My New Copper Colander

Here is my new find that I added to my house last week. It is an old copper colander. I found it at this out of the way consignment store that I just randomly stopped at while driving up to Westminster. I never go antiquing with Bryce - and for some reason I decided to stop at this place and take Bryce in. Yeah... I know, crazy... but he was really good (well, for him) and didn't totally ruin the store. I think it helped that the store owner had a cage with a parrot in it. He found the parrot and was enamored with it. My son is not much of a shopper. He is very much like his father when it comes to this "sport" :-). I on the other hand LOVE antiquing and finding good deals. I have no idea if this was a good deal or not but I loved the patina of it. I liked how the copper is wearing off in some spots. Of course, this could be tarnish, but I like the look of it! I put this in my dining room underneath my Ernest D. Roth etching - the distant artist relative (I think he was my grandmother's cousin?).

Wow!

So I am really new to this whole blogging thing and am learning a lot - well, apparently people give out awards and I received my first one ever today! I got a "You Make My Day Award" from Rue over at Rue's Peanut Butter and Jelly Life.
I just happened to fall upon her blog one day and it seemed interesting. She blogs at least once a day and I love reading about what she has been doing. Her style seems pretty similar to mine and I think that's why I've been enjoying her blog so much. Plus... she lives in Ohio, my most favorite state. Well - I also like Nevada but I could never see myself actually living there - but I have lived in Ohio and I loved it. I always say that if it was closer to the ocean I'd move there in a heartbeat.

So apparently the rule is that I have to now hand out 10 of these awards. I'm definitely going to have to think about this one. I haven't gotten to active in the "blogging" world... I'm still a bit of a lurker. I'll think about it and post them at a later time.

Thank you Rue!

My Favorite Place

My favorite place in the whole house is my kitchen. I love it. I think it's because I spend most of my day here. It's also the easiest place in the house to keep clean and straightened up because everything that lives in here has a home - well, most of the time. Our last house had lots of colors everywhere on the walls. Every room was different. Our kitchen was a yellow from Laura Ashley (Cowslip 3 I think). Well, with the new house (we moved here in January) I decided to go more neutral so that I could bring in all sorts of color with accessories and I thought I would handpaint things on the walls. Well - the handpainting hasn't worked out and I don't see it happening in the near future having a 3 yr old around - and well, after looking at everyone else's houses I'm kind of missing the color. Unfortunately though... most of our walls run into each other so if I paint the kitchen 1 color, the dining room has to be that too because they share a wall. The foyer wall goes up the stairs so the upstairs hallway has to be the same as the foyer.

Anyhow - I'm off topic. I'm just noticing though that my house doesn't photograph very well because there is no color! It's missing the cuteness of color! It is nice not to have to match things though and if in a few years I get tired of an accessory I can switch it out and not worry about what color the new one is. I always used to think that other people's neutral homes looked so much cleaner for some reason. I think it's the simplicity of the wall color. I don't know if it's really me though. But right now I'm liking it in person (just not in photographs!). So here is where I spend at least half of my day...
Actually - you know what it is? I think I need some curtains on my sliding glass doors and a new light fixture in the kitchen. The florescent light just isn't doing it. Although that will have to happen later. We've painted the walls and replaced all of the floors on the main floor - I think that's another reason the kitchen is my favorite place - I love my 5 inch planks! I'm thinking I'd like to either paint the cabinets either this summer or next too. I like the cranberry color of the hutch so either that color or maybe a shade of dark blue.

I also love the kitchen because I get to look outside while I wash the dishes. We have a gorgeous birch tree in the backyard and a wonderful dogwood right outside the window. We have bird feeders on the dogwood so you can see the finches all summer long. The trees are bare right now so it's not a spectacular view but you can get the idea...I hope you were able to enjoy your favorite place in your house today. Ta ta for now!...

