Alabama Birthday Weekend

Last month we had our annual birthday bash in Alabama. We celebrate my cousins Lisa and Mark's birthday as well as their spouses. As we do every year Mark takes us out on the boat for the afternoon. This year as we prepared to go w were all shocked when my 90 year old grandfather said he wanted to go. We never dreamed that he would want to go so we had never asked him before. He told us that he never went because we had never asked! So we helped him on to the boat and got him situated in the back with his life jacket.
So, we headed slowly out of the slew in to river. Mark was taking us all on a leisurely boat ride. All of a sudden my grandfather said, "Can't this thing go any faster?" Once again we were shocked! Mark sped up a little but that wasn't fast enough! He told Mark to floor it! So, he did. We were all afraid his hearing aids would fall out. Actually I think the sound of the air whipping by was a little loud, so he took them out. Then Paw Paw decided he wanted to take the captain's chair.

He looks like a natural. He really had a good time. We took a lot of pictures of him because he wanted to show all of his walking buddies what an adventurous man he was. Good memories. We headed back to let the older crowd off the boat and then the younger ones went out again. Please note that I am included in the younger crowd. We took out the SeaDoo as well.

We then headed back to the house for dinner and the opening of presents, or money as it ended up being.


Thanks Susan for a fun weekend ad for being a gracious hostess.

Jerry's Sno-Cones and More

Last night we went with our neighbors to Jerry's Sno-cones for some Memphis favorite sno-cones. All summer long you will hear people talk about going to Jerry's. This was only our second time to go, but I swear that place makes a killing. We got there about 7:30pm and the line was all the way to the street. This place is not in the best of neighborhoods and you have to watch your back while there. Just kidding...not really! This was our neighbors first time to go and they followed us out there. We followed our directions obediently from Sha-nay-nay, our GPS (What? Don't you name your GPS?). I know they wondered where we were taking them when we turned on to a residential street where the men hanging out in their front yards were wearing wife beaters and cars jacked up on bricks loitering the yards. Yep, deep in the heart of Memphis! This place sits right in the middle of a residential neighborhood. They have about 25 different flavors to choose from. One of which is called Wedding Cake. I haven't been brave enough to buy a whole cup of it to try but people swear it is wonderful. I opted for a safe blueberry. My neighbor quickly whipped out his camera to capture my unknowing blue lips and teeth! Other flavors chosen by our group were, cherry, grape (yep, we're adventuresome!), green apple and wedding cake. Mind you, wedding cake was ordered by our neighbor. He mixed it with green apple. Odd combination, but whatever. As we sit outside and eat our sno-cones, I observe the different walks of life around me. To our right was a family with 2 kids sitting on a hill with the kids taking turns rolling down that hill right at our feet. (No, thanks, not a problem Ma'am.) Then to our left, two teeny boppers who are obviously on a date. She was sitting so close to him, I swear she was sitting in his lap. Then, THEN to our far right there were three girls that were...interesting. One of the girls had tattoos adorning all the way up her arms (attractive) and another girl had a earring in her nose. Now to round out this little group, the other girl was wearing a little yellow damask dress and yellow shoes looking like she stepped right out of Leave it to Beaver! She was only missing the pearls! I think we were the only normal people there. I wonder what they were thinking of us?

Being that this is Memorial Day weekend, what would the weekend be if you didn't have a cook-out? Tonight we have plans to get together with two other couples and cook out ribs. My mouth is watering already. We are excited to get together with these other couples. I think we have a lot of things in common with them. One of them is the family of Drama Queen's boyfriend. I hope our friendship can withstand it if they ever break up. They are actually approaching their one year anniversary together.

That is the only plans we have for our weekend right now. I plan to relax and maybe do a little cleaning and a little wash. Maybe we will get out the paddle boat and paddle around our lake.

So, what are your plans for the weekend?

