Look what's starting to bloom...

Well, I can tell that October is finally almost here as our Mexican Daisies are just starting to bloom. Thanks to S & L (the neighbors) and to "SS" (and even KK from Jonquil) that we have these. We're just getting our first blooms; and yes, they survived Hurrican Fay even though they're kind of laying over and almost on the ground (or some of them anyway). But, that's why we like 'em; they're hearty and raise themselves and steadily multiply. Enjoy our first bloom of the year!

Friday Night Fun Continues...

More pictures from the game...

Friday Night Fun at the Ball Park with Friends

Well, after we snuck in some "Ritas" on Friday afternoon, we headed to the ball park to watch all of our boys play ball and oh, by the way, win this one Friday night. I can't tell you how much it means to me to get to share in these special times with these friends and these boys! I truly count it a blessing to have so many great people in my life and especially all these great kids who I get to be "Aunt M" to! Enjoy the shots from the game and of our boys at play! Check out the cheering section in the outfield...that's right, they've been banished to the outfield as they're a little like "Animal House".... Coach D. is in the dugout doing a fantastic job!

Wicked Red Headed Step Child...

Well, the 1950's vibrator wasn't all that "T" brought to "show and tell" with us at Happy Hour on Friday; she also brought this scary red headed wind up baby doll that was also in her grandmother's closet. Oh, did I also tell you that this is the same friend who was in the truck with CM when they got pulled by my NIL for driving through an agricultural station with a horse trailer?! LOL!

Check out this doll; I think it's Chuckie's sister! I'm trying to do more research on her "T" and I"ll let you know what I find. Thank you so much for my present and for sharing Chuckie's sister with us at happy hour! You should have seen her run across the table when we wound her up!

Special 50's "Present" from my friend "T"

Okay, so for any of you who may find this post shocking, I apologize, but for those of you who really know me, you won't find the fact that I thought this was one of my best surprise presents EVER! "T" told me that she had a surprise for me that she found when she was going through her grandmothers' closet. She found this box with all kind of little "odds and ends" in it and one of the things is what you see here!

When she pulled this from under the table I squeeled with delight and then orange margarita came out my nose! Trust me, it was hilarious!

I love it so much and I even love more the fact that women of the 50's had these! And they tried to pretend they were for "Home Massages" and that it is "powerful, lightweight and "noiseless"! Isn't this awesome!

I can't wait to find a special display place for this in my home!

Friday Night Fun with Friends!

Well, once again it had been one heck of a week and my good friend CM called to see if we could go for "Ritas" at our local favorite Mexican restaurant before we headed to the ball park to see her son and my "boys" play ball! She brought our friend T with her and then our other gal pal TR joined us. Wait 'til you see the separate listing for my present that "T" brought me; it brought tears to my eyes and made margarita run out my nose! LOL!

Check out this "Rita" and you'll know we had "issues" trying to overcome the language barrier and get another good margarita like we'd had last week that DIDN'T have orange crush soda in it..... Yikes!

Well, we were diligent and even very patient but we never really did get a great margarita that tasted like one should but that didn't stop us from having a couple more.... Check out CM talking about the situation to me as I snapped her picture.

Yard Sale Treasures - September 20, 2008

Aren't these pretty? I went to garage sales on Saturday and found a few things (which I'll have to post pictures of later as I didn't take those yet) and then I went to the outdoor market where they were selling antiques, fresh cut flowers and produce so I bought myself a bouquet of gorgeous locally grown flowers from a very nice woman there and it was only $5.00! Check it out!

After I got my flowers, I bought fresh white acre peas ( a good southern vegetable fresh from the garden that my hubby & I both love); some fresh okra so I could fry it up for dinner tonight (on Monday night while we watch the Antiques Roadshow), and some Boiled Peanuts; YUM, YUM!

Then, there was a nice woman who was selling jewelry parts and beads and then I saw she had this gorgous necklace for sale; she was asking $40.00 for it but she made me a deal on it for $35.00 and I truly love it, it's so unique and it's sterling silver. I also got a set of 2 speckled BoontonWare Mixing bowls for $20.00 and I'll post a picture of them soon. Isn't it cool?! I love it and wore it to work today and got several nice compliments on it already!

Whew, tough day at work Friday so let's have a cocktail!