Oh... and btw... I had a much, much better day today! :-)

Bad Day

So I haven't posted since Monday - I have been having a few difficult days this week with today being one of the worst but I'll be back! Ever have one of those weeks? Well - I'm in the middle of one. Things just seem a little out of control right now and that really, really irks me. Yesterday Bryce and I had some friends over and the house is an absolute pigsty - which really is pretty typical of 6 3 yr olds. I'm not upset over it - really, I love being able to have the kids over and let them have fun (I think they all had a blast) it's just that now my house is also out of control as well - so not only are some things in my life a little hectic but my house is hectic too which has caused a little disturbance in my life. If everything was fine and dandy and the house was a mess - I'd be having no problem! I just can't really handle it all at once... make sense? Ok, so now I've really rambled on and on. I'll be back posting more interesting things again soon. I want to do the challenge of my favorite place in the house - but well, right now it's a bit messy and well, none of the house is my favorite now! Be back soon!

White House Easter Roll

Ok, so I'm not sure what was more fun - the egg roll itself or standing in line overnight waiting for the tickets to the egg roll. Today's event definitely was an experience but I think I did have just as much fun (if not more) hanging out with my gal friends talking and joking around all night long! To begin the day off - we took the metro down to the event.
Bryce refused to walk from the metro stop to the White House (1/2 mile) so I had to carry him. He's about 32 lbs right now and after 1/2 mile he gets really heavy! We finally got to the ellipse and waited 1/2 hour to get into the White House grounds. Bryce was trying to tear the tent down - joy.
Finally, at 1 we were brought onto the South Lawn and boy was it crowded! Again, he wouldn't walk so I had to carry him around. He decided that he wanted to do the egg hunt first and the line was long. Actually, everything had a line and all of them were long. He enjoyed hunting for the eggs although he didn't find the coveted golden egg.Then we went to go get our picture taken in front of the White House but he wasn't really happy about that... he wanted to go see the animals and the ocean stuff. I told him we'd go up there to see that all after the picture but well, see for yourself...
We then saw the animal show (a monitor lizard, a vulture and an alligator) and walked around. He was excited to see the horseshoe crabs and ocean stuff (that was the theme for the year but by the way it was displayed you'd never know).
He did the egg roll...
we saw Super Why...
and then we went home! Now it's off to relax because I'm exhausted and my arms are killing me!

I'm getting too old to pull all-nighters!

So this year I decided to go down to DC and camp out overnight with a few of my mom friends to get tickets to the White House Egg Roll. I went with 6 gals and we are all egg roll "virgins" except for 1 of us. Mimi went last year and camped out overnight in the snow. Yeah, I had already told her that if the weather was bad - count me out... but the weather was ok so we met up at Tracie's house and took my minivan down to DC (packed with stuff). We arrived at our place in line at 7 pm on Friday night.
Thankfully it was still light and by dark we had our tents all set up and we were psyched! Unfortunantly, we were not able to camp out on the elipse because we got there too late but we were pretty sure that we would be able to get tickets. We decided to order some Pizza Hut Pizza and they actually delivered it to our tent. The place was packed. Keep in mind, the White House gives out about 20,000 tickets to this event and it's really hard to get them even if you're on the "inside". We made friends with the people around us (well except for the people in front of us that started out as 2 adults and 2 kids and by the time tickets were given out there were 8 adults - not fair) and then sat down for a few hours of mom talk. At about 10:30 ish Mimi and I took our first walk around the area. Wow - DC had turned into tent city. I'm sure the tourists all thought, wow... we didn't realize that there were so many homeless in this city! We walked around the elipse and talked with a few of the other families. The 1st people in line arrived at their spot at 3am on Friday morning. A little down the lane was a pair of dads that had gotten there at 11am. Around the other side of the ellipse (the ellipse is the huge grassy area behind the Washington Monument and in front of the White House) were 2 families visiting from Arizona that had gotten there at 4pm. Then we met some nice moms that have been doing this since 2002 - except that back then you could still show up at 4 in the morning and actually get a ticket (no more) - they had arrived at 5pm. The line then snaked out of the ellipse onto the side area (where we were) and went on forever. Here is picture of what was behind us at 1am (and this really is just a tiny portion of it).At about 1:30 we decided to take another walk around the ellipse and that occupied us for another hour and a half. I can't believe that most people were asleep by this time. I guess we're all getting too old for all nighters! Here is a view of what we saw in the ellipse.This is what we came "home" to:
Everyone was asleep! Tracie, Mimi and I decided to keep trucking because we weren't sure what time they would come around and give out vouchers... and if you don't have a voucher you don't get tickets. At about 3:30 they gave the wakeup call for everyone to get out of their tents by 4 am to get their voucher. At 4:30 they got around to us and we got our vouchers! (this picture is obviously from later in the morning!) You can't see it too well in the picture but I got number 854 (the beginning was 1 and the end was in the 1600's).
Well, by this time in the morning the wind started picking up and it was getting COLD so we decided to hang out in the tent from 5 am to about 6:15am. At this time we started breaking down "camp". We brought everything back to the car (I got an awesome parking spot so not too far) and then the line started compressing so it moved fast.
At 7:30 they started handing out tickets and by 8:50 we were back in the car with our 1 pm entrance time!
We were told by the park rangers that a lot of people got turned away at 5am. Apparently if you were not in line by 11pm - you did not get a voucher at 5 am. So some people camped out from 11:30 pm and had to go home empty handed at 5. How much would that suck! I'm so glad we got there at 7! I'm thinking next year that if the weather is nice I'm going to go down at around 11 and let Bryce run around on the grass until Dave can pick him up after work! He'd love it.

