Cleaning up my cottage

Good Morning! I thought I would share some pictures of a piece of furniture that I cleaned up and painted back in April. I've had it for a while but it was in storage. I decided it was time to get it out and paint it and put it to use in my cottage. I painted it "Heirloom White" and I love it. I had it in my dining room and I recently moved it to my 'shabby' den.

This is just a few things that I had displayed on it when it was in my dining room. Garrett loves to change the dates on my little calender.

This is how it looks in my den. I guess you would call it a secretary. I love french provincial furniture. It has all of these little places to put things. I like to sit here when I'm 'blogging'. I don't use that door much. If I need to, I can close up the secretary and there will be plenty of room to open the door. I would show you pictures of the deck outside of that door, but I'm not finished with it yet. I've only primed it so far. I plan on putting a table and chair set out there so that we can eat dinner outside in the evenings. I haven't been in too much of a hurry getting it done...I guess because we have so many mosquitoes and I would rather dine out there after it gets a little cooler.

I have a French provincial chair that I need to paint to go here instead of this pink chair. I'm just using it for now.


I have it full of little things that the kids have gotten me over the years and a few little happies that I've found along the way. I like it better in this room. Garrett can even do his homework here.

I'm off work today...I think that I will go and bake something! I love to have something baking in the oven while I'm cleaning my cottage. Don't laugh...you can if you want to, I like to play Christmas music while I'm cleaning the house! I do that all during the year. My daughter use to laugh at me....now she does it too! The other day, Garrett came up to me while I was cleaning the kitchen and he ask me how many days til Christmas? I think that I confused him! LOL

Have a great day today!

Jason love lemons

These pictures were taken of my grandson Jason the other night after church. We went to eat at Ruby Tuesday's. Jason loves lemons...my kids use to love them too when they were babies. He made the cutest faces whenever he would taste the lemons. I just had to pull out my camera.

It is hard to believe that he is already 15 months old! The little outfit that he has on was Cole's when he was little. Garrett wore it too. We recycle a lot in our family! LOL

I have been under the weather the last couple of days. I caught a cold! I might have even caught it from Jason. He kept kissing me on the lips the other night and I had forgotten that he had been sick with a cold. Christy took him to the doctor yesterday and they said that he has the croup and it has to run it's course. I hope that he gets better soon. I talked to my son Cole tonight and he is liking his new job in Tennessee. I worry about him though. I'm not crazy about Memphis. I know that he has to grow up now and make a life for him and his little family. I pray that God will watch over them.

What role do children play in our lives?

Yesterday my daughter Christy called me at work and told me that I probably wouldn't get off work in time to hear her sing at church. She had ask the song director to let her sing close to the end because she wanted to give me more time to get there. The singing started at 6:00 and I had to work until 6:30. Usually that means I will have to stay until 7:00 at least, to clean up my department. She said that she would understand if I couldn't make it. I cleaned and cleaned between customers and after we closed my boss told us all that we could go ahead and leave because the store looked good. I was so glad! It was 6:30 and the church was about 10 minutes away. We made it there and we had only missed 3 people sing. Christy hadn't sang yet. I could tell by the look on her face that she was happy to see us.

Her first song was "Ten Thousand Angels". I have it playing now. That is such a beautiful song to me. She sang it so pretty.

The next song was called "Mighty To Save". I have it on my playlist right after "Ten Thousand Angels". I had only heard this song a couple of times on Christian radio and it is a beautiful song. As Christy was singing it, she looked out into the pews and saw so many of her family members there and she broke down crying. I could tell that she was trying to hold it all in but I know Christy, once she gets started...there is no holding back. There was not a dry eye in the church after that. The preacher's wife got up and started singing with her and Christy kept singing even though she was still crying. The whole church starting singing as well. You could feel God's presence in that room! When I got up this morning and looked for my devotional book, I couldn't find it. I then remembered that I had left it at my desk at work. I had picked up another book on my night stand that I haven't even had a chance to read yet called...Ah, Woman! It says on the front cover...A study of personal accountability for the Christ-motivated woman. I had picked it up one time at one of my favorite thrift stores. Anyway, I decided to just open up the book and whatever page I came to that is what I was going to read for my devotion. The first sentence that I read was..."What role do children play in our lives?" How appropriate was that? I believe with all of my heart that God picked that page for me to read! One part of the passage said that it is easy to hold and cuddle our children when they are little and sit on our laps. But what about when they grow up? Even married children still need love and encouragement from their parents. This love is not connected to any deeds that our children might perform. This love is like the love that we have from God, a graceful love, given to a child simply because it is our child, not good or bad, just our child. This love lets your child know that you'll be there, loving him or her, no matter what. This love is free.

