Happy Mother's Day

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and it was a great one for me! First of all, I want to wish ALL mother’s out there a VERY happy (albeit belated) Mother’s Day. Being a Mom is one of the hardest jobs out there, and it’s the most rewarding job on the planet.

My day was perfect. I got to sleep in, and then I got sweetly woken up (not with a kiss, but close) to be told that breakfast was ready. I usually do the cooking around our house, unless it’s on the grill of course, and for my special day I didn’t have to do the cooking or the cleaning. As the “chef” I also am usually the last one that gets to eat, so it was a double rare treat to get my plate handed to me when I got downstairs and I was the one that ate first. But before I could eat, I was blessed with gifts galore. I had cards from both kids and flowers from my FH, along with a small teddy bear with a mini-balloon and some candy. Mr. CC did good!

After breakfast, since I didn’t have to do the dishes either, I was given the REMOTE. Yes, girls, you read that right. I had total control over the remote for the ENTIRE day. It was nice, let me tell you – the power that one little device holds is just amazing. We settled down to watch a movie, Mr. CC did some laundry and I was not allowed to do anything that remotely resembled work. So it was a restful day spent for me.

I did remember to call my own mothers about halfway through the afternoon, don’t worry. I missed both of them the first time that I called, but talked to each later in the day.

The perfect day was topped off with Mr. CC grilling up some chicken for dinner…yummy! Although Mr. CC’s son had to go home in the middle of the day, little CC was there with us all evening. She was super cute about “helping me” all during the day so that I had a good Mother’s Day. Isn’t it cute when kids are old enough to understand that this is your day and they make the choice to do all that they can to make it a good day? This is the first Mother’s Day that little CC had understood this, so it was very special indeed.

How was your day special?

Do My Eyes Deceive Me???

Sorry for my absence yesterday…rough day. We all have them, right?

Anyway, so when I left you last, there were some linen samples winging their way to me. I checked the post office, like a true stalker, about three times a day for the last two days. My hard work paid off yesterday, and when I went for the SECOND time that day, there was a key for a larger package box…

And here’s what I found waiting for me…

Wait a minute…do my eyes deceive me?

Is that EGGPLANT that I see? I don't know - my flash messed up the picture and it's all blurry since I was trying to zoom in so much, but the actual color is almost black. It's not nearly that purpleface to face.

Well, technically it’s Plum. At least that’s what the color swatch says…but it’s eggplant linens, ladies and gentlemen! I’m LOVING it.

I haven’t had a chance with my crazy work schedule to call and talk to the lady that runs this linen company, but MOH just really loved her the other day when they met. She has a lot of cool ideas that I can do with eggplant, and since she knows a lot about colors and such she can totally help steer me around these crazy ideas that I have.

One funny thing that happened. In daylight (I’m sure that the picture quality isn’t good enough maybe for you to tell) the Plum color is the perfect shade of Eggplant that I’ve been (or MOH has been) searching high and low for. But MOH has a concern. She’s wondering if choosing that darkest shade of Plum in a room made completely out of wood and with evening lighting that that shade of purple will be too dark and we might want to go with the swatch right above, called Deep Purple.

I just about looked crossways at my phone when MOH muttered those sacrilegious words…that’s about as bad as me saying that I would change my tablecloth colors…

So what do you think? Can you even tell from the pictures? Should I go with a little more of a “purpley” color since the lighting will be low and it will be dark? HELP!

Yes, the Elusive Eggplant Tablecloths AGAIN...

My MOH might have saved the day once again!

I don’t know how she continues to do this, but she constantly pulls these white rabbits out of a hat and saves the day – and I love her for it! She’s been the main one dealing with the issue of the elusive eggplant tablecloths, which I’ve posted repeatedly about in the past. Which is nice for me, because I don’t have the stress of dealing with it all. That leaves my time free for deciding what to do if we run into the situation where I have to decide to change my colors….

Calm down, MOH…take a deep breath and TAKE A BREAK!

She got to the proverbial end of the barrel when it came to eggplant linens for my wedding, and what did she do? Did she give up? Nope. She found another barrel.

Yep, she found a lady in San Antonio that rents linens out of her house, and was lucky enough to call this lady at a time when she was planning on doing an event there in Boerne (where MOH lives!). The two of them met up on Saturday, put their little heads together and came up with several solutions for me.

