Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na...

MATT MAN!!!!!!

I'm a day late, but Happy Birthday Matthew! love you much!

Coraline 1, Aunt Sher 0. ZERO, ZIP, ZIPPO, nada

This is Liz. Doesn't liz look sweet? Liz IS actually quite sweet...

This is Coraline.

i don't know who this chick is, but let me tell ya, when coraline showed up, I got kicked to the curb.

yeah, you heard me right. ME. aunt sher... THE aunt sher. known 'round the globe for being the coolest aunt ever... yes, that's me... uh, where was i?

oh yeah, coraline. (squinty look, low growl, clenched fists... oh yeah, it's my mad face.)

so i'm talking to liz on the phone... a sweet sunday night conversation... all of a sudden, in a rush of words that couldn't get out of her mouth fast enough, i hear

"igottagoauntshercoraline'soncallyoutomorrowg'nightiloveyou."

i'm like... huh? what? so i say "huh? what?" it gets repeated, only faster this time (doesn't help) and i'm like "LIZ WAIT!"

beep beep beep beep

i don't know who you are or where you came from coraline, but you better watch your back.

To know him is to love him....

Happy Birthday Adam!!!

Happy Birthday... and Happy Anniversary...

... to my sister Karen, who drove right into this outhouse earning her a couple of nicknames i can't repeat ....

and, to her and her husband Marc, a couple of cool cats!

enough!!!!

time for me to see something besides ground beef when i log in!!!

here's my sister Val's kids, enjoying their family vacation... can't tell if michelle jumped early or late...

and here's the whole family, with clothes on this time...

... taken by a lady named "Ilene."

Burgers according to Sheri

Scoff at me all you want, but this worked rather well... not QUITE as slick as i thought, but still pretty good... especially for someone who doesn't know the difference between sour cream and cream cheese.

i rolled the ground beef out like pasty dough and used a tupperware as a cookie cutter.

and viola! 36 perfectly equal burger patties.

yeah me!

Midnight Spackle

i was determined to get this job done before Uncle Charlie and Aunt Adrea came to visit. my job was not very cooperative and i ended up spackling into the wee hours after scraping and sanding. the morning brought more sanding, then painting, re-installing the light, and re-hanging the mirror, then rushing to the airport to catch my plane. but i love my new light! darryel was kind enough to install it for me, and it was a much bigger pain than either of us anticipated, so kudos to superman for his help.

i don't have a 100% before picture on my home computer, but this is the old light fixture. BLUCK!

and the new one. Beautiful!

special thanks to mom & val for helping me justify the expenditure. :-)

BIG FAT BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Deployment sucks. Seems like we just welcomed Titus home yesterday, now another nephew of mine has deployed. Please keep Rick, Ashley and their beautiful kids Ben & Evey in your prayers.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY Dad!!!

my dad is amazing... i keep working hard to be worthy. Love you Dad!!!!

And Happy father's day to all the amazing dads in my wonderful family!

Happy Birthday Nene!!!!!!!

Love you much!

blood, sweat and more blood...

the curtains are almost done! woohoo... another shout out to adam for drilling the holes for my brackets and a big shout out to mom who is about to get them in the mail for hemming!

i drew blood from every single finger while working on these bad boys. AND i poked a hole in my cheek. yes, it takes a special kind of talent to get a facial injury from sewing.

Thanks for the Love...

Misty, you were the best dog ever... you will be missed.

Better Late than Never

Happy Mother's Day to my beautiful wonderful Mom!

... and also to my dad, for without you, this day would not be possible. :-)

and actually... to all the beautiful wonderful mothers in my beautiful wonderful family... 

Tiger Cruise pictures & video

there's two albums...

1

2

let me know if these links don't work for some reason.

here's some videos i took

okay, apologizing in advance for the end of this one, but here's an fa18 taking off

this one is better, and yes, i do need to post them both.

and here's some video from the hangar bay, watching the ocean going by... i could not get enough of standing there.  notice that the floor is wet, we're about 30 feet above the water line... waves were high enough to splash in... SO COOL.

and here's one of the aircraft elevator, or brow, coming down. VERY cool.

TIGER CRUISE!!!!!

there's my ride!

and here's our sailor!

