Privacy

I have made a decision, after MUCH consideration and thought and it deals with this blog. I have not written much on this blog in the latter part of 2009 because I got tired of things I wrote being thrown back in my face by certain family members. I feel like this is MY blog, MY thoughts and MY life and what my husband and I choose to do with our life is our business...nobody else's.

I've missed blogging and connecting with friends through blogging so my decision is I am setting my blog to private. I will be doing this sometime in the next week and I'll send you an invite if I want you to read my blog - you can either accept it or not - you won't hurt my feelings one way or another. This blog is for me and unfortunately I am unable to share my experiences with others due to restrictions from certain people...and frankly I'm downright sick of it.

I hope and pray you all are having a great start to your New Year! God bless you!

Catching Up

Hello friends,
It's been awhile since I've signed into this old blog of mine. I've been working a lot outside the home and inside the home and even though I continually think about things to blog about I just don't have the energy when it comes time to actually write. So what have you been up to?
I will share in pictures what we've been doing...

I changed my hair color and got a "new" haircut. I went with dk brown almost black underneath and red/auburn highlights on top layers. I think next time I'm going to go with red/blonde highlights.
Thanksgiving we all loaded up and drove to GA to eat dinner at Tina & Bryant's house. This was the first time she has cooked for everyone and it was fabulous!My mom (Mimi to Tina) helped by bringing some of our favorite casseroles and Greg (since he's an early riser) cooked the turkey for Tina.

Greg, Dakota and I had gotten in about 9:00 pm the evening before and since that was Tina (and Felicia's 22nd birthday) Tina and I went and saw New Moon...the 2nd Twilight movie and didn't get home until after midnight. We were a little tired the next day. Thank goodness Greg's an early riser!Tina & I took our picture together and texted it to Felicia...we missed our sissy so much!
Tina cooked Thanksgiving for us, her grandparents, her in-laws and a friend & her husband. The only ones we were really really missing was Felicia's crew in Hawaii...praying this time next year they will also be living in GA and we will all celebrate together!
Dakota and Bops (my stepdad) watching TV while waiting for food.
As usual little Miss Bailee was there to entertain us all...
We had to leave on Thanksgiving to come back home because Greg had to work the next day. As we were packing, Bailee decided she wanted to come home with us. I brought her back to Pensacola and played with her until Sunday when we drove back and met Tina & Bryant in Marianna to give her back to mommy.

She's playing with all my clips in my bathroom...
We spent a lot of time outside while she was here. It had turned very cold for most of her visit, but on Saturday afternoon it was actually a beautiful sunshiney day. I let her play with her favorite toys (her Little Ponies) outside but the pieces are so small I made her play with them in the dog's pool. She loved it!
This is only 1/3 of her collection...this girl LOVES Little Ponies!
Last week was my birthday week - yep, you read correctly - birthday week.
I feel abundantly blessed at all the family and friends who wanted to share time with me for my birthday. I actually turned 42 on Monday. My dear Greggie purchased a cake from Publix (per my request) - it was to die for!! OMG, so delicious!

My dad and stepmom took me to lunch on Monday afternoon. We had a very nice lunch playing catch-up since we haven't been able to see each other as often lately.
Monday night I asked Greg if we could go to Logan's Restaurant and eat. He & Dakota took me there and we had just a nice family meal together.
Once we got home we gathered in front of our Christmas tree and took our family picture...the best thing about this was there was NO griping from the guys! I guess every year I'll have to ask for this picture on my birthday...since it's MY birthday they don't complain! haha
My mom took me to see Precious on Tuesday. The movie was okay, but not what I expected. Not really sure what I expected to be honest...but it was just okay. Thursday evening my dearest friend, CJ took me out to eat again. We have not had much time together for the last year because of her illness, and both of our work schedules. We spent 3 hours sitting in the restaurant catching up. Please continue to pray for her...after two bouts with cancer/chemo, her body's having a hard time of recovering.

