Another REALLY great craft idea

It's not my great idea, but this was another gift from my Mom that was just the cutest thing ever! A little coin purse made out of baby socks! and the possibilities are endless aren't they? A truly fabu idea!

And in case you don't know what a yo yo is, they look like this....I know it was hard to tell from the elephant :-)

yo yo crazy

I've been talking about making a yo yo quilt forever. I think yo yo's are so fun. I don't know why. Someday though, I really am going to make a yo yo quilt. In the meantime, look at this really great gift from my Mom! She cracks me up :-) Who knows how long it will take me to make my yo yo quilt, so in the meantime, I can have this super duper cute yo yo elephant!! Pretty neat huh?

Merry Christmas!

Can't wait! Only 2 more days to get ready. I still have grocery shopping to do but the house is all ready ~ clean, decorated, jolly and cheerful. One more gift should arrive tomorrow (they promised 2 day delivery!) No white Christmas though. Thursdays high is in the low 50's. That's just not right, Seattle is snowed in but Hoosiers could practically be out getting a tan! Humph

If your plans include traveling, I hope they're safe.
If your plans are staying in, I hope they're relaxing, joyful and stress free.

Bill is going to be on call this year for Christmas. I'm hoping for an easy day ~ no calls ~ on Thursday.

I can't wait to get in the kitchen and start preparing all the goodies with my bottle of Gewurztraminer. Oh, I'm not making goodies with Gewurztraminer IN them. I mean, making goodies while drinking my bottle of Gewurztraminer. Okay, maybe I won't drink the whole bottle while I'm cooking, but you get the picture :-)
Mmmmmmm

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!


For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. Isaiah 9:6-7

Hockey!

IT'S AFFORDABLE FRIDAY!
The Indiana Ice are proud to announce a new season-long promotion entitled "Affordable Fridays" at all twelve Friday night home games during the 2008-09 hockey season."Affordable Fridays" have been developed with the consumer in mind as ticket prices, select concession products, and select merchandise items have been drastically reduced in price to save money for the common fan. The savings begin at the Pepsi Coliseum box office at 5:30 p.m. the day of game as end-zone seats have been discounted to $6.00. Inside, fans will find food products for just $1.00 including popcorn, nachos and additional items that will be alternated throughout the course of the Affordable Friday promotion.Additionally, all Pepsi fountain products will be available for just $1.00 at all concession stands. Not only will fans find reduced prices and savings behind the concession stands – specially selected Indiana Ice merchandise items will also be discounted at each Friday night game throughout the season. Check the Ice merchandise stands for special discounted items every Friday during the 2008-09 season.
Woohoo!

I love the holidays

I love Christmas lights and those giant inflatable lawn figures. I love Christmas ornaments and all the sparkly cheerful colors. I love that people smile more in December and I love Christmas music!

I love shopping for just the right new Christmas decoration every year. This year, it's this really great biker Santa! hahahahahahah

Now, if I could only find a great scooter for him!

I also love our sun room...

Oh, I just love it all!!

Have a holly jolly Christmas

It's December 1st already! Where has the year gone? Christmas is only 3 weeks away!

This past weekend we had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Mom's.

Friday, we finished raking, blowing and bagging all the leaves. In total, I'm guessing we did somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 bags. Yup, trees are pretty ~ to look at, but dang! The leaf blower/vacuum didn't really work as well as we had hoped. Oh, it's a great blower, but the vacuum part takes way too long.

Saturday, I put up alllll the decorations and listened to Christmas music all day. It was delightful :-)
Pepper was a little stressed out with all the changes. She was laying on Bills lap and when he got up and tried to set her on her on the couch, she was tooooooo pooped to move....awww.

But now she's back to her rascally self.

It's that time of year again. Time for family and loved ones, turkey and dressing and my list of all the things I'm Thankful for!

I have A LOT to be thankful this year. I know I say that every year, and every year it's true ~ but this year has been extraordinary.

I'm so thankful, every day, that my Mom is breast cancer survivor. I'm so thankful, every day that my brother is doing really great after being diagnosed with congestive heart failure earlier this year. That pretty much takes up my entire day, every day, of thankfulness, and some days, I don't feel like I deserve to be thankful for anything else because those 2 things are definitely enough. But I am still thankful for all of life’s little joys and blessings;
* I'm thankful as a woman, that I have the right to vote.
* I'm thankful that our new home has a big backyard for the dogs, a garage and TWO bathrooms!
* I'm thankful for comedies, even the really dumb ones like, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
* I'm thankful for healthy bones ~ oh, you know why.
* I'm thankful for the color, lime green. (it's so cheerful)
* I'm thankful for wallpaper steamers. Scraping it off is hard and takes SO long!
* I'm thankful for microwave ovens. Really, think about it. Remember when you didn't have one?
* I'm thankful for the smell of autumn leaves and pine trees.
* I'm thankful that every year, the day after Thanksgiving, there are several radio stations that will play Christmas music 24/7.
* I'm thankful that my husband is remarkably patient, constant and loving.
* I'm thankful for my health, a job, a home and the freedom to make choices.

