Junk Diva's Treasures

2008-07-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

Randy took vacation time this week, one reason there has been no post. We decided to get some of the unfinished projects on the house finished. The most dreaded was finishing the soffits on the west side. Chara had to work till noon, her only job when she got back seemed to be squirting everyone with ice water out of her " Super Soak-er."She is so helpful.

As you can see the roof line is pretty far up there. We had only one ladder tall enough, so they backed up the dump truck and put the other ladder in the back. Southern ingenuity at it's best going on here. They then ran a board through the top rungs to make a scaffolding. Between the two of them there was over 500 pounds on that board, they were scaring me. They got over half of it up. Next I get to paint. The debate is still going on over the color. If anyone is bored you can come help me paint!!!!

2008-07-01T06:56:00.000-07:00

The Fortney family came out Sunday afternoon to ride horses and trim some hoofs.

Stephanie just got this 2 yr. old. She is going to break and train her. She is very gentle.

Randy trimmed hoofs. This is Penny we have had her for 9 yrs. She was Chara's first big horse.

This is Elvis standing under the tree.
Chara and Roper.

Poncho and Lefty.

Back to Junk!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-06-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

Remember the dresser and bed I posted a few weeks ago. Well I finally got pic.s of the finished projects.This is the bench made from the bed, I painted it yellow and distressed it hard. The dresser mirror was removed, shelves added, and painted black, and we added new hardware. It is now a hutch.

The white cabinet I bought at a garage sale years ago. It was a work area in a old mans garage, covered in grease. I bought it and the hanging cabinet for $10. Scrubbed it up and painted it. We used this for years in the old trailer for storage. We don't need it now, so a fresh coat of paint and she is out of here. The table and chairs also came from a garage sale, I Painted them black.

This is Cole's new glasses, they make him look so old. Not a baby any more.

Colgate Country Showdown

2008-06-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Cara participated in another competition. It was the Colgate Country Showdown. There were 18 contestants. It was held at the Simmons Center in Duncan. This is her hanging out in the green room ( that is pink).She warmed up and entertained the other contestants at intermission.

This talented young man jumped in and played lead. They had a good time just playing around.

Cara on stage she sang " Johnny and June" When we left the house that afternoon to go, her heart just wasn't into it. She had a hard time figuring out what to wear, settled for jeans and a plain t-shirt. We got there and about half way through sound check her competitive side kicked in. " Mom I can't wear what I brought it looks awful" Hmmmm... seems I mentioned that earlier. So off to Fashion Bug, we had about 30 min. I remembered this dress from last time I was in there. They had one that fit, and she liked it. Miracles do happen.

My niece Brittney Jo and Cara. She is from Okeene Ok. She has been doing this since she was 8. She has a awesome voice and is great on stage. This is the first time they have ever had to compete against each other.

This is Joshua Cole, he was the host for the evening he is a D. J. for 98.5. Funny guy. This was taken after he presented the 2nd place trophy to Brittney and the 1st place to Cara. Yes, she won. She was very excited, helped the hurt pride from last weekend. She will move on to the State level. It will be in October, with a $1,000 cash prize. Then the winner of that will move on to nationals with a $100,000 cash prize.

Ah Shucks!!!!!!!

2008-06-15T15:16:00.001-07:00

Chara's competition was last night, this is a pic. of the ten finalists practicing to sing amazing grace together. They only ran through it a few times, each person had a solo line. The lady who helped them was awesome, she knew her stuff.
Chara performing, She sang " Johnny and June" did a great job. She did not place in the top 3, but we thought she was the best. Well really good anyway.
These are The Sweet Adelines they were one of the sponsors of the competition. Very entertaining, for a bunch of old ladies.
My grand baby Cole, he came to cheer Chara on.
This is Chara's fan. She asked for her autograph. At least she has 1 fan. LOL Even though she did not win it was an enjoyable evening. Thank you to all of you who came to show her your support.

