21-30 one thousand gifts

21. time alone

22. time alone to worship my Father

23.  being 1 of 9000

24.  getting to see a new friend in real life

Me and Ellen from The Hairbow Chronicles

25.  Beth Moore

26.   a sweet husband to take me and pick me up

27.  planting new life

28.  the idea of fresh vegetables

29.  buckets left from when this was a real farm

30.  a family that missed me

I had an amazing weekend, hope you enjoyed yours.  Beth moore was amazing, I wish you all could have been there.

Cha Cha

HOW I MET MY HUSBAND, PART 1

Kelly from Kelly's Korner is hosting a link party today and the theme is How I Met My Husband. Because this is a story I want my children and grandchildren to know, I decided to join in.




I want to start by saying this is my version of the story the way I remember it, other people may have different details to add.



It was 1997 and I had been at my then job for a few months and was enjoying every minute of it. I was making new friends, one of those was a girl named Brandi. She and I had started to get to know one another better and were enjoying the beginning stages of a new friendship. One day at work she asked if I would be interested in going on a blind date with her cousin, Jeremy.  Jeremy's family was planning a surprise party for him.   To get Jeremy to his surprise party some of the family invited him on a blind date as the cover story to get him to the party location. This is where I came in, I was the blind date... I had sworn off dating the year before, but felt I was ready to try it again. So, I said yes. I had met Brandi's mom and sisters and knew they were nice and fun to be around this made me feel safe to go even if nothing happened with the date. I thought it sounded like a harmless, fun night out.


The night of the party came and I met Brandi at her parent's house where I was introduced to my future husband's Granny for the first time.

 Let's just take a moment to talk about Granny... She was perfection, grey hair, a plump little body, enough sass and spunk for 10 people, a heart of pure gold and she had arms that gave the greatest hugs. We named our firstborn after her ( Audrey, not Granny). We miss her still and my heart aches that my girls don't have memories of her.


That night before we left Brandi's house, I had fallen in love with Granny. She had pulled me aside to show me a picture of Jeremy and to warn me that he was a BIG guy (and he was a big guy, over 6 ft. tall and at that time around 250 lbs., my first thought was oh no, a jock, not my type). We leave to go to the party. When we get there I am introduced to the rest of the family and suddenly I realize what I have gotten myself into. I was in a fish bowl, about to meet a guy for the first time with 20(+) strangers watching my every move. Was I crazy or what? So as the time came for Jeremy's arrival everyone hid in the kitchen, except his cousin Caughey and Caughey's wife Elizabeth. Sooo here I sit on a sofa with two people I don't know with 20 more people I don't know hiding in the kitchen, my heart is pounding.



In the mean time Jeremy is coming to the party and knows something is up. So he has decided to play a little trick on his family (mostly his aunt who is very prim and proper, love ya Grandee) and say something to embarrass them all.



So here I am sitting on the sofa and in walks The Jock who introduces himself with this line



Hi, my name is Jeremy and if you hear any BURPING or FARTING tonight it's from Caughey not me.



Needless to say I was speechless, I mean really what does one say to that. So I sit with wide eyes and pray for the floor to open and swallow me. What have I gotten myself into and how can I get out, I don't even have my car here. After what seems like forever, people jump out and yell surprise. I run for Brandi and want to hide behind her. After all the surprise talk is over, Jeremy comes and apologizes to me and tells me that he had said that to embarrass his family and not me. I excepted his apology but still was not impressed with this JOCK, but over all the evening was fun.



So that is the story of how I met my husband. Because of the length so far and  there is still more to tell I will continue the story later.



Cha Cha

WEEKEND WRAP UP

We were excited to spent most of this weekend outside playing.  On Sunday, after church, we loaded up the bikes and went to a park that is not too far from our house.

The bike path was much shorter than we had hoped for, so after riding it back and forth a few times, we decided to go for a hike.

The hiking trail runs along side of a river so it was a beautiful hike.

This is where the girls wanted to make it, to see the railroad bridge.  They were sad that no trains went over while we were there.

