Patriotic ~ Flag shirts

Do you have any 4th of July traditions? This patriotic holiday is one big celebration of America’s birth and the commemoration of our founding fathers as they declared our independence on July 4, 1776. When the boys were younger we would go to parades and then head downtown to sit on the bridge to watch the fireworks. I would go on the hunt to find 4th of July shirts for each of us. We all had to look good, ya know! As they got older, they weren't into going to the parades, and then slowly watching the fireworks just weren't their thing to do with mom and dad.

Now that its just the hubs and I at home, I want to get back to the traditions of old, so I am on the hunt for a cute flag shirt for me, like maybe this cute tank.

As for the hubs, maybe The Flag Shirt like this one. He is so picky on his shirts. He doesn't like too much going on. So may take a bit for to find just the right one.



Anyways, back to the traditions... Are you a parade person, do you BBQ with friends, or just hang out at the pool or lake kind of person? Do you get all dressed up in red, white and blue? Whatever you do I hope you have the best 4th this year!!

What is your favorite holiday movie?

Its almost Thanksgiving, are you getting ready for all of the yummy foods? I am so looking forward to that and the fellowship with family. We usually start making plans for how Christmas will go, and the boys will be putting in their requests for the foods for our Christmas Eve tradition of finger foods and movie night. Our favorite move to watch is A Christmas Story (with Ralphie). We never tire of watching this.

But lets get back to Thanksgiving, after our bellies are full others will be getting their lists made to go hit the sales for Black Friday, me I am going to try and talk the hubs into heading the theater to go see "The Man Who Invented Christmas", which releases in theater>s November 22nd.

Film Synopsis: The Man Who Invented Christmas tells the magical journey that led to the creation of Ebenezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer), Tiny Tim and other classic characters from A Christmas Carol. Directed by Bharat Nalluri (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day), the film shows how Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) mixed real life inspirations with his vivid imagination to conjure up unforgettable characters and a timeless tale, forever changing the holiday season into the celebration we know today.

Here is a little behind-the scenes Film Featurette:

I have a little Holiday Giveaway of beloved DVDs that feature the stars of our film. The giveaway includes a DVD combo-pack of the following movies:

The Sound of Music --  Beauty and the Beast -- A Christmas Carol
-- --

The giveaway will be open through Black Friday (Nov 24th, 2017). I will do a random draw and post the winner of these DVD's on Saturday Nov. 25, 2017. To enter, just comment down below with what your favorite holiday movie is. Good luck, and don't forget to check out "The Man Who Invented Christmas" in theaters Nov. 22nd, 2017!

Weekend in review

Weekend rewind. If you want to play along, grab the above button and tell me all about your weekend!

Friday ~ groceries in the morning, cut up fruit, made fruit salsa, ran some errands, made dinner. Once John was home he mowed the lawn, then we sat out on the deck for a while just relaxing.

Saturday ~ Plans for the weekend changed. Between some not feeling well and car problems for another, the weekend away was cancelled. So we were able to make it to a graduation open house for my husbands boss' son. Then back home so he could help Trent with his brakes. I went and got my nails done and a pedi. Aren't they pretty?? They always do such a great job!


Pizza for dinner, then some browsing through the photo albums.... searching for a particular picture, but not having any luck. But I did see one picture that made me miss when the boys were younger, when I could get them cute little bags with their names on them! One of these days they will grow up and settled down and have babies of their own then I can shop on sites like www.thecrazydazy.com and get cute bags again!!

Sunday ~ Father's Day ~ church in the morning, potluck after church, then over to the inlaws - we grilled burgers and dogs and watched American Sniper. Poor Lici tired herself out. She crashed hard while we were watching the movie, and is out again now that we are home!





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Weekend in Review

Weekend rewind. If you want to play along, grab the above button and tell me all about your weekend!

3 day Holiday weekend for Memorial Day, so Monday is added in the weekend review this week.

Friday ~ Groceries in the morning, was able to finally get the lawn mower started on my own, so cut the grass. Finished painting my side units for my window seat (primed them earlier in the week)


Now just waiting for them to fully dry, so I can put things on the shelves, and hopefully get pics of the whole room makeover posted soon!

Did some light housework, warmed up dinner for the hubby, then over to Robyn's for girls night! We ordered Chinese, then sat around the fire for the night.



Saturday ~ Used up the remainder of the ripe bananas to make banana pudding! YUM! We decided to go on a small road trip, along the shore line of Lake Michigan. It turned out to be shorter than we had planned, as Lici wasn't really loving the car ride.

