Rotary Phone

Eli and Emma are staying with me this week , because their Nana went on vacation. Emma needed to call her Mom today, so I asked her if she wanted to use the phone in the hall, she said sure. She looked at the phone then at me, confused. She had never used a rotary dial phone. Now I feel old.

Emma " What do I do?"

Me " Put your finger in the hole of the first #"

Emma puts her finger in the hole and looks at me, like it didn't do anything.

Me " Pull it around to where it stops"

Emma " OK"

She does it with the first # then looks at me again, next #. Ok she has it. It took her a long time to dial the #. She was so excited. When she got off the phone she said " It hurt my fingers." Next phone call Eli had a turn at the old phone. It was fun. I had not realized how long it had been since rotary dial phones, how time flies. This phone belonged to my Grandma, she was still using it when she passed away 8 yrs. ago. When I was about Emmas age I was spending the night with my Grandma and wanted to call home. Well at that time she was still using the old wood phones that hung on the wall and you cranked the handle on the side to get the operator. I remember using that phone and thinking how old fashioned it was, I'm sure Emma had the same thoughts. My Grandma used that old wood phone until the phone service would no longer work with it. Then she got this rotary dial phone. In her last years her eyesight got very bad. My uncle bought her a push button phone with very large numbers, and you could put numbers in the memory and it had speed dial. He set it up for her, showed her how it worked had her use it several times . She said it was a wonderful phone. As my uncle was pulling out of her driveway on his way back to MO. she was putting the phone back in it's box, where it stayed.

Saturday night Chara and I went to Highland Village, TX. She opened at a C.D. release party for Chance Anderson. She did a five song set, with " Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash. "Our Song" by Taylor Swift, "This Old Guitar" by John Denver and 2 of her own songs. Wide range of styles there. She did a great job.
This is Chance, he sang for a couple of hours, he did some cover songs and some of his own. Very talented kid. We got home at 2:30a.m. Was tough getting up in time for church, but we made it, even beat Lou. We got good seats.
Sunday afternoon, back to construction. Everyone was moving slow. The girls finished the decking.
This morning Randy and Chara got all the tin on the roof.

Next we have to tear down an old shed to get the tin to finish the sides. Years ago we lived on a 1 acre piece of property, Randy moved the shed there 4 or 5 times, rearranged the fence line and built animal pens, all on that 1 acre. I used to laugh and say " If he had 30 acres he would wear himself out moving things." Well here we are........

Back to construction

Sorry guys more construction pic.s. Randy had the girls out with him by 8a.m. This is putting up the headers.

The weather was pretty nice. A little cold front came through and cooled things way down for a few hours. By noon things were heating up again.
Chara and Bre put up all the rafters as Randy cut them.The last of the rafters are up. They got started on the decking. I took more pic.s of the progress, but can't post them. The weather warmed up and the clothing got scant, have to get a tan ya know.
They finally shut down at 8:30p.m. I am so thankful to have a family willing and able to do this kind of work. The girls get right in there and don't complain, they are good worker bees. I appreciate their willingness.

Jaxon was unimpressed and upset. He spent most of the morning trying to get Chara to play with him, he whined and made a pest of himself. Finally gave up and pouted. Isn't it sad!!!!!

Fishing with the Princesses

" All work and no play makes Diva a very dull girl" That is how I have felt the last several days. Spring yard cleaning and shed construction are the highlights here. I think I have burned you all out on construction photos ( although you will see more I'm sure). So I decided to post these pic.s of Piper and the Princesses, they came to fish last Sunday afternoon.

They looked way to cute to be out fishing.

I loved this pic. Piper and Princess #2, something about a Daddy teaching his kids to fish is wonderful.

The girls jumped right in, there was no eeewwws or yucks.



The BIG catch of the day! We thought if he held the fish closer to the camera it would look bigger.

Then the Princesses went for a horse ride. They looked lovely on horseback.

I enjoyed there visit. I think the Princesses had a good time also, they invited me to come to their house for a sleepover. I was flattered!

Half-Pint Sr. Pic

This is not Half-Pints Sr. pic., but it was taken her Sr. year. Isn't she cute!

Sr. Pic MEME

Sr. Pic 1976. I look so young, I thought I was so old and knew so much. I think about that expression " Youth is wasted on the young" I understand it now. To have all that energy, ambition and stamina, I guess we need all that in our youth to survive until we get wisdom. LOL!! I tag Buck and Becky.

How to serve Brownies and Whipped Topping

Place brownie onto palate.Top generously with whipped topping.

Look Mom no dishes! What thoughtful girls.

Concrete

One more step toward getting the shed up, we poured the slab yesterday. They started at 8:30 and were finished at around 3:00. We had a lot of help show up. Some guys Randy works with at the Fire Dept. and Bob the Builder and a couple of his boys. They made short work of it. It looks great. I may get the tools and lumber off of my porch yet. Thank you guys for all the help.

