Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!!! I hope your day and evening are safe!!! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

All Hallows Eve

For since I can remember one of my favorite holidays has been Halloween. I loved making all my costumes and adding this and that to each of them. I loved getting my pumpkin carved and ready to be lit on Halloween and then eating the toasted pumpkin seeds for snacks. Me and my sister would always dump out our candy and then rummage for all the chocolate and save the rest for later. I can remember just about every costume that I ever had : punk rocker, flapper, witch, devil, devil angel, Kelly Osbourne, pumpkin, dead cheerleader, Cleopatra and the list goes on and on.

Two of my fondest memories of going trick or treating bring me back to the young ages of 10 and 11. When I was 10 I was a flapper, my mom took my dance costume and spray painted the stringy skirt green and added sequins to the leotard, she also made me this awesome head piece that I still have today. I remember I put on my tap shoes and off me and my sister went to go get us some candy. When I was 11 I was Cleopatra, my mom took a vintage yellow gown and added gold sequins and gold garland and I had all the matching Cleopatra jewelry to match. My sister was a Genie that year so we kinda matched, her costume was pink and gold.

I can remember taking most of the month of October to assemble and put together my costumes and I would try them on every day when I got home from school. My mom would always play Thriller by Michael Jackson on the way to school so me and my sister could sing and get in the Halloween spirit.

When I was little there was this awesome party store that had every thing, nic nak, whatever your heart desired when it came to your costume. They even had party stuff, like poppers, body parts, scary music, you name it they had it. I wish that store was still here!!!!!

Do you all have any Halloween memories that make you wanna ride on over to you nearest party store and get a costume?

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Menu Plan Monday

This week I have some new recipes I am going to try : Ham and Spinach bake and stuffed pork chops.

Here is the recipe for Ham and Spinach bake:

1 pack sliced ham

1 pack frozen spinach

Few pieces of bread

Parmesan cheese

shredded cheese (Swiss)

nutmeg

milk

egg

Take ham and slice into small pieces and defrost spinach. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix egg, 1/2 cup milk, nutmeg (a pinch grated),Parmesan cheese. Layer bread on the bottom, then ham & spinach, then another layer of bread and ham and spinach. Pour mixture over top of bread and ham and spinach. Lastly put shredded cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes or until golden.

Stuffed pork Chops

4 pork chops

chopped broccoli

shredded cheese

diced tomato

salt and pepper

BBQ sauce

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut a medium size slit on the side of the pork chop (bigger if your chops are bigger), then spoon in the broccoli, tomato and cheese. Then lay chops in dish and cover in BBQ sauce and for 30 to 40 minutes.

Monday: Molly's famous nachos

Tuesday: Sandwich's at bible study

Wednesday: Stuffed pork chops with cob corn and corn bread

Thursday: Sausage patties with eggs, bacon and toast

Friday: Halloween party with the kids

Saturday: Chicken sandwich's with tortilla chips

Sunday: Cafeteria after church

Swap questions for Vintage Pink Swap

Here are my questions for my swap partner Angie in the Vintage Pink Swap.

1. What is your favorite Christmas decoration? I have a handmade Hershey kiss that my little sister gave me for my birthday, it looks kinda like a glob of something but it's special to me.

2. What colors/themes do you decorate for Christmas? Pink, purple and white.

3. What Christmas item would you love to have? I would love to have my granny's handmade ornaments she made out of beads and sequins.

4. Favorite goodie and hot drink? My favorite goodie is biscotti and my favorite hot drink is peppermint tea.

5. Are you a crafter? Yes, yes and yes!!! I love anything to do with paper, sewing, stickers, beads and sequins.

6. What is your favorite pink item in your home? My little sister loves to knit and she made me a small knit square that I keep in my living room.

7. What do you collect? I collect bells and crosses.

8. Do you have special family traditions? Yes. Every Christmas morning we go to my mom's house and have brunch and open gifts, then watch a movie. On Christmas Eve me and my husband wrap gifts, bake and attend the Christmas Eve service at church with my mom.

I hope this gives you a better picture of my Christmas happenings.

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Vintage plates, a haircut and a new dish

Last weekend my step mom Kim gave me a box of old vintage plates that she got from the Replacements Ltd. store. She knows how I collect anything vintage and picked up these beautiful plates for me. Thanks Kim!!! I am pondering on what ideas I can spring up on how to be creative with them so you guys have any ideas please let me know.

