While Winter in Newfoundland seems to limit what one can do outdoors, there’s still a lot to do indoors - especially if you’re working on home improvements.

My in laws accomplish a lot of their home improvements and DIY projects during the Winter months. Last year they redid the floors in different parts of their home. This year it was a toss up between redoing the kitchen (entirely) or redoing the single bathroom. Feeling the bathroom wouldn’t take nearly as long, they opted for this and will get it underway in the coming weeks.

They’re hoping to accomplish a lot of cosmetic things like; the wall color and flooring. On the flip-side, they’re also hoping to install a new vanity. Vanities are a great way to add extra storage. They seriously need extra storage space and I think they’ll obtain that if they bring in a vanity. Currently they merely have a sink with one storage area below, which is rather small. By choosing to add a vanity they’ll not only achieve adding storage, they’ll also achieve adding nice, personal touch and combat the cosmetic aspect of it.

Premierevanities.com has a large selection of bathroom vanities, which isn’t much of a surprise considering they have the largest online vanity store with over 150 different bathroom and linen vanities to choose from. I love at that there are so many styles to choose from, especially considering that what one person loves, another may not. Since my in laws own an older home, it would be nice if that added a vanity that brings in the charm of “old” but the updated look of something a little more modern. Something like the Single Porcelain Bathroom Sink Vanity would look really nice in their bathroom.

I know of many people who feel like there’s no point in dressing up their bathroom space. I actually enjoy it and really don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to spruce up every inch of their home - especially the bathroom. When I’m looking for a nice place to unwind, I head to the bathroom for a bubble and in our old home, it was divine because the space was so relaxing and had my style to it.

If you’re preparing to make some improvements to your own bathroom whether for yourself or because you’re looking to add some value to a home you’re trying to sell (believe me, this is a big place to do that), how about considering adding a new bathroom vanity from Premiere Vanities.

So Jo and I have been contemplating getting rid of our SUV for awhile now. It’s not bad on gas and is in great shape, however, I’d like something better for hauling things. Anyway, my dad suggested we consider taking over my grandfather B’s truck. It’s paid for and he wants nothing for it. It’s 2002 Chevy S10 with a crew cab, less than 20,000 miles on it and even comes with a tonneau cover. It really is in excellent shape and would be great just for that reason alone, however, I’m not sure about the Barney purple body it’s sporting. If we decide we do this, that’s definitely going to be something I’ll change soon after we get it. It’s a lot to think about but I have to admit, it will be really nice not having an almost $300 a month payment.

We’re going to think about it and when we visit my family in the next month or so, we’ll work out the rest of the details. If we do wind up going through with it, that also means we’ll be driving my SUV to Georgia instead of flying. Yikes! I’m not sure if I’m ready for another 3,000+ mile trip so soon.

Introducing the new PHOTOGRAPHYGIRLS.COM.

I figured since it’s a new year, I should try something new. I had neglected the group blog thing for a few months, after things got really hectic. After a couple of months, I started brainstorming ideas about what I should do with place and knowing I didn’t want to abandon it all together. I thought turning it into a forum would be the best thing.

There isn’t much there right now because I’ve just put the finishing touches to the forum itself but I have big plans and hope to do a bit more with it later on down the road.

To anyone who was a member to the previous group blog, I encourage you to join - just remember it’s for females only, in case the name didn’t give that away. I look forward to seeing everyone!

It seems my darling Bella is a bit confused when she is quenched with thirst, sitting in front of her water dish. Even at the age of nearly 3, she still can’t seem to figure out that using her tongue to lap up the water provides a better result than “her” way. And her way is… a little funny, what we’ve dubbed - the dip and lick (LOL).

