We're Having A Heat Wave!!

Oooohhhh, the weather was beautiful today!! This afternoon
I looked at the thermometer and it read 83 degrees.... is
summer finally here?? All we can do is hope!

I started mowing the lawn today and that smell!! There's
nothing like the smell of freshly mowed grass. As I was
mowing Barkley was following the lawn mower around
and barking up a storm. I finally stopped, disengaged
the blades and told him to come on up. The little guy
jumped up onto the mower with me, I pulled him up
on my lap and away we went. He stayed perched up on
my chest with his front paws on my shoulder, just
watching the world pass by. He really thought he was
going someplace. Wonder if he realized we were just
going around in circles?! If he did realize it, he didn't
seem to mind a bit... he was riding, that's all he
cared about.

I have been continuing my cleaning spree and am now
starting to wind it down inside the house. Things
are so shiny and clean looking. At 4 o'clock this
morning I was cleaning my back door. I couldn't
sleep and just happened to think of it, so I got out
of bed and spruced it up while it was on my mind.

This evening after taking my shower I finally
finished making Honey Wayne's shorts. They
turned out so cute. I know he'll just love them.
Here's a pic of the shorts.


Mike sounded awfully tired this evening when I
talked to him. I know he hasn't been sleeping
well since he left. He said the air is so thin in
the mountains that he's having a hard time
breathing and has had a bad headache.
Tonight he said he finally got rid of his headache,
it's about time though, tomorrow he will have
been up there for a week.

The house sure has been quiet with him gone
and no Grandmonsters for a few days. It's a
little eerie, almost too quiet, kwim? Oh well,
it won't last long, I think I'm getting a Grand-
monster this weekend for a night or two. It
definitely won't be quiet then.

Hubby's Back To Work

We got the call today for Hubby to go back to work.
It just came out of the blue as usual. He was
told to come to the office in Fenton, get a truck,
then drive to Colorado. He's supposed to be there
by tomorrow. It is 14 hours from the office to
his destination and 3 hours from our house to
the office. Absolutely no idea how long he'll
be gone.

So for a couple hours it was a madhouse around
here! I was trying to get Hubby's laundry done
while he was walking around the house
gathering up his stuff he wanted to take with
him, and getting it all packed up.

When I got the second load of jeans in the
dryer he decided he was starving to death, so
we called our daughter and went to the
restaurant for a quick meal. He wanted to
see our Grandmonsters before he left.
Jaylan came in carrying two pictures of the
kids. Told Papaw they were for him so he
could see the kids while he was gone.

It's always so sad to see him pulling out
of the driveway and know that it may be
months before I see him again. And this
time the place he'll be working is up in
the mountains and there's no cell service
there, so I won't be able to call him at
a moment's notice just to talk.

My life is about to change once more. When
he first leaves I clean like the dickens! I
will wash walls, windows, clean all kinds
of things that I don't normally do. Then
I sew and do crafts for hours and hours
once the house is spotless. When he's
gone the house stays clean because I hole
up in my bedroom most of the time. I
will miss him so badly for a while, then I
will get used to it again, it just takes a
while to adjust.

Bless his heart, he's had to leave and it's
the middle of turkey season. He didn't
even get a turkey yet. One year he got
called to work in the middle of deer season.
He had the camper in the woods and
everything. Had to bring it all home,
unpack, and leave in a hurry. But.....
when his job calls, he has to run!

Girls' Day

Today was "Girls' Day" at my house. Both my precious
Grand-daughters spent some time with me. Honey Wayne
had to go to the doctor for some of his shots and Cassie
needed me to watch the girls for her. Let's say it was
an eventful day. :)

Little Cookie was happy for a while.... then it started to
change.... quickly. The little thing cried and screamed
for about an hour the first time, nothing could console
her. She finally quit when I got her in the car. We
ran to the restaurant to eat and as soon as we got back
home she started again. It was so bad I even stripped
her down thinking maybe a bug had gotten in her
clothes and was biting or stinging her. Thank goodness
her Momma came after a while. Cassie called after
she'd been home for a little while and said the baby
had been just fine, no crying or anything. Hubby and I
both think she had a tummy ache. I had no gas drops
and none were to be found in the diaper bag either.

