US Open

It's been a busy 2 weeks.

Wednesday

Shawn and I were invited to attend last Wednesday's practice round for the U.S. Open. One of his vendors had 2 extra tickets which got us into Pebble Beach, access to a private tent with unlimited food and drink and dinner to follow in Carmel. It was a gorgeous day. Absolutely gorgeous. I'll have to post some pictures later but here are some text messages sent:


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"Ummm and just how did you get your phone in missy"
Well, funny you should ask me that. My non-iPhone fits snugly in my coin purse where the nice security man failed to look. :-) This worked when Bubba wanted to sneak his actual iPhone in a couple of days later. Success!

"On our way to the US Open with one of Shawn's vendors and I'm the only girl!"
"Just lost the hubz, so where do I head? Yep. You got it! The beer cart! YESSSS!"
"Oh I just got shushed by a Marshall! DON'T MARSHALL! hahahaha!"
"P.S. It's the PRACTICE round with some amateur on the tee from Pepperdine! DON'T!"

Needless to say I made a great impression on Shawn's vendors who each said they'd have us back in a heartbeat. :-)

Friday & Saturday
Johnny and I took Mom on Friday and Shawn joined all 3 of us on Saturday. It was a completely fantastic time! It was overcast and a bit windy both days, but we didn't let that stop us. We got to see Tiger up close and that was a pretty neat thing. I can only imagine what the crowds following him would have been like if he was in good standing with his fans. It's too bad because he is really good and fun to watch.
The REAL reason we went was for Mom to see Phil Mickelson.
Now if you know Franny you know you have to sing his name and her inflection usually looks something like this:

"Phil MICK-el-sin loves his wife Johnny"
"Phil MICK-el-sin is the best Johnny"
"Phil MICK-el-sin lost a lot of weight Johnny"
"OOHHH let's go see Phil MICK-el-sin guys!"
"Look Johnny, Phil MICK-el-sin waves at his fans. Phil MICK-el-sin is a classy golfer."

My favorite line from Saturday comes from the grand stands at hole 8. We had just *seen Tiger go through for Par and wanted to post up camp to wait for Phil MICKelson who was about 5 groups behind Tiger. After Tiger moved on to the fairway on hole 9, the fans cleared out and we made our move to the top of the grandstand. About 3 groups later a sweet little thing comes walking up the stairs and sees 2 empty spots next to me and in front of Johnny. She swings her hips, flips her hair, sets her Coach bag down and plants herself next to me.
Coach bag girl: "Is that Phi Mickelson coming up?"
Cares: "Well, no he's coming in just after that group"
Coach bag girl: "Hmmm. Okay. What's he wearing?"
At this point Johnny pipes in.
Johnny: "He's wearing a blue sweater and white pants."
Coach bag girl: "OH, that's a nice outfit!"
Johnny: "Well I hope so, since I'm his stylist!"
At this point the entire group of people within earshot start cracking up. How could you not?

One of Johnny's clients generously offered up her Beach House for us all to use. UD and AL came over Saturday night for a lovely BBQ and we spent Sunday watching the rest of the Open on TV. Mom said it was her best Birthday all because of Phil MICK-el-sin

*SEEN is a very generous verb because we were seated on the first row of the bleachers and could not see over the folks napping in their power wheels. Yes, napping.

Kiddie Pool

So over on this side of the freeway, it gets much hotter. Last weekend we felt bad for our furry pup who was panting uncontrollably. We can't put in a pool for him to cool off in so we got him the next best thing:

Oh he loved crawling and splashing around and it really helped. At first he thought it was one big water dish. Once he set his front paw in he knew it was all for him!



Have a great weekend everyone! I hope it's warm enough for Winston to enjoy more of his pool!
xxoo
Cares

A Real Conversation

Cares: Okay Winston here you go into your pen, I'm off to Yoga! Be back in a bit! Love you!
Cares walks out the front door gets into her car and drives off. 
Cares:  Looks at the gas light that has gone from a lovely shade of marigold to a flashing blood red orange. Hmmm that's a weird feeling...c'mon car let's just get to the gas station. Frowns at the gas light that has gone from a lovely shade of marigold to a flashing blood red orange. We can do it!
Or not!
Cares pulling the car over one block from the house
Cares: Hmmmm yeah I don't think this is going to work. Come on car, almost home, just. a. little. bit. more.
Well at least I made it back home. I guess I better text Shawn: Hi babe, can I use the gas in the gas can for the lawn mower? I think I might run out of gas!
Shawn: NO!!!
Cares: Um why not?
Shawn: Because it's mixed with a special formula for the weed whacker*.

