Good Morning, Monday!

I had a great two days off. But it's back to work today. Monday is ready for me even if I'm not ready for Monday. But I do get to do something different at work today. I get to work at the Dixie Stampede booth that is located near the train station in Dollywood. This will be fun working at Dollywood for a change of pace. It's a beautiful day and not really humid so it's going to be a great day to be outside.

Today is my Daddy's birthday. He's been gone for 18 years and I miss him dearly. He would have been 94 today. Happy birthday in heaven Daddy. I am 60 years old and I don't think I have ever called him "Dad" my whole life. he was always Daddy. This is my favorite picture of me and him. Look at my curls. I was 2 years old here and Mom had to pin the back of my panties with a diaper pin because they didn't make them small enough to stay on me.

I'm taking the plunge and figuring out a way to create my own work space for my home office desk. I keep seeing these simple DIY desks where they just use wood tops to connect over file cabinets or tables/shelves to make a desk. I will let you know how mine turns out. This is super simple and give you a work space and file drawers. I "shopped" my house last night for furniture and I found some I forgot about so stay tuned for what I do for my table.

I posted this a long time ago and never got around to doing it. But I need to just bite the bullet and by some magnets and do it. It is so easy and so fast to do that I don't know why I keep forgetting to do it.

Another idea I want to do but can't seem to remember to find a TV tray at a yard sale to make into an ironing board. One of these days I will get these done and share my results. 

My daughter is in a fall/Halloween mood today and getting decor ideas. So she has me in the mood to head over to Pinterest for ghost ideas.

Happy birthday, Shelby

Today is my granddaughter Shelby's birthday. She is turning 9 today. Where have the years gone. 

She has always been able to show her sweet side with that precious little smile of hers.

And to hold a good argument when Daddy wanted her to go in but she wasn't ready yet.

She has her own sense of style and has been picking out what she wants to wear from the time she was 2 or 3 years old. And sometimes she shows a great fashion sense.

And sometimes....not so much. But her Mommy has learned to pick her battles with this independent child.

She can go from sweet and charming to "Oh my gosh, what is she getting ready to do now" in the drop of a hat. We learned years ago to beware when she got what I called her "watch out" look.

She can be deep in thought.... 

But has a playful side that you never know what's coming next.

She has some of her daddy's personality traits and some of her mommy's. But about 80% is pure Shelby that we aren't sure where she gets it from. But she does look exactly like her Mommy.

(L- Shelby, R - Her mommy Diana)

She is growing up so fast and even though she is 9 today, I still see that two year old princess from time to time. But as her mom pointed out last week, she thinks Shelby has been a 19 year old trapped in an 8 year old body for the past year. Shelby being 9 should be an interesting year for all of us.

Happy birthday my sweet princess. May you always dance to the beat of your own drum and never lose that wild, crazy, funny side we have come to love. 

Excitement!!

It is a Saturday. I don't have to work today for the first Saturday in months and months. I'm going shopping with my daughter...for the first Saturday in months and months. Can you see why I am excited? And it is a beautiful morning. I woke up to the sun coming up brightly.

There was still some low lying fog from last nights rain monsoon that came through.

But it soon burned off and the view outside was of a gorgeous day.

I need today. Yesterday was hectic and crazy and one of those days that everything make you go UGH!! But one of the men put it in perspective. I mentioned I was letting things aggravate me bad and that wasn't like me. He said the following words and it was just the perspective I needed to get me back on track: "Why are you letting things bother you? God is all over this. He let you wake up this morning, didn't He? You are standing here talking to me....on your own two legs, aren't you? What more do you need."

Wow, the power of words.

Pop up memories...

I love how Facebook pops up with memories every day for what happened or what you posted in past years. I thought I would share some of my memories from today over the past 7 or 8 years. One was this cute idea for a  Christmas project. I really like this. I would use pine and poinsettias for mine with some picks of "bling" Christmas stuff thrown in.

