Back at the ranch...

It's been a while since we've have a John Boy post. Here's what you've missed:

• JB still asks us to four-wheel. Still haven't taken him up on it.
• Usually on Monday nights, there is a knock on the door with our lil farm hand reminding us to take out our garbage, us looking sad, and him dragging our receptacle down to the curb (we have a really long driveway).
• JB recently "stopped by" during a YL girls night at my house. His eyes almost popped out of his head when he saw 15 attractive non FFA girls in the house. We made him leave after 15 minutes. Every few days he asks us to have another girls night.
  
• JB had a great plan to ask a girl to prom. We were trying to make it really impressive like they always did on Laguna Beach but he got scared and just ended up asking her the ol' fashion way. She said yes, we celebrated, he asked where to get a "croquet" and we told him it was a corsage. But about 2 weeks later, the girl changed her mind. Sad day. We were ticked for him. Not enough to go with him, but just enough.
  

Enter scene 2. New John Boy. His name is Jake Man.

We had heard of JM from JB, but never had seen him. Until recently. Here are JM's stats:

• Age: around 5
• Last name? In his words "Jacob". Jake Man Jacob. Nice ring to it.
  
• Hobbies: throwing rocks waaay too close to our cars, leaving wagons in our driveway, playing in the abandoned dog house in our backyard, and knocking on our back door.
• Guardians? Never seen em.
  

He knocked on the backdoor today and he is just tall enough for his head to peak over the glass storm door. I was spotted. I greet him with a smile, notice his neon green bike with a fake speedometer on the handlebars and ask him what's up? He was lonely, his friend went home or something like that. We had a few awkward moments of silence and I talked to him about rollerblades and the sun. I told him to go have fun and see ya later.

3 minutes later, in the middle of my Friends re-run, little knock on the door. I froze, but he already saw me on the couch. Dang it. I thought there might be something wrong, so I got up, opened the door, and he said with a lil scrunched up face:

"The bees are out again."

I couldn't hold it in very long, and just burst out laughing. In his face. He was confused, so I talked to him about bees for a while. I think he was dying to come inside, but I think that's against the law, so I wrapped it up and told him I needed to make dinner. Then shut every door in the house.

He's our little Dennis the Menace. I think everyone has a neighbor like him.

The Stunt Man

So as I promised early in my blog career, I love to steal ideas from other people's blogs that are much more creative than mine.

This was my latest theft, from AshleyAnnPhotography

I knew a little boy that fit that bill as an amateur Stunt Man. He's my friend Amanda's lil dude, who has so much energy, he usually just has to kick the air to get it all out.

I used different colors and the spacing of the letters wasn't perfect, but he didn't seem to care.

Long, live stuntmen! And stealing from other people's good ideas.

Thhhhhh Thursday!

One of my BFFs was just telling me about her new idea for her blog: Sermon Thursday. She said it's in place of Thirsty Thursday.

Now I love Thursdays, always have. I'd even say they are one of my favorite days of the week. I think it goes back to the anticipation as a kid for the weekend (well, let's be honest, that feeling never stops), where you know you won't have homework or spelling tests to worry about. Then in the late 90s, Friends took over your Thursday night (one of my all time favorite shows). In college, it was a big party night, which our friends didn't really engage in, but with Friday classes scant in the journalism department, it was always a fun, late night. In recent years, the Jim and Pam romance got us excited for a "Must See TV" night. These days, there is nothing particularly thrilling about the day, but still love it.

All that to say, here's a sermon I listened to recently, from Andy Stanley (North Point in Atlanta, GA). It's about ungratefulness, something as he says, we rarely recognize in ourselves, but see in others, ALL THE TIME! Interesting stuff.

I Owe Who?

Enjoy. Happy Thursday.

