Remodel Day #4

Day 4 began in a whirl for me. I had a massage scheduled for 2 pm, we were scheduled to feed 2 missionaries, hubs was teaching a real estate class until 5 and was at least 1/2 hour away and missionaries were to eat from 5 - 6 and be on their way. I had steaks to cook out and I have no clue how to use the BBQ! I mean I can move it around the patio but turning on the gas tank and the actual igniting of the fire is beyond this chick's scope! Besides, like they always tell you: If you learn how to "do it" (whatever it is), then you "own it." Welllll, this gal ain't "owning" cooking out! I barely want to "own" cooking in! As my friend, Bertie, says the only reason I have a kitchen is it came with the house! I adore fast food resturants, ordering in and nice restaurants too. I've cooked for 47 years and hubs deserves to take this "hot grandma chick" out on his arm - "arm candy"!! Hah.......trust me, that ain't so and Sophia Loren has nothing to worry about! But I digress.

The missionaries ended up grilling the angus steaks I had and Love Bunny missed a fiiiiiiine meal, let me tell ya. Steak, potatoes, salad from our garden, corn on the cob and watermelon. Ooooh, let me correct that; he missed a fiiiiiiiiine HOT meal! Missionaries were gone before he even got home!

All this going on while Contractor Bob is measuring, cutting and hammering away. (Oh, an aside here.....some of you sweet little chickadees think hubs is doing the remodel; Love Bunny is NOT doing the construction; we hired a contractor we know personally. I wouldn't trust hubs to be diligent in getting it done in a timely manner, which in actuality means he won't listen to my nagging to "get this job done!" Remember, we're married - annnnd want to STAY married. Need I say more?!?!?!)

You've seen this house before so I won't add descriptions, just use your imagination as to what is happening to the living room/kitchen/dining area wall to enclose it and "define" the rooms a bit better. It's also providing wall space on which I'll hang more "fluff", move our grandfather clock into the LR and can then get a non-working fireplace/mantle in our family room. That'll be "eye candy" also. Squeeeeeeeallll!!!!

Earlier in the morning I decided to wash off the patio from the grease drippings and bird droppings. I moved all the chairs, pots, the grill and the infamous bicycle of hubs that he insists sits out there till he finds time to clear enough room in his shed to hang it in there. Well, 2012 is just too far away for me so I put it in the yard and when the sprinklers came on last night it got wet. I thought he was going to keel over. Now, don't those guys doing the Tour de France cycle in rain?!?! Yep, so what's the fuss all about?!?! It's wet; deal with it, guy! *Sigh*.........................

Then after hosing down and scrubbing the patio, I turned the hose on the window and surrounding areas of the house washing the spiders and earwigs outta their little hidey places. Whoooooooa, chicks, it was fearsome, let me tell ya!! Then I "attacked" the window, which in reality is a breeze because....................... of these 2 little items below. That's a window squeegee and a lambs wool window cleaner. Washing a window with these 2 little things is not only the fastest, easiest way to do it, it is actually fun. You dip the wool washer in plain water from the bucket, swish it over the whole window QUICKLY and then take the squeegee and wipe the water off. I've never had to do a window 2 times and they're clean with absolutely no film on them. It does it all efficiently and quickly. I absolutely love these 2 little items!! They're supposed to have been made in Italy but the handle says made in Oakland, Ca. and it's called Ettore, as you can see on one of the closeups, with a very specific little "aviator wings" logo. They're the absolutely, unequivocally best thing I think you'd ever find for cleaning windows - nothing but water and they're squeaky clean. A bit pricier than most but I've had these for maybe 8 years and it shows no signs of use or abuse. You can get them at commercial cleaning supply companies. Well worth it in the time it saves you.

Remodel Day #3 and Gripes!

Nuuuuuuu, my sweet chicks, no gripes about the remodel; it's coming along just fine. I'll talk about the gripes further down.

Mr. Bob, and his name is Bob Robinson of Nampa, Idaho, if you live nearby give him a call. He's very reasonable and has been recommended for doing nice work. He seems to be right on, or even ahead of, schedule with this tiny remodel. We're thrilled with the progress anyway. Remember, he is doing this "on the side" from his day job. So he starts about 4:30 in the afternoon and quits around 8 - 8:30 pm. Today he will put the "plywood arch" on that header and then maybe sheet rock and tape. If all goes well tonight, he'll then mud/texture(?) tomorrow. But it's looking good and giving us a clearer view of what it'll look like.