Here’s what I know so far:

The MOH likes her and the fabric swatches that the linen lady had with her.
The linen lady was nice enough to let MOH “borrow” the swatches with just a promise to mail them back to her so that I could see them myself.
The price? Only $18/linen, which is in my budget.

So no, I haven’t seen them up close and personal yet, but MOH thinks that one of the three fabric choices that they sent me will work. And I’m HIGHLY excited about that since the linen vendor that I checked out on Friday that SWORE that they had eggplant linens, did NOT in fact carry eggplant linens…and they were $26/linen, which is NOT technically in my budget.

MOH dutifully dropped the sample in the mail to me today…so I’m waiting on pins and needles for it to get here. I hope, I hope and hope some more that these selections will work with what Mr. CC and I have in mind…because if they don’t, I just don’t think that I have the energy to keep looking…

Keep your fingers crossed for me! I’ve got my fingers crossed, my legs crossed, as many toes as I can cross, and my eyes are sometimes crossed…but that may not have anything to do with table linens, unfortunately. I’ll let you know as soon as I get the sample.

Oh man, oh man. I’ve been a busy little bee!

This weekend was spent out of town again, but with my mom and little sister. My little sister is a teacher up in the Dallas area of Texas, and several months ago she mentioned to my mom that she was interested in going to First Monday Trade Days at Canton with my mom and me one month. My mom quickly relayed the invitation to me, and I accepted immediately. The hardest part was not deciding to go, but which month we would all go.

At one point or another, this past weekend didn’t work for all of us. I know that my mom (and sister, I’m sure) was wanting me to be able to bring along little CC on our girl’s day of shopping, but it just wasn’t in the cards. The month of April didn’t work at all for us, and June is almost too hot to go do an all-day long outside shopping excursion…so it was really looking like May was the best choice. And when I looked at my schedule a little closer, I noticed that no matter if we chose May or June, I wouldn’t have little CC on the weekend that First Monday is held on either month.

So I drove home this past weekend and spent the day with the girls. My step-dad was out of town, and Mr. CC opted not to come along…so it really was an all girl’s weekend. We had a BLAST!

We met my little sister in Canton and hand-delivered her some breakfast – compliments to Daylight Donuts in Athens (they’re honestly the BEST donuts anywhere!) and started shopping. We had to have walked five miles, and we were POOPED at the end of the day. But I had so much fun being with my mom and sister, catching up on their lives and shopping, that I didn’t notice until it was all over with how tired I was. That’s when you know that you’ve had a good day!

My mom and I topped the day off right with dinner at Rounder’s Pizza and I had my favorite pepperoni rolls, which are also the BEST that I’ve found anywhere, and watched two chick flicks. Bride Wars and Mama Mia. Both movies were cute, and we decided that both of our men would be thankful that we watched them with each other instead of with our men…

I got up early on Sunday and drove home. Mr. CC and I celebrated our anniversary since I had been out of town and he had been working too late on the actual date. He took me out to lunch and then had our bedroom filled with pink balloons and a bouquet of red roses waiting for me when we got home and I went upstairs. He had also done all of the laundry and cleaned up our house, all the while thawing out some dinner to cook for me. I was pampered girls, let me tell you!

After our yummy dinner was over, I sat down and got to work. I have ONE MORE flower pomander to make and I’ve been putting it off for a while now. I’ve still been making the flowers, but the box has been almost full of flowers for three weeks now, just mocking me because I haven’t started to attach them yet. That all changed last night. I got out my trusty hot glue gun and started attaching. Since I started a little late, I only got about halfway done with it. I was just about to stop when I noticed that I was actually out of white flowers, so that meant that I had to stop (since I’m mixing the white and cream flowers on the ball!) and go to bed. I was happy with my progress though, and I went off to bed feeling like it had been a VERY productive day.

With Mr. CC’s help, the house was clean, the laundry was done, AND I got halfway done with my LAST flower pomander….that’s a LOT of progress!

Here’s to hoping that I can keep the ball rolling…

Our Trip to NOLA...

