birthday fun...

yesterday started the weekend celebration of my birthday. my birthday isn't until tuesday, but gustav looks like he is going to take over that day...so why not start celebrating early!
let's be honest though...i probably would have started celebrating early even if gustav wasn't coming.

yesterday morning i went to beagle bagel to have breakfast with cannada. she's living in dc now, so i soak up all the time i get to have with her! we had a great breakfast, but the highlight of the morning was when these little babies came in with their moms. there was a red-headed toddler that was so precious. she was carrying a pink carebear with her. cannada commented that she used to have the exact same one. we continued talking and all of a sudden i felt something furry on my arm. the little girl walked over to me and handed me her carebear! i would have picked her up, but i didn't want the mom to freak out. that pretty much made my morning...in addition to hanging out with cannada! (the pic below is from one of my slumber birthday parties...notice the sleeping bag cannada is in!)

after that i headed to my dad's. we visited for a little while and then he decided he wanted to get out in the world for lunch. we drove to sonic so he didn't have to get out of the car. my dad is the greatest griller in the world. i think the majority of my friends would agree. when i take care of my dad i become his personal chef, so i've had to learn how to grill. there is no way i'll ever be as good as him, but i've been having fun. for my birthday he decided i needed my own grill. they delivered my grill yesterday, so we went to my house to test it out. it has a cool rotisserie thing, so i cooked my first whole chicken on the grill! i saved the chicken for lunch today b/c i had a whole evening planned with my sister. i have a feeling my supper club is going to be really excited about this new addition to my house.

back when i was in high school my sister would come back home and hang out with me for the day. my dad used to let me skip school to hang out with her. we would do all sorts of girly things...like get our hair done, shop, nails, movies...just whatever. we started calling these "designated sissy days." after she had her sweet babies we had to change it to "sissy nights." we had a fun sissy night last night. we went to dinner at p.f. chang's, hung out at my mom's, went to see a movie and she spent the night at my house. we had so much fun!! i have the greatest sissy in the world!!

there is a new facebook trend right now. you can get a picture and yearbook yourself. we decided to do our whole family. here are the results:

here is my mom rockin the 80's...


thom looks like he might need a hot oil treatment...


his wife, katy is stylin...

my sister in the 80's. i think she looks like ms. hand from FPDS...

her husband, michael. such a cute couple...



it sort of freaks me out how well this one worked. this is clint after he joined new kids


his wife, brooke, lookin good in the 60's...



and me. haha...

has anyone ever written their garbage man a letter of apology?

...because i wanted to today.
i recently cleaned out my pantry. i had cans in there from college that have since expired by a couple of years. i opened a couple to see if they were ok past the date, and just to let you know...the expiration date is there for a reason.
i feel sorry for my garbage men.
but...
thanks to them i now have a clean pantry that i'm excited about.
...it's the little things in life.

an update on my draft...i did finish it. i'm pretty sure i'm the only person who went to watch the hills after the draft was over.

as far as my painting... i am working on pieces for the three shows coming up. i've finished one oil, and have about 5 more almost done. my mom has been coming over during the days to paint with me. she is doing some awesome pastels of the babies. it's fun having someone to talk to while i paint. i'll try to get some pictures of them when they are done.

and finally an update on the tomatoes... well, i regret to inform y'all that a very, very large green thing attacked them. it looked like a catepillar from a cartoon. i tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. it sort of scared me, so i haven't been back out there to check on them.

there's a reason they don't let girls play football...

it's about an hour from my draft. what in the world am i doing having a fantasy football team??
i've asked myself that same question for the past week.
my old boss invites me to have a bracket in march every year. the past two years i've actually done it and done relatively well...for a girl.
this year he said i was ready to join their fantasy football league. i thought...well, i like football better than basketball...why not?
ummm....TOTALLY different.
i pretty much equate it to a 90 year old trying to figure out facebook.

i've been trying to read up on all the rankings and projections, but pretty much stop in amazement that guys just know all this stuff off the top of their head. did you know that there is a guy out there that you can pay $699 to have on the phone with you while you pick your players during your draft. seriously?? maybe i can get really good at all this and take that job.

don't get me wrong...i love football. i've always checked up on all the scores, but don't have the place in my brain where all those other numbers can fit in. i pretty much stop at who won the game, but guys know the rushing/passing/receiving stats easily. i'm pretty sure any guy could ramble off ladainian tomlinson's rushing yards in a heartbeat. i'm doing well knowing which team he plays for and that he's a running back. i think the part of my brain that would hold all this information is occupied with useless song lyrics, and i'm sort of ok with that.

i have some favorite teams, but i'm such a girl about it. i can't make up my mind which one is my favorite.
i love the bears. not really sure why. i love chicago and have always wanted to go to wrigley. i guess i just thought if i went to wrigley i should go to soldier field too.
i also love the saints. they're the closest jackson has to a hometown team. and i would love to see them win a superbowl.
i also love the vikings...b/c thom loves them. every year. even when they aren't so good...he is faithful. once he broke a phone b/c clint and my dad kept calling him mocking the vikings. he doesn't like people making fun of them.
i like the giants. i went to school with eli, so i think it's sort of required. and if you like them you have to root for the colts every now and then.
the falcons, green bay and redskins are a little bit lower, but i still like them.
i took some art classes at ole miss with belton johnson. he played at ole miss then the bengals, but now he plays for the cfl...the canadian football league. i try to keep up with him as well. he plays for the saskatchewan roughriders...let's be honest...that's just fun to say. maybe they will be my favorite team.
even if one of my favorites is on i still feel sorry when they show the losing team. they just look so sad.
i'm pretty sure that any guy would freak out if they read this post and my brothers would probably disown me, but again i think i'm ok with it.