And I am profoundly thankful for my family.

I'm thankful for each and every one of you; all of you contribute to the happiness in my world. My life is amazingly blessed every single day.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Thanksgiving.

Life is full of joy - Bee Happy!

Love Cynthia

Hockey!

So we went to the game last night and we won, 7 to 3. It was pretty fun! We really enjoyed it and have decided we would even like to go again. We probably need to watch a few games on TV to get the hang of it though. And next time, I would like sit a little higher up.

Our team has a really great logo...

Trick or Treat

What a let down. We only had 3 small groups of kids :-( And 2 of those groups were tweens. Oh sure, they were funny and creative but it's just not the same as a little princess or sponge bob. The last group was pretty pleased with themselves though...one guy was carrying a cereal box with a knife suck in it ~ he was a cereal killer. Then there was the girl with a bunch of post it's stuck on her shirt that said things like "ceiling beats floor 100 to 3" and "ceilings are #1!" Did you guess? She was a ceiling fan. I have to admit, that was funny! Then there was the girl with the candy Smarty rolls pinned all over her jeans ~ that one was easy, she was a smarty pants. So silly. I guess I'll have to get over Halloween. Rats!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is tomorrow and I haven't done a single thing this year to get ready! OH NO. I will be running to the store after work to get candy. I have no idea what Halloween will be like on our new street this year. I hope we have LOTS of cuties in adorable costumes!

In 2 days it will be November and only 54 days until Christmas. Whoa. That's alright, I'm just going to continue enjoying the Autumn weather and falling leaves for now. I'll start thinking about Christmas in a couple weeks I suppose.

In the meantime, here's a great link to some fantastic looking pumpkins!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-carved-pumpkins-pg,0,797302.photogallery

And 2 days ago, my best friend of 14 years told me that our friendship had run its course. Isn't that the most bizarre thing you've ever heard? I'm going to attribute it to her excellent skills at detaching from people when things don't go her way. Still, something is fundamentally wrong with a person who can let go of a 14 yr friendship, in an email, without a discussion. *sigh*

Hockey Season

It's Hockey season! Woohoo! No, I don't really care, hahahahahaha. I might though...I don't know anything about hockey. I've been to a couple games and I thought they were exciting, but that was a long time ago. It might be something I REALLY like though, so we're going to give it a try. We're going to our first game in November, just the local team. And if I don't like it, I will have only squandered $15. And if I LOVE it, really, what could be better than a sport that you can go see for only $15?!?!?!?!

I love candy

I know that it doesn't come as a surprise, that I love candy. The sweeter the better.

Anyway, this morning on my way in to work, I stopped at Walgreen's to get a small fan for my desk and drop off Bill's film…on the way out I decided I have held back long enough and got some candy pumpkins. Right next to them is a new Brach's product, called Caramel Candy Corn. Whoa. It is very yummy BUT, they are soooooooooooooooooooo sweet I can hardly stand it! Really, I got about a dz out to eat and after the 5th one, I had goose bumps! I think they are even sweeter than the sugar frosting on a grocery store bakery cake!!!!!!! I don't think I'll be able to eat them all! Whew, what a rush!

OUCH!

This is my head...

This is a wall...

This is early in the morning, after I've turned out all the lights, on my out the door to go to work. See that furniture dolly to the right of the doors? Neither did I....

The next thing I knew....right after I tripped over the dolly...BAM...head long into the wall...
Yup, that's the hole in the wall that I made with my HEAD. Man did that hurt!
Yeah, yeah, it's better than a hole in the head, but still, OUCH!

Can't believe it...

It's October?!?!

September was a busy month for us so it flew by. I'm just barely getting ready for Halloween and the local craft stores have all their Christmas goodies out already!

Well, at least the weather is finally fall like. High 60's all week. Mmmmm, I love the crisp mornings and fresh air. I'll probably not like it so much in a couple weeks when we have to start raking leaves! Oh, scratch that ~ we have leaf blower that's also a vacuum! How cool is that?! And as it sucks up the leaves, it mulches them so you can fit A LOT in the bag! I thinks that's awesome.

Wild Hogs - day 8

Hooray! Finally, they are home!!! One of the guys got a flat tire about 1:00 so they were delayed about 3 hours getting home. Bill looks so manly, lots of sun on his face and stubble on his face. He pulled in the driveway a little after 5:00. We talked for a couple hours and went to dinner, came home and watched Survivor and went to bed. It's so great to have his presence in the house again :-) He loves the new furniture and even likes what I did to the bdrm and the new quilt.

