Hoarder... Yep that is me

I took a few minutes to somewhat straighten a little bit of my bedroom this evening. I have now discovered that I am a shoe hoarder. It is not that I love shoes. I wear a size 12 W. That is not the easiest size to find in women's shoes. I also have plantar fascisitis sometimes so every size 12W is not good for me. I was straightening my shoes and I do believe there were about 20 pair. Some may say for a woman that is not much. Well I am a woman but I do not have a shoe fetish. These 20 shoes are shoes I do not wear. Six of these shoes are old tennis shoes that I do not wear anymore but I can not get rid of them. This does not include the three tennis shoes that I rotate right now. One for exercising, one for lawn mowing and one for casual. There were about four pair of generic crocks that I have not worn this year yet because I have a new pair of real Crocs that I love. Surprise, surprise, I actually found a real pair of Crocs that fit and they are a cute Mary Jane style. There are also four pair of leather sandals in which three are identical but very worn. I just cant throw them out. I have two pair of black clogs, identical but one is worn ... See ,when I find them in my size and they fit I buy duplicates. There are also my blue slip-on butter cookie shoes that I have , one is almost worn out. I could go on and on. I actually wear probably three pairs of shoes mostly during the week.

I try to get rid of them but my inner-self says.. "You have such a hard time finding shoes, are you going to just throw them out. " " You should save the worn pair so you can wear them if the weather is bad." " What if you can't find any more in this color? Then you are going to wish you had them."

I didn't even talk about the two pair that are in the backseat of my car right now. No wonder I could not find my dressy black sandals last week they were in the car.

HELP! I AM A SHOE HOARDER!

This and That

This is a picture of Fluffy chilling on our nice swing. You would think he lived here or something.

This is a picture of our last Wednesday night church activities for the 08-09 school year. We had a fiesta. This all them searching for candy. They were all great troopers, the older ones made sure that everyone had the same amount of candy from the pinata.

That is the picture of our whole regular crew. Their bellies look a little round because we had just had nachos and we did the Mexican hat dance. OOOOOHHH! Yes we danced in the Baptist Church. We might have to call a business meeting over that dance, HA!

You might ask , why the fiesta? Since the beginning of May we have been studying about Mexican Missionaries. Overall we had a great year. We learned about missionaries and other countries. We made craft items and played games. This is also our children's bells ensemble, so we practiced alot at Christmas. Oh and what the kids loved, we had two baking nights. During Easter we made crosses out of bread and not too long ago we made Eve's Apple Crumble in which we talked a long time about sin and right and wrong. It was a great year.

So now you have read about a little of this and a little of that. Have a great day!

What a Great Day!

First I want to take this moment to thank all the people that have died serving our country to give me the freedom that I have today. I had a great day. It started by getting up early and going to my grandparent's house to cook them a home-cooked breakfast. They are 91 and 95 and still live on their own. Everyday tasks are getting difficult but they are too proud to ask for help. We cooked sausage and gravy, bacon, eggs, and fish roe cakes ( yucko, but my mom and grandparents like them). I then cooked them pancakes for tomorrow and some grilled cheese sandwiches for later that day. They were thankful. Later we had a cookout at my sister's house. Just my immediate family. We did not decide to do this until about noon so it was last minute plans. Our goal was 4 PM. My brother had been in contact with my pastor and had invited him to come if we did anything. At 4:15 PM both him and his wife pulled up to join us. It was a delightful evening. It is so great to have a pastor that you can call by his first name or Pastor Tommy. He and his wife are such a delightful couple. I just have to say that we laughed alot. We also had him cracking up when we confessed what we do during his sermons. My sister-in-law does all she can to keep my brother awake, you know my brother, the head deacon. My sister confessed that she makes out her grocery list. Then I had to confess that when I am in service and not in children's worship that I spend most of my time counting how many gray hairs my sister has that she says she does not have. He was quite amused. He knows we do not do this every Sunday but were giving him a hard time. He is such a great man. Thank you Lord for our friendship with our Pastor and his wife.

Cats,,, yes there are 2 now

I am in trouble now... Fluffy has adopted a buddy. I would not call them buddies because Fluffy is more the body guard of this "just barely over being a kitten" cat. He is so pretty. My indoor cat is a very orange tabby this cat is a snowy orange tabby. Make sense. He looks like my cat that has been playing in the snow. I think I am going to call him Snowball. It has taken him, I assume it is a him I have not checked yet, three days to let me touch him. He has the cutest baby meow. Oh I wish I could take him in but my cat says, " NO-NO".

The above photo is a blurry camera phone picture, please forgive me. The one to the left is snowball and he is not as big as he looks. The one on the right is Fluffy and he is as big as he looks.