We made the decision a couple weeks ago not to go to Hawaii for Christmas. Tough decision but finances helped dictate this. Because we are not going to Hawaii we ARE going to Gatlinburg for the week of Christmas. We are so excited since this is our favorite place to go! I hope it snows...would be nice to have a white Christmas.

My boys are sick

I've been working long hours/long days the last couple of weeks...it's a job stocking Halloween candy in all the stores in my town. Great money but long hours. I'm off every day this next week except Tuesday (Praise God!) and then the last two weeks I'll be working every day right up until Halloween.

I was so looking forward to just kicking back this week and catching up on some school work with Dakota and spending extra time with him. He's been doing school on his own while I've been working lately...glad he's doing it, but it's not the same.

This morning I woke up early before Greg & Dakota and decided to catch up on some long overdue emails before I started getting ready for church. Greg woke up about an hour later - I heard him speak and said "Ugh! Are you getting sick!?"

His answer..."Yes, I feel terrible."

Being the loving wife I am, I told him "Well stay AWAY from me! I don't want whatever it is you have!!"--and then I got the bleach spray bottle out and started wiping down doorknobs, light switches and all the surfaces he touched.

About 30 mins later, Dakota woke up and he is really sick. "Awww, my poor little man, do you need some medicine, can I get you a drink..."

Hmmm, took me about a minute to realize the difference in MY attitude towards my sick hubby & son. Wow! Where did THAT WOMAN come from? Did I not realize my honey bunny needs just as much loving and sympathy as my little man? Thank you Lord for opening my eyes quickly this morning so I can take care of, love on and nurse the two males in this house back to better health! Oh yeah....and please please please don't let me get sick!!! ;-)

Are kids worthy of respect?

This is something I've been thinking about lately and just wanted to put out there to share with whoever happens to read my blog...all 3 of you. ***snicker snicker***

Dakota just turned 13. That is a hard age for any 13-yr-old. Because Dakota has always been homeschooled and never gone to public school and because he has 5 much older brothers/sisters and four sets of grandparents he has been around adults his entire life. That's not to say he doesn't have friends his own age, he has several friends he plays with regularly and he has never had any problem hanging out with kids.

The problem comes with adults. He is so used to his family treating him with respect and allowing him to do and think for himself. When we are "out in the world" and I'm trying to teach him things or I take him with me on jobs so I can teach him skills that may be useful later on, it's so frustrating when an adult looks at Dakota and sees a "kid" and forms an opinion like "oh great, a bratty kid to deal with" and is not helpful or completely overlooks him BECAUSE he's a kid! Grrrr, I get so frustrated with this!

Trying to teach him skills of how to ask questions politely and find out information only to be met with a rude, obnoxious adult who quite obviously doesn't want to be bothered by a "child"...just burns me up! Then the next time we are faced with this situation Dakota is scared to ask questions or go pay for something...because of the ignorant adult he had to deal with the previous time. Unfortunately, Dakota is a people pleaser so he takes things like this to heart - it weighs heavily on him, therefore weighing heavily on me. :-(

There have been several instances of this happening lately and I just don't understand why some adults feel like kids are not worthy of the same respect they themselves expect?

We the People

I have tried to keep from expressing my political views/opinions on my blog because frankly I have a very strong opinion of our current administration and what's happening within our government right now...and I'm not here to spark debates or arguments. We are all "still" entitled to our opinions. But with that said - a friend sent this to me today and I have to say I LOVED THIS! I know it was made about 4 months ago and is probably old news to some of you, but it was new to me. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did....

Hmmm, could it be?

This was on my lawn this morning...
We've had unseasonably cool weather lately, but could it really mean Fall's around the corner already??

Money Talks

Image by Kayak The Rockies via Flickr

It's funny how your perspective on things change after you go through trials and hardships. When Greg & I first got married 14 years ago we lived paycheck to paycheck and relied on credit cards and loans to help get through really lean times. If we had a major appliance to purchase, like a refrigerator, washer/dryer, etc there was no way we could pay for it outright so we would buy things like that from one of those rent-to-own places...and pay a fortune in interest.

