Reality vs Vanity

So, one day a couple weeks ago, my favorite guy was coming to see me, like as his habit to do. :)

The end.

Haha...

Anyway, as I was saying, Jacob was coming over after work, which means he doesn't get to my house until supper time. That always leaves me time to get cleaned up and presentable. My idea of presentable, anyway. Which means I shower, fix my hair (dry and curl it and really fix it nice) put on a little makeup, change four or five times...no, really I don't change that much. Just two or three...

A little background would be helpful here...I didn't grow up wearing makeup at all. My mom quit wearing makeup before I remember and hasn't worn any since. When I was 19, I bought some mascara and started playing around with it. Now, I just use mascara and some Bare Minerals powder stuff. That's it..no foundation stuff or anything like that. Oh, but I do have a blemish stick thingy that I use on spots I want to cover up. Anyway, my point here is that I never use very much makeup at all. With the exception of the mascara (and only because it's black and I'm a brown kind of girl) I don't think you can really even tell I wear anything. And I don't even wear a lot of mascara...

I don't leave the house without at least curling my hair under. It's layered right now, and it's been that way for a while. I think it looks funny if I don't curl it under. My hair is extremely straight (so much so that when I wore my hair in it's most natural state to J's family's this week, the girls said "did you straighten your hair?!" Nope, just didn't curl it!) and flat, so even when my curl doesn't stay (it never does) it just sort of softens the ends and provides the teeniest bit of volume.

I also don't leave the house without at least a little jewelry. I'm not one to wear three bracelets on one arm or anything (but that's fine if you do...don't want to get in trouble here!) but I always wear earrings, a watch, my ring (um...one that I bought, worn on my right hand, lest anyone be thinking I've kept anything back recently ;) ) and a necklace (either my black pearl one that I love or the one Jacob got me for Valentine's day...it depends on what I'm wearing.)

Basically, I try for classy, yet not overdone. No excessive makeup, not a ton of jewelry...just a well put-together, classy look...like I'm conscious of how I look, and have put thought into it, without stressing about it or drawing a lot of attention by over-accessorizing or over-dressing. I'm not sure how else to explain it....am I making any sense whatsoever???

So, back to my story: said fella was coming to see me one evening. I decided not to go through my normal routine of preparation. (I guess I figured sooner of later he'd find out what I looked like with super straight hair anyway..and that he'd find out maybe I do have blemishes sometimes!!!) I showered and dried my hair. And that was it (after getting dressed anyway...haha!) My hair was flat and super-duper straight. I wore no makeup. No jewelry....not even my earrings. I wasn't feeling very pretty, and I think maybe I have developed a skewed idea of pretty.

Because my man told me when he left that he loved my hair like that and I looked good. :)

I think guys just might have different ideas of pretty than women do. I think women try too hard!

So, here's to being basic...the most natural and unadorned that we can be. Pretty without faking it or trying too hard. Just smile and be happy and have a good time with your man and he'll think you're the most beautiful girl he's ever met.

Ask me how I know. ;)

Hand-Me-Downs

I love hand-me-downs. I do mean love! I love thrift stores, and I love when people give me clothes they no longer wear or want. It's great! I think the last time I bought a new skirt was around Christmas of 2010. Not this past Christmas...the one before that. Honest! It was a Christopher & Banks skirt...green suede-ish material, with a paisley imprint design. I got it because I thought I liked it, and I guess maybe it was a thing for me, you know... "I haven't bought a new skirt in so long, I'm just going to buy one!" Christopher & Banks had a sale and I was suckered in. I spent $20-something on a skirt I've worn a couple times. Doesn't even fit me right anymore..still hanging in my closest! I think...maybe I already took it to the thrift store. If I haven't, I need to.

