Miss Happy Jack

If you like stories about beer, twirling and a little black magic, I highly recommend you check out Old Timer's Day today. She just started blogging but she tells the best stories! 

Happy Saturday!  We are packing today. It is pouring down rain here and we don't have anything else to do (ha, yeah right!) My mom is in town to help and a friend from work and her husband offered (yes, offered) to come help. I am making burgers for them in return! Hopefully we will make a big dent in what needs to get done today so I can quit stressing! 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Who's The Man?

Thanks Erin @ Little Texas Love Nest for sharing! :)

The Game of Tag about your Man:

Who is your man? Christopher Hartley McLain

all dressed up for church - how handsome!

How long have you been together? February 2010 was 4 years

How long did you date? We dated one and a half years before we got engaged!

How old is your man? 27 on June 21 (the LONGEST day of the year, and he won't let you forget it!). He's younger than me by a year.

Who eats more? Hubs, and I'm so jealous about it! I could easily eat as much as him, but it wouldn't be pretty!

enjoying a delicious little crawfish in Slidell, LA

Who said "I love you" first? He did at his grandparent's house in Broken Arrow, OK.

Who is taller? He is taller by about a half inch.

Who sings better? He definitely does - he was in the choir at Centenary College in Shreveport for 4 years! I literally can't carry a tune in a bucket

Who is smarter? I think this is a toss up. He has common sense, I have the book smarts. We fit well together.

what a goofball!

Whose temper is worse? I would have to say mine. When he gets angry he is angry but it isn't very often. I get frustrated and angry more often

Who does the laundry? Lately it has been him.

Who takes out the garbage? Garbage is boy stuff. He does that..

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do in this house, but he always sleeps closer to the door, so sometimes that's the left and sometimes that's the right.

Who pays the bills? I pay the bills, he manages the retirement money.

Who is better with the computer? We share the same level of skill in this department!

Who mows the lawn? Hubs, I have never ever ever mowed a yard.

one of our first dates - we dressed up and took some of his youth to prom!

Who cooks dinner? I do, unless its on the grill. Chris is great with the grill!

Who drives when you are together? He does almost every time.

Who pays when you go out? Always him. We have the same card so it's not like it matters but that's just how we do it.

Who is most stubborn? Me. Definitely

Whose parents do you see the most? His because they live so much closer. .

Who asked who out? I'm not sure that ever really happened with us because of how we met and then were together 24/7 right away.

Who proposed? He did! November 2007 on the Boardwalk in Shreveport right after Rhapsody!

 this is us right before we got engaged - i had no idea it was coming!

Who wears the pants in the family? He does. I may really want my way but he is the one that usually makes the final decision.

Do you like pillows? Are you looking for a new one? Would you like it for FREE? My bloggy friend over at Low Tide High Style is giving away a really cool pillow! You definitely should check it out! :-)!!!

Menu Plan Monday

So everyone else out there that I can think of posts "Menu Plan Monday" on Mondays. I would love to do this! I love to plan and organize and that kind of thing... but meal planning is not my forte. Here is why:

Normally on Mondays we have dinner at Mamaw's house. Who is Mamaw? Nope, not my grandmother or great-grandmother... or Chris' grandmother or great-grandmother. Mamaw is my (get your pencils out...) my previous' boss' mother. Anyways, she cooks dinner on Monday nights and my husband and I got invited when we first moved here and it has become kind of a tradition. So, I don't cook on Mondays (to which I secretly respond, "Praise Jesus!") But this week Mondays at Mamaw's got moved to Tuesdays... which doesn't have the same ring to it. So I pulled out some hamburger meat and made some Tomato Basil Penne Hamburger Helper. YUM! We had it with green beans, applesauce, and garlic bread. My husband L O V E S applesauce and we eat it with pretty much every meal.

Tomorrow we are eating at Mamaw's.

Wednesday, Chris has choir practice so we will probably have sandwiches or pizzas or possibly run up to Taco Bell (which we are really way to old to like but we do anyways). Wednesdays just has to be really quick and easy so that we have time to cook, eat, clean the kitchen and so he can get to practice on time. It's usually a rush!