Pink Puff Ball Day

First of all, this is just a reminder to you on this Lovely-Day.
Here was my attempt at Valentine's Day Decor. Okay plus some candles and plus some pink vases, but I didn't take pics after I put those out.
This is to show the awkwardness of this banner that I insisted on. You sort of had to duck under it every time you went to your bedroom.
The banner turned out cute, but here was the process: so I bought it last year at Target the day after for like a quarter or something, and it came with the white letters cut out and "all the necessary decorating pieces." Ya right. More like 5 small pieces of paper and a few stickers. I had to make due and turned the paper into polka dots and had to dip into my own paper collection.
And these pink puffs are my favorite. Marshalls is one of my favorite stores, and I am contemplating writing an entire book series on how to navigate and benefit from this great store (not to mention it is literally the only thing we have in Salisbury). But my friend Marshall and my friend Martha Stewart have been courting lately and I am greatly benefiting from their relationship. The stationery isle (my fav) has recently been blossoming with Martha's crafts so cheap you can't afford NOT to buy them, and these puff balls where in the mix. (I know you were wondering when the puff balls would be brought back into relevant conversation). I have bought a few different packs and they are easy to make and even cuter to hang up.

Happy Valentine's Day! Know that you are dearly, dearly loved today! (Ephesians 5:1).

Cheery Day

Have I told you that Salisbury, NC is the home of Cheerwine? It's one of our few claims to fame. It's our lil beloved hometown soft drink. I recently was stalking a blog and saw this cute idea for a lil kids' Valentine. After talking to my friend Heather, we came up with an adaptation of the idea that would fit the bill for thanking YL donors.
We took one vintage Cheerwine bottle + a card containing a picture of a current YL kid + a letter of our gratitude, all tied together with a cute red ribbon and delivered them this morning with kids and leaders.
The best part of the whole thing for me was combining the love of blogs + craftiness + a hometown fave + kids + leaders + thanking people = greatest job ever.

This weekend has been packed to the rafters, but so full of Cheer. :)

coupon diva....

... I am not... but every once in a while a deal comes around, I feel the need to share.

I really like mypublisher.com for photobooks. Actually, I really like any online photobooks because they are 100 times easier than real photo albums or scrapbooks, and honestly, I think they look nicer too. Great gifts, even better for your coffee table. Actually, I don't put any of these on my coffee table, but I digress. You would be CRAZY to ever order a photobook at full price, because every site gives them out for a dime a dozen, or at least at a discount.

My fav is mypublisher.com (I swear I am not getting any kickbacks), but now is the time to buy and why: they offer 40% off gift certificates every once in a while (right now with code MYCUPID), so buy a $50 gift certificate (about the price of a nice book) for $30. But that's not all. Don't use it now. You would be stupid to do that. Use it when they also offer 20% off their books AND a free duplicate copy- BAM. So you can make a book and give one away too. Like to a local modeling agency or your mom. Either way, it's a winner.

I'm thinking about making one entitled: Facebook Can't Even Handle These.

reality of crafting

Sometimes I get a rep' for crafting. Don't get me wrong, I do craft and like it. But I really am not that great at it. And I'm not saying that to get everyone to comment like, no Sus, you're great! I'm just saying I always have a vision, and chances are the results are just a lil off, and that's okay.

I really do enjoy seeing other people be great at things, and if there was an Olympics of crafting, I would be in the front row, cheering them on. In the mean time, I will just stalk blogs and websites like pinterest.com and craftgawker.com (thanks Adrienne!). As I admire though, there's always that sense of like, how do they do that? And where is the mess and the mess-ups? Like the blooper reel of crafting blogs.

Well over here in Suzz News, I like to be real with my faithful followers. I was working on some layered valentine cakes with a friend, and we were doing pretty well, trying to make the cakes look like conversation hearts, but I am just not great at icing cakes and using those small gel icing tubes. Some looked okay:

And then one that was supposed to look like an OWL turned into the world's scariest looking bear clown. I took a picture and threw it away out of sheer horror.

So there you guy a colossal mess up. Feels good to get that off my chest.