I myself am emotional today as I'm writting this post. I am so glad that I was able to get to the church on time to be there and hear her sing her heart out. God has been really showing me things the last couple of weeks that I am so thankful for. I know a lot of this may not be coming across clearly to you, not about God but about my life. He keeps showing me things, that I have been needing to see! God is good! He loves us all...

Staying positive...

Yesterday went so much better with my change of attitude. There were a couple of things that could have gotten to me...but I just didn't dwell on them. My boss had ask me to start a new project and hour before I was to get off work on Friday. There was no way possible that I could finish it in an hour so I had to finish it yesterday morning whenever I got to work. It took me about an hour and a half to complete it. My boss said that I did a great job and commented to my department manager to have a look at it. Later when my boss wasn't around my manager told me that it could have and should have waited until Monday to finish because Saturday is a busy 'sales' day. He didn't say anything positive about the project at all. I wanted to say..."Look, I didn't ask to do the project in the first place and I missed 2 or 3 hours of making my sales but I was doing what 'our' boss ask me to do." How do you make everybody happy?! You can't. I don't want to be around negative people. I just went about my business and tried to make up for my lost sales. We have a sales goal that we have to meet. (We don't get commission) Anyway...that started my morning....

Today I have to be at work at 12:30. My daughter is singing at church tonight. It starts at 6:00 and I have to work until 6:30. Hopefully I will make it to the church before she sings her two solo's. She really wants me to be there. This is a recent photo of Christy and her husband Phillip and her cousin Kim. I'm so proud of Christy. She is such a good wife and mother.

A new day...

I don't remember where I found this...it was saved to one of my files. I didn't really have any new pictures to post about today. I have been so busy with work that I haven't even taken any new ones. When I saw this, I thought it would be the perfect thing to post about today. I've been feeling a little stressed out the last couple of weeks and it has shown in my everyday interactions with my family, friends and coworkers. I just wanted to take this time to apologize to anyone that I may not have been as 'available to' as normal. I've just had a lot going on with work and getting my son moved to Tennessee and everything else in between.

I just want to thank all of my friends that have been there for me...you know who you are. I thank God for everything that he has blessed me with. When I am at work today, I plan to show each of my customers how important they are and let them know how much God loves them. So many people out there are having it hard financially. I have been working on my budget and I plan to not spend a dime on anything that is not a necessity. (Not even thrift stores!) I want to be able to have all of my bills paid at least a month in advance. Just a little cushion so that I can be less stressed out. I will still have many, many projects that will keep me busy without spending money! This will be the perfect time to clean out my storage buildings and clean out my closet and take out things and donate! I'm ready to get rid of clutter! I feel like I have so many things that are weighing me down. I hope all of this makes since to y'all.







Have a great day!

My little sis's birthday!

Today is my little sister's birthday! She is 36 years old today! I couldn't go visit her today because I'm stuck at home waiting for the plumber to come and fix the leak in my shower. One day next week I plan to go and visit her and take her birthday gifts to her. I went through some old pictures today and ran across these. This is Melinda when she was a baby. Mama had her sitting on the kitchen table. She had on the cutest little red and white dress. Wasn't she a doll?

This is us at a wedding a few years ago. (2002...I think)

This is her graduation picture. She is probably gonna kill me for putting this picture on here. She had the permed, blond thing going on with her hair. (and the 'buff') LOL I didn't get to come home for her graduation. I was living in Denver at the time. I did get to come home for her wedding though. It was a couple of months later. She got married right after high school. She and Steven are still doing great! They have 3 children. Whitney, Michael, and Chase.

Me and my sister, my best friend.

This is a good one of us! We were both expecting our 3rd baby. We had them exactly 3 weeks apart. We both had boys. Garrett and Chase.

