Searching Savannah

Hey! How ya doin’?

2012-01-19T07:50:00.001-05:00

I’d like to say things are fabulous! But they’re just about the same. Not a bad thing, I guess, but no new adventures from the Anthony house these days.

Christmas decorations are finally all put away and snug in it’s bed until next year. The cleaning is still in progress.

The cold of winter is here and, although it isn’t as cold as a lot of the country, it’s still cold. Especially downstairs. The little heater down there does a good job of heating the place up, but I really don’t like to have it running all day.

Since we’ve moved here I’ve had my scrapbook stuff downstairs. It’s a nice big room where we spend the evenings most of the time. It was nice to sit there by the window facing the back yard and watch the sun rise.

Annabell usually kept me company, the sound of her sitting behind me amid a pile of toys, whining, wanting to play.

She would bring me her rope every morning and if I ignored here too long she would pout, whining and pushing the rope against my leg, urging me to tug.

Now that I’ve moved this upstairs, she hasn’t bothered me with the rope. There’s no carpet to provide traction upstairs. She does, however, sit on the arm of the couch right behind me and whine.

You would think that she was SO neglected!

I’m still getting things organized, but I think it will be good scrappin’ in my new spot.

Scrapbook? Me?

2012-01-11T06:50:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I really wonder!

I did manage a page yesterday and most of a two page layout that I plan on finishing this morning.

With the new year already gaining speed, I thought I’d try and ‘catch up’.

Yeah.

Well, I’m working on a trip to California in…

2004.

What??

That’s not SO long ago!!

The picture was taken along I-80 heading up to Apple Hill. I caught some pretty good shots of leaves turning!

I’m off to work on the next pages…

Who knew Kroger could be fun?

2012-01-07T08:02:00.001-05:00

Pictures later…

Yesterday I had to take Bill to work. The Explorer has decided to throw fits. It’s old. It has a lot of miles on it. I guess it’s allowed.

Mary and I had plans to go to the mall and run a few errands, so I had to take Bill to work. I haven’t had to do that since we got PT and it’s been really nice.

We went to the mall to Mary’s favorite store; Macy’s. Yeah. It’s expensive, but they have really good sales and Mary is not above pawing through the clearance racks to find a gem or two. She found a pair of jeans there that she’s been living in and wanted to get another pair, but the clearance racks were calling to her and she went in search of a top or two. She found them, too! Two really cute tops that were on sale. And the jeans were still on sale, so we went ahead and got another pair of those, too.

At the register the two tops came up less than the tag price by five bucks, so that was even better!

We walked through the mall and stopped at Old Navy, too. She had some money left on her gift card and found a top there that would go with the things she bought at Macy’s.

She was a happy girl!

The only thing that would have made the shopping trip better for her was a new pair of shoes, but we weren’t going there.

We were going to stop at Best Buy to browse, then Target and a stop at the library, but by the time we made it back over to our side of town there wasn’t enough time for that and had to head over to pick Bill up. We made all the lights, but got stopped behind a couple of school busses that set us behind schedule. Target would have to wait.

On the way home we stopped at Kroger to get a couple of things so we could actually have dinner. I don’t think there is anything in the cupboard to make a complete meal. Grocery shopping needs to be done. Not only done, but done with some thought so we don’t have to run out to get what is missing.

I hate grocery shopping.

We made it through Kroger unscathed, which can be a feat on a Friday afternoon, and as we exited I looked to my right and LOOK!

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile on a Mini Cooper!!!

How awesome is that????

Well, Bill and I thought so! Mary would not get in a picture, but at least she took one for us.

Bill talked to the guy there about the ones we’ve seen over the years. But the best thing for Bill, I think, was when the guy gave him his very own wiener whistle.

Isn’t he cute? Sometimes the second childhood is loads of fun!

(Of course, Mary was slouched down in the back seat hoping no one noticed her)

What?

2011-12-30T11:33:00.001-05:00

What’s in the tree?

2011-12-28T12:54:00.001-05:00

I went outside a little bit ago and spotted something hanging precariously in the tree.

Way up in the tree!

I couldn’t tell if the kitty was alive or not! I watched him for a few minutes and he never moved. The tree is actually in my neighbors back yard, but it’s not fenced in, so I went around to take a look.

The poor little guy was just perched up there, staring at the other neighbor’s yard where a dog lives…

Mary followed me out and I sent her back to get some turkey to try and entice the little guy down.

He’d meow at me and look down for a minute, but wouldn’t move a bit! When I held the turkey up you could see his little nose start working, but he didn’t have a clue as to how to get down.

Finally, I wiggled the tree and he let go of his hold there on the branch with his front feet, then clumsily slipped a little to the next bunch of tiny branches. He managed to get all the way down, but was clearly upset that we had to catch him in this quite embarrassing moment. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he was off like a shot. Hopefully he remembers where he lives!

And he didn’t even stop for the turkey.

Food, Friends and Fun!

2011-12-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

Christmas, of course, came and went in the usual manner.

Wait, wait, wait.

Poof!

Gone.

We had a good day, though.

Mary was up surprisingly early. She was bouncing off the walls the night before, doing her best to convince Bill and I to open presents on Christmas Eve.

Nope.

Sorry, kid.

We did let her open one and she chose the package that our friend, Tootsie, had brought over a few days prior for her.

And this is what she found in it!

I had mentioned to Tootsie that she had gone nuts over these hats and Tootsie looked all over town for one for her! The pom-poms are so cute! The dogs thought they were toys for them, though. And of course, Mary had to try the hat on the dogs, too.

We had a pretty good pile of paper around the tree once all was unwrapped.

Here are some highlights!

Bill got a leaf blower.

He will be happy to leave those rakes hanging in the garage now.

A Ninja for me! We’re going to make some smoothies today!

Chex Mix in the mail from Grandma Pat, Sherri and Katie! Yum! We had to share a bit with the pups, too.

Annabell really liked it!

Mary contemplating the ‘big’ box…

Finally! A keyboard! Something to practice on! Piano lessons to come!

I think she likes it.

After all the paper was cleaned up, we got cleaned up and headed to the movies. Pat and Tootsie were coming along with us to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We headed to Pooler, drove up to the theatre and NO ONE WAS THERE! Doors locked. Really quiet. What?

Apparently, when the movie times were checked online, the hours weren’t checked to see if they were open on Christmas.

This was the first year we were going to go to Pooler and didn’t realize they wouldn’t be open.

Mary checked the theatres by the mall and the movie WAS playing there, but we wouldn’t have gotten there in time all the way from Pooler. We decided instead to go back to Tootsie’s and watch one of the movies Mary got for Christmas; Cowboy’s and Aliens. Bill and Mary had seen it in the theatre, but Pat, Tootsie and I hadn’t seen it yet.

We brought the dogs over to play with Davey while we watched the show. They had a blast! Davey got an automatic laser toy for Christmas! Yeah. It’s really neat, though. It sits on the floor and spins around, shining the laser light all over the floor for the dog to chase. Annabell went NUTS with this thing! Pat put it over in the dining room so they would play in there. We finally had to turn it off because Annabell got so tired running around it and wouldn’t stop! Silly dog. It’s pretty funny though. Tootsie turned the thing off and picked it up off the floor and Annabell just stood there and stared at it waiting for the light to go on again!

It looks kind of like this one, but I don’t think this is the actual one they have.

Bill put the turkey in really early in the morning, so it was done before we even went on our failed movie outing. After the movie at Tootsie’s we came home, cleaned up some and got the rest of dinner ready and Pat and Tootsie came over and we shared dinner with them. We had a good time! We even figured out how to set the timer on my camera to take this picture! Thanks, Pat!

After dinner we visited for a while and Annabell cleaned Pat’s ears for him…

See Pat smiling? Yup. All clean now.

Good job, Annabell!

Running on empty.

2011-12-21T08:16:00.001-05:00

So my back went out again. Another trip around the same old circle of aches and pains that sometimes leave me pretty much useless.

It started out innocent enough. Saturday I was sweeping up the gigantic balls of fur that accumulate downstairs when I felt that familiar twinge.

Damn.

Had plans to head to Charleston for a ‘Debbie’ day. Had to cancel. Maybe Friday. We’ll see.

The pinched nerve thing is pretty much gone but my back is SORE!! And I’m not crawling up the stairs any more.

Mary and I ventured out for a couple of errands yesterday which included the mall. I know. Bad idea. But it went well. It was busy and the parking lot was pretty full for a Tuesday, but we knew where we wanted to go inside and got that taken care of easily. It took us forever to get through it all, though, since I’m walking slower than a toddler. Codger speed, is more like it. All that was missing was the walker.

By the time we got home I was pretty much done for the day. I tried to relax downstairs, but the couch really hurt my back, so I ended up going up to bed for a while. Even put my pj’s on. It wasn’t long, though, before I heard the dogs barking. Someone was here. I heard Mary talking to someone downstairs, got dressed, and found friends of Bill’s from work here. They came to pick up the table we were selling.

The pub table I bought in Florida has been gathering dust in the garage. Bill mentioned one of the guys at work looking for one, so I suggested they come by to see if they’d like the pub table. I love that table, but it’s just too big for this place and a lot bigger than we need, so it will get better use now.

Bill got home shortly and he helped load up the table and chairs for the trip to its new home.

Friday, Mary and I went downtown to walk around a little bit. She loves the antique store on River/Bay Street. Three floors of old treasures! She is fascinated by all the old stuff! And she pretty much looked at everything! She’s so funny.

From there we went down to River Street to walk through some stores to see what there was to see. We found another tall ship docked on the river.

Mary isn’t very interested in them, but I talked her into a picture.

We wandered a bit, then headed home, but not before a little bit more of camera torture.

Trapped in the elevator at the parking garage with mom and a camera. A teenager’s worst nightmare. Well, at least for now.

Thought I’d share this cute picture!

All the pets sitting with Bill at one time! This doesn’t happen too often. Oreo is on the back of the chair, checking to see if Bill’s hair is dry from his shower. Rusty hopped up and lay down, then Annabell, being the jealous female that she is, had to jump up there, too. And Chloe is doing what she normally does; lounging on the arm of the chair and Bill, staring at him with that blank stare she has, reminding Bill that it’s his job to pet her.

Bill says he doesn’t like all that attention, but I know better.

Friday update… just a little late!

2011-12-11T09:01:00.001-05:00

The week flew by! So what else is new? lol

Well, y’all know about Monday and Tuesday already. No sense in rehashing that! And I’d just assume not to myself. ugh.

Of course, the rest of the week was pretty slow. Not a whole lot going on.

We went out to dinner on Thursday. Chili’s. It was pretty good, even though Mary was disappointed. She didn’t want a hamburger, but it seemed to be the only thing that she could order. I had ribs. I hadn’t had them in a long time and soon remembered why I haven’t had them in a long time. Half of what I chewed stayed in my teeth and most of the sauce on my fingers. Oh well. It was still good. Bill had crunchy shrimp tacos. He said they were good, but he never has a bad review.

So, why didn’t I watch Grey’s Anatomy when it came out? I don’t know, but I’m really liking the streaming video from NetFlix, even though they’ve raised their prices stupidly. With crochet hook flying or knitting needles clacking I’ve been having Grey’s marathons. It’s really a bad thing, but I refuse to think about that. It’s like a medical soap opera and even though I get really mad when they work characters out (George) (Izzy) I’m enjoying the show a lot. I’m really hoping that the episodes don’t run out before it catches up with the current season. It’s been on a long time!

I’ve been working on some new crochet patterns and I have something almost ready to send to a ‘tester’ to see if they’re a hit or a miss. Even though she doesn’t live in the frigid north any more, she might get cool enough to try this out. Okay, Melissa???

Mary’s baking bug has not fizzled yet. She made a list on Friday of things she needed from the store to make the recipes she’d chosen to use while I was in Pooler getting my nails done. I got my hair cut, too, which is a good thing since I’ve got that reverse-Cruella DeVile look going. You know. Roots that REALLY need to be done but I don’t want to color the hair any more. A few more hair cuts and it will all be taken care of. In the meantime, though, kinda funky. Oh well.

I have letters written… in my head.

There are a few letters I need to really write, but when I sit down to actually write them they fade away. They aren’t really nice letters. One in particular stirs up anger and hurt and I really don’t even want to do it, but it needs to be done. Two others need to be written to two special people who are struggling and I’m not close enough to talk face to face. One letter is to someone going through horrendous medical issues and I wish with all my heart that I could be there to help, but know I can’t fix anything.

Words used to flow from my mind to my fingertips, through pen to paper, with amazing ease. Now it seems it all gets stuck in my head, tormenting me to get it out, get it on paper, only to run, skittering around my brain until I give up, put it back in those shadowy, dark places, hoping they won’t come out again until I sit at the computer, ready for them to escape.

Evasion, you think?

Probably.

Denial?

Yeah.

I guess if I want the torture to end, I’ve got to do something about that, huh?

Maybe later.

Smile!

2011-12-06T07:22:00.001-05:00

Yeah. Okay.

I had a colonoscopy yesterday.

No pictures. Sorry.

I started ‘preparing’ for it after my dinner on Saturday. Sunday morning, no food except for sugar-free Jell-O or popsicles, beef or chicken broth. ick.

I spent most of the day trying to NOT think about food. I did okay, really. I watched TV and had knitting needles clacking away on a project.

In the afternoon, Bill and Mary went out. She’s been wanting to try Thai food. This is something I had no interest in, so they went off to burn their taste buds off all by themselves.

I took a nap.

Around 6 I had to start with the sewer water. Yum. We added some lemon Crystal Lite to the concoction per the pharmacist’s recommendation, so it just tasted like sewer water running through a lemon grove. It certainly took care of the hunger I had been feeling. I wasn’t even bothered by the fact that Bill and Mary were baking up a storm; cookies and several types of brownies.

I hear they are exceptionally good.

Monday morning was round two of the sewer water. Yum! Just after noon we were off for the procedure and were home between three and four.

All went well, according to Bill.

I lay down for a nap when we got home, not really ready to eat much of anything, surprisingly. I did have a bowl of cereal. I must have had a bit of anesthesia left in me because I slept until 9 p.m!!!!

That messed up the rest of the night, but that’s okay.

This morning I feel like I got kicked in the back by a goat.

Just a little sore.

Off to the dentist we go this morning. Not for me. Not for the broken tooth I got after my last thorough ‘cleaning’. Nope. Mary is due for her cleaning today. She’s not happy, but I have assured her that she won’t come away with a broken tooth as I did because her teeth aren’t a mess like mine.

She’s still not happy with it.

Last week our new ‘adopted’ son, JP graduated his first year of film school and had the screening of his film Undead: A Love Story.

I sure wish I could have been there for this, but I’m hoping to someday see the finished project.

The cast!

Dayna made a great zombie, if I do say so myself. So did Chris and Charlie!!!

You can check out what’s going on with UnDead on JP’s Facebook Page HERE.

If you don’t, I’ll send Dan after you….

Trying to develop better habits…

2011-12-02T07:16:00.001-05:00

My blogging and journaling have gotten really bad as of late. I stare at the computer wondering if anyone would want to look at my posts (other than my few, favorite and faithful readers) and came to realize that it doesn’t matter, does it? I should be doing this for myself and I have not. I’ve left myself out of the picture. (Bad me) So, while slinking around the internet looking for homeschool inspiration I found the Homeschool Chick and her gaggle of followers! She hosts a ‘journal’ every week and I thought I would use the questions to get myself started on a good habit, hopefully focusing my thoughts for the upcoming week.

In my life this week…

This week was a bit challenging. Too many people around me are going through some tough things and I feel helpless. I know I can’t fix them. I can give advice if wanted, listen to the rants and help wipe the tears, but I can’t fix anything. It breaks my heart. Loved ones far away, friends near and I feel helpless.

In our homeschool this week…

It has been a quiet week for Mary and her studies. She has gotten ahead of some of her subjects and we are waiting for some new material to arrive. With the holidays approaching we are planning some baking. She loves to bake, although I suspect she’d rather bake with her favorite neighbor than me. That’s quite alright. We have awesome neighbors.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…

I am usually looking for tips or advice from others. I don’t normally offer advice, unless asked.

I am inspired by…

my daughter! She is so smart and willing to do what needs to be done to get a good education. She knows being homeschooled that this largely falls on her own shoulders. She has so many plans and ideas for her future I hope I can remain a positive force with her for many years to come.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Not too much traveling around any time soon, I think, but still hoping to get some fun field trips in soon. With the winter upon us, things are limited around here, but we’ll think of something!

My favorite thing this week was…

My favorite thing this week was getting our Christmas tree up! Mary wanted to do the tree differently this year. She didn’t want all our traditional ornaments up. We found some very inexpensive ornaments at Target in the colors she wanted so she was good to go! The tree turned out beautifully! I have a small Charlie Brownish tree downstairs that I decorated so we would have some lights and sparkles down there, too.

