Mission Accomplished

It's been a very long weekend for Laurie. But she has once again done a beautiful job. We spent a good part of yesterday afternoon hanging the new light fixture. It was quite a challenge but it is just beautiful. Laurie picked out a great color and we both think the kitchen actually looks bigger. I guess the yellow closed it in. My idea for the window treatment went ny the wayside but we went shopping in the sewing room and created a nice valence. I need a new wall molley and right now it
is up by a lick and a promise. Tomorrow is another day. The stove was delivered and I guess I will have to get an electrician because the recepatacle is in the wrong spot on the wall, so the stove doesn't go all the way back. I tried it out last night and made a potroast for my girl and today I made brownies!! The new dishwasher is currently sitting in the garage. The installer is on vacation. I an wait-the old one still works.

Taking care of myself for Christmas

My personal painter and her assistant are coming this morning to paint my kitchen. When I bought this house in 2001, I fell in love with the sunflower yellow kitchen. But now after 6 years, I am sick of it. This Christmas Laurie gave me paint and a painter (Ms MBA) as my Christmas present. And today is the day!!! Now you ask about her assistant...that would be Bailey, the wonder-pup(my sometime roommate).

So yesterday after work, I stopped at Lowe's (go Jimmy Johnson-no Homey Depot and Mr. doesn't like to shave for me). I picked up the misc. stuff we needed for painting and then I strolled over to the kitchen appliances. Long story short-I bought myself a new stove and dishwasher!

Now the brain is going and I am thinking about the window treatment near the table end of the kitchen. I want to do a plain valence with quilt blocks as a border on it. I have to do the math to figure it out.

I think I will attempt to take a before picture and then and after.

Christmas 2007

I looked at all my pictures and realized I have pictures of Sarah and Emma and assorted pets-Ayla, Gunner, Jade and Lanie. Somehow missing: Tyler. The pictures of Rob that I have are just bad. Since I value my relationship with my son-in-law, I chose not to put them on the blog. Rob-you owe me!!

Next year I will have to focus on Tyler as well. Laurie only had one good picture as well.

Actually I am glad that Christmas rush is over. Now I can sit and relax. I wonder if I can get Sarah to come undecorate the house. (Like that is really going to happen!)

The food was delish as Rachel would say. I loved the rasmosas. The chocolate martinis will have to wait until my painter arrives. Laurie-we paint first then imbibe! And Bailey needs to celebrate Christmas as well!

Christmas 2007

Christmasn survived

Twas the day before Chrsitmas....

I have finished shopping and wrapping!!!!!

Twas a very busy weekend. Friday was Stone Mountain with Sarah and a sleepover
Saturday afternoon, Emma came over for a sleepover too! How many times can you watch Dora and her kidnapped map?? Saturday evening we watched a lot of movies from my collection. I don't have many "grown up" movies but lots of stuff for kids. Clifford is always good!
The gingerbread house went well. I told Sue I found a really good one for her to do next year.....heehee
Last night Laur, Sue, Sarah and I went to the "fabulous Fox" and saw the Nutcracker. Somehow they managed to have it snow in a theater at the end of the first act. I really enjoyed the ballet. And I have made it ITP(inside the perimeter for non-Atlantans) twice in a matter of 8 days-a record!

Now it is on to the kitchen to start the Swedish coffee cake and meatballs.
This afternoon is the Christmas pageant at church and the on to Casa de Reynolds! Have to be up early to be down at the Frieds for the Santa fest.

Sarah at Stone Mountain

Decorating for Christmas with the little Natzi

Yesterday I took Sarah to Stone Mountain for the Christmas experience and then brought her back to my house for a sleepover. Just Sarah and me...Emma stayed home with mommy and daddy. Neeless to say, she was not too happy about that! Stone Mountain was very pretty but crowded. Sarah was more interested in shopping than the Chrsitmas stuff. She did not want to ride on the train or do the Polar Express thing.
Saturday morning and it is time to decorate Meena's house. I was trying to avoid all this decorating stuff and now my kitchen is full of boxes of years of decorations. Sarah has decided that I need to have both of the little trees up and decorated. Who is going to put all this stuff away in a couple of weeks.

We still have to do some wrapping and mommy sent the dreaded gingerbread house kit over to be done too! The Christmas natzi is going full steam now!

Meanwhile, I haven't finished Christmas shopping. I guess that happens tomorrow after church. Also the Swedish coffeecake needs to be made. And I wonder if I can figure out an easy way to do the Swedish meatballs.

