July 4th, the Verdict, and the BEST family!!!!!

Good grief! The Fourth of July came and went so fast! I must admist that I didn't want to leave my home for the last 30 some odd days (no pun here) because I have been so foolishly wrapped up watching the Casey Anthony Trial. However, we had an enjoyable trip to Lake Tobesofkee and went out in the boat to watch fireworks over the water! I have to thank the best husband in the world, my husband, Keith. He does everything when it comes to loading up, setting up, and getting us to and fro. Of course my son does ALOT too. I am so very fortunate in my life.

OK. Casey Anthony will walk free. Well OK? SO WHAT, theres nothing anyone can do anymore. I wish that every channel would start focusing on other things. It is true that I am distantly related to Nancy Grace (through the Stokes) and I intend to write Nancy. She may not be aware of the Macon law graduate, Lauren Giddings, that was found DISMEMBERED near hear apartment across from Mercer Law School. She was about the take the BARR exam. Nancy's Mother may or may not have told her about the story so I plan on sending her a letter, since I know where to write to her personally. How can people be so cruel? It is VERY scary when you think that our shop is only 8 blocks from where Lauren was found. We drive by the law school all the time. It's our hometown. I fear especially for my child when these things hit close to home. I pray they find justice in THIS case, but my faith in the justice system it pretty minute after Casey's acquittal. I vote that we should all FORGET about CASEY Anthony and just hope that no one gives her the time of day. May Caylee RIP and never SHE be forgotten.

I decided to catch up blogging. It's too dang hot to even go outside and one can only watch so many hours of TV a day. Our Lab Shelby has a nice large pen in the shade but we go out and hose her down when its so hot and muggy. She's black and black dogs can get hotter than other dogs. I try not to worry about her because she is a well taken care of doggie. There's that word again...."worry"......I was watching a pastor on some channel this morning. They were talking about "WORRY" and said to try and ban that word for your vocabulary. It's not even sun-up yet and I've already broken that rule!

I'm planning on making another doll to pass the time. I think I will make another primitive doll since they are so cute and popular and my last one turned out so well. She's from a Happy Heart pattern called Mammy's Babies Love Shortenin' Bread.

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Stay cool. If you are like me you are heat intolerant. I'm thankful for everyday but HATE HATE HATE the heat. I am so glad that my hubby is off til Monday. We've been married almost 18 years (together 21) and the older we get the more I hate to be apart from him AT ALL. He is good as gold. Better than gold, really. I LOVE YOU BABY!

How about passing the story along about the law student I told you about? Let's help out if it's nothing more than spreading the word. As far as I know they didn't really have any leads. STAY COOL YALL! Hurry up Fall!

With this past Monday being a holiday it has made for a really short week! Yay! We couldnt get a camping site last weekend because it was full. This weekend we lucked up and got a waterfront so we may go for a small camping trip this weekend. Thats funny because the campground is like 15 minutes from our house. Would you still consider that a trip?



I've been really anxious and sad lately. My Decorah babies will be leaving the nest soon! They are neary ready to fly. I've watched them nearly every day since they hatched. To see them go will make me cry but my DH said that is a HAPPY event. Have you seen them?



Being retired at age 39 (now I'm 42) was not by choice. I cant blog about why I retired just know that I had to and it's impossible for me to work ever again. Anyway, its hard to not get down in a funk (oh, but I do) and that why I try to do as much as I can. I read ALL OF THE TIME. I read blogs, books, patterns, magazines, cookbooks, newspapers, you name it. I love working crossword puzzles! I get that from my Grandmama.

Lately I've fallen in love with doll making. I took two classes last fall and now I am expanding on what I learned then. I have made a dear friend in Mrs Patti Culea and I cannot wait for her DVD to come out in August! I am about to make one of her retired patterns. The doll is called My Fairie Godmother and she is soooo fat and cute! I am finishing a cloth doll today and her name is Bonnie Joy! I will post pics soon!



Speaking of dolls and patterns Dolls and Daydreams is doing a give-a-way! I've never won ANYTHING! I take that back. I won some stupid board game on the radio a long time ago. It wasn't worth my gas down to the station to get the thing. Just being honest. Anyway maybe my luck will change.



I hope you all have a wonderful week, what's left of it. I've noticed that my followers are only ELEVEN. I can't seem to get any followers! Am I boring? Do I offend? I think it should be mandatory that if you follow someone's blog they automatically follow yours in return. It's only fair! It makes me feel so unloved and unwanted that I don't have any follwers. :-( Wont you follow me??? I promise to post pics......some great pics..........very soon!



Here's a hint that related to an upcoming blog post: It has to do with a doll.

Save a KID, Hire a COWBOY!

