My New Friend!

Say hello to my little friend........

I love a clean house. I mean a REALLY clean house. I love to experiment with different things to see what gets what the cleanest....it's part of that OCD I talk about all the time...just nod and keep reading......

Out here in the country, we have what is called hard water (or is it soft?) Anyhow, it leaves this awful ring in the toilet. And. I. do. not. like. rings. in. the. toilet. Can't stand 'em. I can only take it for about a day or so and then, I have to get on the gloves and get the scrub brushes out! Sad and sick, but true.

Anyhow--I saw a commercial for this new Lysol toilet bowl cleaner, had a coupon for it, and bought some last week. Got around to using it tonight, thinking it probably wouldn't do any better than bleach, but LAWD HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL--(insert the Hallelujah Chorus here) this stuff works like a charm!! I will NEVER and I repeat NEVER use anything for my toilets but Lysol Power again.

I know you think I'm weird and you'll probably de-friend me now, but I bet you'll go buy some of your own Lysol Power and have a clean toilet too!

~CB~

In the SWAMP!

Saturdays in the South are of course, reserved for football. We're no exception here in Gainesville, home of the GATORS!! (the BEST team in the SEC!!) Whoop-Whoop!

This past Saturday marked one of the biggest games of all season (other than Florida-Georgia). It was Florida-Tennessee. What this past Saturday also marked was the chance to catch up with some old friends and meet a few "celebrities" along the way.....

My good friend, Lauren, and her husband Doug, traveled in from Atlanta for the big game! They met us at our tailgate where we were able to yell at each other over the loud music and tons of people. We had a great time catching up! Miss you already Lauren!!

Normally our tailgate is fun, but not very crowded. This weekend was BOTH!

The tailgate hosts had the 1998 National Championship Women's Soccer Team and Coach Becky Burleigh join us for some great food, good music, and Gator chompin'!

Not to be outdone, guess who came walkin' by on the sidewalk next to our tailgate????.......Joakim Noah!!! Apparently he knew some of the girls from our tailgate, so that of course, drew them to him, and then a small crowd gathered, neither of which affected Lauren and I as we pushed our way through to get a picture with him! Let me just tell you now--this dude is TALL. You see this picture below? I am on my extreme tippie toes and he's STILL that much taller than me!


We do not know this girl on the left, but we couldn't get her to move out of the picture......

Moving on towards the stadium, we stopped to wait on another set of our friends since they were using 2 of our tickets and guess who got out of his car right in front of us??? The Governor. I asked Cecil if he was good to farmers and Cecil said "yeah, he does alright..." Guess that means we like him. Good ole' Charlie Crist.


Once we got into the stadium and sat down in the blazing HEAT and I do mean HEAT--it was great to get ready to see the Gators play!! Our good friends Danny and Tatum were able to travel in for the game as well--We're excited that they are moving back to Florida! Not only are they moving back to Florida, but moving closer to one of my favorite places on earth! You'll have to guess where that is......(I'll give you a hint...the initials are DW). We had fun you guys!




Guess y'all already know who won, right? GO GATORS!! I will admit I was a little nervous there for a little bit, but they pulled it off. I sure wasn't pretty, but a win is a win!

~CB~

Save your Cans!

Alright girls! (and guys!) SAVE YOUR CANS!!! I need 'em. I've got a project. I know, I know...you're thinking "oh no Charon...another project?".........YES! Another project! And it's TOO CUTE!!!

Halloween is not my favorite holiday! (duh! It's Christmas!) but....I like Fall and I like to decorate with leaves, candles, pumpkins, etc. This however, THIS PROJECT, is like glorious sunshine to my soul!!!!!!! (have I built up enough suspense??????)

I received my new copy of Good Housekeeping magazine yesterday and look what I found!!!
(actually this is a picture of a picture, cause I couldn't find it on their website)...hopefully you can tell what it is!)


It's cans that are decorated with scrapbooking paper, stickers, and ribbon, and you put candy inside a piece of tissue paper then put the tissue paper inside the can!!!!! HOW CUTE IS THAT??????? I am bursting with joy at this very moment!!!

I thought I'd do this for N's class for Halloween. His teacher may want healthy snacks in 'em, but it's gonna be CUTE!!!!!!!

SO Y'ALL SAVE YOUR CANS FOR ME!!!!! (cans like tomato sauce, stewed tomatoes, if you use canned veggies).....PLEASE!!!! Email me when you have some, and I'll come get 'em (providing you live near me--sorry Lemonade Mama.....next time, honey, next time!)

~CB~

A Long Overdue Project!

Something that was long overdue in my house was cleaning up (and out) my craft room. When we built this house, Cecil really wanted a nice fireproof gun safe in our closet (you know the kind that has a humidifier and such in it...) and I really wanted a craft room. The easiest way for this to happen was for me to say to him that he could have all that "man" stuff if I could have the "fru-fru" craft room. It worked.