Soon after I started going over to Jacob's family's house every week, his mom came to me and said that she didn't know if this was ok to ask or not...but she and some other relatives had a bunch of skirts they wanted to give me. She was so careful not to offend me or anything and I thought it was great! When we lived in GA there was a lady in our church there who would bring me big bags full of clothes every few months. (It was more fun once you got past the fact that they lost weight and gave you what was too big...oh well.) I'd go through it and get what I liked and could use, and get rid of the rest of it. (Take it to the thrift store, or make something else out of it.) Anyway, Jacob's mom wasn't sure if I'd be ok with folks giving me stuff, so I assured her it was more than fine!

Since then they've gifted me with nearly 20 skirts!!! I loved many of them, and most of them fit me, which was a miracle in and of itself. Usually when you find something you love it tends to be a tiny bit too small...in which case some weird people might get it (or keep it) anyway and hope for those 5 pounds to come off. Not that I'd do that...just saying.

So anyway, a couple weeks ago, I got a couple more skirts from a cousin. I'm not sure if one of them will work...waiting for those 5 pounds to come off still!!! However, the other was a denim Cato skirt. I love Cato skirts, but the new ones I've tried on don't seem to fit me right. Seems like when they fit me in the waist, they don't fit...elsewhere. Not to get into a discussion of my shape here, but I've had a hard time with Cato skirts, even though it's a good place to find nice skirts. However, a lot of these skirts I've been given recently are Catos and I wear them frequently...and they fit nicely. I'm thinking they must be older, so they're not cut the same as the new ones...but that's just my theory. Anywho, back to this new skirt. It fits (and it's a smaller size than I've worn in quite some time...say, several years) and it was a nice skirt. I wore it just like it was a few times, and it was great. It had a nice shape and flowed nicely. But, being me, and not being able to leave well enough alone, I got to thinking. (That's probably not proper to write, is it?) The skirt had a couple tiny bleach spots a few inches up from the hem, so small no one but me would ever know they were there. (You might be able to see them in the picture...right in the center on the front) And, I'd been wanting a couple shorter skirts for the summer...and I really needed a denim one.

So here's what I did. I took this: (Sorry for the crappy picture, but one of the boys had my camera and all I had close by was my iPod!)

..and made it into this. I took about 6 inches off of it, and made flowers from the scrap fabric, tacking them on with a button in the middle. This denim is thin and they kinda flopped over, so I fixed that by sewing them down in a couple spots...and then fabric-gluing them to death, leaving enough unglued so that it didn't look glued down. ;) They stayed.

(What I wanna know is why in Heaven's name it looks like a 22 hanging up like that. It's a 10, if you thought it looked like a 22. 22 is not the size I haven't worn in years. Just clearing that up.)

This is sorta what I followed to make the flowers. And let me tell you right now, I'm no artists. Sheesh...it shouldn't have been that hard!

Oops

So, it's Thursday, right? We don't usually have desserts throughout the week, not until Friday. We're considering staying up until midnight every Thursday night and start eating sweets at 12:01 Friday morning, but we haven't gotten that crazy yet. No promises, though.

Dad asked me a little while ago if I was making some kind of dessert tonight for a special someone who'll be coming to see me. Well, I told him we didn't usually have desserts during the week...remember? :) I told him I'd be making homemade ice cream (his favorite) probably tomorrow so he could have some then.

Please, dear readers, if you follow my example in this area...rinse the evidence of a chocolate cookie for that special someone out of the sink...before said father comes to wash his hands in the sink. ;)

See, cookies aren't exactly dessert! We never eat cookies for dessert! They're for coffee time! And Jacob mentioned a couple weeks ago that chocolate chip cookies were his favorite (so maybe them being Dad's favorite, and me making them twice a week for the past few years, wasn't just a random thing after all?) but that Chocolate Crinkles were really really good, too. Huh? Chocolate what? I'd never heard of them before, but lucky for me, Google had. So, that's what I whipped up this morning. Only, I left the mixer attachments unrinsed in the sink. And there was chocolate on them. Oops.

Dad says "did you make something chocolate for Jacob?"

Me: "ummmm....nice day out isn't it?!" 

