My NEW Favorite Store

After several unsuccessful attempts to go to the new Ikea store in Canton, Michigan, Jim & I finally made it there on Friday. And let me just say, it was definitely worth the wait! Now I know why everyone always raves about Ikea...this store is SO cool! I did get a little frustrated at first when we went to the second floor & almost got lost a few times.....that place can be confusing for a first-time shopper! But I finally found exactly what I was looking for......the Expedit bookcase, pictured below :)

Jim & I put it together on Sunday, not once, but twice! The only thing I didn't like about it was the directions.....all that came with it were pictures & you had to follow them very closely (like we didn't do, lol). We ended up putting the longer shelves vertically instead of horizontially, so we had to take the whole thing down & take off all 4 of the outer pieces, turn them all a quarter of a turn & put it back together. What a pain! But it was so worth it :) I LOVE this bookcase! I took down all of my Target Craft Cubes & put them in my closet so I could put the bookcase in their spot. I will probably rearrange it a half dozen times (or more) until I get everything just how I want it, but I couldn't wait to take pictures of it :) All of my paper is inside the Cropper Hopper Paper Holders & yes, they do bow a little bit laying on their backs, but they do fit & I'm really not too worried about them getting ruined. I had to buy some more paper holders to make everything even & now I have 32 of them.....now I just need to buy more paper to fill them up the rest of the way ;)

Here is a close-up of some of the shelves. I also bought the metal tin sets from Ikea along with the plastic boxes on the bottom of the bookcase. I was originally going to put those in the 4 corner cubes, but decided to put them along the bottom instead, so now I need to go buy another one (good reason to make a trip back to Ikea, huh? :).

Jim & I really had a good time while we were there.....so much so that we ended up spending 4 1/2 hours in the store! Jim fell in love with their Swedish Meatballs so we had to buy some to bring home. I don't think I'll actually buy much of their furniture as a lot of it just isn't my style, but I love their organizational items & a lot of their other stuff. I just wish the store wasn't over an hour away from me. But then again, it might be a bad thing if it was any closer ;)

Found some more challenges on 2 different boards & you know I can't pass up a good challenge, so here they are:

Ten For Tuesday - List 10 things that people do that annoy you:
1. Talking on their cell phone while driving! BIG pet peeve of mine!
2. Driving slow in the fast lane & not moving over for people to pass you.
3. Driving with your foot on the break all the time.
4. Drunk Drivers!
5. Talking or really loud laughing in a movie theater. That just happened to us when we went to see Click.....this one lady pretty much ruined the whole movie with her annoying laugh!
6. People that move to our country, but don't learn our language or don't speak it in public! Do you ever feel like they're talking about you???
7. People that always have to "outdo" you. Example: I have this one 'friend' & everytime I tell her something, she's either done that, been there or has that same thing! Drives me nuts!
8. People that lie!
9. People that butt in line ahead of you (at stores, restaurants, etc.).
10. Chewing gum loudly.

Another challenge was to list the ABC's of you:
A ~ Affectionate, Authentic
B ~ Bright, Bratty :)
C ~ Caring, Compassionate
D ~ Devoted, Dreamer
E ~ Emotional
F ~ Fun, Faithful, Friendly
G ~ Grandma, Generous, Giving
H ~ Happy (most of the time), Honest
I ~ Imaginative, Intuitive
J ~ Jim's Wife
K ~ Kindhearted, Kasey Kahne Fan :)
L ~ Lovable, Loyal, Lazy ;)
M ~ Married, Mom, Mushy
N ~ Nice, Nascar Nut!
O ~ Optimist
P ~ Perfectionist, Prima Collector
Q ~ Quirky, Quick learner
R ~ Reliable, Responsible, Reasonable, Romantic
S ~ Scrapbooker, Sensitive, Scared of thunderstorms!
T ~ Tall, Trustworthy
U ~ Unique, Unselfish
V ~ Virgo
W ~ Wholehearted
X ~ Xyron lover (only X I can think of :)
Y ~ Young at heart
Z ~ Zestful

Tomorrow (or should I say today since it's after midnight & I'm wide awake right now because it's storming outside again!) is Cassie's 16th birthday! Wow, I'm definitely getting old! I picked her & Emma up on Saturday & now Emma is here again for another week. They want to go to the mall tomorrow & then we'll be taking them to Cassie's favorite restaurant tomorrow night for her birthday. I was going to order her a cake, but she kept telling me that she didn't want one this year. How can you turn 16 without a cake??? It's gonna be kind of sad not to have any cake pictures to take :( I may try to pick one up for her while she's at the mall anyway. IF she let's me take any pictures of her, I'll post them here the next time I update my blog.