Because of that lifestyle we were not prepared for when Greg lost his job eight years ago and we fell into financial ruins. Through the last seven years we chose to get rid of everything, live with relatives and pay back our debts instead of declaring bankruptcy and we were able to purchase our first home last August.

I have learned so much through this whole process. When I look back I can't believe some of the really stupid choices/decisions I made. Now if I want something...a big-ticket item (like, my convertible I'm saving for!) then I know I just have to put a little money away every month and the money will be there before I know it. There's nothing like walking into a business with a bunch of cash and saying "I've got cash, let's talk!" You can get some great deals because, money DOES talk!

Customer Service

Greg and I are always discussing an organization's customer service skills. Greg is in the customer service industry and he takes great pride in trying to defuse tempers and please customers...with a smile on his face. Recently I've had several incidences dealing with customer service that have made an impact - some negative, some positive - but it's made me start really thinking about where I am going to spend my money. I would think in this day and age, with the economy the way it is, that businesses would go out of their way to offer exceptional customer service.

I had to work out of town Friday. I am doing a lot of merchandising work these days and my job for Friday was setting up a store. After I dropped Greg off at work I was going to hop on the interstate and start my 45 min drive to the store in Alabama. We live two miles from Greg's office. After I pulled into his office complex and dropped him off, I would have ordinarily headed back out to the main road and taken a left, driven two miles (passing our house) and gotten on the interstate. However, I decided I wanted to grab breakfast before I got on the interstate...we were out of milk at home due to Dakota's late night snacking...grrrrr.

So that got me to thinking...do I go to the left and run through McDonald's drive through which is right at the entrance to the interstate or do I continue on straight and drive 3 miles, go to Chick Fil-A (which has awesome customer service!) and then keep going straight for another 7-8 miles through traffic and red lights to get on the interstate at another on-ramp? Yeah, well if you guessed Chick Fil-A you guessed right.

I've had two bad experiences at THAT McDonald's lately and I told myself "forget it! I am not going there anymore!" Between my house and THAT McDonald's there is an Arby's, Capt D's, Subway, Taco Bell, Chinese Fast Food, Sushi place, and a Mexican Restaurant...do I need them?? Heck no!

Good Customer Service
I ordered something online from Drugstore.com and after waiting a month for it to come in I received an email one day that my order was canceled. When I looked at my credit card statement it looked like I had been charged for this order so I called customer service to ask them about this. They assured me I had not been charged (and after further inspection I saw where the charge was reversed) but after talking to the customer service rep for a few minutes and letting her know I really was not very happy with the way this was handled...the fact that I had been waiting every day for this order to come in and then just out of the blue they canceled the order with no explanation...she apologized profusely and gave me a $20.00 credit for future use. I was really surprised! I wasn't expecting anything. I just wanted them to know I wasn't happy with this.

What happened during this phone call though was because of her great customer service skills and her listening to me express my frustration and then offering me a $20.00 credit she completely changed my opinion of Drugstore.com. I had no intention of ever shopping there again BEFORE I made this phone call. When I got off the phone with her, I was smiling and actually looking forward to spending my credit!

Last example - remember my flowers from Flowerama I told you about the other day? Greg and I talked about it more and he called them Saturday. Long story short - they apologized and told him to come back in and they would replace the flowers. I pulled the dead flowers out of my other 3 vases and I divided my new roses and lilies up between the older flowers. Their comment..."we're sorry about this and we want to make it right." Great customer service!

Aren't they beautiful?

Nudge, Nudge

For anybody familiar with twitter (you can follow me here) you know that you can "nudge" somebody when they haven't posted any updates in awhile. My daughter - the one living in Hawaii - did that the other day. She nudged me via cell phone and said "okay woman, I want updates on your blog! It's been over a week and nothing!"

So here goes, a quick run-down of what's going on in my life (and keeping me from blogging lately)...