i'll let y'all know how all this goes. i'm predicting that i will not do well, but hey...at least i'll finish. maybe.
i'm off to my draft...

some cute & funny things from texas

- annabel has an imaginary baby that she keeps in the palm of her hand. she feeds the baby and puts diapers on her. she gets upset when sister friend sits on the baby.
- i'm a sucker for my nieces and got them some orange tic-tacs when we were waiting in the check-out line at target. i figured they would be better than real candy. everytime we got in the car annabel would hold out her hand for an orange tic-tac. she and cailin love them!
- we went to la hacienda de los barrios. the home of the puffy taco that was on bobby flay's throwdown. i guess that's not really cute or funny, but i love bobby flay.
- mamaw told annabel and cailin a story about a rabbit, so now annabel has an imaginary bunny rabbit in the other hand.
- cailin is smarter than i am.

the cutest girls in texas

i'm back from texas. my mom and i got in late last night after a very long drive through the horrible rain. our trip was so much fun! the girls have gotten so big! we helped thom and katy pick out some curtains for their new house. the house looks awesome!!
here are some pictures from the trip. they are so precious! annabel loves her sister and calls her "sister friend"... i wanted to put them in my bags and bring them back to mississippi! cailin is doing cheerleading, loves drawing and doesn't start school til sept. 2nd!

what if i want to mess with texas?

laura helen found a shirt a while back that had that phrase on it. i think it's awesome.
tomorrow i am heading to mess with texas. or at least my brother.
my mom and i are driving over in the morning and staying til next monday i think.
no worries...i'll make sure to take lots of pictures of the cute girls!!

projects...

all of my friends and family will back me up on this. i love projects...especially when they save money. my roommates in college would often come home to find me doing some sort of project. somtimes they worked out and sometimes they didn't. one time mitchell came home and i had taken off all of our doorknobs and kitchen knobs. they were hideous, so i decided to spray paint them silver. it lasted for about a year until some of the paint would rub off when you went to open anything. when we moved i had to go replace all of them.

i couldn't afford to get a new bed when i graduated college and i knew my mom was about to move...meaning i could get my childhood bed. i needed something to make-do til then, so i made a headboard out of pier one placemats. it ended up costing me $14 and to this day it is my favorite bed.
another time i needed a kitchen table, but i didn't like any of the ones i found...and i didn't want to pay for the ones i did like. i went to big lots and got a farmhouse table. you know the one. light brown top and white legs. the shape is what i needed, but my house is pretty colorful and not so much farmhouse.
so...i painted it red.
there it is in the back.

in my guest room i used old quilts and sort of put them together, but needed something to tie it all together.
so, i went to the fabric store and got some fabric that worked. i framed it in three separate frames and hung them over the bed.

in the room where i'm supposed to be painting...
i wanted it to look nice, but also be functional for me to paint in. when my dad had a bbq restaurant at the beach he had these long tables made. they are HUGE, but they were free! since it didn't have any drawers or shelves i sort of had to make do. they sell galvanized steel shelves at walmart for about $12, but they aren't really sturdy. i drilled them to the wall. probably not the smartest idea, but it works for me. the shelf at the end of the table is a shoe rack from when i was younger.

the other side of the room was bare, so i got an outdoor rug. they are a lot cheaper and i actually like them better because they are thinner. the chairs are from pier one...hey..they were on sale. i have more pictures to hang on that wall, but i just haven't gotten around to doing it.

here is my latest project...
i'm not really sure if it is going to work, but so far so good. i have an old dry erase board from when i worked at the church. the whole erase part doesn't work so well anymore. i can write on it all i want, but it takes a magic eraser to get it off. i was flipping through an old pottery barn and saw a red board. i didn't know if it was chalk or a bulletin board. they don't sell it anymore and if they did i'm sure it was not what i would want to spend. i knew that they sold chalkboard paint and thought it would be cool if i had a fun colored chalkboard. i wondered what a yellow one would look like, but didn't know if you could see the chalk. at lowes they only have the black paint, so i was going to mix the paint myself...i have a recipe for chalkboard paint...just in case anyone is interested. my sister told me to check home depot. they sell tintable chalkboard paint for just a few dollars more than it would take to mix it. it's a whole lot easier to buy it that way than make it. they couldn't mix it yellow, so i chose red. on the right is the dry erase board i started with.
i primed the board white and started painting. it has to dry four days before i can use it as a chalkboard. i'm impatient and had to try out a small part and it worked great. the dry erase board was magnetic, so the magnets still stick to it. i might have to put another coat of paint on and definitely trim up the edges, but here she is in all her beauty...