Berry High School Class of 82

My bloggy BFF, Leigh, posted this evening that she has her 20 year class reunion this summer. Since I have 5 years of wisdom regarding this, I'll share my insight as a Berry Buc, reunion hater, and overall high school nerd.

I hated high school. I still bear many scars from those years. I was made fun of because I talked funny (obnoxious northern accent, which is why I don't talk much to this day), was an outsider (moved here summer before the 10th grade) and never knew how to dress (I went to a private school and had to wear dresses only). I was forced to go to my 5th reunion due to my friend Cindy and my dad consipiring against me. it was the best thing I ever did. After a lot of liquor and being abandoned by my buds, Cindy and Peri I was left at a party with only guys. All drunk, they told me what they really thought about me in high school. They thought I was so cool since I came from Miami, was a model because I dressed funky and was tall, and was a snob because I was so quiet. One guy said he was too afraid to ask me out! That moment changed my life! Prior to that moment, I felt strange because they all talked about the 'big' jobs they had, which top company they worked for, how important they were, etc. I just ignored. I hated business people.

I missed my 10 because my sis got married that afternoon and my mom threatened to kill me if I wasn't the last to leave the reception. Life is all about the photo op in that household.

When I was notified about the 20, I was all excited. I even joined the Reunion Committee! I was in charge of finding the lost people. I had so much fun and wanted everyone to come and not lose one person. Joe and Mark said they had everyones addresses. Little did I know they were using the addresses from the 10 yr reunion list! I worked 24/7 for months. I had my work cut out for me! I found everyone except 27 (out of 374). It was going to be so much fun! Sadly, my friend Sarah had died. Her sister said she suffered from depression and had taken her own life. Last time I had seen her was at the 5th. Same for Jim. He died of AIDS just after the 10th. I regret not seeing him. We made a powerpoint montage of high school photos and emphasized them.

With the reunion approaching,I realized I was a size 14 (a size 4 at the last reunion) and was mortified! I knew they would all mock me. I was mortified and didn't want to go, but had to since I had spoken to everyone in my class begging them to come! I crammed myself into a snug sun dress and showed up, with lots of money for drinks. I have never ever had so much FUN! All the bigtime movers and shakers lamented how they hated their jobs and working for 'the man' and were actually envious of ME for being self employed and working for myself. No one remembered any of the crap from highschool, only the fun happy times. Friends who had not spoken for whatever reason forgot why they had drifted apart and became friends again. It was just so much fun! Everyone was 18 again, without all the baggage. Unfortunately our minds may have been 18, but our bodies were 38 and didn't party like they used to. I got so many emails the next week telling me what a blast they had and that they were glad they came. No one noticed weight. Even one person, who was an ASS in high school was so nice to me and chatted me up most of the night. My high school crush and I had a lovely time chatting. I reconnected with girls from church, and we all delighted in our lives we have now and made fun of the high school days.

So Leigh, you MUST go! You will have a blast! All your friends have turned grown into lovely people, as have you, and you have to get to see the mature side of them!

Terri
BHS Class of 82!

Busy Worker Bee....Reporting to Duty

I have decided I have enough crocheted dresses and hope that one will sell. This weekend (possibly) my sis will sew the bottoms and I'll post a picture. I think they are cute, hopefully others will also. I hope the "Creations" booth will make a lot of money! I know the bake sale will. Our church is full of so many great bakers.

Baskets are rolling along. Yesterday I picked up 2 hours of bowling including shoe rental at Vestavia Bowl. I'm going to confirm Alabama Adventure, McWane and The Zoo. I don't have them in my hands yet, but they said 'we'll get it processed' when I called. I just want them in my hands and will get the baskets to Judy to beautify. I feel like I should get them to her a few weeks prior since she's being so generous as to wrap and bow them for us.

