Weekend

Brad and I were both off this weekend so we went to some antique stores on Saturday.  We love to look but rarely buy much.  

That sounds like such an old-person thing to do.  Oh well, if the shoe fits....

I did find a Sports Illustrated with Dick Butkus on the cover!  YAY!  I had to dig through a box that had about three years of SI's but it was worth it.  I have a lot of the covers that the Bears have been on but the only other complete magazine I have (other than the ones since I've had a subscription) is the one with Walter Payton on the cover right after he passed away. 

Last night we drove down by the Capitol and I tried to get a good photo of it but FAILED!  My tripod is not that great so I had my ISO set really high so I could hand hold my camera and my photos were pretty grainy.  I need to get a new tripod or figure out a way to make mine work.

Today we went to Memphis to go to two of our favorite stores.

Like always, we got some great deals at the WS Outlet, mostly things we needed or have been wanting for a long time.  We have a huge list of things we have to get there before I quit working at PB and it was nice to mark a couple of things off.  

One item we didn't have on our list was this super cute watermelon knife (because who would really put a watermelon knife on a list of needs??).  But I decided since I'm from the home of the world's SWEETEST watermelons, I kind of needed it.  We usually get a couple CC watermelons a year so this year we'll be set!    I wish we weren't watermelon snobs and could just enjoy a regular one from Kroger just so we could try out our knife.

Dick's is our other favorite.  They have a big golf section and we always find something we need on sale.  I got a new outfit (super cheap!) and Brad got a couple outfits for a tournament in August. Why he wants to play in a weekend tournament when it's that hot is beyond me!  

I wish Little Rock would get a Dick's.  Hot Springs is the closest and that's not really close.

We had a great weekend and now I'm looking forward to a 4-day work week!  Brad is too, but when you work 12 hour shifts, I don't think 4 days is anything to get excited over.

Spatz

It's been a while since I posted about Spatz and I know at least one of you (Lacy!) only reads this in hopes of reading about her!! 

   

Spatz loves to spend a lot of time outside in the spring but now that it's getting so hot, I try to keep her in the house more often.

She's usually good about finding cool spots in the yard, but I think it's too hot for her to be outside right now.  You can barely see her in photo below...she looks so cute!  I've said it before, but I really can't believe how much we love this cat.  She's the main source of entertainment around here!

I wonder if the driveway feels as hot to her as it does to me.  She acts like she loves it.  She lays out in front of the garage door every night until it's time for her to come in for bed. 

I took her to the vet a couple of weeks ago for her yearly check-up and she had gained 8 ozs. since last year.  She is up to 12 lbs, 8 ozs.  I think the whole 8 ounce weight gain was in her belly! Can you tell how big it is?

She may end up staying outside all summer, no matter how hot it is, if I find any more surprises like I found this weekend:

 Seriously??  What kind of cat attacks a roll of toilet paper??? 

Ginny's Barn

Ginny was so sweet to open her home to us a couple weekends ago!  She has such a beautiful farm at Forty Four (a little community in Izard County) and there were so many opportunities for photos.  Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to get very many.  I do love this one that I got of her barn with the fog all around it early one morning.  She has the cutest farm house and I will definitely get some shots of it next time. 


I love Little Rock but I have to admit it was nice to wake up to uninterrupted rays of sunshine streaming through the windows and Brad loved hearing a turkey off in the distance as he walked to his truck.  I had to drag him back home to the city kicking and screaming!  

Yesterday wasn't really what I'd call a "perfect" day....

Most of the day was great, but it ended on a sour note.  This is how we brought our car home from Batesville last night.  I say home, but we dumped the car at the dealership about 2:00 a.m. and then we went home.  We're less than thrilled to say the least.   We're pretty sure the key battery died so when we used a manual key to get in, it screwed everything up.    The alarm went off no less than 15 times and Roadside Assistance sent, no kidding, an 80 something year old man in a Buick to jump the car.  And when they finally sent a tow truck, it was from Melbourne.   It took us almost 3 hours to get home and then the tow truck dropped us off at the entrance to our neighborhood so we had to walk to our house.  We'll laugh about this later but right now we're just wishing we had been in Brad's almost 10-year old truck yesterday.  It always starts.

Earlier in the day, I got to see Hadley!  She is such a pretty baby!  I didn't get any pictures because I held her the whole time.

And we met with the architect and are pretty sure we will have a final drawing of the main part of the house really soon!  

Our Future Home Sweet Home

We've been looking at property in Mountain Home for several months and finally found something we liked and closed on it on Friday.  We couldn't really find any existing houses that had everything we wanted so we just found some land and will build a house.   A couple of acres are cleared but most of it is thick woods.   The picture below is an idea of where the front of the house will be.  

Below is looking back toward the road from about the same spot.  You can see the road a little better than the photo shows.  But we will still have the privacy we want.  MH is such a small town so privacy was at the top of our list.   This property is actually in a development but it's outside the city limits and the lots are big so it seems like the country!

We also really wanted a creek which is why we had a little trouble finding a place we liked.  This has the creek we wanted so I really think we'll like it there.

There is one big negative.  A house is visible from certain areas of the creek. :(  But we don't think we'll be able to see it from the house.  You can see it in the middle of the photo below.  In some areas it is more visible than that.  

We were a little apprehensive about trying to build a house but it's too late now.  We aren't the best decision makers so we may have bitten off more than we can chew!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we can have it finished in a year because Brad has to start working July 2012.