Pearl Necklace for Doggie

This isn't just ANY pearl necklace that a woman would wear. This is for my friend Rhonda's Chihuahua! Rhonda sent me an email a few days ago and told me that she took her dog to the vet and she saw a dog in the vet's office that had a pearl necklace on. So she wanted one for her dog! Since she knows that I do beading, she asked me if I had made any necklaces for dogs. I hadn't even thought about it. So today when I had the car, I went to Michael's and picked out some faux pearls and I made this necklace for Rhonda's Chihuahua. I added 3 crystal rondelles in the front of it just to add some pizazz! I think I'll add it to my website and maybe someone else would like a necklace for their doggie.

A Few Coins Short of a Roll

I hope that no one says that I'm a few coins short of a roll. But, today I did have a few coins short of a roll. Whenever I pay for something, I use my dollars and I save all of my coins. Don't ask me why I do this. I've been doing it for many years. I had a bag full of coins, so today I decided to roll them up and exchange the coins for dollar bills. I emptied out my bag of coins onto the dining room table and then I began to put them into the paper rolls. I remembered that Bob keeps coins in a dish on his nightstand -- mostly pennies -- so I decided to roll them too. And I have a ceramic cup that I use for my "found" money. These are coins I find on the street. My LUCKY coins. I was saving them to buy my winning lottery ticket, but today I decided to roll them up with all of the other coins and exchange them for dollars. I was 5 nickels and 2 dimes short of $28, so I took two quarters across the street to the grocery store and got the change I needed to complete my $28. On the way back home, I ran into a lady from our church, who was crossing the plaza in front of our apartment building. Marilyn was on her way to the library. I asked her to come up to see our apartment, so she came up and we had a very nice conversation while I was rolling up my coins into the paper holders. After she left, I took my rolled up coins to the bank and received my $28 in paper money. Now, I'm trying to decide what to do with my $28. I think I should do something special, don't you?

Finding a Place for Everything

Well, I have just about found a place for everything that I brought home from my mom's house. Today I sorted through all of the boxes and I ended up with a few things I didn't know I had brought home with me. Cindy & Mom packed up some of the boxes before I arrived in Springfield. They packed Mom's china, dolls and some other items. There is a pair of GOLD shoes in one of the boxes. Anyone need a pair of size 8 or 9 gold, wedge sandals? I have places for MOST of the dolls, MOST of the dishes and glassware, MOST of the photos and MOST of the odds and ends. But, as you can see by the stack of boxes under our stairs, I don't have a place in our two bedroom apartment for whatever is in these boxes. Most likely we will move these boxes to whatever place we end up in next and this stuff will continue to stay packed in these boxes. And then several years from now I'll put it all in a garage sale or give to the Goodwill.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggitty Jog

It's nice to finally be back home. A week ago last Saturday, I drove to Tulsa in a rental car -- a Saturn View SUV -- with Bob behind me in our Mercedes. We spent the night with Bob's brother. On Sun., Bob played golf with his two brothers and I spent the day with my son Corbin and his family. I stayed overnight with them and I hit the road by myself on Mon. a.m. headed to Springfield, IL, where I stayed the week at my mom's house. I actually enjoyed the 8-hr. drive by myself. I listened to a Janet Evanovich book on CD. My brother and niece from MA and my sister from Elgin, IL were there also. Mom sold her house and we helped her do some packing, a garage/moving sale and we got things ready for the Salvation Army to pick up on Tues. We also got to see family and friends, so it was a good trip. I probably SHOULD have stayed there this week too to help Mom with her move into an assisted living home on Thursday and the closing of her house on Friday, but I missed Bob and the cats and I was ready to get back to Dallas. Mom has several good neighbors who offered to help her this week. We had a tour and lunch at Brendon Gardens where Mom is moving, so I feel better about all of this now. I think Mom will enjoy her time there once she gets settled. And she found out that she has friends there already! Now, I need to find places for all of the stuff I brought back from Mom's house! This won't be an easy task in our two-bedroom apartment that is already filled to the hilt! Of course, everything I brought back is way too valuable to get rid of -- cookbooks, dolls, glassware, old photos and other odds and ends. So, I'd better get off of the computer and start unpacking!

