Check It Out

See that cool new button over there to the right?

...that one....up top....it looks like this:



Go ahead ...click on it......I just found it today and it's awesome. They feature different bloggers every day or so, have giveaways and help spread the love( comments) around.....today The Painted House is their Queen for a Day..Oh my Lord! You HAVE to read her UPS story....it had me rolling on the Floor! So head over and get yourself SITSed...I did!!

Here is the latest giveaway: A genuine Brighton handbag retailed at $175!!

Friday Freebie from Monogram Chick

Check this out . Monogram Chick is giving away a free monogrammed travel mug to one of her readers. All you have to do is head over to her blog and leave a comment,with your e-mail addy. If you mention I sent you , and you win , I win one too!!! She's picking the winner on Monday! so hurry!

Busy Busy Busy

The Commander has told me, oh I don't know how many times, but quite a few, that we now have Primer, so I can start on the living room. Today I finally got the hint. It's not that I'm 'slow' or anything...I was just tuning him out all those other times..LOL

So I decided to bite the bullet and get started. I haven't done much , just the edging on one wall. But hey, it's a start.

And now it's time for a snack break.....contemplating wether I want to get the roller out and finish that wall or not? I don't really WANT to...but it would be nice to get it out of the way. BTW I HATE that paneling...always have.....Commander likes it...I'm not sure what his problem is, but he LIKES paneling.....I think we're going to paint it though. I'm surprised he's willing because he really LOVES paneling...and this is REAL OAK paneling!! I've hated it since the day we moved in, 12 years ago.

Sunday

Today we had church. Drama Teen was still away at Nationals and our organist wasn't there today either so it was just the Commander and the Recruit for music today.Commander plays guitar and the recruit plays flute. Usually Drama Teen also plays guitar and then like I said we have an organist. Everything went well though ...

The most adorable family sits in the first pew( actually the second, as no one sits in the 'first" pew unless it's crowded) They have twin girls about 4 years old and and older son, and the wife just had a bay boy about 2 or 3 weeks ago. The girls are absolutely adorable. They were soooo excited about their new baby brother. Two weeks ago they were at church with their Grandma, and before I could even get down the aisle they ran up to me with a picture of their new baby, telling me all about him. Mom and baby were still in the hospital. Last week they were not at Church as they were out of town visiting relatives and getting the baby baptised in Mom's hometown.

They were there today though.....oh my he is just precious....so tiny.....and the big sisters were just ecstatic. Running up to everyone with hugs and dragging them over to see the baby...as IF we needed to be 'dragged"...LOL..it was just so cute to see them soo Happy!

Father gave a really nice homily today...about Peter and Paul and how different yet alike they were...and what it was like to preach the gospel in their day.

Afterward we had Fellowship. It's nice in the summertime when everyone can just relax and visit...no need to rush off to CCD. I mean I Love teaching CCD, and really enjoy it. But it's nice to have time off for a little while. I miss out on a lot of the Fellowship during the school year when we have CCD.

What I wore to Church:

What I wore After Church: I just wanted to be a little more comfy and slouchy. I'm usually barefoot around home. I throw on flip flops if I go somewhere.

and then...Play

After all that work it was then time to Play! Commander had a softball game this evening. He usually plays with other people from our Church in a Christian Softball league in NC. I went along to cheer and watch. Unfortunately not enough of his team came, so they had to forfeit the game, but the other team was willing to scrimmage and they got to play anyway...some guys from one of the other teams stayed and filled in for our missing players. The game didn't "count", but they all had fun.

I don't do sports....I'm still too traumatized from middle school PE. Once in middle school ..it was time to pick teams for volleyball.( earlier in the year we had done Soccer and I had reallllllly SUCKED at it)....so anyway,the teachers picked about 5 or 6 team Captains and lined all the rest of us up against the wall...One by one the Captains picked students for their team. Ok well...I was the LAST one picked! They even picked the reallllly fat kid before me. That's how bad I was!

As if that wasn't bad enough....they then fought over who WOULDN'T get stuck with me...it was the next Captain's turn to pick but he didn't want me so he told the guy next to him that HE could have me...well that guy wasn't having none of that....he informed the first guy that NO it was HIS turn to pick, HE gets me.....the first guy's like NO that's OK you can have her........second guy...NO it's YOUR turn you get her....and so on...finally the teacher realized what was going on and made the first guy pick me.....

