Cinderella

Ellie and I went to see Cinderella a few Sundays ago while Monte and McDaniel were watching the new Avengers movie.

Ellie had already seen Avengers with friends that Friday night.

I don’t do superhero movies.

Unless, of course, it’s at home, 

I absolutely HAVE to

and I’m allowed to hot glue something during it.

Ellie and I were the only two people in the entire theater.

We tried putting our feet up on the seats in front of us because, 

who would care,

but it wasn’t super comfortable 

and it kinda blocked our 

own view of the screen. 

So much for being rebels.

The thing that really struck me in the Cinderella movie was the prince’s insistence on opening the royal ball to everyone.

Allowing ANY maiden in the village to come regardless of her bloodline.

And it wasn’t the princess that was shoved his way that the prince favored,

but a commoner.

So, basically, a Kate Middleton.

It was quite the bold suggestion.

A prince with royal blood marrying a girl with, well, none.

It rocked tradition.

We’ve been reading in Psalms for bible study and I’m also doing a discipleship program that has me reading through Luke.

Both talk of the “favor” of the Lord.

In Luke it’s absolutely groundbreaking that Jesus speaks of and to the Gentiles, not just the Jews, the chosen people.

He opened up the ball.

People weren’t happy one bit about it just like the advisors to the king weren’t happy in Cinderella about the prince’s suggestion for the ball, which its intention was finding him a suitable bride.

In Jesus’s kingdom, he’s inviting us ALL. 

To know Him. 

To spend eternity with 

Him in heaven. 

A forever ball.

Not just for the holy, 

the certain religions only, 

the try-hards, 

the I-have-to-earn-my-wayers, 

the non-doubters.

Everyone.

And he favors us.

Me. 

You.

Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior,

it doesn’t matter if the 

glass slipper doesn’t fit.

Jesus shattered it on the cross.

It’s irrelevant.

And that’s just about the happiest ending I can think of.

Mother’s Day Weekend

On Thursday, I got a text from Julie that she noticed a HUGE box at my front door when she stopped by.

I was at lunch.

When I got home, it took me and the neighbor girl who happened to stop by to drag this box inside.

It was addressed to Monte.

Of course.

I wondered what type of paper products 

he’d ordered in bulk this time.

I also feared he’d ordered some ginormous
Gator for our front yard.

When Monte got home from work he told me it was my Mother’s Day gift and I could go ahead and open it.

It was this:

Lush, backyard, huh!

A livestock trough.

Ok.

Before you start getting a teence bit mad at Monte on my behalf, 

I ASKED for this.

Actually, two of them. 

But I’m happy with one to start.

I’m going to fill it with dirt and make a raised garden bed.

No more bunny rabbits chewing up my plants!

No more bending over to weed!

The problem now is where to put it because my girlfriend warned me that once you put the dirt in it, it will not be budged.

If only the patio was installed! 

It’s now been a month since 

the originally promised install date.

Ahem.

In the mean time, it sits in our dirt pile/yard for all to see making us, to quote McDaniel, “official Rednecks” now.

The sun really reflects off the metal too, I’m sure blinding the pilots flying overhead.

I love my livestock trough! 

I kinda thought we’d head out of town together to a farm supply store to pick it out, but then again, I forgot who I’m married to.

Mr. Online Orderer.

I spent my Friday in the extreme heat tagging all the stuff we’ve been storing since the house construction for a yard sale.

Our city-wide yard sale date was Saturday.

I’ll go more into that in a few days.

It was super hot then too.

Me and the girls left Monte for a few minutes during our yard sale to hit a few of the other sales and came back fairly quickly (just.too.hot) with inline skates for both girls, some Mason jars, a purse and a free football.

The girls immediately tried out the skates.

Ellie dusted off her old ice skating lesson skills and took to it easily.

McDaniel was a little less confident.

On Sunday the girls treated me to breakfast in bed and handpicked flowers from the yard.

Our lilacs finally bloomed!!

