7 Months in Fast Forward....part 6

 Ok so in the month of June....it was planned for some serious and extremely overdue R & R. So a vacation was planned for the beach and we invited Suzie and Don to come with us. Lets just say this was one adventure right after another and kind of leave it at that....

 We all had a nice night out as we all went to the boardwalk. Austin and his friend were out riding bikes and looking for things to the majority of the time we were there so I don't have a lot of pictures of them and wound up not getting one with the entire group that went down together. But that's ok...

 We did manage to all go play putt putt one night and that was fun until a pack of rats came running out right as I snapped this picture.....yes you read that right....Rats!!! at a putt putt place! YIKES! My second worse fear!

 Oh now this was a special memory for me. This was the first year that I had ever gotten to celebrate my birthday with Suzie and Don!! They bought me the most beautiful cake and it tasted even better than it looked! It was to die for! Yum! Thanks Suzie and Don!!!

 So Suzie and Don decided to go check out some places on the other side of Fla in the gulf as we made our way back home. We spent the night close to Savannah and my husband mentioned something about stopping and eating at Paula Deen's restaurant! I was soo excited! I said YES YES YES and thought to myself. Ahhh Haaa I'll be able to check something off my bucket list! I know some of the things on my bucket list may sound silly to you but yes eating at Paula's restaurant IS on my list and if I could meet her that would just be the icing on the cake. So here we are in Savannah....

 At Lady and Son's......but....they are all booked up for that night as well as the following day! I was so disappointed and let down. But I wasn't gonna let it get me down long because I was in Savannah!! Woo Hoo! I love reading books about this place and I love places with lots of History so my dear Scarlett I just put on a happy face and went in search of somewhere else we could eat and I planned on taking in as many sites as I possibly could. Because after all.....who could ever be sad in Savannah...

 This was as close as I got to getting to meet the infamous Mrs. Paula Deen....but that's ok...after all tomorrow is another day.

 Yeah and look here....had I had my bathing suit on under my clothing....YEP you guessed it...could of checked yet another bucket list item off!! Hey my bucket list may sound silly to you but that's ok...it's my list and I claim it with pride!

 Here we are at the horses and buggies. We were gonna go for a tour but we just didn't have the time to this trip....look at those gorgeous streets!

Here are the boys and my husband....sorry honey but I have to point out that you are standing on your tip toes so that you will at least look as tall as the other two....you got busted! Savannah....We will be back and there want be a single inch of that town that I haven't seen and taken pictures of and Paula I'll be back to stand in that long line to reserve my seat in Lady and Sons....and as far as the fountains go....yeah you can bet that I'll be playing in that as well.....

7 months in Fast Forward.....part 5

 Ok so here is where the tears for me will start to roll all over again. I didn't have a clue that the school year of 2011 would be my son's last year in High School. But I got a call the first of May from the guidance counselor telling me that my son would more than likely graduate early NEXT year. I was elated with the idea and of course my son and husband were as well. Because my son hated school. It wasn't that he wasn't smart enough it was the fact that he had a really hard time sitting behind a desk all day in a closed room. Not sure what it was about that but it really made him extremely antsy and irritable to everyone around him. So I thought this is great and I got all the info that I needed for his senior pics that would be taken the first of next year and was lining everything up....BUT THEN..about 2 weeks later I get another call from the school guidance counselor telling me that there is an even greater possibility that he could very well graduate THIS year. She said it was all up to him and how hard he wanted to work but that they were putting him in advance classes that were all on computer and he would do the work and taken a ton of test and as long as he pasted the test he would get the credit. So that's what he chose to do and he blew thru those test like it was nothing. As for myself I was scrambling trying to get him a cap and gown and begging and pleading with the company that supply them to school. But with the time I had left until the actual graduation I missed out on being able to get graduation announcements, senior pictures and getting to take pictures of my son again for his senior prom, and his senior album. All that was gone and let me say here...maybe I am sounding a tad selfish about all those things but this is my one and only child. When he was growing up those were the things that I looked forward to getting to experience with him. But the best I could do was call people and try to explain what had happened and invite them over the phone and via email.....via email for crying out loud! Oh I was so mad at how it was just thrown at me all at once, but on the other hand I was so thrilled that he was graduating and that he worked so hard there at the end to make sure it was going to be this year. It turned out to be a beautiful experience after all, but my depression and the empty nest syndrome was kicked into overdrive and still is. I'm really struggling with the fact that he will be 18 in Sept and then what? What am I then? Who am I then? I've been a mom to him for as long as I can remember......I've forgotten who Robin as a person is...all I know is Mom Robin. Now don't get me wrong I know I'll still be his mom but I want be the caregiver mom no longer. So I have to try to find a way to overcome all of this or it is going to drive me crazy. People Empty Nest Syndrome is a REAL thing!! For those of you that have experienced it then you know what I'm talking about and for those of you who haven't......believe me when I say it hurts...it hurts deep and you feel completely lost and just want to say.....what now???? But anyway, I hope you enjoy looking at the graduation pictures.