So now I don't do sports ....ever...I'm still too traumatized......sad thing is, I was actually not bad at Volley Ball and could have played better than the other girls on our team if I'd been given the chance....as it was the boys on our team never 'let' me play...Oh I stood our there all right....but anytime the ball came my way...one of the boys would rush over to get to it before I could( of course usually causing us to miss the play)

What I wore to Watch and Cheer!

Work

Today was a day filled with work for Commander and I. He worked hard outside....fixing windows and painting trim. I worked inside, sorting ,organizing and cleaning.

Here are a few pics of the finished product. I didn't take any 'before' pics...they would have been pretty awful. One think I've never claimed is to be Suzy Homemaker. I tend to be very messy and cluttered, and totally disorganized. I'd really like to change all that, though. And I feel I've been making progress and I've actually been enjoying getting it all done.

Here are a couple of pics from our Bedroom. These two are of the corner on my side. That door leads to a small balcony we have. We hardly ever use it. And I usually have piles of 'stuff' blocking the door.( You can see some of my good-will donations in a pic a few posts down).There's usually stuff pile on both tables and next to the bed as well. What can I say , I'm just REALLY messy!
BTW those boxes over by the shoes are our new Bathroom lights, we got them last week and Commander hasn't put them in yet. The Candle on that little Table is from Lady of Fatima. Commander brought it back for me when he went there last year during his long deployment. They had a port call near there. There's also a couple of books about Lady of Fatima on the table, that he also brought back for me. And......I'm already cluttering up the table with my bottle of Lavender Linen spray...I LOVE that stuff...it has a nice fresh smell to it....like fresh laundry...I spray it on everything in the room. Heck everything in the house. I got it at the Dollar Tree.. stocked up and bought a bunch because I love it. It's called "l'essence de Provence"...they have other scents as well but I really just like the Lavender.

this small table is my bedside table....I know you're probably wondering....why does a 40 something year old woman have dolls and stuffed animals??? But these 3 things are very special to me. The Doll is my very first Doll ever. I got it for my first Christmas. I was never actually allowed to play with her and until about 15 years ago she was still in her box. After years of moving( both as a military brat and then as a military wife) the box was just too torn up and ragged to patch together anymore so I finally gave up and took her out of the box. She opens and closes her eyes and she used to say Ma Ma when you tipped her back....now she just makes a weird cry....sometimes as a child my mom would let me hold the box and tip it back and forth to hear her say Ma Ma...but that was the extent of my being able to 'play' with her. The Koala next to her was a gift from the Commander when we were dating. My Memere had just died. He was out of town when she passed and we frantically tried to get a message to him about it so he could be there. We finally were able to and he arrived just in time to attend the funeral with me, and he gave me that Koala to cheer me up. It's the ONLY stuffed animal he gave me while we were dating...he had a thing about thinking they were childish and wouldn't give me any even though at the time i was a teen and loved stuffed animals...so the fact that he gave me that one made it all the more special. I actually slept with it for years...even after we were married....and the white bear he gave me about 15 years ago for Valentines...he was on deployment and it was our First Valentines apart. All the husbands made arrangements beforehand...buying gifts and leaving them with one of the other wives to hand out to us at a special Valentine Dinner we had. He also gave me a cute ceramic trinket dish, but that broke years ago. here we have my dresser..If you only knew how much junk I cleared off this today. Again it was piled with 'stuff'. I got rid of most of it ..went thru all my jewelry(mostly cheap costume stuff) and got rid of a bunch of the cheap stuff. That Ivory Jewelry Box was given to me by my Memere before she died. It holds most of my sentimental treasures and my really good jewelry( I don't own much). The little plastic black box on top of it was given to me by the co-ed when she was about 5 or 6. It has little compartments to hold earrings...I mainly keep it for sentimental reasons. To the right of the jewelry boxes you can see some ceramic pieces...those were all made by my various children at some point or another...that weird green one is a 'dinosaur' made by Genius Boy back in elementary school. To the left you can see 3 vases. I keep change IN the vases and hang my dangly earrings ON them...LOL....two birds with one stone!