Things I’m working on…

I am working on SO many things it makes my head spin. I do that sometimes. Not the head spinning thing, but the too many projects thing. I have been making mini photo albums, crocheting a LOT and just starting knitting a shawl for a dear young woman who is soon going in for chemo and radiation.

I’m reading…

I am currently reading the third novel of a trilogy by Beverly Cleary. The title escapes me at the moment and I really don’t want to run upstairs to look, but it’s a story about an Amish girl and her struggles. I didn’t think I would like it as I read the first novel, but by the end of it I was hooked and had to read the other two.

I’m grateful for…

I am SO grateful for my loving husband who supports me in nearly everything I do. I know he loves me unconditionally and sometimes I really wonder why. I sure he wonders why, too!

I’m praying for…

Constant prayers for those in my life who are struggling with what they have going on. They are always on my mind.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

A break in the day for Mary! This IS the dog’s bed, but she goes in there to visit… Our neighbor’s dog (the brown one in the front) was over for a play date and Mary couldn’t resist getting them all in the cage and playing with them.

This is a type of post I’m going to do on Friday’s to sort of wrap up the week’s happenings. We’ll see how this shapes up!

Not Moving!

2011-11-29T11:54:00.001-05:00

About a year ago we were moving boxes yet again to a new house. This year, though, we are not.

(slightly proud of myself)

There has been a lot of teasing and joking that went with moving so much over the years, but we finally feel at home. Unless there’s a big lottery win, I don’t see us moving again will just concentrate on getting up and down the stairs in our old age.

So, you’ve noticed the blog change. Struck by the holiday to come I went to add some Christmas cheer to the blog, but, alas, have forgotten how to do it, even though I just changed it less than a month ago. Senility is not a good thing.

Thanksgiving came and went in a flurry of turkey feathers. The plan was to go to Charleston, but my back was going out and I was fearful of not being able to walk well for a length of time, so I stayed home with the heavenly heating pad while Bill and Mary joined Mike, Debbie and her folks for a Thanksgiving feast. The long drive the prior weekend really did me in, I think. Better now, though, I’m still taking care and not walking too much, too fast, for too long.

Bill and I went to the flea market here in Savannah Saturday to trade in the books we’ve read. There’s a guy there with tons of books really cheap and gives us credit back for any we trade with him. Bag full, we wandered a bit, but soon we were on our way home.

On the 19th of November, Debbie and I joined the scrappin’ ladies in Ebenezer for an all day crop. We didn’t stay the full 12 hours, but had a really fun time! Debbie hadn’t been to a crop and really enjoyed herself listening to everyone chatter and playing with pictures.

We made a mini album while there, the mini album Queen, Cecile, brought it to life for us. It is awesome! I just love it! I’ve made a second one already and plan on more, maybe even getting some up on eBay.

I had a bit of trouble with the one that is in progress now. There’s quite a bit of scoring involved and, while I didn’t have this problem at the crop, I kept cutting through the paper instead of making a good score for a nice fold. Aggravated beyond belief, I headed to Michael’s and AC Moore on Friday afternoon, against my better judgment, but wanting to solve my stupid problem. The problem wasn’t stupid as much as me being stupid, but we won’t go there.

I have seen tools for scoring before and had a vision in my head of what I thought it looked like, so Mary and I scoured Michael’s first to no avail, looking for the ever elusive prize. We did, however, buy a couple of things using our magical coupons before leaving.

We headed back toward home and stopped at AC Moore. One more attempt, then I’d have to give up until we could make a trip to Statesboro and Hobby Lobby.

We were in luck, though, and found a handy-dandy scoring tool!

It wasn’t what I remembered and was a brand I don’t normally buy, but I was desperate and it was on sale.

Had to get it.

Martha Steward finally got some of my money.

Bill hauled the tree up from the garage on Sunday. Last year we had it downstairs, which I prefer. We’re downstairs a lot and I like to look at it at night, lights sparkling, tinsel… well, tinseling. This year it is upstairs, though, in front of the windows. Mary wanted to do all blue and silver, so we went to Target to get some ornaments. Plastic. Cheap. But lots of glitter. So much glitter!

She’s began decorating the deck out front, too. The garland is wrapped around the banister, the lights are wrapped around the slats. It’s going to light up beautifully! Maybe. If Dad remembers to stop and get some replacement bulbs on his way home so Mary can finish creating.

For downstairs we have a Charlie Brown style tree. I don’t really know when we acquired this, but it’s a poor, cheap little thing and I’m going to decorate it up as best I can so I can have some sparkle and glitter downstairs. Trust me, it’ll be fun. Until the cat finds it.

I’ve even betrayed my membership to the Procrastinator’s Club, of which I’ve been a member for quite some time, and have my Christmas cards done! The envelopes are addressed, the cards inside, just waiting to add Mary pictures to those that will receive those. I’ll just need stamps and off to the post office and places beyond before you know it!

I’ll be hanging onto the club member’s cards until the 26th, so mums the word.

Can we slow down just a little?

2011-11-16T06:12:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Mary and I headed down to the Oglethorpe Mall in Savannah to have her picture done. She’s 14 now, 8th grade and growing up way too fast.

I wish I could have bought a lot more of the poses, but we got two different ones that were Mary’s favorites.

I really enjoyed watching her pose for the photographer. She really is very shy and I thought she was going to be too nervous to do this, but she was wonderful! I asked her beforehand if she wanted me to stay away… far away… from the action so she wasn’t nervous with me there, but she said she was fine.

I’m looking forward to the end of the week! I’ll be going to scrapbook the day away with a bunch of other crazy scrappers. I need to get that stuff organized so I can actually get something done while I’m there.

And Christmas is coming up SO fast! Oh. my. gosh! Well, it’s going to be slim pickins this year, but that’s okay. I just can’t believe how fast the time is going. The days fly by and there is so much I want to do; that I need to do, and it just doesn’t seem to get done.

So, maybe I should get off the computer and get busy, huh?

Oh So Lucky!

2011-11-11T07:56:00.001-05:00

This is our friend, Lucky, on the road from Pennsylvania to Savannah! Her people are moving to Florida and, unfortunately, they can’t take Lucky with them. She coming to live with us! Yes, we have a pet menagerie and it’s going to be fun!

We met Lucky when we visited Rob and Melissa a year ago. Remember?

Mary was ecstatic to learn that Lucky was on her way here! Of course, it was a really great way to see Rob and Melissa, too. They had to stop here and visit for just a little while!

We have some adjustments to make to accommodate the pets, but it will all work out. Rusty is being somewhat of an ass. He’s a Chihuahua. He had to growl at Lucky when she came in and Lucky did not like that. There was a scuffle, but all is well.

Oreo got the surprise of his life last night. He saw Lucky in her kennel and was slowly walking toward her. He’s always curious. Lucky spotted him and let out a huge WOOF! and that cat disappeared into thin air! All we heard was the rumble of cat feet on what stairs they connected with as he high-tailed it upstairs.

Poor Oreo.

We did learn about her rather impressive WOOF, though. No one’s coming through that door without permission, now, boy!

Rob and Melissa spent the night, we had a really nice, albeit short, visit, and they were on their way in the morning, heading south for the beginning of the next chapter in their life’s adventure.

We love you both! Looking forward to seeing you in your new home soon! Get those boxes unpacked!

Have you seen this place?

2011-11-05T05:50:00.001-04:00

Have you ever heard of Ulta?

There is one located in the shopping center here in Savannah that is one of our favorites. Michael’s lives there along with Movie Stop, Home Goods, and until recently, Books-a-Million. They, apparently, snuck out one night leaving Mary and I slack jawed and wide eyed on the sidewalk staring at the now empty store front window. They’re lucky Barnes and Noble is just down the way.

Ulta, however, sat there without our crossing its threshold until just last week.

I didn’t think anything could enchant Mary more than a store full of shoes until we walked in there.

Make-up and everything ‘girly’ from wall to wall.

Mary could live in there!

She told me!

There is SO much to look at! She had a couple of things she wanted to check out, things she saw in the ad that came in the mail. She had money to spend and really wanted some new eye shadow. She had a hard time deciding if she wanted to spend the money since we saw these shoes earlier in the day at a department store.

Yup, Mary LOVES these shoes! And is determined to get them before they’re gone.

She is a silly girl.

I’m silently hoping that by the time she saves the money they WILL be gone. lol

It was a busy day all the way around yesterday.

First I had a nail appointment in Pooler and on the way over there I stopped at the bank to get some cash to pay for the scrapbook day coming up. All day, playing with pictures with a bunch of really fun women.

It’s going to be fun!

Mary and I headed to Savannah Mall after that and wandered around. That’s where we found ‘the shoes’. We wandered through AC Moore and several mall stores when something caught our eye. She had to stop and stare at the pianos in the piano store. She dreams of a baby grand. I’d like to see her fit THAT in her room!

We pawed through the Halloween stuff on clearance at Target and headed home just in time to meet Bill as he was just pulling in from work.

We went to Ruby Tuesday for dinner and, because Bill planned on a nap so he could get up to see the football game he wanted to see, Mary went back out, coupon for Ulta clutched in Mary’s fingers.

We toured Ulta, Michael’s and then Barnes and Noble before we headed home for the night.

Mary was bouncing off the walls.

Bill was just up from his nap.

I was exhausted.

Oh, and I managed to pick up a super secret gift for Mary while I was out without her, safely hidden in the garage. She’s going to be so excited! And, no, it’s not the shoes.

No big plans for the weekend!

I may have to go back to Barnes and Noble to pick up this book…

There is plenty of supply hair now accumulated and since I didn’t get any takers on the fur coat offer, I thought this may be an alternative.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

Awww Nuts…

2011-11-04T07:10:00.001-04:00

There is no denying that we’re a little nuts.

Mary has welcomed it, embraced it.

Well, sort of.

She has been wanting to buy a coconut for a long time. We finally spotted one at the grocery store and we picked one up for her.

As I sat and listened to her and her dad discuss how they were going to open it, Mary leaning toward the ‘Survivor-style machete version and Bill telling her to go get a hammer, I suggested,

“Google it, for heaven’s sake!”

We did not have a coconut explosion in the kitchen and Mary enjoyed a nice drink.

She also found it amusing to blow in the straw and make bubbles inside the coconut.

Annabell found it interesting, too.

It’s always amusing in this nut house, let me tell ya.

The weekend will be pie baking day. Coconut cream, to be exact.

A Creative Memories Video!

2011-11-02T08:12:00.000-04:00

Although I REALLY want to buy the new Cricut offered by Creative Memories, I still LOVE my stencils. I just watched this video and learned things I didn't know I didn't know!!! Take a look!

Halloween is near!

2011-10-30T09:09:00.001-04:00

I don’t have little Ghouls or Goblins in the house anymore, unless you count the pets. They’re pretty creepy sometimes. Mary wants to dress the dogs up for Halloween this year, but I think I’ll pass. It would be kind of cute, though… ummmm…. no.

I love seeing the little kids in their costumes this time of year. A lot has changed since I was little and each year donned my ‘gypsy’ costume, wearing every piece of costume jewelry my mother owned and so delighted to wear some of her lipstick!

I found some memories here on my computer and thought I’d reminisce a little with some pictures.

One of the very precious ‘princess’ moments we had with Dayna. She was still 100% Disney back then!

In Indiana she was a cute little blonde witch!

Later, Mary wore this purple dress with a different effect.

When Mary was born I discovered scrapbooking, so I have a lot more pictures of her. And by the time Mary was a cute elfish creature, Dayna was an aloof preteen who didn’t want her picture taken. (sigh)

2001 was fun!

Dayna and her friend were twinsies…

and Mary was a very happy Scooby…

One year we had a very cute dolphin!

We found this costume at Sam’s Club. She wore it right out of the store! It was perfect for a cold Halloween in Indiana.

As Mary got older, and you may remember this, she was out of ‘cute’…

I think she was a cute vampire, though. She and Tracy had a good time! More fun with the make-up than the candy, I think.

I looking forward to see the little ghouls and gremlins tomorrow night!

Hangin’ out in Charleston…

2011-10-26T10:42:00.001-04:00

I’m staying at a friend’s house for a bit, hanging out while she recovers from surgery. She’s doing real well and it’s been nice chatting like we used to so often.

We both lived in Florida when we met and with jobs and circumstance we both ended up moving to different states for a while. Now we’re only about a hundred miles apart, so we can visit more often!

We had every intention of scrapbooking while I was here, but I really don’t think she was up to it, but we’ve had crochet hooks in hand quite a bit and the yarn has been flying!

I found a really neat pattern for a baby sweater that is pretty much made in one piece. It’s a basic sweater, not many frills, made out of 4-ply yarn which makes it quick and easy and nice and warm for the cooler temps coming along.

I don’t have any new babies around personally, but I love to make baby clothes. I thought I’d put them up on Etsy or Ebay.

I have three or four of them at home finished up and here are the two I’ve made so far since being here.

This is the basic sweater. It ties in the front, no buttons. I added the slip stitch around the edge on a whim. It really can be ‘fancied’ up any way you want, but I like the simple style. Quick to make and doesn’t require too much yarn.

This variation is pretty obvious; a hood and some ruffles. The sweater is still the basic pattern. This one was fun to make! I want to make some suitable for a boy, too. No ruffles on those!

I have some hat patterns that I could use to make a set, along with some cute little booties that would make the perfect ensemble! lol

The other thing I’ve been playing with is this…

This is Angel. She’s a little gray around the face now, but she’s such a sweet dog! We hadn’t seen her in quite a while but she sure remembered us!

Keep Your Enemies Close…

2011-10-12T08:02:00.001-04:00

We’ve had Chloe for a while now.

She’s a weird cat. A good cat, but weird.

She doesn’t play like a cat. She doesn’t really play much at all.

She gets along with the dogs just fine, unless, of course, they sit on her tail or bounce her off the bed when she’s napping.

She likes dog food.

She Loves Bill and Mary.

She’ll come when you call her.

She hates Oreo.

Oreo tried his best to make friends with her after he realized she was going to be a permanent fixture in the house. He would coo at her, sneak up quietly, sideways, offering a game of kitty play.

She wasn’t having any of it, though.

She hisses and swats at him and walks away.

Oreo kept trying.

To no avail.

Now he just taunts her.

He hunts her. Stalks her through the house, pouncing at her, causing her to go into a full blown hissy fit, yowling at him like he’s killing her, usually in the stairwell where it echoes really LOUD!

He’ll chase her down off the food table where they eat or wait in the shadows for her to jump down and scare her, obviously taking pleasure in these attacks.

Yesterday, though, as I sat watching TV, crochet hook in hand, Oreo spotted Chloe sleeping in the chair next to me and quietly crawled up on the arm and lay down.

He was there for a few minutes before she woke up and saw him there.

I guess she was okay with it. She glared at him for a few minutes, but didn’t move at all.

Maybe someday she’ll quit being so ornery and be real friends with Oreo. In the meantime, he’s just taking what he can get.

See these little girls?

2011-10-08T07:47:00.001-04:00

That little one in the hat is Dayna. So little! Standing on the coffee table.

The other cute, smiling girl is Anna, my cousin’s daughter.

This picture was taken in Sacramento when Anna and her family lived with us for a while.

It did not turn out well. We had to ask them to leave.

The worst thing about it was that Anna had to leave, too. It broke my heart.

I knew she wouldn’t have it easy, but how hard it was I never knew. I haven’t seen her since then.

I have, however, been talking to her on the phone the last couple of weeks!

We found each other on Face Book and it was SO good to hear her voice on the phone.

I won’t go into detail about our conversations because this is not the place for it, but I will share that after many horrible years she is now married with children of her own, a wonderful husband from what I gather from our conversations and living far away from the horrible memories of her past. She’s still dealing with a lot of nightmares from those years, but she’s pushing forward, intent on ending the cycles of insanity that she grew up in.

I miss her SO much!

As I listen to her talk on the phone my heart breaks with sorrow for the smiling girl in the photo, but swells with pride at how she did not follow in the horrible cycle of evil. There’s just no other word for it.

I have been sick over the fact that if I had done more for her back then she wouldn’t have suffered so, but I didn’t; couldn’t really.

I am so grateful for our talks now. Sometimes I can hear that little, giggly girl through the phone line, mixed with the voice of a mother and wife, looking to the future, the sound of pride in her voice when she speaks of her children.

Someday we will meet again in person. I’ll always be her Aunt Deanna and she’ll always be in my heart.

I love you, Anna!

Need to Get Cookin’!

2011-10-04T09:07:00.001-04:00

You know, QVC is a bad thing.

