Weakling

We got back to Heavensville on Thursday night, morning actually. As in, 12:30am. Barf.

Anyway, after being gone for over a month I had the awesome task of creating a menu, the shopping list and doing the darn shopping. Ugh. The hubster TOTALLY slacked on his grocery shopping duties! I usually make the menu and the list, broken down into the "produce, dairy, frozen and dry goods" categories for the ease of his shopping experience and then send him off to conquer the Schnucks/Kroger/Whole Foods...whatever he feels like visiting. So, back to the slacker. I made the menu, and the list and then he proclaimed "I can't go, I have to cut the grass." Whatever. So I went to the store. Alone. There are few things that I despise more than grocery shopping. Picking up Sampson poo even sounds more appealing than walking down the baking aisle searching for a small box of regular strawberry jello. Plus, since the hubster does the shopping I have NO idea where things are. He gets it done in under 30 minutes. It takes me 30 minutes to find the front door to the store! (Exaggeration, I know)

Anyway, since the slacker wasn't going I forged ahead and managed to find everything but the shallots. Awesome. I didn't have a single thing in the cart that wasn't on our list. We're on a budget people, no messing around here! Hubs is great at getting only what the list says because a) he knows the budget and b) he'd get a beating if he came home with anything outside of the list that wasn't in the fruit and vegetable food group. We're on a healthy budget people, no crap food in THIS house. Especially after indulging at the cottage and his parents for the past month!

So, you better believe I got a death scare when I returned home with a box of each of these.





It was late, well past my dinnertime. I was tired. It had taken me an hour and a half to shop. I hadn't eaten a meal yet because there was no healthy food in the house to be eaten. What can I say, for the first time since January I admit that I was a weakling when it came to the Little Debbie section of the store.

Darn you, end caps, darn you.

Weight Watchers begins again this Monday. For realz.

St. Paul peeps

If you're in the St. Paul area check this place out. Great Chinese food!

Farmer's Market

We visited the Woodbury Farmers Market last Sunday. There were great items for sale! Radishes, pea pods, green onions and more! They set up in the YMCA parking lot.



Look at the pretty flowers Bev got for just $4! They lasted for a whole week and were just beautiful! Several huge sunflowers inside.

Davi-dee

Healthy Competition

Bev has been tracking her blood pressure for the past few weeks and we decided to join in the fun. It's been really fun to track our progress...you wouldn't believe what a cup-a-joe does to your numbers!

Crabby-Pants

We made it to crab night. I got schooled in the ways of cracking, cutting and cleaning out all the meat that those little legs hold. It was a great time up until Bev bit into a green olive from the salad bar and broke her tooth! I know what you're thinking, you have to be careful with olives and their pits. But these olives were from a salad bar and had pimento stuffing inside...never would have expected pits!

I'm Here I'm Here

Between Nate's nightly Strawberry Daquiri's and blogger taking FOREVER to upload photos I'd just given up on blogging for a bit. My "scheduled" posts were ready to go so I got to slack a bit. I'm still trying to get a cottage post up...but again, uploading photos is such a pain right now. Anyone else experiencing this?

Now, back to my daquiri...updates coming soon.

How to...

make flower bow clips. Again, for those of us that aren't so creative but try to be.

Here's what you'll need for the most part:



Choose fake flowers for your bows.

Pop the tops off. It should be really easy.



Begin to pull the back off.



Then peel it piece by piece until nothing else is stacked. It might look something like this.



Leaving all of the plastic pieces behind, stack your petals again.



Grab a cute fabric brad. (You can find them in the scrapbook section of most any store)



Push the brad through the hole created once you've re-stacked the flower petals.



Here is what the flower petals should look like from the front and back. I made sure that my flower petals were tilted every other row to get the optimum body and view of petals.



Here are all of the flower pieces that I created for Evie.



Now measure ribbon to fit your hair clip. Make sure to wrap it all of the way around from underneath the clip.





Cut the ribbon at that length and then apply hot glue. Place the ribbon on the under part of the clip. Then wrap around to the top and then again to the back...



...like so!



This is what the top of your clip should now look like.



Taking the flower and brad combination that you've created, glob on a big circle of hot glue.



