If a Fairy had a Kitchen, What Would it Look Like?

For those who have fairy doors, don't you just ever imagine what would be behind the door?

I decided to make up a fairy kitchen that will eventually ACTUALLY be behind a fairy door in my home.

Oh look! This fairy must have been scared off in the middle of cooking!

There are TWO glasses....possibly TWO fairies?

Wouldn't it be appropriate for a fairy to have BUTTERFLIES?

I picture this fairy as liking flowers as much as butterflies.

Is that toast in the toaster?

I wonder what is cooking on the stove?

Too bad I can't see into the cookbook that is on the table....

This box will be hidden inside a kitchen cabinet....and a hole will be cut into the bar side of the cabinet for the fairy window.

There will also be a door...that won't open because little hands can destroy a fairy room in less than 30 seconds....or even might choke on something. So, we will just leave it to their imagination by getting to look into a fairy kitchen and dream impossible dreams!I know this is one of those posts where you say, "Traci, you've got too much time on your hands!" I wanted to get this done and it only took about 2 -3 hours total time to make....minus the door. Once the thing is in place....I won't have to do anything else 'cept watch little ones' eyes light up and start telling fairy stories.....see? To me, it is a small price to pay to see imagination take flight!

Plus, I don't really care what you think of how I choose to spend my time...ba haaaaa. I am having fun and I only have one life to live...might as well live it loud and IN COLOR!!!

Thrifted Lamp Makeover

THE NESTING PLACE

A few months ago, I got this lamp at the thrift store for $2.00.

Re-wire = $7.00

Thrifted Lamp Shade = $2.00

Pink Spray Paint = Possibly $1.00.
New lamp = PRICELESS
Also, that lovely little nightstand was found this past weekend at a garage sale for $10.00...which is my limit on smaller furniture....it is an antique.
The little pink trash can was found at an antique store for $1.50.
The cute comforter was from ALDI'S....$22.50...can you believe that?
I also found a chenille bedspread for $3.00 at a garage sale!!!

Have You Been Touched by Cancer?

Our family has had its run of cancer...as have many other families.

Supporting our local Relay for Life is important.

Our town used to have a HUGE event in which we participated in each year.

One year, we won with the theme, "How the Breast was Won".

We all wore pink cowgirl hats, pink guns, pink shirts, and pink bandannas.

We even had a small western jail....so cute.

Now, it doesn't seem near as big....but still raises a lot of money for research.

Here is Julie, my middle sister. She had throat cancer about 2 years ago.

In the middle, is my mom just finished chemo for colon cancer.

On the right is Bonnie, my mother-in-law who is a breast cancer survivor.

Yay! They are SURVIVORS against the FIGHT AGAINST CANCER!

Here they all are during their introductions.


This is the Survivor Lap...the first lap of Relay for Life is walked by the survivors.

This is Madeline, she had liver cancer as a baby. She is now 17 years old.
A small world is that she did not live in our town at the time....but, my friend, Barbie, was her nurse! They were able to meet up again at CHURCH where they both attend now! What are the chances they would ever meet again?


Madeline is a SURVIVOR!

There go the survivors!

I have NO IDEA who these ladies are....I just know that they were WONDERFUL! I need to find out the name of their group. They did the barber shop style singing....

Mom and Julie w/ the Survivor cake that was served at their dinner!

Please make sure you support research for cancer....we are ALL affected by this terrible disease in one way or another.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

All About My HOT Friday Night Date.....

What are the chances that ONE goat taken to the livestock sale on a Friday night will bring enough money to........pay for the price of new tires?
Yep, that is what happened last night...

We decided that we would take ONE goat to the livestock sale

in a livestock trailer. Now, you need to know that this

is not a HUGE town where we are going...matter of fact,

I don't even know if it honestly has a post office.

About half way there, the tread blows on a trailer tire.

We are just 2 miles into the turnpike where U-Turns are

"strictly prohibited"! Do we have a spare for the trailer tire?

OF COURSE NOT!

Now, normally in a situation like this, there are friends to call, right?

WRONG! Our town was having the ballet recital and that might as well have been the presidential inauguration in our town. Oh, wait, there was a chance that one of the friends who normally worked the sale would be passing through...wrong, he has a daughter in the ballet recital! Oh...there was another chance that another friend was bringing some goats to the sale.....well, right before HE left, he had a goat run through a fence and split her side open...so, he was stitching her up..... What about David's dad, yah, we can call him....oh wait, they have a granddaughter in the ballet recital...duh! As we are scrolling through the names of people that could possibly get us out of this bind, we think of Bobby....yah, Bobby...he is always willing to help at a moments notice....well, ends up he is...no, not at the ballet recital...he is more than an hour away....arrrggghhh.

We have TWO choices at 7:00 at night:

1. Keep going and HOPE that there is a tire store on the way and THAT IT WILL BE OPEN. Also, pray the tread doesn't shatter out some poor passerby window.