One person said they wouldn't like the "closed in" feeling of it and that they liked the openness of a house with several rooms. Well, if I had one of those open log homes up in Sun Valley, so would I!! I love that look where you have huge rooms all open but all defined as the living, dining, kitchen, family/great rooms but in a small house it just doesn't cut it for me. However, if Bruce Willis or Arnold would come down off the mountain and switch with me - straight across switch - I'd be more than happy to take it over and even clean those big houses. I'd be singing a happy tune, let me tell ya!

But for this house it just looks too small to do that so we'll "define" the living room a bit more. I tend to be a bit more "formal" in there also. "Formal" being a highly relative term here! It's in no way "Formal", just a lot less "informal" than the small family room. Remember, my little cherubs, this is our last, scaled down, senior, live in till we die house!! You'll understand this when you retire and are near to 70 years old! :-)

Since I couldn't "clean" house yesterday (it would do absolutely no good!) and couldn't think of too many things I wanted to do, I decided to prime and spray paint this little reading lamp since there was hardly any wind. It was brass and I've had it for many years. Tarnishing was taking over as its primary "color" so I spritzed it white and am quite pleased with it. I'm soooooo loving spray cans of paint now - quick and easy beyond belief! I may become the Miss Spritz Queen! I'm lovin' it that much!!!

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Now the gripes.

Why is it that when we find something we really love - a new found thing or something we've used for a long time - they decide to stop making it or they decide to stop distribution in MY area?!?!?! This has happened to some frozen foods we've loved for years, to a mouth moisturizer, to a shampoo, conditioners and hair sprays, to salad dressings!! WHY?!?!?! I love certain things and don't want to give them up. The vanilla tasting dry mouth moisturizer is now a minty spritzer and not a "open your mouth and put luscious drops of a creamy vanilla taste on your tongue" type moisturizer! I loved it, but not the harsh minty flavor spritz they've forced upon me! I also loved Revlon's Outrageous shampoo. It was so wonderful smelling and great for hair. I'm not even sure they make it anymore. Same with the conditioner. Hair spray? I like a certain one with a level 7 of hold. Nada, zip, zilch........no where to be found anymore. I've even had my daughter and granddaughter check in Calif. and Seattle. Why do they stop making something that is so great and does the job exceptionally well. Not to mention the salad dressings!!!!!!!! Yesssssssssss!!!! I loved a certain lite Italian dressing but can't find it in the stores at all - from Idaho to Calif.; I've checked and it's no where to be found. *Sigh*............ Why don't THEY keep their paws off of MY things?! I tell ya it's enough to make me start a revolution. Viva la revolución!!! But excuse me while I go vacuum up the wood chips and eat breakfast. Revolutions seem to take more outta me these days and those little bits of wood are hurting my tootsies, don't ya know?!?!?!

Remodel Day #2

First of all, I want to show you my Giveaway Win!! I cannot tell you all how thrilled I was to win this little beauty!!!!!!!!! It's one of my favorite things now. I so appreciate this wonderful little cake plate or dessert server and the huge rose that came with it.

Mr. Bob had this done within about 3 to 3 1/2 hours last night. The remodel is coming along just fine! Not much mess at all from this part, but he was very careful to put up plastic sheets to help hold down the "mess" and I appreciated that. Ooops, I see a strip of blue tape stuck to the wall in the pix below this one.

Just thought I'd "throw in" these faux desserts as a bit of "eye candy" for ya chicks!! :-) I spend an entire 2 days just making these things. Ya never know what I'll do with them. ;-)

I heard someone the other day refer to "young wives" of "older men" as "arm candy" and I had to chuckle, I tell ya. I've always told Love Bunny if he did that to me when I die I'll haunt him till the day HE dies!! And I would, too. Trust me on this one! I truly do not even believe he would dishonor me like that though.

I've Been Neglectful. Please Read On!

I have been so neglectful with answering this one award. I received it while away in California and apologize to Gina for not catching it in a respectful time frame. Please go over to her blog and register for her Giveaway, chicks! You don't have much time so goooooo!!!! Gina and I are kindred "spirits" and only she knows what I mean. Now to the award.

