Yea...right...about that...

While we were on vacation on Anna Maria Island, we did this "eco-tour boat charter" thing where you give a small fortune (i promised the capt she could keep whatever kid threw up over the side first) and they take you around the bay to fish and sand bar hop for half a day.

This is how it went.

Walker: THAT'S our boat??!?

Nate: It has a dent in the side.

Walker: Our captain's a GIRL??

Nate: How old IS she? She looks REALLY young. Are you sure she's old enough?

Vance: Get in the god-$%#& boat.

Me: Can i drink on this boat?

So, we all pile in and motor towards the sandbar. We get there, the capt throws anchor over the side and says we can all hop into the water.

Nate: It looks too deep.

Walker: It does. How deep is it? How do you KNOW?

The teenager captain rolls her eyes, and jumps in to prove the water is shallow enough not to drown the little buggers.

Walker: Sharks. I'm pretty sure sharks come into the bay.

Me, shaking me head violently to the captain, fingers crossed behind my back, imploring her to back me up in my lie.

Captain: Nope. NO sharks. See?

Vance: Get off the god-#$%@ boat for chrissake.

Me: Where is that koozie?

Once in the water, nice captain lady points out all the sand dollars under our feet and the tons of sea urchins every few feet. She even goes underwater and picks one up to show the boys.

Nate: AAAUUUUUUGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET IT AWAY FROM ME - NOW - PUTITDOWNPUTITDOWNPUTITDOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a flash Nate has walked on water and is now on Vance's back, no limb touching the water.

Walker, however, is underwater trying to find what Nate has knocked out of the captain's hand.

Would you like to see what sent my 8 year old Jacque Cousteau into orbit?


This. Not the sand dollar. Nope. See that TINY speck of beige orange on the top? That's a crab. The size of my little pinky fingernail. Not even the whole nail. The size of my nailbed. There were about 10 of them on the underside of the sand dollar.


So pretty much the entire time we were in the water, he was on Vance's back. Poor Vance. It was a long day. And then, we piled back into boat. And promptly ran over a shark. No kidding. Yes, my boys now know that honesty isn't a policy here as much as it's a suggestion.

Then, when we got back to the beach house, the first thing out of Nate's mouth is a direct order to put the TV on Deadliest Catch. That's not the funny part.

The funny part is that he looked me dead in the eye and said "That's what I'm going to do when i grow up."

Reach for the stars babe.

Friend Makin' Monday - 6 degrees removed...or something like that.

I haven't had the urge to write lately - but Natalie over at The Brocks Rock did this and tagged Mamarazzi at Dandelion Wishes who was subbing for Kasey at All That is Good who originated the thought and i thought, well let's see if i can really get all those hyper links in the first sentence of one post....and i think i did it successfully....so in honor of all of those cyber chickies - here is my first Friend Makin Monday Post.


The rules were to list 5-10 of your favorite things....so here goes.


This is absolutely my all time favorite store. I know, I'm kind of boring that way. What's even more sad is that i really don't like to shop at all - i think i missed that gene - so I go about 3x a year and buy in bulk. I'm not kidding. I will go in and drop $500 to $1500 in one fell swoop on everything from jeans, to dresses to skirts to a trench coat, to accessories. Then i don't shop again for 6-8 months. I hate trying on clothes but i love the way i always feel pulled together because i've had the girls there pull several different things together and make several outfits out of the same 6 pieces with a turn of the accessory. I am lazy. But I am vain.

And more on the vain point....THIS IS THE BEST STUFF TO CALM DOWN THE FLY-AWAY HAIR. This is the only stuff that i have ever put on my hair that makes it extremely shiny and look model perfect - I AM NOT KIDDING - ABSOLUTELY NO FLY-AWAY HAIR OR BROKEN ENDS SHOW. It really lives up the hype and makes your hair look like silk.


yeah, there's a theme here. This really takes away from the lines on your face. Light diffusing, reflecting, i don't know, i just know it works and i've tried Chanel, MAC, you name it and i have gone back and exchanged them every time for this stuff.