Oh and the update on Fluffy, he really is not a stray. He belongs one street over. My down the street neighbor told me he belongs behind her but he does not like them. He also is not a he but a she and has been spayed and rabied. My neighbor also feeds him but he spends 90% of the time at my house. She talked with his "real" owners and they do not care . They are just happy she is being taken care of. I think I have figured out the mysterious car that drove down our street one day while I was holding Fluffy. The slowed down right in front of my house, smiled and waved. I did not know them but I assume Fluffy did.

I know a few weeks ago, I blogged that I would not feed two outdoor kitties but I confess I have. I have a big heart for orange tabbies evidently. I promise I will not feed three.... but then again if it is another orange tabby then I am in trouble.

You sure none of you want one of these sweet orange tabbies? Fluffy will bring you nice presents occasionally, I received two in one week.

More Mother's day

Part of our gifts to the Mother's last Sunday was the kids singing. They actually were doing an encore presentation from a few weeks ago. My nephew is in the blue striped shirt up front. He had a solo.
This is my nephew doing his solo. I do not know what he was looking at because their music director was on the front row not the side. I really think he was trying to make sure no one else was trying to sing his solo with him. The sweet little girl to his right tried to make it a duet last time. It was so cute.

Our children's choir is getting so big that we are going to have move the pulpit when they sing. They are getting too big to try to put on one side of the pulpit or the other. They need the whole stage. Also the front row has had a huge growth spurt . There used to be no problem seeing the back row and the front row but not now. Those little kiddos are growing. Why can't they stay little? Oh well, the children's choir director and I will have to come up with some more creative ways to spread them out now unless the back row has a huge growth spurt soon.

Oh and by the way, Thank to Jen over at Jenn #2 on my favorites on the right side of my blog for letting me steal her pictures off facebook. I always forget my camera but why do I need my camera when she takes such great pictures. I am sure she will have these pictures on her blog soon too.

Some Thursday Laughter.

First off this afternoon I am taking a very hard literacy test that is four hours long which will decide on what the next chapter of my career life may hold.

This morning my mother went to Wal-Mart to order a party tray of chicken for a rehearsal dinner I am catering tomorrow. She came back with Wal-Mart chicken tenders, fried okra and potato wedges. Aside from being fattening, it really was a bad choice for me on a test day. Okra has a way of working through my body real fast , if you know what I mean. Sorry to get personal. So I only ate a few knowing in just a few hours I will be in a room for four hours testing. My mom said, " it can't work that fast." Hmmh, I know better.

All this salt and fried food , I wanted more than water. I walked down to Dollar General and was trying not to get a carbonated soda. I picked the Dragonfruit Vitamin Water. I came back drank a bit and then decided to research exactly what dragonfruit was. So ok , it is the fruit of the cactus species. Well ok, I kept reading and this is what wikipedia said.."In Mauritius, it is known as "Débousse-to-fesse" because of its laxative properties."
WHAT!!! That is the last thing I need right now.

Needless to say the vitamin water is now in the refrigerator for another day and I am drinking water. Whooh! I am glad I did some research.

Now pray for me this afternoon to do the best that I can and that I have no unplanned interruptions during the four hours.

Happy Mother's Day!

Some of you may be green with envy when you hear that I received the most unique Mother's Day present today and I am not a mother. Yes, it was very unique and I thought about posting a picture for you but decided to let your envious imagination paint the picture.

I received..... a dead baby opossum compliments of my outdoor stray kitty, Fluffy. Yes, it was in my driveway when I pulled up from church. Oh , it was such a surprise. Though I do need to tell Fluffy that next year I would much prefer a dead dandelion.

Biggest Loser Finale Thoughts

I have been over-thinking next week's finale of the Biggest Loser. I will be very happy if Tara or Mike win. The longer I think about it , I am convincing myself that Tara should win. She has worked hard and has not had daddy there pushing and protecting her. Well she is definitely in the final three. The question is will Mike or Ron, son or dad, make it to the final three. My first thought is Mike should go on to the final 3. My second thought is he is injured and unless some miracle happens, Tara is going to blow it away. So if I vote for Mike to be in the final three then he can not win the second prize for the at-home winner. I don't know, I just don't know. I will be waiting on my seat to see if anyone else in America was thinking my thoughts. If Tara does not win, I will be totally shocked. She has been such a power-house. Counting the days.... 5 days and so many hours now.

FAT DAY!

Ever have a "FAT DAY"?
A day in which no matter what you wear or what you do you feel and look fat in your mind. No positive thinking works, the only thing in your mind is, I am fat.

That was me today. All day long I felt like the Goodyear Blimp. I ate healthy trying to psyche myself but it did not work.

So what is a woman to do?

I know , I know... Say the heck with it and head to CiCi's pizza for a little bit of pizza and a lot of cinnamon rolls. They always make things better. :) Somewhat.

Sidenote: I was heading home to cook a vegetable dinner and my nephew called and wanted me to meet him at CiCi's . What good aunt would ever say no?