I am giving this award to all the sweet bloggers! I've given it much thought and am just so simply stunned that I've gotten any award from anyone! My heart is full with the love I've received from all of you who've left comments. Each one of you deserve an award. I've seen all kinds of blogs: creative, beautiful, shabby, decorating, just plain talking ones, ones from the heart (I've even gotten a "special" invitation from one blogger who wanted me to read a very personal blog which wouldn't let me leave a comment because it wasn't allowed, so I emailed her and asked her if she needed someone to talk to and see if she was "okay"), ones from teens who've said I've made their day(!) if you can imagine that, and then one from her mom who emailed me for giving her such encouragement, blogs where personal feelings are shared, our "arts" are shared, ones that break my heart, ones that lift me up, ones where we learn how to do different skills, even one man left me a comment about wanting his wife to read my blog(!). They've all left me stunned with the sweetness and heart-feltness (Is that a word? If not, I'm making it one!) So my heart is full and I'm truly blessed in more than one way for knowing y'all chicks! Now, go visit my friend, Gina........

The Remodel Is Starting!

The contractor will be over this afternoon to start the remodel. We had him give us the estimate several weeks ago and since then he has taken a job with the state because of insurance so this is going to be a part time project for him. It's not a big project but we've given him our time frame (Hah, as if that makes any difference to contractors! In Calif. we had a second story put on our home there and it was supposed to be a 3 month project. It took 5 months!!!! Hubs was sitting on the toilet one day and the men started coming up from the crawl space while he was .........well, you know. A traumatic experience to say the least!) Anyway, he has to be done before Hubs has to go to Orlando middle of august. Nuuuuuuuu, I ain't goin', chicks, I don't DO airplanes, remember?!?!?! I know, I know, I'm missing this great opportunity to go see Disney World, but I've seen Disneyland! So why would I want to go to a humid place in the middle of summer to see little mice running around mischievously?? Nuuuuuuu, ain't happenin', chicks!

Anyway, I'm seriously digressing here. First off, these are 2 little shelves I got for 99¢, yessssssss, ya heard that correctly, 99¢!! Squeeeeeeallll!!! One was already white but had some black felt pen marks on it so I repainted it and painted the other bigger one and voilà here they are - good as new! I'm so thrilled!! Can'tcha tell, my little doves?!?!?! I'm feelin' like the Spritzing Queen with my little spray can of paint! This is sooooooo easy to do - take cap off of paint can, point to object to be painted and press top tab! I'm loving it! No clean up except maybe for the index finger.

Here is the wall getting the remodel. (Read carefully; you will be given a pop quiz at some point!) I hate pass throughs from living room to kitchen and do NOT like people seeing in my kitchen from a living room. (Yes, we might have been able to get it done when being built but it was beyond that "easy/quick" point, would have taken much more time and we HAD to be out of other house very, very quickly. Thus we knew that someday we'd redo it.) On the photos you see where it says 12" out from existing wall. Well, we've decided it is to go out 30" on each side leaving an archway of about 5 ft. We will then have a little more "defined" living room, no view of my dirty dishes and squeeeeeealing with deeeeeeelight........more WALL space!! I'm so happy I could walk barefoot over pink nails!! THIS means I can move our lovely grandfather clock to that wall along with "other" things getting it out of my family room and put a new fireplace........squeeeeeeeeeeeal again...........in there!!! Get my drift here? More fabulous shabby, chic, frou frou looking stuff in family room!!!

But the downside is we're living like pack rats for a couple of weeks. Unorganized is not one of my favorite states to be in! But I promise "progress" photos daily if you want to travel along this "remodel" with me, my little blogging buddies. So stay tuned!

This was taken last night as we started taking down stuff. It's a mess this morning! *Sighhhhhh*................

We Have A Winner!!!

I'm such a kid!! I get anxious and excited about drawing a name for the winner of the faux desserts giveaway! I just get so excited to be able to make someone happy, if that's the word. I sure hope it makes her happy....... So the winner is:

Theresa@takeasentimentaljourney!

Congratulations, my little sweetpea!!!

Faux Pastries and Chocolate Kisses Giveaway!

My giveaway is finally here after days of making so many faux pastries from a new material someone told me about. I can't say I'm crazy about it but it's lighter weight.