Today, we're going to walk down to Main St and check out the Art Festival and eat some yummy food for lunch.

Before I go though, here's the latest weird bug our home has attracted...I took this picture about a 1/2 hr ago...

It's called a wheel bug. This one was about 1 & 1/2 inches long.

Wild Hogs - day 7

Today they stopped in Galesburg Iowa, about 420 miles. Only 360 miles from home! Woohoo! Today's ride was pleasant and casual and the weather was perfect for riding. He's had a really great time but I'm happy he's almost home :-) I'll be looking for him to get here about 4:00 or so. Also tomorrow, our new sofa and chair are being delivered. And I redecorated the bedroom too! Yup, life IS good.

Wild Hogs - day 6!

Hooray! They're headed home! They made it to Sioux City, about 430 miles. Bill said their favorite stop along the way was a little town called Deadwood SD. Great name huh? I don't know what time they hit the road this morning but they stopped early, about 5:00 their time. I can't wait to see pictures!

Here are some picture of Deadwood, from their official website.

Wild Hogs - day 5

LUNCH UPDATE - 10:30 SD time
Right now they are in Sturgis and I hear it's a lovely little town. Bill says it's hard to imagine during bike week. It's so clean and pretty and quaint! He's getting me a t-shirt :-)
After lunch they're going to Mt. Rushmore and more riding through the Black Hills. He said I would LOVE IT there!
DINNER UPDATE - 6:30 SD time
They did more riding around the Black Hills and made it to Mt Rushmore. Bill said it was pretty awesome and that the pictures and the movies you see, don't do it justice!
They were getting ready to go have dinner and hit the sack early so they can get a good start in the morning. He's hoping they will be home Saturday night. Me too!

The Badlands

Sturgis

The Black Hills

Mt. Rushmore

Wild Hogs - day 4

Well, they aren't going any farther today. They are going to spend today and tomorrow, riding around the Badlands, the Black Hills, hit Sturgis and go to Mt. Rushmore. The storm passed through and the weather looks good for the next few days. Bill says he's looking forward to a relaxing day of riding. It looks like they will start home on Thursday morning.
I'm really missing him today and I was a little lonely tonight.

Wild Hogs - Day 3

Today they made it to Rapid City, SD ~ 630 miles! Riding, riding, riding, riding, ri...oh you get the picture. It was a grueling day and they ran into a HAIL storm! OUCH. Naturally it took them a little longer to reach their goal because they had to stop for awhile, hanging out under the awnings at a gas station. You know they're feeling pretty manly right now. It's still a great time though. Imagine, 630 miles on a motorcycle in ONE day! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wild Hogs - Day 2

Today they made it to Dodge City, about 430 miles. The ride has still, thankfully, been uneventful and the weather has been great. They stopped at 6:00 and are in their routine - shower, go eat, watch some TV, go to bed. They got a late start this morning so they must have been HAULIN' to get to Dodge City! They're having a great time though :-)

I'm looking forward to hearing about the Badlands!

Wild Hogs - day 1

They made it to Sedalia, MO today. About 445 miles. They stopped about 6:30, checked into a Comfort Inn, showered and had dinner ~ watched an hour or so of TV and hit the sack. So far, so good. The weather has been great and nobody is having any issues :-)

Cheech and Chong

It was a very different experience from anything we've ever been to! Robin Williams was a ton o fun when we saw him but the crowd was not surprising. I was amazed last night at the diversity in age. The people watching was great before the show! Some folks our age never outgrew the phase ~ you could tell ~ some folks our age and older, lived through the phase and grew up to be responsible adults and were looking to relive something from their youth. There were a lot of 20 something pot heads there and a lot 40 something pot heads too!


The show was very retro. Lots of "F" bombs and lots of non-pc humor. We've become so considerate of other people that at first it was a little startling. Then I remembered the 70's and it all became SO funny! Bill loved it :-) All in all, it was a lot of entertainment for just $40 bucks!

The first picture is from his very favorite skit of the night...

Again, really?

Yep, the month is FLYING by!

Cheech and Chong is 2 days away, then Bill leaves on Saturday morning. Our grandson turned ONE this week! Wow, I can't believe it!

The first day of Autumn is right around the corner and the days are getting shorter shorter and shorter.

Before I know it, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be gone. ~sigh~

Holy Hurricane Ike!

I felt a little like Geraldo, standing out in the wind in Texas! The wind was insane! Moto GP fans are loyal though, so we toughed it out. It was a lot of fun, but next year I will enjoy it more in the sunshine.

Here's a great pic of Colin Edwards, aka the Texas Tornado...