Our precious Jaylan got her new outfit today that I
finished up yesterday. I measured her for the elastic
and got that done and she immediately put the outfit
on to wear. She modeled and twirled around for me
to get some pics.





The girls hadn't been here maybe thirty minutes when
Jaylan asked if we could go to the restaurant for shrimp.
She absolutely loves shrimp!!! She asked if it was
steak and shrimp night at the restaurant and I told
her no, that was only on Saturday night. But when I
explained she could get shrimp any time, she was
ready to go. Bless her heart, she wanted nothing but
the shrimp and she ate almost a full order. Of
course she wore her new outfit. She left the pants
on for a while, then decided she needed to wear the
top as a dress.

Hubby went fishing today at the lake. The weather
was beautiful and he ended up taking his shirt off...
big mistake!! He is burned to a crisp!! I had to lather
him up with aloe vera gel this evening but I don't know
if he's going to be able to sleep very well. And tomorrow
he's going to be in pain, I'm just sure of it. But, he
did bring home some bass! MMMmmmmm.... we love
fresh bass fillets!!! Soooo, guess what we're having
for supper tomorrow evening?!

Has Spring Sprung??

Today started out with rain, then slowly but surely the sun came
peeking out, the temp. started to rise, and it was beautiful!
Who can watch the weather change, smell the blooming
flowers, and feel the sunshine on their face and question
the existence of God?? Maybe spring is finally here.... I have
my fingers crossed!

My first week of not working has been fabulous! I decided
that I would not vegitate, I would do something productive
each and every day before starting my sewing or crafting.
So far I've succeeded with the exception of today. I've
cleaned out behind my stove, refrigerator, washer, and
dryer. I cleaned out our 55 gallon fish tank (with Hubby's
help), washed a couple windows, washed 2 sets of
curtains, worked out in the yard, and started cleaning
on our storage shed.

The shed is a HUGE project. It is filled mostly with
my crafting supplies. It's a nice little shed, has running
water, nice big windows, and carpet on the floor. I even
painted it and put up border. My intentions were to
use it as a craft shop where I could work on my projects
without messing up my house. Well, that idea didn't
work out too well. I hated being away from the house
so it ended up being for storage mainly.

I've also got boxes of baby clothes that belongs to
my Grandmonsters that I just keep hanging on to. I've
got this grand illusion that my nephew will some day get
married and have a baby or two. So I keep saving all
these little clothes and stuff for him. But, I suppose
first he should find a woman that he actually likes, huh??

I also had (the key word is HAD) boxes of goodies that
I had taken out of my house. I had intended to have
a huge yard sale..... but it still hasn't happened. I just
got tired of looking at all those boxes stacked up and
told Hubby that I wasn't keeping the stuff any more....
it had to go.... today! So I started chucking it out the
door of the shed and he took it to the dump. The yard
sale stuff is no longer in the shed!

I finished up an outfit for Jaylan, with the exception
of the elastic in the Capri pants and the back of the
little halter. It is absolutely adorable! I looked at it for
a while then decided she needed a pair of hair scrunchies
to match, so I made them. Then I decided maybe she
would like to wear her hair down, so I made a
matching headband. Then I decided she needed a purse
to match., so I drafted a little pattern and made that too.
Now I'm debating whether or not to make a matching
wallet for her ensemble. I probably will before it's
over with. I'm waiting for Jaylan to come try the outfit
on so I can do the elastic. When that gets done I'll post
a pic of the outfit.

Sunday was Honey Wayne's birthday, he hit the
big number TWO. There was a party with food, a
Sponge Bob cake, ice cream, and lots of presents. I don't
wrap presents, to me it's a waste of time and money.
Anyway, we got him this big Bulldozer that makes all
kinds of sounds and moves around. So I brought it
inside and put it up against the wall among all the diaper
bags, thinking no one had seen me do this. We're all
sitting around talking and along comes Jaylan, jerks the
bulldozer up and yells, "Happy Birthday Honey Wayne!"
The little stink had watched me bring it inside and
decided he needed his present at that moment instead
of waiting until after we'd eaten. The bulldozer was
a hit! He really seemed to like it.