On the hike back we, stop to smell the roses, so to speak,

and we got the check ou this little guy.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend.

Cha Cha

FRIENDSHIP

    What do you do when you are put into a situation that you do not like?  I flee, I run like the wind and pretend that it is not happening, deny,deny,deny.  The problem is I can't do that this time because if I do will miss the last of something special, something important.  That something is my friend, Debra, you see she is moving soon and my heart is breaking.  I have no words to say to her because the selfish side doesn't want to be excited for her and the concerned side doesn't want to fall apart and give her one more thing to deal with, so I am silent and pretend life is the same.

   But, Friday night I was forced to view my new reality without her.  I went to a ladies night at our church and she was not there, this is just the first of many places and times she will not physically be there.  It hit me, it hit me hard.  When the movie was over I couldn't get out of there fast enough.  I said no good byes.  I just left, quickly.  My heart was aching to hold my friend, to share life with her.  As I watched the movie Esther that night there was not one person there who knew that Esther is my favorite book of the Bible and that I have read it more times than I can count, but she.... she knows,  she would want to know if the movie was good to me, because she knew it was going to be hard for me to like, because she knows me.  She knows me like I have never let any friend know me before.  She understands the ugly in my heart and helps me to give it to God over and over, she understands when I feel something that is not normal for me.  She has forgiven me for hurting her more than once and she has even trusted me enough to have a BIG old ugly fight (words not fist).  She has been there to celebrate both of my girls giving their lives to God and a been a planter of the seeds that brought them there.  She has held my hand in the hard times, hugged my neck in the harder times and sung silly songs to bring a smile to my face in the good times.

   Needless to say, the car ride home Friday night was not an easy one.  I tried to call her, but had to leave a message.  I could barely even make words come out of my mouth, the breath had been sucked out of me.

   The next morning, I stopped being selfish and realized she has so much more to go through than me, and I need to fall on my knees and pray for her and her family.  Then, I need to get up and go enjoy every last second I have with her, even if I can find no words to say..... she will have enough for both of us.

   Debra, I Love You, Thank You For Loving Me.  You have been, are, and will continue to be all that I can ask for in a friend.

              So, what are you doing today, and tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that....

                                                    
                                                                          I Love You,
                                                                              Charity

COME TAKE A WALK

Welcome to my yard. 

I hope you will enjoy

the view,

this

 Spring.

Take a walk around,

rejoice,

in God's art work.

Know that you

are welcome

here.

So, pull up

a chair

and

 sit and relax

Cha Cha

Happy Weekend.

COCK-A-DOODLE-DO

Do you like my roosters?  Before the kitchen remodel, I had a rooster collection.  It was a country kitchen and I loved it, but that is not what I was going for after ther remodel.  I want a more modern, clean line look.  I was torn though because I loved a few of my roosters and could not bring myself to part with them.

I knew that I could bring back the large black iron one, but you see the white one he didn't look like that, he looked like this....

Not so cute for a modern "country" kitchen, but he was a wedding gift and I had to believe that he was worth a little effort.  So he took a trip outside and had a date with some spray paint and turn out pretty handsome if I do say so myself

Now I think these two guys are perfect together in my modern country kitchen.

Have a great weekend

Cha Cha

WEEKEND WRAP UP

Tara at Between You & Me has come up with the coolest idea.  She is having a weekend wrap up party and I am so excited to join in. 

We were on Spring Break this past week.  We did not go any where because we had to many things on our TO DO LIST.

We did promise the girls that they could plan everything we would do on one of the days.  So this is what they came up with, keep in mind that it was raining on the day.

I made homemade popcorn, which is their favorite snack.  Do you ever make your popcorn homemade?  Growing up my dad and I would try to out do each other, to see who could make the best,  popcorn was a Sunday night ritual.  Many Sundays nights you can find the four of us and my parents eating popcorn together, some things are worth passing down.

