Once upon a time, all I bought were wood picture frames.  Being the photo freak that I am, I have many of them.  When we repainted awhile back I pulled all the frames off the wall and put them away, intending to buy new ones.  I decided that instead of buying new ones, I would just prime and paint them black so that’s what my week has consisted of.  I’m doing spray paint so it goes very quickly and looks nice.  Slowly but surely I am getting my pictures back out on the walls and loving the way it’s coming together.  I’m all into these black frames…..they look so nice!

My hubby has always complained about the frames not having the little sawtooth hangers on them because they are very prone to falling off the wall if say, something like a door slams.  I have three teen-age daughters so just trust me on this.  When I was picking up more primer, he also picked up a package of the sawtooth hangers.  Now listen up because I am going to give you a few tips on how to put those little suckers on with minimal cussing and finger smashing.

First you have to find the center of the frame.  Now, I own two tape measures and they are both very easy to get to as they are in the “junk drawer” in the kitchen.  I use them all the time.  However, if you are trying to figure out what half of 7 and 3/16 is with a chorus of “Happy Birthday” or “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star filling your ears, here’s a little no brainer, screw up proof method.  I grabbed a strip of paper and cut it the same width of the frame, then I folded it in half, laid it on edge of the frame and marked the middle of the frame with the crease in the paper.  No thinking, no figuring, just line up the crease and mark your line.

Now you have to hammer in these little, bitty short nails into the frame.  Smash your thumb and forefinger about one time and you’ll figure out you need a new plan.  Holding the nails with tweezers is not much of a solution so here’s what I did.  I marked where the holes needed to be with a pencil, took a regular size nail and started the holes with that.  All tht was left was pressing the small nails into the guide hole and hammering them in.  No trying to hold it, no pain and no cuss words.  It was a good day :-) 

Here’s some pictures of the string quilt.

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I had lots of fun with this and my daughter is enjoying it.

Here is the first baby quilt I made last year.  I wish the colors showed up more true to life because it’s just so darn cheerful!  LOL!

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Here’s another baby quilt I did that I just never bonded with but I set out a goal to finish it and finish it I did.

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I suck at blogging lately.  I just can’t seem to come up with anything to blog about so hence my absence.  The girls are busy wrapping up the end of the school year and that’s about all that’s going on here.  The weather is beautiful so I’m out with the kidlets more frequently so there’s lots of time taken up with putting on and taking off socks and shoes, etc.  Little Miss is totally potty trained now so that’s big news!  She was so easy!  Little Mister is not quite ready yet but we are working towards that slowly. 

Want to hear something weird?  I have discovered that some of my pictures are missing from Windows Vista.  Poof, they are just gone.  I am the only one that messes around with the Photo Gallery so I know someone didn’t accidentally delete them.  Thank goodness I have uploaded all of them to Photobucket so I was able to go and retrieve the two folders that were missing but now I’m extra paranoid about it.  So very strange.

I finished my string quilt and now I am working on a crazy quilt to use up all these little bits of fabric I have left over.  On a whim I bought a Moda charm pack but now I’m stumped as to what to do with it.  There are 50 five inch squares and then I bought four fat quarters of coordingating fabric but need a pattern to use it on.  I hate it when I don’t have a plan! 

I had fun with “Life Numbers” so now we’ll play “Life Colors” :-)  I’m all about beating a dead horse apparently lol.

red-the color of my very first vehicle, a Ford Ranger

yellow-yellow and white gingham to be exact.  Toward the end of my pregnancy with my oldest daughter I began having the strangest, most vivid dreams.  I had purchased a really cute yellow and white gingham outfit complete with bloomers and a bonnet which I could hardly wait to dress my baby in, providing it was a girl of course.  One night I dreamed that a huge raccoon was wearing this outfit and was apparently my pet.  I am not making this up, I swear!  After Haley was born I did dress her in this adorable outfit exactly one time because every time I looked at her sweet little face, all I could picture was that nasty raccoon!

orange-the current color of my kitchen walls and also one of my girls’ bedroom

green-my high school colors.   Also the color of all my football t-shirts that have become a staple in my wardrobe these days.

