Halloween Festival & a Special girl.....

Our neighborhood Halloween festival was a smashing success. As I told you, I've volunteered to be the Social activities person in our neighborhood, so I took on the job of organizing a Halloween festival this year. We haven't done anything in the last couple of years, so I think folks were ready to have some fun & get out with the neighbors. Some of you remember that I tried to do a dessert social back in the spring with my immediate neighbors that didn't go so well, but this neighborhood-wide event was well received. One of the adults pulled this trailer loaded with hay & children. They were having a ball! The guy with the afro wig in front is my neighbor, Grant, who helps me garden & you may remember from my newspaper article back in the spring.
I called the local fire chief and asked him to bring out the big truck for our parade & they were happy to do so. They led a little parade down the street into a cul-de-sac, where we all gathered for pizza and dessert. This is a little Wonder Woman riding in her daddy's corvette.
This lady was watching the parade from her driveway & her 2 sweet dogs were enjoying themselves too. I had to take a pic of the dachsund with the witch's hat.
We lined them all up for a costume contest. It was hard to get them all still enough to take a pic. And we decided that this little guy was the winner of a $20 bill. Look at his face...priceless! He was a robot & just as cute as can be, right down to the tin foil on his shoes. He had a muffin tin on the backside.

So, it was a fun afternoon in the neighborhood. I think everyone enjoyed themselves!

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And on to other news: We officially have a lawyer in the family! My niece, Lauren, passed the Georgia bar exam last week with flying colors. Can you say proud! We are all so happy for her and so very proud of all her efforts in getting that law degree. She's a smart gal and will do very well with her career.

Four years ago, Lauren & I went on a cruise together. Just the 2 of us. We had such a great time and I will treasure that trip forever. We made sure the photographer took lots of pics of us so we'd have a lot to choose from at the end of the week. He did take a lot & we ended up buying all of them. Those ship photographers really do take some nice shots. This was one of them.

Happy Halloween & don't let the goblins get you! We'll be passing out candy tonight to all the trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. Have fun, ya'll.

Yardsaling Bonanza

Was I excited when I opened the Yardsale section in the paper on Friday and saw that one of my favorite neighborhoods was having their Fall yardsale. Mt. Laurel is a really neat planned community on the outskirts of town, out in the woods. It has a real Craftsman feel to the homes & things are left very natural, with lots of rock walls, and pretty landscaping all around. The streets are set up like an old fashioned little town & as you enter Mt. Laurel you go through a small town square with shops & restaurants. Really neat concept. The homes have alleys in the back & that's where the garages are, so everyone opens their garages & has a sale right in the alleyway. I've been several times to their sales & always come home with plenty of loot. Saturday was no exception!
You can see the winding alleyways behind the houses. As you can tell, it's just getting light out. It's pretty tight quarters in here, so folks have to maneuver to get around. There's usually plenty of people shopping at their sales & they start bright & early at 7:00 a.m. I was there by 6:30. I am a yardsale junkie, I admit it.
Another shot of one of the streets with brick sidewalks.
An example of one of the houses. I didn't take too many of the neighborhood, I was too busy shopping!

So, it's still dark when I pull up to the first stop. This girl had some really neat things out there, pillows were kind of pricey. I spotted a 27" TV for my hubby's office & we quickly negotiated $40 for that. We are not high-tech people, so a regular tube TV is fine with us for now...we have not bit the bullet & bought any of the flatscreen Plasma or LCD TV's yet. Maybe one day when these all die. We are getting his office set up now that we have that nice big desk & he likes to stay tuned to all his finance & news channels during the day, so TV in there will come in handy, since he works at home. I'm loving getting all of his stuff in there (and out of the bedroom & den), so that it's not all over the house. He promptly moved in there after I got that big desk for him. And after today, I think we're about there! That was my first purchase. Now I'll show you all the stuff I saw, but didn't buy....see below.
This was a very nice all wood china cabinet/hutch for $75.00. Would be a great buy for someone.

This was an adorable kids bed with window treatments, rug, etc. Of course, this adorable bunny rug got my attention. It was $20. The bed was really cute too & had complete headboard, rails. Didn't get the price for the bed.

This pine piece was already sold for $75.00
Nice custom window treatment for $10.
Lots of dishware, good prices on these too.

More dishes. I just don't need any more!
Some old silver pieces. I doubt she'll get those prices marked for them.
This was a neat old mirror for $10 that came off a dresser.
Waterfall chest of drawers. Didn't see the price on it.
Of course, I did a doubletake on these 2 chairs, since I have 2 already. These were $10 each & nope, I didn't get them. No more room!

Cute little end table, I think it was around $20 maybe & that little slatback chair was $10.
This was an old wood hopechest, very well made for $40. That lady standing there bought it.
Lots of pillows & pretty birdcages.
Wine prints.
This was a pretty piece for $125.

Blue/white mosaic demilune table was $40.
Lots of blue/white pieces at this sale. I just don't have anymore room for this either.
I think this dropleaf table was $75.00.
OK, here's what else I bought. Just down the alley was this piece for $25. The new TV for hubby will fit in here perfectly & it even has storage. It's solid oak which I do not love, so I'll probably paint it. I'm thinking black would look good. Any suggestions?? It's going in his office with the deep blue walls, but black would probably look good with those other wood pieces in there. It's going to be an eclectic look.
And lastly, I found this old, but sturdy small wood bookcase for $10. It needs a little repair work & a new coat of paint, but will work fine for him to put books on. I'll probably just repaint it white & add a little trim to it. Let's see...with the new desk, TV, TV cabinet, bookcase, & window treatment, I've spent a grand total of $101.00 on his office so far. Not bad!

