Baby Pictures

I've mentioned my brother before. He's a pretty good guy and doesn't deserve what I'm about to do. But am I going to let that stop me?

While in Arizona last month my grandma scanned a few of her pictures for me:

There's little bro with dad and me. That wrinkled forehead tells me he's thinking away on something important. Maybe the formula for world peace.

See that woven couch we're sitting on? When I was little I loved to take my safety scissors and cut threads and pull them out of the woven pattern. It did not occur to me that I was vandalizing property. It was just something fun to do! Right along with the scratches little bro and I put on the hood of car using metal poles (I have no idea what they were from) to scrape off the ice one winter...we just knew we were being the most helpful children ever.

Brother's face here says, "Oh god, grandma...why are you standing there taking pictures? This maniac you left me alone with put a bow on my head. Save me...please...for the love of all that is good". Circumstantial evidence points to me planting the bow, but that bow looks way too perfect to have been made by a 6-year-old...could there have been Mom-involvement here?

"Mom, I know I'm just a fat little baby boy and I can't talk yet, but please tell me you see the desperation in my eyes. She's making me look at her jewelry!! I should not be subjected to this torture just because I can't walk away." You can see just to the left of my arm a section of upholstery that had an encounter with me and my safety scissors.

And here he is some 21 years later, graduating college. So proud of you bro!

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I am very blessed that we are close. I guess he forgave me for the hair bows and the jewelry and that time I dressed him up in my dance class outfit...he was just the prettiest little 3-year-old in that ruffly skirt, I couldn't resist. :D

A little of this, a little of that

I'm here today with a meandering post of pictures taken with my phone.



Here we have Oscar. He is an at-least-6-year-old dachshund (we got him from a shelter and couldn't be sure of his age then and people are always saying he looks older, so maybe he is). Here is Oscar's morning routine:

-Get out of little dog bed beside people bed
-Follow Kimberly to see if food will be immediately served.
-Sit and stare at Kimberly to see if this will induce her to immediately serve food
-Give up; find the softest possible place on the couch
-Move only when food is served

When he's really full of himself he likes to make a small complaining "uhhhhh" sound just under his breath if you disturb him when he is in such a state. Like, if you ever so softly stroke his silken ears...he goes "uhhhhhhh...uhhhhhhh...." with each breath to make it clear that you are surely causing him mental and emotional, if not actual physical, pain. He is spoiled, and its a mystery to me how he got that way.

I love me some Oscar.

We saw this product in a store that was going out of business. Anything look strange to you?

How about the 4-year-old with the mustache? Maybe he's in some sort of a costume, but that isn't readily apparant to me, so I rate this picture "Weird".

My favorite colors as a little girl were pink and purple. Can you imagine the hyperventilating had I seen this car way back when? (On the right just behind The Pink and Purple Wonder you can see the front quarter panel of my beloved light blue Blazer. Aren't you glad I told you?)

This was enjoyed by Walt and me this past Saturday at the delectable Grits and Groceries. This is:

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Miss Linda's Scallops: Pan Seared in a Lemon Caper Sauce with Cheese Grits, Mushrooms and Chopped Bacon.

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Yes, all those words need to be capitalized in order to convey the delicious-ness of Miss Linda's Scallops. They were preceded by Hattie Mae's Tomato Pie and followed by a slice of chocolate chess pie. Can I please go back next Saturday and every Saturday after that??

How 'bout them Cowgirls...

Despite my daydreams of being a cowgirl that title really has nothing to do with me or what I'm doing except that I am in...

(This is my grandma's purse)

the Wild West visiting my wonderful grandparents for a week.

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They live in the honest-to-goodness desert: sand, saguaro cactus, cholla (pronounced "choy-uh") cactus, all manner of other cactus, bunnies, quail, javalinas (wild desert pigs), coyotes and a high yesterday of 111 degrees. I love the desert, even in August!

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I've been tagging along with Grandpa on his 6 am two-mile walk. This is not stroll, folks; we were pushing a 15-minute mile pace. Don't think that sounds fast? Go outside and try it, and then let me know what you think. And then turn 79 and tell me what you think. He is in better shape than I am!

Here's a bit of what we see on our walk...

And a bit of our dinner last night...

And here's Aflac.

He earns his keep bobbing around the pool dispensing chlorine to keep the water nice and sparkling clean. He was up for a performance review, so we went for a post-dinner dip to conduct research. He's doing a great job.

Yes, I could get used to life in the desert. Except they did tell me the power was out for 20 hours a few weeks ago...so as long as I had a generator on hand to keep the AC running, I could get used to life in the desert.

