Goin' to the chapel....

The Marine is getting married Saturday.


Hubs and the marine looking dapper.

Can I just say I am thankful I have boys. This wedding stuff has worn me smooth out. And I was only worried with the responsibility of the rehearsal dinner. I. Can. Not. imagine being the mother of the bride.

The shower was this past weekend.
Cute daughter-in-law to-be and me at the shower. (D-i-l needs a blog name...hmmmm.)
Whoa, the shower was a serious loot fest. They got everything they registered for at 4 different stores, and then some. Very blessed.

(I need to have a 16th year of marriage shower. I'm just sayin')

It is down to the wire now. I have lists on top of lists.
The guest bedroom looks like Hobby Lobby vomited all over it.

Due to Uncle Sam owning the marine, the wedding that was going to be in May, was moved (in January) to March 12. So we had 3 quick months to prepare. Living in a small town has made the task a little more challenging...having to drive 90 miles for anything other than what could be bought at W-Mart!

It has been a frazzled 3 months. It hit me yesterday morning while I was ironing blonde rascal's clothes for the weekend....The Marine is getting married. It suddenly jumped from this event that was running me ragged to my son getting married. A huge life event. Then the tears started rolling all over my ironing board.

The marine is my stepson, but has lived solely with us since he was 9. When hubs and I married he (the marine, not hubs) was 7. He was the cutest little thing and he worshiped the ground I walked on. He became a teenager and I did not think he was so cute anymore....nor did he worship the ground I walked on any longer for that matter! But through it all we stayed tight and not once has he ever disrespected me with "you're not my mom" as can happen in so many blended families. For that, I love the kid even more. In my heart he is my son.

Now he is approaching a milestone and I fear I will be a snifflin' blubbering fool at the wedding. I think I need to add a flask, matching my dress of course, to my list. Surely taking a snort from a flask is acceptable at a small town wedding, right? Think charming, like Steel Magnolias.

I am gaining a darling daughter and I pray much happiness over their union.

Should I mention that my washing machine went out a month ago? How is that for timing?
How about the fact that it went out the week before we were going to Mexico in September. (Read: this is the second time in 4 months that it has petered out.) Did I mention it is only approaching its 2nd birthday. We bought it new when we bought this house.

In September it was the main computer board that went out. Same part again this time. The repair man came a month ago, determining that it is the same part. He ordered it and it took 3 weeks to get the part. When he came to install it, the part was bad. Re-ordered another one. Still waiting.

Should I mention how terribly inconvenient it is to go to the bloody laund-ro-mat while trying to plan a yippy skippy wedding?

Oh, and how there is family coming to stay with us this happy weekend? Hope they are understanding of the roll of paper towels I leave by the shower for them to dry off with.

I will also say that one of the machines I was using at the laund-ro-mat yesterday malfunctioned mid-cycle. Completely true story. It seemed like a really good time to "go postal", if you will.

It goes without saying that I now have a flask that matches both my washing machine AND machine #14 at the laund-ro-mat.

Which leads me to my final point, very soon my name will be Brooke G. Whirlpool. Someone at Whirlpool is mere days away from me opening a can of you know what all over them. Won't be pretty.

But don't worry about me, I'm not stressed.

Finished Quilts of 2011: #1

Quilting really is kinda funny, huh? Buy lots of fabric, cut it up and then sew it back together.


I finished the quilt for my daughter-in-law to be. The shower is this Saturday.
It is a Kaffe Fassett pattern called Quilt Romance.

She wanted red and turquoise so that is what she got, baby. It was an easy pattern.

Normally I quilt my quilts on my sewing machine. Which I am no good at, don't enjoy at all and downright dread. In fact it makes me want to cuss like a sailor. I got the name of an older couple in town that have a long arm quilter and they quilt for the public. I hired them. Best thing that ever happened to me. I took it on a Wednesday and got it back the next day. Glory be.

Is it too early to tell Santa I want a long arm quilter for Christmas this year?

Hello Beautiful!

This was my Christmas present from Hubs. Isn't she divine? Her name is Pinky Lee. She took her maiden voyage today. Chocolate chip cookies, a lovely way to break her in, yes?
Blonde Rascal was very happy to meet her.

I think she is stunning.
Pink. I would like for all of my appliances to be pink. Hubs, however, probably would not dig that.

A big week for birthdays!