So Dad made fun of me. Again. "Oh, I get it... 'you can't have any dessert til the weekend. Here, let me mix up something chocolate for Jacob'" says Dad.

By the way, my new favorite hobby is paying close attention to everything Jacob says, making mental notes on  all his preferences. :) It's fun.

A month or so ago, he'd been saying my desserts sure were rich. Dad likes chocolate and ice cream and doesn't like fruit desserts, so that's what I've gotten used to making over the years. I make rich desserts. After paying attention for a while, I learned that Jacob likes cobblers, especially blackberry. So one day I made a blackberry cobbler. He said it was good, and I smiled. Then a few weeks ago, I made a carrot cake. You can't imagine my supreme delight when he took one bite and said how good it was, and that he always loved carrot cake. Smile.


We spent a few days in Louisville last week, with my grandparents, and I got lots of pictures, so I'll try to post some of those soon.

I'm Behind!

Hey, y'all! I know I'm terribly behind in blogging, but I have had good reason. What am I saying...I always have good reason! Most of the time, I'm busy or I don't feel like I've done anything interesting enough to blog about! I'll give you a head's-up, too...I'll most likely be backing off blogging a bit anyway. It's time for me to back off so much personal detail...don't worry...nothing's wrong! So, look for more recipes, reposting of archived posts from my old blog, and perhaps the occasional personal update. You can email me if you need to know something and I'll be pretty good...maybe...about getting back to you! Better yet, come see me! Or you could always call me...holler if you need my number.

For now, I'll try to catch everyone up on the past couple weeks. Bear on the Square was a couple weekends ago now. We had a good time there, as usual, and Mom and Dave did really well selling their stuff. I think they did better Saturday than they had all weekend, in previous years. This makes the fourth year we've set up there, I believe. Or maybe it's the third...no, I think it's the fourth. Anyway...folks know we'll be there and they come buy stuff. That's the way it's supposed to work!

I got to hear my former fiddle teacher play fiddle, which is always a pleasure. We played together just a little (I'm horribly out of practice,) and he helped Titus along with some songs on the banjo. It was a lot of fun.

We got back home last Monday (after stopping by Amicalola Falls....I still have to edit and upload my pics) and were getting back in the swing of things, and we got a call Thursday that my great-grandmother had passed away. Mom and Dave were due to go to Louisville for a show Friday, and they would be gone until Monday. Well, our plans were all switched around, and Mom, Dad, Titus, and Philip headed to GA Friday morning, and Dave and I spent the weekend in Louisville. I would have liked to have been in GA, but Dave couldn't cancel this show, and someone needed to go with him. Mom couldn't miss going to GA, so that's how everything worked. I'm pretty tired of being gone on the weekends...that makes twice in a row. But we had a good time, and Dave sold a ton of stuff and did really well. So, I guess it all works out.

We went to visit my great-grandmother around Christmas, when we were in GA. She knew who both Mom and I were, which was unexpected. This is the last picture we took together....four generations. I'd always thought it would be neat for her to see my kids...

Me Again

I'm just posting tons of miscellaneous updates here, but I can't name all of my posts "miscellaneous update" now, can I?

Remember the coffee mug that my aunt got me for my birthday?

And for scale...pictured with my current coffee mug.

(That's our 36-cup coffee maker behind it.)

I went to Walmart today and printed out some pictures that were Jacob's favorites, pictures of us. A couple weeks ago, we were scrolling through pictures on my iPod and he told me he needed some pictures of us. So, his wish is my command. ;)

The Saturday I ran into Jacob at Walmart, many many weeks ago now, Mom and I had been yard-saling that morning. That was just a week or so after he's emailed me out of the blue (all this is in our story, of course!) and it was the first time I'd seen in around town in a year or so. That morning, I'd bought a picture frame at a yard sale. I'd told Mom she needed it, because I didn't really have a use for it at the time, but she didn't like it. So I went ahead and bought it, deciding just to put it up until it was time for me to be able to use it.

