Monday - Big Lots, Guest Room, Roofing and Santa Claus!!

I was up early - two hours before Louis Dean even stirred!

By the time he staggered down the hall to the kitchen to get a cup of coffe, I had already showered and dressed, done my prayer time and had my coffee! There may be something to this getting up early thing - but I don't do it often enough to make a habit of it!

This morning I was up for a reason.

Reaoma's daughter, Pam, had some serious looking foot surgery on Friday and can't drive yet.

I dopped her off at the doctor and shopped Big Lots while she had her follow up visit with her surgeon. This was a Win! WIN!! for me because I had a list of over half a dozen things I needed to pick up at the store. I thought sure I'd have to go to Walmart to get it all but I got every single thing on that list right there in Big Lots - just across the street from the hospital!

Now NONE of these things were on my list!

But I got them anyway!

I'm a sucker for those Little Debbie Tea Cakes.

I forget and call them Miss Debbie!

I buy a bunch every year and end up throwing some of them away as I always think I'm going to have more tea parties with the grands than I actually do. School has really gotten in the way!!

I'm also thinking ahead to my Christmas Tea which will be on a Wednesday this year.

Normally it's on a Tuesday evening but this year Jutta will be here from Finland so I decided to do the tea on her last night in Texas! If you are reading this and you are local - you are invited!

Wednesday, December 5th from 4:00 - 8:00. Or later! I will be sending out evites this weekend.

After my run at Big Lots, I picked Pam up and we visited Reaoma for awhile.

She never opened her eyes today.......

I came home and Louis Dean was up on the roof.

He should have waited for me but he was antsy to get this thing done.

He spent more time up there today than in the previous ones.

Another two days and he will have nearly the whole back side of the roof done.

He's pretty proud of himeself. He's showing off the nails for the nail gun and was telling me how hard it would be to do the work with a hammer. He learned everything he knows from Ruth Ann's Daddy.

His name was Jerl Doggett and Louis Dean admired him more than any other man in his life.

He's all the time asking me, "You know who I have to thank for teaching me that??" 'That' being whatever he's doing on a current project. I always ask, "Who?' even though I already know. 

He'll proudly say, "Jerl Doggett!!"

Seldom does a day go by without him talking about Jerl, Ruby Nell or Ellen.

Jerl and Ruby Nell were his in laws when he was married to Ellen.

And Ruth Ann is Ellen's sister.

Ellen's been gone 19 years now.......she was gone before either one of her parents.

He came in and took a long hot soaking bath while I finished up the guest room.

I took this picture from the top bunk.

I love the red walls.

They were red before I painted them and I painted them red again!

The room is small and rather cramped but I prefer to say that it's warm and cozy.

This is where my friend, Jutta, from Finland will stay when we come back from Galveston.

I'm driving down to meet her there and we will be going to Dickens on the Strand the first weekend in December and then coming back home on that Monday.

I will do some more decorating for Christmas in there once I get all the fall out of the house.

I'm determined not to open the Christmas house where I store my decorations until I've cleaned the canvas - so to speak. I've been think ing about how I want to decorate this year. The den and dining room are always the same. And the living room mostly. However, this year there's not room for the big tree in there after I bought that $15 chair and stool. I'm thinking I will make an extra living room out of the gazebo. For Louis Dean's bathroom, I'm going to do it up Cowboy Christmas style. I will hang my Cowboy Santa and last year's Sledding Santa in there along woth some other rutsic decorations. In the foyer I'm going to use a lot of gold and for our bedroom I'm going back to splashes of red. And I'm going to have a tree on the front porch this year. I finally took that white rocker to the curb.

But for now I'm content to light the candle and call the guest room clean!

Dinner smelled as good as it tasted tonight!

I used rosemary and peppers from our garden with the roasted potatoes and broccoli.

Candied carrot (Louis Dean's favorite!) and a salad to go with the Coconut Shrimp completed the menu. We watched a little TV after giving up on the Cowboys football game. It was painful.

Look what I got in the mail today!!The prettiest Christmas apron ever!

Sharilyn made it for me in an afternoon!

I forgot to take a pic of the pretty red lining.

Guess how I met Sharilyn?

She's the sister in law of Amber's college roommate, Lisa.

Louis Dean calls Lisa 'OUR Lisa' and he is especially fond of her.

He loves to hear her talk and they have a lot of fun when they're together.

Thank you, Sharilyn!! I love the apron and I'm so glad we connected on Facebook!

Louis Dean gave it up and went to bed since he was exhausted after a nearly entire day up on the roof. I settled in to do some painting as I'm feeling the urgency to get these Santas DONE!

I tried to work on the Giveaway one but it's still too wet. When I add the glasses, if they don't llok right, I want to be able to wipe them off without wiping his eyes out along with them!

So I started working on this one again.

It's a process and doesn't look good right away.

You have to add shadows before you can add the light.....

or there's no depth.

It's much the same with Life.

Without the shadows and the darkness in our lives, our lights wouldn't be as bright.

See that discolored fur at the bottom of the painting?

Once the paint has set up a bit, the white will look just perfect.

I'm loving painting these Santas. For awhile I was a little worried if I could do them but I think I've passed that now and am having a good time painting.

So far we have 39 entries.

I nearly teared up at all the kind comments from last night.

If 'Unknown' is reading this - please send me an email with your name so I can put it on the list.

There might be another 'unknown' and I want to make sure who is who.

My email address is on my side bar.

I just want to say how much I love all you friends.

My life has been blessed with all our visits back and forth and I have enjoyed getting to know those who read and do not have blogs. Emails, Facebook and messages have helped us develop real relationships and they mean a lot to me.

Okay, I need to go clean my brushes so I can go to bed.

No need to get up early in the morning so I think I'll do some reading before I go to sleep.