Wednesday, October 29, 2008

6th folder, 6th pic


I was tagged by Carrie Byce to play along!
This is Lucas, my cousin Lisa's little boy that she adopted from Vietnam last year. His cheeks are the best!

Now, I tag Carrie Bowers and my mama to participate.

Here's what you do:

1. Open your pictures

2. Go to the 6th folder, 6th picture

3. Post the picture and the story that goes with it

4. Tag 2 other people.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

six mile sunrise

one of the best things about living out here in the "country" are the beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the mountains. this time of year, they are especially beautiful. i got up and looked out the window and saw the fog coming up off the lake and the colors starting to peak up over the blue mountains. it was so pretty. i have to remind myself to slow down every now and then and take a minute to soak things like this in.

just thought i'd share!



Saturday, October 25, 2008

martha moments: polka dotted punkins


so maybe i won't be posting a martha moment once a week as planned, but maybe once in a while...
here's what i've done with our pumpkins on the front porch. i didn't want to do traditional jack-o-lanterns and i couldn't find a stencil to do one with justin timberlake's face on it, so here's what i came up with... i polka dotted them.

all you have to do is hollow out the pumpkin and take an apple corer and poke out the dots. put a candle inside and you're done!

happy haunting and carving!

look who's taken the wheel!


it's our cousin bryce, who just got his learner's permit yesterday. congratulations, bryce!

Sunday, October 12, 2008

we're baaaack!

after 10 days of traveling, we are finally home. home sweet home. when we walked through the front door i literally collapsed on the couch.

we covered a LOT of ground and had a great time...it exceeded all of my expectations. i took hundreds (seriously, just under 700...) photos that i'm sure won't do justice to the amazing places we saw. i'll have to sift through them tomorrow and weed out the best ones to post on here, so stay tuned.

highlights for me were:
1. clam chowder at the country's oldest restaurant, the union oyster house
2. fresh maine lobsters
3. bah hah bah (bar harbor, maine)
4. the bay of fundy
5. mahone bay, nova scotia and the little towns all around halifax
6. the many, many lighthouses
7. being waited on hand and foot
8. losing track of time and what day of the week it was
9. not having to listen about the economy
10. being with my best boy, jeff
11. seeing WICKED for the 3rd time. gosh, i love it.

there are tons more but those are the ones fresh on my mind right now.

i promise to post pictures later. i'm pooped and have a cold, i guess from being in cold weather and wind then back to the balmy south and everything in between.

more to come.

there's no place like home.
there's no place like home.
there's no place like home.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

e pluribus unum

e pluribus unum means "out of many, one." check out these pics i took today in my yard. there is a big tree and i saw one spot of red on it from the window. i went outside to look at it and low and behold, there is a huge tree with thousands of leaves and one of them has changed colors. one.

the whole scenario epitomizes myself. how great to be an individual with my own style, my own tastes, my own opinions...to stand out from a tree full of a thousand other leaves.

whoa...deep.




Wednesday, September 24, 2008

martha moments: fried apple pies

now and then i have these moments that i like to call "martha moments." you see as much as i despise martha stewart, i have these instances when i go completely domestic. a real life betty crocker in the flesh.

so i decided that once a week i'll post about my martha moments. today's comes as a result of visiting my MeMa in the nursing home the other night (that visit is a whole other post in itself...let's just say that she's a mess!). anyway, in sitting and talking to her, she told me that Tim Sheriff had come by to see her. Tim is our old preacher and is also the one who married us. she said that Tim was talking about me and said that i made the best fried pies he's ever had.

funny.

i've never made a fried pie before.

and i doubt that Tim Sheriff said that. see MeMa has these moments where she is completely "there" and then these brief instances when she has no idea what she's talking about. i think this was one of those times.

anyway, she asked me the next time i came if i would bring some of my good fried pies. well, seeing as how i can't let my 85 year old MeMa down, i've educated myself this morning on how to make some fried pies like my Grandmama Betty makes 'em.

let me just tell you that my Grandmama Betty knows cooking. better than anyone. she can bring HER fried pies to the apple festival and once word gets out that she has some, people are trying to offer her money for them. i know this because it happened a couple of weeks ago....

anyway, i found this great video on youtube of this little lady showing you how to make fried apple pies the southern way. (note: this is NOT my grandmama betty, but it did give me the idea that i should go video her showing me things like this...)

you're gonna love listening to how she talks!

so rather than posting a recipe today for my 1st martha moment, i'm gonna leave it to Miss Edith Bradley: ("get ye a lil flire and ye board...")

Thursday, September 18, 2008

what i am....

1. I'm so disappointed in my gamecocks right now. C'mon now!
2. I'm very thankful that my mom had a successful gallbladder removal surgery this week. Poor thing has my crazy dad there to care for her.
3. I'm ready for our vacation to New England & Canada.
4. I'm loving the new fall fashions, especially the fact that leggings and flats will still be "in."
5. I'm realizing that sometimes we do more for others than we do for ourselves and we need to cut ourselves some slack and treat ourselves every now and then.
6. I'm wanting a new camera and cannot decide between two.
7. I'm deeply disturbed by the name of this cereal. Is that weird that it bothers me?
8. I'm learning that if I continue to clean a little bit every night, I won't have to "major" clean on Saturday. (thanks, fly lady...)
9. I'm getting more worried by the day about the economy and I hate being a grown up and having to worry about it in the first place.
10. I'm glad that Starbucks now has a protein plate for those of us who try not to eat pastries for breakfast. Smart move, marketing people!
11. I'm sick and tired of rude people who have chosen a career in customer service.
12. I'm officially addicted to Queen.
13. I'm slowly starting to read "Twilight" and am delightfully surprised at how much I like it.
14. I'm not embarrassed to tell you that I think the new New Kids cd is actually pretty decent.
15. I'm glad tomorrow's Friday. :-)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

what would i have looked like in 1952?


when you have an hour of your life to waste, you must go to www.yearbookyourself.com and see what you would have looked like through the decades.

here's more below. totally useless, i know, but so, so amusing and entertaining to do when you have a million other things you SHOULD be doing...





Wednesday, August 27, 2008

things i love: the college football edition




things i love:

1. the sc chant at games that goes something like this:

(really ominous sounding) "dumm dumm dum dum.....U-S-C...gooooooooooooooo COCKS!"

2. the giddyness of waking up on saturdays (or in this week's case, thursday) and planning the entire day around the game.

3. the trash talking. love it.

4. jeff getting up at 4 a.m. and starting the smoker with something really good in it--and it being ready just in time for kickoff.

5. going to some of the games and doing the whole tailgating thing. even though it's a lot of work to get it all together, it sure is fun. even the rotten smell of the farmer's market makes me smile.

6. ryan succop--love this kid and i'm glad he's here one more year.

7. the making of new household names--even though i've already started missing cory boyd terribly, i'm looking forward to seeing how some of the newer names prove themselves--smelly, beecher, garcia, and taylor rank.

8. watching my hubby being lit up like a firecracker all week because it's game week. he is literally radiating excitement.

9. the fact that the espn commentators have plenty more to talk about now that it's football season. i mean, they covered a spelling bee this year.....is that really a sport??

10. this:




11. tim friggin' tebow. period.