Happy Easter!

 This week marked ten years since my best friend died, so I was kind of out of sorts the early part of the week. It doesn't seem possible that ten years has gone by! I was thinking about how she was on life support the last few days of her life. When there ceased to be any brain activity, her family decided to take her off life support. I wondered where they get the strength to do that? It is amazing to me because I couldn't even take my cat to the vet to be put to sleep! I started thinking about how I really need to go visit her parents. I know her mom is having some health issues and I really don't want to put off seeing her. I've learned with husband's grandmother's death that someone can be gone just like that!

 How can this Sunday be Easter? I like it better when we have a late Easter. Next week is spring break for the teens. I might head up to the lake house with teen daughter mid-week, but other than that, no plans! I probably should have planned a big adventure since this will be the last spring break that teen son is here, but that didn't occur to me until I just wrote it!

When I was in W@l-M@art this week look what I found:

I thought these were the cutest wire baskets. They were only a little over $2. I don't know what I will use them for, but for now I just threw in some candles and voila... centerpieces for the breakfast table!

 

It's official, no easter egg dying this year! We've had dyed eggs for the last 18 Easters, but since I had to beg teen daughter to do them last year I decided I wouldn't even buy stuff to do them this year. That makes me a little sad.

 

When husband's grandmother died in January she left a house full of furniture. There is going to be an estate sale next weekend but I had made it known, to husband's aunt, who is executor of the estate,  that I would like to buy her bedroom furniture. I never heard anything from her so I just decided it wasn't meant to be. It is solid wood and very well made. Since we thought we were going to downsize and took our guest bed to the new little mountain house we really could use some new furniture. I really didn't want to spend thousands on some new stuff. Well imagine my surprise when I got an email this past weekend from the company handling the sale telling me that aunt had given them my contact info and that they were giving me first right of refusal on the furniture! So, after talking it over with husband we decided that we couldn't pass it up, so we go to pick it up next week. Now I need to decide what bedding I want to get for it!

 I wish everyone a Happy Easter! May you find the prize egg! :)

 

Here Come the Tourists

Spring has definitely arrived in the lowcountry! And with the arrival of spring comes the tourists, or actually more of them. I forgot how busy downtown Charleston can be this time of year, especially on a Friday. But, I had promised teen daughter that since they didn't have school today we would go downtown.

Our first stop was to get breakfast at our favorite doughnut shop, Glazed Gourmet Doughnuts on King Street. She got her favorite, Maple Bacon, and I got Orange Pistachio. 

Next we headed to Urban Outfitters. She found a really cute dress and necklace. Then we made our way down to Forever 21. She was looking for a bathing suit and they had one she really liked, but they won't let you try on the bottoms! So with out knowing what they would look like on her, she decided that she didn't want to waste her money. But she did find a really cute pair of lace shorts. So I bought those for her.

I was starting to get a migraine by this time. I think it was from going from the cold outside into really hot stores. 

So we cut our day short and made a quick stop at the Gibbs Museum of Art. We looked at the exhibits and then headed back to the car to head home. 

I did notice while I was driving around looking for a place to park that they were filming the pilot for a new series called Reckless. If it's picked up I think they are going to be doing a lot of filming in Charleston. When I pointed it out to daughter, she wanted to park and watch, but since parking was a B*$#@, I told her we needed to take a pass on that!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend! 

Man, Am I Tired!

Yesterday kicked my behind! Our congressional district has to have a special election to fill the seat left vacant by our congressman when our governor appointed him to fill the seat left vacant by one of our state senators who quit in January. Did you follow that? Yesterday was the primary and one of my friends had asked me if I would be available to work. I went to a training session back in February and will have to work the primary, the run-off, since there were 16 republicans on the ticket of course no one got over 50% of the votes, and then the actual election in May. 

We had to be at the voting place by 6:15am and we were done at 7:15 pm! For someone that doesn't have a full time job, that is exhausting! My feet were killing me by the end of the day. And then all last night I kept having dreams about helping people vote! At least I didn't have too much planned for today.

Tomorrow I work out at Middleton Place again. I am sure we will be quite busy and then tomorrow night I have my book club. I still have 100 pages to read! Hope I can get it done, especially since i was the one that picked the book!

