Easter Weekend Happiness!

What a weekend!  Kentucky lost!  The Lady Irish are on the way to the National Championship, and BASEBALL is back!  Greatness!!!  Aside from that.....

Old and tired 

I swear I didn't stop all weekend.   Between a marathon shopping spree at Walmart Saturday morning.  (Rant Alert: I hate shopping at Walmart.  It is such a beating.  I do not understand why they can't put the same floor plan in all stores.  Why must each be different.  It drives me crazy! I promise you it does not encourage me to shop more it just makes me a bitter, angry shopper),  catfishing on Lake Lavon all day Saturday afternoon (the fish weren't biting but that didn't stop the Easter miracle. We threw back the two we caught and they have a 2nd chance at life as we know it!) and beginning the refinishing of my old table Saturday night.

This is just a peek.  The legs are already color 2 and the top is being "distressed"

This table actually belongs to my husband pre-me and it has 6 matching chairs but I am not hand painting those bad boys.   The paint sprayer will be in full effect for that.  Once I finish the table, I will decide on what color I want to do the chairs but right now I am leaning toward a black chair with light distressing.  Anyhow, this table caused me a few problems.   First, it is veneer.  Second, I did not know it was veneer.  (It was hubs table from his 1st marriage and he doesn't have a memory of important stuff like that but I bet he can tell you all about the pig he shot 20 years ago! XO)   I should have known but they did a good job of faking it.  Even underneath they made it look like it is solid wood.  SIGH!   Anyway, I have something awesome planned...I just wanted to give you a peek.

Easter at our new neighbors 

Easter Sunday while I worked on the table some more, hubs got ready for a party at the neighbors.  My mom had some tragic home improvement problems and so there was no Easter at her house and while we could have done it at mine, the neices and nephews were scattered at odd ex-spouses houses so it was just one of those years where everyone did their own thing.  In a side note, my nephew won his baseball championship this weekend!  So proud of the big guy.  He is becoming quite a young man.  

This was the kid race

So we took fish, hush puppies, and french fries to the neighbors and they had a variety of Mexican goodness including this amazing chicken I am still thinking about and which they confided, I can get at the Mexican meat market 5 miles down the road.   I have been there before but now I know what to get.  Winning!!  I totally believe in learning about different cultures and experiencing the best of all of them and sharing them.  My family is Hungarian and German.  We have certain foods we traditionally make from those cultures.  Where would we be without spaghetti and tortillas and brats? I am so grateful to my neighbors for sharing thier amazing food traditions and for warning me not to put too much of the red sauce on my fajitas.  I was already afraid.  LOL

And this is my kid

Aside from amazing food they were incredibly welcoming and it was so much fun to see a big family celebrate together.   They had all these games and kids running around and it reminded me of my family life when I was a kid and we would go to Thanksgiving at my Aunt Peg and Uncle Walter's. Families are awesome!

Getting ready for the egg toss

Oh and my big and little kid had a great time!

Somehow the egg broke all over hubs face. LOL

I feel so blessed to have been able to spend the holiday with new neighbors and learn so much!   I am so grateful for my family and the fact we are all healthy and things are going pretty well.  I am blessed with just a bunch of positive and I focusing on the blessings.   It is so easy to get bogged down with the trials of life but my hubs looked at me the other day and said something about how things are going in the right direction lately and I said that yes, we are finally getting things in place.  When you sell a house, marry, and buy a house in a month it takes a while to feel at peace.  We are 7 months in now and we are finally getting a routine in place and feeling our way in our home.  Is everything perfect?  No!  He would have rather I spent Saturday night unpacking and tossing stuff out of boxes in the spare bedroom than refinishing that table, I am sure.   I, on the other hand, prefer having things around me look pretty so I can then focus on the hidden fugly! :)

Apparently 3 legs are not better than 2

Did I forget to mention the neighbors invited us to go with them to Monterey?   They are from there and go often and they couldn't believe I have never been to Mexico so they want take hubs and me and show off Mexico.  We are totally on board with this.  It sounds like so much fun!  

This week is full of softball with the kiddo, me picking up a fantastic new project to redo when I finish my table (it's a surprise),  Rangers home opener for me Friday and it looks like the Duck Commander 500 is happening Saturday.   This will be my 1st NASCAR and I am so excited.  First of all, I love Duck Dynasty.   Second, I love Jeff Gordon and it is his last  year.    OMG!  

Happy Opening Day to all my Texas Rangers fans.   

So, how was your Easter?  Did you receive any blessings?

Mobile Monday: Turkey Hunting, Baseball and Easter

Thursday we headed out to East Texas to do a little Turkey hunting. Ok, "we" went camping. I basically was in charge of finding fire wood and guarding the stuff while "they" went turkey hunting as 'this dog don't hunt' so to speak but waking up Good Friday to this view totally makes up for the 'cold-night-sleeping-on-an-air-mattress-I-think-I-am-a-princess-and-believe-a-motel-is-roughing-it' girl. That's not really true. I don't need a hotel room but I would prefer one, for sure! My sister in law and I were talking on Easter about this. She loves to hunt but she agrees the best option is a motel room somewhere with plumbing and a shower. It's the little things in life. :-) Anyway, it was beautiful as you can see and I heard my first Turkey and while my brother and my guy think it's funny, I honestly thought at first that they sounded like a barking dog. They are incredibly loud though and really pretty. The colors are amazing in the feathers. I have never imagined the colors of browns. Just beautiful.


