And the winner is......

Congratulations to Ms. Terri D. You are the winner of an Easter Egg Wreath. 

I will contact you for your mailing address and get it out on Monday. 

Thanks for all your comments!

East Tennessee Weather

I am currently in a love/hate relationship with Mother Nature and my Weather Man. I believe they are in a conspiracy to insure my flip flops stay in their winter storage. Here is what we live with in East Tennessee.

Cold, sunny, sunnier, rainy, stormy, bring on the snow and then back to warming. 

Dear Ms. Nature, 

Seriously. Pick a season and stick with it. There are FOUR seasons every year. That is annual. That is a few months at a time per season. Nowhere can I find a rule that says you must inflict all four seasons in one week. I need to get my flip flops out and you need to cooperate. Thank you.

Signed, 

The Queen of Flip Flops

How to make an Easter Egg Wreath

Hooking up with Friday Foto Friends at Breathing in Grace

The Easter Egg Wreath is very simple and fun to make. You need one dozen plastic egg, a roll of ribbon and a spool of floral wire. Most of this can be found at a Dollar Tree or Walmart. It is less than $5.00 for your first wreath and many of you probably are like me with tons of ribbon to choose from already. make sure the eggs are the ones that have little holes in both ends.

Separate your eggs and lay them on your work surface. A small wreath will take 8 eggs, a medium takes 10 and a large takes 12.

Cut off a length of floral wire (you can just work with it right from the spool, but it is awkward having to keep unwinding it. I usually cut about a yard. You will have some excess, but a yard will give you more than enough for any size.

Make a big loop in the end to keep the eggs from slide off one end as you put them on the other. 

Then start feeding the wire through the eggs. Make sure you do the eggs all int he same direction. I go through the bottom (larger) half of the egg first.

Pull it through....

...and come out through the hole in the top of the small part of the egg.

Snap the egg closed.

Continue until all the eggs are on the wire. You can do your color pattern however you want or you can do all one color. It is up to you.

Pull the ends together and tie the wire in a real tight knot. I tie it in 3 or 4 knots to make sure it is good and tight.

Cut off a length of your ribbon.

Trim the ends of your wire, leaving enough room to make a loop to hang it. Tie the ribbon around the wire at making a bow. If you are a great bow maker you can do any bow that hits your fancy.

Then come down part of the way on each side and tie a small piece of either matching or coordinating ribbon between a couple of the eggs. 

Here is the end result for the 10 egg wreath.

My thoughts on Thursday....

I don't know if you are aware or not, but I absolutely love hot dogs. Imagine my excitement when I discovered the other day that Burger King (which is 2 minutes from my house) now carries hot dogs. And I must admit, for a burger joint they do a pretty good hot dog. 

I don't know if it is because I just never noticed or I never thought to look, but did you know Pillsbury has the cookie dough roll in peanut butter? I usually make mine from a package mix and then fuss the whole time about how hard it is to mix up good. But oh the roll! The cookies are perfect to make and so super simple. Taste as close to homemade as anything I have tried. Definitely added this to a must have on my list. 

Do you remember when I bought my cute little tray and fixed it up for Valentine's Day?

Well, I decide to change out the dish cloth and heart and little chicken. I am keeping the flowers because they are very "springy".

I added a yellow and white checkered towel I have had for years. Put a few white fake eggs in my little basket and added a bunny I found for $1.00 at the Family Dollar store. 

I am loving the result. I mentioned the other day that I had made an Easter egg wreath for a friend. I make these for somebody every Easter. Tomorrow I will post the tutorial. I haven't done a giveaway on here for years. I am going to make one for one of my readers. Everyone who leaves a comment today or tomorrow will be registered to win one. Drawing will be Saturday morning and I will announce the winner then.

Blogging like a magazine cover today.....

If I were a magazine cover this morning, I would be displaying this lovely lady in her beautiful dress strolling on the beach along with a byline of how wonderful and stress free her life is and what she does to keep it that way. But in real life we both know I am never going to look like this and I am going to have stress just like everybody does. So telling me her story will probably inspire me for a nano second until the real world invades.

Then a little smaller on the side, I would urge you to lose weight and stay healthy with some new diet fad or exercise craze. But in real life, I am starting to walk. I downloaded a pedometer to my phone and started my walking Monday. Here are my results. So happy with myself. Would have walked more but it started to sprinkle. Was going to walk yesterday and the minute I pulled in the driveway it started raining and it is raining hard this morning. The magazines don't tell you to check your weather forecast for the week before you start the life changing walking routine. 

The next item on the cover is always a delicious dessert guaranteed to make you come back from said walk and eat 50# of chocolate. I would put this on my magazine cover....

....except the candy bowl is on MY desk and it is the only reason that I even go to work.

Have a great Wednesday

Tuesday top 10

Top 10 things I love about the signs of spring

1. The sight of robins in my yard as they forage through the grass and dead leaves looking for food. 

2. Seeing cardinals traveling in pairs, male and female.

3. The sound of a steady raining falling on the roof as I sleep

4. Getting out my flip flops to see what ones are still in good enough shape to wear again this year and which ones go in the "only to work outside" pile.

5. Planning summer vacation.

6. Going outside with a light jacket ... or better yet, no jacket at all. 

7. Watching the blue jays coming back to my apple tree outside the window.

8. Being able to take a walk around the neighborhood in the evening.

9. Seeing daffodils sprouting up along the roadside. 

10. And my favorite sign of spring that lets me know winter is just about over....my Bradford pear trees starting to bud. 

These are all things I have seen this past week and it lightens my heart to know spring is just around the corner.

Every once in awhile....

I am so glad my body knows when to just shut down and catch up. This weekend has exhausted me. Saturday morning, I had a Thirty-One meeting with my local group. It was a little over two hours long. Immediately afterward, I had to run a few errands while I was in town and I stopped by the local Walmart to pick up a few things. 

Headed from there out to my friend Stevie's house to attend her little girl's 7th birthday party. 

Left the party and headed to the grocery store to get my groceries for the week. Stayed up till midnight reading and watching TV. 

Got up at 6:00 on Sunday and did my Sunday School lesson and made an Easter egg wreath for a friend. After church, I spent some time telling my sister-in-law goodbye as she was leaving immediately after church for Florida. She has been planning her move the past few months and today is the day she and my niece left for their new home and her new job.

Came home and fixed me some lunch. It started pouring the rain and I decided to lay on the couch and listen to it and hopefully catch me a little cat nap. 

But my body said, no short nap today. I closed my eyes to listen to the rain and woke up four and a half hours later. 

I must really have needed the rest.