Creative Movement

Creative Movement
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

Yesterday the evening service at church was led by the students Worship Arts. The drama, creative movement and choir all performed. It was really good. Drama Queen performed with the Creative Movement team and they did really well. Unlike her name, she does not do drama! The church always loves it when they perform. The last song they performed, Amazing Love, always brings people to their feet. Good job girls!

Shopaholics

Shopaholics
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

Today we battled the mall to go shopping. The intent of this trip was to get Easter dresses. We went to Justice for Hurricane A and needless to say she found a lot of clothes but no Easter dress. We ran into her friend there that tried out for cheerleading with her. She made the team. We were excited for her. Hurricane A seems to be feeling better about not making it today.

After going to several stores in the mall one girl found a dress and the other one didn't. One found shoes and the other one didn't. That always seems to be the way it goes. We, howevver, came home with way too many clothes!

Not the picture I wanted to post

Not the picture I wanted to post
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

This is not the picture idea I had planned for tonight. My daughter tried out for cheerleader today after having clinic all week. Tonight we went to the school to see the posting of the ones who made it. Well, she didn't make it. :( So, I decided to take a picture of me and my girls. You can probably guess which one didn't make cheerleader.

7 Days Day 6

7 Days Day 6
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

This picture was taken at our volleyball game. Our Sunday School class has a team and we play on Thursday nights for a couple more weeks. It was a very horrible night, and not just for me, but the whole team. It literally was like watching the Bad News Bears! We missed everything or we stood there and stared at the ball thinking someone else was getting it! It was rather comical. I could not hit ANYTHING! It was quite embarrasing. I'm sure the other players were wishing I would just sit out.

Next week can only get better because it certainly can't get worse!

7 days day 5

7 days day 5
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

Day 5 our theme was dinner. You could interpret it anyway you wanted. I tried to get a picture of just my food but I kept getting a blurry picture and not the nice pretty bokeh. I finally put the camera on the kitchen counter and went for this angle. I cropped it down a bit but you can still see Steve leaning over to get out of the picture. I wish I could have cropped out my flabby arm but then I would have cropped out the food!

By the way, we had sausage casserole and green beans. YUM YUM!

7 days: day 4

7 days: day 4
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

I titled this picture "Gettin my hair did". This picture is also rather unflattering. Wet head is never my best look. Leslie has been doing my hair since we graduated from high school. We have known each other since we were in 9th grade. That is over 30 years! Wow! That is hard to believe.

7 Days: Day 3

7 Days: Day 3
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

Day three of the 7 day run. At lunch I went to Burger King to get a drink to go with the lunch that I brought from home. Our ice machine at work is broken, so unless you want to drink a hot drink or drink from the can, which I do not like to do, you go buy one. I took this with my IPhone while the workers had turned around to get my drink.

If you look closely at this picture, you will see that my hand looks like crocodile skin. I was in desperate need of lotion!

7 days: 2 Style

7 days: 2 Style
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

This is the picture for Day 2 of 7 Days. It rained all day long on Sunday March 21 and it was quite chilly for the first full day of Spring. The day before was warm and beautiful and then the rain brought in a cold front. It was unwelcome!

So, today my original thought was to get a picture of me in the rain and so that you could see me standing in puddles. Well, since it was raining, I couldn't take my camera into the rain so I set my tripod up in the garage and then I couldn't get a picture close enough for the detail. So, this is what we get. I really need a longer focus lens! Hint hint.

The theme was style for today. I was styling the rain gear. I am actually wearing Drama Queen's rainboots and they were like two sizes too small. My toes were literally curled into them. I need to get me a pair of rainboots!

Spring 7 days 2010

Spring 7 days 2010
Originally uploaded by TNsouthernbelle

Today is the first day of my Flickr 7 Days group. In the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter we have a 7 day run where you take a self portrait a day and post it to the group. It is a lot of fun and I love seeing what creative ways people find to take a self portrait. Here is my picture for the first day, Saturday March 20, 2010.

I am not crazy about the way I look here, but what can you do? Chloe kept trying to jump up in my lap so I just picked her up and let her be a part of my self portrait. You can see in the reflection behind me that Steve and the girls are practicing ball in the backyard.

