the week in review

white pine
Originally uploaded by brungrrl.

This past week has been a whirlwind. Busy at work, busy in life. It was more about getting out than staying home for once.

I went to a Clippers baseball game with the hubby and 3 of my girlfriends. It was dime-a-dog night! Funny how a generic hot dog tastes SO good in the right setting (and with the right beverage).

Tuesday was a much-anticipated event with some more girlfriends. It was the inaugural outing for FORK. My friend Jenny concocted this scheme for us girls to visit a new restaurant every month. There are a lot of rules. You can invite your "others" (other friends outside of our little circle), but no boys. "Others," as we call them, have become more important in the past few years. Everyone has others, but you can't talk about them, because your inner circle will get jealous. Well, no more. The Others have been outed. They are welcome in the circle (they always were... we just make a bigger deal about it now!) And Others can be so much fun! Even if they are your classier and smarter friends, they still know good dirt on you to share with the inner circle! (muhaha!!) So anyway, I got out of the house on Tuesday and it was fun.

On Wednesday, we stayed home. The hubby and I yacked it up in the garage watching a storm. It's funny, sometimes we just like to sit and talk about life, work, family, our past, gossip, etc. And when we do, it seems like we've been moving so fast, that we haven't talked in ages! It's fun being married. I have a good team. :-)

Thursday evening was also at home, but one of John's friends came by for dinner. So at least we felt like we were socializing.

The other thing about Thursday... it was my first day with the PEDOMETER. My work has a new program where we are challenged to walk 10,000 steps every day through the end of the summer. I think, "I walk a lot, I bet I can do that lickety-split." Uh... day one, not so good. I had walked 4,000 steps by the time I got home. I am looking at the darn thing thinking, "GREAT! now I have to go for a really big walk... and I don't.have.time." So I went for a 3 mile walk to get all my steps in. Mind you, I had already worked out that day, but I had to get all my "clicks" in. By the time I did some more housework (upstairs, basement, back again, inside, outside, kitchen, bedroom, etc.) I was at 11,400 steps for the day. I'd better be svelte by the end of the summer.

It's been a good week. I'm tired in a happy way. Happy Friday. How was your week?

go clippers

We went to dime-a-dog night tonight with the girls to see the Clippers. They won... we ate a lot of hot dogs. It was fun. :-) Night night.

yellow in the garden

yellow in the garden
Originally uploaded by brungrrl.

I got a new book for digital scrappin' inspiration: Digital Designs for Scrapbooking by Renee Pearson. The book is the nuts and bolts of making digital pages. The designs are simple... an excellent starting point for anyone.

This page is a "scraplift" of one of Renee's designs in that book. I think I have a few more tweaks to it... but mostly I like how it turned out. Sometimes I get a little crazy with the papers and textures... but for this one I intentionally kept the color scheme simple and the backgrounds muted so the photos would stand out. (And believe me, I had to change it a few times in talking myself out of the busy backgrounds.)

The journaling isn't the best. What can I say? I have a one-track mind. Either I'm thinking design and color or I'm thinking in words... I can't do both at the same time.

Ah well, it's a start.

The only purchased element here is the yellow print on the top. It's from ACOT.

just be

just be
Originally uploaded by brungrrl.

Nowadays I just like being home. I like not having to go anywhere, not having anything I HAVE to get done. I like watching things grow. And believe me, there is plenty growing here. I like that there is always something to do - work and fun. I like coming home to my husband... even when he's ornery.

The past couple weekends we have spent at home and we LOVE it. Starting the day off right by making coffee, filling the bird feeder, and cranking up the iPod.

We're pretty sure our house is a castle... so please don't let us find out it's not. :-)

one year

On Sunday we celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. Time flies, doesn't it?
Bill and Theresa have kept the top of our wedding cake in their freezer for a year now. They brought it to us over the weekend. We dug into it after dinner tonight. From the horror stories we have heard about year old wedding cake... I have to say, this one still had some life in it!

Happy anniversary, hubby. I love you.

pie irons

When we had our bonfire in West Virginia, it was the first chance to use Dad's new pie irons. The old ones were apparently made of aluminum, and if left in the fire too long, WOULD MELT. Just ask my brother...

So we made delicious pizzas and cherry pies in the pie irons. (I mean, is there anything better than pizzas, hot dogs, and marshmallows over an open fire?!) In the process, one of the pins fell out of one of the irons. Since my dad is retired, he had time to email the pie iron company and ask for a replacement pin.

