fun in dallas, in arlington, in fort worth, in colleyville, in irving, in midlothian!

it was a weekend kinda like that old johnny cash song "i've been everywhere' .....
"[Chorus:]
I've been everywhere, man.
I've been everywhere, man.
Crossed the desert's bare, man.
I've breathed the mountain air, man.
Of travel I've had my share, man.
I've been everywhere."

i've been to houston, dallas, arlington, fort worth, colleyville, irving, euless, midlothian, waxahatchie, waco, MARLIN!!!! bryan, college station, hempstead, houston, man, & a few little towns in between!!! & that was just this weekend!!!!

and i got to see all my friends, man!!!

of course, there was my new friend, officer grote, in marlin. but i honestly can say i hope to NEVER see HIM again!!!

friday suzanne had to get up early to go to work. i went to see her....she's working on campus in the prayer ministry. she has her own office! & it's bigger than mine!!!! and she GETS PAID to PRAY!!!!!!

i like the picture of her "boss" on the wall!!!!


i spent the rest of the day with my friend judy in colleyville. judy's got a terrific craft room!!!

and she makes the BEST projects!!!

i've gotta find an old suitcase & make one of these!!!!!

we had lunch at a little tea room in an antique mall where we had a long, leisurely lunch & talked & talked & talked & laughed & even cried. then we walked around the antique mall for HOURS!!! we talked & laughed & thought of "projects" & got some ideas for things. judy found the cutest little antique kids' chair that she needs for a class she's taking at one of her scrapbooking places. judy makes the BEST projects at these classes so i can't wait to see what they do with these chairs. i told her to send me pictures, so you can be sure they'll end up here!

i found a sickle!!!!!! but i didn't get it because it was $50 & that was just a little too high priced for the shape it was in. the blade was pretty bad & i'm sure it could be sharpened, but $50 was out of my price range. it would have looked cute hanging on the fence in the backyard, but not for $50.

friday evening suzanne & i went to arlington to my friend sandra's home where we had pizza & watched the opening ceremony of the olympics. sandra & i used to work together & she was my maid of honor at my 1st wedding. i think it'd be neat if she could be my maid of honor at my last wedding. the 1st one was a practice run for both of us!!! we'll get it right this time!!!!

when we got back to the apartment, we had gotten our "2nd wind" so we rearranged the furniture in the living room. suzanne is going to have 4 other roommates when school starts. she has a recliner she bought at goodwill & 2 endtables that used to be ours. one of the girls has a big leather loveseat. another has a bookshelf & a coffee table & another of the girls is bringing a sofa when she comes in a couple weeks. we rearranged everything so it's ready for the sofa to "drop into place." it's hard arranging a ton of big furniture in a little tiny space, but i think it's going to work very well. forgot to take "before" pics, but here's the "after"....

that mirror belonged to suzanne's grandmother. suzanne "borrowed" it from her dad's house! it's got years of dirt & dust, but suzanne refuses to clean it! she wants to keep "grandma's dust" on it for sentimental reasons!!!!! oh brother!!!!!!!

funny story about the curtains: one belongs to suzanne & one belongs to her roommate kathleen. they each had the exact same single panel & never even knew each other til the end of may!!!!! kathleen's graduating in december - wonder if she'll take her curtain when she leaves?!?!?!!

now that i see these pictures, i should have taken better ones!!!!!! guess i'll just have to go back!!!!

we watched a movie & talked & stayed up til almost 2 am!

i'll be back tomorrow with tales about our saturday adventures!!!

i met a man!

everyone's chomping at the bit wanting to know about my weekend in dallas. where do i start? with what we did, who we saw, where we went? decorating suzanne's apartment? what happened at home while i was gone?

i have a feeling everyone wants to know FIRST about the man i met thursday night!!!!
i don't have any pictures of him, sorry!

the men in marlin, texas, are sooooo nice!!!!

thursday night i was headed to dallas to spend the weekend with suzanne. i usually leave earlier but didn't get on the road til 7:30 pm. i like to go "the back way" up 6 & 35. it's a nicer drive - through the "country", through some little towns. the scenery is much nicer than that on 45. and it's closer to the arlington/fort worth area where suzanne is.