I don’t have a HUGE problem with it, especially when I find these…

and I can get them on easy-pay.

For a while now we’ve been using a pan that we LOVE for just about everything. Problem is, the handle broke off a while back. It’s still a good pan. Just awkward at times. Well, a lot of the time. Especially when it comes to moving it around and I forget to grab a pot holder to move it and I burn my widdle fingers.

So one night after I had watched as much of the news as I could stand, I flipped on over to QVC. Cooking stuff. I didn’t think anything would really push that ‘I gotta have it!’ button, so I settled in and began watching the chef prepare food in the handy-dandy pans.

Here’s what got me.

The lids have a draining spot in them! So you can just hold onto the lid, tight on the pan and drain away! Awesome!

And the whole set wasn’t much more than if we just replaced the skillet without the handle. Okay, well, it’s twice as much as one pan, but still, such a deal!

Saturday we went to the Gulfstream Family Day. It’s a yearly event put on by the company and they do a great job! It’s much more fun if you have a passel of little kids to go enjoy all the ‘kid’ stuff going on, but we went and wandered around for a while.

We started out on the side of Gulfstream where the main event was held.

There was NO parking.

None.

This is a huge place!!!!

The weather was beautiful so everyone decided to head out there.

We drove over to the other side of the airport where Bill works. We had never gone on the tour of his hangar area. We’ve toured the production side where they build the planes, but not the service side where he works. He was so proud to show us around! We ran into a few people he knew.

There were a few people working, but it was pretty quiet throughout the whole place. We came upon one gentleman staring at a computer screen and Bill says,

“Hey, you workin’ today?”

I just looked at him.

“No honey, he showed up to the picnic in his uniform so they decided to use him as a prop.”

Here’s your sign.

From there we headed back to see if a parking spot had opened up. We were pretty lucky this time and found one without too much trouble.

The only place photos are allowed is in the picnic area where the event is held. No pictures can be taken in any of the hangars where the planes are. To a pictureholic this is a harsh reality. As we joined the hundreds of people enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere I saw they had a photo place set up.

Here’s a plane you can take a picture of.

Well, part of a plane.

There was a camera set up there and apparently you could get your picture taken inside the cockpit.

I was going to go around and see if I could get another shot. The battery died.

{sigh}

We wandered a bit, but there really wasn’t too much that interested in. We walked toward the food area where they served lunch and saw the horrendous lines! We opted to get lunch elsewhere.

We had thrown around the idea of going downtown to the Oktoberfest going on, but soon through that idea out the window. Good thing, too. I was told by a reliable source, that it was a mad-house and pretty much impossible to get down to Bay Street.

So we went home.

Had a nap.

Damn we’re old.

New and Improved! Check it out!

2011-09-28T17:32:00.001-04:00

Fog

2011-09-28T09:55:00.001-04:00

I’ve been in one.

We’ve had a change of weather and that always throws my sinus’ into a panic.

And I can’t find the magical nose spray.

It’s somewhere between Savannah and Los Angeles. I had it in July.

{sigh}

I emerged from the fog on Saturday long enough to take advantage of the free tickets we got for the Juliette Gordon Low house in Savannah.

I was never a Girl Scout. I was a Blue Bird.

My brothers were both Boy Scouts.

I tagged along.

Neither of the girls were Scouts either. Mary was a Daisy in Indianapolis, but after moving to Florida it went by the wayside. We tried out a troop in Lake City, but we ‘weren’t’ from there and they pretty much let us know that.

We LOVE all the old houses here in Savannah, so when I found the free tickets offered by the Smithsonian Institute online, I nabbed them up!

We knew right where it was, drove right to it, found a parking spot right across the street and had an absolutely hysterical time parallel parking! I just haven’t gotten the hang of it yet. There wasn’t much need to park that way in all the other places we’ve lived and if there was, there was plenty of room to swing in next to the curb. Parking is a rare commodity in Savannah so you need to be able to squeeze in between two cars without hitting them! I bumped up the curb a couple of times, forward, reverse, start over, stop traffic. That’s okay. It was Saturday. No one was late to work because of me. At least I hope so!

While waiting to cross the street I grabbed this shot of the house.

We were told at the beginning of the tour that there was no photography allowed whatsoever inside the museum. I hate that. I don’t understand it. I don’t agree with their reasoning. I should complain.

I did.

Under my breath.

So as not to embarrass the teenager.

Much.

So I bought a bunch of postcards to share with you.

The post cards do match almost exactly to the way the rooms are inside. I guess you could hold it up on the tour and try to find the differences. We didn’t.

We couldn’t see the actual uniform she’s wearing in her portrait.

She’s buried in it.

The house was fantastic! Mary was fascinated, too!

We followed the tour guide around, listening to her stories of the family and the history of the house. There was a lot of activity in the house as several groups of scouts were around, some dressed in period clothing, some in their uniforms, badges displayed proudly.

Upon entering one parlor we were surprised to see someone we knew! Ms. Goll, Mary’s band teacher at Pooler Elementary School, was there with a group of girls practicing something on the piano there in the room. We didn’t get a change to really say hello but it was great to see her. Mary just loves her.

Once we toured the inside of the house we went out into the garden where we were allowed to take pictures.

It was an awesome house!

It has been brought to my attention…

2011-09-14T07:39:00.001-04:00

…that I haven’t blogged in a while.

That’s probably because there’s not much going on. We’re trapped in the house, dreaming of doing wondrous things, which we will do when we figure out what those things might be.

This past weekend there were some good times to be had! Bill had to go out of town on business and Mary and I made plans to head up to Charleston, SC to see some good friends.

They are our friends from Lake City, Florida. Two of the few people who made Lake City bearable.

We moved off to Georgia, they moved to Arizona, then to Tennessee and finally to South Carolina. I knew they couldn’t stay away from us for long.

So while we were here:

seeing this

and this

Bill was doing this

and this

Friday he had a meeting, but Saturday he spent the day with Dayna and Charlie at Universal Studios.

Lucky dog.

But Mary got to do this with Mike.

Killing things on Xbox.

She also got to see this old friend.

Angel is such a good dog! And she sure remembers us! She’s not as bouncy as she used to be, but she did take a run around the house when she heard our voices.

So, let’s recap.

Mary and I went to Charleston and Bill had fun at Universal.

Can’t you tell he’s having fun?

He’s smiling.

On the inside.

Hopefully, she had a good day…

2011-09-04T09:14:00.001-04:00

I think she did.

The birthday girl was smiling a lot Friday, even with the fact that she had to get school work done.

Okay. I’ll ‘fess up. She didn’t have to do all of her school work. I let her off the hook with the promise that she would get it completed before she started school on Tuesday. She took the deal with a smile and a big ‘Thanks, Mom!’

We had breakfast together and then Mary opened up the gift from our neighbor. We’d been out shopping a few months ago and she remembered something Mary had looked at while we were in the mall. Mary was thrilled! So was I, since I never remember to jot anything down when I get ideas for birthday gifts ahead of time.

The pictures aren’t great. I was too close with the flash, but you get the idea. It really is a cute figurine.

Tootsie also brought a gift for the other birthday girl in the house; Annabell. She is one year old now!

She brought her a T-shirt that says, “ I didn’t do it!”

We all know she did, though.

A new squeaky toy was a happy discovery for Annabell, since she chews through them in no time flat!

We’ll see how long this one lasts. It’s supposed to be super sturdy, but I don’t think it’s Annabell-proof.

Bill ran out to do some errands and Mary anxiously waited for his return so she could open the present waiting for her on the counter. I tried to make her wait, but she was tortured enough.

The mail brought a card from Grandma, Auntie and Cousin. She opened that, too.

I asked her if there was something in it and she said,

“Just a piece of paper.”

Oreo had dibs on the ribbon and had tried to pull it off earlier leaving kitty teeth marks in it… That’s what Mary’s pointing at.

A new sketch book, some jewelry and nail polish and the sketching supply case she’s been wanting for a while now was opened with smiles. There were also some new pens, but somehow I missed those in the picture taking.

I think she was pretty happy with everything. The jewelry, not so sure. I’ll find out if she never wears them.

I also told her that I had a 50% off coupon for AC Moore and she could use it on the book she wants. She’s been buying art books and sketching stuff and I know she really wanted that book. The coupon makes it a really good deal!

That and the new desk we picked up for her a couple of weeks ago made for a nice birthday, I think.

She scooted off to get ready to go to Bluffton and the movies. We planned on going to the three o’clock show and have dinner afterward.

I didn’t really like the movie much, but we were the ONLY people in the theatre, so it was nice.

And I didn’t doze off during the movie.

Like I did when we went to see the Harry Potter movie.

We were full from popcorn after the movie, so we decided to go drive around before we went to Paulie’s. I headed to Hilton Head. It was too hot to do much of anything, but we did stop in a couple of shops we’d been to before.

Bill and I had a great time reading signs and acting silly while Mary was in the back seat, blissfully listening to the new music she downloaded to her iPod and pretending she didn’t know us. We always find new signs to read up there because all the shops and hotel signs are back off the street and none of them are too high off the ground. They’re trying to keep the ‘natural’ look of the roadway, I guess, but if you don’t know where things are already it’s hard to find what you’re looking for.

We got back to Paulie’s and it wasn’t too busy. I thought it might be with it being Friday, but we got seated right away and quickly scanned the menu. Mary, of course, was having the chicken alfredo, hold the chicken, please. I had chicken parmesan and Bill had a pizza wrap. Not really a pizza; not a calzone and not quite a sandwich, but he said it was tasty.

I tried to sneak a picture… wasn’t too successful…

Then just took one. Sorry nearby patrons for the flash…

We headed home where birthday cake was waiting. We invited the neighbors over and, while Dayna was on the phone from California, we lit the candles and sang (really BAD) Happy Birthday to Mary.

She

was

ticked!

Sorry!

I had fun.

The cake was really good, though.

14 Years Ago Today----

2011-09-02T09:32:00.001-04:00

A sister was born!

Happy Birthday, Mary!!!

I know I’m in complete denial, but I can’t believe she’s 14 years old today!!! I’ve been teasing her all week about her advance into teenagedom, but silently I’ve been willing time to slow down just a little bit.

She has been looking forward to today all week! Bill took the day off so we can begin her birthday celebration a little early. We’re headed to the movies and dinner later this afternoon. Her favorite place to eat these days is Pauli's in Bluffton, SC. They have, in her opinion, THE best fettuccini alfredo anywhere.

I wrapped her presents and set them on the dining room table for Mary to see, but I don’t think I’ll let her open them until later. There has to be a little bit of torture today, don’t you think???

Oh, the humidity…

2011-08-31T09:09:00.001-04:00

I just can’t complain enough.

Well, maybe I can.

It’s just too humid.

I really should be thankful that the we aren’t suffering any ill effects from the recent hurricane, Irene, but the humidity just makes me a whiny, bitchy person who needs a time out. Somewhere cool.

Even in the house where the a/c is set on ‘refrigerator’, the easiest of tasks become a sticky, sweaty job requiring 10 minutes in front of the fan blowing full blast before a nice cool shower.

Poor Bill is soaked to the skin whenever he does yard work. The water pours through his pores as fast as he drains the huge cup he takes out with him.

We’ve been accepting quite a few invitations from our neighbors who have a nice pool in the back yard. They have generously given us an open invite to come and enjoy the pool whenever we’d like. There are so sweet. We always have a nice time when we go over there. We’re very blessed to have such wonderful neighbors here.

Last night it finally cooled down enough to take the dogs for their walk. The sun was down, a breeze was blowing and I said the word, ‘Walk.’ to the dogs and they were off! They raced down the stairs and headed to the leashes, dancing in circles, Annabell whining with excitement.

They haven’t had their regular walks lately. It’s just too hot. They were SO happy to be out, though, despite the fact that neither of them really like the dark. Not on the walks, anyway.

As we made it around the block and were near the house I noticed some neighbors out that I hadn’t spoken to before, so I took the opportunity to stop and say hello. The couple is expecting their first child in a week or so. We chatted for a while and I let them know if they needed anything, I was just across the street. They’re very excited about their new addition coming soon. I told them I would get my crochet hook out and make them something blue for their new baby son! I love making baby things.

Mary is doing well with the beginning of our school year. Her frustration still lies with going over things that she knows for review. She’s really ready to be diving into something new and challenging. I told her it will come, but she’s not buyin’ it.

Her 14th birthday is approaching quickly. The end of the week is coming fast and she is very excited to celebrate this particular birthday. We have plans to take in a movie and go to a favorite restaurant to celebrate. The only obstacle is getting Dad to consent to going on Friday instead of waiting until Saturday to partake in the festivities.

Nothing much going on other than that! Hope everyone is having a great week! Time for school in the Anthony house. Need to make sure the kid is moving!

Beaufort, South Carolina

2011-08-22T07:34:00.001-04:00

Saturday morning, while Mary was still snoozing away, Bill and I drove out to Hinesville, Georgia to Big Lots. Mary wanted a desk for her room and the one she liked the most from all we’ve seen the last couple of months was at Big Lots. Not too big. Not too small. Just right.

Well, we started noticing every time we were in the store by us that the desks were being sold fast! I had wanted to sneak away one day and pick one up for her birthday, but my plans were clearly not going to work out. Especially if they sold out!

The store by us didn’t have any more. I called the store on Victory. They didn’t have any. I pulled up the website and started calling any store in a 50 mile radius. Thankfully, I found one right away at the Hinesville store.

So off we went!

Later in the day, we drove up to Beaufort. Just because. It’s a nice drive. And there’s a scrapbook store there.

It was still hot, but a nice day. I was hoping the breeze would kick in and we could walk around the shops without passing out from heat exhaustion.

We stopped at the scrapbook store first. Didn’t want to risk it closing while we were wandering elsewhere! I hadn’t been in there in a while and we all wandered the aisles looking at this and that. I picked up a few things and we were off.

We found a spot to park, fed the meter and went to wandering.

Didn’t wander long.

Most everything was closed already!

It’s Saturday!

It’s just after four o’clock!

Come on!

Oh well.

We walked down the street to look at a house that we always look at when we’re there.

It’s been for sale for a long time. Mary loves it. It’s old. It’s right by the water. It’s pretty cool. It needs a LOT of work.

We peek through the windows and long to go inside just to see what everything looks like.

We decided to walk around the block and look at some of the other gorgeous houses here. As we rounded the corner a man and woman were in their front yard and we stopped and chatted with them for a couple of minutes. The man told us about all the homes right there, how old they were and who built some of them. He also told us about another big old house that was for sale around the corner. We decided to get the car and drive around a bit more.

No shops to look in. We’ll look at houses.

So. We found another house that we would like.

Here’s a little info about it.

Property Description/Comments

Remarks: The Castle - circa 1859 - Beautiful historic mansion situated on a full block in Historic Beaufort's Old Point neighborhood. Overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and facing prevailing southern breezes. Major reconstruction recently completed - new HVAC, roof, gourmet kitchen & catering kitchen, new baths, freshly painted with 6 working fireplaces. Truly a stunning Estate!

Constructed in 1859 of brick and tabby (completed in 1861) and situated on a full city block, The Dr. Joseph Johnson House, better known as "The Castle", is a historic mansion in Historic Beaufort's Old Point neighborhood.

Overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, the home faces the prevailing southern sea breezes, while giant live Oaks and mature gardens surround the estate.

The house is Italian Renaissance in feeling, and said to be almost an exact replica of one in England, destroyed during World War II. The walls are of soft brick made in Dr. Johnson's brickyard on Lady's Island and covered with a thin layer of plaster. The color is muted and changeable, in shades of gray, tan and pink, subtly shifting with the light.

A major restoration has recently been completed including two new gourmet kitchens, new baths, new paint throughout, a new roof and new HVAC systems. The main kitchen features a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a Wolf gas stove, and a Meile dishwasher. The ground floor offers a catering kitchen with dual full-size Sub-zero wine coolers, a gas oven and stove, and refrigeration/freezer drawers.

All new baths with Calcutta gold marble and Waterworks fixtures. The home offers the original flooring, beautiful millwork and moldings, a grand center hall with a double staircase, and massive double verandas that overlook the grounds and the waterway beyond.

The estate offers six bedrooms, five and one-half baths, six working fireplaces, and approximately 7932 sq.ft. of living area.

A restored original brick outbuilding stands ready to serve as an exercise room or office,automated parking gates and a three car carport complete this truly stunning estate.

Located in the heart of Beaufort's "Old Point" historic district, the Castle is a short walk from a number of fine restaurants and shops, an outstanding waterfront park and a marina. Beautiful beaches and numerous golf courses are within a 20 minute drive.

A former director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation called it "One of the great houses of the South Carolina coast." He spoke of "the extraordinary grandeur of the almost medieval house . . . its air of somber mystery, set in great oaks at the water's edge."