February Birthdays

This past weekend we celebrated my nieces 12th birthday. Time should not be able to pass this quickly. It is always fun when we get the family together to celebrate such occasions. Her birthday usually starts them off for the year and then Anna's is the next one in May and then it is a monthly occasion after that.

In addition, we had cute babies to play with and watch explore. They are both 9 months old and crawling everywhere. Following are pictures of the cuties.

Lisa and Ella Marie stayed at our house so I was able to snap a couple of shots of Ella Marie. These are straight out of the camera with no editing.

More pictures to come later.

Photo Shoot

I mentioned that I am trying to improve on my photography skills. I really want to be able to take great pictures like people I see on Flickr. They inspire me to get better. My oldest daughter likes to pose for me and she is really photogenic. I like to use her for practice. We recently did a photo shoot of her and our neighbor Megan. I am posting some of those pictures below.

In my quest to get better, you may be able to tell that I need help in certain areas. Mainly, lighting. I have bought some heavy duty lights and also used a powerful light from the garage, but I can's seem to get the lighting right so that there are no shadows. I still need to work on that. Also, as you will see in some photos I have edited them. I got Photoshop software for Christmas and I have been practicing my editing skills. I can only do the basics so far. Look for improvement there also.

Now, here are a few photos from a photo shoot a couple of weeks ago with my girls, one of the neighbors and my neice.

Ice Storm 2010

Hello, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kelly Metaxas and I am the owner of this here blog. I find it kind of ironic that the last post was of a significant snow because we get so few and that is what I am posting about today. This year however it was primarily ice with a little snow thrown in. I didn't get any pictures of the snow/ice or the girls in it because we didn't really get out in it because ice is just no fun. Instead, I am including a picture of what happened to our house as a result of this ice.

We discovered this lovely huge spot in our garage that was leaking about 1:00 Sunday afternoon. My daughter saw it when she was going outside to shovel the driveway! That would have lasted all of five minutes if she had gotten there. As you can see in this picture, this hole is about the size of a sofa in length. It was just dripping when we noticed it and we were clueless of where it could be coming from. There are no bathrooms or anything to leak in that wall. The playroom is directly above that. So, we called our neighbor over because he used to do some plumbing work when he was in the service. We cut the sheetrock out so we could track the source of the leak. Apparently it is from the weight of the ice just sitting on the roof. Our gutters are clogged up with ice and so nothing was really draining so I guess the melted ice had to find somewhere to go. We really don't think we have a leak per se because we have never had any problems with that in the past. We have decided to just patch the hole and wait for another rain storm to see if it leaks anymore before we file a claim and search our roof for the leak. If we were to file a claim our insurance will likely go up because it will be our third claim. We filed for damage on our other house from Hurricane Elvis and then electricity hit our house about a year ago. We think our deductible is about $500 and it should be less than that to repair the hole.

So, that is my storm story of the Ice Storm of 2010. The schools were out on Friday because that is when the ice storm came. They are out again today even though the sun melted a good deal of it yesterday. The rural roads in the northern part of the county still have ice on them so we get a day off. The girls are excited. It is going to be hard to get them back in the groove because I don't think they have gone a full week since Christmas and they have a day off next week for President's day.

I am trying to take more and more pictures to improve my photography skills. I am going to try and post some of those pictures so I can track my progress. I hope to be able to see an improvement over time. So, for the future that will be my sole purpose of posting on this blog. Let's see if I can keep that up!

Winter Wonderland

Do you want to know when the last time was that we received a significant snow fall? By significant I mean more than and inch or two. It was in 1968. I was three years old and we had somewhere around 18 inches. Yesterday we had anywhere from 5-10 inches depending on what part of town you live in. At my house we got approximately 5 1/2 - 6 inches.

