It was a fun bloggy surprise to learn that my humble little corner of the interweb has been featured as Blog of the Week at Overwhelmed With Joy.

I am very grateful for the recognition – it’s always encouraging to know that people are, you know, reading. :-) So thanks, Overwhelmed!, for what you’re doing…I really do appreciate it.

If y’all get a chance, click on over and take a look at Overwhelmed!’s beautiful blog – and take a look at the other blogs that she has spotlighted, as well.

Happy Weekend, everybody!

Just got an email from Sarah that Addison is out of surgery and doing well.

Sarah mentioned that for the first time in Addison’s life, she doesn’t have a hole in her heart. That’s cause for mighty big praise.

Keep praying for her continued recovery….

I haven’t posted any pictures in forever, so guess what, everybody?

IT’S PICTURE DAY!

Stop rolling your eyes. Stop it RIGHT NOW.

Now I haven’t written very much about my trip to Savannah, because I sort of promised myself that I wouldn’t. I wanted to enjoy the girls and enjoy the trip – not look at the whole experience through the lens of what my next post would be. The trip was way more fun than I ever imagined – and everyone was exactly what I expected, only better.

But I did learn a couple of surprising things that you probably should know:

Addie has a freaky photographic memory for blog posts. I think we should enter her in some sort of contest.

Robin is more than a little obsessed with Kohl’s. If y’all can recommend some sort of 12-step program to help her Break Free from her Kohl’s addiction, let me know and I’ll pass along the info.

But here are some things that didn’t surprise me at all: Theresa is about the best-natured, most tenderhearted person EVER, and Lori is deeply, sincerely kind and smart as a whip, to boot. Addie is a TREMENDOUS listener – she doesn’t miss a single beat in a conversation – and she is so easy-going and laid-back that it’s impossible not to love her. Robin is bubbly and funny and straightforward – and, like the rest of the girls, utterly grounded in her faith.

I, of course, filled the role of the goofy Southern sidekick. And TOTALLY deserved an award for Worst Accent, though I did have all the girls saying “y’all” and “nabs” (for snack crackers) by the end of the trip.

Anyway. Now that I’ve dispensed with some preliminaries, here are some of my favorite Savannah photos:

Just in case you harbor any notions that you can just pull up to The Lady & Sons on a summer day and waltz in at lunchtime, here’s what the reservation line looked like around 10:00 in the morning. Keep in mind that this is just the line to make a reservation – NOT the line to get in the restaurant.

This is where Paula Deen and her husband Michael got married. It’s a gorgeous old chapel that sits just a short distance from the real-life Moon River.

And here are the pews and the floor inside – nothing to see here, really – I just liked the way they looked next to each other.

This picture is actually my favorite non-people picture from the trip. Great light – and beautiful Spanish moss (Addie fell instantly and completely in love with all the Spanish moss, by the way – we almost grabbed some for her, but we figured airline authorities might frown on such a thing).

Now. Moving along.

Remember how I told y’all that Merritt did some reading in our lovely damp hotel room in the Delta? Well, I offer you photographic proof. She quit reading shortly after I took this picture, presumably to go to bed, though I think the real reason is that all the moisture in the air was causing the pages of her book to stick together. I haven’t confirmed it, but my guess is that by the time we checked out of the hotel, her book resembled a soggy pink mass of wet wood pulp.

Really, the word “damp” doesn’t do that place justice.

And I TOLD y’all that we didn’t let our feet touch that carpet. Here we have Tracey protecting herself from all manner of mold and mildew. I actually took a picture of ALL of our feet in flip flops, but I decided that if I were reading a blog, I would probably rather not see a photo montage featuring the feet of strangers. I’m sorta weird like that.

As for motherhood…

…here’s the little man with one of his best friends when we got home Monday. He missed his puppy dogs so much…

…as you can tell.

And this picture? My favorite of the summer. The toddler has turned into a little boy right before my eyes.

Is it August already?

My sweet friend Sarah at In The Midst Of It is one of my mostest favorite bloggers evir. :-) Because she writes all purty-like. And she’s funny. And she’s genuine.

Most of y’all probably know this already, but tomorrow her baby girl, Addison, is having heart surgery. Will you pray for Addison, for her doctors, and for their family?

And if you think about it, stop by Sarah’s blog and let her know you’re praying. I know it’ll be a comfort to her.

Thanks, y’all!

From the get-go, I should tell you that I feel a little guilty about using the word “art” in reference to the pictures you’re going to see.