I finally got some pics put into Photobucket so I can
share some shots of all my Grandmonsters. As you
can tell, I'm the ever proud Mimi. When Jaylan was
born I said that I finally figured out why all those old
ladies had big purses... it's so they can carry pics of
their grandbabies around. Guess what.... my purse
gets bigger with each Grandmonster! :)

First we have Jaylan.



Next we have Honey Wayne.



Now for the newest family member, this is Kortney. Honey
Wayne can't say Kortney, he calls her Cookie. Now we're
all calling her Cookie. She's now 3 months old. These pics
were taken Saturday.

Crazy Woman

Today has been quite an adventurous chapter in my life. I've
quit my job, simply because I was mad. I was so furious I felt
that I had no alternative, if I stayed I think I would have hit a
co-worker. That is definately a no-no! Now that I'm home and
have had time to think about the situation, I think it'll be for
the best. I'll have time to sew more and can spend time with
my Grandmonsters again.


When I work I don't feel like wrestling my Grandmonsters all
the time and I catch myself being short tempered with them.
I don't want to be like this, I want them to enjoy spending
time with me. Well, now we can enjoy each other again.


Memorial Day is just around the corner. Everyone in my
area leaves town and goes to Current River camping for the
week. This year I'm planning on taking one or two of my
Grandmonsters with me. Jaylan is very excited about the
prospect of staying at the river in our new camper. It's not
brand new, but it's new to us. And of course, Jaylan thinks
Papaw bought the camper for her. I'd like to start getting
the camper loaded up so I won't have to do it all at the last
minute.


We've had a camper for years, but it was old and just
barely hanging together. I commented a couple years
ago that I expected to pull out of the driveway and leave
parts of it along the road on our route to the river. It was
absolutely falling apart. So we have to get the stuff out of
it and transfer everything to the new camper. Sheesh...
that's gonna be a job, I'm afraid.

Hair Scrunchie Tutorial

You will start with a strip of fabric 3 inches wide and about
20 inches long.

Turn under 3/8 inch on each long side of your strip and
steam press this in place, wrong sides together.



Bring your short ends together right sides together and pin,
making sure to unfold the fabric that has been pressed under.
You will sew a 1/2 inch seam here, making your fabric into
a complete circle. When you've sewn this seam, take your
fingers and "finger press" your creases in the fabric to make
them match up.






Get your elastic ponytail holder, now pull on it to make sure
that the elastic will withstand pressure. Sometimes the
elastic will come out of the metal clamp and all that is
holding the ponytail holder together is the casing of the
elastic. This will make the elastic inside your scrunchie
uneven and it won't be as stretchy as it should.



Now, find the seam of your fabric. Fold the fabric over,
wrong sides together around the ponytail holder,
matching the seam. Put a straight pin on each side of
the seam, holding the fabric even for you to start your
stitching.


Keep feeding the fabric through the presser foot while
matching the sides of the fabric up and sewing closely
to the edge of the fabric. You have to sew a short
distance at a time, then stop and match up your sides
again. You will continue to do this until sewing all the
way around your ponytail holder. You will have to keep
feeding the fabric around the ponytail holder, bunching
it up, to make room to sew.


When finally getting all around the fabric, make sure
to back stitch so your stitching won't come out.


There ya go! You just made a scrunchie!
These are so quick and easy to make. I have lots of different prints for
my Grandmonster to wear.

Another Sunday Evening....

Oh it's been a wild week!! We lost one of our janitors at work
so it's been very hectic for us. I went from working 3 hours
a day to working 8 hours. Plus we had a basketball tourney
on Friday night and I didn't get off work till midnight. I'm
still not completely rested up, but I'm just gonna have to
tough it out because it's back to the grind tomorrow. Yuck!!

