Bye Bye Blackbird

Butch is unfamiliar with blackbird ribbons through the sky.  Apparently northern Florida coastal areas never witness them

To be honest I don't think we've been in their flight pattern really well until this year.  and that's saying a lot as we've been here ELEVEN years now.
can you believe it?  Two more and this will be the LONGEST I have lived in one spot since 15. 
Wow there's a weird statement. 4 years old and 13 year is my longevity for a single location. 
Yep, built for a nomadic life.

Elizabeth's Christmas Concert

Yes that is her with her hair across her face. Glad I didn't remember the good camera! Wouldn't have done any good. Sigh.


We did get a good photo with Santa, however.


And this goes to show you're NEVER too old for Santa :)

Christmas!

The house is all lit up!





Burr. Georgia version if icicles...ha!!

OMG, I'm dead....

Donna Marie Autrey

Obituary WINSTON-SALEM — Mrs. Donna Marie Robbins Autrey, 57, passed away Wednesday, June 27, 2007. A graveside service will be conducted 2 p.m. Sunday, July 1, at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens by Brother Paul Autry. She was born June 6, 1950, in Forsyth Co., to the late Herman Louis and Patsy Smith Robbins. Donna was a very loving wife, mother, sister, grandmother, great-grandmother, and aunt. She loved singing, riding motorcycles, and horses. But most of all she loved her family dearly. OK, so it's not me, but I was doing a search and wondering just what people would find under my name - shocking to see I had an obituary to the "T" on my maiden name!! Great news, I'm still alive - bad news, a lot of folks I wouldn't have suspected to be dead at our age are dead.  Sad, I found out Tim Foster (from Missouri in the late 80s) has passed away - 10 days after his 47th birthday... that's just not right.

debate, debate, debate....

YOUR VACATION:            India's Golden Triangle $1,569.00 per person, twin occupancy

DEPARTURE DATE:           21-Jan-2013          

VACATION START DATE:               22-Jan-2013          

ROOM TYPES:  ROOM 1 - SINGLE ROOM RATE

1 ADULT  $1,569.00 + $820.00 = $2,389.00             

                               

YOUR SELECTED HOTELS                               

Delhi: Park Plaza New Delhi Hari Nagar

Agra: Hotel Clarks Shiraz

Jaipur: Clarks Amer

Delhi: Park Plaza New Delhi Hari Nagar   (Included)

               

DEPARTURE DATE:           21-Jan-2013

RETURN DATE:  30-Jan-2013

DEPARTING FROM:         Atlanta, GA

AIR TAXES/FEES:  $1,443.00

 

YOUR PACKAGE PRICE:  $4,051.00

 

So….the only depressing thing (besides the actual price) is the fact that there is an eight HUNDRED single surcharge for this trip…yes, HUNDRED… almost a thousand dollars just because I will go solo.  Really – I need someone to go with me…

 

                                                               

 

 

Christmas is starting to take shape

I found a tree finally!! I got a nice one at Hobby Lobby - love that store...

 Fluff girls, FLUFF!!!

 almost there!!!

TA DA - full height up and ready.... 

 Lights and no stars...

 Angela she SO wanted to put on the star....

 PRETTY with the LARGE red balls from Italy that I picked up on our last trip

 Not sure why this one looks so yellow, but it's a pretty tree!

Liz looking through the "delicate" box of ornaments.

Childhood woe's

OK, I said this would be my journal of such. I won't go into detail,
but this week is a sad week for me. This week we have found that Angela
is not handling life and stresses well. There have been times we've
laughed about her antics and pulled our hair out. Case in point the
fear to the point of phobia over spiders and bugs of all sorts last
summer and the summer prior had us wondering if we really needed to seek
outside help to get her past it. It was BAD. Really bad. Grandma even
had her house sprayed in anticipation of Angela coming to see her last
summer. It's gotten better, however there are still out bursts of
emotions. We write those off as hormones and being 13. Which, I'm sure
most of this is, however there is a definite lack of coping
mechanisms.... so it's time. We're going to see if outside intervention
will help in this matter and help her get some coping mechanisms for
stress and life in general. Help her know that the parents are NOT nuts
when we say that a lot of her stresses with school are self-inflicted
and procrastination is the major cause in all this. Maybe if she hears
it from someone outside of the parents it will sink in? Hard to know.

Scholarship Inteviews for Georgia Southern

Some brainiac decided to do the scholarship interviews the weekend of the big rivalry game.  sigh.  This means less hotels available, less choice and let me tell you, the choice we made was HORRIBLE.  La Qunita in Statesboro is horrible!  Oh, well, it was a room to sleep in. 

 

Lizzie getting ready for the evenings banquet where she was seated with someone from the interview panel (just not HER panel, it would appear the next day

 

 All ready to head on out to the banquet

 We had a nice "mingling" session prior to the event and Elizabeth was strong armed by her mom to get a picture with the president of the school :)  This should be in our local paper in the future, just not sure when.  They will also send a copy of it to our house, so I'll share it when it comes in.