Today is my adorable twin niece's first birthday! Woo hoo! Happy Birthday Hadley and Isabelle!!!Big sugar lumps of sweetness, those two are!!


Tomorrow is my wonderful Mom's birthday! Happy Birthday Mom!! The following is a picture of my me and Mom circa early 1971. How precious is that?

Truly visible depiction of the love of a mother. I have a picture of myself and blonde rascal in a very similar pose, when he is exactly the same age, circa 2000. That was in the stone age before digital, or at least before we had a digital camera. I was going to scan it and show it here....but said picture is in a frame and it is stuck! I will shred the picture if I try to remove it. Hmmmph. Anyway just trust me it is cute. And would have been super dooper cute to compare with the one of me and Mom. Hmmmph.


Finally today, in addition to my nieces, is another noteworthy family member's birthday...

Yep, it is true. Missy the wonder weenie dog turned 4 today.

Yes it is also true, we made a big deal and bought her gifts. Won't you please notice my dusty floor in the picture above?

She waddled around this morning trying to decide if she should tear up her new "baby" or chew on her new bone. She had no idea what she did to deserve the sudden bestowal of gifts. She is a brat, but we are ridiculously in love with her anyway.

There you have it, 2 days and 4 amazing women celebrating birthdays! Admittedly I use the terms "amazing" and "women" loosely when describing one of the birthday girls today...but would hate for her to feel left out. Brat.

2010 The year of the quilts: A Review

In 2010 I was determined to get a lot of quilting projects finished. Gee, I bet every quilter in America makes that statement every year.

In the first 3 months of 2010, I finished one quilt project that had been lingering for way too long, made 2 baby quilts and a wall hanging..... as shown in this
2010 The Year of the Quilts post.

Then I finished a quilt for our bedroom. When we bought this house, I decorated the master bedroom around my favorite Ralph Lauren sheets. I wanted the room to be calm and serene.


By then it was summer time and my quilting mojo slowed way down.

I did manage to re-vamp and clean up the quilty shack though. Here it was at the last quilty shack viewing

I pretty much decided there was NO room for needless decor. If I could not use it for storage or function, it was out.

One of the biggest "duh why didn't I do this sooner" moment was to butt up another table to my existing sewing table. Pretty sure if I could squeeze a little bed and a fridge in here, I might never leave!


November rolled around I finished this Christmas flannel quilt.
The backing was a panel with cute vintage looking Christmas pictures. I think the line is called Kiddie Christmas and it is a Moda fabric.

We all fought for this one over the holidays. It is warm, warm, warm!

Forward to like 20 days before Christmas and I am sewing like a crazy, nutty, crack head woman trying to finish 2 quilts.

One for my sweet mother-in-law. I forgot to take pictures of it, so I had to take these at her house.


(Good grief, those pictures were taken with my clearly inadequate camera phone. You were thinking I needed to repeat my photography classes, huh?)

It was a turning 20 pattern. Easy peasy.

And I also made hubs a quilt. It was made with the Marines and blonde rascal's old jeans and cami's that the Marine wore in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He thinks I am the coolest wife ever. Naturally. Frankly, I had an ulterior motive....he is always cold and I am hot. I hate the heater being on and breathing in warm air. Now I just mummy wrap him in his quilt and turn down the heater. Mwwhahaaaaaa....


In the middle of all that I decided to make blonde rascal's 3 teachers, mug rugs. Like I had nothing else to be doing? That was a bizarre thought, but thankfully since they were so tiny they went together really fast. And I got brownie points for the semester!



That has me closing out 2010 with 7 quilts completed, one wall hanging and 3 mug rugs. Hmmmm wonder what 2011 will hold?

So many quilts to make, so little time....

Aperture, metering and histograms...oh my!

Now that I am 40 (as I discussed in length, probably too much length, in my previous post), it surely won't be too long and my hair will start having a lovely blue cast to it, I'll start driving 25 mph under the posted limit, my pants will begin having a higher polyester content than natural fibers and my shoes will become more practical than attractive. I can accept that as my plight. However, I am not fond of the idea of my brain turning to mush. The brain is a muscle, yes? So it must be exercised!


We had a local photographer come to our house and take some family pictures before Thanksgiving. Very local in fact, she lives in the small town where blonde rascal goes to school, her twin daughters are in his class, etc.





I know, I know, family pictures...yawn. I'll stop now.