I loved the reaction I got out of my hubby as I was coming out of the bathroom after I finished getting ready for our day date. "You like nice, really nice" - I may have been over dressed for just a car ride, but I didn't care. Its nice to dress up every now and then (plus we were going out to eat once we got back and dropped off the dog).

Awesome hair day!




After dinner we went to K-Mart to check on a patio table. The price I saw was an online only price, so I had to do the purchase online, then wait 20ish minutes until the whole process was complete. So we went over to Lowe's, where J got a drill bit and I picked up some clay pots for a project I want to make for the new patio table!

Sunday ~ church in the morning, lunch at my favorite place (Bud n Stanley's), home for a nap. Went to Joann's to pick up supplies for the patio table project. Worked on my flower curtain, until I ran out of yarn - sigh. Watched a movie with my hubby.

Monday ~ Memorial Day. Made breakfast, went and returned a few things to Lowe's, picked up different pots for my floral arrangement, and some yarn. Stopped at Verizon to see what was going on with my phone. Once home, made these cute floral/candle arrangement for my new patio table that we put together to day.


Grilled some burgers to go with tater salad and mixed fruit for dinner. And now that its 5pm, I am finally sitting down for the day/night.

Great weekend!

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Weekend in Review

Weekend rewind. If you want to play along, grab the above button and tell me all about your weekend!

Friday ~ I had traded days with a coworker, as she didn't have a sitter for her kids. Once home, quick changed, then headed over to Robyn's for girls night.


Co had to sneak in our picture....


We had a craving for cheesy fries, so a late night drive to Denny's it was!


Saturday ~ After a late night, I decided that grocery shopping could wait until Monday and that sleeping in would be a much better choice!! I went with John to get his hair cut, then talked him into stopping at Home Depot to pick up a peg board and hooks, so I can get started on my mini craft room makeover. I started to watch a couple of shows I recorded, but decided a little nap was in order before my date night with my man! We went out for dinner, then stopped at the Jeep dealer, to look at some Jeeps; stopped at the video store and picked up Interstellar.

Sunday ~ Easter Sunday. Our Pastor and his wife made breakfast for the whole congregation before service; blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs and sausage. Then we went over to the inlaws for dinner. Both boys were able to make it, so I convinced them to take a picture with me.



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Valentine's Day Swap

I love receiving fun mail, so much better than bills. This past week I was stalking the mailman, just waiting for a package to arrive. A few days there we didn't get any mail; which is strange, as we get mail every day, even junk mail.

On Friday I received a "little sunshine" in the mail from Amy. I love it! I am trying to figure out where I want to display it.



This makes me want to try my hand at quilting! One of these days!

Thanks again Amy!!

Sunday Stealing

The Christmas Meme

Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme.

Let's go!!!

The Christmas Meme

From the archives!

1. Do you send Christmas cards? Not any more

2. How soon do you start shopping?: after Thanksgiving

3. Who do you shop for?: my hubby, boys and my inlaws

4. Do you put up a Christmas tree?: yes

5. If so, is it fake or real?: fake, can't deal with the needles falling off real trees

6. Do you like tinsel?: I do, but with having a cat I don't put any on the tree

7. Do you use homemade or store bought ornaments?: bought ornaments

8. Do you put Christmas lights outside your house?: no, but want to! Once we get a ranch style house, then there will be lights on the house!

9. Do you put lights on the tree?: yep

10. How about popcorn and cranberries?: no

11. Is there a wreath hanging on your door?: yep, one I made myself

13. Do you hang up your stocking?: yes

14. Does your family read "Twas the night before Christmas?": not since the boys were little

15. Christmas Movie?: A Christmas Story

16. Character from any Christmas Movie: Ralphie

17. Christmas Song: O Little Town of Bethlehem

18. Christmas Memory: going to Florida with the boys one Christmas

19. Give or Receive?: both

22. Ham or Turkey?: turkey

24. White Lights or Colored Lights? white

25. Blinking Lights or Still Lights: still

26. Were you Naughty or Nice this year?: a little bit of both

27. What do you want for Christmas this year?: to just stay home....as much as I love my inlaws, I would just like to stay home and not have to travel

28. When do you open your gifts?: around 10ish...with the boys being older, there is no getting up before the crack of dawn!