It's time. :)

 Dave hasn't been feeling well for the past day or so, and he laid down this afternoon. Rylie had wanted to take her nap on his bed this afternoon, so...

This morning, Dad needed some sawdust from the sawmill, so Dave was going to run get it for him. We get our sawdust from the sawmill Jacob works at, so I decided to tag along, just for Dave's company, you know. ;) Just like any normal girl would, I spent a little while this morning getting ready...put on a cute, cap-sleeve, white button-up shirt, with a very springy light skirt, one that hits me a few inches below my knee. It's been a little cooler lately, but still in the 60s in the afternoons. Well, I stepped outside to get in the truck this morning, and it was a little cooler than I'd expected! Got in the truck, and the thermometer said 44*. Wow. A little chilly, especially since I looked like I was going to the beach in July!!!

So, we got to the sawmill, and I walked over to where Jacob was working. Under a big pole-barn type set-up, and it was breezy. And it was COLD. Like, really chilly. Jacob walked over to where I was standing for a couple minutes and looked down at what I wearing....he had a crazy glint in his eye and said "kinda cold out today, ain't it?!" as he was bundled up in his t-shirt, button-up, AND sweatshirt with a hood! He had to go back to working, and I just stood around watching for a while, since we were waiting for the guys to load up our sawdust. A few minutes later, Jacob ran out to his car and brought me his big jacket to wear. :) Let's hear it....aaawwwwww. ;)

I've got to run, just thought I'd post a few things while I was thinking about it! Time for me to head out to Pellyton. :) I hope I'll get to stop in at the house today and maybe get some pictures, if I remember my camera!

Miscellaneous Updates

Last year I cut Regal's hair really short, for the summer. He's prone to have skin issues and he gets really hot pretty easy (he lays in the driveway when it snows, instead of being in his house!) so I thought he'd be better off if I cut his hair. So, last year, I bought clippers and gave him a haircut.

It's about that time again now, so I tackled it today, which is also his birthday. I actually didn't remember...AKC sent him an email wishing him happy birthday. Some Mama I am...

Everything went fine with the clipping, until the clippers quit working. Pics of the process...

Regal LOVES getting a hair cut! I worked on him for well over an hour this afternoon and he laid there just like that the entire time. Every time I would turn off the clippers he's raise his head and look up at me, like "Um...what do you think you're doing?!"

Well, I clipped his whole right side and then got him to roll over so I could do the left. And the clippers quit cutting. Like, seriously, they wouldn't cut ANYTHING. I was keeping them cleaned and oiled and they just quit cutting. Sooo...you should see him now. It's quite pitiful...and also a little funny. One side is short and the other is long. Hm. I don't know what I'm going to do now...I guess I'll have to send the blades off to be sharpened or something like that. Inconvenient and aggravating!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been working in our existing strawberry patch. I got most of it done, but now I'm going back over some of it to get all the tiny weeds out, and I'll be clearing out in between the rows so I can put down the black plastic sheets and sawdust, to keep that clean. I'm also replanting some strawberries that I dug up last week. Rylie was helping me yesterday...

We also had a lesson on why we can't pick the pretty flowers off the strawberry plants! The pretty flowers make baby strawberries!

My new favorite lunch...wraps!

This time I had stir-fried chicken, but most of the time I use lunch meat (the good stuff...no nitrates and all) inside. I pack it with as many veggies as I can find in the fridge. Most of the time, I use feta cheese (SOOO yummy!) but this time all we had was cheddar...I was out of feta. Let me see if I can remember everything..spinach, radishes, tomatoes, sweet peppers, cheese, chicken, basil, oregano, salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar...I'm sure I'm forgetting something! I LOVE fresh basil in these, but all I had yesterday was dried. Significantly less yummy than fresh! I usually use the bigger wheat shells, but Mom got these smaller ones when she shopped last...hence the two of them on my plate! These would be good with regular salad dressing on them, too, but I love the oil and vinegar and it's healthier than standard dressings! Wraps are so versatile...you can put just about anything you want in them. It's a great way for me to pack in a bunch of veggies without a lot of bread at lunchtime! 