Anyway, chicks, here it is finally!! There are some petite pink ones, some bigger pink ones, a yellow one and chocolate kisses - 10 of them in all or 11 if you count the one cup as two!! You can tell by the plate how petite these little petit fours are. All except the kisses have porcelain clay roses. Squeeeeeeeeallllll!!!! All you have to do is post a comment here on this blog post and your name is entered to win. I'll pull the name sunday night - 7/27 - to announce the winner. Ooooh, nuuuuuuu, the cake plate is not included but will be for sale in my selling blog - La Maison Rose.

My Favorite Thing!

Cindy at My Romantic Home has asked us to show our favorite thing in our home but it can't be a person or it would have to be Love Bunny! Now, I have a lot of favorite things but as anyone and everyone who decorates their home it is usually the latest thing we've done. That may or may not be the case with some of you but for me this little lamp sits on my nightstand and the little pedestals are what I look at when hubby and I eat dinner. It gives me visual joy to look at them. I think, no, I know this big retired Marine loves our home. He may be the king of this castle but it's the queen, ME, that has to keep him in line, right?!?! I adore that man! Anyway, I used my PhotoShop to make it into one picture so you wouldn't have to spend much time clicking! But if you don't click on most of the things I post ya ain't gettin' the full flavor, my sweet little chicks!

Oooooh, and this is gonna count for Pink Saturday also. I gotta get something done around this place, my lovely bloggers!

Oh, and here's dinner tonight just so you can see the bounty coming out of our garden. Not too bad for a pink-thumbed chick......okay, okay, I only picked it today. *Sigh* Love Bunny has the green thumb in this house.

White Roses to Pink Roses

Funny, not funny HaHa, but funny strange, but I wasn't going to post today. Got up and hit the deck running! BUT I couldn't keep myself outta here, you blogging chickadees!!
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I cannot even begin to tell ya chicks how busy I've been. It's not just getting back from California and all that entails when returning from a trip - washing clothes, buying food, cleaning, etc., but I've got soooooo many projects I want to do. I think at this count I'll have to live to be 562 years old to catch up and complete everything on the list!! Each new day or each new trip to the thrift shops brings new projects. I'm sure none of you understand this! ;-) Riiiiiight!!!!

Anyway, I haven't stopped since we've been back. Up at 6 am and to bed - reluctantly - at 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Wednesday night at about 7 pm I decided to finish the living room drapes. I had quickly made a couple of side panels, but I didn't think they were full enough. I didn't have enough of the fabric to make them anything but a narrow side panel. I ordered some more fabric from New York before I left and my neighbor was kind enough to receive the parcel from UPS while we were away. So at 7 pm I set about making them and hanging them before I went to bed that night. I've posted other pix of this room just after I made the first panels but here they are now and I think it looks much better fuller - lush and not so "stingy"! This is a very difficult room to photograph also. Not much light with that huge porch overhang. However, here it is now.

Those of you who visit my blog regularly may remember this little cutie I picked up in California. Anyway, I started painting those white roses pink before I had a picture for today showing them to new visitors as the roses were 2 weeks ago. So I quickly snapped a pix for you just after I painted one rose pink. You can now see the "before" and "after" photos. I like them pink and poppin' out at ya!

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These are the little faux pastries and candies I've been trying to make for 10 days now! I'm almost finished with the hardest part. Someone suggested a new "material" with which to make them. I don't like it but I'm not wasting it, sweet cherubs, so these will be the giveaway! Of course, they'll be much better when decorated and I hope to get to that today. So stay tuned for the giveaway. I've been so blessed to win 2 things this past week that I simply must share my bounty.

Just thought I'd throw in some "eye candy" for you sweet virtual chicks!! This is my only granddaughter. She's now 28 and counting and still no great grandchicks! Where did her mother and I go wrong?!?!?!

This is a post I put on my ebay group yesterday - thursday - and yep, Love Bunny has a new toy:

This morning I showered and "coifed" my hair, went to KMart, then to Goodwill, then bank again(!), then to visit teach with my partner at their pool (Well, not theirs, but they have one in their classy development.) The 2 moms let the kids swim and we sat under the canopy (I don't do sun!) and chatted and gave a spiritual lesson. I left and then went to Costco to buy some fruit and veggies. I ended up getting Jack a Magellan RoadMate because he got us "I'm not lost I just missed the turn" during our trip to Calif. He's done this 2 or 3 times and admits it. There just isn't a sign that says "here's the 210" so exit here. That's his excuse. He's really pretty dang good about finding his way but I did get lost in Calif. this last time trying to get to the convention center when they're always fixing the exits and close them so I had to take another route. Sheeesh, I hated that. But, anyway, it's a new toy for him. Hah.

