What have I been doing?

Oh geez it’s been like a month or something since I’ve posted.  My intentions are to post during the weekends but I’ve been busy or sick every weekend lately so it hasn’t gotten done.  Though I don’t have a full time job I don’t just sit around at my house doing nothing this is far from the truth. My husband works nights so I spend the morning cleaning house, wake him up then make lunch and spend early afternoon with him then I spend a few hours on the computer catching up on facebook and talking to my mom then I rest and watch tv before bed. Usually even if I’m “resting” and watching tv I’m doing my crosstitching which though it is enjoyable for me to do I don’t just do senseless work.  I’m making gifts for people for birthdays and holidays and such.

So here’s a visual over view of what I’ve been doing, not necessarily in any particular order.

      

Getting my hair done and an after picture with my cousin who did it. It’s a long process and painful at times as well as takes upkeep maintenance but my cousin says platinum is a good color for me.

     
The fair was in town and they had a demolition derby.  Joel and I don’t go out and do things together often. #1A car on top of the trunk of another. #2 That’s fire above the wheel. #3  Is that bumper suppose to be that high? #4 Hood crunch.

      
A high school football game we went to.  The local high school are the Razorbacks so we root for the Razorbacks Friday nights and Saturdays.

 
#1 My new purse! I’ve been wanting one for a while now. #2  A healthy snack.  Trying to eat some healthy snacks between meals so as not to over eat.  On this last shopping trip I bought no sweets for me.  Only fruits and vegetables. #3 The subbing school year has begun for me.  So far I’ve been in first grade, 3rd grade, and 2nd grade 3 different days.  This is a picture of what my last two days in 2nd grade were like.  I was with a bilingual class. Thankfully they only did all Spanish work for the first hour and the rest was in English.  I managed through and the kids were great but I often felt lost in translation literally.

 

#1 Right after I burnt my hand.  I even had a pot holder but I guess not in the right place.  #2 The burn the next day. #3 The pile that seems to accumulate by the front door on a daily basis. #4 The truck wouldn’t crank so we’ve messed with it for many days trying to jump it or put it the battery on a charger but finally gave in and bought a new battery.  Ugh

My niece Jesslynn got to spend the day with my mom last weekend.  Mom did share the baby with my grannie for a little bit.  ( This is my Grannie holding her in these pictures.)

And last but not least pictures of my babies. One being used as a pillow by my lumberjack husband.  I should have gotten an after picture because shortly after this picture he (the husband) got a hair cut and shaved.  Looks way different LOL.

A little of this and that

Well this week was pretty typical for me taking care of household chores, watching tv and crafting, and playing with my four legged babies.  School around here has now been in session for atleast 2 weeks so I have started the many times a day task of checking the substitute website looking for jobs.  I still don’t really except much to start opening up til mid September or maybe not even til October.  However, I am trying to keep up with my picture taking and that alone gives me plenty of blog worthy topics.

                 

For my craft of crosstitching I have to have close and direct lighting.  This is the lamp that is behind my left shoulder.  I’m guessing maybe the bulb is too strong for this shade?  LOL  I noticed this yellow spot the other day and when I touched it the shade plastic just crumbled under my finger…oops! 

                      

This is my battle wound from being a dog momma.  We have a retractable leash.  Chip is pretty hyper when people or dogs are around.  The other day he was running around out side, got excited when someone walked near and wrapped around me in the leash.  Sometimes I’m quick enough to escape but not this time.  That thing slices into my leg leaving an angry red slash that stings.  I have several of these battle scar and they never get any easier to handle.

                   

This is my new keychain.  I am so excited about it.  I always have to dig and dig for my keys.  My cousin has one of these tab keychains and I’ve been wanting one.  I havn’t been able to find one in a store so crafty me decided to discuss it with my mom and come up with how to do it.  We bought the stuff for it and laid out the measurements the weekend she was here.  Since I don’t have a sewing machine she took it home with her, sewed it and mailed it to me.  I got it yesterday.  Haven’t gone anywhere yet to get to use it but I did put my keys on it and have it waiting by the door.