OR

2. Make an ILLEGAL U-turn and head back to the slightly larger town and hope the tire store is open while still praying that the tread doesn't shatter out some poor passerby window.

We opted for #2.

We made the ILLEGAL U-Turn without a highway patrolman catching us...because EVERYONE knows that if he did catch us, he could HELP us.....any other time, we would have been caught!

We creep about 25 minutes back to the small town and catch the owner of the tire shop just about to get into his car and leave for holiday weekend!

He is more than willing to help us! He finds us a new tire....and I make sure husband gets a SPARE this time! You know he actually said, "WHY?"

So, after $125 to the tire guy and a huge thank you, we head to the sale AGAIN. Oh, and there WAS a tire store on the way and it was OPEN...oh well.

We get her dropped off and we start to head home....we have a small discussion about why we didn't stay for the sale....he thought my allergies would drive me nuts....I was just ready to go see the weird animals that go through that sale....so, we were already on the road...so we continued. Had we stayed, it would have been dark during what happened next.....

Just as we passed the previous flat tire spot on the highway, we think the trailer is having horrid memories of the tragedy that had happened earlier and had a shaking spell.....

NOOOOOOoooOOOOOO.....

It was ANOTHER TIRE EXPLODING!!

Same song, different tire.....

I'm doing the "aren't you glad you got a spare tire NOW buddy" look....

So, we get pulled over as far as we can, since this time the tire is on the TRAFFIC Side...

SIDE NOTE: IF YOU SEE A CAR ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD AND THERE ARE TWO LANES, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE MOVE INTO THE FAR LANE...THAT IS NERVE RACKING TO HAVE CARS FLYING BY WHEN YOU ARE TRYING TO CHANGE A TIRE...AND BELIEVE IT OR NOT, YOU THROW DEBRIS WHEN YOU DRIVE BY. THANK YOU!

So, we start to change the tire...and the stupid lug nuts won't loosen...I kid you NOT! We looked like we were trying to get the trailer to give birth or something...I am jumping on the fender trying to get the tire to stick to the ground long enough so David could jump on the "lug nut turner" to see if we could get them to loosen....to no avail.

So, we ended up driving 45 mph for 50 minutes back to OUR town and drop

the trailer off at the tire store!

Now, you will also notice that there are NO pictures from MY CAMERA of this adventure....

That is NOT because I didn't have my camera....noooooo, it is because as I jump out of the truck to get a picture....because I KNOW this will make a great blog post....I discover I completely forgot to put the battery in the camera....I left it on the charger....ARRRRRGGGGGHHH.

After dropping off the trailer, we went STRAIGHT HOME.....as fast as our wittle truck would carry us before Murphy chased us and quickly wrote some more laws....

So, there you have it, I know it wasn't the kind of HOT date YOU were thinking....It was more along the 80 degree HOT date, change a tire TWICE, got to take a shower to get the sweaty stench off kind of date....

At least I got a funny post out of the story...so, when you think you are having a bad day, just open my little blog and read this again and again and again...and you will feel somewhat better I hope!

A Trip Down Memory Lane....

My mother and I went to decorate family members'

grave sites. Along the way, we took a little

trip down memory lane. My youngest daughter, Regan

went with us...so, we counted this as a "history" lesson!

We homeschool and we can do things like that....

This is where my mother grew up in Sand Springs. My Papa built

this house. See that front window on the left?

That is where my mother shared a room with

her blind grandma, Granny Hail.

I think every grandchild has the memory of trying to avoid the HEATER GRATE on the floor...which was so strategically put RIGHT in the doorway of the living room and kitchen. In the summer, it was covered with a beautifully braided rug, and in the winter.....OUCH!!!

Also, there was always a porch swing on that porch.

It is so strange to not have it on there now.

There were also two of those metal green chairs!

You can now find the retro ones at stores....if they

were heavy enough, I would have them on MY porch, except

the darn Oklahoma wind won't leave them be...they'd be yard

ornaments.

The detached garage is where he kept his red El Camino. It looked similar to the one pictured below. Every time I hear a blinker, I think of Papa.


I don't ever recall him listening to the radio while driving.

I would often ride with him to the local Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips to get the Sunday dinner. When that placed shut down, we resorted to KFC on Sundays.

What a fond memory.

This is a view from the back alley. It was such a shock to realize how small that backyard really was....it seemed like a mile for me to get from that back door to the fence. We would often have races.

The tree there has a lightning strike scar on it...unfortunately, we were unable

to get a picture of it. My mother was standing at that back door when it struck.

This is the little house beside my grandparents. My Papa built it also. It was for my mother and oldest sister, Terri, to live in. It eventually became a rent house.

You can't see it very well, but the porch of this house was a favorite hiding place of whatever renter's children and me. I would almost bet, you couldn't give me a million dollars to go under now....back then, it seemed as big as a bedroom to me.

Now we have moved on to my other Grandparents' home in Tulsa.

I don't have as many memories of this house since my parent's divorced when I was rather young.

