Great Paint Party!

Saturday we are painting!!!  Dwight is taking a few vacation days and we are going to paint together. (I found out he had some vacation days to use and threw the thought out there and he bit!!) We are going to paint the living/room dining room and the kitchen/family room and up the stairs and down the upstairs hall~it all runs together.  Dwight taught me to paint and I love it!  I am in my own world and it's therapy for me.  It will be an adventure I'm sure with Dwight. It usually is!! He is a very early riser(usually 4:45am--I don't even hear him get ready in the morning!) so we will start early.  I can do that!  I am not too social first thing in the morning and he is very happy and talkative.  I can handle that!   Thank you Lowe's for having paint on sale this weekend.  We did our dinner and date nite to Lowe's and picked out some paint samples.  We have them drying on the walls to see if we like what we've chosen.  We've learned a few things over the years.  I am ready....painting starts Saturday 8am in the living/dining room which is a pretty easy room to start with.  I'm excited.  I will share pictures soon!  Have a good weekend everyone!

It's Bella and Dylan Day!

It's my day with my precious grandchildren and we are having fun!  Bella is playing in the backyard with the sand and water table and with  Speed(our dog).  Dylan is trying to crawl at 5 months....up on all fours all the time and a very happy baby who smiles ALL the time!  He has the biggest brown eyes.  Speed can't get enough of Dylan so I've got to watch him when he's in the walker on the back porch with us.  Speed likes to give too many kisses!  

We started drawing and writing on paper with Bella before she was one.  She continues to love to draw with markers, crayons and colored pencils.  We introduced her to finger paints recently but doesn't like her hands dirty(like her grandma) so we use a brush.  She is so proud of her art work!!!

They are both napping!  It's a glorious day!

To Know Me is to.......

Nina over at Just Enjoying Life tagged all of us who visit her site to share the following:

Joys

1.  Time with family

2.  Looking at photos 

3.  Sitting on the beach

Fears

1.  Snakes

2.  The economy(it's affecting us all)

3.  I really don't think about my fears much...I just live my life!

Goals

1.  Clean up my piles in my computer room

2.  Repaint the downstairs-scheduled for week of 9/4

3.  Simplify my life-working on it....selling our junk on ebay netted us $500 last week!!

Current Obsessions

1.  Photography

2.  Blogging

3.  My grandchildren--love spending time with them!

Surprise Facts About Me

1.  I have lived in California, Florida, England, Spain, Turkey and Arizona

2.  I was on the game show Supermarket Sweep years ago

3.  I dance around the house when no one is around!  

Hope that helps you to get to know me a little bit better!  Gotta go write a contract~ Hopefully it means $$$ in 30 days!  That would make me :)!

Busy ! Busy!

Our first weekend as empty nesters has been a full one.  Friday night we stayed in, ate chicken tacos, took Speed for a walk, stopped for a cup of coffee at Jazz 'N Java who had a band playing. We drank our coffee, let Speed catch her breath and walked home.  A nice nite!  Dwight caught up on some work on Saturday morning while I took a couple out to look at homes.  We went to the running store for some new tennis shoes.  Dwight needs good tennis shoes as his feet and knees hurt if he doesn't.  The staff watch how you walk or run and then assess which shoes fit you best.  I decided to get a new pair too and they asked me to run, which I did and then the young girl asked me how many miles I run each week.  I laughed and said "None!"  I walk on the treadmill and have tried running.  She felt bad and said why did you run?  I said"Because I could!"  Anyway, I got a cute pair of running shoes for my future running on the treadmill.  After that, we made our way to the Corvette show downtown, had some Chinese food and watched one of our favorite local bands....The Cadillac Cats.  They are so entertaining and good!

Today, we headed to church and then up to my niece, Taryn's(1-1/2 hr drive one way) to see the house she and her husband put a bid on.  They wanted someone to assure them that it was a good move.  They found a really nice home.  We ate lunch at Olive Garden and got home at 4pm.  Dwight is uploading more of our precious stuff on Ebay and I am getting packed to go to a conference for work for two days.  We made it through a weekend together with no children or grandchildren.  It's gonna be okay!!

Tears of joy!

The new apartmentThe tradition continues....these are my everyday dishes when we first got married.  All of my children have moved out with them.  Dustin completes the tradition.  Aren't they so cute???

Dustin(on the right) and his childhood friend, Justin.  He was such a cutie!

Dustin and his girlfriend Kayla in the new apartment decorated by Dustin.
He was so excited to be moving into his own place.

He raced motorcycles for 2 years.  What fun we all had at the races!

As a mother, you never think that this day will come. The day that your last child moves out of your home. It comes all too soon! Yester day was that day...our youngest, Dustin flew the coop so to speak. His wings were strong enough to take the first flight alone...as in moving away from home to an apartment and starting his college classes. This was a big step! My husband has been tearing up for the last two months whenever we talked about Dustin leaving home. Our baby is all grown up. These two have a very special bond....Dwight had time to enjoy Dustin as a baby and remembers many of the early times with Dustin. They are best friends...they think alike, laugh alike, have the same fears, enjoy the dreaming big and have talked through many a hard time. He was not the easiest child but we hung in there with him. We homeschooled him in 6th grade and through high school. He did NOT like school so that was a challenge and many, many other things were always difficult. Through it all...much of it done with much prayer, Dwight's patience and giving in to a strong willed child at times... we now see a maturity that hopefully will help him grow into the adult he wants to be. Dwight and I both wrote him letters of encouragement and before he left, he gave us one back. We were all in tears! Joyful, happy, sad, loving tears! We are now empty nesters!

Update

Thank you for your prayers for Danielle and little Grace. They are both doing well. Grace came home from the hospital two days ago however, the doctors are still not sure what she has. They are watching it and she has some medication to take that doesn't taste real good. So keep praying that this mass on her neck goes away and does not come back! Thank you for caring and praying.

Please Pray!

It's been a crazy busy week with my beautiful daughter who is 6 months pregnant not feeling well went to the hospital on Tuesday nite.  She is on bedrest until she sees her doctor on Monday.  She is doing well and baby is still very active.  I spent Thursday with her putting together a file cabinet and making her lunch and dinner.  I left without having any of the lasagna I made for her and Nate and now I am hungry for my lasagna.  She said it was good!  Then today, little Grace who is 3 years old woke up with a golf ball size lump on the back of her head at her neck and complained of a headache.  She is in the hospital with the doctors trying to figure out what it is and how to treat it.  So please pray for little Grace, her parents Kevin and Katie(she is 8 months pregnant too) and my daughter, Danielle if you would.  We know prayer helps and the more people that pray, miracles of healing do happen.  Thanks and have a great weekend!