It really is no surprise that after Bella is done with the water dish and Jynx wants a sip, she sits in front of the dish until someone strolls by and sees that she refuses to “drink from that dish” and replaces the old water, with new. LOL

Well, it’s almost time for the birthday roller coaster. I know, you’re probably wondering what I’m talking about. I’m sure once I explain, you’ll realize it’s happened to you too. It seems like everyone I know has a birthday around the same time. For instance, my cousin Cody and late Uncle Jerry’s birthdays fell on January 4th. My late Grandma Mac would have celebrated another birthday on January 29th. My husband will celebrate his birthday on the 6th of February, my dad on the 14th of February and my mom on the 15th of February. It actually continues with this pattern through July (my in laws and oldest sister in April, other 2 sisters and a brother in May, a cousin, sister in law and friend in June and my nephew Tyler in July). I barely have time to recover from one, before the next arrives! Now you’d think for someone like me it wouldn’t pose a problem - unfortunately, it’s hard coming up with birthday gift ideas.

Since we’re hopefully going to be traveling back to my hometown for my parents birthdays, I’ll have to get on the ball. My mom is going to be a difficult one this year - she never needs or wants anything. I know that isn’t true though, we could also use a little time to unwind. In trying to figure out birthday gifts for her, I learned about Red Letter Days. What a brilliant idea, to give the gift of “experience”. Something like this would truly be a unique birthday gift and something my mom (anyone) would surely enjoy, whether it be something like; a pampering day at a spa, delicious and mouthwatering chocolates, beautiful flowers or even an adventure like skydiving or bungee jumping that no one could forget. This is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to gift ideas at Red Letter Days.

I’m really pleased with how easy it is to browse through the categories and even narrow my search down to a specific location and price, or even selecting to narrow it down for just couples and flexible packages that are made to fit your budget. If you’re unsure about what type of experience you’d like to give your loved one, no problem. By purchasing a gift card instead, and let your loved one choose what they’d like to experience most.

If you’re struggling with trying to find that perfect and unique gift, I’d be willing to bet that you can find it at Red Letter Days.

I’m going to start off this entry explaining my previous entry.

When I logged into my Wordpress dashboard yesterday morning, I noticed a new referral from a site called “PRS”. I almost always check out the new sites that show up because hey, you never know when you’re going to find a great new blog to read and add to your bookmarks. Anyway. I went ahead and clicked the link, opening it up in a new tab. For a moment I thought I’d opened my own blog up in the new window because everything was, well, MINE. This included not only the exact images, including the header that still had my blog name in it but also my content (contest entry, personal information and contact information) AND my photo. The link back to my domain in the domain description was also left, which I’m thankful for because otherwise I doubt I would’ve gotten that referral link and ever caught this person copying my design.

In case you missed what it looked like before they removed most of my things, here’s a screenshot (click to open the larger version).

I was deeply disappointed to find there was no way to contact the site owner, so I headed over to the main domain and left a comment there (which by the way is still in moderation, though the owner has since changed the design of the main blog.. go figure). When I didn’t hear back within a couple of hours, I contacted their webhosting company but have yet to hear anything. It probably won’t matter at this point anyway because for the most part, my things have been removed. All that remains of my design, besides the core design, are the floral icons beside the subjects and in the sidebar.

Late last night I received a reply from the domain owner. She said it was being looked into. “Great”, I thought to myself. But within a few minutes I realized there was a second email from the domain owner. In the second email she said a “colleague” saw my design and wanted to copy it. I replied explaining that I didn’t want to be “copied” but didn’t mind being the “inspiration” behind someone else’s design and even explained if the person doing the site wanted to use the tartan pattern, that was A-OK. This morning I woke up to an email from someone saying they were sorry about all of this and stated their “code ninja” was responsible. A case of he said, she said?

Here are my thoughts;
When you stumble onto a blog or website that makes you go “Holy cow.. that’s amazing” and it leaves you longing for a design just as amazing - don’t copy it. If you like it that much and feel you have to have something like it, at least give the owner / designer the respect they deserve and ASK first. It’s been my experience that when asked, many will either say yes or provide you with assistance in obtaining or achieving something like it. Many people have left comments or emailed me about my own designs, both past and present and on almost every occasion I said yes to their request or even offered to do an entire, similar design (not identical of course) for them instead. Why would I do that? Because I like originality and while my designs may not be super-fab, I spend time imagining how I want something to look both in the core design and/or the images used. I don’t think I’m asking for much when requesting that anyone wanting to use my things contacts me first. If using the vectors in this design is that important, you can easily obtain the originals of many of the vectors I use from stockxpert.com (which is credited on the about page). I don’t claim the things I don’t have a right to claim but at the same time, if I spend time working on a design which uses stock images - that’s my hard work at the end of the day.

