my husband knows me well

While we were in Pittsburgh, Adrian took me to a place where they sell recycled building supplies. He knows me so well. If we had a big ole truck I would have been buying pieces of trim like this.

If I had $50 bucks just lying around I would buy a REALLY cool old house number like this.

(Well, I wouldn't really spend $50 bucks on it but if they marked it down and my house number really was 5812 then we might start making a deal. :) )

There were bins full of these and yellow bins full of hardware pieces for a quarter each.

This chair was only $2!

But I didn't buy it.

But I did buy some stuff and pick up three things out of the free bin by the door. :)

Kelly

turquoise doors

I just love these turquoise doors with the big numbers on the transoms. The architecture in Pittsburgh is definitely different from what I'm used to in Texas.

happy day

I interrupt this road trip report to say . . . 

today is my birthday.  :)  

I hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy doing something fun.  

I have already been the recipient of yummy Italian cream cake cupcakes and I think we're going to go to some garage sales, the farmers market and eat some ice cream.  :)  

I was out of pocket this week and had set some road trip updates to autopost but for some reason I guess they didn't.  Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled road trip updates coming up.  

need more clues?

do these help you out?

City of champions (don't worry, if I wasn't married to

Adrian I wouldn't have known this info either) :)

beautiful lamp post in someone's yard

I got a kick out of the juxtaposition here. :)

And finally, Steelers gear!!! Go Steelers

Now do you know? I'm trying to think of a good prize . . .

Also, have you ever been to this city?

What do you like to do here? Are there any restaurants where you like to eat? Places to shop? Kelly

next stop

After eating dinner and dessert in Ohio, we drove on here:

just in time for this:

and later some of this:

and definitely eating this:

chocolate cupcake, peanut butter buttercream and pretzels mashed into the top

If you're a long time reader of my blog you might remember this place being mentioned before and possibly what city/state it's in.

So, ladies and gents, what are your guesses?

City?

State?

Bonus details?

Kelly

Ohio!!

After Nashville, we drove through Kentucky and into Ohio.

We stopped in Columbus for dinner at a pizza place we found on tripadvisor.com called Rubino's. The pepperoni/double cheese pizza was yummy and piping hot. For those of you in Dallas, it was a little bit like Campisi's with it's thin, crisp crust.

As we were driving down the street to Rubino's to meet up with our call ahead order, we spotted Graeter's ice cream shop. I had heard that Graeter's was yummy from Modgirl and so we had to save room for an ice cream stop on our way back to the interstate of course! :)

I had mint chocolate chip on a sugar cone and Adrian had black raspberry chip and mocha chip. The mocha was AMAZING! We ate our ice cream and enjoyed watching a chipmunk and the fireflies beginning to blink. (Has anyone ever seen a chipmunk in Texas? I haven't and therefore find the little creatures especially cute and charming.)

AND they had the neatest ceiling fans inside. They all were connected by belts so that they all ran together off of one motor. It was neat. It was a very fun date on day two of driving cross country.

Have you ever been to a Graeter's?

What's your favorite ice cream shop and where is it?

What flavor do you like to get?

Cone or cup?

Kelly

p.s. you guys are right, the road sign was from Kentucky. I forgot and thought it was after we were in Ohio but I was wrong. Sorry for a misleading clue and way to go for those of you who knew Kentucky!

do these help?

Guess a state.

Guess a city.

Bonus points for other pertinent info guessed. :)

I've got one reader who I'm really hoping might recognize something in this photo because I went to one of these places because of your recommendation. :)

Kelly

clue #2

Do you know what state we're in now?

(without googling these places?  come on now!)

Kelly

where do you think we went next?

back to the guessing game!

so where do you think we went after Nashville and took this photo?  

arrggg . . . I make it hard, don't I?  Hey, if there ends up being a prize then this couldn't have been *toooo* easy a game, now could it?  

Another clue to come later today.  :)  

Kelly

Nashville

We went to Nashville!

We left Dallas and drove to TN and had dinner, visited and spent the night with my aunt, uncle and cousins. It was so wonderful. Family is just one of the most special things ever. Then we drove on to Nashville to meet up with a whole slew of friends from college days. It was SUCH fun! Thank you all for making the effort to come! It was WONDERFUL to see you. I feel so good after spending time with you. It is terrific.

We ate at the Pancake Pantry. A girl we met on a plane a few weeks ago had told us about it and who knew we'd make it there so soon! I had the sweet potato pancakes with cinnamon cream syrup - um yum!

Have you ever been to the Pancake Pantry?

What did you get?

What is your favorite kind of pancakes? Do you make them at home or get them out?

What is your favorite breakfast restaurant and where is it?

Kelly

Guessing game

So I said more info to come about the road trip in the next post.  Here's the next post.  

Just for fun, let's play a little guessing game.  Do you know where this photo was taken?  Now I realize this is a hard one - very little architecture or scenery to go on.  Unless you know the people in the photo above (and some of you do) you won't have the faintest clue where these people are all congregated.  

So, if you'd like to play along with this road trip guessing game, in  your comment put as much info as you'd like about where you think this photo was taken. 

There may or may not be a prize at the end of the guessing game.  :)  We'll have to see how it all turns out.  As the "game show hostess" of this arbitrary game, I also reserve the right to skew the point system depending on if I told you in person where we were going on our road trip beforehand because that just wouldn't be fair, now would it?  :)  

I hope you'll all play along!  

Here we go! 

for one point, What state do you think we're in?

two points - what city?

three points - what establishment do you think we are standing in front of?

Have fun!  Kelly

road trip

Remember these????

