An Award and A Treat for the Surgical Team!

Before I show you my Foodie Friday contribution, I would like to acknowledge an award I received from Susan at http://thegillmanfamily.blogspot.com/. It's only been 2 months since I started blogging but with all the friends that I have met at Blogland, it seems like forever. One of them is Susan whose wonderful comments I always look forward to. I can tell that Susan is very friendly and kind hearted. Thanks Susan, for the great honor of passing this award on to me. I truly appreciate it!

The Friends Award comes with this message attached:
"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated."
And so to propagate more friendships, I'd like to pass this award on to some of my friends:

1. Athella of http://athellag-ocdesigner.blogspot.com/

2. Chandy http://whatnowtablescapes.blogspot.com/

3. Chari of http://happytodesign.blogspot.com/

4. Cindy of http://sisterhoodofthecreativehearts.blogspot.com/

5. Laura at http://tomariescabin.blogspot.com/

6. Laurie of http://bargainhuntingwithlaurie.blogspot.com/

These girls are all my dearest friends and they are all warm hearted and you should visit them when you can. Get to know them if you don't yet.. I have a lot of dearest friends but I will limit it to 6 at this time.

And now for the main event! Gollum at http://designsbygollum.blogspot.com/ is so gracious to host another potluck. Be sure to come and join us and check out all the scrumptious food for Foodie Friday!

Hubby approached me last Saturday and told me that he has been working the hospital surgical crew so hard these past weeks and he wants to do something for them, bring them lunch on Monday. I asked him if he is going to order a take out food (I wish!...LOL) but he said that it is going around the hospital how good of a cook his wife is (must be his way of convincing me to do the cooking :-)) so he would like me to prepare something for 15 people and bring it to the hospital.

I got busy and started cooking on Sunday evening. Do you like my messy kitchen? LOL! DH must really be getting into my blogging because he grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of me working. I kept begging him to stop cause I was in my pj's and I looked so gross, but he kept shooting away. Good thing the pictures can easily be deleted but I'll share one with you.
I made seafood paella.
and fried some eggrolls that I have previously frozen.
I also baked some macaroons for their dessert. The white stuff there are store bought steamed buns from the Asian market. I brought the food to O.R. at 11 Monday morning. Monday early afternoon, dh called me and said everything was a big hit. Whew! I am glad that is all over. But now, he wants to do it every month. Oh no! I told him maybe every three months. I will have to negotiate that. LOL!

Now, it's time to visit the other participants and check out all the other delicious food. Thanks, Gollum for another successful and fun foodie event!

OMG! What a Sight To Wake Up To!

The first thing I do when I get up is go to the home office, which adjoins our bedroom, and open the drapes. And that was no different this morning. This is what I saw. I got so excited and I called John and grabbed my camera. He looked through the bedroom window while I took these pictures from the office. Four deer and they were all stationary and just stared at us. We had a storm last night, rained all night and we still have an overcast so I apologize for the fuzzy pictures. I am also taking all these through the window. I know they will run if they hear me open the sliding doors. I love our deer. We have been lucky because they never bother our flowers and plants and they just look so gentle.
Isn't she just the prettiest thing against the hot pink azaleas?
I also apologize for the weeds and the long grass. Our lawn guy comes to cut every other Wed. but did not show up yesterday because of the rain.
I think the weed flowers are pretty in the pictures anyway! They make the scenery look more natural. LOL!

Then, they moved towards the front yard.

I ran to the dining room window to follow them. They crossed through the neighbor's yard.

There they go!

And then they were gone! It's been an exciting morning and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I couldn't wait for Outdoor Wednesday to show them to you.

Can't Wait for a Caribbean Meal and a Sequel (maybe should be a Prequel) to Bunny Story

Whoohoo! It's time for my favorite play day! Yep! It's Thursday again and you know what that means! Susan of http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ is hosting another Tablescape Thursday. I am so excited because hubby has been playing along with me! He picked some of my accessories.

We are sailing to the Western Caribbean soon so I was inspired to do a tablescape with a beach theme. Now, don't forget to click to enlarge the pictures to see all the details of my very detailed centerpiece. I elevated one fish on a woodcarved box we bought from the Roatan Islands on one of our past trips. I thought it was perfect since it has fish, corals and other sea creatures carved unto it. All I am missing here is a fish net but I would rather see the fish out on the loose.