Well - that's how you get tickets to the White House Egg Roll. I had SO much fun with my mommy friends and I had no idea this was so involved! I'd do it again in a heartbeat though. It was such an incredible experience - I mean really, how many people can say they have camped out on the White House's front lawn?! (well, apparently about 1600 people).

I'll post more on Monday after Bryce and I get back from the event. I am looking so forward to it - it's going to be fantastic!

Zena

Meet Zena... our oldest dog. We have 2 rat terriers - Zena was bought at a pet store (I know bad... but it was before I knew anything!) and Emmi was rescued through Ratbone Rescues. They are both 6 yrs old (Zena is older by 4 months). I was visiting Swaddle Cottage the other day and as I was reading he blog I ran into a picture of.... Zena! Well, actually, it is her dog GiGi but it looks a lot like Zena. I got in touch with her and apparently they don't know GiGi's breed because she was rescued but I have a feeling they have a purebred Rattie. Rat Terriers are most popular in the south and midwest. They're typical farm dogs and were bred to rat out barns. Theodore Roosevelt owned 2 rat terriers (there are 2 types, A and B, Teddy owned the B type that has shorter legs hence why they are now called Teddy Rat Terriers). Zena is a purebred Type A Rattie and Emmi is - well, we're not really sure. I think she is probably a rat terrier / chihuahua cross. There is no doubt she was misbred but that's a whole 'nother post! To learn more about rat terriers, click here.

RIP Great Grandma's Mirror

I love family heirlooms. I keep everything that is passed down to me and try to display it somehow. Well, when my great-grandmother died years and years ago I was given a hand held mirror of hers. I have no idea if it was worth anything - I think i just liked it. Well, I was cleaning the bathroom today and put the mirror out in the bedroom while I cleaned. While my back was turned I heard an awful sound of something shattering. I ran into the bedroom and this is what I found:Bryce had gotten off of the bed where he was watching TV, walked over to where I had put the bathroom stuff down, picked it up, brought it back over the the TV and somehow must have smacked it. I was so sad. I thought about just throwing it out but I think I'll still hang onto it and hang it up somewhere. The mirrored part doesn't have to show - I'll just hang it so the backside shows....

All better! Needless to say though - Bryce was in time out for awhile for this one. Ta ta for now - I have to go get ready to camp out in DC for tickets to the White House Easter Roll on Monday! We're going down to the city to get in line by 7pm and tickets are distributed Saturday morning. I'm going with a bunch of gals from my moms group so it should be fun... and cold!