I planned a Surpise Birthday Party for a very special friend two Saturday's ago. I've talked about her on my blog before. She and her family are really going through some trying times right now. They need lots of prayer and I would appreciate it if you would keep them in your prayers. Their last name is Carter. One of their 13-yr-old daughters (she's a twin) is a cancer survivor, but she requires lots of follow-up treatments and has needed several surgeries and things to repair problems from the chemo, etc. In the last two months they've discovered the father possibly has cancer (it's not looking very good) - they are sending him to Houston for more tests on June 15th. Melissa, the mother just had surgery to repair some problems (probably too personal for me to put on here) and she is home recovering from her surgery right now...and still having some complications. She celebrated her 29th birthday a day or two before her surgery and with everything her precious family has been dealing with lately I just wanted to do something special for her.

Here she is realizing everybody is there at the restaurant for HER - she thought it was only going to be three of us, not a whole group. We had a great evening!


Dakota is playing flag football on Saturdays. He has practice on Thursday nights. This has been something completely new to us...football that is, but he is really enjoying playing.

Tina and Bryant came into town last weekend and we spent time with them...
(Greg is tickling Bailee)

I now have Bailee (as of yesterday) for one week so she can go to Vacation Bible School at church this week with me. So far she is doing great being away from mommydaddy - as she calls her parents. She's napping right now so I'm taking advantage of the time to blog!

We've been going to the beach a lot! The weather has been beautiful and the fishing has been great!




I've been working away from my house...the merchandising work I started doing awhile back has picked up and is keeping me busy. This past week alone I had over 20 stores to do (I didn't get them all done...oops! so now I'm scrambling finding a babysitter for Tuesday so I can finish by Tuesday.)

In the midst of ALL of that we have been upgrading things in our home so we've been shopping shopping shopping like crazy and I can finally say I am sick of bargain shopping! I'm so tired of running from store to store and website to website looking and comparing styles, models, prices...ugh - just go get what you want and be done with it!

We are still looking for a shed for our back yard but we just haven't settled on a price we are both happy with. I'm so tired of looking for it though.

Anyway, that's a small glimpse of my life the last couple of weeks. Hopefully things will slow down here soon and I can catch up on all my bloggy friends' lives too. Hope life is treating you well!

Molehills and mountains

I can't begin this post without first giving praise to my Heavenly Father and thanking Him for the air I breathe, the food I eat and the life I live each and every day. I continue to be amazed at how much He takes care of us and provides in so many ways. I have truly felt His loving arms wrapped securely around me carrying me from one trial to the next lately. When things seem the darkest I look back and see where I've come from and realize that there is light at the end of this tunnel and I am getting closer to the light.

The latest blessing is our finances. After climbing our way out of debt - a seven-year climb mind you, we purchased our new home back in August 2008. We were scared to death obviously because of our history. Everything was falling into place though and we kept trudging forward. We made it through the holidays just great, bills paid, took a couple of trips, everything was still okay.

Then in January we hit a molehill and for the next couple of months it grew into a mountain. Fortunately we had some money in reserve and we were able to take care of this situation, but now we had no more reserve money. What would we do now? Even though I'm not normally a worrier...this last month I had to fight the urge to dwell on this fact...WHAT IF?? Everytime "WHAT IF??" starts entering my head I try so hard to say instead "Okay Lord, I'm giving this to you, YOU are in control and YOU said not to worry because YOU will take care of me and I trust in you!"

Here's the amazing, awesome part! We came into some money - I can't go into the details because my husband is a private person and would prefer I not share that on here - but it is truly a miracle that we received this large amount of money!! It was completely unexpected!

Now this weekend I get to go car shopping and pay for my new (used) car with CASH! I am so excited. We were looking on Craigslist and online at used car lots last night. My dream car has always been a convertible Mazda Miata but with 6 kids of course that was a little out of reality - but not now!

Image via Wikipedia

I told Greg I wanted to see if we could find one for less than $3000. He looked at me like I was crazy. Hmph! I found one for $3950....I emailed it to my husband....he's a smooth talker...hmmm, let's see if I get my Miata?

To be continued.....

