June Cleaver in Disguise

I had some time to kill Wednesday, so I thought I would do a little shopping. Of course, I had tons of other stuff I could have been doing, but none of it was as much fun as shopping.

I went bebopping (I don't think that's really a word, at least not in the dictionary, but I like it because it describes what I was doing so well.) over to Garden Ridge. I was just wandering around, looking at all of the fun stuff they have when, lo and behold, there was a whole section of bag, luggage, purses, etc and there was a sign that said (something like) "ALL PURSES 50% OFF). My heart did a little flip-flop. I love purses and I love signs that say "50% OFF" even more. I bought the cutest purse for $9.99. Honestly, I think I could have bought several because they had a bunch of cute ones, but this one really caught my eye.



Normally I am a basic black/navy/brown kinda gal. I don't know why I liked this one so much. They had several different styles of the same colors/design and they were all cute. My oldest son said it looks very country. I don't think he likes it very much, but what does a 14-year-old boy know about fashion?

I have worked for a small personnel service in Mesquite, TX for about 3 1/2 years. A couple of weeks ago, we got a big contract to hire 75 people to work a 4-day temporary job. Keep in mind, when I say small, that means we have 5 employees. We had 3 days to find 75 people. Well, WE DID IT!! The company that hired us was really pleased with us, so today my boss took us all out to the Dallas Athletic Club for lunch (very swanky), gave us a small bonus and, when we got back from lunch, there were these beautiful roses on our desks. All of us got a different color, but mine was the most unusual. I absolutely love the color blue.



Isnt' is beautiful and isn't my boss sweet?

My youngest son is training to be a barber. He made this homemade Chia Pet at a community Arbor Day festival. It's growing so fast he's had to cut it twice already.

To make it they took old pantyhose (recycling at its finest), stuffed it with some potting soil and put some grass seed on top. They tied it off (sorry, I don't remember how) and we brought it home and put it in a container with water in it. Of course, they let him decorate it with wiggly eyes and marker, but I knew while he was using water-soluble glue, that the eyes were going to just end up floating in the water.

He's had a good time watching it grow and it certainly is cheap entertainment.

SPOT, TALLULAH & COOPER







These are my three sweet dogs. From left to right, Cooper (2 1/2 and a sheltie/manchester terrier mix), Spot (8 1/2 and a shepherd mix) and Tallulah (5 1/2 and a full-blood basset hound).

Spot is a "talker". He stands at the door and makes all kinds of sounds and talks to us while we're petting him.

Cooper is just hyper. He loves to bring us his toys when we are in the backyard because he wants us to throw them and him go retrieve them.

Tallulah is just a love. She would love to be a lap dog, but she's just a little too big. Bassets are big dogs on short legs.

All three were "free" dogs, as in we didn't have to pay to get them, but they sure have cost us a small fortune in vet care and other miscellaneous "fees", such as a library book that Tallulah chewed up.

They are worth it though because I know that I am loved unconditionally by all three.

I sit down at my computer and think "Today I'm going to post on my blog." and then I........ don't. It's not like I don't have anything to say. I would love to at least be able to write about things so I can go back later and say "Oh, yeah. I remember that now." or "That's when that happened. I couldn't remember."

Last week my oldest son won several awards at school. They had their band spring concert and he got best percussion student. The teacher said he had been a really big help to her this year. The day after that, they had the middle school awards ceremony and he got three: A honor roll for the year, highest average in English for HIS teacher and a Best Bear award for just being an all-around good student from another teacher. We are so proud of him. He's such a great kid. You would never know he's a teenager by the way he acts and I am so thankful. God has truly blessed me to have such a wonderful son and I thank HIM every day.

My tomato plants finally have some little bitty tomatoes on them. Those poor plants have been through a lot. If my dog isn't digging them up or breaking off limbs, they are getting drowned by all of the rain we have been having. I'm really surprised they are doing as well as they are. The bell pepper plants aren't doing so well. They've had it even rougher than the tomato plants. Maybe soon we can replace the fence around the patio so the dogs can't get on and mess up my pots.