Now we are downstairs in my living room...again there are usually piles of junk and stuff all over these tables.....this first one is a coffee table that we use as and end table...we bought it at a Haverty's Warehouse Sale because it match the coffee table we already had and it was soooooooo cheap....Haverty's used to have the BEST warehouse sales.....really nice stuff for really LOW prices...it's was all their discontinued stuff or past inventory...or stuff with missing parts...Our kitchen table we bought there for $188.00 it was missing the pedestal legs...so it was just the top.....we were able to order the legs separate for $50.00 each...so for less than $300 we got a $1200.00 table....this coffee table was only $188 as well...it retailed for over $400.00.

here I've got my laptop....some books ..one of my Bibles, some pens and crochet hooks and chocolate of course!!

Then below is my actual coffee table...it's very similar to the table above . Again we got this at a Haverty's Warehouse Sale for about $200 ..it retailed for around $800.

In the vase are shells and coral that I brought back from our Puerto Rico Trip a few years ago. One thing I will definitely be bring along to Wisconsin if we move there is all my shells....we wont be anywhere near Ocean...so I'll be bringing the Ocean back with me. I got that cute basket at Target recently...Commander had a bunch of 'stuff' pile on the table.....a notebook with list of things he needs to get for the house and lists of things he needs to do...some tools...some guitar pics etc etc...so I grabbed that basket and threw all that 'stuff' in it..so at least it looks 'neat" ...

So there it is....I know it probably doesn't seem like I did much but believe me it was a lot....I also did a bunch of other cleaning and sorting during the day.

St. Michael's Church Picnic

The Commander had a Knights Of Columbus meeting this evening at St Michael's, a Catholic Church in VA Beach.. It was his last meeting as District Deputy. So around 7:00 I get a call from Commander, asking me if I was busy? Why no, why do you ask? He explains that they are having a Parish Picnic and he'd like me to come. So I hopped in the car, after I changed into a cute outfit of course. I wore grubs all day getting all my cleaning and purging and such done.

The Picnic was nice. Commander is pretty popular at these things..Everybody just loves him. We'd actually already had dinner so we just had a little dessert.

This is Ben, he was District Deputy last year and Commander was his District Warden which I guess is kinda like his 'assistant' . That cap he's wearing is one that Commander brought back from his last deployment. It's for the USS George Washington and it has an American Flag and a Japanese Flag on it. The GW is taking over for the Kitty Hawk in Japan. Commander's last deployment was to accompay the GW to San Diego for the first leg of it's trip to Japan. He then flew home from SD, and the Kitty Hawk crew is supposed to take over for the last leg of the trip. The Kitty Hawk is being decommisioned,although, thanks to a fire on the GW during their trip(no one too badly injured, Thank God) the Kitty Hawk is being kept in service a tad longer than expected...but I digress.......

Anyway, I'm not really sure about all the ins and outs of what's what in the KofC. Commander was District Deputy this year. He took over for Ben. All I know is, as DD this year he had to attend meetings at each council in the District, and make sure they were getting done what they were supposed to be getting done.

This is the Priest over at St. Michael's. He gave a speech explaining their missionary work, and various fundraisers they've been doing and will be doing to continue their missionary work.

And here is Commander with his replacement, the NEW District Deputy. This is the last time Commander will get to wear that Red Polo stating he is DD. He wont get to wear that attractive BRIGHT RED Jacket anymore either. Nor will he need to wear the White Tuxedo Jacket he Had to buy for DD last year. I'm not sure he ever wore it!! Maybe once.... but I told him he may as well keep it. He may have another non- KofC occasion to wear a White Tuxedo Jacket. Who knows?? But the RED jacket can go! LOL

Remember how I mentioned my Foray into Marshall's? Well since we drove separately and since Commander wanted to stop over at Home Depot in VA Beach, which is the total Opposite way from home, I figured I had time to make a quick stop of my own. So I headed over to Marshall's . I've been a really good girl and not done hardly ANY shopping all month so I figured I deserved it...LOL. Soooooo, what did I get???