Now these folks produce a product that isn't very expensive. Their product line isn't that extensive (although, bigger than you might expect it to be). And their repeat customer base probably isn't that great. But one of their employees took the time to send my dad a gracious email and provide a solution that was more than what he asked for:

Hi Paul,

Thanks for writing and sorry to hear about the pin falling out. Sometimes when we hear about a pin coming out of the iron, the pin was actually missing when the item was made and escaped our quality check. Although a replacement pin can be sent, it may not hold as well as if it were assembled here - so my suggestion is that we send you two new pins + a replacement square pie iron. Best case scenario, you'll have two square pie irons in great shape and the worst case is you'll have a replacement for the bad one.

We'll ship it via UPS in the next couple of days.

Best regards,
Michael

Now doesn't that just warm your heart like a cherry pie fresh off the campfire?! I think the Pie Iron people should make (or at least service) cars and medical devices... what do you think?

Check out what else these folks offer for you campers out there...
http://www.pieiron.com/

Happy trails...

deep thoughts

I have deep thoughts all day long. When I find time to sit down and blog, my brain is fried and nothing comes.

But I haven't blogged in a few days, so here is an update.

We are wanting to finish our basement, right? We are saving money to have it contracted out so it's done RIGHT. Well... savings takes time. IN THE MEANTIME... there is a ton of unused space in the basement that I could totally take over for scrappin. So I made John set up the drafting table my brother got me. It's FABULOUS. THE THING for scrapbooking. PLUS, being in the basement, I can go down there and make a huge mess and LEAVE IT. I got a layout done over the weekend. I know you are thinking, "one whole layout, eh?"... but that's a lot for summer when I'm typically on hiatus from scrappin'. (I can't believe I am posting photos of my skanky basement. Never was a hole in the ground loved so much! Hehehe. Look how messy it is. John's just glad it's not the kitchen table!) Check out the rest of the pics on flickr.

I dragged Jenny to the market on Saturday around 7:30am. Yeah, it doesn't open that early, but if I'm up, I need some Starbucks. So off we went. Lots of beautiful plants at the market. Also nabbed some fresh strawberries and tomatoes. Didn't get enough tomatoes, we have already devoured them. I also got a lavender plant and pulled up some dead-looking phlox to make room for it in the front flower bed. Not like I needed any more plants... but it's LAVENDER. yum yum.

The other reason we had to go to the market so early was so I could hit the yard sales in my neighborhood at 9am. It was pouring the rain down by then. But it was community yard sale day, so I wanted to show my support. Sh-yeah. I just wanted cheap junk. I couldn't believe what I scored! Lots of scrapbooking stuff. A brand new artsy scrapbook for a dollar and plenty of unused papers and stickers. I also got a 3-drawer storage bin that was perfect for my new craft area. $3!!! So guess what I'm doing this Saturday morning? Oh yeah... just gotta figure out where the good sales are.

It's also our anniversary this year. Wow, time flies. And I can't believe we still like each other. For real... we are special people... :-) I'm just kiddin'. I love that dude.

Aunt Emmy's Peonies

During Memorial weekend in West Virginia, as we drove by an old homeplace, Mom pointed out that there were peonies growing, even though the house was gone. That's some determination, I tell ya.

The house is long gone. There is part of the fence and some of the foundation remaining. The woods has overtaken the yard and I'm sure there are snakes, though luckily, I didn't see any.

The house belonged to Aunt Emmy and Uncle Homer. According to my mom:

Aunt Emma (Emma Corella) was a sister to your great grandmother Lilly Rosella (Sumpter) on your Pappaw’s side. Their maiden name was Norman. Emma was married to Homer Beall. Uncle Homer was Mammaw’s uncle – a brother to your other great grandmother Allie Beall Alltop (Mammaw’s mother). So they were related on both sides. Aunt Emma and Uncle Homer took in most of the orphaned children that were left parentless due to tuberculosis. (Photo of Frank and Lilly Sumpter on their 50th wedding anniversary in 1952.)

In a time when we are warned of the dangers of West Nile virus and avian flu outbreaks, it's interesting to think of the impact that tuberculosis had on our families back in the early 20th century (at least in the midwest and Appalachia). TB took my Mammaw's mother and her two brothers early in their lives. And she herself did a stint in one of the sanitariums in West Virginia - Hopemont. The sanitarium was strategically located at a high altitude where the air was cooler because this was thought to help the patients.

At any rate, it certainly makes you thankful for the advances in medicine over the last century that have helped us to find better vaccines, treatments, and cures for diseases. I'm sure thankful to still have most of my family members in my life... and for the time I got to spend with those who are gone.