My Mother Will be Calling Me Over This....

My mother will probably be upset with me over this. And I am probably going to win the Daughter of the Year award for this because I didn't tell her about this last night. So, mom, this post is for you! I have been complaining about my trashy roots for some time now. Obviously not enough to make an appointment to go get them fixed. It just hasn't been on my priority list. I'm usually gone or have company every weekend and during the week days, I get back to Thomasville so late in the day, that I would hate to keep my stylist there for the 3 hours after hours to highlight my long hair. So last night, I took matters into my own hands. I still can't believe that I did, because coloring my hair myself is something that I have never tried before (yes mom, you see where this is going....). I ran in Target and grabbed a semi-permanent box of hair color and decided on this:

I went with L'Oreal Creme Gloss Color in Medium Brown. The back of the box showed how your hair is supposed to come out. Going from a blonde to this color was supposed to result in a soft brown. Yeah...not so much! I was trying to match my natural color as close as possible. I guess I got pretty close, but still it's always a shock to see my "real" color on me. Here is the before picture. (Please excuse the hot mess that I am!)

Bye, bye Goldilocks! Hello, Goth Kid. (Please note, how bad my roots are. That is my defense!)

And for a closer look. Please excuse the crazy eyes. Don't you just love all my wonderful iphone pictures? Ha!

Stacey's response was - I like it, but you definitely need a tan! Dark hair does wipe me out. So I will be working on that tan.

Guess it's not too bad. But I do notice that I pose the same way in all of these pictures. Guess it's my thing. Hand on hip like my grandmother! :) And Bentley got a photo bomb in there this morning.

It's a little shocking because it's been a minute since I've had dark hair. The good thing is that the color is semi-permanent and should only last about 28 washes. So, it will fade in a couple of days and my highlights should start coming through a little bit more to lighten it up some. This is a quick fix until I can get to the salon and go back blonde. So, have no fear, mother. I plan on lightening it up. So the brunette won't be here for too long. I went ahead and washed it twice last night, although the directions said to wait 24 hours. I just wanted to give it an extra push to lighten up a little bit.

So that is my adventure in coloring my hair myself for the first time. It wasn't that bad and if I do decide to stay on the brown side of things, I might keep that as an option instead of paying $150 for a color job. When it's put like that, the $5 box of color isn't looking so bad!

Anyone else try their hand at coloring? Make a huge mistake and have to get it fixed? If so, let me know!

Comfort Food

A girl can only eat a finite amount of Lean Cuisine before revolting. Yesterday, I had reached my limit. The thought of going home to eat another bbq chicken pizza (which are really yummy, btw) was more than I could stomach. So I headed to the grocery store to go pick up some food. I was craving fresh vegetables. I went to Harvey's in hopes that they had their fresh field peas out already. Sadly, they did not. I was disappointed because that was what I was craving.Not enough though, to drive the 2 miles across town to the farmers market..... But I decided to make an executive decision and improvise. So I picked up some collard greens, fresh sweet corn, tomatoes, and some pork chops. I also picked up some squash, but I didn't want to go too crazy last night. I don't do much cooking anymore. When I was married, I cooked every single night. For obvious reasons now, I just don't do it much. I don't have anyone to cook for and its really a lot of trouble to cook for just one person. The only time I eat a real meal is if Stacey is the one doing the cooking! However, I really love cooking and baking. I mean really, really love it. It has always been a passion of mine since I was a tiny girl sitting on my grandmother's counter watching her cook and learning from her. So, I guess I need to get back on the horse and start doing it more often. And get back on the horse I did, last night. I will admit though- it was exhausting to cook! I forgot how much work it is, and I didn't really have to do anything much other than boil some water. HA! That's pretty sad!

It was quite delish and I really enjoyed the veggies. It was all yummy. I had every intention of making a lemon pie last night as well. I found a new recipe in a Southern Living magazine I wanted to try. Unfortunately, Harvey's felt the need to be out of lemonade concentrate last night, so that will be put off until another night.

Hopefully, we will be in plenty of supply of fresh vegetables thanks to the hard efforts of my girl, Stacey. She has planted a garden in the backyard! Yay!

She planted bell pepper, rosemary, squash, and tomatoes.  As well as sweet corn, basil, dill, chives, radishes, leeks, scallions, zucchini, watermelon, cucumbers from seeds.