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A SPECIAL FORMULA FOR THE WEED WHACKER? Ummm what is it? Some powerful mix of gasoline and super hero juice that not only whacks the weeds but rakes them up and gently places them into the big green compost bin? I mean how precious IS this piece of metal?

Sigh. I SUPPOSE I can relate in my own way. I just think it's adorable how he takes to things sometimes.


Shawn continued: Do you want me to pick up some gas for you?
Cares: Okay, great

The conversation continued later that evening after Shawn returned home

Cares: I've NEVER run out of gas before babe!
Shawn (smiling his chesire cat grin): I know EXACTLY what happened. Your gas light came on last night, you saw it, decided to get home from work, drive to work in the morning and get it on your way home.
As he says this he's kind of chuckling because he knows he's right. And he is!
Cares: Wellllll, yeah so then I just figured I could get home and get it on my way to Yoga! But then it started sputtering and stuff.
Shawn: Walking away shaking his head smiling his chesire cat grin.

I love my predictability. :-)

*This is the same weed whacker that took Shawn 4 hours to choose at B&B Small Engine Repair. (No Jules, NOT the bar!) Oh don't be fooled, they have all kinds of weed whacking accessories including riding mowers, gopher traps, state of the art shovels...Every adornment any Man Town would be overjoyed to store. I even overheard Shawn talking to his BFF Ramos that he could easily drop 1K every time he goes in. Um this man has a hard time dropping $50 at the market! He LOVES that place.

Winston the Terrible...

Okay, so I don't think Winston is terrible, but his reputation has been slammed pretty hard with a couple of his outbursts. And I get it.

He's big.
He's scary when he goes all Cujo.
But he's ours.

We love him and have been working with him really diligently. And believe it or not, he's incredibly sweet. We've recently been on the receiving end of some slanderous gossip regarding our pup and I think I could handle it if it were my girls talking about it amongst themselves without the presence of yours truly, but it wasn't MY girl friends but a bunch of guy friends. Yeah, I didn't expect them to sit around gossiping either. Guess it's called something else when guys do it. Whatevs. The point is the conversation ALLEGEDLY didn't only encompass our pup's behavior but "concern" for Shawn's responsibilities should Winnie actually hurt someone. Now I'm nothing if not sensitive and have been known to take things out of context.

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What?

Well I guess what got me was the fact that Shawn is probably the best problem solver I've ever met and cares more about the well being of his friends and family than anyone I've ever met. Meaning, he actually loses sleep trying to figure out our situation with Winston and has stopped at nothing short of finding a trainer 4 hours away to help us. I just felt betrayed that a friend of Shawn's would ever even think he was sleeping on the job or for one minute would put anyone in a situation that was dangerous. Not only that, but say what you want about ME but he has never nor will he ever, ever say anything about you he wouldn't say to your face. He's got THAT much integrity, ESPECIALLY when it comes to these guys.

Anyway, now that I've gotten that off my chest I can move forward and let go of the bad energy I've been harboring. Mostly in my shoulders. I think a massage is in order. Y'know one of those nice Swedish ones that make you feel like you've had a lie in for hours and are so completely relaxed. Wanna go ride bikes?

So I'll leave you with a situation I recently came home to. If you haven't been to our home yet (RUDE!) then you should know that the kitchen, living and master rooms are separated from the 2 guest rooms (YEP I said 2, what's your excuse?) and garage with a breezeway. When it's raining Winston takes up camp in the hallway and garage just past the breezeway. He happily greets me with the wag swinging of his tail at the door. On this particular day I opened the door to love on him but when I looked all they way down the hall I saw this:

My jaw dropped and stuck to the ground before I could reprimand him or stop him from pridefully running to the ever-so-fun project he had started while we were away. So proud was he that he ran back to me looking like this:

Um. Yes, that IS an entire un-opened roll of paper towels in his mouth. And oh was he ever so pleased with himself. I laughed as I cleaned up the mess and couldn't WAIT to show Shawn the pictures when I got home.

I love my dog.

Memorial Day Weekend

And what a gorgeous weekend it was.

I had a surprise or two up my sleeve for some unsuspecting friends but I woke up with an itchy throat Friday morning. It turned into a full bore sore throat by late Friday night and I was second guessing my weekend plans. I woke up Saturday not knowing if I should suck it up and stick with my plans or get myself to a Dr. I ventured out to Doctors on Duty our local clinic. I was the first one there and was seen fairly quickly. They took my temperature and blood pressure...no fever and 110/70. Then the doctor came in and felt my throat, looked around then pulled out the microscope thingy to look in my ears. My left ear felt fine then she stuck in my right ear and dug around. It took about half a second for me to violently pull my head away from that contraption and yelp like Winston after he's barked forgetting his bark collar is on. :-( Sad.

