The lamest post I could muster up...

Because I don't have anything too terribly exciting to post about, for sheer lack of cohesiveness, and to accommodate what I like to call my LILADD (Late in Life Attention Deficit Disorder), I find myself in need of some bullets for this one:

• I'm beginning to get sick and it happened overnight. My throat is sore and I'm almost certain that if a telemarketer called me right now, I would somehow be referred to as 'sir'. And I know exactly why my sickly voice sounds as masculine as it does. It really is no mystery. It's because last night I went to see the movie Bride Wars and I made a little quip about Kristen Johnston (who plays Anne Hathaway's coworker) having a man voice. Now that's some serious karma.



• I've been spending the past several days working on a work related project that is due this Wednesday. Even though I taught school for several years in Florida before transferring to Georgia, I'm still treated as a 'new' teacher and therefore have to go through Georgia's little training episodes. So I've been spending most of my spare time (does that even exist?) on this lengthy project and I'm about to go nuts. Seriously Georgia, can't I just pledge my allegiance to football and fatback and call it a day?! (fatback - also commonly referred to 'white bacon, ' fried bacon fat' , or 'clog your arteries in a milli-second')



• 

Does that photo even need a caption?

Hope you all had a great Monday.

I hope to return to my daily posting schedule soon.

Just as soon as I shake Barry White out of my voice box.

Your lips will thank you

I don't know how many of who suffer from complete lack of moisture in your lips during the winter months, but for those of us who do, I'd like to share with you a product that can turn your cracked-lip frown, upside-down.

My darling sister, Sal Gal, unfortunately takes chapped lips to a whole new level. But she volunteered to allow me to post her before and after photos because they are pretty amazing. A lot of people wouldn't dare allow me to use their lips as an example, but she has no shame...or pride for that matter. It's one of the many reasons I love her.

You've heard of Thumbelina? Well she's Humblelina.

Also keep in mind that this was not a planned science project of sorts, but that we actually went back to photos that were taken over the holidays and zoomed in on them to show the condition of her lips prior to Alba Quench Lip Balm, which contains organic coconut oil along with other vitamins. (Click link to read more.)

The after photos were done the same way by using snap shops and just zooming in the her newly soft, completely healed lips.

Before:

After:



The complete turn around on her lips took NO MORE THAN 2 DAYS!

And the goods news is that it's now available at Target and it comes in different flavors.

So, here's to you and your screen-ready lips!

And again, thanks Sal Gal for being such a great sport! It's for the greater good, right?

**EDITED TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING COMMENT FROM SAL GAL (copied and pasted directly from the comments section):

IMPORTANT NOTE!!:

My after pic shows some nicely lined lips. Let it be known that yes, I do still wear lipliner in a shade of Nude, because if i don't my lipstick runs and makes my lips look like a big blob with no definition. MOST of the time you cannot tell because it is the same color as my lipstick/gloss and it blends. Obviously not the case when this photo was snapped.So, bottom line:Humble about dry, cracked, bleeding lips - yes. Humble about still wearing lipliner in 2009 - apparently not.

Peace.

Today's deepest thoughts and emotions summed up in one image

Heads up:
In my next post I'll be sharing with you what I think to be the absolute best lip moisturizing treatment ever. Sal Gal was willing to gulp down four big tablespoons of humbleness for me, just so I could post and share her before and after photos with you. (Plus, she just really believes in this product.) This stuff is amazing!

4th in the 4th

It's been a while ago but my friends Jobeth, Abbi, and Kerri tagged me to post the 4th picture in the 4th folder on my computer. I'm usually very bad (or maybe just lazy?) at getting around to doing 'tags' but this one seemed pretty effortless so I went for it!





This picture was taken last February when Kate was only 8 months old. She used to and still does love to go out on our dock and feed the fish.

I'm, of course, stealing some of her sweet sugar, which I also still love to do!

Already!?

Daddy's gonna be mad.


Kate had her first kiss over the weekend. And I'm gonna go ahead and say that I thought it was rather cute.


Kate and I had a play date with my friend, Kerri, and her adorable son, Brock, at our local park over the weekend. (A quick note about Kerri: she's one of my very best friends. She is one of the most authentic, non pretentious people I've ever known ((along with Sal Gal)) and with her you always get the real deal....no fluff and no wasting time trying to impress. I absolutely love her.)



We were having a great time swinging, sliding, and snacking when low and behold I captured this:





"If ya like it then ya shoulda put a ring on it" per Beyonce




Completely kidding about the above statement.


That would entirely break Kate Rule #213: No marriage before 30

per her Daddy

Little House On His Prairie

As I mentioned in my last post, we went to visit Matt's mom for a few days last week.

Now, when I say that M to the Izz-A grew up on a farm, I don't know if all of you are getting the correct visuals. And for that sole purpose, I took a few pics to show you just what I'm talking about. But before I do that, let's elaborate a bit on the hubby shall we?

I like to joke with him about how country (or red) he is. Besides the fact that when we first met, while he worked, he wore Wranglers tight enough to make me question his future ability to procreate, he also didn't like anything that involved technology. Not only was he not a big fan of computers, but he also refused to have an atm/debit card or bank online. And now my friends, I'm proud to say that he emails, surfs the web on occasion, owns and uses an atm/debit card, and banks online. He's come a long way (and even lets me dress him every now and then). Although I must say that I secretly love it when he pulls out a pair of his old Wranglers to work around the house in.