McDaniel helped me with 13 kindergarten through 2nd graders in Sunday School.

We made angels out of crescent roll dough. We baked them and had the kids eat them.

Trying to keep them patient and all sitting down and all listening to the lesson during the baking process fully challenged my motherhood skills.

They were adorable,
especially the little boy with a bad case of bed head,

but I was pooped.

We rushed out of church to our favorite Mother’s Day brunch.

Don’t let the background fool you, we were still in Ohio.

It was a seafood theme this year, which we adored.

And the pistachio creme brûlée was wonderful.

The rice krispie treats with crushed up Reese’s Pieces on top? 

Brilliant.

I decided to come home and clean out my closet lest I go into a full-belly coma.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day!!

More Table Decorating Ideas for a Women’s Luncheon

Our church’s annual women’s luncheon was last Saturday.

And it did not disappoint.

Get this:  our pastor spoke.

He’s a man.

We usually have a woman speaker at our women’s luncheon.

But our pastor delivered a wonderful message on beauty, the spiritual kind, 

that God reserves for women.

It was lovely.

My mom got to come to the luncheon this year along with my girls.

I think Ellie was saying something. Or had to sneeze.

Let’s get to the table decorations.

I decided to do a Wizard of Oz theme. Less emphasis on the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion (not to mention the witch) and more emphasis on scripture with the same message of home, wisdom, heart and courage.

I set a goal for myself not to spend a dime for this table. I only spent money on lollipops and Skittles.

Wait. I also spent $.99 on a pair of shoes at a thrift store that I turned into ruby slippers.

I looked for shoes with a bow and was happy to find these.

I spray painted the shoes a glossy red.

While the shoes were still wet, I sprinkled red glitter all over them.

I didn’t even put down a tarp since our backyard still looks like the surface of the moon.

The red glitter classes it up just a teence.

I’m happy with the way they turned out. 

Except red glitter is ALL OVER THE HOUSE now.

How perfect is this scripture in Proverbs?

I brought in a picnic basket that I had to display the slippers and printed out the “There’s No Place Like Home” with a scripture about our citizenship being in heaven.

I used clothes pins to hold up the sign.

I made poppies from crepe paper and pipe cleaners. I swear we used to make these for the veterans in school but my mom said it was the other way around.

I found free printables of blue gingham and yellow brick roads that I printed and put on contact paper to attach them together for a table runner. I cut the yellow brick road to look winding.

I separated two big bags of Skittles by color and layered them in large mason jars to look like a rainbow and to also hold up large lollipops.

People had no problem helping themselves to the Skittles. 

I wish I had brought Ziploc bags so 

they could’ve taken some home.

I used felt rose cut outs as chargers that I had on hand from Dollar Tree. 

I put a lollipop at each place setting.

My friends, Sumita and Jill, threw this table together at the last minute when they realized they were short a table decorator. 

Don’t you love what you can do with china, baskets and the produce section of the grocery store?

Makes me hungry.

Look at these shadowbox flower frames! 

The little bud vase is held by an eye bolt that is screwed into the side of the frame. I wanted to ask the lady who decorated the table if she made them but I got distracted. 

It’s easy to get distracted in a room full of creative people. 

And food. 

This next table was awesome. 

A chef’s table!

Complete with a chef’s hat at each place setting.

The woman who decorated the table teaches cooking classes 

at the church so this made so much sense.

Don’t you love the centerpiece pot and utensils? How easy but totally effective.

She even used cookie cutters as napkin rings. Adorable!

You can see they had a blast with those chef hats.

Love these ladies, Sarah and Patti.
Sorry I stole this off your Facebook page, Patti!

This very elegant table included the quilt pieces of her grandmother as a table runner.

This table had a Precious Moments theme.

There was a teddy bear table.

 A tropical table.

I love how she used carrots and limes with the pineapple for the centerpiece.

The cat table honoring the cats, Lewis and Clark, of a woman in our church.

There were even cat masks!

