Friday Favorites...Lazy Summer

It has been another lazy week of summer over here. I'm thinking I may need to stage an X-Box intervention with a certain teenager soon because I'm fairly certain he now qualifies as a full-fledged addict. Dracen went shopping with me yesterday and I was sort of thinking out loud as I wondered how anyone could spend that much time at something so unproductive and he (with all his nine and a half year old wisdom) said, "Ah, he's just going through a phase." 

He's nine going on sixty-five. Sometimes. Other times, he's nine going on three.  We had bought a twelve pack of Cokes when we were out yesterday, along with a new decorative metal bird stake for the yard which he absentmindedly stabbed into the box of Cokes, poking holes in two of them and spewing sticky all over the kitchen floor. I was livid. When I questioned him about why he did it, he had no good answer other than he just didn't think that would happen. 

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

So that's a pretty good example of what our summer has been like over here so far. Unless you count the yard work. Last Saturday we had a ginormous dump truck of mulch delivered and spent the entire day spreading it, after I trimmed the excessive amount of  sticker bushes that came with this house. I have scabs on both thumbs from the rake rubbing the skin off.  That was fun. And we still need another load or two for the rest of the yard since I'm still looking at that red mulch from last year in my shade garden. I guess, as Dracen would say, I was "just going through a phase" because I am so completely over that red mulch. 

And speaking of the shade garden, Charlie and I decided to buy a teak bench as a five year wedding anniversary gift to ourselves. Our anniversary is the 28th of this month and we've always tried to stick with the traditional gifts. The five year gift is wood. I've never owned anything teak but I hear it is supposed to last a lifetime. I'm really liking the style of this one, my first "favorite" this week...

Teak Garden Bench

Source

A Great Summer Read

I've been reading Sophie's blog, BooMama, for the last

three years or so and just love her and her down to earth 

writing style so much. Her first book, A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet:

Southern Stories of Faith, Family, and Fifteen Pounds of Bacon

was released on June 4th and I pretty much devoured

it on my Kindle in one day. She made me cry, she made me

burst with laughter and she made me shout "Amen, sister!"

page after page after page. I can't recommend her book enough.

Fit and Flare Tee Dress

I love a good casual dress in the summer.

I bought two of these from Old Navy awhile back, in black

and green, and just love them to pieces. It is one of

the most comfortable dresses I have ever owned and

a flattering cut to boot...doesn't cling. But the best part

is, they are marked down to 18 dollars!

Warning Bell

We need this. Not because they are ferocious

beasts who will eat you alive but as a warning

to cover your ears before you ring that bell because

LOUD does not begin to describe the level of

barking that ensues when it goes off.

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 Yes!

Love this.

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Sailor Stripe Backpack

I ran across this the other day and just

thought it was the cutest little thing for summer.

parc boutique

Just Because...

Dogs driving cars always crack 

me up. It's just who I am.

Pinterest

A Summer Recipe

Mouth-watering watermelon bars.

The first good watermelon I get my hands on this year,

I am so making these.

rightathome

 Braided Sandals from Target

I had been looking for a cute pair of gold sandals and

found these at Target for 15 dollars. And they're

comfortable too!

A Fun Song

I don't find myself listening to Country as

much as I once did but when Blake Shelton

performed this on The Voice a couple of weeks ago,

I started thinking maybe I should turn it over to the Country

station every once in awhile.

  

And that's it for this week. I'll try not to stay away so long this time.

Happy Weekend,

So, it's been awhile...

We are working on our second full week of summer vacation over here and I am thoroughly enjoying the lack of schedules and early morning stupors although Dracen is going to baseball camp from 9 to 12 four days this week. While one would think that something he loves so much would be motivation for him to get right on up out of bed when he is awoken at 8:15 a.m., one would be oh so very wrong. That boy has always had an independent streak a mile wide (I do it myself!) but when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning, Mr. Independent goes AWOL and it's all Mr. Help-I'm Helpless-And-I-Can't-Get-Up. 

His brother has been sleeping until ungodly hours of the day and spending most every one of his waking moments upstairs on the XBox which, in light of the dream I woke up from this morning, doesn't really seem all that bad. It was one of those dreams where you wake up gasping for breath and then quickly thanking the good Lord that it was all just a very bad dream and then praying that it never, ever, ever comes true...

