• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Sherra
  • Family
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Contact

SherraLifeLesson.com

Real life. Real lessons.

You are here: Home / Archives for Raves

Raves

Back From North Carolina

Monday, November 28, 2011 By Sherra

I’d like to tell you we were gone for two weeks without internet since that’s how long it’s been since I’ve blogged.

But that would be a lie.

I guess it took me a week to prepare to go to North Carolina.

Or not.

Mostly, November has flown by in a blur.

Granny flew in from Texas the week before Thanksgiving and we headed to a cabin on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

Here’s a pictorial from our week in Murphy, North Carolina…

Though not very high up in the mountains, the cabin was off the beaten path and lovely.

We were in a small cabin “neighborhood” of 17 cabins or chalets. Some people refer to them as luxury cabins or homes. I guess this is because some people’s definition of a cabin is a cement floor and an outhouse down the mountain by the creek where you draw some ice cold water to bathe in.

We have personally grown fond of a few more amenities and I’m not too proud to admit that. I’m all about running water, electricity and leather furniture. 😉

We arrived in shifts on different days since the college kids still had classes and two of them had to work. I heard too late that the basement bedroom had the best bed.

The Grunter and I arrived on Sunday and Scary Baby immediately challenged us to a game of pool. She and Granny and PhilBillPaul had already been shopping in town which is where she scored the sock monkey hat that she did not take off during the entire week. (Except to shower – I confirmed this.)

The dog boys were very excited to accompany us on vacation and enjoyed many walks up and down some rolling hills. It was excellent physical therapy for Dudley.

The darling twins arrived next and the dogs are always excited to see them.

The dogs haven’t had this much attention in a very long time.

We also ventured out for some scenic driving and Scary Baby was excited to see wildlife a chicken from our car.

It got more exciting when she squealed, “Are those cows loose in the road up there?”

Yes. The cows were obviously loose as I jumped out to snap photos just like city slickers do when they see cows in the road.

The Grunter said he didn’t want to go on a 4 hour scenic car ride. This is what he and his sister were doing just before the cow sighting.

Luckily, they were not asleep when we drove to Blue Ridge, Georgia in search of this cupcake shop.

Minutes before they closed, we snagged some of their very last cupcakes to bring back to the cabin. Four chocolate lava fudge (one might be missing), one apple caramel and one pecan pie cupcake. The Sweet Shoppe lived up to its name.

Of course we played euchre every single day. PhilBillPaul gets a little obsessed with it.

Sabu was there to help him. Not that he needs it because he is the Euchre King.

Dudley was not left out.

Side note: Notice Wizzy’s cell phone. It was almost a technology-free holiday. NO internet but if they stood in certain places they could still text and sometimes make calls.

Rachel bought a puzzle and introduced Scary Baby to her new obsession which is gluing the puzzle together after they complete it.

All in all, it was a good week away and in spite of some very loud bickering and competitive game playing, I do love when we are all together and I see the college kids becoming semi-adults.

When we are not fighting and talking ugly to one another, we laugh a lot.

I choose to remember the laughing.

Black Friday at Walmart which was really at 10:00 pm on Thursday was another adventure for the memory book. Sorry, no photos and my bruise is almost gone from some really aggressive pillow grabbing for Elizabeth while she scored a king-sized memory foam mattress top for us.

My favorite photo from the week…

Look, she took the sock monkey hat off in this one unstaged photo that PhilBillPaul captured.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving together. Thanks Granny, for enduring the Georgia Humpfreeze clan and spending time with us!

How did you spend your Thanksgiving? I hope you all spent time with the ones you love…

P.S. Should you ever want to explore Murphy, North Carolina, we’ve got the beat on a very affordable cabin and Granny gets a referral so just ask me for the info!

Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Moments, Raves, Tweens, Twenties

One Movie and One Concert Not To Be Missed

Thursday, October 20, 2011 By Sherra

Two things we did this summer that I forgot to tell you and you should put on your “to do” list…

#1

See the movie “The Help”

I read the book last year and couldn’t put it down. I admit that I have low expectations whenever a book is turned into a movie. The people in my mind don’t match who they cast in the movie role. I also know you can’t cram all the depth of a book into 2 hours.

But in this case, I thought they did a stellar job and the casting was excellent.

Read the book before or after. Elizabeth bought the book after we saw the movie. Big endorsement as reading is not her favorite activity!

Either way, I believe the movie will entertain you, make you laugh, make you cry and most importantly make you think.

It’s worthy of discussion as a family.

#2

See Keith Urban in concert.

Even if you don’t like country music. Even if you don’t score bargain last minute day of the concert tickets on craigslist like I did. Go ahead and splurge.

Photo courtesy of Joanna

One of the top three concerts we’ve ever been to.

This is from rocker PhilBillPaul who is not the biggest country music lover in the house.

I am.

The darling twins are.

They grabbed last minute tickets after they found out I did so it was fun to meet them in the lobby before the show.

They agreed and said best concert E.V.E.R.

Leave a comment and let me know if you’ve already seen the movie, read the book or fallen in love with Keith Urban in concert…

Filed Under: Moments, Raves

DIY Kitchen Renovations ~ Minor Updates

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 By Sherra

No, we haven’t painted the walls yet.

Or fixed the rotting window.

Or figured out what to put above the cabinets.

Side note: Open to suggestions for any dust-free decorating ideas for that 8 inches that I know should be decorated but I don’t collect anything and don’t like to dust so can I leave it empty without the decorating police arresting me?

And now PhilBillPaul has a new project in addition to all the other things we haven’t finished.

Which would be fixing the ceiling damage caused by the bathroom flood.

The joys of home ownership just keep giving.

If I keep my eyes from looking upward and ignore the ceiling, the updated kitchen makes me happy.

Let’s Focus on the Positive

We are still love, love, loving the counters and the backsplash and the cabinet glaze.

Here are the minor updates we’ve made:

All the beadboard is painted to match the cabinets.

Love.

Then we added some little touches…

$3.00 plate from Walmart. I don’t like a lot of loose items on the counters.

Fancy I tell you. That’s us.

As is evidenced by this $3.99 cabinet towel rack from Marshall’s.

It’s the little bargains that excite me.

A new coffee maker with stainless steel pot is a nice addition.

New rugs.

Love. Especially love that the small ones were $2.77 from Stein Mart with coupon. Large one was less than $6.00.

We PhilBillPaul painted our eight stools. Color selection was dicey with 4 different cans of spray paint.

These are the last two samples. I thought for sure we would pick a light color.

Once again, my fear of dark things was put to rest when we chose the darkest “rubbed bronze” rustoleum paint and I love the stools.

PhilBillPaul added a clear lacquer topcoat that really gave them a nice finish.

I like useful gifts so a new knife set was an exciting birthday present.

I have insisted that they are for KITCHEN and FOOD use only and that includes the scissors that came with the set. As I’ve shared before, I get crazy about scissor usage in this house.

Stainless tissue box was bonus clearance find at Marshall’s.

When we went out of town last week we locked the knives in our bedroom since Elizabeth grabbed a steak knife to open a box in the first week we owned them. I might have screamed.

We’ll see how long they stay sharp and none go missing.

We bought some fancy gourds for Scary Baby. She has a bit of a gourd obsession like her father.

She made a lovely arrangement with the $2.50 Target metal bucket.

I love all the earthtones with the black and stainless appliances mixed together. Fall is very busy so painting the walls with a pop of color might not happen until 2012. I’m waiting until Mr. Handy fixes the rotting window.

Until then, it’s functional and once the temperature dipped below 90º I was able turn on the craigslist oven and bake again.

I’ll share some of my favorite things I baked in the coming days!

Filed Under: Finding the Funny, Raves

Treat Bar Winner

Tuesday, September 6, 2011 By Sherra

Lucky #7 won the cereal treat bars!

