My NAKED ...what?

I bet that title caught your attention...

Well here in my little part of the world we are naked in one corner. It was devastating I tell ya. I still can't believe they are gone. What am I talking about, 4 trees in the corner of our lot. Here are 3 that have not been cut down yet and you can see the stump to the far right of the first one they already took down.

This guy, Mitch, just climbed that tree like nobodies business and cut off one of those branches that "V" and then the other one. The guys on the ground picked up limbs of our poor broken trees, while others hacked away at the trunk and cut it into pieces manageable enough to split. Let me tell ya, these were some good 'ole boys from Georgia.

Here some of those limbs he cut feel into the street. They were very careful to make sure there were no vehicles coming in either direction.

Here is our "naked" corner, doesn't it look pitiful? Our park like setting has been desecrated (wikipedia definition: To respectfully remove the sacred character of a place or an object). It is screaming for me to clothe it and get some more trees. And I will because if nothing else, the dogs in the neighborhood are missing a pee post.
Boo Hoo!!!

Freaky Friday

This is in no way to take away from Hallie at http://wonderfulworldofweiners.blogspot.com her Morbid Monday posts(which are absolutely gross), so that is why I waited until today to show you. I apologize in advance for showing my feet.

Now the first two pics were taken the summer of 2006 a few months after we moved here to Georgia and my feet discovered "fire ants." We have not had these up north and I didn't realize how much they hurt and itch. These were two completely different incidents that summer.

Now these pictures are my feet this past weekend (all better now) but we have no idea what bit me. It didn't hurt but it sure did swell, turn red and itch. Hubby said that with the two holes in my foot right by each other, not one higher than the other, he would have thought that I got bit by a snake (and we know from an earlier post that I DO NOT LIKE SNAKES), but we have never heard of snake bite itching, so we counted that out. Can anyone think of what may have bit my foot? My sister in-law thought maybe a spider but that looks as though it would have to be a pretty big spider to leave those kind of holes in my foot, don't ya think?
The other thing I don't get, why is it always my left foot????
All I can say is...you have some funky kind of bugs here in the south.

What are you a junkie for?

What are you a junkie for? This question was posed on Brandi Wilson's blog: http://brandiandboys.wordpress.com and like her, I am a reading junkie. I read most anything and usually have something on my lap to read even while watching TV, do you do that to? I like to think I am multi-tasking.

Here are just a few of the magazines and authors that I like to read. I feel like when I am reading I am transported in their lives or their decorated rooms...what ever it maybe...I feel like I am there.

Just got this yesterday and oh I see ideas that I will have to put away in my some day decorating or when we build a house again notebook.

This is my newest book, the Bible and the Beth Moore bible study guide. Yes, I confess, I am ignorant when it comes to the Bible, I am sorely lacking in knowledge but hope that this will be the first of many studies for me.
If you know nothing about Gooseberry Patch books, it was started by two friends (neighbors) that were home with small children and chatting over the fence. They took their ideas and have made cookbooks, decorating books and craft books. Not only the books but you can get their catalog and purchase mostly retro style pieces and nifty gadgets.
I am so hooked on books that I should own stock in Doubleday, but when I am done reading I usually pass on my books to family and friends, there are exceptions. This is an author that I share with my sister in-law and she collects these hard cover additions, so on they will go to her.
This is just another author I like but I must confess that I do not get into all of her books. Some of her topics are just not up my alley.
This author has to be one of my all time favorites, Karen Kingsbury. My sister in-law, yep, the same one who likes Danielle Steel, got me started on the first book of the Baxter family. I was hooked big time and I have every one of these books in this series about them. Presently I am (patiently) waiting for the next book, "Sunset" to hit the shelves. This is one series of books that I will not share but will recommend. This is one series I think I could go back and read again and I have never done that. 
This author I share with our youngest daughter. She was never one to do much reading but when she happened upon Nicholas Sparks, she was hooked. If it got her to read, I was all for it. 
So tell me, what are you a junkie for?

Cheri

Is this a beautiful place or what?

So many of you show homes in your neighborhood or town but I wanted to show you a home that is in our family...no, it is not mine and you probably know that from previous blogs, but my mother in-laws. 

I stole these pics from our niece's blog, they were so picture perfect I wanted to share.

When you go down this hill you come to her pond as you will see when you scroll on down.

Here is this lovely pond looking from her yard out front.
And here is a great view when you are across the pond looking at her house.
Hope you enjoyed I just couldn't pass up sharing these wonderful  photos.

Cheri

Rain...rain...go away

no...no please stay. I don't think the folks in Florida are thinking this, do you? But I live in drought stricken Georgia and WE LOVE THE RAIN! I didn't take any pictures of the yard but trust me, all you see is Georgia red clay... a mud pit, but I would welcome that if it meant that all our landscaping wasn't dying and turning a lovely shade of brown.

This is my view if I swivel around in my chair while at the computer. See the wet deck? Yippee!