As for being a bargain shopper, I know it will take time, but I'm still working on it. I've applied to get a ton of free samples, and utilizing the 'freebies' system, I got free this week:
Scotchbrite Stainless Steel Cleaner
2 bottles of Excedrin Migraine
2 tubes of Colgate Toothpaste
1 can Meow Mix seafood Medleys

Also got:
2 free panties from Victoria's Secret
MS Office 2007 Student Version (my FD had an extra copy and gave it to me)
$15 Best Buy Rewards. Andrew took these to use toward GTA IV (stop judging me)

My short-term goal is to save at least 50% on my grocery bill every time I go. Well, 50% on anything I buy. So far I've done that. I spent $20.69 at Publix, and my Total Savings was $24.56. The child needed new sheets and I got some good ones at BB&B @ 40% off and then my 20% off coupon. Wed nights will be my grocery planning/food savings night. I"ll clip coupons and search the grocery flyers to see how I can save. I also found this nifty website to make all the 'freebies' easier (and less time consuming) to utilize.

Well, off to work. Seems my clients only wanted to come in the last part of the week, so my Thurs, Fri and Saturday are BOOKED SOLID. I'm happy about that!

Only the F-D could tell me this....

I was told that "Ok, you are officially bored. We need to find you something to do!". Why is that? Because I stumbled upon internet things that made me laugh and I chose to share them with her. I played a game of 'click on a blog link' and wound up all over the place. Many fun chick out there! And I must tell you....if you have never been to faceinhole.com it's a must. Look at me....I'm Carmen Electra. When I got tired of being Carmen, I became the new face of Victoria's Secret. I bored of the fast-paced, model lifestyle, ie, I wanted food, so I retreated back to my little house in the 'burbs and became myself again.

I did a little crocheting today. Not much, but enough to clear out a little spot in my hidden yarn basket. It's gonna be a very slow work week, so I have to keep myself busy. Lord knows I have enough to do. I need to get an agenda together for a church meeting this Sun night. I'll do that tomorrow, after I crochet a few more tops. I'm cranking those babies out at lightning speed now. My sis is off beginning this Friday and can do the sewing. That will make them seem real.

Oh, yeah...gotta follow up on the baskets. I need to make an official 'to do' list. I'm getting too much on my plate and something is bound to fall thru the cracks.

Memorial Day

My father-in-law was a WWII veteran. He never spoke about his days in the military to anyone. My hubby and sis-in-law knew relatively nothing about what he did. Then my son came along. Andrew loves military movies, especially WWII and the Civil war. So granddaddy and Andrew spent every single Saturday talking about WWII. He was in the Air Force division of the Army, stationed out of Tampa Bay. He went to Normandy, Germany, England and Brussels. He was almost killed by a German who walked three feet away from his foxhole but he remained silent and the guy just walked on. Granddaddy gave Andrew his dog tags, which he wore every day. Granddaddy died on May 14, 2003. It was a very sad day for all of us, but Andrew took it the hardest and still hasn't fully recovered.

My grandfather was in WWII, but in the Pacific. I don't know much about his journeys because I didn't know him. Mom was adopted and he died shortly after I discovered that he was my grandfather.

So here's to you, Cephas Leon Ray and Andrew Jackson Duesberry! Thanks for your contribution to my freedom.

Food, Basket and general Mountain Marketplace update

I've been test baking for the bake sale. I've narrowed my baking down to the following:

Hummingbird cupcakes with California granola (dried pineapple, banana, etc) on the top.
Homemade Turtles
Toffee Bars
Apple Coffee Cake
Paula Deen's Sour Cream Pound Cake

I absolutely love to bake. I'd do it for a living, but I'd be so friggin fat, I'd never be able to fit thru the doors to get to the market. I'd be found dead in my kitchen with a spatula dried to my lips and a smile on my face. Hey...it's one great way to go, isn't it?

The baskets have taken on a life of their own. My "Family Weekend" basket has turned into a "Summer Family Fun" Basket. Dinner for 4 to California Pizza Kitchen, 2 tickets to the Rave, and I've been promised tickets to Alabama Adventure, McWane Center, Bowling and the Zoo. I have three other places I haven't followed up on but feel good about them. Gotta get this one wrapped up this week so I can tackle the "Cooking" basket. Then the "Crafter's Basket". I'm down to under four weeks now. Time to crack that whip. Any blogging help would be appreciated if you have a hookup.

