Wednesday, September 29, 2010

It's good to be a granddaughter

Being a granddaughter is one of the greatest things to be.
I was very lucky to have and know both sets of my grandparents and one set of great-grandparents. 
As I've mentioned before, I grew up next door to Mawmaw & Pawpaw and Big Mawmaw & Big Pawpaw.
My other set of grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa, live about 20 minutes away from God's country. We won't hold that against them.

By the way, I love that different grandparents have different names! I think it's so interesting to find out what everyone called their grandparents.

So every Sunday after church we all (by 'we all' I mean about 20 people on average) would go to Grandma and Grandpa's for Sunday dinner. Every single Sunday Grandma cooks a meal to feed the multitudes. (And by 'meal' I mean feast) I asked her one time how she knew how much food to cook because some Sundays it can be unpredictable on how many might show up. She said "The Lord takes care of that".

Grandma and Grandpa had 8 children.


4 of those children live near-by.

 They have 19 grandchildren (give or take a couple, I may have miscounted).

These are just a few.

I'm not even going to attempt to count the Great-Grandchildren or Great-Great-Grandchildren.

  Any given Sunday there's any where between 13 and 25 people at Grandma and Grandpa's.
Everyone gathers in the house before dinner and Grandpa prays. (Sometimes it can be considered preaching) He gives thanks for the blessings God has given him and reminds us of God's love.
Then he begins the line through the kitchen, followed by the men, then the children, then the women, then Grandma. She will not fix her plate until everyone has gone through the line, unless it is her birthday or their anniversary. Even then she has to be forced to take her place at the front of the line.
That tradition has been carried on from many generations before me.
I have been told that my Great-Grandmother on that side of the family would put back some of the good pieces of fried chicken for the women. There's alot to be learned from some of these great women.

After everyone gets their full, the kids go outside and play and everyone else sits around and visits. Many times the last person doesn't leave until close to 4:00. 

It may be good that not the entire family is able to be there all at once because I think if all Grandma's children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great great grandchildren were in her house at the same time, her heart would surely burst. (not to mention the toll it would put on the house and we would probably need a permit)

Grandma has been the janitor at the elementary school since I was in elementary school. She decided last year that she would retire sometime this year. That wonderful woman has over 380 un-used sick days. Who does that? She decided a few weeks ago, it was time for her to quit work and stay home. You may be thinking, well, sure, at her age, she has to be tired. Nope. She came to the conclusion that her house was not being taken care of to her standard. I believe she has been working harder the past few weeks now that she's retired than she did when she was working.
She has Pawpaw working harder too.
They have demolished, rebuilt, and painted the porch, painted doors, painted outside, and scrubbed everything.

Grandma and Grandpa have been married for 55 years.  They have lived through many things. 2 houses burned. 2 houses rebuilt. A few deaths. Many births. Disappointments. Joyous occasions. Yet through it all they have trusted in God, loved each other, and been a fortress for their family.



I love them.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Sunday Shopping

Sunday after church we took a trip to Ikea.


We were looking for this
You can find it here

It is small and unfinished but solid pine except the back and bottoms of the drawers. We had been looking for matching night stands for a long time that wouldn't cost over $400 for the pair. These puppies are ... are you ready for it?

***$29.99***

I want to paint them, well, white. What other color do you paint something like this? I also want to add new hardware. I just found out about Hobby Lobby's knobs. I hear Hob Lob has great knobs. And every 3rd or 4th week they are half off!
Thanks Mandie!

This is what Ikea did with the display


There was some sort of beeswax varnish next to it, so I'm assuming that's what they used.

So there's no way you can go to Ikea without looking around. Mostly because of the way they designed the store, you have to walk through just about everything to get to what you want to look at and then continue through the rest of the store to the warehouse portion. We didn't mind much.

And we found these


They have adhesive strips on the back and you just peal and stick.
I think we are going to use them as our bathroom mirror in The Little House because finding a stud (with exclusion of Mr. Z himself, heh heh) is virtually impossible.

You can browse for hours in this place














And I think I have designed our kitchen

This back-splash...


With this sink...


Or maybe this sink...


And this sprayer...


And these countertops...

With these cabinets and stove..

(Minus the mid-area rolls...hey, a girl can dream, right?)

With this pantry (add an antique door)...


Great, right?

So after this long dream shopping excursion we were starving! So the only thing left to do was go here and work on our mid-area rolls.



Sunday, September 26, 2010

Wild Saturday Night in the City

So Saturday night was a date night.
We had tickets to see Citizen Cope at the Verizon Wireless center.