On Tuesday my mom gave me a fabulous cut and color for fall. I will have to take a picture so you guys can see it, but it looks awesome.

And lastly I have stumbled upon this new dish that me and Mike love. I made it the other night and it was a hit. Here is the recipe: My step mom's famous chili
2 pounds ground beef (browned)
2 cans kidney beans
2 cans tomato sauce
2 cans diced tomatoes
chili packet
1 onion chopped
chilli's optional
Brown your beef, then drain. Add beef,kidney beans,tomato sauce,diced tomatoes,chili packet,chopped onion and chilli's to crock pot and let cook for 4 hours.
~ enjoy

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Fabulous weekend

Well this past weekend we went to the auction, dad's house and a movie. We found some vintage items and we ended up getting a lot of free items as well. They were giving away pool tables, skill cranes and video games. We ended up with about 5 pool tables, 10 skill cranes and 4 video games. After the auction we went by my dad's house and ate a scrumptious meal. My step mom had made a dish with shrimp,sausage,corn and red potatoes all boiled together. So tasty!! Then me and my step mom went to go see Nights in Rodanthe which was filmed here in NC. The author Nicholas Spark's lives here and all his books are based on people and places in NC. The book and movie are awesome but I will spare you the details so I won't spoil it for you. Well I am off to get my hair colored and cut so have a great day.
Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

FEDUP?!!

All praise the power and glory of God. After a long year of wanting to file a lawsuit against FEDEX, we finally have been assigned a lawyer. I know I know you must be thinking why so here is our tale of how a fortune 5oo hundred company can really, excuse my french but "screw a contractor".

It all started three lovely years ago when my husband bought two routes at FEDEX Ground. Oh my husband was so happy, he had a nice truck and step van. And on top of that we paid cash for the route's so we didn't have to get a loan and have that extra payment. Well a few months go by and the truck is not being loaded right and what I mean by that is I had to make a load chart for the van and truck so the "loader" would know where to put the boxes according to the chart. That NEVER happened. Every morning at 4:00 AM me and my husband would go and RE-LOAD our vans, now after time that gets VERY OLD. Needless to say that we were never able to leave the terminal by a decent hour so that always put us behind schedule. Especially when you are doing about 150 stops a day plus pickups , doesn't give you ample time to do your job to the fullest. After many attempts to try to get the so called managers to get us new loader, we decided that we would just go in every morning and re-load our trucks and deal.

So we deal with the bull crap of re-loading trucks and then we start noticing our check gets lower and lower. Well my husband the smart man that he is had always copied our settlement at the end of the day that told us how many stops we had done, packages delivered and how many pickups we had done along with their packages as well. So we go to wonderful management and tell them our problem, their solution was "we will get your money to you in next weeks check". Well next week comes and no money and we get the same answer again. Now most contractors would have just blown it off but we didn't. I mean when you own the trucks and have to keep the maintenance up on them you need your money, right?! Well we finally find out why we were not getting all the stops and packages keyed in one night. I was looking at the girls that were typing in our settlement sheets and they were eating, talking about which club they were going to, men and just plain old gossip. So Mikey just blows up, I cannot blame him especially when you are working 15 hour days and are just plain exhausted. Well needless to say the girls were offended and told management. So blah blah blah I could go on but that would take forever.

Well last summer on a hot and humid day we wake up at 3:30 AM to go to the terminal to do our daily re-do of the crap job that the alcoholic loader had done and I could tell there was something in the air about this day. So me and Mikey arrive and we are tending to our own business and the belt manager comes over to ask what we were doing. Well Mikey explains to him for about the umpteenth time and the manager did not like it.He old us that he didn't care if we delivered the packages or not and that he was not going to fix the loading problem. Well Mikey went off and said a few choice words . Well the manager who has a engineering degree which he told us when he insulted us by saying that we only had a 4Th grade education and how dumb we were, started mouthing off and I could see Mikey getting redder and madder and Mikey took his fist and put if through a box, I started crying and I started throwing boxes at the manager. That was the day we decided to sell the routes.


It took about two months to sell but when we did were finally free. Yes we took a loss, we sold the route's for twenty thousand, the buyer got a steal because the routes made over 150 thousand a year. We did make good money but it was not worth us killing ourselves over. Working crazy hours and management not helping when we needed it. I could on and on but there is not enough time in the day for all the crap we went through.