That being said, I just got another reply saying anything else of mine that remained on the site would be removed by tomorrow. I asked my husband if my replies were rude and he said no. I don’t want to come off like a you-know-what. Despite being copied several times in the past, I still enjoy helping anyone who is willing to ask for it.

If there is some kind of misunderstanding between the parties involved in what happened yesterday, then I’m willing to accept that but it just seems very suspicious with that whole blame-game going on.

Somewhat off topic;
Many people have been requesting to use the tartan (plaid) background pattern in my design. This has gotten me to thinking - I’m going to start providing some background patterns for download.

EDIT; Well… it’s been adjusted.

What in the heck is this???????

*HUFFS*

I’ve decided to run a contest from now until the end of January.

Many of you have read entries about my friend Lori’s jewelry on display over at Lori Jaclyn Jewels. Lori does beautiful work and has a wonderful way of incorporated the right colors with the right materials. Her creations are stunning and I have personally purchased two sets of earrings from her in the past, so I know you’ll love her work.

Contest Requirements;

Step One>>
Simply create an entry about the contest using the following paragraph and leaving the links in tact:

Teresa is running her first contest of the year over at her personal blog. You have a chance to win a beautiful turquoise bracelet created by Lori Jaclyn. She’s willing to ship anywhere and that means anyone is eligible to participate and win.

It measures 8 inches in length!

Step Two>>
Leave a comment here, with a link back to your entry.

It’s as simple as that.

The deadline to enter is Wednesday, January 30th. This would make a great Valentine’s Day gift for a “significant other”, mother, sister or just a good friend. The winner will be announced on January 31st.

When you’ve entered, be sure you go back and check out the gorgeous jewelry Lori has listed at her Etsy.com store - Lori Jaclyn Jewels.

In celebration of Valentine’s Day, I decided to release a Valentine’s Day themed Wordpress theme. Like in the previously released, Winter Delight theme, there is a blank sidebar image in the event you’d rather create your own.

If you’re interested in downloading “Lovebugs”, visit my Wordpress themes page here..

Also, in an effort to make my themes area a little more user friendly, I will be working on a demo site and updating the themes area so that it is a little more organize. This overhaul will be complete in the next couple of days.

Enjoy!

I’ve been looking for a few cookie recipes since before Christmas. Two, specifically, were for shortbread cookies and lemon snowballs. I was so happy to find recipes for those today and can’t wait to try them out.

My mother in law gets several canisters of cookies every Christmas from one of her friends, inside of each contain a variety of cookies like: snowballs (the chocolate, coconut ones), cherry thumbprint shortbread cookies, Reese cup cookies, haystacks (Rice Krispies over large marshmellows covered in honey or caramel), etc. Since getting a new canister of them a few days ago, I’ve been wanting to try making some of them on my own, so that we don’t have to keep this poor woman working so hard (haha). Many people wouldn’t dream of handing out their recipes but my mother in laws friend is going to give me a few of my favorite cookie recipes to try. I doubt they’ll be as divine but it’s worth a shot!

I knew funerals cost a lot more these days but I never imagined that even a nice, moderate funeral could run as much as $10,000. My mom spent the entire day on Wednesday, taking care of some stuff regarding my grandmother. She had to visit the Social Security office to notify them of my grandmother’s death, she had to see her insurance agent regarding my grandmother’s long term care insurance and she had to meet with the attorney about my grandmother’s will. I know that was hard on her, not only physically (after the having guests for the last week, taking care of my grandmother for so long.. which was worth if of course) but also mentally and emotionally. My mom is trying to be so hard for everyone in the family but I know deep down she’s about to break. Like I’ve mentioned before.. it’s just something you can hear in her voice. There’s still a lot to be done but that’s definitely going to take time and that’s understandable.