Yeah. This is the one.

Gorgeous!

And only $3 million.

{sigh}

This was clearly the best time to head home; dreaming of all we could do if we actually won the lottery.

As we leave Beaufort, I remember that I always want to stop by the river and snap a few pictures. I always miss the turn and once you’re on the bridge it’s a while before you can turn around.

I remembered this time!

It was awesome!

We parked and got out, rain starting to fall a little, but not enough to deter me.

I got some cool shots.

A portion of the old bridge was left to serve as a pier. There were quite a few people there casting their lines over the edge. We didn’t walk the whole length, afraid we’d get caught in a downpour when we were the furthest point away, so we just hung out for a few and then headed back to the car.

We had a nice drive home and wondered what the pups were up to.

Apparently, I left a door open.

Annabell found a small ball of yarn and had a bit of fun.

Yeah, that’s her chew bone wrapped up in there. I guess she likes a variety of flavors at one time.

End of Another Week!

2011-08-19T07:54:00.001-04:00

Friday again and another week bites the dust. All the work I did for the Open House was for naught; I had to cancel. If I went into detail about the reasons you probably wouldn’t want to know anyway, so I won’t.

The week wasn’t uneventful.

Not completely.

Tuesday Bill called me in the afternoon to tell me that a friend of ours was flying into Savannah and needed a ride back to Jacksonville, Florida. Bill and Brian worked together at United in Lake City and Brian still does. Poor guy.

Being an employee with United Airlines gives you the benefits of almost free travel. You pay a nominal fee money-wise, but pay much more with patience, emotional toil and anger management.

Brian and his sons did some traveling and couldn’t get back to Florida. He’d sent his older son back on a flight that had one seat open and he was in Jacksonville waiting for his dad and brother to get there.

He felt awful about asking for what he thought was a huge favor. Bill and I both told him it was nothing. He had helped us out several times when we needed it over the years in Florida.

He landed around five o’clock and shortly he and Bill were pulling into the drive. I had run out to pick up a little something for him to eat before we were on our way. I figured they’d been sitting in the airport all day and probably weren’t interested in the dismal food offered on the plane. They were just anxious to get home, which I totally understood.

We hopped in the car, waved goodbye to Bill and headed out.

It’s not terribly far to Jacksonville from Savannah. Brian and I chatted the whole way while Mary and little Brian sat in the back seat being shy. He’s a little over a year older than Mary and they hadn’t seen each other in four years, so they didn’t have much to say to each other.

We got to the airport before we knew it, Brian called his son that was waiting there and he met us at the curb. They soon hopped the airport shuttle to the parking lot and they were finally on their way home. Only about 70 miles left to drive to Lake City.

Mary and I stopped and grabbed a sandwich before heading back to Savannah.

The trip home went fast as well.

Mary did not stop chattering the whole way!

It was fun!

She’s usually plugged into her iPod listening to her music, but, apparently, this night she had the need to chatter!

Bill was up when we got home, most likely because the dogs start to bark happily when they hear the garage door open. He wouldn’t have slept too well until we got home anyway. We talked for a bit and then he toddled back to bed.

Wednesday Mary and I checked out some book stores in Savannah. I pulled out the yellow pages and found a couple hoping they would carry some books she was interested in for the up coming school year.

One store we went to was a used book store; the other sold new books. Both were a book-lover’s dream!

Mary found a lot of things interesting, but when we finally found two titles she was looking for in the used book store, she was happy. In the new book store she found three more titles and was extremely happy!

She came home with four Shakespearean plays and one book by Homer, Iliad.

Yeah.

She’s come a long way from the Twilight series.

Today we’re off to a store in Bluffton. Who knows what she’ll find there?

Borders!!!

2011-08-13T10:43:00.001-04:00

When Creative Memories has a really good sale EVERYONE gets in on it! It took a little longer to get my order this time, but it was worth the wait.

I ordered the new border making system and it’s so fun!

I’ve seen one (of another brand) and always wanted one. I’m glad I waited! This one is sure to be fun for a long time. I can’t wait to see what borders they come up with in the future. I’m going to have a great time with the four they have now!

It’s amazingly easy to use! And you really can’t mess up the border once you start punching.

Love this one! I can see ribbon weaved through this one!

The picket fence border is really cute, too!

And the next one is just awesome!

You & Me! Isn’t that cool?

Borders, card embellishments, photo mats… I can use this a lot!

Okay, I’m off to play some more.

If you have to have these, (and you know you do!) go to my website and grab ‘em! If you’re local to Savannah you can come by and try them out!

Chores

2011-08-07T08:18:00.001-04:00

I really don’t like laundry.

But I like clean clothes.

So what are you gonna do?

Before our trip to California, our washer started complaining a LOT! It was used when we got it and was starting to get old and grumpy. It was making horrendous noises on those last couple of loads I needed in order to pack for the trip.

When we came home, I had hoped it had a good rest and promising that I would be gentle, it continued to do it’s job. It still complained, though.

Yesterday we headed up to Rincon to Wiley’s Furniture Store. We’ve been buying things from them for almost a year now. They have let us make payments to help us recoup some of our credit so we can eventually buy this house we’re in. They’ve been great. Especially Joe. If you go by, tell him I said hello!

We had been in before the trip and talked about getting a washer and dryer. Joe worked up a deal and yesterday we signed the papers. They’re even working with us on the down payment; letting us pay half and half in a couple of payments. They even had it delivered yesterday! I didn’t expect that.

We came home and Bill moved out the grumpy washer and dryer and we cleaned up the area for the new ones, and waited for the truck.

It wasn’t too long before they were here.

Right in the middle of the huge thunderstorm! Rain was coming down in buckets! We really need the rain and it was just typical to pour down when we had appliances delivered.

They backed right up to the garage though and didn’t get too terribly wet.

They were forewarned about the stairs when we were at the store. They sure earned their money! I just know they’ll be running away as fast as they can the next time they see us in the store. These poor guys hefted the washer and dryer up the stairs! The hand-truck won't make the turn from the garage up the stairs, so they just lifted it up. The dryer wasn’t horrible, but I thought the washer was going to kill ‘em!

They got it all set up and gave them each a test run to make sure they were running right. Soon they were off and, of course, I had to wash something!

New appliances are always a crowd pleaser, aren’t they? And these new fangled things were very entertaining.. for a few minutes anyway.

Yeah, well, what can I say.

(Did I Really post that picture?)

Perty, huh?

And quiet!

Gotta do some laundry now.

I Keep Trying…

2011-08-03T09:24:00.001-04:00

I sit down here at the keyboard wanting to share more about my beautiful daughter’s wedding, the day she married that sweet Charlie and all I do is look at pictures. I told Dayna that after all the planning and stress, the day would seem to come and go in a blink.

It certainly did.

I flip through pictures, seeing that big smile on Dayna’s face, that proud, happy smile on Charlie and am so proud of them both.

Maybe I see the whole thing through the sappy, weepy eyes of the mother of the bride, but I love those two so much. I have seen Dayna grow and become more compassionate as she grows in love with Charlie. And the love and kindness in Charlie’s eyes is easily seen; it’s just behind that glint of mischievousness that is always sparkling there on the surface.

This proud mama did not stop with the bride and groom. Watching Mary throughout the day filled me with pride and happy tears. She was so beautiful! She always is, but on that day in her pretty dress, high heels and ever so cute headband, head held high and smile on her face, she was not lost in the day, her sister’s day. Everyone who loves her was so proud of her.

I sure love those kids. All three of them.

So, I don’t think I could put down here how special that day was, so I’m just going to put up a few of my favorite pictures, grab a tissue and remember the day.

Love that proud papa!

Okay.

I need a darn tissue.

Details, details…

2011-07-28T07:48:00.001-04:00

The week begins, countdown to the big day for Dayna and Charlie.

Monday we headed to Charlie’s store for the final fitting of Bill’s suit.

Now, granted, I have never seen anyone helping anyone else with a fine suit. And I don’t know how else to help someone with a tie, I don’t know how to tie one, but this was very amusing.

The assistant started the tie around his own neck, slipped it over his head and then planned on finishing the knot tying after slipping it over Bill’s head. There was just a tiny bit of miscalculation on the size of Bill’s head…

It was hilarious. And he saw the camera coming and ducked!

Think he’s heard about me and my camera before???

But he looked so dapper in his suit! Such a proud papa!

We had lunch together, but Charlie had to go back to work and we were off for more errands.

We did this and that and, to be honest, I don’t remember everything.

Mary stayed in Santa Paula and went shopping with her grandmother. Initially, Mary had a good time, but things got weird and throughout the week things got ugly at Grandma’s house.

I’ll just say this.

Don’t mess with my kids.

Tuesday, Bill and Dayna had a Dad and Daughter date. They went and played mini-golf and had a good time! While they were out, I strolled through Michael’s, had lunch at In & Out on Sepulveda and relaxed at Dayna’s apartment.

Wednesday… what did we do Wednesday?

I don’t remember.

Thursday was spent getting the last of the errands done and in the afternoon we went to the house and the decorating began.

I want to introduce you to Michelle.

She is not only one of two Amazing women in Pink, she was the photographer, the decorator, the hair dresser, and all around super woman who impressed everyone that attended! Her hubby, unfortunately, could not attend, he was off working, so she ran her feet off all evening Thursday after working all day, then on Friday she was running all day again!

Thank you, Michelle! We love you!

Another SUPER Woman, is Randi.

Thank you, Randi! You were wonderful! You watched over Dayna on her big day, guarded the bridal suite when necessary and kept everything running smoothly along with your awesome other, Dan! You both are spectacular friends and I am so grateful Dayna and Charlie have friends like you.

I hope I was a little helpful and a lot out of the way! I tried to be a good mom! lol

Every woman needs a few good, strong women friends in their life. I think Dayna has found some priceless friends.

Aren’t they gorgeous???

Here’s a few pictures from Thursday night and the wedding preparations.

The arch was beautiful! They worked so hard on it all evening and it was awesome!

Chris ran through the ceremony with the bride and groom. They got through it pretty well, with only a minimum of cutting up. I did wonder if Charlie would show up the next day with his phone in his ear.

When it got late, Bill and I ran out to pick up pizza for everyone there helping out. Our rehearsal/decorating dinner was pretty easy! Pizza and beer. A bunch of good friends getting ready for a celebration and we got to watch. It was something I’ll never forget.

Off to Solvang!

2011-07-27T06:28:00.001-04:00

I remember going to Solvang twice.

The first time was when I was a child and my dad took the family there. I remember walking around a few streets, looking in the shops. It’s a nice memory. I always wanted to go back, but didn’t until I was grown and on my own. I drove up there, just outside Santa Barbara, but didn’t realize how far it was when I left, so it was dark when I got there. And late. Nothing was open.

Oh well.

So when we were in California I wanted to do one thing that I hadn’t done in a long time. Solvang popped in my head and Bill said yes.

Dayna and Charlie decided to join us and drove up to explore with us. Bill’s mom had originally said she didn’t want to go because of the walking, but then remembered the casino up there and wanted to go play for a while.

I really enjoyed the drive, seeing the California coast again. It’s so different than the east coast. As we drove through Ventura we made plans for another morning to go to the pier there.

We stopped at a rest area along the way. It was a busy little place tucked into the mountainside.

We stretched our legs and snapped a few pictures.

Charlie was especially taken with the spectacular views…

It was beautiful.

We took a few more minutes to relax before we got back on the road.

We all enjoyed the scenery.

After dropping Bill’s mom at the casino to drop quarters and pull levers, we found a parking spot and started out wandering the shops.

I couldn’t believe how big the town has gotten! I remembered it as a small tourist type town, but it’s huge! Awesome shops there. I could have spent a ton of money there.

We had a great time. We didn’t get to go through all the shops. We would need a few days for that. We had lunch at a cute little café. The food was pretty good, despite the flies buzzing around us while we ate.

I’m so glad we went!

Check out Creative Memories Milestones PicFolio Album!

2011-07-26T08:02:00.000-04:00

Find this on my Creative Memories website!

And our vacation begins!

2011-07-25T19:06:00.001-04:00

We made it to Dayna and Charlie’s place with no trouble.

Dayna was waiting outside for us as we pulled up. It was SO good to see her!

We spent a few hours visiting, then headed up to Santa Paula to Bill’s mom’s house. Charlie had to work, but headed up there when he was through.

We had a good time, a nice easy dinner. The men tended the grill.

Things were going great!

The air was filled with the smell of burgers grilling.

Bill and Charlie were having fun.

The fire wasn’t serious.

I couldn’t get a picture of the BIG flames.

This was the aftermath.

The burgers were delicious.

Thanks guys!

Luggage, Lines and Locksmiths

2011-07-25T07:14:00.001-04:00

We land in LA with a sigh of relief, our journey almost over. Now to the tedious details that need to be taken care of to be on our way to Dayna’s place for hugs and kisses and happy reunions.

We head down to baggage to collect the two suitcases we ~~had to pay an extra friggin’ hundred bucks to bring~~ checked, hoping it would go as quickly as possible so we could be on our way to pick up the rental car.

The crowds gathered around the carousel, staring at the gaping hole from which the luggage should come out, regurgitated from the bowels of the airport. (That was kind of a gross analogy, huh?)

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

A few bags are being spit out, people grabbing them as they slowly filed by. But with a full flight you would think they would be coming out one after another.

Nope.

It was intermittent at best, then it finally stopped, leaving a bunch of people now just staring at the hole hoping it would continue spitting out luggage.

It’ll start in a minute.

Well, one more minute.

Ummmm… hello?

Is anyone down there???

Ya need some ipecac?

Now we’re told that the luggage is coming up onto the carousel NEXT to us.

Bill finds one and begins circling the carousel in hopes that maybe it was missed on his first time around.

It’s turning, honey. It’ll come back around.

He keeps looking. Bags come down. People pick them up. They are merrily on their way. We got nothin’.

Bill finally sees, from the corner of his eye, an airline employee stacking bags near the wall. These are all the bags no one has picked up.

No. These are the bags that they started pulling off the second carousel when we were still all gathered around the FIRST carousel!

And there is our bag. It only took us an hour or so to get our TWO bags and head outside to wait for the shuttle to take us to Hertz.

Could’ve been worse.

The bags could have gone on to another destination. A thought that did cross my mind when I realized that the bag we had trouble locating contained the dresses Mary and I were to wear to the wedding.

All was well, though. We boarded the shuttle with little delay and were off to get the rental.

Get off the shuttle, tip the driver, grab the bags, go inside… to 200 people in line to get their rental car.

Okay. Mary and I will sit for a while, I’ll spot you in a few minutes, Bill, so you can sit.

We fire up our cell phones and happily look forward to finding out what everyone has been up to while we were squished in seats for a few hours. Hello Face Book. Howya’ been?

I had a text from the neighbor who was going to watch the pets while we were gone.

‘Can’t get into the house. The key won’t open the deadbolt.’

Wonderful.

I call the neighbor to see what was going on, wondering if they’d gotten in yet.

Nope.

They tried everything. I had meant to give them the garage door opener before we left, but, of course, I forgot.

Well, the keys should fit the back door into the garage.

Nope.

Maybe the upstairs door? One of the boys hoisted the other one up there to see.

Nope.

Okay.

Call a locksmith.

Wrong. They won’t come out and pop the lock unless the owners of the house are there. Well, we weren’t.

We could send them a certified letter giving them permission!

Yeah, the dogs would be dead by then.

I tried the guilt thing. “So you want my dogs and cats to just starve to death because you won’t help us get into the house?”

Apparently, yes.

They wouldn’t die right away. Annabell would find Something to eat. The couch. The chairs. The rug. The cats, if it got down to it.

I call the neighbor and tell her that they will probably have to break into the window downstairs, but try to see if our other neighbor is home. Maybe he can help. The man across the street is home, and they know we were heading for California, so she asked him and he got the front door open.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Now we just need a deadbolt instead of a deadbolt and a new window.

The pets are saved from starvation. The furniture is saved from demolition. I hope. Annabell may get bored and eat it anyway.

By the time this is taken care of Bill is at the front of the line and everyone around him knows of our plight as I was NOT quiet when laying on the guilt to the locksmith. They all agreed. He should be tarred and feathered.

We were taken pity on by the Hertz rep and she gave us a really nice car. A Chevy Cruz. Cool car. Great gas mileage.

Off we went. On our merry way.

Where’s the freeway?

We make our way to the on-ramp and as we cross over the freeway I tell Mary,

“Look, honey! The entire population of Savannah is right down there in cars!”

Bumper to bumper cars, practically standing still.

Oh, this is going to be fun!

Was I a Stewardess in a Past Life?

