I work at a florist . . . hee hee . . . just kidding

but I sure do feel like one.  

I am starting to feel like my real self again.  Hooray!  When I went to the grocery store to get my Rx I did some grocery shopping and got some flowers too.  It is cold and icy and foggy around here and I wanted to bring some sunshine and growing things inside.  

(Well, I guess technically these are no longer growing since they're cut flowers, but you know what I mean!)

This top arrangement is in our bathroom.  I always like flowers in bathrooms.  So cheerful and refreshing.  Sunflowers can be rather unwieldy at times and these were no exception.  I was happy with the arrangement when I got done with it but I still felt it could use "a little something".  I hadn't yet thrown away the stems from the flowers below so I stuck them in adding height, a bit of "flair" and the added bonus of propping those flowers exactly where I wanted them rather than them flopping around in the vase with their top heavy blooms. 

These flowers are in the living room.  I wanted to get the most bang for my buck so I split the group of three stems between two vases.  But then they still needed "a little something" (once again).  hmmm . . . I spotted my herb garden

and snipped off a bit of rosemary for the bottom vase and added a ribbon from my stash and some tendrils of oregano (?) for the above vase.  It was so fun to do!  What about you, have you done anything creative or fun today?  Pictures, pictures!  I'd love to see it and hear about it!  Kelly

Thank you, God for beautiful flowers to brighten our days!  Amen.  

the birthday party

We had a monkey/curious george birthday party for my nephew on Saturday.  It was a lot of fun.  Didn't my sister-in-law do a great job with the cake and decorations?  Such fun to be two!  

thanks for the get well wishes

Well, I've tried several times today to upload a photo and do this post but blogger has not been cooperating.  

Anyway, I am feeling some better.  Thanks so much for all of the well-wishes and prayers.  

I still not feeling quite up to par and am going to the doctor tomorrow to see what is up.  

Kelly

wedding Wednesday - various wedding shots

don't know if I'll make this a standard feature or not but thought maybe I might share wedding pics on Wednesdays since I'm all about alliteration.  :)  

This is our "gift table".  An old platform that was there at the Cotton Mill with an antique ironing board on it and this cart

calling all Panera Bread lovers

or for those of you from St. Louis, 

the St. Louis Bread Company, of course!

Check this out if you are interested in free coffee and samples today,  January 28, 2008.  

home sick

is no fun :(

Kelly

travel Tuesday - St. Louis

Did you guess correctly?  Yesterday's photo was taken in St. Louis, MO.  

That plane hangs in the airport.  

I really liked the plane.  I did not like the airport.  Not that it's a bad airport, but when Adrian and I met he was living in Missouri and I lived in Texas.  I didn't like that airport because when I would go there I would be leaving him.  Of course on the other side, I would arrive there when I would be seeing him for a visit and that was always a happy thing but I guess the plane hangs in the part where I would be when I would depart, hence the feelings of sadness.  

The first time I went to St. Louis was my freshman year of college.  I was in the university's Chorus and we would go on tour at the end of Christmas break every year.  My freshman year one of our stops was St. Louis.  Snow was still a very new thing to me (growing up in Houston, TX) and I loved it (still do!).  I remember going up in the arch with the snow falling down and thinking it was so great.  

Since then I've been back to St. Louis many times.  I've been to St. Louis with my friend Alissa (on the way to her home in another part of MO) to go to the Mary Engelbreit store at the Galleria (now closed) when we were both SUPER into ME.  I've been to visit my friend Jenny.  We went to Soulard Market which proved to be a highly satisfactory Farmers Market experience.  We went to Union Station which was a lot of fun, particularly standing at the spot with the arch where you can whisper and someone on the other side can hear you.  We went to Fair St. Louis

with fireworks on the 2nd or 3rd of July.  It was cool but on the 4th we saw the fireworks in Troy, MO and boy, let me tell you, those are the best fireworks I think I've ever seen!  If you're in the area next July 4th, you should definitely go!  

I still go to St. Louis to visit Jenny but a couple of years ago in March I flew into St. Louis having only decided to approx. 36 hours earlier when Adrian found a special fare & why not go on the spur of the moment?  I called Jenny on Friday and said, "What are you doing tomorrow?" and Adrian and I met she and her husband at the St. Louis Bread Co. (which I recommend & is known as Panera outside the St. Louis area) for breakfast the next morning after he picked me up at the airport.   

If you're in St. Louis my other recommendations would be:  

Maggiano's

I know they have them in other cities, including my own, but this one is my favorite that I've been to.  Clean, nice, romantic!

The Cupcakery

Yum!  Yum!  Yum!  Their grasshopper cupcakes are so wonderful and I'd really like to try their lemondrop cupcakes.  

Fitz's

for the BIGGEST dishes of ice cream and root beer floats you've ever seen!  

