busy, busy week

i can't believe that a week has already flown by... this has been a very busy week around here.  

the weather has actually warmed up a bit....in fact, it was in the mid 80's this past sunday..just two days after i whined like a baby about how cold its been lately.

however...

the following day it was back into the 50's and has stayed there since.  

and it was windy which makes it feel like the 40's...

i digress..

sunday's temps allowed us to finally spend some time outdoors.  

here is how our family spend the day...

don could not wait to get out into his garden

pruning the gardens and the rose bushes

did i tell you that our dog eats rose bushes???

it's true...when he was a puppy and before we had any control over him at all....he would yank the rose bushes out of the ground, roots and all, and drag them through the yard....

at least he doesn't eat his own poop....

austen spent most of the day golfing in the yard...

or as we like to call it

 fishing for balls in the pond..

doesn't the pond have a lovely green hue???  he could have teed off on the scum in there!!!

we went to home depot for some replacement parts to fix our 7 year old ( falling apart, burn everything you put on it, birds nest of a grill)

and came home with 

this

heaven, i tell ya!!!!  4 burners and a spit (that we still have to buy)

and the flames don't flare up and engulf our food and burn it to crispy ashes..ahhhh!!!

i scored an end table in someone's garbage pile...yup, totally slammed on the brakes,

pulled to the side of the road and hauled this baby into the back seat. because our cars were small and had no trunk space to be able to accommodate furniture....

so yesterday, we came home with this

an uplander with lots and lots of room

and seating for 7....people or pieces of furniture....

oops, how did that get in there???

i also worked on another piece of furniture for my friend lisa...

and when i uploaded this picture to send to her for a progress report yesterday, i noticed that there were some funky vertical lines on the picture....i googled it and learned that this is a major camera malfunction.  i was hoping that google was goggled in the head and bee-lined it to my beloved camera store where i bought my canon 7D.  they hadn't seen anything like that before and thought that it was an electronic problem and packed it off to the manufacturer......  :(

and i had a photo shoot to do this morning.....

so i got out my old canon xti and couldn't remember how to use it.  so i had to google that too.  but it worked and i was able to do the little mini easter shoot of these two lovelies.....

 so clear it almost looks like they are coming right out of the picture, doesn't it???

hey, how did that get in there???

it was actually warm enough to be outside in summer clothes....
i asked don to take a picture of me in my painting apron.  because it is a cute apron.

notice that he didn't get the apron....

hey, my eyes are up here.....(because i am so hugely endowed)

there we go.....

so i had to set it up so he could get the whole apron in the picture (i do wear it when i paint)

a bicycle, a couple of ladders, wading boots for the pond, the snow blower that hasn't been put away yet (i told don to get that dang thing into the shed before it jinks us again...crap..too late, they are calling for snow on saturday night, for reals!!!) a wooden sofa on its side, and numerous oil and paint stains on the garage floor. lovely isn't it?  hmmmmm...maybe the garage could use a little feminine touch, some pretty paint on the walls, and some curtains in the windows?????

nah, just a good power washing.....

i know your butt is cute, but can you keep it out of my post please???

i leave you today with an oxymoron of sorts

ruffles and skulls!!!

they are the same shoes as the raspberry ones in the photo above, only in mushroom.  

ok, i'm hungry now...

have a great weekend, friends!!!

seriously now!!!!

a walk in the woods.....

we had a small snowfall friday night into saturday and we decided to take advantage of how pretty everything looked.  there are some woods behind our house, much of which is pretty dense, but there are areas that are more open.  we decided to explore them on saturday.  it was cloudy but the temp was pretty moderate and we were actually pretty warm....

here is some of the beauty we saw....

we decided to bring the dog who, if he wasn't on his leash, would have been deep into the woods following the deer and rabbit tracks we saw all over the place.  he couldn't help burying his head completely into the snow in some places.....

hence, the snow on his nose

i even got into the picture, which is rare, because don has absolutely no idea how to use my camera. even when i set it up for him the pictures usually don't turn out but this one turned out pretty good.

don got into a fight with a picker bush.......the picker bush won....

and it just couldn't let the fight go, it had to follow him out of the woods....

later that day, we went to the annual frankenmuth snowfest with our friends.   i'll post about that in a couple of days....

have a great monday!!!

christmas past....

even though it is from 4 years ago,
this

is still my favorite christmas picture of our family.

this one

is just the icing on the cake.....

early christmas presents.....

don's parents came over this past weekend to bring christmas presents for us.  

we are hosting christmas eve this year and they are doing the same

at their house.  so they came over on saturday to give austen (and us) christmas presents...

austen is in pig heaven.   new chuck taylor converse and call of duty black ops.....seriously, i thought he was going to hyperventilate when he opened that game....