2011-07-24T09:13:00.001-04:00

We left for the airport to head to California reeeeaaaallllly early. So early, that the security area wasn’t even open yet. All the yawning, sleepy eyed people were gathered around, sipping coffee and staring blankly, waiting for the security to open up so they could continue to their gates.

We got through security unscathed, Mary the only one suffering great embarrassment when she made the metal detector go off. Darn belt.

We settled in at the gate to wait. We were good passengers. We got there really early. Ugh.

The flight to Atlanta was short and sweet. Really short for me. I feel asleep and woke when we were descending.

In Atlanta we stopped for a muffin and some coffee, then off to our gate to wait for the flight to Los Angeles. We kept ourselves busy and it wasn’t long before they were boarding. It was a full flight, lots of people. We were to be one of the last groups to be boarded, so we sat and watched as people filed into the jet way.

The walk to the plane was usual. We were at a stop near the door, waiting for people to find their seats. We slowly made our way in, passing the people in First Class already on their first drink of the morning, careful not to hit their heads with our carry on bags.

Then we stopped.

People take too much time to put their bags up. Too. Much. Time.

The flight attendant came over the PA.

“ We have quite a line of people still waiting to get to their seats. When you find your seat, please step in and let people behind you pass.”

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Ahead of us a couple is looking for a place for their bag. The man is kind of staring at the overhead. Then after a minute he tries to stuff his bag in where it clearly is not going to fit. Then he is bending over his seat messing with something, his rear end blocking the entire aisle. His companion is watching him, apparently supervising. Bill tells me later that the man is trying to make the first bag fit by taking stuff out of it and putting it in a second bag.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

Ready for it?

I had to pipe in.

“Sir! Please step aside so people can pass!”

Nothing.

Louder.

“SIR! STEP ASIDE SO PEOPLE CAN PASS!”

Bill is now assisting them in getting their bags put up.

He’s nice about it.

I need to talk to that man.

I glance down at the two women sitting next to me. One says,

“Good try, though.”

A flight attendant finally comes from the back and gets the people to SIT DOWN and we are on our way to our seats.

So, we’re off to Los Angeles, squished into our seats, I with my headphones on, Bill and Mary playing cards. The group of teens seated around us goofing around, kicking seats, speaking loud in a language I don’t know so I can’t even eavesdrop on the conversation.

I doze.

Until that one song on my iPod that starts with a BANG! jolts me from my slumber causing me to jump in my seat and wonder what the hell was going on.

The flight attendants are making their way down the aisle with snacks and drinks. As they make their way past me, one leans down and says,

“We just loved it when you tried to get those people to sit down! Were you a flight attendant?”

I leaned in and said,

“No, I’m just a bitch.”

She thought that was hilarious!

Apparently, I made their morning!

When we were getting off the plane in Los Angeles, a few of them said good bye to me, a giggle and a smile sending us on our way.

I just love flying.

Ugh.

A Week Ago Today…

2011-07-22T08:02:00.001-04:00

… my daughter became a Mrs.

I adore my new son-in-law! I know they will take good care of each other.

I have tons to write about! Our time in California flew by. So check back, I’ll be blogging!

If you haven’t seen pictures and would like to, check out the Mom’s Camera link.

In two weeks I will be….

2011-07-03T12:06:00.001-04:00

… a Mother-in-law!

I hope that doesn’t chase Charlie away.

We are getting closer and closer to the big day. Our plans are pretty much set for the trip out there.

One thing I will be working on this week is getting the house ‘Annabell proof’.

Annabell doesn’t like it when she’s left alone too long.

To the casual observer there may not be rhyme or reason to her choices of tasty morsels, but she usually finds things that belong to me to show her feelings about being left alone too long.

This particular time she pulled paper off the shelf and shredded it all around the floor.

We came home one evening to find blue glitter spread all over the rug. I have no idea where she found that, but traces were found all over the back yard for many days after that delectable treat.

One day she must have needed a toothpick after her buffet of paper, magazines and one fine blue tip marker as we found a pencil reduced to sawdust on the floor.

I know she’s not alone in this.

I’m sure this young man is a happy participant, if not the ultimate instigator.

I have people coming in to look after the pets while we’re gone.

Hope we’re still friends when we get home.

First Toe Dip at Tybee–Summer 2011

2011-06-26T09:18:00.001-04:00

Saturday was spent in a fog. I didn’t sleep well Friday night. Tossed and turned for a few hours, then finally gave up, went downstairs, turned on the TV and spent the rest of the night dozing on and off.

Couldn’t have been because I had that LARGE sweet tea I got at Zaxby’s, could it?

Yeah, dumb.

So after dinner last night, I said, “Let’s go walk on the beach!”

Bill said, ‘OK!’

Mary looked at me like I was nuts, but didn’t want to NOT get out of the house, so she went upstairs and got dressed.

In jeans.

She doesn’t own a pair of shorts.

She won’t buy them.

Silly girl.

We headed to Tybee and, after crossing the bridge out of Whitemarsh Island, rolled the windows down.

This caused the wind to race in and Mary’s hair to fly all around her face. The look of annoyance I saw in the rear view mirror was priceless.

We rolled the windows up.

Most of the way.

We parked and headed through the sand to the water. The beach was busy! Lots of people spending their time in the breeze and waves. Tourist season is in full swing, plus with the 100 degree plus weather lately, I’m sure there were a good amount of locals, too.

I took a few pics with my cell phone. They’re not the best, but they’ll do!

Yikes! So much for self portraits!

The wind was blowing pretty hard. I have no other excuse or the freaky look on my face. But I got the pier in the shot!

The sun was just beginning to set and I snapped a shot as it sunk behind the buildings.

Bill and I waded into the water and had Mary take this one.

Awww… isn’t that a cute little dorky looking couple?

I prefer the scenic photos.

We walked, well, Bill and I splashed, down the beach to the pier, then headed off to the shops to mingle with the tourists and act silly. We found one little shop that we hadn’t been in that had fabulous art!

The Atlantic Beacon Gallery on Butler has this awesome mermaid that I must have!

A chubby mermaid in all her sparkling glory, drink in hand. It’s awesome!!!!

It was dark by the time we headed home. We were only there a bit over an hour, but it was great for a first beach walk of the summer here in Savannah.

Of course, twice we encountered attempted murder on the drive home by stupid people trying to kill us in traffic, but we made it home safely.

It must have been just what I needed. I slept great last night! And I didn’t have any sweet tea.

At the Cabin Pt 3

2011-06-22T09:18:00.001-04:00

We were out of town all day yesterday, so I’m still trying to catch up on the Scrapbook weekend!

Saturday morning, no matter how hard I tried not to be, I was awake early. I went out on the patio out back, trying my best to be quiet, but the door squeaked so bad I knew I had woken Lynn up.

Sitting out there in the warm air made me sleepy, so I squeaked back in and made myself a cup of coffee. That didn’t last too long, so I grabbed my keys and took the opportunity to drive over to the area near the ranger’s office and snap some pictures. I knew I wouldn’t feel like it when the heat of the day set in. I planned on scrapping!

As I parked, Trina’s husband was walking toward his truck. He had brought his nephew to fish early, along with a new friend. We started chatting and soon I joined him and the boys down by the water, chatting and watching the boys cast their lines.

I got quite a few really cool pictures. All the pictures are posted on Mom’s Camera ( link over there>>> on the side bar). Here are some of my favorites.

I love the reflection in this one! The reflection of the sky is SO blue!

We spent the day and most of the night scrappin’ and carrying on. I broke out the camera when the girls broke out the alcohol and had hoped to get some really ~~incriminating~~ fun pictures, but they foiled me time and time again and I only got a few. It was great fun, though!

No one was hurt or sacrificed during the night, so I’d say it was a success.

The night went so fast! Before we knew it we were all packing up so we’d be ready to load it up in the morning.

I’m so grateful to have met a group of women who are so open and inviting. After moving from state to state it is such a welcome relief!

Thank you, girls, for allowing me the pleasure! I can’t wait to see you all again!

Until next time….

Happy Scrappin’!

Settling In: Cabin Part 2

2011-06-19T07:01:00.001-04:00

We sat around enjoying the air conditioning after unloading the cars, hauling our scrapbook stuff up the short flight of steps into the cabin. It wasn’t too long before we were rearranging furniture to accommodate the tables we brought to spread out with our creativity.

The ladies straggled in throughout the afternoon, each with their own schedules before they could escape.

I was a bit nervous. I had met almost everyone before, but this was a close knit group, ladies who have known each other a long time. The old fear of ‘fitting in’ reared it’s ugly head.

‘Don’t talk too much, don’t talk too much’ resounded in my brain.

I really didn’t have to worry. They were all kind, welcoming and funny as hell! The place was soon filled with a thick Southern drawl that was just awesome. These are ‘real’ Southern women. They pull no punches, especially when talking about their families, and I did not detect a ‘fake’ bone in their bodies. No fake smiles, no false words. No ‘Bless you heart….’ dripping in sarcasm. I got no ‘You’re not from here’ vibes.

They were all very genuine.

Unless they were really good actresses.

I had every intention of getting tons of pictures of us deep in our creative works, but never started snapping away. I did get a picture of me! Go figure.

And a picture of Trina taking a picture of me.

She took tons of pictures. I’m hoping to get those from her to fill in empty space in my collection of pix.

My first attempt at snapping a shot and Angie turned around so fast to try and get away from the camera she may have to see the chiropractor! Silly woman. I tried to coax another picture from her, but it wasn’t happenin’. That’s okay. I decided I would back away from being the picture police. For now. Watch out, Angie! I’m comin’ for ya one of these days!!!

We scrapped through the evening, had a good dinner and then I found myself in the back of an SUV, one that would accommodate all eight of us, legs dangling over the edge, (well not quite dangling, kind of just stickin’ out, toes curled tight holding my flip-flops on my feet so I wouldn’t have to go hunt for one in the dark along the mile stretch of road we were traveling.)

Cecile’s mom was over in the campground all set up in her camper. I heard we were going to go walk around the campground, but we ended up chatting and visiting with mom, Cecile’s son and Trina’s husband for a while before we headed back to the cabin. Which was totally fine with me. I was hearing the squadron of mosquitoes firing up their engines near my ear. I knew they were planning an attack…soon.

I brought enough adhesive to stick 12 new billboards onto those huge signs along the highway, just in case, but I neglected to bring some bug spray. To the woods. In the heat of summer. In the South. Where all mosquitoes are muscle bound. They even beep when they go backwards, they’re so big. No tiny ‘squeeters here!

We all pooped out around two in the morning, I think, and soon we were snug in our beds. And when I say snug, I mean as a bug. We had four full size beds. Due to the aversion to snoring, one lady slept on the couch, which left me to a bed of my own, but the other three were full. And there was no shortage of off-color remarks with THAT situation! My guilt was short lived and I actually slept well, which is unusual when I’m not home.

The morning dawned bright and early. For me. Five hours sleep and I was up, ready for the day.

What Happens in the Cabin, Stays in the Cabin

2011-06-18T08:40:00.003-04:00

It’s already been a week since my weekend getaway to scrapbook with the girls!

Can we go again? Soon?

Last week I spent the better part of my days gathering paper and all the paraphernalia that would be needed to scrap the pictures I chose to work on. I was hoping to, at least, get the pictures down and then later go back and add the details and journaling. The group of ladies I scrap with in Eden were headed to a State Park west of here for a weekend of gabbing, gossiping and possibly some scrappin’.

We’d been looking forward to it for months.

So Friday morning around ten I headed out, a side trip through Statesboro to the Hobby Lobby to gaze upon the scrappin’ stuff to see if there was anything I just had to have.

The park was off of I-80, so I hung a right out of the McDonald’s where I stopped for a soda and an order of french fries (drivin’ food), music up loud and went along my merry way.

I’m driving, taking in the scenery; trees, highway, trees, highway, house… you get the picture. It was peaceful. It was relaxing. I was happy.

It sure didn’t seem that far when we drove out here a couple of weeks ago with the map and the turn by turn directions.

Oh well.

So, I’m driving and driving….

Hmmmm…

Oh, look! Over yonder! A sign pointing to Metter. I know that town. The park isn’t too far from there.
Blinker on, left turn. I’m on my way.

But that’s not the highway number I’m supposed to be on. Well, I’ll just drive.

And drive and drive and drive. I saw a house that I thought looked familiar. You know how highways change names all the time. This must be one of those times.

So I drive.

And drive.

And drive, drive drive.

I come upon a road sign.

Junction I-80.

What the hell? I thought I’d been on I-80!!!

Apparently not.

That’s okay. We can’t get in the cabin until 1 pm. I have plenty of time.

I continue along my chosen path and eventually I get to Metter. Right turn and the highway I want is three blocks down through town, right turn and I’m on the right road. I know this, cuz it’s where we drove went we went out there the first time.

Only 15 more miles of back tracking on a parallel road of which I just drove down and I’m there!

See, when Bill, Mary and I went out the first time, we headed down I-16 as MapQuest directed. We drove right to it. I had seen that the highway went right to I-80 if we turned right out of the park instead of left, so on the way out that’s what we did and we found I-80 and drove our happy butts right through Statesboro and on home.

Well, apparently, my plan to go to the park that way this particular day would be fraught with disaster! Okay, not disaster, just a lot of annoyance.

All is well, though. Right turn onto the road and I’m winding my way to the park. I stop in the office to check in and find out what cabin we are in. Cabin 6. Check.

I know where the cabins are. We drove by them, Bill, Mary and I. And there’s a very camp-like sign that clearly states that the cabins are THAT WAY.

And they are.

Just not all of them.

There’s number 2, 3 and 4.

What the Hell?

Back to the office again because, clearly, my ability to find things is off it’s mark.

There’s the young, little park ranger in his office on the phone. He looks up at me and says, “Oh! I saw you go the wrong way. You need to go THAT way about a mile until you see the electric gate….” blah blah blah.

Okay.

Sheeze!!!!!!

I finally find the cabin. People are there. I recognize them. Don’t I?

I pull in, get out of the car and RANT!

I was fine about going completely out of my way for miles on the highway. But when the Park Ranger failed to give me proper directions, I was peeved.

I know Cecile and Trina wondered if it was a wise decision to invite me along.

(Sigh)

To be continued….

Doggie Day Care

2011-06-17T08:34:00.001-04:00

Annabell and Rusty have made a bestest friend here since we moved.

At least a couple times a week, Davey comes to our house or our pups go to his house to play.

Annabell and Davey are the best of friends. They wrestle and growl and bite and roll around the floor until their tongues are lolling and their fur is gooey from each others slobber.

I think they’re in love.

Of course, they do give us humans a little bit of attention, too, but it’s short lived.

Then they’re off playing again.

Then when Davey leaves, I have this…

Two tired, sad pups.

Great Gift Ideas!

2011-05-31T08:16:00.003-04:00

If you love these ideas, jump on over to my website to learn more!
DeannaScraps Creative Memories

Catching up some….

2011-05-29T09:18:00.001-04:00

The habit of blogging sure has gone by the wayside, it seems. Well, let’s give it a shot, shall we?

Last Saturday we loaded up the vehicles with ‘yard sale’ stuff from the garage and all my Creative Memories stuff and headed to the flea market just down the road. Of course, with my amazing talent, it was the first of one of the hottest days of the year thus far. Man, it was hot!!!

We managed to sell a lot of the stuff, but no one so much as blinked at the Creative Memories table. I did get around and talk to quite a few people, though. I got my biz card out and gave out a couple of catalogs, gathered a few names. So it wasn’t a total wash out.

We didn’t stay all day. It was just too hot.

I want to show off a layout I did with CM’s Kit Additions ~ Cute As A Bug. This is in the ‘Him’ section, but as you can see it worked well with pictures of Mary.

The color is much more vibrant. As this is a traditional scrapbook layout, it’s a bit blurry. I still haven’t gotten the hang of photographing them yet.

I printed a poem and used the digital kit ‘Wish’ to place a dandelion on the paper, then matted it for the layout.

I HAD to play with the digital too, so I went online to the digital center and this is what I made!

It turned out great!!! It’s a 15 oz. mug. A nice weight to it, too, it’s not a light mug, sturdy.

Now, I didn’t use my digital software to do this. This was a predesigned mug option on the website. I just dropped my picture it and ordered it! Easy Peasy. Now I need to make one with Mary’s picture on it! And I got it in record time, too! I ordered it on May 6th and it was here on May 11th! That was fast!

Take a look at the website and see all the options available! Click Here.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip to St. Simon’s Island.

The biggest smile we got out of this girl was when she speared a dead jelly fish.

These two had a blast in the pool after dark.

You can see all the pix if you want at Mom’s Camera.

