Great Lowes Gift Card Deal at Publix

Are you a Publix shopper?  If so, make sure you check out the great deal that Publix is offering on Lowes Gift Cards.  Now through May 18th, when you buy $25.00 worth of groceries you can get a $50.00 Lowes Gift Card for $40.00! This is equal to a 20% savings for all of you mathematically challenged people :-).  The coupon is located in the yellow flyer that can be found at the front of the store.

This is a crazy good deal when you figure you can pair it with any Lowes coupon or discount (such as military discount) that may come up in the future. Also, if you like to give gift cards as presents...this is a great way to save!

A Lowes store is located just several miles down the road, and no lie, we go there practically every weekend.  We are such frequent shoppers, some of the associates know our names.  Ha!  So anyway, I will be taking full advantage of this great deal.  Thanks Publix!!!

Full Wedding Mode

We are in full wedding mode at our house and I am little surprised to find out that I am channeling the same emotions and feelings that I had when I was the bride 26 years ago...nervous and excited at the same time.  So since the wedding is my main focus right now, occasionally I will hijack this blog to bring you some updates. 

My Michael, and his lovely fiance', Melissa, will be saying "I Do" on Friday, June 8th.  So in the past several weeks, I've enjoyed the opportunity to head up to Georgia to help pick out tuxedos, arrange a rehearsal dinner venue, attend the bridal shower, and participate in a cake-tasting session.  I also got to help Melissa pick out Michael's wedding ring....out of all the rings we looked at, we chose the exact same one...I guess we know our Michael.  Exciting stuff! 

Back on the home front, I have been looking for a dress to wear to this big event.  You wouldn't think it would be that difficult, but dang!  I am having a rough time.  The wedding colors are pink and white....the same colors I had in my wedding :-).  My mom wore a lovely mauve dress to my big day, so I wanted to do the same for Michael's.  Blah!  Mauve is not exactly an "in" color right now and although I've found a few dresses, they all were either too flashy or too grandma looking.  So I got desperate....and I ordered something from China.

Note to self:  Do not order anything directly from China again.

What a mess.  This is a picture of the dress that I ordered:



Source--Looks cute on her!


Here is a picture of what I got: 

I buy at least 90% of my clothing online...I hate "regular" shopping...I think its those horrible dressing room mirrors... Ha!  But that's another story...I am just trying to emphasize here that I rarely have to send stuff back, I always consult their sizing charts before I order anything and this dress was no exception.  As a matter of fact, since I was between sizes, I ordered a size larger (just in case) but yet, I can't zip up the back.

The old me would have probably cried, but the new me knows that my weight is not the issue here...this dress is messed up!

Besides the obvious sizing issue, my airway is being cutoff by this dress...seriously, I have a rash from it choking me....the neck hole is crazy small.  Secondly, the color is not the same as pictured.  Third, despite me giving them the correct hem length, it is way too short and looks stupid.   Fourth, there is some very strange stitching on top of all the pleats....figure that one out??  And last but not least, I look as frumpy as they come...the top part of the dress is 2 sizes too small and the bottom of the dress is about 2 sizes too big.  UGH! 

I have contacted them to get my money back but they are insisting on trying to fix the dress...well lets just say, I am not holding my breath.  This dress just needs to be thrown out. I am currently looking for a replacement.  If anyone has any suggestions, please share!

Ahhh...A Screen Door

I got me a screen door! Woot! Our little path to nowhere didn't stay long.  We were able to get someone out to install a screen door within a few days of getting quotes.  Love it! 

I was sort of afraid that it would impede our view, and it does, but only minimally.

I have been thinking, do we really need that kickplate at the bottom of the door?  Hmmm...I'll have to ponder that a while.  Until then, I am happy, Hubby is happy, are you happy?

 I sure hope everyone has a great week!

Paver Sidewalk

So this whole blog is supposed to be about making our house different than everyone else's in the neighborhood, blah, blah, blah.  Well...sometimes we do just the opposite, and try to keep up with the Jones'.

When we first moved in, we noticed that a few people (very few) had these lovely paver walkways from the back of their homes down to their docks.   We loved the idea and secretly added it to the "would like to do someday" list.  My Hubby goes down to the dock to fish a lot...it was the reason we bought this house...so as you could imagine, with all the walking back and forth from the house, it did not take long to create a faint path in the grass from our screened-in area to the dock.  Not that big of a deal, but you can see it nonetheless.

Anyway, about a month ago I noticed a group of workers installing a paver walkway for a neighbor across the canal.  Several days later, they were at another neighbor's house doing the same thing.  A week after that, a third neighbor was getting it done!  My initial thought was that either these guys were installing the pavers super cheap or the economy was rebounding...regardless, I sent my Hubby to check it out.

The guys installing the pavers were more than happy to give us a quote.  It turns out the price was less than 1/2 of what we expected.  Half!  This never happens...we normally guess the price and it turns out to be double what we were expecting. 

I guess we were just so giddy at the price, we hardly discussed it before we were handing over a deposit check.  The guys were out installing my new walkway a week later...and they finished it in one day! 

This first pic (the "before" shot) was taken before we moved in....two things give that fact away:  the grass needs to be mowed and there is mildew on the dock, two things my Type-A Hubby would never let happen :-).



This fuzzy pic was apparently taken from inside the screen.


