Look! A post!

I have so not been in the mood to post or even really be on the computer much. But I did come across this book giveway and since I'd like to win it, I'm posting about it!

Overwhelmed with Joy is giving away the book, The Memory Keeper's Daughter. Head over to this post to check it out!

Here's hoping I win! hehehe

Memorial Day Picnic with the Alvarezes

Vickie and the boys came to my house for a Memorial Day Picnic. Scott and Ashley were both working. It was humid outside, so our picnic was inside! The boys brought their squirt guns for after dinner, but they didn't seem to want to squirt. Good thing I had some squirt bottles!

It was a nice afternoon/evening. While the boys were outside, Vickie and I were in the house with air conditioning, chatting, and drinking coffee!

Our Memorial Day Picnic, On Sunday

We had our family Memorial Day Picnic on Sunday, the 27th. Here are some of the pictures I took.

Works-for-Me Wednesday

This is my first Works-For-Me Wednesday! Works-For-Me Wednesday is hosted each week by Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

My refrigerator was becoming cluttered with all my nephew and Alvarez kids pictures + the postcards of missionaries I support/pray for. So I came up with the idea of segregating the missionary pictures. I bought a small bulletin board and hung it in my kitchen. I used a piece of ribbon to separate missionaries and prayer requests.

All the missionary postcards are at the top; I use the bottom of the bulletin board to post prayer requests. I just cut some index cards and hand-wrote those and keep a few blank cards in the corner to add new prayer requests. Some of the prayer requests are from blog land - Heather, Kelli, Ethan, and Cameron.

The remainder are church-related, though my church does publish a prayer/praise list on Sundays and Wednesdays, so I use that, too.

The bulletin board is visible so I see it a lot, especially when I'm headed downstairs to do laundry or get on the computer.

This works for me!

Edited: Does anyone know why blogger is not separating my paragraphs?!

Caleb's Baseball Game

Here's a slideshow of Caleb's baseball game on Saturday. His team won, 12-6. I ran, literally, to take a picture of the scoreboard. I put my camera up to take the picture, and the scoreboard was reset! I was so irritated!

My First Slideshow

I have a bunch of pictures to share from this weekend, so I thought I'd try a slideshow from Rockyou.com. This is my test version. I'll upload more slideshows later! Hopefully, this works! It's a hodgepodge of recent pictures.

Purse Meme

I saw this purse meme floating around blog land so I thought I'd give it a whirl. You take pictures of your purse and its contents. Here goes:

This is the purse I'm using now. I change purses a lot during the spring/summer but tend to use a black one in the winter.


My wallet, checkbook, and pocket calendar

Card holder, gift card holder, and cell phone.

Contents of the red gift card holder. My friend, Linda, sells gift cards through her boys' school. I'm a little addicted! I have them alphabetized in the card holder.


4 pens, just in case, eye drops, tissues, gum, cover-up, lipstick, and mirror.


The contents of the front pocket. I put my cash and coins in there. Too much trouble to use the wallet! An OptiCard - it's a magnifying glass that lights up -- for when I get old (LOL), a Hallmark coupon, a Friendly's coupon, and a pass to go to BJ's - similar to Sam's Club or Costo.

There you have it! Exciting stuff, huh?

Friday's Feast # 3

This is my third Friday's Feast....

Appetizer

List 3 emotions you experienced this week.

Hopeful, excited, happy

Soup

Name a car you’d love to have.

Silver BMW. VRRROOOOMM!!

Salad

Describe your typical morning routine.

Alarm goes off at 6 AM, I get up between 6 and 6:30, go to the bathroom, head downstairs to make coffee and usually something for breakfast, head down to the rec room with coffee to check emails, most mornings I putz around until it's time to shower and get dressed for work. Head out the door around 8:30.

Main Course

Have you ever emailed someone famous? If so, who, and what did you say to them? Did they reply?

No, I never have.

Dessert

Do you listen to podcasts? If so, which ones?

Uh, what's a podcast?

Mother's Day Memories

Our whole family, including dad's mom, Mame, went to Red Lobster, mom's favorite, to celebrate Mother's Day yesterday.

Mom will be retiring soon, so she wanted gift cards for restaurants, so that's what we all got her!