Plant your gardens

Image via Wikipedia

A friend sent this to me...wanted to share with you:

How to Plant Your Garden
First you come to the Garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses...

FOR THE GARDEN OF YOUR DAILY LIVING

PLANT THREE ROWS OF PEAS:

1. Peace of mind
2. Peace of heart
3. Peace of soul

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH:

1. Squash indifference
2. Squash grumbling
3. Squash gossip
4. Squash selfishness

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE:
1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce love one another

NO GARDEN IS WITHOUT TURNIPS:

1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

TO CONCLUDE OUR GARDEN WE MUST HAVE THYME:

1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends

WATER FREELY WITH PATIENCE AND CULTIVATE WITH LOVE.
THERE IS MUCH FRUIT IN YOUR GARDEN BECAUSE YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

Was it Mother's Day this past Sunday?

I had such a relaxing day Sunday. Yes, I skipped church. Yes, I laid in bed until 10:30 and just watched TV. My husband got up and made breakfast that morning and delivered it to me in bed. I ate and snuggled back down into the covers and drifted back off to sleep.

Dakota had a friend spend the night Saturday night. We decided to take the boys out the beach around noon for a few hours. I went from laying in bed to laying in a chair on the beach and listening to my iPod. I needed the rest...especially after staying out so late Friday night at Relay for Life and then being gone all day Saturday driving to Tallahassee and back. What I didn't count on was my sweet husband waiting on ME throughout the day - he was just as tired as I was.
When I am really tired this familiar verse runs through my mind...one of my favorites:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Matthew 11:28

Corny Obama Joke

Ok, here's a corny Obama joke for ya -
It was once said that a black man would be president "when pigs fly"...indeed 100 days into Obama's presidency............

Image via Wikipedia

Swine Flu
**This was not meant to offend anyone and I apologize in advance if anyone takes offense to this.

Toilet troubles

Image by Hendricks Photos via Flickr

We have two bathrooms in our house. One in my bedroom and one in the hallway between my bedroom and Dakota's bedroom...we refer to that one as Dakota's bathroom. He's responsible for keeping that one clean and picked up.

About three months ago his toilet kept running everytime someone flushed it and then a month later the inside mechanism finally broke late one night after Dakota flushed the toilet. Greg and I made a midnight run to Walmart to buy the parts needed so he could fix the toilet that night. Everything has been fine until recently...

Since I got back from Hawaii a little over a week ago I've noticed the toilet is running again. Ugh, what the heck?! I've been busy playing catch-up with everything else so I really haven't stopped to investigate and find out why the water keeps running every time Greg or Dakota flushes it - but I have to keep sending them back in there to stop it from running - especially Dakota!

Last night Dakota was playing his Xbox Live and he was on there later than normal. I told him around 10:30 to be off by 11:00. At 11:10 he was still on there - I told him to get off - he said he was trying to complete some mission and was almost done. I was half asleep and was getting irritated that I had to get out of bed to get him off of his game. I walked back out into the living room at 11:20 and let him know in no uncertain terms he was to turn it off immediately because I was beyond being nice and I marched back to my bedroom and settled into my comfortable bed.

He shut down his game, turned off the lights, went to the bathroom, FLUSHED the toilet and went to his room and shut the door! OH. NO. HE. DIDN'T. I laid there for a minute, silently praying that the toilet would shut off itself so I wouldn't have to get out of bed AGAIN! No such luck.

Grrrrrrrr, I get up and head to the bathroom. I lean down to lift off the back of the toilet because I have to do something inside the tank. I'm balancing the basket that sits on the lid and holds all of Dakota's cologne, deodorant, air spray, etc so it doesn't spill over (basically being lazy and just trying to get it done so I can climb back in bed.)

As soon as I lift the lid up this wild spray of water starts shooting me in the face, on my shirt, on the wall...everywhere! It was like a firehose gone wild! WHAT THE HECK!?! I am desperately trying to hold on to the lid and keep from dropping it...the basket went flying on the floor and everything in it went everywhere. As soon as I could set the lid down I grabbed hold of the runaway water hose from inside the tank and put it back down inside there to finish filling the tank. Once it finished filling up the tank the water stopped and then I could hook it back on the tube where it had come unhooked from the side of this tube thing in there.