My new paver sidewalk looks fabulous...except for one problem. It is currently a walkway to nowhere. BAHAHAHA! You read that right, to save even more money we had the guys install the walkway to the back of the screened-in pool area down to the dock, verses from a current door on the side of the house to the dock. Its about half the distance, which means half the price.  Sounds crazy, but we can install another screen door for cheap, so it just made the most financial sense to go that route. Hopefully the screen people will get here soon cause it looks pretty silly as it is now.

Paver walkway and path to nowhere.

And do you know what?  During that one day of installation, we had two...yep, two neighbors stop by to ask the guys to quote them too.  I've heard through the grapevine that both have decided to proceed with the walkways at their houses too.  Hmm...one day you are trying to keep up with the Jones' and the next day you become the Jones.  Whatever....in this day and age of foreclosures (read: dilapidating houses) abound, it is great to see people doing stuff to improve their property.

Have you ever found yourself trying to keep up with the Jones?   Do share.

Spring Fever

I want a garden!!  My hubby is not exactly on-board.  Boo!  I will admit, though, that we have a few items that are...well, lets just say not conducive to growing a typical garden.

1.  We live on a postage-stamp sized lot.  Actually, we live on one of the largest sized lots in our neighborhood, but trust me when I tell you that is not saying much  :-).  So regardless, it is still not really big enough for a traditional garden.

2.  Its probably not allowed by the homeowners association...not that that would really stop me....I am a rebel. :-)

3.  We have these little friends to keep in mind:

Sandhill Crane

Right after we moved in, I spent close to 100 dollars on flowers only to have these little buggers literally up-heave each and every one in search for bugs and/or worms.  Not good!

So what is a girl to do???  My thought was a raised bed garden inside the screened-in pool area...again, Hubby gave me the thumbs down.  Apparently, he is concerned with what we would do with all the dirt after the garden was harvested....blah!

So...we compromised with this:

BAHAHAHA!!!  Its not much, but at least it is something!  I bought orange planters to match my orange patio furniture:

It will do.  I-----I mean Hubby, planted a tomato plant and some squash.  I also bought some seeds for spinach but apparently I did not relay this info appropriately, because he planted two containers of squash and didn't plant the spinach seeds. <sigh>   Oh well, this is what I get for not doing it myself...but do you know how difficult it is to get dirt out of your fake fingernails???  Seriously....

So did you plant a garden this year??  Is it a traditional garden or a pseudo garden like mine?  Do share...

Bass Ackwards

Okay...if you have been with me for a while then you should know by now that this is not a "How To" blog....lets face it, if it was, it would be down right laughable.  When Hubby and I do a project, we tend to find the hardest, most time consuming, more expensive than necessary, ridiculous way of doing whatever it is...that is just how we roll. 

Seriously, we don't do this on purpose, it just seems to work out that way.  This is why I rarely write step by step directions on this blog....because surely there is a better way than how we did it and I am trying to save myself from a little embarrassment here.

Case in point:

Several weeks ago the Hubs and I decided to organize his boat stuff in the garage to get it off the floor.  If you missed that post, you can read about it here.

Anyway, what is Bass ackwards (as I like to say) is that the whole time we were doing the above mentioned project, we were talking about the need to get the garage painted!  Okay, so if we were thinking things through clearly, we would have painted the garage first before hanging stuff on the wall, right?  Yes...that would be the correct way.

Did we do it the correct way?...NOPE, we like to make a little extra work for ourselves, so first we hung the stuff and then a mere two weeks later we took it all back down to paint the wall.  Twice the effort and twice the work.  Blah!

Oh well...its done now and it looks nice...so let me share the before and after shots:

Oh and by the way, we only painted this one wall...we will move to another wall next week.  We find it fun to get out all the paint stuff, do a little bit of painting, and then spend another hour cleaning all the paint brushes, rollers and containers.  We love it soo much that we will do it multiple times for one stinkin' room.  Ugh!

Can I get some love from someone?  Surely we are not the only ones to take the long way around a project.  Please share.

Easter

Okay, I guess I lied....I am not back in business as I projected I would be...I just have a lot going on.  BUT...that doesn't mean I can't show you the cute decorations that have been adorning my front doors since St. Patrick's Day ended:

I think these little guys are so darn cute!  Joann's Fabrics always carries the cutest stuff at reasonable prices...I just couldn't resist. 

I won't be doing any type of Easter craft this year but I may...let me stress may, color some eggs in the next few days...just because I can.  LOL!  With no little kiddos in the house, I can assure you that no one will appreciate a colored egg but me....boo!   But since I am currently buying copious amounts of eggs (they are on sale for $1.00 a dozen this week at Walgreens and we eat at least 3 dozen a week) I wouldn't mind decorating a few.  It will be fun.  :-)

I hope everyone has a great weekend with family and friends!  Thanks for stopping by and God Bless!

Living the Good Life

Prepare to be jealous:   This has been the view from my suite at the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita, Mexico for the last four days:

Gotta love my Hubby's employer who likes to hold (spouse included) corporate events in exotic locations...woot!  We are truly blessed!  Oh and the Mexican Riviera is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! 

Anyway...since my toes have been in the sand, I don't have much to share other than to say I will be back in business on Thursday.  Have a great week everyone!