The Kids had an absolute blast playing in the snow, throwing snowballs, trying to make snowmen and sliding down hills. We bundled up and headed across the street to our neighbors where they have a huge slope in the backyard. The only downfall is that at the end of the hill you either stop or land in the lake. Thankfully we did not have anyone end up in the lake but we got close a couple of times.

I hope you enjoy this entry of photographs. Sometimes pictures tell the story better than words do. All I can say is that I am so ready for spring!

D-Now

Just a quick post to say boy have things been busy over the last several days. This past weekend we hosted nine 10th grade girls at our house for the whole weekend. It was for Disciple Now at church. They were a great group of girls which I was surprised about. I figured my house would get trashed, they would stay awake all night long etc. However, they left the house immaculate when they left and unlike other groups I heard about, they did sleep. Steve and I not only hosted but had to drive them back and forth to their worship location Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night. One of the girls that stayed at our house was saved during the event so that made it all worthwhile. Of course that had absolutely nothing to do with me. Their was a college age leader that also stayed at our house with them that led independent bible studies with them in addition to the worship segments they attended. Drama Queen stayed at someone else's house because they don't like to put your own children in your home. She really had a good time. Hurricane A was home for half of the weekend and now she is ready to participate in one herself but you have to be in 6th grade so she has a couple of years.

Sunday afternoon I took a nap because I was so tired. It's not like I didn't sleep or anything because I did. I guess with age you just can't be on the go that much and have the energy you did at that age. My wash got so behind because I did not touch it at all the entire weekend. I spent all day Tuesday washing clothes and finally got caught up.

I had drama practice last night and have it again tonight and tomorrow night. We are getting ready for our performance of Hee Haw on March 7. At rehearsal last night we laughed until we cried. I hope the performance ends up being as funny as we are trying to make it.

I give honor to my hometown of Loverlip, Mississippi, population of 1200. S-A-L-U-T-E!

Valentine's post

It was another exciting or rather busy weekend. Thursday night something rather unfortunate happened as one of the houses in my neighborhood caught on fire and is a total loss. It started about 2:30 in the morning and they had to call the Arlington and Memphis fire departments to help. Some of the firemen were hurt and sent to the hospital. The good news is that the homeowners were able to get out and are safe. I heard rumors that the family was actually getting ready to start packing the house because they were moving to another house in our neighborhood. I guess that means that the house had been sold to someone else. I don't know how all of that will workout but what a pain! The local high school will be doing a fundraiser for the family and our neighborhood association is also going to help them out in some way.

Friday night Steve and I went out for our Valentine's dinner. We went to eat at Hunan Pacifica a local chinese restaurant. I really like their food. The girls stayed home because Drama Queen was having two of her friends to sleep over. After eating we went to rent a movie that ended up not being very good. We stopped watching about 20 minutes in. I can't even remember the name of it. So, we watched a couple of episodes of King of Queens. We love that show!

Saturday I spent most of the day at my sister's house. My mother and I helped her to swap the kids room around and make room for the new nursery. We emptied drawers, shelves and closets, moved furniture from room to room and I even cleaned carpet. I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Sunday we went to church and then met our care group at Jason's Deli for lunch. I then took Libby to the movies to see Confessions of a Shopaholic for her birthday. It was a cute movie. Sunday night we went back to church to see the christian magician David Garrard. The place was filled with kids who were constantly raising their hands to be used on stage. Neither of my kids were picked this year. I think Hurricane A was picked last year. Drama Queen was sitting with the youth. She appears to have her first boyfriend which I am so not ready for. This boy asked her to "go out" several weeks ago and I know she told him no. ("going out" does not mean to go on a date, for those of you that asked "where are they going?" like I did. It just means to become one's boyfriend or girlfriend.) Well, yesterday he sat by her in the morning and evening service. He also brought her a box of candy, a poem that he supposedly wrote for her and a coupon for a free ice cream cone at a local ice cream place. Isn't that sweet? This boy even started chatting with Steve and I on Facebook this weekend! I think something is up. It embarrasses Drama Queen when I try to ask her so I have to figure it out by myself! UUGGHH! ( I am waiting on the phone to ring because I have not told my mother this yet!)