So glad the pelican isn't seeing the fish or they would end up in his mouth for sure. I borrowed a long grass I have in my foyer floor vase and stuck them in a crystal vase with sea glass, to add some greenery.
I used my silvery gray sequined placemats because I think they mimic the sun shining brightly on wet sand.
I think my robin blue dinnerware works well with the beach theme and color and so does the blue dotted flatware. The dots serve as water bubbles. I forgot all about these starfish. I found them under the bathroom sink while I was looking for something to stuff the vase to keep the long grass

from falling to one side.

I took our glass cannister filled with

shells that we have collected from Florida and the Caribbean over the years, from the bathroom.I found this set of napkin rings in Baton Rouge. They were $5 plus 30% off. They were all tangled up and I thought they were curtain rings at first but they looked interesting so I added them to my shopping cart. While scrounging through a drawer yesterday for napkin rings, I spotted the little shells and pearls on the rings. Doesn't the other items look like seaweed and the other stuff that gets washed away into the seashore?

I am not sure if there are dragonflies on the beach (I think I have seen some!) but I think these dragonfly place card holders are cute so I used them anyway.

Isn't my pewter Salt and Pepper cute? I told ya I like pewter! The one on the left holds white sand before it gets wet and the one on the right is wet sand.

A shell candle holder.

I hope you enjoyed my contribution this week. I certainly enjoyed playing. What do you think I should add to the menu. Jamaican jerk chicken with mango salsa? Mmmmmm, yummy!

Thanks Susan, for another fun day!

Yesterday, for Wordless Wed, I posted my granddaughter, AJ and her bunnies. Since it was a wordless event, I hardly said anything. But I got a lot of questions from commenters and Dixie suggested I do a follow-up on the post. So, here it is!

It was pretty funny cause when I was still living in FL, I often go to the porch every morning. I screamed so loud (even the neighbor heard me!) because I saw what I thought was a mouse on the floor. My nephew (who was staying with me at that time) ran to my rescue and I showed him the mouse. He thought it was a funny looking mouse cause it had no tail and had long ears. LOL! We then looked in the rabbit cage and saw more babies. One of the babies fell out of the cage and that's what I saw. There were 5 but only the 2 below survived.

Aren't they just the cutest and fluffiest baby bunnies? AJ's parents would take her to my house cause I would take her to school and the first thing she would do was check on her baby bunnies. The bunnies stayed in my home cause her mom is allergic to them and they did not have a yard to put the cages in since they were staying in a condo.

When we moved to MS, I asked Rochelle, my daughter and AJ's mom with her stepdad now to move into my house so they could keep an eye on it.

AJ already have 3 adult bunnies. The stores kept calling them dwarfs when we bought them but they all grew up big and you know what bunnies do when they are together, right? They actually do 2 things: do that and poop. We couldn't tell who the male nor the female was so we kept them in separate cages to stop having more baby bunnies. So, we had 5 cages for 5 bunnies. It was a big task cleaning all those cages. John worked in another city then and was on call 24/7 so he could not come home and help me clean the cages. We just visited him on weekends. I was getting tired cleaning the poop out of their cages. I was also working full time then.

When the movers came to move us, (AJ was in school), one of them started petting the bunnies when he saw them. I could tell he was an animal lover. So, I asked him if he wanted one. He was so delighted cause he has an 8 year old daughter who he wanted to surprise. Then, I asked if he wanted two. LOL! So these 2 baby bunnies (not too small anymore by then) traveled in the big moving truck all the way from FL to MS to KY (where the movers live). I gave the guy 2 cages and I told him to keep the bunnies separate. AJ was upset of course but she just could not take care of all those bunnies without me around. It's better for her and the bunnies in the long run. Shown below is my hubby and the bunnies when the movers arrived in MS. He was so excited to see them!

Hope that answers all your questions. And now you know the reason the bunnies stay away from my vegetable garden. The bunnies are in FL (2 in KY now) and the garden is in MS.

Thanks for coming by. Now let's go visit the others!

Studious Bust and Gifts from Laurie

It's Tuesday, time for 2nd Time Around Tuesday so its time to show your 2nd hand treasures. Hey, that's an alliteration!

Diane of http://diane1876.blogspot.com/ sponsors this fun event so be sure you visit her blog, check out her treasure and then visit everybody else on her list of participants. For today, I would like to show you the studious bust that I won on Ebay. I really love her and I think she looks perfect above our file cabinet in the home office. Three of the books that she is sitting on are also old, they are 2nd time around Dr. Doolittle books that dh have been collecting for our granddaughter. I think the red one is a first edition.
Isn't she pretty?