 My mom and dad with the proud graduate!

 myself and my husband with our happy graduate.....

 I really am proud of him.....

 Have you noticed he's taller than both myself and my husband??

 He's the last one in line here with the sunglasses on...all of his friends decided to wear their shades while walking in......doing it Blues Brothers Style...

 Getting his diploma.....

 And that's it folks....it's over...class dismissed...the final bell has rang.....

 In the end.....I can honestly say that I have never seen my son so happy. NEVER! After it was over I looked at him and he looked differently to me. He's no longer my little boy. He's a man now...a man that is in charge of his own life, one who had to take responsibility for his own actions and one that holds his own destiny in his hands. I don't suppose he needs his mom any longer to help him and that's the one part that's absolutely killing me. I love you Austin! and I wish you nothing but the best for your future....I pray that you go on to do great things and become a productive upstanding citizen....just remember to never forget where you came from and how your mom and dad are proud of you and will support you every adventure you set out on...Good luck my precious child! p.s. apron strings are cut.....

Was so thankful that his girlfriend was able to share this moment with us....they are just too cute together......

7 months in Fast Forward.....part 4

 Ok again I should name this one...a chicken, a turtle and some eggs....let me explain. My son told me that it was his girlfriends birthday soon and told me what he wanted to get her. When we were taking the prom pictures someone there had some cute little chicks that they were using to take their Easter pictures with and my sons girlfriend just loved them. So of course Austin thought that was exactly what he would get her for her birthday. I mean after all she does live on a farm...so that was the perfect thing.....BUT I got to thinking...you can't just walk in to a birthday party with an old ugly cage with a chick in it. So I wrapped a box really pretty, added some ribbon for a closure and used a large hang tag as his card. This was her 16th birthday party so I wanted her to at least have a pretty box to receive her cute little present in....

 Then the turtle. My sister in law called us and was screaming that there was a huge turtle on her patio and could her brother (my husband) come get rid of it for her because it was larger than one of her little dogs. Trust me on this one....the box does NOT do it justice! That thing was HUGE! So my turtle wrangler husband and I went down and hubby got rid of it for her. Poor turtle had been out of water for a while it looked like...he's in a big ole pond in a field behind our house now....lets hope he stays there and doesn't wander back onto either of our properties.

and of course the eggs! I have birds build nest every year on both my front and back decks. The little wrens aren't so bad...they hardly make a mess at all and I actually love to watch them work feeding their babies and then when the day comes that the momma and daddy bird teaches them to fly...the will hop all around on my front deck and even with me out there...they will hop right up to me and will allow me to talk to them and everything..it's so sweet and special and they have been doing that for years. However, the robin birds are a totally different story. They are constantly making a mess! And they leave "droppings" all over everything. But their eggs are soooo pretty!! and they make prettier nest as well. So I thought this yr..ok I'm gonna deal with you this one year just because I want to use your pretty nest for decoration on the inside of my house. Now I know some of you all are thinking I'm nuts. But I was reading about this on another blog and I found out that I can take the nest and put it in a plastic bag and spray it full of bug killer and then it will be just fine after that. I want to get one of the dome glass tops to put over it to have it on display in my home since I so love bird house and bird cages.......

