Wednesday What Not

Let's catch up!

On Saturday morning, I went to a children's ministry meeting at church from 9 -12. Our children's pastor gave us some useful information and has some very cool outreach events planned over the next several months!

Then in the evening, my sisters and I went out for a Sister's Dinner! My brother-in-law, Ben, watched his two boys and Corie's son. The three of us went to a Chinese/Japanese restaurant. We spent two hours there!

Corie and Wendie both ordered fish, including sushi. Gag me! I ordered a vegetable roll for an appetizer, thinking it was like the vegetable rolls I get with Chinese food, like an egg roll. Wrong! Here's what a vegetable roll is:
I ate one of them and didn't like it so Corie and Wendie ate the other five!

Here are pictures of our meals:
I ordered sesame chicken. The cut-out carrots are cute!
This is Corie's meal.
And here's Wendie's meal.

We also exchanged gifts. It's a tradition when the three of us do something special together. I took these pictures when I got home.
Corie got me this and Wendie got me a clothespin holder:

I got Corie two silk butterfly bushes. She loves butterflies. And I got Wendie a ceramic picture frame for her to put a picture of her boys - it says "I love my Mom!"

After dinner, we went back to Wendie and Ben's for coffee and chit chat for another two hours. I took some pictures!

My three nephews.

M playing peek-a-boo!

M trying to put a necklace on me. He's so cute!

I thought this was cool so I took a couple pictures. It's Ben's grandmother's coffee grinder, probably from the late 1800's. Wonder if Laura Ingalls Wilder used one of these?!


That's all for now! I'm heading upstairs to read! I hope everyone is having a great week!

Show and Tell Friday

It's time once again for Show and Tell Friday hosted by Kelli!

I love calendars and I love displaying them and writing in them. And I also love using them in my Creative Memories albums. I sell Creative Memories and they came out with a product I love. It's an Everyday Display. I like it because you can change it out! It comes with six magnets and six little clothes pins. It comes in black or white. If you'd like to order one, contact me!

I like the black one since, for now, all my walls are white! This year I decided to display a calendar for each month! Creative Memories had calendar pages, which I've used for the January calendar, but they also have calendar grids, which I'll use when I order some! I thought I had a pack of those when I came up with the idea! I had to cut the calendar page for my project.

Here's the January calendar I made to display:

I punched out circles and used stickers to spell WINTER and used the little clothespins.

When January is over, I'll just take down the calendar (it's held up with magnets) and then use it in my album! It'll be ready to just adhere to a page! Like Candice Olsen from Divine Design says, "How divine!"

I made this Everyday Display for my Mom when she retired:

Head over to Kelli's to view more Show and Tell Friday posts!

What's in a name?

I saw this first at Barb's and then at Shalee's, so I thought I'd see what my name means. It's a biblical name, believe it or not - I Chronicles 2:28 - but it's a male name there! I have a bookmark with my name on that I special ordered and it says Jada means wise. HA!

Anyway, here's the hidden meaning of Jada:

What Jada Means

You are fair, honest, and logical. You are a natural leader, and people respect you.You never give up, and you will succeed... even if it takes you a hundred tries.You are rational enough to see every part of a problem. You are great at giving other people advice. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality. You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row.You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace.People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality.

What's" Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

Most of it is accurate! I'm not sure how authoritative and aggressive I am or how powerful! I can be stubborn and headstrong!

Works for Me: Plastic Zippered Bags

I don't know if this will be helpful to anyone, but I thought I'd share it anyway! I was going to share it last week for WFMW, but I forgot it was backwards WFMW!

Anyway, one of my goals for 2008 is to declutter and organize every room in my house. I started with the spare room, which had become a storage room. I want to turn it into a library/reading room.

I started by organizing all my wrapping paper, gift bags, tissue paper, bows, etc. During that process, I realized I needed a three-drawer cart. I had one in the upstairs hallway with all my party (baby shower, birthday, and bridal shower) decorations and related items that I've used and reused (if they were reusable, like decorations) over the years. I haven't had to use the items out of the cart so I decided to reorganize that.

