Only in Delaware...

Would you see random trailers on the side of the road selling the following...

and yes...that van decided the random trailer was a cruz thru!

Do you share the road with a tractor and go roughly 5-10mph on a 55mph road because the tractor is either leading the way or taking up both lanes....
*yes, this is a tractor made of haybales and painted to look like a John Deere but it's cool!


No picture yet, but we also have numerous yard sales along stretches of main and country roads because if it's an open space or the edge of a field, why wouldn't you unload your house/attic/garage/closet and sell what you can to passerby's?



Crazy. But it's home!

Kathy or is it Cathy?!

Meet Kathy/Cathy...
She was one of my favorite dolls growing up. She's fairly large and may need to wash her dress and brush her hair, but she's had a rough life recently. Poor Kathy/Cathy lived on my bed. She'd keep watch over my room and really enjoyed her life. However, a few years ago (maybe even a decade) she was moved to a higher elevation.....the attic. Poor girl. Only she wouldn't fit in a box, so mother tied a piece of yarn around her neck and hung her from the rafters so that any critters that ended up in the attic would not eat her. The care was there, in a twisted way. :) Kathy/Cathy has since been moved back to the main house and is doing much better. I enrolled her in therapy and mother has apologized profusely for how she treated her in the attic. Kathy/Cathy is back on speaking terms with mother and is grateful to no longer be hanging around....ha ha.
As for her name. Apparently I used to name my dolls after the people who gave them to me. I asked mother how Kathy/Cathy came about and was told that Chuck who worked at the printing company, his wife gave me the doll. So, there ya have it!

Kickin it Old School...

OH MY GOSH! Get the girls together....it's time to play
Dream Phone--Guess who likes you in this talking telephone game! ("Hi, I know who it is!")
The Babysitters Club Mystery Game
Let's Go Shopping-Race Through The Mall In Search for the PERFECT Outfit
Mall Madness-Talking Shopping Spree...yes please!
Precious Places....only the best doll house around!

Old School Lite Brite.....

Did I mention Mother cleaned out the attic before I came home? Oh the piles of "treasures"!!!

*no company has asked me to post my Old School entertainment. In fact, this is a post for Antique Roadshow, not companies-that-probably-no-longer-exist endorsements! Ahh, childhood! :)

Happiness is....

One would think that as children age it would be easier to take a picture together......apparently these adorable almost 3, 4.5 and 6 year old didn't get the memo.... :)

Growing Up

My oh my how they grow.......

Being Held Hostage

I'm a horrible blogger.
I'm so bad at blogging that I just informed my Mom (who constantly sends me e-mails or texts or leaves me voicemails counting the days since my last post, putting August 23 in the subject line and/or talking about single cheese) that I was going to delete my blog. Oh the horror! If I had a camera at the exact moment I told her this, the photo would win awards cause wow did she look like a sweet puppy from those ASPCA commercials! :)
Really, the 5 followers that I have have most likely forgotten that Grace Like Rain even exists! However, I'm home for a few days and there are things I want to do, but I'm being forced to sit at this computer desk and update my blog before I am allowed to go out and play. My 26 year old self feels like a 6 year old again being told I can't go play with my friends until I finish my homework or clean my room. Goodness!
Anyway, I don't have a reason for not blogging. I'm pretty into Twitter these days. Falling off the whole Facebook thing. I'm not against change, but I usually just read the updates on my phone but sometimes even that is "confusing" and forget logging into Facebook on a 'real' computer...that's just crazy talk!
Well blog world, hope you enjoyed this hostage post. I'm off to go sort through some boxes of "used to be treasures but have most likely transitioned to trash" that mother has been collecting in the attic/my room so that I can go out and play.
Happy Sunday!

1st to 12th

I woke up this morning and I was a resident of the First State.
I'll go to bed this evening being an official resident of North Carolina!

It was quite the experience! The DE DMV is rather different (and much easier/less time consuming) than the NC DMV.
I'll leave you with the following pictures from my hour standing in line...

