A Holiday Haircut

I cut hair. Did you know that? I actually cut lots of hairs! (That's a little hair cutting humor!) Oh gosh!
I recently had the opportunity of chopping off 12 inches of a student's hair. She has had long hair pretty much all of her life, so I was thrilled in the end when she loved her new style. Take a look at the process...

A Happy Holiday Haircut for Hanna!

Failure to Communicate

Boy, have I slacked off this semester with blogging. It has been a full and fast 4 months. I will catch you up to speed via photos...

Chris and I bowling at our student leadership in August.

Casie, some students, and me getting pedicures before the school year starts. One last moment of pampering.

A group of students over for a cookout in the Vineyard.

Tami got married!

Me and my gals posing for our future movie poster. It's very Travelling Pants.

Chris and me at the Fall County Fair. We ate so much! Cotton Candy, funnel cake, corn dog. Oh man!

Some of us gals went to Ann Arbor for thrift store shopping. We grabbed lunch at the cutest quaint little market.

Slumber Party last month where we ate like the Gilmore Girls. Junk food and 5 pizzas!

There was 20 of us in my little living room watching Audrey Hepburn movies.



8 gals spent the night. Chris was out of town camping with the guys.

Katie, Conni, and me... ladies night out.

Chris's black eye! Chris got punched in the eye, accidentally, during the Turkey Bowl, Staff vs. Students Flag Football Game.

Helpful? I'm not sure.

So everything is automatic these days when you go in a bathroom. You get done using the toilet, and it flushes for you. You go to wash your hands. The soap drops into your hands without any of your effort, the water comes on simply by sensing your motion, and then the dryer turns on or a paper towel is dispensed at the wave of your hand. Are they being helpful? Should I pause to thank my toilet when it prevents me from having to touch a handle? Next time I'm in a restroom where something automatic "assists" me, I'm going to look down my nose and say, "Show off!"

Peaches- This is for you Momma!

My dear friend Laura has had a family tradition passed down from her Granny, and I have completely invited myself into the family tradition. Every summer, peach season rolls around, and right off of I-45 in Fairfield, TX you can find an abundance of peaches for sale. I boldly claim that they are the best peaches ever, but I can't say I've had all the peaches in the world. Laura has fed me her frozen peaches for a while, and this year I said to Chris, "We are bringing back peaches from Faifield to Michigan"... so we did! We stopped and bought a huge box of like 7 dozen peaches and I've spent the last two nights prepping them for freezing. We will have peaches all winter!

This is how many I still have left to prep!

Before & After

With more time on my hands this summer, I've been able to work on things I would never even think about during in the school year, like organizing underneath the bathroom sink, re-strategizing how I rotate my seasonal clothes, and my most recent project, reupholstering a chair. I picked up an old chair for $20 at our school yard sale this spring to work on this summer. I've been wanting another chair for our living room, and more specifically, I've wanted a chair like one I've seen in Anthropologie, my favorite store, for a few years now.

Here's the chair from Anthropologie that I love.

It's on the more crazy and random side of my decorating taste, but that's what I love about it. Here's the chair before I tore it apart.

After I tore it apart.

My new coral chair! I love it!

Do you think it's a good match to the one I tried to match it to?

The Wicked, Windy City

Chris and I spent the last two days in Chicago for a short vacation. It was awesome to get away, and we didn't want to come back. Then again, we're always glad to leave Jackson, and never glad to return! Here's a bunch of pictures to give you a better picture of how we spent our time.

We got a half hour from home when I realized we forgot our hanging bag with all of our clothes in it at home. This provided us with an opportunity to get some cheeseburgers and milkshakes from McDonald's though!

Our hotel was awesome and right in the middle of downtown Chicago.

I was astonished with the thorough job of landscaping that is done in the city. Flowers everywhere! I loved the planted peacocks we walked by on the sidewalk.

Friday night we had an incredible meal at Avenue M. Ok, here's what we ate. Our appetizer were coconut shrimp on a bed of a vanilla cream sauce with a balsamic glaze. The vanilla sauce was like candy, and incredible on the shrimp. For our next course, I got a roasted tomato soup and Chris got a goat cheese salad on a bed of greens with a light vinaigrette. I have never had tomato soup in my life, and what I have had, I didn't like. After my first bite of this soup, I said, and I quote, "Well you could pour that on just about anything, and it would be good!" It was awesome! On to the main course... Chris got a fillet steak with a blue cheese sauce on top, and I got a pork chop with a three chili sauce with garlic mashed potatoes. After all that, believe it or not, I probably could have kept eating, it was so good!

We had great seats to see Wicked, and it was worth every penny. So good!

We were baffled with how this church was the 17th Church of Christ! Not the 5th or the 12th, the 17th!!!

Mmmm, breakfast at Yolk. Chris for crepes stuffed with avocado, egg, and cheese with a side of fruit and pancakes. I got an omelet with ham, bacon, and sausage (I know, lots of meat) and cheese with a side of potatoes and pancakes with blackberries and bananas on top. We also had fresh strawberry orange juice. We could hardly get this meal down!

Us at the Lincoln zoo with the city in the background.

There was a free concert at Millennium Park, the symphony and choir. It was gorgeous to walk around the park and gardens with the symphony playing in the background.

Our reflexion in the Space Cloud. It's off-centered, but I think it makes it look artsy!

We also ate at an Italian Bistro and Pizzeria called Bella Betina's. Delicious! They served bread with olive oil AND balsamic vinegar to dip in and then dip in parmesan cheese. We loved it! Then Chicago style pizza that was great. We have left-overs that will be consumed today!

Now that I know what a treat Chicago is, and it's only 3.5 hours from us, we will probably be going more often. If you're ever in Chicago, let us know and we may just come to see you too!

The Vineyard

Last August, Chris and I were fed up with our empty yard. Grass, nothing but grass. No landscaping, nothing. Oh sure, we had a fence full of vines, grape vines and forsythia, but nothin' else.
We had a vision... a patio, where we could hang lights, plant flowers, cook out on our grill, and of course, entertain. Over two weekends, we ventured out and conquered our abyss of a yard. We built our patio. This spring, I finished our landscaping and flower beds. The result? What my dear friend Laura named The Vineyard.

The hanging lights make it look like an outdoor cafe at night with their soft glow.

My peonies (the pink flowers) are in bloom this week. I love them!

Chris insisted upon making a small fountain for the patio. He said he'd rather listen to water than the cars driving on the major road we live by.

Our hammock is in the back of the yard. Sometimes when we can't find each other in the house, the first place we look is out our kitchen window to see if the hammock is being used.