My SIL was supposed to come for a visit this weekend but I just got a text from her canceling. I have to say I am sort of relieved! I just don't feel like having weekend guests!

Just two more days til the weekend!

Spring Has Sprung!

I "worked" at Middleton Place two days this week and the azaleas are beginning to bloom and the crowds are arriving! We had full house tours all day long! I love it when it is busy. Also the sheep are having their babies so we have quite a few little lambs running around and they are sooooo cute!

The weather is warming up, it's supposed to be in the upper 70's here this weekend. 

I have another load to take to Goodwill! I'll tell you that hoarders thing has really gotten to me.

Not much planned for the weekend. As much as I would like to head to the lake, I am sure teen son has to work and as I've said before, there is no way we will leave him over night by himself! Ever heard of the movie Project X? That is my worst nightmare!

Happy Weekend!

Hoarders, Snakes and Stations of the Cross

So I had always heard people talking about that show Hoarders, but I had never watched it. Until this weekend, that is. And Oh My! I have never seen such! I got sucked into watching about 4 episodes, back to back! Now I feel the need to throw everything in my house away! I packed up the back of my car with a load for Goodwill. Then I emptied out under one of the cabinets in the kitchen. You know the one. It had all sorts of random things in it, but no more! Then I cleared a whole shelf of magazines that I had been saving. They were Christmas issues of various magazines that I just knew I would need to look at again one day. Again, no more! They went to the recycling center! 

Then, while I was going through things I found some stuff from when my best friend died almost 10 years ago. So of course I had to sit down and look through all that and get all teary eyed about the whole thing. This month marks 10 years since she died. I still really miss her a lot.

Saturday afternoon it was so nice outside, so husband and I decided to go to Beidler Forest, which is about a 30 minute drive from our house. 

 

 It's a nice place to walk around. They have a little over 1.5 miles of a boardwalk through the swamp. We saw two snakes sunning themselves on fallen trees. I took photos but can't get them to upload!

Friday night Husband and I decided to head to our church. Each Friday night during Lent they have a soup supper in the social hall and then Stations of the Cross in the church. We hadn't been yet this year, or should I say we hadn't been in probably 30 years to Stations of the Cross! So we decided to go. There were a bunch of different homemade soups to choose from. I had Corn Chowder and a homemade yeast roll. Husband sampled several different kinds. I couldn't believe the great turnout they had for the Stations! I would guess there were about 150 people there! Our priest says that each Friday more people have been showing up. I think it is a great way to get ready for Easter.

So how was your weekend?

 

I just can't seem to get on a regular blogging schedule! Life has been busy and I seem to just have a minute here and there to read a few of my favorite blogs, maybe make a comment or two and then life interrupts! 
Just a recap of some things that have been happening:

* Looks like teen son will be attending husband's alma mater. I think husband is over the moon about it, but trying to act cool so it doesn't turn son off.

* I was supposed to go up to our lake house on Saturday to get together with some of my neighbor friends up there, but just didn't feel like driving, so I opted out.

* Tuesday night I went to hear a woman, who used to work for USAID, give a talk about women and girls in Afghanistan. One of my friends is in a local Dining for Women group and one of their members was a sister to this woman. It was so interesting. She said that we really need to continue supporting the afghan women because they are the ones that want peace and when all of the United State's resources are withdrawn from that area it will only be a matter of time before they are back to where they used to be with the Taliban, or worse, running the place! A great way to help in that area is through the organization Women for Afghan Women. Sometimes I think I really missed my calling in life! I wonder if it is too late to start a new career?
* I made a really great rice dish to take to the lake, that I ended up just eating here. I took cooked brown rice, added a can of black beans that had been drained, chopped cilantro, cherry tomatoes cut in half, a few scallions and a tablespoon of lime juice and heated it all together and added a chopped avocado. Salt and pepper and it was yummy!
*Ran a bunch of errands today and have stopped in the local Marshalls to see what they had. Not much. But, I did see two side tables that would have been great to use beside the bed in our room at the mountain house. Too bad husband has me on spending lockdown! ;(
Are you excited that the weekend is almost here?