Wouldn't you know it...

...we're in beautiful Portugal and...

...we've hit daylight savings time again! That's two hours we'll never get back!

Obviously we've been very busy--no time to post!!

Friday Funnies

Five Things Thursday

1. Dolly has partnered with Duncan Hines for two of her favorite cakes. There is also two types of frosting.

Is there anything Dolly can't do?

2. 

My sentiments exactly!

3. This is so cute!

I wish I'd thought of it when my grands were little!

4. This puts it in perspective.

5. This is a great idea!

Now if I can only remember it!

Travel Tuesday

By the time you are reading this, we will be in Portugal. This trip was rescheduled three times. We're just happy to be finally doing it. We're with my brother, Matt and sister-in-law, Sharon. 

Also my other sil, Janet is with us. 

We'll be here for a week. 

Still, I have a little travel report. It's just not ours. 

Last week, Stephanie and Mindy were working from the beach. Unfortunately for them, the weather didn't cooperate. It was a bit chilly and rainy most of the time. But one day, Stephanie sent me this:

One of her favorite things to do is to start her day by walking on the beach with her coffee. Now don't be fooled. She doesn't go for sunrise. She doesn't get up THAT early! I'm just glad she managed to have at least one decent day. 

Later in the week, the girls sent me this:

The caption was: "We're smoking candy cigarettes! Are we in trouble?" I responded, "Shame on you!" 

Actually, this is so hilarious! When the girls were little, Butch would not let them have candy cigarettes. He felt like that promoted a bad habit. I didn't really agree with that as I remembered the fun I had with candy cigarettes when I was little. Hmmm. Actually, now that I think back on it, he might have been right. I did become a smoker! Luckily, I left that bad habit behind when we left St. Louis on January 1, 1977. But I do still remember how much fun those candy ones were--and they tasted good too. The bubble gum ones contained powdered sugar. So if you blew out rather than inhaling, you actually got smoke!! Fun!

I don't think the girls are in danger of picking up this bad habit. We no longer have any smokers in the family. 

If I have a little time--which is pretty doubtful, I'll try to send a few photos soon!

Monday Mystery

Do you know what this is?

What the heck is a "pummelo?" It looks like a grapefruit except bigger. But for $3.00, I'm not taking a chance. Hey, wait! I'm going to look it up! Hold on while I do that.

Okay, the first thing I learned is that it's actually called a "pomelo." 

A fruit that goes by many names; pomelos are also called pompelmoes, shaddock, or pummelos. These delicious citrus fruits originated in the South.

Pomelos are an incredibly under-appreciated member of the citrus family. They look like larger grapefruits.

Okay this is crazy. Somehow that word turned blue and I cannot get it back to black. Even though I change it to black it reverts to blue again. Computers---sheesh!

Then I came across this statement:

It is so refreshing and makes you come alive again.

Well there you go! I want to come alive again. I'm going to have to buy it! Seems a bargain at 3 bucks to come alive! Again! I guess because it has such powers, they can't just call it a grapefruit--or a jumbo grapefruit. It's a pummelo. Plain and simple.

Mystery solved. 

Some Things for Sunday

1. I just knew something was not quite right with my Easter decor. I started thinking about it and was wondering where the pitcher, teapot and a few other things I knew I had---were. Then I found this:

I had Butch get in to the cabinets above the refrigerator and lo and behold, there was the rest of my "stuff!"

The crazy thing about this---I have stored all of the Easter decor here for 25 years. I guess it's another "old" thing that I forgot! 

Now it looks right. Before it was all too "flat." There wasn't enough dimension.

I was wondering what happened to my faux foil bunnies. I thought that maybe I had given it all away already. I just might after this season. I need to send the pictures to all the girls and see if anyone wants anything.

2. Recently, I came upon this scene.

I never knew how signs were put up or even what they were made of. I never really thought about it, but I never dreamed it was some sort of fabric.

It was one guy all by himself in a cherry picker. He had a long pole and raised it up in the middle first. Then he did the same thing on either side. I couldn't figure out how it was affixed in such a way that it would just stay. It seems like the wind would catch it. Whatever. Interesting.

3. Time to deal with this:

In my organizing efforts in my scrapbook room, I was putting this off. It's a huge "glob" of photos that need to be sorted and put in to my "working" albums. That's the term I use for photos that I might need--or not--that I am not ready to get rid of quite yet. I don't know why I put it off. It won't take very long at all. A half hour at most. That will make me happy.

4. Speaking of organizing, I saw a good idea for storing washi tape. I started with this:

A 12x12 storage box full of washi tape. This works perfectly fine, but I seldom drag it off the shelf and use any of it. Then after seeing that organizing idea where someone used a Saran wrap box to organize them, I remembered this:

A friend of mine gave me this fancy, wrap holder box for Christmas. The problem is that it wouldn't fit in my kitchen drawer where all the wraps reside. I really didn't know what I was going to do with it. And now, it's this:

I put an assortment of tapes in the box. Now I can keep this on my table and actually use it. Plus, it will be handy to take on my twice a year scrapbook retreats. There's defintely plenty to share as those washi rolls have alot of tape on them.

5. Okay, I'm doing this:

I mentioned a method that I had read about for cleaning out your closet. Put your hangers backwards on the rod. So, I took the time to switch mine. I don't like how it looks. At. All. But, I'm going to live with it and see how it goes. When I wear something, I'll turn the hanger in the right direction. After a period of time--say 3 months, I'll know which clothes I wear consistently and which I don't. You'll notice on the right, that the hangers are turned the right way. These are my "around the house clothes" which I wear most of the time. Funny that there are so few. Hmmm, when this experiment is over, I'll move more of the nicer clothes that I don't wear to this side. Then I'll look nice even when I'm hanging out at home. Heck, why not? We'll see.

I didn't turn the top hangers--although I need to. But, I cannot reach this high. I barely can put them on the rod as is. Look at all those white tops. Surely there are many that could be "weeded out." Baby steps.

Okeedokie. That's it for today.

Scrapbook Saturday

Beach Projects--I wanted Butch to make the sign "BEACH" to match the little one in the miniature beach cottage. I was amazed at what he came up with! It was perfect and exactly the same! That was just one of the many projects he did for our beach condo!

This layout is our "round robin." Only Karolyn and I did it this month. Notice the hand stitching that I did on a couple of the squares. That's the thing I love about our "round robin"--we all want to do interesting and fun things for these layouts. 

Here, I used all of the extra photos to cut the title. It was a pretty simple layout, but it covers it all!

This layout is about the remodel we did at the beach. I did the "remodel" on the computer and printed it on vellum. I layered it over a die cut of the Santa Rosa Beach title.

Of course we love 30A! This layout is all about what we love!

I've had a fun couple of weeks scrapbooking. Still a few to come!