Sorry to say that I didn't take a picture of my good friend CM who called me Friday afternoon to go and "have a margarita"! Boy, did I need it or what! One of our wonderful IT techs at worked wiped out a couple of my video projects (yes, that I'm on deadline for...and yes, I cursed and had to "walk away"...) by trying to say that it was the "external drive" that failed even though I had no problems until he touched it to run an upgrade...does this sound familiar to anyone....! He better be glad I have friends who like to console me over a good margarita! We then chatted and caught up for the last 2 weeks and found out that my new NIL (the one who adopted Hank from the pound - see previous post) had pulled her and her 2 friends on the interstate as they ran through an agricultural inspection station without stopping...FYI - if you're driving through Florida pulling a horse trailer to go to your friends' grandmothers house to pick up her furniture after her passing..STOP at the ag stations on the interstate!

We left the restaurant to go to the little league ball park to watch her son (who I love dearly and think is a total little one man show all the time) play ball. Got out of my car and there's my neighbors, their grandsons - B & T who play on that team as well, their parents and even more friends who I've met through some of these same friends and we had a great time! Had to leave the ball park to go home to the hubby as he was starving by this point in the evening; oops, sorry about that sweetie; I got sidetraced by good friends and good alchohol!

Good Day at the Goodwill!

You won't hear me say this very often, as most of the Goodwill stores here where I live in North Florida, have gotten very greedy and money hungry with their prices, but it was a good day at the Goodwill yesterday! Something just told me I needed to go by there on my lunch hour yesterday and it was well worth the trip! I got my Irish Bailey Yum Yum coffee mugs that I'd been looking for forever (well, at least since I bought them for a friend and then wanted to ask for them back...LOL) for $1.99 each; the cute patent leather loafers for half off so they were $4.50; the adorable yellow garden clogs with roses for $4.50 - you know, I may need these when I have to shovel water during the next hurricane; I got the awesome 50's pitcher with red poppies for $5.99; the snowman Christmas gift bags for $0.15 each and the awesome red, black & polka dot lined bag for carrying all of my stuff to work in every day for $6.99 (which of course, they messed up a bit by sticking their 99 price stickers on which they say is to "cut down on shop lifting"...). So, I was definitely glad I went!

Yard Sale Treasures - September 13, 2008

Well, my favorite local "estate liquidation" company (that I follow religiously...) was having a sale today so I got up with the chickens to make sure I was there to get in line by 7:00 a.m. as they open up promptly at 8:00 (no exceptions and I like that as it keeps it fair...as I'm one of those people who like to honor people's "Start" times and only show up maybe 15 to 20 minutes before their advertised start time). I was number 3 in line and I was totally happy! I was beginning to wonder if some of the other "regulars" had gotten an inside scoop and weren't going to show up as the line wasn't near as long as it usually is when they opened up. But, I was completely happy with my "haul"! I got everything you see in the picture for about $30.00! I love the Raffiaware coffee mugs, the beautiful cut glass serving tray that I got for only $2.50 (my mom had one just like it that she always made her "Pineapple Delight" on so I "needed" it); I got the Adventures of Tom Sawyer for $2.00; a copy of the Lincoln Reader for $2.00, a cool Elgin wall clock (that I don't have a picture of on here yet) for $15.00; I got the jadite bowl for $3.00, the finger tip towels for $0.50 and the awesome vintage Ecko Muffin pan for $4.00. It was definitely worth getting up with the sun...

Yard Sale Treasures - September 13, 2008

These are a few things I got at one sale; a cute "Welcome" sign with birds on it for my front door as I was tired of what I had for $1.00, the glitter and wood cut out pieces were $0.10 for the bag of them, the turquoise Liz Claiborne purse for $2.00 and the bag of buttons for $3.00 as I can hardly pass up vintage buttons...

Yard Sale Treasures - Sept. 6, 2008

Well, I've already gotten a little behind posting some of my weekly treasures so I'll try and catch up a little bit here. I went to a great sale that wasn't really advertised as an estate sale but it was and they had great stuff and CHEAP! I got a really cool coffee table (that I'll post a picture of soon once I get it placed where I want it) for only $15.00, an awesome plaid vintage suitcase for $1.00 (that I don't have a picture of); the awesome red striped Tommy Hilfiger purse for $1.00, the cool vintage red leather wallet for $0.25, the Christmas napkin rings (2 boxes of four each for $0.25 - one of which I dropped when I got home and broke 2....oops, glad I only paid $0.25...LOL); the two great little recipe booklets for $0.10 each, the Halloween/Pumpkin candle for $1.00 and the book on trees for $0.50 (this is to help me in my garden club adventures). I got the totally cool lamp in the first picture for only $5.00 and it's already in the corner of my office at work!