Corie and Wendie received gifts, too. And, Corie got me a gift certificate for a manicure or pedicure....for all the mothering I do! I was so touched. I cried. And Mom cried when she read Tommy's card. He's her only son, you know!

We also celebrated Mame's 93rd birthday! The Red Lobster servers took time in the midst of their busyness, to come sing to her and bring her a piece of cake! I was so into singing that I forgot about taking a picture until she was eating her cake. GRRR! But Tommy got the video!

Here are some pictures from Mother's Day. Would you believe that I don't have a picture of mom?! She was sitting next to me and I didn't realize until I was uploading the pictures that I didn't get one of her. GRRR!


Matty enjoys his Sprite.

Matty and Mommy

Caleb and Mame

Corie and Tommy

Ben and Dad

Benny

Cousin Love! Matty looooves Caleb!


Matty is into singing "Happy Birthday" to his great grandmother!

Mame enjoys her cake and ice cream!

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mom is

Giving

Loving

A great cook

Faithful

Sensitive

A super Mammy

Prayerful

Guiding

The yard sale Queen

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

I love you!

Me and my Mom

(Lots of people think we're sisters!)

And Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere!

Saturday Snippets

1. Prayer Requests

• Ethan Powell - a 5-month old battling Lukemia
• Cameron - Barb's grandson, just diagnosed with juvenile diabetes
• Heather - continued healing following surgery to remove a brain tumor

2. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. Here's an early Mother's Day story:

We had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hangout and nap all day long on this mat in our bathroom.

Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story, they were 4 years old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around and trying to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood.

We finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhereand I finally round the corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to Jack's . . . rearend. Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped." Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind.

And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth.

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these
glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

3. Nothing much else to report for this week. I had a Get Together this afternoon, which was fun. I also bought new underwear. Riveting stuff, huh?

4. I have a new CSI DVD to watch, so that's how I'm spending my Saturday evening. I'll be back tomorrow with a Mother's Day post.

Mother's Day Blog Design Giveaway!

Jules over at Everyday Mommy is giving away a new blog design! All you have to do to enter this contest is write a post about it. This is my post about it!

I could use a new blog design. I think mine is boring. I would love something in purple!

If you want to win, all you have to do is write a post about the Everyday Mother's Day Giveaway and then leave a comment over at Everyday Mommy.

Here's hoping I win!!

Pictures

As promised, here are some pictures to go along with yesterday's post, including some pictures of "my" Preschool II kiddos.

My hanging baskets. Hopefully, I don't kill them! A pot of pansies is on the front porch, along with 3 pots in my flower cart, which I didn't get in the picture.

Creeping flox. Notice the empty flag holder? I bought a spring-themed flag for it, along with a matching larger one for my large flag holder, at Wal-Mart a few weeks ago, but I can't find them!

Bunny's nest. No bunnies so I hope they were old enough to hop off by themselves!

From the daycare center that's part of church. Our Preschool II Sunday School class uses this room on Sundays. I thought all the handprints from the daycare children were adorable.

Following are some pictures of "my" Preschool II kiddos. I had them in Preschool I and was going to remain in PS I, but I got attached to them and followed them to PS II in September. I love it when their parents tell me that when they ask if they want to go to Sunday School, they say, "Yes, see Miss Jada!" I was sick last week so I didn't make it to church and one of the little girls asked "Where's Miss Jada?" You know I will follow them to Preschool III!!

Happy Monday!

It's a little chilly here this morning, but Spring has finally sprung! We had a gloriously beautiful weekend! Sunshine and warmth. My pansies are growing and I bought two hanging baskets. I'll post some pictures later this week. Plus, I think I have another nest of bunnies in my creeping flox. I'll see if I can get some pictures without disturbing the nest.


I've been watching previous episodes of CSI on DVD, though I haven't been as obsessive about it! I only watched 4 episodes this weekend!