This weekend has been spent playing catch up. I had to do
all the things I normally do during the week. The laundry
was absolutely horrendous! Hubby has had several call-
outs this week, working fires, medical calls, and a search
and rescue... this leads to tons of laundry!

We've had a lot of rain here this week, causing the creeks
to flood and missing a day of school. A young man in our
area (14 y/o) got into a flooded creek, lost his footing, and
drowned on Thursday. He was in the eighth grade at
school. Our fire department and first responders had to
be called out for a search. My heart goes out to his family.

After all the rain the first part of the week, low and behold
yesterday and today it's been cold and spitting snow! Isn't
that unreal?? Mother Nature needs to get herself together
and decide what season she wants it to be. Her little jokes
aren't very funny any more! :)

Today is my Sister's birthday, we'll not even discuss how
old she is, she probably wouldn't appreciate that. But I will
say this... she's four years younger than I am. Soooo....
Happy Birthday Goobies!!!

I heard a new phrase today that really cracked me up. A
man called a woman's ta-tas a couple of blouse bunnies! I
had never heard that term before and found it quite
humorous. I hope I can remember that one!

Hubby and I went out to play with the Grandmonsters on
Friday afternoon before I had to go to work. They were
as crazy as ever. We pulled up into the drive way and
the door blasted open and low and behold there on the
porch stood my two oldest Grandmonsters.... one naked
as a jaybird and the other in a pair of undies! Screaming
and yelling, all excited because Papaw and Mimi were
there. Poor little Jaylan clattered ninety to nothing the
whole time we were there, and Honey Wayne was in a
loving mood....part of the time. The rest of the time he
ran wild with his sister.

Sounds like the dryer just kicked off, better get my
shirts out before they wrinkle.

Have a great week!!

Back To Work Tomorrow....

Oh yuck!! The weekend is almost over! It's back to the grind
tomorrow for another exciting week of "This Is Your Life". lol

Jaylan went home this afternoon around 3 o'clock. About
2 o'clock she asked me to call her Nanny (other Grandma) and
when I asked why she told me, "I'm just getting tired of you."...
ok... thank you very much! :) Papaw had left for some fire
training and she was getting bored with Mimi's cleaning house
and doing laundry. I guess I'm not half as exciting as Papaw.

Where does all this laundry come from? There's two of us in
the house and I swear we have as much laundry as we did when
our daughter was at home! I think it multiplies in the hamper,
you know... you put in a pair of socks and by morning there's
at least 4 socks, no it'd have to be five because I always have
a stray sock when I'm finished! :)

I ended up working on some of the scrunchies I have cut out
after Jaylan went to sleep. I'm gonna guesstamate here and
say I finished twenty of them. I have a ton more to finish.

I was so aggrivated today when I started cooking some meat
for dinner. I had this package of really good looking pork
steaks laid out and when I took the wrapper off, they weren't
too great after all. In the package they looked like 3 nice thick
pork steaks, but when I pulled them out of the package, they're
actually 6 really thin pork steaks... and ended up being as tough
as shoe leather! Talk about misleading! We ended up chewing
on them a little bit, then eating ice cream for supper. :)

Did you notice I added music to my blog? I sure am learning

lots of new things lately... I love it!!

Saturday Night With Jaylan

Our Jaylan is here with us tonight. Honey Wayne and Cookie
are at Aunt LaDonna's house. Mike went to pick up Jaylan
and then we went out for Jaylan's favorite.... Steak and Shrimp
night at the restaurant.

I had several scrunchie ponytail holders cut out and ready to
sew, laying on the sewing table. Jaylan got some of my scraps
and we decided to sew them together. She liked sewing, but
really liked using the scissors to cut the thread.... and part of
the fabric with it. :) Here's a picture of her at the machine.


While we were sewing, we were watching The Simpsons movie.
Jaylan had seen it before and so had Mike. I thought it was a
little crazy, but they enjoyed it. *Carmen starts humming....
Spider Pig, Spider Pig...*

It's bedtime around here, Mike has already hit the sack. Jaylan
will sleep with me as usual. She's having a fit, wanting to type,
so here's a quick note from Jaylan.

