bye bye Christmas, hello Valentine's!

I always hate to see the Christmas holiday season end....but so it does.  All the red, green, gold, and silver of the season to be packed away for next year.  Glitter, sparkles, tree needles all to be vacuumed up.
I just HAD to go ahead and decorate my dining table for Valentine's Day, as I just could not think of a winter theme to use.  I guess I wasn't quite ready to release the red of Christmas either.  Now there is some pink on the table too.  I found these pretty plates at Ross!  I shopped my butler's pantry for the rest.  It's a very girlie table that took me about ten minutes to tablescape.  It all came together very quickly.  I love the sparklys in the glasses!

The calendar must be wrong! It's gotta be Friday the 13th!

The morning started off just like any other.  I made my coffee and went to the glam diva den and turned on Good Morning America and my Mac. Before I knew it, it was time to get ready for work.

I've been a member of www.flylady.net for years.  Yesterday, she posted new challenges for us.  One is "Moving in May" and the other is "The Great Closet Cleanout".  Last night, FlyFriend Beth sent out a post wanting to know who was participating.  Imagine Horshack from Welcome Back Cotter jumping up and down waving his arm high in the air and well, that was me!  I definitely wanted to join both challenges.

I decided to jump right in and spend 15 minutes on The Great Closet Cleanout before going to work.  I grabbed a few things out of my closet and took them to the guest bedroom closet.  As soon as I opened the closet door in the guest bedroom, I knew it was time to call Houston to report a problem!  The smell.  Oh my......The roof had leaked and the carpet was really, really saturated.

I immediately called my wonderful husband and he called the roofer.  Ahem...The roofer will be here Monday, not today.  Then I sprung into action.  Can we say "Moving in May"?!  I took everything out that was on the floor of the closet.  Thank goodness I did not have anything on the floor unprotected.  Most things were packed in large plastic tubs.  A few items were packed in cardboard boxes.  You can imagine what the cardboard boxes looked like!

I met "Wonderful Husband" for lunch and then we took  "Sweet Daughter's" Jeep to Walmart to buy some additional plastic tubs so I could repack the things that were in the soggy cardboard boxes.  We found everything we needed, paid, and pushed the buggy to the parking lot.  Wonderful Husband inserted the key to unlock the Jeep, and nothing happened.  He tried again.  Still nothing happened.  I called Sweet Daughter and she informed me that the key has NEVER worked to unlock the door.  The only way to unlock the door is with the remote thingy which was in Wonderful Husband's car back at Appleby's!  Oh my.....

Two old people stranded in Walmart parking lot on a muggy afternoon.  I decided to call Sweet Daughter in Love since they live nearby.  I knew it was a "work day" but I was hoping she would be home.  She was at work.  But being the Sweet Daughter in Love that she is, she offered to come rescue us!  (She is now in "Favorite Child" status! ) To make a long story short she took WH to get the remote thingy and he came back to WM and unlocked the door for me.  We loaded up the trunk and away we went.  Two old people on the road again with a mission to accomplish.

No time to deal with repacking things now though.  It was time to go to our house that is on the market to show it to a young couple that wants to lease it.  We went over there and lo and behold, the roof has leaked and there is water in the dining room floor!  We quickly cleaned it up and of course, made a call to a roofer.  He will come Monday......  Mondays must be "roofer day"!  Y'all be sure and make a note of that for future reference.

Tonight we ran some errands and I had a "to go cup of tea".  I never could manage to get a good drink of it though.  As we got to our last stop of the evening, Wonderful Husband put his hand on the console and it was WET!  My "to go cup" had a hole in it!  LOL

I don't care what the calendar says.  It has been Friday the 13th for me ALL DAY!

We finally got the carpet pulled up in the closet.  We removed the pad and threw it away.  The carpet is drying out on the porch.   The roofer(s) will come Monday.....

Good night and God Bless!

Easter afternoon

Who is the cute young lady in the photo?  Somebody sure was having fun hunting Easter eggs!

Aren't the rolls cute?  Ah, they were delicious!  They were so easy to make and added a bit of whimsy to the meal.

I had fun creating the tablescape.  I used green moss to fill the center of the table and added a bunny and alabaster eggs.  Chelsea added the bling to the bunny!  Thanks Chelsea!

Those old clothes, new luggage, and Walgreens......