We played games and watched movies most of the day.  To get out some energy we had hula-hoop contest in the middle of the family room floor.  So far Big Sister and I are neck and neck but Little Sister is quickly catching up with us. 

So that was our day.

This is the inside of my popcorn bowl.  By the way this is the same popcorn bowl we ate out of when I was growing up, maybe one day one of the girls will make their family homemade popcorn and serve it in this bowl.

Cha Cha

HGTV LIKES MY SPRING MANTEL

My SPRING MANTEL has made it onto the HGTV blog,  please remind me to breath.   Leslie Judson put together a post called  Celebrate Spring With A Mantel Makeover, in this post she listed some of their (HGTV's) favorites mantelscapes.  Guess What?  I am one of them,  you could tip me over with a feather right now and I am not sure I have breathed in the last 5 minutes.  She call my mantel stunning,  does anyone know Leslie, because I should really send flowers or something.  My mantel is one of maybe ten in the post and her exact words are....

More ways to pretty-up your mantel with paper. And forsythia. Stunning

and it links straight to my post.

Thanks, my lovelies for doing the happy dance with me, now go have a great weekend.

Cha Cha

REDO

So do you end up with clothes in your closet that you never wear?  I do and it drives me crazy, many times I will buy something and get it home and it just doesn't work, but for some reason I keep it around.  That is what happened with this shirt

I really love the print but after one wash it shrunk, awwwgh.  I tried to wear it a few times after, but I found I was always pulling on it.  I felt uncomfortable the whole time I had it on.  It was not an expensive shirt, but like I said I liked it.  Soooo, I decided I would make it work.  I stared by cutting the neck detail off and put it onto a solid pink tee.

I it was an okay solution,

I wore it once this way, but I felt a bit "clownish" and the goal was for me to feel comfortable in it again.

So onto the second version.

I traces around my favorite perfume bottle (Does anyone else use Sake by Fresh?  It is to die for).  I ended up cutting most of the shirt into circles, then started hand sewing them onto one side of the neckline.

Much better results, no more clown shirt.

I love this version.

So what do you think of my shirt remodel?  I have a few more I am working on also.

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend my lovelies.

Cha Cha

Just wanted to let you lovelies know about the coolest link party that I have ever heard about.  Tara at Between You and Me is going to do a weekend recap link on Monday.  I love this idea because it will give me a reason to take too many pictures and to keep our family updated, also when my kids are whining that we never do anything fun I will be able to look back and show them the fun things we did.  So, thank you Tara for coming up with this great idea, and I can't wait to see what all you lovelies are up to over the weekend. Go check out this weekend-recap that Tara did, then stick around and check out her inspiring blog, she is a super chic gal.

I hope you all had a great Easter, we did and are now enjoying beautiful warm weather, life is soooo good.

Cha Cha

EAT

You lovelies know how much I love my kitchen right?  Just in case you didn't let me just tell you,  I am pretty sure it is my favorite room in the whole house and the first room in the house that feels really like me.  It is a little traditional, a little country, a little modern, and a little retro vintage. Who knew all of that could live together in harmony?  I think all of those things describe me as well as my style, if you know me in real life feel free to comment if you think that is a good description of me and my kitchen.  As much as I love my kitchen I have a few more projects to do before it is complete.  One of those projects was this sad little corner, it had no excitement or interest happening and just looked a little unloved.

(Isn't the vintage stool the cutest,  Hubby gave to me a few years ago)

 Well, all of that changed after a visit to this weeks Friend, Emily's blog.  Emily had the cutest sign hanging over her kitchen table and as soon as I saw it, I knew I would be doing it for my sad little corner.  If you missed her version check out my interview with her here.

So for my birthday the girls got me these cute MDF letters from Micheal's

I got busy painting them,  I used the same color as my cabinets and then trimed the edge in red.  The red trim idea was from my wonderful husband.  I was originally going to paint the whole letters red, but it was a little too much, but then the cream seemed a little boring, so in came hubby with his great idea to save the day.

I love the outcome and my little kitchen corner is sad no more.

Cha Cha