My shopping trip

Well, my shopping trip is over and I am left with some goodies! I am very excited! The only bad thing I have to say is that I love pink so much and this is not really the time of year to be wearing light pink. However, the darkest pink purse I will use anyways!! Our trip to NY was an interesting one, but fun at times. My husband was able to see some things from the double decker tour bus we took in the city. It was his first time there, so we were trying to pack in as much as possible. I was able to pack in 2 hours of shopping. I think we will be planning a trip there by ourselves next time. So today was an early morning for me. I have voted and I am about to get ready for work. Far as I am concerned that is quite a bit for 7:45 in the morning. Well.....at least for me. Have a great day everyone!

A little extra time

I have gained some time for myself due to setting the clocks back. This weekend was actually very productive. Usually, it's easy for me to give in to my husbands whims and just go to a movie instead of cleaning the house and doing laundry like I do every weekend. With us both working all day Monday through Friday, it leaves little to no time for other things. I am very proud of myself. I have joined a gym, and have been actively going. Time for those extra bits of me to be gone... As for the Halloween candy in my house, it needs to be trick or treat time already, so I can get those out of my house!! I have to say, I have only had two pieces....and out of nine bags that's pretty damn good! I have to credit that to moral support. I have a nice group of friends that work out with me, and eat well along the way. All is busy around my house. Hubby and I are going to New York this weekend. A little shopping spree.....hopefully many designer purses for me. The only pitfall I have with shopping.....I LOVE THE PURSES. Anything else I could care less....clothing etc.....well I do love shoes. Nothing compared to purses though! It should be tons of fun. A group of us are going by tour bus, so I am getting my IPod full of music and TV shows to keep me busy. Enjoy Halloween everyone! Eat some candy for me!

Another birthday come and gone....

Quote of the Day

"When you get into a tight place and it seems that you can't go on, hold on — for that's just the place and the time that the tide will turn."

– Harriet Beecher Stowe

Trip pics

Just a couple of pics for now..... the Mackinaw Bridge as we were driving over. This was actually after the picture below, which was blizzard like!!

Home sweet home

Rain, sleet, snow, hail you name it, we encountered it. I am home!

Vacation

I am off to vacation in just a couple of hours. We are going "up north" where it's cold, snowy and COLD! I am excited though, it's always fun to visit family. Stay warm!

I love to cook!

This past Friday (after I got home from going out with friends) I came home and sorted out Pampered Chef orders. Last week, I had a Pampered Chef party. I love to have people over, and the demonstrations with food are even more fun. So Friday is when the UPS delivered all of the orders to my house! Too much fun! The best part is all of the free stuff you earn from your friends ordering. I grew up with a grandma who loved to bake, and a father who loved to cook, so I am always up for doing either. Unfortunately, in my house there is just my husband and I and we are never home. When we are home, he is a picky eater....so that leaves myself to eat whatever I feel like whipping up that's out of the ordinary. None the less he is getting better with trying new things and I am learning to be more patient with him! I grew up in a house where you ate anything. Where in his house if it looked weird or they just plain didn't want to try it, his mom just gave in. All of the kids are horrible eaters. The oldest one has since gotten past this habit, but she is a business women in Chicago that has to eat with other business people all the time. She says that this has helped her broaden her horizon.

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I am excited that vacation time is almost here for hubby and I! We are going to visit my dad. He lives quite a ways away from us, so we only get to visit a couple times a year. This year we are traveling up with his girlfriend who lives closer to us than to him. We always have a great time together and we are looking forward to it! Usually a stop at the casino is in store for us and of course lots of sight seeing. My dad lives right on Lake Superior, so it will be a cold and windy visit, but it's always a beautiful stay.

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I am off for Columbus day today and normally I would do something fun, like shopping with friends and going to lunch. However, today I am at home sick. Just a cold, but none the less not fun! Hubby says better now then when we are on vacation. We leave at the end of the week, so that should give me plenty of time to get better. Well, that's all from me. Time to go warm up the couch.

yay!!

It's all fixed! I can finally leave comments on blogs again. I get down on the dumbest things, because I haven't done anything to my blog since the whole beta thing!

Out of the loop

I feel out of the loop lately. I switched to the new blogger beta so I could make changes to my blog. Well, now that I have it, it doesn't allow me to leave comments on other blogs who do not also have blogger beta. It gives me an error message every time I try and tells me that "blogger is working on updating the beta version and soon you will be able to leave comments". So in the meantime I feel like I can't even keep in touch with those who I don't get to talk to very much. Oh well! It is a gloomy cloudy day here today. It must have compelled me to vent just a little.

