Another year closer to 40

It's official: I'm closer to 40 than I am 30. *sigh*

I turned 36 on December 4. The night before, a group of my girlfriends and I went to one friend's house and hung out like we usually do. They surprised me with a great spread of food and a wonderful fruit tart cake. I love those girls! We had a great time sitting around, laughing, taking the stress off.

The celebrations continue though! Usually I'm alone on my birthday because hubs is playing a gig. And it gets depressing year after year. This year, my friends have gone above and beyond, and I'm so appreciative!

On the night of my birthday, a few friends and I went up to Winstar Casino (just across the Texas/Oklahoma state line) to see a favorite band. I'm not into casinos in general...they just aren't my thing. But that's where the band was playing, so that's where we headed. I did bring a few bucks to play the slots. Once I lost $3, I was done. Like I said, it's just not my thing.





The band was great though! That same night, Miranda Lambert was also playing at the casino. I love her, but my friends don't, so we didn't get to see her. But while we were hanging out, I saw Miranda and Aden (Miranda's bass player, he's the one with the mohawk) walk over to our area. They were talking with fans, taking pictures, etc. My hubs knows Aden since they were both in the same music program in college, so I went over and asked him to take a picture with me. I said "you and my hubs know each other!" haha





This weekend is the birthday celebration finale, and I'm so excited! A big group of friends and I are going to the Fort Worth Stockyards to one of my favorite places to see a band and dance. It's a true Texas honky tonk dance hall. I'm a true Texas girl, I love to two-step!

I'm so blessed to have such good friends!

Decking the halls

Here's a quickie with some pix of just a few of my trees. While I did put up all 10 of my trees, my heart just wasn't in it, so I didn't put much else out. I'm just not feeling it this year. :( Which makes me sad, because I'm all about Christmas decorating. Maybe next year I'll really go all out. Because I took these pictures at night, they aren't coming out very well. Hey, I never claimed to be a photographer. :)

I just did the bare minimum for the mantel. Mine and my hub's stockings fell down, so it's just the dogs' stockings left.



This is my tree that I decorate only with vintage glass ornaments. I love it. I usually put this on the fireplace hearth, but this year decided to stick it in an old sap bucket that I found at a flea market years ago.





My cardinal tree, which is my very favorite. I use all cardinal ornaments, vintage chandelier crystals, clear glass icicles and red berry garland. It looks so much prettier in person than it does in pix.





The "drum tree" for the hubs. He thinks it looks too "blingy" with the crystal garland I added to it this year. :)



Of course I have a dog tree...doesn't everybody? :) It was looking skimpy this year, so I dug through my ribbon drawer and found this blue glittery mesh stuff that seemed fun, so I wound it around and was done. It actually does make it look better in person.





Our main tree is a hodgepodge of ornaments: those from our childhood, some that were given to us, others that we have collected while on vacations, etc. Earlier this year, I was at a fleatique store and saw this rusty metal "believe" sign. I had nowhere to put it, so I stuck it up at the top of the tree. And I kind of like it there. I also wound some red berry garland around it, and I like that too. I have a ton of that stuff.





This is the white bird tree I have in our bedroom. It's one of those skinny alpine trees that has pine cones on it. I use white birds, white poinsettias, white berries and clear glass icicles.





My dining room looks like a forest.



I found this at a garage sale a month or so ago for $2. It's a heavy ceramic serving plate, with an even heavier metal stand. I figured it was worth the $2 just for the stand, but I do love the plate.



When I was in Austin for Thanksgiving, I found this little wicker sleigh at a thrift store and thought it would be cute to use as a holder for our Christmas cards.



I have a few more trees and a little bit more holiday decor out, but it's not really blog worthy.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another day with a long to-do list

And I haven't gotten much done.

Why?



It snowed today. Hubs woke me up and told me to look outside, and this is what I saw. We got a little bit more than this, but not by much. And so when we have weather like this, I just want to curl up on the couch in a quilt and watch tv. So that's what I did.

Yesterday, I was busy picking tomatoes from my garden. On December 1st! Can you believe I still have veggies growing? I think I picked about 30+ tomatoes, a couple of bell peppers and 2 poblanos.



So in the meantime, I'm trying to climb Mt. Laundry and catch up on some other household odds and ends. I still haven't put up my Christmas trees, and honestly, I'm not feeling too guilty about it. Hubs keeps asking when I'll be getting to it (yes, he likes to see them but no, he doesn't want to help). My goal is to finish the holiday decor this weekend. We'll see.

For my anniversary, I got a pair of beautiful Lucchese boots! I saw these in a store on the square last year for a whopping $400+. While that isn't much for a pair of good cowboy boots, it's way more than this frugal girl likes to spend. The other day I happened to think about it, so I checked eBay, and they had one pair of them. And miracle of all miracles, they were in my size! I stalked the listing and won them! They were dirt cheap and had only been worn a couple of times. Obviously, that doesn't bother me at all.



{LOVE}

They make my heart go pitter-patter. I love the red/robin's egg blue color combo.

Not to be outdone, hubs got a pair at an antique store for dirt cheap. After some investigating, it turns out they are some pretty fancy schmancy vintage boots.



So all is good.

:)

13

Thirteen years.


1996






2009



Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

New addition to my collection

I'm not much of a collector, but one thing I have always loved is vintage glass Christmas ornaments. I have one Christmas tree entirely dedicated to them.



This last week, I found a box of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments like I've never seen before. They are children's ornaments and have sweet little characters on them, such as lions, giraffes, bears, etc.



Though they aren't in the best of shape (a lot of the mica is flaking off), I love them nonetheless. And they were a good price at $8/box of 12. That's less than $1 each. Can't beat that.