We had a nice dinner and and evening of listening to speakers regarding the school and everyones LOVE of it.  It's a nice place and they really are courting these young people.  Some schools just send money, these folks have individuals who are peer mentors - they were calling Liz to tell her when and what paperwork to submit for scholarships, etc..  There is a good side to the small schools of Georgia. Then again, with her SAT scores, she was one of 160 other kids invited at this level.

Dinner was: salad wedge, then prime rib with steamed vegetables and a nice chocolate covered red velvet mini-bunt cake for dessert.  I did have to chuckle, drinks were automatically sweet tea.  Yes, you know you're in the south when your drink is automatic and automatically sweet tea :)

So, back to the hotel, sleep for a few hours, then back again to the event at 7:45 to make her 8:30 interview time.

We were able to wander around and gather information on the different majors in the school.  So, now we wait... they said she would hear something before Christmas.  She was a little bummed as she only had ONE interview and one of her classmates from her school (only three of them that she knew of/saw while there) had three interviews.  I don't know how that works, nor what that means for her, however, we just have to wait and see what happens. 

In the meantime, she has received two scholarships from SUU - one is a 10,500/year renewable academic scholarship and the 2nd came in the day we went to Statesboro - it was the alumni scholarship giving her instate tuition rates - also renewable for all four years.

I'm sure the debates will rage for a while :)

College and horrific cost of meal plans

I've been hearing things and doing research on mandatory meal plans and
am FREAKING out!
Ok, so after doing some talking to someone who has already attended
Georgia Southern - well, had her daughter attend there, I am LIVID!

GSU has seen fit to demand that all freshmen live in the dorms, Ok, I
can see this... however they all demand they have a meal plan with 10
meals per week. Ok, I can deal with that too. What I can't live with is
that these meal plans are a total rip off. I'm still trying to find out
just how much of a rip off this will be. Right now if your child eats 6
meals in the dinging halls due to other obligations, activities, and or
other reasons that would keep them from going to the hall - perhaps they
are SICK that week and home on soup, they LOSE that money. Say WHAT?
It doesn't roll over you ask? NOPE. The parent LOSES that money. So,
be forewarned, if you do not eat for whatever reason you are throwing
money away!

Now what has yet to be confirmed is if the restrictions still exist as
they did a mere two years ago as to what constitutes a "meal" - because
you note it's not in dollars on a meal card, it's by MEAL, so I believe
my suspicions will be correct, you will be required to consume the
allotted "meal" dollar amount associated to that "meal" in that sitting.
SAY WHAT? Yes, if you want to go to Chick-fil-et and get a small kids
meal because you're not that hungry and the cost is $4.50 your parents
LOSE the other $1.50 with a POOF! You go through a line; you grab a
brownie for $.50? Yep, that would be your MEAL and $5.50 goes POOF.
So, be forewarned my lovelies. If you are going to Georgia Southern and
want to NOT waste your parents money, you will grab TWO apples, you will
use a LARGE dollar amount at the "pickle barrel" to buy your goodies as
your "meal" and you will eeek every dime you can out of this REQUIRED
meal plan, thank you very much!!

So, let's do some math, shall we?
Fall semester is 17 weeks - 10 meals a week, simple enough, that is 170
meals.
Total cost per semesters: $1207 - that is $7.10 per meal that is
allotted for your meal plan.
So if you're not eating $7.10 per meal you are losing money.
So if you're NOT feeling that hungry and want to eat on campus, the key
is bring a friend, get enough to cover you both, use one card, and then
have the other person pick up the next meal - it's either that or make
up all the difference by going on the last day if you have left over
"meals" and getting dorm food supplies at the pickle barrel.

Not so blustery day

For comparison sake here is a not so blustery day!

What a dreary day

View from my window... What a dreary grey day... But it could be worse, I thought it was Tuesday and in reality it's Wednesday. Yay!
(That is the BX in the background - base shopping and food court - very short walk to lunch. There is a gate behind the tree to allow walkers easy access)



The View from my chair when I turn around. I usually see squirrels in the tree - very distracting when someone comes to visit (squirrel!!!! - from the movie "Up")

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner was a wonderful HUGE meal!! It was turkey, ham, stuffing and ALL the fixings. We had Sally's neighbors over for dinner as well.


We opted for "grey" Thursday and went to Kmart @ 8pm Thanksgiving night. We picked up a few good finds to include some surprises.

At midnight we headed over to Kohl's along with hundreds of others going there for boots.... 100's of folks going up non-functioning escalators. Fun, fun, fun. Not. Here is the line in front if us winding around the building and another half a building! Lots of people HOWEVER the folks at the door who worked Kohl's would tell you where in the store the item you wanted would be located in the store. Sweet!! I knew exactly where I was going when I went in. It worked out well.


And the line behind as well. Almost to the road. Wow!!


The only part about the night that bugged me was the lady (I use that term VERY loosely) was an idiot. The store workers came to the back of the line to let us know they were out of TVs that were to door buster. The gal first asked what they were giving away. Hello? Nothing is free @ these things. Then when she heard they gave all the vouchers out she complained they should have done them randomly through the line - hello? First come first served. Get here EARLY for the good stuff fool. I think we could have gotten in line when we got here and gotten one, however it wasn't what we were there for...

