Wednesday, November 11, 2009

40 years old and A special gift


Today is my 40th Birthday.


I'm the same age as Sesame Street,


The Brady Bunch

and a little clothing store called The Gap.

I was born the year man walked on the moon for the first time

and my mom missed out on Woodstock

because I was in her belly.


I came into the world at the end of a crazy decade and the beginning of a strange one. I remember almost all of the 70s, was a teenager in the 80s, had both of my kids in the 90s and found the love of my life in this decade, that we're about to say goodbye to this January..... wow.

So the question is..... Do I feel that old?
No.
In fact I feel like I'm still pretty young until someone asks me what year I was born and I have to say 1969. Then I remember my mom saying "Think how I feel" LOL

What have I learned?

That life goes by in the blink of an eye and if you don't remember to appreciate the little, as well as the big moments, they'll be gone before you know it.


You never know how long we have on this earth, so tell your loved ones how much you love them while they're here and while they can still understand what you're saying.

Love can be found at any age and marriage can be fun if you're with the right person.


You need to keep a sense of humor no matter what.


That friends will come and go, but there's a reason for every friendship.

Speaking of friendship....

My special gift came in the form of a request. Kim of Dear Daisy Cottage ....

asked me to guest post for her. I think most of you know she's the reason I started blogging in the first place, so I think it's the perfect 40th birthday gift that she chose me to do a post for her.
Love you Kim :)

Go see what I have to say by clicking 'here'.


Happy Birthday to me ;)

hugs and love,
rue



Birthday trip~ part one

November 12th is my actual birthday (more about that tomorrow!), but Rich took me on a surprise trip last weekend as a birthday present. We stayed in a cabin in the Hocking Hills for two nights with absolutely no distractions and it was fantastic!

We arrived late the first night, but this is the view I woke up to the next morning....


The back door of our little cabin....
and a simple vase of Fall foliage....
along with the view was perfect.




Every morning the owners brought us coffee and homemade muffins...
They were delicious!
As I was looking through the brochure magazine of things to do I found this quote.....
Love that!

It was gorgeous out.....


so we decided to check out the property.....



Rich had noticed this building from our porch....
It turned out to be an abandoned barn.

Let's take a look inside....
Animals don't live here anymore....
Off in the distance is an old house.....
It looks like it's been abandoned for a long time.
Of course our minds started to wander about the old kitchen that was used to cook meals ....
The sink that washed many a dish and maybe a baby or two.....

The living area where a family or a couple enjoyed each other's company after the chores were done....
by the hearth where they warmed themselves during the cold winter seasons....
The walls that at one time kept out the elements...
are all falling down....
How sad. I wonder why they left it behind....
to die all alone in the woods.

Ah well... it's a mystery we'll never know the answer to (sigh).

On back to our little cabin in the woods.....
and time to get ready for an adventure. I'm coming baby :)
The rest of our trip will be continued soon, but today I want to say Happy Veterans Day.....


Remember to thank the members of our military today for their service in protecting this beautiful country of ours....

God Bless our Troops and God Bless America!

hugs and love,
rue


Monday, November 9, 2009

An introduction....

Bear.....oh Bear.......
I want to introduce you. Are you awake?
Everybody, meet Mr. Teddy Bear.....
He's a little sleepy right now, but he said to say hi ;)
Somebody else is not happy with our new baby .....
but he's here to stay :)
More about Bear and where I went with Rich this weekend, coming soon.....

hugs and love,
rue

Friday, November 6, 2009

Been busy!

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long, but there's a lot going on here at PB&J Cottage!

Before I get into that, I want to say thank you so much for all your sweet birthday wishes for Annie. It was an emotional day for me and Rich, since she's getting so grownup, but we had a wonderful dinner out that night as a family :)

So what has been going on here?? Well, the clean up after the floors being redone as well as putting everything back is taking longer than expected and we've started yet another project that has to be done before Christmas......

Yep! The fireplace. We took a good look at it one night, because our curiosity has been getting the best of us to see what was under all the paint. It turns out that the brick above the mantel really wasn't brick at all, but some sort of weird wallpaper. Underneath is a little bit of mold, so it's a good thing we're pulling it off!

Then I started chipping at the paint that was falling off the mantel.....
and we found really smooth brick and intricately carved brick, so we're taking it all off.
Oh and that's not all! We knew that the tile in the middle wasn't original and with great trepidation we decided to take one off....
Sure enough, it didn't belong!
Here's what it looked like a few days ago and we're still working at it.
As soon as we're finished I'll be sure and show you what all our hard work looks like.

In fact I'll be posting pictures of all our progress very soon, but I'm taking a small blogging break until next week. I'll let you know more about the break when I come back ;)

Before I end this post though, I just want to say how sorry I am for all those affected by the tragedy at Fort Hood yesterday. God Bless the soldiers, their families stationed there and all the victims of this horrific event.