I'm ready for summer to get here to enjoy the fruits of her labors! :-)

Squirrel Saga

As the one and only Carrie Bradshaw once said - "squirrels are rats with cuter outfits." I am beginning to agree with her. My squirrel saga continues. Not that anyone but me probably cares about, but my work squirrel has struck again! He has finally figured out how to get to my bird feeder. The little thief!

You can see him here eating the seeds that I had left for him on the window. Guess that wasn't good enough for this little guy.

He figured out how to get to the hanging feeder. He made the leap and feasted on the sunflower seeds reserved for the birds. Go figure!

{This will conclude my squirrel posts for a while!}

Quick Weekend Update

Good Monday morning!  I'm trying to get this week started with a huge cup of coffee and trying to find my motivation to do something productive. Before I get to work, I just wanted to share a quick recap of my weekend. It pretty much goes like this:

Friday
I left work on time, which was a miracle in and of itself. I headed towards Savannah and made good time. It was mainly uneventful until I got about 8 miles south of my exit to I-16. Traffic was at a complete standstill on I-95! I was so mad. I had been stuck in the car for 4 hours and I was ready to be at my destination. Luckily, I was only about 3 miles south of another exit that I sometimes take when I am varying my route, so I was able to get on the shoulder and exit onto that exit and go around the horrible traffic. So, thankfully crisis was averted. I finally arrived at David's and my two boys (David and his dog Mox, that is) were very happy that I had made it safely. We ate and watched some TV and I called it an early night because I was exhausted. Plus we had such a big day ahead of us, going to the beach and all!

Saturday
The weather was beautiful on Saturday, thank goodness! So we packed up some gear and headed out to Tybee Island to go get our beach on. I guess we weren't the only ones in Savannah with that same idea!

It was pretty crowded, but it wasn't too bad. It was a little overcast, so unfortunately it didn't put a dent in my transparent, white skin. Ha!

It was a nice day that we spent reading magazines, playing bocce, and stuffing our faces with delicious subs from Publix and fresh fruit. David was brave and hopped in the water. It was a little cold for my tastes. I stuck one toe in and said no thanks.

I was just thankful to be outside on such a gorgeous day! Plus, Tybee is right on the path that all the ships take to port in Savannah, so we got to watch all the "sea traffic" which was really cool.

We finally packed it up and headed back home. We decided to stay at home and take it easy for the rest of the day. I ran back to Publix and grabbed some stuff to make for dinner. I made a chicken and yellow rice casserole that was very delicious and easy to make. Plus I knew that David would have plenty of leftovers to eat during the week. Here is the recipe:

Chicken and Yellow Rice Casserole

• One package (16 oz) yellow rice, cooked according to package directions
• 2-4 cups cooked chicken (I always pick up a rotisserie chicken from the deli for this)
• 1 can black beans, drained
• Chopped onion, bell pepper, and carrots
• 1 can Rotel tomatoes
• 2 cups shredded Monteray Jack cheese

Cook the rice according to the package directions. For the last 8 minutes or so of cooking time on the rice, I throw in the onions, bell peppers, and carrots and let them steam with the rice to soften them up for a bit.
Once the rice is finished, stir in the rest of the ingredients and 1.5 cups of the cheese. Put in large casserole dish. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, covered at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes. Remove cover/tin foil and bake for a remaining 5 minutes to let the cheese get all nice and melted/browned on top.

That's it! Quick, easy, and delicious! I also made David some ice cream sandwich "cake" and you can get the recipe here. (Just please ignore that the post includes he-who-must-not-be-named). Needless to say, David was a happy camper to have a home cooked meal for a change. Sunday involved a whole lot of nothing (which is what we do best!) and brunch at Uncle Bubba's. Then I headed back home to Thomasville. So that was my weekend, which was pretty good in my book! Hope you all had a great weekend!

UPDATE: Guess I did right by Mr. David. He sent me this text and I had to laugh!

Poor baby has been deprived of eating real meals for too long. Guess it's a good thing I came along :-)

It's Friday! and Other Random Musings

I'm so thankful it's Friday!! Although I have only worked three days this week, it has been one long week! I stayed an extra 2.5 hours last night at work trying to get caught up on some stuff that was waaay behind. And my list keeps growing (and here I am complaining about work and I'm taking the time to do a blog post. ha!). I'm thankful for the massive growth our company is experiencing, but it is a lot of work. Thankfully, I will get to hire another assistant soon, so hopefully that will help take some of the work load off of me. So hooray for that!

