I have a good friend in Colorado whose dad was James Irwin, the astronaut. My husband's sister's husband's sister -- or cousin? (lol) -- was married to Lorenzo Lamas. My cousin was in a band called Idle Eyes in Canada and the opened for Tears for Fear and Bryan Adams back in the late '80s. Nothing TOO amazing; the first one surprised me when I discovered this. I was over at her house for the first time -- our kids playing together -- and she was talking about something related and the way she said it I finally realized she was saying James Irwin was her *dad* and I was floored. Thought that was pretty cool.

{Mwaa!} That's a smooch. Your kiddos are such a treat. It was enjoyable to watch Ava with Axel ... glad you got home safe and sound.

We would seriously look at an airporter type shuttle bus purchased off Craigslist or ebay! Right now we're in a 9-passenger Suburban and we fill it. I've seen some great airporters for sale -- tons of room, tons of seats. And the thing is, most of these were built to last lots and lots of miles, but are sold off before reaching those miles. We saw one I wish we would have bought -- but I found it on ebay something like one day before it expired and we just couldn't move on it that fast (it was 3 hours from here and we couldn't dash off to see it that day). Wait, I think that one was a shorty school bus???? Anyway, do searches at CL and ebay for "airporter" or "shuttle" or just "bus." HTH!

My friend, the eggplant. Too funny!

If I may? Cost of living in Washington is only crazy in some parts of the state (basically the Seattle and surrounding areas). We live two hours east of Seattle, and there's still three hours of state to the east of *us*, and it's not that bad where we live. We love it here and don't plan to ever leave -- well, except for when our kids are all grown; then we might move to the Mediterranean coast of Spain. :)

ME TOO! Just wanted to know you're not alone. I make my kids roll their eyes when we're NOT watching the movie by bringing this up in conversation ... "And then they hear a dog barking and it's the young dog and he's okay and they're so happy [*sniff sniff*] and then here comes the cat and the little girls is so thrilled and they're all [*sniff sniff*] so thrilled and they're amazed and then what about the other dog? Did he make it? Where's the other dog? Maybe he was too old ... but then [*SNIFF SNIFF*] here comes the older dog over the hill!!!" Lol. The other one where I have the same reaction is another kids' movie ... The Railway Children. At the end the daddy has been "gone" (in jail, undeservedly) for a long time but has been released. But the children don't know this yet; the oldest girl is told to go down to the train station, but she doesn't know why (I'm getting goose bumps as I type, lol). She standing there and the train stops and everyone starts to unload. Then in the smoke of the train's steam engine, the train starts to pull away again, but there's a man walking toward her. She cries out (I'm crying now) "Oh my daddy!" and runs to him. The "Oh my daddy" is what gets me every time.

and it left me wondering how many of YOU know each other IRL? Natalieclare and I have been friends for almost 20 years, since our college days. We've gone through getting married, having babies, homeschooling, tough family relationships, moving, and MORE together. She and her three youngest stopped by for a few hours this afternoon; they live about an hour and a half from where I live. She's the one that told me about this site -- who else of y'all are friends IRL?

I adore the book Jane Eyre. I really, really love this story; it's intense at times, but just a great read and worth getting involved in.

I don't find it sad at all (your quote). It was more inspirational than sad, IMHO. In fact, I think I'll write it down b/c UL has several word-less designs of a bird on a branch that I was going to order (the one I think I'll get is an 18" circle shaped design; kind of artsy looking) and I could put that by it on my wall! I think those would go together well. I think it's great that you can hand letter!! My friend's house, where she hand-lettered all around, is really *her* KWIM?

I actually like the quote you mentioned! Some of my faves are: It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice. Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Write your worries in the sand, carve your blessings in stone. Give much. Gather often. Greet many. How are you going to apply the lettering? Some people love stenciling, some like the vinyl applications, some freehand! I have a friend who has free-handed a bunch and it looks great. I do sell the vinyl type, if you're interested, let me know. All of the above are available or you can custom design anything you want. I think your room looks gorgeous! How did you design what we're seeing -- is that a software program you have?? I bought a floorplan software program a couple of years ago, but you can't design rooms like what you have showing. I had to NOT install the floorplan software on my new laptop -- too addicting!!!!

It's worked out the opposite way in our house: We have a 1500sf house for nine people and the big dining room table was set up in this one room. We found that we typically ate around the coffee table more than we sat at the DR table so one day dh and I said, "Why are we wasting a whole room? We never use the dining room table!" So we took it out, put a couch, chair and bookshelves in there and now we have a second family room -- it gets used all the time, now. No more wasted space. I'm all about no wasted space in this house, lol. My next dining room is going to be tangerine in color! Great photos for all who shared! Gorgeous.

Adding my welcome!

And the "me" part of it was the closest I could come to me at the Meez website. I'm not really that cool, hip looking, lol. My hair doesn't do the "messy cute" look like that, it just does the "frizzy, do something!" look.

