Through the course of time, I’ve tried to pick up on “the little things” along the way. I was taught that one step forward and two steps back was no way to get anywhere anytime soon. But with all the commotion and hubbub of life, I find that going in reverse is one way to relax and enjoy the journey.

• I’m learning to just STOP and back up because it’s the little things in life along the way that are so important.

• I like moving in reverse to get a second glance. I find the second glance a great opportunity to be still and cherish the moment.

• To back up and seize the moment has to make some amazing memories for my rocking chair years.

This Christmas is a very good example. We made our plans to spend Christmas with family and ended up staying two days longer than planned. We spent more time with loved ones, made many more great memories and we wouldn’t change that for a min. In order to do that we had to take a couple steps back and quite frankly it was worth it all.

This year I’m going to aim for my goals and try to back up as much as possible. It’s the times I’m in reverse that I remember most.

Man O Man does it ever hurt when we stub our little toes in the middle of the night. Bobby heard the thud and asked if I was alright. I said, I’m ok but man was that little thing throbbing and hurting. Didn’t realize I stubbed it so badly ‘til this morning when I tried to put my shoes on. Actually I did know through the night as I was not able to sleep on my left side as the little fella hurt so bad up against the mattress.

Anyways, we had to return our first TV before we went to TX as it messed up so Bobby ordered the flat screen Sony and it was delivered today. When the man came to the door he informed me that he needed help carrying that big sucker down the stairs as he was all alone. I told him I would need to get my shoes on and that I would be right out. Well back to my poor little toe. I changed more shoes than you can imagine and that little fella was giving me so many fits and couldn’t get anything on without my little toe fussing.

With my lengthy fussing around with shoes that guy had the TV down the stairs. He was able slide the box down and I helped him bring it inside.

I’ve had a little grocery shopping list going but my little toe is keeping me put. When Bobby called to check in on his new TV, I told him of my little toe troubles. He kindly asked for me to put a list together and send it to him and he’s going to do my shopping on his way home.

In other news – We wrapped up our stay in TX and made it safely back home Saturday evening. One thing Bobby and I always do is make sure we have at least one day of rest at the end of vacation so that Bobby doesn’t have to get up and go to work the next day. So we enjoyed a nice day of rest yesterday, slept in ‘til 10:30am, had breakfast around noon and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon.

And as if you don’t already know, I’m going to hang out ‘til that little toe gets to feeling better.

Sunday evening after I made dinner for Bobby (a very late 9:30 pm dinner) I was a little too tired for cleaning up and just wanted to relax a spell. Before long I fell sound to sleep in my recliner next to Bobby.

The next thing I knew, he was doing my dishes so I jumped up and asked him to please let me take care of my kitchen. He insisted that I go back to getting my beauty rest, so I had no other choice but to kick back and relax while he cleaned up.

Later that evening after the dishwasher had run, I smelled something burning. I checked around and kept blowing it off thinking it was someone burning something and dismissed it.

Yesterday morning while unloading the dishwasher this is what I found in the bottom.

I have no idea how my wooden spoon landed all the way down there with the heating coil but I’m just so thankful this was the only evidence I found from what I smelled the night before. Next time I smell something burning, I’ll be a little more detailed in my search.

It’s Friday! And I have a list of things I want to get done today. There’s errands to run, nails to tend to, and perhaps a hair appointment too if I can squeeze it in. And the beauty of this day – The pretty white flakes are falling ever so gently to the ground.

I LOVE the new Survivor this season! And I’m so happy the Favorites lost to the Fans last night. And even happier that little Mister Sly Johnny Fairplay got voted out. I just don’t think I could have taken him one more week. Now I’m ready to watch Survivor without my feathers getting ruffled.

It seems I’m finally reaching the end of my huge job transferring all of my old posts over. I still have a little ways to go but I’m so happy this job is almost complete. I didn’t realize all the effort it was going to take but its well worth it as I want everything in one spot. So that’s what I’ve been doing pretty much the whole day, transferring posts. I’ve been so obsessed with this and it’s so hard for me to move onto anything else so my plan is to be all caught up and finished over the weekend.

Our plans to move our sofa last night were changed due to the owners having to go out of town for her father’s emergency visit to the hospital. So we are back on schedule to get our sofa tomorrow evening. And Quinton has agreed to help with the move and I’ve agreed to make dinner and Bobby’s agreed to play the Wii with him per Quinton’s request. I’m sure Quinton didn’t need to twist Bobby’s arm for that. So that’s our plan for tomorrow evening.

Bobby is off to Maryland today and will be flying back home tonight. And that about wraps us up for the day. Oh and I’ve been watching the pretty snow fall this afternoon, I’m loving it!