It's late & I need to try to get some sleep since I haven't been sleeping very good at all since the storm last week.

Until next time.....stay cool & safe,
Benita

Great Day Turned Into A BAD Night!

Sunday, my son was able to pick up his daughter to spend some time with her & he brought her to the house so that I could see her :) I haven't seen her since April, so this truly was a blessing! I could have held her & hugged her all day long, but being a typical 2 year old, she is very active & was running around the house chasing the dogs most of the day. Here are just a couple of the photos I took of her while she was here. I just love the one above.....she truly looks like an angel in this photo!
Here she is with her proud daddy :) He was so happy to spend some time with her!
Here she is hugging Onyx. Onyx didn't mind at all & even gave her lots of kisses!

Now, on to the bad night :( Last night (or should I say this morning at 2:10 a.m.), a thunderstorm came through & woke me up. I, in turn, woke Jim up & he held my hand because he knows how scared I am of thunderstorms. I then started praying to God to keep us both safe & to let the storm pass by quickly. Just as I was saying my prayer, a bolt of lightning struck our house! I jumped out of bed because right away, I could smell smoke & our alarm system started going off in the basement! I called 911 & was both crying & screaming on the phone. Jim & I got the dogs into the car & I just wanted to back the car out of the garage so we'd at least be out of the house. Just as we got into the car, the garage door opener started closing on it's own! Needless to say, I really started to freak out then because we couldn't even open the garage door by hand! I felt like I was trapped in my own home! Shortly there after, the firemen arrived & they had to break a wire on the garage door just so we could get the door to open. They also had to pull the fuse & battery on the alarm system to get it to shut off. They did a thorough inspection of our home & found some places where the lightning had gone through the eaves of our roof. They also inspected the attic since we told them we smelled smoke & used this lens thing to check between the walls.

Below are some pictures of the noticeable damage. We have a contractor coming this afternoon to inspect all of our electrical items. As of right now, it looks like we need to replace the garage door opener, the alarm system, the lawn sprinkler system, the tv in my scraproom, both of our alarm clocks & Jim's XBox system. ETA: Upon further inspection, we found that Cassie's stereo & printer are both fried as well as her 2 Wire internet access PC Port.

Here is the part of the eave over the deck that had a piece of wood blown off of it. We found the piece laying on the deck.
Here are some burn marks in the eave above our bedroom window.
Another part of the eave near our bedroom.
After the firemen left, we were checking out all of our rooms & noticed this spot in our master bedroom & immediately called 911 back to see if they would come out & check it. Apparently, the bolt of lightning went into the metal brace thing where the drywall attaches at the corner & it popped a hole in our drywall right where my wallpaper border is. Jim said that this must have been the spot where he saw the bright flash come from!
Here is the light fixture in Cassie's bedroom. It was partially popped off the wall.....see the hole above it? That's where the anchor for the fixture goes & where the fixture is supposed to be attached at. ETA: After having an electrician inspect this light, he found a burn spot behind it so he said that it looks like we were actually hit twice by the lightning!

All in all, we are VERY fortunate, blessed & lucky & we both realize that! It could have been a LOT worse! I emailed my dear friend Cindy Lee this morning to tell her about what happened & because I was having a lot of questions regarding my faith after this & she reassured me that God was watching over us & that the devil was trying to get us to turn away from God. She also said that the devil had far worse in store for us, but God protected us from letting that happen! Thank-you, Cindy Lee for the encouragement I needed & for the prayers!

Please say a prayer for us as we now go through the process of filing a claim with our insurance company & coming up with our outrageous deductible ($1,000), which we WILL be lowering after this!

Thank-you God for watching over us! I promise I'm going to try to never doubt my faith again!

Benita

Update On Jim, Etc., Etc., Etc.

First of all, I wanted to take a moment to thank-you all for the well wishes for Jim's speedy recovery from his fall. I showed him all the comments I received & even he was touched that people I never even met would be so kind & caring! Jim went to see his regular doctor yesterday & he gave him a prescription for some Naprosyn to help with the swelling. He said if that doesn't help, then he wants to do an MRI of his leg next week, but he is starting to feel a little better & can get around now without using the crutches, so that's great news & hopefully the MRI won't be necessary! I've had to drive him to work everyday this week, but I really didn't mind. I just went back to bed when I got home ;) I made him stay home from bowling on Wednesday so he could keep his leg propped up & I doubt he'll be bowling anymore this summer. We only have 2 more weeks left of our summer league anyway.....I can't wait till it's over with! I just get so burned out when I bowl in the summer for some reason.

