Goings on...

 They say after 50, you feel like things are going faster because you are going downhill...and I am beginning to believe it!

So here is a little catch me up for my family!

Dean went to the Saints game and brought bad juju to the team, they lost.  But he had fun!

Mojo had to go to the vet because of old man issues.  He has never bounced back from losing Ginger. 

I came close to re breaking my foot and get to wear this lovely adornment.  Moral of the story, please, don't exit your sister's car while laughing and saying you were going to steal something from her.   

The weather is changing as evidenced by leaves in the yard!

and I finished another set of glasses for a friend

I painted a few for Halloween too and was going to keep one.  Then I decided, the heck with that and bought this lovely off ebay.  Mom would be proud!  It is a deeper orange than this...beautiful!

Matt came home yesterday and Suki took up residence in his laundry bag!

and I made myself an eyeglass holder necklace "thingie"

Now I'm happily turning my attention to some crochet!!!!

Gunter's almost big day

So Gunter tried to hide out and move in with Matt.  

WHAT?  Can you imagine the HORROR of Matt finding Gunter in his DORM?

Yeah, me too...so glad I found him in time.  

He begged to at least go with us to Baton Rouge and "hang out"...

I caved when he promised to behave.  SUCH a liar....  

When we hit campus, he jumped up to the window and starting hollering at the volunteers asking where the kegs were. 
He kept droning on and on, telling everyone he was a Black Forest gnome and could impart some serious wisdom regarding beer....yea...stuff like that.  Embarrassing.

Dean convinced me to leave him in the car while we unpacked, we simply couldn't trust him to behave.       

When we got back to the car he promised to behave so we let him go to lunch with us...

He was pretty good while we ate and later, even modeled a hat we bought for Phil...

His good behavior only lasted an hour though as I caught him chatting up some kid asking where the good parties were.
Needless to say, he is NOT going back to LSU with us any time soon.

Moving on and moving in

We moved Matt into his dorm on Wednesday.   As you can imagine, he was pretty excited!

Kaela  watched his stuff while Dean and I moved the cars and Matt got his room key.  

 She and Matt busy working on his side of the room...

The dorm is beautiful...and each suite has it's own bathroom, SCORE!

Matt's new roomie, Cooper  Oh man, I am so glad they hit it off! 

Getting a photo of the family before hitting the road.  The boys had a party to attend so we got a move on.  

I tried hard not to do the whole break down and sob thing...for the most part I did okay but letting go isn't easy...

Polka Dotted wineglasses...

The other day I was sad, thinking about my folks.  Dean reached into the cabinet and brought out the polka dotted wine glass Jill sent me and I couldn't help but smile.  He knows me so well and knows that would make me happy...the wine helped too, of course.   

I got to thinking how lots of people like polka dots and thought how fun "game glasses" would be to have in the cabinet... in team colors of course. So I decided to try my hand at making a few glasses I could give as gifts.  

I got my supplies and got to work.  I didn't want words or anything, just simple dots.  Dots are awesome.
First I made these using pouncer sponges by Martha Stewart. 

SAINTS

LSU

Then I decided to do a gradual dot pattern and made these...

lots of dots on the base...

and then I made these with different sized dots....

The dots took longer since I had to let it dry between colors but I love how it turned out.   Now I can just pair a couple glasses with a little vino and have a fun gift for my sports fan vino drinkers....or margarita drinkers.  I used BIG glasses y'all!

Happy, happy...

This leopard frog was in our yard the other day.  There were two of them!  The other one leaped into the bushes but this one sat still for a little photo shoot.  I love frogs and toads.  I love finding the teeny weeny baby ones.  So cute!

I love seeing the frogs and toads in our yard again.  But it is also bittersweet.  Ginger kept them clear but without her, they seem know it is safe to come back.   She would terrorize, and to her distress, eat them on occasion....Mojo knows better! 

Side yard redo...

