Speedy Recovery!

I have a dear friend who is having knee surgery today.. thus I've dedicated this Blog to her.. from my heart:

Hello my dear Suzie-Q
(the names have been changed to protect the innocent)

You've been on my heart and in my prayers all week in anticipation of  your knee surgery today. I know it's going to go well and you'll be so glad when you don't have to hobble around any longer!

I just wanted to give you some advice for today and the days that follow.. now listen to your older (not necessarily wiser) Sista.....

1) Drugs are good... don't avoid them.. if the nurse asks if you want pain medication.. don't refuse.

2) R.I.C.E ~ I'm sure the doctor's have given you some such prescription .. it goes something like this:

                       Rehab
                       Ice
                       Crutches
                       Elevate.

The real prescription is:

                     Relax totally
                     Ignore everyone
                     Cry as needed and
                     Eat whatever you want

3) Don't deny Mr. Suzie-Q his husbandly duties.... now hear me out... this means when he says "Let me do that for you" or "What would you like?" or "How can I help?" .. DON'T and I repeat DON'T say No, Never mind, It's ok or any such phrase.....  just eliminate those words right now from your vocabulary. Let him do it.


4) Feel the love.. that is coming from all your family and friends... I am confident that this will overflow into your inner core and you'll be filled with comfort and joy (of course this must be accompanied by the drugs ~ see rule #1).


5) Have a speedy recovery. We want you back asap stamping and playing and loving life together!!!


Hugs
Gail

ps - I'll be over on Friday to check up on you and bring you some dinner.

A Smile from God

Don’t ya love nature? To me that’s just God’s way of showing himself to us.. in the beauty around us… from the beaches to the mountains, from the flowers to the trees… and to watch the sunset at the beach.. now that’s one of my very favorite things to do. And yes he shows himself in the hard times too, in the floods and earthquakes and tornados....  after all Our God is an Awesome God.

But for today I just want to encourage you to stop and smell the roses, to watch a sunset or stand in a rainstorm… listen to the birds chrip or the crickets sing… feel the sun on your face or the breeze through your hair… no matter what’s going on in your neck of the woods.. just enjoy it. Psalms 18:35 says God stoops down to make me great…. Guess that’s just what I’m feeling today.

I found this picture in one of the emails someone sends around every so often… couldn’t help but smile. Hope you do too… so here’s a smile from God....

.... hope you're smiling back at him.

White Paint & Team Grandpa!

We’re getting new flooring this week. The place is a mess... all the furniture crammed into one room and some out in the garage. It's like an obstacle course just to get around.. .and Jerry’s been hard at work preparing for the installers to come today. So we spent the weekend pulling up the old carpeting in the TV room and the old wood floor in the kitchen. It’s all getting replaced.. I’m so excited.. but yet again it’s an incredible amount of work for Jerry… me I’m just the gopher… or trash dumper or tool fetcher….

As you experience too I’m sure when undertaking such projects, one thing leads to another…. We’ve been meaning to paint the entry and hallways for years now so this is as good a time as any and best to do it now before we slop it on the new flooring. So last Thursday evening we buzzed out to Home Depo to “pick up some white paint”…. Do you know how many versions of white paint there are??? Ohmygoodness… I thought that would be easy… I knew I wanted more of a cream color and not just stark white. Then selecting it from nearly a one inch by one inch sample is another challenge in itself! Here’s the colors I narrowed it down to:

Talc
Chalk

Glass of Milk

Innocence

Oyster

Willow White

Heavy Cream

Creamy White

Almond Cream

I could have saved about an hour of my life and just closed my eyes and picked one.. because honestly .. come on… when you get them up on the wall can you REALLY tell the difference?? Barely. I knew I wanted something similar to what we had or perhaps slightly darker… Now I must tell you Jerry was a sweetheart… or at least he humored me for a bit. When I finally got it down to two choices… Oyster or Talic… I told him to pick one… so Oyster it is. Whew... and the incredible thing is that when we got it home it matched exactly what we have already.. amazing!

My intent was to help him paint on Saturday.. but of course when I got home from work on Friday… the painting was done. He is amazing. Well he did save me some touch up spots around the doorways… I think just so I could say “I helped paint the hallway”….


On Saturday morning he started pulling up the existing wood floor in the kitchen… a tougher job than we planned…. So I thought it was a good opportunity to see what David happen to be doing that day.. and see if he’d be able to help his dad out a bit… Sleep deprived and sacrificing his own Saturday chores, he showed up an hour later… and the best part he brought another worker with him… Brayden with his "Team Grandpa" outfit on… it was darling! So while Jerry and David worked away and demolished the kitchen floor.. me and Brayden got to giggle and coo and tickle and smile for a couple of hours… it was awesome! Here’s Team Grandpa in action:

So next time we have another overwhelming job to do.. who ya gonna call? Team Grandpa... of course!

Showered with Love

Before Brayden was born, Holly was given several Baby Showers by her mom and friends and co-workers and neighbors and more friends and more co-workers… they are loved by so many!!

Brayden’s room is painted Navy Blue with white accents. Along with his Winnie the Pooh décor, he has “stars and moon” glow in the dark on his ceiling. I helped Holly decorate the bedroom walls with some vinyl rub-on’s of a few darling sheep jumping over a fence with the words Good Night Sleep Tight near  his crib. We also put another vinyl on an adjacent wall that has stars around the words “Always Kiss Me Goodnight”…. Too cute!

So back in the Spring when Holly's mom had her baby shower, I made some Baby Boxes for Brayden along with some baby announcements and thank you cards. 

