Off to a BEBE shower...

...that just so happens to be for my first grandbebe who just so happens to also be a GIRL!!! A little LILLI girl! In case you didn't already know that....heh. My youngest son's galpal and I are driving down off into the rain....um, I mean sunset, to be up bright and early for a brunch and 1st party for Lillian Leigh tomorrow. It has to be an early brunch because LSU plays Sat night and you know there isn't going to be anything that interrupts that ..... sorry, Lilli. You may as well learn that early!!
So..................I'm sure that by Sunday, I'll have many, many pics to share and I'll be a happy YaYa!! (that's me for granny!) After raising three sons, I am SO gonna love all the "pink" I'm about to encounter!!!! ^^^^^

What are ya'll doing this weekend??

A little birdie told me................

....that I have a very special friend and I am very thankful for her friendship!
Plucky, from http://katylarson.blogspot.com/ surprised me with the most precious little blue bird for a halloween spooky treat!


And what she prolly doesn't know is that I love lil birdies and have a few of them that I love....now, with one more added to my collection!







Thank you so much ms. plucky....love ya more than dirt!!

And now...................sharing WAY more information than I prolly should but I am cracking myownself up with this one!!
Wanna see what a bad housekeeper I am?? These glasses sit on the mirror that I used for birdies above.....moved them and look what I found???????!!!! HAHAHAHA.

Now, I could blame this on the fact they sit in my sunroom, where the door is left open often, but NADA.........just mah bad!!!!! heeheehee!

SCORE!

"Sailboat racing becomes a game of chance only when you are not prepared". -Buddy Melges The Cap'n was prepared!!!

Rain, Rain.....Haul Your Ass.

Ridiculous. Ridiculous, I tell ya. The water has started to recede at the camp, finally. It's gone down about a ft. We had 3 glorious days of sunshine and everything was looking right again in our wet world. Until this morning. More rain. It's been coming down solidly....or actually, I should say liquidly!! heh.........since early today. Enough already.

So..........to once again make lemonade out of rain, I'm posting some beauty that was all around me yesterday out in the garden. How can you ever really be upset with Mother Nature when 8 times out of 10, you get to witness this!!

and this!!
and all of this!!!!!!

Road Trip!!! 10-09

Whew! trying to decide which pics to post.....and decided just to show you the actual places where fun was had and recorded! Ever just get a "hankerin'' to get outa town? Of course you have! We all have. And since the boyfriend was planning to sail all weekend in a race and the camp is still flooded, I decided this was the perfecto time!
Where to? TEXAS, of course! Was wanting to find a little sumpin' sumpin' for a special bebe shower I'm hosting in a few weeks and what better place to look than flea markets and antique shops?? And LOOK I did..........and well, maybe picked up a few Christmas surprises too!!
Here was the route: First stop, Tyler to visit a swe-e-et boutique that I always love to go to when I'm in that town. And this side of the road sale that I rode past and had to stop. My favorite kind of hole in the wall...they don't usually know what they really have so the prices are great. No exception here!On to Chandler to stop for a real Mexican lunch...not that tex-mex stuff, this was the real deal. Forward on to Athens, where this shop was: http://winnieandtululas.blogspot.com/. That was the main focus of the trip, really....or so I thought. Picked up quite a few lil gifts there. Since, the car was already headed in that direction, decided to go west to Malakoff. Now, this is a small rural town that plays host to about 12 different antique shops. Precious! And it was here, at the Lindy Mall, that I found the most goodies!! And just loved this place, not only for the name but also the colors. Nope, no saturation done here! Not a good place to say in this small town so the map comes out and a finger is pointed at Corsicana, a town 30 miles away. Something about not knowing if you're gonna find a place to spend the night is fun....or I guess that's easy to say when everything works out fine!! Heh.

Cutest town ever!! An ol' fashioned downtown area filled with flea markets and antique shops and cool people. Architecture so brilliant that it definitely gave away the town's age. And a family owned Italian restaurant that specialized in homemade fresh pasta, which was the most delicious I've had since being in Italy! Wide, flat noodles encased in a white wine cream sauce with eggplant and black olives and a touch of marinara sauce. TO. DIE. FOR. That was Napoli's....could it have been any better? Nada.

Up early the next morning to hit the shops and take some pics .... love getting images of the home town people in their own environment. The drive back took me to all the shops that were missed the previous day. Even a stop to a local pecan factory....

Then back east to Gladewater, TX. Another fun little town with loads of flea markets!

And here's a shot of the back of my car BEFORE I got to the last town....I'll take another of the finished trip later!!

Now.....what can be better for the soul than a few days riding down the roads on a sun-filled day, singing at the top of your lungs and hanging your head out the window? Nothin'!!!

Except doing all of that and coming home to watch LSU beat the socks off of Auburn!!

A few more random shots!

A little surprise for a buddy of mine, who will know this is for her when she reads today's entry!

The Go-Devil.........DEVIL DOG!!

So....................as I type this, I'm looking out the windows at the pouring rain. Yep, I said RAIN.

As of yesterday, the water at the lake had gone down 1 ft. Still covering the driveway and the street but a really tall truck could prolly get thru. Hmmmmmm....we'll see what happens after this new round of RAIN. What up, Mother Nature?? What up with all this rain? Please already....enough!