Today my boys went to Atlanta. They were given free tix to the Braves game. Did I use my alone time wisely and clean, do more church whoring, knitting or anything of the sort? Heck no. Instead, I trolled around thrifty, moneysaving blogs and signed up to receive about 50 free items in the mail over the next month. I used to be very thrifty and coupon conscious, but got off track. It was my sport, and after seeing how many women are sporty like that, I've decided to jump back on the band wagon. I printed out a lot of coupons. I need to find my old coupon organizer and get back to organizing it. I used to take the money saved and put it in a jar and use it on vacations for the fun stuff. Maybe I'll use the money for my secret yarn or my Ireland savings account. Now that will motivate me!

Free stuff:
Free Stainless Steel Cleaning Kit
Free bottle of Coffee-Mate
Lubriderm Lotion
Can of Mighty Dog dog food
Ban Deodorant, Excedrin, Tampons, Frizz-Ease and Drink mixes @ Walmart
Ziplock Bags
Sunsilk Shampoo
Dove Shampoo
Aveda Lifting Serum
Nature Made 14 Day Vitamins
Emergen-C
French Vanilla Splenda
Seattle's Best Coffee
Yogi's Tea
True Lemon (I'm excited about this one)
Smoothie from Taco Bell
Purex
More animal food
Starbucks Coffee
Caress Brazilian Body Wash
a 0.97 Walmart shirt for my neice
2 Molson beer tshirts

Those are the ones I can remember. Seems those blogging chicks know how to work the local CVS. I guess i need to start shopping there too. I'm not big on the facial freebies. i get tons of that stuff thru work, along with about 10 magazines free every month. Southern Living, Health, Country something, Architechural Digest, Hallmark ( great mag!), Fitness, and a few others I usually give away to clients.

I'm gonna learn to work the online coupons. That's my next step.

Back from Insanityland

I always lose my mind the last few weeks of school. I'm not quite sure why that is, but it's a fact I'm learning to live with. Usually it has to do somehow with Andrew. He missed three weeks of school this year and really got behind, especially in Math and Spanish. I realized right after spring break that we only had 6 weeks to get his one C, four D's and one F up. So, we have been diligently working on school things. He busted his butt (amazing what the threat of losing an XBox will do) and brought his grades up to an A, two B's and three C's. I'm very proud of him. He does have a summer tutor for Math and I'm going to check out CD's for Spanish practice.

And the recession that has been here for about a year is freaking me out. I keep having these panic attacks that my business will slowly wither away. My Mother's Day gift certificate sales were waaaaay down, and I panicked. But looking at my books, I see that business is actually better, just shifting. I have many more weekly "paying" clients than usual, and less GC clients. So life is actually very good!

More tomorrow...today is MY day. I'll fill y'all in later on that.

Happy Memorial Day!

Chattanooga Tennessee

We spent the long weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee and I learned to never leave my house without my camera! We spent weekend with my mother-in-law for an early mother's day and had a wonderful home cooked meal and did some catching up.

Sunday morning we drove around since the weather was so fabulous. We drove to Lookout Mountain and it was so spiritual. Of course spiritual AFTER driving past the million dollar houses lining the landscape. We did a little hiking and admiring of the gorgeous rocks and countryside. It reminded me a lot of parts of Mountain Brook. Old homes with a lot of beautiful yardwork and old times floral gardens.

Since I am an obsessive trip planner, I picked up a few brochures and when we return we will visit the battlefields, caverns and of course, Rock City. There is some sort of River concert in June. May be a good time for a visit.

Riding Shotgun is great times for doing crafts. I made two more crochet tops for the dresses. I'll knock out another one tonight.

All the outdoor activities triggered a migraine and simple partial seizures and I've been feeling out of sorts since Sunday morning. I haven't left the house today and feel very anti-social and more inhibited than usual. Thankfully I don't work on Monday. And tomorrow I have one appointment and should be good enough to work. As you can read, I cannot follow thought processes through.

but the drugs are good!