(and you all are going to kill me... i don't have the software that downsizes my pictures in one shot on my computer at home right now, so i will have to take them to work tomorrow. don't hurt me. i promise to have pix up tomorrow night.)

well... i must say, this was an opportunity of a lifetime and boy am i grateful. thank you titus, for inviting me. it was SO amazing... 

day 1

steve & i fly down to jacksonville from norfolk, check into airport hotel, can barely sleep from excitement. (or maybe that was just me)

REAL day 1

we take our hotel's shuttle back to the airport at 6am where we expect to be the first ones there... oh no. not even close. we finally get on the school busses that take us over to the base where we wait on the docks for the Teddy Roosevelt to arrive... the boat comes in, we wait oh so patiently for titus to come find us... we get big hugs, then get in line to get on the boat... titus took us to his office first. steve's berth was just downstairs in the same room as titus', mine was clear across the boat, so we just left my stuff there. i insisted we go up on the flight deck to watch as we left... after we left mayport, we decided it was time to eat. i thought the fare looked decent enough... it smelled alright... i came to LOATH that smell. everything, EVERYTHING smelled exactly the same, whether it was pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, turkey, gravy, chicken, jello, lobster, eggs, pancakes... the smell never changed. but it was still super cool. we wandered around the boat, i'd gotten a pretty full tour last summer, but steve hadn't... and i didn't see it with all the aircraft aboard, which was super cool. i kept hoping i'd run into a wing, or a nose, or maybe an engine... get a good cut on my forehead and be able to tell everyone that it was my aircraft carrier injury.... "what's that you say? oh... you've noticed that scar on my forehead... yeah, that happened when i was deployed on the TR, it was an FA 18 hornet... i wasn't paying attention up on the flight deck." i thought about purposely running into something, but it felt too contrived (that's for you matt!)

so anyway... we had lunch, then dinner... we wandered through the ship, hung out with ty (the best part). it was awesome.

Day 2

my day started WAY too early as i had some trouble learning to sleep in a very tight tight space, and i didn't go to bed until way late, so all the girls were sleeping and i kept my bags in my rack with me so that i didn't disturb anyone trying to find a spot for it in the dark. so WAY too early, ty's phone alarm went off... and i laid there noodling how to get out of said rack with some amount of dignity and no injuries (a falling out of bed scar, unlike an FA18 scar, is NOT cool). took me about 10 minutes and a few aborted attempts to figure it out, but i got it. the girls were all busy getting ready for duty, i wandered off to get a shower. after i was ready, ty came to pick me up... there was no way i was going to try to find my way over to him by myself. we walk out into the hangar bay and the big doors were open... nothing but the sound of the ocean... and boy were we hauling! i never thought the ship would move that fast.

so, we went & got steve, who'd been up for hours by now, went and got breakfast... i was excited to smell coffee... i got better stuff later back at ty's office. well, after breakfast, it turned out that the navy found out i was there and had arranged an air show in my honor. i was like, oh really, it's not necessary... but then i told them to go ahead as the other 1380+ "tigers" might enjoy it too. the COOLEST thing ever... we got to see, hear and FEEL a sonic boom. it was a double concussion that left me jumping up and down giggling like an idiot. i stopped after an hour or so. (okay, i stopped yesterday... don't judge me!)

we also got to see them shooting jets off the ship... it was really cool. we had to get off the flight deck so they could "catch" the planes... i was amazed though... if i can figure out how to put video on, and if you can really tell on that video, you will see how that deck was pitching up and down... easily 20 feet. ty had something to do when we came down, but steve and i sat and watched all the planes land on the ship's closed circuit television channel. it was amazing... you could see the crosshairs (they need to be in the middle to land correctly) going up and down and not one of those planes was ever more than just slightly off center. 

i don't remember exactly what we did that afternoon... more wandering around the ship, more looking at the ocean whizzing by. we also watched ty's collegue's nephew play A LOT of video games.

that night at dinner steve almost died at the hands of navy steak. me, being the caring concerned helpful sister that i am, realized he might be about to puke, so i got up and moved out of the hot zone. didn't realize he was actually choking. oops. he recovered after a bit and all was well in the mess hall. we did a little more touring of the ship after dinner... this time way up in the bow, and on the higher decks. i was feeling a bit woozy because you can really feel the ship moving way up there. i was so happy to be back in the hangar bay after that. poor steve was all bummed out because he hadn't noticed me turning green and missed out on the chance to give me a hard time.

that night the powers that be decided to show a movie called... hold onto your hats... "Tiger Cruise." i think it was a disney flick... why people wanted to sit and watch a movie about exactly what they were doing was beyond me.

oh...this was cool - after years and years of working for the federal government, i'd forgotten that some of Uncle Sam's folks DO actually work. the hangar bays are ENORMOUS... when we went into ty's office after lunch, they were all empty. when we walked back out a few hours later, they were full (and i mean full) of giant carboard boxes that people had been packing up to be offloaded when we got to norfolk... they were still busting their butts late into the night... it was hard to find a place to walk because the bays were so densely packed with these boxes on pallets... then, get this... in the morning... gone. like at 7am gone. i was just amazed.

that night i managed to find a spot for my bag outside of my rack, so i slept like a baby, and i managed to get in and out of the rack without much trouble. i felt like a pro!