Old trailer house

2008-06-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, my blogging is getting less and less, just so busy. We are in the process of fixing up our old trailer house to rent out. ( Why? I don't know)I missed art AGAIN!! I miss seeing all my art friends, maybe next week. Anyway, yesterday both the girls were working, so that left me as Randys helper. We had to tear out the old kitchen floor in the trailer. It had gotten wet from a leak several years ago when we were in the process of building our house. We got to the point we just worked on the new house and didn't do any repair to that old trailer. Being up there made me so thankful for my wonderful house and all the work my family put forth to build it. Randy went up Wed. evening to cut out the old floor and fell through, hit a water line on his way down and broke it. So now we get to do plumbing also. So we fixed the water lines, replaced particle board floor with ply wood, then laid peel and stick tile. Then we went out and cleaned the yard so the girls can mow up there today. I kept thinking about this is how things are going to be when the girls are gone, just me and Randy. Glad I like him.

2008-06-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

Bre's graduation was Sunday. It was very nice and simple. Thanks to everyone who came. Sherry K. took pic.s of the ceremony, when I get them from her I will post better pic.s. These are just some fun pic.s the girls wanted to take. Bre and Sarah are fun loving girls, and big hams so there was a lot of opportunity for some cheesy pic.s. If you left early you missed the cake fight, this was the outcome for Bre, the floor got the worst of it.

Bre has always been full of life, she was a joy to have. I will miss this stage of her life. It will be interesting to see where life takes her from here. What ever she does, she will bring life, and noise to it. I pray she continues to grow spiritual, and that she will be a blessing to others. Congratulations to my baby girl!!! Be blessed.

Note: Cara will be on News 4 Thursday morning between 6:00 and 6:10.

Top Ten

2008-06-08T05:37:00.001-07:00

Well she made the top ten. The finals will be Sat. At the Edmond, Santa Fe auditorium. It starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15 at the door or $10 in advance, if anyone is interested in going let me know, I will order tickets. For this phase half the vote will come from the judges and the other half from the audience, you will be given a ballot when you come in. It should be fun and entertaining. All ten of the finalists are very talented. There was a wide range of styles, country, blues , pop, and some theater. Cara was the only one that played her own instrument, I think that helped her get in the top ten. All ten will be interviewed and will sing a group song Thursday morning on channel 4. Not sure if Cara will make it, she starts a new job Monday. Will let you know. Anyway Congrats to Cara!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Junk

2008-06-07T05:06:00.000-07:00

Randy and I bought this dresser at an auction several months ago. He finally had time to work on it. The drawers needed repair. He pulled the mirror off of the back and added shelves. It is now going to be a hutch. He took this old bed and made a bench out of it. We have finished these projects and hauled them to the store, but forgot to take after pic.s. I hope to get some pic.s on Monday. Maybe they won't sell until then. The girls helped me haul the furniture to the store, when they can no longer help me I will have to give up this business no way I could do it without them.
Chara starts a new job Monday, as a phlebotomist in a Dr. office, it is only part time, just what she was looking for. We go back to OKC for the semi-finals today. Wish her luck. She still hasn't decided what song she is going to do.

Sunday is Bre's graduation. I makes me kind of sad, the last one is finished. Pic.s of all to follow.

Craw Fish

2008-06-01T14:02:00.000-07:00

I went to a craw fish boil Saturday night. I had never eaten one before neither had Chara. She was helping Les take them out of the ice chest to put in the cooker. They were still alive.

We put whole red potatoes, corn on the cob, small onions and lemon halves in with the craw fish and shrimp. There was also a spice mix added. All was cooked together and dumped on newspaper on a table. Everyone stood over the trash can and peeled and ate. Les showed Chara how to suck the goodies out of the head before you ate the tail, I passed on this part. The craw fish was O.K. the shrimp was wonderful as was the corn, very spicy. The young people played horse shoes and a short game of basketball, then Chara entertained us on her guitar. It was to dark to get pic.s of her singing. We had a good time. I may try cooking this sometime it was fun.

And we will call him George

2008-05-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

These are the new kittens, the girls seemed to think this would be fun. And they have. We got the little orange and white kitten about a month ago. He is Bre's kitty, his name is Cooper. He is very active and into everything.
We got the little black kitty about 2 weeks ago. He has a white tip on the end of his tail, I wanted to name him Tipsy nobody else liked that name. This kitten belongs to Chara. She had a black cat before named Poison Claw. He met a very sad end. So we got another black one, he has had several names since we got him but nothing seemed to stick. So I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George......