Oh my gosh

I was e-mailed a link to this from a friend today....just watch it. I normally don't keep stuff like this, but I was rolling after I watched it!! I can gladly say I have never done this. Enjoy.

http://www.planetvids.com/html/Drunk-In-The-Police-Station.html

The drive in

So yesterday was the hubby's birthday, and we racked our brains of something to do that we have not done before. After about six hours and aimless driving around town we came up with the movies.....well not movie theatre, but the drive in movies. It is a 40 minute drive from our house and we had the rest of the day to prepare for it. We had a nice linner we call it (late lunch early dinner) and then went to the store to buy snacks for the movie. When we finally left for the movies, we got there a little early. The second car in line to be exact, but that's ok it gave us 45 minutes to sit there and talk. Which is something we have not had a lot of time to do lately. When they finally opened the gate there were probably 20 cars behind us, and a lot more on the way. So we found a good spot for viewing and claimed it. It's funny the place looked really old (obviously), but after we were there half an hour, all three screens were pretty much sold out! It was such a fun time! Despite the food and drinks we brought, we broke down and went to the concession stand for hotdogs and pretzels! Oh well all in fun on the birthday right! We ended up seeing a double feature for the price of one movie. This is normal at this drive in. Too fun! Below is a picture of where we parked, we were the first ones to park for this movie, so no one is in the picture yet. Just a beautiful night and a blank screen.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

Today is my husbands birthday. Right now, I am trying to be as quiet as possible so he can sleep in. The problem is that the kitties like to follow me around and meow or try to walk on the keyboard while I am typing! We are doing what he wants today. Maybe a movie, some shopping for guy stuff and a nice dinner. I have not been blogging lately. We hustled to get our bathroom done (there is still crown molding to put up, and a little touch up painting), and we had company from Florida. The company was my brother and new sister in law who were married here. There was so much to do to get ready for the wedding, and hubby and I were in the wedding too! So, now that our lives have slowed down a little I can take a deep breath. We had our real estate agent come over Thursday to take a look at our house since we moved in. A tremendous amount of work has been done, and a lot of money invested. We just wanted a professional opinion to make sure we are not wasting time and money. Good news is that we are not! She was so nice, and complemented on everything (I know she is our real estate agent, and that is her job), but I also believe she wouldn't lie to us. So all in all that went very well, and now we can take in the information that she gave us. Well, it's Saturday and I am looking forward to a long weekend!

Summertime

AHHHHHH

I am in a horrible mood today! I come home every night and have to park down the street (far down the street and walk home). My neighbors and I are the only people on the street that do not have a driveway. My husband and I work all day and when you come home the little things in life like....well... being home, make your day. My neighbors a family of 6 have one...one I repeat van, but they have family members a husband and wife that come over every day. The thing is that they both have a vehicle and they both park in front of my house EVERY DAY. Now the thing that irritates me (and it shouldn't....I try to let this go) is that like I said before we are the only two homes on the street without a driveway....SO PARK IN FRONT OF SOMEONE ELSES HOUSE THAT HAS A DRIVEWAY AND DOESN'T NEED THE STREET PARKING!!! Let the people without a driveway park in front of their home. These neighbors (and their family) do so many other mean things, but this one seems to bother me the most. I think it's the part where I have to help my husband carry drywall from down the road, or 10 bags of groceries on a 90 degree day. I need to be more patient, but today they stuck me the wrong way!

Ruby Red Martini Quest

Ok...so ever since I have been back from my summer trip to Denver I have been on a quest. The girls on my trip and I of course enjoyed the BEST martini I have ever had. Hands down. The problem is that my sister in law Cathy and I want to make them for the next big family get together and we don't know how to make them??? I know they had absolut grapefruit vodka in them and possibly cranberry juice (a tiny amount) for the color and an orange liquor (maybe)??? This link is the closest that I have found to the recipe, but it is too red looking and it needs to be more like an actual ruby red grapefruit color (not clear looking). http://absolutdrinks.com/drink_recipe_absolut_red_ruby_4505.html Someone reading this, please, I beg you please send me a recipe. I have googled it, I have looked in my husbands bartending books, but no such luck. I am at the point where I am about to call the restaurant we ate at and ask them to get the bartender on the phone! It was the perfect summer drink. Well, quest called off....I think I stumbled upon the recipe, after I put the link in my blog for the first one. Please check this link out (I haven't made the recipe to confirm this is what I was raving about), but if it is and you have the means to make it at home. I fully encourage it. Especially, when it's a hot summer day! End of rant. :-) http://absolutdrinks.com/drink_recipe_rubytini_5207.html

Tile mania

So today the hubby and I went to a tiling class (not like he is letting me help doing any of the work, but I went too). I am the clean up crew so he says. Anyways, we are ready to go on the next to final step of getting the bathroom done! The whole idea of being able to put muddy adhesive on the walls and then sticking things to it really seems fun to me....well maybe for now. Once, this is done we can do the new flooring and bring in the vanity, toilet and other bathroom accessories. We are both a little relieved that it is coming to a close.