(i really need to learn how to use the video feature on my camera.....)

anyway,

he was excited about his shoes too. his grandma got him the same shoes last year

but he outgrew them....

little does he know that we wear the same size now.

we wear the same size.......

which means...

 mama's got a new pair of shoes!!!

 sorry bubba....

thanks grandma!!!!

uhhhh....

no.   far from it.   

life around here has not been anywhere near normal for the past several months.  i guess employment was just something we took for granted.  don and i have always worked.  even when i had my babies and was a "stay-at-home-mama" i did something to earn money.  something i could do and have my babies with me.  whether it was babysitting for someone else's children, working at a scrapbooking store or working at our city pool, i've always earned a living of some kind.  some of the jobs i worked was at an opposite schedule to don's so if i wasn't home, he was.  we never had to put our kids in daycare.  and i prided myself on that.  i don't mean to insinuate that there is anything wrong with daycare, it just wasn't for us.

we figured that we would work until we retired. and i was okay with that.  oh, i wanted to stay home and  be there when my kids got home from school, with a plate of freshly baked cookies, but i was okay with contributing to our income.  

who would have thought that the one who has all of the college degrees would be the one out of work.  it sucks, let me tell you.  the job don got a couple of weeks ago wasn't his dream job, but it was a job.  it was better than being on the unemployment dole.  well, life threw us a curve ball last week when don was asked to take a 50% pay cut at his current job.  50%.  at a job where he had already accepted a paycheck that was almost half of what he was making when he was forced out of GM.  

so, it's back to internet job searches, unemployment and the lovely bridge card....(food stamps).  don hates that part the most.  he is the one who does all of the grocery shopping because he can do it much more cost-effectively than i can. which is true.  he doesn't like when i go with him because i'm like a kid.  i sneak things into the cart that he doesn't see until we get to the checkout.  and then he makes me put them back.  the nerve!!  i haven't been grocery shopping in months because i was offended.  

seriously. 

well, anyway, we got a bridge card.  have you heard of this?  it's a credit card that has an amount of money that we are eligible for per month.  $172.00.  for a family of three (and a dog).  for a month.  it automatically filters out the bad things like cigarettes, booze and junk food, which of course, we buy in bulk (i'm kidding mom and dad).

i digress.  

don made me go to the grocery store with him because he was too ashamed to use the card.  NOT ME.   i've earned it.  by working my whole life,  even when my babies were little.   by paying my taxes and contributing 3/4 of my pay to the government every week.  by always providing for my family and not living above our means.   so i don't care.  i walked up to the cashier, waved my card and said, loudly,  "i've never had one of these things before, how do i use it"?  i could hear don groaning audibly as he walked away as fast as he could from the checkout counter.  

make me put my stuff back, will ya.....that'll teach you, honey...heh!

anyway, keep us in your thoughts while don starts his job search again....

thank you!

happy easter

we had our annual easter egg hunt at my neighbor tina's house yesterday....the weather however, did not cooperate

so there was sidewalk chalk in the garage

okay....so i'm not sure what that is,  tina, maybe you need to have a little talk with her...    :D

and then there was some trampoline time in the rain...

and one that wanted to be on the trampoline but didn't like the fact that she didn't have it all to herself..

it looks nice but was getting very, very cold and we ended up hunting eggs inside of the house.

the kids got busy with their candy right away......ripping into those eggs for the candy at rocket speed...

they were happily digging in..when a very special visitor hopped to the front door....

the easter bunny!!!!

the kids were so excited,

well, most of them...

but he came around...sort of, even though he had a death grip on his mama most of the time..

most were very excited to see the bunny and sit in his lap.

and this little princess who really didn't want anything to do with the bunny...maybe next year...

and of course my little bunny (hint, hint) and me....

what a cute little bunny tail he, er, i mean she has.....

hope you easter is happy and blessed.