Photo Parade - Child-At-Heart

Ok, so maybe I am being overly sentimental this week because we celebrated our anniversary, but to me my husband is the biggest child-at-heart I know.

I will admit that I can be a bit uptight at times. (gasp) I worry about things too much, am not a spontaneous person (planning is important) and sometimes just need to relax and not take things so seriously. Over the past 8 years I have really learned to relax and takes things more lightly, or at least as lightly as I feel I can. His youthful attitude is something I truly admire.

Photo Parade - Breakfast

So I only really crave "real" breakfast type foods (eggs, pancakes, waffles, etc) a few times a year and it is usually for lunch or dinner when I want them. Like Dr. T., a bowl of plain Cheerios with milk is the perfect weekend breakfast. During the week a cup of coffee and a breakfast bar is a must.

HOWEVER, when I was in New Orleans a few years ago I loved breakfast and that is because of the two places we went. Café Du Monde and The Camellia Grill (which, on a side note reopened in 2007 after it had to close b/c of Katrina after being open since 1946)!

Cafe Du Monde makes these beignets (fried donuts with powdered sugar) that are amazing! (pic above) You will leave a powdery mess craving more! The Camellia Grill is this very very small diner that has just fantastic diner food in a fun atmosphere. We had breakfast there but it serves more then breakfast, I think my parents had their famous pecan waffles and I had an omlet. The cooks/servers wear bow ties and when they shout back your order they use slang for what everything is called. It is great!

So to me - when I think the best breakfast I think of these two places in New Orleans!

Photo Parade - THE END

Ok, this may seem random but this picture represents THE END of my attendance at makeover/make-up parties & taking advice from others that "yes, those colors really do look good on you".

A few years ago a dear, sweet lady I use to work with invited some of the girls from our office to a Mary Kay makeover thing. I don’t really wear make-up and when I do it is a little on the eyes, powder and some mint chapstick only. However, I thought it would be fun to try a bold evening look so they set me up with the color palette that "best" suited me and the steps to "perfectly apply" the make-up.

Well this is what happened. It was HORRIBLE. It looked worse up close, I was a mess…a hot tranny mess. I am fair skinned anyway so I looked even more pale (if that is possible) with this dark make-up except for the little patches of blush on my cheeks. My lips were way too dark and then the eyes…oh the eyes were crazy. Maybe I did it wrong, but when there are 10 steps needed just to apply eye shadow then I think that is about 7 steps too many! It also felt like I was wearing tons of make-up - which I hate. It was really just too much and not the right colors for me.

But we still had fun & a really good laugh, didn’t we Mickey D.? And luckily, for the innocent bystanders in the area, it was dark when we left and the only person other then the people there who had to see me was my husband. Who, by the way asked when I returned home that night if I just got back from Clown College. Answer: No, they don’t even use that much make-up.

So goodbye makeover parties. It was fun, but I just don't think we were meant to be.

Photo Parade - Frustration

There is a bit of a story:

So this picture represents frustration to me. This is my husband sanding the wall in the dining room of the house we bought in 2006.

We purchased this house just about 2 months after we got married. As we were still renting we decided to do as much work in December as we could before we moved in. Yeah, didn't think that one out much.

Basically we thought this room would be simple to update. Take down the wallpaper, throw on some primer and a couple coats of wine colored paint and presto....a beautiful dining room!

Um, not so much. The person before used industrial strength wallpaper with NASA approved adhesive. We tried every wallpaper removal technique suggested but the paper just didn't want to come off without taking parts of the top layer of wall with it. Basically it was just a matter of spraying with liquid wallpaper remover and then taking our wallpaper steamer and just scraping small sections off at a time. *Annoying*

This is how the project went:

Week 1 - remove wallpaper. Sand walls and wipe down walls to remove dust.
Week 2 - Prime the walls. See that the primer alone is not going to cover up the damage that was done to the walls (we didn't think so but the surface was easier to work with now) so then I proceed to re-mud (joint compound stuff) ALL three walls. This also took forever.
Week 3 - Terry then had to sand down all the walls to create a nice smooth surface. I think we are STILL finding dust from his sanding around our house....that stuff goes everywhere. Then wiped down all the walls again. We then primed the walls and then finally painted the walls with 2 coats of paint.

This little project put us a good 2 weeks behind our anticipated timeline to get stuff finished in our house before we moved in. And of course we did not get everything completed like we wanted. We did become great friends with the people at Sherwin Williams!

This was truly frustration.

You can even visit my "old" blog Renovation, click here, to read about our frustrations with the dining room and to see other pics!

Photo Parade – Excitement

Dr. Turtle, Photo Parade.

Ok, one of the most exciting days in my life was when T & I got married! It was so perfect and exciting to know I was marrying the person I loved in front of some of my closest family and friends.

This picture was taken as I was walking up to see Terry for the first time on our wedding day. We actually choose to meet before the wedding, inside the church with no around. I loved doing that because we had a quiet, relaxing and special moment between just the two of us.

I had NO idea this picture was being taken, completely a candid shot. I was looking over at some friends and family on my way into the church completely excited to see Terry when I made this silly face. Though it is not the most “perfect” picture, every time I see this I seriously remember how I felt at that very moment and how as hard as I tried I really could not hid my excitement. This is one of my favs.

(you may have to click to make bigger, don't really know how to do that myself for the post)