A Big SHOUT OUT to John Rich who won Celbrity Apprentice last night! John was my pick from the beginning! Thank you Jesus and God Bless St. Jude's Research Hospital and all the children who go there.

I have learned to love and respect Star Jones simply because of what she had to put up with from NeNe Leakes. How did Mr. Trump find that woman? I better leave that alone.

Marlee Matlin was and still is a winner in my book too!


Did you get to make a 1600 jelly roll quilt this weekend? I did not.

Now that it's Monday I realize just how fast the weekends really do go by. I am always sad on Monday mornings. My husband goes back to work, my son is usually at school or elsewhere, and after about 9 a.m. it's just me and Buster. I'm so glad I have him to keep me company :-) This is an older photo of my 12 year old AKC Boston Terrier. At that time his eyes were still brown. Since he has developed a nasty cornea disease which is common in his breed. It causes the cornea to turn a whitish-blue. You can read about CED here.


I have some doll parts hanging on the line to dry. I just LOVE tea-staining my raggy prim dolls. I think Brenda over at Lillie Mae's Crafts is just wonderful. I love making her dolls.

I want to make my DH a quilt for Father's Day (dont worry, he never reads blogs and doesnt even know I have one) I need to get a jelly roll to make the speedy strip quilt, because the one I have now is "Flowers" by Moda, and not exactly my honey's colors :-)

Hope you all have a great day! I must go check my eagle cams before I get up and try to be somewhat productive. Peace.

Baby Eagles, Hyperlinks and a QUILT Top in an Hour

I have become addicted to anything and EVERYTHING related to eagles and LIVE eagle cams! Apparently, hidden cams have been around a few years, researchers planting them in the nests of bald eagles. You get to watch entire families as they lay eggs and then hatch before your eyes. I love to watch the paternal habits of the Ma and Pa eagle, their hourly feedings, Pa flying in with a whole duck (literally!), the sibling rivalries of the lets (thats a baby eaglet)...they can be so mean!! But soon they will be off to college. lol. OH YES! I am geeky this way.

I blogged about the Decorah eagles some time back. Those three eaglets are still in the nest but will be fledging (lol, I'm eagle-literate) SOON, maybe this week.

I will definitely CRY. It's like, so FINAL and sad. No wonder parents in real life suffer from "empty-nest syndrome".......

You can see the Decorah babies here. They live in a tree in Decorah, Iowa. It's been one of my favorites. I want to thank Benita for posting about an eagle cam on her facebook page. Had it not been for her post I would have never known about the eagle cams. Her website is one of my favorites too.

I am happy to say that I finally figured out how to turn my words blue and link it to something I love. Which, depending on what day it is could be anything from a recipe forum to watching spinal surgery on YouTube. I love LINKS. Like this.

Have you all seen the fast and furious QUILT TOP you can make in less than an hour???? NO I AM SERIOUS! It's popping up everywhere.

Here is a link with the info and VIDEO (I loooove vdeos!). It will make one approx 48 x 64! This is my kind of quilting I tell ya!!! All you need is a jelly roll. You can add borders and make it even bigger. For those of us who dont have a 5-digit priced longarm, we can stitch-in-the-ditch with this one! YAY! They call it a 1600 quilt....you sew the strips end to end and end up with one long strip that measuers about 1600 inches. FUN FUN FUN!

Please send me your pics if you have made one. I am working on a photo pool. I am trying to get away from Facebook. My DH HATES it. He absolutely HATES it. He thinks I waste my time. What he doesn't realize is that my brain is a sponge and I READ more than anything. I obssess. I roll like that. I can tell you the history and every minute detail about bald eagles and their life spans. I get hung up on different topics all the time and I delve into them, study them, GOOGLE and read my brains out. Then when I get bored I will move on to learn something else. Right now I am trying to master tea-staining primitive raggedy annie-type dolls. Also, I can tell you that on this date back in 1819, the first steamship named Savannah crossed the Atlantic ocean. Today is the birthday of my favorite DWTS winner ever-ever-ever...Apolo Anton Ohno!!!

Go sew that jelly roll quilt and send me a pic! Check back in a day or two. You might learn something new. I always do.............L~

Decorah, White Rock, Sidney, and Nelly the Rag Doll

Hello to all my followers, few as you are! I never thought I would sit for hours on end watching live eagle cams. But I can, so I am.
Here's one of my favorites, from Decorah, Iowa!

(since I havent figured out how to put a blue link right here please copy & paste and bear with me)

www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

Please comment below and tell me what you think! And please email me at cocobeanzcreations@yahoo.com if you have blogging how-to instructions for dingbat bird watchers, like myself!