Thank goodness for cool options in photography now days, amen? We aren't stuck with getting our pictures taken in a cheesy J.C. Penney studio. Not to sound harsh JCP, but it is true. Your studio shots are severely goofy.

She was fun to work with and we were super pleased with the results. Carol McCowan photography, if you really wanna know.

It is a fact that I am deeply in love with my Canon Rebel. It is...my precious. It is smarter than I am, and I am not ashamed to admit that. It takes super pictures all by itself but I know that I am not using it to even half its full potential. The reason for that, is... well... even the Canon Rebel for Dummies book is over my head. It is some complicated stuff.

Much to my delight, my girl Carol teaches a digital photography class at our College on the Square. Which takes place...wait for it...on our little town square. Squeal!

One of my Canon camera loving friends and I signed up for Carol's class. We are now in week 3 of the 5 week course.

My aging brain has been thoroughly taxed. I mean, I thought a histogram was a medical procedure. Oh no...no it is a wacked out graph that tells you if your picture has lost detail in any of its light or dark areas. Or some such craziness as that.

I am so in awe of the capabilities of the camera, combined with the fact that with a little additional knowledge on my behalf could produce even better pictures. The technical information has become a little easier to process, in small bites. There is a lot of thought to be put into each shooting situation, but that will become a little more like second nature with time. Lots and lots...and lots of practice. And then, more practice. Thank goodness for digital. Learning photography with film would be SO inconvenient!

I tried to get my model to cooperate with my need to practice yesterday morning. Alas she was too tired. Her mornings are incredibly taxing. Her largest order of business each morning is building a nap nest in the couch.

Worthless wiener dog.

Photography class sums up my Thursday evenings. It fills my brain and gets the rusty neutrons firing again.


Then, every other Saturday morning, this morning in fact, I fill my heart.

With fabric and sewing and a room full of fits of laughter and wonderful women! We formed a little group at the local quilt shop, also on the square (squeal!), and we are each making a log cabin quilt. Mine is stripes and polka dots, in wacky colors. So fun.

My head is full and my heart is happy, I call that a good week.

Holy Mackerel!

As a few of my kind friends pointed out in my previous post, my time line of events was missing one event. Yes, as it turns out I forgot to mention that between Thanksgiving and Christmas I had a birthday. I am pretty sure that had it been just another run of the mill birthday, my kind friends would have not even brought it up. However, since I turned 40, yes 40, 40, 40, 40...they felt compelled to not let it slide. Yes, kind friends indeed. Like Mary, my dear friend who is like 24 and to add insult to injury looks like she is 17. Yah, just wait Mary, if I can still see to type by the time you turn 40 I'll be ratting you out too! And then there was Linda, my faithful lifelong friend since jr. high. She ratted me out, well because she has lots she could blackmail me with, and also she shares in my pain as her 40th birthday was 3 weeks after mine.

40. There it is all out in the open now.

I am sure if you had asked me 20 years ago, my opinion of 40 was practically one foot in the grave.

Now, I would honestly not want to go back to 20 for all the money in the world. OK maybe better said this way, I would not mind having my 20 year old hottie tottie body combined with my 40 year old brain and heart.

I feel like I am the real me now. Real experiences to learn and grow from, 40 years of beloved friendships, always the possibilities of new friendships along the way, cherished memories and my heart full of the people I love.

Life is great at 40.

The best perk of growing older as I see it, is that you can speak your mind. I plan on losing more and more of my filter as each year passes. Life is too short. By the time I am 90, they will then be chalking it up to senility and that is fine with me.

My other thought on growing old is that you MUST maintain a cool haircut. Once the style goes, it's all over people. Again, at 90 while I am spouting off my crazy opinion, I may only have 20 hairs on my head but they will have a sassy cut. Imperative.

My good (over 40) friend LoriusedtohaveablogEaton and I often discuss hair via random text messages. It is a highly intellectual friendship we share, don't waste your time trying to understand it. Anyhoo, here is a run down of our worthy opinions....Kathie Lee Gifford clearly needs to cut that nonsense off. Every female on any and every version of "The Real Housewives" need to cut off their over processed manes. And finally Lori threw Sandra Bullock's long do at the Golden Globes last night under the bus. Just so you know.