Whenever we move, we tend to redo the yard....or at least spruce it up.   This house was no different.  In the 7 years we've been here, we have added foundation plantings and several beds along with cutting a veggie gardens.   But there was one thing we put off until this month.  The side yard.

Our side yard is a weird shape and skinny and flat out ugly.  At the gate, it is 7 feet wide but by the backyard it is 5 feet wide.    I've always wanted to do something with it, so for my birthday, Dean got it started with the help of a sod cutter.   

Our neighbors love us...they got to re-sod part of their front yard for free!

Here is it in it's almost naked glory.  

We went and bought lots of mulch and have begun reworking this little space.  Dean did some shovel work to form a curved bed and we put in the deer grass from the front yard.  It needed more sun that it was getting.  I have to do a stepping stone by the hose but it already looks much more inviting.  The butterfly bush will get large too and is already attracting lots of butterflies.

The yellow plant is butterfly vine and that will grow over the lattice by summer's end.  The birdbath was being thrown away by an elderly lady.  Her handyman was taking it to the curb as I drove by.  I backed up and I asked for it and he put it right into my car!  I intend on mosaic-ing it one day this winter...

BTW, if you don't know what deer grass looks like in bloom, click here.  It is gorgeous and blooms in the fall.

close up of the butterfly bush...I love this stuff!

looking much more inviting than before...still a bit of clean up to do..

The area ties into the backyard better now...needs a gate or arch....Dean?

The basil was basically added to give this spot a bit of green.  If it does well, I'll leave it but if not, I'll move it to the veggie garden.

I whacked it down and made 2 pounds of basil butter (27 sheets) with it right after taking this photo!

We still have much to do but by next year, this should be a really nice space.  Now, if I can just talk Dean into building me an arbor......

dress up....

Dean and I attended a gala in New Orleans last Saturday...

we clean up okay....

WEDNESDAY WHAT?

someone has her permit...

"Welcome Gnome" Wreath

I was in the mood to make a new wreath for September.  I was in a store and all their spring/summer stuff was 80% off so I grabbed a gnome and some mushrooms.  It wasn't until I got home that I realized the mushrooms were glass and the gnome was heavy and oh by the way, didn't have anything remotely in the way of ATTACHING it to a wreath on it.

Yep, I love how I paid attention to that particular purchase.

Anyhoo, I mulled it over and grabbed Dean's drill and a teeny drill bit and drilled holes through gnome dude's feet.  Lots of holes.  Then I E6000'ed 2 nails into each heel along with wiring both boot toes with floral wire. It sounds easy but it wasn't.  One of his boots was solid resin and the bit kept getting stuck.  Once it got stuck IN the boot and pulled out of the drill.  Egads, that was a lesson in patience. 
Then the wire didn't want to thread correctly.  Probably had something to do with me NOT lining the holes up because I was "winging it."  But I did it.  

On to attaching gnome dude to the wreath.

Needless to say, punching holes into a plastic wrapped straw wreath I had also wrapped in fabric and then again in burlap wasn't the easiest thing to do. But I persevered and used a metal ka-bob skewer to make holes.  Don't ya love sophisticated tools?
Once that was done I had to cram gnome dude onto the wreath into those holes that oh by the way, had closed up because the wreath is made of STRAW. 
At one point, I thought I was going to cut his feet off or stab myself...seriously.  I was cracking up by now because it was so ridiculous.  

After finally cramming gnome dude and other stuff onto the wreath ("u" pins are da bomb!) I attempted a bow.  I'm not a bow maker.  It took me 5 tries to get it right. Well, sort of right.  I wired that sucker up super fast before any of the loops untwisted.  
  

This damn gnome wreath about killed me.  Talk about a labor of love.   I never realized you could actually SWEAT while making a wreath in your own air conditioned home.  That being said, the wreath looks EXACTLY how I had envisioned it.  

cooking and crafting...