Since we couldn't do much during the long holiday weekend, I did do some scrapbooking. Here are the 2 layouts I did.....the one above is about my hubby's gorgeous blue-green eyes :) This one below took me less than an hour to do! That never happens! But as soon as the idea popped into my head, it just all came together so fast & I love the way it turned out!
Carrie posted a Ten For Tuesday challenge on The Scrapbook Zone's message board to list our Top 10 July 4th Memories, but to be honest, I don't think I have that many. I guess you could add this year to an memory that I would love to soon forget, lol. But other than that, the only other good memory I have about the 4th of July was back in 1993 when we had a family reunion at my Dad's house. It was actually the last time all 5 of us sisters were together with our families at the same time. I did a layout about it last year.....you can see it here: Remember. This layout is very special to me since we don't have very many pictures of all of us together & especially after losing Karen! My only other 4th of July memories are just of going to see the fireworks & being with my family. There's not really a particular year that stands out in my memory, except for the family reunion in 1993.

Another challenge posted by Melissa on 2 Peas was to share our favorite summer movie. I'd have to say that so far, "Click" is the best movie we've seen this summer. I love Adam Sandler & I think he did a great job with this movie as well! Jim & I also went to see "The Lake House" & while it was a little confusing (still trying to figure out why they were living 2 years apart from each other!), it was truly a romantic movie. I think Keanu Reeves & Sandra Bullock should become a couple in real life :) Another pretty good movie was "The Break Up", although I was a little disappointed with the ending. If you haven't seen it yet, I won't ruin it. But the weird thing about this movie was how much Jim & I both saw ourselves (and each other) in it. Almost kind of scary when you think about it! Other movies that we're planning to go see this summer are "You, Me & Dupree" & also "Talladega Nights". Hopefully they're both as funny as they look :)

Not too much going on this weekend. I may try to drag Jim out to The Scrapbook Zone tonight since they're having their Freaky Friday sale. I figure he can just sit & watch tv while I shop :) Then either tomorrow or Sunday, I'm thinking about going to a Rubber Stamp & Scrapbook Show in Dearborn. I've never gone to this one before, so I'd like to check it out.

That's all for now.....hope you have a great weekend!
Benita

Fireworks & Falls

On our way home from dropping off Cassie & Emma yesterday, Jim & I did some shopping at Hobby Lobby & also Birch Run Outlet. Found the cutest box of ribbons at Hobby Lobby & since I had a 40% off coupon, I used it to get them. Then as we were coming into our subdivision last night, we saw fireworks going off, so we decided to drive over by the lake & watch them. Of course, I didn't have my camera on me (again). When will I learn???

So we decided we would go to see the fireworks in the next town tonight so I could get some pictures, but I guess that wasn't meant to be, either. Today, Jim & I went out to our favorite garden nursery (WoJo's) to see if we could find some more plants for our yard (and to return some that had died.....gotta love those guarantees!). I've always loved Hydrangeas & although I've never had much luck with them here in Michigan, I decided to give them another try. We bought 3 of them & decided to put them in our front yard right in front of our bay window. We had to move my Mums to plant them there, but that was okay with me. After we got the Mums moved & the Hydrangeas planted, Jim got the ladder out to get up into the attic in the garage for the watering can because I wanted to put some Miracid on them. I was in the driveway when all of a sudden, I start seeing the ladder sway out from underneath Jim's feet. Next thing I knew, the ladder was on the garage floor & Jim was falling on top of the ladder & onto the cement floor. I ran in to try to catch him, but it all happened so fast! That lead to a trip to the emergency room because he couldn't even stand on his right leg. Luckily, his leg isn't broken, but he's in a LOT of pain & can't put any weight on it. They gave him some Vicodin for the pain & put a splint on his leg. I also went to Rite Aid & bought him some crutches because he was having such a hard time just walking around the house.

So seeing the fireworks tonight was out as well as going to Ikea tomorrow. I swear, I don't think I'm supposed to go to that store! Everytime we attempt it, something happens that we don't make it there. And now, Jim & I have 2 weeks alone, just the 2 of us & now this happens to ruin that as well! ARGH! He doesn't have to go back to work until Wednesday since he's off for the holiday, but I have a feeling he won't even be going back then!

Anyway, if you're wondering how I got these fireworks pictures, I actually took these ones last year from our front porch. Not the best pictures in the world, but they'll have to do for another year since I didn't get any this year.


On a happy note, I got a perm on Friday & I just LOVE the way it turned out! I was so nervous because it's been over 8 years since my last perm, but my hair stylist did an excellent job & even calmed my fears! I'll have to take some pictures of it once it relaxes a little bit, but it's so much easier to take care of now :)

Hope your holiday weekend is going better than mine.

Have a SAFE & Happy 4th,
Benita