This is looking across the street. I don't think Oscar and Cletus knew they were going to get a shower. Husband said if he knew that all it took was putting up 2 scarecrows to get rain, we would have done this a long time ago.
Here is looking up the street to the entrance of our development. There you can see some of the yard with the bald spots. Oh yeah, can't wait to run my tootsies through that. Who needs a spa pedicure when you can walk barefoot in my yard and you can take it from there ladies... Ya know what I mean.
And here is a view looking up the street the opposite way. Can you see the water cascading down the road, what a site. I know you are thinking the grass looks pretty good in this picture but don't let that fool ya, it is brittle and hurts when walking on it chasing little dogs who don't want to come inside.
Well I didn't even get this post finished and the rain has stopped. Husband ran out in his PJ's...yes PJ's and it is 4:00 PM with a camo rain jacket (what a sight and for your information he can work at home, even in his PJs) and I am not sure what he was doing but maybe it was a rain dance. Hmmm.

Scarecrows...this is awesome

Yep, are little town is gearing up for the Fall Festival at the end of Sept. BUT the town is hoping to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the most scarecrows in one small town. Presently the holder of that divine title is a town in Ohio with 3311 (I believe) and our town wants to get to 4,000! That is more than the amount of folks who live here. Every family, development, business, church and school can participate with how ever many they want to do.

Hubby and I have been talking about making a couple and we talk and we talk some more, so I decided after church to go into the garage and start stuffing clothing and wouldn't ya know....he caught on and constructed the poles with which to hold our magnificent scarecrows and let me just say that we are the first in our development to do so...slackers. Get busy neighbors if you are reading this.

Here are some pics of the ones in town and ours, my batteries died and I didn't get to take the ones someone did of 2 football team scarecrows on a playing field with goal posts too, very cute.  Someone told a friend that it looked creepy coming into our town with all these scarecrows along the main road. Hmmm maybe you are really headed to the Bates Motel with Anthony Perkins.

Here are our good 'ole boys, Oscar and Cletus. They must be bashful with their ball caps down.

And here they are in front of the house. I think they make a dandy addition. Our little black pup, Macy, couldn't stop barking at them when she went outside, she doesn't like anything that is not the norm around here. Kizzy, our other pup, did a few barks and then went on about her business and could have cared less when she realized they weren't going to pet her or come after her.

These next two pics are at the same place; we were told they had 100 scarecrows between those in the yard and the ones along the road.

These were located at the preschool in town. To the far right there are many more with the red T-shirts that have the preschool name on them.

These next two pics are in front of the Methodist church on the main road. Here is the choir and those in white are sheep.

To the right of the choir and sheep you have the preacher and congregation. This was very cute also.

This would be so awesome if our little town could get into the Guinness Book of World Records, so pray bloggers. Everyone has worked really hard on this, you can' believe how many newspapers and plastic bags you go through for stuffing and folks have been so generous to give clothing, wood and whatever to make this happen. We have one more week to meet our goal and then the scarecrows have to stay up for the entire month of Sept. You have to register your scarecrows so that someone from the committee can come out, number them and take a picture.

I will try to remember to post to let  you all know if we were able to meet our goal.

Cheri

At ONE she can't talk but she can email.... too cute not to share.

Gamma and Aunt B and Auntie,
 
I have the meanest Mama on the planet.  She punished me for the first time and I didn’t like it one bit.  I know you will say that I shouldn’t be biting people, especially not my Mama and especially not on her boob.  But I don’t need a lecture.  What I need is sympathy.  Or maybe you could give me the number to child protective services?  I am telling you, this crazy woman needs to be stopped.  I know she only put me in the corner for about 30 seconds.  Just long enough to pull out the camera and take this humiliating photo of me.  NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER!!  At least that is what Patrick Swazye said in Dirty Dancing and that my friends is my motto. Won’t you please pity me?
 
Love,
 
Mabry Grace  

The whole upstairs and end of the house tour...we won't do the basement

Here you area at the top of the stairs looking down at the foyer. That sweet little table is one from my husband's granddad's house. Going to the right of this picture this is the room you will see.

This is the futon/craft room. Before my craft area was in the basement but I decided that this might work much better for me.

Another view and ladies...here is a large wall that I need something on...suggestions are always welcome. As you can see there is no theme really going on here. What is that show on HGTV where she tries to find your style? What is mine...cheap, yard sale, oh I know 12 months no interest no payments.
Down from the craft room is this guest room. 
Here is another piece from husband's granddad's home. It was actually in his aunts' bedroom. This was my very first attempt at covering furniture and I don't think I did too bad. Even though the bedding is gold, I was contemplating painting this room a blue color but not quite sure of the shade. They have some beautiful fabric to buy in Ballards but I think I have seen it also in Hancock Fabrics or something similar to it. What is holding me back on the painting is this chair (and I have an area rug in this room that has a similar look as the chair), I still love this fabric. What do ya think? Maybe gold and a blue color wouldn't look good together...hmmm.
The last view of this guest room before walking down the hall and making a left and just past the stairs to the bonus room. 