Attach to the end of the clip and let dry/affix upside down like this.



Here's a view of the front and back of the bows.



Here are all of my bows for the birthday girl, Evie.



Here's what the clips look like when clipped into hair.



Here's Evie's bow holder...bows now included!



After viewing the photo I had to add a little something to the top to make it stand out a bit more. It was just too boring. I didn't want it to take away from the bottom part, but I wanted a simple detail as well. I think the small white bow helped quite a bit.



And that's how you make a bow holder, big flower bows and small bow clips.

Pheew. I'm pooped.

Crab-leg-aholics

We are going here tonight. For the crab, not the other sch-tuff.

P.S. I've been working on a "cottage post" all day but the photos take FOREVER to upload. Promise some good pics later tonight or tomorrow.

Nature versus Nuture

When we first brought Sampson to the vet he made sure we knew just what our dog would be like. "Mastiff's enjoy being around people. They love their owners and will want to be in the same room as you. However, they won't want to cuddle or be pet very often. They are most comfortable being in the room with you, but not right next to you. You definitely don't have a cuddle-bug-type here."

I beg to differ.



This is Sampson's favorite thing to do - Get as close as humanly possible. AT. ALL. TIMES. Especially when blogger.com is being used.

Curd Burger

My grandma met Nathan at the Green Bay airport. Because my flight was delayed a bit, they had a nice heart to heart. :)

Grandma took us out to dinner and I ordered this, the curd burger. It was good, but my big ol' belly certainly didn't need to meet it - Hello new vice...



Thank you for dinner and the conversation Grandma...see you in a couple weeks!


P.S. Nathan and I ate the fresh cheese curds within the first two days at the cottage! Thanks again for those too!

How to...

make a big flower bow. This is probably so easy you'll think it's silly I've posted it. These instructions are meant for those of us who stink are creatively challenged, but wish we weren't.

Cut ribbon the length of your clip and enough to curl underneath.

Place a hot glue dot on the top right in the middle.

Place the center of the cut ribbon on the glue dot and press down.

Place hot glue the length of the remaining clip on top.
Press the ribbon down. Repeat on the other portion of the top.
Place hot glue on the underneath portion.
Curl the ribbon over and press.
Find a fake flower.
Pop it off the stem and cut it down as short as you can.
Place hot glue all over the opening to make sure the pieces stay together. Then make a long line of glue.
Attach your clip to the long line of glue and press down.
Let dry/affix upside down.
Clip in someone specials hair.
I made this one for a little girl who's birthday is coming up...and she lurves pink and lots of it!

Next up...how to make small flower clips!

Reason 8,257

for why I'd love to live in Dallas someday soon. Lunchtime meetings with one of my high school bff's. The lovely lady on the left, Miss Brit.



When my mom scheduled our flights home from Dallas I knew that I needed to get to Green Bay, WI and not actually home home. So, my mom scheduled this crazy round-about itinerary for me (thank you!) where I'd fly to Minneapolis and then on to Green Bay. I have bad luck when I travel alone so layovers in cities where I can actually get help from peeps is always appreciated. Back to the good stuff. Because my flight was leaving later than mom's I decided to call Miss Brittany and schedule a reunion after 8 years being apart. Sad. That's way too long to be away from good people like oher. So, the Elmer chariot picked me up from my hotel and off we went to their home. I was given the full tour of the Elmer Estate by her little man, Ethan, and managed to get a little turned around in her McMansion. She even showed me her infamous food storage. Seriously, this girl has some MAD couponing skills. (Brit...send me those sites!)

Brittany actually got me started on this little bloggie-blog. So, you all can thank her for introducing my wonderful stories and inspirational photos to your lives. Riiiight. :) But really, I have her to thank for giving me a platform through some pretty exciting, boring, dark, light and totally random times!

Before they took me to the airport we grabbed a couple shots. Not bad for a three-year-old...right?



The classic arm hook shot.



Thank you Elmers...I had a blast! I'll definitely see you again real soon!

P.S. Brittany's post about the visit is waaay better. For some reason, doing nothing all day is making my brain incredibly slow and oh-so-unfunny. Check it out here.