Here's the before picture of the cart. Penni isn't actually 'stored' in the cart! She was just being 'helpful.' ::cough::

That's where I came up with this brilliant (in my opinion! LOL) idea to use all those plastic zippered bags from linens that I'd been saving over the years!

I used larger ones to store each of the party items.

The birthday party items in a zippered bag.

The bridal shower items in a zippered bag.

The baby shower items in a zippered bag.

Then I stored all three zippered bag in a storage tub that I had emptied earlier. It was in the basement with clothing that was too small and has now been bagged up to be delivered to a charity!

I used my Dymo label maker, which I love, to identify what's in the storage tub! Now all party items are stored and easily accessible again! Works for me!

Head over to Shannon's for more Works for Me Wednesday tips!

Show and Tell Friday

Every Friday, Kelli hosts Show and Tell Friday. Head over to her blog to check out all the Show and Tell Friday participants!

Today I'm sharing two things that my Mom gave me on Monday. Both items belonged to her mother, my grandmother, Mammaw. She passed away in October 1987 from a heart attack at age 62. Just dropped over at church - it was a Wednesday evening - and she was carrying a baby, whom she held close to her. I guess she knew something was happening. The doctor said she was gone before she hit the floor.

Anyway, on to the items. The first is a pillow. My Mom isn't sure if Mammaw made this herself or perhaps her mother, my great-grandmother, Eva, did. I think it's cute! There are some stitches missing off the clock in the top left corner, but I'm still glad to have it. I have it sitting in the living room on a little chair that belonged to my Aunt Shirlie, who I called Aunt Lee since I couldn't say Shirlie when I was little. She also passed away - in 1994 - from ovarian cancer. She had cerebral palsy, but she never, ever complained. I miss both of them.

The second item is a big egg! Mom said "it's old" and it looks old. I took the plastic covering off after I took the pictures and have it stored in my china cupboard.

There is an Easter scene inside, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.

Happy Friday, everyone!

Chit Chat

One of my goals for 2008 is to clean out, declutter, and reorganize/organize every room in my house. I don't have a huge house, but it's big enough - a 3-story townhouse with 2 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. Every closet, every drawer, every nook and cranny is filled! And I live alone! I am just tired of the stuff and the clutter. I remember thinking, when I moved in 12 years ago, "This is a big house! I'll never fill it." HA! It didn't take me long at all to acquire a lot of stuff!!

This past Saturday, I cleaned out 3 plastic storage tubs of clothing and bagged it up for Volunteers of America. The clothing is all too small (whatever!) and I figure when I lose weight, I'll want to buy new clothes; plus, the clothing is from the late 80's early 90's. Not in style so much in 2008!

Then I started on the spare room. It used to be an extra bedroom, complete with a bedroom set. Then I got rid of that and turned it into an office. Then when I became a Creative Memories consultant in March 2006, I moved the office to the rec room, which became the Creative Memories room. I wanted my computer there since I'd be spending a lot of time in the CM room. I love to scrapbook! Anyway, the spare room then became the junk room.

I started there by organizing my wrapping paper into the tall storage containers. Then I decided I wanted to store all wrapping-related items in the spare room closet. I still needed another storage idea for the flat wrapping paper, bows, bags, tissue paper, etc. I had a 3-drawer cart in the hallway with party supplies (baby shower, birthday, and bridal shower stuff). I didn't use that cart much, so I organized all that stuff into one of the plastic storage tubs that used to have clothing in it. Now the 3-drawer cart has wrapping paper and accessories in it. I have 3 of the Rubbermaid Gift Wrap storage containers that fit under the bed. I cleaned those out and my sister wants two of those, so those will be out of my house soon! I had kept the small pieces of wrapping paper leftover from cutting. They had been in those containers for YEARS! Now they're gone.

I still haven't quite finished all the wrapping organizing. But it's a big start. I'll post before and after pictures when I finish. I had some "help" from Penni while I was cleaning out and organizing.

I want to turn the spare room into a reading room/library. I did move a bookshelf in there. I need to get rid of the TV; my friend's mom is taking the TV stand. Then I want to paint, get the closet doors fixed (they came off the track), and get a chaise chair and lamp. I have a vision and I want to follow through!

Something like this. I haven't really shopped around yet.

