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?

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 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!

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.

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!

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!

Saying Goodbye

Yesterday we went to the funeral of Pop who is my sister's father-in-law. He was a real sweet, christian man, He has had a weak heart for several years now but actually had emergency surgery for a stomach aneurysm and never recovered from that. The family decided to take him off life support when they realized they were unable to take him off and have him breathe on his own. It had been his wish to not be kept alive by machines. Regardless of that, it is very hard to make the decision to do so. Gran said that she would feel like she was murdering him. I can certainly see her point because you are basically taking away the air that is keeping him alive. I know it would be extremely hard to have to make that decision. The funeral service was very nice. Dr. Ken Story did the service who was long time pastor at Germantown Baptist. It was good to hear him preach again. After the service we went to Germantown Baptist where Gran and Pop's Sunday School had all brought food for the family and friends. There was enough food to feed an army. You know Baptists and their food!

After we left there I went home to walk all that good food off on the treadmill. I seem to be doing pretty good on the diet that I don't want to call a diet. I have just lost about 4 lbs. but it is enough that I can tell it in my pants. That is what matters the most because most of my pants had gotten real snug not mentioning the unbuttoning that was going on after eating!

Last night me and the girls crawled in our bed and watched American Idol. It was the last night of auditions and Hollywood week begins next week. This is when it starts to get good. I get kind of tired of the auditions of people who obviously can't sing yet come anyway. I think they just want their moment in the limelight.

I am looking forward to this weekend when we are supposed to have warmer weather although it will be short-lived. They are prediciting snow again on Monday night. Ugghh! Bring on the spring weather!!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

I'm back again. I posted here on this blog about a year and a half ago. I then moved to Wordpress because I had heard several others using it with good results. Me...not so much. I did not like the fact that I was very limited in the page design. I plan to load some pictures and get this design to reflect a little more of my life.

This title also has another meaning. I am going to try hard to post on a regular basis. It probably will not be daily but hopefully enough to keep readers. I know I need to alert everyone who read my last blog that I have changed sites. I also am going to try and just write about what is happening in my life and not try to write like an expert, because I am not an expert. This is a amateur writer so therefore an amateur blog.

Now, for what is going on. Today is a little bittersweet. My sister and brother-in-law are grieving as Mr. Hallum was taken off life support yesterday afternoon after a week long recovery period from a stomach aneurysm surgery. He did not do very well and basically was not able to get off the respirator. He passed away about 3:30 this morning. He was not in the best of health anyway and everyone knew the chances of his surviving this surgery were not the best. My sister is pregnant and due with her third child in April. It is sad to think Pop will not get to meet his new grandson.

As far as my immediate family, not much going on. Drama Queen is in 8th grade and will be going to high school next year. They have recently had meeting at school with their counselor to discuss routes they may want to take out of college. That will help them determine a direction to go in in high school as well. She is thinking she might like to go into Real Estate. I would like to do that one day before I retire. Maybe we can make a mother daughter team. That would be fun.

Hurricane A is in 4th grade and doing pretty well. I can't believe next year is her last year in elementary school. My babies are growing up.

For now, I guess that is all I have to report.