By the way, if anyone was wondering...I eat really really slow. Just a fun random fact about me. So slow, that Jacob (now you didn't think I was about to write another post without mentioning him, did you?!) can eat twice as much as me and be done eating well before I am. Last Wednesday, we ate at the Mustard Seed (their store) and he was making fun of me SO BAD because I was eating so slow! We were at our own booth and one of his sisters was laughing because every time Jacob turned away from me, I'd chew really really fast and then we were both laughing and the poor man couldn't figure out why. 

He even wrote me a $20 ticket for eating too slow. I told him that just covered supper Saturday night. ;)

Looks like I'll be headed out to Pellyton again tomorrow sometime. Jacob's work schedule has been busy at the sawmill and he's been working on the house a lot too. He tore out all the flooring in the living room and kitchen already, and bought the wood to replace the floor joists. I'm anxious to get over there and help him work on it, but I think I'll be more helpful on the stuff that comes after ripping the floor out. :) Jacob's such a hard worker...he continually amazes me with everything he's doing.

See..had to brag. :) It's my job.

Pigeon Forge

Half of these pictures were taken on my iPod, so the quality varies! 

Mom and I left Thursday morning for the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area. We were supposed to meet my granny and my aunt around lunch time, in Gatlinburg. Well, we got there about 30 minutes earlier than they did, a fact of which we were very proud. They were just sure we were going to be late. We weren't.

We ate at O'Charley's for lunch, then walked around downtown Gatlinburg in the afternoon. I bought a couple silk wrap skirts, and a couple gifts for a certain someone. Said gifts will be given in July (said someone's birthday) and I don't know how I'm supposed to wait until then. Aggravating. Anyway, I think that's all I bought. We walked through so many interesting stores, and still didn't see but about half of them, I guess! Here's me and granny...

At lunch, the waiter brought me a brownie and granny asked him if he was going to sing to me. How embarrassing! He said he would, but that he sounded like a "mule in a hail storm!" He sang, and everyone else joined in, and it didn't sound bad at all. But then, I've never heard a mule in a hail storm...maybe it's a good thing.

We had leftovers from our lunch, and the waiter asked if we wanted boxes. Being that we couldn't take anything with us, we said no. Well, he said something about feeding the leftovers to the cats. If you know my mom, you know she LOVES cats. So, she said that she would like to go feed the cats. The waiter said, "just go outside and yell 'Harvey'" It seriously sounded like candid camera!!! It wasn't though, and she went out and fed the stray cats.

Tara helped...

 
When we checked into the hotel, we took a luggage rack to hold our luggage. This is what happens when we all get together.

(She's probably going to kill me)


Oh, I forgot! When we checked into the hotel after lunch, my granny had had birthday cakes and roses delivered to our room, individual for my aunt, Mom, and me. She also had some gifts, and my aunt gave Mom and I our gifts then, too. Mine is a coffee mug...but I'll have to get a picture of it to post. It's no ordinary mug...it's something else. I love it!

Let's see...Thursday night, we went to Johnny Carinos for supper...I picked. We had meaningful heart to heart conversation.

 Mom and I split a calzone...

 And the nice waiter brought me cheesecake. He didn't sing.

 After supper (which was late) we went to Walmart and looked at girly things (along the Spanx line, since we'd just eaten Italian and all felt fat.) Then we went back to the hotel and watched TV and stayed up til 2 am or something like that. We were all in one room, my aunt and granny in one bed, and mom and I in the other. Well, you know what they started doing at one o'clock in the stinkin morning? They all started singing Henry the Eighth I Am. I felt rather left out...I didn't know the words. Before it was over, there were a few different songs sung...I'm surprised no one called management on us!

