January 29, 2011



just got home from a high school basketball game. so many mixed feelings. it was at billingsley, so i had to go through the metal detector and have my purse searched more thoroughly than i thought it needed, but because there was no line to get in…she searched EVERYTHING. don’t really miss that. and i bought popcorn and a dr pepper for $4.50 which seems high, not movie theatre high, but higher than i ever charged at our basketball games. i do miss working the concession stand (sigh).


anyway, what brought me to the basketball game? this morning, husband scott showed me a newspaper article on coach carter dunbar who used to coach son jason in select basketball during the off season of high school. he, carter,  was still in college and he LOVED basketball. he is now coaching not a very good team - northside - which has had something like a 60+ losing streak and won only 2 games in district, due to forfeits before carter took over. 


carter is so good! i love watching a smart coach with plays. his team has won 10 games for far in the season. it’s no playoff year, but he took a team and taught them the fundamentals and conditioned and ran them and then taught them plays and it works. 


mark my words here, coach carter dunbar has a bright future in coaching basketball. i do not doubt that he will eventually coach a college team (tcu sure could use him now…heh heh…sorry tcu, you have had some bad luck recently in basketball). 


i took 2 very blurry photos of the game, but it is so dark and my little point and shoot can’t manage that, so here is a photo of the popcorn and dp - finished. $4.50…really?

January 26, 2011



finally…a goal to get me back on my diet. i might be able to wear these. yes, i know, i am seriously an old woman, hence the high waisted jeans. come feb 1st, it all starts again. as sister laura says february is the perfect month…exactly 4 weeks long.



so here’s to a great start of weightwatchers, gym going, walking and maybe yoga? then, i will try on those jeans.



just hope they don’t make my butt look square.

WHY CAN'T I POST LIKE OTHERS?!!!

I love the way Pioneer Woman can post as many photos in a row that she wants, but I can’t. I love the way Oh Joy and Mrs Lillian and a bizillian other posters can do little collages of cut outs to show their favorite outfits, ensembles, this and that, etc, but I can’t.



Is it because of tumblr? I doubt it. I think that it is because I don’t know how to do anything (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). It sucks to be such a non techie in any way.



I wanted to post 3 cleverly similar adverts that came out in February’s Vogue and how I wanted to do something like that for a spring/summer wardrobe. Prada’s colorful woven shoes and mixed color stripe-y dresses and skirts, CH Carolina Herrera’s colorful bags & totes and Bally of Switzerland’s color blocked outfits. I loved them all and I wanted to cut them out and show. But, nooooooooooooooooooooo I don’t know how to do that. 



Anyhoo, I think all that color saturation, mixed stripes, color blocked tops would look GREAT with khaki or beige pencil skirts and short pants (not shorts) but those cropped at the ankle really full legs cinched tightish around the waist. 



Plus it will look great with the cobalt blue Anthropologie purse that I keep putting in my shopping cart, then removing when I think about the Christmas credit card statements trickling in. Plus plus, I can’t show THAT on my blog EITHER! (humph!)



Michelle, I need you back here with me to help me out! Stop having your own life….just kidding….lurv ya! (heh heh)

January 20, 2011



this is how i feel right now. i have house guests coming next week and it is going to take at least 2 days to clean up the guest room aka the-throw-everything-in-until-you-have-time-to-put-it-away-room. i don’t feel like getting organized or neat, yet, if i don’t i will continue to feel (in by brain/body) like this room. there’s always tomorrow, right?


right now, i prefer to dream about home improvement projects (not cleaning projects).


i have a nice growing list of what i want to do and must present it to the husband in as enticing a package as possible. wish me luck!

January 18, 2011



i have just finished reading room by emma donoghue for the second time. it is so haunting. click through the photo (i think) and there is a video that is equally haunting.



i am book club discussion leader for this book this friday…i hope i do the book justice.



read it!!! it is really really really good. you won’t be able to put it down. i promise.

January 14, 2011



now that the wedding, thanksgiving, christmas and new year’s is over, i should be doing that nesting thing. you know, where one cleans out stuff, organizes and gets ready for the new year.


well, the only nesting i want to do is make a nest on the sofa with a warm blanket, cat and a good book…maybe even the tv on at the same time. then, at least, i will be multi-tasking (ha ha).

January 11, 2011



do i look slightly bloodshot in my eyeballs? i should. just completed my safety driving online course. i started at 4:00pm this afternoon and just finished. not only that, i started yesterday in the afternoon until 10:30pm. so what did i learn?



DON’T DO ANYTHING THAT WILL MAKE YOU GET A TICKET while driving. that is pretty much a ‘duh’ statement, but i need to be a better driver and get that cushion bubble around my car…don’t ask.