Speaking of final expenses though. In the state of Georgia (not sure about other states) citizens are granted a $255 burial policy. Of course that isn’t much but at the same time, anything is better than nothing. When my mom was taking care of things Wednesday, she found out that the $255 would go to the surviving spouse if there was one. So of you may recall this, while other’s may not - my step-grandfather has been residing in a VA hospital back home for the last couple of years and his “power of attorney” (one of his daughter in laws and all around pain in the butt) has manipulated him into changing his will so that my grandmother would’ve been left with a $500 car in the even that he passed away before she did. This same person (power of attorney) also started taking my step-grandfather’s Social Security checks for the last two decades and wound up taking $33,000 from my grandmother’s savings account because my step-grandfather was a joint owner on it. That was money she was left in her mother’s (my great-grandmother) will after they sold the estate (191 acres of land/house/farm). Yeah, she did that. Anyway, that money is going to be given to them and I HIGHLY doubt that money will ever be put towards my grandmother’s funeral. Like I said, I know it isn’t much but at the same time…

Do any of you watch The Ellen DeGeneres Show? This has become my FAVORITE talk show. We were watching it earlier today and tuned in just in time to catch a really funny video of a guy working out at the gym - a workout gone wrong. I haven’t laughed so hard in a long, long time.

Just in case you guys don’t watch the show, I’ll share the video with it. I didn’t think I’d find it because I couldn’t find it on her website. I did, however, find it on youtube.

All I have to say is: LOL!

Speaking of drug rehab: there’s a certain someone I know, that could use some detoxing. The guy is actually a really nice guy other than his “habits”, honestly, but that doesn’t mean that it’s OK for him to do nothing everyday, contribute nothing to a household and somehow find money for his habits, only to wind up eating several times afterwards.. when those “munchies” kick in. I’ve never been one to want to be the bad guy about anything but I really think it’s time to figure out another way to handle this. Jo and I can’t afford to be paying for stuff like that. I don’t mind if the guy has a snack here and there but there’s no reason for him to eat 3 regular meals with all of us and then have 6+ munchie attacks throughout the rest of the day. If he was paying for it or restocking the pantry, that’d be fine and dandy. However, he’s not.

My sister phoned earlier today, which was nice. We finally got a chance to catch up. Since my grandmother passed away last week, we haven’t had much time to do much chit-chatting. She told me about how well the boys were doing in school, how she was frustrated with the bank she works for because she’s doing the managers job and the head tellers job with no recognition. I can definitely relate to that. This was the same thing I went through with the bank I worked for. Nikki also mentioned that they were thinking about buying a house in their neighborhood that just went on the market. It was completed a couple of weeks ago and there’s been no offers on it thus far due to the price. They’re hoping if they hold out long enough they’ll be able to put in an offer at a price they can afford. She’s happy in the house she’s in but she would love to be paying for something that would belong to her. She then went on to tell me that the father of her boys was going to be heading back to one of the drug treatment centers he was at before. I don’t think that boy is ever going to get his priorities in line. He has 3 kids with my sister and 3 by 3 other women. You’d think that his children would be motivation enough to stop what he’s doing but he thinks that’s asking to much. Figures.

Anyway. It was really nice getting to catch up. I can’t wait to visit back home and spend time with her and the boys!

EDIT2; I was informed by a friend (thank you Shelly) about this last night - Smashing Magazine (scroll down to the “2. simple / minimalistic themes”), you’ll see two of “me” there. That makes me feel great.

EDIT; If you downloaded this theme prior to 7PM EST, please know that I had to update the single.php file to exclude the wordcount plugin. My apologies.

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I have created a new theme for Wordpress. It’s called “A Winter Delight”. If you decide to download and use this theme, please note that there is a blank header image, along with a blank sidebar image in the event that you’d like to create your own sayings on those. There is also an extra sidebar image for the archives. But again, you can use the blank one to create your own, to match the theme.

Do download, simply visit my Wordpress themes page, which you will find here (or by clicking “WP Themes” from the sidebar menu).

I used my current theme as a base for “A Winter Delight”. I hope you enjoy it.