Under The Tuscan {Floridia} sun

Do you remember that wonderful movie Under the Tuscan Sun?
Well, I am about to reenact it right in my back yard.
Ok, minus the devastatingly handsome, barely English speaking Italian who lives to fulfill my every need.
And by every need, I am referring to house chores.
::::
Lolo's closest friend is getting married on June 22nd. I know. Lets not go there today.
Anyhoo she is doing a very small, family, country type wedding.
Picture mason jars, cowboy boots, burlap and sunflowers. {We are NOT hosting this event}

Since my garden was winding down (too hot!) Lo and I planted 8 packets of various sunflowers.

We are not sure if they will bloom in time....I asked if we could postpone the wedding for a few weeks to wait for the flowers. I was told no. 

rude. 

 We planted them on May 2nd, and by May 9th they were already showing themselves to be speedy growers. 

Are they speedy enough?

 This morning.

 Still. I don't think we will have home grown sunflowers for the wedding day. 

 But Suz will have her own field of sunflowers shortly thereafter. 

 If the birds don't get them first. 

 Good thing I love sunflowers!

XOXO

22

If you think I'm going to share Taylor Swift's new song '22' with you....I'm not.
But it is catchy, like a bad-cold catchy.

Hidey Ho neighbor!
Whats happening in your 'hood?
The Coach and I celebrated 22 years of marriage this weekend. I know. I can't believe he hasn't fled the country by now either.
If he only knew the location of our safety deposit box, then that passport could be all his.
{The upside to ME being the ONLY one who knows where anything is....if only he moved that jar of mayo, he could be free!}

We spent a low key weekend at home....and that suits me just fine. We got quite a few chores done as well as some needed R & R.

I shared this before/after photo on face book....22 years of steadily kicking the azz of those negative marriage statistics.
The after photo was from our Costa Rica trip last summer. Just seeing this picture makes me just want to sob.  Whennn cannn I goooo bacckkk?????
Yeah, I'm a baby like that.

I thought about sharing with you the poem Coach wrote me, but I don't want to be responsible for any wives who decided shank their non-poem writing husbands.
It's that good.

So, how was your weekend? Low on the sobbing and high on the R & R'ing?

Woot Woot, it's already TUESDAY people!

XOXO

Having a Cow

Santa brought Cocoa a cow for Christmas.

She is in the deepest of depths of love with this cow. Whenever we come home, she grabs her cow and heads to the door to greet us. She also does her best impression of a kidney bean while holding her cow; tis she is a boxer.

Can you imagine what I say to her every.single.time?

Me: "Ohhhhh Cocoa, DON'T HAVE A COW!"

And she laughs and says "oh Mama, you are so silly, you know I love this cow."

We do this over and over, day after day.

Eventually, the Cow's life will end and he will go to the big toy box in the sky.

But until that time, Cocoa and I will keep up our cow conversation.

I walked past the front door yesterday and noticed the cow....I swear he is looking out the front door. Perhaps he longs for a pasture made of grass and not marble?

Nahhhhh.

That is all.
You are welcome for my brightening of your day with all this useful information.


XO

This I know. I also know that other thing.

I know it's been a week of this.

No, not just cupcakes and wine.

A sink seeing more action than usual. Our dishwasher kicked the bucket on Sunday.
{RIP you big shiny magic box of goodness}

Although, Linds did have to bake 85 cupcakes for school last night....which also coincided with her coming down with the runniest of noses. I predict 85 more runny noses today. She did not drink the wine. That was all my doing for it is my job.

Anyhoos. I know I love my appliances.

I think my fridge is at the top of my love list, with my clothes washer being a close second....and third? The big shiny box of dish washing goodness.

I really didn't complain. We knew it was coming. One little thing after another for the last 2 years was going....giving us little signals.

*The display going out. (I know appliance braille so it worked out)
*The door not locking (It's ok if you know just how hard to shove the door closed)
*The thing starting up on a whim. (It's ok when you are home and can turn it off & towel off the floor)

The Coach is replacing it on Saturday morning.

And can you believe I never complained about NOT having a dishwasher this week?
Ok, there was that one moment......I know I loathe stuff being on the counter. Clutter freak who?

I've been keeping up with what I use. The girls kinda keep up with what they use and the Coach has taken care of the rest.
Yeah.
I know I'm lucky.

Because I ALSO know that dishpan hands don't look good on me.

I also know that my electrician was here last night and I need a new gang box. But who doesn't?
And this morning....my plumber told me the flange on my toilet is too low. Geeze, rude much?

I know it is expensive to keep a house in running order. No one told me this when I was a kid and I was ACTUALLY playing HOUSE. Not as fun when you have to dish out $$.

You know I'll be kissing my new dishwasher come Saturday morning. And then I'll be cleaning the Burt's Bee's lipgloss off of it swiftly....'cause I know I can't be having dirty appliances.

