Having said all of that…today I have pictures of actual products! lol. These items were for some great customers of mine so I covered their personal information, like their address and name if both their last and first are on the design. I enjoy creating and many customers think outside the box and want to add or alter my original design and I LOVE that! I love taking my base design and vamping it up to customer tastes and delights! I encourage everyone to do that! There might be small custom fees for designs that are from scratch but usually I don’t charge for minor add ons and changes…now that does depend on the design. Some designs are listed at $4.95/per glossy sheet, down from my higher (yet fair) price of $6.85/per glossy sheet. Those designs are meant to be quick proof, quick approval, print and ship….QUICK. So, I don’t usually allow or prefer (since allow seems strong), to change the colors. Texts and text color changes are no problem however.

In the photos below, I also include my first large garden harvest of my tomatoes! LOVE them! So delicious!!

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

We celebrated dad’s 68th birthday on June 9th. It was weird not having my mom with us to celebrate and I did my best to make a yellow/chocolate icing with nuts cake like mom did. For the actual birthday, we stayed home and I made dinner just for us. We had a formal birthday outing a few days later and I invited other family and friends to join us and dad seemed to enjoy the company. He doens’t talk too much and he had his chocolates before his meal (something he never would have done, pre-Alzheimer’s) but he LOVES going out to eat so it was fitting to do that for his birthday celebration! I also post a pic of my first “ready to eat” garden pickins’! I was so excited!!

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

We took our English Bulldog puppy, Duke, to meet the classmates and he had a blast! The kids, parents and teachers gave him tons of attention and he ate it up! We couldn’t keep him out long though so my hubby took him back home after about 15 minutes of fun- it was too hot for Duke!

Below are some pics of the fun day!

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

Here are some pics of the cutie pie:

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

None-the-less…the two guys we have in charge of our construction job now, know a lot about gardens and one even tilled my yard where I wanted the garden and I am super ecstatic that I got my lil’ sprouts in the ground! I purchased my plants from Lowes and most were only a few inches high. I planted these plants: 12 better boy tomato plants (maters as we call ‘em in my neck of woods), 8 green bell pepper plants, 6 roma tomato plants, 4 broccolli plants, 4 cayenne pepper and 4 strawberry plants. Few days later, I purchased a HUGE big boy tomato plant and kept it inside until it warmed up some and during a few cold nights, I covered my garden with a big garden “blanket.” On April 1st, I planted approximately 25 Texas yellow onion buds in my garden and my oldest son and I planted a few things using seed kits made for kids…we planted baby watermelons, “blue flowers” and peanuts. All of those we’re keeping in lil’ pots until they’re big enough to transplant in our yard. We also planted a nectarine tree, a lilac patio tree and plan to plant a few more trees and flowers in the yard once the construction is complete. I have a couple more roma, cherry and big boy tomato plants, along with rosemary and a double pink knockout rose bush in pots on my front steps  Some I will plant once the construction settles a bit. I bought some tiny habanero sprouts about a week ago for my hubby, kept them inside until they grew a little more and transplated them in my garden today.

My husband and I are amazed at the difference in the progress of work since giving the reins over to two guys that were originally under our lead guy. We know all the information we want to know (as it should be since it’s our money, our property) and we are seeing things get done. We are still about a month or lil’ more out b/c some mistakes from before, have had to be corrected but we are very close to calling in our hvac, plumbing and electrical inspection. We are adding approximately 1000 sq. feet to our home and a 400 sq. foot bonus up top…two of our pre-existing rooms will be turned into common living areas- one for my dad and a family room for everyone…not a small project by any means and it’s been in the works for 6 months. The new construction work began at the end of Nov. but the remodeling of our kitchen and other things in our existing home began in Oct. Can’t wait to see the final result!

In the meantime, here are some pics of my garden from the beginning, week 2 and week 3…you will see hay in our yard…we had a drainage problem and the hay helps soak up excess water and our grass grow. You will also see our lil’ storage shed- it’s getting a makeover as well! We put extra windows we had in it, a new door and will be putting vinyl siding on it…I’ll post it’s transformation later.

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

My husband and I allowed time and opportunities for him to straighten things out…We gave lots of respect and patience, but there comes a point in some situations when you can no longer feel or be genuine and this was one of them.  We don’t like to be a thorn in anyone’s side and that’s how he acts towards us. We’ve really been taken advantage of and part of it is our fault for trusting…business is all in the paperwork…not ideas you trust someone else to do or follow through with…always get things in writing!

Firing him gives him a way out of the mess he created- which I truly hope it will help him not be so stressed but it also gives my husband and I some peace of mind. I would have thought the opposite months ago but my husband and I received some insider information in the past few weeks. That, along with information the foreman himself gave us, allowed us to make the decision to sever ties before things got really bad. This guy isn’t the only one who can finish our job and hubby and I already have some other men in mind to do the work.

While writing about this situation, I kept the lead man’s or “foreman’s” name and business name out. I also tried to be discreet about those personal situations that spilled over into the job. I am in no way trying to ruin any future business for him but at the same time, those who live locally that might read this blog and know who started the project, should be aware b/c I don’t think our job is or will be the only one he loses focus on. This job became personal and that isn’t how things get done. Business is business. And business SHOULD stay business!! An important lesson I’ve finally learned.