29. What's the best gift you've ever gotten?: my Pandora bracelet

30. What's the worst gift you've ever gotten?: broken items, hair towel thingy

31. Who gives you the most gifts?: my hubby

32. Have you ever had a secret Santa?: yep, at work

33. Do you like wrapping gifts?: I used to, but not anymore

34. Do you put change in those red buckets?: yes

35. Do you burn a yule log?: no

36. Can you name all the reindeer?: yes

37. Do you bake cookies?: yep, I have 3 different kind I will be baking in the next few days, to assemble some goodie baskets

38. Have you ever seen your mommy kissing Santa Clause?: yes

39. Have you ever gotten a kiss under the mistletoe?: yes

41. Do you drive around and look at the Christmas lights?: we have in the past

42. Have you ever left Santa cookies?: yes

43. Have you ever sat on Santa's lap?: yes

44. Who do you celebrate Christmas with?: my hubby, boys, inlaws

45. Where do you celebrate Christmas?: our house, then over to the inlaws

46. Have you ever had a white Christmas?: Uhhhh, I live in Michigan, what do you think?!?! So far though this year, there is no snow! We got hammered over Thanksgiving, but it all melted and has stayed away, and I love it... but I know its short lived as its coming back... sigh

47. What part of Christmas do you look most forward to?: family time

48. Have you ever had your picture taken with Santa?: yes

On his wish list

Now that John has finished messing around and rebuilding his amp he has mentioned that he wants a tascam dr-40 so he can do some recording of some of his music. I may have the boys go in on this and get it for him, then I can get the other things that I told the boys to get (that they wanted me to go pick out and then just repay me.)

Now to figure out the funding of the rest of the Christmas gifts. I hate this time of year, it seems like everything gets backed up! I say every year that I am going to set aside money each month so I don't get this sinking feeling, but I never do! I need to start doing this!!

Sunday Stealing

Thanksgiving Meme

It's Thanksgiving in the States! Wishing everyone a lovely holiday!

This week's Thanksgiving Meme comes from the archives!

1. Are you celebrating Thanksgiving at home or elsewhere this year? With whom will you spend Thanksgiving Day? We will be going over to my inlaws; me, the hubby, our boys, mom/pop inlaw, sis in law, nephews, niece, Jim (the ex brother inlaw - he's back in the pic), and I think an aunt and uncle.

2. What do you have for breakfast on Thanksgiving? cinnamon rolls

3. Do you go to a Thanksgiving parade or watch one on TV? I watch the Macy's pararde on TV

4. Do you serve appetizers, lunch, or snacks during the day? no

5. What do you wear on Thanksgiving? I have no clue, something comfy though

6. What's your Thanksgiving table like -- do you use special plates/silver/glasses, etc? Do you have a centerpiece? A color scheme? Candles? my MIL will have some sort of Thanksgiving or fallish display.... and no special table settings

7. Do you serve buffet-style or family-style? What do you have to drink? buffet style, and there will probably be pop and wine

8. Once you're at the table, do you say grace or a toast or does everyone go around and say what they're thankful for? either my hubby or uncle will say a prayer

9. Do you have dessert right after the main meal or later on? later on

10. What do you do with your leftovers? I will make another meal out of it, and then eat turkey sandwiches until the turkey is gone

Holiday decorating

I have been slacking of getting my things out for holiday decorations. I was going to get all of my Thanksgiving stuff out, but I just don't have the desire to go into the "dungeon" (aka the basement) to get it all out. I just hope I get of out this funk for when its time to decorate for Christmas.

I am hoping to find the perfect spot to get out my department 56 new england village items. I wonder if I can talk my hubby into taking a trip to Bronner's to get a few more pieces to add to my collection.

Happy 4th of July!!

Hope you all have safe and happy holiday!

Weekend in Review

Weekend rewind. If you want to play along, grab the above button and tell me all about your weekend!

Friday ~ Did some light housework before heading off to work. Hung out at home the rest of the night.

Saturday ~ Groceries in the morning, then off to the car show at some local car dealers near by. Once a year the Chevy, Ford and Dodge dealers will clear their lots and have a car show with all of the old model cars. John and I each drooled over the ones we really liked. I still like the older Mustangs, and picked out a few I would love to have! John has the bug to refurbish a car again and has been looking at www.mrcycles.com.

Sunday ~ Father's Day ~ we surprised John with tickets to go see Bad Company/Lynyrd Skynryd next month in Detroit. We grilled burgers, then headed over to the inlaws - for Pop's day and my mother inlaws b-day. Christopher stopped over after work for a bit.

John and his dad


Gramps, Trent and John


Christopher, John and Trent


Lici hanging out


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Weekend in Review

Weekend rewind. If you want to play along, grab the above button and tell me all about your weekend!

