What's In My Bag!

You know your bored when you decide to do a post about whats in your bag! LOL

I love this Tommy Hilfiger bag. I brought it last year at TJ Maxx. It has every spring color under the rainbow. Last week while I was in Target a young lady came up to me gushing over this bag. I think if she could have she would have snatched it (j/k) but she literally drooled over it. LOL It has a back pocket which I keep my phone in...its convenient and I don't have to go digging when I get a call. The datebook I have had for yrs now. I didn't use it much last year but dragged it out again when my blackberry died on me. I kind of like being able to "pencil" stuff in. And it has some great organizational stuff in it.

These are my sunshades. They are by Sun Shield and are made to fit over my eyeglasses. I wish I could find a manufacture that makes a few more styles to choose from, but these do the job!

This is my make-up brush bag. I have been on a "Elf" kick and just recently picked up a bunch of their brushes!

This is my make-up bag a friend gave to me a long time ago. I hadn't used it much until I decided I needed a new bag and this one holds a lot of stuff and fits nicely in my bag.

I also have my wallet, and a journal a friend recently gave me in the bag. My purse can hold a lot of stuff, but I don't recommend stuffing it like I have....as a matter of fact many times if I'm going to be out all day I will edit stuff out just because its hard on my wrist, and I don't want the straps to break.

This is a fan my oldest daughter gave me. I have hot flashes on a regular basis and this has come in handy a few times (and not just in church..lol).

I love key chains, and my friends tend to bring them back for me when they go on trips. The crown thingy attached to my keys was a recent gift from a girlfriend (we got a chance to choose one and of course I had to choose a crown....akadisneyqueen). The crown is actually a hook that attaches to the top of your bag so you don't have to go searching through your bag when you need your keys. I love, love, love this thing. Every women should have one.

 I keep a small flashlight on me from my Disney trip days (its great for while your standing in line in a dark area while at the park...and not just Disney). The case with the butterfly is has my business cards in it, and the leopard print thingy is so that I can hang my purse on the table when at a restaurant.

My husband has to have Altoids each day but for some reason they always end up in my bag. I like them but for some reason they make me sneeze! I have to have tissues on me at all times because of my allergies and my nosebleeds (not to mention I cry at weddings, funerals, and baby dedications...lol). My mom put these Kleenex pocket tissues in every ones gift bag at Christmas. I really need to figure out where she gets them because the are the softest tissues ever, and I love the way they are packaged.

She also gave us the bodycology hand lotion (mine is coconut lime, which is almost as good as my Mary Kay version. It may even be a bit creamier (shhh, don't tell my Mary Kay lady...haha).

I don't go anywhere without my iPod if I can help it. It has all my favorite gospel songs on it, plus the last album by Whitney Houston and a few from Celine Dion! The blue notepad with my initial was a gift from hubby (my two favorite colors are aqua green and lime green, just in case you can't tell). I just realized half of the stuff in my bag is from family and friends! LOL

Lastly I always carry around hand sanitizer, and usually I need a comb but my hair is in curls right now for our anniversary so I could take that out. Along with my nail polish that I have been sporting this week. And there you have it...what's in my bag. I may do a "what's in my cosmetic bag" before the week is out. I would love it if you shared whats in your bag.

I Can Dream Can't I?

I'm doing this in an effort to push myself into really starting the planning process to redo our kitchen! The fact that Kelli was having a "Show Us Your Life Home Tours" for kitchens kind of took me over the cliff sort of speak! The fact that I'm even willing to show you the kitchen is saying a lot (I even left the dishes in the drain)! So here goes:

When you first enter the kitchen the first thing you see is the kitchen island! When we first moved in the house this was as close to my dream of a kitchen as I could get on our budget (we had our home built on what is family property. We actually live on the street my husband grew up on. Until they passed away we actually lived down the street from Marc's parents, and grandparents. One of his sisters still lives down the street on another piece of family property).

