Gettin' Ready

Hey Ya'll!

This is a notice that all my blogging will be put on hold indefinitely (HAH, just kidding... not indefinitely) ;) ... until our YARD SALE is done on Saturday afternoon.

Hey, if you know our family in real life and are going to be in the area tomorrow (Friday the 16th) or Saturday (the 17th) come on over! We'd love to see you, and we'd love it even more if you leave with some of our stuff in hand. Lol!

Really though, we have TONS of AWESOME stuff. I'll post pictures of it all later so that you people who can't come won't miss out on the beauteous sight! :D I'm selling high-quality handmade earrings for only $1.00 a pair (a rare occurence!) And I'm also parting with many lovely treasures (including a really big wooden dollhouse...) that someone surely will be delighted to discover! :D

I'm afraid some of us who will *cough* remain unnamed *cough*-parents-*cough* have caught "Get-ridda-it" fever and have frenetically turned the house upside down, searching for any loose objects they can find to sell with a manaical gleam in their eye. I've tried to rescue a few things from this frenzied pilfering but with little success. Do you think we all have a little pack-rat inside us somewhere? I think I must. ;)

The reason I have not posted at all on here this week is because we've been running around like ... well, never mind what like... we've been extremely busy this week sorting out lots of things that we no longer want, that OTHER people will hopefully want and pay for with cold hard cash! (Every little bit helps, and the electric bill isn't getting any prettier any time soon!) :D lol! That's why I've been so scarce in bloggy-land.

Ok, I must run for now. The shower is now open and we have a BIG day tomorrow!

Please Pray for a successful sale for us! Your prayers are very much appreciated. :)

Blessings,



P.S. What do you think of my absolutely gorgeous new blog makeover? I did it all myself and I'm thrilled top to bottom with how it came out!! :) Want a new background yourself? Click Here.

I've never been so scared by a trash can in my entire life

I should have been folding laundry, but I took a break in between two baskets to check my email. I was staring glumly at the "0 Unread Emails" statement when I heard a slight rustling sound, almost like a small insect moving about. I looked under my desk, from where the sound seemed to be proceeding from, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.

I clicked on my blog and amused myself by snooping on the Live Traffic Feed on the sidebar, seeing who was visiting (and not bothering to comment! Shame on ya'll!) and who had come from where (As an aside, will the person from Mankato, Minnesota who visits me every day introduce themselves? I would love to meet you!) ;)

WHEN SUDDENLY.....

I heard more rustling. And as ducked down from my position in the computer chair and looked underneath my desk, something MOVED in the little wastebasket and looked like it was crawling out of the can! As my heart ceased beating in my chest, the laptop cord fell out of the trashcan with a loud THUMP on the floor, startling me nearly out of my senses! I gasped in fright and shrieked at the same time. (If such an action is possible).

Yeah. I literally took a picture so you could see what I was talking about. ;)

(The laptop cord is connected to the laptop on top of the desk, and plugs into the wall. It happened to be resting on top of a plastic grocery bag that was smushed inside the trashcan)

I can hardly describe the totally crazy adrenaline rush and overpowering fright that washed over me even as I realized in that exact instant that there was nothing to be afraid of. (!!!!) What made everything worse was the fact that my brother Mark was reading his History in the soft armchair across the room and he instantly looked up to see what was the matter and witnessed the whole thing. I gasped "Oh my goodness!" and all at once I saw the humor in the situation and I started laughing so hard tears came to my eyes!

{In my own defense, we get lots of scorpions and other critters in our log home in the woods, so it's not uncommon to see unusual bugs in unusual places now and then, so my high alert was completely understandable.}

I was so freaked out by the cord falling out of the trashcan that when I started to stand up my legs buckled underneath me and I sat down on the floor. Lol! I couldn't believe how scared I was. I think most of it had to do that I was leaning down in an awkward, undefensible position and the can was only a few inches from my nose when it happened.

I'm not sure why I decided to share this story with you - it was certainly hilarious but you sort of 'had to have been there', if you know what I mean. ;)

Anyway, I hope it tickled your funnybone in some way (laughter doeth good like a medicine!).

The SOS outfit for day 5 will be posted sometime this evening, so come on back for that! :)

I had a Brownie for Breakfast today...

I had a brownie for breakfast today.

And why I did it, I just couldn’t say,

But I played very hard on a field yesterday

It was Ultimate Frisbee on a rainy Friday.

We had so much fun in the mud and the grass,

I almost didn’t mind that my team came in last

We tried our hardest, but all to no avail,

And alas, when we lost, I held back a wail.

Afterwards, we cleaned up, and then we went back

To the house and the kitchen for a yummy snack

But the room was so crowded with Frisbee fans

That I hardly could get to my brownie pan.

I managed to grab one, but it was so small,

I felt that I’d not had a brownie at all.

In two bites, or less, it was gone from my sight

And then we drove home through the darkening night.

I rode home with Daddy; Mom was in the van,

Zipping along in our ‘Dodge Caravan’

Containing our brownies, so I had no chance

To fulfill my longing for chocolate romance

And when we got home, I felt like a dud,

I jumped in the shower and scrubbed off the mud

Then flopped into bed, and though I wasn’t mad,

I was remembering muscles I’d forgotten I had

But I fell asleep, slept all through the night

Then awoke just to see in the bright morning light

That I’d slept in so late that it wasn’t so early

I’d slumbered in bed until nearly 10:30!