Forest Park

gawk at the magnificent homes lining it, visit the zoo or the art museum (they're FREE!), sit in the sun on art hill and watch the world go by, play at the very cool playground

and one of my very, very most favorite places to go in St. Louis

KoKo

go for dinner, I don't think you'll regret it

Have you been to St. Louis?  What are some of your favorite things to do there?  

Do you live in St. Louis?  Give us an insider's scoop.  

travel Tuesday preview

do you know where this photo was taken?

anybody got a guess?

city?

state?

Happy Guessing!

Answer tomorrow!

Kelly

when you have this . . .

Adrian + Kelly . . . 

then you also get to have some of this in your decor.  :)  

The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl!!!  

Yeehaw!  

(Yes, I know this is old news now but hey, gotta support the "home" team.)  

Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl 

or

do you even know who the other team playing the Steelers is going to be?  

questions - blogging fodder

okey dokey, so here's the deal.

What's something you've always wanted to know?

That I could answer.

Maybe you know me in real life.

Maybe you don't. 

Maybe you comment regularly.

Maybe you never have.

Now's your chance.

Comment with some questions that I can answer in upcoming blog posts.

Hope you're having a good one.  Kelly

photo:  taken by my husband on our honeymoon on a beach in Northern California :)  

verdict

so the clean-up took ten minutes on the dot.

and that included putting away our stemware that my sweet husband had hand-washed and also putting away our reusable bag from grocery shopping earlier

AND . . . 

I have this little cutie to show for it

as well as the 9x13 to take to school of course.  

But this one
this is my way of practicing what I read on Meredith's blog today (or was it yesterday?)  

Have a good night.  Kelly

so I'd like to know . . .

when a recipe says:

prep:  10 minutes

does it ever take you that amount of time???

We're having a "souper bowl" to celebrate national soup month and national pie day tomorrow at school.  Each team is responsible for bringing different things.  My thing is cornbread.

Well, I wrote on my calendar to make it last night but between church, laundry and probably reading a few of your blogs, :)  it didn't happen.  

So of course here I am doing it at 9:20 tonight.  I still need to pack for my weekend trip for this little cutie's birthday too.  

Anyway, the recipe said prep ten minutes and it took nearly 30 minutes for me to get it in the oven.  AND that is with me going at it full tilt, not dawdling around . . . does this happen to you guys?  And of course they list things like prep:  10 minutes, cook time:  25 minutes, total time: 35 minutes but they do not put clean up kitchen:  ??? minutes.  

I'm gonna stop sitting here writing a blog post and go do it!  okay, here I go . . . 

while I do that, why don't you tell me if this happens to you

or

what your best "speed cooking" tip is

or 

what your favorite kind of soup, pie or cornbread is

okay, enough stalling . . . 

Kelly

Delight in Him

I'll be honest.  My spiritual life feels a bit dry lately.  I'm not sure how to "jump start" it.  How are you delighting in Him these days?  Any thoughts/suggestions?  Thanks!  Kelly

girls!

Do you remember this post when I was talking about hoping I got to have some wonderful girl time during the weekend of my wedding? 

I did!  I did!

It was so wonderful!  

These are just a few shots depicting the great time I was able to have with girlfriends.  

Travel Tuesday - Montreal!!!

I thought I'd lead off with the pic that I took while being stared at incomprehensibly by a woman in Canada. Don't they blog in Canada? Don't they understand the need to take a picture, whenever, wherever the mood strikes?

I call it "Finished Latte" :)

okay, Montreal, what can I say, it's a foodie's paradise!

We did our part to eat our way through Montreal.

But hey, with all that walking and climbing stairs (it was the weirdest thing, they would constantly have escalators followed by 5 or 6 stairs, how are people with disabilities supposed to get around?) and shivering in the 5 degree temps, that burns a lot of calories!

Yummy, yummy bakery with gingerbread cookies lined up in a row. :)

The people were so nice. You're kind of "supposed" to speak French there and Adrian really does very well ordering, etc. in French but when you get stuck they are very good to help you out in English!

Did I mention that it was REALLY COLD????

this one I call "Shadow Kiss" :)

So, of course being interested in decorating, I needed to take in the French Canadian style. They really seem to like to decorate with branches there. It was cool though. I wish I had been able to capture more examples but here are a couple.

Fun, huh?

Look at these whimsical gumdrop looking trees in the Old Town.

This wreath adorned our hotel. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency. It was VERY nice and we were able to get it on internet special! whoohooo!

I call this one "All Bundled Up"

What you can't see is the long underwear (pants and shirt), thigh high striped socks (my legs really were warmer)

new routine

We now have a grocery store within walking distance of where we live.  

I just packed a small backpack with several other reusable bags.  I hope to walk to the grocery store whenever I'm going that it is light outside.  Texas cities don't tend to be "walking places" as much as some other cities.  Walking to do my shopping is new to me.  Using reusable bags is new to me.  Any tips from any of you out there who have more experience than me?  