7 months in Fast Forward.....part 3

 April 2011....When I was helping Austin get dressed and ready for his junior prom, I didn't realize that it was gonna be his first and last prom. Because the following month I found out this was gonna be his last year in High School. I'll explain more later about that though...

 This is my son and his sweet little girlfriend getting ready to go..actually we had to make a pit stop at the dress shop to make some adjustments to her dress first then we were off to get some good prom pictures....

 such a sweet moment...as he was putting this on her arm I was thinking about my own wedding pictures of when he was putting my husbands boutonniere on him....he was only 5 then...

 She had her dress cut so that it would show off her gorgeous cowgirl boots! I just love them!

 Austin told me that he wished he could of worn his cowboy boots.

 lots of giggling going on...it really was a fun time with these two. They had myself and her mom cracking up. Loads of fun and Lots of good memories.

 such an adorable little couple....

Hope that you all enjoyed getting to see one of the things that was keeping me busy in the month of April. I have to admit that once they got back in the truck and headed off to meet up with their friends. The tears started flowing....by the time that I was on the interstate headed home I was in crying hysterically. I so want him to experience everything in life but at that moment I didn't feel like life was treating me very well because I wanted to just swoop him up in my arms and take him home and rock him to sleep again like I used to every night when he was a baby. Yes "Empty Nest Syndrome" had set in and there wasn't anything that anyone could say or do to make me feel any better about it so I went into a deep dark depression...even worse than what I had already been in. But he told me that it was the time of his life and that's exactly what I wanted it to be for him. I would never want him to know just how bad it was hurting my heart to see him all grown up and starting to move on.......

7 months in Fast Forward.....part 2

I should of titled this post as "A Big Truck, A Big Storm and a Bad Meal" But I didn't and now it's to late so anyway, This is what all was going on in the Brown household during the months of March and April. First off, my son finally got the truck of his dreams. He traded in the Jeep Grand Cherokee that I had given him for this one. He talked about this truck so much that even myself (someone who isn't mechanically inclined) was starting to understand what a diesel Cummings engine was and so he's in seventh heaven now.

 Can't you just tell how happy he is by looking at this picture??? Boys and their toys! Blue is his favorite color too on top of everything else!

 Then April hit Candy Creek......This was the months where there were so many people losing everything and in some cases their lives in the horrible tornadoes across the country. Here at my house it had become a routine thing to pack up and go to the other side of the lake to get in his full basement when a tornado was headed our way or when a severe storm was predicted with high winds. See We live with large trees surrounding our home and it gets pretty scary here sometimes. So when we see that happening we just load up and head to the other side of the cove to my brother in law's house. However, We were extremely blessed that one of those trees or one of the tornadoes didn't take everything we own with it. However we did have a huge tree from a neighbors property land on ours and blocked up from getting in our driveway. You can see the root of the tree in the above picture.

 This picture above is showing our neighbors dock and what happened to it. I tried to count and I believe that there were 5 different trees down on their property. It was so sad to see it.

 Here is a picture of my son standing beside one of the trunks. You can see how it was just twisted off and also you can see another tree or maybe 2 more in the background that got it as well.