I’ve been posting some old pix on FaceBook that my aunt and uncle sent me. They also sent me an envelope full of Kodak slides of my parents wedding. They. are. Awesome.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

It was amazing to see color pictures! I have her wedding album with all the black and white pictures the photographer took, but these were the first candid shots of the wedding I’d seen!

I’m off to get things ready for my scrappin’ weekend! Yesterday we took PT out for a spin and drove out to the state park that I’ll be going to to play. It’s a nice little place! We would’ve gotten there sooner than we did, but my copilot was off him game a bit. We actually stopped to eat at the exit we were to take, but didn’t realize it until we were back on the highway. We had to turn around and go back. {sigh} But we got there before dark and got to see the park, which was the point in the first place. I’m off on June 10th for that!

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend and honoring all those who have served to keep this country free!

Happy Memorial Day!

Bad Blogger!!! Bad!

2011-05-13T23:15:00.001-04:00

I know! I know!!

I have been in a blogging rut. I’ve thought about it. Actually wanted to blog, but then just stare at the computer like it’s going to magically post all by itself, get disgusted with myself and then walk away from the computer.

Well, let’s start with the latest and greatest news and work backwards, shall we?

We had our mini vacation to St. Simon’s Island this week! We loaded up PT and headed down the interstate. It isn’t very far away so it was a nice drive.

Here’s some pix of the hotel, I mean resort…

Here’s the front of the hotel which faces away from the beach. The best part of the place is beach side.

A bit of a fuzzy picture, but this was taken on our walk along the beach when the tide was out. When the tide is high, that whole beach area is covered in water up to the rocks along the white fence.

The lobby was impressive, especially for us since we’re used to finer establishments like Motel 6 and Days Inn.

And the view from our room was, well, it was okay….

Yeah…

It was a little bit hazey on Monday, but the weather was beautiful the whole time we were there!

It’s really an amazing place. It’s been there a long time, too!

More pix tomorrow!

So, How Are You Today?

2011-04-20T11:44:00.001-04:00

Things are a bit of everything around here.

Spring is here. Allergies arrived like a atom bomb. One visit to the dentist down; about a hundred to go. Hopefully the trips to the dentist will vanquish the hillbilly look I have going on right now, broken tooth in front. I really don’t want to look like I just rode down from the hills when I go to my daughter’s wedding in July. I think she’d appreciate it if I didn’t. Although, if my tooth doesn’t get fixed I’ll have to keep my mouth shut the whole time, to keep up appearances, you know. She may like that.

Along with the pollen, we have flowers blooming all over town. I haven’t gotten any pictures, though. With the price of gas, I have been rationing my trips out, trying not to go too far off track that would waste an ounce of gasoline.

Easter is upon us and we aren’t planning anything really. Not that we have in years. Since Mary was clued in on the whole ‘Easter Bunny’ thing, she has been pretty bitter. Poor kid. She really didn’t want to know about all that. She told us in no uncertain terms that we were NOT required to dye eggs this year. And just forget about that Easter basket thing. She’s not interested. Cash would suffice. (No, not really, about the cash thing, but I know that’s what she’s thinking.)

Sunday morning Bill jets off to Oklahoma City for a week of FAA training. Yup. He’s done this before. With United Airlines. His new position here at Gulfstream involves the same kind of work, so he’s going to get certified again, as he will have to do every year.

Once he’s in the air, Mary and I will be driving down to Jacksonville, Florida to shop! We have need of a new wardrobe. Well, pretty much A wardrobe. We are sadly lacking in appropriate clothing. We’ll be spending the night and wandering all the malls down there in hopes of finding some nice things to wear to our upcoming travels.

Bill won a trip to a St. Simon’s Island resort from work, so we booked our mini vacation for May, encompassing our wedding anniversary, Mother’s Day and my birthday. This is another reason why I must shed the hillbilly appearance. This resort is fancy. High class. Sophisticated. Not your average roadside inn with a blinking vacancy sign flashing orange in the night. Well, at least that’s what it looked like in the pictures. I think Mary and I will swing by on our way down to Jacksonville to check it out. Just to make sure.

In June I’m off with my scrapbooking buddies to spend the weekend at a cabin in a State Park here in Georgia. Two days of yakking, gossiping, eating, relaxing and, hopefully, some scrapbooking. Looking forward to this!

Then in July, the BIG event. We’re off to California to celebrate the wedding of our daughter and her true love. Did you see the new picture I put up on the side over there? Yeah! scroll up. Don’t they look adorable????

We’re staying a week while we are there so we can visit all the family and have a nice vacation. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since we’ve had an actual vacation. And what a celebration to have! I’m so proud of Dayna and all she’s done. I’m also very happy with the man she’s chosen to spend her life with. We love Charlie.

Of course, he got all the requisite ~~threats~~ ~~warnings~~ advice from his future mother-in-law. You know the type.

Treat her badly. You die. Of course, you will be tortured without mercy first, and die a slow, painful death. Pretty simple, I think.

I am also preparing to launch my new Creative Memories business. I’m working on some good stuff! And having fun with it, too. Scroll up again and check out my Pages. You can click the link and go to my website. Oh come on, you know you want to. Sign up for email notifications of sales and specials!

I’m busy with other crafts, too! I have some orders for some afghans. My crochet hook won’t gather any dust for a while. I also have some orders for some hand made agendas.

Well, there is work to be done. None of the fun stuff right now. The ironing board is waiting impatiently upstairs for me to get busy with curtains and clothes. The washer and dryer are humming along nicely and all the pets are asleep. Guess I need to get busy.

I leave you with a bloom!

I Love Pictures

2011-04-16T08:44:00.001-04:00

My father gave me a camera when I was pretty young.

We were going on a family vacation. This vacation would cover seven western states. I don’t think I knew this when the vacation was planned, I just hoped it would be better than the last vacation we took.

Not good.

We set off in the red Ford van. Dad had worked for months ‘tricking’ it out some for our vacation. It was loaded to the gills with all our camping gear. The four of us were packed in nicely for the trip. My oldest brother, John, stayed home for this trip. He had a job and he stayed home with the pets.

I have quite a few pictures still from that trip. Dad always had a camera, but I don’t know what happened to all his pictures. He picked it up again when he was older and had a few amazing pictures he’d taken over the years framed and hanging on the walls of his house.

Another memory I have involving pictures was sitting with my Grandmother, my Dad’s mother. She would pull the boxes of pictures out of the desk and I would sit and listen as she pointed at people in the photos.

Sure wish I had all those pictures today.

When Mary was born and we went to California to show her off to the family, my sister showed me a scrapbooking magazine and a stencil. She had a punch or two and sat down with Dayna and made a cute little turtle.

All the way home my imagination grew and grew. It simmered there. By the time the plane landed I wanted to do Something with pictures!

And I jumped right in, let me tell you.

I didn’t know if I would be good at scrapbooking when I started. I sure was having fun, though.

There really was no rhyme or reason to what I scrapped at first. Then I started scrapping chronologically. Then I started ‘themed’ albums. I cut, paste, arranged, embellished picture after picture.

Along the way I was introduced to many ‘styles’ of scrapbooking. I ‘met’ Creative Memories not too long into my journey with pictures. I was not terribly impressed. I loved the albums and I loved the tools, but there wasn’t too much embellishing going on. I wanted POP! I wanted COLOR! I learned a lot about caring for photos and albums and what NOT to use with Creative Memories, but I took a different path.

Over the years I’ve snipped, cropped, stamped, embossed, stenciled, chalked, penciled, and glued, loving the creativity of the process.

Now I have SO many photos and SO little actually scrapped! How did that happen?

I’m older now and starting to crave a simpler life.

I still love to lose myself in the creativity of designing a special page, but I also look forward to getting albums finished. Simple. Meaningful. Beautiful.

A couple of months ago I was reintroduced to Creative Memories.

‘Hi! Nice to see you again! It’s been too long!”

Wow! The years have been kind to this old friend. I am totally in LOVE with Creative Memories! They’ve aged gracefully and kept up with the times. They are still completely devoted to getting your story put down safely to be shared and passed down, but there is Oh, so much more!

It wasn’t long after getting reacquainted with my old friend that we became BFF’s and decided to spend a lot of time together.

I’m working on some new albums, new projects and loving getting to know CM better and better.

Skip on over to my brand new Creative Memories website and browse around! Take a look! I know you’ll love it, too.

My Creative Memories Website

And wait until I tell you about Digital Scrapbooking with Creative Memories!!!

Loving My Laptop and my Pictures!

2011-04-08T10:00:00.000-04:00

This is a video putting into words how I felt when I actually started using Creative Memories digital programs!

It's awesome!
Take a look!

I love this. Have you seen it?

2011-03-29T19:39:00.000-04:00

Pink Flamingos!

2011-03-23T09:42:00.001-04:00

I don’t know why I like pink flamingos. It hit me when we lived in Florida.

We have a couple of pinks decorating our yard now.

Aren’t they cute? lol

Picked them up at Hobby Lobby! It was tough just picking a couple! There were bunches of ‘em!

Well, I’m off to clean this morning while I have a little bit of energy.

Who Knew Olive Garden Could Be So Fun?

2011-03-20T23:03:00.001-04:00

Off we went Saturday, headed to Statesboro, on our way to Hobby Lobby again to get some sketching supplies for Mary. She’s picked up her pencils and bought a couple books and has been doing some amazing things so far.

Of course, we planned on going to lunch, too, and I lost the vote for Chili’s and we went to Olive Garden.

It’s a little bit of a drive to Statesboro, but since I’m no longer visiting A.C. Moore I don’t mind the drive. It’s a little road trip. Time to relax and enjoy the scenery. Pine trees. More pine trees. And even more pine trees.

We got to the restaurant around 1:00 and the parking lot was absolutely packed! I was hungry and silently hoped the wait was going to be more than 20 minutes and we could head across the street to Chili’s, but, much to my dismay, it turned out most of the cars were there packing in the new Cracker Barrel they put in right there.

As we walked toward the door there was a young woman holding it open, bottle of glass cleaner in her hand, obviously interrupted in an attempt at cleaning the handprints off the door.

Music was playing loudly from the speakers around the entrance and I noticed it because it seemed a bit odd to me. Bing Crosby was singing sweetly to us as we walked up. I don’t remember the song that was playing, but his voice was unmistakable.

As we walked up to the door I said to the young woman holding the door,

“Bing’s here!”

She smiled sweetly and said,

“Would you like to sit with him?”

“Sure!” I replied, “If he’s not to stinky.”

She walked around the counter and started looking something up on the computer. I thought she was looking for an empty table, but apparently she was looking for Bing.

“What’s his last name?”

“Crosby? The guy singing? That’s Bing Crosby.”

I’m now pretty confused, but not as confused as the girl behind the counter.

A man with an orange shirt on and a bit of grey hair walked up and I said,

“You know who Bing Crosby is, right?”

Yeah, he did.

We’ve all now realized that the girl behind the counter was looking for Bing in the restaurant and wanted to seat us with him.

It was SO funny! She was really cute. She took it really well, too. She just laughed at herself and took us to a table.

The last time we went to an Olive Garden the service was not great and the food was bad. I was very happy with our visit to the one in Statesboro.

We walked around Hobby Lobby for a while. Mary found what she wanted to get, showed her dad the cool desk she’d like and we found a couple cute little yard thingys for our front yard. I’ll try to remember to take some pictures tomorrow.

On the way home we stopped in an antique store that we spotted on the way. What a great place that was! Mary was SO funny! She had a blast! We could have spent hours and hours and lots of money if we had more of both. She found dishes she liked, a couple old phones she thinks she just HAS to have(who knew she would have been happy with an old rotary phone?, quite a few Elvis pieces and so much more that had her eyes lit up and her babbling happily through the whole place.

Today was not so fun. We hit Sam’s and WalMart. I managed to get out of both places without hurting anyone. We spent lots of money, bought lots of groceries and managed to do it all without a call to the police or the insane asylum.

And we finally got the Wii Fit we’ve been wanting! After the trauma of getting it all set up, listening to the animated voice groan as we stepped on the step thingy and had the machine tell us how overweight we were (in stereo and HD) we had fun trying out all the games on it! Mary and Bill were quite comical riding the skateboard and I had fun riding a bike! It was a blast! I even did a short run and did not kill myself, but did break a sweat, which is the whole idea, right? It keeps track of calories burned, time spent, miles, whatever you’re doing. It’s pretty cool.

So we had a pretty good weekend. How about you?

Out From Under the Rock

2011-03-18T09:24:00.001-04:00

Wow.

I’ve had a few not so good weeks.

Nothing horrendous.

Just

Ick.

But I am out from under my rock and ready to start again. Ready to go outside, take a deep breath of that crisp Spring air and prepare to sneeze my head off when I get a snoot full of pine pollen. It’s everywhere. It’s relentless. It shades the world around us with a pale green not unlike the Easter egg that didn’t sit long enough in the bowl of green dye.

And makes us miserable.

Even Rusty is being affected by the blasted pollen! Poor little dog. He goes out on the deck to lay in the sun and after a few minutes his little eyes are watering, he starts hacking and he heads to the door to paw at it wanting back in the house.

Annabell does not seem bothered by the pollen. Unless her way of dealing with it is to chew up every little leaf and branch she finds into teeny, tiny pieces.

I had an overdose of stupid people last weekend which prompted me to act like an ass and post on Facebook a not so nice comment. If you read it and were offended, I apologize. It was not you that I was bitching about. Unless, of course, you are one of the dumb employees at the AC Moore in Savannah. Then well… I have more to say to you. Give me a call.

So.

Have you seen the Creative Memories Digital Scrapbook Software?

Wow.

I had heard about it, even went and looked at it online a time or two, but wasn’t really impressed. Well, time has gone by, improvements were made and let me say, it is pretty amazing. Especially for someone who does NOT use Photoshop and is pretty intimidated by all that that program does, not to mention the amount of brain cells needed to learn the darn thing.

I have been using a really simple program called ScrapbookMax! since I started digi-scrapping and it was wonderful! Easy to learn, understand and implement. It does almost everything you need to do, especially if you’re just learning. And it is not very expensive.

Since I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of fun ladies to scrapbook, I got reintroduced to Creative Memories.

Boy, have they changed a LOT! I’ve always loved their albums but they have so much more going on now.

Along with the digi-scrap software, the Memory Manager is wonderful! If you haven’t seen it, you need to check it out. I love the fact that you can journal as much or as little as you want for each and every photo if you want to while the memory is fresh in your mind instead of gathering dust under all the debris of years gone by.

Very cool.

I’ve been working on my first Storybook with my new handy-dandy Creative Memories software. I’m putting together a book of our trip to Los Angeles in January. I’m going slow and easy, learning all the different things the program does. I’ve watched a dozen videos and read as much as I could find to learn this and that. It’s been fun. A little frustrating at times, but I’m sure it goes back to operator error. I’m trying to be patient and take my time because too much frustration leads me back under my rock and I don’t want to go there.

There’s no electricity for a computer under the rock.

Speaking of frustration.

I guess the pups weren’t too happy about Mary and I being gone all day Wednesday. Here’s what we opened the door to when we arrived home in the afternoon.

Annabell was actually pretty proud of her work until Mary started scolding her.

Rusty wasn’t confessing to anything.

LA revisited

2011-03-07T09:54:00.001-05:00

I’m still working on pages from our trip to Los Angeles in January, of course, so I have to share them here!

A Beautiful Day in Savannah!

2011-03-02T23:21:00.002-05:00

Today was our field trip day. I saw on the news last week that a ship was sailing into Savannah and it looked like something cool to see, so Mary and I planned on going downtown. I wanted to get there as it sailed up the river to River Street and we Juuuussssttttt made it.

I had to wash clothes this morning before we could go, so when I got home from taking Bill to work I got the washer going. The dryer decided it was not going to dry well, so it took almost two hours for a load of clothes to dry. Aarrgghhh!
But we did get down to River Street before noon.
There was a crowd of people standing along the river so we headed that way. As we drew near they all started watching the direction we were coming from. I didn’t see anything, but it was clear the ship was near… by the booming of the cannons being fired from the ship… It was actually moving behind the two river boats docked as we were walking in front of them!
We turned around and headed back the way we came so I could get some pictures.

It sat there in the middle of the river for a few minutes and then appeared it was going to dock first across the river at the convention center, so Mary and I went on our way to browse some shops.
We stopped in a store that was full of Vera Bradley bags. Mary and I love to look at Vera Bradley stuff. The pattern she liked was retired, but she’s picked a new one that she likes. It happened to be the store where she bought my purse for my birthday last year, so we looked at everything in that pattern and ooo’d and ahhh’d over stuff, then resisted the choking sensation that always tries to overtake us when we look at the price tags.
Yikes.
From there we wandered through the Christmas store. I LOVE the store. The owner irritates me. I know he’s doing everything he can to keep his business open and make sales, but I really am not interested in a running commentary on every piece in the store. Then when he found out we were local, he had no more interest in us. I guess tourists spend more money in there. More power to him.
We like the cat that lives in the store, though.
We headed back the other way on River St so we could get some lunch. We ate at Spanky’s; a pretty good local restaurant. Mary likes the fettuccine, but it turned out that the River St location doesn’t serve it. She had a cheeseburger instead. Well, half of one. It was pretty good size!
I got a couple of shots of the ship now docked along River St.