Friday morning, we all got up and got ready. That in and of itself was a challenge...4 women in a hotel room doesn't make for getting ready fast! We ate a light breakfast (we sorta still felt icky after all the Italian the night before!) and then went to Dollywood. Actually, we went by the Dixie Stampede place first to get our tickets for the show that night. While granny took care of the tickets, we went to see the horses.

Then we went to Dollywood.

We rode the trolly thing into Dollywood, from out parking lot.

We toured Dolly Parton's old tour bus...

Hand tooled leather on the couches...

Then we rode the rides. We started out with this big swingy thing...basically, it swung you up, dropped you, and did that over and over, getting higher and higher every time. I laughed the whole time.

We rode this one...it was underground, but wasn't very thrilling, I didn't think. Just a couple little drops, but not very fast or anything.

Then we rode the new Wild Eagle roller coaster. I didn't have my camera with me (left it in a locker so I could ride) and it was fun. Just one big drop that took your stomach really bad! Here is a video and more info.

Then we rode the TN Tornado....still didn't get very good pictures!

We ate lunch (after all the rides!!!) Here we were trying to decide exactly how you'd drink a 44oz drink!

Can someone please tell me what this sign means? We were confused.

We liked this sign...

My aunt made me stand in this funny thing...

Then my aunt, who didn't want to ride the coasters, wanted to ride the ferris wheel. Sure!

Mom. It was at this point she started freaking out ever so slightly.

Her ever so slight freaking out soon turned into more.

As you can see on the video, it had started to rain. We had to leave Dollywood to be at the Dixie Stampede show on time, so we had to run through the rain to get to the trolly to get to the car. Well, this was no sprinkle.

By the time we got to the car, we were all completely soaked through. As in, we had to go back to the hotel room and change clothes (all clothes) and dry our hair and everything. I've never been so soaked from rain!

We went to the Dixie Stampede that night but they don't let you take pictures inside. :(

That night (I think) we got a Starbucks coffee. For some strange reason, the girl writing our names on our cup thought my granny (Rita) said her name was "William." It loses SO much punch trying to retell it, but we laughed for a looong time about that!

We also went to a pharmacy because I had taken prescription allergy medication earlier in the day and after we got out of the Dixie Stampede, I had a funny feeling in my throat like I couldn't breathe. We guessed it was from being closed up in there with the animals. Anyway, I needed to take something to make sure my throat didn't completely close up and we weren't sure what to do since I'd taken 12-hour medication 8 hours before. The pharmacy guy was a hoot and we had a lot of fun with him.



Saturday morning, we went back to Gatlinburg and walked around a few more stores...this outdoor store was one.

 We went to the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co for lunch, and had a Russian waiter. He was great and he and Mom cut up the whole time. She's like that. Again, I can't even begin to retell everything, because it's just not as funny if you weren't there. Take my word for it, we laughed and cried because we were laughing the whole time we ate.

But the best part came after we ate, when it was time for Mom to have dessert since her birthday was the next day. The video says it all. And more. This may be the funniest thing I've ever witnessed.

After lunch it was time for all of us to head home. We said our goodbyes and got in a hail storm not too far down the road.

I was driving on the way home, and Mom and I both were extremely sleepy. At one point, Mom was going through the radio, just sitting there with her finger on the seek button, mostly. Once, she stopped on a station that was all static...I mean, there wasn't anything coming through at all! She stayed on that station for about 30 seconds, and when I looked over at her to see what was going on, she was asleep! She woke up right then and I laughed. She said "how long was that station on?" I told her and we both laughed for about a minute, and then got sleepy again.

We stopped a little while down the road for a coffee and when we payed, the guy asked how we were doing. I said "sleepy!" He told us to be careful on the way, and Mom said "we've already been through hail!"

We knew were in the south when he replied "literally!"

Um, yeah...that's what we meant!!! Haha!

We got home about 8pm or so and went ahead and did Mom's birthday party, since I was going to be gone Sunday. She didn't want to wait til Monday.

We had a great time in TN. We ate too much, spent too much money, and laughed enough to last...oh...a couple weeks. :)