Pre Oil Spill Gumbo

Oh for the good old days. The days before the explosion at the Macondo well site and subsequent pumping of millions of gallons of oil into our beautiful Gulf of Mexico. Scientists have said within the last couple of days that the ecological impact will not be as bad as first feared. Thank God! Much of the Gulf water has been reopened to fishing.

I want to share pictures of some Gumbo we made pre-oil spill.

Shrimp washed and deveined:



Lump crab meat:



The final product:




Just look at those shrimp. Yum! This gumbo was delicious! Who knows. Maybe in a month or two I'll be ready to try it again!

Is Your Door Closed?

Tonight at church someone said something that I've heard before, but for some reason tonight... "it clicked" with me. God does not speak to us in an audible voice. Oh, he could. But he speaks to us through his Word (the Bible). Tonight I felt God speak to me regarding what the lady at church said. She said...

The door of our heart opens from the inside!

And then she read this scripture from Revelation 3:20:

[20] Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

That's it! That simple thought. The door of my heart opens from the inside. Is my door open or do I have the do not disturb sign hanging from my door knob? Is there something that I need to make right between me and God? Is there someone I need to forgive? Is there someone I need to accept? If you feel the Holy Spirit dealing with you over something......Open Your Door!

Christmas in July

I've waited six months to do this post. Seriously. Two things perpetuated me to do it now. #1- This is the last week of July. If I didn't do it now--then when? Christmas in August? Not so much.

#2- It is so hot here! It has been close to 100 degrees a couple of times. Couple that with our ever present humidity and it is almost unbearable. I had hoped that simply looking at these photos would cool me down. Well, not so much on that, either.

These photos are from a cute Christmas red bird vignette that I (with Jacob's help) did last Christmas. The mini tree has beautiful red birds as does the garland on the top of the dresser. The cute bird house came from the DG (Dollar General). I placed it on a red doily on my Maw Maw Vera's cake plate. The red table runner came from a yardsale. I was so pleased with how it turned out. Just think! I can re-create this in about 4 months.

DANCING QUEEN . . . .

What is it you ask?

Still don't know?

Give up?

What about a Dancing Queen diva dance chair? Bedazzled, bejeweled, blinged, BAM!
I think I'm going to devote a special section of this blog to CRAFT PROJECTS GONE WRONG! Remember the pillow?

I leave you with this little gem that I saw last Saturday in Wilmer. If you live in/around Mobile then you understand Wilmer:

I hate I missed the sale on FRY!

If You Can't Say Anything Nice. . .

I've had a busy couple of weeks! But don't worry--I made time to thrift and yard sale. I realized this afternoon that I need to take pictures of some of the great things that I find. The truth is they are probably still in my car! It's time for a serious "clean out the car" session. How can I buy more junk if my car is full? And, I don't like the looks that poor, unsuspecting drive thru workers give me. You know.....the...... "are you a hoarder?" look. Hoarder is way too harsh. I prefer to call my self a re-seller. Moving on...

This is a picture of my dad cooking ribs. We celebrated on July 5th. They were delicious. We had a wonderful meal with lots of laughs.

I saw this beauty at the Goodwill. Pure harvest gold goodness. This stove was so clean! It looked like it had never been used.

And finally.... I so should have bought this pillow. It was less than $2.00 and had the cutest saying:

I find myself in this seat more often than not. Gossip is a terrible thing but it seems to be one of my favorite hobbies. Lord help me!

Cottage Hill Yard Sale 2010

Last weekend I participated in a community yard sale at Cottage Hill Presbyterian Church. The church allows participants to reserve a spot (free of charge) and then simply set up on the day of the sale. There are volunteers there to assist you with locating your space. It is a great community service and there were several participants. The church is located on a busy street and has a lot of passing traffic. I participated two years ago and had CRAZY success. I worked all week getting my junk together and pricing everything. Jacob started college and had classes so he couldn't help me. So Mr. Grumpy reluctantly helped me. It's quite the undertaking to load tables and all the boxes only to unload them again, set up at the sale and then at the end of the day pack everything up and unload at home. Mr. Grumpy was a great help and, I think, although he would never admit it, enjoyed himself when he realized how stuff was literally flying off the table. It didn't hurt that he had his new birthday present to play with all morning (an iPhone).

I did UNBELIEVABLY well! I made around $325 which was incredible. I got rid of a lot of eBay duds. This is a picture of my table well into the morning after most of the good stuff was gone.

Finally, these are blooms off a hydrangea plant that I bought at a yardsale a year or so ago. Mr. Grumpy surprised me by cutting them and putting them in this cute vase that coincidentally had a perfectly matching purple ribbon.

Tomorrow I'm having a yard sale with my sister and parents. Am I crazy or what? I took my leftover items from the community sale and added some more items too! It's supposed to be in the low to mid 90s tomorrow. With the Mobile humidity it's sure to be a scorcher.

S-C-R-A-B-B-L-E

It has been a very busy weekend at Ms. Jackies Junque! I did my usual Saturday morning yard sale run. I then had to be across the bay at 1:00 p.m. for a funeral. In typical Jackie fashion, I squeaked in just in time. I had to be all the way in Tanner Williams at 4:00 p.m. for one of Jacob's graduation parties. Freak (that's what I call him...that or Ice Road Trucker depending on if he's wearing plaid) received over $500 in gifts at this party alone. I want to graduate again!
After the party I came home and worked on a couple of eBay auctions, which brings me to the point of this post.

I have been picking up Scrabble games when I would find them for .50 or 1.00. It didn't matter if they had all of the tiles because I knew I was going to make a huge lot and list them for crafting, jewelry purposes. Creative people are making all sorts of cute earrings and pendants out of the little scrabble tiles. Hopefully lot of 780 Scrabble tiles = big money! I'm hoping this lot will go for around $40-$50. You can click here to watch the progress of this auction:

Ms. Jackie's Junque's Scrabble Tile Auction

Iwill have to admit that arranging the tiles for the photo was fun. Counting all of the tiles was not.