When you come into the bonus room (which is over the 3 car garage so that gives you an idea how large the room is) this is what you see. To the right are two dormers and the bed is to the left.

Here is looking at the two dormers.

Here is the other dormer you couldn't see as well from the above pic but this table and chair set my mother in-law brought back from Germany when they were stationed over there. She had it for many years in her kitchen and gave it to us. At our old house it was in a corner in our family room where we would play cards or games and my husband and one daughter made a hanging lamp over the table from an old metal bucket (wish I had a picture of that to show you) with drilled holes outlining evergreen trees...cute cute cute. I have to confess it wasn't our original idea, we were in a restaurant up home and they had done this over each table and we liked it.

Finally...looking at the bed area in this room. See how large, we can even have a love seat here. I need to add something to the wall in this room also. HELP!

So in conclusion, if you thought you were going to just look at pictures and not have me ask you for some (suggestions) help, you were so sadly mistaken. There are three...count them three questions I have asked for your thoughts and please feel free to share this with other bloggers, friends. the lady at the check out counter and the neighbor dog...I need HGTV.

OPINION... that is what I should have named my blog

I know I said that I probably wouldn't be able to blog for a few days, but hey, it is a few days, right? Anyhow... this isn't a blog about another room on the house tour, this is about my first Susie Harris tassel over at http://susieharris.blogspot.com  (Bienvenue), go check her blog out. Susie graciously had some tassels that she sold at bargain prices because she herself got some deals,  thank you Susie. I have been eyeballing these babies for some time and because Fall is my absolutely favorite season, I had to get me one of those tassels. (Husband didn't know until he got an email from Paypal). So here is the little squash, what'cha think?

Should I place it here on my menu chalkboard??? Nothing on the menu for dinner...hmmm...does that mean we are eating out???

Or maybe on the mirror???
Then again...what about here???

Or here????
Gals, I need your opinion.

Cheri

THANK YOU!!!

Thank you to all those that commented on my blog about my bedroom and what I should do. You all gave me some serious ideas to think about and I appreciate. Thanks so much to you, Brandee, for posting my blog on yours, so that people would come on over and visit me.

Today has been a hectic day and from what husband says, we will be bogged down with work the next few days. I will try to get some more "house tour" pics to post, but if I don't, bear with me and I hope to be back in a few days.

Thanks again ladies for all your comments.

Cheri

The Living Room of the house tour

Just looking at the paint on the walls (paint on the brain here) and it looks like my bedroom wall color but trust me, it isn't. This is standing in the foyer looking at our fireplace and that cute little tree next to the fireplace I got when we went to Seattle for Christmas last year (and I have another one on the other side of the TV which you can't see). We got them in Snoqualmie Falls and it was an ordeal trying to get them home but husband insisted that we get them and that a nice trunk (for aka "hunting gear") would work nice to send them back home. Think he had a devious "man" plan in the works? Hmmm.

This is standing back where the TV is located and front windows and you can see the dining room and large opening into the kitchen. This is great for watching TV (if you have located where we do) and for feeling like part of the group, BUT the ceiling in the living room goes all the way up to the roof and it can carry too much conversation if there are lots of people. Didn't factor that in when we bought the house, we were just thinking how nice it was to have the open spaces. I still like a high ceiling but not sure I would go that high again.   

Sorry about seeing the blanket (forgot to take it down), that is where our Macy (our one doxie) likes to sleep and be able to peer out the window. 
Here you can see our foyer and I love having one. It actually was difficult to find a house with one in it. I hate to walk in the door right into a room. I have lived in houses with both and prefer having a foyer. We are also lucky in the fact that besides that one coat closet door you see, there is another one next to it and it has shelves which is great for storing DVDs and games. Love that too.
This was the color of the old furniture and we had this corner that looked empty so we just kept this chair. It makes for a nice little reading nook.
Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Cheri

Day 3 of house tour - master bedroom

I had taken some pictures last week with the old paint color on the walls and decided over the weekend to paint the room again. Last Fall I painted the room a cream color and for the past 9 months I have tried to like the color; it looked good in the can, but it just wasn't doing a thing for me, so I switched to a medium brown color that I like a whole lot better.  The door to the left is coming into the master bedroom (on the other side of the wall is the kitchen). The color is really a bit darker than what the picture shows and I still have the chocolate brown around the trey ceiling which matches the blades on the fan perfectly (believe it or not).

Here is where my problem lies or maybe it isn't a problem, should I put something on the wall above the headboard?
Here is the old wall color (and this pretty much is what the color looked like) and this gives you a better idea of what else is around the bed.
Pretty much the same picture but with the new paint color.
The other side of the bedroom and that small hall has a double closet on the left for hubby and on the right (even though you can't see it) is a walk in closet for ....you guessed it ME. It actually is nice having this small separation between bedroom and bath.
All opinions are welcome if you'd like to leave a comment:  Should I put something above the headboard and (I am not letting you get off that easy) what do you think it should be? HELP!