Viva Las Vegas!

I recently ran away to Vegas for almost two action-packed days. A college friend got married at the Flamingo hotel, and I had to be there! From her pink save-the-date card to her pink invitation (pictures to come!) to our stay in the Flamingo Hotel (how much more pink does it get??) it was a wonderful love-filled weekend.



I left my house at 4:06 am to head to the airport where a pirate was waiting at my gate. I am not kidding you. Here's the only picture I had the nerve to take with my phone:







From his black hat complete with jaunty pheasant feather over his long red hair in multiple braids to his slouchy leather boots he was a PIRATE! We finally started boarding the plane, and as I got closer to my aisle seat (18-D) who do you think I spied sitting in 18-F? Have you ever flown to Minnesota with a pirate two seats over?? Someone sat down between us otherwise I might have actually worked up the guts to ask him if he was a real pirate or only pretend.



My connecting flight to Vegas had me next to a grandfatherly Asian gentlemen who used to go gamble in Vegas 5 times a year...but now he only goes once a year or so...can you say HIGH ROLLER. (Although, why was he flying coach...) He was very nice and bought my lunch for me (you know those airplanes charge you to for everything now...pretty soon we'll have to put in a quarter to use the bathroom on board), and he and his son had the driver from their hotel drop me off at the Flamingo which saved me $12 on a shuttle van. Ladies, I promise I was on high alert and didn't just go with these guys without really making sure I felt ok about it...I was praying under my breath the whole time, and I didn't feel God trying to warn me it wasn't safe.



I got to the hotel and met up with the bride-to-be and a couple other friends around 1:30 pm VEGAS time, and we got lunch at Burger Joint right there in the Flamingo.

I had the salmon burger with cucumber dill relish and sour cream on a homemade pesto bun...yes, it was sooo good.

Then it was time to lay around one of the Flamingo's pools--there were at least 3--all of which were crammed with TONS of people hanging out. And the water was FRIGID. Of course the high temperature for the day was over 100, so in comparison to the air temperature warm water would probably have felt frigid. After we waded around and lounged on our chairs for a while it was time for dinner. The bride and groom treated all their wedding guests in town Friday night to dinner and cocktails at Bahama Breeze just down the street from the Flamingo. I can't even tell you how much fun we had combing through the extensive cocktail menu, reading about all sorts of fruity concoctions, picking what we wanted and then passing each around the table for samples. I had a caipirinha, a lemon hurricane and half of a mojito. They were SO good! The buffet dinner was also delicious, and by the end of the night I couldn't eat another bite.

We hung out with the bride for a while after dinner. I know what you're thinking: bachelorette craziness in Vegas, right? Wrong. I for one was pretty much less than zero fun for the bride. A bunch of us ladies took her to Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville (also in the hotel) for drinks on the patio overlooking the Strip. I was still full from dinner, so I didn't get anything to drink, but the tiredness finally hit me and I felt like such a zombie that when a friend ordered chips and salsa I ate some to see if they would help me wake up/actually be fun. Incidently the chips and salsa were very good, and I highly recommend them if you ever find yourself at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. They did not help wake me up, so about 10:30 two of my roomies and I headed back up to the room to rest for a bit. We rejoined all the ladies in the bride-to-be's room around midnight and then about 1 am I had to call it a night. As I dragged myself in bed around 1:15 am it dawned on me that with the 3 hour time difference it was now 4:15 am at home, and I had been up for 24 hours (minus a 1-hour nap at 11 pm)!! I am just not fun enough to do that kind of thing anymore.

Wouldn't you know my eyes popped open at 6:56 am Saturday morning...our room full of 4 ladies was up, dressed and ready to go by 8 am. We were SO proud of ourselves. We went with the bride to the Paris hotel for breakfast at Mon Ami Gabi and oh-my-gosh it was SO good. I definitely want to go back when hubs and I make our Great Las Vegas Adventure Trip of a Lifetime.

I had the eggs benedict special which consisted of a perfectly toasted, chewy english muffin topped with lobster, roasted yellow pepper, poached egg and tarragon hollandaise sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. So good. Even the hashbrowns which looked pretty normal tasted fantastic.

I got to have some of this lusciousness, too. I can't remember the exact description but the words "carmelized" and "berries" were used along with a couple other seductive adjectives. And there was creme fraiche involved, too.

These were the Skinny Pancake special to supplement the other types of Skinny Pancakes on the menu. Wonder how skinny I'd be if I had these with any sort of regularity.

While we digest our delicious breakfast I'll take a break and bring you the rest of the Excellent Vegas Vacation very soon. Fun stuff!

