Mid-Week Wrap Up

We had a crazy busy weekend and even crazier week as Marc and my mom prepared for a week long conference at Hampton University. Mean while I've been up to my elbows packing! Hopefully I can get up my packing blog post before we leave for vacation!

My "famous" pasta salad! The recipe for this is so easy it's ridiculous! Yet somehow everyone loves it! 

We had a great turn out for our annual family and friends picnic. Some people were inside while others were out in the sun.

The food was delicious!

This cake was delicious! lol

Our children can't wait to get in class. Neither can their parents, or in our case grandparents! We have a ton of kids who's grandparents make sure they come to church on Sunday!

Nicki is the kid whisperer and candy keeper!

After church on Sunday we headed across the water to help my mom get settled into her "dorm" room for the next week. She's not going to college but she has been attending an annual Ministers and Music Directors Conference for the last few days. It's seems strange to be helping your mom/G`ma move into a dorm. All of my kids have gone to local colleges so they haven't had the dormitory experience! 

Mom really put us to work. 

Packet in hand!

Marc trying to look cool while toting a colorful bag! 

The look on these two faces is priceless!! 

Nicki trying to imagine where she would have put all her stuff! lol 

Not feeling it at all! HAHA!

All settled in! 

Mom picking up her music packet! She's the church director and secretary at my childhood church. 

Marc is attending the same conference but the ministers sessions. He's not staying in the dorms. lol 

Mom explaining her pkg is much larger this year. 

All set!! 

You have to have conference "stuff"! 

After all that we deserved a great meal! Unfortunately Chili's didn't really provide it. My salad may look good but it was rather soggy. That just does not make for a great meal!

Even with all the activity this week and preparation for vacation I'm still working on wedding stuff ( just realized I say "stuff" a lot).

And speaking of stuff...my plan today is to to work on my packing post. I really want to video tape it but I know I won't have time to edit it so I'm thinking about just giving an over view now with pics and then do a video at the hotel. We shall see. In the meantime I hope everyone is having a blessed day! Talk later!

Ok, its taken me two days to get this thing to post from my phone! So I'm not sure if I will get a chance to talk about my packing until we get back home.

Memorial Day Weekend

With Marc in class on weekends and the girls having other plans I decided to make a trip to my moms for a couple of days. No use in spending two days looking at the walls!

This was the traffic on Friday!

Thankfully Marc knows his way around. We got off the interstate and took the back roads to meet my mom, and doing this probably helped Marc avoid some traffic on his way to school ( he travels 2 1/2 hrs away from where we live every Friday and Saturday for his graduate class).

Now that I keep some stuff at my mom's home I'm able to carry just a small bag for last minute weekend getaways. I'm considering leaving a couple of clothing items there year round so I can just carry my purse for quick trips.

Little did I know that my mom would put me to work the minute I got home! Her church was having a yard sale in the morning and they set every thing up the night before and priced it. Somehow I became the pricing "expert". LOL

My cousin Lo preparing fresh fish out the river for the deep fryer.

Chillin with the family!

My mom trying to decide what snacks to purchase. 

You can't tell by this picture but there was a rainbow surrounding the sun. I have never seen a round rainbow! So cool!!!

My cousin Babs recently moved back to the country. She couldn't seem to get enough of her brother's fish! 

I'm surprised she didn't eat the bones! LOL

When I say my mom lives in the country...I'm not joking! lol

I went back home in time for church on Sunday and finally got to dress like Cyndi!!!! LOL

This is more like it!!!!! (K and G top, Sarah Jessica Parker pants from her "Bitten" line from years ago, and a "Relic" brand purse from JCPenneys).

Mini Grocery Haul!!! 

Somebody wanted sausages and it wasn't me. Guess who had to grill them anyway? 

You would think looking at this picture that we lived in the country. Ummm, not! As a matter of fact our house is just seconds from a main highway! We have a huge backyard that never gets used. We really need to do something about that.

The hydrangea bush the kids gave me last Mother's Day seemed to have survived!

 I can't wait to see blooms!

We planted this tree when we built the house. I don't think we "planned" this out! It has beautiful pink blooms in spring and in the summer it fills up with lush green leaves. The only problem is that its taking over this little corner of the house.

We have honeysuckle on the other side of the house. They are not having any problem growing either. Monday I walked out back and its as if I was seeing all of the foliage for the first time! Summer is really here!

Speaking of summer. We are "this" close to our 30th anniversary getaway to Orlando! I am soo ready you wouldn't believe it. My bag is already full of my clothing...that's how ready I am. I will be doing a what's in my travel bag mini series next week. If you don't know it I actually have a travel blog!!! And this week I finally updated all of the details from our 2011 trip to Disney (yes, its taken me that long but I was determined to finish it before this trip..even though its not a Disney trip).

So what did you do Memorial Day weekend? And do you have any vacation plans for the summer?

Organizing my make-up/nail polish and jewelry

I wanted to start on a big organizational project but my arm is still not where I would like it to be and honestly I'm a bit gun shy after the whole pinched nerve thing. 

The good thing is I am able to tackle some small projects here and there so that's what I've been concentrating on. 

Marc surprised me with this last week. It's been on my wish list for a while. 

Knowing him he probably got it for a steal! 

I labeled my drawers after I sorted through everything!

These are actually file boxes from Office Depot. I've been using them for a few years now to hold my jewelry! Some items have moved to the new storage system which freed up additional space for more of my jewelry that was in random boxes! 

It didn't take me long to fill it up! I'm actually surprised that it holds so many of my stuff! Including most of my jewelry and make-up! My brush bag has a perfect spot on the side of the storage system. I just used a kitchen cabinet hook to hang it on!

I use fishing tackle boxes to keep items corralled. I may need to get a few more! lol

I left the make-up in their original storage cases so that I can easily grab them

 if I'm doing my make-up in another room.

I still have my hanging necklace "mannequins" on display. And it keeps smaller pendent necklaces from getting tangled. Eventually I hope to get tarnish bags from Michael's just to be on the safe side. After that I will just keep out my bulky costume I items. 

I only have a few nail polish items, but I already have a system in mind as that starts to grow. Which I have a feeling will happen now that I've signed up for Ipsy's monthly prescription! Get ready for monthly reviews on the products I receive!

So far I'm loving the new system. But I'm sure I will tweak it as time goes by! lol