5 Picture Challenge

Rue over at Rue's Peanut Butter and Jelly Life took the 5 picture challenge and it looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a try. You can only take 5 pictures of things around your house that say something about who you are. I ended up taking a bunch and it was difficult to whittle them down but here is what I came up with:

This is my sign from Craft Country. Craft Country was a store in Olney that I loved but sadly went out of business a few years ago. Most of the decorations and some furniture in my house that aren't antiques are from Craft Country. I bought this sign when they were closing. It used to hang as a permanent fixture in the store on the soffit near the ceiling. This sign now hangs in my ceiling and I love being able to look at it every day.
This represents my love for bargain shopping. I bought this item today at a random store in Westminster that I came across while going to pick up a bike trailer. It was $7! The pots alone would have been 7 bucks at Home Depot. The wire holder is just darling and I fell in love with the Frosty Fern plants that I found in the nursery that was attached to the consignment store I was in. The plants were not included in the price.
This represents 2 things. The love I have for my son and also the creative side of me. My son made the astronaut in school and they pasted his school photo in the helmet. I thought it was so cute that I decoupaged it onto a piece of wood from Michaels I had stored away for a project I was going to do years ago. I love how it turned out and it hangs in the stairwell going down to the playroom.
This again represents 2 things, my love for God and my love of the beach. I know the 2 don't really go together (although God did create the beach!) but hey, I only had 5 pictures! My son found these 2 pieces of Driftwood at Dewey Beach last year on a walk we took together. When we got home I tied them together to make a cross. It's going to hang in our master bedroom after we paint it to remind me of the beach and of my faith.
Lastly, this picture represents my college years and my engagement. After I got engaged during my senior year of college, I spent a lot of time in Zanesville, Ohio... the pottery capital of the USA! I frequented the 2nds shop of Hartstone quite often. I bought my entire line of everyday dish ware there as well as a lot of serving pieces and bowls. I also got the place mats there. I spent a lot of time mix matching the pottery collections to get the look I wanted. I got such a deal on this pottery by going to the 2nds store. The stuff I got was in great condition and was incredibly cheap. I saved hundreds of $$. The plate shown in the picture goes for about $24 each and I think I paid $2 a plate during their May special.

If anyone else would like to take the challenge... post it on your blog and let me know!

Quilt Giveaway!

I wanted to pass along information to you about a lovely give-away. Dana over at "The Old Red Barn" will be giving away a... homemade quilt! Go add your name!

What happened to Caribou Coffee?

I loved the Caribou Coffeehouse in Olney. I actually like Starbucks gourmet coffee better but I like the layout of Caribou much better. I would go there and get a regular coffee and sit at one of the many tables they have. The store was much bigger than either of the Starbucks in Olney and they even had a large table which was fantastic! The table sat 6-8 people and was great. The Starbucks in Olney you have to jam yourself into to even get to the counter and then you may be able to find a table that accommodates 2 people. That is if they all aren't taken. I hate it. You cannot meet other people in either Starbucks and have a good time. It's basically an in out kinda place. Caribou on the other hand - you could actually socialize in.

Well - I noticed the other day on my way to the food store that the Olney Caribou is all boarded up. So is the one down in Aspen Hill. So of course I automatically thought that the company as a whole must be going out of business. I was wrong - I just checked the website and it looks like Caribou is still around. Just not the one in Olney. Total Bummer.

I can't have a MOMS Club board meeting at either of the Starbucks in Olney. No longer are the mommy coffee's in the morning, there is no place in Starbucks that our kids can play (Caribou had a toy chest and kids table!). No more are the spring morning walks to get coffee, there is no way a stroller is getting into either of the Starbucks in Olney.

Caribou had a prime spot in Olney - I sure hope something good goes in there next. Olney is SO odd. For some reason the people here don't like anything good or convenient. First they drove Pizza Hut out of business, then Einstein Bagels and now Caribou.

Yummy!

We had the best day today. It started out with a playdate at my girlfriend Tracy's house. I haven't seen her in forever (well, only a week but I usually see her every other day!) and it was great to catch up. Her house is so incredibly comfy! I always just feels like home there.

We got home and my father in law came to pick up Bryce for the night. He's sleeping over there. David and I had tickets to see Doubt at the local theater and I figured that instead of eating out that I would cook something really scrumptious! So I made Gorgonzola Crusted Filet Mignon with Merlot Sauce. The recipe originally called for Blue Cheese and Port Wine but I substituted in Gorgonzola and Merlot because I like them better. I also made Mashed Red Potatoes with Gorgonzola Cheese and Roasted Asparagus with Thyme. It was SO good. The Merlot Sauce really made the meal. I didn't think I would like it because it seemed to have a lot of onions in it but wow - it was amazing.

