Here's the Buzz:

Don't you LOVE it when one of your favorite books is made into a beautiful movie?

Mine was. The Secret Life of Bees is a beautiful story about mothers

and daughters, coming of age, discovering the healer

inside of you and yes, beekeeping.

Set in 1964, Civil Rights Movement in full-swing,

Lily is motherless and goes on a journey to find clues about why her mother is gone.

She finds healing and lessons from her 5 most unlikely mothers

and an abusive father who so loved her mother.

(be warned: lots of profanity)

Don't you just Love it when you HAVE to take time out for you?

Yes and no. But, necessary before a complete emotional

breakdown! This is where I am today.

And tomorrow.

I'm taking time off from blogging, socializing,

crafting, serving, running, doing, spinning, etc.

All things I tend to do so well until I'm a hormonal mess and I don't

know what more to do with myself. Work only amplifies this

situation for me. Did I mention that my husband works nights and sleeps

during the day? Oh, yeah, and I was sick for a month and a half.

All of these factors equal simplify.

I know it's a gift to get it figured out.

Don't you just love it when you have a break-through, share and care

more about what you think and feel than what others think?

(in a healthy way, I mean:)

Friends, this is history for me.

Thanks for listening.

"You are enough. We are enough."- August, Secret Life of Bees

Don't you just hate it when you grate your finger?

(bonus pic)

"Don't you just hate it when you grate your finger!"

Autumn showed me her mangled thumb yesterday at work.

We had a good laugh and challenged

eachother to a "Don't you hate it" blog post.

Don't you hate it when:

-thanks to Guitar Hero, your kids know the lyrics to Iron Man and not the upcoming Primary Program songs? Working on it!

-you have to honk not once, but 3 times for the car in front of you to turn on your green arrow? (Just happened)

-(Also just happened) The lady that cuts you off in traffic thinks that you were honking to let her in and her ears-wide grin tells you 'she just doesn't get it!'

When I thought about it, there are just way too many "don't you hate its"

and not enough "don't you just love it whens..."

SO

Here's where y'all come in:

Blog your "don't you just hate it whens" and "don't you just love it whens". I would love to hear all about

your crazy and happy days.

Next post for me is the loves.

Blog on!

"Take 2 Aspirin and Call me Tomorrow"

Today I visited Dr. Rosie's office:

She wrote my "siptums" down and told me what she thought I was dealing with.

This just reiterated how really lame a sinus infection

and resulting "C. Dif."due to "broad spectrum antibiotics" are-

look up C. Dif. on the net and pray

it will never be you typing this!!

Dr. Rosie's notes are some of the cutest moments in this mommy's life!

I LOVE it when my kids practice their writing skills

by sounding words out and writing.

Ivy's in this mode and writing like crazy-

for school, for fun and especially, for my entertainment.

The paper is split in half and the right column is as follows:

"Jessica symptoms:

pressure through Jessica's nose,

her ears are clogged. Her throat hurts bad."

Left column:

"She feels like her head is going to explode."

FYI: She was pressing me for some of these comments.

Isn't that just like a girl? She's noticing the details

of how others feel. I love it.

The writing, the sweetness, the care, My girl.

Moments

Ivy and some cute, cute friends.

This "meeting" in our yard went haywire

when they raided the outside freezer!

No really, they look straight out of the Saturday Evening Post.

Gorgeous, excepting a few holes....

What's in the water here in SS?
There was a 3rd snaggle tooth not even pictured!
(D made me pay him a buck for this blog pic.)

Here's my date with Harrison:

He's moving into the very touchy pre-teen phase

and our time together needs to be

fun and devoted to his likes.

We played "Skip-bo" and had sundaes.

Love him and our time together.

We took a trip to read at B & N- One of our favorite dates.

We snuggle up and read.

We laugh.

We put together a wish list.

We look at beautiful things.
We tell the little, annoying

kid pushing ALL of the musical

buttons and running, to stop.

Life is Happening!

Just guess how much area

ONE Hard-boiled EGG

covers when it explodes all over the

inside of your MICROWAVE!

Remeber Gremlins:)

We conducted the experiment unknowingly

this morning and had definite conclusive results.

It was good for a laugh anyway.

Harrison said,

"Don't you know you never put an egg in the microwave?!

It has pores that absorb water, then as it heats,

it expands. The pressure becomes too much and it explodes."

Quiz #2:

Guess which mom didn't teach him that?

Donovan says as he's peering in the microwave,

"You'll need to show your friends this

on your blog."

That's what started my fabulous Thursday.

GNO with Lakeview Babes

This Lakeview girls group

finally hooked up for a long-awaited Girl's Night!

We decided on Olive Garden for a

lovely dinner and we

didn't even lose anyone's camera!

Our waiter, Jeff practically kicked us out of there

(45 min. at each table, please)

Next......

This is Monica (say it, "Moh-nee-cu"). Monica is beautiful and super fun to be with.

She has money from Grandma

and wants to spend it being artful

and surrounded by silly,

yet creative friends.

So she picks "Color Me Mine" for our activity.

What's Color Me Mine, you ask?

It's a pottery shop where

"You paint it, we fire it."

You can personalize everything from

salt and pepper shakers to the

understated Papa Smurf Gnome

(see attached picture)

Also present is Autumn. Isn't she lovely modeling the fashionable salt and pepper shakers?

Autumn's reading "Secret Life of Bees" and loves to say one of the

notty words Lily uses all of the time (in her mind, of course). I love Autumn.

I can't wait to show our Halloween costume plan to the rest of you!

I see Papa Smurf. Maybe I just like to say that.

"Have a Smurfy day"

I know a guy who tatooed a smurf on his leg...

as an adult!

Cami. Dear, Cami. She had more fun at this painting

shop than any 2 women should have!

I enjoyed watching her gutsy pattern develop,

daisy's with a swirl pattern on the inside

of the bowl. She studied,

painted, stewed, then painted over.

In the end, she made a beautiful, original creation

to add to her amazing bowl collection.

Cami has the Midas touch as far as I'm concerned.

You should see her do a Yoga bind.

We'll be back girls, won't we?

I made this for my sis-in-law for Christmas.

Jeanetta will love my remedial

painting skills and appreciate them for what they are:

a handmade slice of love.

I like how it turned out and want to

eventually start a set of

original pieces for my home.

Everyone's stuff turned out amazing.

Monica's giant polka-dotted popcorn bowl turned out

beautiful due to the team efforts of she and Autumn.

Happy Blogiversary To Me!

1 year.

Kati teased that I would never lift-off,

but here I am, still typing away

like the crazy Blogger Mom that I am!

I'll celebrate with

something I read today in the book,

Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

"...people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you're fortunate enough. But that's not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.

And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it. If you don't you will leak away your innate contentment. It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments."

"The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world.

Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way.

You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else.

Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people." -pg. 260

(Eat Pray Love has some offensive language in it. I'm whiting-out for friends;)

Love you all. Thanks for the party!