Thank you Diane, for hosting this fun event!


Tuesday is also time for Three or More Tuesday, hosted by Tam at http://gypsycorner.blogspot.com/. Let's go visit her and all the other participants!

Last week, I was so excited to see a package by our front door. I was even more excited when I found out it was from my good friend, Laurie of http://bargainhuntingwithlaurie.blogspot.com/. She was thanking me for allowing her to feature my dining room on her blog. I think it should be the other way around and I should be the one to thank her. I got even more excited when I opened the box and found 3 very pretty items. Aren't these just the prettiest things you have ever seen? Just look at that bird! I can't wait to put a fresh flower on her back. And the dish cloth with a crown. I will feel like a queen using that for sure! And isn't the handle and the green jewel on the cheese knife so precious?

Thank you so much, Laurie, for the presents! I just LOVE them!!!!

soooo sweet! Love you too, Laurie!

Thanks for visiting me once again. Now, let's go check out the others!

DH Training Well for Tablescaping and We're Ready to Climb the Waterfall!

I participated in Anita's Sunday Shopping Secrets and since it is almost Monday and everything I shared for Sunday is blue, I decided to enter the same post for Blue Monday too. Blue Monday is hosted by Smiling Sally at http://smilingsally.blogspot.com/. Please visit her blog and check out everybody else's blues tomorrow.

Whoohoo! My favorite past time is shopping so you know I will always have something to share for Anita's hosted event of Sunday Shopping Secrets. Please visit Anita at http://bridalblooms4u.blogspot.com/ and check out what everybody brought home from the stores this week. I have bought so much this week and this page will not be enough if I uploaded all the pictures so I will just show you a few. We went to Baton Rouge to pick up my laptop yesterday and then I asked dh if we could stop by Ross. And yes, we did! I saw these 2 fish and I immediately thought "hmmmm...beachy tablescape". I showed them to hubby and then he left the aisle. Then he came back with these three wood carved items, a lighthouse and 2 pelicans and said, "I brought you more for your tablescape" LOL! He is getting a good training, isn't he?
I have looked at different stores for water shoes for AJ that she can use for our trip to Jamaica next month. And then I saw a size 2, sport Teva sandals. I was so excited cause they will be perfect for her to climb Dunns River Waterfalls. I already have my water shoes but I liked hers so much that I searched high and low for my size and found a pair so I got those too. Yipee! Just look at those rubber soles! I think they have enough traction and won't make us slip in the slippery waterfall. And we match...LOL!
I got even more excited when I saw the price of $8.99! Can you believe that? Do you know how much these cost in a sporting goods shop?
Now, we are all set to climb 600 ft up the Dunns River Waterfall!

Thanks Anita, for allowing us to show off what we bought. Now I am off to see everybody else's cool stuff.

Happy Easter, My Friends!

How exciting it is to play with Susan at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ for Tablescape Thursday. Please come and play along and visit everyone's tablescapes.

I like to set the table in the formal dining room on holidays and Easter is the most important one for me because Jesus rose from the dead. How do you like my bunny napkin? If you are interested in learning how to make it, go to the end of this post for I have uploaded instructions. I printed it when Mrs. Ben posted it on RMS a long time ago.

For a centerpiece, I used one of our Meissen compotes and filled it with eggs and added the 2 bunnies who layed them in front of it:-). Wait a minute! Bunnies don't lay eggs do they? Hmmm, I wonder who did cause that's a lot of eggs to lay. LOL!

I bought the Happy Easter salad plates from Marshall's. Please note that the patterns are not all the same.

I bought this Easter egg tree after Easter last year so it was really cheap, I can't remember how much but definitely less than $10.

DH gave me a gift certificate of my favorite store in town last Christmas and this rabbit trio was the first purchase with it. I still have a lot leftover so every now and then, I go to the store to check out the new things they have for sale. The egg tulip vase is also from Marshall's.

I used bunny napkin holders alternately with the bunny shaped napkins.

Here is the instructions on how to create a bunny napkin. It's really easy once you get the hang of it. And it's cool!

Thanks to Susan for hosting another fun Tablescape Thursday and thanks to all of you for coming! Happy Easter to all!