I’m normally not a go back to bed in the morning kinda gal. Mornings come and I greet them with my fresh ‘Cup O’ Joe’ and I’m off to begin the day. However, this morning was a different ball game. I got up with Bobby laid out his clothes for the day and fixed his lunch as usual but did not start the coffee. For some reason I felt like curling back in bed for just a moment.

I lay there for a little while and the next thing I knew I felt like getting up. I don’t remember waking but I must have gone into a deep sleep as I rolled out of bed at 11:55 AM! The last time I remember doing something like that is when I was sick. I don’t think I need to take my temperature as I feel good as new and that extra rest must have been just what I needed.

Of course I could blame it on my night out on the town over at Jennifer’s house last night. She had a Tomboy Tool party and what FUN we had. If you’ve never been to one, I highly encourage you to do so or shoot, just have the party at your house. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

So here it is going on 1:00 PM and I’m just finishing my coffee, well there is about 2 more sips left in the bottom of my cup. And I just finished eating a little fruit. Perhaps I’ll start to think about some lunch around 3 or 4 this afternoon.

Oh and for the rest of my day, I’m catching up on all my ironing and I have some food shopping to do.

And last but not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dearest loving mother. She turns 63 years young today and what a beautiful and wonderful woman she is inside out! I feel so privileged and blessed to be given to her as her daughter.

Hope all of you are having a Happy Tuesday and I’ll see all of you around soon! Ta Ta!

We had a wonderful weekend filled with a bit of a mystery yesterday. We purchased my new “Favorite” drink at the Sam’s Club as I have been waiting to get my hands on this drink ever since my neighbor Joanna introduced it to me last week. Joanna and I were having a nice visit in her apartment above me when she offered me a drink of green tea. Out of the fridge came this bottle of green tea with citrus flavor and it was positively delish! It was a nice cool refreshing kind of drink and I was determined to have it in my pantry by the weekend.

Bobby and I had our little visit in Sam’s Saturday evening I spied the green tea bottles and Bobby piled on a case of those into the cart. When we got home I put several in the fridge to cool so they would be all ready. When I rolled out of bed Sunday I had such a hankering for one of my green tea’s that I started in on my citrus green tea before my coffee.

But there was no way I was going to start my day without my coffee either so I had a fresh pot of brew going before too long. By the time my brew was ready, I was more than ready for a cup. I had my cup and cream all ready and then poured the coffee when it was finished. I swirled my cream around and oh for my first good sip. Yuck, what’s going on, this stuff is not right, so I tried another sip just to set my confusion straight. Yucky, yucky, this stuff is nasty. Actually I thought it was because of all that citrus green tea that I had been drinking and thought the coffee was waking my taste buds from the citrus green tea.

My frustration began to mount when I fixed my diet drink mid afternoon, the same thing was happening and I could not get away from the fruity taste even in my Diet Pepsi. By this point I decided I was not going to have any more of my tea and if my neighbor wanted the case, I’d let her have it as it was doing a number on my taste buds.

Bobby had been drinking his caned Diet Dew throughout the day, so that evening when I was preparing dinner; I made him a glass of Diet Dew poured from his bottle and with fresh ice. Bobby was eating along and when he took a drink he said, that fruity tea is in my drink now! Ah ha, something has to be going on and it’s not just my taste buds. Bobby asked me to check to see if I had used the tea to make ice (we don’t have an ice maker here so I’m making our own ice). I took out all my green tea bottles from the fridge and counted and there was only one missing, the one that I had been drinking out of that morning. Bobby was so funny when he said “I know I’m not hallucinating here” and I chimed in I know you’re not either but this is just awful! I went to the fridge and grabbed a water bottle because by that point I just wanted to drink something that tasted right. I took a sip of water from my little bottle and that wasn’t right either. I ‘LOOKED’ at the bottle to see Raspberry Splash on the bottle with raspberries running down the side.

Can’t we all just get along?

That explains it as I quickly remembered that the ice and coffee were made with the splash and the ice was what was throwing us off giving my yummy green tea a bad name. Now we have a whole case of the raspberry water that we picked up at Sam’s and I have that chilling now too to see if I can like that as well.

Yea right, I locked myself out of my apartment, that’s what I just did… I have been enjoying our nice warm weather this winter and have had my windows open enjoying the nice breeze. Today I even had my car windows down as I went to and from the grocery, ah for the beautiful fresh air. So, I didn’t think anything about it when I just stepped out to throw a load of laundry in. The laundry room is just the next room over from our apartment and I normally just pull the door so that it looks closed when I step out and today I did just like I’ve done all other times. The only difference is, you guessed it, the cross wind grabbed my front door so hard that it slammed before I could blink. Our door stays in the automatic locked position always and I’ve just learned a valuable lesson to always have my keys on hand.

