A very big Happy 19th Birthday to my baby boy!

Love you sweetie!!!!

Look who's home, comfy, cozy in his bed with his favorite roommate!

Pete picked him up Wednesday afternoon and he got a ride back on Sunday afternoon.

We miss him........

Jacksonville

I just love Jacksonville. 

 It was my second choice for a place to live, unfortunately, we did not find the right piece of property. 

Who knows, if we had moved there I would probably be working at the Britt Festival instead of The Oregon Shakespeare Festival - ha!

These are some photos I took while Marie was here.

This is a busy week for me and unfortunately, I might not be blogging after today for a while, so this is what you get. 

I will be posting photos of a small Christmas album I made as a gift.....came out cute, so that might be my next post.

$12.00 at Larson's Consignment.

I've been on a search for a makeover table.  Found this one, and a perfect table for this spot.  This table was to go next to the chair in the den.  The gal in Larson's was taking both tables to the loading dock and somehow tripped and went right over the stairs - horrible.  My gosh she was laying there in pain, poor thing.  The perfect table was damaged and I decided not to take it although, they said they could make it like new.  I took this one and painted it this past weekend.  It's a cute little thing. The side table I had here is now in mom's room, I gave the other one to Rocky for his "new" room. 

I had the gal's email and I emailed her to find out how she was, she had been out of work for 10 days, it turned out to be a bad sprain, she really thought she had broke it.  

I'm going back to Larson's because I saw another table I really liked.

If you are looking to save money, even if you're not, try them, they now have 3 floors of consignment in their old showroom where they used to sell new furniture; a sign of the times.  

P.S.  I love re-doing furniture!  

wine tasting

While Marie was here we did a little wine tasting in the Applegate.  We hadn't done any wine tasting there  and were very surprised how many wineries are in that area!  We hit "Troon" first and mainly because they have a partner relationship with the Festival and I had set it up before hand.   They took care of us and then we moved on to "Red Lily", a new tasting room, just opened in August.  Actually, the owners are from Nevada!  I believe they were in the Vegas area and migrated to Reno, and you know we're a hop, skip and a jump from Reno.........

They had a "jumping" showroom, lots of people, they were dressed for Halloween and decorated for Halloween, a great spot.  They also had a great patio area!   I highly recommend this tasting room but only if you are into Spanish wines.  The tasting was tempranillo and a cava.  Well, lo and behold I love tempranillos, so I was very pleased.  

I had packed a nice snack of olives, cheeses, pears and a baguette.  It was a beautiful Fall day and we enjoyed our tasting with our tasty snack.  

After Red Lily we drove into Jacksonville (on the way home) and browsed around a little.  

Cricut Organization

I don't know how or why these things come to me, but they do.   I came up this one night, I think I might have awoken in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep.

I made copies of all the pads from my Cricut cartridges, laminated them and put them on a binder ring.  I have them in my "tool" kit.  When I need to cut something out I look at these to find what I want, instead of standing by the machine looking through everything. 

Just a little time saver......

Janie and Marie

Old friends are the best friends............

I've known Marie since I went to work at Ruder and Finn, I'm not sure on the year.  I know I moved to Vegas in 1982 and I don't think I worked there longer than a year or two...

She was Barbara Marx's secretary and I was Susan Smirnoff and Carolyn  Mulligan's secretary.  When I moved Marie was pregnant with Stefanie and gave birth two months after I moved.  Hated to move right before her giving birth, but it's hard to time everything.  

It has been a friendship that has lasted through the years......

Marie has been to Oregon a couple of times, this is her 3rd visit; she loves Oregon and can't wait to come back.

It was a busy week.  

How many friends do you know that travel for hours, get off the plane, go food shopping and spend the evening cooking?!!!  Our plan was to go visit Rocky on Monday and Marie wanted to take him some home cooked Italian food, so she was busy making sauce, meatballs and a huge pan of baked ziti.  Rocky was one big happy camper.  I made him a big chocolate cake for dessert.  

We had a great visit with Rocky and a great visit the whole week.  Hated to see her go, the feeling I get when I see Marie is "home", a bit of the Bronx, a bit of NY, lots of history......

I must let you know that on Sunday before she left we had to go to BiMart and buy hair coloring because after seeing all the photos she couldn't stand her hair color!  So, on her last day here I was coloring her hair.  I said to her "Marie, this is our future, you and I dying our hair for the next ? years" - ha!

Marie arrived on Sunday while I was at the retreat; Pete picked her up.  I was very excited to see her when I got home, after all it had been 4 years since we'd seen each other.  We spent the evening with her cooking up a storm!  Lots of sauce, giant meatballs, baked ziti to take to Rocky.  I made a big, ole chocolate cake.  Got up on Monday, had a nice breakfast and rode to Eugene, got there when he was done with his classes, picked him up and took him to PF Changs for lunch - yum!  Rocky did have a little list of things he needed, mostly groceries.  A few stops which included Trader Joes, Costco and Super Walmart.  Also, got to do a little TJMaxx visit.  

Stocked him up with all his goodies and then we were back on the road driving South.  Got home around 10pm.  

I was very happy to see him and he was very happy to see me.  It was a little tougher this time leaving him, since he kept grabbing me and telling me he missed me, very tough :( 

Yes, that's me looking at you.......

Sorry,  I've been gone but you know I was really busy.

Uploaded a photo my cousin from Florida just sent me so you can enjoy in the interim........(wish my abuelo came out)