         

This is what becomes of Joels dresser scarf and the things on it when you leave Chips bone up there.  He tends to bring his bones to bed with him and sometimes we have to put it up so he’ll stop chewing it and go to sleep.  One night we did and forgot to give it to him the next morning.  Later when I went into the bedroom for something this is what I found.  He preceded to help himself to his bone since noone would help him.  Joel comes home from work in the middle of the night and cleans out his pockets on the dresser while talking to me.  His donut wrapper, money and an earplug are all scattered across the floor all for the likes of a bone.  Silly boy!

More antidotes of chip….he enjoys looking out the window and watching what goes on.  Unfortunantly that doesn’t bode well for things like the blinds.  We have blocked off our other windows so he can’t see out and this one is usually covered by a bush but the bush was recently cut back and thinned a whole bunch so he can see through it pretty good.  If you look close in both pictures you can see I have attempted to defer his desire to look out by covering the corners of the window with poster board.  The picture of the broken blinds is on the left side, there is a coffee table then the other picture is from the right side of the table.  The left corner blocking method has worked but the damage was already done to the blinds.  He just leans over farther and looks past my covered right side corner.  Guess I need bigger piece of posterboard.

So this blog has seemed to be come all about Chips antics.  He is a mess and gets excitable when people/ dogs are around.  But generally he’s a good dog and very sweet and lovable.  He’s a mommas boy.  He has to be by me most of the time and likes to sleep touching me.  If I happen to readjust and don’t get settled back up against him he will move so he is touching me again.  My sweet babyboy .  Look at this picture of him and tell me how a momma can not love that sweet baby face.

By the way if you happen to notice there, that is my husbands ear.  Chip is laying on the back of the couch using Joel’s head as a pillow.  See what I mean, just cuteness.

This blog has ended up mostly being about Chip. But we must not forget I have another sweet baby.  I don’t lover her any less she’s just much MUCH more relaxed and laid back than her little brother.  Therefore she doesn’t have as many interesting opportunities for pictures. My pretty girl Bella.

 

Catching up and cleaning out (iphone pictures)

Ok so I promise I am keeping up with weekly posting I was just busy last weekend and didn’t get it done and kept putting it off during the week.  I have been needing to post some pictures and review some events over the summer anyways and I’ll go ahead and review over the past 2 weeks.

The biggest thing that happened over the summer was the birth of my little brothers daughter, Jesslynn Marie Williams.  I was actually able to be at the hospital the day she was born and saw her within an hour of her birth.  I have gotten to see her a few times since then and when my mom sees her she sends me pictures. 

             1 hour old                                          1 month old

 

                     7 weeks old and napping on Grammie.

                    

                            Talking with Aunt Destinie.

Most for the summer Joel worked and I hung around the house.  For a while it was fun not having a schedule and doing what I wanted.  But by July I was done with it and ready for some routine.  We had a couple of family reunions, Istayed a few days with my cousin outside of Little Rock, and then spent about a week and a half with my mom and grandparents.  A few weeks after I came home Joel and I went to a birthday party and this was the big attraction.  An inflatable water slide that was like 32 ft. tall.  The stairs were pretty steep and hard to get up so I didn’t make it too many times but the few I did sure made my arms and legs sore the next few days.

Joel and I both stayed for a while but since Joel had worked the night before he went home early to be with the dogs and I stayed with my cousin.  Chip is pretty use to snuggling with his momma at night and since I wasn’t there his daddy had to fill in.