brown-a lovely cocoa shade is how I would describe my sofa.  Also referred to as Napster because if you sit on it, you immediately want to take a nap.

blue-the color of my mini van.  Of course I drive a mini van

peach-because good Baptists don’t dance, we had church banquets so we wouldn’t feel cheated out of the prom experience.  I wore a peach dress to my first one and it was borrowed from one of my best friends.  Her Mom also bought me a coursage to match which I thought was really sweet.

turquoise-when I was about six my mother sewed me the most awesome little pantsuit out of turquoise corduroy with the cutest buttons on it.  It was the 70’s and every self respecting 6 year old had a pant suit, thank you very much!

black-the color of my cell phone, computer tower, monitor and all my TVs

silver-the color of my camera and my wedding ring is white gold, also all of my earrings are silver.  I don’t do gold jewelry anymore.

purple-my oldest daughter’s favorite color, along with black.  Also the previous color of my bathroom until we painted it last week.

pink-I have three daughters so pink was THE color for about 5 years straight in our lives.  That and purple of course.  I still get the warm fuzzies when I see cute little baby blankets in pink.  It makes me want to go back to when the girls were little and so cute and cuddly. 

white-all my appliances are white cause I’m classic like that

My daughter has been in drill team for the past two years.  Every year you have to try out again for a spot on the line and if you want to be an officer, you have an additional try out plus lots of interviews, etc.  There are only 5 officer spots so as you can imagine, they are coveted.  Haley tried out this year and made Lieutenant!!!!  We are so proud of her, not for making it, but having the courage to try out at all.  It’s a very nerve racking and rigorous process and thankfully it paid off for her.  There were 17 girls trying out for 5 spots so there were some very disappointed girls Saturday evening.  I can only imagine how devastated Haley would be if she didn’t make it but we talked about it and she said if she didn’t make it, she would be disappointed but would still continue on with the team and be the strongest team member she could be and would support whoever was picked.  I thought that was a very mature attitude to have :-) 

After a full day of tryouts and interviews, and by full I mean she was there by 7:30 and didn’t get done until almost 6:00, they had the ceremony to announce the officers.  The “old” officers decorate their poles and are handed are told by the Director who gets it.  It just so happened that Haley’s best friend got to hand her pole to Haley.  All the candidates line up and the old officer walks up and down the line giving hints as to who they are giving it to…..”this girl has long hair”, “this girl is short”, “this girl has a pretty smile”, etc.  One of the last hints for Haley was “this girl has long eyelashes and I get on to her all the time because she doesn’t curl them”  LOL.  Haley knew it was her by that one!  They hugged and cried for the longest time, it was just so cute.  I was so proud and happy for her.  I know, this is probably really boring for you guys reading this but I just had to share my happiness. 

I was really surprised when Haley tried out for drill team two years ago because one, she’s not the typical drill team type girl and two, she’s never  had any dance experience.   I have to say that this has turned out to be such a positive (albeit expensive) experience for her.  I think it’s kept her on the right track and helped keep her out of trouble because she doesn’t want to do anything that would jeapordize her standing with the team or the Director.  I’m so happy that she’s found something that means so much to her and gives her so much joy.

68-the year I was born

13-the number of years I went to school

2-the number of times I’ve been married

3-the number of kid I have

17-the age of my oldest daughter

16-the age of my twin daughters

19-my age when I got married the first time……way too young

23-my age when my oldest daughter was born

61-my height in inches

39-my age now

9-my age when my parents divorced

4-the number of years I lived with my Dad after they divorced

97-my Grandmother’s age

87-the year I graduated high school

12-the number of years I’ve had a daycare in my home

I borrowed this from Kelly’s blog.

A - ADVOCATE FOR:   Doing what makes you happy.

B - BEST FEATURE:  My husband says my rear but I’ll go with my eye color. 

C - COULD DO WITHOUT:  Sports on TV…yawn.

D - DREAMS & DESIRES:  To be the best wife and Mother I can be. 

E - ESSENTIAL ITEMS: My blue jeans and tennis shoes.