Then I looked in the mirror - Oh my goodness I was drenched! Sopping, dripping wet. The wall and floor and toilet paper was all dripping, sopping wet. By this time it was 11:45...I changed my shirt, threw towels down on the floor, climbed in bed and watched TV for an hour to calm my beating heart down. I felt like I had just worked out!

Greg asked me the next day "Why did you have a wet tshirt in the tub? What happened?"
Oh no he didn't!!!

Tip for your lips: Homemade Exfoliating Rub

Image by ronsho © via Flickr

I saw this in a Woman's Day magazine and wanted to pass it on -

Your lips need exfoliating just like your body.
To make a homemade mixture, mix a single sugar packet with a bit of olive oil and rub over lips for 60 seconds. Gently wipe away with a damp facecloth. They should be nice and soft!

Bailouts and Bonuses

Image via Wikipedia

AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac...must be nice to receive a huge bonus from the company you work for after the government hands over billions of dollars to keep the company from collapsing. I couldn't believe it when I heard AIG was doing it and now I hear Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are following suit.

Sure, why not?!

According to CBS News
... no one's stopping AIG from paying millions to some employees in its new retention program. The company has told 168 employees they'll receive between $92,500 and $4 million per individual if they stay with the company for one year

Wow! I thought companies paid their employees WHEN they made a profit. I really am not familiar with what exactly it is that AIG does, but I do know that a $4 million bonus in light of the NON-PROFITABLE business AIG has managed is extremely selfish.

Only a few million dollars are involved in the Fannie Mae bonuses -- the highest single award is just over $600,000 -- oh yeah, that makes it so much better doesn't it? ONLY $600,000!

At the end of March, Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress for bailout money. Know what Potter's salary is? His salary is set by Congress and it is $263,575. According to Potter the Postal Service was $2.8 billion in the red last year and is expected to be even worse this year...hmm, must be bonus time at the Post Office too, huh?

Two WEEKS?? Where I've been

Image by anguila40 / Alejandro Groenewold via Flickr

Has that much time really gone by since my last post?!

Oh my goodness - time is FLYING by these days!

Last year, in an effort to cut expenses, I began researching on the internet how to save money while grocery shopping and using coupons. That's when I discovered the "game" of shopping at CVS and Walgreen's and getting a whole lot of products for very little money out of pocket.

In the process of learning about shopping with coupons and bargain shopping I also realized there are a ton of samples/freebies out there that are yours just for asking! Between the samples I have received and the sweepstakes I have won this last year I feel immensely blessed.

In an effort to share these deals/findings with you I started my other blog - Addicted to Savings - in August 2008. I really have become "addicted" to finding the deals and freebies and passing those on to others, not only through my blog but in real life. I have been physically helping others learn how to shop frugally and cut their expenses. This has been very rewarding over the last year!

I praise God that I have had this to keep me busy and focused this past year because it has been an extremely rough year on a personal level. I can't discuss the details on here other than to say that my blogs, and reading the hilarious, sweet, insightful, thoughtful blogs of others is what has kept me laughing and from delving into the despairs of depression when things where at their worst.

I had pretty much dropped out of everything at church (choir, running the Women's ministry, leading Bible studies) and was only going on Sunday mornings because Dakota wanted to go. If it wasn't for him, I would not have gone most days. I was tired of walking around with a smile on my face and saying "fine, everything's okay" when asked how I was doing - when in reality I just wanted to scream and cry.

Around Christmastime I decided enough was enough. It was time for me to get back to living, get back to praying and get back to doing the work God has put me here for. I re-joined the choir and have started slowly getting back involved at church.

