Day 233 - Lisa

Yes, those are CD's.  Finally unpacking and putting the bookcases to use.  These are my mom's little African animals.  Another World Market purchase.  They make me feel happy when I see them.  I want to break out singing, "It's the Circle, Circle of Life."  And yes, we are that ANAL!  Little tabs by genre.  My mama did the hard work of sorting, I just made and inserted the tags.  ;>  Teamwork.

Day 232 - Lisa

Saved and saved, finally found a good deal I could not refuse!  Now the baseball players are taller than my mom in our living room.  55" baby!

Day 232 - Sis

This stand is my project.  We were trying to go with a red that hopefully will look fine with that "reddish" mirror in the dining room.  No the bright yellow hutch will not be in the same room!  Well not for now anyway.

Day 231 - Lisa

Working in a hot, humid garage is not ideal but sanding and coat one is now done.  It's going to take quite a few coats to get her looking like we want.

Day 231 - Sis

One of the big grocery stores in our area, couple of miles from home. It's a place that provides us convenience and a pretty big variety of foodstuff.  Usually we visit it once a week after Lisa gets home from work.  Today I did the shopping by myself, as Lisa was getting a little more bed time and had plans to continue working on something while I was gone. Most of my life I have done the grocery shopping alone and like it when I can go early in the morning there is plenty of parking and less people.  So while folks were attending church and praying, I was paying and praying I could stay in my budget.

Day 230 - Lisa

Day 1 of what I believe is going to be a week long project.  Repainting my great grandma's hutch so we can use to house my mom's teapots.  She had someone make her this hutch back when she lived in Richmond.  We don't know when but she was going to get rid of it in the late 60's.  My mom said she'd take it.  Over the years of my child and adulthood it's been several colors.  For 15 years it just sat in our garage in Livermore housing paper stuff and other junk.  Poor thing got kicked around and a tad beat up.  We are going to give it back life as a showcase.  Tangerine, here we come!

Day 230 - Sis

Spent a good bit of time at Home Depot today.  Shopping list - 1- Plants for front porch, and hope they make it through the remaining days of summer. 2- Paint for a couple of projects. 3- Router for Lisa's Milwaukee drill. 4- Sanding paper for those aforementioned projects. 5- Batteries, because we always need them in every size, this time triple A's!

Day 229 - Lisa

Well the colossus crepe myrtles have finally started to bloom on the front side of our house.  They need to be cut back so bad, that's a winter project, so we have these huge tree shedding their flower pedals.  Creating a big MESS.  All over my car, the driveway, the lawn. 

Day 229 - Sis

Finished, I thought!  Forgot about the sets and that one box at the bottom.  Now the genre labels need to be made by Lisa so we don't have eye strain and frustration trying to find the particular music we want to hear.

Day 228 - Lisa

Impulse spending on vacation was at a high level in New Orleans; art, lots of drinks and my baseball cap THAT I got at Lids inside the Riverwalk Mall.  Of course there are Lids all across America but something about being on vacation gives us more patience, more guts to spend $$ on stuff we really don't need and well time, lots of time we normally don't have.  So I dreamed up this cap while watching a kid get his custom made baseball cap.  Tribe name on front, family lineage on left side, Tribal homeland on the right side and our Tribal bird on the back.  Red, white and black represent the colors we use to paint our bodies during dance ceremony.

Day 227 - Sis

Finally finished the pantry and think we should not buy groceries and mess it up!  Celebrated with a drink, non alcoholic since I reached my yearly quota while in New Orleans.

Day 227 - Lisa

Work is like a vortex.  Any rest gained while on vacation seems to be sucked into the vortex called work the moment you open the building door.  I haven't been getting home till after 6:30pm, something 7:00pm, 7:30pm since returning from New Orleans and now we are talking about manning a Swing Shift for which I'll be on a rotation to cover.  Come on vacation in September.  Oh how I look forward to you.

Day 226 - Lisa

The simple life!  God has blessed me for many years now.  Oh the lessons of youth!

Day 226 - Sis

Lisa and I have bickered, (surprise), over how the pantry should be set up.  We knew it needed a redo but where was the best place for some items, like baking pans, racks, extra can goods and how to arrange what will stay in the pantry.  Since I do most of the cooking, am the shortest and have an arthritic left hip, I think things used more often should be at eye (or I ) level.  She, who is close to 7" taller and has a bad knee thinks when she needs an item they should not be on the lower shelves.  We decided to move many utensils and extra comestibles onto a couple of shelves into the garage.  Just have to open the door across from the pantry, one step down and all of it is right there.  Still a bit hard on the hip or knee but beats 13 steps down to the basement and back. Little hiccup in moving these things when I knocked over a glass jar of marinated artichokes and it exploded like an IUD when it the engaged the  floor.  Kind of slowed my progress down.  Olive oil doesn't clean up easily so went and got some cat litter to soak it up, shush, don't tell sunii.

Day 225 - Lisa

Look out neighborhood my mama and I finally got our stereo set-up!  I wonder if Stevie Wonder will mellow out sunii and oneeya like he used to do with our other pets?  LOL!  Saturday household chores just got a whole lot better now that we have our tunes back!