Early Birthday Party

2008-05-23T11:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all my wonderful sisters who came to my early party. You all never fail to make me smile. The games were great fun and the food was fabulous. I will work at remembering all the fun we had, on your 50th birthdays!!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday.

2008-05-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

I went to W.F. Texas with my friend Lou yesterday. She showed me the best western wear store, we will be going back. I have been running with the girls for the last 4 days. It was nice to get off with a REAL person, Lou is always a fun date.

While I was gone Bre had Chara take her Sr. pic.s. They went down in the gully behind the house, who knew it was so pretty down there. I think they turned out pretty well. This is just a few, they took about 100, I don't know which ones she will use. She still needs to touch them up. Not that I think they need it.

Then later they were off to rope. The pic. of the horses was taken Sunday when they were out roping, Charas friend Robby let her ride his roping horse. She definitely enjoyed roping off an experienced horse.

Semi-Finals

2008-05-17T10:54:00.000-07:00

We went back to OKC for round 2 Friday afternoon. It was at Crossroads Mall. I don't think I have been there since high school. It seemed much smaller

Chara went on at 6:00. We got there early so I watched all the people, I am a people watcher. I could sit for hours just looking, hey, I think I have gotten to do that many times while waiting on my children. Good thing I like it. Chara went down to the Carousel away from the crowd to warm up. They sent 23 on to the semi-finals and yes Chara got sent through. She is pretty excited. First place wins $500.00 cash, $2,000 in Crossroads merchandise, and some recording time. There were a lot of good voices there, I enjoyed watching all the young people compete. Only 2 played there own music, Chara and another girls about her age that looked a lot like her. She also made it through to the next round. So it looks like I will get to do some more people watching in June.

more pic.s

2008-05-16T08:26:00.001-07:00

Thought I would post a few more of the tea party pic.s. Maybe these will enlarge.

Yesterday Chara and I went to OKC for a singing competition. It is the OKC star. There are going to be several hundred compete. She made it through the first round, she sang " Over the Rainbow" a capella, everyone had to sing a capella. Today she can accompany herself or use a soundtrack, she will accompany herself on guitar. Not sure what she is going to sing yet. She is considering doing something she wrote. Or maybe not, who knows??? I always enjoy these things. I like to see all the talent. It will be interesting and entertaining even if she doesn't get very far.

Tea Party

2008-05-14T05:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday my girls attended a tea party hosted by Jesse and Kat. They all wore lovely gowns. You could hear taffeta swishing as their beautiful gowns brushed across the lawn.They played the lady like game of crockett. The weather was getting warm and the girls began to glisten in the sun. I believe Jesse won this game by knocking everyone else's balls off the field.They played badminton next. Some of these lovely ladies were starting to get more, shall we say aggressive.Next a friendly game of baseball. Here is Jesse swinging away.
This is where things began to digress. Dresses hiked up, game on. Several trips were made into the poison ivy to retrieve the ball.

Soccer, these girls are great athletes. At this point anyone driving past , could be seen hitting their brakes and driving ever so slow to watch.

Nothing lady like here, Chara's got game.

Football, this team is the Pansies, due to the soft colors of the gowns. They were not Pansies on the field. Look at those determined faces.

The other team were the Bruisers, due to their black and blue gowns, this name was fitting for more than one reason.

Go Kat Go!!!!!!!!

They had a ball, and I had a great time taking pic.s. I will post more of these at sometime in the future. Thanks for the party Jesse and Kat!!!!!!!

Simply Sweet

2008-05-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Friday Bre and I went to my nephews wedding. It was a very simple, yet sweet small wedding.It was at Roman Nose Park in Watonga Oklahoma. I grew up playing at this park. My nephew Joey , his wife Brook, their boys Finley and Porter making the trek through the woods to the spring where the wedding was held. This is the natural spring where the wedding took place. The Bride and groom stood on the rocks at the far side of the spring.The very cold creek that flows from the spring, we used to freeze playing in that creek. Dragonflies, they were so pretty flying around the spring during the wedding.Flower girl, Oh! so cute.
The wedding party, it was very casual, they wore things they already had. Nothing rented, no fuss.The Bride and Groom during the wedding, her mother made her dress. She wanted to wear jeans, but her Mom convinced her to wear a dress, she was glad she did. She was so pretty.