We love where we live: central Washington state. We are just over the Cascade mountains from Seattle (about 2 hours east of the big city). Ours is a community with a hugely rural history (lots of horse people here! And we're home to the county fair which is a fabulous 5-day even over Labor Day weekend), but one that is now developing a nice cultural and current scene as well. We love living "in town" and walking or biking pretty much everywhere. We only have one vehicle for a family of nine because of this. While we live in a much dryer climate than Seattle, it's also a Tree City USA (very green) with a couple of creeks meandering through town. The population here is 17,000 -- about half of that is the student population at the state university (which is a great thing to live near! We go to plays, music concerts, sporting events, etc. often and it's FUN). Four seasons, definitely; lots of outdoor activities. Being just east of the mountains, we are a "windy city" at times but that just keeps the bugs down!!! (Meaning we don't have much of a problem with bugs ever being a nuisance here -- nice.) Housing is pretty reasonable; we're far enough from Seattle to not be having their *crazy* prices, but close enough that prices have gone up a bit in the last 10 years. You can still get a great house with 3 bedrooms for low 200s. We might have our house for rent soon ($800-$850/month), but don't know for sure. We'd prefer to sell but so far that hasn't happened. And here are some other links: Video produced by the local newspaper Chamber of Commerce Tourist site One of National Trust's "Dozen Distinctive Destinations" (2007) Well, there you go! Enjoy. And I too am VERY sorry about your horse.

For chicken spaghetti, definitely use cream of chicken soup if you want a canned soup. Making it from scratch is easy and takes about as long as opening two cans of soup and trying to get all of it out with a spatula that is a little too big for the can opening, lol. Just make a basic white sauce and put something yummy in it after it thickens: onion, mushroom, chicken bits, celery or what-have-you. Easy-peasy.

Part of the frustrating thing with this happening this week is that on Tuesday morning I placed an order for business cards from VistaPrint (about $32) -- and then that afternoon learned that the company I work through is going to be changing the way customers visit the website (in other words, we'll each have a different URL now). So my business cards are basically useless. Grrr. So for this to happen too -- aye yi yi. But I do see the wisdom of biting the bullet. I guess if it had been ME and I'd been offered something free, and needed to pick an alternate, I would have noted the price of the free offer and then stayed very close to that price range, KWIM? But I didn't specify and they may just never have paid attention to price at all.

So, in my zeal to promote the direct sales business I'm in locally (the vinyl lettering for walls), I told the new children's consignment store in town that I'd donate a design for their business if I could put my business cards and a catalog on the counter. They agreed to the arrangement and I dropped off a catalog, with a note on the phrase I thought would be really cute in a particular area of the store (the front of the front counter, where the cash register is). But I also said they could choose something different if they wanted, of course. Well, I stopped by today to see what they decided and they did choose one different than the one I had, for a really good reason (the reason being that the two words "Small Beginnings" are prominent in the expression and people might think that's the name of the store). BUT the one they chose, to get a size that would look right in the area we talked about, would be about $12-$22 more than I was thinking! The one I'd picked out, in the largest size, was $31.95 and the one that would look best of they design they chose is $44 (better) or $53 (best). Yikes! There IS a smaller one of the design they chose for $31.95 but I think it would look too small on that front counter. What do you think I should do? 1) Bite the bullet and do it anyway, in a larger size. 2) Call and mention the price difference in a friendly way and see if they want to pay the difference for a larger size. 3) Just order the smaller one, then when I take it in to apply it see if they want to put it on the front counter or in a different place (where it might look better). 4) Other? Any suggestions?

We were just heading out for a walk to the dollar store, so maybe we'll swing wide on the way home for a treat.

I'm thinking Cars, too. I laughed, I cried, it moved me, Bob.

When our oldest son was still learning to read (7 or 8 years old), I put away the Alpha Phonics book and rewrote the chapters of his favorite American Indians book in simple language (the Indians book by Holling C. Holling). He loved it! His reading attempts took on a whole new meaning to him -- he wanted to read his favorite book out loud!

My first car was the 1973 Mercury Capri (red). I purchased it for my senior year and had a great time with that car. Well, right now there's a car for sale in the 'hood: a 1993 Mercury Capri (red) ... CONVERTIBLE!! I rilly, rilly want to buy it. DH and I test drove it awhile ago and dh didn't like how ... vulnerable ... we felt, what with being used to the Suburban. But the Suburban is our only vehicle and *I* think we ought to have a run-around-town car that gets better gas mileage, don't you?? ;)

Here's my list: 1973 Mercury Capri (red) -- bought for my senior year in high school (WRHS class of '84) 1987 VW Rabbit (white) -- It died when I kept driving it for 3 weeks after the oil light first came on 1988 Honda Civic Wagon (brown) -- I loved this car; it was a kick to drive. I raced dh-before-he-was-dh in it; guess it was a mating ritual. That's it for me (if we don't count the truck dh had when we got married)! How about you?

I visit Crunchy Con almost daily, too! And Pioneer Woman is a definite every day thing for me. Like most of you, ever since the beginning when she was writing/posting Sylvia Plath styled poetry. Remember the one about glitter?

DH and I want to move there after the kids are grown. Because of the beauty, and dh speaks Spanish.

What do you sell, Brigitte? Good job with the income, btw!