Summer time, Beach time!

Between the craziness and the laziness my blog is suffering from major neglect. I still love you, blog! I still love writing and reading!

Here's a little update: We went to the beach! Last week was a furlough week for us and what better to do during a week when one is not being paid than to go somewhere and spend money!?! Not much is better, that's what! We tend to go to places where there are lots of things to see and do (Savannah, Seattle, Chicago, Asheville, etc), but this year we decided we wanted to go somewhere warm where we could sit around and not be pressured to see/do/eat everything. We settled on Myrtle Beach after we went to Priceline, bid on and won four nights at the Sheraton Convention Center hotel 2 1/2 blocks from the beach for $55 a night!!! Can you believe that deal!!!

We swam and sat under a big beach umbrella and watched people and watched the Wednesday night fireworks at the 2nd St. pier and ate and hit TJ Maxx and Ross on the way in and went to MagiQuest (I read about this online and, being a Harry Potter fan, SO wanted to go...hubs humored me, bless him...we were definitely the only people over the age of 12 without kids in tow)...

The 2-story castle at MagiQuest

(Photo: lickyoats)

...and went clubbing one night (we discovered techno music makes for super fun dancing; for real!) and cruised Ocean Boulevard looking at all the hotels and houses and got "HOT NOW" Krispy Kreme doughnuts and went shag dancing at Fat Harold's...it was such fun, and we can't wait to go back. I have lived in South Carolina my entire life and have never been to Myrtle Beach that I know of (except a 2 night stay 9 years ago at Garden City Beach just down the road). I'm glad I've remedied that problem.

I really enjoyed driving along Ocean Boulevard looking at the larger fancy houses and smaller fancy houses and cute beach cottages on the north end and hotel after hotel afterhotelafterhotelafterhotel (really, its crazy) on the south end, many of which have that kitschy-retro vibe and have been around for years. My favorite was the...

(Photo: Cary Scott Photography)

Cutest sign!

This trip only increased my love for the beach. I just know that someday I will have my own dreamy little cottage by the sea, and until then I will fill my house with shells and sand and these beauties that I can make with my own two hands...

(Photo and wreath: Paint, Decorate, Design on the Cheap)

(Photo: Heather Bullard)

Cindy has a tutorial for making a shell wreath like hers.

(Photo and wreath: Cindy at My Romantic Home)

In other news I'm very excited to be going to Vegas(!!) for my friend's wedding this weekend. Yay for weddings! I've never been to Vegas, and this will be a very short trip, so I will definitely have to go again and take hubs with me.

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Here's hoping you are having a lovely summer time!

In the Good Ole Summertime...

Ah, summer.

Time for a little bit of this...

from our local strawberry patch sliced, sugared and eaten with Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream (the only vanilla I've ever wanted to eat plain).

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Perfect time for this...

Squash that hubs grew (yay, hubs!) and grilled with olive oil, salt and pepper; and fennel rice salad I made (the leftovers were great; I didn't have scallions so I left them out). What a lovely summer meal.

The other night we realized it was time for this, too...

Green tomatoes and squash from our garden fried up just right by the Mr. YUM!! Hubs, have I told you lately you're the best hubs ever?

This plate is ALL hub's doing: squash and green tomatoes he grew and then turned into fried green tomatoes (with some jarred marinara sauce), fried squash, grilled squash and squash casserole.

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Is this man good or what??!

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Summer + Hubs makes for a very lovely time indeed.

Blog posts I've enjoyed

(Picture: ___Ally via Flickr)

Where does the time go? I have so many projects to do and pictures to take and posts to post...for now I'll share a round-up of some posts I have really enjoyed recently:

Surprise benefits of an uncluttered life -- this is hub's and my goal in housekeeping. We want to have a comfortable house for us and one that is ready for guests whenever they should appear. We are still working toward this!

Do you have a big 'But...'? -- there are excuses for anything and everything in life. Nothing changes when we use excuses, but the potential for great things to happen when excuses are let go is just too big to ignore. I am working on getting rid of my big 'But...'!! Literally and figuratively!

Everyone can learn to be organized -- there is hope for me! Actually I've come a long way from where I used to be, and this post is very encouraging as I continue on my quest for organization in all areas of life.

Are you an unclutterer? -- not fully, but I'm working on it! Clutter can take on many forms, and I don't want to fool with any of them.

(Picture: Country Living via My Sweet Savannah)

~for the birds~ -- Oh, how I love bird cages! This post has some great eye candy.

You never know what will inspire you next. Keep your eyes open and notice the little things!