Well this cute Lilly P. Skirt!!! I've heard other's saying they've had luck at Marshall's finding them some Lilly, I never expected I would though. It actually fits even...a little snugger than I' d like, but once I lose a few more pounds it will be perfect. And I found this really cute Blue Sundress by Carole Little, and these REALLY cute RL Flip Flops......

OH-Sorting Organizing and Purging.

As I've mentioned before...we are in the throws of getting our home ready to sell in the event that we possibly move this fall. We haven't actually decided one way or another, so we're kindof living in limbo these days. A lot depends on how quickly we can get our house ON the market and then of course it all depends on IF it sells quickly( which in today's market doesn't sound too promising) ...at the very least we are getting the house in shape and our home will be pretty nice if we do stay.

I've been going thru all our stuff and purging TONS...I'm a bit of a pack rat and tend to have LOTS of clutter....it's been refreshing to get rid of so much of it. I'm really starting to crave a more simple, streamlined style. I'm also a bit of a shopaholic and I've really been trying to curb that, and I think I'm doing pretty good( although I DID hit Marshall's today for a quick romp..LOL..I'll post what I found later)

So here's a few quick photo's of what I've been up to with Operation House. Here you can see I'm cleaning out my cupboards and rearranging and reorganizing. I was keeping the plates on the bottom shelf there under the coffee and tea mugs. Today I moved all the dishes to the side cabinet(where I kept all my plastic containers for leftovers), and moved all my glasses which were in another cabinet( not in this pic) to where the plates were. The plastic containers were all moved to where I kept the glasses. I also purged a bunch of stuff from all the cabinets...I must have had about 20 stray plastic lids...LOL..probably more...

Here is the finished product.

And here is my counter top cleared off and streamlined...believe me it used to be MUCH more cluttered....hopefully soon we'll have new counter tops. We might be ordering them this weekend.I've hated these since we moved in.....they don't look too bad in pics...but they are way worse in person.

And here we have all the piles and bags of 'stuff" I've been purging. I've been going thru the whole house just purge ,purge, purge.

Here we have bags of 'stuff' in my bedroom:and here bags and boxes in my living room:and here , piles and bags and boxes in our upstairs hall:

Whew!!!!

Real Life at Chez Maggii

Last week I came across this cute project going on over at Farm Fresh, called It's Real Life. She gives you a list of Pictures to take around the home, and everybody posts them and shares their "Real Life" . I kindof came in at the tail end last week and really wasn't up to sharing my 'real life" so I didn't particpate...but this week it's a whole new list and I figure why not? I promise I didn't 'stage" anything..well ok maybe just a little..I did straighten the slipcover on my chair, and I did set up my favorite feature pose just a tiny bit, but that's it...so on to the pics:

Curb Appeal: Here's a photo of our house from the street. It's hard to get a good shot from the street as there are too many trees that get in the way.
We actually usually have black shutters on the windows but the Commander is replacing them this week. He's taken the old ones down but hasn't gotten the new ones up yet.

Junk Drawer: Ok just about EVERY drawer in this house is a 'junk' drawer...or at least LOOKS like one. This is my junk drawer next to my favorite chair. I recently cleaned it out so it isn't too bad. There's my USB cord for my camera, some other DC adpater for something..who knows what. Magazine clippings I'm saving. Cute quote cards I tore out of Oprah Mag. Ribbon bookmarks given to me at Christmas. A few crochet hooks, and usually you can find chocolate in this drawer....

From Whence I Blog: this would be the most common place for me to blog.. I have a laptop so I can blog all over the place if I want...but most of the time you'll find me blogging here...I'm sitting here RIGHT NOW!! LOL..this is MY chair in our living room. I like to have all my 'stuff' around...so there's tons of books piled around ..a basket of crochet, or two or three...magazines etc etc.

Favorite Jewelry: Ok this one was easy.....

Best Feature: I actually have a lot of "features" I like...it's the "whole package" I have a hard time with( mainly because I'm unhappy with my weight and size) but I'd have to say my legs are my favorite...they've always been pretty well proportioned and shapely. I'm tend to be very slim thru the hips and thighs so my legs look pretty good even now, while I'm overweight. They are a bit pale as I haven't gotten much sun this summer, too busy inside working on Operation House. They are a bit freckly...well I'm quite a bit freckly all over the place and I LOVE it....hmmmn come to think of it, THAT might be my BEST feature..... freckles!