Whew! What a week...

Wow, what a week this has been and I'm wore "slap out"! It started out busy at work as I had a meeting the the Attorney General's office to show them a video that I'm working on for them and get the changes made that they wanted so I did that and then had to get it ready to send them with the changes. I had a video to get ready for our Agency from an employee picnic that we had back in June that they were going to show at a company wide Ice Cream Social on Friday and then I had to get ready and go to a 2 day video shoot at our civic center for a Medicaid Conference on the Uninsured where I shot 2 days worth of video and learned a lot about this ongoing struggle for our state (and all other states as well). I'm so wore out that I came straight home (and didn't even run to the gas station in the "panic" of not being able to get gas due to the Hurricane shutting down pumps where people here were waiting in line for hours and stations were running out of gas...)and basically fell asleep on the couch! My sweet hubby woke me up long enough to eat a sub that he went and picked up for us and then I fell back to sleep! It's 12:45 a.m. now and I woke up about an hour ago to map out my garage sales for tomorrow and now I'm off to bed as there's some awesome estate sales advertised for tomorrow...so, I'm off to bed now to get ready for a day of treasure hunting tomorrow morning....stay tuned!

Precious Abbie visits my dad at the Nursing Home...

Is she the sweetest thing or what?! This is another adorable little one that I get to have in my life and I'm blessed as she is just precious! This is Abbie Marie and she's the daughter of one of my best friends' (and let's just say that we go waaaaayyyyy back..) daughters and I love her to pieces. She and her sweet mama came and met us in PC at the nursing home this past Sunday to visit my dad and he loved it so much! All the little old people at the nursing home were just crazy about her; can you blame them!
She would pose for the camera and say "Cheese" and then say "See Me" as she's a baby of the digital age and knows that she can instantly see her picture on the screen on the camera - gotta love it!

Of course I couldn't have Abbie come for a visit and not have a "belated" birthday present for her as she turned 2 on September 3rd; she got a fishing pole with fish to catch (as she does live near the coast now....); a "Mrs" Potato Head; a Strawberry Shortcake flying disc; and a "magic eraser" board and she was having a great time playing with it here on the couch in the lobby. I could just sugar her to pieces. Aren't her and my great niece Katie just too precious! I love me some little girls and I truly love to spoil them as much as I can! Thanks for sharing her with me ST!

Thinking about my great niece today...Love me some Katie

This is my great niece Katie kissing my niece Amy on her wedding day. Doesn't she look adorable in the pink seersucker dress her

Aunt M. got her?! I love to buy stuff for her!

Can she get any cuter?! This is my Katie when she came for a visit in October and we went to the nursing home to see my dad, her great grand dad. I miss her terribly as I live in Florida and she lives in Kentucky so it's tough as I don't get to see her near enough! I love her and her mom and dad so much and was feeling a little "out of touch" with her today! Is she not the cutest! I miss you Katie!

Yard Sale Treasures - 08/30/08 - Stuff I Bought...

Hey, I got so carried away telling you all about the awesome cars I saw on Saturday and our trip to the Animal Shelter to adopt Hank for my niece and NIL; and about the nice man who took time out of his day to tell me about them that I forgot to show you what I bought Saturday. I'm also missing a few things that I already gave my niece for her new 1st grade classroom but I'll tell you about them. We got an awesome 3 drawer storage caddy for $3.00, some books for $0.25 each (as she's a reading teacher) and an awesome really oversized book for $1.00. I also got what you see here: the hilarious concrete pig on a swing (what every good southern home needs swinging from the tree waiting on the next storm...) for $2.00; the bag of vintage cookie cutters for only $3.00; the Sigrid Olson chartreuse green leather purse (which they were asking $20.00 for - even at a yard sale, but I talked 'em down to $15.00 since I bought several other things); a vintage eyeglass case for $1.00; an awesome large green glass vase with a white swirl (which I plan to put vintage Christmas ornaments in for the holidays on my table); and the awesome vintage 50's "Featherflite" picnic jug for $5.00 (from the people with the awesome cars) and she threw the red green and yellow doily in for free!