so i'm driving along, got the stereo blasting with my favorite kip moore cd & i'm daydreaming about building a house out in the country. and it's getting dark. it gets REAL dark out in the country!!! there wasn't a whole awful lot of traffic, but i hit a patch where there were lots of semi's & cars. so i had to pull over for awhile in marlin. i didn't really want to, i really just wanted to get to dallas & still had about an hour & a 1/2 to go, but at the moment, it was the best thing to do.

well, i met a man!!! he was really sweet & wanted to know all about me!!! he was genuinely interested. but he really wasn't "my type"-- he had blond hair, no mustache, definitely not a "sam elliott"!!! he had total control of the conversation though & asked me lots of questions. like where i lived, what part of town that was - he said he wasn't real familiar with houston, but he'd been there - he wanted to know where i was headed & when i'd be coming back, what i was going to do while in dallas.....he was really impressed with my car & the fact that i was getting 26 mpg. he wanted to see a picture of me but all i had was the one on my driver's license - he was satisfied with that but for a few minutes i thought he was going to keep it! he finally gave it back to me! he told me i was a "pretty fast woman." i just looked at him with a puzzled stare. he said, "i've had my eye on you for quite awhile." then i noticed he had a wedding ring on his left hand. i thought, "oh, no, i'm in trouble!"

we chatted for a little bit & he said, "stay right here. i've got a present for you in my car." he had been getting a little too personal & i was thinking, "oh, i hope this present isn't an expensive one. i don't want to "owe" this man i just met anything."

when he came back, he handed me my "gift" & asked for my autograph. his last words to me were "well, you have a nice time in dallas this weekend & come back. you have a clean record, so this is just a warning, but please keep it at 70 or below & you'll do just fine!! you'll get to dallas & you might even get better gas mileage!"

ok, i began to breathe again!!!! but, being a "professional blogger", i HAD been thinking "what a great blog post this is going to be!!!"

i set my cruise control at 69 & got to dallas a little over an hour & a 1/2 later.

and officer grote, if you're reading this, by the time i got to dallas i was getting 30 mpg!!!!!! thank you for being such a sweet man & only giving me a warning instead of a speeding ticket!!!!!

and for the record, i set my cruise control the entire way home at 1 mile under the speed limit & didn't see a single (or married!) cop the entire drive home!!!!!

back from a weekend vacation

i got back this evening from a little weekend vacation & i'm waiting for a load of clothes to get done washing so i can throw them in the dryer & go to bed.

i'll be back tomorrow or so to tell y'all about my fun weekend in dallas with my grown up daughter & my friends in colleyville, arlington & midlothian!!

and i'll tell ya about the man i met!!

......and what a man did here at home while i was gone!!

......and the moose i got!!!

bet ya can't wait!!!!!!!

another p31woman devotional written just for me, just for today

i didn't have time this morning to read my p31woman devotional before i went to work. i didn't have time at work to read it. i didn't have time before church tonight to read it.

i think God knew the proper time for me to read it.

AFTER i got home. after i got mad at myself & mad at Him. so that i could read it & feel guilty.

the title is "feeling guilty?"

saturday was our ladies' tea at church. everything was perfect! the decorations, the food, the people.....everything! it was my favorite tea since 2004!

everyone told me how wonderful it was. what a great job i did. i told them "it's not me, it's God. everything i do is because of Him. He's the one who made it beautiful." everyone's always telling me how talented i am & i tell them, "it's all God. He's the one who does it, not me. i can do it because of Him & it's for His glory."

this was the key verse to today's devotional:

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10 (NIV 1984) & Colossians 3:17, "And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." (NIV)

yup. that fits.

"miss amy" is a sweet little old 87 year old lady at our church. she's so encouraging to me, gives the best hugs, & loves pictures. i hate HATE to have my picture taken. saturday she insisted. i cringed but let her take some. tonight she had a whole big poster board full of pictures from the ladies' tea up on the bulletin board of the fellowship hall at church.

instead of looking at how beautiful everything & everyone was, i focused on me. sure, my tan looked good against my white outfit. the outfit that i thought i felt confident in. but tonight i just focused on how fat my butt looked in it. how i looked like i had the arms & shoulders & chest of a body builder --- not all trim & muscle-y, but huge! i focused on comparing my butt to other people's. focused on comparing how my shoulders & arms go waaaay out while "hers & hers fall down straight & make her look skinny on top." i focused on how "she sits there looking so sweet" & i look like i'm scowling......when i'm really NOT! i'm trying to look sweet too, but it just doesn't come across that way.