Do you have a favorite ornament collection?

hodgepodge

Hello internets! Things have been crazy around here lately. Still no luck with the job search. It's been exactly one year since I was laid off. I'm trying to have patience and know that God has a plan, but I'm really starting to wonder what the heck it is and why it's taking so long. :( I'm beginning to get a bit worried here.

Last week my hubs and I went to Indiana (him: business, me: visit family). We stopped in St. Louis along the way and visited with my inlaws. Hubs was able to catch up with some friends from high school. It was a nice visit! But I'm glad to be home. Driving through 5 states in one day, from 8am to midnight is just not my thing.



Isn't my grandma so cute? I stayed with her while hubs was down in Indy for his convention. She lives in a small town of about 2,000-3,000 people, and I swear I'm related to every single one of them somehow. Every time I am there, I meet people I'm related to that I've never met before.

My grandma now lives one block off the courthouse square in town. I had forgotten my hair dryer (yipes!), so it was nice to be able to walk two blocks and get to a CVS. My hubs took off for Indy with my make-up bag in the truck, so I was stuck there with no make-up for the duration (yipes). Not a good look for me. ;)

If you know me, you know I love thrifting. So while there, I walked the one block up from my grandma's house to the square to a little thrift store run by a local church. I didn't think I'd find anything good since it's such a small town out in the middle of the corn fields, but believe it or not, I did find a few scores!

I found two 4-serving snack sets (each has four plates and four cups). One was a pattern I already have. This one came in the original box! And the best part was that it was priced at $3!!!





I also found this snack set. I don't have this pattern yet. It was only $2!





{LOVE!!}

My grandma has always made quilts, and I used to love wrapping up in them when I was a kid. I have a couple of them (one she made for me when I was in school, the other she made for us for a wedding present). While visiting, I told her I'd like another one, so she let me pick one out. They aren't fancy by any means, but they are made with love, and she does all of the stitching by hand. She had a few with interesting patterns, but I chose a simple patchwork quilt. It reminds me of her, because when I was a kid, those are the ones we'd use. She uses any scraps of fabric she has, and I think that's really cool.





While we went to Indy, we took the two old dogs and my inlaws kept the two younger ones. I guess they were spoiled rotten, because when we drove back through St. Louis to pick them up, they didn't seem as excited to see us as we were to see them.





It was a nice trip, but I'm glad to be home, in my own bed. I'm not glad that I have about 8 loads of laundry to do, but I guess that comes with the territory. ;)

It was a dark and stormy night...

You Have Been BOO'd!

The air is cool, the season is fall,

Soon Halloween will come to all.

Ghosts and goblins, spooks galore...

Tricky witches at your door.



The spooks are after things to do,

In fact, a spook brought this "BOO" to you.


The excitement comes when friends like you,

Copy this note and make it two.


We'll all have smiles on our faces,

When we see who Boo'd who's places.

I was Boo'd by Candy, the Junk Sophisticate


The following 4 ladies have been officially BOO'd...

Sunny at All Things Sunny Love Sunny's positive attitude even during difficult times..you are an inspiration!

Kendra at Domestic Princess in Training Another frugal girl like myself, Kendra is a thrifter like myself, always on the lookout for a good deal.

Carrie at Carrie's Little World Such a sweet girl with lots of cute ideas

Leah at Just Me, Leah My dear friend who I love very much!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This BOO party was started by Toni@The Tattered Cottage. Please keep the fun going by following these instructions.


1. You have 24 hours to work your spell

2. Copy and post the Halloween Boo Poem with the instructions for playing.

3. Pick 4 blogs you enjoying visiting and tell why you enjoy visiting them, with a link to
their blog and remember to link back to me.

4. Go to the original BOO Party post at the Tattered Cottage and add your MckLinky.

5. Let's see how fast and far this spreads between now and Halloween.


Happy Halloween!

Mirror, mirror on the wall (before and after)

A few weeks ago I shared this mirror I found at a garage sale for $5.



What I like about it is that it's an antique...meaning it's heavy duty with a real wood backing. This sucker probably weights at least 20 lbs.

However, I don't really need another plain old mirror. I wanted to jazz it up a bit.

I started with this F that I printed out from my computer. F being the first letter of my last name, though I guess it can stand for anything really, like friend, fabulous, freak... Then I cut it out with an X-acto knife.



I used a combination of redline and painter's tape to make frames around the monogram. I would have liked to have done something a little fancier, but I wanted this to be as quick and painless as possible, so straight lines it was.



After a few coats of Valspar Frosting spray, this is what I got.



Who knew it would be so difficult taking a picture of a mirror? The middle square is slightly tilted. Which really irritates me because I measured and measured again before spraying. Eh...I'm still fairly pleased with how it came out.

But since it's so heavy, hubs had to hang it with some sort of special toggle bolt. And he said he's not moving this thing EVER. So I guess it's here to stay. ha!

A quick little "crappy to happy" project

I went to Ross the other day. I usually stay away from that place because the one here in town is sort of...well, gross. But sometimes I can find little treasures hidden on the back of a shelf somewhere, needing a new home.

On the clearance shelf, I found this little sign.



Because it had been roughed up somewhere along the way and had a little chunk missing from the top, I got it for $2.99.



And while I'm sure some of you would just take a brown marker to fill in the broken area, I'm far too ambitious for that. (ha!) Besides, while this bronze color is nice, it didn't really do anything for me. So I gave it a quick coat of white paint.



And added some raw umber glaze I had from previous art projects.



I like how it turned out, but...I don't know. It still doesn't feel right. It almost seems too "girly" for my tastes. Any suggestions?

Cissy and Sammi say hi!