Dreamin' of sunflowers...

I picked up this strand of silk sunflowers at Goodwill the other night and I draped them around the window in our mudroom.  I love how they look there!

I'm hoping to get some real sunflowers planted next weekend but in the meantime, these will do.

Peaches to the Beaches!

Our second road trip down Highway 341 for the annual Peaches to the Beaches yard sale was a lot of fun, it was HOT and it was exhausting!  I started Friday with two of my friends from work and the three of us got as far as McRae.

Here we are starting the day in Perry.

Debbie, Christie and I drove and stopped and shopped all day long and got home around 8:00 Friday night.

Here are my treasures from the first day!  I picked up one Pyrex piece, a lid to a Verde divided casserole (now I just have to find the dish to go with it!) and I got my very first Fenton piece!  A beautiful red, orange and yellow compote.  I added Josef Originals Number Nine Birthday Girl to my collection, too, and for only a dollar!  And we all got a laugh out of the 1960's aluminum lobster jello mold I found at an antique store.  I picked up some old campaign buttons and military patches for Larry and some earrings for me.  We girls laughed all day long and just had the best time!  It was truly a great day!  Complete with some Huddle House lunch and a sunburn for me.  Yay!  :)

Saturday, Larry and I got up early and we went on our own PTTB adventure.  We had planned to pick up where Debbie, Christie and I left off but we started in Perry, too, and worked our way east, ending up in Hazlehurst.  A little farther than we got last year!  I made sure I had on lots of sunblock and my floppy beach hat most of the day. 

Here are a few pictures from our day!

 Our Peaches to the Beaches t-shirts

 Smokin' some pig!

 On the road!  We could not have asked for a more gorgeous weekend!

Here's what we found Saturday!  Larry found that Barbed Wire Pyrex divided dish and got it for me and I picked up another Fenton piece (although I thought at the time the lady was pulling my leg about it being Fenton.  It has NO markings.  I researched it when I got home and discovered it's a piece from the 1940's, before they started putting the Fenton mark on the bottom.  It had a sticker instead, which is long gone.  It's a nut/candy dish and I am most happy with it!) along with some Depression glass pieces and a few other treasures.  And I love my "All I need is sweet tea and Jesus" t-shirt!

Two of my favorite finds!  A 1970's tea kettle and a vintage German ballerina music box clock from the 50's. 

We had a Huddle House lunch, too, and while we were waiting for our food and listened to some tunes on the jukebox, Larry took this picture of me with the lapel pin he had gotten for me earlier, hoping that one day I'd be able to truthfully wear it.  I thought it was funny and he didn't realize why until I told him that Saturday was my fourth anniversary at the base.  This pin was a pretty cool, if not a little bit bizarre, find!

Peaches to the Beaches 2016 is in the books.  It was bigger, it was hotter, it was more fun and more crowded than any other year before.  SO MUCH STUFF.  I can't wait to see what next year's is like!  I'm pretty sure that I'm only gonna see it just one day, though.  'Cause zzzzzz....  AND we lost an hour this weekend.  Did I mention zzzzzz....?

Two. More. Days.

And this awful month will be over!  Let's see, we started out on the first with a double root canal (same tooth, though) for me, then Larry and I both caught a bad cold with sore throats, stopped-up heads, hacking coughs, then Aunt Flo decided to pay me a visit after not showing her face around here since October and she just brought all her crap and moved in, leaving candy wrappers and cigarette butts all over my house.  Stayed for three weeks.  I finally got her to leave, got to feeling better and came down with another cold/sinus thing that I'm still fighting.  It might even be connected to the tooth infection, I don't know.  I woke up Thursday with a fever and a pus pocket on the left side of my throat.  Ugh.

Tuesday afternoon, we lost our sweet Uncle  J. C., after a prolonged multitude of illnesses.  He fought the good fight and was still joking and making us laugh through all of his pain and suffering.  Well, he got his crown Tuesday and I bet it's a beauty.  While the family gathered at the house, his grandson found a prayer journal that Uncle J. C. been keeping for years, prayers and conversations he'd had with our Lord.  Nobody knew a thing about it but Uncle J. C. and God.  What a blessing it was to find that journal and to know beyond any doubt that he is in Heaven with his beloved mama and our beloved Savior and all of his loved ones who have gone on before him.  They had one of his prayers, a very pertinent one for the day, framed and displayed at the funeral home.  I thought I'd share it here.

We'll see you again, Uncle J. C.  But until then, we're gonna miss your goofy laugh, your jokes, your handsome face.  We'll miss you.