 Ok first off...let me say this.. DO NOT EVER EVER EVER get out of bed if you have taken your ambien to sleep! See there are a lot of lasts this yr. Since my son is turning 18 in Sept then Easter would be his last one that possibly he would be here to celebrate with us but if not that it will for sure be his last one as.....should I say child?? young man? anyway he isn't 18 yet so I wanted to make it special. My husband had to spend the weekend at his dad's and so I just wanted something nice that I had made for my son and myself and for my husband once he was able to come home that weekend. Well I had told my best friend Suzie the night before that it would be nice to get a jump start on my Easter dinner. Little did she or myself know at the time that I would in FACT get up in the middle of the night and start cooking! My son came home late that night and came to the bedroom and said mom do you know that the oven is on and something is in the oven? He said I told him not to worry about it and go on to bed....so he did......well apparently even later on in the night I had this brilliant idea that I would go ahead and make my deviled eggs as well........ok look at the picture above to see what I retrieved out of the oven the following morning in sure SHOCK! and look below at my deviled eggs. The poor things look like they need a hair cut or were made specifically for cousin IT (The Addams Family...remember him?)

 I found these eggs in the refrigerator when I woke up as well after I had discovered the "ham" and at that point all that I could do was laugh!! I mean seriously what else can you do. I must of not been able to make up my mind that I wanted to put paprika on them or dill weed as a garnishment soooo what do I do while I am sleep cooking? I use BOTH! If it's worth noting I do have to say they were still pretty good....they didn't look pretty but tasted pretty. The ham is a different story though....

as you can see here...my brave brave son tried a piece of ham and well the reaction and look on his face says it all! Poor child! I was trying so incredibly hard to do something special for us and it seems that everything in my life works out like that....the harder I try the worse I mess things up. So that was a lesson learned for sure for all of us. It's a wonder the ham hadn't burst into flames and caught the house on fire.....soooo never again will I even think about cooking after taking my sleeping pill at night.

7 months in Fast Forward.....part 1

 Hey everyone...sorry I've been gone for so long! But it simply just couldn't be helped. Some of you all know a few things that have happened others don't have a clue. But I'm back now and will try to explain in this series of "Fast Forward".
So when I left you all last I was working on redoing my living room. As most of you know I have been trying to redo one room every winter and this year it was the living room. The first set of pictures are the before pictures and the last ones are the after. This project took on a life of itself since I took a pretty bad fall when I was half way done and was laid up in bed for a couple months. That fall took more of a toll on my body than I had even realized and I'm not sure that I'll ever be completely back up to par but I'm trying really hard to overcome the issues.

 I just took random shots around the room. I have the living cut up into 2 different sections. One side is the tv viewing area and the other side is the computer area....what you can't see in these pictures is my husbands desk is on the computer side as well.

 Before pictures of the wall behind the sofa...

 and After behind the sofa...ok so before you all start laughing...I was trying my ever loving best to save some serious mullah on wall decor and had the brilliant idea that I'd just paint my own. Well as most of you all know from reading prior entries on my blog...creative painting isn't exactly my forte but back summer before last I was trying really hard to learn to tole paint. So I thought ohh an abstract painting want be anything...it's just slapping some paint on canvas's and going with it. NOT TRUE! I absolutely hate these paintings and am going to redo them as soon as I can check a few more things off of my list. Not positive about what to do but you can bet that it will be low budget and will eventually turn into something that I can live with...

 I still don't have all the pretty accessories for the room bought yet...I'm working on it a little at a time. I did however grab another new lamp with the pretty robins egg blue shade to put on the trunk in the corner. That lamp simply was not working at all. I am however getting used to the idea of not having as many cha chas in the room. That was a goal of mine when I started this project...to simplify my life or in simply words...less to dust.

Here is a picture of the computer area with the mirror that I found on craigslist and painted and the trunk that I redid. I still need to put my new handles on the trunk and when Suzie was here this summer she antiqued the metal parts for me real nice. Thank you Suzie! I still have the toppers to make for the french doors in that room as well and a like I said it still needs some accessories. But that is the makeover for in there.
I have more to share with you so I'll move right along...look for next post......bye for now....