Friday ~ Grocery shopping in the morning, then off for lunch and some garage saleing (in the rain, so not a fan of Mother Nature!). No luck on finding anything for me, but Robyn's goal was at least one pair of shorts, which she succeeded at the very last sale we stopped at.

John and I finally got the deck furniture out, now just need to get a planter for my stand and come up with an idea for a ring around the opening to the umbrella stand. While doing this, Trent pulled up in the driveway. I knew he was coming home for the weekend, but didn't really expect him until Saturday.

Saturday ~ Met up with a host to close out her party at Panera Bread. Ordered a danish and some water, only to find out that I had a reward on my card, so my danish was free! Love surprises like that!

John and Trent made a dump run after cleaning out the garage, and some of the basement. John mowed the lawn, while I weeded my flower beds. The rest of the night was pretty low key.

Sunday ~ Mother's Day. The boys got me flowers, a Ninja blender and a funny card. John, again went to Jared's (after me telling him he didn't need to get me anything with the boys old enough now to do their own shopping) and got me another charm to add to my bracelet.




I need to get a clearer picture of the charm. We grilled burgers, potato salad, corn on the cob and mixed fruit for dinner. It was a relaxing Mother's Day.

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Sunday Stealing

The Easter Meme

Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme.
Let's go!!!

The Easter Meme

From the now-defunct blog of Tense Teacher (the link is dead).

What are your Easter traditions? Easter baskets for the boys (well when they were younger, now its just a family bucket, that I failed to fill this year :( )

Do you hard boil and decorate eggs? we used to every year

How do you decorate your home for Easter? just a few baskets on the table

Do you make/buy special outfits for yourself and your kids on Easter? no

What is your favorite Easter dish? ham

When did you learn the truth about the Easter Bunny? don't remember

Do you spend Easter at home, on vacation, or with family? sometimes at home, this year we are going to the inlaws

First one up on Easter morning? I usually am

Go to mass or church? church, but not this year

What are your favorite Easter hymns and/or choir arrangements? none

How many Easter egg hunts does your family usually participate in? none

Do you make deviled eggs out of leftover Easter eggs? no, usually egg salad

Are you tired of eggs by the end of the Easter Season? no

Are Peeps good or gross? Love Peeps!

What company makes the best chocolate for Easter time? Brachs

Lots of candy or not? As long as there are Jelly Beans and Peeps, we are good!

What is your favorite Easter candy? Jelly beans and Peeps

Do you find plastic Easter grass hidden in places for months after Easter is over? no, have to keep it under control, as I have a kitty that can't get a hold of it

What’s your favorite color for fake grass? purple

Saturday 9

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Welcome to Saturday: 9. What we've committed to our readers is that we will post 9 questions every Saturday. Sometimes the post will have a theme, and at other times the questions will be totally unrelated. Those weeks we do "random questions," so-to-speak. We encourage you to visit other participants posts and leave a comment. Because we don't have any rules, it is your choice. We hate rules. We love memes, however, and here is today's meme!

Saturday 9: Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1950)

1) Which do you prefer: colored hard-boiled eggs, chocolate marshmallow eggs, or plastic eggs with coins inside? chocolate marshmallow eggs

2) What's your favorite color of Peeps (yellow, purple, or pink)? purple

3) All this talk of sweets is making Sam hungry. What's for lunch? not sure yet, maybe some chips n cheese and salsa

4) This song was introduced by country singer Gene Autry and it's still a favorite. Please share some of the lyrics. (And you're on your own; Sam didn't include a link to the song this week.)
Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hopping down the bunny trail.
Hippity hoppin',
Easter's on its way!

Bringing every girl and boy
Baskets full of Easter joy
Things to make your Easter
Bright and gay.

He's got jelly beans for Tommy,
Colored eggs for sister Sue.
There's an orchid for your mommy,
And an Easter basket too. Oh!

Here comes Peter Cottontail
Hoppin' down the bunny trail.
Hippity hoppity
Easter's on it's way

5) Gene Autry was so popular that a town in Oklahoma named itself for him. Have you ever been to Oklahoma? no

6) In addition to singing, Mr. Autry made 93 cowboy movies. What's the last movie you saw? The Last Song

7) He and his horse Champion also had a TV show. Can you name another famous horse? Mr. Ed

8) Gene Autry also recorded "Rudolph, The Red Nosed Reindeer," and it was, of course, wildly popular, too. Who is your favorite recording artist? Colbie Caillat


9) Back to the holiday celebration at hand -- Easter is considered the season of rebirth. What leaves you feeling refreshed and rejuvenated? a nice hot shower