At once I got up and went into the kitchen

And then once I got there – what did I see?

A shiny pan of brownies just waiting for snitchin’

Sitting there, calling and winking at me

I lifted the foil, and oh – there they were

Beckoning, and promising much tasty pleasure

So what’s my excuse? Well, what can I say?

But that I had to have

A brownie,

For breakfast,

Today.

When Julia isn't blogging...

One of my very good friends remarked once, on hearing that I had been very busy lately... "I thought that's what it was, it seems that when Julia isn't blogging, she's really busy!" How right she was. :D

When I'm busy, I don't blog! It gets bumped back to the bottom of my priorities. Laundry, Dishes, Housecleaning, and checking my email all come first. :D

Also, I feel like for some strange reason that my blog posts should be meaningful and have a great and important topic. I feel silly typing away for no reason about not much, or giving little tiny tidbits of information on what I'm doing recently. (Why the picture of the beach? Well, that was rather random, but it conveys such a sense of serenity that I knew that... somehow... it went with this post. :D)

Take a deep breath. Now let it out slowly. Ahhhhhhh. Didn't that feel good? I sometimes have to stop and do that in the midst of a hectic day. It clears the mind. :)

Today I got my bedroom all clean and vacuumed the floor... and put away the piles of clean laundry left over from Wednesday... :D I feel so much more peaceful when my bedroom floor is all clean. You know what I mean? Somehow, when the area around me is cluttered, my mind feels cluttered too.

My next huge, gi-normous project is organizing my jewelry worktable. Oooooiiiiiyyuuugh. (That was a groan) My creative moods, oh-so-wonderful for designing jewelry, leave much to be desired in the area of... um... neatness. :P In other words, when I'm playing around with beads and colors and silver and crystal... I make a royal mess! :D

I'll have to take before-and-after photos so you can see what I mean. :) It needs to be done soon so I can start bulking up my inventory for a jewelry show in March. Having lots of beautiful stock on hand will be nice when it's a week before the show and I'm quickly and efficiently (hah, or frantically and crazily) finishing up the last few hundred pairs of earrings. :D

Anyway, thank you for reading my evening musings and do take a moment to drop me a comment. It's such lovely thing, hearing from you! What have you been busying yourself with recently? I'd love to hear about it. :D



P.s.
I just did a post on MOHL, if you want to read it.

What to do when the guy in the music store is staring at you

A Quiz. ;)

You walk into an unassuming little music store with your mother. Three guys are inside running the store and one of them spots you coming in and quickly moves to the counter before the other two can get there. As you walk up, he says "Hi! What can I do for you?" Your mom has some questions to ask about a microphone that will record voice and piano and transmit the sound into a laptop, so she talks to the very helpful young man for several minutes. The young man is very polite, answering everything she asks and getting several different microphones for you to inspect, but meanwhile he keeps shooting little glances your way when your mother looks down at the microphones on the counter.

Do you:

A. Smile prettily at him
B. Frown at his forwardness
C. Assume a very bored expression 
D. Hide behind your mom
E. Smile politely and look away
F. Say that you forgot something and retreat to the car outside

When your mother is finally done talking about microphones, she asks the guy where to find voice training books, and he says "Right this way", walking out from behind the counter and leading you over to the book room. (He could have just pointed it out to you...) He then begins to look through the drawers to help you find your books, even though all the drawers are clearly labeled and you could have easily found the 'Voice' section all by yourself. He jokes that the bookkeeper would know more about the books than he does, but shows you where to find the voice books, and then finally leaves you to peruse the selection.

While waiting for your mother to find any books she might want, do you:

A. Tiptoe over to the door to the book room and peek out at the guy
B. Hide in the corner farthest from the entrance and cover your head with a piano theory book
C. Engross yourself in a contemporary christian songbook, shutting out the world for a while
D. Walk around in circles
E. Note that there is now "Twilight" music and feel disgusted at the obsession people have with it
F. Do jumping jacks in an attempt to get the guy's attention

After a mere four or five minutes, the overly attentive young man returns and says "Are you all finding everything okay?" Your mom says yes, and that you are about done (There wasn't anything there you needed) And she begins to walk out. The young man leans an elbow against the wide doorway, and as you walk out a few feet behind your mom he looks directly into your eyes and smiles.

Do you:

A. Swoon
B. Slap him
C. Burst out laughing
D. Smile and keep going
E. Stop and ask him if he needs a map, because he seems to be lost in your eyes
F. Bolt for your car
G. Look at him like he's weird

When you reach your vehicle (finally!) and tell your mom that you think the guy kind of liked you, she is surprised, because apparantly the guy wasn't obvious enough to attract her attention...(or he was subtle enough when trying to flirt with you that she didn't see him) also she was distracted with the microphones, and then searching for a voice training book. You laugh about it together and she remarks that they probably don't see pretty girls in there very often, and so when you came in they all went "ooh, look at her, and wow, look at that hair!" ... (as your hair falls so long that you can sit on it)... So you laugh, and forget about the whole thing....... right?

:D

And yes, this happened to yours truly, and no, I didn't flirt back or hide. (Surely you didn't think I would??)
I actually think I handled it rather well.
I just couldn't resist doing a blog post on it! :D