Ramblings...

I am super busy but not really doing anything worth writing about if you know what I mean... I figured I'd just ramble on a bit about what I've been up... 

I keep starting posts about Allison's & my trip to Montana to visit Montana State but keep deleting them soon after... I don't know why... It was a good trip overall so why wouldn't I want to blog about it? 

I realized mostly because of Allison... She hates the pictures I took with her in them and since that is about 99% of them I don't have many to share... 

Here is one of the campus...

She LOVES  the school & town and is very excited to start this new chapter!

We stayed with some good friends from when we lived there that we have kept in touch with. For me it was wonderful to catch up with them and we talked and talked and talked... Sometimes all night! 

Since we moved when Allison was 4 1/2 years old and we have only seen these friends one other time since we left she felt somewhat awkward at first but by the end she was starting to be her normal bubble, sparkly self. They have five sons ages 11-26 and even though they visited us for a couple days when we were living in Tennessee she has very little memory of them and felt awkward quite a bit staying with them. We do not have a lot of extended family that we visit so I realized she has very little experience being a house guest for more then a night or two... It was good for her... 

Here is a picture from our friends living room window... I forgot how much I love the mountains... I know we live in an amazingly beautiful place but every ounce of me longs to move back to Bozeman. (You never know what the future holds!) 

In other news, My Mary & Martha business is going very well!

We have some fun summer exclusive items right now so I do a post about them later this week! 

Katy got to go with me to a vendor show in Auburn recently and it was fun to spend the day with her! It is a little over two hours from here so we got to spend all day just the two of us. I realized we hadn't done that since she had the baby. One of the nice things about Goobie getting a bit older is her being comfortable leaving her with Jed for more then just a couple hours. 

This little girl will be one year old this Saturday! 

I can't believe it either...

She has brought such joy into our lives... Just when you think your cup is full grand children come along and it overflows! 

We are having a party for her here Saturday that Allison has started calling "Goobie-palooza" 

It is a "Giraffe Garden Party" theme (since they are her favorite animal) and this will be the star of the party...

I will post pictures after the fact... It should be a totally crazy day!

Father's day was a good day around here...  

The kids gave Paul (and me too I guess) a little upgrade... 

Let's see if you can spot it...

Wait... Did I ever show you my new media cabinet? It took me a whole year to find just the right one... 

It is from Pottery Barn and was delivered while we were in Seattle...

New Media Cabinet before father's day:

And after father's day:

Can you spot the upgrade? 

We were literally the last people we know to break down and get a flat screen TV... The old one worked just fine and the 32" smart TV we bought Christmas 2012 seemed like a huge upgrade from the 22" old school TV we had before. We are now up to 48" which is I am sure small to many of you but I feel like we are watching our own private cinema screen! 

While I am at it... I took some pictures of the new sofa with my cell tonight so you can see it... 

Yes, we went back to a sectional... With such a small house it really maximizes the seating... With the more traditional sofa/love seat combo we had we generally only seated three to four at a time but all five of us (when Katy & Jed visit) plus Goobie can sit on this sofa and watch a movie comfortably! 

I guess I should have smoothed out the slip cover and adjusted the curtains before I snapped the photos but it is after 10 PM so I guess I'll keep it real for y'all!  

I know the pillows look a bit small but I have some fun flag ones I will get out in the next few days that will really fill it up a bit more! 

My current issue is the wall arrangement on the long wall... It looks a bit smallish over the over-sized sofa to me... 

I have other things I could try in this spot and may move this arrangement to the hallway and do something different here in the next week or so... I'd like to do it before the party this weekend but with my step-mom coming in from out of town and 25+ people coming over Saturday for the birthday party my to do list is already really, really long... 

Our friends who we stayed with in Montana are coming to visit over the 4th of July... They will be here for a week and we will divide our time between here and our cabin on the island... I am super excited for their visit! Allsion & Katy think I should use their visit to revive our tradition of 4th of July parties... We would do big ones every year until we moved to Tennessee and apparently the girlies miss them. I'd love to have one too but I assume most of the people we know have their own traditions and annual plans and would hate to throw a big party and have nobody show up... Especially with out of town company... I'm still toying around with the idea but am undecided at this point. 

The day after they leave Allison, another member of my M&M team and I will be flying down to Kansas City for Mary & Martha's annual conference! (More travel!!) I signed up last July literally days before their last conference so of course I didn't go and I am very much looking forward to this one. Every year they do a "theme" night and this year's is "Prom Through the Ages"... This is my nightmare... As a plus-size woman I have a hard enough time coming up with clothes that look somewhat flattering and that I don't hate... But a prom dress!?!?!?!  Seriously????   I am sure most of the consultants are headed to the local consignment shops to pick out a dress but I am a bit harder to fit then that. As I looked up dresses online I could tell that I was going to be investing at least $200 in a dress just to have one fit... I was unwilling to spend that on a dress that I could only wear once so instead of a traditional "prom" style I went with a more simple "formal" style in navy...

It came in last week and it fits... YAY! I might even go so far as to say it's a bit flattering... I am even starting to look forward to the night a little bit! 

I know I said I've been super busy with boring stuff... Most of what I've been up to has to do with my Mary & Martha business and home maintenance / improvements... The maintenance is boring (but expensive) such as two new windows, a new leech field (yuck and set us back almost $10,000!!), and tree maintenance... The improvements are slightly more exciting... Fun new trim paint... A new seating area in the yard... A new garden... Just to name a few... All of these are nearing completion and will hopefully be ready for the weekend... We just might (for the first time since we took over my parent's house) have a yard that isn't embarrassing to have people see for a change... (Of course there are projects that won't be done in time but I won't dwell on those!) I will take pictures of everything to share next week after the party! 

Thanks for listening,