Happy Birthday, Cavan!

Happy 31st birthday to my son, Lieutenant "JG" Cavan S. Tubbs.

Computer Nerds!

Bob and I are both Computer Nerds!! He gets on his computer and I get on mine and then we don't have to think up stuff to talk about. Bob and I have a GREAT relationship with each other and we DO talk to each other, but we just both happen to LOVE our computers! I am a terrific correspondent. Ask any of my friends or family and they will agree with me. I've always been a great correspondent. Even before computers came out. I wrote letters and called my friends and family. I've always kept in touch with everyone I know. I have grade school friends that I still keep in touch with. I'll be in IL next week and I'm having dinner one night with my friend Nancy, whom I've known since 4th grade. I also love to Google things. Anything I don't know about and want to know about. A while ago I was having a hard time coming up with the name of a book I read some time ago. I couldn't remember the name of it or the author, but I did remember one of the chapter titles -- "Panties is a Vile Word". What a weird thing to stick in my mind, right? I Googled it and ZAP! There it was! The name of the book and the author. It was "Chasing Harry Winston", which was a wonderful, very funny book that I highly recommend reading. I also love to share my photos, so the computer is a wonderful way to do that. Bob spends a lot of time reading things on his computer. He reads the local newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, and various websites. So, when the Internet goes out at our house, Bob and I are NOT Happy Campers! So glad it's back!!

Family Secrets

This is a photo of my brother Ken, who lives in MA. My brother and I don't talk to each other very often. I don't know if it's the distance in miles between us or if it's the 13 years difference in age or the difference in sex or if it's just that we don't have much in common with each other. When he was 3 years old, I was in high school and doing things that high schoolers do. And I had a boyfriend that I dated, so I guess I didn't spend much time with my brother. Ken was 9 when I got married in 1970 to my first husband. I lived in the Chicago area then and he still lived at home with Mom and Dad in Springfield. I DO love my brother, so don't get me wrong on that. I will be seeing Ken next week in IL at our Mom's house. I think the last time I saw him was at my son's funeral in November 2005.


This is Kelly. I've never met Kelly, but she has been engaged to my brother for some time. I know she works for IBM. I think. And she plays the flute. I think this is about the extent of my knowledge of Kelly.





I opened up my Facebook page awhile ago and I read a post from my brother that he "is married"!!! What a way to announce it to everyone, INCLUDING the family! Oh, well. I hope he and Kelly will be a very happy couple! I can't wait to see Ken next week!! Love ya', brother!

I might have a GREEN THUMB afterall!!

My Northern Pine is 6 months old and it's still alive! I bought it last December to use as a display for some of my necklaces and bracelets when I had my kick-off party for my NeeNee & CheeChee's Beaded Things website (www.neeneeandcheechee.com). Most of my plants die, so I just resigned myself to ever having indoor plants. I figured that this Northern Pine would eventually die too. After my party last December, I put the plant on top of my dining room hutch and it started growing new shoots at the top. So, I decided to plant it in my pottery shard pot. I decorated this pot with the pottery shards about 10 years ago. Annie C. lived in our garage apartment when we lived here in Dallas on the "M" Streets. Annie called the apartment her treehouse. Annie is a potter and she does some beautiful work! Check out her website at www.earthtoannie.com Every once in awhile Annie would "clean house" and get rid of her pottery that didn't live up to her high standards. One day we came home from work and she was tossing some of her pottery from her apartment balcony and it crashed into many pieces on our driveway. Of course, I loved ALL of Annie's pottery and I hated to see any of her pieces get broken. She collected the broken pieces in a big bucket and one day I decided to use the pieces and I made this plant pot. I'm very proud that I have this beautiful plant pot to hold my LIVING Northern Pine!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