I made Dean's cheesecake of the month installment.  White chocolate with fresh raspberry sauce.  It is a crust less cheesecake which was nice for me, less work!   I am using the recipes out of this little cheesecake cook book I bought years ago for half price. The only thing I did differently was to halve the recipe for the sauce and heat it to thicken it a bit before running it through a sieve.  Everyone loved it.

I also made a really tasty pasta.  I tried the basic recipe from something I saw on pinterest but added mushies and sun dried tomatoes.  I also added one of my basil/olive oil cubes.  Oh my gosh, it was so good, I made the same thing twice in one week.  Here is the link to get the recipe.  The best part is this lady's blog is terrific.  I love her little cartoons!

My niece is having a birthday today so I spent some time whipping up a swimsuit cover up....in pretty pool colors!

I used a new yarn joining technique I found on....no way, pinterest!   Anyway, it is easy and makes smooth transitions....   Here is the link.  

I also got another surprise in the mail!!!!  Jill sent me a little goodie for my birthday!  The owl chime and gloves were the first to be put to use!  

The turtle is a thrifted wooden toy she re-purposed into a pincushion.  Too cute!  She also zen-tangled the box and made me those robot bookmarks.  I adore bookmarks.  The one reason I don't use a tablet to read is because I love bookmarks so much!

Thank you Jill!

no smoking....

I found this little card the other day when I was cleaning out a teapot I had bookmarks in.  It is seriously old y'all.   I had this little card stuck in my VW bug's ashtray in college!

I remember when my mom first saw it she was horrified by the word "fart."  

Of course, she laughed.  But she was dead serious as she was admonishing me for giving people the "wrong idea" about what kind of girl I was.
After all, what would people think if they knew I used THAT kind of language!

Gulf Shores getaway

The week after my parents' memorial, we took the family on a much needed little vacation.  Only 3 days...just enough time to dip our toes in the water and get a little sun on our shoulders.  (Why is check in at 3 and check out at 10 now?  That doesn't seem right....ya know?)

We didn't have more time to spare because we had to cram it in between Dean's work, the kids' work and Matt's college week...oh and school!  Kaela starts back to school THURSDAY!    

We went home, picked up two more kids, packed back up a few days later and headed back out.  I was super excited and even repainted my toes for the big event.

Okay, so Dean LOATHES feet on the dashboard.  I did this to irritate him but when he mentioned how hard it is to walk on the beach without toes, I took them down!

We stopped in Fairhope for lunch....

And then off we went...and we didn't stop until we got to our room.  Well, that isn't true.  The traffic was horrendous! It took us almost 2 hours to go 14 miles.  Being a Florida girl, I always hated tourists.  Boy, it's tough BEING one too!

Not a bad view huh?  We woke up to this every morning.  Matt and his girlfriend were either on the beach or playing board games the entire time we were there.  

The weather was perfect so the girls got a lot of sun bathing in....
  

A little aside:  I have to be a beach snob now.  Sorry guys, but the beaches from P'City to P'Cola are da bomb compared to Gulf Shores in Bama.  Too many shells in the surfline...but that won't stop us from going back.  For all I know, that was some weird event.  Maybe that isn't the norm.
Back to it:

I enjoyed margaritas...

and wine...but not together.  That would be bad, right?

Dean took the girls to a water park one day.  They apparently stopped at a sno-cone stand too...

I burn too easily so why pay to go hide at a water park?  (Sun screens are only so good and not worth the worry at my age.)  

Instead, I plopped on a big hat and went to the pool.  I took a book and read a few chapters between dips. 

I tried to take a selfie for this post but decided y'all didn't want to look up my nose.  (This begs the question...How DO you take a decent selfie and how do kids constantly take good selfies when they aren't even trying?) 

Instead of looking up my nose, you can look at this cute bookmark Missy sent me in a swap a ka-zillion years ago. I used it at the pool.  Her head got wet and is now a little warped.  Like me!

Overall, we simply had fun.  It was well needed and totally appreciated.