I am looking forward to the weekend. I am heading back to Savannah for the weekend. We have nothing on our to-do list other than hit up the beach tomorrow. I am excited to start working on the pastiness that is my skin. I love the look of a tan, but at my age I also worry about all the damage that being in the sun does to your skin. It's a catch 22. Guess I should seriously look into spray tans! I guess we will hit up Tybee Island to get our fun in the sun on. I love the beach, but the Atlantic coast is blah to me. I'm a Northwest Florida girl who has been spoiled by gorgeous beaches her whole life. What can I say?

I am hoping that next week things will get back to normal. I was sidelined this week by my impromptu stomach virus, so I've been pretty tired all week. So I haven't had the energy to engage in my new daily "exercise" routine. Taking the old Schwinn out for a spin. (I'm a poet and didn't know it. ha!)

Since moving, I have really enjoyed going for my daily bike ride every evening. It's very relaxing, plus it's a good leg and butt work out as well. I tried to document a recent ride that Stacey and I went on. It's not that great, but it's hard to take pictures while riding a bike and not falling!

Here's Stacey. She looks all nice and proper.

And then there is me...acting like a complete idiot! But that's expected. We tried really hard to get a picture with both of us. Yeah, that was a fail!

That's about as good as we got. Taking a picture of two people on two separate bikes while moving without crashing...it was a miracle we didn't break our necks!
 I will leave you with a random, rambling video of me running my mouth so you can get the full, glorious effect of our bike ride. Hope you have a great weekend everyone!

Something's Squirrelly....

Apparently the squirrels are big fans of my bird feeders. When we moved offices, my sweet boss, got a bird feeder to put outside my window for me. I have a male and female cardinal couple that frequent my feeder often.

This is the female and she is actually at the feeder as I type this. Guess I should really name these little guys....I digress.  I also have one squirrel that lives around here that is bound and determined to get to the bird feeder. The feeder contains nothing but sunflower seeds, but this squirrel really wants them. He tries to climb up the pole to get to it, but he can't seem to ever reach the feeder. When that doesn't work, he climbs into the tree that a few limbs sort of hang over the feeder and tries to skydive onto the feeder, and then ultimately falls in a heap on the ground. It's very entertaining and scares me every time because he makes quite the noise falling and bomb diving off the tree onto the ground. I've tried to get a video of him doing this, maybe one day I will catch him in the act.  I guess I should let my work squirrel meet my house squirrel and let that little one teach him how its done.

This little con artist knows how to work the system. He climbs up the pole, reaches over and grabs some food. Then he climbs to the top and eats the food and starts the whole process over again.

I must say, he has skills.

Those squirrels at home have quite the appetite. I am constantly putting out corn/sun flower seeds for them out in the yard. Guess when they eat all that, they have no choice but to become little thieves and steal the bird food. After a while of watching this squirrel, I felt sorry for him because he looked exhausted from his efforts. So I made things a little bit easier for him, in terms of food supplies.

I placed a big pile of corn at the base of the bird feeder, so he wouldn't have to overexert himself to eat. And speaking of which, I guess I should go outside and put a handful of food out on the window ledge for my work squirrel.

And I will note that my lovely bird feeder was a house warming present from David. Isn't he the sweetest? Cue the awwws here. He put it up for me right outside the kitchen window above the sink so when we are doing the dishes or cooking we can look out and see the birds (or the squirrels) and enjoy them. So far we have a blue jay, a few cardinals, a few finches, and a mockingjay mockingbird that frequent our feeder at home. Man this is riveting stuff here!!

Can you tell that I am grasping for blog material today? Ha!!

Easter Egg Hunt

It is always a great joy to watch the little ones enjoy celebrating the holidays. Like Mimi making Barrett a bunny rabbit cake.

Or opening an Easter basket.

One of the best things this weekend was watching all the kids, both young and old do some Easter Egg hunting.

Patiently waiting to hunt eggs

Finally!! Go time!

I even enjoyed watching the guys hide the eggs.

All in all, it was great just watching the kids be kids. Oh, the simple joys!

I am thankful for my friends and family. I love Easter. It is probably my favorite holiday! And more importantly, it is more than just Easter eggs and bunny rabbits. It's about our Lord and Savior and how he came to die on the cross for our sins. That's what makes Easter so very special.



John 11:25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”