Thursdays we have Bible study - which is entitled Wiffle Ball Thursdays. Betchya can't guess what we do? So we usually all split the meals up on Thursdays so I don't usually have to cook then.

Fridays are usually an open book. Sometimes we use trade money (Northeast Louisiana Trade Exchange) and go get some handmade cheese sticks from Catfish Charlies or sometimes I thaw out a chicken breast and a filet of tilapia and we broil them and have a can of corn. I don't usually plan a Friday dinner. This Friday we are having a Human Sexuality Seminar for the senior high youth at the church, so we are having pizza. Oh, Johnny's Pizza. Yay! It is the best! If you have never had it, it is totally worth the drive to Louisiana from wherever you live to try it. Email me when you are on your way and we will meet you there with Panola's Buck-10 Hot Sauce (seriously, it is 83 cents... mental note to order 3 cases) to put on it, because it just isn't complete without it! Actually, life in general is not complete with out it. 

Insert dream sequence here.....

One of the best dates my hubby ever took me on before we got married was to the Panola plant in Lake Providence, Louisiana. It is right smack dab in the middle of a corn field. Seriously. I love hot sauce. I have a serious addiction to hot sauce. I keep a small bottle of it in my desk at work to satiate my cravings. It's a little unhealthy. But Chris understands. He took me there and made arrangements with the owner beforehand so we could tour the plant. I got to stick my finger in a huge vat of hot sauce and taste it. Chris had to hold me back to keep me from diving in... Don't worry. They heat sanitize it after it is bottled. I asked! But Panola's Gourmet Pepper Sauce is seriously some of the best stuff I have ever had.. and it comes in a GALLON. Call the law. I'm goin to break into the Panola plant...

Back to the subject....

On Saturdays our big meal is usually breakfast. Bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits, assorted jams & jellies, butter, butter and more butter. We usually don't eat lunch and then have sandwiches for dinner.

Sundays... Ha! Working in the church means that on Sundays, unless someone offers to take you out for lunch, we are stuck eating at home - whatever leftovers we can scrape together.. which this week looks like Hamburger Helper, applesauce, Panola's Gourmet Pepper Sauce, and butter. Sounds delicious to me!

So anyways, the point is that if I even consider trying to make a meal plan for the week, something inevitably gets rescheduled and I usually never recover. I'm bad about that. But I am resolving to do better. With some help from yall hopefully I will be a menu maven soon! :) 

Happy Monday - hope the rest of your week is showered in blessings!

Butterscotch Pudding

Nothing makes my husband happier but a big, thick, rich & delicious bowl of butterscotch pudding. I mean, really, who could pass that up? So while he was at choir practice tonight, I went ahead and whipped some up for him to show my appreciation for his never-ending hard work this week on neuva casa matters... and I took pictures to prove it.

Here is what the dogs did after "Daddy" left:

So here is my version of homemade butterscotch pudding....

What? I made it at home... and with love! Same difference!

First you combine the powder with 2 cups of milk:

Then you get out your pretty wedding dessert dishes that you don't manage to use for anything else... 

Next, you see how the pudding box looks with the dishes so you can practice taking pictures...

Now, get back to the pudding! The box says to stir constantly. So obviously, I pulled out my third arm and hand so that I could take all these pictures while I continually stirred the pudding in the pot.

It will get really really smooth and start to leave a trail behind the spatula (or whisk, or spork, or boat paddle, whatever you have lying around) and it will glisten like buttah baby...

Yummm! Next bring it to a full rolling boil. In case you wondered, it looks kind of like this:

It slightly resembles porridge in a pot and blubbles more than it bubbles...

Anyways... Remove from heat and carefully pour it into aforementioned dessert dishes. The box says it makes 4-1/2 cup servings, but what the heck. I split it in two:

Then stick it in your fridge to set up. The box says you can serve it warm but... Eew. Really? 

Don't forget to run very hot water in the pot, lest you be scrubbing it for hours later:

Now... Wait patiently for hubby to get home from practice before eating it...

Keep waiting....

and waiting.....

SCORE!
Hubby's surprised face when he opened the fridge:

Priceless! :)

The Vintage Find.

I think I have died and gone to junk store heaven....

A local junk store with a website!

My husband just sighed and rolled his eyes.... Typical! :) 

www.thevintagefind.com

LOVE!