This sweet angelic face belongs to my precious granddaughter Alexis. It is the #1 fave pic I ever took of her. That smile just says it all. She is going to be 13 this year. This was taken about 7 or 8 years ago.

For the last three years at this time, I was at Thirty-One Conference. This was one of the amazing paintings we saw on the walls of old buildings in a shopping district in Columbus, OH. It's amazing.

I weighed the options of going to conference this year and opted not to go. One of the bags they got for their amenity is the new Retro Metro in the pattern that I am wanting. Each one got one with the inital of their first name. My first thought was, oh man I wish I had went. 

But that's crazy because the price of the trip was way more than the cost of the bag. And by ordering my own, I can get the embroidery on the front the way I want and I am wanting the new compass and initials design.

 It's all about priorities. I would rather save the conference trip money and go see my mom. I love this sign. It should be a reminder to everyone to manage to take some time to enjoy life. I think if you have read my blog for long, you know I try to squeeze every bit of joy out of life that I can. 

This also popped up. I have said for 3 years I am doing this. Ugh. I just need to DO it and quit talking about it. Only instead of the wood blocks I have seen it done with spray painted old hardback books stacked. Not sure which way I will do it. 

I could precut and stitch edges of little sweaters out of felt and let the kids do an ugly Christmas sweater at Children's Church. I want to have them a little Christmas party this year if it works out with my schedule. 

This is a cute and easy craft. Twist pipe cleaners, cover with netting and tie with ribbon...instant little candies.

My Alexis and Ms. Debbie are going to love these. I need to put together a craft night for my grandbabies and let them make some things for the holidays. 

And last but not least, this popped up and I wanted to leave you with a good laugh for the day. 

Have a great weekend!

Watch your words....

Sometimes we don't realize how much a simple comment can affect the person you say it to. I have a lady I work with who I really liked and had become friends with. I have always went out of my way to talk to her and be nice to her. 

A few months back, we were talking about my husband and she asked how long he had been gone. I told her he passed away in November 2015. She made this statement "Wow, that wasn't that long ago. I thought it was a long time ago. You must have gotten over it fast because you don't act like you miss him much so I figured he's been gone a long time."

I was flabbergasted. This was so wrong on so many levels. First and most importantly, I miss him with every breath I breathe and with every beat of my heart. I will miss him till my last breath. Who is she to judge what I am feeling because I don't sit around and cry and get depressed all the time. 

He was the love of my life, my best friend, my soul mate. The one person who understood me when nobody else did. Who is she to judge how I feel? She doesn't see the nights I am driving home from work and tears are falling down my face because I just don't want to face an empty house one more time. She doesn't know the days that the loss and pain get so great that I just jump in my car and drive to the cemetery and drop to my knees beside his grave. She doesn't see my body shake as I talk to him and tell him how hard it is to live without him. She doesn't know the times I just sit and cry for know reason and call out that it's not right. He wasn't supposed to die at only 63. We had plans to grow old together and we had dreams for our old age. We wanted to travel and spend every moment together of our retirement. Now I am facing those golden years without him beside me and my dreams and plans died with him and I struggle to make new ones. She doesn't have a clue how I drive to work and our favorite song comes on and I miss him so much I just let the tears fall. She doesn't know how many times I have to stop in a gas station and go wash my face and repair my make up before I make it to work so nobody sees the pain. 

Yes, I am a happy person and yes I smile all the time and look at the bright side of things. I have built a new life for myself and am moving forward with it. I lost the love of my life, but until she has walked in my shoes and felt the pain and devastation she has no right to criticize how I act or deal with my loss. 

Ever since that day, I have slowly distanced myself from her. Oh, I speak and say hello and smile when she talks to me. But I don't go out of my way to sit down and talk to her like I used to. Now the things that I used to like about her just grate on my nerves. Someone can say her name to me and I cringe. I try and try to get past it, but I can't. I know she wonders why things aren't the same and I'm not cruel enough to confront her about it because she is a sweet girl. But I will never view her the same and our friendship will never grow stronger and will slowly fade away simply because of one comment that in my opinion was unkind. 