What I do remember is the cement burro and wagon in the backyard, the Easter egg hunts, the bowls she served ice cream in....always smothered in Hershey's chocolate syrup from the can, and maybe one Christmas.

I can't remember the details of the house layout.

Now, we have moved on to the house where I spent a small portion of my childhood, but have so many memories.

It didn't look like this AT ALL....we were one of the first homes to get the "new" vinyl siding....some sort of brownish tan color. The porch used to have a long boxwood hedge around it. I borrowed some blocks from a friend and had to return them the same day....and by the time I remembered, it was dark outside. I was scared to death of the dark, so I dumped the blocks in the hedge and lied that I took them back. My dad found out and used the all curing belt on a wet bottom just fresh out of the bathtub! I have no memory after that....I'm sure I had to take the blocks back IN THE DARK though.

I remember having a pet duck, Puppy Duck.

I remember family pictures standing against the front door.

I remember a purple bedroom and my oldest sister had the coolest yellow and lime green bedroom.

I remember the hall was narrow enough that we could climb the walls and when my mother would come around the corner we could scare her.

We would also lay pillows down that hallway and my oldest sister would catapult us down the hallway just by using her feet to launch us.

Also, I could run down that hallway and do a flippy/spinny thing around her leg...just like a gymnast.

I remember GREEN carpet.

I remember the colorful neighbors.

My first boyfriend was in that neighborhood...Devin. I got to go on a "date" with him and his family...don't have a clue where we went, but I do remember sitting on the back of a cow and going to a BAR to hear the Speakeasy Singers. I guess back then, it was nothing to take a child to a bar....lol.

I remember one young couple never locked their door and we would just walk in on them and visit for a while....if I'm not mistaken, they would have kept my oldest sister if mom would have let them. I'm sure Terri tried to sell herself to them since she never really liked having sisters....she always thought she was destined to be an only child!

I remember a neighbor's dog attacking my middle sister.

I remember riding Tonka Toy trucks down steep driveways...and eventually getting stitches because I "wrecked" a pink El Camino.

I remember it was time to go home when the street lights came on....

We had an awesome piece of playground equipment in the backyard.

I have never seen another like it....I even googled for an hour to try to find a picture of one and couldn't find one.

It was a merry go round that had seats for four people.

Each person had a push and pull bar...and when you could get everyone participating, it was as if the thing would spin you into outer space!

I would have loved to have one of those for my children.

I remember when Casa Bonita opened and my oldest sister got to work there....

We were one of the first people to ride the Bell's Amusement Park's newest ride....The Phantasmagoria!

I remember going to the giant Sears to get get roasted cashews with my mom.

I also remember my middle sister pushing me in a stroller to that Sears....mind you, I was way beyond stroller age....she wanted me to be her "baby".

I remember a candy store called the "Happy House" that seemed to have endless supplies of taffy and wax bottled soda pop.

I remember sledding down the street in the snow.

Oh, the memories that shape our lives.....I am recording these here for my family.

So, I beg your pardon if it was a little boring for you. It was not boring for me and I thank my mother for my trip down memory lane yesterday.

Three more SOLD Fairy Doors

The pictures aren't the best....but, wanted to put them

on here anyhow.

I added the ruler this time so you can tell their

size. They are approximately 8" tall.

They can stand or hang.

They sell for $25.00 plus shipping.

Just click the FAIRY DOOR link on the right

to others I've made and more information.

Important Warning about Spray Painting in the Driveway!!!

When spray painting a project in the driveway....

don't forget about it and suddenly remember

it when you hear the crunching sound

coming from underneath your tire....

I would NEVER do that....no, I just thought

of it and wanted to make sure to remind

YOU not to do it....yah, that's

my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

Here Fishie Fishie Fishie.....

This is Sydni w/ a rather large bass from our pond.

A few years ago, we had a severe drought and I was

pretty sure it had wiped out any fish in our ponds....GUESS NOT!

Sydni said the bullfrogs are just as big....ewwwwww.

Does anyone remember the scary movie about the people

eating frogs? Do they still have that movie out?

To My Niece, Laura....

Wow! It is hard to believe that I am the only sister who still has children in school.....

Laura was the last of the nieces and one nephew that I have to graduate from

high school.

Congrats Laura! I am sooooo proud of you!

I hope your dreams come true, you seek God for all your plans and live

like there is no tomorrow!!!

The beautiful lady on the left is my oldest sister, Terri....no, Laura is

not her daughter....Laura's mom is the one taking the picture....lol.

I know, I know....Terri looks YOUNGER.....that is because I LET

her look younger.....aging is something she NEVER wants to do...so,

to keep her happy, I stay OLDER LOOKING...just so she

can get the glory when someone acts SHOCKED that I am THE BABY!!

The one taking the picture, Julie is the MIDDLE sister....need I say more??

IF you want to know what she looks like, just age progress her daughter there...

and you will know exactly what Julie looks like...tee heee.

No seriously, here she is.......see wasn't I right?