Bella's Snowballs and a Trip to the Moon!

Last night Summer gifted me with this custom made t-shirt!

Is this not the CUTEST thing??

I am 'Bella' to Raynie - which I always spell this way and it is NOT correct!

Granddad likes to call her Abby! 

I LOVE it!!!

I am going to wear it as is this year.

Then NEXT year I'm going to 'Bling' it up a bit. 

I used to do a lot with the fabric paint back in the day.

This falalala canvas bag a real keepsake. It came free with a purchase of some long forgotten thing at Joske's Department Store 28 years ago. The date 1985 is stamped in the lower left hand corner but I would remember the year anyway since that was when Amber was born. I used this as her diaper bag during the Christmas seasons! After she was older I simply used it for the extra bag I'm always carrying around for one reason or another. The last 10 years or so I have used it as my purse during the month of December.

I 'embellished' it back in 1985 and I think that's one reason it has held up so well. It goes in the laundry once a year - whether it needs it or not!

This morning I picked up my sister in law - Ruth ANN - and we met up with my sister - LuANN - for lunch and some shopping! 

Neither one of them had ever been to a Sam Moon store before!

There are more handbags here than you could shake a stick at!!!

Luann treated us to lunch at Cheddar's and we had some of the best looking food you ever saw!

BUT I was so hungry I never even thought to take a picture!!

After I had tore my way through half of the vegetable plate I ordered she said,

"Linda was REALLY hungry because she didn't even take a picture!!"

By that time Ruth Ann had wiped hers out completely!

I could have taken a picture of the EMPTY dishes!!

Anyway we were all so full we could have taken naps but went shopping instead!

I told Ruth Ann and Luann to start their engines please!!

And they were OFF!!!!

We really didn't buy much though. Ruth Ann says it was all so overwhelming!

I got a cap since I was having a bad hair day.....

and a couple pair of new glasses. I am now up to 200 on the strength!

AND I bought this little bag which I will carry in my BIGGER bag!!

It will hold my cell phone and camera - 2 things I ALWAYS have with me - as well as my ID and credit card. I can wear it across my body even when I'm at Quadville and have my hands free for the babies.

Between visiting and hitting up Hobby Lobby and Tuesday Morning in addition to lunch and Sam Moon - 

we had a ball!!! It still looks so wintry out there! The ice remains in the fields and we have a good bit in our back yard. The ice event last week stripped the pecan trees of every last one of their leaves. Our yard was so ugly with that leaf cover and it had drifted into huge mounds in places much as snow does up north.

I had come in and was changing clothes when I heard a leaf blower out front! YAY!! Our yard man - who we never call or know when he's coming - he just shows up - was HERE!!! He normally comes on Fridays during the mowing season and we have only had him do our yard this past year so I wasn't really expecting him. I was so happy to see him I nearly HUGGED him!!! He blew all the leaves and mowed them! Louis Dean and I used to fuss about me bagging them up. He liked to LEAVE them on the lawn as 'protection' from the cold. He liked to leave them in the flower beds, too! The problem is they are UGLY! They also do not STAY but continue to blow around and get all crackled and then get tracked in on our shoes and/or blow in and litter the carpet if we have the doors open. SO we compromise and mow them!!

I was as happy as I could be to do my house work while someone else was doing my yard work!

Or at least they were doing SOME of it!!

I cleaned in our bedroom for literally HOURS!

Fresh clean flannel sheets, every square inch of floor swept and mopped, every single mirror surface windexed, all clothing and shoes sorted and stored in the right places.

I hung my little Joy Angel (a gift from my sister, Deanie) up to celebrate a CLEAN room!!

I always like to light candles after I clean......

I've had this frame for a long time and finally put this awesome photo pf Trystan in it!

Amber had a professional photographer come out to their house last month and this is my FAVORITE one of her! 

I not only cleaned our bedroom and my bathroom - I cleaned the guest room as well.

These little blocks say 'Welcome Friends' on the other side. Glad I noticed them and turned them around.

I find cleaning therapeutic. It is happy work for me.

Louis Dean was in his music room - which I shall NOT show!!! - and played some Christmas YouTube music.....and played it loud enough to share with ME! That man LOVES YouTube! 77 years old and he plays music like a teenager!!

I looked at the clock earlier and it said 6:45. The next thing I know it was 9:30.

12:06 AM now and I wonder where the time has gone!!

I am probably the only lady alive who can lose all track of time when she's cleaning!!