I served dinner by candlelight in the Dining Room and used our china, good silver and crystal. It was really fun and _a lot_ cheaper than eating out!

We then went to the theater and when we came back we had Nutty Apple Crisp for dessert. David's favorite dessert is Apple Pie so I figured he would like this - it was a nice change from pie. Wow was this yummy! While we ate dinner we watched the movie Sydney White - it was really cute.

What a perfect night! An amazing dinner, the theater, yummy dessert and a fun movie! What else could one ask for in the night?! Plus - the tickets were given to us by my in laws, dinner was relatively inexpensive (compared to eating out) and the movie was through netflix! Not only did we have a great time but it was cheap!

Well, it's now 12:15 am and I should get to bed. I'll leave you with a picture of dinner (it looked so good I had to photograph it!)...

Where is the Vegetable Supreme??!

We have used McCormick's Vegetable Supreme for a few years now instead of butter on our vegetables. We love it! It makes the veggies taste so much better and we eat a lot of them. The market in town I go to, Shoppers Food Warehouse, has apparently decided to stop carrying this (with a bunch of other stuff we use). It is really annoying! I looked online and it doesn't seem as though the item has been discontinued. The thing about Shoppers though is you can never talk to the manager of the specific dept. you want to. Last time they did this they got rid of my Breyers Light Probiotic Yogurt - they only carry the non-light version now - and I talked to 3 different people about trying to get it back and never got a response from anyone. Well, tonight I went to Giant to see if they carried it still and apparently they don't either. If anyone knows of a food chain that carries McCormick's Vegetable Supreme... please let me know! I'll even pay to have it shipped to us!

The Foyer is Finished!

We finally painted the Foyer and I hung everything up. I was looking for a rug that would fit the foyer for the longest time. I couldn't be more than 5 ft wide but I didn't want the standard 3x5 because that wouldn't have been big enough. I ended up finding a 4x6 at Target for a great price! I put one of the yard sale chairs by the door for people to sit down on and take their shoes off and a coat hanger in the hallway. I hung my grandfather's police stick from the coat rack. Above the chair is a box top from a box we found in the shed at Rocky Point (my grandmother's summer house) and above that are little cubby's I got through Ebay to put hats/gloves/keys in.

On the other side is my 1/2 table with the box Kelly sent me from Okinawa (it goes perfectly because it is burgandy!) and the glass washboard on the wall. We also put up the new entry chandelier. I love it! Here are the finished pictures:

Dining Room

I finally got the etching done by Ernest D. Roth, a distant family member, framed and hung up in my dining room. My grandmother gave my parents the etching and they in turn gave it to me. The new frame and mats make it look much nicer than it was! Most objects in my house are either from an antique store, a yard sale, Craft Country (used to be in Olney till it went out of business), or are family heirlooms. The family heirlooms are my most favorite because they all have stories behind them.

I flanked the etching on the wall with 2 antique folding wood chairs that I bought years ago. I had always planned on hanging them in my townhouse but never got to it. I finally have been able to get them up in the new house. I bought 4 wrought iron hooks from a blacksmith on ebay. I love them. They're extremely heavy and sturdy and have a neat pattern on them. Although, when the chairs are hanging you can't see them. I didn't think of this beforehand.

I love having the chairs on the wall because they serve 2 purposes.... 1) artwork and 2) as chairs! When I have a large group of people over we can use these in either my dining room or anywhere else. Having them on the wall makes them very accessible!

Here's a picture of the new wall in my dining room and a closeup of the newly framed etching:

clouds in the sky... I mean ceiling

Today I spent pretty much the whole entire day painting clouds on the ceiling of our master bathroom. I woke up at 8:30, ate breakfast with Bryce and then Nana and Grandaddy came to pick up him to take him to DC at 9:30. From 9:30 to 10:30 I read some cottage decorating blogs (mainly on tips on how to make signs and refinish furniture) and then at about 11:00 I started the clouds.

