Five For Friday...A Little Early!!

I will be on the road to Nashville on Friday so I am posting my Five For Friday today!!

1) This month I am loving yoga...I am not sure if it is the quiet at the end of the practice or the fact that it is practice...every time I go is an opportunity to get something more out of it!! Last year for Mother's Day (or maybe my birthday...?) Nicole made me this cool yoga bag for my mats and block and water bottle...

...and yes I love the birds!!

2) This lamp from Target is awesome and a better size than the cute one that used to be here...

3)  I love the children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Nicole is going to do the upstairs family bath with the hungry caterpillar shower curtain, etc.  I am going to take the jacket cover from the book and some of these alphabet cards and have them matted and framed to hang in the bathroom.  Don't you love the Eric Carle tub toys!!

4)  The Dollar Store is on my A-List this week...I needed some school stuff to decorate tables at a school Rich's company just finished renovating...I was thinking of rulers, calculators, pencils, composition books and I got those BUT...these construction cones were too cute to pass up!!

5)  And finally, this beautiful book signifies a big new project that I am about to embark on June 11th!!!  I am really excited and am having a ball figuring things out...but details will have to wait for a post next week!!

Have a wonderful rest of your week!!  Say some prayers for Rich as he runs the Music City 1/2 Marathon on Saturday morning!!

 

La Crema Tapas and Chocolate...A Good Thing

On Sunday afternoon Rich and I decided to take a drive west from the condo and find a new restaurant.  We made it as far as Rosemary Beach and stopped at a restaurant I have been eyeing for awhile...

This restaurant is fashioned after the famous Tapas bars of Barcelona, Spain and is a treat on a breezy spring afternoon.

 Rich decided on a Grande Tapas (meant to be shared with friends... which today means me :) dish of En Fuego Chicken...spicy chicken bites with a cool caper cream sauce. I chose the La Crema Salad which was spinach with candied walnuts, goat cheese, tomatoes and cranberries tossed with sherry vinaigrette. We finished with the OMG Chocolate Espresso Cookie (Two warm triple chocolate cookies with a whipped espresso cream center drizzled with warm chocolate sauce...). We weren't hungry enough, but next time I want to try the Country Paella and Steak Empanadas and maybe the Chocolate Soup (a cup of thick chocolate soup garnished with toasted cinnamon croutons and a ball of vanilla ice cream)!!

This is definitely a place for a dinner party...and you know there will be one in the group who will be into the Chocolate Dipped Bacon and the Spanish Strawberries...I will stick with the Sipping Chocolate!

                                            Feliz Comiendo!!

Yard Sales, Mermaids, and Decorating

Ok...so I am always the last one on board for anything (remember Gilmore Girls...Downton Abbey...) but when I get on it I AM ON IT.  I have watched NBC news for decades.  The Today Show has been my show since, well do Jane Pauley and Tom Brokaw ring a bell??? So when I was wandering through HGTV a few days ago and happened upon Lara Spencer of Good Morning America decorating her friend's house using yard sale stuff...I thought...Who is this?

Who is this?...just the cutest and hippest gal to once again make buying someone elses cast-offs the IN thing.  I watched the show (same name as the book) mesmerized and on Saturday when Rich and I were over in Destin, escaping a rainy day at PF Changs, Barnes and Nobles, and the movies, I picked up her book.  Perfect timing for my trip up to Nicole's at the end of the week, because amidst all of the packing and her AP English exams coming up soon for her seniors...she will have loads of time to pour through this idea book :)

Now I know that thrifting has been around forever...I have, over the years, done several makeovers on Goodwill finds.  At this point in my life, I have no room for more cool tables and dressers...but I love thinking of the possibilities...such as this wonderful dresser I saw yesterday at the Beach House Market on Hwy 98 just west of Hwy 79...

For this price, any one of my girls could turn this into a cool painted chest for clothes or linens or sewing stuff...

I move on though...I am looking for something vintage Florida for the family room at the condo...something like this...maybe...

or maybe the tin mermaid....ha ha

While I contemplate "art" I will leave you with this article about decorating on a budget by Lara Spencer.

*not certain if you can tell the word article is lighter than the rest of the words...click on it and it will take you to the actual article!

London 2012 Olympics...100 days til the fun begins!

Can you believe that there are only 100 days until the Summer Olympics begin?...did you even realize?? I like the spirit of the Olympics...the athletes who have trained and competed for an opportunity to represent their country on a world stage...the pageantry...and of course the games themselves!

In 1992 the games were held in Barcelona...I was very pregnant with Katelyn and the four of us had escaped Panama City and were staying at a condo in San Destin for a long weekend.  Chelsea was not yet two, and Nicole was ten!  We spent most of our time by the pool and in front of the television watching America's basketball "Dream Team" dazzle the world!  

We decided we wanted to experience the Olympics first hand and so three years later we joined the "pool" for tickets to the games in Atlanta.  We got tickets to the equestrian, badminton, and basketball events which we split up between the Dodd clan!!  We stayed about an hour and a half north of Atlanta in Hidden Hollow Resort...and that was an adventure in itself!!  Imagine us with 6 kids...5 under the age of 6!!  Oiyyyy...

