Saturday, September 26, 2009

Doublewide Decor

Hey y'all!
Just wanted to share some pictures of the kitchen at The Doublewide. I think I'm finally through decorating it up! Also, my jelly made it! Woohoo! It's so good too! I hope you're enjoying your day today. It's raining here, so we're being lazy and staying in. I'm enjoying my coffee, catchin' up on reading blogs, and doing laundry.
I went to The Dollar General this week to pick up a few things and look at what I bought for 40 cents! I think it's gorgeous, even if I didn't stitch it myself!
Tomorrow is Homecoming at church. My spirit is ready to be blessed and my belly is ready to be filled!
Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Shotgun Totin' Daddy!

Wooo-Weee Y'all!
How's your week been? It's been chaos as usual here at The Doublewide!
Tuesday morning I heard my alarm going off and inside, you know way back in your subconscious somewhere, I cussed it. Literally I'm swattin' and smackin' trying to find the snooze button so I can hit it like 20 times before I finally decide to haul all of this out of the bed. I rolled over, stretched, and couldn't decipher the alarm clock's time...so I looked at my watch. Good Lord! It was 8:20. Now....in case you don't know, I'm a teacher....a middle school teacher at THAT! I'm supposed to be in my classroom by 8:00 at the latest. Thank God my cousin is the band director at our school. After freaking out, jumping out of the bed, and rifling through my pocketbook to find my cell phone, I finally got ahold of her on her cell phone. I told her that I had just rolled over and begged her to "babysit" my class. She agreed and off I set to get me and Robbie ready in a quick, fast hurry. I did make it to school at 9:15, which was pretty dern good for me, but not without my assistant principal, asking the teacher next door about my whereabouts. Oh well...things happen. They just seem to happen to me more, ya know?!
Then....
I'm going to try not to lose you here, so please just bear with me. I promise it'll be worth it.
My Pappaw Fred died 13 years ago. At the time of his death, him and Mammaw lived in a log cabin on a farm that they bought when I was in the 9th grade. I never really liked the place because it was 3 miles from "The Farm" where I grew up and Mammaw always made her opinion known that she never felt at home. They never really had neighbors when I was a little girl and after they moved, you could almost spit off the porch and it land on the neighbor's steps next-door. That never really settled with my Mammaw, but it didn't much matter. Pappaw liked it and that was that.
Since my Pappaw was known county-wide for his junk collecting, there was always barns, sheds, yard area and buildings full of old stuff. Not nice antique stuff either. Stuff like 100 old windows with metal casings, miles and miles of concrete, plastic, aluminum, terra cotta (bah-ha-ha) pipe, fittings, thingamahbobs and more. Most of it turned to rust.
One time he bought 3 old HUGE buses, the kind that looked like tour buses, from the City of Gastonia. I have no clue what his plans were for them, but they, along with everything else, sat out in the yard somewhere on one farm or another. My daddy's first cousin, Jack, used to tease Mammaw and say that he was waitin' on Pappaw to fix them buses up so that we could all pile up in those buses and all take a ride through McAdenville, which around here is known more affectionately as ChristmasTown, USA! Seriously...click HERE if you don't believe me! HAHAHA that site even has clinky Christmas music....ROFLMBO! Wait...let me just share one picture for you....

Ok...seriously though, it's beautiful at Christmas and us hillbillies in NC will load up a charter bus from 3 hours away just to ride through it! Luckily, we live 10 minutes away.
Now...back to the story.
Since Pappaw's death, most of the stuff is still lying around both farms. My daddy has hauled loads and loads to the scrap yard and made money to keep afloat during the past few years.
Well.....seems we've had some thieves around the log cabin farm. They've hauled out about 10,000 dollars worth of scrap metal. Seriously!
Long story short...my daddy has been on the look-out and ran up on the van they used to load up and haul. He went into the area, saw nobody and proceeded to pull his shot-gun out of his truck. He walked over to the van and looked in through the back doors that were opened and saw that they were evidently in the midst of loading up and fired a warning shot. He then called 911 and told them that he had fired a "warning shot" because someone was on his property and was stealing metal items to be sold at the scrapyard. Within a few minutes, three men came out yelling, "Don't Shoot!" He told them they'd better stay where they were or he would shoot them dead as ducks. When they heard that he was on the phone with the police, they ran.
Police were dispatched and they found all three men less than a mile away. Oooh...I tell you! I wish I just could have been there to see the look on my daddy's face when he shot that gun off. Good for him! Those three men were charged and whatever charges were filed, felonies were a part of them because of something....don't ask me. I can't even begin to try and make any sense out of the legal jargon, I can just see my Shotgun totin' (tote-ing?) daddy as the smoke rises off the barrel with a big ole grin all over his face, while in the distance, on his old truck's radio, Charlie Daniels and his band are singing, "What This World Needs is a Few More Rednecks!"
You Go Daddy--Stand up for what's yours! This ole hillbilly daughter is proud of you!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Two In One Day!