On Saturday, I hosted a Mother's Day Crop and Vickie and Ellie came. We had a fun time. They scrap booked and I finally created a StoryBook. I think it's going to be awesome! It's of my 3 nephews and I can't wait to see it and show it to everyone! Vickie mentioned that one of our teachers from 8th grade passed away. I vaguely remembered him since he was only at the school for a year or two so I wanted to look up his picture in a yearbook. While I was looking for my yearbooks, I came across a bunch of letters that Vickie had written to me. Oh my word! We were so immature! We were about 14 years old, fighting over boys, and who got to sit beside who. Ellie, Vickie's mom, commented, "Look how far you've come!" It was fun reading those letters and reminiscing.


Mom invited me to dinner Saturday evening. She made spare ribs and baked potatoes and I made baked corn. It was just mom, dad, and I. Well, Tommy ate a little bit before he headed out to dinner with a friend. They were going out for seafood. GROSS!! We had a nice time and the food was delicious. I have leftovers for dinner tonight!


I went to church yesterday, taught the two-year-olds (there were 5 of them), then went to worship, followed by lunch at Applebee's with Jeff. Then I went back to church for a meeting - it's time to replace our church signs and the topic was whether to take out Baptist when we redo the signs. I am opposed to that. We are Baptists and we shouldn't "hide" that fact. There's another meeting tonight for those who couldn't attend yesterday afternoon. We have a business meeting on 5/20, so we'll see what happens.


Now, it's the start of another work week. I love my job, so I'm looking forward to going to work!


I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Please continue to keep Heather and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

30-Day Organizational Challenge Results!

Wow, that 30 days went by quickly! But I met the challenge!

First, the answers to the questions, followed by the before and after pictures.

1. What was the hardest part of the Challenge and were you able to overcome it?

The hardest part for me was two-fold: being motivated because I'm a great procrastinator and then actually taking the time to actually work on the basement. I did overcome those obstacles because there was a deadline! And accountability!

2. Tell us what kind of changes/habits you have put into place in order for your area/room to maintain its new order?

To take the few minutes each time I go into the basement to actually put an item away - not just stack it somewhere and to get rid of like items!

3. What did you do with the "stuff" you were able to purge out of your newly organized space?

I either threw it away because it was broken beyond repair, put it in a box for a June neighborhood yard sale, or actually put it away.

4. What was the biggest lesson you learned from this experience?

I keep things "just in case I might need them someday." That just takes up space!

5. Now that you have completed this process, do you think having and keeping your space organized will make a difference in your life?

Definitely! I already feel so free! I plan to work on organizing other areas of my home. Some things are organized - my spices, CDs, and DVDs are alphabetized!

Here are the before and after pictures, with captions underneath:

This buffet houses some of the items I use for my Creative Memories business. This area is to the left once you walk into the unfinished basement portion. 2/3 of my basement is finished, which I use for my CM business for my customers to come over and scrap. I can leave it set up all the time - tables and products - which I love!

One before picture and two after pictures - This area is to the right - the first picture is before and then there are two after pictures. Most of the before pile was stuff to be put away. The 4 boxes in the after pictures are for the June yard sale. Once those are gone, it'll look a lot nicer! I bought a 3-tier cart at Wal-Mart which now houses my trash bags, light bulbs, and cleaning supplies for the downstairs. I also bought a rectangle storage box (on the bottom right), which now holds construction and color paper. The two storage tubs on top of that are other craft supplies - crayons, markers, etc. I also reorganized both of the shelves. I used my label maker to mark the drawers and storage boxes.

Reorganized and cleaned out laundry area. Rearranged some things - the silk flowers are now on a top shelf (see picture above - right), I moved some things over to the paint/household shelves (below), and I made better use of the old microwave cart that I use for laundry supplies. I stored some things behind the closed doors! And look, you can see my ironing board, which I used last night to iron some kitchen curtains. In the picture above these on the left, my ironing board was a storage base! The blue lid is there for a purpose - it keeps my cat out of the sump pump!

I did some rearranging here by putting like things together and got rid of the vacuum cleaner box that held the broken yard things on sticks/poles, which I also tossed in the dumpster!

Reorganized this area. Threw away the folding chair with no back and got rid of lots of empty boxes I was saving "just in case!" My cat likes to lay on the very top of the storage tubs so I put a piece of sheep skin up top for her. I didn't get that part in the picture.

All in all, I'm pleased as punch with the results! Thanks, Laura, for hosting this Challenge and for cheering us on!