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The only seating at the wedding was a few lawn chairs for the Grandparents and the Moms and Dads. Everyone else stood or found what ever seats were available. These girls sat on this tree during the ceremony.
The reception was at a campground dining hall at the park. The wedding cake was a cupcake tree. It was wonderful.The brides Mom has a catering service, needless to say the food was awesome.
The table decorations were simple and sweet, like the whole wedding. I enjoyed it so much, it was a low cost, low stress. My kind of wedding.

Coles late Birthday

2008-05-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday we went to the Strange Brews house for Coles Birthday. He showed us how good he was at Guitar Hero, it's a Wii game. Piper and the royals dropped by, Piper tried his hand at the guitar. I think he may need one of his own soon. The prince played one of Coles toy guitars while Piper rocked on.

Cole recieved a new game called Mariocart, we all tried our hand at that, pretty fun. I may need one of those. They also boxed and bowled. Video games have came a long way since Pong.

The weather was so nice we all moved outside, except Piper, he was playing guitar. Randy jumped with Cole, it brought back memories of him with our kids on the trampoline years ago. He would play Bucking Bronco and give them all wild rides on his back. He no longer gives rides, but they had a good time anyway. Bre didn't play any games she played text on the phone, her favorite game. Chara drug out Jasons banjo and the learn to play book, she got the hang of it pretty quick. Randy joined in on the guitar, they were quite the pair. I couldn't help but take this pic. of Half-Pint and Randy, and thats the long and the short of it.

Server Down

2008-05-10T06:10:00.002-07:00

Our internet server went down Thrusday in the storm. We are finally up and running again. I will try to catch up on my posts sometime today. I am happy to be back, I have missed you all.

Server trouble

2008-05-10T06:10:00.001-07:00

All Work

2008-05-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

All work and no play is making Diva a very bad blogger. Although I shouldn't complain, the shed is almost finished, and the JUNK and all the tools are off the porch CHEERS!!!!!!! So it has been worth it. Just thought I would post so you would know I was still alive.

Flowers

2008-05-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

Ashley showed me how to take close up pic.s of flowers, so i thought I would post my flower pots, in HOT pink and orange. Yes, orange, it is good on flowers.

Everthing still needs to fill out some. Maybe by fall my yard will be landscaped and i can put in beds. We will see.

Rotary Phone

2008-04-30T16:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-25T04:27:00.000-07:00

" 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

2008-04-22T19:01:00.001-07:00

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

Sr. Pic MEME

2008-04-20T11:49:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Place brownie onto palate.Top generously with whipped topping.

Look Mom no dishes! What thoughtful girls.

Concrete

2008-04-17T05:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-04-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

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

Ho Hum

2008-04-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-11T14:10:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-05T17:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Wine Tasting

2008-04-04T16:36:00.001-07:00

I went to a wine tasting last night at Legends winery in Lindsey. I went with Half-Pint over at The Strange Brew, she has already blogged about it. We had pretty much the same opinion on the wines. I also discovered I am not a Red Zinfandel fan. These bottles are the wines we tasted. I preferred Legends then Francis Ford Coppola. The rest were just not my cup of wine. It was very interesting learning about aroma, about the color of the wines, the taste and after taste. Pretty cool.
The guy in the red shirt is the wine master. He grows his own grapes, and makes all his own wines. The wines are made from recipes that were passed down through the generations.
This is a small part of the vineyard. The grapes are just beginning to leaf out. Different grapes make different wines. This is 2 kinds of grapes. The weather looked a little bad to the north when we got there. We watched the News 9 chopper circle around in the storm. The storm blew over pretty quick.
This view is of the front of the winery. The patio area faces the south and the west. I have seen some beautiful sunsets from that patio. Go read The Strange Brew she talks a lot more about the wines.

Blah

2008-04-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been read only days for me. Girls don't feel good, cloudy weather just blah. I think i will go to art tomorrow to see all those sunny faces.

Roping the Wind

2008-03-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Chara has decided she wants to learn to rope. She has been roping a dummy calf for a few months and has been training her horse. Chas has an arena at his house and told her she could come and rope anytime she wanted, he would just have to plow it. So we went Sunday after church. Chas just about had it all plowed and he put us to work pulling sticker weeds. When that was done he got her a real calf to rope, she was excited.
She missed several times then started getting the hang of it. I learned how to run the chute the calf comes out of.
WAHOO she got him, she was a happy camper. We did this for hours. It got Chas in the mood to start roping again. He was a huge help to her, giving a lot of instruction. I appreciate him putting forth so much of his time and effort. I now know where my Sunday afternoons will be spent. I need to get some boots, flip flops aren't going to cut it.