January 10, 2011



the last state park we spent the night was degray lake. the lodge was big and more hotel - like. not resort nice like mount magazine, but more like a holiday inn or lesser hotel room, but the view was nice.



in our cabin in petite jean was what my grandma jean would call a one butt kitchen. it was a cute kitchen and it made me smile while i was cooking there, but definitely, only one butt at a time fit.



this is a rustic cabin in petite jean. i loved how cozy and tiny it was. it would be really nice in the spring when one could spend the day outside on the back porch. this is the front end of it.



we visited mount magazine and at the visitor’s center, there was an armadillo madly digging around the front of the center. this is the closest i have ever been to a live one.



we drove in to fayetteville for dinner and i had the best hamburger at hog haus, a micro brewery/restaurant. my burger had a beer cheese sauce that they also serve as an appetizer. i highly recommend ordering the beer cheese dip. that is exactly what i am going to do next time i go. i will also be sure to pay for parking when i go, too ;)



fixed breakfast at devil’s den cabin. dru had set up as his last bite, a piece of toast, with a piece of fried egg and a piece of bacon on top. it looked so good…i had to do the same thing.



it was delicious!



new year’s day was spent in a 2 bedroom cabin in devil’s den…one of my favorite places we visited. it had a little bit of everything. but what made it so very special?


was it because daughter michelle and son-in-law dru stayed with us for two nights here?


was it because we all watched the tcu vs wisconsin rosebowl game together?


or was it because tcu won?


YES



right after christmas and before new year’s eve, husband scott and i packed up to drive to arkansas and stay at a few state parks. it has become a new ‘new year’s eve’ tradition. so far we had been to cooper lake and caddo lake in texas. this year, scott wanted to scout out some parks for a future project and so off to arkansas we went.


it is really pretty there. this is a photo of one of the lodges we stayed in lake fort smith. it was too large for the two of us. it can sleep up to 28 people. it was brand new and nice with 6 rooms, a fully furnished kitchen, a large gathering room (photo), outside was a porch, further out were 2 picnic tables with barbecue grills and a basketball court. so, it would be nice for a family gathering. i would highly recommend it and for $320 a night, it is so very reasonable.



a tradition started when we moved into this house, 15 years ago, was to decorate gingerbread cookies. daughter michelle and son jason always got to invite a friend or two to help out. this year it was me, jason, michelle AND HER NEW HUSBAND dru.



best part about christmas (other than of course the most important part of christmas which is spending time with family - which is so.much.fun.)? the best part of christmas is eating. i love making fudge (it HAS to be fantasy fudge from the back of the marshmallow cream jar), caramels (ok…i really don’t love making them…it get tedious, but still a small part of me likes it), sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies. so, what could better than a glass of eggnog (must be promise land eggnog), toasted stollen with butter by the fireplace, working on a puzzle.


mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm



here is a photo of one of my most very favorite ornament. while living overseas, we spent christmas in my sister’s home in germany and as everyone knows, germany has the best christmas ornaments. i wish i had so much more. the hand carved face is so very cute! this one really makes me smile when i put it on the tree.



so, after the major cleaning, up comes the christmas tree. i love the smell of a real tree! it makes the whole house smell fresh.


husband scott thinks that we have plenty of ornaments, but as far as i’m concerned there is no such thing as too many ornaments. ordinarily, i like a more clean and streamlined way of decorating. the more stuff one has, the more stuff one has to keep clean and dust free. but at christmas time, i do buy at least one ornament each year even though really i must put more than one ornament on a branch of the tree. because, i am always buying ornaments, i have an eclectic collection. the rule is that it has to make me smile. that’s all. there is no theme, no one color or style.


if you notice in the photo, there is a vacuum tube ornament brother john (& mary) gave me one year after heavily hinting how much i wanted one. one of john’s friends made some for him and, this is the part i like the most…you know…it made me smile, his friend picked out the vacuum tubes that looked the most christmas-y.


next to it is a jonathan adler turtle (please be my friend, mr joathan adler, please) and a hand painted egg from a trip to budapest, hungary.



after the wedding, which turned out to be perfect for daughter michelle. now i am a mother-in-law and my daughter has a different last name…so weird!


well, since it has been nearly a year since i cleaned up the house…with all the wedding preparations that needed to be done, i needed to clean up before christmas decorations could come out. (this is a silly post since i have already put up all the christmas decorations back up where they belong.)


anyhoo, i cleaned the house and got the magic eraser and it really does work.



here is the ‘before’ photo of my wall. there are tons of examples of this on all my walls. i love matte paint on the walls, but it is so hard to clean. and where do these marks come from?


i used the magic eraser on it and …



ta da! it’s gone. just like that. it doesn’t require lots of scrubbing and removing the paint to get the mark off the wall! it’s magic!



too bad magic eraser doesn’t work on oil paint stains on carpeting (sigh).



Christmas is over, New Year’s Eve and Day is over and where are the posts? What have I been doing?



I have been so very busy. I will tell you alllllllllll about it. In the meantime, enjoy my sad little Christmas tree waiting at the curb to be picked up and recycled :(