i wanted to tear those pictures down off the wall.

but i can't do that.

so i walked out to my car with my self-esteem crumbling, my head hanging. so i headed home. alone. & lonely. & defeated. i just wanted to drive west til my car fell off the side of california right into the ocean. i let satan get the best of me tonight. i beat myself up the whole way home. i criticized myself. "no wonder no one loves you & you're all alone & lonely.....you look disgusting. you'll never be happy, you'll always be lonely....." i practically begged God to let me die. & tried to justify it with "i'll be happy if i'm with You." and then satan got a word in, "God doesn't even want you." by the time i got home i was in tears.

these posters are by my garage door----they're there to remind me that only God can fill my loneliness.

satan wasn't done. as i walked through the door i said, "well, here i am. home. alone. fat & ugly & lonely."

i'll bet he was having a ball! i wish i would have slammed the door on him!

then i turned on the computer & opened my emails & there was the p31woman devotional.

"feeling guilty?"

yup. i need to be listening to God, not satan. because HE loves me. & He's here with me so i needn't be lonely. and He made me.

from the devotional:

"Dear Lord, You made me in Your image and that is something I seem to forget daily. Please help me remember to celebrate and live in who You made me to be and not in what I wish I was. In Jesus' Name, Amen.


Psalm 139:13-14, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well." (NIV)"


i KNOW this. but why is it so hard to BELIEVE it??

a comment about a comment

"anonymous" posted this comment on my post about the birthday card i made:


"This guy sounds like a great catch!

Any use of the card should be credited to him and possibly given royalties should this turn out to be a "Hallmark" moment..."




several people post anonymously here, so i'm not sure who wrote this, but it sure sounds a lot like something "HE" (the smartest man in the world) would say!!!!

and i know HE read my blog, because he asked for the address.

when i read this comment, lots of funny comments popped into my head, so i decided to "comment about the comment"!'

1. this comment sounds like one coming from an accountant!
2. this guy might be a great catch, but if i caught him, i'd be considered a cougar! HA! ME! a cougar!!! now that's funny! nope, i like my men like i like my junk: "old & rusty"!!!!!
3. however, i've realized that all the single guys at my church (all whopping 3 of them!) don't seem to want to be caught!! they're all pretty fast runners!!! so maybe i should run in the opposite direction & then they'll catch me!!!

after bombarding you with noxious weed pictures, i thought you might like to see some pretty-grass pictures!!

here's the front yard:

(ignore the long grass in front of the landscape bricks --- one day it will be weed eated, or cut with scissors!!!!)

oh, what's this???? a noxious weed, according to the texas roadside vegetation manual!!!! morning glory vine! it grows like crazy in this one corner of my flowerbed. it chokes everything & i'm constantly trying to pull it off & out by the roots, but it keeps on growing. pa pa loves morning glories, & he TRIES to grow it but can't!!!! i'd GLADLY give him this if it would be gone from my yard!!!!

why didn't i think of this??!!!

joyce sent me this link. she said it might be something we could try at church to get more people to help with the flowerbed weeding!!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/15/farm-in-idaho-hosts-weed-dating-for-singles/


(if the link doesn't work, copy & paste into your browser)

well, it's worth a shot!!!!!!!



this evening we weren't able to get the weed eater problem solved. "amwacs" did manage to get my lawnmower wheel that fell off yesterday back on though!!! and he checked out my circuit breaker box which led us to come up with another project! but i guess i'll be going back to the store with the weed eater in hand. they'd better not give me any problem returning it!

gotta run-----gotta go look for the receipt!!!

(sorry for the lack of pictures -- i sort of overloaded you yesterday!!! and i forgot before he got here to take a picture of the wheel that fell off the lawnmower. it DID cross my mind to take blog pictures while we were fixing it, but i think "amwacs" would have frowned upon the idea!!!!!)

when you have free time, what do you look up on the internet?

this is what i look up!!!!

i read the "texas roadside vegetation management manual":



Section 14: Noxious Weeds and Pests on the Right of Way
Anchor: #i1023211
Overview
A variety of plants are considered pests along the highway right of way. Pest plants are generally those species which pose safety, maintenance or public relations problems for the department.