Anyway the island countertop was my favorite color at the time (in a way it still is), but now I would like to do a natural creme colored granite on top. The floors (which I won't be showing) were the roll out laminate stuff in a floral pattern with box shapes (if you were seeing my home on HGTV's House Hunter's it would probably be described as "very 80's). Cute at the time but thankfully the next flooring will be tan tile. Large ones that I'm hoping to convince hubby to install on the diagonal.

Our kitchen is not very large, and my kitchen table probably should be smaller, but I just love it. It was a thrift store find a while back and I exchanged the chairs that came with them with my dining chairs. Which now need to be re-upulstered. The chairs that came with the table are now in my diningroom. At the moment I'm going for a beachy theme tablescape for the summer, but I'm still on the look-out for other accessories to add.

To the right of this cabinet area is my pantry (which I hate and can't wait to re-do. Mostly it just needs different shelves from the ones that came with the house). To the left of this counter is our fridge, which I refuse to show because its an old two door model which has seen better days and is full of pictures which I didn't feel like taking down just to make it look less cluttered and ugly. My "dream" fridge is the new ones with two doors at the top and a freezer on the bottom!  LOL I would love to replace the top cabinet doors with glass doors and put lights inside. I think it would force me to leave less stuff in there, thereby eliminating additional clutter.

This is the working area of the kitchen! My husband is a coffee freak so when we were designing the kitchen I knew he had to have a place for his coffee maker (and his coffee's and his coffee mug collection)! I love my gas stove and though I dream of one day having stainless steel appliances I know that day is far off so I'm going to work around the white appliances until I win the lottery or something. One thing I know needs to change and soon is we not only need to paint the cabinets. replace the flooring and countertop....but I also need a backsplash! My dream would be to use glass tiles (that is my heart speaking), but my head (aka my husbands wallet) says subway tiles! Unless of course I get help from the tile fairy (which is how I got my floor tiles)!

Lastly this is the area I seem to spend the most time. The kitchen sink! We are actually on our third kitchen faucet (don't ask me why). The first one was white to match my white sink, which I now loathe. At the time I hated stainless steel sinks with a passion, but I have to say I now wish I had listened to my contractor. After 17 plus yrs the sink has discolored and a lot of the "coated" white has been scratched off from years of use. And although I would love a farmers sink right there I will settle for stainless steel mounted under the new countertops. Also if I could do it all over again I would put cabinets over the sink (not sure now why I didn't except for the fact that at the time I had probably attended one to many designer house tours and I probably thought it was cute..now I would rather have functional!

Oh, wait I know why that space is there! I have an aunt who is an artist and I "envisioned" her painting a landscape mural there so that I could "imagine" looking out the window onto some dream landscape while washing dishes! Do you see a mural anywhere? LOL

Although I love the shape of our cabinets and I really loved the whitewashed look all those years ago, my husband hates them and if he had his way he would just rip them out and start all over again. But sense I don't think we are going to win the lottery my hope is to paint them, add some beadboard and some trim and knobs!!!!!

My goal is to at least have the new flooring in this year, and added bonus would be to paint the cabinets and give them a antique glazed look. The backsplash and countertops are just a dream at the moment, and new appliances are way down the road! But that doesn't stop this girl from dreaming! In the meantime the kitchen is not that bad (I've seen worse), and its not like I do that much cooking! HAHA

Hope you enjoyed the tour! Now go over to Kelli's blog and you might just see some great kitchens!!!!

Anniversary Weekend Re-Cap

Today is our 29th wedding anniversary! With it falling on a Monday we decided to start our celebrations earlier during the weekend and started celebrating with a date day on Friday.

After getting my hair did Friday morning Marc and I headed to downtown Norfolk for OpSail 2012.

After walking around a few hours we headed to MacArthur Mall to have lunch. Not many people know that our Nordstrom's has a restaurant inside!

After lunch we did a bit of shopping and then headed to the movies to see "Avenger's"! Saturday morning we hit a couple of garage sales/thrift shops, and then headed to WABC for a ministry picnic.

