My weekend... in backwards order

As you can probably tell, I had a very eventful weekend. It looks as though my next few weekends are going to be eventful as well. Since blogger for some reason inserts the photos in the opposite order that you prefer, I will go in backwards order to describe all that the Dodd family has been up to lately. First of all, we are getting a "new" garage. Actually, it won't be a new garage at all, but it will be straight, pretty, and actually have doors! Woohoo! Work got started yesterday, and as it progresses, I'll post photos. Here's the garage from another view. Here, Tim is building two Carriage style doors out of Cedar. It is going to be SO beautiful!

For my birthday, Meme and Papa bought me a tree! We brought it home on Sunday afternoon and Drew dug a hole for me to plant the tree. I am so excited! Our very first tree. One day, 20 or so years from now, we can show our children the tree we planted, haha. It is a magnolia tree, and it has several blooms already!

Saturday night, Drew and I had our Sunday school class over for a cookout and game night. We played Pictionary and Taboo and had a great time. As much as I hate to admit this, the guys did triumph this time. It won't happen again!

Friday night, Drew and I went to Grace's 11th Birthday Bowling Bash. It was pretty fun until I fell and cracked my head against the floor... ouch! It reminds me of that news story where the girl had to have brain surgery because of the same thing... yikes! Happy Birthday Grace!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Seriously, I have the best friends a girl could ever ask for...

Today is my birthday. I am not too fond of birthdays, and haven't been for a while. I think my mom did too good of a job with them when I was a kid (balloons and crepe paper on the chair at breakfast, special lunch, special dinner, etc), and therefore, since I have been an adult, I just want to feel special on my special day... but it is a lot harder when you have work and responsibilities. Plus, there is now that morbid thought that I am now older and closer to not being young and fabulous, and *dun dun dun* closer to the end of my life. Oh man, you guys are really special that I just admitted something that secret. Whew, that was too deep, let's move on...

Anyway, I have to hand it to my friends, family and co-workers today... they made it a very special day! I woke up tired and a bit grouchy, and went to work. Jessica showed up in the office with my very favorite Starbucks for my birthday. Just what I needed, since the coffee in the office was tasting a bit burnt (ew). Then, Mr. Hines announced my birthday on the loud speaker. That was pretty cool (especially since that hasn't happened in 10 years or so, haha). During 3rd period, Tucker came in my room and gave me a card and a Pez dispenser from him and Jessica. The card told jokes, and the pez dispenser is Jack Sparrow! And inside the card, along with very sweet notes, were 2 tickets to Medival Times!! Jessica's brother is a knight... how cool is that? The day goes on... my 5th period class greeted me by singing Happy Birthday (even though it did not successfully get them out of working), and after a long, grewling Faculty Meeting, I was able to come home to see Drew.

I left my phone at home today, and had a couple calls from Meme and Papa, so, I returned their call to find out that their Birthday present to me is a new tree for my yard!!! I can't wait to see it so that I can post some photos.

I had plans to meet Rebecca for dinner, and when I got to the restaurant, all of my wonderful friends were there to surprise me! Lygia, Lindsey, Crystal, Joanna and Rebecca helped me celebrate being "on the late side of 21" as the waiter said. It was so special, and I really enjoyed myself! I haven't laughed so much in ages.

I am SO blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. If you are reading this, Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I love you all and hope that you know it!

Backyard Spruce Up

Drew and I were able to take some time today to work on our backyard. As I mentioned in my last post, Drew's birthday present to me was some wonderful things for our yard - including the chiminea above, and the flowers. Just wanted to show some photos of all we got accomplished today. I dug out all the old flower beds on the "patio" as we have been calling it, and put in fresh dirt and some plants. Today, we got some BEAUTIFUL blue bonnets (yay Texas!) to plant in the patio. We also have some lantana and some Mexican Feather grass to plant as well, but we need some more dirt before we can plant those. I didn't get a chance to take any photos of the front. Maybe tomorrow! I have crafting to do!

New Items for Sale

Just updated my etsy site and wanted to give you guys a preview of things you might find there (new stuff will be added daily this week (hopefully)). You can get to my page by following this link: www.tothemeasure.etsy.com Hope everyone is having a wonderful Spring week!

A new product I like... AND one I don't!