I know you are all going to have a good weekend. Right?
Kiss the things you love the most.....the people, the pets and that big thing in the kitchen keeping your goodies from giving you salmonella.
Then swiftly clean it off in my honor.

XOXO

Cocoa VS {the evil} Sprinkler head

My silly Cocoa  has a love/hate relationship with the many sprinkler heads on our property.

If she only knew this was the SAME water used for her baths....she would run in the opposite direction. 

 The sprinkler finally finished and Cocoa proudly assumed that she had won this battle. 

 Meanwhile, Ozzie basks in the shade. Clearly, he has no beef with the sprinkler heads. 

He will save all his energy for his next napping session. 

You get what you deserve and then some.

Mothers day for instance.

Linds had to work part of the day, so Lolo and I hung out and chilled for a while before running errands and meeting Linds for a late lunch. This is not to be confused with Supper.

Lolo gifted me with a super cute pair of shades. The futures so bright......and she knows what I like. 

 Later on Linds gifted me with flowers, a couple of cute books AND the most special Mother's day card ever. 

A personalized Thank you card:

If your monitor won't allow you to read the sweetness that is my child, it says:
Thank you for
NOT being addicted to hardcore drugs and selling us to dealers in the Mexican drug cartel.
Thanks for that, and other stuff, I guess.
I love you Mama Bear!!!!
Lindsay

And since I am such a stellar Mom and I never miss a teaching moment, I had to point out one thing wrong with this card.

Me: 

You know we live closer to Miami than we do to Mexico, right?

Linds: 

Oh yeah, thank you for not selling us to the Cuban drug cartel.

My work here is done.

10 things I love about Mothering Teenagers

I actually only have a few more months until I only have ONE teenager. What the what? This list could be endless, but I'm limiting it to the first 10 things I can think of.

1. I can be totally inappropriate and make them laugh. {Describing my upcoming visit to the gyno; a belly buster)

2. They drive. This can be an down for me too; 'cause I am a professional worrier.
BUT, they can drive me when I'm tired. {tired= I had a glass of wine with dinner}

3. If I slip and cuss on occasion, it's nothing they've not already heard.

4. We laugh at the same jokes. And more importantly, they think I am hilarious. That feeling is mutual.

5. When they are heading out with their boyfriends I can say things like: "Don't go getting yourselves knocked up or I'll put a hurting on you."

6. If I mention anything to do with myself being naked and their father in the same state as me when I'm naked they give me a disgusted, loud and exaggerated groan of grossness.
This only makes me want to mention those things even more. 
How the heck to do they think they got here? {see #5}

7. I don't have to drive them to school or pack a lunch anymore. PTA meetings? Those are a thing of the past.

8. They do their own laundry. Sure, sometimes they wait until it is piled taller than they are. And on occasion  they might forget to add soap to the washer, but that's not my problem anymore.

9. I'm never asked to help with homework. Thank you baby Jesus for that!

10.  They take care of me. {The Coach does too} It's nice that if I'm sick, they will be my instant nurse nightingale. Food, drink, meds and running errands. I never thought about this future payback when I was tending to sick tummies, fevers, lice {what is the plural for lice?} or cleaning up chocolate pudding puke off my floors/walls. There is a payoff to doing all that stuff.

I really enjoyed the baby and toddler years, although I was a bit 'wound up' back then with the desire for perfection....what a waist of energy that was.
The middle years......they kinda drove me nuts. {daily bickering}

But the last few years I've seen that all our handi-work has paid off; setting boundaries and expectations early and enforcing them consistently is the way to go!
I'm a lucky duck Bee!

Similar to a disco, you light up my life.

You give me hope to carry on...you light up my day.....

Gosh, I loved that song.
Ok, it was a cheesy song, but I'm a fan of cheese.

I'm also a fan of lights.

I updated the light fixtures in our formal areas...which really aren't formal.

Before: The Foyer 

btw: I never pronounce the 'r' in foyer. Keeping it Klassy. 

The dining room

The living room. 

btdubs, this is where I live. It's always neat and tidy....and I can live with that. 

After: 

Foyer, with no 'r'

 Dining room

 Dining room with a little 'bling'

Living room

If you have a keen eye....or just eyes, you might have noticed I have moved around some stuff on the walls. It's my prerogative to change things up. It's Coaches job to actually move them for me. :)

Anyhoo's....I like the new look. Fresh, updated.

I ordered all the lights  from Ballard's.

LoLo helped with the adding of the bling using jewelry magnets. Genius!

When she has more time we are going to add some crystal chains. 

{I need her expertise with the jewelry tools.}

The funnest part of the bling? Every afternoon just before sunset, the front of our house turns into a disco!!! I love a good disco. Or any disco for that matter...