Uncle J. C. is the third uncle I've lost in a year.  Uncle Jack, Uncle Jiggs and now Uncle J. C.  While I'm strong in my faith and my belief and I know I will see them again, it still hurts.  I told Larry yesterday that with each sad phone call I get, I feel a piece of me disappearing.  Poof!  Another little bit of me gone.  These three uncles were such a big part of my raising, my growing-up years, and it's heartbreaking to see them go.  It's heartbreaking to only have memories and photographs of days gone by when I used to have big, strong men who helped make me who I am today.  Each one had an unique part and role to play in my life and I would not be the woman I am today had I not had those sweet men teasing me, molding me, raising me.  I love them all and will miss them every single day until we are all together again.

Tuesday night, I slipped down in the kitchen and hyperextended my right knee.  It swelled up and bruised immediately but Larry put ice on it right away and today, it's still bruised, still sore, but I think I'll live.  Maybe.  Tabbie Hoffman likes to wash his feet in Banjo's water bowl after he poops and I was taking the water bowl to the sink to wash it for the eleventy-fifth time and some water sloshed out, my foot hit it and down I went, knee-first into that hard, unforgiving, evil ceramic tile.  It happened so fast, I just turned to the sink and in an instant, I was on my butt with the worst charley horse of my life in my right calf and a goose egg popping up on my knee.  Larry thought I was playing with Banjo like I always do in the kitchen (we dance and play and have a good old time in there) so it was a good 30 seconds before he even responded.  As soon as I started crying, though, he was up and at my side, helping me up and getting ice on my knee.  He threatened to carpet the kitchen but we did something better.  We bought an area rug yesterday and put it down. Tabbie immediately found a sunbeam.  :)

This month wasn't ALL bad, though.  We did celebrate our 17th anniversary and Larry's birthday was Wednesday.  I made him one of his favorite cakes that his mama used to make.  Angel food with fluffy pineapple frosting and it turned out sooooo good!

Wednesday night, for Larry's birthday, we went down to Perry to Red Lobster and had supper.  Larry wanted a lobster for his birthday and that's what he got!

I got the crab-stuffed mushrooms and the lobster mac and cheese and the lobster mac was so delicious and creamy and cheesy with some kind of little yummy bread crumby thing on top.  It went perfectly with their Cheddar Bay biscuits (which I could eat a plate of by myself with a pitcher of sweet tea, thank you very much).

Two more days.  Tomorrow is Sunday and I'm hoping to have a quiet, low-key day but Monday, we have to go to court to kick our tenant out of the condo.  NOT looking forward to that one.

But then Tuesday, February will be over!  And it'll be March!  March is good, right??  March is Peaches To The Beaches!  March is St. Patty's Day!  March is Easter!  I'm counting on you, March.  You better behave.

Seventeen

We celebrate wedding anniversary number seventeen today!  This weekend is actually identical to our wedding weekend, too, our anniversary (or wedding day) on Saturday, Valentine's Day on Sunday.  We haven't had many anniversaries like that.  I slept in this morning while Larry finished up on a job he was doing.  He had gotten us a beautiful anniversary cake yesterday from Wilson's Bakery and had it waiting for me on the counter when I got home.  He had them write Then, Still, Always Will on top.  That's what we say.  I loved you then, I love you still, I always will.  The Then part is a lot longer than seventeen years, though.  We've actually been together since 1988 -- 28 years come May.  We waited a very long time to have this sweet, blessed life.

We spent the day together starting with a delicious steak lunch at Longhorn, complete with a complimentary anniversary dessert, and then we went to Target and did a little shopping until our movie was about to start.  We saw "The Boy" and we really enjoyed it!  It has a wicked little twist at the end that I absolutely love in a movie.  And we adore Lauren Cohan anyway.  Our Maggie from "The Walking Dead".  Great movie!  Afterwards, we went to LifeWay and treated ourselves to some goodies there, too.  We got this beautiful plaque to hang on our bedroom wall and I thought it was so perfect to get for our anniversary.

Ever since our first anniversary, Larry has given me the traditional gift that coincides with that anniversary, for example the third anniversary gift is leather and he gave me a leather wallet that year.  Well, this year it's furniture.  I got a deep freezer last week.  Larry's favorite TV show is "The Big Bang Theory" and I got him the Big Bang Lego set, complete with plastic Lego replicas of the furniture in Leonard and Sheldon's living room.  Pretty clever, huh? 

We exchanged Valentines today, too.  Candy, cards, a balloon, some Pioneer Woman kitchen utensils.  Just LOOK at this enormous box of candy he got me!!

 
So, there's 17.  Can't wait to see what 18 brings us! 

A bad start to a new month

February has not been kind to us so far.  I know we're only a week in, but if she don't get her stuff together, I'm moving on to March without her.

