Favorite Movie Week.....POST

It is hard for me to 'sit' and watch a movie, that is because there is always something I need or could be doing! Is anyone else like this? LOL

This morning my youngest daughter and myself sat and watched a movie she brought home called "Push", this movie kept my attention long enough for me to watch the whole movie. So I thought, "why not post your favorite movie".

So all YOU bloggers POST your favorite all time movie! It could be an older movie or a new one. I hear "the Proposal" is an awesome movie, guess that I will have to go watch that one!

My favorite movie to this day is ......aaahhhh this is hard! "Taken" action, "Beauty Shop" - funny, "Shooter" action/thriller and then I have to say that "RV" is the best movie for being funny and family oriented.

HELP.....calling all 'interior designers'....

Purchasing the stuff for preparing the wall

Pre-preping the wall. We had to cut out the sheetrock to the size rock we are placing on the wall and add more studs and backerboard on the wall. Carpet had to be cut and pulled back also.....

This is a look at our mess, but it is the smaller of the two messes we had :) We worked 10 hours day one and this is how much we did and that was with lunch break only!

We first laid the pattern, then put the mud under them

Laying the hearth (these rocks were 'heavy' took 2 men to lift them) second day we worked 10 hours to complete the work. What a job....I have a better appreciation for rock layers!

Completed "dry stack" wall and hearth (but I have not cleaned the rocks yet, still wet)

With your help, I need to find a "L" shape couch, or an arrangement of furniture that will fit around the wall. I have lost this wall to seating and only have 2 walls to work with. I have one couch and a recliner (yes, this is hubbies and can't get rid of it YET), an end table and an old antique truck as my coffee table. So you see the wall, any suggestions?

I like to go with earth colors, browns, beige's.....:)

Calling all Bloggers.......

I have been thinking......(I know this may be dangerous), since we have a new rock wall and hearth, I am seriously thinking about getting a new couch for the living room. As posted previously, my room and decor has changed. I am thinking a 'brown' "L" shaped couch that when you sit on it, it just sucks you up in the soft comfort of it. Anyway, I will post pictures tomorrow and you look at my living room and suggest what YOU think I should do with my on my decor!

I am excited because I have seen other blogs that have posted their beautiful pcitures of their homes and 'decorating' tips, so I am calling on all bloggers to help me with decoring my living room! PLEASE feel free to suggest your ideals and links to purchase or just to show me an idea!

WORKING my BoOteeeeee off!

OMGosh! I have been so busy these past two days and can't wait to post pictures! I just completed cleaning my house, I mean washing walls, pictures, lights, ceiling fans, kitchen cabinets, on and on and on.........BECAUSE we just completed my 'dry stack' rock wall and rock hearth in my living room. I didn't realize when you have to 'cut' out the sheetrock, and install backerboard for the rock. When you cut out sheetrock, DUST and this little white stuff lands on everything you have! Then when you bring in the rocks, there is another layer of dirt, from there we have our wood floor being replaced with new wood flooring, which is causing dust! So this is why I have been cleaning my Bootee off today!

We are installing our wood burning stove (to help heat our house and hopefully reduce the electric bill, plus when we lose our electricity in the winter, we will have 'heat'!) Our rock layer and I have actually been working on this wall. I would separate the good from the bad rocks and then carried them in the house for for him he is on the scaffle (sp?) to lay. We chose the Blue Stone rock and on the heart we chose the blue stone with the cherry marble rock for the hearth.

I will be posting pictures soon and you will see why I am so tired! My house, and living room look like a different house.

What is funny, my husband doesn't realize that the 'decor' does not go now with this new rock wall, so I am thinking a new couch!!!!!

TRANSLATION.......

This has been driving me crazy for days.....You see on one of my post, I had a reply in a foreign language, and no, I do not read or speak any other language but English....sheltered life as you may see it, I see it as my brain is to old to try and learn a new language....lOL I tried two different translating websites, with no prevail. FINALLY, I found one that would translate this reply.

It was left on my post about our new addition to the family.....our puppy.

(Kind of Cool, first time someone from another country has found my blog)

"Faraluna said...

Simpatico Il Cagnolino!
Un saluto dall'Italia...:-) faraluna"

Translation:
Faraluna said.....
Nice the dog!
Greetings from Italy.: Faraluna

New Pictures of Cooper!

Cooper is a red/white corgi, he will and should grow into his red and his ears should start standing this week

4 weeks old and already playing

When Cooper grows up, this will be very close to what he will look like!

Ms. Nan sent me new pictures of Cooper today. My of my how he is growing! He already looks like he will wear me out prior to training him! He will be my partner, so I guess I better start eating my Wheaties!

HAPPY Birthday to my grands!

July 17th ~ Happy Birthday Fallon (3 years old)
July 5th, Happy Birthday Kale ( 7 years old)

Since the grandbabies are getting to the age that they have a mind of their own, I have chosen to take them and let them pick out their birthday presents. Rather than me try to pick out something that is 'totally' wrong!

