Saturday tidbits..............

 Hello my friends?  How are you?  Did you have a good week?  First off let me thank you for the wonderful birthday wishes, you all made my week, and made me feel very special.

This week was very strange with Hurricane Elsa popping in for a brief visit.  No one here in Florida was worried.  It was funny to be at the store the day before her arrival and no one, I mean no one was buying things to prepare for her.  No water in carts, toilet paper or batteries.  I think most people were preparing for the Stanley Cup Final, Go Lightening!!!!  I did have a Little Boy have a sleep over in my room the evening she was to arrive.  He is not fond of thunder and he sleeps all the way across the house from me so it is better to have him close if there is a chance he might get scared.  He slept soundly all night because all we had was rain and a bit of wind but nothing to get concerned about. 

We had had a ton of rain prior to Elsa so my garden has bloomed like crazy.  And is blooming with weeds too I might add.  Also blooming is all the mold growing around my pavers on my pool deck.  One thing I can't stand about summer is the sheer amount of time those pavers take me to keep them relatively clean.  I just finished up cleaning and bleaching them a while ago and that took me ten hours over the last three days.  Yes I have a husband and two grown boys, but my husband has circulation issues so standing for long periods of time is a no for him.  He can ride a bike for 5 hours but standing a lot causes him pain. My two older sons do not live here and they work all week long so I am not going to ask them to clean pavers on the weekend.  It is my job and frankly as much as I hate it is has to be done.  I believe Florida is the mold and mildew capitol of the world.

And more blooms, new bedding.  I love new bedding and found this at JoAnn's on massive sale.  Who knew they had bedding?  I also bought this great picture and popped it right on my antique church pew. The picture was on sale for a whopping $14.99!  The extra white pillows on the bed are from Amazon and the gold ones are from Ikea.  A super fun and inexpensive update to my bedroom.  I went there for needle point kits for two young women I work with and came home with those and this bedding!  And with all my coupons it was a steal!

The boys had a spa day yesterday and believe me they were not happy about it at all.  Hank finally got his mullet cut off.  He had so much long hair by the back of his head we actually put it up in a bun last weekend for fun.  I am so glad his hair is growing in healthy and strong.  Now he has it all evened out so it can grow out looking much nicer.  You can see both before photos and this last after photo really show a difference in how he looks. 

This morning while taking a break from paver cleaning, we went to the splash park and playground.  It has been a few weeks since we have visited so it was a lot of fun.  Now all restrictions have been lifted so there are more children there.  Still Little Buddy was able to navigate the slide independently and even gave encouragement to those coming down it, I believe I heard him say, "Good job little fellow." 

The biggest news of the day is that Little Buddy climbed these stairs, climbed over a bridge and went down the twirly slide all by himself three times today.  That is the very first time he has navigated it and frankly we have not even tried but a few times over the years because it is hard for him.  But today he said he wanted to do it and I just walked in back of him in case he needed help.  To him it isn't a big deal, but to me it is amazing!

Yesterday while just trying to bleach a small area of the pavers before taking the boys into get their haircuts I got bleach on my dress.   I know not a smart thing to do.  I have these amazing $10 Walmart dresses in every color, they are so comfortable and even have pockets.  I wear them all weekend long. This one was grey, but after splashing myself with bleach I thought I would see if I could save it so I did not have to throw it out.  This morning I tried to make it unique and that is indeed what it is.  But I like it!  And I had no idea it was exposed to this much bleach when I popped the bottom of it in the pail.  I rinsed and rinsed it off outside and then washed and dried it.  What do you think? A keeper or the charity bin?

I'm off to take a much needed shower after all that cleaning and splash park fun.  Have a wonderful weekend.