Creative Juices Flowing

I am, by no means, a crafty person, despite being my mother's offspring.  She can create anything and everything but unfortunately, I did not inherit that talent.

I've been eying my mantle recently and felt like it could use something.  Pinterest offers tons of idea but like I told my sister, I don't want my house to look like it came straight from a pin.  While browsing blogs, I came across a mom who went leaf hunting with her son and then rubbed a crayon over the leaf (I'm sure we've all done this activity) to create some inexpensive art.  So The Lime and I went out the other day in search of all different types of leaves.  I also grabbed a few sticks and these little nut thingamabobs. 

 While he took his nap yesterday, I tested out the leaf rubbing and wasn't too thrilled with the results.  It might be a fun activity for him but I didn't feel they were frame worthy.  Then I turned around in my kitchen to find my stash of jars that I've been hoping to use.  I filled one up with the nut thingamabobs and stuck in the sticks.  Then I decided to glue the leaves randomly on the sticks and make my own little tree.  I finished the jar off with some raffia and I ended up with one cute addition to my mantle. 

I would really love some pumpkins or gourds and sunflowers for extra color and dimension.  We lucked out with the rug that we have in our family room, as it has a ton of colors that go especially well with Fall.  Makes things easy to coordinate.

Now I just need the weather to cool off a wee bit more so I can whip out my soup recipes!  And boots.  And scarves.

Bopped Upside the Head

We just got back from our second weekend in a row spent in the Bay Area. We arrived Thursday night so we'd be ready to go, bright and early, to a friend's wedding on Friday.

LaVor, his parents, and The Lime were in the family room watching tv and playing while I was in the hallway ironing our clothes. On his own, The Lime popped up and said, "I'm going to get ready for bed!" and up the stairs he went. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see him fly back down the stairs and land flat on his stomach. He busted into tears and was obviously upset. LaVor put him in the bath to calm down and then brought him downstairs where he continued to play until we decided to go to bed.

As soon as we layed him down, he began crying again and complaining that his head hurt. LaVor took him back downstairs while I grabbed a towel to place on his forehead with some ice. I turned the corner into the family room and made it to The Lime just in time to catch the throw up shooting out of his mouth.

Had he just complained of his head hurting, we would have given him Tylenol and called it a night. But now that vomit was part of the equation, I suggested we go to the ER. While we suspected it was a concussion, we certainly didn't want to ignore it and have something else be wrong. So we hopped in the car, caught a few more rounds of throw up, and made it to an empty ER in no time (thank goodness it was a Thursday night). He was immediately taken back, the doctor checked him out, ordered a scan, had the scan done, took some anti-nausea medicine, threw that up, got the results back that everything looked good, he took some Tylenol, fell asleep, and they sent us on our way. One final round of vomiting was had before we could leave the parking lot and we were back home in minutes.

I was the lucky one that got to sleep with The Lime, although I wouldn't call it sleeping. It was more of a paranoid restful state, where I got kicked in the head. Thankfully, despite being a tad weak, he was back to normal Friday morning, just in time for the wedding.

Our good friend/brother/uncle/go-to Chiropractor Johnny took a look at him and said things looked okay. He did suggest we do some exercises with him, which I should do now since I haven't done them at all. Have I mentioned my new love for John's chiropractic services? He's fantastic.

What's not fantastic is the hospital bill we'll get in a few weeks. But since The Lime is worth it, we'll suck it up and be grateful he's just fine.

The Lime and his new girlfriend, Claudia

Blessed

About two weeks ago, LaVor asked if I was still planning on doing the walk.  Fundraising had hit a major plateau, I wasn't motivated to train, and was feeling pretty "blah" overall.  He got out of the shower one night and said, "So I was thinking..." and presented a plan on how I could get more donations.

With a plan in place, and an especially supportive hubby, I started walking again and have made great strides (no pun intended).

LaVor was planning a visit to the Bay Area last weekend and suggested I join him, so I could stand out with my sign and hopefully get a few more donations.

...a few more.

I made about $30 in the first hour or so that I stood out at our local Farmer's Market.  I was excited and hoped for at least $70 more at my second spot.

It happened to be an extremely hot day, so I grabbed a couple bottles of water, my sign, and set up shop in the exact same spot that I've used for years.

Literally, about thirty seconds after I got there, a gentleman came up from behind me and said, "I think you dropped this."  I didn't drop anything but he kindly handed me $5.00.

After about three hours of standing out, I came home to find that I had earned an additional $130.  I could not believe it!  I have to write down a few of the experiences I had, as they all really touched me.

-One gentleman saw me from across the street and as he was coming at me,  I immediately recognized him.  He said, "Where have you been?!"  I told him we recently moved out of the area but that I thought of him often.  He has donated every year that I've stood out with my sign and it meant so much to me that he wondered why I wasn't out this year.

-Another man walking by pulled out his cellphone to show me the pink ribbon cover he had on it.  His mother was a breast cancer survivor but ended up losing her life to another disease.

-There's a bar across the street from where I stand and in the past, people have come out for a smoke, saw me, walked over, gave me $1, then went back to smoking or drinking.  This time, a man walked out of the bar, walked straight over to me, handed me $10, and turned right back around and went straight into the bar.  He also gave me the updated score of the A's game.