Be back soon......

hugs and love,
rue

Monday, November 2, 2009

Happy Birthday Annie

It's my baby girl's birthday today and I decided to share with all of you the post I did last year (although I did add a current picture), since I have so many new readers. Well, that and this post puts tears in my eyes, because even at 14, she's still my baby....

Dear Annie,

When I was pregnant with you, your silly mom blew on Dandelions and wished that God would grace me with a beautiful little girl and he did.....
and not only were you beautiful on the outside, but even more on the inside and I cherished every moment of your babyhood... while you laughed...
crawled....
walked....
and charmed everyone with your smile.
From your first birthday birthday party....
until the birthday party you just celebrated .....
you have been sweet...
and charming....
and funny.....



and have loved to dress up.

You have always had a lot of friends....

You love your grandma....
and look so much like her.
You have always loved your uncle Bobby ...
and you will always be special to him.and even though you and your brother don't always get along he has always held your hand...
when you needed him to.
It's no wonder everyone loves you...
Animals have always had a place in your heart....

and you've always loved babies.....
especially your new cousin.
You can play a mean game of miniature golf......


dance....
sing...
ride a bike in a formal...
snowboard.....
take a great picture...

sell lemonade to anyone...
get dirty...

and have always cleaned up well......

You put the angel on the tree top every year, because your brother is too afraid of heights...
and ever since we bought you your first kitchen....
you've loved to cook...
but you also like to take time to just relax.
It was just the three of us for a very long time....
but then we met the one that changed all that....
and Rich loves you like you were his own little girl...
because in his heart you are.
So when you blow out the candles ....
remember that even when you feel a little unsure....
or feel like hiding ....
or even when you think you're all grown up...
no matter where you run off to...
your family will always love you and you will always be my little girl .....
and no matter how big you get....
I'll always think of you like this.....
even though everyone else sees you like this....
Happy Birthday little girl.

I love you,
Mommy



Saturday, October 31, 2009

Pumpkin Carving

Before I take you inside to carve pumpkins with us, I had to show you how gorgeous it is on our street right now.....Every time I walk outside, I'm overwhelmed by the beauty of Fall around me (sigh).

Anyhoo.....

There's all our babies carving away. Should we see how it's going up close?
Lots of concentration.....


a little bit of direction.....
Hi!
Everyone hard at work....


What are you looking at Rich?
Hmmm..... Annie's shaving her pumpkin. That's different ;)
Busy hands......
and the final result.....



Pretty spooky, huh? ;)

Happy Halloween everyone! Have fun and be safe :)

hugs and love,
rue

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Halloween is upon us...

so I changed my music to the appropriate theme until the day after trick or treating...since many towns are having beggars night starting tonight anyway.

What are all of you doing for Halloween? Are you dressing up?

Tomorrow, hopefully I'll have pictures of our pumpkin carving adventures. See you then ;)

hugs and love,
rue

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Getting back to normal

For the last few months, between the kitchen remodel, the flooring being ripped out and the original wood floors being refinished (not to mention 4 kids, two dogs and a cat running around) it's been a bit chaotic around here, so it's nice to finally be getting back to normal. Right now I'm getting dust out of every crack and crevice of the house and furniture, but I do have a couple of progress pictures....

Here's Rich sanding the dining room floor after ripping out the new wood floor that was covering it.....
and here's the floor after refinishing it.....
Why someone would cover that gorgeous floor up with new wood is beyond us. Can you imagine? Anyway, I have all the furniture back in there, but I still need to do a little bit of touch up work, so pictures are coming soon.

Here's the foyer when Rich had taken out the new wood.....
and here it is now....
Hello gorgeous! ;)
More pictures to come of this room and also the den, which is still a dust bowl at the moment. I knew I should have removed all the books on the shelves in there.... yikes!

In other news, Rich surprised me and customized a drawer for me in the kitchen.....
Now all my flatware fits! You have no idea how happy that made me. Thank you again baby!!

I also wanted to say thank you for being so understanding when we had our "talk" the other day. Just so you know, no one really said anything in particular to me, but I had gotten a few comments hinting about the fact that I was missed and hadn't visited in a while, so I felt I had some splainin' to do ;)

I did forget to mention one thing though, that's been asked a few times. The boys do not live with us full time, but they did for two months. Now they're here about 3-4 days a week and with their mother the rest of the time. Although we're thrilled to have them living here in town, it's been a balancing act, so that, along with the remodel, had me spread a bit thin. Hopefully with the major remodeling finished and the last football game of the season over this weekend things will settle down...... just in time for the holidays to begin LOL

Anyway, thank you so much for being so sweet to me. It's nice to know I'm not alone! Y'all are the best friends a girl could have :)

hugs and love,
rue