All the tables were wonderful but I have to say, this took the grand prize in my book. 

The Star Trek table.

The attention to detail was phenomenal!

I have to admit, I have never seen a complete episode of Star Trek ever so I didn’t get all the references.

But I do know the hand signal of this cookie. 

Even if I can’t actually do it.

I love the glittery emblem on the goody bags.

Inside were these “delicacies”.

Leonard Nimoy sat at the table too.

Bullet holes in the face and all.

His chair faced mine and I kept feeling like someone was staring at me.

It was Leonard.

So there you have it.

Another year of creative ideas for table decorating for a luncheon.

Click here if you’d like to see last year’s luncheon tables.

Manly Gator Jeep

Monte got a new car.

This was not an impulse buy.

Are cars ever impulse buys for people

 other than Jerry Seinfeld or Jay Leno?

No, Monte has researched and researched and RESEARCHED a safer vehicle for his frequent business trips.

But he didn’t want a “company car” looking vehicle.

He wanted a smallish SUV that was manly.

That was a tough find. 

It took him almost a year of research and asking questions of people in the know.

Smallish SUVs are aplenty, especially if you are a 16-year-old who just got their license

and a girl.

It seemed as if every SUV Monte found somewhat acceptable was driven by every woman in our community.

Women.

Or girls.

Not men.

So Monte went on a year long journey of finding a manly car that wasn’t:

1) a truck 

(terrible gas mileage)

2) a doorless, roofless Jeep 

(terrible safety rating)

3) a Porsche 

(terrible price and let’s be honest here,
terrible image)

Although he went through a 2-week phase of entertaining the 

ABSOLUTE FANTASY of owning the Porsche SUV.

Every other night Monte would show me a picture online of a vehicle and ask if I liked it even though we both knew it didn’t matter as soon as we’d see a lady friend zoom down the road driving it a few days later.

It became a real “thing” for him.

A testosterone thing.

I get it. He’s the only male in the sea of estrogen we call our family.

Just this week a new shipment of 

sparkly headbands came in the mail.

Monte deserves a manly car.

While I was picking out paint colors and light fixtures for the house, Monte was reading consumer reviews on ALL THE VEHICLES ever made in the last year.

He emailed me last week that he thought he’d FINALLY found what he was looking for. 

The very next day we walked into a dealership to meet with a super friendly guy named Kevin who Monte had emailed A LOT of questions in a short amount of time about a vehicle called the Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk.

I think Monte found his manly car.

I told him if this was animated in the movie “Cars”
it would be the villain.
He liked that.
He liked that a lot.

He said the headlights sold him.

They reminded him of alligator eyes.

Get this:  the color is called a very unmanly “Mango Tango”.

This thing can tow 4500 pounds.

I can not imagine a scenario where we’d need to.

People of Jeep:  Don’t name the color of a car that can off-road and tow 4500 pounds “Mango Tango”. 

It’s confusing.

I overheard Monte tell someone it was “Burnt Orange”.

Not sure any points were added to his 

Man Card for that one either.

So we’ve settled on telling people it's Florida Gator orange.

But let me back up…

The plan was for me to test drive the vehicle with Monte and if he liked it, leave him at the dealership to fill out all the paperwork and do what he likes to do best:  negotiate way beyond my comfort level.

Monte absolutely loved the car and before I could get away,

he asked for an even cheaper deal and for “something thrown in”.

Kevin said he could throw in a hat.

I left before that choice was made.

I got this picture later.

“I’m sorry, Kevin, I asked for the hat with Jeep in
big letters.”
Not sure why Monte has the crazy eyes.
Maybe it’s all the testosterone.

It’s so different yet so perfectly Monte.

Every time I see it in the driveway, I think we have company.

I’ve been getting calls from friends telling me where they have seen Monte driving. 

I guess when your husband drives a “Mango Tango” colored car, he can not drive anywhere unnoticed.

That is a good thing.

And we’ve seen nary a woman driving one.

And that is a very good thing.