The last weekend of January, I was having some pain in my upper gum.  It started that Friday afternoon and I just shrugged it off as maybe I flossed my teeth too hard after lunch, cut my gum and it was sore.  No biggie.  I've done that before.  Lots of times.  I took some Motrin and went on about my business.

Saturday, we had Ami's birthday party and the best part about that day was the surprise visit of my dear lifelong friend, Lisa, and her little girl, Bella.  I took this selfie of us sitting at Mama and Daddy's dining room table.  I didn't even know she was back from Texas and I was SO happy to see her.  Lisa and I have been best friends since she and her family moved to our neighborhood when we were teenagers, some 30+ years ago.  Sometimes years go by without us seeing each other but when we do, it's just like old times.  I love that girl.

I got to see my great-babies that day, too, and Baby David has grown so much since Christmas!  Ami took this picture of me getting all his sugars.  They were so sweet and I got every last one.

Beanie and Katie are both growing like little weeds in the way that small children do.  I am so blessed to be Aunt Ninner all over again.

Sunday, I went with Larry to help him finish up on a rental property he was working on and while he was repairing a cracked ceiling in the foyer closet, plaster particles got in his eye.  We flushed his eye and used drops and I dug around but never could get it to feeling better.  Sunday night, I was in so much pain with my gum that I texted my dentist around 7:00 and told her I thought a tooth was "blowing out" on me.  That's what I call 'em when they abscess.  :)  And since I've had four to blow out on me, I know how that feels.  She called me in an antibiotic and some pain medicine and I called her office the next morning and got in about 9:00.  Poor Larry, with a plaster shard still in his eye, got up and went to work and I called and made him an appointment to see an eye doctor.  He was having the shard removed the same time I was having a root canal and neither of us could be there for the other.  He was fine after his doctor's visit, I still had problems.  The infection in my tooth was so bad (and it only showed up FRIDAY!  This was MONDAY!), that all she could do Monday was drain it and pack it and send me home with a script for Lortab.  That was the worst pain of my life.  It was a front tooth and I felt pain all the way up in my eyeball.  No joke.  I went back Wednesday and she closed it but only after giving me a second antibiotic to take.  Today, it feels fine, with maybe a twinge here and there just to remind me that tooth infections are of the devil.  This was a bad one and I'm down to three antibiotic pills left.  One for tonight and then two tomorrow and I'm done.  So, yeah, Mama and Ami, I'm finishing them!  I've been known to like, you know, stop taking medicine when I get to feeling better.

Larry's eye got better and then he came down with a bad cold.  My tooth is getting better and I woke up yesterday with his cold.  Last night was a long, miserable night of not being able to breathe.  Yay.  I'm reading the Bible this year, following a 365-day plan on the YouVersion app on my phone.  This month, I've been reading the book of Job.  Now I don't think anything is accidental and I believe God has a plan for everything.  It's no coincidence that I'm reading Job's story during a week when I've struggled.  Thank you, Lord, for your grace and for your mercy and for telling me just what I need to hear just when I need to hear it!

So we're off to a bad start.  But!  Our 17th anniversary is next weekend and for the 17th, you're supposed to buy furniture.  Since we don't need any actual furniture, we got a new chest freezer, which is almost like furniture.  I have wanted one forever and just never got one.  Now we can stock up on things when we find them on sale.  And I'll have room for all them peaches come summer!

So that's February so far for us.  These first six days have been a doozy! 

What we've been up to!

Another month is nearly gone!  We decided to take the month of January off, as in NO plans for the weekends, to just rest and do some projects around the house.  The holidays were so crazy and we were so rushed to go here and get that so we decided to have a peaceful, easy January and we have.  It's been so nice!

We'll kick off February with Ami's birthday and then start hitting estate sales again!  I'm so excited.  It's been a while since we went to a good one and I think my body's in detox!  I'm also looking forward to the Peaches to the Beaches yard sale in March, too, and maybe another trip down to Florida before summer.  Yay!!  Beach!!!

The Great Blizzard of 2016 proved to be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it dusting of snow around here.  Literally.  If your eyes were closed at 4:30 Saturday morning, you missed it.  I was up, excited to see something, so I let Banjo out around 4:45 to find everything outside covered in a fine snow dust.  That was enough for me!  I woke Larry up to come see!  This was our little patio table.  :)

It was all gone by 7:00.  The blizzard was pretty bad further north.  14 deaths were reported and some states got three to four feet of snow.  No, please and thank you.  The Good Lord knew exactly where to plant my feet!  I'll take my little powder-dusted table any time.

