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Category Archives: Our Team

Mandi’s On The Mend! How’s The Office?

I’m back! And for the sake of an awesome selfie, I have on Mickey Mouse ears. Lee walked in just as I took the picture. I like how he doesn’t even ask anymore. He just shakes his head and closes the door.

That’s my second-born, who got to spend his Spring Break at Disney World! It did make me feel better to get pictures and videos of how much fun he was having.

The office is still standing. Kind of wobbly, but up nonetheless. I have been sick for over a month now. It would come on as a regular old cold virus, end like a stomach virus, then I would be okay for several days. Then the process would start all over. It seemed like I just couldn’t shake it after the third time it came on, but it’s a virus, so there’s not much to do, I figured.

The fourth time it came on and brought on pretty severe chest congestion, sore throat, hot/cold flashes, high fever, bad fatigue, and headaches, I called a nurse to ask if this was normal for the virus they had been seeing. She said, “NO! You have a secondary infection! GET TO THE DOCTOR NOW!” In the meantime I had been sent home from work a few times, and forbidden from working two separate weeks by Lee.

Last Thursday I went to a great new doctor all the way in Tomball. Well worth it, BTW. After hearing the history, and doing some tests she said, “Have you ever had bronchitis or pneumonia?” I answered that I had indeed had them both before. She then said, “Well, you have a pretty severe case of bronchitis for sure, and do you know how close you are to having pneumonia?”

The disaster with my health was narrowly avoided with very strong antibiotics, an antihistamine cough syrup (so I could sleep and actually rest) and I am now back at work.

Continue reading →

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How to Handle Frequent Moves with Ease

Carol and Russell, on my bulletin board.

Hey there, readers! You probably know that our partners, Carol and Russell Mangum, have been on an adventure where they move into luxury homes and stage them to help them sell. Whille it’s fun to live all over Austin and enjoy swimming pools, guest houses, and such, the frequent moving can be a pain (even though the staging company pays for it).

Of course, they’ve pared down their possessions to the bare minimum to make packing easier. And by now, they have a system to speed things along. Still, when their previous house sold before they’d even  settled in, they needed an even more efficient way to move.

Carol discovered Bronko Boxes, which are very strong collapsible moving boxes that their movining company provided. Apparently, they almost make moving fun, if that’s possible.

Here’s what Carol told us: Continue reading →

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The Award-Winning Lee Bruns

Lee and Marie Christopher, one of our most frequent blog commenters, with their awards. You can see why they are friends; they both love their hats.

We were pleasantly surprised last night when the Cameron Chamber of Commerce started giving out awards of excellence, and suddenly they called out Lee’s name! We’d just been clapping our heads off for our friend Marie Christopher, who was singled out for her work at the library, so it was all exciting!

It was wonderful to have Lee’s work with fixing up houses and making the community better acknowledged. It never hurts to be recognized! All in all, it was a great event, and the Chamber really did an outstanding job of making sure people who work hard for Cameron are celebrated. All the honorees really deserved to be in the spotlight! Plus, we all got to eat delicious 44 Farms burgers and listen to a wonderful talk by the host of the longest running independent television show in the US, Bob Phillips of the Texas Country Reporter. Continue reading →

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New Year, Same Mandi!

One of my goals this year. Launching my bakery, bringing more pretty cakes like this to life.

The beginning of each new year is a time to reflect for me. What changes did I make in the previous year? What was the outcome of those changes? Should I make more?

I don’t make a plan that I will answer all of those and execute the answers on January 1st, though. I don’t “do” new year resolutions. Maybe it’s my rebellious nature still that says, “Everyone is doing that, so I can’t!”

I’m not really that bad. I just look over notes and review things. I make notes for everything. I do mean everything. Not just work, but home stuff too. It takes a while to go through everything, and figure out my next step.

Vlassic is learning to play the piano for the new year. They grow up so fast. *sniff*

The only thing I know for sure as of right now that I will continue to do is step out of my comfort zone. I’ve got some exciting plans coming up this year that are definitely not in my comfort zone, but are things that I have wanted to do for a good, long while.

None of it involves jumping out of an airplane with an over sized umbrella, or off of a bridge with a string tied to my feet. I might go zip tying though. I miss surfing. I don’t miss the beach reports a few days later and seeing the aerial photo of the sharks that were what I kept feeling bump into me.

I was actually very happy here, but really tired 🙂

I’d like to go to Port Aransas this year for the big sand castle thing they have every year. I’m sure the boys and I would love it. It’s the ocean and the beach. Come on! Who wouldn’t love that?!

I don’t know what 2019 will bring yet, but I do know what I’m going to set out to achieve. I will either achieve my goals, or I will adjust in finding something that does work. Probably a bit of both actually.

Happy New Year everyone!

 

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What Do I Want For Christmas?

My little great niece, Rosalynd. She would be a nice Christmas present. Just put her in my stocking, and I will take care of the rest.

That used to be a relatively easy question (albeit long) to answer. I think like the meme I have seen so often says that the older we get, the harder that is to answer because we want things that can’t be bought.

One thing that I wanted can be bought. That was Rattlesnake. I got that in October, which is Mom’s birth month as well. I was sitting in the living room a few nights ago and just looked around and thought, “Man! This is a beautiful house! Is this real life?”

Thanks to Lee, Sue Ann, Chris, Garry, David, and Kim. They brought her back to life. My Dad and I still have some things to do, and spring time will find phase two in full swing.

My second to oldest son, Matthew, got the driveway cleared of all the Georgia cane. It had gotten to where it looked like my driveway was only five feet wide. Now the whole thing is visible. It’s a muddy mess right now, because it needs road base and gravel brought in, but that is part of phase two.

Look closely to see Patsy playing with Phoenix. Fortunately, Phoenix didn’t try and join Patsy in the tree.

We are now a family of four kids, five dogs, and two cats. This makes decorating for the holidays (any of them) difficult. I decided to bypass ornaments on the tree. You can see why. I was also planning to buy a real tree to put in the living room for Santa to leave gifts under. I decided against that as well. I have seen really cute ideas to keep dogs away with picket fences, but aside from hanging the tree from the ceiling I am pretty sure I won’t keep Patsy out of it. It’s okay though. Really.

Holidays also remind me of days gone by of cooking, baking, and candy making with my Granny, Mom, and Mema. I finally perfected a peanut brittle recipe last year that breaks and is hard like it should be, but melts when you put it in your mouth. My Pa loved peanut brittle, but couldn’t eat it because of his dentures. It took me 12 years, and a lot of figuring out what didn’t work, but it finally happened.

My candy coated pecans. There are others like them, but these are my own specially made ones.

I experiment and do small things to my candy and cookies that make them my own and unique, like my pecans here. I’m glad to share the recipe that is the base for it, but not my method. My methods are secret and some only between me, Mom, Granny, and Mema. The Vickie Jane inventory of recipes expands every year. I think I may have enough to start it going all year part time. Maybe more on that in the future.

So, what do I want for Christmas? Well, a unicorn would be nice. Besides that, I have everything I could want. Really, I do.

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