Kelly

photo:  a table centerpiece at our wedding taken by my friend Jenni

Let's go Steelers!

rooting for my husband's team, the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC championship game starting just minutes from now!  :)  

photo: ornaments I made for my mother-in-law from an estate sale find  :)  

another veil shot

I just love it

photo:  Rachel Debells

detail of my wedding veil

photo of my mom's cathedral length wedding veil that I also wore taken by Rachel Debell

thankful

God, thank you for providing good girlfriends and conversation all in your perfect timing.  Amen.  

Travel Tuesday - Train Travel

Have you ever traveled by train?  

My first trip with with my Sweetie (my mom's mom).  This was fitting as she was the one who had told me the most about train travel.  As a girl she used to ride the train between Houston and New Orleans.  

I love the photo above of the ceiling fans all in a row in this train car.  It makes me think of the grand era of train travel in this country.  

My first trip by train was from Houston, TX to Los Angeles, CA aboard Amtrak.  Sweetie took my brother and I so that she could experience train travel as children just as she had as a girl.  We had a grand time!  We were on our way to visit my dad's parents and my parents met us there too after flying out.  This was special time just my grandma and us.  We had a sleeper car, ate our meals in the dining car and spent our days in the observation car mostly watching the changing countryside go by.  We had made travel bingo games with our own drawings before we left and we joked that people must think we never got out when we exclaimed so enthusiastically over "a cow!  a cow!" or "a windmill!  a windmill!".  I remember liking the trip very much.  I remember stepping off the train just briefly somewhere in Arizona to stretch our legs at the station and that is the only time I've been to Arizona.  I remember playing bingo.  I getting all situated in our "home away from home" for the three day trip in our sleeping car.  I am pretty sure I remember my little brother falling off the top bunk but I'm not sure.  I remember the crowded hustle and bustle once we got off the train in LA.  What a treasure to have those memories and to have had that time with my grandma.  

Besides taking the trains at Disneyland and Astroworld on occasion, I suppose the next train trip I took was a whopping 24 hour trip from Amsterdam, Netherlands to Florence, Italy.  I was a junior in college and part of my university's travel abroad semester in Florence.  We flew into Amsterdam, spent a few days seeing the windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, Anne Frank's house, canals and museums before boarding a train that would take us to Florence.  

We were advised that it would be a good idea to buy food ahead of time to take on the train with us as the food they would sell on board would be expensive.  I bought food and as we were waiting in the train station, a bird flew over and POOPED ON MY BAG!  How could he???? Gross!   Luckily the food was safe but who wanted to carry around their food in a pooped on plastic bag?  A friend had a gallon ziploc that they gave me which was fantastic and so I juggled my luggage for a semester and a bulging bag of food with no handles to loop over my arm.  Oh well!  At least I could eat.  

My most vivid memories from that train trip with 39 other college students and 4 sponsors who were still mostly strangers but who would soon become friends were of waking up in the middle of the night in our little sleeping car with 6 bunks 3 stacked on top of each other on either side and feeling so, so very HOT!  It felt as if we were *roasting* in that train car.  We kept fiddling with the heater trying to get the thing to turn off.  The boys in the next car started beating on the wall.  This is all in the middle of the night.  I decided to give up on sleep for the time being and went out into the small corridor. One of our professor's wives, Frankie, was there.  She told me to be watching.  I looked out the window and very soon, before my eyes came one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.  There in the darkness with snow coming down was the Cologne cathedral!  Magnificent!  

Sometime the next day we arrived at SMN!  Santa Maria Novella train station in Florence became one of the places that has had the greatest feeling of "home" to me over that semester.  We would travel and see things and then come "home".  When I went back to Italy two years later and pulled into Santa Maria Novella I was just amazed at how much it felt like home.  Again in 2001 I experienced the same.  What a blessing.  

Have you traveled by train?  Where have you been?  Do you have any stories to tell?  

all photos taken in Grapevine, TX of the vintage railroad

DONE with the craft room . . . for now

I started to become overwhelmed with the PILES of stuff in the guest room/about to become "craft room" and wanted to have it ALL *right now*.  I wanted the organized/cute/decorated/brightly colored/coordinated craft room that would make my blog readers proud.  :)  (oh why do we think about what others will think?)  

Then after a few starts at making this grand vision happen, I realized that I just had to get everything in a place, some place.  Then, as Flylady would say, I can declutter it a little at a time, organize and decorate! 

So, here you have the craft room as it is now, in pictures.

It is a delightful room to be in and we both hung out in here together tonight.  Adrian with his laptop and me with some sewing.  It was so nice!

I have completed (and cleaned up from) my first craft in here!  So much fun!  

Without further ado . . . the photos:  

who would have guessed games, glue guns, tags for wrapping packages 

and picture frames are contained within?  

If you have pictures of your craft room/spare bedroom/similar space, I would love to see them for inspiration as I go forward.  Leave a link in your comment!  :)  Thanks!  Kelly