Mems, Pops and BB love you!

Going Green and saving energy!

Blue Stone "tumbled" rock (tumble means they made the edges rough, not a true square rock, makes it look warn)


A ton of blue stone rock and then my 2 inch flat cherry marbled blue stone hearth rock

I don't think you can see the cherry marble in the rock, because it is still dirty but it will show up more when he gets it laid and I can take pictures.

A closer look at the tumbled rock

This is the wall we will be building the rock wall and hearth.

This is somewhat an example of stacked natural rock. Not the greatest example, but it will give you an idea. I don't think these rocks are tumbled, which makes a big difference in the look!

Greg and I have decided that we need to update our ability to control the outcome of our living conditions when a storm comes through during the summer or winter. For the past year, I have been working on reducing the use of energy and more reliance on self sufficiency. Yes, I do think I was born a century to late, but there are things I like in both worlds! Every year, we experience the loss of our electricity, averaging 2-4 days. In the winter, it is hard, because we have no heat, the nights are dark and cold and after 2 days of this, the cold is to the bones and you can not get warm. So we have to pack up and go to my parents house to stay. I know they do not care, but you just feel like you are barging in on them. In the summer, the freezers that I have full of beef, pork and chicken plus the corn and other frozen veggies I put up will be thawed out in a day or two with extreme heat. I now have 3 freezers which are full so this would be detrimental to our food source if these all thawed out!

We've had a generator that we purchased 3-4 years ago for our horse trailer that stayed in the back of my truck. So we knew that generator was definitely large enough to run the house, just not the central heat/air. We had our friend John come over and drop a line out the back of our house to plug into our generator. Since we did have a recent storm knock us out of electricity for 2 days, we were able to experience the great use of our generator and found that it would run 11 hours on a tank of gas. IT was GREAT.....The fans in the house kept us cool! Next we are building and installing a Hearth and rock wall to install our wood burning stove for heat in the winter. We feel that it would reduce energy use, plus save us $ on our electric bill.

I went and picked out my rocks for the layer to install. I am so excited. I thought I had in mind what I wanted to purchase, but when I reached the site, they had examples of different rocks. I was going back and forth on what I wanted and decided if I have to look at this everyday, I am gong to install what I like so I can live with it. I choose the blue stone rock (tumbled) and the wall will be 'stacked' rock (meaning it will look loose and stacked) and then the cherry marbled blue stone for the hearth. I will post pictures as we get under way with the project. I am losing a wall and some seating, but we feel this is important at this time. I can purchase bean bags for the grandchildren to throw around to lay on when they are over!

New addition to the family....!

Cooper (Pembroke Welsh Corgi) - 3 weeks old

Cooper was born June 20th, 2009. We are scheduled to pickup "Cooper" aka "Coop" on July 31st. He will be 6 weeks old and will be ready to live with the Arnold's. His plans are to become TDI certified a licensed therapy dog. I should be completed with my counseling degree in fall 2010 and this will be the time he will be finishing up his certification. He will be making trips to school with me to be around students. Another member of the Arnold family!

I have 13 girls!!!!!!!!!!!

I planned on posting prior to my departure Monday morning at 6 a.m. but was unable to find the time to do so! We are "all" in Hot Springs at the girls team camp (basketball). We played 4 games yesterday and 4 today. We just returned from Magic Springs Amusement Park and I am really tired. I will post more after my return tomorrow night. Well maybe not tomorrow night, but the end of this week! :)

Oh, have to tell you this joke.......Coach S. told me and I fricken fell for it. He caught me when I was tired! LOL

"Do you know how much dirt is in a hole? I said, "No, tell me Coach", he said, "none, it is a hole"......He is spending to much time with other coaches!

18 years and Counting.......Whew

It has been eighteen (18)..YES, 18 years of marriage and counting. It just seems like yesterday we went to purchase our marriage license and before I could 'chicken' out, Greg had persuaded me and Mike Jacobs into marrying us. I think he knew if I walked out of that court house, I had a good chance of prolonging and maybe never marrying him.

As today comes and goes, the years seem to pass faster and faster. It will seem within a few months we will be posting our 19th year of marriage!

Happy Anniversary Greg......Hope you enjoy your new Grill!

Amazing Blog.......

I accidentally found this blog and this woman is amazing. I have placed one of her paintings here of her two boys! I wish I had this talent! Check out her blog! It is so cool!

http://chalkaboutit.blogspot.com/

MY barn is coming together....

I held my breath while these men are on the barn...
Look, the roof is coming together! YEEEEEEEEAAAAAA

Thanks to my dad and Greg after the storm, they put our fence back up and put some of the doors back on the barn to keep the horses out of our barn.