Move It Move It

2008-03-29T19:29:00.001-07:00

My people put in a hard days work today. We built a fence a few weeks ago and have had to open yet another gate to get to the house. Today we installed a cattle guard. This is my new cattle guard, I feel gardening coming on.
This is going to be my new Junk shed. All the tools that have been living on the porch are moving out there. YES
We picked up the old tack shed from the other house.
OOOOPPPSSSSSS........
And we hauled it to the new place.
Chara is excited to get all the horse gear back in one place. No more saddles in the house entry way. It is a good feeling to be getting things back in order. It's been a few years in the making.

2008-03-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

The " Have tools will travel girls"
Becca Jo "The Riveter"
" Antwon Savage "
"Bob the Builder"
Roy does not get a name, I'm not sure he was helping.
View from soon to be porch.

2008-03-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

Getting the rest of the walls up.
We are ready for the rafters.
We bought the rafters pre made. We had a lot of help from friends getting those things up there. It was pretty impressive.
Those friends stayed until the decking was down.
Lots of decking.
They were troopers, they finished just as it got dark. Great friends. Good times.

Building Start, May 2004

2008-03-23T19:49:00.000-07:00

Since we have been working on getting the house finished I thought I would post some of the construction pictures.In the beginning there were just concret blocks. We thought " We will have a house in about 7 months"
This is the walls going up. Randy and the kids worked so hard building our house.
This is Chara, she learned how to operate every power tool that was used in building the house.

I plan on doing a series of the construction pictures, I'm taking myself down memory lane.

Paint Debate ???

2008-03-22T11:41:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy working on our house and haven't had time to post, this spring weather has us working like little bee's. Which brings me to this post. We are having a debate on the color to paint the house. The colors have been agreed upon, but which color goes where has not. So I would like some input.
The roof is a red metal roof, so that is set, and the doors will all be red. Should the house be the cream or the green. If cream, should the trim be green or black? If the house is green , should the trim be cream or black? I also have a large porch, 80ft. long, with several pieces of porch furniture, also to be painted. I'm thinking green house, red door, cream trim, red and black furniture, what do ya think?

The Fence

2008-03-17T11:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday my family spent the day building the long awaited fence. We have been in this house for over 2 years and have shared the yard with the horses. I love flowers and gardening, but have not been able. So I settled for growing a few things in pots on my porch. I would pull them out into the sun of a morning and then back so the horses wouldn't eat them. As you can see from the photo it didn't stop Penny, she couldn't resist those dark purple petunias, they were the first to go, everything else followed. Penny is like a big dog, she follows you around until you pet her. Hope she doesn't want to become a lap dog. I took pictures of them building fence yesterday and wanted to post them, but can't find them in my program. There are thousands of pic.'s in this computer. I need to figure out how to organize them, I spent hours on here trying to find what I want. I think I need my own personal Tech. Support. Any takers?

Rocking Chair

2008-03-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

I bought this rocking chair at a garage sale for 5 bucks. With a little paint and fabric it went from junk to junque. (That's fancy junk) I enjoy taking things that are no longer useful or lovely and making them lovely again. This is my first attempt at posting pic.s. It took me 2 days to figure it out, I think I may be related to Ashleys grandma.

2008-03-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

I painted furniture today, it was beautiful outside. I must learn to post pictures, to show my before and after junk. I so enjoyed being outside today, some of the trees are starting to bud out. It makes my heart lighter. I love to watch things grow. Ah! Spring is near.

2008-03-10T14:16:00.000-07:00

I am off on an adventure, I am allowing my daughter Bre to be my diet guru, and personal physical trainer. I am looking forward to the results, and spending more time with her, it should be INTERESTING to say the least.
I started this blog on the same day as my adventure began. I feel that if it's out there for the world to see I can't quit. LOL So, those who know me , if I'm crankier than usual you will understand, and pray for Bre !!!!!!!!!!!!