Doing what I love

Since many of you have never seen them, I thought I would share some pics of the thing I love to do -- paint crazy things on peoples' walls (with permission, of course).

This is a little girl's room in a house I did in the ATL before I moved. The circles were time-consuming and it was a real PAIN to find the right green, but I LOVE the finished look. So cute for a young girl, and it can grow with her with minor changes in the room.


This is my parents' kitchen. Before the paint job, it had TEN YEAR OLD wallpaper that was more yellow than white (its original color). Mom likes blue (in case you have some sort of color-blindness). :-)

I love the subtlety of these stripes. Very elegant, yet more interesting than just plain walls. I've actually since done this in my own house in the dinning room.

This is my latest creation. It's in my friend Angie's "craft room". If this doesn't inspire you to do something, not much will (unless what you're trying to reach inspiration FOR is sleep). :-) ha

Love & Shipoopies!

Leslie

PS - You'll notice a change in the spelling of shipoopies. My father corrected me on my spelling of this made-up word. Silly, I know, but his creation, his spelling, I guess. :-)

What have I become?!?

I have fond memories from a time around my Junior/Senior year in high school shortly after my grandfathers passed away when, for a couple of months, my Uncle Ric -- a super-cool, super-funny, sarcastic hippy who normally resides in Pennsylvania and with whom until that time I had spent most of my "visiting" on the phone -- lived in Clanton helping Munner adjust to life without Grandad and helping us fix-up my other Grandad's house so we could live in it. (He's a carpenter by trade.)

When he was at "our house", he replaced a wall of windows and a window seat with beautiful French doors and windows that lead out onto a deck that he built for us. The deck was perfectly built to our specifications with a place built for a grill (with a hole underneath for ashes), "tables" for mother's planters and our drinks, and benches built to my height specifications for "laying out". I found his work fascinating -- learning about levels, chalk lines, and the like. More importantly, I found HIM fascinating. This was one of the first times when I spend QUALITY one-on-one time with him since I was old enough to appreciate one-on-one time with adults. He knew so much and was so funny and I found myself spending much time with him listening to his stories and learning about "handyman" kind of things. The one thing about those days that stands out the most is listening to his "Classic Rock" station with him while he worked.

Now, I was raised on oldies -- it's almost all we listened to in my house -- and I still love them, but we never listened to "classic rock". My parents were more into the animal groups -- you know, the Beatles and Monkeys -- than the Stones and Hendrix. Uncle Ric opened a new world of music to my ears, and though I didn't like it all since I couldn't sing along, I still associate MANY of those songs to Uncle Ric when I hear them. They entered into my memory box of sounds and smells so that when I hear them, I want to think of some supremely witty comment and call my Uncle Ric so he can remember how "cool" I am. :-) ha! They are part of my "cool hippy uncle" descriptors.

Fast forward, now, to last week. I was (and you'll excuse the confession, but it's relevant to the story) in the shower trying to find a station on my "shower radio" which is pretty complicated. (Reception isn't so grand in there.) The only station I could pick-up was a "classic rock" station. I immediately thought of Uncle Ric as "Give me Three Steps" came on. I drifted into a world of memories of time with my cool hippy uncle who listened to this OLD music. "Give me three steps. Give me three steps, mister. Give me three steps towards the door."

However, I was in for a rude awakening when the VERY NEXT SONG was a "rock" song from when I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL!!! I almost fainted. When did I become "CLASSIC"? How is it possible that MY MUSIC is now in the same category as Uncle Ric's? What has come of me? When did I become this "classic" person grouped with hippies and oldies? Where did my young, cool self go? Who knew one could so quickly become OLD?!? So Sad!!!

Henceforth, if any of you needs me, you can find me thumbing through the adds for retirement villages and nursing homes. I might as well! The time can't be TOO FAR off. :-D ha!!!

I need Blogger help

Okay, for all of my friends who are wizards at the Blogger format, I need help with this one. I am used to another format and I can't figure out all of the neat things you have on your pages like "blogs I like" and the other little notes that are in the margins of your page.

I have (as you can see) figured out how to add a picture into a blog. (I am very proud because I just discovered that I can do that.) But I haven't figured out how to get a picture into my profile.

This picture, by the way will be most appreciated by Nolan. This is our SEC-touring family photo. The Bama fan and her Aubbie husband living in the world where they spell it "geaux".

Thanks in advance!

Love & Shapoopies,

Les

The tax people...

Drew and I decided that since we were going to have many new deductions that we were unsure about (due to my having a full-time home office now) that we would go to H&R to have our taxes done this year. We decided that the papers are complicated and it was our first time writing-off some pretty complicated stuff, so we'd better go to the experts. Now, I must say first off that after about 5 minutes with the two ladies still at H&R at 6:15pm it was crystal clear that "expert" was a VERY strong word to be used in this situation. "Yeller", "Food smacker", "person who talks with her mouth full", "Person who guesses at things more than she actually knows how to do things" -- all of these would be more appropriate terms to describe these two ladies. That said, after spending 2 1/2 hours (Yes, you heard me right TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!!!) trying to get everything done (at least an hour of this was spent "guessing" how to make the little green flag saying something wasn't right go away), we are getting a fabulous return and for that I am grateful -- VERY GRATEFUL!!! :-) (Woo-hoo!)

However, because we were filing in two states (having moved from Geawgeeah to the hurricane-infested sauna that is Louisiana during this year), they had to send our state taxes to be done by someone who does "Allstate". (I'll add here that they kept using this term as if it was some common terminology that all Americans should know. As far as I know, Allstate is a car insurance company and should, therefore, have nothing to do with filing my state taxes. My best guess is that she, the woman who does "Allstate", does taxes for ALL STATES meaning they can only do Louisiana and she knows how to do other states. That's just my guess, though.)

Now, understand that this means that someone we've never met will do our taxes without us there to explain things to her. She's going solely on the knowledge and paperwork she has received from "yellie-yellerson" and "smackie-smackerson" (described above). When we finally got to look at these state taxes (surprisingly only 2 days after we did our federal taxes), it had us owing the state of GA (in which we only resided 7 of the 12 months of the year and for whom we witheld taxes all 7 of those months) almost $800. Now, I will say that we always owe GA some money over what we withold (which I have always found strange), but it's usually around $100. How can the same jobs with the same tax forms have a $700 difference in taxes from one year to the next -- especially since the later of the two years wasn't even a full year?!?

We called and after much run around from one office to the next and messages back and forth, Drew finally got to talk to the "Allstate" lady who actually IS an expert. It seems "Yellie" and "Smackie" told her that we lived in Georgia for the entire year. Now, I find it odd that she didn't see a problem with that as she filed our Louisiana taxes at the same time, but still... Since we weren't full-time residents of Georgia for the entire year, she fixed the taxes and Georgia owes us $400!!!!!

I don't know how many of you are math whizzes, but if you haven't figured it out, that's a $1200 difference from what we were originally told. TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!

This is just a friendly reminder that if your taxes look iffy and were filled-out by anyone who makes the name "tweedle" start popping into your head, CALL AND CHECK!!!

Oh my gosh!!!

Love and Shapoopies!
Les

Learning

It's amazing how we, as humans, can get so arrogant as to think that we have "learned it all" in any area of our lives. Of course, this never lasts long, for, almost immediately after one gets comfortable in the "knowledge" they possess, some new knowledge will present itself. In school, church, friendships, and marriage -- especially in marriage. All of the kinks can be worked-out and then WHAM!!! Something happens and you are reminded that every conversation and situation presents something new to learn about life, about people, about yourself. Always learning....

It's not half bad if you think about it.