Let’s see if I can sum up our trip in just one post…I’m kinda wordy, so that might not be possible! J

The first night, we just settled into the condo and got situated. We went out to eat and then headed over to Bourbon street for our favorite daiquiri stop. It wasn’t anywhere near where we remembered it being, but oh well. We were SO excited to have these again…and they weren’t that great. It was kinda sad. But we still strolled along Bourbon street that night just looking around and seeing what we saw. It was fun, low-key and casual, just the two of us. We called it an early night and headed back “home.”

The next morning, we got up and cooked bacon/cheese omlettes for breakfast. They were SO good! We loved having the kitchen there for our convenience. After breakfast, we lathered on the sunscreen and set out for the Quarter. Our friends were making their way into town and checking into their hotel, so once they got there, we met up with them and started planning the day. It was Friday, our day for the actual Jazz Fest. We stopped off at a bar and started the day off “right” and then strolled up the streets towards the event. At Bourbon street we got lucky and found a cab that was willing to take us all to the Jazz Fest for just $4/person. He dropped us off and the musical event was already under way. We saw so many good acts, and I don’t remember any of their names. The only “big” name that we saw was Joe Cocker…the others were all smaller bands. But they were SO good. And the food was TO DIE FOR…yummy stuffed sandwiches, ice cream/sno cones, and ice cold beer. A good day all in all.

We got lucky and our friend’s parents had gotten there ahead of us and staked out a good spot under the Blues tent, so we had shade when we wanted it. We would wander out to other stages or the craft booths and shop, and then come back to sit down and listen at our own tent. It was a great day.

When we got ready to go, Mr. CC and I headed back to our condo to wash up and get ready for the evening. We were meeting our group at a local favorite restaurant, the Gumbo Shop, for dinner and then we planned on going to Bourbon street as a group. One thing led to another, dinner turned into a two hour event (SO YUMMY) and we all stuffed ourselves to the point of not being able to go out afterwards. We made it to two or three places on or just off of Bourbon street, but in the end decided to call it an early night at midnight. Combination of being in the sun all day long, and a good meal late at night did us in and made us all sleepy...but no so sleepy that Mr. CC wasn't able to be all romantic and buy me these on the Quarter...
The next day, Mr. CC and I slept a little late and then made our way down to the café for beignets. We really lucked out this year, and stood in the to go line for just about 5 minutes before a waiter came over and took our order and hooked us up. As soon as we got our beignets, we found our friends on Jackson Square and sat down for breakfast. We strolled around the quarter for a bit that day, just hanging out and then our group split up for the day. The guys went off to do what guys do – hit some more bars, and the girls went on one of the walking tours of New Orleans. We picked the Cemetery tour, and could not have been more pleased with it. It was fabulous, our tour guide was GREAT and made it very enjoyable. I plan on doing one of these tours each year from now on, until I’ve done them all. There are several companies that do tours like this in NOLA, and I would HIGHLY recommend this one – you can find out more information here. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

After the tour, we all met back up and headed over to dinner. Mr. CC and I ducked out of dinner and went off by ourselves to grab some pizza and a beer and relax for a bit. We love these people, but sometimes it’s nice just being on your own. After we ate, we went back to the condo and cleaned up and met up with everyone at a local bar afterwards. This time we stayed off of Bourbon street for a while, preferring some less crowded spots off of Royal. Mr. CC’s sister came down to meet us that night, and we met her and her boyfriend and left the big group of people. After hanging out with them as much as we could, we finally called it a night and hit the bed about 3am. LONG DAY…

That was our last night in NOLA, and the next morning we slept in a little bit and then cooked some breakfast and checked out of the condo. Nine hours of driving later, and we were back at home.

There was a lot that we did in between all of those activities. Mainly we hung out with loved ones, made new friends, and took in the sights. Our friends from CA had brought along another couple with them, and the six of us hit it off great! We love the new additions to our little group, and hanging out with extended family is always good. There were WAY too many drinks, a lot of much needed laughs and a little too many jokes about ya-yas and such for us girls! But we love our guys and put up with all sorts of conversations when we’re all together. All in all, it was a great trip…we can’t WAIT for next year!

The only down side to all of this is that I forgot to take my camera with me…no, no. It was in the car and the condo, but I forgot to take it on our day that we spent just lazing around the city and taking tours and such. My friend is supposed to send me copies of their pictures, so as soon as I get them, I’ll send them out…there were some cute one, I promise.

We plan on making this a yearly trip for all of us, and hopefully next year we can find a place that can house all three couples if we start looking early enough!