"Trail Mix" part 2

{I guess I have a lot of updating to do since I have been without frequent updating for so long . . . ha!}

• This weekend we put up a gallery on our wall coming up the stairs. It looks cool. I'm really happy with it. I uploaded pics to flickr. Tell me what you think! (Erin, did we do okay?)

• We also cleaned out the garage this weekend. First time doing so. And when I say clean, I mean we literally took everything out and scrubbed the floor. Looks like sparkly perfection. (Not really, but tons tons better than it did a week ago.)

• Two days ago I got really frustrated with how scraggly Maia's hair looked and since she has only had 1 haircut ever, guess what I did?! I cut her hair myself and I have to say, it looks pretty good for my first time. It's still piggy-tail doable, don't worry!(More also on flickr.)
  

• Earlier in the summer I went to my "adopted" grandmother's estate sale. As you know, I won (yay!) one of her beautiful old upholstered chairs. I also won an antique "brownie" camera. Then I bid on some other boxes . . . where i wasn't sure exactly what was in them, but I knew I wanted them. And so I took a few pictures of my finds. I'm so excited about it all because they were things of hers, but also because I think some of things are pretty rare. For instance, there was a Newsweek from when Reagan was shot, a copy of "The Grapes of Wrath" from the early 1900's, and then some storybooks which were of some ladies from my hometown who could have been grandmothers to Marie (my adopted grandma), so they date from the middle 1800's. I also have Marie's Home Economics textbook which has recipes in it and little notes in her handwriting. She doodled all through it and would write notes like "very good", etc. beside favorite recipes. There are also pictures of women cooking in this book over old stoves probably in the 30's? I'm so excited I have these things. I have a few showcased in my dining room hutch. Check out the pictures which I uploaded to flickr. There aren't a lot of pics, but a few.

• While Erin was here we went shopping. I mean, how could we not?! We adore all the same things, dress alike, decorate alike . . . and she came across some fabulous ceramic vases which she just knew would look great in my (still being transformed into) VWC "presentation room". So I bought them. 3 of them. Plus a little suitcase thingie and she bought me a bowl. Looks awesome! I have some pictures of Erin "Vanna White-ing" off our finds on flickr which you must go see (if you haven't gone there yet).

• An old friend and I just got reconnected through facebook.com (I love that place and it's sooo addicting!). Right about when her daughter was born, she started up an online scrap booking store. It's really awesome and I'm very proud of her. I know how hard it is to keep a small business going, so I wanted to give her a little plug. Please check it out. She has some really cool things (even though I don't scrapbook) and I looked on her sale page and from what I know about scrapping, her sales are a must to check out!

• I forgot to mention last week that the first day Erin was here, she gave me a fun "thanks for having me gift". Which I think was more of a "R&R" gift for after the day full of parties. Inside the cute paisley turquoise bag were some coasters that she made herself (she's very creative, ya know? -- I love them!), a candle, body cream, leg gel (for my tired legs), lots of yummy Canadian chocolate that we don't have here (which is better than most chocolate we have here!), and my very favorite . . . TWO bags of ketchup chips. Oh my gosh, I love those things!!! (Unfortunately, so do my kids. Thankfully, Neil does not, which means I get his portions.)

• We did trick-or-treating tonight and the kids had a blast! Maia was way way more into than Noah EVER was at this age. And Noah had a really great time. He went on his own up to houses and said "trick or treat" which is really big for him; he's really really shy. Anyway, O'ma came over to see the kids and walk around with us. Then we went to dinner. It was nice. We had a really good time. I'll post pics another day. Happy Halloween!!!