Moving on to a different subject - shopping! LOL I went to Tar*get before Christmas and they had a purple purse on clearance for $24.88. It's an Isa*ac Mizr*ahi, not that I care. I just liked the PURPLE! I didn't buy it because I was shopping for others, not myself. That's what I told myself! Anyway, I went back to Tar*get a week later and they still had the purse, so I bought it!

I went to Tar*get on Sunday, and don't you know they had it marked down to $17.88! Oh well.

I used to play Bunco on a regular basis (once a month) with some ladies from church, but I just had too much going on so now I just substitute. I was surprised when Karen gave me a present/prize at church on 12/23 for the Most Minis over the year! It was for the Most Minis in one game. I had 15!

Here's my prize. Isn't it the cutest?! She found it on eBay and then had the lady make more for the other prizes.

Well, I've finished my cup of coffee (not in the Bunco Brew mug - in a mug I received for my birthday from a friend!), and I better get ready for work!

I hope you have a wonderful day, whatever you do!

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Day, I made pork and sauerkraut, dumplings, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. Mom, Dad, Corie, C, and Tommy came for dinner. Dad didn't feel too well after dinner so everyone left around 6:30 or so. Dad and Mom ended up getting the colds Tommy and I had.

Here's Dad and C enjoying dinner.

Tommy and Mom

And Corie. Not a good picture of her! Sorry!

Here's the pork and sauerkraut before I put it in the oven.

And here it is all cooked and smelling wonderful with the dumplings.

I used my Winterberry, which I love!

Here's the set table.

And my messy kitchen! I hate a messy kitchen!

Mom made an Orange Dreamsicle cake. It tastes just like the popsicle!

New Year's Eve

I hosted a New Year's Eve party with friends from church. There were 7 of us and we had a fun time welcoming in 2008. We ate, played a game, chatted, reminisced, and turned on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve at 10:00. But we switched back and forth between that and the CSI marathon because we didn't know or like any of the music from the New Year's Eve show!

We had some snow and ice overnight. Here are two pictures. Notice the lighted snowflakes in my windows? Got 'em on clearance the day after Christmas for $1.98 each!



Here we are eating and chatting.

Steve and Penni are buddies.


Happy 2008!

Christmas Memories

We had a wonderful and memorable Christmas holiday. Thought I'd share a 'few' pictures.


My siblings and I gave Mame (my Dad's 93-year-old Mom) a digital photo frame. Corie uploaded about 80 pictures. It's really cool!

We played bingo at Mame's on Christmas Eve.



Bingo players

After Mame's, Mom, Dad, Tommy, and I went to Corie's church for their Christmas Eve service. Corie and C lit the last advent candle and Corie sang a duet.


Corie and C

After the Christmas Eve service, we headed to Mom and Dad's for some snacks.

Mom had a chocolate fountain and a juice fountain! Very cool. I made a Taste*fully Simple cheeseball, which their dog gulped down by helping herself to it off the table while we were downstairs getting plates and cups!



I took a picture of the stockings hung on the piano with care!

On Christmas morning, at 7:00, Mom, Dad, Tommy, and I went over to Corie's to watch C open his Christmas presents and to have breakfast.




Corie made a sausage and egg casserole and Yummy Breakfast Rolls (from a Gooseberry Patch recipe that I had given her. I had it a B & B and asked for the recipe!) It is very yummy!



We spent the rest of Christmas Day at Mom and Dad's. We opened presents, Santa visited, and had delicious food. Mom's ham gravy was out of this world!


Santa rang the doorbell and had jingle bells. Here he is coming up the stairs.

Santa had lots of presents for C, B, and M.

Santa gives a gift to B, who said, "That's not Santa. That's Uncle Tommy!"


And a gift for M.


And one for C.


Santa waves goodbye.

Mom and Dad and M watching Santa leave.

And here's M waving goodbye to Santa. Too cute!

Time to open other presents!

Wendie and Ben open a present.

Dad got Mom a coo-coo clock!

Tom opens a present.

C opens his last present. It was a video chair! He was sooo happy!


Dinner time!

The table with food!

Corie made the greenbean casserole. Mom made the ham.

Mom made the sweet potato casserole and I made the baked corn.

Lots of fun and great memories!