Rain, rain....Go Away!!!!

After a horrible experience with the landscaper from hell, it's finally done. I still have some things I have to change, but this will get us by until I figure it out. At least we have real grass now!!

Sprinkler System

Well after a weeks delay, they are finally getting started on the sprinkler system. Looks like a mess to me. Here's hoping the rain stays away so they can finish up....Stay tuned!!!

The Makeover continues...

Out with the old, in with the new.

You saw the yard in the last post, here's what's going on today. It's time for a makeover!! This grass totally sucked, it was ugly grass. So, it's gone!
Here's how things are going.


It looked like they were bailing hay out there.
Loading up debris one load at a time.

All nice and clean, ready for sprinklers & sod.

Uh oh...nothing like a nice big storm to make a mess.

Yuk!

Stayed tuned for the finish project, pictures when we return next month.

Before & After

Here is an update on the Florida houses paint job. While we were up in IL, we had some repairs done on the house, but most importantly, we had it painted. While I didnt want a lot of color on the house, I did want enough to make the white trim paint pop a little more. I picked out a soft green before we left and went with that. It was really scary wondering what it was going to look like, even though it was a light shade and pretty harmless. Well I think it turned out great. It's a nice soft green, much better than the almost white tan shade that it use to be. Click on the pics to enlarge.

Now to start working on the yard. The dogs pick up everything on their fur in the backyard, so I hope to get some flowerbeds done and some sod as soon as we get a sprinkler system.

Before

After

Aunt Terry goes to college!!!!

Ok, not really, but it sounded funny! LOL This was a spare of the moment trip, I just thought Anna might like some company and it had been a while since we've seen each other. Before we knew it, I was in the air and on my way to New Mexico to visit her at college. I must be getting use to flying cause it didnt really bother me that much. Anyway, here are a few shots from this trip.

Here was our view from our room, a day shot and a night shot. We actually saw hot air balloons every morning, that was very cool.

Our first night we ate at a little dive down the street called Lindy's. It was just a cute old diner, with some sweet boys running things. They had some cool neon's on the walls too.

And please, let's not forget about the desert case! We split a piece of the chocolate cake with the cherry's on top! OMG....

The next night we went to the movie "17 Again" and afterwards we ate at a darling cafe around the corner, which reminded both Anna and I of a place we ate at in Rockford with Emily, the day they moved away. :(
Dont worry, it's a virgin drink!
Sunday was my last full day and we went to Old Town to see the sites. This is an awesome old Catholic Church, it's really lovely inside, I would have liked to take some pictures but didnt know if it was acceptable, so I didnt. Anna was dying to see a Nun...lol

Anna and her friend, Bailey

Too bad they cant have some fun!

There are so many cute little areas in Old Town.

Dont ask me why, but I love this door.

This was a darling little side street.

Love, love, love this old truck....where'd that monkey come from!?!?!?

And one last cute shot of the girls.

This concludes this years trip to Albuquerque!

DO NOT mess with this Grandma!

Ahhh, Spring is in the air....the flowers are starting to come up, the trees are ready to open their leaves, the birds are flying back home and it's time to take out the M16!!! Wooooo dog! Seriously, we just decided to do a little 'plinking' today. John had some cool targets that highlight where you hit. As you can see, I did pretty darn good! The bigger holes are from a cute little pistol called an LC, I hated it. Too long and hard of a tigger pull, it made my hand shake. But the small holes are from the Ranch Rifle, the one in the dead center was my first shot....for real!!! After the first shot i just lit into it with rapid fire and they all stayed within the silhouette, which i happen to think is pretty darn cool. I havent shot for ages, but it was so much fun, we're going back out tomorrow and then I will get out the 9mm Glock. Fun fun fun! Take a look at my poor little critter below. Let me tell you what's going to happen to the crazed robin that is making a mess of our back window and wont go away!!!!

Enter Crazy Sock Monkey Lady....

I know, I know what you're thinking....I thought she was the Crazy Puppy Lady. This is true, I am, but for this weekend, I was the Crazy Sock Monkey Lady. Emily and I went to Rockford's Midway Village Museum. It was the annual Sock Monkey Festival. I dont think I have ever seen so many sock monkeys in one place!! There had to be over 500 of them....easily!

Here is the entrance to the museum, and a giant sock monkey to welcome us.

This was the main room, there were tables set up to embellish your purchased sock monkeys and there were vendors around the wall areas of the room. The kids were all having a great time making clothes, putting on their faces and completing their monkeys. There was another room where people were making monkeys from scratch. There were tons of people that brought their monkeys from home, just about everything imagineable....Even a Gangsta monkey!
There were vintage monkeys, this guy has over 2,000 monkeys in his collection.

Teensie little monkeys

Gigantic Monkeys....see Emily to the left for sizing.

There was even a monkey hospital for your ailing monkeys

And your run of the mill Cheap Trick Monkey! These big statues are located around Rockford

I love this group, Notice Spock in the blue.
Tyrone made a lot of new friends, everyone that seen him loved him. He had his pic taken many times that day. Got a few double takes at him too.
They had items to buy, I got Emily this cute purse she really wanted. They had a ton of really cute ones there.

Emily & Tyrone by one of the Rockford Peaches displays

Here is a display full of Wizard of Oz sock monkey characters and other misc sock monkeys ...How cute is that?
All in all a fun weekend. Thanks for stopping by...

Lights, Camera....Action!

You've all seen the photos of the little house in FL,  I thought I'd do a short walk through video of it.  We've done some painting, hung some junk on the walls, so I thought it was decent enough now to show you.  I still have curtains to make and things to hang on more walls, but it's ok.  Just as a refresher, here's a front and back view of it.  I'm going to have it painted and I cant wait, it's a little too dull for my liking.  I'm thinking a light seafoam green.  And I've ripped out some, make that most of the landscaping to redo it sometime.

Click HERE to see the video.

Functional and fabulous!

Every now and then I run across something that is just so cool, i have to share it. I was looking online for one of the old style ornament boxes that i have used for years. Although they worked out pretty good, I now see how flimsy the inside supports really are. Here is my new ornament box, more a little dresser if you will. I ordered one to see if I'd like it and if it's worth the money, $39.00.....and yes, it is. I have ordered a second one to finish up the last two trees. So i wanted to show all my friends so you can have one, or two yourselves!!! I got it at www.ornamentbox.com

Here it is, all loaded...cute, huh?

And here's an open, loaded drawer. So nice not to have to individually wrap them up. I like being able to see them and be able to group the themed ones together. You can adjust the dividers to make the area bigger for the larger/long ornaments.

Here's another "little" item. It's a little 10" latop. John found this somewhere online, he thought it would be perfect to use while we're traveling. We will use it to look up weather, road conditions and searching for hotels. It even has a cam and a card reader slot. This one will be good to haul on plane trips, it's even small enough to fit into my purse, believe it or not. All this for just under $400!!!!

That's all I've got for now....... :)