Do you remember what they were for?

Yep, our next road trip.  We've been on a road trip!  

More info to come in the next post.  :)  Hope you're having a good day!  Kelly

today was good . . . and so was yesterday

Yesterday I wrote about the change in plans. Today I *did* get to go to the Chocolate Angel with my friend Jenny and share chicken salad sandwiches, strawberry pretzel salad and wonderful conversation. What good things have come your way today?

change of plans

"water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink"

uggg . . . we're having torrential downpours here and I had plans to eat lunch with a friend today at a place called The Chocolate Angel. How great does that sound? And go to my favorite thrift store. I headed out not afraid of a little rain and then ran into HIGH water and later saw an 18 wheeler stuck in a veritable lake.

Time for a change in expectations. I was disappointed. I was frustrated. I wanted to do my own thing. How gentle God is with us when we get impatient and want our own way. He reminded me that I can change my attitude or I can continue to have a pity party.

So, home I am now, clothes changed, tennis shoes and yoga pants on instead of my summery skirt and sandals, ready to dig in here today. I can take this change of plans and make the best of it. He will help me.

In case you're wondering, the photo of the water above is not the muddy waters flooding the city streets. It is a photo I had of the water below the railing of a cruise ship when I went on a vacation with my extended family three summers ago.

I choose to look at today more in the fashion of these photos than in the muddied waters and disappointments of changed plans. I'm off to fold laundry and iron our new dust ruffle! Have a great day! Kelly

p.s. What are you doing today?

summer strawberries

strawberries and angel food cake on a vintage blue melamine plate

add some whipped cream

and a cutie nephew

What a lovely afternoon in Missouri a couple weekends ago! Thanks, Cecily!

Kelly

p.s. Sandy has a fun strawberry post here.

and Jen has a SUPER yummy looking strawberry pie recipe here.

hApPy SuMmEr!!!

It's finally here!!!

Sum-sum-summertime!

I am soooooooo happy to be out of school I can't even tell you!!!

I am so excited to be the homemaker, not the leave the house in the seven o'clock hour get home at 3 something or 4 something and then be the homemaker after teaching hundreds of kids everyday and having a lot of my energy sapped, but the home all day homemaker.

Laundry, cooking, planning meals, reading, organizing, nesting, decorating, garage/estate/thrift shopping, friend & family visiting, Bible studying, traveling, crafting, blogging, sleeping in, working out, home-making here I come!

Hooray!!!

photos: yummy raspberry sorbet made by my wonderful husband

afternoon project

I was a little discouraged.

I really love to spend time out on my patio in nice weather, journaling and reflecting, doing Bible study, etc. I like to water green growing things. I like to feel the breeze blowing around me. Until a few hours ago my patio basically looked like the above.

The lovely herb garden my sister-in-law gave us for Christmas died a mysterious death after coming along nicely for weeks and weeks.

I could go right out to a nursery or Wal-mart and buy a supply of plants but for various reasons, this summer isn't lining up to be a good summer for us to try to grow things. Green, living sorts of things. And keep them alive. So, what's a girl to do?

Step one: gather up some "stuff"

can of old hardware bought at an estate sale a few weekends ago for 50 cents I think,

a trowel, a rock my brother brought back to me from the top of a

Colorado mountain many years ago and some colorful pots

and some sheet moss bought at Joann's

search the house for some cute "little" things

pluck them out of their present places and stick them in a moss covered pot!

Very pretty!

But then the wind starts picking up and something rolls over the edge of the balcony

and breaks and you decide to take that pink glass eiffel tower

right back inside before it too becomes a casualty

and you look for some more stuff

like this adorable little red phone booth that has lived on my fridge for

as long as I can remember and reminded me my mama was only a phone call away.

It used to make a phone ringing sound when you pressed the button but now it doesn't

and the door is now held on my gloppy glue gun glue and it had found it's way

to the seldom seen side of the fridge so . . . out it goes to a new home!

And even though it's plastic, you still prefer that it and your sheet moss don't blow away at the slightest provocation, so you do what any "gardener" would do and you break out your . . .

GLUE GUN!

And your husband wakes up from his nap and comments "I've never seen anyone glueing anything to dirt before. Awesome!"

And you add these fun garden clippers for weight that you also got at the same estate sale as the hardware, again for 50 cents or a quarter because you liked the way they look

And after various tweaking and arranging and gathering and tying and glueing,

you end up with this:

chair bought at a garage sale a couple weeks ago for $3.50!!

Re-painted white and number added inspired by Wendy

but that's only one comfy chair to sit in and there are two of us now and this weekend I found this!!!!

I was sooo excited to spy it at a garage sale that I stopped at on the way home from mailing the baby gift. It was marked $15 and I got it for $8!!! Yippee! Yippee!

and it will go up here alongside the number 3 chair

(hee hee, I noticed you can see the rust on the bottom in this photo! oh well)

So here's my question for you. I want to paint the wicker chair. I think I want to paint it black.

But the number chair is white. Or I could paint it a color. What do you think and why?

I'd love to know!

Oh and I want to credit seesawfaith and kelli whose little container gardens with miniatures I saw a few weeks ago that were percolating in the back of my mind and inspired my afternoon project! Hope everyone is having a good Sunday afternoon. Adrian and I are about to go out and enjoy our 8 month anniversary present to ourselves. More to come on that later. Kelly

p.s. does anyone know anything about "outdoor friendly pillows"? Thanks! Kelly

I added this post to Rhoda's Monday party of sharing things you've found at estate sales, garage sales, etc.