Day 225 - Sis

Yesterday Lisa put up some colorful postcards we bought in New Orleans.  We thought they could brighten up the area over the kitchen cabinets and after much measuring we felt they were just right.  We then had dinner which included chile verde, refried beans and Spanish rice. After dinner we sat down to watch the Olympics closing ceremonies and I left this pan to soak and loosen the rice stuck to the bottom.  It was late when the ceremonies ended and we both went to bed.  This morning I found one post card face down in the pan.  Yep, it's true, Louisiana shrimp does go with rice apparently  a few go further than others!

Day 224 - Sis

Lately it seems like when one task or problem is completed it leads to another one.  Sunday had packages to mail to California so Lisa, my chauffeur and oneeya, truly my road dog, rode with me to the post office.  You know that advertisement the USPS has about the Priority Mail, " If it fits we ship"?  Well I did my part and made it fit but when I tried the ship step, I almost broke my arm trying to open the damn box.  It was full and I was standing there thinking, " If it fits, could  mean a muscle may rip." Well it did mean we had to go to another post office and I had a sore arm to remember it!

Day 224 - Lisa

When we first moved to GA it was completely a dry state on Sundays.  Now, it's okay as long as it's after church.  Aye yi yi!  LOL

Day 223 - Lisa

Busy day decorating.  Some things new, some things from our home in California.  My mom and I like a colorful home; vibrant and bright.  While in New Orleans in June 2010, my mom and I spent a whole morning taking pictures in the neighborhood streets of the French Quarter.  We both were intrigued with the different doors.  We didn't really know this till we shared our pictures.  On this trip, we went into an artist co-op gallery to look around.  I fell in love with these two pieces showcasing French Quarter doors.  The artist uses oil paints and the foil from wine and liquor bottles, I thought it was really creative.  Yes a tad whimsical for my normal tastes.  Come to find out she lives part time in Livermore and part time in New Orleans.  Small world.    When my mom worked at Target they used to have the World Market with lots of really cool furniture, frames, vases and other decorative household items from around the world.  She fell in love with this red mirror (Philippines) and we both loved the chests (Indonesia) and mirrors (India), so we waited and waited for the clearances and used her discount to claim our pieces.  They remind me of Livermore now and that makes me happy.

Day 223 - Sis

While Lisa hung mirrors and pictures in different rooms, sunii followed and was underfoot.  Guess she got tired of walking in and around Lisa's work space and decided to just hang out.  Oh how convenient that this stand was available but not sure it was her idea or if someone planted her there.  She does have a look in her eyes, that says, "Grandma!

Day 222 - Lisa

Before leaving for NOLA we ran the refrigerator empty of most all groceries.  Upon returning one thing led to another and we never got to the grocery store.  Five more nights of picking up food or going to a restaurant has left me feeling REALLY bloated and sluggish.  Longhorn was the last hurrah. Time to get back to our daily routine and pronto!!!

Day 222 - Sis

The last morning in New Orleans a small storm hit before we left the hotel.  The last two days here, weather has brought hard hitting storms that last a half hour and move on.  Today we get the third in a row which is expected to be around a little longer.  Oh well don't have to water the plants.

Day 221 - Lisa

Staying fit and healthy is one thing but this is down right scary.  What are these guys thinking?  It's uncomfortable watching him in the anchor chair looking a bit like an impish Lurch!  LOL

Day 221 - Sis

The Olympics will be closing on Sunday and the games have been good for the U.S. in the medal count.  I don't think this guy/girl? standing on a balcony in New Orleans made it, because from his attire looks like he/she may have overused some substances to enhance that body!

Day 220 - Lisa

We haven't grocery shopped since returning home.  I guess I cannot get the fried food or cream sauces out of my system yet.  We went to Chili's tonight; quick and easy but really not good on the arteries!

Day 220 - Sis

Waiting for the man to show up from AT&T to correct a problem.  Last night while watching the Olympics the sound went out.  Neither of us are proficient in lip reading so this will make it difficult to grasp the full weight of information the announcers give us in great detail of what we're watching.  Now I'm not saying we understand or will even remember most of this information but it beats listening to the humming cicadas that are outside in the trees while the events are happening. The other situation it causes  for me is, I'm going to have to listen to my daughter who's really honing in on a famous sportscaster face.  He has always been known for his youthful looks.  It does seem he has had some face work, problem being, it's not working.  Lisa's never ending comments go from, "What the hell is wrong with his mouth?", to "What the hell was he thinking?"  and so much more.  Which means that one voice I do get to hear is spiking my blood pressure.  Please Mr. AT&T fix this so it will take away that dangerous health side effect I'm experiencing from the chattering in here!

Day 219 - Sis

Package arrival from my sister Chickie. We didn't ask for anything from home, but she has good salami radar I guess.  Also oneeya had demolished her last toy from her Tia so here's her new one.

Day 219 - Lisa

First day back at work after vacation.

Day 218 - Sis

We're all home now, and two critters letting us know how they felt about our return.

Day 218 - Lisa

I'd rather be here for lunch today.  ;<

Day 217 - Lisa

Spent the day unpacking China and trying to make it all fit in the China Hutch.  Whew!  We did it.

Day 217 - Sis

Okay, brought home three extra pounds and they are not in my suitcase.  Looks like Monday I may have to make two urgent calls. Just have to decide which first - Weight Watchers or AA!