I think “inexpensive way to get some color on your walls” might be more appropriate.

But regardless of what it is, this method has never failed me.

The house that we live in now is really different from our old one, because this house was brand new when we moved in. Higher ceilings, more open floor plan – and I had a whole lot of nothing to go on the walls.

So here’s what I did.

I went to Michael’s (or Hobby Lobby or wherever) and bought big pieces of pre-stretched canvas. Every once in awhile you can catch them on sale – but on the high end a big one won’t be more than $20. Most of mine were in the $10 range. Then pick out all your favorite colors of craft paint (the kind that’s 79 cents a container), grab a few brushes, and go to town.

This painting is in my dining room, and Sister and I painted it during a marathon decorating weekend. We put out all the paints, and I would paint awhile, then leave it alone…then she would paint awhile and leave it alone…and finally, after a couple of days of “fine tuning” it, we decided it was done.

This is my downstairs half bath…and while you’re just seeing half of the “collection” in there, it’s where I’ve put all the paintings I’ve forced people to do when they’ve visited. :-) I did do the one on the far left, but our friend Benji did the one on the top right, and my brother painted the one on the bottom right – two of my favorites. On the left side of the bathroom is a painting that my cousin’s children did, along with one that D. painted when we were dating. I doubt I spent more than $50 on these – but the memories are priceless.

This one hangs in our living room – you can see it from a distance in my Tour of Homes post – and I painted it one Saturday afternoon when I was bored because I needed something for a wall in our bedroom. But then I rearranged my living room, so I moved it in there.

Now keep in mind that if you hand me a pen and paper, I can’t even draw a dog…I have NO artistic ability. But I do know what colors I like, and I am somehow able to convince our guests that it would be lots of fun to sit around the table and paint after supper. :-)

And best of all (aside from the great memories)? Every painting is one-of-a-kind. Special to no one but me, probably – but great accessories that can’t be duplicated.

Plus, it’s like having a little piece of our family and friends with us all the time, and that always works for me.

For more great Works For Me Wednesday tips, go by and see Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer. She’s good people.

:-)

Not being home for two weeks means that we were down to some pretty scarce rations when I got here yesterday. I don’t know what switch flips when I leave town, but my husband – who normally loves a big home-cooked dinner with all the trimmings – suddenly looks at a scoop of peanut butter on top of a bite of bread and calls it a meal.

Or, you know, he just eats ice cream.

So last night, when I started going through the pantry, trying to figure out what might constitute supper for the family, I found no bread, an almost-empty bag of Cheetos-type product, a few packs of a gelatinous fruit snack, a box of oat bran, a can of garbanzo beans, and some flour.

YUMMMMMMM.

Needless to say, we went to Outback.

So this morning, when I crawled out of bed and started to make my grocery list, it looked something like this:

lip stuff
Gain
food

That was the best I could do.

Normally I’m Queen of the OCD Grocery Shoppers, making my list according to the order of the aisles and my two week pre-planned menu (I’m telling y’all – I’m crazy. WHEN WILL YOU BELIEVE ME?). But today, I was all devil-may-care-ish, rolling through Walmart with no plan whatsoever.

I’ve gotta tell you: it was liberating.

And if that’s not the absolute lamest act of rebellion you’ve ever heard of (“MAMA GONE WILD IN AISLE SIX!”), then I don’t know what is.

So I ended up with this odd assortment of food: chicken and squash and coffee and milk and soup and cinnamon rolls and waffles and grapes and and french toast and pancake mix and, um, Frosted Mini Wheats, even though I haven’t bought them in a year or nine, but they struck my cereal fancy when I wheeled by them.

Basically, I have no idea what our menus will be around here for the next couple of weeks, but I’m thinking that we’ll be having some hearty portions of poultry with some type of breakfast food on the side. And some fruit until the grapes run out.

In other words, we’ll pretty much be hanging out on the pointy end of the food pyramid.

I’m sure to be nominated for prestigious awards by nutrition experts!

And who knows? Since I’m such a wild and crazy woman these days, tomorrow I may even wash clothes and LEAVE OUT THE FABRIC SOFTENER.

Or, you know, not (honestly, the thought of no fabric softener makes my pulse quicken just a little bit. Just a little teensy bit).

And I have a feeling I’ll be back at the grocery store in a week or so with my normal overly-organized list in hand. Pre-planned menus and all.

A girl can only live on the edge for so long.