Saturday we had baseball tickets and it was a totally fun first time at Rangers Ballpark for my young friend which was fun to share. It was also Yu Darvish Bobblehead night. We had a great time and the ballpark was rocking. There was a couple behind us that got engaged.


Nolan Ryan and Sam Houston made an appearance. Oh, and the Rangers won! Earlier in the day we had made cupcakes, colored eggs, and I decorated the lamb cake for Sunday. We had the first Easter egg hunt. It was a super busy day!


Sunday was all about the family stuff. We had more egg hunts, dinner, and the cake, which turned out...not too shabby. The kid LOVED it and that's what mattered. I want to make the tradition my grandma started something to carry on.

I hope everyone was able to find blessing this weekend.



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Welcome Back Baby!!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you are having a blessed day no matter how you are celebrating. What a beautiful day we are having in North Texas.

Today is the most wonderful day of the year! It is Christmas morning for baseball fans! It is the day I have been awaiting since one sad Friday night last October. Today is the day baseball returns.

Today is the day the umpire shouts "Play Ball!" and 162 glorious games of baseball plus the excitement of possibilities, endless possibilities lay in front of us! Today everyone has a chance to go to the World Series. Today everyone is undefeated for the only time all year. Today hot dogs taste a little better, beer is a little colder, popcorn is a little fresher, and every grown up becomes an excited little kid again!


Preparing for Opening Week begins early for me. Basically as soon as I come across a sale on Rangers merchandise! Oh, and people give me gifts like jewelry to help a girl swag in style!




Swag is requires! Lots of swag! Now to be honest the tank I am wearing will not be worn to the ballpark without something over it. It is a little too revealing for me to be seen in public but it is perfect for cuddling on the couch and watching Opening night at home.




This is actually what it says on the front and the back had a Rangers T and PINK because, of course, it is from Victoria's Secret. I love this tank so much I may have two of them.




I actually went looking for Rangers cupcake designs last night. Last year for Opening Night I baked some pretty amazing cupcakes for my special friends and apparently some of the gang want an encore. Who am I to refuse my public? I won't be going this fancy. That's a little too much for my skills with frosting and I don't do fondant. I will whip up something special for 2013 next weekend and I have an idea for a super party at some point this season. I have to use all those tailgate recipes I pinned somehow, after all.

Alright kids, I am still feeling a little icky so I am going to take a nap and when I wake up it will be time to open presents....I mean Play Ball!

Go Rangers!


Simply,
Laura
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Weekend Randoms: Baseball, Life, Love & Easter!

Thursday night I decided I was going to give up all social media for 24 hours on Good Friday and to be honest, except for working on my new blog header on Blogger (I love it!) and creating a Facebook page for Simply Me the way I see it, I managed to stay off everything else. I know, I am shocked too! No Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogging, Instagram, Timehop, LinkedIn, not even Meet-Up. I really felt left out! I was forced to keep everything to myself or text my friends. Apparently I was texting Chance stuff he saw on Twitter 2-3 days ago. I am so lost! Crazy!




The great part about Friday is that I survived one pretty awful week. I was under the weather and under a lot of pressure. There is irony in the last thing I handled Friday afternoon. I had a situation involving a bike rider who's name is the same as someone I kind of had a personal relationship with in the past and who is a bike rider. The name is not really common so that was odd enough but in a week of near misses on costly blunders this one could have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Thankfully, I got it handled in under 40 minutes and put that baby to bed as I was running out the door.




We are officially 1 day from Easter and Opening Day! It is a double holiday! Jesus and Major League Baseball return on the same day and this makes me, simply happy!




Add to that a very real possibility this weekend will include a lot of time on my favorite bike and it is looking golden! (Obviously I wrote this before the flood last night! Boo to no trails east of Ft.Worth!) Plus I start my 30 Day Bike Challenge on Monday. Rain or shine!




By the way, I spoke with my uncle Thursday night and he is doing very well. He is finally home and while he will be off work for a time with that head injury he is upbeat! I thank every one of my friends and all of the perfect strangers who prayed for him.




I absolutely believe this is true for me and everyone who has ever felt they lost something or someone they really thought they wanted. Someone who just seemed to get you. Someone told me recently your soulmate isn't the one perfect person for you it is the one person you end up with who turns into the perfect person for you. I love this because for a long time I thought maybe my soulmate was killed in a tragic piano accident or maybe he screwed up and let me get away. Turns out I was wrong. My soulmate is not someone who I lost. My soulmate is someone who will never get lost, never go away, never abandon me. God has a plan and at some point I just decided to give in to His plan, be happy, and trust God. If He wants me to be with a guy trapped under a piano he will raise him. If He wants me to be with someone who tossed me aside, He will toss me right back. If He wants me to be with someone else, He will let me run into someone else on a bike at Northshore, Horseshoe, Erwin, RCP, LBH or River Legacy. Something like that.
Be happy people! Life is a joyous adventure and a gift! Live the present and as always




I am! Lent is over and my antibiotics are done! I get to drink and tweet again (lookout!!) plus watch baseball ride my bike and love! Life is amazing!
Simply,
Laura
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Enjoy the Ride!

Simply,
Laura