Starting tomorrow you can go on the boat, and for a reasonable stiff price you can go out on a short trip. We’ll pass.
On our stroll along the river we decided to play with the camera some and took some random shots. Mary is getting more interested in taking pictures, so we each took turns snapping here and there. We really love these trees blooming. They’re all over our neighborhood, too.

Mary’s shot of the sky through the branches.

We walked down Broughton St so we could go in the art store there. I found some very cool paper that I may make invitations with. I’m still working on designs to send Dayna to see what she thinks.
All in all it was a good day! The sun was out. It wasn’t too hot or too cold. It wasn’t long before it was time to go pick Bill up from work and head home to see what mischief the pets may have gotten into. I was pleasantly surprised to NOT find anything shredded.
Good dogs.

Time Flies

2011-02-27T09:07:00.001-05:00

Especially when you have a stupid sinus headache and sleep through the middle of the week.

I was off a whole day most of the week because the headache just wouldn’t let up. I suppose with things starting to wake up the pollen from the trees has started it’s assault on my sinus’.

I have lamented quite often how fast time goes, usually in respect to my daughters growing up to fast. Today, though, we’re talking about Annabell.

Look at this dog!

Chihuahua my butt. She may have some chihuahua in her somewhere, but it’s kind of like that Native American somewhere in my blood, thin and mixed in with a bunch of other stuff. She’s almost six months old and has yet to grow into her ears.

These two were out checking on their domain, making sure there wasn’t someone to bark at as they walked down the street and looking longingly at the neighbor’s house to see if their friend, Davey, might make an appearance on his porch.

They were also a bit upset that they couldn’t get downstairs to see what Bill was up to. He spent the day in the garage ripping out part of a wall to get the nasty moldy wood out of there. There was a small water leak from a pipe that we couldn’t figure out the where and what for causing the mold to grow happily in it’s surroundings. He took care of that.

Go Bill!

We bought some handy-dandy, industrial strength mold killer, then after removing the yukky stuff, painted the surrounding area with Kilz just to be thorough. That’s the view from the living room downstairs into the garage.

Mary and I were sure he would be there all night because he doesn’t like to quit once he starts a project, but he stopped as the sun went down, blocked up the hole for the night and made plans to work on it again today.

Bill’s happy when there’s a project.

This week Mary and I have a field trip planned. There’s a ship sailing into Savannah on Wednesday that I really want to see. After that, if it’s nice out, we may go to the Oatland Wildlife Center and walk around. Mary hasn’t been to see all the animals there.

Dayna and Charlie had their picture taken to put on the ‘Save the Date’ cards they will be mailing out for the wedding. They are SO good! And you can’t see them. I promised I wouldn’t post them, so you’ll just have to wait. Sorry.

Wait. I’m going to go look at them again.

yep… they’re gorgeous!

I should get busy. Since the week slipped by I didn’t get the ironing done and Bill needs clothes for work. The nerve!

Hope all is well with everyone!

This, That and the Other…

2011-02-22T08:22:00.001-05:00

I’ve been thinking about the blog. Just about every day. Even had some funny anecdotes running through my head from time to time. By the time I actually sat down to write I couldn’t remember them. The brain is not cooperating lately. Okay, less than normal.

Sunday Mary and I decided we wanted to go to the drive-in up in Beaufort. Kind of last minute. Bill had to work Monday, so he wasn’t going with us. We left just a tad late to make the drive.

Oops.

Dark already.

Just got on I-95.

Movie starts at 7.

Not going to make it.

So, we ended up at the Sea Turtle Cinema in Bluffton just in time to catch the movie Mary wanted to see.

It all worked out!

We saw ‘I Am Number Four’. I had seen a preview for it, but wasn’t sure what it was about. Turned out to be pretty good!

We were quite surprised at the amount of people going to the show on a Sunday evening, but then remembered there would be no school on Monday. Probably a good reason, I don’t know.

Luckily, though, the theatre we were in wasn’t too bad. Not crowded at all. There was a gaggle of teenage girls down front that were actually kind of funny with their occasional giggling commentary during the movie.

Not a whole lot going on…

But in order to make this trip to the blog NOT a total waste of time, I have a few pictures of the pups. Getting a bath.

Rusty is pretty used to the humiliation. Annabell, however, is not. I had to help keep her in the sink, so only one picture of her…

She just wanted to drink the warm tap water.

I tried to get a picture of the clean dogs, but they were too happy to be out of the sink, so this is all I got….

I need to go clean the camera, now….

So, What’s Up?

2011-02-16T10:21:00.001-05:00

Not a whole lot around here.

The dogs are doing very well since their little ‘procedure’ last week. WWW has resumed, almost back to normal knock-down, drag-out level. (WWW: Woof Woof Wrestling)

After babying the babies for most of the time last week, it was really nice to get out of the house for a while. I went to a crop with a friend and met some really nice ladies! I felt very comfortable, not anxious at all. Well, a little. But that happens when I haven’t been around many members of the human race that I actually WANT to be around.

The weekend was spent puttering around the house, cleaning this, putting away that, pretending that Spring is here and we can turn off the darn heater. We have had some beautiful days this week, though.

Friday, I also got my order from Close To My Heart. I had signed up as a consultant many moons ago and a couple of months ago I got an email stating that since I was not active they were discontinuing my ‘Jr Consultant’ status. And discontinuing the Jr Consultant program.

Ok. Whatever.

Then I get another email that said, “Well, since you DID actually put in an order last year, we’ll let you stay a Jr Consultant.”

Ok. Whatever.

So I ordered!

The ladies at the crop were interested in seeing the catty, so I’ll have to order more. Only got one Friday. Who knew?

One of the ladies there just signed up for Creative Memories. Maybe we can support each other’s habits.

Could be fun!

Well, need to get off of here. Mary will be wanting it soon for school.

The nerve…

Here’s another page I’ve done from our trip to Los Angeles.

Grandma’s Kids

Visiting the Fam in Valencia!

2011-02-11T06:29:00.000-05:00

Saturday, our last full day in California, was a plan to go over to Brian and Marcie’s house. Charlie had to work, but snagged a couple hours off, I think, and showed up shortly after we got there.

We stopped at the store and picked up a fruit tray to take over, then headed north to Brian’s house. There was a big black truck parked in front of Brian’s house when we pulled up, so Dayna flipped a U and we ended up parking around the corner. As we rounded the corner, walking back toward Brian’s house, we saw a guy emerge from the passenger side of the truck and then it hit me.

“Jim! What are you doing here?”

It was our cousin cousin Jim from northern California. Now I know who the ‘surprise guest’ was that Brian was talking about!

And that’s not a typo. Jim is our cousin cousin. He’s my cousin AND Bill’s cousin. Bill’s mom’s sister married my mom’s brother, hence; cousin cousin.

You figure it out.

And leave the ‘hillbilly’ remarks alone. I’ve heard ‘em all.

Turns out he was in SoCal looking for a boat. Don’t know the details. Didn’t ask. Meant to, but never got to it.

The whole gang was pretty much there.

Brian and Marcie, of course. It was their house, after all. They had redone the kitchen since I was there last and it is GORGEOUS!!!! The whole house is wonderful.

Kristen was there for a little while, but she was headed out the door shortly to meet Justin for a surprise. She didn’t know where he was taking her for her birthday and it was making her crazy! I heard later that they had a wonderful night.

Robert and Shannon were there, along with Cindy, Glen and Michelle. Kim had an overnight guest at the house and opted to stay home. I don’t blame her. She probably had more fun!

Bill’s mom was there, too, and toward the end of the evening she was presented with the pictures of the grandkids we had taken earlier in the week. It was a great surprise!

Needless to say, she was thrilled with the picture!

Here’s some snaps of the evening!

Mary was happy to see Uncle Glen! He wasn’t feeling well, but came over any way. He had a snooze or two on the couch. Hope you’re feeling better now, Glen!

Ryan and his pretty wife, Jen, posed with the old Aunt…

Mary with Uncle Brian and Aunt Cindy. (Bill’s brother and sister)

Mary and Coco. Cute little dog!

Dayna and Mary with Shannon and Robert.

And Uncle Brian and Aunt Marcie getting giggles out of Mary!

It was a great night!!!

Dog Torture and Mommy Guilt

2011-02-10T10:37:00.001-05:00

Well, it wasn’t really torture, but I’m sure the poor dogs had no idea what was going on and why we would abandon them at ‘the VET’ on Tuesday.

Both Rusty and Annabell went to the vet to be ‘fixed’. As we got Annabell from the shelter in Springfield it is mandatory to have her fixed, which we would have done anyway. Not knowing if they were as strict as Florida, I made sure to get her in to be fixed when she was old enough to prevent having to stand in front of a judge, who doesn’t have anything better to do, and explain why I didn’t get her fixed. Yup, in Florida I had to stand in front of a judge regarding a dog we no longer had…

Anyhoo!

Tuesday morning I startled Mary awake with that atrocious thing, the hall light, urging her to get up and reminding her we needed to take the dogs to the vet after we dropped Bill off at work. She got up well, the vampire teeth retracting quickly when she realized it was me invading her cave.

The dogs had no idea what was to become of them, they just knew they were going ‘bye-bye’ and wagged and wiggled their way to the car, happily looking out the windows at all the bright lights shining in the pre-dawn traffic.

The house was certainly quiet all day without the dogs running around, playing, chasing cats and squeaking toys! Mary and I missed them!

The vet called around noon to let me know they were both doing fine and there weren’t any complications other than Annabell getting sick under the anesthesia. That’s when I found out they would keep them overnight to keep an eye on them. I was glad to hear it. I missed them, but was happy they would have someone to watch over them for anything unusual.

Wednesday I had a doctor’s appointment, so off I went to take Bill to work again, came home, hopped in the shower, then got Mary up to come along so we could get the dogs when I was finished at the doctor.

My visit was a normal check up; quarterly blood-letting to check all the regulars; cholesterol, blood pressure, iron, etc, etc. I also had a quiz! Which I think I passed miserably.

“When was your last mammogram?”

“Have you had a bone density test?”

“Have you been back to the stomach guy?” (couldn’t spell what he is, so he is from here on out ‘the stomach guy’.)

“Been to the GYN lately?”

Yeah, failed miserably.

Oh well.

Since I had to fast before the blood-letting, as soon as we were out of there we went to eat. Then off to Rincon to pick up the dogs.

We listened to the vet assistant READ the post surgery instructions to us, then went out to pay the (HUGE) bill and wait for the pups. It was only a minute or two before they wiggled and waggled down the hall to us.

From there we had to take PROOF that the pup was fixed to the animal shelter. Did that as quick as we could, made one more stop since we were up there in that area then headed home to get the pups settled in for the rest of the day.

They’re not supposed to play rough, jump around and stay off the stairs as much as possible. So, we’re carrying Annabelle up and down the stairs to go outside. She found out quickly that it hurt when she first tried to bound up the stairs on her own, poor baby.

I’m sure it will only be a few days before WWW continues here. That’s Woof Woof Wrestling, in case you didn’t know.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll finally post about our last day in California!

A Day with Grandma

2011-02-06T08:46:00.001-05:00

Our trip to California was rapidly coming to an end. The week flew by as I knew it would!

Friday was set aside to head up to the Ventura area to visit Bill’s mom. We hadn’t seen her in quite some time and it was good to go and see how she was doing.

Mary was very excited to see her! She was over-joyed to see she was taller than Grandma! The whole trip was a measurement of Mary alongside everyone we visited to see how she ‘measured up’.

This is Pita. In case you don’t know the acronym, it stands for Pain In The Ass. She may have been when she was a puppy, but she is now a devoted companion to mom. She’s a really smart dog and looks at mom with such adoration. It’s just so cute.

Mary walked her a couple times for mom. She’s been having some trouble with her legs, so Pita got a couple of good runs while we were there.

We headed out after a bit to go have lunch at a really good road-side stand in town. Really great Mexican food! We sat out on the patio in the beautiful weather, enjoying the food and each other’s company.

The conversation was led by wedding plans for Dayna and Charlie. Grandma was so excited to give Dayna as much encouragement and advice on the wedding plans! Dayna has been a bit overwhelmed with it all, but she took it all in like a champ.

When we got back to mom’s she got out Aunt Cindy’s wedding album to show Dayna. Dayna was at the wedding, but she was little. I don’t think she remembers.

Our time there went by quickly and we had to head back to Dayna’s. It’s a bit of a drive.

Mary’s going to miss Pita.

And Grandma. Grandma just didn’t want her picture taken as much as Pita.

Cousins, Cousins and More Cousins!

2011-02-03T09:18:00.001-05:00

Every year there is an attempt to get all the cousins together to do a group picture for Grandma Anthony. The only problem is, well, us. We don’t live in California! Haven’t since 1995. There are a few more cousins since then, too.

So when the word got out that Mary and I were going to L.A. to visit Dayna a photo session was scheduled quickly and we all headed to the mall in Valencia to finally get a picture done. (Thank you, Kristin!)

I hadn’t seen them all in so long! Two nephews are now married, one couple expecting their first child. Time seems to stand still when you don’t see them often. My memory still remembers that little tiny Kristin that dark, desert night when I closed her fingers in the truck of our car.

She’s okay.

I don’t know if she even remembers that.

I was mortified.

We went to a place in the mall and as the people in the shop started arranging the cousins for pictures I snapped away with my camera, of course, upon the condition that I would stop taking pictures when they were ready to go.

Cool. I can do that.

So far we have Kristen and Justin , Charlie and Dayna, Robert and Shannon, along with the little cousin Shannon is carrying.

We’ve added Ryan and Jennifer! Ryan recently had back surgery, but seems to be doing well!

There’s Mary!

Add Kim and Michelle and the whole gang is there! They’re still arranging and rearranging.

Resting after the shuffling and picture taking is Ryan, Brian (Bill’s brother), Charlie, Dayna and Mary.

I don’t know WHAT is up with Mary’s lips in this picture. They were not that color when I snapped the picture!

(Oh, and Brian’s going to be a Grandpa soon!)

Cindy and the girls! Michelle and Kim are beautiful! And Ryan’s wife, Jen is so pretty and sweet! A great addition to the Anthony family.

(I have pix of Robert and Shannon, too, from Saturday….)

And here’s the picture of all of them together for Grandma!

Oh, wait… that’s not it….

That’s it!

Aren’t they gorgeous????

And there’s Shannon… right under Dayna…Isn’t she a gorgeous Mom-to-be????

And here’s one of just the grandkids…

It was times like this that makes me so sad to be so far away from such a great family.

To my beautiful daughters, it was SO wonderful to see you two together after such a long time!

To my nieces and nephews, though we live far away, be certain that we love you all, miss you terribly and think about you often!

(sniff, sniff… I need a tissue….)

Guinness, Ripley and Wax!

2011-02-02T10:30:00.001-05:00

Wednesday in California we were quite busy.

One day Charlie asked Mary “If money was not an issue, where would you like to go?”

Mary calmly replied,

“Paris.”

Well, then Charlie added, “Okay, well, then how about someplace within a 60 mile radius of here.”

Okay, well that changes things.

While in Hollywood, Mary noticed the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. She’d been to the one in St. Augustine, Florida, but she was small and doesn’t really remember it, just that she’d been there.

Turns out they had a good deal on three museums right there on the same street, so that’s what we did!

First we went through Ripley’s.

Okay, it’s not a museum, it’s an Odditorium.

This was odd, but Dayna had a sudden fit of silliness and I took advantage of it!

We never did see what would come up on the screen.

Yeah, then there was the fat-guy-thing.

Then the two-headed fat-guy-thing.

It was really dark in Ripley’s so I didn’t take a lot of pictures.

I don’t think I took any in the Guinness Book of World Records Museum, either.

But we did quite a few silly things in the Hollywood Wax Museum!

‘Johnny Depp, Mom! Take a picture for Katie!’ exclaims Mary.

Okay, there ya go Katie….

A pre-Twilight vampire Mary thought was cool…

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

This is supposed to be Hugh Jackman, but it’s not a very good likeness…

Hey! I know the guy in the middle!

And I guess this IS the Guinness Museum… oh well….

Mary’s favorite! I Love Lucy! Lucy really looks whacked, though….