My Avon business is hanging in there. I saw an infomercial about selling Avon and saw all of the money that some of those women were making. It made me really want to sell more. I am just not a pushy person, so it's hard to me to just approach people and say "Hi, I sell Avon. Would you like a brochure?" I did have them out at my garage sale and a neighbor saw them. She didn't know I sold Avon. She has actually ordered several items and I'm hoping she's going to be a really good customer for me.

I did find some little lamps at Walmart. They had two buffet lamps packaged together on clearance for $5. Can you believe they were only $5? They were perfect in my guest room. One is on the little table that I "rescued" from someone's trash and the other is on the piano. I try to be patient and wait my wants out, because eventually I will find something I like either cheap or free and it's a lot more exciting that way.

This morning I started walking for exercise. I got up at (gasp) 5:15 a.m. and walked for about 25 minutes. I am going to try really hard to keep it up.

Oh, good grief!!! I missed an entire month of blogging. It is now May 2, school is winding down for the year and the kiddos are winding up for summer.

My oldest son just got through taking TAKS tests. He took math and American history this week. Now he's ready for 9th grade. I wish I could say that I'm ready for him to BE in 9th grade, but that would be a lie. I'm not old enough to have a high schooler!!!!! Okay, I really am, but let's pretend that I'm not.

My youngest son had Field Day yesterday. I have never been so thankful for clouds in MY LIFE. Clouds and a breeze blowing. It made Field Day actually pleasant. It has been raining so much here in the Dallas area the last week that they had to make it Parking Lot day instead of Field Day. The kids seemed to have a great time. Of course, any time they aren't doing school work or testing is a great time when you're in third grade.

I didn't work this week, so I got some projects done around the house. When my mother was here last weekend, she made a comment about the valances in the gameroom, saying something like "So, you haven't hemmed those yet, huh?" I bought the valances at a garage sale for 25 cents each probably a year and a half ago. They matched the trundle bed cover I got at the thrift store perfectly. The only problem was they were wayyyyy too long. Valances are supposed to cover the top 1/4 of the window at the most and these covered the top 1/2 of the window at the least. I told my mom that I knew once I put them up, it was going to be a looooong time before I took them down to hem them and I was right. 1 1/2 years is pretty long for something like that. In dog years that would be 10 1/2 years. Anyway, I finally took them down, cut them off, hung them back up (looking muuuuuch better) (don't you like the way I'm emphasizing my words today) and actually made a couple of pillows to match. Am I a domestic divas or what? If you come over to my house, though, please don't look too closely at the pillows one is just a little smaller than the other one. Just glance at them and say "Wow, you did a great job."

The other project I did this week was painting my little side table. I guess I will admit to digging it out of a pile of trash in front of somebody's house a couple of weeks ago. When I dug it out, it was light blue and was a tiny bit broken. It's one of those tables that has the drop leafs on the side and a little "leg" folds out to hold up the "leaf". One of the little fold-out legs was broken off. It was also filthy and the hinges were bent. I still haven't figured out how the hinges got bent like that. I thought I would try to strip the light blue paint, but when I went to Lowe's and Walmart, the cheapest paint stripper I could find was $6.50 and I really didn't want to spend that much on a free table, especially when I didn't know what the wood looked like underneath. I decided to paint it black (I found a quart of black paint somebody had custom tinted and apparently didn't like for $3.50 at Walmart) and put it in the guest room next to the rocking chair. After several coats of paint and hammering the hingest back straight, it doesn't even look like the same table. We still have to reattach the leg, but it looks great. Now I just need a little lamp to put on it. Hopefully someone will throw one out soon and I can redo it too.

Wow, I guess I had a lot to say, but who wouldn't after not posting for a month? I'm going to say I'm going to do better about posting, but please don't hold me to that. I can't guarantee anything.