He gets it honest. And I love him for it. I love the country boy that he'll always be.

However, I didn't always love the visits to his mom's (the place he grew up).

On my first few visits I must admit that I was a little uncomfortable miserable. I remember asking him where they shopped, what they did around there for fun, and where was the nearest mall? (Although I grew up in a small town where the nearest mall was 40 minutes away, at least I knew where it was and how to get there.) He just laughed and said, "No one cares about stuff like that out here."

One of our initial conversations went something like this:

Me: "So I shouldn't bother asking your mom what she thought of US Weekly's latest cover story?"

Him: "US who?"

Me: "Nevermind, question answered."

As you can see, our conversations were very deep and long in length.

I, too, was born and raised in the South but never lived on a farm. I call it a farm, but really it's a 500 acre ranch.

It's absolutely beautiful and I've come to really enjoy my visits. I now know, and am comfortable with the fact, that they don't keep conditioner anywhere in the house, only shampoo, and to always remember to bring my own. But we all know that I'm not a fan of washing my hair everyday, so this hasn't really affected me as much as I thought it would.

In fact, I find the visits to mom-in-law-ville quite refreshing. I can just kick back and relax....and not worry about the fact that all that's left of my toenail polish is a few random chips of color.

So when I say that I went for a visit to Matt's mom's, I'm talking about this

and this

and this

and this.


Growing up on a ranch, everyone has to 'pull their own weight", or so I hear. So Kate thought it was time she started pitching in.

We even got to feed the goats.

On the last day of our stay, while Kate was napping, M to the Izz-A and I decided to go for a ride through the ranch.....on four-wheelers.

We were enjoying the scenery, while riding through the pastures in random zig-zag patterns as to avoid the piles of cow goodness, when we came up this:

Now, to the untrained eye (that would be me) it appeared to be just a hole of sand. But to Ol' Red (that would be Matt) he saw past the emptiness that was the hole and dreamed big dreams.

Well, have I mentioned my love for speed? If I haven't yet, now I have. And let me just say that it went very well with our new little find.

Why yes, yes I am getting all four tires off the ground. (in some grey yoga pants at that!)

Try that Laura Ingalls.

A Little Late

Happy New Year everyone!

Since it's already '09 and I still haven't posted about our Christmas, I figured I'd better get to it!
This Christmas was so much fun because Kate actually got excited about Santa (or 'Ho Ho' as she calls him).

We had our family Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve night at Sal Gal's house. Everyone brought a dish or two and we ended up having a pretty big spread.

I volunteered to bring the green bean casserole and chocolate bark.
I always volunteer for the green bean casserole because it's so easy and doesn't take long to prepare. I do however take the time to fry up a few strips of bacon to crumble in it because that can make or break it in my book.

Grabbing my dish and heading out the door

After everyone ate, we drew a picture or wrote a few words on our table cloth. Instead of putting the table cloth on the dining room table, we just put in the living room on the coffee table and took turns sitting around it and drawing.

I ended up finding the perfect table cloth at Target. It was solid white and 100% cotton.

So I scored on the linen but pretty much blew it with the markers. The markers I bought had way too fine of a point and they were very hard to draw with. I am definitely getting different ones for next year. Because of the marker issue, the drawings aren't as dark as I'd like them to be. But it doesn't bother me enough to break out a needle and thread and embroider it either.

Here's a few of the drawings:

How precious is that? Out of everyone's drawings, Kate's little random lines are my favorite. I'm smiling right now just looking at them.

So maybe I didn't have time to practice other Christmas drawings and ended up going with the candy cane after all. I tried to add a little twist to it by drawing two of them into a heart, which did nothing but confirm the fact that my artwork will never end up on the walls on the Guggenheim.

Let it be known that I drew my picture first, therefore making it obvious that Sal Gal did indeed copy me. Except for that patch of grass. Everyone knows that candy canes come with their own sod square, right?

Most of us drew a small picture, except for M to the Izz-A of course. He had to go all out and turn it into a competition.

Seriously dude, did you print out a template and practice all week or what?

Look at his face and you can tell how proud he is of himself.

Over all the table cloth turned out great. We had so much fun doing it! It will definitely be something we do every year from here on out.

Big Al, Sal Gal, and me

Side note: I wasn't sure what color the darkest bead was on my necklace. I'm usually very good at distinguishing colors, especially between blacks and blues, but on this necklace I really couldn't tell. On that particular night, I wore it with a black and grey color scheme so I called it black. But on Sunday I wore it with a navy blouse and called it navy.

It's black. It's navy. It's blavy. Work with me here.

Kate LOVED her kitchen from Papa and Gaga. Can't you tell?

Before bed on Christmas Eve, Kate and I had a tea party with the tea set she received from Lillie (Sal Gal's daughter).

Of course in our house we pretend that it's ice cold sweet tea.



Kate and her cousin Kennedy on Christmas morning

I loved this Christmas and am looking forward to the new year ahead.

We just returned from a quick trip to my mother-in-law's and all I'm going to say is this:

And you thought I could catch air with my heel clicks...

Stay tuned...