Really, this was a full service parking lot....just check out the sign!

Where the magic happens.....

and when you're done....you can celebrate at El Reventon.....

I took this picture for Nonny. It may not be a propane tank but it's a decorate satellite dish!

Wordless Wednesday

There's No Place Like Home!

Hello 2011!

Before I begin my 2011 "New Year, New Goals" posts, I must recap Christmas!

I am SO FAR BEHIND when it comes to blogging!

I went home for a week for Christmas and it was glorious! I was so glad to be home and after a very hectic November and December, it was so nice to not wake up, shower, eat and work for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week, rise and repeat. I literally stayed in my pjs for 12+ hours one day watching a NCIS marathon, eating cheese balls and Christmas cookies with not a care in the world and I felt like a new person.

Anyway, it started snowing Christmas Day before dinner/after lunch and by Sunday, it was intense! I was getting a bit stir crazy being in the house for almost a full day so I went outside to join mother in the snow removal process! Doesn't she look thrilled?!?

We realized that I was not properly equipped for snow removal as I do not own any snowy weather head gear...aka a beanie. So, I threw on a fashionable baseball hat and my jacket hood wouldn't stay on...it was a mess, but made for a great laugh!

Mother and I took a break from the snow....I mean really, it just kept snowing! It was so pretty! I decided we needed to get out of the house and that a declared "State of Emergency" wasn't going to stop us.


Since I hadn't seen the kiddos in almost an entire day (which is unheard of when I'm home because I usually spend breakfast to afternoon nap time at their house or after nap to dinner) we loaded up the kids gifts from Mom, put them in trash bags so they wouldn't get snowy/wet and walked through our development, down a "main" road and through the next development to get to the kiddos house. It was quite the trek!

Here's mom holding the goods....

And my bag of goods.
But it was worth it!

The kiddos (including the 3 neighbor kids) LOVED Lite Brite...but really, can you blame them? I LOVED Lite Brite! We hung out for a bit and then decided to be rebels and the kiddos dad drove us home in his "manly I can drive through anything" truck.

More to come.....

A picture is worth 1,000....

...hugs...tears...smiles...laughs....

wednesday

oh how i miss them desperately!

life

if only life could be this easy....

...just wear a seersucker dress and ride a fancy bike with colorful flowers from the garden placed in the basket!

this photo was taken when i went home a few weeks ago. i went to go visit the kids and the neighbors were also outside with their kiddos so it was so cute to see everyone! 6 kids sitting on a blanket under an easy up tent having a picnic lunch with their parents! E, the neighbor mom had just purchased a fancy bike with a basket so naturally i had to look like a southern belle and "ride" it. E's parents and siblings live 15 mins from me in the QC.

Gramma's Treasures

Aside from the wicker chair, my grandmother also decided that I needed to take the following:

Candlestick holders that my Uncle made...apparently they are too "modern" and my grandmother doesn't have a need for anything modern!

A cheese tray......which has potential if I could switch out the middle of it....or paint it....

And an ice bucket..."for all of the entertaining I'll be doing"

I really do love my grandparents!

Brother, TV and Jeep

My brother came home for 30 seconds to drop off his first load of stuff from his college living arrangement.
He happened to acquire a massive TV from the kiddos that I watched at home for a few years (yep, those same 3 adorable kiddos that I miss terribly!)
His roommate helped him put the TV into his Jeep but no one was around to help him take it OUT of his Jeep. Clearly I was unable to help because someone had to take pictures!

He pulled the Jeep up to the kitchen door.....

Grabbed some boards from the shed and made a ramp.....

Mom came home for lunch and had a hard time entering the kitchen....brother's face is priceless in the corner of this picture...

And wa-la, with my Brawny man like strength, I moved the TV into the house but let brother stand behind it like he did it! I'm such an nice sister!