 The photo does not do the disco justice. I'm sure the girls will NEVER get tired of me shouting out: DISCO TIME each evening!!!

I purchased the awesome prisms: HERE
And I purchased the shades at Home Decorators.com if you care at all.

Hey, don't we all need a little more disco/bling in our life???
Happy Monday!
XOXO

Mind reading, shopping for the other team, cleaning up the ickies.

Thank you all for your sweet comments on my last post concerning my Mom's bday and meeting my blog friend Jenn. It was a lovely adventure.
ONE of my pet peeves is people asking me questions in comments but NOT having their email addresses connected to their profiles.
For all of you; I've sent you messages via my mind. Are you proficient with braille?

My other pet peeve is people telling others about their pet peeves.
Are we even yet?

***

It's been a week. I'll not complain because I really have NOTHING to complain about. Being busy is a good thing.
I was on my hands and knees scrubbing within four minutes of my arrival from the airport; someone had pee'd. I'm guessing it was Ozzie by the wide splash zone.

***

The Coach and I went shopping for work clothes for him on Wednesday night. This is a regular occurrence; with regular being anything between 16-18 months. We find a pair of pants that fit him and we purchase every color in his size we can find. Makes life easy that way. This time we found 8 pairs of pants, a few underoo's, a belt, a shirt and a few undershirts.
It seems easier to be a man when it comes to shopping. How he can be happy with wearing the same style of pants, shirts and shoes daily does not work with my brain as a woman. I suppose his work clothes are more of a 'uniform' whereas mine are work clothes? I suppose men are just easier. I can take back that last statement at any time in the future though. I'm fickle.

A few things I noticed in the underoo section that caused me to gasp.
spanx. FOR MEN.

  

I also noticed thongs. FOR MEN. I'm guessing these are solely purchased by Mario Lopez and one other weirdo.

***

Since I started writing this post last night, we had a bit a trauma in our house. Cocoa proceeded to vomit on our family room carpet. And it was a good one if you rate vomit by density. Ewww.
As I was cleaning that {mind you, the rest of the family vacated!} she ditto'ed herself on my kitchen rug.

Thursday morning rain required 'thunder shirts' for my sissies. 

Our flooring is 99% stone and wood. So that makes our house 1% carpet. I'm starting to think that Cocoa is part cat. {Cats always puke on carpet!}
She wasn't looking so swell when we went to bed and I was eyeing my pretty rug in the living room and foyer. I rolled them both up and went to sleep. I awoke at 4:30 and could smell it.
She had struck again. I'll save you the details because I've already overshared, but I cleaned for 45 minutes and I'm still gonna need to call in professionals. {marble is porous!} We delayed her breakfast for a few hours and when she ate she seemed fine. We have no idea what upset her tummy so much, but I'm hoping whatever it was, is gone. Actually, I can see it right there in my grout line.
Oye.

Happy Friday everyone!
Any plans for the weekend besides making sure your email is connected with your blogger profile?
Thanks for that.

XOXO

The one where I meet my friend.

During our visit in Vegas, I had the craziest experience!
While wandering through our hotel lobby on Friday night I recognized one of my favorite blog friends from San Diego!!! Can you believe it?

Well don't.  I'm a big fat liar.

Luckily 4-5 years ago, I stumbled upon her; Juggling Jenn.
And boy does she juggle. Four kids with varying interests/sports, college for herself, pets, work, a husband and a social cul de sac.
I was immediately in love with The Juggling Family. The way they communicate and laugh; well it reminded me of a family I know very well.  I feel as though I've watched her kids grow up, spread their wings and fly. She and her other half have raised smart, funny and interesting kids. They (along with my girls) give me hope for the future.

When Jenn saw my post about a future trip to Vegas she immediately stated that "she had a Prius and would make the drive from San Diego to Vegas."
4-5 hours? To see ME?
Most of my family members wouldn't make that journey....and that is exactly why they are not on my Christmas card list.

It was like running into an old friend. You know the kind where you don't see each other for a while and you can pick up right where you left off.

Jenn is just as I thought she would be; smart, funny and cute. One thing she never alluded to on her blog though; she has a potty mouth. Who would have thunk it, she looks so sweet and innocent right? I'm just joshing you, she only has the slightest of potty mouths. LOL!

We met at my hotel, had a few drinks and then headed off to dinner with my Mom. Our visit was only a few hours, but it was so much fun. I worried that her long drive and our short visit would be disappointing for her, but she said it was worth it. And I can tell she is not a liar.

We are hoping to have another visit and to get our husbands together as well....considering as Jenn put it: "They are both great, hard working men with great taste in wives!" 

I couldn't agree more!

Jenn brings my "blog friends who I've met in real life" tally up to four. So, who is next? 

XOXO