I took some breaks through the day to rest my arm and neck and also to eat lunch and dinner but I finally finished up at about 8ish. They look ok. Dave said that he likes them and yeah, they're not bad for my first try but they all remind me of different things. To me one looks like a boy standing on a ledge, another looks like a manatee and yet another resembles a squirrel. There is also a car and a boy up there. Plus, I can see all of the layers of colors I put up there but it's probably because I know how I did it. If I didn't do it they might look differently.

Oh well - like I said, I'm satisfied with how it turns out and for now they will stay. Next comes the 2 palm trees and I also want to make a sign with a beachy quote on it to hang from the wall. That will complete my whimsical bathroom beach retreat!

Here are some pictures so that you can see how they turned out. I used 3 paint glazes (white, off-white and slightly grey) and applied the paint with both a cheesecloth and a paint brush.

I'm Back

Wow - 2 days in a row of blogging. This is a record! We all had an extremely busy day today. Bub and Buckets did "Donuts for Dads" this morning at preschool (although what was weird is that the handout that was given at it this morning said doughnuts - totally not the right spelling!) and they had lots of fun. Grandaddy showed up as well. Bub gave daddy some homemade gifts at the event and they are so cute!

I picked him up from preschool and we went to McDonalds. I don't know what was up with McD's today but it was packed and I was the youngest customer (besides Bub) by about 50 years! After lunch we went to the library, read some books and attended preschool storytime. We then went to Home Depot and after that we spent about 2.5 hours at the local park with our MOMS Club. We had so much fun! It was then onto home for dinner, bath and bedtime. He was SO tired that he actually just fell out of bed (only the 4th time since we took the rails off last year) and kept sleeping. I went into his room and put him back into bed and he never woke up!

Speaking of Home Depot - it was absolutely gorgeous today! I go to the one in Aspen Hill, MD which is one of the largest profiting stores on the east coast. It gets SO much traffic going through it because there is no other HD or Lowes anywhere nearby. I used to be the HR Manager at Aspen Hill a few years before Bub was born for a short while and did all of the hiring for their 2003 spring season (which starts in February for HD btw). I still see a lot of people I used to work with up there. Today I went into Hardware and there were about 10-15 managers (you can tell they were managers because any associate wearing dress shoes and an apron is in management! - you'd have to be nuts to wear dress shoes as an associate working on concrete floors all day!) doing a walk. A walk is basically what it sounds like - you walk through the store and critique everything. So I ran into Steve, my old Assistant Manager, and asked him what was up because wow - there were a lot of shirts! Well, the VP of Marketing for North America was doing the walk along with the Director of Marketing for the East Coast. Wow! Those are biggies. No wonder the store looks fantastic! Everything was organized and cleaned up. The floors were polished last week I was told and there was an over abundance of aprons in the aisles. Today was a great day to shop Aspen Hill Home Depot!

Well, the reason I explained all of this is that Steve mentioned asked me if I missed all of this and to tell you the absolute truth.... I do! I loved the rush of doing walks with the biggies. It was so exciting. In Frederick we had the President of the East Coast come do a walk with us and it was so much fun. I miss the rush of working 70+ hours a week! I know, I do that now... but it was different. There I was always working on something productive. Now, I'm watching episodes of Little Bill.

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE staying home with Bub. While I totally miss working and organizing (because that is what I love to do and that is what most of the HR job at HD is) I can't imagine handing Bub over to someone else all day at this age for 1 minute. I would love to have both but with a company like Home Depot - that is just not a possibility. You are expected to work a *minimum* of 55 hours a week if you are in management. And while I also have a fantasy of working part time in paint (it's fun!) that's also not a possibility because to be PT you have to work at least 8 hours on the weekend - and I'm not up for that right now!

So that's how our busy day went. After all of this we then had our small group from church over for our Thursday meeting. Bub went to sleep and we talked about the grace and forgiveness of God. This was actually an amazing small group tonight. It just reminded me of how incredibly excited I am that I have an intimate relationship with God. I know that I am forgiven and that others can be as well. I take that thought for granted so much and it boggles my mind that others just can't accept that sometimes. But I think that should just go into another blog.