There are many nests on wildearth.tv!! It should be a requiremet of life that you go and see them. I will list them for you. Just remember to C&P until I learn how to make a link for you.

One of the nests is in Canada, the Sidney nest, I can barely stand to watch. There are now 3 baby eaglets. They are so cute but one of them, the biggest one, pecks the others and is soooo mean when Ma or Pa bring in food, and many times the two little ones dont get as much. Oh, I have to quit fretting about these birds. They are in CANADA for crying out loud.
http://www.wildearth.tv/sidney-eagle-nest-02

Newly hatched baby eagly with one egg yet to hatch is this nest (this one is in HD and has awesome color)
http://www.wildearth.tv/hwf-whiterock-01

But. It's important that people, like me, keep up with stuff like this. We're talking about BALD EAGLES people. Up close and personal!
People actually make a living studying them (why I didn't decide to do that as a career I will always regret)
Three babies were banded this morning and the video for that will be up soon!
Who would NOT want to see that!!
You can read about the banding and watch this nest too! The babies are safely back in their nest.

http://www.wvec.com/marketplace/microsite-content/eagle-cam.html

Moving on ---its Easter weekend and my birthday----and instead of partying it up like I used to do....I sit here making a rag doll named Nelly and watching the nests of SEVEN bald eagles and their babes. How much more to life is there????

Did you know an eagle nest can span up to 7 feet in diameter?

Love you all......all SEVEN of you!
p.s. getting new digital camera today and will post pics soon (none of me though! BLAH!)..and I promise next time I will know how to post the blue link so all you have to do is click and there you'll be!

Whatcha doin' to celebrate Easter?

Crying over a ham sandwich....and healing my heart with a Teddy Bear

Ya'll should be real proud of me! Two days in a row with a blog entry! Go Laurie!
I had to wait until I stopped crying though, before I could even see my keyboard :-(

WHY? OK. Just a while ago I heard my husband in the kitchen rustling around with grocery sacks (he takes his lunch in a used Kroger or Walmart sack, and not the NICE insulated ones I have spent top dollar on). Anyway, when I heard him in the kitchen I went to find he was packing his lunch. Normally, I always do it.
It ruffled my feathers.

Last evening, before Dancing With The Stars came on, I had been cutting out pattern pieces for a stuffed teddy bear (another story). It was during that time me and Big Daddy (what I have called my husband for 22 years) had an argument. A STUPID argument. Over miscommunication between two parents and a teenager. Nobodys fault other than MINE. Long Story and its pointless. So we argued, I got mad and upset......over NOTHING.

I went to bed mad and in complete silence. A No-No for ANYONE.

So this morning, when it was too late for me to make the lunch, and realized HE had to make it I started balling like a baby! I am a very sensitive person. I felt like the worst, meanest, hateful, unloving, ungiving, selfish wife that ever lived! Poor man had to fix his own lunch because his wife is a mean hateful you-know-what.

So, my inner voice told me to stop crying, say a prayer, and get LET IT GO. I have asked the Good Lord to let me live another day so I can make sure I pack him a wonderful lunch for work tomorrow....or better yet, make a fantabulous dinner tonight.

I am about to make my teddy bear........will blog about that as it ain't just any old teddy bear...that will get my mind off that ham sandwich and fighting with my husband. I never want to fight. I want to LOVE.

What was the point to all of this?
1. Never go to bed mad. With ANYONE. Never.
2. Always fix your husbands lunch to take to work! Stop sewing long enough, only takes a few minutes :-)
3. Communicate, and LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Now I am ready to start this day over on the right foot. It will haunt me forever though, living with the fact that I was mean to my husband and there were days he had to make his own lunch.

I can't wait for ya'll to see this teddy bear. I might name him Hammy.

Dolls, Strawberry Pie and Baby Eaglets

I am such a procrastinator ya'll.
I always say, that as much time as I spend on the computer, and the fact that I dont work at a job-job anymore, that I am going to be a BB.....Better Blogger and create and maintain an awesome blog. It's kinda pitiful right now. I have SIX followers. Love yall so much :-)

The fact is....I waste time. Like since Saturday morning I have been watching LIVE eagle cams, waiting for eggs to hatch, and watching proud parents drag road kill into the nest to feed the eaglets that are already born. For hours I did that. In fact I have 3 minimized in my window right now. Hey, what can I say? It's our National BIRD! It's quite interesting. BUT I didnt work on my blog.

Can I HIRE a blogger? I want tons of links and an entry every day! I dont know how all that stuff works...URLs, ACB's, JKL's (all that computer lingo).....but there is NO REASON I can't learn.