The old ipod broke and i broke down and got this mainly for video and then i found out 2 days ago that not only can i load my work email on it (yea, the mac store didn't tell me that - iphone my ass.) BUT I CAN ALSO SKYPE ON IT, and for $2 extra dollars a month I CAN USE MY MOBILE NUMBER. bye bye two devices and i didn't have to buy the iphone OR subscribe to Verizon - LIFE IS GOOD.


My all time favorite cocktail. I know at least one person reading this agrees.... ;-) (you know who you are)

The business of life.

I'm experiencing a creativity deficit of sorts. This week isn't helping. What started out as a week of possibilities with one solid week of vacation at the beach has been turning out rather odd.

I haven't been inspired to write, even by some of the antics of the 8 and 9 year old. I was hoping that within a few days of relaxation and just playing in general - that bug would come back - that some story that i thought was really funny a few days ago would pop into my brain and i would be inspired to jot it down, put an evil spin on it and spew it back to you so that we could laugh, together. But.I.got.nothin'.

I think a lot of it has to do with a significant loss in our community that i can't put explanation to or examine for reasoning and make any good out of it. My son's playmate and classmate, our neighbor and little leaugue coach died a few days ago, saving his son from drowning. There's no way to pretty that up.

And i keep replaying the conversation that my ex and i had when he called to tell me - the day we intended to start our vacation in earnest.

I am having a really difficult time with this.

We chose not to tell the boys until we are in the car on the way home. I want their vacation to be one where sadness doesn't affect their fun and being around water the entire time, i thought maybe we should hold on the news until we were away from the water so that my worry wart of a son didn't decide not to go swimming the entire time. But me, I think about it at least once an hour.

I think, how much horror that family had to live through on what was supposed to be their vacation, and how much the wife and boys will have to endure in the weeks and months to come, and it rips me apart. I think about the boys and their team sports that their dad was always involved in and i pray that they still will want to go back to the field. Boys need sports. But i know that when, if, they do go back, they will ache from the loss of not having their dad there. And i crumble inside a little bit just thinking about it.

My son will ask a million questions that i will not be able to answer. He will go home and pull up the Sentinel and search for his friend's last name until he finds the articles detailing the accident and arrangements. He will dwell. He gets that from me. He will probably get out of bed a million times for the next few weeks to make sure that his dad, or me, is still there, still in bed, still breathing.

I know life and death happens. I get it. I'm just never prepared for the death part.

Big Lots SCORE!

So, i have a bad habit of pouring through nesting magazines looking at all of those gorgeous 'nobody could really live here' homes and thinking of ways to steal ideas.

I have found that not all ideas a) fit my budget b) are practical with small children in the house and c) please both the man and myself.

I have found ONE designer that I consistently try and copy - Linda Woodrum. You guys probably know her stuff - she's the diva behind the hgtv dream homes and their decor - CAN YOU SAY YUMMY??

I have saved every possible picture I can scour online only to try and see what i can do on the cheap - and that can be scaled down to my space.

This is pic of a dining room she did for the 2004 HGTV dream home. Be careful, that drool might mess up your shirt...


I love so many different things about this room, but ahhhh... i don't have the Ethan Allen DR set, or the beaded board, or those beautiful cream plates, or the wood floor....

I DO have the chocolate walls and ivory curtains!

Oh....wait - i have an old gym locker basket that has dead flowers in it on the porch....

I have candles....

oh, and I'VE GOT TONS of hydrangeas (another bad addiction).

And Big Lots had hurricanes on sale for $10....

What can i do....I can do this!


Ok, the chocolate is not that dark IRL - it has more caramel in it than it appears - and I my hurricanes aren't as feminine - mine were $10 people....and i had white saucers under mine, but in my small space it was too froufrou......i'm really really considering adding the beaded board, just not sold yet because the entire house is an open floor plan....

Oh well .... it was a good $10 update nonetheless!

Front Door Update - with pictures even!

Ok, so I've been MIA from the blog universe - but it hasn't been without good reason! I've been busy doing what i set out to do - recreate my own little house. Starting with the front entry. And it only cost $11.23. Even better!

