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My college boy celebrated his birthday at A&M.  It was hard on this mama to not be there.  His birthday was in the middle of the week of State Testing.  As a teacher, I was not allowed to even take the day off. Ugh!  So, what's a mama to do?  Send a party in a box to one of his buddies! First, I decorated the inside of the box with bright fun scrapbook paper and washi tape! Next, I added party favors from Dollar Tree!  I bought hats, blowy thingys, whistles shaped like airplanes, balloons, etc. I had old leftover Bob the Tomato cups that I added. Next, I added packets of lemonade and chocolate chocolate chip cookies! I added a banner from Dollar Tree that says "Happy Birthday!" Then, I added birthday confetti! I made a banner strung across the box and taped it to the sides! And, I mailed it to his buddy so he wouldn't just open it up in the mailroom and not share his party. My acomplise sent me photos and ...

My hubby decided to build me these two really cute, but really big window boxes.  We had cheap, little,  plastic window boxes for years and it bothered him that they weren't the same size as the windows.  We've been married for 26 years so he knows that I have a black thumb and can't grow real flowers.  (He's still traumatized about the fact that I killed his childhood cactus months after we were married.) Anyway, the boxes are not built to hold a lot of weight.  So even if I wasn't a plant murderer, they wouldn't hold the weight of the dirt for real plants. I went to the big box craft stores (M & HL) to look for fake flowers.  Oh my!  They charge over $20 for a stem of greenery.  I have two 4 foot long window boxes to fill!  At that rate, each window box will be well over $100 and probably need to be changed out each season.  No, I needed to find a more economical solution. First, I went to Dollar Tree.  I found ivy st...

I've seen pictures of people Bible Journaling and wanted to give it a try. I picked and bought this Bible from Amazon . Then, instead of thinking, I just dived in. I found a page I kinda liked with ideas to copy, I pulled the new Bible out of the box, and I started painting. I knew if I thought about it too long I wouldn't get up the nerve. I mean, I've never really written in my Bible before. I've highlighted things occasionally but not too often because I hated when it would bleed through the page. I was brought up to respect books and keep them nice and pristine, and of course the Bible is the most respected book. So, taking that first step was hard. My first page looked okay, then I added more details and messed it up. Maybe someday I'll be able to fix it. But, the thing I realized is Bible Journaling is about the process, not the product. It's a time to think about and reflect God's word while creating.  Today was my second day. I am quite pleas...

I was telling my students last month that I had put cabinets together myself.  And then it hit me, I never shared my bathroom re-model on my blog. During the summer of 2014, we were about 2 days into our vacation, driving to Washington D.C., in the middle of no-where, when we got the call.  Our friends who were going over every couple of days to check on our house and our dogs, opened the front door and water gushed out!  One of our pipes had broken and flooded our house. Chris was trying to figure out where the nearest airport was so that he could fly home to take care of the house while I drove back.  But, this was the vacation that we had dreamed about for years!  So, once we calmed down, we called the insurance company and hired a company to go in and dry stuff out.  Special thanks to Chris' dad, Mike, for going over and helping as well. The next month was spent going through all our stuff, finding out what was ruined and what was salvageable and ...