The scenery on our flight was ever changing.  We flew over rivers, deserts, flatlands, and snow capped mountains.  Our flight arrived in San Francisco ahead of schedule, and we were truly excited to be at our destination.

We went to the baggage claim area to retrieve our luggage.  We waited around for a few minutes and finally bags of all shapes and sizes began to roll out.  We watched and waited and watched and waited, but our bags never appeared.  Sigh.  Everyone else on our flight had taken their bags and departed.  There we stood, pitiful and bagless.

My brother and husband spoke to someone with the airlines and they assured them our luggage was accounted for and it would be arriving soon.  We switched flight destinations from Sacramento to San Francisco, and of course our luggage had gone on to Sacramento.  They said our luggage would be delivered to our hotel that evening between 8 and 9.  Well, it wasn't.  We stayed up until midnight awaiting our luggage arrival and finally just slept in our travel clothes.

Oh what a miserable night.

The next morning, my husband called the airlines and found out that our luggage ended up on a United flight.  We flew American.  Once again we were assured our luggage would be delivered to our hotel.   (Imagine Sonia moaning.....)

I HAD to have clean clothes!  I was a desperate woman!  My good husband insisted he could find me some clothes. 

It was still fairly early and "shops" weren't open yet.  The hotel clerk sent my husband to Walgreens to buy me some clothes.  Ahem.....Excuse me?  My husband left the hotel for his shopping adventure.  I stayed behind locked in the room wearing rumpled clothing.  I finally had to venture out for fresh, cool air and well, I didn't have a room key to get back into our room!  Imagine Sonia moaning again.......

Oh y'all!  You can't imagine the joy, and I do mean sheer joy when my wonderful husband returned to the hotel with a brand new sweat shirt and brand new sweat pants!  Oh, and "personal items" as well.  He was beaming.  He pulled the sweat shirt out of the bag first.  It was gray.  Yes!  Gray tshirts and gray sweat shirts are always the softest, right?  Then he started pulling the sweat pants out of the bag....and he pulled.....and he pulled....they just kept coming!  He apologized as he held them up. "4 X was the only size they had", he said.  Oh my, oh my, oh my!  I started laughing and couldn't stop!  At that moment I didn't care what size they were.  Those sweat pants were clean, new, and soft gray.

The sweat pants are now the official "traveling pants".  I proudly wore them all across Northern California that day.  I will insist that anyone I know take them along on their next vacation.  I'm anxious to see how far these pants will travel.  

Willie in the morning

5 a.m. arrived quickly.  We were up and in a hurry to get on the road to the metroplex to pick up my brother.  It was a big day for us.  We were going to San Francisco!  Old clothes packed in new luggage.

When we arrived at DFW, we checked our bags.  Our plane would be landing in Sacramento and we had a rental car awaiting our arrival.

 We went to get our boarding passes.  While we were in line, they announced that they needed a couple of people to go on standby.  Our flight was overbooked.  My brother had a discussion with the airline personnel and then a discussion with my husband and me.   We made the decision to give up our seats and board the next flight to San Francisco.  Since we voluntarily gave up our seats on the flight, the airline gave us $900 in vouchers to use on another flight!  Yea!  Then we changed our rental car from Sacramento to San Francisco and saved another $200!  Not bad, huh?  We were almost giddy.  What a great beginning for our vacation!

And then......I looked up.  A familiar face. An entourage and "little sister".   It was Willie!  I have seen Willie on several occasions, but always at night.  Always strumming his guitar with his hair in braids, singing I'll Fly Away, Amazing Grace, and Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain.  David Alan Coe and other "boys"  usually accompanied Willie in a pasture or expo center.  But this was different.  This was WILLIE IN THE MORNING! Hair flowing down his shoulders and back.  Oh, I squealed like a thirteen year old.  I fumbled in my purse trying to put my hands on my camera and then forced my husband to take some pictures.  

The first morning of vacation was exciting!  Just wait until you hear what happened next.........

O Happy Day!

The first words I heard this morning were, "they're here..."

I got out of bed, changed into my sweats, went to the living room and peered out the window. There they were!  Men!  In my backyard!  I was so excited.  They were scurrying about, lunging and bending. Busy men.

I made some coffee and watched some of my favorite Saturday morning cooking shows.  All the while, going back and forth to the window....to watch "the men"...those busy men!

After only a couple of hours, they were gone.

O Happy Day!  Look what they did!