So weigh your words carefully and watch what you say. If you do not know what someone is going through, do not make assumptions or judge them on how YOU feel like they should act. 

I had two choices when Allen passed away. The first was to sink into despair and depression and be miserable. To lose all interest in life and the things I felt made life worth living. The second was to choose joy and celebrate the wonder of our love. To tuck those 35 years of memories away to help me through the long dark days and nights ahead. I chose to choose joy. We had a two month notice that Allen didn't have long to live. He was too sick to go anywhere or to do much of anything but watch TV, some days he went to bed at 6:00 because he couldn't stand sitting up for long periods of time. But we had many, many, many wonderful hours of just talking during those final days. He made me promise that when he was gone, I would not let it change my personality. One thing he loved so much about me was my happiness and love of life and he was so worried that would change when he was gone. So I swore to him that I would continue to wring every moment of happiness out of life that I could. When things get bleak and I get down, I can still close my eyes and remember all those times over the years when he would encourage me not to worry so much. That things would be okay, that they always were. He knew I would survive because I am a survivor. I have a beautiful family that keeps me strong. My children and their spouses, my five beautiful grandbabies, my siblings and my mom who have all helped me through the dark days of death. Not to mention a host of real friends who understand how my mind works and how I've gotten through this.

So before you judge me as a widow that has no compassion or caring and can "get over" the passing of her husband in a short time, weigh your words carefully. They can hurt.  

Dining room re-do

I have been working on the dining room since I got my new tablecloth. I used things I found around the house.

It goes great with the Home Interior picture I had already put in there. I love floral and some will think this is too much floral with the teapots and it may be but for now I like it.

It will be a work in progress for awhile, but it's a start.

I want to incorporate some vibrant colors to offset the floral. I also want more than just lilac and lavender colors in there. Fiestaware has several shades that might work. I do like this pretty cream and sugar set.

Or perhaps incorporate some of this peacock blue color.

Maybe some of the lilac.

My carpet is dark blue so perhaps some of this cobalt blue...which I love in this teapot.

I'm going to keep my eye open on a good deal for a corner shelf just for a few pieces of Fiestaware.

I am limited on space and I don't want to spend a lot. Maybe a few floating shelves in the corner might do the trick. 

Time will tell, but at least the tablecloth is a start. First thing I want to find is a tray of some kind for the centerpieces to set on. Wish me luck.

Top 10 Tuesday

As you will see by today's post, I have been on Pinterest. These are the things that have caught my fancy. 

As we start looking forward to fall in a couple of months, I notice I have some Pyrex that is perfect for fall displays but I'd like to find more. I saw this on Pinterest and just fell in love with it. I saw a medium bowl like this one time but had no idea the entire set was solid colors.

This set also caught my eye because it is gray. I have seen a lot of Pyrex patterns over the years out in the wild (antique stores, yard sales, etc.) but never gray.

Pink always catches my eye and I just love these cups.

I don't know why but this just was so adorable. I love red and white checks and plaids so this was sure to peak my interest.

You know, I could pre-cut all this and take it with me to work on when I go to the beach. I like to craft after I get settled in for the night and some nights I get tired of plastic canvas.

These are really cute and I could turn these out pretty fast.

I just heard about something called wood gel paint. Apparently you can paint on plastic with it and give the plastic a wood like finish. I am wondering if anyone has ever heard of this? This pic shows it on a PVC pipe, but I'm wondering if that would cover my white table that I am wanting to give some kind of makeover to.

I showed you my new tablecloth pic the other day (still in the package). I am going to incorporate some lavender, lilac and purple into my dining room for something different. Check out this neat idea.

And oh my gosh all this floral is right up my alley.

My sister and all my Roma cousins are going to be so proud of me. I have decided to start collecting a small collection of Fiestaware. But I just want shades of purples, navy and blues to accentuate my new color scheme in my dining room. I'm super excited about it.