Dr. "Well, eet looks as eef you have zum flueed in zerr."
Me "Ya think?! That hurt!"

She prescribed some antibiotics and rest.

I made it to our cousin Erin's graduation and Shawn let me nap before we headed out to her dinner in Carmel. I'm glad I was able to make it out even though I was so super tired and couldn't hear very well.

The rest of the weekend consisted of rest and some delicious ribs Shawn BBQ'd. It was a lovely, quiet weekend. 

Weekend

We had a truly fantastic weekend.

I left Friday early to finish the day working from home to await the arrival of Aunt Lissa. She showed up about a half an hour earlier than I thought and from the greeting I gave her you'd have thought it was the UPS man delivering those chairs Shawn and I are still thinking about ordering. :-)

We sat and caught up for a few moments and then I promptly took her for a cocktail and appetizer with an Ocean view. We of course chatted about our favorite lady Grandma Sugar and how incredibly amazing she is among many other fantastic, funny things. Shawn joined us after his chores at the Grocery store were all finished and we sat and laughed and enjoyed a few more cocktails. Tess stopped in for a quick cocktail to meet Aunt Lissa before her weekly Friday dinners with her family. If you know me then you know there is not much more that I love to do than to show off my family and friends. I was thrilled for two of my favorite people to get to know one another.

Shawn had to drive us home because I was too giddy from the conversations and cocktails to see straight. We got home and waited for Mom to get off work. Shawn manned the grill of sausage, tri tip and corn on the cob. The weather would simply not allow for an outdoor dinner so we had to move indoors.

Sometime after dinner Tess came back to start up a round of Apples to Apples to which Franny fervently tried to thwart. It took maybe 2 rounds for "I don't LIKE games!!" to turn into "I LOVE this GAME!!" I made everyone at the table promise to save at least 2 rounds of Beatles Rock Band and not to tire out early.

It worked! Mom rocked the drums, Aunt Lissa manned the microphone, Tess chose the music and I scored a whopping 1% on the gee-tar. What can I say...it was late!

Mom had to work early Saturday so we all saw her off and headed to breakfast. Aunt Lissa had to leave at noon for her flight so we got quite a bit of time to sit in the sunshine and catch up some more. I usually end up crying when our guests leave and this time wasn't different. Shawn just hugged me and told me we'd see her again soon and not to be sad. I waved until she drove out of the driveway and out of sight wishing she'd forgotten something or decided to stay one more night. :-0

According to Uncle Mike we promised to come out for the Eric Clapton concert in June so we may just see her sooner than I might have thought! :-)

Sunday found me rested and in need of some spiritual goodness. I had made plans earlier in the week to sit with Momma Kiedro for the morning service at church. It felt great and we made plans to do it again next Sunday and every Sunday after that as far as we can see!

After church I met Tess for a screening at the local movie theater of The Thin Man. It was fantastic. We're loving the throw back movies every week.

All in all a great weekend. The rain clouds are coming and it's supposed to be pretty gloomy all week.

Winston

This morning I woke up and was hoping to sleep in a few more minutes. I let Winston out of the bedroom thinking I could go back to bed for 30 more minutes and Shawn would let him out, feed him and put him away for the day.

10 short minutes later I feel my heart pound with fear and abruptly sit up screaming EARTHQUAKE!!! Okay so I didn't even bat an eyelash since I knew it was Winston. He pummeled his body up on the bed, dug his big nose under the crook of my neck, and collapsed his body down. Still wanting a reaction of ANY KIND he took his massive, beast-like paw and forcibly swatted my eye. MY ENTIRE EYE if not the entire left side of my cheek. It was when he didn't remove his paw from my face that I finally got up.

"FINE WINSTON YOU WIN"

Turns out Shawn does NOT read minds. Sigh. It's hard to stay mad at a pup who just wants to play. It's not HIS fault his ability to snuggle is thwarted with those paws and massive head.

iDeeli

I LOVE this site. There are so many fantastic deals on here that I had to share! :-)

Happy Shopping!!


www.ideeli.com/invite/caroline.blackwood

I Covet....

...this lovely print and think it would go nicely over our bed.

I saw something very similar for a lot more money recently at Warmth Company and was very happy to find it here:

http://www.my-sparrow.com/index2.php#/gallery1/5/

Lonely Little Petunia

I'm a lonely little petunia in an onion patch

an onion patch

an onion patch

mmm mmmm mmmmmmmmmmmm

mmm mmm mmmmmmm

ahh ahhh

ahh ahhh

mmmmmm mmmmmm

mmmm mmm mmmm