Bawbi has a new look

The temperatures this week in Columbia, South Carolina have been in the miserable 100's. Actually it has been that way for much of the Summer. This is no fun when you carry around what feels like a fur coat on top of your head. The fur coat I speak of would be my hair. I have been growing it out for about a year now so that I could donate it to Locks of Love. I have always wanted to do it but either my hair was too short, too layered or the one time we had a ponytail incident that messed up my chance to donate it. Let's just say that you should not play pass the ponytail. It could get real messy! Here are some photos of what my hair looked like before:

It sounded like my hair stylist was sawing through my hair! It took an entire minute to cut the ponytail off. There were a few other ladies waiting for their appointment and they all sat there nervously watching me get all my hair hacked off. I was the only one that was happy. Everyone else thought I was nuts.

I knew I had a lot of hair but did not realize it was that much!

After losing about 15 inches, this is the end result:

Country girls

Today the girls did a very interesting thing that they can certainly say they have never done before. They shelled speckled butter beans. My father-in-law is from the country and he took a trip this past weekend. He came back with a HUGE bag of what I thought were sugar snap peas or something related to them. He said that they were speckled butter beans and that they had to be removed from the pods in order to cook them. Usually he brings them from the Farmers Market all packed in pound sized bags already shelled and cleaned. Let's just say that 2 1/2 hours of manual labor yielded about 1 3/4 pounds of beans. I helped a little until my fingertips were sore. It is kinda fun and the girls enjoyed doing it. We explained to them that a lot of people in the country grow their own produce and have to do all the cleaning and sorting. I thought they would have moaned and groaned and asked why we can't just go to the store to buy some. They really had fun doing it. What they found to be really cool was that the shells that looked all brown and yucky gave you beans of the most gorgeous purple shades. It's great that my kids are content with doing such simple things with no complaints. I guess I could learn a thing or two from them huh?

200th post giveaway - Guilty pleasures

In honor of our 200th post (yes two hundred posts!), we wanted to do something fun just for the heck of it. We decided to have a drawing for 2 of our readers to win a full size bag of Starbucks Coffee. All you have to do is leave a comment to this post telling us what your guiltiest pleasure is (PG rated! LOL!) If you win, you will be given the choice of whole bean or ground, decaf or regular. Cut-off time for this giveaway is midnight August 10th, 2008 and winners will be randomly drawn and notified. It's that easy! Be sure to tell your friends all about it and good luck!

**Only 1 entry per person. Giveaway is for US residents only.

Do you have time to care?

Just curious...

Do you often say "I don't have any time".

I was talking to a friend of mine on this subject a couple weeks ago. We discussed how people often say they have no time. Now, when you have to go to work... you set your alarm clock, you lay out your clothes, you grab something quick to eat and you run out the door so you are not late for work. (Maybe it's not always done that way but you get what I'm saying) We do this because it is our responsibility. You and your family depend on that paycheck. Now what if you get a call and someone wants to get together for coffee or would like to drop by for a quick visit. I bet in the back of your mind you think "I don't have time for this. I work and have responsibilities. I'll just make an excuse to get out of it." I think we all do this at times, we are all human after all. My point about this is that we only make time for what is important to ourselves.

How long does it actually take to send an email that you can type up in less than a minute while paying your bills or checking your email?

How hard is it to call someone you care about and tell them you only have a couple minutes to talk, but you wanted to see how they were doing?

How much time does it take to send a text message to say hello?

I'm not always the best at keeping in touch with everybody and their mamas, but I do give the effort for those I care about and sometimes for people I have never even met. Yes, I have 3 kids, a husband, a home, bills, responsibilities and so on... I still take time for others even if it's for 2 minutes. Those 2 minutes can speak volumes to someone.

With all that being said, I challenge you to pop an email, a text or a quick call to someone you have not done your best to keep in touch with. After all, life is not just about you.

My part-time job

I have been working on my new part-time during the past few weeks in order to make some extra cash in my pocket. It seems as if Summer break mean an extra $50 plus on my grocery bill each week. I had to do something that did not require working outside of my home. I am making gourmet baskets for businesses. I will pretty much only work with businesses because most people don't want to spend what I have to charge in order to make a profit. I am having fun doing it and the kids enjoy watching me be creative. Here is the latest basket I put together...

Flashback Friday

This is one of those cheesy felt hanging posters you get made at carnivals and fairs. This one was done almost 15 years ago (a few months before we got married). We keep it hanging in our upstairs hallway.