Leaving Town

We're going to be leaving tomorrow night to drive to Nashville and then drive to Chicago on Tuesday morning. John's aunt and uncle live there and we're gonna go visit. Maybe I'll see Oprah! Ha Ha! (if Krista is reading this)We will be back either late Saturday night or Sunday afternoon. Please pray that we have a safe trip there and back. Bonnie has never been in the car for that long, so pray that she will handle being confined for that long! See you all when we get back! Love you guys!

Ah....it's a piece of cake!

Will I ever get this good?

I'm taking a cake decorating class by a Wilton instructor at Hobby Lobby. Today was the first session. Next Saturday will be the last for Course 1. I am SO excited about what I've learned so far. I now know how to ice a completely smooth cake with no crumbs in the icing. We also did writing, dots, lines, and stars today. I can't wait to do flowers and stuff. I also learned how to take a coloring page or other clip art and get the image onto the cake before it's iced. Man, that's so cool!
I've been wanting to take some classes so I could make Bonnie's birthday cakes. There's a big kit that I want to buy SO BAD, but it's $130! I'll get it 40% off this coming week with the coupon in the paper. I'm gonna get it...I've bid on one on Ebay for $20 plus $20 shipping. That would be awesome if I got it at that price, but it probably wouldn't come in by the last class on Saturday. I just need to suck it up and quit being such a tight wad and just get the kit!!! It's cheaper than buying birthday cakes every year for however many years she'll let me make them! Anybody else interested in this new craft of mine?

We all scream for ice cream!!

I was just sitting here thinking about getting me a big bowl of ice cream: Mint Chocolate Chip is my latest favorite. About once a year, I get on this ice cream kick. It has just begun again! It's weird, but I get my ice cream cravings starting in the fall and lasting through the winter. I am still a fan of a good rocky road with the mini marshmallows in it--not the kind with the marshmallow swirls. I may try making that this winter! I was just wondering, what is your favorite flavor?

Relaxed.....at least for a little while

John and I decided to pack up Bonnie and head to Nashville this weekend just to get away. It was SO needed! For some reason, I had been really ill last week and just in some weird emotional state of mind (And NO Gena, I am NOT pregnant!). I think the stress is coming from the hectic drama going on in my sister's life that seems to be getting to me. It's like my nerves were just shot. Sometimes you just need to get away, so we did.

I've been on this 'get rid of clutter' frenzy, and I knew John's cousin, Jennifer, was having a yard sale on Saturday, and she told me to pack up some stuff to sell. I WENT A LITTLE OVERBOARD. I went through a bunch of stuff upstairs and in our closet and just started pulling things off hangers to sell. John caught me and had to 'inspect'. (He went through each item and made me put some of his stuff back. I guarantee that he would not have even noticed those things were gone if I had just gotten rid of them. One of the pairs of pants he made me put back had dust creases on them from the hanger. That's how long it's been since he's worn them. He informed me that he just didn't know they were back there. ANYWAY, I loaded up his Jeep when he wasn't looking with everything I could find in the house to get rid of. Bonnie barely had room to breathe in the back. I should've taken a picture, but my camera wouldn't have even fit in the car. I rode the whole way to Nashville with a box at my feet!

I made $97 at the yard sale.....YEAH!!! Now I can buy more junk! :) Just kidding! We donated what was left to Goodwill. I know it sounds crazy to bring a bunch of stuff all the way to Nashville for a yard sale, but that way I could sell/give things away in an area far away so I couldn't change my mind. I have become a packrat over the years of preschool teaching and school. I think I can save everything and make something out of it one day. I've GOT to stop that!

Today, I went with Jen to a baby shower and ate some good cake and then we went to a spa party. I felt SO relaxed afterwards. I wanted to buy everything that lady used on us to pamper us! Oh, By the way, the Beauty Control lady is coming to Florence to do a spa party for me. I thought it was time to have a relaxing night with the girls. The date is set for Thursday, October 12 6:00 p.m. at my house. It is going to be so much fun! PLEASE COME! We all need to chill out!

Well, I gotta quit blabbing and figure out how I'm gonna turn the bottoms of the drawers in my old chest of drawers that I'm taking to the dump tomrrow into an artistic splash guard for the kitchen. (Seriously....I know I'm pathetic!)

Mr. Clean is my new man!

I have recently discovered the most miraculous cleaning tool ever made: Mr. Clean's MAGIC ERASER. I have had this nasty brown hue on the bottom of my bathtub for months now. I have tried every cleaner under the sun to try to get through the little crevices of the textured tub, but nothing worked. I thought Clorox bleach would definitely do the trick, but it didn't bleach it at all! By the way, why is it that Clorox wouldn't bleach my tub after I poured almost a whole bottle in it, but if I drip one speck of it on me, it ruins my outfit with that awful orange stain it leaves? I don't get it!
Well, the other day I finally bought that Magic Eraser that's been on commercials for a couple of years I guess now, and I thought it was too good to be true. It worked better than I could have ever imagined! It is so awesome (and NO, Proctor and Gamble is not paying me for my testimony--I wish!) The package I bought came with 4 in it and it cost about 4 dollars I think. You only have to use water with it--NO CLEANERS NEEDED! If you don't scrub it to death in one sitting (like I ended up doing with the tub because I was so excited), it will last more than one time. It got all of the soap scum off of the shower/tub within seconds! I can't wait to break out a new Magic Eraser and test it out on the rest of the house! It's a miracle sponge! Go get one and try it on the walls where your kids have used crayons to draw on the wall. It really 'erases' things!