-After about an hour of standing out, and despite drinking lots of water, I started feeling a little faint (a familiar feeling, unfortunately) so rather than create a scene, I plopped down on a bench and took a little break.  Before I knew it, a patron from the nearby restaurant was standing in front of me with a full glass of ice cold water and a donation.  She said, "I've been watching you this entire time and thought you could use this."  She continued in saying, "I have many friends who have suffered from breast cancer and I appreciate all that you're doing!"  I almost started to cry because I appreciated what SHE was doing.

-Even when I was sitting on the bench, with my sign upside down and hard to read, people would still turn their head to see what it said and donate.

There's always funny things that happen, too.  Like the guys who asked me if I was going to use their $1 for crack and if I put Vaseline on my teeth to make them shiny, or the ex-Raider who sat by me for two hours and told me his life story, or the man who pretended to honk a pair of hooters as he went by with his wife in the driver seat.

I love the honks, waves, smiles, inspiring stories.  But I especially love the kindness that I get to witness. Most of these people don't know me but they are willing to hand me a $20 bill to support those affected by breast cancer.

While I love being able to walk, and I might get a tad annoying when it comes to asking for money, I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it to help those that are battling this disease. And it's with the help of amazing people I've been able to meet, while collecting donations, that hopes and dreams are able to come true.

You Might Be a Redneck If...

As soon as The Lime woke up from his nap yesterday, he asked if we could go outside and play golf.

We had to improvise...

a lot.

When the stick didn't quite cut it, we substituted a miniature plastic bat.

Surprisingly, The Lime has quite a swing and launched the bouncy ball much farther than I could.

The golfing quickly turned into an inning of baseball with said yellow plastic bat and a racquetball.

Which then turned into a game of football.

And we finished it all off with an icy cold Pop Up (I've been calling them Push Ups...when did they change their name?!).

Bernie Lean

We were at Target last week, checking out the A's gear, and The Lime asked if there was a Coco Crisp shirt. Unfortunately, Cespedes was the only player they had but I told him we'd check online to see if we could find one.

While he was napping today, I decided to see if they even made Coco Crisp shirts in a size 4T. Amazon provided me with a child's XS but I'm afraid that would be too big.

I noticed a link at the bottom of the page that looked inquiring so I clicked it and found this website:

I just about died. I immediately pinned this shirt onto Pinterest and giggled at all the other ones they had.

Fast forward to tonight, when I went into my bedroom and noticed an amazing glow coming from outside. I walked into our front yard and saw a majestic sky, immediately ran back in to get my camera, grabbed The Lime, and headed across the street to the dog park to take some pictures.

There was a border around the parking lot of medium sized rocks that The Lime was stepping on. They were a bit slippery so he asked me to hold his hand as he walked along them. He accidentally slipped, and while I was holding his right hand, he sort of leaned back, trying to catch his balance with his left hand. He paused for a moment and said, "That rock just made me do the Bernie Lean!" Again, just about died. That kid cracks me up.

So now I'm back to t-shirt hunting, this time for a Coco Crisp/Bernie Lean ensemble.

Gold Rush Days 2013

LaVor's parents planned a visit to our place this weekend but before they could make it to our house, we met them at Gold Rush Days. We thought The Lime would really enjoy it this year since we'd be seeing lots of cowboys.

Decked out in his hat, keys, boots, and radio, we visited the Pony Express exhibit first. The Lime gently pet a horse, pretended to ride a horse, and jumped on several bales of hay.

The Mormon Battalion tent was our next stop, where we learned lots about the early Saints who settled in California. The Lime got to check out some old keys and found a ranger badge in the tent next door.

While walking along the shops, we caught a glimpse of a Pony Express reenactment. It really is amazing the things people did in the olden days. A plaque we read noted that only one piece of mail was lost during the entire Pony Express existence. The USPS could learn a few things from those guys.

We overheard some people talking about a shoot out so we parked it along a dirt road and waited for the show to begin. Unfortunately, it was a ridiculous shoot out and we cut out early. It involved the following...

Some prostitutes on the balcony of a building doing things they shouldn't have been doing (we couldn't see them, they were above us). So the teenage Sheriff went upstairs to arrest them.

Then the men started hootin' and hollerin' and the women marched around saying, "Sin no more!"

One of the ladies went crazy and began shooting into the crowd of prostitutes.

That apparently didn't stop the prostitutes from doing their business because the men went back to hollerin'.

Soon after, a man in red underoos came out of the building carrying a bundle of smoking dynamite. The Sheriff followed with two prostitutes handcuffed to him.

The building ended up catching on fire and all the prostitutes came rushing out, and then began fighting each other.

Once the drunk lady passed us, crying over her empty bottle of booze, we decided to check something else out.

It seemed as though the actors put the show together that morning and crossed their fingers it would go okay. And it didn't end there...The Lime continued to ask questions about it for the rest of the day. We had to remind him that it was pretend, just like when we play Peter Pan and Captain Hook. I can't let him see these pictures or he'll start questioning again.

We walked around a few more blocks and decided we needed to take a break and get some lunch, which then turned into just calling it a day. On the way home, we realized we had missed several things we wanted to see/do.

Once the weather cools off (which it's already starting to do...lots of rain today!), we'll most likely be taking a trip to pan for gold.

And there better not be a shoot out planned.