326 Hillside

Or, as my husband would say... Hill-siiiiide (in his most adorable but slightly not-so-perfect rapper impression of "West Siiiide - ya heard, dog?)

Let me start by saying that to all of you mom's out there who work full time, raise children, clean house, cook dinner, pay the bills and STILL find time to blog I applaud you. I have no kids, a small house, two dogs (one of whom I am neglecting while I write this... she is pushing her food bowl around the floor and barking at me), and a husband (who just interrupted my blogging so I could take my turn on Words with Friends)... and I don't know when I will blog. When I finally sit down at 9:30 at night and look at my computer, I sigh, push it away, and say "eh, I'll blog tomorrow, or maybe the day after that..."

So please forgive me for my absence. While I have not had that much going on, it has been a rather eventful week. To begin with, I started a new job last week, which I am learning quickly to hate. (I could write an entire blog on all the reasons why, so I will just leave it at that.) Secondly, we are under contract on a HOUSE! YAY! So I am going to put picture below of the HOUSE! YAY!

But before I do, let me go let the dog out... and I think the bacon is burning...

Here is the front... again you know I LOVE trees! It only has a one-car carport but I think we can make it work. It also no longer has the boat (thank goodness... my goal in life is to have a really good friend with a boat. All the fun, none of the maintenance! ;)

Here is the living room. I don't really know what to make of the mirrors (because they really do make the room look HUGE) or the random closet in the middle of the wall, but the paint color is perfect! The floors throughout (except the bedrooms) are linoleum. New linoleum.But still, linoleum. Not crazy about that but the positive is that you can lay ANYTHING over linoleum. So it will be easy to cover up... eventually!

The living room standing in the picture above but looking out. The open door leads to a looooooooooooooooooong hallway that goes to the bedrooms and kitchen. So, kitchen and living space are really far apart, but the kitchen is... Well you will see! But we are going to take that door. Our gargantuan TV will probably go on that wall and the door won't work anyway and we think it will open the space up a little bit.

Here is what sold me on the house. A brand-spanking new sparkly shiny kitchen. WAHOO! New smooth top stove and electric oven with built in microwave/vent-a-hood. Wait, what is missing. DOH! A dishwasher. So, we didn't realize that until after we put the offer on paper, but I figure with just the two of us we can make it work for a while. And when we get our tax rebate we can put a dishwasher in because there is plenty of wall space to do that in.

 Here is the dining room area that is on the other end of the kitchen. I want to open that door up and make it bigger to open the space up but I don't know if the hubs will be all about goin for that... To the right is the door to the backyard (small uncovered porch but plenty of room for a deck!) and the rather large laundry room! The opened up the carport closet and enclosed it all together to make it a big storage area. Good stuff!

Bathroom #1 - small, but with cabinet space below the sink and above the toilet. New vanity, toilet and light fixture. The only thing that really stinks about the bathroom is the tub. It's a cheap plastic insert tub. We will have to do something about that eventually but it will just have to do for now I suppose...

Half Bathroom (#2) All new everything. Don't really get the HUGE mirror but it does reflect the tiny bit of light out of the teeny tiny window (check it out in the mirror) ... Think I will just frame it out and leave it there to use in the AM to get ready. (sittin on the toilet while I do my make up.. hahaha!) Oh, and the picture is tilted, not the room. ;)

Of course there are bedrooms but you can't really tell much about them from the pictures other than the fact that they do exist - three of them actually! They also have brand new carpet in them. I would rather have laminate but carpet will do in the beginning. The only problem is it's WHITE. I don't do so well with white anything... but I will do my best. Guess I just won't be having that glass of wine in the bedroom huh.. :)

So there is the prelim tour of the new (fingers crossed and prayin like crazy) house! Now, we have to pack. 

Wait. The biscuits are still in the oven. CRAP. (hehehehe, jk!) Nothing like some breakfast for dinner! YUM!

Hope y'all all have a great week!

Sanctuary

In the very, very small town of Sanctuary, Texas lies one of the best antique stores I have ever been to.

I don't know if I think that because I have never really looked at an antique store the way I do now or if it was just that good! I really paid attention to the details of items and imagined them in new ways rather than what they were originally used for... or, I tried to at least.

