We Got A Horse...Kinda...

Hi there ladies. Welcome to the mansion this fine Friday. It is time for show and tell over at There is No Place Like Home . Pop on over and check everything out.

We, my husband and I, have lived all over the place in the past 16 years. Germany, Georgia, N. Carolina, Texas....and in every single place we have been a stone's throw from our neighbors. I am so...not kidding about that. Some neighbors were a mere 5 feet across the stairwell. Some neighbors even shared a common wall. We were always surrounded by people...and cement. I would classify all of our prior homes as belonging to the "concrete jungle." Here is a picture of our hometown:

Houston, TX. No grass between your toes going on there.

So...here we sit. In our new "mansion." In the country. Grass between our toes, open spaces, not so near neighbors, and lots of questions... Like...what do we do with all this space? How do we cut all that grass? What is that small creature? Where do we park...there's no concrete? Ha. Being here, we want to embrace everything country. We really do. But, we decided to start small....

His name is Micki Moto. He is a seven year old mini horse. We didn't even know there was such a thing. He is too...cute. The little ones ride on him. They feed him, bathe him, and even scoop the poop.

So, we are jumping into country life...we are just jumping in one "mini" step at a time. All we need now is a mini cow and a mini goat.

I must also confess that we just had someone lay a 5,000 square foot driveway...all brand new beautiful CONCRETE. You can take the family out of the "jungle," but you still have to give them a place to park!

Have a blessed weekend ladies. Check back Monday for our yard metamorphasis.

Polish Pottery Crazy

Hi. This is a repost from Show and Tell Friday. A couple of ladies suggested that I post on "Blue Monday" over at Smiling Sally. So...here goes...

Hello ladies. It's Show and Tell Friday at "There is no place like home."
I decided to "show and tell" yall about my Polish pottery. That is some of it right up there. It all started in 1994. My husband and I had just moved to Karlsruhe, Germany. The Army "misplaced" our furniture, so all we had in the flat was several pieces of military furniture on loan to us. Sad and pathetic.... Well....our new neighbor knocked on the door and asked if I would like to go to a German thrift sale. Yahooooo....Yes Mam. Several hours later I came home with my first piece of Polish pottery...Thank you Emily... I paid a whopping 5DM for it. That would have been about 3 bucks. I proudly placed it upon my Army issue table. It was our only "pretty" until Uncle Sam called and informed us that he had indeed found our stuff. Gotta love it...ha.

Being the new military spouse that I was, I didn't fully understand the importance of the teapot I had recently acquired. That is, not until Emily knocked on the door again and invited me to go for a weekend ride...to Poland. What???????????????? Yep. Poland...Boleslawiec, Poland. Because, you see, Emily clued me in. We MUST have tons of Polish pottery. We must have oodles and oodles of the stuff. We must drive to Poland with a mere 100 bucks in our pockets. We must find a place to stay in the afore mentioned Polish town. We must go to BOTH of the potteries. And, we MUST buy every last bit of pottery that we can stuff into Emily's Explorer. So...we did. We turned in our 100 bucks for millions of Zlotnys. It was the first and only time that I will ever be a millionaire of any sort. Ha. We bought Christmas pottery... Patriotic pottery... Cheese ladies... We bought every piece of pottery that struck our fancy... I lost track of Emily over the years. But, I owe her many thanks for our trips (we went back a second time), our overnight stays with a nice Polish family (they had a little picture of a bed on there front door...the symbol for...stay in my extra bedroom), and for my enduring love of blue and white pottery.

Thanks for stopping by the mansion.

Try This: Frugal Plate Hangers

It is "Show and Tell Friday" @ There is No Place Like Home. This is my first Friday to join in the fun. To see all of the great "Show and Tell" posts click here.

It is also "Frugal Friday" @ Life as Mom. To see all the frugal tips click here.

OK. So....do you sometimes buy things that are WAY too expensive, but you really do need them, so you buy them????? GUILTY. I have decided that I am going to hang around 20 or so plates (small in size) at the new mansion. (Movers come on Monday...biting nails....wheezing...heart racing...what will get broken?) I digress. I also decided that I do not want to use the standard metal plate hanger...the ones that look like this..

I decided to go with the round stick on kind of plate hanger. The ones that look like this..

These things are great. I found them at Hobby Lobby and bought them up. Now...here is the less then frugal part of the story...these little gems are VERY EXPENSIVE. We are talking 3-5 bucks per. But, because I needed them, and because I couldn't think of a way to achieve this type of hanging without them, I bought them....lots of them. Content with my purchase, except for the expense...I went on home. Then, strolling through Dollar Tree, I came upon this... A Package of 8 cloth hangers. They are adhesive on the back and have a metal hook. I think that you are supposed to use them on the wall. But, if you put one on the back of your plate and then use a twist tie, you so....have a plate hanger. See??????????????? Here is the plate with the cloth hanger stuck on....
Here is the cloth hanger with the twist tie attached. Just make a loop with it. Here is me, holding the plate by the twist tie. Then, you just put your nail in the wall, and hang it up. Tada...invisible plate hanger. This version costs 12 1/2 cents per hanger. Much better on the budget. Now...I wouldn't try this with a jumbo plate or platter, but it will do nicely for my purposes.

Needless to say...I am returning my 60.00 plate hangers and heading back to the Dollar Tree. I just have to eat 20 loaves of bread to get all those twist ties. Ha.

Have a great weekend ladies.

Laura