So, back to me and my 40 year old self. I have a good haircut, a quickly diminishing filter and I am healthy (thank God for that). I had my yearly physical last week and chose to see the nurse practitioner as it is SO much easier to get in and see her, rather than wait 3 months for an appt. with my dr. and then wait in the exam room for an hour.

She made me get lab work done. I am a needle phobe and my veins roll. Blood draws are never a barrel of monkeys for me. I'll save the story for another day about how they had to stick me twice to get a vein and I was on the verge of passing out, sweating like Lindsey Lohan in church. The little lab tech was screaming out for someone to get me some orange juice. While I was screaming just find a vein you dimwit! I inherited this needle weakness from my father. Thanks Dad! Well, I guess I just told you the story that I was going to tell you another day. Nevermind.

Anyway, my lab results came back with a vitamin D deficiency and bad cholesterol at 108. So I am now taking vit. D and Omega 3, for my cholesterol. I do feel the nurse practitioner is being a little over zealous with the high cholesterol thing, I mean the American Heart Association hardly sneezes at 108. Better safe than sorry I guess. Do you know what Omega 3 consists of? Mackerel, anchovy and sardine. Blech. The 2 soft gels I have to choke down daily are the size, and coincidentally smell similar to that, of a small rodent.

I believe the cholesterol thing is also hereditary, thanks for another one Dad! I mean I honestly do eat low fat and exercise. OK so, I was running 3 miles a day for the first 9 months of 2010, until the day we boarded our plane to Mexico in September. You know, to eliminate as much beach jiggle as possible. Have not run another step since then. Well, unless you count the occasional spontaneous footrace I challenge blonde rascal to. Gotta show that punk who is boss every now and again.

Then after Mexico hubs and I did sort of a clean eating program for 3 weeks and I lost 12 lbs. All of this to say come on cholesterol, cut me some slack! I feel confident I will beat it though, what with my mackerel/anchovy/sardine breath and all.

Now that you have wasted 3 minutes of your life, that you can never get back, by reading all of this complete nonsense, I will stop.

Do come back though. I am taking a photography class AND joined up with a quilting group that I am sure you are dying to hear about! Hopefully for your sake this will be the last time I speak of Mackerel and good haircuts, in the same blog post anyway.

Now leave me a comment and tell me how you feel about getting blood drawn.

Cheers to 40!

Merry Christmas!! Oh wait...it's January.

Christmas Eve, blurry photo, but at that point I was feeling rather blurry myself. As in tired, weary, worn out.

Well, no rest for the weary, as they say and as always the entire Christmas season was wonderful despite the lack of sleep. Full of family and fun and cherished memories!

Since one of my most recent blog posts was chocked full of Halloween festivities, I must recap for the sake of keeping the blog chronologically in check.

November brought our 15th anniversary. I had an adorably talented local chic (thanks Ashley!!) make a mini-wedding cake for us. It was so fun!That's some cake baking, decorating fabulous-ness right there! Almost too pretty to eat....almost.

That weekend we took a trip to San Antonio for a little celebration get away.We remembered The Alamo.

Had an all around great time, just the two of us. I love this man. He is my rock, my bff and he holds the key to my heart! I am blessed by having him and honored to be called his wife for the past 15 years!

Next up on the time line....
The Marine got engaged! Wedding March 12, 2011. Jeepers, right around the corner. Darling girl and we are thrilled to be welcoming her into the family!

Followed of course by ThanksgivingYes, I decorated for Christmas BEEEFORE Thanksgiving and it was the best thing I have ever done. Loved it. Yes, blonde rascal was in his pj's for turkey day dinner. Yes, despite how it looks we did have more to eat than pink jello salad. It was a nice, easy going T-day since it was just the 4 of us.

After Christmas blonde rascal and I drove to Houston to spend a week with my family. The best part of that was getting to be with my ridiculously cute and fun twin nieces!Seriously folks, not much more adorable could they get!


The year ended by B.R. and I driving back from Houston on NYE. Hubby left home that morning to go to a roping in San Antonio, so it was just me and blonde rascal.
This is how an 8.5 hour drive from Houston to Snyder treats me. It is not pretty, my road hag look. Anyway we partied like rock stars that night and made ice cream sundaes. Blonde rascal clearly got hopped up on whipped cream. We were asleep in bed by 9:45. Glamorous life.

OK so that catches me up. I'll be back around Easter time for another re-cap. Kidding (I hope) as I do miss blogging and am aiming at being a more regular blogger!