Thought I'd add a couple of Bonus Pics for Curb Appeal.....here is what you see ON the curb( if you can call it that...more like the end of our drive.)

And here's a tasty bit of 'curb appeal" you'd get to see today if you came by....Commander working up a sweat, being all handy and stuff.......mmmmmm

More Celebrating

As you all know....all two or three of you who read here..... :)

Yesterday was Our Anniversary. 25 Years of Wedded Bliss. Ok, it hasn't always been 'bliss'...but it's been blissful enough.....I think we're doing pretty darn good. Of course we all know about the fabulouso piece of bling Commander gave me...I absolutely LOVE it!!

So yesterday was our Anniversary...it passed by pretty quietly and that was fine...after the bling I didn't expect any real fanfare....we had Choir Practice for Church in the evening...It went by quickly. Afterwards Commander took me and the co-ed( she sings in choir too , so she was with us....Drama teen does as well, but she's away this week for Drama Nationals) out to Ruby Tuesdays( it was between that or Applebees and lately I really don't like Applebees) near home. It was actually a pretty nice dinner. We all enjoyed our meal.

25 Year Ago

The Commander and I were married. Wow!! 25 years......sometimes I wonder how we got here and am totally shocked that we DID....but then I can't imagine NOT being married for many years to come.....we've had some rocky times.....but I have to say as we get older and more mature it's getting easier and easier. We still have our moments, but they are not as dire as they once were...they blow over much more quickly and painlessly...I will say I've never really regretted getting married as young as we did ( I was barely 18 ) and I look forward to spending the rest of my life as Mrs. Commander.

Gosh....Look how young we were!!

Soooo what does 25 years of Wedded Bliss get me you ask??? Well..............

How about this lovely piece of Bling, Baby!!

OMG I still cannot believe it. We went shopping last Sunday for a laptop for Drama Teen and Commander saw a sign for Friedman's Going out of Business and asked where that was...I told him not expecting him to actually be interested(didn't want to get my hopes up) figured he was just curious. Then after looking at Computers at Best Buy we actually stopped over and Friedman's and let me pick something out..I actually picked a smaller similar ring...then he saw this one and asked if I'd like it. Uh YEAH!!!! As they are going out of business we got it for a steal..but it still cost a pretty penny and it's worth so much more.......I LOVE it....Of course it makes my Wedding Set look tiny....but I still love my Solitaire...and wouldn't give it up for anything.

It just looks so beautiful over there on my right hand, doesn't it??? Can you tell I LOVE it....yeah sometimes I'm materialistic ....so sue me....LOL

The best part is...he didn't even make me wait until today to start wearing it....he let me put it on the minute we left the store( if you know the Commander ...you know how out of character that is for him...he's a stickler for making one wait until THE appropriate time...he may buy your Christmas Gift a week before, with you standing right there...but he WILL make you wait until Christmas Day to use it.....LOL..unless of course HE wants to use it for some reason...then an acception can be made)

Above All

Last Sunday the girls sang this special song for Father's Day. With the co-ed gone most of the year,there aren't many opportunities to have them sing together,so we are taking advantage of it as much as possible this summer.

Lunch with the Church Ladies

A few months ago a few of the women from our Church started a Ladies Lunch Group...We'd meet each Friday(whoever could make it) at a different Restaurant in the area. Life got really busy for most of us and we hadn't had one of our weekly Lunches for a few weeks. My friend "D" called yesterday to see if we could get together and sent out an e-mail to the rest of the ladies to see who could join us.. we got a pretty good group together. I brought the C0-ed along as well. She's never one to turn down lunch..especially if Mom is paying...LOL

We went to RoseBay's Seafood in Chesapeake. We'd been there before and really liked it. The weather has been so nice lately we took advantage of it and chose to eat outside on the terrace.

Me and the C0-ed. It's fun to have her home for the summer. I really miss her when she's away at VA Tech.
Couldn't resist this sign.....OOPS

I ordered a Crab Cake Sandwich with Sweet Potato Salad. Yummy.

This is what I wore today. One of my Favorite Outfits.