The predominant pest species in Texas include Johnson grass, Giant Ragweed, Musk Thistle, Sunflower, Field Bindweed, Bermuda grass, Mesquite, Huisache, Retama, Georgia Cane, Kochia, Russian Thistle, Switchgrass, Turnip Weed, Morning Glory Vine, Western Bitterweed, African Rue, Cattails, Saltcedar, Wildoats, Jointed Goatgrass and Kudzu.

Some of these are native to Texas. Others are introduced species which have become naturalized, taking advantage of environmental disturbance to invade and become established in the right of way. Minimizing disturbance caused by construction or maintenance activities is the best way to reduce the spread of such species. However, once these species become established in an area of the right of way which must be maintained, properly selected and applied herbicides may be used to control the pest and to re-establish desirable vegetation.

This section addresses important characteristics of the major pest plants of concern to the department, and the recommended methods for their control.


and dictionary.com:


nox·ious
[nok-shuhs]

adjective
1.
harmful or injurious to health or physical well-being: noxious fumes.

2.
morally harmful; corrupting; pernicious: a noxious plan to spread dissension.



as far as i'm concerned, my backyard is MY right of way! it shouldn't be filled with NOXIOUS weeds! but right now it is. and that is injurious to my health & physical well-being. i have had some morally harmful thoughts & words about these noxious weeds!

(warning - lots of pictures!!!

ya can't even see the "flowerbed"!!!

so these are the things i'm needing today:

a man with a tractor

or a goat! a goat would be much easier to handle than a weed eater!!!

but today i took things into my own hands. literally!!!

i used this to cut the noxious weeds in the backyard.

shoot, i don't use it to cook with, so i might as well put it to good use somewhere! need to get my money's worth out of it!!!! didn't buy those knives just for decoration!!!!!

i grew up on a farm, baling hay. no different from what i did today! except back then we used a tractor & a mower & a baler. today i used a kitchen knife, a rake & a garbage bag!!

i want a SICKLE. it's a long handle with a VERY SHARP curved blade at the end. we didn't have a weed eater when i was growing up on the farm. we had a sickle. my grandpa taught me how to use the sickle. i WANT a sickle. but you can't find one anywhere.

i looked up SICKLE on the internet. they've got all kinds of halloween sickles with blood all over them. but no grass/weed cutting sickles.

what's the deal?? doesn't anyone use a sickle anymore for cutting grass? are they just used to kill people???? but my search isn't over. i WILL FIND me a sickle!!! and y'all just watch out, cuz i KNOW HOW TO USE ONE!!!!!!!

there were lots LOTS of mosquitoes in the grass. and ANTS. seems like ants like to make GIGANTIC mounds in the center of these beautiful grass fountains noxious weeds!!

i've received lots of emails & private messages from some of you wondering if "amwacs" (a man with a circular saw) is still around. yeah, he's around. he's spending most of his time driving my barbed wire all over creation in the back of his pickup truck!! we see each other at church. in fact, today we had a quite lengthy discussion about noxious weeds!!!! he spent all day yesterday mowing "goat grass" in the pasture at the farm. with a tractor. goat grass isn't good for cows. it's noxious! i guess you can't cut it with a kitchen knife. "amwacs" told me i should get a "weed cutter" -- he described it in detail. told me exactly how it was shaped & how the "blade" was "serrated"

--- yeah, yeah, i got one of those at lowe's on friday (the day i took a vacation). i returned it to lowe's on saturday!!! the dang thing didn't CUT the weeds, it just mashed them. (it was just like the 2nd picture)

well, my brazilian-made kitchen knife with the 8" blade did JUST FINE!

WOULD YOU JUST LOOK AT THAT BEAUTIFUL YARD!!!!!!! can you believe just a few hours ago you couldn't even see the "flowerbed"?!?!?!?!!!!


i'll bet "amwacs" would have a fit if he knew i cut the noxious grass on the football field city-pasture in the backyard with a kitchen knife.

but heck, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

(and now i have a noxious rash all over my arms. great! and if i die of west nile virus, i'd like a closed casket please. well, no casket. i'd like to be cremated. don't go to any unnecessary expense.)

i'm frugal alive & i'll be frugal dead!!!!!!
a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!!

guess what?! i just got an email from "amwacs" -- he's coming over tomorrow after work to check out my weed eater issue!!! how about that?! ...and once again, i didn't even have to ask!!!