         

The last weekend in August my cousin was in town. {I am the oldest grandchild, she is the second oldest, 6 years younger than me.  As I’ve said in a previous post as kids we lived less than a mile apart and played together a lot, we moved apart for many years then last year moved back into the same town again.  She has since moved 2 hours away but comes back just about every other weekend. }We spend a lot of time together when she’s in town, I’ve gone to stay with her a couple times, and when we are not together we are constantly texting or on the phone together.  This past weekend we went shopping and out to eat.  I had a strawberry daiquiri but the picture didn’t turn out that great. This is her enjoying her peach sangria and one of  the pants I bought that are too long on me. (I tried wearing them anyways but they really drag the ground LOL. I also bought 2 other pairs of pants that have the same problem, but mom hemmed them for me this weekend.)

This weekend, the first of September, my mom came for the long weekend to visit.  My dogs love them some Grammie.  They understand when I say Grammie is coming and run to the window to look for her but don’t understand the part about in a few hours so they’d run to the window every time they heard something hoping it was her. 

Mom got here early Saturday morning.  We did some shopping for craft supplies, visited my local grandparents where my brother, his wife and my niece Jesslynn were also visiting for a few hours then took them to my great aunt who’s only seen pictures of Jesslynn.  We had been out many hours and were wore out so we got a pizza then came home to watch the movie The Help and mom hemmed my long pants to better fit my short legs.  We got up Sunday morning and went grocery shopping.  Came home, unloaded groceries and rested.  Once we rested up we made supper and did a few projects around the house. 

Mom left about lunch time today(Monday) and I’ve spent the rest of the time napping and catching up on tv.  I love when I get to spend time with my mom.  Though it makes the next week after seem quiet and lonely once she’s gone back home (and I don’t watch at much tv and get really behind LOL )

Nothing big planned for this week as of right now.  I need to get the house back in shape and finish up some of our house projects and put up some decorations we worked on over the weekend.  I’ll need to rest up too cause my cousin will be in town next weekend and she always keeps me on the go.  When will I get a quiet lazy weekend at home again?  Not real sure yet.

The Great Carrot Experiment

 

At some point, maybe mid week, I need to do a review of my summer because several things happened since I last blogged in March.  But for now here’s my review of the week. Nothing major just several little activities.

My family has always gone to a very small church.  Like to have 10 people in attendance is a crowd and rare for us.  I guess sometime way back before I was around people that knew each other but moved away still stayed in touch and also had small churches so my family would visit these other churches every few months and  vise versa.  One being near Shreveport, Louisiana and the other near Dallas, Texas. Due to the pastors death and his wifes poor health the Louisiana church as disbanded but the Texas church is still going strong and my grandparents still hold this tradition of making the pilgrimage to a service once a month.  That is a long trip for anyone (I remember long car rides with naps and lots of reading time growing up) but especially for the older folks.  So my grandparents usually make the trip a 2 day affair staying with someone along the way.  Where I am currently living is about halfway for them so they tend to stay with us Saturday night.  When we first moved here, because me nor Joel are vary handy, we would always have a to do list for my grandpa.  Things like that have settled so lately we just watch tv or maybe play cards or something.  Well my grandparents are the type that it has to get way into the heat of the summer before they will turn on the AC and even then they keep it still pretty warm to the average person.  I wonder if I keep my house (set at 75 degrees)  too cold for them?  This is generally how they sit when at my house wrapped up in blankets or in sweaters.

My dogs love fighting over I mean chewing on bones.  A while back my grannie suggested I try them with carrots and see how that went over.  I once had the sliced carrot chips I was trying for a healthy snack and attempted to share with the dogs but they didn’t seem to know what to do with the carrots all they did was leave a shredded carrot mess in the floor.  But I had some long carrots so I thought we’d try the great carrot experiment again.  They again shredded them into the carpet at first but finally got the hang of how to eat them and seem to love them. 

    

This week was my uncles ex wife’s birthday.  She is the mother of the cousin I’m really close to and spend a lot of time with so despite that she is no longer legally my aunt we see each other a lot and I still call her Aunt. Also we happen to live in the same town now.  My cousin doesn’t live in this town but she wanted to order some flowers for her mom’s birthday.  Delivery costs are expensive so she asked if I’d be the delivery person.  I thought it was a pretty arrangement so just thought I’d share. 

