A Message To Live By...Table Top Tuesday

When I was in Michigan in May, just a few days after my mom

died...I saw this plaque and I loved it. Amidst all the sweet,

sad and flowery options, this one made me smile.

I wasn't sure where to put it in my home. I decided I liked

 it on this glass and iron shelf that sits just inside my front door.

The shelf was a thrifty find when a local hotel

was selling all of their furnishings a few years

ago. I only paid $15 for it, and I think it

 is a perfect place to showcase some

of my favorite beachy things.

A seashell from Key West...

A piece of coral...love the texture!

It fits perfectly under our beachy artwork and

on a wall that is a slightly odd shape.

I'm linking with Marty @ A Stroll Thru Life for Table Top Tuesday.

Please run on over and check out the other participants today!

Summer in Illinois

I complain often about living in Illinois.

I'd really rather live somewhere near the

water, somewhere not so flat! However, in

the summer nature's bounty is plentiful and delicious.

Fresh picked tomatoes...

Turn into a beautiful Caprese salad...

The hot Illinois sun...

Produces the best sweetcorn!

Local peaches turn into the best peach

dumplings.  Thank you Yvonne @ Stone Gable for your

delicious and easy recipe. I topped mine with fresh

 whipping cream with a hint of sugar and vanilla added.

For her recipe: click here

You might remember that we had to remove our blue

spruce tree earlier this summer. I would show you a before

picture, but it is on the data disk from my recently crashed computer

 and I don't want to take time to look for it. We had hopes

that the tiny climbing rose we planted would actually

 climb the new fence...and it is!

I am linking today with Mary @ little red house for Mosaic Monday

and Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday.  Please visit

these busy ladies and enjoy the other bloggers who have linked with them.

And Now...The Rest of The Story

     This is one of those times that I really wish I could write like my friend Jenny Matlock. I just know that if she were to write this you would be rolling on the floor laughing by the time you were done reading. As it is, I have a feeling you may chuckle, but you will probably just feel sorry for me.

     You know how I mentioned earlier this week that I killed my modem? I just didn’t tell you how I did it. I had to have a conversation with my daughter (who still loves me) before I made a full public disclosure. Monday started out as a normal day. I decided to make some changes in my daughter’s room. So, first I decided to dust the 2 small shelves which held her favorite things. I moved a special snow globe to the desk below the shelves to get it out of the way and I made a mental note not to touch her metal tree which holds her Christopher Radko ornament collection (did you just get a chill). As I moved something on the shelf, it barely touched the base of the Radko tree. The tree fell onto the desk, breaking the snow globe into my modem and sending a rainbow of Radko glass shards all over the room. I did what any mature woman would do at that point. I started wailing like a baby, ran from the room, called my husband and went to bed.

     We have been buying her Radko ornaments for 9 years. We try to find one that has a connection to something special in our family for the year. In that moment, I thought we’d lost them all. When my husband got here and we actually braved the room, we found we had only lost 3 of them. Her first was very special, it was the 9/11 ornament. I was able to find one on Ebay and it is ordered.

     Our second lost ornament was from the year she was obsessed with VW Bugs. She just knew she was going to buy one, so we found a turquoise Radko Love Bug for her. I couldn’t find another turquoise one, but I did find a purple one on Ebay and it arrived yesterday.

     The third broken Radko I can’t find anywhere. It is a Limited Edition Mickey Mouse from 2005. There were only 750 made and obviously no one is selling theirs yet. He is intact but he lost his nose. It makes me sick, but if we are only out one of them…we are all okay that it is this one. I haven’t been able to find a replacement snow globe either, but I’ll keep looking.

     My crime didn’t go unpunished. When my new modem arrived on Wednesday, I plugged it in and called my internet provider to activate it. He had me plug the Ethernet cord from the modem into my laptop (Dell Inspiron 1525) so he could secure the connection. My computer crashed immediately. After spending 2 hours yesterday on the phone with some guy in India (for only $59 since my 2 year old computer was out of warranty) it was determined that the hard drive crashed. They would try to help me get my data off the hard drive for another $210 if I wanted them to, I hung up. I packed up the computer and headed to my local computer shop. They are going to pull the info off hopefully, for $40. The tech and I made a deal and he bought my computer for $100. He also informed me that it is not at all uncommon for the Dell Inspiron computers to have a hard drive crash…hmm, now they tell me.
 

 
     I am now the proud owner of a Toshiba Satellite with Windows 7 instead of the Vista I’m used to. The keyboard feels strange, but I’ll get used to it. It has a 17" screen, love that! 

     Did I mention that I also broke a tooth this week and had to go to the dentist? Oh, and Tuesday I woke up with a pulled a muscle in my neck and have been on the heating pad all week. You know you are getting old when you injure yourself sleeping.

Thank goodness it is the weekend! I need a break!

A Little of This, A Little of That

     I am writing this sitting in my garage (it is hot) so that I can "borrow" an internet connection from someone in the neighborhood. I took my computer somewhere last night and left the power cord in my husband's car, so I'm stuck with the cord that plugs into the lighter in my car...is this dedication to my blog or what? Yesterday, I couldn't get online at all...I hope that new modem shows up soon!

     I’ve been going through some of my pictures from my weeks in Florida and I realized that there are a few I want to share, but they don’t really deserve a blog post of their own. For example there was the view from our balcony at the Orlando Renaissance Hotel. We were so close to Sea World that we not only watched the 4th of July Fireworks in our jammies, we could hear the music and the announcer.

     Of course the night before, we watched the 4th Fireworks Spectacular over the Magic Kingdom from the rooftop of Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Hotel. That is what we call a perk of having a daughter who works for Disney. There were about 12 of us on the rooftop, no crowds, no screaming kids and a breathtaking view.

     There was the picture I took of my husband’s sandwich at a little Cuban restaurant in Winter Park, FL. It was a Cuban hamburger. A hamburger patty topped with ham, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato and a FRIED EGG! He loved it, but can you imagine if I’d made this for him at home? You think he would have eaten this? Talk about a heart attack in a sandwich!

     I also just had to show you a few more pictures that I found in my mother’s things. The first photo is of my mother’s parents. I never knew my grandfather with hair, or my grandmother with dark hair. Isn’t this just the perfect 20’s photo?

     I also found this photo of my mother and her older sister. What was so exciting about finding this photo, is that mom’s sister was always a mystery to us. She died when she was 6 as a result of having her tonsils out. The only thing I know is that the hospital gave her too much ether and killed her. My grandparents never mentioned her and my mom was only 4 when she died and had very little memory of her.

     I’ll leave you with a little bit of table top. This is the table that is behind our loveseat. It is the frame in the middle that is special to me. When my mom was first sick, my husband brought it home as a surprise one evening. The Jim Croce song was special to us when we were dating, the beach theme is perfect for my house and yes, that is a picture of us when we were dating. He had hair and I was blonde, we’ve come a long way baby!

    I am going to work backwards and link this to Table Top Tuesday with our hostess Marty @ A Stroll Thru Life. I'm also linking to Susan @ A Southern Daydreamer for Outdoor Wednesday.   


 

I Killed the Modem...

     I had a slight accident while cleaning today and my modem got wet...and quit working. I called and the way it is handled now is they mail you a new one...in 7 to 10 business days! They wouldn't let me pay to have it shipped overnight. So, at the moment I am "borrowing" an internet connection from someone in the neighborhood. I hope to continue to do this for a few days...but, I may not be around as much as I want to be. I didn't want anyone to think I was ignoring them!