I made the discovery that he had somehow managed to sneak away enough hours to have his entire torso tattooed with the most ridiculous and meaningless of tattoos. Y'all. I'm not even kidding when I say that I scared the bajeebies out of myself because I broke out a can of mama rage on him that I didn't even know I owned.

I demanded to know WHO? WHAT? WHEN? and WHERE? because somebody was dang sure gonna pay...and the next thing I knew I was all up in the face of some long-haired hippie dude (I guess I got my answers) giving him a great big scary piece of my mind, complete with spit flying, informing him that I'd be seeing his arse in court because he had made the biggest mistake of his life when he took it upon himself to tattoo my thirteen year old and that I would spend the rest of my life, if I had to, making sure he went down in scorching flames.

The last thing I remember was the look of pure terror on this guy's face when the realization hit him that he had just been served his worst nightmare because everybody knows that hell hath no fury like a mama bear scorned. 

And then I woke up.

I think the dream was somehow prompted by the gazillion chigger bites he and Dracen got while helping their popaw do some yard work last Friday. They both got eaten up with them and as I was applying some Benadryl to the ones on Devin's back, I realized that he's grown some more and is now not only a couple of inches taller than me but a whole head. It is the most peculiar, surreal feeling to watch the tiny baby you gave birth to surpass you in height and weight. Bittersweet.

In other news, I've been spending much of my time working in the yard and just haven't been able to find the motivation to blog much. I get the feeling my posts will most likely continue to be fewer and farther between for awhile, or at least until the temperatures soar into the upper 90s and the humidity rises to a hundred and sixty-two percent, in which case I'll be here every day whining about how  my unruly hair has jumped the train tracks to Frizzville and I can't go outside because it's just hotter than blue blazes out there.

But then again, I may be back tomorrow because I'm just all reckless and unpredictable like that. 

I will leave you with a photo of the Adirondack chairs I painted duck egg blue last week. Charlie's best friend, Paul, made them for us a couple of years ago and I suddenly got the urge to give them a makeover. This color makes me plumb giddy...

Happy June!

Friday Favorites...Summertime

It has been a busy week, what with all the end-of-school-year festivities, ceremonies and shenanigans I had to attend. And then Devin's baseball practices started up while Dracen's season was finishing up so it was baseball overload there for a few days. 

The fact that I don't have to get up at that ridiculous dark thirty hour for over three.whole.months thrills me more than it probably should. I swear I think I get more excited about that than the kids do. But somehow I  forgot to turn my weekday alarm off last night when I went to bed and was all kinds of confused and disoriented when that thing went off at its normal just-before-the-butt-crack-of-dawn hour this morning but the satisfaction I got from laughing in that iPhone's face when I turned it off and rolled back over was just about worth it. (I have issues. Clearly.)

I'm still sitting here in my pajamas in the sunroom (after 10:00 a.m.) sipping coffee out of my Wonder Woman mug with the gorilla-glued handle and feeling no shame in my game whatsoever about it.

Devin had two friends over last night who all promptly disappeared into the bonus room and aside from the time they came down scavenging for food before we went to bed last night, I haven't heard hide nor hair from any of them and Dracen is still hard at sleep as well. I think I see a summer chore list in their near future but today I'm giving them a free first-day-of-summer-vacation pass...

Fun in the Sun

I've always loved this summer pic of Dracen taken at 

the beach in 2007. He still does that curling of the lip thing.

Fancy Firepit

I've been wanting to build a firepit in the

backyard for awhile now and hope to bring that plan

to fruition this summer. I am practically drooling over this one...

source

Serenity

I have no idea where this is, but I'd love to

spend about a week in that hammock doing nothing

but reading and napping. 

 source

Beaded Thong Sandals

I'm seriously crushing on these.

Garnet Hill

Patriotic Trifle

How cute is this?

Perfect for Memorial Day or the 4th.

betty crocker

Great advice

This cracked me up.

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Swimming Hole

This just made me smile.

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Turquoise Bohemian Bracelet

Love this for summer.

etsy

  My little friend

I don't know what is up with the chipmunks this year

but they are everywhere around here.

This one was kind enough to pose for me the other morning.

Summertime

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!