One of my January projects was to clean out my closet and dresser drawers.  I got rid of everything I had not worn since we bought this house and I was amazed at the things I still had!  I boxed up some 100 items and we took them to the Heart of Georgia hospice thrift store in Byron.  We like to go there not only because we find rare vintage treasures sometimes but because they do so much for the terminally ill and their families.  And it's all non-profit and volunteer.  They survive solely on donations.  We took a truck load of stuff up there and brought a few things back.  :)

Some of the things we brought back were scarves, hats and gloves that we donated to Chase The Chill here in Central Georgia.  We saw a story about them on Channel 13 about them leaving scarves and hats tied to trees in Washington Park for the homeless in Macon and we wanted to be a part of that.  We bought every scarf, hat and pair of gloves the store had and when I told the cashier what we were going to do with all those things, she had tears in her eyes and let us have them all for 29 cents a piece!  We met someone from the local chapter the other night and gave her a bag full.  We are going to be on the lookout for things like that at yard sales and estate sales from now on.  You can get scarves and hats virtually for free at estate sales.  No reason we can't try to make someone's winter night a little warmer.

We got this little plant stand at the thrift store that day, too.  It was a sad sight but I saw potential!  I saw a place for it on our front porch!  I think we paid $4 for it.  Larry painted it for me and gave it back to me today, as an early Valentine's present.

Here's the poor little thing before.

And here it is today!  All ready for a pretty pink pot.  :)  I love it.

 

I put together a Valentine's tea cart.  I don't have a lot of Valentine love stuff (crazy, I know, since we got married on February 13th!) and I hope to add to my tea cart collection this year.  Of course, I had to decorate with some Pyrex!  March 1st, the Easter cart goes up!  

I just love these vintage Valentine party napkins I picked up at an estate sale last year.  And my Beatles All You Need Is Love tablecloth that Brandy made for me years ago.  :)

My 1958 Holt Howard Cozy Kitty salt and pepper shakers are perfect for a love theme.  That little flea bite on his nose is adorable to me.  I thought about fixing it but it's just so dang cute!

I graduated from my Georgia Tech OSHA program last week.  They gave us a really nice ceremony in the ballroom of the Horizon Event Center at the base.  We had three guest speakers and we were presented with these beautiful certificates mounted in pretty wood and glass frames.  They also gave us a really nice Georgia Tech laptop bag and lapel pin.  

I'm back in my office in F-15s now after having been in the Commander's Action Group VPP office for four months.  It's kinda like starting all over again each time I come back "home" but we're getting there.  I'm going to start teaching some of this OSHA knowledge to my folks in the coming months.  We're undergoing a complete restructure in our squadron since Rewire is now finished.  I've had mixed feelings about that.  On the one hand, I remember how miserable I was when I worked there but on the other hand, I'm grateful for the things I learned (about the plane and about ME) and for the people I met and worked with "down the hill".  We had a lot of fun in spite of all of our challenges.  So I am a little sad about Rewire standing down.  It just seems weird that there will be no more F-15 rewire work done at Robins. The end of an era, so to speak.  Most all of the people are still with us, though, nobody lost their job over it, but there won't be any more running 27 MILES OF WIRE through that plane, clamping them down, stripping and then splicing them together to make that fabulous girl fly.  We'll be just fixing her now, fine-tuning her and adding technology to make her better.  I thank God every day for the opportunity He gave me when He sent me to Robins Air Force Base and for the doors He opens for me at every turn.  I can't wait to see what He's got in store for me next.  I know it's going to be awesome.

A Rockin' Repurpose!

Larry's been cleaning and organizing the garage and painting and repairing shelving units to keep us more organized out there.

We've picked up hundreds of albums at estate sales and yard sales and a lot of the records are ruined. Scratched beyond our ever being able to listen to. That's sad but the covers are just too cool to not use somehow. So Larry has been wallpapering the garage wall with some of those covers and I think it looks awesome!  

I just love this old photo of Sonny and Cher!

Uriah Heep, Alabama and Joan Baez. Sigh. Isn't she so beautiful in this picture??

We have an idea for the scratched records, too. Peace signs like our Beatles' Abbey Road album that hangs in our living room.

We love to hunt for treasures, things no one wants anymore, and to give those things a new home, a new purpose.  I am really, really bad about giving inanimate objects feelings. I've always done that. From covering my dolls up at night (and I still cover up Hattie!) so they wouldn't get cold to not wanting to throw a towel away because it would hurt its feelings. I probably need to see about getting some help. Anyway, those albums brought somebody a lot of happiness once upon a time and now they're getting another chance to be loved and enjoyed and not stuck on a shelf until it's time for our estate sale.  :)