44dfdgtyttxcggbfjsdkcghhjkjhj.hmjkmjhjfghjhhhhhhhhhhhhh
jjjjjhghghktg;gmshjhjdlfljlkfjkshbbbhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
uuuuuuuusudueer[hlkjhyyyjjjj

So from Jaylan and Mimi... good night, and we hope you
have a great weekend!!

Oh To Be Young Again....

Oh to be young again.... not a care in the world and ignorant to
the world's ignorance! You ever catch yourself having nothing
good to say about life?? I know it's crazy, but that's the
way I've been feeling today.

I love my job! But sometimes I catch myself being influenced
by co-worker's negative attitudes. I try to be happy and
upbeat, but it's hard when you're surrounded by unhappiness.
Hardly ever a kind word about the world or the people in it,
always negative vibes being released by them. And.... low
and behold I catch myself falling into their way of thinking.
Eeewwww!!! I do not want to be like that!!!

Hubby met me after work at the local restaurant, we weren't
really hungry so for supper he ended up eating chocolate ice
cream swimming in this vat of chocolate syrup and I drank a
huge cup of cappuccino. Such a nutritious dinner! :) Now with
that cappuccino in my system I'll probably be awake half the
night. But I just couldn't resist, the weather has cooled off,
it's raining outside and the fog is horrendous! So far though,
the nasty storms predicted for our area have missed us. And
it's supposed to be nice again by the weekend.

Another segment in the preschool saga... the teacher came to
visit with daughter and grandmonster today. They won't
allow the grandmonster to start kindergarten at 4 years old,
so she would be spending two years in preschool. Now we're
back to square one... does she go or doesn't she go??? That's
the million dollar question for us this week.

I've had my parents on my mind for about a week now,
missing them... wishing to hear their voices.... wishing to
feel their touch once more. I think it's the time of year that
does it to me, I always miss them in the springtime. I can
close my eyes and see my Momma planting her flowers or
smell her kitchen as she cooks dinner for her family. And
when I think of my Daddy I can see him sitting atop his
blue tractor out in the field or walking through the barn lot
with a bucket of feed for the cows. And to this very day,
I never smell freshly mowed hay that I don't think of Daddy.
It's strange the things that stand out most in our minds
from childhood, isn't it? I've often wondered what things
my daughter will remember about Hubby and I when
we're gone from this earth. I hope she remembers the
good things and not the rough spots in our lives.

I'm so thankful that God gave me the parents that I had.
It's a shame that not all children have the childhood that
I did. Kids today are so different than we were though.
In my day it was riding bikes, playing outside from
morning till night, and being well behaved or you'd get
a spanking. Nowdays it's all about the television, the
video games, and being basically disrespectful to other
people. And I can't help but wonder what in the world
is going on in those little minds. I just read a news
article about a third grade class that was plotting to
kill their teacher. Third grade! That's just scary!!

Ok... enuff of that! Let me see... what am I thankful
for today?? My family... I even think most of us
are pretty sane! :) But then again, my motto is that
you have to be somewhat insane to stay sane in
today's world! :)

Oh, I almost forgot! I sent my favorite Aunts an
email last night letting them know that I'd started
my own blog. So Aunt Ronda and Aunt Dee-Dee,
if you're reading this... Hello and Welcome to
my blog! Love youns! (Yes Aunt Dee-Dee, I know
that isn't proper grammar!). :)

Our Squirrel Population

This morning Hubby was watching the squirrels out the
window. He said there were so many he couldn't count
them all. He counted 12 and they were twittering around
so much he couldn't count any more. They love my bird
feeder and our endless supply of corn that we keep for
them! We keep 50 lbs. of corn in an automatic dog feeder
out in front of the house for them and some days all you
can see are a bunch of little fluffy tails poking out of the
swinging door! It looks so cute and our squirrels are
probably the fattest ones in the county. They're all just
rolly poly fat! And we think that maybe one of them has
a nest in the attic of the shed. She'll come out and eat a
little while then she runs back to the attic of the shed.
She has a little hole that she uses for an entrance up
under the eaves of the shed.