This one is so funny! We were at our cousin Angie's baby shower and we were all expecting! Angie had a boy too. She had hers the day before Melinda in the same hospital! A boy, too.

This is the most recent picture that I have of her. (May 2009) Isn't she pretty?

This was from last year! We had been shopping all day long!

Same day. We had planned to have more days like this...you know how that goes with work, kids,etc. We are fixing to start making time for us!

The waitress took our picture. This was for her birthday last year! Where has the time flown? (That is not a cigarette in my hand!) It was a straw from my glass.

Me and Melinda a couple of years ago at Halloween. I was a lady cop and I went to arrest her and her little dog too!

We have had a lot of good times together! Sometimes we laugh so hard that we get tears in our eyes and it looks like we are crying! And when Mama gets into it, we really laugh our heads off!
I didn't even get to talk to her today. I left her a message on her phone and I even sent her an e-card. Maybe tonight we can catch up with each other.

Happy birthday, Melinda. I love you!

Bring on the rain...

I've had a very busy last couple of days...I spent Saturday and part of Sunday in Biloxi, Ms. I had a bridal seminar to attend and I also got to do a little bit of site seeing. Everything looks so different after Hurricane Katrina. They are really getting things back to normal. It did look strange though with all of the vacant lots where beautiful homes used to be along the beach. It is so sad. There are not any casinos on the water anymore. The ones that re-built are now across the highway from the beach. The Beau Rivage is in the same place of course. They had a lot of work to do and now it looks beautiful. We ate there for 'brunch'. We ate at 'The Palace' for dinner the night before. I'm not a gambler but I do like to go there to eat! I pigged out! I officially started my diet on Monday!

This is the solarium cafe at Beau Rivage. I thought this was so beautiful. It would be so awesome built on the side of a house! A dream house!

I tried to get a good picture of the front. It is a huge building. Well...getting back home felt good but I came home to a flooded bathroom! The water in my shower started leaking at the faucet and it got everywhere! I haven't remodeled that room yet....thank goodness.

This is the before picture in my bathroom. I have been meaning to get to this room for so long and I have decided to start now. I had hung my huge mirror up in here whenever I moved here because there was only a tiny mirror there and I didn't have anywhere to store it where it wouldn't get broken. I have had it for a long, long time. It went with a dresser that I still have in storage. Look at all of that green wallpaper! The previous owner's didn't even put it up correctly. You can see all of seams and the patterns don't match. I myself don't like wallpaper in a bathroom because of the steam, etc. from the shower. The counter top is laminate...dark green! It has shelves underneath that are just open. No doors or anything. If I decide to keep the counter top, I will paint it and put a skirt around the bottom. I really would like to use an old buffet that I have in storage and put the sink into it and paint it cottage white. Right now it is cherry stained. I'm gonna check into it because I don't know how much work is involved in doing that. I plan to use the same mirror...it looks 'shabby' to me.

The more I looked at the wallpaper the more I knew that it just had to come down! It was very easy too. I guess the moisture in the room from the water leaking made it loosen up a bit! Great!

This is where I started taking it down! Oh and look at the white stuff on the floor! That is where the previous owners had put that insulation stuff that comes in a tube along all of the cracks where the walls meet the floor! It puffs up and gets big! I got a box cutter and cut as much as I could away. It looks like a 'blob' coming out of those cracks! I saw a horror movie about that when I was a kid! It scared me!

This is after I pulled most of it down. I turned on my playlist and got busy! I'm gonna get help moving this medicine cabinet and the big mirror so that I can get behind them to take off the other paper.

It's looking better already! I'm excited! I'm thinking about putting bead-board up on the walls. I can see a pretty chandelier hanging here. The shower is awful! I didn't even want to show a picture of that! I bought a bathtub at Lowe's a couple of weeks ago to go here instead of that yucky shower! Of course I have to move the toilet so that it will fit along that wall! I hope that I didn't bite off more than I can chew! LOL No.....not me!

I will take more pictures as I go along. If anybody has any ideas that I might could use...please feel free to leave me some comments! I would appreciate it! I have to get ready for work now. I did all of this, this morning and now I'm tired before I even go to my real job.

Oh and I forgot to mention that my central air unit broke too! When it rains it pours!

I thought the song that I have playing was perfect for today!