So now we are just waiting back to hear from the lawyer about our case, I do not intend on getting any money, I just want justice to be served. I come from a family of hard middle class workers and I do not want other contractors to go through what we went through. But when you have pencil pushers and CEO's not caring about their employees and contractors that's what you get.

Our case is with a few others, so hopefully it will go over smoothly. Before we decided to file I did my research and found out that there were over 100 lawsuits against FEDEX Ground by other contractors being treated the same way we did.

Well I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I just really had to get that off my chest since that had consumed a big portion of our life for so long. Thanks for reading my rants.

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Wordless Wednesday

A very Pink and Vintage Christmas

Hi folks!!! Yes I am still alive, I have been taking a break from the "real" world and just vegging out with my hubby. I have gotten most of my items for my website finished and most of all getting all my ornaments organized so the day after Thanksgiving I can put my tree up.

I have a total of 4 trees in 4 different colors as well. My big tree is white, my wedding tree is light pink with silver then I have 2 baby trees which are green and purple. Yes I know, I still have the hairdresser in me, because only a hairdresser would have a tree in almost every color. HAHAHA!!

I have organized all my ornaments for each tree and then proceeded to find ornaments that I never knew I had. Most of them are pink and vintage. So I will not have any problems getting items for my swaps I am in this season.

Well I am off to help Mikey load up the truck so we can go to the auction this weekend and find some new equipment. Maybe just maybe I will find my vintage pinball that I have been looking for all my life, HAHAHA!!.

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

3 years

It is hard to believe that 3 years ago tomorrow I was preparing to marry the love of my life. Everything had been prepared, bought, decorated and lit up.....we waited until the day before to get our marriage certificate.

It all started 4 years ago when I met Mike online ( I know crazy right?). I was in a Christian chat room talking about a bible study and saw his screen name appear on the list, PearceBrothers. So I went and clicked on his profile to check him out. I went down the list and saw that he owned his own business (now I know what you all are thinking and NO I am not a gold digger, but every other guy that I had been out with seemed to either get fired from his job or switched careers and I wanted someone who had a steady job and wanted to get married). So anyways I messaged him and he took a really long time to answer back so I thought OK he doesn't want to talk and as I was getting ready to shut off my computer he messaged back. We talked for 2 weeks online and then decided to take the plunge and talk on the phone (yeah we are crazy like that HAHAHA). After staying up to all hours of the night for week, we decided to meet. We were supposed to meet on a Saturday but I canceled and we met on Sunday. As he pulled up and got out of his truck I knew when I saw his bald head and smiling face that I was going to be with him forever. My little brother looked out the window and said "Molly he's bald and short" HAHAHA, I love you Ronald. That night we went to Kanki and saw the movie 13 going on 30. I was so nervous I barely talked, he kept asking if I was having a good time and I thought "Oh gees Molly start talking or he's going to think that your not interested". When he took me home I thanked him for a lovely date and immediately called him to let him know that I had a wonderful time and wanted to see him again.

We have been together every day since our first date.

So we started dating in May of 2004 and by August we were talking about getting married. Now at this time Mike still had his vending business but had to work a full time job during the day. I was still working with my mom at her salon. Mike decided the month before we were to get married that he might buy the route at FEDEX that his friend was selling so he did and that's how we started our long journey on that road but that is a whole different post in itself. Well we started looking at rings and dresses and cakes and all the things that pertain to a wedding. Well one night we were at the mall and every ring that we looked at was not what I had pictured. So my friend that owns a slue of pawn shops found out I was getting married and offered to make my ring at his cost. So me and Mike went to his shop and he had laid out two diamonds for me to look at. One was a 2 carat yellow pear shape and the other was a 1.50 carat clear pear shape. Well I knew I wanted Amethyst bands so I picked the clear diamond. Within a week it was ready. We literally walked out of there paying about $10,000 less than what we had seen in the mall stores. My diamond came from Wilmington so that all ties into how Mike and I love that place and how he almost moved back there before we met. ( He had lived there for 2 years before coming back to take care of his dad).Mike wanted a ring that was two toned and had something religious on it. Well it just so happened that he delivered to a jewelry store that made custom jewelry. Well as Mike always does he became friends with the owner and he actually purchased the same wedding band that owner had. It is two toned and has crosses all the way around the band. He also had my two eternity bands custom made for me, because everywhere I went nobody wanted to make my bands for me. So Mike ordered me two Amethyst eternity bands and it just so happens that my bands were being made in Louisiana and they almost didn't make it before the wedding thanks to hurricane Katrina.