Here is a project I’ve worked on this past week.

Moving and rearranging furniture in our guest bedroom uh my husbands game room.  I need to exercise more I know.  I just don’t like the temperatures to go out and walk the trail at the park that’s RIGHT across the street from us.  I also don’t like exercising in front of other people hence I don’t use the gym that’s RIGHT around the corner from us.  I love me some TV.  I’ve always said if I had a treadmill I’d set it up near the TV and walk and watch my shows.  I finally was given a treadmill recently so I’m trying it out.  Like I haven’t even told my grannie about it yet because I don’t want her constantly asking me if I’ve used it if it’s not going to work out for me.  But I’m proud to say I’ve used it Monday-Thursday of this week. As you can see the machine is set at an incline which makes it a harder workout.  Plus this girl is in terrible shape.  My daily goal is a very small amount and I actually walk a little then have to take a rest break to make sure I’m not going to die catch my breath then I go again til I’ve reach my goal.  If you noticed (I know my mom will) I said I only walked Monday - Thursday.  Friday I went grocery shopping for like an hour and a half so I’m sure I walked my daily goal.  Saturday Joel and I went and walked the entire mall so again probably made my daily goal so I didn’t want to push myself so I substituted those activities for treadmill walking.  Originally thought I’d take Sunday off to rest but I kinda feel the need to use it since I havn’t done the machine in 2 days I don’t want to break my routine. 

Well that about concludes my activities for the week other than the normal house cleaning chores.  So I will sign off and leave you with pictures of a few of my dogs silly sleeping habits.

      

Chip laying on the back of the couch but needing to be close to me so he curls his head into the side of my neck.  Not the most comfortable for me but hey he’s cute and sweet just wanting to lay close to his momma so I let it ride til I’m really hurting.

Bella being covered by a blanket was actually an accident but she didn’t’ seem to mind.  Looks pretty spoiled and pampered.

Let’s try this yet again…

Well here I am yet again trying to get back on the blogging thing and making excuses for why I stopped.  Really there isn’t a great excuse just get over it and appreciate that I’m back.  But if I did feel so inclined to excuse myself  then here it is…

A blog with all words is kinda boring.  The pictures are what brings it to life.  Even if only a picture or two.  So I dug out my camera that I havn’t used in years and started taking pictures.  This was not ideal because it’s an old camera not one of the newer sleeker small cameras and I’d tend to not have near by when there was a picture opportunity. Also I have to hook it up to the computer to transfer pictures.  Well I have recently gotten a tool for which I now often take pictures to send to my mom so I thought I don’t have that excuse for not blogging now.

Ok the afore mentioned “tool” for picture taking.  I am feeling really excited because I finally got an iphone.

                    

Now I’m pretty cheap and just can’t out right afford an iphone an all that comes with it. This has been a several month process of finding and gathering the needed parts at low prices.  My cousin and her husband upgraded to iphone 4’s a while back so we bought their 3’s from them.  After some investigation we have found for our needs and uses of a cell phone straightalk works best for us.  Joel immediately got his phone set up for service and he got an otter box because he’s kinda clumsy sometimes. 

                     

We have wifi at home so I just ran on wifi to use the phone to play games on and  such like that.  A few months later we both have fully functional cell phones (I did finally get service so I can take my phone around with me, which also gives me more chances to photograph things) and I also got an otter box.  For the longest time we just shared a charger but we also now have 2 house chargers and a car charger….Movin on up….

 

Alright that’s enough for my first day back.  I’ll probably only post once a week but you never know now that I have an easy, always with me way to photograph things. I might photograph and blog about what I eat and when I go shopping lol.  Give me some shout outs so I know your interested!

Now to show off my babies.  I usually have several picture of them to post. They are my world and I have lots and lots of pictures of them because not only are they so cute they are usually near by.