Hey again!
I finally got our pictures taken of our Hillbilly Salt Dough Pumpkins. I've not finished painting them and the candy corns still need a coat of white and yellow, but here you go!
If you remember awhile back I wrote about making grape jelly. Well something went wrong and none of it jelled. So....I opened all of the jars up and boiled the fire out of the liquid. I think it's setting up now and I'm waiting on the little "pop" to let me know that the jars have sealed. I ended up with 10 half pints this time after cooking it down awhile.
Here's what it looked like while boiling earlier:
Also, I found this CUTE little shelf at the thrift store in my hometown this week. It was only $4.00 and I can't wait to find a spot for it in Robbie's Cowboy room! Finally, here's a picture of me and Big Daddy at my 20th high school reunion last weekend.
Have a good afternoon. I think I'm headed for a nap!

Seems It's Gonna Be Saturdays

Hey Y'all!
I have been so busy this week! I'm responsible for our school's website and I have been really really busy trying to keep up with it so that I can get it up and running. Mammaw's been doing pretty good, but my daddy is still really sick with that cold that's going around so I had to cancel her appointment again. Her leg is doing much better and her overall health is doing fine. I'm going to go to her house in a little bit to give her her shower, so say a prayer for me. It takes so much of her energy just to get to the shower and get in the shower seat for me to bathe her.
Robbie has had a great week at daycare. He actually got to be the helper on Thursday. He was so excited and I am very proud of him. He's coming down with what everybody else has had in our family---a very nasty cough and a lot of congestion, so please pray for him too!
Our little pumpkins and candy corns turned out ok, but they've sat on a paper towel on the kitchen countertop all week. I have to look for my bin of paintbrushes so we can finish them and add the details. I promise I'll post my pictures soon--hopefully tomorrow sometime.
My 20 year reunion was last weekend and it was pretty fun. We had a fun time seeing old classmates and catching up with everyone. I even made it to the dance floor to do The Electric Slide--that's about all I can do. HAHA
I have reserved my spot for a booth at my little town's CountryFest for the first Saturday in October. I am going to be selling the jewelry from the Spring/Summer line from Just Jewerly and will also have a few other handmade things from here at The Doublewide. If you're near here, stop in and see me! I'll be right in front of BB&T so holler at us!
I've got piles of laundry and a messy house, so I can't sit here at the computer all day! I hope you have a great day today!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Another Sweet Sweet Saturday

Hey y'all! I hope your Saturday has been just as sweet as mine so far!
Big Daddy and Lil R let me sleep until 10:15 am this morning. After feuling up with coffee, I came here to catch up on some blog reading!
I already have my laundry done for the weekend, so I had plenty of time!
I have been looking at a few blogs where gals are making salt dough fall ornies! I thought they were so cute so I decided Lil R and I would have a craft morning!
First we went outside to collect our sticks to use as stems. After gathering everything, we made our dough and began making whatever we wanted to make.
I made several pumpkins and little candy corns. I gave Lil R a small pan and a handful of dough and cut him loose!
I can't wait for you to see the pictures after they cool off and we paint them. They're still baking right now! If you're interested, click HERE or HERE to see what they've done with their salt dough! My 20 year high school reunion is tonight and I'm excited. At our 15th reunion, I was in charge of everything but since we adopted Lil R, I don't have the time to do all of that. Thankfully Nicole took over and she's had help and has worked her tootie-toot off getting everything ready. I know it's going to be a success and I'm looking forward to going and seeing everyone tonight.

Lil R will be spending the night with his Nanny and Grannypaw as we'll be late getting in!
Next Saturday we're going with our cousins to an apple orchard and taking the kids. I'm already looking forward to it!
Hope all of you have a wonderful day!
Be Blessed!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Lot Can Happen in a Week