My husband (God Bless him!) always says, it's never too late! I made the most delicious strawberry pies yesterday. Not only delicious, but gorgeous. My friend Shanti, her food pics should be in magazines. See, if I knew how I would put a link to one of her food pics right HERE

The good thing is the internet is full of free education...and I've always been pretty smart...so I will learn how to BBB (be a better blogger, lol and hope that my following will GROW.
I am slowly working on a doll, and a quilt, and a machine cover, and this blog, and....well.... Let's just say that I've got lots to share with yall, even a video tutorial on my quilt binding method. If I did this correctly you can view my video here

I can tell you where you can check out one of my favorite the live eagle cams at They are going to band the eaglets Thursday...something fascinating you might want to check out! Don't worry, they are professionals and they do not hurt the babies!!

Have you made your family a strawberry pie? By the way, I am still working on my scrap quilt. It just got side tracked a little bit, especially since I found some awesome primitive Raggedy Ann style doll patterns at http://www.lilliemaescrafts.com/index.html (this is where you should be able to click the link and go straight to the dang thing!!)

I think Ive blabbed on the blog enough for now. Gotta go check on my baby birds, and study up on this blogging thing!

Please stay tuned :-)

Scraps and a sick Dog

Dear friends

I said I would be good and be a better blogger. The 3 B's lol. Anyway.....I decided to do something....retirement and chronic back pain are not going to keep me down in the dumps...so I got all the scraps I've accumulated since 2005, cut them up into all size stips ranging from 1.5" to 3". Gonna make a scrap strip quilt for my king size bed. Yeah, I know. A major undertaking. Oh well. It's very therapeutic and good for major depression.

Buster has congestive heart failure. He has been fine with no vet visits in 6 weeks. Until that dreaded cough started last night. We will be making a trip to the vet this morning. Please say a prayer for my sweet precious.

I sure hope I get more followers. I'm so much FUN! Right. I am going to learn to love this BLOGGING thing. And love to learn.....the links, etc. I am not a geek squad professional....Im a wife, mother, nurse and SUPERSTAR! Oh, but you knew that!

Rainy Yard Sale , Teddy Ruxpin, and The Karate Kid

It has been raining and gloomy for almost a week! How depressing! This is what I dreaded would happen too.
We've been planning a HUGE yard sale since the end of January.
My living room floor and longest kitchen counter are covered with items to sell.
But now, the RAIN. We hope that Saturday will be clear. We might have to cancel Friday.

So I posted on my facebook last night about my long lost TEDDY RUXPIN. I had him when Cody was a baby. We loved T.R. I had all the books and cassettes. This was back in the old house in Macon. We moved to the new house in 1998, when Cody was four. Come to think of it I haven't seen Teddy since 1998. I cant imagine ever getting rid of him. So last week, when we were going through "stuff" for the coming yard sale, it dawned on me that I still hadn't found Teddy. I musn't let it drive me CRAZY!!!

Ralph Macchio was great on DWTS! I liked them all. Well, except the girl with the long hair, the model, dont even know her name. She watched the floor the whole time.

Vance is playing a song by Zack Brown Band as I type, and it continues to thunder. Go away rain. It's depressing! Makes me wanna go back to bed!!

New Year's Resolutions include SEWING! :-)

Happy New Year to my readers! HI hope you had blessed holidays and have a happy healthy new year in 2011.

I am glad the hustle and bustle is over. Time to get some things done that have been on the back burners for so long. I want to really stay busy with my blogging by sharing my stories, sewing projects, recipes, etc. I will even be working on some free tutorials.

I am also considering changing the name of my blog.......its a thought, and I may go with a different blog posting HOST. If I do you will be the first to know.

I know lots of people have to head back to work on Monday. So for a quick dinner tonight, I am sharing a recipe for you. Takes NO TIME to make! Whip it up and dont forget to watch the 2 hour season finale of SARAH PALINS ALASKA tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. Please follow me and my blog......I promise it will get better! ~giggling

CHICKEN AND RICE BAKE
1- 12 OUNCE CAN OF CHICKEN (trust me on this, no one will know!)
1 can cream of mushroon soup
2 soup cans water
1-1/3 cup instant rice
sale and pepper to taste

Drain the chicken.
Dump into large mixing bowl, flake up the chunks real good with your fork.
All remaining stuff, mix real good with a big spoon.
Pour into 2 quart baking dish (use a 9 x 13 if you are doubling the recipe)
Melt one stick of REAL butter and drizzle over the top.
Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.
When you take it out of the oven, sprinkle generously with parmesan cheese.
ENJOY! I have made this for about 10 years. We LOVE it and I hope you will.

Find me on facebook, I have some cooking videos there.
Coutry Gourmet....my profile icon is a little owl :-)