Untitled, a photo by Kahra Gilley on Flickr.

Enjoying my great nieces this week!

American Pickers

Do you watch American Pickers?  I love that show!  I guess you have to be a junker to really appreciate those fella's digging around in piles of junk to find hidden treasures!  Well, I am a junker by default and love to watch the show and learn the art of junking!  I love that show so much, that I got the entire family to venture off to Nashville to find the American Pickers store Antique Archaeology.

The store was a little hard to find even using the GPS, it's kind of off the beaten path, if you know what I mean. I was so excited to finally find it!  It was in the coolest building!  The store is located in the old Marathon Automobile Car Factory dated from the early 1900's.  The building was beautiful! We explored the building only to find out that the store didn't open until 10:00 am and all those lovely people were in line to get in when it opened!  WHAT! We had a full agenda that day wanting to explore Nashville.  I really wasn't planning on having to wait in line!  But we did, for a while anyway. Eventually one of the store team members came out at 10:00 am to tell us just how it worked. Needless to say, we were disappointed.  Apparently the store is smaller than it looks and they would only let about 10 people in at a time, so he informed us our wait could take up to a couple of hours! TWO HOURS?  Really?  In this heat? Well, we (actually my family, their not junkers, sad, I know) decided that we would proceed with our other plans to visit Nashville and cruise back at a later time. Surely, by then, there would not be a line.  Guess what?  Several hours later, the line was even longer.

Ok, so I was very disappointed that I didn't get to go inside.  Remember, this was my adventure, the family was perfectly fine with not being able to go inside.  So we started our journey back home.

All in all, we had a great trip visiting Nashville and I don't regret stopping by Antique Archaeology, it was still worth the adventure!  I will not give up, I will try again, I will get in next time we (maybe just me) make a trip to the music city!  I will not lose hope! Real junkers never give up!

Easy-Peasy

Ever wonder where the time goes?  Yeah, me too!  At this point, I really imagined  my life would be filled with too much time on my hands.  You know the story, the kids are grown, all moved out, living on their own, no extra laundry, no carpooling, no dishes in the sink, so on and so on!  Well, the story isn't going anything like that, simply put.   I can't tell you why that is, it simply just doesn't make sense!  So I have decided the only way to help me out with this time thing, is, to try to simplify.

So this leads up to this post.  Hens and chickens have become my go to plant of choice!  I love dabbling with flowers every spring and summer, but let's face it, it takes time!  So when I get the urge to add some flowers/plants to brightened things up, I turn to these little hens and chicks!  They come back every year and practically take care of themselves!  Easy peasy!  It helps with the time thingy.................................

Stringing Beans

Do you ever wonder how you get yourself into certain messes?  Well, I tend to wonder that A LOT lately.  Especially when it comes to me buying fresh green beans, what was I thinking?  I can't even tell you the last time I sat down and willingly wanted to help string beans.  I don't think I ever willingly wanted to ever, BUT I can remember stringing beans when I was a little girl. Honestly, I didn't like it then either!  So to get myself into a mess like having to string a 1/2 a bushel of green beans is something else!

So the story goes something like this.  One of my co-workers had a bushel of green beans delivered to her office the other day.  To my amazement I overheard the man telling her that these were stringless green beans!  Wow!  Stringless green beans!  How cool is that! I thought how hard could it be to break stringless green beans and freeze them?  So with that thought, I told the man as he exited through my office to bring me some green beans next time he came my way!

So the next day my beans were delivered.  I was distracted by a phone call when the man arrived, so he left my beautiful green beans in my office and left a message with my co-worker.  When I hung up the phone, I could tell my co-worker had a unusual look on her face. So I glanced over at my beans.....they looked good to me! So I'm like what is it?  She gave me that, I feel sorry for you look and proceeded to tell me that the man's message was to tell me he was all out of stringless beans that he had left me White Half Runner Beans!  WHAT! I don't even know the difference between green beans!  I just knew these weren't stringless!  Yikes!  What did I get myself into?

Well, I'm fixing to find out.  I don't know how long it will take or how sore my fingers are going to get, but in the long run, I'm going to look on the bright side and look forward to some good tasting green beans!  White Half Runner Beans that is!!