All of you were in agreement that the door needed to be painted - the stark white had no character - and i couldn't have agreed more. So, without further delay - let's take one last look at what it looked like before:

it didn't look bad, it just looked builder boring. Here she is all dressed up in plum :) I just noticed that because i had no lights on the house - the side window looks painted too! LOL. It's just dark inside...it didn't disappear.



Here's a close up of the color:



Stay tuned - another budget redo tomorrow!

I really am easy to get along with.

Really. I mean SUPER EASY. So I kind of shocked MYSELF when i got fed up enough to march over to the neighbors on the left of me and give them a piece of my mind have a discussion about their 'encroachment' into my space. I even scoffed when Vance kindly suggested that he go and address the situation...oh no no no no. This is all me.

I am NOT one of THOSE neighbors that call the po-po when you're having party and noise level gets a little over the decibel limit at 3am or report you to Progress Energy because there's this one room in your house that has a grow light purplish light on 24/7 because you're competing with Lowes in the 'nursery biddnes'....uh uh. I AM however one of those neighbors that may ask for a litttle "somethin somethin' as a show of my appreciation for my discretion.

It all started with the voices that we heard coming out of our TV. Spanish voices. How rude, i don't speak Spanish so how the hell can i eavesdrop?? ...and this is WHEN THE TV WASN'T EVEN ON. It does not bode well when you significant other emails the FCC and says that exact thing and they email back and ask you what medication he's currently on. Yes, he did, and noooo they didn't, but i truly expect that kind of response. We are not losing our marbles. The voices started coming over our wireless phones when we were on calls too. All because my neighbor on the left erected a ham radio tower taller than both of our houses stacked on top of each other so that he could talk to his relatives in Puerto Rico.

And to add insult to injury - they have decided not to water their lawn. Ok. fair enough. but can you then put down SOMETHING - even white river rock - BUT SOMETHING. and treat those bugs that have now moved INTO MY LAWN. My yard is a 24 hour-all you can eat buffet for those pests. I like my yard with grass.

In the effort to keep up the fight - this is what i did yesterday. You can see I pulled weeds, while my kids....did not. Yes my driveway needs to be pressure washed - i'm getting to it. as soon as i buy a pressure washer pay somebody to do it.


This is my yard. See that big old southern oak in the far flower bed? That's it's branches on the left swooping down - can you just see a big white swing hanging there....? It's calling out for one.


This is my fight neighbor's yard. Our houses are identical. Minus the grass.



....just a little empathy folks, that's all i'm asking, and a little 6-6-6. Is that too much to ask?

Front Door Progress!

Sometimes things happen that are more liberating than you would have thought.

The listing for house expired. I decided not to renew.

It was beyond freeing. Not the constant rush to get out of the house for a showing - or the constant cleaning (don't tell anyone, but i'm beginnng to like that part.) But the 'not knowing'. of what kind of offer was coming, if it was a decent offer would it even appraise out for the buyer, would we even find a house that was worth the hassle that I could afford and not just hate that payment every month. Anyway. I'm good. I slept the entire night through.

I decided to work with the peach color on the house - mostly because that 3K to re-paint the house can go to other fun stuff - and while it annoys me - i think what i picked can work!

Here's the pallete. The peach stays. The cream trim (that i thought was white until i put a white and a cream against it) stays. The green closest to the peach is Homestead Resort Olive by Valspar - that would be the shutter color. The brown purple is Chocolate Raspberry by Valspar. The name alone makes it worth the purchase don't you think?


Here is the gross apartment doorhandle set. Isn't it just the most beautiful and welcoming thing ever??? yea, me too. So...keep scrolling for the choices to replace that beauty!


Now here is a nice shiny brass set that just sparkles against that purplish brown color. But...i'm not a brass fan...however, it IS pretty against that door color....beside that is a rubbed bronze set that I ADORE. However, it gets lost against that dark color, so i'm not probably going to choose it...BUT ISN'T JUST SO PRETTY??