On the way home from work tonight, I saw lightening to the north of Dallas. We made one stop at the cleaners and then, we saw very dark clouds. Bob said he saw the dark clouds heading south and clouds to the south of us heading north. He said we might have some exciting weather come through. I was hoping that they would bring some rain to downtown and maybe some lightening too. I love to watch storms and lightening from our 17th floor perch. We have a great, unobstructed view from our windows that look to the east and south for anywhere from 5 - 10 miles, I think. We hadn't been home for more than 10 minutes when Corbin called and as I was talking to him, I saw a rainbow over the east part of Dallas. I got off the phone and photographed this rainbow. Then, I heard a lot of noise. Bob was upstairs, so I hollered up at him and asked him what was he doing up there making all the racket! He said he wasn't doing anything and he told me to look out the windows. Hail!!! About the size of quarters! It was hitting our windows hard too. We have nearly floor to ceiling windows and I was getting a bit scared that the hail would come flying right through one of them. But, thank goodness the hail only collected on our windowsills. We had about 5 minutes of rain, then it all stopped and the sun came back out. That was our exciting weather!

Beaded Bead Necklace

Here is a photo of my beaded bead necklace. It was a little time consuming, but I like the finished necklace. The beaded beads were fun to do once I learned the technique. If I decide to sell this, the cost will be a bit more than most of my necklaces on my website (www.neeneeandcheechee.com), as this one took me a lot of time to make. I'll wear it to work tomorrow with my new turquoise, knit top. I enjoy working so I can get dressed up and show off my pretty jewelry!

Beaded Beads

I wanted a new bead project, so yesterday I looked through my huge stack of bead books and pages I have printed out from websites of beaded jewelry I want to make some day. I found a necklace that had beaded beads on them. How beautiful! So, I decided that I wanted to try making beaded beads. I'm not working temp today and I have the car so I could run errands, so I went to a bead shop and bought the supplies I needed. Here is a photo of my beaded beads. It was so easy! Why haven't I tried these before? Now, I need to make a necklace with them. I'll post a photo of my finished necklace when I make it.

Cavan Scott Tubbs

I have a slide show on my computer of all of the photos that are stored in my computer. It doesn't take up the whole screen like a screen saver. It's just a small slide show on one side of my computer. I usually don't pay much attention to it, but since I had my big computer crash a few weeks ago, I now have a different set of photos on my slide show. Bob found some discs that I have stored in slots on my computer desk, so he added those photos to my files on my computer when he was restoring it. Several of the discs have photos of Cavan, but since he died, I didn't want to look at the discs to see what photos were on them. This photo came up on the slide show the other day and I printed it out and propped it up on my computer desk. I think this was taken when Cavan was on his 6-month cruise aboard the USS The Sullivans in the Mediterranean. The captain of the ship had several discs of photos sent to me after Cavan died. Cavan looks quite happy here. Even though I know he's in a better place, he is very missed by his family and friends here on earth.

Fireworks!!

Bob and I just finished watching fireworks from our living room windows. We could see 12 displays from the different suburbs of Dallas on the horizon. But, Fair Park, which is less than 3 miles from our apartment, had the best display. Bob set up the digital camera on a tripod and took some photos and videos. Most of the photos he took will have to be discarded, but there were a few good ones. I'd much rather watch fireworks up close and personal with them, but being in our COOL apartment and not having to deal with crowds of people and traffic does have its advantages. When my boys were little, we used to go to Riverside Park in Tulsa and the fireworks would open right over our heads. I took a photo class when I lived in Tulsa and the instructor took us to one of the bridges that spans the Arkansas River in Tulsa and told us that would be a good spot to get nice photos of the fireworks. The photos were pretty good, but the next year I took my camera and tripod to Riverside Park and I got some terrific photos! And I could smell them, feel the debris and hear the loud booms. I still think that's the way to watch fireworks!

WORK = MONEY!!

I've been working a temp job this week. One of my temp agencies called me on Monday afternoon and asked if I could work the rest of this week. I was already scheduled to work at this same place next week. I've worked off and on at Lone Star Funds for about a year or so. The people there are wonderful and the office is beautiful. It's located in the same building where Bob works -- City Place. So, it's convenient for me to get back and forth and he even takes me to lunch! I sit in for the receptionist who is on vacation. It's a great job and it's nice to have the extra money.