It's now about midnight and I really should get to bed. I have a whole day to myself tomorrow! My inlaws are picking Bub up at 9:30 and taking him into DC and Buckets will be at work. I don't know what I am going to do with myself!

Night night and God Bless!

I lost

It's 2:18 am and I lost the auction. Can you believe it?! There were 2 minutes left in the auction I was winning and I went to go read a blog about organizing. I came back and bam - auction done, item lost. Total bummer!

Waiting....

So, here I am... blogging again. I am waiting for an auction on ebay to end and I don't want to get outbid. Unfortunately, the listing is from California so it doesn't end until 2:15 am EST. Normally I would just go to sleep but I do need a new flat iron and I'd rather not spend $100. The one I'm watching is the same one that my hairdresser was using and it is going for about $46 bucks right now rather than the $100 I could spend on it at Amazon. I figure that since David is taking Bryce to school tomorrow (Donuts for Dads program) I can stay up and wait a bit. I do have to admit though - I am getting pretty darn tired.

Today Bryce and I went to a PJ party playdate. It was lots of fun. Bryce was so excited to tell Daddy about how he went to a PJ party! I had changed into some nicer PJs for the playdate but Bryce wore exactly what he had slept in last night. It was great! No arguing getting changed. Although he didn't want his diaper changed in the morning. It was really nice too because after the playdate we just stayed in our PJs all day because we didn't have to go out afterwards!

Ok, so I don't think I am going to make it until the auction ends! It's 1:50 right now and there's about a little over 20 minutes left in the auction. So far I'm winning but I guess I'll just put my max bid in now and hope that someone doesn't upbid me too much! This is what I'm bidding on. Wish me luck. I have to sleep now.

I'm trying it again....

I really would like to be able to blog on a regular basis. I find it so incredibly hard to find the time although I do seem to find the time to look at the most random websites ever. The other night I was so bored but didn't want to go to sleep because I was getting some alone time and that's not so common. So I just randomly started looking up people I've known in the past. I thought about High School and well, Jack came to mind. That's because at my 10 year reunion Buckets and I drove him home because he had drank too much. Obviously, I went to high school with Jack. I was in Marching Band with him (well, I did Drill Team) and I went to Europe with him during the summer of 1994. He was always so much fun to be around. He had a way of always making everyone laugh.

Anyhow, back to my story. So he was one of the people I randomly looked up on Google the other day (I know, pathetic) and it turns out he is in a band that has a myspace page and they're pretty good! I signed up to be a friend and Jack actually wrote back to me himself. It's nice to know that I'm somewhat remembered!

Speaking of being somewhat remembered - the most embarrassing thing happened at my 10 year reunion. I went to middle school and high school with this guy named David. I was in many classes with him and we did occasionally hang out although I wouldn't say we were good friends, but we definitely knew each other! Yeah, well, I ran into him at the reunion and he had absolutely NO idea who I was. I don't think I've ever forgotten anyone - granted, my memory might not always be exactly clear - but I can't imagine totally not remembering someone! That's never happened to me. Well, yup, it is a little embarrassing to be totally forgotten. But oh well, his loss!

Here is the link to my friends band. Give them a listen and let me know what you think! 3fifths


I sat next to Jack on the bus while touring around Europe for awhile. I don't exactly remember how that happened but I just remember laughing so much! Thinking of my trip to Europe made me pull out my pictures. Here's one of Jack taking a little snooze - although I don't remember what country this was in! We toured around and put on musical concerts in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and France.


Here I am with Alyssa (R) and Mandy(C). This was taken before we left for Europe at our going away concert. Mandy played flute and was in the band while Alyssa and I went as band front. We danced to certain pieces and helped out the chorus. I was so lucky to go because they didn't have any violins in the band (the instrument I played) but I was still able to participate! I will never ever forget this experience. It was 3 weeks of SOOOO much fun. My parents remember me coming home and I was crying - they asked if I was crying because I was so happy to be home and I told them, No... I don't want to leave Europe! What an awful thing for parents to hear when their child comes back from a 3 week vacation away from them! But it really was one of the most fun times of my life.