Last Sunday, the boys came to check out a duck blind on the river and their dad had to take them to their trucks by boat. And when he, the devil-dog, got back to the house, he decided to make a drive-by. Literally. He was in the go-devil boat, which supposedly is a boat used to go thru very shallow spots. Not a problem with water depth this day. He began out in the river and headed in over the wall and into the yard...across the driveway....into the street to turn around and back out again. Stopping to park the boat at the door to pick up the garbage! How much do you have to pay for premo quality garbage pick-up these days??!!!!!!!!!!!

From the river and into the yard. ^^

Turning around in the street and coming back thru driveway...grabbing the Rio Bonito sign..^^

When it does go down? The clean-up? AAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!

Rain or Shine........the DEVIL DOG is always smilin'! Reassuring all of us that everything will be ok. He's our rock.....our devil-dog rock!!!

Pre-Halloween Friends....

So, I was making a little folder filled with buddies who have been "hanging" around my porches lately. I find them in early light, I find them by the light of the front porch lights and I find them in the middle of the day lit up by sunlight! I thought that I would start taking pics of them to use around Halloween but my galpal over at http://thegridirongirlsguidetothegoodlife.blogspot.com/ posted one of her scary bedfellows to show us what's "hangin" around her place.....which made me pull mine out a bit early too! They don't scare me at all.........I love the intricacy of their web making skills and how they almost put a show on for you if you watch closely enough. And I always hate to see a web come down, either accidentally or on purpose, when they've worked so tediously to build them. Can you just imagine the look on their little hairy faces when someone knocks their food catcher down??!!

Here is one I found one morning.........the straight shot and then one I played with in PS...

Sail Away, dear Friend!

"A strong nor’-wester ’s blowing, Bill! Hark! don’t ye hear it roar now? Lord help ’em, how I pities them Unhappy folks on shore now!"

-The Sailor’s Consolation

A mentor. A teacher. But most of all, a friend.

On Saturday, while racing in yet another sailing race with good friends, Bill let the winds take him away to where no boat.....no matter what type of sails it has.....has ever sailed. He left this earth as we know it to find the coolest sailboat in heaven! As the saying goes, "At least he died doing what he loves best"........he did it. He was very instrumental in my boyfriend becoming as addicted to the sailing world as he is and he enjoyed many, many days on the waters with him.

He always laughed. He was always thoughtful....we often accused him of being a girly man...just because he was so damned sweet.

When I saw the quote above ^^ I immediately thought of our Bill.......for now he is looking at all of us knowing that we are the Unhappy ones on shore without him. But I know he has found the most awesome sailing ground of all and his sails will take him where none of us can go, no matter the set of the sails nor the direction of the wind. Happy Sailing to you dear friend.........and hey! how 'bout blowing a bit of breeze to your buddies this weekend from that cloud you're on?? They'll be dedicating that race to you..........

Flood of 09

YUK. one word to sum it all up. YUK.

For those of you who have not seen our lil slice of heaven at the lake, it will be hard to imagine. But I did want my kiddos to see what's going on. As you know, there is usually a driveway AND a yard where all of this water is. As it is today, the river, the yard, the driveway and the street are all an open body of water...flowing with a strong current swimming thru. The statue above?
Two & 1/2 ft of it is underwater.

These are HIPwaders, people. And I was standing in one of the shallower spots! sophie waiting for me to come get her....>>>>>

You can see how close it is to the pool....

Hummingbirds are acting really crazy!!

I'm going back out to get pics of under the house where we've had to turn off both refrigerators/freezers as well as the big chest freezers because the water has reached them, even tho they were put on top of even more cinder blocks last week. And where does all the food go from those freezers??????

So...........when we got here yesterday and saw all of this, we did as much as we could before dark and then consoled the weary souls with this: !!!

Neighbors "riding down the street" to get to their homes.

storage room under house.

Oh MY...I can only imagine....

sophie wondering the hell is going on here.........

and the scariest pic of all???

**back to add...that lil statue up there that is going under? Now, two hrs since I wrote this post, water is up to his nose now... ~insert sad face here~

and yet, ANOTHER game day post.....

ok. Just bear with me here, k? This one will prolly be long..........
Since I'm mostly writing this blog as a kind of running diary for my children to have down the road......um, that kinda sounds like I'm waiting for them to read this till after I die. NADA! But, it will be nice to have my thoughts and our lives chronicled with pics, on one site, for our grandchildren to read one day.

So boys, this one's for you. Cuz even tho you already know how your dad spends his Saturday afternoon LSU game days.........here is proof. It's in the pics!! And I expect no less from ya'll when watching games with YOUR kids!!
First, there is the meat smokin'!!!!













Alot of this > notice, computer AND tv!

Then, the real cooking begins as the screaming and cussing at our Tigers begins! First dish? Jambalya made with some of that yummy pork roast from above!
MM-MM-MM! So now we have finshed jambalaya and ribs and chicken and sausage!!

Next, please! onward marching fans >>>>>>>>> Homemade Hot Tamales!! (this was another weekend day.....rainy, chilly cookin' day!)
We took some of that wunnerful smoked pork roast and made it into filling for the tamales!

Decided we needed sauce so I whipped up a pot of chili to serve on top of tamales!


Whew!!! and that, my sons, is how we roll on LSU game days!!

(aren't ya'll just thrilled that I finally got my computer back..heh.)

**an added note for my Yankee friends......they have always been aghast when us southern gals sent recipes that included "bacon grease".

It's a known fact that all southern mamas taught their daughters to keep a container of bacon grease under the sink counter to use in most everything we cook. Not good for us. Artery clogging. We know all that. Still.....if you sneak a peek under any girl from the south's sink..........there will lie the sweet goodness that makes all our dishes 'complete'!!!!!!