So, that was my haul for this weekend! I was really excited to find all these pieces for hubby's office. I think we are set now. There's no more room for more in there. He can get organized & hopefully keep it looking good. I've got a lot of painting in my future with the nightstand, bookcase & TV cabinet!

Lunch with the Empty Nesters

(left to right, me, Maureen, Renee, Sandy, & Tricia)

I've been fortunate to have made some friends with a group of ladies who all live in the same neighborhood. You remember our Southern Living lunch at Tricia's house? Since none of us have children at home, we have dubbed ourselves the Empty Nesters, and last week I had lunch with them. We ate at a fun girly-girl place in Mountain Brook called Olexa's. Good food, fun place to go for lunch, but leave the boys at home. They would not like the salads or the quiche! We all got yummy salads & yakked away. I was on my lunch hour, so had to get back to work. They, on the other hand, did not! We don't get together as much as we'd like, but it sure is fun when we do. I don't know what my right arm is doing, I think I was trying to scoot back to get in the picture...looks like I'm a spaz!

We actually met again this week after work for Mexican and brought our hubbies. That was so fun too, getting to meet each other's spouses. We're going to plan an evening real soon for all the couples to get together & go out to eat & socialize. That's always fun to do!

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My buddy, Willzmom at Lots of Little Things, has tagged me to post 5 Things I Remember, that start with I Remember When......so here goes:

1. I remember when I got my first car and promptly put in an 8-track player...I thought I was SO cool! Some of you will not even know what I'm talking about. That technology is something you've only heard about in passing. Others of you will be right on board, baby!
   
2. I remember when gas was 27 cents a gallon, back when I first started driving. Boy, have times changed!


3. I remember when we got our first TV, when I was 6 years old. It was a big black & white console and the first thing that came on was the old cartoon of the big rooster & the little baby rooster. I can't even remember the name of it. Anyone remember that one? The daddy had a deep voice & called the baby...Boooyyyy. Refresh my memory, please?!
   
4. I remember wearing clothes my mom sewed for me. She always sewed our clothes growing up and it was a big deal for me when I got to be a teenager and earned some money, so I could buy real store-bought clothes. Wooooo-hoooooo!


5. I remember going on family vacations and my sister and me making pallets in the backseat. Sometimes one would lay on the big bench seat (we always had HUGE 4-door cars) and the other would be on the floor, with lots of blankets of course to make the hump in the floor even. I would even lay back on the flat part under the back window sometimes. Seat belts were not a big deal back then. Can you imagine doing that today?

That's enough good ole' memories for now! Hope ya'll have a great weekend. I'm the Social Director for our neighborhood now & we have a Halloween Festival planned for Sunday. Hope we have a decent turnout. I've got the local fire department bringing out a truck for the kids to look at & we'll be doing pizza & dessert. I'll try to post some pics next week!

Forced to Shop

Oh, it was a tough job last week, but I was forced to shop all day! I know...it's really rough, but somebody has to do it. We needed to find some desks for 2 extra offices that we have in our suite, so me & the HR Manager set out to find some. We hit a local furniture place that sells new & used furniture & found the perfect desks to fill these spaces. We are still getting ready for that big Open House next week, so we're trying to get everything in place. We needed a few more pieces to complete our suite. So, we went downtown & to nearby Homewood to a place called SoHo Interiors. This is such an interesting store, so I took some pics to show you around.
Quite the eye candy in here. This place is definitely not thrifty, but fun to look at anyway.
They have very unusual things that you don't see everywhere else.
And they are ready for Fall & getting ready for Christmas.
We loved these Holiday trees and natural green moss balls & I think we'll go back & get a few things for our reception area.

This is tree branches all adorned with Christmas balls. This was so pretty!
More pretty vignettes.
Here's the Christmas table closeup. I just love all of this & am getting more ideas for my own home decorating.
Artichokes and pomegranites....love those too!
Gourds & fruit

Love the aquas in this pic.
This is another store in Homewood called the Royal Standard & they also have some neat things. These are paper mache trashcans & trays with monograms. They were very reasonably priced & I just thought they were the cutest. Wouldn't these make great Christmas gifts. The trashcans were on sale for $21, which I thought was great.
We ended up buying this piece for one of the conference rooms. It was from a store called Harmony Landing. It's a neat store too that I told you about last time I went shopping in Homewood. We were so happy that we found something & got it all done in one day. It really looks great in the space too. You should have seen us loading this in the back of her SUV & unloading it at the office all by ourselves. Girl power!
We went in a warehouse space that was across the street from the office furniture place we went in. They carry all sorts of used furniture too & this was a liquidation sale from the old Tutwiler Hotel here in B'ham. Evidently, they bought all the old furniture in there & are selling it rock bottom. I loved this little nightstand & am seriously considering going back to get one for one of my guestrooms. It's only $19.95, so a great deal & it actually looks like wood. I would paint it black. UPDATE: I went back today & bought this nightstand. It's definitely a real deal! See how many they have?? And they have all sorts of other pieces too like that that are very reasonably priced. I'll let you know if I get it. It would look great painted black. I think it's adorable.

Another update I wanted to share with you....remember the table with chairs that I found for my hubby's office here?? Well, I sold the chairs on Craigslist for $25, so the total for his desk ended up being $25. How's that for a deal?

So, just in case you were wondering....my job is still great! How often can you tell someone that you had to shop all day & get paid for it? I'll take that any day!