So there I stood perplexed on the very cold concrete with my bare feet wondering what to do. And mind you we have company coming (our friends Donnell and Michelle, the ones we met at the hotel) over tonight and I have things to do other than just stand around twiddling my thumbs. So I quickly started knocking on my neighbors doors trying to find someone who was home. I moved on up a flight of stairs as the first floor came up empty. Soon a nice retired gentleman came to the door and when he learned my dilemma he immediately called down to the office to ask for our spare key to be brought down. I let the nice man go and I went down to wait but this time I stood on the wood stairs as they were much warmer than the concrete below. I waited around for about 15 min when the nice man came out to see if I had been rescued. He brought down a nice pair of socks for my feet and a blanket. Quite frankly, I didn’t need the blanket and my feet were fine on the wood as I was truly absorbing our beautiful day. But I did thank him so much for the offer, how kind of him.

So I was standing there contemplating walking around as I’m on the first floor and my screen door (which I just noticed the lock was broken as it’s the first time I’ve had my windows open) was open. But, I had this huge area of cold stone to cross in my bare feet and I could only imagine ending up with a twisted and sprained ankle or a broken one at that (not what I need).

When I told the nice man my thoughts about walking around, he offered and with that he went around, let himself in and came through the front door letting me in. I just learned that he got the answering service and the maintenance crew and the office were closed for lunch. Ah what a nice man to let me in and get back to my work. Ok, so that’s the excitement for the day, now I need to resume with dinner plans.

In the course of 24 hours, I’ve been switching from ac to heat on a perpetual basis. Yesterday I woke feeling just a bit nippy so on went the heat. Just 30 min. later I was hot, extremely HOT. So, off went the heat and on went the ac. Then all yesterday afternoon I couldn’t get my feet warm, so on went the heat again! My feet finally warmed and I was completely comfortable until I started in on some ironing. I got so HOT that my hair went up off my shoulders and I like to believe I was going to roast; it had to be all that steam from the iron! So I turned on the fan as fast as I could possibly get those blades to turn afraid that if I turned on the ac that I would get cold feet again. Poor Hubby had no Idea what temperature to expect in here and he was a genuine sport! Fortunately I was completely comfortable by early evening.

I’ve been out and about this morning and early afternoon running errands, did some shopping at the mall and ran over to my favorite grocery store. And By the time I got all my loot carried in, I was on the warm side so I revisited the ac. Now I’m cold and have no idea what to do, there has to be a happy medium and I’m desperately trying to find it! On the bright side, at least I’m not sweltering nor are my feet cold.

There’s so much to do now that we’re back to just us and the kids being gone and all. And my task list is looking a bit overwhelming and not sure what task to conquer first. I had better get busy on something though.

• Fill all the old nail holes and repaint Kristy’s old room
• Bobby had 7 electrical outlets put into the garage and that job blessed us with putting the old drywall back and using the mud on the cracks. That all needs sanded down and the entire garage needs a fresh coat of paint.
• My pottery studio needs a GOOD cleaning. I plan to clear everything out to the back yard and hose all my tools and supplies really well.
• All closets need a fresh going over.
• Clean windows, screens and windowsills. I may have someone else do this for me as I can’t get to the upstairs from the outside.
• My pantry shelves could use another cleaning and perhaps a fresh coat of paint.
• The 14 steal piers are going to be done on our home Thursday and Friday. I understand this is going to be one noisy job, so I plan to be out of the house those days. For those of you who are new to my blog… Our home needs to be lifted on the one side a little over an inch. These piers will go down into the ground about 20’ or so, until they reach rock. And that’s how they plan to lift that side of the house. Due to us living on a rather large hill, the ground has shifted and the house has basically settled on the one side and left a crack spanning the width of our home. Luckily for us the warranty covers this hefty bill.

Chop Chop, there’s much to be done!

Ever wonder how to make coffee when you are completely out of filters? Well that happened to me today. I refused to be denied and I did not even have a filter back up plan in the pantry. It’s not like me as my pantry holds one extra of everything like ketchup, mustard, mayo and the list goes on da, da, da, da, de, – da, da, da, da, da…

I figured a way around that as I reached for my handy dandy paper towels, the select-a-size jobbers. I took the little sheet and ripped it in half and lay that in the coffee pot as my filter. It worked its wonders and I am now enjoying a perfect cup of coffee, might I add grounds free – thanks to the little Bounty that could!

Speaking of select-a-size, I love them and the only kind I use now, but not just any brand either as I really like the Bounty brand. I buy those at my Super Wal-Mart in the huge 6 roll package in the new Mega size too. Paper towels have just found another good use in a crunch and it’s a wonderful thing. Ahhhhh