Only one problem. I had 2 small BOYS and no time to actually craft. Hence the reason I'm about ummm.....5 years behind on Nolan's albums and well...poor Carter's baby book isn't even done yet. Those that know me know that this is just about too much for me. I'm an extremely organized, controlled, errr...controlling person and to be that far behind on my kids' albums is just pathetic. I keep saying that when hunting season starts and their daddy takes them hunting, I'm going to sit down and scrapbook the nights away....I'll have to keep you updated on that (if it actually happens).

Back to the main idea here. I need to clean-up the craft room! It was atrocious! Here's a few pictures of the room and what it looked like before clean up. (keep in mind these pictures were taken half-way through clean up and it looked worse than this).



A few more pictures from the doorway showing just how bad it really was.



I love this room. (when it's clean). I love the purple walls and the white cabinets with purple/blue countertops. Yes, people. I said purple. I LOVE PURPLE. Since I only had boys and would never get to do a fru-fru room, I figured this was as close as it was going to get. So...I painted the walls a very light purple and made it girly. Two of my favorite items in the room are this swag with 3 wreaths that I found years ago at Lands' End and this purple/white wreath that I found recently at Michael's.




One of the best tips I can give you for organization is to get a box of Ziploc bags and stuff them with grouped items. For example, what I do is for Nolan's 5th birthday, I'll get a baggie and put all the bday cards in it along with an invitation or other knick-knacks from the party and label the bag. This helps me to easily locate all the "5th bday items" when I'm ready to scrapbook that page. You'll see in the above pictures that I have a ScrapRack system, so that's where all my stickers and paper are, but if you don't have that kind of system, you can put bday scrapbook paper, etc. in the baggie so you can do the whole page all at once! See examples below......



After a few hours of sorting pictures into stacks and filing them to the appropriate person's box and bagging up events (see paragraph above), putting ribbon in the drawers, glitter away in the cabinets and filing away paper and stickers, etc. , here's what I'm left with!!


Looks pretty good if I sayso myself. Whew! That was hard work, but it sure was a nice walk down memory lane when I saw old pictures of Disney trips, etc.!! What about you girls? Any tips and tricks for massive organization?

~CB~

Projects and Fall Decorating!

I love FALL! I only wish Florida had more of a season than just HOT.....I wish for trees swaying, cool evenings and cool mornings. I wish we had leaves that turned colors. I wish, I wish, I wish......

I'll have to settle for decorating my yard and my kitchen bar though for Fall, cause we all know Florida just doesn't change seasons very well. Since I had today off from work and my kids were with my in-laws, I decided to take advantage of the quiet time and put a few of my Fall decorations out and get to work on a few projects that I wanted to do.

Here's a look at a sample of my Fall decorations.....I have some more stuff out in the dump, errr...shed that I need to go dig through and get out for the house!

Pumpkin with my salt and pepper shakers on the table along with my fall placemats.

I'm not sure about this pumpkin inside the bird cage, but, until I find somewhere else for it, that's where it's going.

A small display on my kitchen bar.

I have been inspired recently by so many of your talents, and I decided to see just how crafty I really am. I bought these two items to use.....


I have all "rustic" colored hardware in my kitchen (and in the boys bathrooms). I wanted my kitchen to have that antique feel, so I have a salt/pepper colored countertop and the rustic looking faucets, handles, knobs, etc. I thought the color of the spray paint would match that, so I bought the brown, hammered finish to give my items texture.

My sister-in-law gave me this old gold platter that I LOVED, and I thought maybe I could spray paint around the edges and then chalkboard the center of it.


Once I got it spray painted, I loved it so much, I didn't want to chalkboard it. I decided to hang it in Carter's bathroom on the wall! It will be PERFECT in there, because the color matches the hardware! If you look really close at the picture, you can see a scrollwork design on the center of the platter.


Once that project was complete, I couldn't very well let the chalkboard paint feel left out, so I went in search through the house of SOMETHING I could use the chalkboard paint on. I found these two picture frames.

I'm not really into the gold picture frame (I'm more of a wood or rustic frame kind of girl), so I thought I could spray paint the frame of it and then my plan is to put it in Carter's bathroom with one of his baby pictures in it. (can you tell that poor Carter doesn't have many decorations in his bathroom? Actually, he has none, but that's another story for another day).

Here's how the gold frame turned out.....pretty cute huh? Now I have to dig through TONS of pictures in my craft room to find one of Carter to put in it. I want the one that many children have done of them in the old washtub with the rubber duckie next to it and towels, lotion, etc. Nolan has one in his bathroom and it's too cute!


The wood frame was the one I was MOST excited about! I had BIG plans for it! As you can see, it was just a plain old wooden frame. I never have pictures that are 3.5 size, so I decided that if it didn't turn out as I had imagined, it would be fine. No harm done.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE how it turned out! What do you think? I just spray painted the edges of it and then used my chalkboard paint on the glass part.