Needless to say, my mother's house went from clean to "destroyed" in a matter of 12 hours between me coming home and brother unloading all of this stuff! It's ok...she loves it!

The Chair

I went home to Delaware for a few days. Before I arrived, I knew that my grandparents wanted to give me the wicker chair that they "have no use for" and since I have my own apartment, they decided that "I NEEDED" it!

The chair was a natural wicker but that was quickly changed to black. Really though, my Gramma really wanted to have it painted and ready for my pick up before I got home but I suppose I wasn't cooperating!

Gramma and I went to Walmart on Thursday and purchased 2 cans of black spray paint. Apparently that wasn't enough and we had to go back Friday and purchase 2 more cans!

I forgot to take a before picture (mainly because my grandparents were so excited about this project they started painting at probably 6am!)But here is a general idea of what the chair looked like:



And once it was decided that more paint was needed or this is what the chair would look like:


Friday we also went to JoAnn Fabrics and ACMoore to look for fabric to cover the existing cushion. The selection was amazingly sparse and I really wish I purchased fabric in NC at Hobby Lobby or somewhere else equally exciting but I wasn't thinking!

This is the fabric that was on the cushion:


And this is the fabric I picked:
I have an after photo of the chair in my room in NC but I forgot it at home. I'll have to add that soon!

Almost Wordless Wednesday!

This is "Fancy Nancy" and today is her 3rd birthday!

Really, this is K, one of the 3 adorable children that I spent everyday with for a year and a half! It is so hard to believe that she is 3 years old today! I took this picture when I went home for Christmas and this is the outfit she wore to Story Hour at the Library. It was adorable! She is definitely all girl, which is fitting since she has an older and younger brother. I absolutely love her and her brothers and miss them terribly!

Happy 3rd Birthday K!!!!!

Life is a highway!

When I left my driveway in Delaware, this is what "Chester, my female voice, British accent" GPS said would be my arrival time:



I finally arrived in North Carolina at 7:54pm. Thank you massive amounts of wind that encompassed all of Delaware and Maryland. I had all intentions of taking a picture of Chester when I finally arrive but I was so excited that I forgot.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I am so excited to be back in NC and back to the blog world!

Guess I should unpack...

Christmas in Delaware!

Merry Christmas Blog World!

I hope everyone has had a fantastic day! I ventured to Delaware on Tuesday...the drive took way too long thanks to remaining snow issues, construction and general traffic...not to mention the Pepsi truck that split in half and was on the side of the road...not really sure what happened and couldn't find a news article but I just hope everyone was ok! I had all intents and purposes to write an "I'm blogging from Delaware" post when I finally made it home but I couldn't remember my web address. Really, in my defense, I've got my blog saved in my favorites so I just always click on it! Well, my laptop was reformatted and I "lost" all of the wireless info for my mom's house and brother can't remember it so I've been using Mom's computer. So yes, today I googled my blog title, and some key words and wa-la! I'm back!

Anyway, we hosted our annual family/friends Christmas Eve fun appetizers/dinner gathering last night before church and attended a great Christmas Eve service. It's been a running addition to the Christmas Eve sermon each year that the pastor has wanted a 42" flat screen, plasma tv and it's always incorporated into the sermon somehow. Well, this year, S, the next generation pastor, and his wife, got the tv in September/October so naturally, everyone was wondering what the sermon would be about. It began with the background of the quest for the tv (this way those visiting knew what was going on) and a picture of the tv in his living room and transitioned into a Seinfeld clip from the label maker episode when Elaine gave Tim Watley a label maker and he re gifted it to Jerry. Essentially, the sermon was all about re gifting and about how God gifts us 3 main gifts and how we should re gift them to others and all of that fun stuff. It was neat. It is COLD in Delaware, but it was nice walking out of church with snow still on the ground...a good feel for Christmas!

Today we opened presents, had a great dinner with my grandparents and now the grandparents are gone and we are just hanging out watching tv.

Hope everyone else has had a great day with their family and friends!