My favorite brother is getting married two weeks from today(he and his fiance are in the middle of this picture, which was at our wedding). We are so excited for him, since he is marrying a wonderful person. We are both in the wedding, best man and matron of honor. So it has been a little hectic between alterations, fittings and house projects, but it is great to see it all come together.

The drywall

The drywall is almost done. Thanks to hubby for all the hard work, cause you know I had nothing to do with it. I keep asking him if he needs help, but the manly manly that he is keeps refusing my help! Oh well, I am glad that he knows how to do that kind of stuff. It would cost a lot more to hire someone to do it. Well, pictures to come.......hopefully I can start priming, painting, laying flooring and finishing that darn room soon. The worst part is coming home from work every night and working on the room too and staying up on all the other household chores....oh well.

Remodeling!!!

When my husband and I were on our honeymoon (2 years ago) we thought, hmmmmm.....we should buy a house. So that's exactly what we did, the next week! At the time we lived in a large home in Heritage Hills, right next to the mayor. We loved that house, so we wanted to get something like it, but in our price range. So we went out and found and old home not too far away. It has all hardwood floors, original woodwork and lots of character. Little did we know, that the previous owner did a lot of work on the home, but didn't do most of it right. Lucky for me I have a father in law with lots of building experience (and the tools to do it), and a husband that has the knowledge and works at an architecture firm. So we jumped on in and started doing projects. One by one we fixed and fixed and... well you get the picture. Every $10 project was $50 and every $50 project was $200. Finally though, we felt like we were making progress. Until recently... A tile fell off the wall in the master bathroom. Something behind it was black and furry......Apparently the person before us had mold and decided to cover it up with tile. The tile was done to look like wainscoting, and appeared to be fine (it was just a really ugly bathroom anyone can clearly see that....oh, the yellow!!). To our defense we did work on the bathroom last year. We painted it and added new light fixtures and towel bars etc... I really liked the aloe green bathroom. Oh well, so back to the current story, we now we have to go and buy a mold testing kit and find out what kind of mold we have. Fifty five dollars and 48 hours later the mold test results come back and it's not good! Apparently it is pretty common in older homes especially in bathrooms to have mold. Our homeowner's insurance doesn't cover it, but our agent told us explicitly what we have to do. It sounded like a whole lot of work, so Scott checked with some guys at work, and they said the same thing as our agent. So off to Lowe's we went. Our list consisted of a tyvek suit, respirator (everyone said to never clean mold out without this), plastic sheeting to close off the room, large and triple thick trash bags and anti-mircobial bleach. Well, that is just the beginning.....Since our house is older there's no drywall, the walls are all plaster. So we had to break out the sledge hammer and crow bars and tear down the walls. Right down to the studs! Then and only then are you supposed to clean with the bleach. This is how you get rid of the mold. Hmmmm makes sense I guess, just start all over. So this is my bathroom...(see below) for now. I have company coming from out of state in 3 weeks, so I am in panic mode today (I tend to worry too much). Well, at least we are done demolishing what was left of an ugly bathroom and now it is time to start the drywall. So I can at least say something was done right from the begining in this house! As for me I am stuck to using the 1/2 bath and the stand up shower in the basement!

Extreme Chicks!!

Well, maybe not that extreme....This is the group of women for the, "girls trip 2006". I am very lucky to be a part of this group. You see, my husbands sister, makes this whole thing possible. She is probably the most generous person I know. Every year the group talks about where in the U.S. we would like to go, and then Chris (the sister in law) makes it all happen. This year the mile high city had us coming their way! There is one activity planned that is usually something most of the group has never done. This year it was white water rafting. We had a great tour guide, and the rafting company we went with was so organized! http://www.raftecho.com/colorado-rafting-trips/raft-n-rail/ We spent 2 hours going down the river (it had rained before we arrived in Colorado, so the river was up and extra crazy). Then we had a nice lunch on the riverbank. After that, we changed and hopped on a train and went through the mountains. It was awesome!! I have never done anything like that before. All is well, no one fell out of the raft, not even my mother in law. Cathy my other sister in law, and I must have steered that raft ok! Way to be daring girls!!

Well this is it, I finally set up my blog....................hmmmmmmm......what to start writing about. Oh, well. It will come to me eventually. This is me....and my Angel. She is my baby. Lucy is my black cat, he of course is not in this picture. Yes, I meant to write Lucy is a he....yeah...