Catching Up on Awards, My Sweet Chicks!!

I received this award while away on vacation and just had the time to respond. I'm so apologetic, Alison!! Now I nominate 7 blogging chicks to receive this award. I think I'm gonna have to go find some new blogs! :-) Now that just breaks my heart!!! Okay, I nominate the following:

This lady: peta-prettyinpink
Elizabeth of the shabby romantic
Tracie of my petite maison
Constance of rochambeau
Jill of at home in the country
Dana of the stone rabbit
This sweet chick: bella enchanted

Now, I have never seen these blogs before so I plan on visiting with them. I need to "stretch", my little chicks, so I'm streeeeeeeeetching!!!
~*~

My next award is from Deb of debs country kisses and is a very sweet and spiritual Alabama little chickadee!! She is lavish in her praise of me! Trust me on that one! Yikes, I have a reputation to live up to now, don't I?!?! I nominate these chicks:

Fairie Window
PamWardenArt
Posy
Carolsgarden
Raisedincotton
PetticoatJunction
Roselittlethings

A Testimony and Other Stuff!

I'm getting way too far behind on awards given to me so this is another post for thursday that I'm writing on thursday morning actually. I need to share many things today - especially some awards that have been given to me and to which I truly need to respond. The trip to Calif. has set me back a bit, plus just regular things I want to do.

First of all I want to show you our new concrete curbing around part of our front yard. Squeeeeeeealing with deeeeeelight!! Isn't it pretty? Still not dry but it "defines" those areas we've wanted "highlighted." We've sprayed Round-up and the weeds/grasses are dying and it looks horrid. It'll look better in a few weeks. I threw in a few snapshots of the roses. What's a day without looking at the most exquisite of flowers, hmmmm?!?!?!

This is my office window. I am in this room a good part of any given day!

This is my new neighbor's house. It's a rental. It's a couple with 2 children. They had a huge groups of friends over saturday for a BBQ! I didn't hear a PEEP out of that household the whole time - very quiet. You'd have never known there was a party going on.... splishin' and asplashin'!!! My kinda neighbors!!! I think I'm in love with them. We'll see.......

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Now for a few stories on testimony. Here is mine, so click and go read it: Testimony. Now for a few "blessings" we've gotten from this principle.

Hubs once was contemplating on how to do something that he'd never done before and it just kept alluding him. He was fretting over it and in a dream one night it came to him. Now, this is NOT something he would have thought of, although, we is a genius at fixing anything. So the next day he went about doing it and it worked! It's a very specialized thing he was doing but I won't go into details about it. We simply knew our tithing helped him accomplish it.

Another time when we had just moved to Idaho (read the testimony for clarification) we needed $2,600.00 to make payments on a bill for our little store. We didn't have it in our little business. Hubs prayed about it that night. The next morning some people from a small church in town came in and wanted new carpeting put in their church. Yep, to the tune of a deposit of $2,600.00!! It helped us immensely that day. Tithing.

I'm on what they call "level pay" with my utilities - gas and electric. It's averaged out over a year and they let us pay on the average. Mine was about $55.00 for gas and $50.00 for electric. Now, this was for the house we had before we moved her 3 years ago. That was a 5,000 sq.ft. house and no one believed I had such a low utility bill, but, of course, I could prove it, but why would I lie about it anyway?!?! When we moved here it went up a bit but I'm still paying less than $140.00 a month average for gas and electric. That's quite low by many standards. Well, about a year ago the gas company had about $800.00 extra in my account. I thought that was silly for them to keep my money so requested $700.00 be given back to me and keep a "cushion" of $100.00 in there. They did and I'm still in good shape. How many people get money back from their utility company, hmmmmmm????

I've also had my house payment lowered 2 times in the 3 years we've lived here. Taxes I suppose. But how many people have gotten their taxes lowered twice in the last 2 years. (The Lord works in mysterious ways, I tell ya!!)

