Well, it's that time of the week again! :) FRIDAY! YAY! First to get the following out of the way...



and...



and last but not least...
















What a week it's been!  Vacation Bible School every night...I haven't had much time to do anything, although I did manage to read some blogs, respond to some comments, even post an extra blog yesterday and finish a book!  It's been a good week, but I am looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow!

I've decided to not do "Feel Good Friday" (sorry to "The Girl")...just because I really shouldn't be posting at all right now (I am working, you know!)...although I do feel better today than I did yesterday evening!  Thanks for allowing me to vent yesterday!  I really appreciate it!  And it helped my boost my spirits immensely before I went to VBS last night.

And, one of the babies that I thought might have been born over the past weekend was actually born last night (as far as I know...haven't had confirmation, but I'm sure I will this evening).  So, that makes three babies in one week at our church!  Shew!  Just one more to go...but I think she will wait another week or so.  I guess her baby will get here when he gets here!

I hope you enjoyed my "throw back" posts!  They were three of my fav's from my Xanga account.  I didn't last there long...there was some drama associated and I only joined Xanga because there was a crazy lady in our church who had a blog there and I was fascinated with her blog for a while.  But she called us (me & Ash) out on it...sort of...I guess because we were reading and not commenting and not posting our own stuff...so we both deleted and moved over here to Blogger world. 

I'm hoping to learn a little on how to do a blog design here in the next several weeks!  I see so many cute ones out there and, while I like mine, I think I would like to do some things a little different!  I'm still learning...so, we shall see.

Have a great weekend!  If I don't see you before, I'll see you on Monday for sure! :)

So much Friday! :)

So much to do in blog-land today...first for some Friday Follows...



and...



and a new one...


















Wow! :)  I'm going to be reading blogs all weekend...as if!  I don't have that kind of time this weekend, but I do promise to go check some out and if you visit me, I will most certainly visit you back!

Now...to my favorite part of Friday in blog-land...



On Monday, I was pretty sure I would have a Feel Good Friday post...on Tuesday, I was kind of questioning it, but hoping that I would...on Wednesday evening, I sincerely doubted it...but by last night, I KNEW I'd have a Feel Good Friday post! :)  As you may have read, Tuesday I was sick and Wednesday I came home to a broken air conditioner.  No A/C in the hottest week of the summer so far = no fun.  Not to mention that when I look at my unit I see old and decrepit.  I just hoped that the repair guy wouldn't see the same thing.  Thankfully I have a friend that I used to go to church with who is in the A/C business.  Well, to be fair he's in the oil business - not like drilling down in Texas, but in servicing oil furnaces and supplying heating and fuel oil.  But, really, that's a bit seasonal...especially here in balmy, July North Carolina...so, he's also in the A/C business.  I needed him to come look at the unit anyway because my air has never really cooled the house well, but I didn't have the cash...so I put it off.  I thought the unit just needed to be charged with freon and I can deal.  Yes, I understand it's a cyclical thing - adding freon makes the unit cool better which makes my power bill go down...but, I'm on an equal payment plan with the electric company and so I had the $ for that bill, but not the freon charge.  You see my dilemma...

Anyway, the A/C being out forced me to call him. So I called first thing and the sweet lady that works for him (which I also know from church) said that he had a lot of calls and she wasn't sure when he'd be able to get to it, but she would let him know.  I was OK with that because I'm sure I'm not the only one who's air goes out with this kind of heat!  So, around 3ish, the repair guy finally is able to get out there.  And around 4:15 he called with the glorius news that the unit was working!  And when I got home, he'd left the bill - which was under $100...not by much, but still under - and on the bill it said that the unit was overcharged with freon...which he fixed too!

So, all in all...my very long 4-day work week turned out on a positive note after all!  YAY God for answering my prayer of a quick, cheap fix! 

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Friday

How 'bout a little Friendly Friday Follow...



And a little Friday Follow...



I haven't been participating in the Friday Follow here lately because I'm slow and couldn't figure out the deal with the spots I've been really busy with vacation and stuff and haven't had time to read a lot of extra blogs!  But, here we are at a Holiday weekend and I thought, hey...maybe I'll try again! :)

And what about a Feel Good Friday???



Last Friday, when I was blogging beachside, I didn't think I'd be feeling too good by this Friday.  Usually it's a long week after a week long vacation, but this really has been a good week!  Probably helped that Dylan's birthday was right smack in the middle of the week...although being away for a week meant that I had to do all of my birthday shopping quickly...because you will quickly find out that I am not a good planner-ahead-er.  I procrastinate horribly...which caused a great deal of stress for my parents when I was going through school...and many late nights working on projects that were due the next day.  Unfortunately, I think I passed this on to my son...

Anyway, it has been a good week!  We began the 14th birthday celebration on Wednesday night with the family...we ate at Fire Mountain (like Golden Corral, if you aren't familiar with Fire Mountain) which I personally think is way over priced for not that great food ok, but Dylan loves Fire Mountain.  And it was his day...so, we ate there.  Then headed back to my house for gifts and cookie cake.  I baked and decorated myself...didn't turn out too bad, huh?

By the way...those are supposed to be fireworks...just in case you can't figure it out.  Dylan really loves the fact that his bday is so close to the 4th and usually picks red/white/blue for his cookie!  AND please don't be too impressed with my cookie cake making abilities...because that is a small package of Pillsbury cookie dough rolled out into one big cookie and decorated with store bought tubed icing.  I can make cake and really good icing like my mom, but this is what he asks for...and it is his day!

Then we celebrated AGAIN on his real birthday, which was yesterday.  He was asleep when I left for work...so I left these notes for him...

I had stuck these in different places...the first on his night stand...the second on his door frame...the third on the TV and the fourth on the bathroom mirror!  (I have to say that I think it's incredibly cool that he gathered them and put them together to keep...I figured they'd end up in the trash can!)  Then I came home from work early...took him to GameStop so he could spend some of his gift cards...patiently waited for him to look around (well, I tried at least)...took him to Target for a pretzel, which are his fav, and then went to pick up his friend Seth for some Go-Karting!  We went to a place in Pilot Mountain - Mayberry Shazaam - which was a REALLY good track.  And they were the only ones there...so I think they had a great time!

After that we drove about 10 miles up the road to Mt. Airy (the town that fictional Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show is based on) to go eat at Goobers 52!  We love this restaurant...they actually put one in Winston-Salem, but I think Dad said it didn't last (wasn't in a good place to do well, I don't think).  We had fried pickles...which if you've never had them...you MUST.  The boys had wings, I had a burger and then we went back home!  All in all, I think it was a good day for Dylan!

Now, we are starting on a holiday weekend...I love the 4th!  Dylan has gone to the lake with Seth for a weekend of tent camping & fishing and I'm staying with my BFF tonight so we can get up extra early and hit the East Bend God & County Parade.  This parade is absolutely the best.  East Bend is about as "small town" as you can get...fire trucks/EMT/police/sheriff from all over the county will be displayed...not to mention about a thousand John Deere tractors!  And they throw CANDY galore!  We are taking her Godchildren - J&J - I'm just hoping they are in good spirits because it will be no fun if they aren't.

So...this has been a good week and today does "feel good".  Happy 4th of July!!!