After the storm, we are finally getting our barn back up! Last night they had spent a hot day in the sun working on our barn. I came home from school working on scheduling students for the upcoming school year, when I started cooking hamburgers on the grill, watching these young 'men' working so hard, I decided to feed them, so I sent BB down to see if they would eat with us. I could see the smiles on their faces and knew the answer......I was glad to share our supper with them before turning in for the night. After the last storm tearing our roof off our barn, they are working hard to get it back together, painted and doors back on to complete our barn for my girls!

Next project is building our deck around the side of our house, install our pool and partial deck around it. Greg and I have decided we would have so much leisure time around the pool in the afternoon, cooking out on our new grill we purchased for our existing deck and starting to get our home for future retirement! Yes, I said future retirement.

Who's the GEEK in the glasses?

I was at school today working and learning APSCN and how to schedule students in APSCN. I have scheduled students before, but not on the new system. As you know, I am working on my counseling degree, a PLUS in getting a future job as a High School Counselor, and that is to 'know' the system that you will be using 95% of the time, our counselor has agreed to teach me (also helps her out with the schedules)! We went to lunch and while at lunch we all ordered the lunch special EXCEPT I am known to play pranks on people, while my counselor was busy 'talking' I stopped our waitress and ask her to bring me a plate of LIVER and ONIONS as a joke to our counselor! In a few minutes our waitress started bringing our plates and she placed my plate in front of me and she placed the liver and onions in front of our counselor....I was trying hard not to laugh, the counselor says, "what is this?" the waitress (God Bless her, saving me) said, "Didn't you order liver and onions?" The counselor says, "ahhh, no!" we all started laughing.....of course she looks at ME.....

On the way back to the school, we found some 3D glasses in our Math Specialist purse and of course we had to have our BOSS (principal) put them on, he is so funny.....he falls for everything, yep he is blond! So I had to take pictures

Hummmm, I may not be allowed in the high school anymore and the counselor................. may not help me anymore and my boss, he does have to evaluate me during the year.....AHHH they will forget about it by tomorrow! LOL

Fresh Peach Dessert

OK, so I am feeling better....you can always tell because I am cooking! LOL Since I was sick yesterday and was unable to cook our 4th July lunch (AND we had plans to go over our good friends who live on the Arkansas river, HUGE cookout and fireworks on the river), we were unable to make it because I WAS SICK! We always have fun at the Kenner's house on the water for the 4th, they cook out all day and of course, he owns a boat company and they have 2 very nice boats we take out......anyway, we are celebrating the 4th today!

As you see, the tomatoes in the background, these are my tomatoes out of my garden and this is the 3rd picking, I have more I have to pick today! I will be canning this week! Salsa, Tomatoes and Tomato Juice!

I made this delicious peach dessert that is one of the best for this time of the year with fresh peaches coming off. I could eat the whole dish! Here is the recipe:

Peach Dessert

(1st layer)

1 3/4 cups flour

1/4 brown sugar

1/2 cup pecans

1 stick butter (soften)

Mix and press in 13 x 9 dish, cook at 350 degrees for approxiametly 18-20 miniutes. COOL, comletely.

(2nd layer)

Cream Cheese

1 3/4 cups powdered sugar

8 oz cool whip

Mix well and place over cooled crust. Refrigerate

(3rd and 4th layers)

3-6 Fresh cut/sliced and peeled peaches (place on top of cream cheese mixture)

2 -3 oz packages of peach jello

2 cups hot/bowling water

1 1/2 cups cold water

place in refrigerator until it is 'slimmy' or jelled to a egg yolk touch. Cut Fresh whole peaches and place on top of cream cheese mixture, pour peach jello over top and chill until jello is completely jell'd.

This is a great recipe and always the hit of the party!

OHHHHH, I am late..........!

Wanted to wish everyone a "HAPPY 4th of July", I have been very sick, throwing up, fever.....must me a stomach bug. I finally get myself back today and now my youngest daughter is coming down with this stuff! UHRRRR! So here is a belated 4th fireworks to YOU! Hope you had a memorable one!

Riding, Playing and just getting WET....

My hubbie and I have had the grand kids since Tuesday while family is out of town.....We have played, laughed, ate, watched movies, slept and anything that we could think of, we did! No limits....well almost no limits included, LOL

Yesterday we rode horses, which my granddaughter did not like to be real close to horses and she finally got on a horse and rode BY HERSELF! It was great. I sent my youngest daughter to Wal Mart and bought us some water guns, so we went outside around 5:30, filled water in the water guns, and kept the water hose going, the pictures below show off what we did yesterday. You see the deck is wet from the water guns.....Yes, we are still children! Playing children games :)

Kale loving his friend!

Kale riding by himself!

Kale and Fallon getting on the horse, Papaw says, "grab Kale around the waist" (LOL) so she grabs him around his neck! lOL

Fallon, Kale and Papaw

Fallon on her a HORSE....YIPEEEE Papaw helping her to hold on~

Kale dropped the water gun and went to the BIG gun, water hose!

Fallon running from the water gun!