Mike has always been a church going man and when we started dating he began coming to my church, well the day he decides he is going to join and then announce that we are getting married I had to watch the babies in the nursery. So when all the babies were getting picked up by their parents everyone kept saying congratulations and I was like thanks, OK. I didn't realize what Mike had done. So my good friend Carolyn came down and said "Molly you better get up there with Mike", I was thinking what in the world has happened, so I rush to the sanctuary and there is Mike standing at the front and everyone has come up to congratulate him and me on our engagement. But that's my Mikey, always doing things when I least expect them.

So anyways a year goes by and we get married on October 8, 2005 at 5:00pm and had a lovely reception. My younger sister was my maid of honor, my other little sister Elizabeth was my junior bride (her dress was a replica of mine), my little brother Ronald was the best man and JW my little step brother was Mike's best man.

In the past 3 years we have had our trials and tribulations. We have lost things, gained things, made crazy amounts of money that nearly killed us (FEDEX) but we never lost our faith in each other or the Lord. Most people would have probably left the other to pursue the greener grass but not us. I can honestly say that I have a awesome man of GOD and someone that has the biggest heart and love for people he loves. My Mike works harder than any other man I know and is always trying to make me happy before himself. I sometimes think to myself whats the catch, is there something that he is hiding or is something going to happen to him to make him go away forever? I can't think like that because God brought us together for a reason and someday we will find out what that reason is.

When my appendix ruptured 6 months ago, Mike stayed with me the whole time I was in the hospital and never left my sight. He cleaned, walked, cried and slept with me those long 7 days in there. When we came home , we had just moved the week before and had not had a chance to unpack everything yet, he put together our bed and then started with the rest of the house. The next 3 months were challenging since i could not work he had to do all the vending routes himself and would often work long hours into the night and then come home to re-dress my incision.

When I look back on the past 3 years, I can honestly say he did it all for me and sometimes I wonder how someone can love me that much to want to be and work so hard for me. I hope that the next 50 or 60 years are just as fun, loving, caring, exciting and faith filled as these 3 were.

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Piano anyone?

In my recent days of wanting to try new things and hobbies, I stumbled across a picture of a piano in a magazine. Now for as long as I can remember, we have always had a piano in my family. When I was little I would pull the bench out and try to make a pretty tune but it more less sounded like some crazy kid just beating the keys. So the other day I look at Mikey and say " I would love to learn the piano", he looks at me like "OK so now I have to buy a piano right?". And the reason why I know this look is because every time I want to try something new I want my own whatever it may be and use some else's.... just because I'm like that. So now my journey is to find a place or friend (Harriet) to teach me and then maybe my wanting to try new things and hobbies will be over.....I think NOT! HAHAHAHA!!!

As I was helping my mom go through pictures I found these of my granny. The one on top is her and her best friend Mrs. McCloud. They met while in the army and the one of her holding the baby is I am guessing when she was at Duke Hospital. Sorry the pictures turned out so small, I will re post them when I fix the problem.

Have a fabulous weekend!!!!

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Think Pink

Think Pink!!! The month of October is breast awareness month and it really got me thinking. My granny died of breast cancer 25 years ago and we still have not come any closer to stopping this awful disease. I have posted the button for an artist drawing that all proceeds go cancer research, it's under the Think Pink post. Also Oka B, my favorite place to buy fabulous sandals and flips is hosting a special this month. They have two of their best sellers in the signature pink color for only $20. A portion of the proceeds goes to the cancer research fund as well. So if you can, please wear PINK and support anything that gives to the Cancer Research Fund.

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly

Wordless Wednesday, maybe?

Well today is the first day of October and we only have thirty days until Halloween. I have already started decorating my house, now I don't go all out but I do have some things my mom and sister gave me when I got married that I use. I love anything with fall colors and there is a pumpkin patch right up the road from our house. I hope to get pictures this weekend and post them, it is so beautiful to look at from the road.

I don't have any questions from last nights bible study today just because it was a little confusing to me and I do not want to confuse anyone with my thoughts HAHAHA. But just to let you know we were discussing how the Hebrews did not say God's name and the exile and homecoming of Israel. I really encourage all of you to read this book , it is awesome and perplexing at the same time.

Well I am off to make some things for my upcoming website me and my sister are creating. She has some wonderful creations and has some beautiful scarves she is making. Have a wonderful day!!!

Until I blog again ~ Gal Molly