it down even lower because some of the adornment on the swirly arm had broken off. Then I had a coupon on top of that. So basically Stein Mart paid ME to take this ugly lamp.

I surgically removed the gaudy thingy on the bottom and glued a little somethin' somethin' over the broken swirly arms and then blasted the whole darn thing with cream spray paint.

Now it sits on the corner of the bar in the kitchen just where I have imagined it would.......holding a cookbook.


Or just a good book....
(I love the background clutter in this picture. It summarizes our weekend warrior house renovating so well. There is a tube of caulk....I now hate caulk and have terrible nightmares about it. A thing of disinfecting hand wipes that I am going to put in one of the barns that has a toilet...but no sink. That drives the germ-a-phobe in me crazy. Glass cleaner. And finally a supply of 6,000 BBs for a certain 9 year old boy.)


And lastly my favorite.......the sweet, sweet plate that blonde rascal made me for Mother's Day.


I picked up this...ahem...."gem" at the Goodwill store a few months ago...Cheesy? Yes, without a doubt. The shade did not even originally go with lamp, but it was still in the wrapper... and they had paired them together for $3. How could I say no?

Again with the creme spray paint. (I use the WalMartz brand spray paint....99 cents a can people, whadda ya have to lose?) Blonde rascal said that momma bunny's eyes looked angry, can you blame her... she's carrying those dang babies around in a basket for cryin' out loud. So I painted over those angry eyes really well.

I ripped the pastel plaid trim off the shade and replaced it with brown polka dot ribbon.....Exactly the touch I was looking for in the hall bathroom. For $3.99....that's what I'm talking about!