5 Random Things

1.  I've been leading and incredibly busy life the last few weeks, and I was feeling under the weather at the same time, which made me cranky, irritable and downright miserable. Because of the aforementioned 10,00 activities and simultaneous stomach flu, I fell behind in the following areas:

     A. Laundry- My son ran out of underwear.

     B. Facebook- I know nothing, I've written nothing. 

     C. Blogging- My mother has been cracking the whip about my "slacking".

     D. Pulling weeds- Give 'em an inch, they'll take the whole yard.  'Nuff said.

2. One of my 10,000 activities has included the editing of my brother's 4 billion page thesis paper for his Master's Degree.  I've poured my blood, sweat and tears into this paper and now know everything there is to know about Volunteer Leadership in Non- Profit Organizations.  I'm serious.....ask me anything.  I know it all!  He sends me chapters and then I rip them apart, slice and dice the sentences, and turn them into fabulous word pictures. This weekend, he decided to get me a little gift to say "Thanks".  Here's what he got me:

What we have here is a 150 ton, 2 feet tall cement cowboy boot planter.  I herniated a disc just moving it to the front porch.  Not everyone can pull off one of these planters.  You've got to have the right attitude about it or it will never work for you.  You have to have a certain level of confidence that says, "I can have a cement cowboy boot in my front yard, but you can't."  It's a little like having gnomes in your yard.  I have awesome friends with great looking gnomes on their porches, but some old people look ridiculous with a gnome in their rock gardens, and it  just looks like trailer trash.  You have to own the gnome, not just have it. It's all about the confidence factor.  If you're cool, you can sport anything on your front porch. 

3. We went down to the blistering hot valley to see our family this weekend, and I thought my flesh was going to melt off.  Why do we do this in the summer? I don't know. My kids had a ball swimming the days away, and getting spoiled rotten by my folks. I had the hugest flashback from childhood when one of my parents used the good ole' scotchbrite yellow and green sponge to wipe off the kids' faces after lunch.  I HATED the dreaded yellow sponge when I was growing up. It always smelled funky, and tasted even worse! My youngest has been out of diapers for 2 1/2 years now, but I still keep wet wipes on hand so that I can clean my kids faces with them.  I had to secretly laugh when they got the "old school" facial treatment.

4. My Dad is AWESOME, and he found four amazing galvanized buckets to give to me.  I just planted them today, and I'm debating on where or how to display them.  Here are a few pics of my treasures:

5. I snagged a metal John Wayne picture that my poor brother was going to have to put in a garage sale.  His bride- to- be is in the process of deciding what will stay in his house, and what will go once they get married.  So far, it looks like 97.4% of his stuff is in the garage sale pile. Poor guy.  Because I have no shame, I rescued "The Duke" from his horrid fate, and he will be hanging on a wall in my home very soon.  Who doesn't like The Duke??

Thanks for letting me share a few of my new treasures with y'all.  (No, I'm not from Texas, but I wish I was so I could have big hair and say "y'all" and "sugar bean" every 2 minutes.)