As I have been trying to tell Stupid Reliant Energy for weeks now, if you have a product a person likes, that person will tell 10 people. If you have a product that someone does NOT like, they will tell 100 people (well, thats an exaggeration, but you get the point). So today, I will try to even that out a bit and tell you one product I found today that I like, and one "product" that I despise and if it were possible, would throw in the garbage!

So, as you may have already guessed, I really really hate Reliant Energy. I have been getting (routinely) 2 months of regular priced bills, and then one month of outrageousness (yes, its a word). Sure, Reliant Energy, check my meter... again. Let's see if that actually does anything this time. Grr. Why are there no good utility companies??

And the product I found today that I like... Weiman Stainless Steel Wipes. Simply wipe it on, and then use a soft cloth and wipe it off and your new stainless steel fridge that your husband bought you for your anniversary will be GORGEOUS! I have heard horror stories about goopy stainless steal cleaner, but this was so easy and did not leave streaks at all! And to think, I only spent 2 hours at a Walmart with screaming children to find this product! Haha. Sorry, I got on a rant about Reliant, and now I am feeling feisty!

So, this is spring break, and I plan to enjoy it. The girls are in town, and tomorrow we are going to plant some flowers in the back yard. Drew bought me my birthday present today, so that I would have time to use it during spring break. It is an AWESOME wheelbarrow (more like a wagon), a Chiminea, and some beautiful flowers for the back yard. Our house will look amazing for game night in a couple weeks. I'll post photos soon of our sucesses tomorrow.

Annie

Here are a few photos from this year's FBA Spring Musical, Annie.

Annie and Daddy Warbucks

The Orphans

And of course... Miss Hanagan (is that how you spell it?)

I applaud all of my students who performed SO well! Congratulations on a job well done!

Spring has Sprung!

*sigh* It is spring... and it is the weekend... could life be better? The WONDERFUL FBA musical, Annie, is over now, and Interim Term at school is next week. The Yearbook is ALMOST done, and I can finally take a breath and slow down to a normal busy pace, rather than breaking my neck day in and day out. I have breathed MANY sighs of relief in the past few days.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a Pampered Chef party. It was great! I got my products in this week and have had SO much fun cooking and cutting things up and using all my fun stuff. I bought their cookbook 29 minutes to Dinner and highly recommend it! A couple of nights ago, I made BLT Macaroni for Drew and I. B = bacon, L = leeks, and T = tomatoes. I had never cooked with leeks before, but it was super tasty and I would definitely make it again. Tomorrow night is Toasted Angel Hair with Sausage and Peppers. I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe with some photos...

Today, Drew and I set out to do some spring maintenance to our yard. Drew mowed, I pulled weeds and fertilized. I always feel such a sense of accomplishment when I do something to my house. There are a lot of projects I would really like to take care of this spring/summer, but really don't know anyone to do them. A couple I can do myself: Paint the front door, and re-do the junk room so that it is actually livable. If I paint my front door, do I have to take it off, or can I just paint it in place? Do I have to sand it first if it is just wood, not painted now? Other things I would like to accomplish: putting new garage doors up, and building a deck. I have daydreams about how beautiful my home will be this summer when we have had a chance to tackle some of these projects!

This is the amazing weed I picked from my side yard. I was amazed at how big it was, and that I hadn't noticed it really until today. It is kid sized! I felt like I needed a machete to hack down all the weeds that were with this one.

Drew mowing the lawn. Isn't he cute?

Beautiful trees in my front yard. I think they are peach trees, but I have never seen one bloom like this before!

A close-up of one of the blooms.

This beautiful flower came from my sister, Emily, as an anniversary gift to Drew and I. We recently celebrated our 3rd anniversary!

As I said earlier, next week is Interim Term at FBA. This is a really interesting thing that the school does so that kids get to have experiences they wouldn't normally have in the classroom. There is a group going to Italy, and one to San Francisco (I of course am not lucky enough to be on one of those). My group is staying in Dallas, but we are visiting several local museums. I am really excited about this! Not only do I not get to go to museums enough, I never get to go for free, so, that will be awesome. We are going to see the King Tut exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art, visiting the Modern and the Amon Carter in Fort Worth, going to the Dallas Holocaust Museum and hearing a survivor speak, and also visiting the Roughton Gallery and the Meadows Museum. I really hope that the 13 students I will have next week enjoy this as much as I will!

I'll post some photos of Annie in a while, too many photos in this post already