Day 3

after breakfast everyone was all about getting off the boat. i packed up my stuff and titus very generously carried my billion pound bag (AGAIN) back to his office. the girl famous for packing light threw EVERYTHING into her bag because she was too excited to think straight in the days (okay, weeks) leading up to the cruise. SO - we went up on deck to watch ourselves coming into the chesapeake bay, and also to see the sailors manning the rails. it was VERY impressive, which you will see tomorrow (sorry). we got to the pier and waited for our turn to get off the boat. 

all in all, quite an amazing experience... thanks again Ty... 

Happy very late birthday Em!!

Sorry this is so late... i hope your day was awesome. love you much!

carpet, paint, and mirror mirror on the wall

alright... here's my new bedroom carpet, sans giant green paint stain. the picture on the left shows the texture, the one on the right shows the color.

my new green bedroom and my mostly made bed.

the new mirror and hand towel hook, hung sideways because i'm sheri. please note, this light fixture is history as soon as i can figure out a way to justify spending the $$ on the one i want. alas, i have my mom's taste but my own checkbook. life is so unfair. haha

i'm too lazy to figure out how to put these in the right order, but you'll notice the in progress curtains on top of my sewing machine. i'm getting there!

and last but not least, another painted vent cover. this isn't quite as well-matched as the one in the living room, but it's a heck of an improvement over what it was. (notice that once again, i've also painted the screws, rendering them virtually invisible, but rest assured the slits are still perfectly aligned).

Happy Birthday Ash and Caroline!

seriously? not a single comment? REALLY

you know who you are.

Curtains... er... curtain

well... i've... correction, WE'VE (thanks mom!) only gotten one of the six panels completed, but i couldn't believe how different the room looked, even with just that one single panel up. i'm very excited to get the rest finished.  (shout out to adam, without whom, this would not be possible. thanks aj!)

here's some close-ups... those of you who don't already know, guess what my brackets are... 

coming soon, more posts including pictures of the newly painted and re-carpeted bedroom, brand new switches in the bathrooms, including a dimmer in my master bath... thanks for the idea ash! don't be surprised if you hear a little grumbling from my dad, he couldn't figure out why in the world i needed a dimmer in the bathroom! ("good gravy!")

All about Bob...

Happy Birthday Robert! love you tons!

Make that 36!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. H!!!

Welcome to the family Kaje! 

Happy Birthday Katherine!

Love you!!!!

in case you're wondering... i'm quite sure i did something wrong and little miss kitty kat was tellin' me about it... 

my little hole in the wall...

oh boy am i loving the puns!!

okay, so here's what my wall looked shortly after i finished painting the living room... 

and here's what it looked like a few days ago...

and here it is now.

i love my dark green wall!!!

i almost had the same color carpet... thanks again to Jonelle who saved the day... though i do still have some more scrubbing to do. question: what do you do when you spill 16 ounces of paint on your carpet and mom's at a spa without her cell? answer: call Jonelle.

anyway... there's a few thin spots that need touching up, but it's mostly done... so here's a look!

color's a little funky in the this next picture, but i wanted to get a detail of the texture b/c it looks SO cool... (thanks mom!! and thanks caroline!)

let me show you the door...

haha.

okay, so the door project is finished. it took a lot longer than i thought it would, but here it is.

before & after...



















it's possible you may have heard me complain passionately about what a shoddy add on this thing is. i will spare you most of my rant, but i do have to point out the bolts. this door frame is bolted to the door frame behind it with no efforts made to countersink or hide the bolts in any way. while i was not willing to spend too much time, money or effort to make this crappy thing into something it'll never be, i did have a need to make it less offensive... so smartypants me found rustoleum that matched my wall color and painted them.








i hope you enjoy the dramatic magnification of the offensive bolts and the equally dramatic pinpointing of their new virtual invisibility.