Income taxes?!?! Yep. The first year we moved to Idaho from California we were astounded. Remember we had sold a home in Calif. and had given up high paying jobs. Well, we owed the IRS $43,000.00!! You do NOT want to mess with the IRS!! Trust me. They seized our bank accounts because they thought we might skip the country!!! Yessssssssss........how silly is that??!! Hubs is a retired Marine with a pension! But they thought because we had passports and had traveled out of the country a lot that we were "at risk"!! DUH.......I love my country and would never ever consider living anywhere else!!!!!!! (HOWEVER, those who bash this wonderful land and threaten to move away if certain people are elected are invited to make good on their "threats", but funny how they never do it!!) But it got straightened out just in the nick of time. But if I hadn't had a few dollars in my wallet we couldn't have even gotten bread or milk. Soooooo now, since joining the church and becoming full tithe payers we've always gotten money back from the IRS. It's my money to begin with, chickees. But that's what happened after we paid tithing.

We have 2 cars - one our kids bought us as a present/gift, a Mitsubishi Montero - and my Toyota Camry. Both have well over 100,000 miles on them and run great! Hubs has 140,000+ on his and it's still going strong. Of course, we keep all our things in tip-top shape. I'm very careful about that. And a few days ago I received a check in the mail from out mortgage company for overage in our escrow account. That check paid for the new curbing almost to the penny!!!

I have a year's supply of food. This is something our church encourages us to do - have a year's supply. When we started trying to get it all I'd buy things on sale in small bulk for the 2 of us. It took me just about 4-6 months to do this. During that time the money was "just there"! I can't explain it but my checking account just never ran out of money! It was a miracle. When I say "year's supply" I'm talking everything: food, laundry detergent, soap, bleach, frozen food, dried foods, "EVERYTHING"! It was incredibly easy to trust the Lord in this. He has promised that if we do this and our food is destroyed in a catastrophe we need not worry (Remember the story of Moses and his band of people roaming the desert and "manna"?) Well, ours was destroyed in a basement flood about 5 years ago. It's been replaced since then. Cartons of dry foods, pastas, cereals, etc. that we had to throw out because of contamination from a sewer backup in the house before this one. It was a mess and sad to see all that food destroyed. The Lord kept his promise though and we were able to replace it in a very short period of time.

Love Bunny's mother died about 4 years ago and his dad died about one year ago. Now, hubs comes from a family of 9 - 7 sisters and 1 brother and himself. They were poor growing up. We all knew there was nothing to be left. The house was - well, let's just say it was VERY humble. All the brothers and sisters thought we'd be paying something to the state because his dad was in a nursing home the last several months of his life. Well, imagine our surprise when we got an email from hubs' brother informing us that we're all - 9 kids - getting thousands of dollars from his estate. The Lord blessed us with a buyer for that home and piece of property to the tune of money we never ever expected to see! THAT was a miracle, I tell ya!! We were speechless.

Being retired form the U.S. military has one of the hugest blessings in the form of health care I've ever seen. Years ago when he was an active Marine we didn't realize how much of a blessing this was going to be, but we DO NOW! We pay almost nothing for our healthcare. We pay for Medicare what every other person over 65 pays and that's less than $95.00 a month for each person having Medicare. Our co-insurance is our retired military health care. I pay maybe a couple of dollars for a doctor's visit. I cannot tell you how little I pay for our health care. I don't think I pay even 10% of the total cost and doctors write off most of it! If you or your child is in the U.S. military this will be a true blessing when he or she retires and worth it to stay in the military.

Now I realize this is long but please keep reading.

My hubby's brother is a retired Marine who teaches at the War College in Carlisle in Pennsylvania. He is the world expert on mines - not gold mines, but the deadly kind. He was a speechwriter for the previous administration's secretary of state and travels all over the world giving talks on it. He is a gentle, kind, loving man and the best brother-in-law someone could have. He is of our religion also. Only hubs and his brother share our religion. He has lived in many different countries, but this story involves him when he lived in Italy. I'll let his words tell you this powerful story of how Heavenly Father turned the international currency on its head! Click here to read it: Glenn's Story.

Okay that's enough for right now. I've probably bent your ear/eyeballs to the point of deaf and blindness at this point. AND I have to get spiffied up to go visiting teaching to my special ladies. I'll be back later with the awards part! Sorry for the length. Ohmygosh, another serious post!! I'll have to get funny this afternoon, my sweet cherubs!!