Hey Y'all! I think it's been a week since I last posted! We've been busy as usual around The Doublewide!
First of all, we had a great time at the beach. If you've ever been to Myrtle Beach before during vacation, let me just say this: She ain't what she used to be! I miss The Pavillion, The Magic Attic, those old arcades that were open on both sides so you could feel a breeze while you played Skee-Ball, etc. Now most everything has been torn down and empty/vacant lots make me sad and make me wish that Robbie would have been able to experience that. Here's the lot where the old Pavillion used to be:We DID get to go to Family Kingdom, which is actually an older park with several rides. That was fun and he rode so many rides!
Since we've been back home, Robbie has insisted that he sleep in his OWN bed. He's slept with us almost all of his life and I'm so proud of him! I can actually read before I go to sleep or sprawl out and actually have my whole side! Me and Big Daddy ain't little things so we're kind of squished in our little queen-sized bed as it is, but it's much better for all of us, I'm sure.
I tried taking Mammaw to the doctor yesterday, but she was too weak to be able to get in the minivan with only my help. My daddy has a HORRIBLE cold and was not even able to hold his head up yesterday, so I had to get her there myself. I've been able to do it in the past, but it just wasn't happening yesterday. Me and my sister Doodah take turns getting off of work and taking Mammaw to her appointments but daddy always goes with her. I ended up having to call and reschedule her appointment for next week so hopefully daddy'll be able to help me or Doodah. That half day off was nice though. I ended up sleeping for about an hour on the couch before going to get Mammaw ready.
My 20th year high school reunion is coming up this weekend. Robbie's going be spending the night with his Nanny and GrannyPaw, which are Big Daddy's mama and step-dad. I hope to have a great time and see lots of old classmates.
I'll end with some of my favorite beach pictures! Take care!
Hope you have a great day today!
Be Blessed!

Friday, September 4, 2009

What the WORLD?!

Hey y'all!
I used to have a student who would yell, "What duh Wurld?" everytime something scared or confused her. She was hilarious and I ran into her mother two days ago and got to send a hello to her.
WHAT THE WORLD was exactly what I said out-loud when I noticed my eye?!
It appears that I have a busted blood vessel and that my eye will probably get uglier before it gets better. Great....now...I guess I'll be putting on my sunglasses at the beach for our family picture that I wanted to take while on the beach.
Oh well...ya win some and then you lose some, right?
So here ya go---my ugly eye!
But enough about me!
How about you?
What are your plans for the weekend? After school we're on our way to the beach.
Whatever goes on your way, I hope you have a great restful weekend!
Be Blessed!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Good News!

Mammaw's doctor appointment went well yesterday. They didn't say that the sore was infected, so we're glad. She saw a different doctor than normal, (again!), but he did wrap it to keep the swelling down and told us to leave it on for a week. My daddy's not real sure about leaving it on that long because he thinks it's too tight. So, we'll see.
We're headed to Myrtle Beach tomorrow after school!!!!!! I think Robbie may end up going down with his Pop Pop and MiMi tomorrow morning, which means I think he'll end up spending the night with them tonight.
I am so lucky to have three sets of grandparents for Robbie! It's so nice and I appreciate my "ME" time every now and then. There are a lot of parents who don't have that luxury, but know that I'm thankful!
So....
I went shopping on Etsy yesterday! I love that website and could spend more money and time there if I had either one! ha ha
I did end up buying this from MagpieEthel! I love her cute stuff! Check her shop out by clicking here and check out her blog by clicking here!
Then I bought these flowers from Irene over at SunshineStitches. She does the most beautiful little thread crochet flowers EVER! Click here to check her stuff out too! Aren't they gorgeous?
Ok--I'm done for now! Hope y'all have a great day! I'm ready to get more crab legs in my belly tomorrow night or Saturday. Hmmmm...wonder if I could eat them at EVERY MEAL? hahaha

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Wonderful Weather!

My goodness! It feels absolutely wonderful outside today! I have the door open to my classroom and the breeze from the courtyard is almost more than I can handle! It really makes me want to go find me a screened-in porch and a good quilt and drift off to sleep somewhere!
We have decided to go to the beach this weekend with Big Daddy's daddy and step mom. I really want to go to the NC Mountains really soon though. This kind of weather draws me to the mountains.
A friend of mine told me about Sky Top Orchard near Flat Rock. There you can pick your own apples and enjoy the day together. Check out their website by clicking here. I know we'll be going there soon!
Mammaw's doctor appointment is this afternoon at 3:30 pm. Please say a prayer that there is no major infection like MRSA and that things are otherwise going good for her, medically.
I hope she'll be able to move into our home soon. I've been talking to her every night this week and I think she's ready to move in. She doesn't want to be a burden on anyone and doesn't want to intrude in our lives. I just have to keep assuring her that she is NOT a burden and things will be easier on me if she's with me from now on. I have a peace about moving her in with us, so we'll see how it goes pretty soon.
Have a great afternoon!
I'm off to go do cafeteria duty during lunch! UGH!
Be Blessed,
Michelle