Best Friends

Meet Carmella....

 and may I introduce, Harley....

We would have never thought these two would develop the relationship they have.  You see, Carmella is 10 years Harley's senior and had always been the center of attention at our (her) house.   She was always skittish of other animals and people she didn't know.  It was even to the extreme, that she had to have a tranquilizer to go to the beauty shop!  Yes, it was that bad. I'm talking she was running in the walls bad, and she still was snapping at her groomer!  But even animals can surprise you when it comes to forming a bond and forming trust.   (I would like to add that she has now graduated from taking a tranquilizer and can go to the beauty shop without it now! Yea!)  

Back to the story, our daughter bought Harley when she was living out on her own and wanted some company.  Not long after getting him, she moved back home to prepare to join the Army.  Six months later, our little girl was off to boot camp at Fort Jackson, SC and we had obtained another pet.  Harley, our grand-pup!

We really didn't want to take on another animal, Carmella had always been our family pet.  We didn't know what you did with two? Or if Carmella would eat him alive!  But over time, these two sniffed faces, ears, butts, you know the story, and developed an unconditional love for one another!  They even share the same water and feed bowl!  Yes, they take turns eating and drinking, just watching each other until  it's their turn.  When they are laying around of an evening Harley will walk over and clean Carmella's eyes.  One of the most sweetest things I have ever seen an animal do for one another!  When their not together, they will not eat until they are back together again.  They love to run, wrestle and bark!  Did I mention bark?  Well, their favorite play time game is to run, jump and wrestle each other!  AND BARK!  It is so extreme that I usually shut myself in a room to just here myself think!  But, I know just like kids, that's their play time.  They need their play time.

Carmella is 13 years old and Harley is 3 this December.  I truly believe that Harley is keeping Carmella young and vibrant!  So with that said, I think even animals can develop that true best friend friendship that is so important for us to thrive!   These two definitely thrive!!!

Clay Tags & Starfish

It seems that homemade clay tags are the latest craft sweeping the world of pinterest! Well, not the latest, but for me, it's something new I stumbled on while surfing the other day.  Usually when something strikes my interest (or rather I "pin" it), I have to try it for myself.  My motto is, I'll always try something once.  Usually the outcome determines if I'll ever try it again or not.

I apologize, but I didn't remember (sorry) to take pictures of each step of my process, but you can search pinterest and find many ways to make these little jewels!

Anyway, I started off with molding clay that you can bake, purchased at Hobby Lobby.  I preheated the oven to 275, used wax paper on a cookie sheet, warmed up the clay with my hands, then rolled it out with my rolling pin, used a cap from one of my spices to cut the circle (a small cookie cutter would have been better), used numbered stamps I had to create a numbered indent, then punched a hole in the top with a straw.  I placed them on the wax paper/cookie sheet and baked them for about 18 min.   After baking I let them cool, then painted with craft paint (.99 at Walmart).  Then I used some thin jute for the string.  You could use whatever you want.

Painting inside the numbers and staying inside the lines was the hardest part of the process for me.  They didn't turn out perfect, but turned out good enough.  Here are a couple of examples of what I did with them.  I really like the way the ones turned out with the starfish.  I am totally obsessed with starfish anyway, so I was happy.  Enjoy!

Macro/Closeup Photography Workshop

The thing about learning photography is, all the cool places you get to shoot!  I attended a Macro/Closeup Photography Workshop a couple of weeks ago at Erin's Meadow Herb Farm and this was by far one of the coolest places to visit!  Not only did we learn how to shoot macro with or without a lens (I'm a without), we got to spend the entire day roaming the gardens shooting away!  Might I say my camera couldn't shoot fast enough!  I couldn't contain myself from shooting all the eye candy that Erin's has to offer, so please sit back and enjoy some the sweetness I found!

Could a bed look more relaxing?

I fell in love with the color yellow all over again!  So refreshing!

I thought I had died and went to vintage furniture heaven!  It was everywhere!

If you ever get a chance, visit Erin's Meadow, you won't regret it!

Here are a couple of my macro shots, without a macro lens!