Black Friday-Blue Morning

There are many lethal combinations in this world; gun powder and sparks, kielbasa and bananas, spring skiing without sunblock, and Darla and Barbara shopping together without adult supervision.

At 11:45 the night of Thanksgiving we headed out to see what a night of shopping would  hold in store for us, we had no plan just a huge stack of newspaper with tons of prospects.

At Toys R Us we found a slew of people with the right idea.

      By the time we hit up Fred Meyers at 5 am, I was more than willing to fall asleep in public with no shame.

The couches at Fred Meyer had never looked more comfortable.

 Sharlene joined us at 5 am, can't you tell that she had at least 5 hours of beauty sleep? The events that took place during our 8 am breakfast stop are foggy in my mind, I know we laughed a lot and we weren't making a lot of sense. I have confirmed that people over the age of 25 need sleep to function. The only thing that Darla and I could come up with to explain our behavior toward the end of the long night was "YouTubes David goes to the Dentist"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs

It took me 3 days to recover enough to get my loot from Darla's garage and when I went through the bags it was like shopping all over again because I barely remembered the things I had bought. If you would like to come over to my place in the near future we will be watching $1.88 'Gone with the Wind', while snuggling in a $10.00 'Electric Blanket', while eating $4.99 'Worlds largest tub of popcorn', on my new $49.00 'blu-ray' player..

Keep Laughing,

Barbara

Home Sweet Double Wide Home

 We Moved!!! In April we sold our house in Woodland and spent the summer camping with intentions of being in our new house shortly (that didn't pan out and I believe I would share the whole story in a different kind of blog)...now that school was starting we decided it was time to get a little more room. With the help of Darla we found this rental property. It's a double wide on 6+ acres in the perfect location. It needed a little TLC and who better to give the little manufactured home some of that than my sisters and I (not to exclude my husband)....

I fell in love at first sight....the Landlord had done a great job keeping the outside looking well kept, and lets face it after 4 months and 5 days living in a 32 foot trailer, I would have been elated with anything. Aaron and I had decided we didn't want to rent in a subdivision and anything with land would work for us..little did we know the potential this little trailer beheld.

Before-----Can you just see the potential??? Wait can you smell that? Is that musty? cigarettes? Dog pee?

 

After---All it really needed was a little love and 10 gallons of primer ;-)

 

Before---with the two fifty watt bulbs this kitchen needed a little light on the subject.

 

We thought white would work good, but I decided it didn't look quite right.

With the help of Bonnie and Lorinda and a bottle of furniture stain and glaze, it took less than an hour and the cabinets were all stained and looking like new.Before--I didn't think about it before but I really should have bought stock in primer before we got started.

 

I couldn't be more pleased with the results.

Meet Milkshake and his sidekick Little Llama. Aaron is in his glories and hopefully our mini farm is complete. Even if it's just for a year, for now I feel right at home...

Keep smiling,

Barbara

The Tale of Mario and Bowser

 A few months back Walker decided to invest his allowance money in some frogs that were on sale at Hi- school pharmacy. He named them Mario and Bowser. As the weeks went by we realized Bowser was getting very large and Mario was shrinking. It was apparent that Mario was malnourished and needed his own tank because Bowser (being the evil hearted villain he is) was eating all of Mario's food.  

It has been a month since the separation and this morning Mario was "swimming funny", belly up for very long periods of time. Time was of the essence. Walker was informed that we needed to get Mario and Bowser back to their families in the river, where they could get girlfriends and have babies of their own.

I don't believe Hudson was fooled, he completely sensed the true sadness of the occasion, as we made the trek to the river.

Walker was happy for his frogs, hoping that they would find their parents before the day is through.

I believe that Mario is hanging with his parents right now...swimming in rivers of gold, in the little frog heaven in the sky. Bowser on the other hand is probably fulfilling all of his dreams of women and chillin with the princess frogs here on the East Fork of the Lewis River.

Keep Smiling,

Barbara

February Snow Blast

Remember when you were young, the feeling you got when you woke up in the morning to a fresh white blanket of snow on the ground? Watching Walker brought back those memories for me and living in the N.W. I know that you will only get that "feeling" once or maybe twice a year. It is an un-written law that the second you wake up in Washington and there is snow on the ground, without brushing teeth, without breakfast, you must pass go-you cannot collect $200, you MUST get outside and play in it, or it will be too late.

We knew that the snow was coming because Oprah was interrupted due to a special report on “The February Snow Blast” and I heard the radio was referring to it as “Snowmageddon 2011”.

The news reports lived up to all the hype, at least in my 4 year olds mind. 

So where-ever you found yourself during the storm of February 2011, I hope you had a nice cup of warm coffee, a good book, and a snuggie to keep you warm-because that 38 degree snow storm can really send a chill through the bones.

Keep Smiling,
Barbara