F - FAVORITE PAST TIME: Reading, quilting or watching Tv…..they are all equally enjoyable to me.

G - GOOD AT: relating to small children

H - HAVE NEVER TRIED:  Skydiving, scuba diving or drugs.  I’m obviously boring lol.

I - IF I HAD A MILLION DOLLARS:  Invest, pay off my bills and take the family on some nice trips.

J - JUNKIE FOR:  Diet Coke

K - KINDRED SPIRIT: My friend Stephanie

L - LITTLE KNOWN FACT:  I waitressed for exactly two 4 hour shifts and quit.  I was not cut out for that job at all.

M - MEMORABLE MOMENT: Finding out I was having twins.

N - NEVER AGAIN WILL I: say never again…ha!

O - OCCASIONAL INDULGENCE: Choxie Truffles…..mmmmm

Q - QUOTE: Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be….Abraham Lincoln

R - REASON TO SMILE: When I see all 3 of my daughters spending time together and enjoying each other’s company.  They’re teen agers so it doesn’t happen a lot but when it does, it makes me very happy.

S - SORRY ABOUT: the times that I speak before I think. 

T - TAG SOME FRIENDS: Anyone that wants to do it.

U - UNINTERESTED IN: sports 

V - VERY SCARED OF: something terrible happening to those I love or dying and leaving my kids without their Mom.

W - WORST HABIT:  I have poor eating habits.  I just ate a cinammon roll for my dinner! 

X - X MARKS MY IDEAL VACATION SPOT:  I’m all about Disney World :-)   

Y - YUMMIEST DESSERT:  I have to pick one??? 

Z - ZODIAC SIGN: Libra

First I want to say that I’m just about lost with the new WordPress look.  It has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m blogging about, I just wanted to share that with you.

Hubby and I have been kicking around the idea of putting a tile floor in my bathroom.  We even had it picked out, all we will have to do is find out how much we need and purchase it.  We wanted to wait until we knew for sure there wouldn’t be a strike at his job and thankfully there wasn’t so here is how our conversation went on Sunday morning about 10:00am.

Me:  I want to put a call in to our tile guy this week and see how much he’s going to charge us to lay the floor in there.

Hub:  Yeah, we can do that but you know I’m not happy with the texture on the walls in there, so if we’re going to do a new floor, we may as well redo the texture.

Me:  Well, if we are going to redo the texture, we may as well go ahead and change the paint color.  I’m tired of the purple so I’m thinking grey or tan.

Hub:  If we change the wall color, we are going to have to change the trim color in there too.  It’s not going to match unless we do.

Me:  You’re right, Honey.  I was thinking the same thing.

Hub:  I’m not happy with the crown moulding either, so I’ll just take that down since we were going to repaint it anyway.

By 10:30am, he’s got the crown taken down and I’m working on getting the border off.  I’ve stripped lots of wallpaper in my day but this border was really hard to remove.  Even though it was prepasted, we used extra glue because it was in the bathroom.  I will never do that again!  LOL!  This really wasn’t what we had planned on doing this day but it all worked out.  He’s primed and painted the walls, cut new moulding installed it and got that painted too.  We (as in he) need to paint the rest of the trim, the cabinet and put in the floor.

Want to hear the kicker?  We’re not sure we are going to use the tile we’ve picked out so now we have to start over choosing a new one!  LOLOL!  All of this began because we had a specific one picked out and we were just going to do a new floor.  That is so us!

One of my favorite things to do is thrift store or flea market shopping because I love, love, love a good deal.  Here’s what $13.00 got me today

-about 1/2 yard of kid themed fabric

-a whisk

-a Discovery Toys  Place and Trace game that looks brand new

-an “Equals and Opposites” game that also looks brand new

-a Leap Pad AND 5 books with their cartridges (I paid all of $4 for all this so it was my best deal of the day)

-6 hardcover children’s books

-1 softcover storybook with worksheets to go along with the story

Can someone explain to me how you can type in “my husband spanks me” into your search bar and be directed to my site??  LOLOLOL!!!!!  No offense to people with that lifestyle but that’s not how we roll in this house.