Awww… ain’t they sweet??? I think Leo is goosin’ Charlie, though.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Yup.

Matrix! Cool….

Oh, Charlie, you’re such a joker….

Ironman!!!! Another of Mary’s favorites….

This was my favorite….

After wandering through all that we were hungry. We walked around the corner to Mel’s Diner.

What a cool place! Very vintage. The food was really good, too. Really bad for you. But really good. And Mary discovered avocados!

Our day wasn’t complete! We were headed to Valencia to meet the family to get portraits done.

See ya tomorrow with that!

Where did Monday go?

2011-02-01T09:13:00.001-05:00

I know where it went.

I had the sinus headache from hell and I spent the day in a fog filled with curse words about the darn headache. It was still hanging in there last night when I went to bed, but, so far, this morning it seems to have left me alone. Now I need to catch up on the things on the list from yesterday. Poor Bill. I was supposed to iron his clothes for the week and I couldn’t, so he had to press his pants for today before he went to bed.

So today’s blog of our L.A. trip will be pictures of this and that and tomorrow I’ll get back to the tourist stuff, k?

This is the Jacksonville airport. As we walked toward our gate I saw this giant strolling past the window. Kinda creepy, but kinda cool! I just didn’t think about the fact he did have a head.

Waiting for our flight Mary had fun texting with her new phone. She saved her allowance for months to buy her own phone that was easier to text on.

Caught Charlie and Mary one morning and tortured them with the camera.

Then Dayna jumped in…literally….

Big Sis teaching Little Sis the fine art of XBox. They played Mortal Combat, killing Super Heroes and weird looking creatures every extra minute we were there.

This is what happens when Dayna finds you in her spot on the couch.

Cassidy and Alley. Moments after this picture was taken one of Cassidy’s other personalities made an appearance, turned and bit Alley. Cassidy is crazy. Cute! But Crazy.

Well, I’m off to the shower and then to get busy around here. The kid should be up soon ready to hit the books.

California Science Center

2011-01-31T10:16:00.001-05:00

What a great way to keep the vacation going! Take two weeks to blog about it!

Tuesday we went to the Science Center.

Most of the museum is free. We had to pay for parking, though. The parking lot was pretty empty and we saw only one school group near the entrance waiting to go in. We pretty much had the place to ourselves!

As we approached the museum we saw a cool thing. They had a truck attached to a beam with ropes hanging down so you could try and lift it up!

This was Dayna trying to lift the truck on the x2 effort rope.

And Charlie giving it a pull.

And an attempt at the hardest one….

I don’t think he got it off the ground on this one…

Here’s some highlights of our museum exploration!

Dayna’s bouncing virtual basketballs. Kind of like the Wii but with no controller to hold.

This was cool! Charlie is in an identical ‘chair’ across the room. They’re speaking to each other in their normal voices and can hear each other perfectly! They were discussing the ‘coolness’ of having these at their apartment complex.

I don’t know who this is. Kinda creepy, actually.

Dayna explaining to Mary the concepts of this display. They were cranking handles to light up the light bulbs.

(Yes, I am aware the picture is crooked.)

A portrait with heat images of Charlie, Dayna and Mary. I though this was very cool!

Charlie volunteered to be electrocuted… I mean, well, he did! He stood up there, touched that metal thing and they sent electricity through it! I think he came through it okay. There were no visible signs of damages.

The three kids loaded up into this red capsule and went on a virtual roller coaster ride. I sat outside listening to them as it rose and rocked back and forth. There was quite a bit of laughter and no sound of anyone getting sick.

We spent quite a bit of time near the aquarium. It was very cool. Made me really want to go to the big aquarium in Long Beach, but we didn’t make it there. I need to plan a trip to Atlanta soon to see the aquarium there!

On the way home we were stuck in a little bit of traffic. It wasn’t too bad and gave me a chance to snap a few pictures from the car!

It’s probably called something else, now, but when I worked in LA this was the Bonaventure Hotel. I used to go wander around there on my lunch hour, my office just a block away. The elevator is cool! You get in at the bottom lobby level, rise through the lobby, six levels high, then emerge on the outside of the building to go all the way to the top! If you’ve seen ‘True Lies’ with Arnold (former governor of California) you saw him riding his horse into the elevator and up to the roof. Really fun! Not that I could get my girls to go ride the elevator, though.

Then we had a car photo shoot. Very informal. The windows were open and they were trapped; victims of my camera once again.

Wednesday we were off to Hollywood again to visit museums and then north to Valencia for a family photo shoot! (Shhhh…don’t tell Grandma!)

Santa Monica and the Snake Guy

2011-01-28T07:48:00.001-05:00

Monday, bright and early, well, noonish… which is early for my girls, we headed to Santa Monica to walk the pier and wander through the shops.

The history of the pier is long and filled with politics, natural disasters and nostalgia. Everyone in Southern California, at one time or another, visits the pier. Some interesting facts about the pier can be found here.

Santa Monica Pier, c. 1923

It was a beautiful day! The walk from the parking garage was a nice one. We didn’t want to even attempt to park down near the beach. The parking lot there was filling up, even for a January afternoon.

I hadn’t been to the pier since I was a kid and even then, I don’t remember actually walking the pier. The amusement park was not there then, It came later, after the rebuilding of the pier that was damaged in a storm. And when I was young, I really didn’t care that much about the history of the pier.

Dayna has not been down there since she moved to California, so it was a first for all of us.

As we approached the pier entrance, I saw a man, scantily clothed, just beyond the benches where presumably homeless people were stretched out basking in the sunshine for a quick nap. As we drew near I noticed he was holding a couple of snakes in his hands. Cool! The snakes, not the scantily clothed man.

As I got closer and upon closer inspection, of the snakes, not the scantily clothed man, I realized the snakes were fake.

Dayna is behind me, telling me that if I take his picture I’d have to give him money.

Well, hey! After the short but enlightening conversation with snake man about the ‘magic’ snakes, I was perfectly happy dropping a buck in his collection.

You KNOW I had to take a picture of this guy!

I thought the boots were just the right touch for his costume choice, don’t you?

Well, we went on down to the pier, hoping the beautiful view would eradicate the memory of the snake guy from our brains.

The pier was filled with people wandering around, taking in the view, watching the various artists do their thing. We didn’t find anymore strangeness like the snake guy, but there was a women belly-dancing, dressed in a fantastic costume, and tattooed and pierced a LOT! No pictures of her. Sorry.

We did not venture into the amusement park, either. I didn’t see that the rides were going, but the arcade stuff was attracting customers to try their hand at winning something.

The view was spectacular. There was quite a crowd on the beach, too, although, there weren’t too many actually braving the water. I think the water was probably a bit cold, fit only for surfers and those who were brave enough to give it a try. We had planned on walking down to the beach so Mary could stick a toe in the Pacific for our friend, Melissa, but we had received a stern lecture from Dayna about her new car and the presence of sand if we were to do so. I thought it was a pretty good decision to just take a bunch of pictures and lie to Melissa and tell her we couldn’t get to the beach.

From the pier we walked over and had lunch at the open-air mall. A very fancy mall, filled with all kinds of shops that I would never shop in. We had fun browsing, though.

We did spend a few minutes in a store that had some crazy Converse, though!

Don’t you love the girls in their matching outfits??

Soon we were headed back to Dayna’s, wanting to get back to Hollywood before the ‘real’ traffic filled the freeways.

Welcome to Hollywood!

2011-01-27T09:17:00.001-05:00

The girls juiced up for our touristy trip to Hollywood Sunday morning. I embarrassed them with the camera, but they were good sports, knowing I would embarrass them over and over, I’m sure.

It’s only a couple of minutes to Hollywood from Dayna’s apartment. She wound through the hilly streets avoiding the freeway and we were pulling into the parking garage for the mall and the Kodak Theatre in just a few minutes.

It had been a lot of years since I was in this part of Hollywood. We would drive down there when we were teens, but never stopped at the tourist things. That wasn’t cool. We would cruise Hollywood and Sunset Boulevard, radio blasting, avoiding the police who would put an end to the cruising sometimes.

There were people everywhere, of course. The tourists out in droves. The hawkers were on the sidewalks tempting you with ‘Tours of the Stars Homes’ and visions of I Love Lucy popped in my head. Hollywood doesn’t look like Lucy’s Hollywood anymore. It doesn’t even look like the Hollywood I knew as a kid. Very high tech and modern now, with the Grauman’s looking small next to the huge buildings around it.

We wandered around, gazing down at the cement renderings of movie star’s hand and foot prints. I was in awe of all the old actor’s imprints, while the girls were off looking for more contemporary people. It was hard to snap pictures with so many people around, but I did manage to get the girls together for one.

Here’s a few other’s…

Robin Williams

Judy Garland

Rita Hayworth

Jimmy Stewart

We had to stop in a ‘cheesy souvenir’ store, too, of course. I don’t spend a lot of money on ‘stuff’, but love to buy post cards. This particular store though had a lot of fun stuff in it. We spent a lot of time looking at all the ‘star’ stuff.

Goofed around, too.

With hats.

Of course, it wasn’t until after I put the camera away that Mary pointed out the sign hanging from the ceiling asking us to NOT play with the hats and ‘No Pictures, Please.’

Oops.

Oh well.

We walked a bit, following the Hollywood Walk of Fame down the sidewalk, but did not venture far.

We headed back to the apartment where I was ready for a nap and the girls were off shopping together. I sent them out in search of clothes for Mary. Their outing would gauge how well the sisters would get along together after not seeing each other for so long. They came back smiling, arms full of bags. Dayna is an expert bargain hunter and she found a ton of stuff for Mary, even picking up a few things for herself.

It’s SO good seeing those girls together!!!

Jet Lag

2011-01-26T07:58:00.001-05:00

Home again. Cold, wet Savannah.

Mary and I got home Sunday night. We landed in Jacksonville, Florida after a horrible last leg of our trip, welcomed by Bill at the gate and off for our drive home to Savannah.

The week went by SO fast! It was so wonderful seeing Dayna and meeting Charlie for the first time. They are so good together. He brings her personality out and she brings him down to earth. He’s cute, funny and always ‘on’. He had me laughing all the time.

We did something just about every day. I wasn’t really able to blog, but I’ll catch y’all up on what we did a bit at a time.

When we got home the pets were very excited. Annabell and Rusty heard the garage door open and when I opened the door to the house they were so overjoyed they piddled on the landing. Now that’s a greeting! Bill told them we were coming home, but I’m sure they didn’t believe him. It was a full twenty minutes to half an hour before the dogs were calmed down enough to walk through the house without them between our feet wagging their little tails off.

The cats were a bit more mellow. Oreo was clearly miffed that we were away. He has slowly accepted our return and showing is attitude over the whole thing by being a stubborn brat. Kind of expected that. He sits on the table, flicking his tale and looks at me with disdain as I holler at him to ‘Get down!’.

I think the high points of the trip for Mary were seeing everyone’s pets.

Dayna has Alley and Cassidy. Alley is getting up there in age and stoically presides over the residence, plopping off the couch to waddle over to the food bowl a couple times a day. She’s about 14 years old now, Dayna thinks. She doesn’t do much, but seems happy enough. Cassidy is schizophrenic, I am certain. Apparently, she doesn’t like women, other than Dayna, of course. She swishes around the apartment, up in the windows, up on the cabinets, she is the master of her domain. She will sashay over to you and allow you to pet her for a moment, then she turns, hisses and smacks at you for no other reason than it seems right at the time. She clearly doesn’t like it when you invade the bedroom. If she’s sleeping on the bed and Dayna is not in there, you really don’t want to reach out and pet her. Crazy cat.

We met a neighbor’s cat when he decided he wanted to take a stroll outside and also met another neighbor’s pet, Pinky. That’s a pig. Not a pot belly pig. A regular old pink pig. The lady doesn’t think everyone knows about the pig. Dayna and Charlie told us the story of how she ‘smuggled’ it into the apartment. And the little girl is well versed on the story. “That’s our friend’s pig. He’s not ours.” I didn’t get a picture as the pig was only out at night for a jaunt around the pool and a sniff and snort in the little grassy area.

Friday while at Bill’s mom’s, Mary got to play with Pita and walk her for Grandma. At Uncle Brian’s there was Poco and Coco, and the cats, Damien, Mia and Cara. A couple of pets were camera shy, so I didn’t catch them for pictures.

Mary certainly loves the pets!

I have tons of pictures, of course, so come back and join me for more about our trip to California!

A New favorite picture.

2011-01-21T11:21:00.001-05:00

Dayna and Charlie at Mel's Diner in Hollywood. We stopped there to eat Wednesday after walking through the museums. Very cool diner! Today we're off to Santa Paula to visit Bill's mom.

Hollywood, Tourist Style

2011-01-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

We arrived safe and sound in Los Angeles Saturday afternoon, even a bit early! Since we did not check any bags, Mary and I just headed outside to call Dayna and see where she was in her traffic trek to the airport. She had circled the airport once already and was just coming around again. We stood waiting, anxious to see her.

It would have helped if we were on the right level.

We were on top.

Departures.

Not Arrivals.

I blame jet lag.

And a numb butt from sitting still for so long.

Fortunately, there was an escalator right next to us and Dayna spotted us as we decended onto the correct sidewalk.

So good to see my baby!

We hopped in and we were off.

By the time we got to the apartment, Charlie was home. He is as every bit of a sweetheart as I thought he was.

We visited for a while and then were off to get hamburgers at In 'n Out, Dayna indulging her mother's silly tradition whenever visiting California.

Yesterday, while Charlie was off slaving at work, we girls headed to Hollywood to do the tourist thing. We went to Grahman's Chinese Theatre to look at the foot and hand prints in the concrete out front, peered down at the Stars in the sidewalk, eyes peeled for an actor we knew and visited a cheesy tourist shop, a must wherever we go.

Today we're off to Santa Monica. It's a beautiful day!

Pop over to Mom's Camera to see pictures we have so far! It was too much to try and get them on the blog from Dayna's computer, so I took the easy route.

This is for Tootsie!

Leavin’ on a Jet Plane….

2011-01-14T10:55:00.001-05:00

Well, not until tomorrow, but I still have a bit to do to be ready to leave. I’ll be draggin’ Mary out of her pajamas soon so we can go out into the cold and get some running around done.

Before we head out, though, I wanted to post a page I did. (A week without scrappin’! Whatever shall I do!)

I captured Mary in rare form with my cell phone one day. She’s usually SO very serious.

Well, toodles!

I’ll be blogging from Hollywood next week!!

And the Excitement Builds….

2011-01-13T07:53:00.001-05:00

Saturday is coming up quickly and Mary and I are getting more excited about jettin’ off to California to see Dayna and Charlie!

Bill won’t be coming along and we’re sad about that, but frankly, I don’t think we could have swung three plane tickets. We’ve never had to buy plane tickets! When Bill worked for United we paid a nominal fee to fly and although that was great there was always the threat of not getting on a flight. The sitting and waiting to see if we would get on a flight always filled me with anxiety, especially on the trip home from wherever we were traveling.

We bought tickets online for this trip. Most of the carriers had about the same price, but I wanted a flight that did not have a layover in a northern state. Delta looked the most promising, with a short, very short, connection time in Memphis, TN, then on to Los Angeles.

When it came time to choose seats on the flight, I noticed there weren’t too many seats available. I pointed this out to Bill and asked why he chose that flight. He told me in his calm, managerial voice, that I didn’t have to worry about it. We bought the tickets. We have seats.

Oh, yeah.

All the years flying I have been bumped, scrutinized, berated and ignored because I was flying on employee benefits. I almost always had some sort of trouble, especially when Bill wasn’t flying with us. I hope this flight will not have all that added stress. I’m stressing enough just having to get on the plane. As I get older, I don’t like it much, the airport, the extraordinary amount of stupid people traveling the same day I am, the fact that I will be sitting near screaming children (I know, it’s not their fault), loud, rude people and the fact that I will be SO thirsty by the time we land because I really don’t want to use the lavatory 30,000 feet in the air.

We’re flying out of Jacksonville, Florida. It saved us a bunch of money and the drive down won’t be bad. It’s just about as far from Savannah to Jacksonville as it was when we drove from Lake City to Jacksonville to go to the airport.

Tomorrow I’ll be taking Bill to work so I can run around and get things done that need to be done, so today I have to get the house straightened up. Yesterday, the laundry and ironing was done. Today the floors need to be cleaned. Want it nice and clean for Bill for his week of solitude. Well, he’ll have the pets to keep him company. Poor guy.

In scrappin’ news, here’s a layout I did this morning from last summer. With the extraordinary cold we’ve been having I’ve been dreamin’ about the beach….

Wii Had Fun at the Neighbors!

2011-01-12T09:32:00.001-05:00