Our last experience at the Verizon Wireless center was to see Ray LaMontagne. That night went less than smoothly. It was about 2 years ago. We found the location of the building, but not the parking. We ended up parking approximately 78 miles away. After the long trek, we get to the door to discover that no cameras were allowed. We were not about to go all the way back to China to the car. They told us the Hard Rock Cafe next door would hold it for us. Toward the end of the concert, I started getting nervous that the Hard Rock was going to close before we got out. So, Mr. Z went over to get it. After a while, I started to get worried. So I went to see what was taking him so long. He got the camera, but they wouldn't let him back in the concert. Even though he had his ticket, they said that they couldn't let anyone in after a certain time. He missed the one song he really wanted to hear. Then we had to huff it back to China.

So this time, we knew what to expect. We didn't even try to bring the camera. We also researched the parking situation.  There is an underground parking garage right across the road.
It was scary. The ceiling is so low and Mr. Z started having a mild anxiety attack and difficulty breathing from slight claustrophobia. After parking we had to climb our way up the stairs out into society. By this point we had no idea where we would come up.  We felt like underground dwellers emerging into civilization.

We gathered our bearings and went right in.  It was pretty close to showtime and we didn't exactly have seats.  General admission was standing only.  We thought we would have to either push our way to get close to the front or hang out in the back. We turned the corner, and both said "Oh." The place was virtually empty. I think we were both relieved. We don't really care for crowds. Actually we loathe crowds.

Anyway, soon the lights got low and the crowd started getting antsy. I don't really know much about Citizen Cope. I have a copy of the CDs Mr. Z has. But neither one of have seen many pictures of him. So when musicians came out on the stage, we weren't exactly sure if this was an opening band or the one we bought tickets for. If took us well into the second song to determine it was indeed not Citizen Cope. We didn't recognize the songs and there were some instruments on stage that were not being used. Our deductive reasoning skills are killer. It was a pretty good opener. Gary Clark Jr from Austin.

In the mean time the place started to fill up and people started closing in around us. Ugh. One guy, Simon, who we spoke to several times tried to sell us Mega Death tickets for the next night. Umm... we don't exactly .. uh..look like we would be interested in a Mega Death concert. We told him as much. He agreed, but didn't want to 'discriminate against any possible interested parties'.


The show was really great and Mr. Z got to hear the song he really wanted to. It was the the very last one.

And Citizen Cope looks like this.


Now, if you ever go to his concert, you'll know if it's him or the opener.



Friday, September 24, 2010

Our Bedroom



This week over at Kelly's Korner Blog she is featuring master bedrooms.
(For us, that's the only bedroom)




Step right up! Come see the amazing shrinking bedroom! You won't believe your eyes!

Ok, maybe it's not actually shrinking, but a 648 square foot 1 bedroom apartment can be tight.
We have gotten really good at hiding and stuffing stuff.

The quilt was a gift from Aunt N for our wedding. It has a zebra print trim!! I just love her!

This is where I get ready every day.

I was going to spare you a peak in the closet...but what kind of blogger would I be if did that?
You have been warned.


And I DO have skeleton in my closet...

(If it's your first time stopping by...I'm not a freak...well, not because of this. I'm in school to be a chiropractor.)



AHHH!!! I can't believe I'm putting this up! My Momma is gonna disown me!


OK, back to the rest of the bedroom.

Most of my school books...



And I will just leave you with this. Our scary corner.


Most of it stays hidden behind the door.
Most of it are boxes for packing and stuff we can go ahead and take home on our next trip. The rest is just stuff that really doesn't have a place. When any highfalutin people come over, we show them the room from the doorway, so they never see behind the door.


Linking up to:

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

My Trashy Dog

Ever since he was a pup, Beaux has been a big advocate for not littering.
Or maybe he is pro-littering.

(And that's trash, not dog procreating.)

When he was about this big, he LOVED trash!


Every time we took this teeny weeny out to pee, he would find the smallest scrap of paper, cigarette butt, or piece of plastic and tear it up if he could. If he couldn't, he'd swallow it. Guess he thought he'd destroy it one way or the other, with his razor teeth or iron stomach.


When he was about this big, he ate the head of a Ronald McDonald toy. Hard plastic.




We had to take the tennis balls away from him, when we started seeing bright yellow in his poop.




And we had to take this away from him when we found bright red in his poop.




And we had to put this blanket up when we found green in his poop.




We had to get rid of all stuffed animals.




Yesterday, he found a crushed water bottle on the side walk. He could not bare to let that trash sit there. It's not good for the environment for goodness sakes.
He picked it up and ran as fast as his stubby legs could carry him up the stairs.
Then I had to chase him as fast as my stubby legs could carry me to get it from him before he ate the whole thing.