Here are pictures of the outside decor and inside contents of each... of course the stars and moon on one with "Got Milk" outfit.  The second has the baby stick figure with two dogs and two cats.. a pretty accurate representation of their own pets, along with the  ABC and 123..  Inside that box was the Thank You note cards. Then the last box has Brayden's initials on it along with hand and feet prints along with some dangling diaper pins..... and inside the "I'm Here" Baby Announcements.

They were so fun to make and as he gets older he can use them to store his treasures … like frogs and snails and puppy dog tails.. .right?

Favorite Summer-time Recipe

OK so since I promised to include some of my recipes throughout my blogging adventure… here is the very first one of my summer-time favorites. It’s pretty difficult so you may want to get a pencil and paper to take notes….as most of you know I’m quite the culinary expert, after all David went to Culinary School at Le Cordon Bleu, so the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree…. Right.

Ok so back to the recipe… 1) Drive to the Grocery Store 2) Purchase one package of hot dogs (8 per package) and one package of hot dog buns (also 8 per package).. wouldn’t want you to have a melt down like Steve Martin in Father-of-the-Bride. 3) Get your husband or significant other to light the hibachi (those of you more experience can probably do this yourself). 4) Lay hot dog and bun on grill and burn both to a crisp… seriously this is the best way to enjoy the all-American meal. 5) Apply mustard (optional).

This is one of the highlights of my summer… I do love a good crisp hot dog with a wonderful toasted bun on a warm summer night  (Jerry says he'll toast my buns anytime) …. later I’ll be enjoying some burnt popcorn while watching Diners Drive-Ins and Dives.

In case you didn’t get that, I’ve given you a visual here:

Oh, while we’re on the subject of “dogs”….. I wanted to introduce you to Sydney, our Australian Cattle Dog (a watch dog she ain’t). She’s actually David’s dog. He brought her home from the Pound one day when he was in high school; but seems when he left a few years later for Culinary School, she didn’t… but that’s to our advantage as she really is the Reed Ranch Mascot. Thus, a much better “dog” picture:

Hope you enjoyed the first recipe of the RRR Blog… oh yes and Beware.. when you come to the Reed Ranch you could be licked to death.

Dedicated to the One I Love

Don’t ya love those Oldies but Goodies songs??… ok so I’m dating myself here… but we do love the ‘50s music… I’m amazed that Jerry can name so many of the songs… along with their artists. I’m not that good.. I can recognize the song, but to name it... now that’s a bit harder…. Peggy Sue starts to play and he knows immediately it’s Buddy Hollie, Chantilly Lace and it’s Big Bopper, Sweet Little Sixteen with Chuck Berry, Wake Up Little Suzie ah yes the Everly Brothers; Poison Ivy and it’s the Coasters, Lucille and it’s Little Richard and everyone knows Jerry Lee Lewis sings Great Balls of Fire!

Several years ago for Christmas, Allen bought Jerry an XM radio and subscription… that was one of the best gifts ever. He can take it and listen where ever he goes, down to the garage when’s he’s working in his woodshop, out to the patio while he’s mowing the lawn, in his office while he’s pushing papers…. plus now in his truck he has XM radio too.. no commercials and all channels dedicated to various eras and styles of music… so of course the dial is nearly glued on the 50s… and that’s ok with me.

So last Saturday night we went down to Campland on the Bay, at Mission Bay, where we were rockin’ to The Royal Ts.. Their lead singer is Joe Rosales, who is the dad of my co-worker Monica… she told me they played “old stuff like the 50s” (I guess when you’re 22 years old you think Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean is old music)… we’ve been wanting to go all Summer to hear them play so we finally made it. And it was awesome! We went with some dear friends Tina and Dave (remember my vow to start spending more time with our treasured friendships) and had a very fun evening! They played such a great variety of music.. from Mustang Sally to Footloose and one of our favorites Sweet Home Alabama! And because it’s right on the Bay, we ended the evening watching the fireworks display from Sea World… just awesome!

The best part is that The RoyalTs is basically all family, Joe’s brother and son are also in the band and they are all a great testimony to what life is about… family and friends and giving to others. Check out their website and hire them for your next family picnic or reunion or wedding or anniversary or birthday  ~ honestly they didn't pay me to say this.... I just enjoyed them that much!!!..... I couldn’t wait to get back to work on Monday to let Monica know what a blast we had… now next time if I can just get Jerry out on the dance floor that will be perfect! ~ Good Golly Miss Molly!

Crazy Card Clubs

I have so many amazing friends! And most of them are as crazy as I am!! We all love to stamp and have been making cards and fun projects for eons now… some longer than others. That’s what’s great about friendships… they grow and sprout often… just like a garden, we affect each other, we grow together, we share our roots.. and after years of being together we even begin to look like each other!! OK maybe not… but we do love to imitate each other’s cards… after all immitation is the best form of flattery, right??

I’ve been “swapping” cards now with several of my friends… right now I’m in two different monthly groups; one The Crazy Card Club and the other The Sisterhood of the Travelling Card Swaps! I just wanted to take a moment to thank them all for putting up with me and also for allowing me to “show off their work” throughout my blogs.. Between my Card Clubs and my TV Swaps, you know who you are…. Evie, Carol, Mary, Pam, Shelly, Deb, Colleen, Ruth, Wanda, Judee, Jennifer, Margie, Chris, Kendra, Rhoda, Lindsey, Mireya, Patrice, Deb, Candace, Sandra, Lori, Janice, Carey… just to name a few!

So with their permission, here are just a few of the cards I’ve received over the years from my card swappers… I’ll be sharing more as we blog along.. but here’s a taste for now:

Thus why I love the expression.. Keep those cards and letters coming in!