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

We had the building permit put in our name and put someone in charge to help us figure things out - like a foreman under us to manage everything- this person came highly recommended but personal things in his life are spilling into our job and so days go by with no work being done or he and 2-3 workers show up at 11am and leave at 3pm. We have a HUGE trash pile in our yard that is covered by a big blue tarp- trash and clean-up was figured into our budget and it’s really getting out of hand. We even had someone in the neighborhood complain to the inspector’s office about it. We have given this person a lot of patience and silent understanding but it’s really come to a point where we just can’t keep allowing things to go South or we will suffer financially in the end. At the rate it’s going now, it will be the end of summer before we get our house back! There’s a lot of loose ends everywhere…things in the original house that were put off until they got to a certain point with the addition, things in the addition that keep getting put off…We still need plumbing and electrical to be done, HVAC, insulation and sheet rock, Tyvek and vinyl siding on the exterior and there are a lot of little things that have to be done before all of those things can be done. I have heard 3-4 weeks for completion on those things, for about 2 months now. After all of those things are done, we still have to paint, install flooring, tile, bathroom vanities, etc…We are so weary of having our home be such a mess. We’ve been thinking of a game plan and know that we have to regain control of this project. The person we hired, we trusted but he has abused that trust and can’t even take time out of his day to discuss important things with my husband and myself. We have asked questions but he avoids those he doesn’t want to answer. We’re a lil’ perturbed to say the least and we overlooked a lot before allowing ourselves to get to this point. Something has to be done or I will go cuckoo!!

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

Hubby’s birthday was this week. The day before his big day, we went out to eat with another couple and then went to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. It was pretty good- I love movies with Johnny Depp and it’s funny…no matter what character he plays since filming the Pirate movies and the Willy Wonka movie- I always see/hear things in his movements and speech that remind me of those two characters. On hubby’s actual birthday, we made steaks on the grill for us and my dad and burgers for the boys. It was a nice family day.

It’s no secret in my family that my dad’s current favorite thing is going out to eat at restaurants. Sometimes I go to church on Saturday nights and this past Saturday, my dad wanted to go to Cracker Barrel. I tried my hardest to get everyone out of the house in time to allow us time to eat but I was not successful and I ended up stopping at McDonald’s instead, b/c of the time. My dad did not get out of the car b/c he did not want to eat at McDonald’s. He gets something in his mind and protests if he doesn’t get it. Reminding everyone that he has Alzheimer’s…this is something I have to remind myself of b/c it can become frustrating at times– it’s almost similar to one of my boys having a fit for not getting what they want. My dad doesn’t act as verbally upset but he silently pouts and I think that’s common of those with Alzheimer’s. So, my boys and I get our food, sit down and begin to eat and my car alarm starts going off! I have to jump up and turn it off with my auto-key opener…I called my dad and tried to explain why it went off. When you lock the doors with it, if someone unlocks from the inside and not with the auto-key opener, it causes the alarm to go off. I asked if he wanted to come in and he said he was thinking about it. I asked him to give me a call and I would unlock it so he could get out. He didn’t call and about 5 minutes later, it goes off again! He finally came inside and decided to eat a cheeseburger anyways.

Our house is still undergoing construction…I’ll leave it at that for now

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO. 

So I’ve been in the market for a new printer for some time b/c I have had severe alignment issues with my current printer. I am a perfectionist and I reprint all the time until I get a print as close to perfectly centered in the middle of a label as possible. I wasted so much paper (which equals money . I finally spoke to someone knowledgable about these things and I’m amazed at what could have fixed my issue, this whole time…a TOP feeding printer! I have been using bottom feed for years b/c it’s easier to load the paper, takes up less space, looks better to the eye, etc…but it makes perfect sense that it would fix my issue! Top feed printers don’t spool around, they go straight into printing. I read reviews but nothing is like trying for yourself…after trying out 3 bottom feed printers before learning what could fix my issue- my 4th one was perfect (thank goodness for easy return policies from Staples)!! I have always been an HP girl but I must say my new Epson top feed printer is marvelous! It’s slower than my bottom feed but I’d rather wait a lil’ longer for a high quality, aligned print- which means less paper thrown away too. I’m so excited!

We had snow last weekend and today it’s up in the 50’s and beautiful outside! I have been sneezing all day and I feel like I’m getting a cold. The snow was a lot of fun and I really love cooler weather but I’m looking forward to spring time….not looking forward to sneezing more but thankfully, I only have boughts of sneezing here and there- it’s not an everyday, all day thing!

Ending on a slightly funny note…I sprained my right ankle AGAIN last night! I stepped up on a step stool and when I stepped down, my right foot gave and fell to the right with all my weight. It hurt but luckily (b/c I do this a lot), it didn’t swell hardly at all. It’s very sore & stiff  today though. The funny and sweet part was, my 2 boys were nearby (oldest was actually on the potty)…and my oldest jumped up and ran to me all upset and completely exposed, b/c I got hurt and kissed my boo boo foot. My youngest son patted it, which kinda hurt but then he poked out his lips really big and gave my foot a kiss. So sweet. When your kids show compassion when someone is in pain…that’s a wonderful feeling. Guess I’m doing all right

I love and miss you mama, bunches and bunches. You were and still are my heart…XOXO.