End of an era

I actually never met any of my biological grandparents...as my parents put it, I was a "later in life" child. All of my grandparents passed before I was born (my mom's dad actually passed away when she was expecting me).
I did have my Aunt Helen, though. She was my dad's aunt (my grandfather's sister) and sort of helped fill that grandparent role in some ways. We traveled to San Antonio on many a Sunday afternoon and holiday to visit Aunt Helen. And every summer, she would come to Austin for my dance recitals and to spend a week making homemade noodles, dumplings and banana pudding with me. I always pecked at the raw noodle dough (sounds bleh now), and she always thought that was so funny. I don't think she ever missed a dance recital. And she never missed a chance to ride the train with me at the San Antonio zoo when I was little.
She was a stubborn gal, and quite set in her ways. But, she always made us laugh and was the "keeper of memories" for my dad's side of the family. For a little lady under 5 feet tall, she sure had lots of personality (and opinions, ha!). She lived in the same green and white house on Preston in San Antonio since she was in her twenties, up until just a few years ago when she was moved to her nursing home. It had a pepto-pink-tiled bathroom and only two small bedrooms. But, it was a family heirloom in itself. We celebrated many holidays in "the front room" (a rather formal living room that wasn't touched too much) and always gathered in "the back room" (a small den) when we visited on every other occasion. She kept M&Ms in the freezer and pinwheel cookies and rice krispy treats on a plate in the kitchen. She was a bit of a matriarch-type of figure to my family and all of my cousins.

And early this morning, after 95 years on this earth, she went to be with Jesus.

As my dad stated this morning, it is the end of an era.

We love you, Aunt Helen. You will be missed.

Two Posts in One Day!

One of my awesome college roomies (let's hear it for the Ruswood gang...woohoo), Erin, has embarked on a VERY cool new adventure. I present to you: Erin Shanks Interiors. I was reading through her site recently and realized how blah my entry was. I mean, it wasn't awful. Just needed a little sumptin'-sumptin'. Annnnnd, Erin mentioned these two lamps she had found at Goodwill. I thought, hmmmm, wonder if our Goodwill has anything cool like that. Well, what do you know...

Here's the before...

The table was my parents' old sofa table from their old house in Austin...I think it's almost as old as I am. I painted it black when we moved here.

The Goodwill lamps! Hello, 1990! Erin and I had a few email convos and decided red glossy paint would be perfect. Another awesome idea Erin had...drum lamp shades!

Almost done.....

I placed harlequin black & cream scrapbook paper under the glass of the table.

The End Result:

I know it's not absolutely perfect...I probably go overboard with chachkies and plant things. And I need to do something with the basket of the tree.

But, I am so, so happy with the change!! Thank you so much, Erin! You are so awesome! These lamps were less than $5 each and I already had the spray paint in the garage. I did splurge a bit on the drum shades, but I feel like I saved sooo much on the lamps that I sort of justified it that way. ; )

Look for some fun new ideas for your home on Erin's site!

THE SIDE STORY:

While at Goodwill, I had another interesting find. They have all of their wintery clothes out and on display. This big, puffy sweatshirt caught my eye that was hanging on the rack. Why? Because I designed it in 1999! It was a GATA sweatshirt from my college club at ACU! Not only was it from my senior year, it was from the time period that I did graphics for a local t-shirt shop, and it was one of my old designs!! I about fell over. I had to buy it just to show David! When I was going on and on about this sweatshirt to him and what a crazy coincidence it was that it ended up in a Goodwill in Killeen, he kind of had a weird look on his face. Then he informed me that he had donated a bunch of boxes of old clothes that were in our garage to that very Goodwill. Soooo....

I purchased back a sweatshirt that we donated to Goodwill. So, I'm out $4 and have my sweatshirt back. A sweatshirt I never knew I missed.

Halloween Recap

Wooweee.....almost half way through November and just now getting to the Halloween pics. We had a fun-filled Halloween time that went all the way into the first weekend of this month. From our church Funival, Jonathan's preschool carnival and party, Benjamin's kindergarten Fall Ball and good ol' trick-or-treating, Snoopy & Charlie are done. And I'm ready for that dog house to hit the curb. Like, say, Tuesday morning when the garbage truck comes? It was fun to have as a "play dog house" for a bit, but I'm really quite over it.


Snoopy & Charlie



Oddly enough, the ambulance was one of the favorite places the boys visited at the Funival. Thankfully, it was just for a tour.


This Halloween was the year we learned Jonathan loved to get his face painted.
He had it done at every event we went to.



This was at Benjamin's Fall Ball. It was actually a dance for all the kindergarteners...although I'm not sure I saw a single kiddo on the dance floor. Wait, I take that back...my Snoopy used it as his landing zone while flying away from the red baron. There were LOTS of other cool activities for the kids besides dancing...crafts, cookie decorating, etc. Lots of fun!



The official Fall Ball photo.


King of the face paint with our favorite teacher, Mrs. Weatherford.
You know you have an amazing teacher when she calls the little brother by his nick name and loves him like her own. Love this woman. She has made my six-year-old fall in love with school.


I think this is pretty funny....this is Benjamin with several of the kiddos from his class. The boy eating the snow cone is his best buddy, Kaden. He also thinks his princess friend, Ava, is very cool....this is what he told me when he saw this photo. So, there you have it.