Nicole was the perfect age (14) to be inspired and though she couldn't cash in on any great athletic ability, she was a very successful pin collector!  Most pin dealers in Centennial Park were sooo nice and accommodating and helped her out when she was buying and "trading" pins! 

By the end of our Olympic adventure, Nicole had collected 55 pins...(and when she gets into that new house with all of the great storage...the pin collection along with the wedding dress and various other things will make the journey up interstate 65 to their new home)!!

Getting back to the 92 Olympics, you might wonder if we were anywhere near Centennial Park when the pipe bomb, set off by Eric Rudolph, exploded...Rich and Dave had gone to a basketball game that night and were actually in Centennial Park around midnight waiting in the long line for one of the buses to take them to the satellite parking.  The rest of us were out in the mountains at the "resort" battling field mice in the bunk room...we had no idea!  The one upside to that situation was that many people packed up and went home.  We packed up and moved to a HOTEL closer to the city...we were still so naive about terrorism at that time...and besides we had tickets to see riveting badminton matches and horses jumping fences...what memories... Now we proudly cheer on the home team from the comfort of our home :) 

I am curious if anyone out there is an Olympic fan?  Do you like the ceremonies?  Do you have a favorite sport or athlete that you follow?  Do you enjoy the special interest stories that the NBC team digs up?  Are you excited about the addition of Women's Boxing???  Check out London Summer Olympics 2012 – Intro just for fun!!  Meanwhile, I will go do my 5 miles...and get my smoothie...I am training for old age!!

Stay tuned as this is the first post in my series...London 2012!!

Lemons, Ants, and The Three Stooges...

Sunday is a day of rest; I know this...but sometimes for us it is the one day we can spend together uninterrupted doing things that we like to do. This afternoon we moved the five potted knockout roses to a new home in the ground and planted 3 Bougainvillea and 2 Meyer Lemon Trees in the pots. 

I love lemons and have wanted to try to grow them for about a year now...so...here we go!

Rich really enjoys being out in the yard...so this is right up his alley.  The Bougainvilleas look great, now if they can live through the windy days we have been experiencing!

Last to be planted were the roses. We had the 5 from the pots and 4 more we bought at Lowes. We decided to put them in an area that became sunny last week with the removal of a tree...all was well until Rich stepped into a nasty red ant nest...

But he persisted and got 5 of them planted...I love them!

On a final note, we also went to see a movie this afternoon.  Rich and Dennis wanted to see The Three Stooges (Pam and I kinda wanted to poke our eyes out...).  The whole Jersey Shore thing kinda turned me off, but I enjoyed sitting there listening to my husband laugh and laugh and laugh...

It's the simple things in life, for me it's the possibilities of a tree full of yellow lemons...for Rich, well (sorry, three stooges...) it is a new chainsaw on a stick...but that's a story for another day!

I hope your Sunday has been one of many blessings!!

Parachutes, Egg Hunts, and A New House!!

April has been busy for our family!  Nicole and David have a double closing date to sell their present home and buy their dream home in early May!! Rich and I got to tag along on the final round of elimination...so many houses, but in the end they decided to go for a beautiful home in a wonderful rolling-hill neighborhood just 5 minutes from work and 10 minutes from their church and Claire's daycare! They got the news about the new house on Easter Sunday right after lunch! 

Claire is more excited about the new parachute :)

As the day wears on we decide there's no time like the present to start packing up stuff like china and fancy glasses! I have decided that I am a bit superstitious, so I won't show a picture of the new place until they have closed...anything could happen and well they should be showing the pics first anyway...so stay tuned!!

But I am all out of order here...

Saturday, after a busy day of house hunting, grocery shopping, etc. we had an early dinner and took Claire to Veteran's Park...

We spent Easter with all of the kids and David's brother, Aaron (who works in Dreamcakes, recently ranked in the top 5 bakeries in America by People something-or-other...I knew I would forget). After church we had a wonderful lunch prepared by Nicole, Chelsea, and Katelyn...topped off with a lovely Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake!!

The Hello Kitty band aid is hiding one of Claire's run-ins with a vicious baseboard!!

I really didn't know that she was wearing the lavender plaid...

But we love being matchy-match :)

After lunch it was time for Claire's Easter Egg Hunt.  Chelsea and Katelyn were in charge of hiding the eggs and must have remembered those years when they couldn't find the last 6 eggs...;)

It's not Easter without a bonnet!!

Claire was ecstatic to find jelly beans in the eggs!!

After a successful egg hunt it was time for parachute fun...

And then the text from their realtor...they accepted your offer!!

Pop gives Claire a tricycle lesson....hmmmm...she still needs some lessons I think...and a nap!

We had such a great weekend it was hard to get on with the week...but we did!  Katelyn and I headed up to Nashville, Chelsea back to Auburn, Rich back home, and Nicole, David, and Claire back to their routine!!