Here are some pictures of a few of the things I looked at. Sorry if the quality isn't great - I forgot the camera and had to use my phone! Oops!

How beautiful is the fabric on this chair?! They were actually in pretty good shape (there was two) but I really liked the open back and the fabric the most about them!

I thought these would make awesome DVD or CD holders. They were $12 each, a little pricey, but the original lettering and roughed up edges were so cool. Right out of an old plumber's office.

These old leaded glass window panes would have made a great wall hanging. I just liked the patina on the framing wood and the shapes of the panes. 

Old bedsprings - they had about a thousand of then, would make such cute bud vases or great for holding small portions of french fries or something of the like, wrapped in newspaper of course.

What a great vase! I would probably have just used it for a vase but I loved the rustic silvery color and the texture.

Magazine stand - perfect for towels rolled up in the bathroom or maybe kindling by the fireplace.

This picture is taken sideways, so lean your head over to the right and use your imagination! Old glass paned doors, two of them hinged together, with the glass removed. I would hang shells and other trinkets from string and use each pane of glass as a frame. They were all chippy and really cool. LOVED it!

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter! I am waiting on mom to email me pictures of the lake day, but here are a couple....

These are super happy feet!

Too cute!

More to come! :)

Eagle Mountain Lake & Drywall Mud

So, today we are going to ride in the boat on Eagle Mountain Lake. I am really excited.

You may not be able to tell over the computer how excited but I am seriously excited. Like, my heart is racing and I have that excited feeling in my stomach similar to the one you get when in 7th grade the boy you like calls you and the phone rings.  (OK - no boys called me in the 7th grade, but you get the drift!)

I love all things about being in a boat. I love the smell of lakewater. I love to have the sun on my face (with SPF of course) and the wind whistle in my ears. And a good, cold, beer tastes so much better when you are drinking it on a boat. I don't know what it is that causes that but it is certainly the truth. I have never been on Eagle Mountain Lake so I am going to take pictures and I will post them on here sometime this week.

Now - about the drywall.  We have the ugliest wall paper in my dining room, kitchen and guest bathroom. I'm talking, mauve & blue "old-lady" wall paper in the house we are leasing. (no offense to those out there who like that kind of wall paper - it just really isn't my thing!) If we decide to buy this house (which is more and more becoming our best possibility) the first thing to get rid of will be this old, dated, grandmotherly wallpaper. But I had no idea how I was going to do that! We tried to get the wallpaper down out of the master bathroom but the walls weren't sized before they put it up and all we really did was rip out chunks of sheetrock.

NOT PRETTY.

We fixed all that and we are good to go in there but I didn't know what to do with the rest of the wallpaper. Until last night! My Aunt Betty's son, Gordon, is a beautiful craftsman and can do amazing things with wood. He has constructed main infrastructures for Mary Kay's office (yes - that Mary Kay) and almost all of the JC Penney corporate office. He also remodeled Betty's house last summer. He covered the wood paneling with drywall mud and then painted it. And it is BEAUTIFUL. So he told me all about how you can just put a thin layer of drywall mud over the wallpaper, let it dry and then use a fluffy paint roller to go over that with more drywall mud to texturize it. Then you just let it dry and paint.

BRILLIANT!

I was so inspired at 11 o'clock last night that I really wanted to go home and get started on it. So, now we are really considering purchasing the house we already live in since I know what to do with the wall paper. YAHOO! :)

This means we don't have to move! Hehehe...

Happy Saturday!

SO exciting...

I had my first comment today!

Thanks ERIN! :) That totally made my day! :)

I was, in fact, so excited that I couldn't figure out how to publish it. It took me several tries to realize that you have to check the little box beside it before you hit publish. I though Blogger was out to steal my moment! HA! :)

Mom and I are headed to Ft. Worth this weekend to visit with my Great Aunt Betty and her son, his wife, their two dogs, and her bird, Rosie. Hopefully mom charged her camera! I want to go to a flea market and see if I can find anything interesting. I will post pictures when I get back!

I also start my new job Monday, back in Louisiana. I will have to explain all that in a later post - I have to go read and comment! :)

Have a wondermous weekend everyone!