I think Marc surprised some folks when he sat down to play chess and dominoes. LOL

Nicki had a great time hanging out with the babies!!! After we left the picnic Nicki and I headed back out to attend a Bridal shower with Quisha. The girls and I have known Melissa and her family for nearly ten years!

By Saturday night I was pooped, but we still had Sunday to get through. LOL

Sunday was Youth Day at WABC, and nothing makes my hubby happier then hanging out with the kids! LOL

I promised Marc a quiet afternoon on Sunday along with a home cooked meal!

While on our date night Friday, I got a message from the girls that they were hanging out with baby Nicholas. Isn't he just the cutest thing? Its been a few months since I have been able to see him so I'm grateful when the girls send me pics.

All in all we had a really great weekend. And even though Marc is working this morning I'm hoping to end our day hanging out together. I only picked up a few things this weekend, but I will be doing a separate post midweek on my weekend finds. Until then....have a great week. And thanks everyone for the anniversary wishes!

Monday Morning Wrap Up

I had zero plans for the week! So please explain how it ended up being so busy? LOL

There are no big plans for the summer, but Nicki and I are hoping to go to New York one weekend, and Marc and I may go to Lancaster PA before the summer is out for a mini vacation. So a girl has to have a few new threads just in case. Of course if you know me , you know that means bargain shopping. I picked up a couple of maxi dresses ($12.00 each from Roses), a pair of sandals and a matching watch (also from Roses for under $15.00 for both). The stack of hats from Roses were $6.00 each and the minty green dress was $9.00 from Walmart. I'm also planning some day trips for the summer including some beach time (not to mention a family reunion in August). Its really a shame to live about 15 minutes away from the ocean and never go!

Both of the girls have been down to the oceanfront this month, not sure what my problem is! LOL

I have been trying to watch what I eat (at least proportion wise). HAHA

Ok, maybe not everyday. Sunday after church I was craving icecream from Brewster's. We use to go every Sunday (now that I say that I don't know what we were thinking.....no wonder my waistline didn't exist) with friends. For some reason we stopped, and I'm starting to miss just having down time. Ministry has taken over our life and I'm no longer satisfied just doing ministry each week with no time to just be. We don't even get invited to our friends parties anymore. I don't know why people think we have changed just because we are pastors now!

While at the icecream shop we ran into my cousin Chrystal sporting her new Camaro. As we started talking we both have apparently been having the same thoughts (you know what they say about great minds). Life is way to short to just be sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else enjoy life.

Its been a while since I picked up any goodies at our local thrift stores, but I did find some cute stuff Saturday morning while out with Marc. The pedestal was $5.00. When I saw it I grabbed it right away. It will probably stay in the corner of my foyer, but on occasion I may use it as part of a centerpiece for an event. The pillows were $3.00 each and I'm going to use them in my familyroom for now.

I did start pulling my "beach theme" kitchen together!

My plants are doing good. Hopefully in a few weeks I will have even more pics to share. Last week I brought a huge pot from Wally World and just this morning I filled it up with additional plants. This has become a way for me to unwind in the morning after a busy weekend.

Speaking of busy...with it being prom season Nicki has been really busy doing make-up. One of my old friends daughter called her a few weeks ago after seeing the work she had done for her godsisters prom. Nicki ended up doing four faces that night! Quisha and I are still trying to get over the fact that another one of the "babies" (the first girl in the photo) she babysat is now graduating from high school.

I don't know what got into me on Sunday, but for some reason I decided to dress up! I doubt it will last very long, but at this moment I'm really into skirts and dresses!!! Check back with me in a few weeks. LOL

I had to pull the rain boots out a lot this week. Not sure if you heard but we had some major storms come through last week. A couple of tornadoes even touched down one evening. Thankfully it wasn't near us (about 20 minutes from us actually) and know one was severely injured.

We are gearing up for VBS Camp 2012. For my daughters that means dressing up to entertain the kiddies, and my husband walking around for a week with a gooofy look on his face because so many children are in the building! SMH For me it means lots of time behind the camera taking pictures. So that is how my summer is starting out, what is everyone else up to?