Good Grief!!

Yup, that's my Yana. She's just sunning her belly. I watched her from the house and all she did all day was follow the sun and move from one 'perfect' nap spot to another. She napped the day away!! I guess that 20 minute walk we took that morning did her in.

Newest Family Member

Mike has been looking for a gun to purchase to put over our fireplace. We already have one gun to mount over the fireplace. It's an old single barrel shotgun that his Grandpa used to hunt rabbit. We bought this gun at Hyatt's in Charlotte. It's a Parker Vulcan side-by-side shotgun and was made in 1904!! Pretty cool huh? It looks pretty good considering it's age. It's in working condition. Meaning, we can shoot it. We may pay one day to have it cleaned up so it'll look like new. Right now, I like it how it is. Now we've just got to get motivated to get it mounted over the fireplace.

I'm Rich!!!!

Yup, that's right, it's a check for one cent!! We closed our account at Wachovia and they sent us a check for a few day's interest on the small amount of money left in the account. Now what to do with all my new found wealth??

Lumberjackin' with the Lawlors

We invited the Lawlor's up to the house on Sunday to have lunch and watch the Bristol race. We've known the Lawlor's for, I don't know, 6 years maybe. Dave was a client of mine when I worked at Dixon Hughes. He is just a super nice and likable guy. We became friends over the years. We've gone to handful of NASCAR races together and share a common interest in the local hockey team as well. Maybe we can go to the Martinsville race again this year.

Dave knew that Mike was splitting wood for our wood burning stove and he decided he wanted to take a crack at it. He wanted to hearken back to his younger years. Leslie and he used to have a wood burning stove years ago. Mike thought Dave wouldn't have enough 'ass' behind him to split much wood...here are some 'action' photos, you judge for yourself.

Dave's son, Shaun gave it a shot too...

I was just impressed that the weight of the maul didn't make him fall over!!

Here are all the 'manly men' doing their manly men duties!! And of course there's Yana, offering her moral support.

Let this be a warning to all of you potential future guests out there...I've learned from my former co-worker Diane, that if you want to come over and partake of some free food, well, you'll have to work for it first!!

A Girl and Her Kong

Isn't that sweet...she's cuddling with her most prized possession!!

My New Favorite Thing

I LOVE the re-usable shopping bags at Wal-Mart. When they first came out, they were just out of my price range. They cost a whole dollar!! I knew I could wait it out and get them for cheaper. They recently dropped the price to .50 cents. Bingo, I'm on board. I've bought three. They are awesome!! I got all my groceries in two of those bags (almost, I had one thing in a third bag, and I bought Mike's sodas at Food Lion this week ($1/2-Liter, bargain!) - so not all my groceries, but all my Wal-Mart groceries. I hated getting all those plastic bags before. It would take forever to get them in the house. Now I can get the groceries in the house in one trip. I would highly recommend these bags. They make my weekly Wal-Mart experience ALMOST bearable!!

Oh Well

Well, it looks like Annette was right, sort of. I caught my 'dear' friend in the act the other day.

This will be my last post about the stupid peanut butter nailed to a tree.

Like I Said...

If you build it, they will come...

As you can clearly see, this picture is indisputable evidence that a deer has consumed some of my peanut butter. Notice the teeth marks in the peanut butter. It appears that the deer ate as much as they could get (as far as they could get their noses into the jar). I have scraped the remaining peanut butter forward and will report back.

I'm sure now that the yummy and delicious peanut butter has been discovered by my dear deer (ha) friends, they will be standing in line to get a chance at it.

And to think, some of you mocked me...

New Camera

I got a new camera this week. I've had my old camera for about 10 years now. It has really been a fantastic camera. Those pictures I took of the snow were with the old camera. It's an Olympus and it was my first 'big' purchase after I started working at Dixon Hughes. It's been to a lot of places with me. It's been dropped and the lens cap has been lost (and then found). It's been such a good camera that I would only accept another Olympus as my next camera.

I couldn't find the one I wanted at any stores in the area. So, Mike bought me one on E-bay. It said it was new 'in the box'. However, once it got here, the box said it was refurbished. That's fine though, I can't tell anything is different. It has a really big screen to view the pictures (my old one was tiny). It has some really nice picture edit features. I'm sure the features this camera has most have now a days. You have to remember that I haven't bought a new camera in 10 years.

We've got a big trip coming up in April and I'm hoping to come back with some nice pictures. The thing about my other camera (until recently), it always took great pictures. I hope the picture quality with the new one is as good as the old one. Here are some test pictures...

Winter Wonderland

Various pictures from the neighborhood. We had such fun and really really enjoyed the beautiful snow.

It's Been Awhile

I've been neglecting my blog lately. But there really has been nothing to blog about. I was hoping to have some cute pictures of my nieces to post today. However, our trip to Grandma's house was cancelled due to the impending blizzard. I really really hope it snows. I want to wake up tomorrow morning to 6 inches (minimum) of snow. Mike and I went out this morning looking to buy a sled. We have some really good sledding hills in the neighborhood. However, there were no sleds to be found. Wal-mart said they haven't had sleds all winter long. So, I'll be really disappointed if it's good sledding snow and we're stuck on the sidelines.

Looking for sleds made me think about the sled we had as kids. It was awesome!! You'd sit in it and it had a back rest and you'd put your legs out flat. There were handles on each side. You'd pull the left one up to turn right and the right one up to turn left. We lived at the top of a pretty good hill so we had a prime spot for sledding. We actually had some pretty good snows when I was a kid. I have fond memories of sledding with my dad and sisters. I'm sure all my sisters remember Dad putting the sled in the creek in the woods!! That was classic. I remember sledding down the hill in front of my house and somehow getting turned around and hitting a tree with my back. It knocked the breath out of me and everyone at the top of the hill was just yelling at me to hurry back up the hill with the sled, but I couldn't say a word.

One of my favorite pictures of our family was taken in the snow with our neighbor's dog, Rosie. I think that picture still sits on my parent's chest of drawers. We lived in a great neighborhood where we played outside all the time with the neighbor kids (and their parents, as I remember).

Some more memories from the old neighborhood...acorn fights (Dad could really pop you with an acorn)...kick ball (first base - utility pole, second base - odd spot in asphalt, third base - mailbox, home plate - yet another odd spot in the asphalt) and rolly bat...Susan making the neighbor kid touch a hot stick used to stoke the burning leaves...riding bikes...playing in the woods...locking Kathy out of the house in her panties and a tee shirt (hee hee hee!)...the rope swing behind Chris's house....kool-aid pop sickles in the summer...swimming at Sarge's (that was probably a mistake in hindsight)...

Those were the good ole days.