And another thing about our squirrels, most of them
have at least one white ear! The first one like this
that we noticed had both ears that were white. Next
thing you knew we had smaller squirrels that had
white ears, and some had 1 white ear. We've
watched these little white eared squirrels for about
5 years now. They just keep multiplying! They're
very unique looking.

The sun's been shining, the air has been
warm, and I made it through another day at work. But they're
predicting rain and storms for tonight and tomorrow. I'm a bit
concerned that everything that flooded a week ago will flood
again due to the fact that it hasn't had a chance to dry out really
good and there's just no where for the water to go since it can't
soak into the ground. The ground is so full that it's squishy in
places now.

I got to visit with my daughter for a little while today, she
came to work to see me. My oldest Grandmonster has an
appointment with the preschool teacher tomorrow. The
teacher contacted my daughter and asked if she could come
out and meet Jaylan. Jaylan is getting the reputation of a
smart little girl and they're wanting my daughter to put her
in preschool next school year. Our main concern is that she'd
have to be in preschool for 2 years because she'd be too young
to move on to kindergarten after just 1 year in preschool. We're
afraid that she'd be really bored the second year and won't
progress as well.

Hubby and I cheated again and ate out. lol We had a big
pizza tonight, Meat Lovers with extra cheese. MMmmmmm,
Yummy!! It's hard to beat pizza.

I have this huge bag of hair scrunchies that I've made from
mostly scraps left over from other sewing projects. I really
don't have anything invested in them, just the cost of the
elastic band inside the scrunchies. So I took them to school
with me this evening and let the volleyball girls go through
the bag and each of them got some. Those girls had a
blast! They had scrunchies scattered all around the bag on
the gym floor. Today was their last day of practice, they
start the tournament tomorrow evening. I know all the
girls because I have to clean the gym and locker room after
they finish their practice, so I run in to them all the time.
They're a good bunch of kids.

I sold five of the little burp cloths today. Had a gal come
pick them up about noon. So, I'm getting ready to make
some more. I have 2 already pinned together and ready
to sew. I think tonight I'll try to finish pinning the ones
I have left and then in the morning I'll sew them all up.
Wish me luck!!

PaPaw Babysits

We had two of our Grandmonsters today for a while, the two girls. Son-in-law is sick and
needed to go to the doctor so they needed someone to keep the kids. We knew that Hubby couldn't keep all three kids while I went to work, so he opted for the oldest and the youngest.
I changed the baby's diaper before leaving for work and Hubby made it just fine. Our little Grandson was quite upset because he couldn't stay also, he had to go with Mom and Dad.

Jaylan informed someone that she would be at Mimi and Papaw's on Saturday... so it looks
like we'll have company this weekend.

Here's a pic of Jaylan and Barkley relaxing on Mimi's bed.

A friend of ours gave me some new cloth diapers she had laying around her house. So that means I get to make some more of the burp cloths. I love making those little things. They're so cute and easy to make.

Hubby met me after work and we went out for dinner. Our local restaurant is just a little hub of the latest and greatest gossip in town. I always enjoy going to see what everyone's up to. We were so indecisive about what to have for dinner that it took us a while to order. I ended up eating a grilled chicken salad.... it was just what the doctor ordered! lol For some reason it tasted better than normal. And of course I had a couple glasses of good ole iced tea. I'm a tea-aholic, I drink the stuff constantly.

Tonight I made some Blonde Brownies, another old tried and true recipe. Momma used to make them for us when I was a kid and I make them on occasion also. Here's the recipe if you'd like to try them for yourself.

Blonde Brownies
2/3 cup margarine, softened
2 cups brown sugar; packed
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup nuts; optional
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat softened butter, sugar, and eggs. Add flour, baking soda,
salt, and vanilla. Add nuts if desired. Spread in a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Sprinkle chocolate
chips on top of mixture. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until middle is set. Cover the pan with
aluminum foil after taking them from the oven, this keeps them soft.