In doing this, I think there must now be a huge blinking "AVAILABLE" sign on my forehead because the last few weeks I have been so incredibly busy ministering to those around me. I know we go through situations in our life so we can minister to those around us. I praise God that in my time of despair and healing I was still able to learn something (shopping and saving money) that I can now use as an open door into the lives of others and minister to them where they are. So if I am not posting as much on this blog....it's because I have gotten back to living and just don't have as much time these days. :-)

⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9

Addicted to my DVR

Image via Wikipedia

Image via WikipediaSince we signed up with Direct TV back in September and got a DVR I have gotten completely addicted to this thing! I think that is a bad thing though because I now am watching more TV than I used to. After Greg goes to sleep I will watch TV from about 10-midnight every night.

I justify this by saying "oh I can skip right through the commercials" which shaves off about 15 minutes of every hour's worth of TV programming.

Some of my favorites that I have set to record weekly are:
Brothers & Sisters
Burn Notice
CSI Miami (I am probably one of the few people that really like Horatio Caine...my husband can't stand him! LOL)
CSI Vegas
CSI New York
American Idol My favorite so far is Danny Gokey
Wife Swap
** Edited to add-- The Beast - forgot about this one until I laid down to watch TV last night and saw it on my playlist. I am amazed at how much Patrick Swayze does in this show as sick as he is!
I love the fact that I can watch these shows online if I (or my DVR) happen to miss an episode!

Neighbors

Our neighbors to the left of us are an older couple who have a motor home and a business setting up food booths at carnivals. When we bought our house and moved in it was right in the middle of fair/carnival season so we didn't get a chance to meet them until several months after we had already been here. They are a friendly couple who have purchased land in TN and are looking to finishing fixing up their house here, sell it, build a new home on their land in TN and retire there.

In the short time we have gotten to know them, the man has filled us in on lots of information about the neighborhood and the houses...which ones were built first, how much certain ones have sold for...how ours (and the great price we paid for it!) has now reduced the property value/appraisal value around here - yes...you read it right - he likes to tell us this every once in awhile when he is lamenting the fact that "he will NOT sell his house for less than $145,000 and it will just sit here empty until the market goes back up!" LOL, poor guy - I feel for him.

To let you know how ridiculously funny this is, our house was listed for $99,000 for almost a year before we found it and the owner had dropped the price twice by the time we offered him $70,000 for it. We went back and forth a few times and finally settled on $77,500 - that is almost 1/2 of what our neighbor wants to sell his house for!! He had looked up all the details on our purchase and everything before we even met him for the first time.

He really is a nice man (even though I think he is living in a dream world) and he has been very helpful to us with his tidbits of information. We have little puddles of water that gather up at the base of driveways around here quite often...when it's not raining - and one day, we asked our neighbor why that keeps happening. He told us there were springs all around the area and he showed us where a couple of them were. Hmmm, that was nice to know - we had no clue.

Last Thursday, I was taking Greg to work because I needed the truck and as we were leaving we drove through a rather large puddle at the end of our driveway. Image via WikipediaGreg commented that the spring was really putting out a lot of water today. We thought nothing else about it.

Friday, I was standing on my back porch talking on the phone and my neighbor comes over and tells me "I think you have a water leak between the water meter and your house which means you are paying for it...and it's coming out of the ground pretty sporty." I got off the phone and sent Greg and IM at work telling him what the neighbor said and asked him if he wanted me to do anything. He came on home and started digging up the ground and sure enough...we had a big leak in our pipe. Greg shut the water off and after a couple of hours and a trip to the hardware store, he had it all fixed and working again.

When our neighbor came out to chat with us while Greg was working on it, I told him that we had noticed it on Thursday but thought it was the springs. He let us know that the springwater runs down his side of the driveway...not ours - which is what this was doing and why he noticed it. I praise God for "nosy" neighbors like this! LOL Because we wouldn't have noticed it until we got our water bill.

Frogs

There aren't many things I fear, but frogs is one of those things I just can't get past...I detest the sight of frogs! UGH! My blog friend, Rebekah posted this video on her her blog recently - had to share it - I would literally pass out if one of my children did this!