It adds a little to my Fall decorations, don't you think? When the next season comes I'll simply change what it says with colored chalk of course!! I can't wait to write Jesus is the Reason on it...or Happy Birthday...or whatever my heart desires!


Now that I have these few items under my belt, I'm constantly in search of items I can spray paint or chalkboard. Keep your eyes out for me! OH--and HAPPY FALL Y'ALL!

~CB~

GO GATORS!

Saturday marked one of the biggest days of the year (next to Christmas and Easter of course). Here in the South, namely, Gator Country--it was opening day for the GATORS!! (insert the Gator Chomp here)!

Earlier in the week, my in-laws all but begged me to let my boys go. Carter has never been to a game (I don't think he has anyhow) and Nolan has only been to one or two. This game though, was different. It wasn't until 7:00. At night. Which is one hour ahead of their BEDTIME. Which I have a strict policy never to break. I can't handle it and neither can they. Even when we're at Disney (our favorite place on earth, except maybe the beach), they are in bed by 8:30 or 9:00, which is pushing it for me (and them).

After days and days of begging from the in-laws and seriously thinking about how much trouble this would and could be, I relented. In the name of all that is good and right, I decided to let them go to a football game for their favorite team and cheer on Tim Tebow and Riley Cooper.
(insert massive SIGH here).


My in-laws assured me that they would handle the boys during the game and take them the rest of the weekend (since it's a long one) so we could enjoy the game and the weekend. (turns out I was sick the whole weekend, so I don't know how much enjoyment there was there, but anyhow). Talked to my mother-in-law this morning and she said the boys did great during the game and slept until 7:45 this morning! So...guess that means I'll have to be relenting at Disney on our next trip and letting them stay up until 10:00pm....We'll see about that.

Here's a few pictures right when we arrived on campus for parking, etc.



We've tailgated for several years with Wiley and Doris H., whom we just love! They are salt of the earth kind of people! Doris always has things looking so nice and Wiley is in charge of the music! (and the drink making during Florida-Georgia)!

Here's Doris, Wiley, and me pre-game on Saturday during the tailgate party!


And some of our gang during tailgating......


Nolan and Carter's dentist, Dr. B, is friends with Wiley and Doris, so he's always at the tailgate party too!! He's the best dentist in the whole wide world and my kids adore him. Here's Dr. B. with Nolan and Carter during tailgating....


Our whole gang just before leaving for the stadium!


We've sat in the same seats for I can't tell you how many years.....we've met so many nice Gator fans and have blast during the game. We've met and become friends with one in particular, Bill, who sits directly behind us. Bill and his wife Darla live in Tampa and just became parents of a beautiful baby girl, J. Here's Bill, Cecil, and Edward (Cecil's brother) before kickoff. These 3 guys yell and call plays the entire game. They know what's going to happen before the players do half the time. Sheesh. But...they have a good time and are enjoying themselves. That's what counts.


All I can now is....GOOOOOOOOOO GATORS!!

~CB~

Nolan's Special Day!

In Nolan's Kindergarten classroom, they each have one special day per month. This is the day they are responsible for bringing snack, something for show and tell, and they are allowed to be line leader and teacher's helper ALL DAY LONG! (my word--if only my day were that easy!)

Nolan's teacher really wants parents to send in sugar-free snacks and vegetables and BORING things like that for snack. Ewwwww yuck. She just took all the FUN out of snack day! Sigh....so much for my cupcake idea.....Mrs. H also wants bottled water for the kids instead of juice. This was pushing it for me.

Anyhow, today was Nolan's special day and I chose to send in packages of crackers and cheese and bottled water (much to my chagrin).

I couldn't simply send in plain old bottled water and boring crackers and cheese. It had to be "dressed up"......see below. They started the color unit today and red was the first color. (hence the red crayon on the labels)

And listen. I tried and tried to get this dumb picture to turn the right way. I edited, re-edited and did all sorts of things. You'll just have to turn your head.


I thought the labels (thanks for the idea, Annie!) really made it much cuter than it was! (and that wasn't hard cause bottled water ain't cute!)

~CB~

Carter's First Day of Preschool and Cooking With Mama....

Carter started his first day of preschool last Monday! Here he is at the front gate ready to go in to Mrs. J's class! He loves "school" and I'm sure he likes it since he's one of two boys in his class and he gets lots of attention from his teacher!


My Carter LOVES to cook and bake! He especially likes to do this with his Mimi (Cecil's Mama) but will take you up on the offer at anytime!

Tonight, I tried a new recipe, thanks to my sister-in-law Nichole! Carter had to help!



The recipe is on my cooking blog, at www.southernsuppertime.blogspot.com

~CB~