Henry is now in one of the empty Christmas tree boxes and I rescued Spiff from the garage.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Morning Dew Place despite Ms. Grinch!

How do you spell relief?

Three very long days are over!!!!
No more having to go to work at dark thirty!!!
The State has come and gone....the ordeal is over for another year. And they manged not to ruin the Christmas holiday. They will have to do a revisit but hopefully that won't happen until the end of January. Those who don't know what the whole routine is probably would not believe it. It is a good process but is really hard on all of the staff involved. The rules and regulations that a SNF is held accountable for is really lengthy. They really had to dig to find infractions in the facility which is a good thing. Yeah..it is over .....and now I am going to get a glass of wind and go to bed!!!

"the state" and Laurie-separate thoughts

After many anxious days waiting, the state finally arrived today for our annual survey at "the home". It brings mixed feelings of course because the next 3 days will be stressful because "big brother" is watching....but then it will be over, for awhile. Since we have been waiting since the beginning of November for their arrival, I'm glad it is an actuality. And now I won't have to go to work at dark thirty anymore and Christmas won't be spoiled with the thought of them coming in during the holidays. I'm also glad it is this week instead of last as I felt like death warmed over then.

On a much happier note-we celebrated Laurie's graduation yesterday. It's official- she has her MBA. And I finally got to see the inside of the Georgia Dome. (Don't get around much anymore)!

Christmas Carols

I love Christmas music....but listening to it on the radio all the time-gets a little old. The same songs are played over and over again-sung by a lot of dead people! How long haves Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole been dead? Still I guess it is nice to hear them once a year.

Maybe this weekend, I will get some more spirit for the holidays..if it cools off (just a little bit, please) I am not asking for snow or even cold weather. They can keep that up north thank you very much. I went shopping for Emma this week and found the sweetest little doll. It looks like her. I had to remove all of the dolls from the shelf to find just the right one. Can't believe that Baby Alive is back again. I passed on her when the girls were little. One more foray out to the stores and I should be finished with Christmas shopping. My plan is to keep it simple. I still have not done anything further about decorating inside the house. The little trees on the porch remain naked as well. If I delay just a little bit longer, it will be time to put the decorations away for another year.

Did we move???

So it is the first-no second weekend in December. I decided I would have a "green Christmas" and not illuminate the house. Truthof the matter is that I just didn't feel like dealing with all of the stuff. However, the decoration natzi AKA Sarah does not agree and she told her Mom that she needed to see Meena's reindeer. Being the mush that I am regarding my granddaughters, this morning I went about getting the reindeer set up in the front yard. If they were real, and if they had a brain that could reason, I am sure they would be wondering when we relocated to a warmer climate. I am out there bonding with my white wire reindeer and it is downright warm. I can decorate the outside and work on my tan at the same time!

Ho ho ho.....so the snowmen and santa are out there and dripping and sweating respectively. I have the little trees on the porch but right now it is just too warm to fix them..later for you guys.

I guess I need to think about the inside now. Drat.......or better yet, I will save that for another day......

Maybe I'm not losing it....

This was one of those days when I put my brain some place for safe keeping and forgot where I put it!

Today was Sticthin' Sisters and so I got up early to do the usual Saturday stuff before heading out. So far, so good.
I start to collect my supplies to head off to the shop......can not find my forked pins. I KNOW I had them last week when I put the Honeybee quilt together-but now they are nowhere to be found. Of course, the sewing room is now beyond disaster, so trying to find anything in there is a challenge. I even moved the couch in the living room thinking that perhaps one of the guys decided to play with the box. No forked pins to be found. They are not anywhere!!!!

Now using plain old pins will work but it is just the principle!

I had a good day at the shop and was able to make good progress in knocking off the remaining blocks for the project under construction. Then this afternoon, one of the blocks is missing. I counted the block three times and came up with a total of 47. Maybe it is at home-hiding with the forked pins. Back at home, I again search. The block remains MIA......BUT I found those silly little forked pins. Imagine that-right behind the sewing machine! I got busy and cut out pieces for another block. Later on, Karen from the store called and let me know that a block that looks like mine turned up.....so now I have 49 blocks. And more importantly, my mind!!

Blahs......that is what I feel like when I think about the upcoming holidays. Don't feel like going out to the garage and going through all that crap to find some decorations.. I need someone to decorate for me...and then they had better come back and take all the stuff down.....or I can just not bother with decorations this year.
There is always this weekend if it is warm....otherwise the reindeer will remain grazing in the garage!