Half-Pint and Danger Boy came out also, she came to help me feed the workers. It was nice to have her help and company. The other girls had to help outside. I had to take this pic. of my girls. What is so interesting about it??? Chara and Bre are both sitting and Half-Pint is standing. At last she is as tall as her baby sisters. Yes, I have a mixed bag of nuts.

My desktop, everyone I know has been tagged except for Half-pint so I tag her.

Ho Hum

Just been a ho hum kind of day consisting of housework, not much more.So I'm just posting a few pic.s
I love sunsets, this was taken when we were working outside a few days ago. I may paint this in art.

Not a great photo, but I love this dog. Captures his big good natured personality. His name is Jaxon.
My grandbaby ( not much of a baby anymore ) driving his go-cart. Pa Pa got it for him last year on his birthday. Fun stuff.

Happy Birthday Chara

Chara was born on 4/14/89. It is her 19th birthday. She has been a joy these past 19 years. She is always true to who she is. She has been a cowgirl from her first pair of boots. I wish I could have found the pic.s of her, when she was little in her swimsuit and cowboy boots

. On occasion a spin around dress and boots.

She has been a Daddy's girl from the start. When Randy and I got married he said he wanted 7 boys. Well he got 3 girls and 1 boy. He now says "God gave me some pretty good girls."

She likes adventure of all sorts, skydiving was the hardest to watch. She has always been a "No Fear" kind of girl.

She is an awesome musician, she taught herself to play, she writes her own music, and has a beautiful voice. I love to listen to her. She is a daughter, sister, aunt and granddaughter. She is a friend to many. She wants to learn to rope and barrel race. She is planning on taking some college courses come fall. She has a desire to learn about so many things, should be interesting. She has a desire to be pleasing to the Lord and to her family. We have been blessed by having her in our lives. My prayer for her is to grow in the Lord, and to be a blessing to those she comes in contact with. So " Happy Birthday Baby" and many, many, many more.

The 3 Hats

Dawn inspired me to post a pic. from art class. This is probable the 8th or 9th pic. I have painted. I am trying to learn to watercolor. I have always enjoyed the softness of watercolors. There is so much to learn, Lou is very patient. I may not be much of an artist but I do find it to be relaxing, and it's good company at the art class. I just finished painting my kitchen cabinets, I much prefer watercolors.

Bre has gone to town birthday shopping for Chara. Chara has gone fishing. This house being quiet is hard t o get used to. I am having a difficult time adjusting. It was just yesterday the house was full of noise and motion. Maybe I should have had more kids when Dawn did. LOL!!!!

Junk Shed Work

Randy and Bre spent the afternoon getting the shed floor ready for concrete. We are hoping to pour on Saturday. Bre likes doing shovel work, she says it burns a lot of calories. I'm glad she is happy.

This vanity wasn't in terrible shape, I liked it the natural wood, it had a few stains and bleached out spots nothing to bad. But nobody loved it . I had it at the shop for 6 months it never sold.

A little paint really freshened it up. Randy helped me haul furniture to the shop this morning. He put handles on draws and carried the heavy stuff. He's my Junk Hunk!
The high chair in a robin egg blue, I really like this color. Blue tends not to sell well but I paint it anyway because I like it.

This is the lawn set. I should have taken a before of the whole set it was horrid. I tossed the blue and white cushions. It would cost to much to recover them. Whoever buys it can purchase some. The paint I used was what we call OOOPS paint. That is paint that was mixed wrong or never picked up at the store. It is usually sold for 1/2 price. The color on the top of the can looked red to me but when I painted with it, it was more of a Terra cot ta ( related to orange). Still it is a great improvement. Paint hides a multitude of flaws.

Busy Day

I went to a garage sale yesterday morning. I bought this lovely green lawn furniture. There are 5 pieces, I paid $10.00 for all 5 pieces. I also bought this bamboo coffee table there for $1.oo.
This table has 4 chairs with it. Nice sturdy set. But someone had put 2 layers of contact paper on the table top, then glued wrapping paper on top of that. What a mess. I have been working at getting it all off. I paid $25.00 for the set.
I bought this old high chair last summer during the " Worlds Largest Garage Sale". It had a cute decal on it, but the chair was very dirty. I couldn't get it clean so I sanded it and is going to be painted. I worked on all of these projects this morning mostly cleaning them. I hope to get to paint tomorrow afternoon.

I took a break from junk to go with Chara to rope. I am the runner of the chute you know. Our friend Jay went with us so she could practice heading and healing. By the time they were getting good that poor calf was worn out.

This is a pic. of Jay practicing "real" cowboy skills. I enjoyed watching them. I did get to paint a few items when we got home. Hopefully I will get to post finished furniture tomorrow.