Today and tomorrow the girls are out of school for President's day. We had to work so they spent most of the day with friends. So, like last weekend, I had to go back to work to rest and rest I did because it was incredibly slow today!

Teachers and Doors can break my nose?

Last week I got one of those phone calls that as a parent you hate to receive. The dreaded, "there's been an accident". My heart drops when I hear those words from an assistant at the elementary school. Then she goes on to tell me that Hurricane A was hit in the nose by the Art teacher. Apparently Hurricane A's teacher had lost her spelling test and so she was out in the hall taking it again. She needed to go to the bathroom so as she walked by the Art teacher's room she was obviously walking to close to the door and when the teacher opened it to let her class out she hit Hurricane A in the nose. My sister is a teacher in that school and told me later that the Art teacher said she could hear it crack and just knew the nose was broken. Also the teacher was so upset that this happened that she had to leave and go home early. The office assistant that called me said that the nose was very bruised right away and was swollen. They put some ice on it and had her wait in the office for me to arrive. When I got there the swelling had already gone down and I did not see much bruising. It appeared that the ice had helped quite a bit. I looked at it and decided not to take her to the doctor since it looked a lot better than they had originally described to me. The next morning my sister called me before school started because the teachers were having a faculty meeting and the Art teacher was so concerned that the nose was broken. She was surprised that I had not taken her to the doctor because she "heard it crack!" Saturday when we were at the pediatrician's office for Bronchitis I had him look at her nose and he said at first glance it appeared to be fine but to bring her in again once all the swelling was down. It looks to me like it is just ever so crooked at the very end of her nose but I could be wrong. Dr. said it looked straight to him. So, I guess we will see.

Yesterday was one of those marathon days where you leave the house in the morning and don't come home until almost bedtime. After work I went to Wal-mart to buy valentines for Hurricane A to take to school Friday and also some for the kids. After that I went to church to eat and then to Drama. We are trying to work out all the details for our Dessert Theater coming up the first of March. We are doing Hee Haw. I am in charge of finding jokes to be used in the cornfield scenes. I have found some pretty funny ones. I am going to be in the Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me scene. I think it will be funny. I can't sing worth a flip but think about it, neither could those guys! So, I ought to be perfect.

After Drama I had a Personnel meeting to discuss some insurance changes. Nothing exciting there, actually pretty boring.

Today I met my mother for a quick lunch at Chick-fil-a. When you only get 30 minutes you have to throw your lunch down which is not a problem for me but for my mother who is a slow eater, it was hard to do. My mother is going to be helping my sister for a couple of days this weekend to get things finished up and ready for the new baby to arrive in April. With the recent passing of her father-in-law and all of the things they are having to do to help her, they have gotten behind on some things. I might try and help them out. They are literally moving all the kids around to different rooms and losing their playroom. She needs to get this done before she just doesn't have the energy to do it.

Bebe is on the way!

Political Outrage in the SouthernBelle home

You like the title of this post? Well, you will have to wait because I am going to wait an talk about that last. It's called the teaser. Ha! Well, there really isn't much going on around here but I wanted to post so this might be rather boring. We are having some rather warm temperatures this week and it is also pretty windy. We are expecting some severe weather tonight and tomorrow morning. I hope we don't get any tornadoes or straight line winds.