Kohl's was something simile with some younger women asking what everyone was in line for.... Hello. Same thing you will be when you get to the back of the line, I'm sure!!

One gal was cutting in line and got an earful from me. Cut behind me if they'll put up with it, but not in from if me fool! Goodness. Stupid people show up just as it opens and cut the line by half? Give me a break. Stand in line like he rest of us!

We got home and in bed by 3am and didn't do the early morning thing in Black Friday.

That's not to say that we didn't go out on Friday, we did. We went to Lowes and Home Depot to look at trees then to Office Depot for odds and ends. Then Joanna's fabrics later that night. Fun, fun, fun. I did find what I had in mind for the outdoor chairs. Score!!

So that's what we did this weekend for Thanksgiving. What did you do?

Christmas Prep

Oh the mention of my hoarding and here are all the table cloths. I know I had some cream ones to match the brown with flowers however I think they went to moms or some else's house to live. I count 15 HOWEVER a lot of these can be used every day as they are red checked with no green, plain white and plain red. I have yet another bin with chair covers. Yep 6+ chair covers. I have enough to do all green and I think I have enough to do all red as well. I may have some cream ones in there too and a LOT of napkins. Again in solid colors so they have some flexibility.



While in the attic Angela discovered the horse statues. Sigh. They all came die. I was going to thrift them until Butch got on line and encouraged eBay for those. Guess I'm doing some research and putting them in eBay in the new year.

So while bringing all Christmas down I have culled the following.

A box of Christmas odds and ends:


A bag with double bells in vine, three youth sleeping bags, five sheet sets in twin and a little mire Christmas:



I also hung up our Christmas cross stitch from Linda:


Elizabeth decorated the mantle:


I put up my "Flakes" cross stitch/painting:


And the Christmas card holder found a new home:



We didn't get the Christmas tree out just yet. It's too heavy for me and the girls.

All the boxes are crammed into my craft room:

Hello, my name is Donna

....And I'm a hoarder. I hoard the following:
table cloths. Yes, it's true. 90% off gets me just about every year... But they're SOOO pretty for a few dollars!! I don't know how many I have Liz now says "step away from the table cloths" hahaha. Ok must be a LOT!
Paper products: plates and napkins - oh MY. I have two or three rough totes of them! Yikes. Time to start using them!! Plans are always for summer and parties.
Beach towels: hum... Just can't beat them!! Used for just about anything from bath towels to blankets in the car. And with a pool I feel justified ;)
Blankets: why on earth would you get rid of perfectly good blankets? I have a stash of them (and sheets ) in the garage for forts outside!!
Sheets: again. Clearance is my downfall.
Ok anything clearance that should cover it.
I'm working towards culling but some things are HARD to pass up!
Case in point. I now have 10 double packs of tissues (plus quite a few more loose ones) in the upstairs closet. Why? $.44 a box!! Ok the loose ones were $.60 a box and I thought that was a rocking good deal. Still who can pass up that if you can use them? They store nicely and WILL get used, I'm sure!!
However if we ever find ourselves without jobs we will be able to cry a LONG time about it and have tissues to wipe our tears ;)

Goodwill temptations.

Tempting! Why?


Because of Pinterest!!



Left there because I need another project like I need a hole in my head!

So cute. I can imagine it painted light with a little antiquing to being out the bamboo look! Cute, however left there.


And this? Well this child didn't have two left feet she had two right feet - hahaha!



So what did I come home with??



Etsy has it for sale for $25.00. Wholly crap!! Ok I spent $4.30ish on mine! Now what was on my mind is something like this for the girls bath in a fun purple:



Whatcha think??

Let the painting begin!

The far left shall be blue!

Monday's work upstairs

To my defense, the boxes and bags to the left are Easter - they will be culled through in the spring. 

 Sadly, not as good as it could be, however the futon is now set back up as a bed and the pillows are all in place. That's a plus!  Vacuum is set up for Angela to finish the floors :)

 

 What can't be seen is the upper closet, all the towels are now gonge and a few of the beach towels(yes, yes, I have hoarding tendencies!) are also in Elizabeth's "going to college" stash as well.  I'm sure a LOT of my little stash's around the house will deminish with kids going to college :)

 

note that Angela is standing on the chair to dust the ONE and only picture in the room!  Hey she uses it most of the time, she can clean it!!

Saturdays work picking pecans

 Lizzie volunteered to go on the roof to get the limb that was up there - while up there, she also found about 1/3 bag of nuts :)  She swept a lot of the leaves off and tossed the branch to the back of the shop - go Lizzie, go!

 OK, is it just the age, or what?  NO straight faces anymore - ah, well, this is Angela and her friend "K" they had a blast picking up nuts and begin nuts ;)

 Mom and I sorting...

 Liz went back to get the girls - who were still pickin' up nuts.. nice shot, isn't it?

 Even grandpa got into the act and was picking up nuts right outside the backdoor - shame on him, but it's good stretching to get down to the ground and back up again.  Go Grandpa, go!

 Sortin' the last of the nuts!

 

Then Liz had fun with my camera - enjoy some of her nice close ups:

 

 

this last one scares me!!