I went to the strangest place…Nebraska. I would never in a million years think to go there, but that is where my sister now lives. Even when my sister moved there I didn’t think of visiting. Airfare…mighty pricey. Who’s got the extra cash lying around to just jet off these days. But my lovely, generous sister had frequent flyer miles and got me a ticket. Thanks Anna! There was an agenda though…decorate her house. Sure! Totally fun. We had two days to design and shop. We picked out paint, planned her decorating scheme, and bought lots of stuff. I saw the whole of Lincoln, Nebraska…I think. I was pretty impressed with three things there. One, the streets are magnificent. Big wide streets with lots of lanes and no cars! Here in Mooresville it’s lots of traffic and one lane. Two, there gas was cheap. How come? That’s a mystery. Three, and this is the best…tons of shopping! They had four Targets, fabric stores–that’s plural people, basically every store imaginable. I couldn’t resist–I had to bring home fabric. I stuffed it in my carry-ons. I had two carry-ons and nothing to check in. That’s because they now charge you $15 for each check in bag. I’m not giving the airline any more of my money. Well, they actually didn’t get any of my money, hah! I didn’t even buy the airport food. I took my own…so there. Yeah, I’m cheap, and proud of it.
Here are my two nephews. Aren’t they cute in their coon skin caps? And oh yeah, Anna’s having another boy. Join the club sis.

So, it’s almost midnight and what better time to blog, right? I’m not really tired though. Should I be? All I know is tomorrow I’ll probably be cleaning and cooking all day for my bunco party. A bunch (I hope) of gals from church and the neighborhood will come over tomorrow and pitch in their 5 bucks and a non-perishable food item to donate for the food bank, and play a couple of rousing hours of hard core bunco. I play every month. Not once have I ever won. I think I’ve spent close to $5o. Is it gambling? I don’t think so. I really don’t play to win. I believe I’m paying for great entertainment, and everyone brings awesome food. If I went out to see a movie I’d pay more. And this is much more fun. Now I’m getting tired. I’ll let you know if I win anything. Goodnight.

I’ve started a few projects and the list keeps growing. I’m really good at starting a project, then adding and adding until I basically explode. So here is my list so far. I’m expecting to knock off a couple of them in a few months…maybe.

#1 Garden Path. I’ve dug a path from the deck to the driveway. It still needs sand, rock & flagstone.

#2 My Novel. I started writing a book a month ago. I’m on page 92. I wrote a book a few years back and sent it to three publishers. It didn’t go anywhere. This one is going to be different…hopefully.

#3 Christmas Banners. Last year I invented this cute homemade Christmas banner. They are time consuming to make. I only made five last year. My sister liked the idea so much, her Young Women group made them and sold them to raise money for their girl’s camp. I guess they sold for $25 each and they did well. Each letter has it’s own theme and it’s all cut out with fabric and sewn and strung on twine. This year I’m making 30 of them to sell at a craft show. I’m still cutting fabric.

#4 Video Editing. I’ve got video from 1995 until now I need to transfer to DVD. I’m recruiting Nick to help with that. Then I need to take all the DVD’s and edit them into smaller segments. I think that will only take me 8 months to finish.

#5 Recipe Binder. My recipes are all in a three ring binder. Sounds organized, right? But really all the binder does is hold hundreds of tiny papers–3×5 cards, scrap papers, napkins, whatever I had to write on. So when I want a recipe, I have to go through all the little papers to find the one I need. I’m finally going to organize that…soon.

#6 2008 DVD. Every four years I make a DVD of pictures of our family set to music in a slideshow format. I make lots of copies and send them out to Rob’s family and mine for Christmas. So, I’ve gotta get on that one too.

#7 Totally gut my house. I’ve got too much stuff. It’s everywhere. It’s consuming my life and stressing me out. I need to go through every closet and drawer and downsize. Less is more and more is crap.

Now it’s all laid out for the world to see. When I get something done around here, I’ll let you know. Today I wanted to work on the book, but after running to two different schools to put lunch money in the kids’ accounts, grocery shopping, taking Ben to the dentist, laundry, dishes, setting up doctor appointments, writing this blog, talking to my mom on the phone and wondering why my cold is making my face and hands numb, I don’t think I have the energy. I’m going to get some potato salad…that’ll help.

My walls needed art. I wanted simple and bold and sort of contemporary and something with nature in it. Everything I liked also came with a big price tag…I’ve got expensive taste and a small budget. I’ve seen enough HGTV shows to know I could buy canvases and paint something for much cheaper. I painted three canvases. The big one is over my mantle, and two smaller ones are over the couch. They’re not exactly everything I wanted, but they turned out good enough for now. And if I get sick of them, canvases are cheap with a coupon from Michaels.

I wanted to get pictures of Ethan heading out for his first day of all day kindergarten. The first few days I kept forgetting to take my camera to the bus stop. Then, when I did, the batteries were dead. So, about a week later I got it together. I’m pretending this is his first day off to school–yay! Ethan likes to run up and down the street while he’s waiting for the bus. I guess it wakes him up.

Now all my kids are at school all day long…it’s heaven. It would be better if I weren’t sick in bed, and I could get something done. Luckily, my mom came over today and brought me homemade chicken soup, cleaned my bathrooms, and watched HGTV with me. Now she is picking Ethan up from school for me. I love my mom. She is the coolest. I know I’m almost 40 years old, but I still need my mom.
So I’m giving a big shout out for schools and moms…YAY! Thanks for saving me.

So, it’s 7:00 Friday night and my friend Stephanie calls and asks…”Do you want to paint pottery?” And I’m not sure if I want to or not. I do love artsy stuff and miss the days when the relief society met once a month and did stuff like that. So I waffle on the phone a bit, because I really can’t think of a reason why I need a pottery item, then I give in. “Ok, sure, I’ll go.” Then Stephanie gets Sheila to go too, because we all love Sheila and she’s always willing and able to do almost anything at the spur of the moment. We meet at the pottery place at 9:00pm…yep, and it’s open until midnight! It was so much fun. We all picked mugs for different purposes. I picked one that will be Rob’s Raisin Bran cereal bowl. He is on a Raisin Bran kick at the moment–eats it every day. I think there are four boxes in the pantry right now. Sheila paints a mug for her hubby too and makes smacky lips on the bottom. She and her husband are so ooogly googly together. And Stephanie makes herself a Coco mug–for her chocolate pick me up days. Here we are painting them.
Then, after we finish and the place closes, we go to Burger King. Our first pick was Wendy’s, but they closed at midnight…party poopers. We sit in Sheila’s car and talk about all sorts of fun secrets until 1:00 am. I really didn’t mind only getting 5 1/2 hours sleep that night (I had to get up early and get Ben and his friend off to day camp). It was great fun, and in a week, after it’s been fired, I’ll show the result.

My sister took these pictures of our family when she came into town this summer.