See that wasn't much of a wait was it? My husband is pretty passionate about his political views. We are republican and needless to say not so happy about our new president. OK, so you know President Obama has this stimulus package that he is working on right? Well it is all over the news that America is now getting nervous about the direction of all this. Well Steve is VERY angry about the whole thing. When I came home from work tonight he was on the phone with his brother who gets just as excited about things as his brother. I could tell by my end of the conversation that they were furious with things. He was so worked up that he was talking to anyone that would listen including our girls. So, we decided we were going to Baskin Robbins after dinner. Steve changed clothes and put on his Palin 2012 t-shirt. This was going to be the first time he has worn it outside of the house. When we arrive at Baskin Robbins there are two other men talking. One was African American and the other was Caucasian. They obviously both work at Federal Express as does Steve. I kept waiting for him to join in on the conversation because he talks to EVERYBODY. I even said as much and he said that he wasn't in the mood to talk. It must have been all the yelling he was doing earlier about Obama. Well all that changed when the African American turned the conversation to politics and the stimulus package. He was talking a bit louder than he had been earlier. He was saying things like Obama was going to turn this world around and how great the Stimulus package was going to be. At this point I looked at Steve and said "Don't join the conversation now!" Well for what good that did. All of a sudden Steve is saying "Palin in 2012, Palin in 2012!" The African American says "Ain't gonna happen dude!" They said several things back and forth and I don't even remember it all but I just glared at Steve and gave him my look of "ZIP IT!" Thank goodness the conversation did not last long. The Caucasian guy finally said "Well I am Republican also." So, the African American says that he voted for both Bushes but was sad for our economy and wanted to vote for a change. After that he said he needed to go.

I guess time will tell what happens to our country. I just hope it will be good for my kids!

Weekend Whirl

This weekend was a busy one. It started Friday night with a Valentine's party with our Sunday School class from church. We went to the Monday's house where we had a really good meal catered from Coletta's. It's funny to look back now, but I had Coletta's twice this weekend and it was totally unplanned. Actually it was an Italian weekend. More about that later. At the party we played some games after dinner. The first one was really like an icebreaker. Each couple had to fill out this sheet once they arrived that told about how you became engaged, where you spent your honeymoon etc. They gave away gifts to the couples that had the most interesting stories. I didn't think ours was that interesting but I guess someone did because we won a prize for the way Steve proposed to me. I guess instead of interesting it was more funny. We dated for nearly 4 years so we talked about marriage a lot in the last years. One night we went to the mall and went into a jewelry store and I found a ring and Steve found a ring so we bought them. Later when we left the mall, we pulled up to a stoplight in front of the mall and Steve said "Well I guess I should propose to you now. Will you marry me?" I just laughed and said "sure". That was it. Very exciting huh?

The next game we played was Family Feud. Steve and I both played but nothing very exciting happened during that game. As a matter of fact both of our teams lost. Next we played our annual "Not so Newlywed Newlywed game". Steve and I were chosen to play. As usual all couples have arguments about their answers. We were not disappointed during this game either. One of the questions asked to the wives was "Which of these does your husband hog from you? Covers, remote, computer or bathroom?" My answer was covers because I seem to yank and pull all night long. He does also steal the remote but most of the time I watch TV in the bedroom because we like to watch different things. So, I didn't count that very much. So, of course his answer was the remote. We got into a friendly discussion about whose answer was correct.

Of course we did not win. We had several other friendly discussions on other questions that he got wrong again! When will he learn that I am always right?

Saturday I began the day by taking Hurricane A to the doctor. She had bronchitis. After having pneumonia a couple of months ago I was hoping this cough had not turned into pneumonia again. It seems like I have heard that once you get it you are more susceptible to it. I will have to make sure and not let her colds or cough go too long without medicine.

That night we went to Mommas to celebrate my niece's birthday. She turned 11 and was so excited. She got a whole new spring wardrobe in one sitting. That's the good thing about having a birthday in February. Spring clothes have just come out and you get the first pick of them before they are picked over.

That night Hurricane A slept over at her best friend's house and Drama Queen had her cousin over because she wanted to go to church with us on Sunday. After church I had a Lead Team luncheon where we also had Coletta's catered in. Yum Yum! And this was after we had spaghetti Saturday night at my mother's.

This weekend was warm outside so the girls were playing outside a lot. We played softball in the backyard . We pitched and threw balls to the girls for practice. Hurricane A wants to play ball this summer so she needed to start practicing.

Well, after that I needed a nap on Sunday afternoon and it felt good. Now back to work to rest!