Tracy is the winner and her daughter should really appreciate “Lucky #7″ since she’ll be getting charms with her lucky when their prize pack arrives.

Seems Mom really likes the charms!

Tracy, please use my contact form to send me your mailing address so I can submit your information and you can receive your box of cereal treat bars and goodies.

Filed Under: Raves

Golden Grahams Love

Thursday, September 1, 2011 By Sherra

Scary Baby has been begging me to buy these treat bars.

I ignored her pleas since we’ve been in a bit of a cereal battle here at the Humpfreeze house. We have spent several years trying to wean her off cereal. We know that starting the day with protein vs. a sugar high is a better for her especially to start her school day.

You know we’re not earthy crunchy. You know we love our sweets. But we are trying to take baby steps to improve our diets and that’s hard when you are a sugar addict!

I know deprivation doesn’t work so I’m always looking for “healthier” treats. I also know that’s subjective and everyone has an opinion on that.

The best progress we’ve made is to keep her choices in the 10 sugar grams per serving or less otherwise it’s like eating dessert for breakfast.

Don’t judge.

Side note: Golden Grahams may be my personal favorite cereal. Ever. Ate it in high school one entire year. Love it.

Lucky Charms. Not so much.

Scary Baby loves both.

I just don’t want marshmallows or chocolate for breakfast.

When I was offered the opportunity to review the very treat bars that Scary Baby wanted soooo bad, I thought this might be a good treat for both of us.

My opinion is that a treat bar with 13 grams of sugar and less than 140 calories per bar could be a good after school snack instead of a candy bar and a soda. (Not saying that was ever her snack!)

We all really liked them. The Golden Grahams treat bar was the definite winner at our house! Four out of five of us preferred them over the Lucky Charms treat bars. (Roger Leroy wasn’t home to try them.)

General Mills is offering one lucky reader a prize package just like they sent us.

Who doesn’t like to get a box of free goodies in the mail?

The prize pack contains:

  • One box of Lucky Charms® Cereal Treats Bars
  • One box of Golden Grahams® Cereal Treats Bars
  • Lunch bag
  • Locker whiteboard
  • Colored pencil set

You can also get coupons if you check out Cereal Treats Bars online for great information and coupons for new products.

Now leave a comment and let me know which treat bar you think you will like the best. Come on, you know you want to try them!

Entry rules:

One entry per person

No entries after Monday at midnight EST

I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday, September 6th after the holiday weekend.

Disclosure: Cereal Treats Bars, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark. Opinions on my blog are my own.

Blog Widget by LinkWithin

Filed Under: Food, Raves, Tweens

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 18
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Welcome

Sometimes it’s a whisper,
sometimes it’s a roar…

Life lessons surround us.
The trick is to figure out the lesson.
The gift is to share the lesson.
The bonus is in finding the funny
in the hard lessons.
Let’s laugh and learn together.

Let's SherraLifeLesson…

Recent Posts

  • Typo Tuesday ~ Writer {Desperately} Needed
  • Living with One Teenager vs. Three
  • Mother-Daughter Boot Haul
  • The Power of Laughter, a Baby and Dog Poo
  • Happy 2013!
  • This is NOT a Christmas Tree Decorating Tutorial
  • Blog Neglect and a Tribute
  • My Darling Twins
  • Creative Mailbox Ideas
  • Midwest Trip Highlights
  • Crazy Mom and Missing Photos
  • Crazy Things I’ve Been Busy Doing
  • Text Tuesday ~ New Potato Chips
  • Food Trip Across the Midwest
  • Typo Tuesday ~ Weekend Festival

Categories

  • Finding the Funny
  • Food
  • Friends
  • Life Lessons
  • Little Lessons
  • Love Languages
  • Milestones
  • Moments
  • Myths
  • Random Thoughts
  • Rants
  • Raves
  • Teens
  • Toddlers (& babies)
  • Tweens
  • Twenties

Return to top of page

© 2007–2023