And here's a good one Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden. Rossi is the winningest rider in GP history and Nicky is the all American boy from Kentucky. We were rooting for him but he came in 2nd ~ after they called the race due to weather...

Motorcycle Madness!

Today we went to Moto GP practice and qualifying. I knew Bill was going to have a great time but I was surprised at how much fun I had. Lots of good people watching and lots of good bike sounds and sights. I'm always amazed at how far over they can lean and not fall. Tomorrow is the big race and we're hoping for NO RAIN! Here's some pictures from today...

Really?

Is it really September already? Where has the year gone? Oh yeah, it goes by faster as you get older...RATS!

September is going to be a busy month for us. Next weekend, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is the inaugural Moto GP race. My guy is SO excited. It's a 4 day event, so he took Thursday and Friday off. I'll do the weekend stuff with him, and you know I love an event so I'm actually looking forward to the race on Sunday.

On the 12th, I'm going to the Speaking of Women's Health conference - with a gaggle of girls. An all day affair devoted to women! It's pretty neat.

On the 19th, at Bill's request, we're going to see Cheech and Chong in concert. Yeah, don't ask. I'll let you know what I thought :-)

And at the end of the month is the big "guy ride". Bill and friends on motorcycles, for 6 days and 3000+ miles. He says it's like nirvana. I'm tickled for him but it's not my cup o tea. I mean really, I want to stop and see things, look around, buy souvenirs. Nope, none of that. Just riding...and riding....and riding...and riding...and...oh, you get the picture.
The whole month will probably FLY by!

What the heck part 4!!

I really don't know how to say this...our house is weird bug magnet! I'm not sure I care for it. And I'm not actively looking for weird bugs either. As a matter of fact, generally speaking, I am NOT a very observant person. But still, all these funny, odd bugs just keep appearing around my house. This one is currently in our sun room. Oh, and that ugly creature hanging on the screen? What the heck is that?! Ick.



11-21-08 I found out what this bug is...Red Footed Cannibalfly at what'sthatbug.com More commonly known as a robber fly. The size of BIG wasp, this bug has been known to take down a hummingbird! Geez. I'm glad I didn't know that before I snuck up to take it's picture!

What the heck - part 3

Okay, really now...so the other day there was the big stick bug and today there was the big leaf bug!

What the heck - part 2

Let me preface this post by saying, I don't like bugs. Butterflies are okay but that's pretty much the only insect I won't run from.

That being said, some bugs you just don't see every day and sometimes I can't help myself from getting a closer look. So...LOOK! It's a giant stick bug on the ceiling of our porch! Cool huh?

Ahhhhh

So I'm sitting here tonight backing up my photos and smiled so big when I got the Garth Brooks folder. Really, I STILL can't believe I was there...that I got to see Garth Brooks in concert! Ahhhhh

What the heck?

I find the most amazing things around our house. This was about 2 1/2 inches across and so pretty!

Woohoo!

My Man's bee day was a week ago. We took him to dinner at Sansui's - for sushi, blech. But he loved it! Then I took him to see Brooks and Dunn.

We had a fantastic time! And the best seats EVER!

Happy July

Hope everyone had a fabulous 4th and holiday weekend. I'm guessing that most folks stayed close to home because of the gas prices?

We had a great weekend and the local fireworks show was fantastic!

We saw Hancock at the movies ~ pretty fun, but I love Will Smith so I'm not the best judge :-)

We even went riding for a few hours on Sunday and the weather was perfect for it.

More about eggs...

In case you're interested in how/what Pysanky is....

Pysanky is an ancient and beautiful form of folk art from the Ukraine. It consists of decoration of eggs using beeswax and dyes. This art is most popular in a Ukrainian household near Eastertime when eggs are created as gifts for family and friends.
Hot wax is applied to the egg using a kistka. The kistka is a tool whereby hot wax can be essentially drawn onto the egg. A kistka is a copper or brass cone attached to the end of a stick. Wax is then placed in the cone. The cone is heated until the wax melts and flows out the end of the cone. An electric version of the kistka is also available.
The design begins by drawing on a plain white egg with hot beeswax. These lines will protect the white when egg is dyed. When the designs to be white are complete, the egg is dipped into yellow dye and then dried. The kistka is used to draw the designs to remain yellow and then the egg is dipped into the next dye bath. The process continues, alternating waxing designs and using dyes that progressively get darker. The most popular pysanky, end with the black dye. Once the black dye is dry, hold the egg over the side of a candle flame and gently continue to wipe off the melted wax revealing the beautifully designed multicolored egg.

I LOVE shoes!

Oh sure, I know I SHOULDN'T bee spending my $$ on shoes, but what the hell. They were on sale for $11 and really...HOW CUTE ARE THEY!!!

What a fun Spring/Summer shoe, all those flowers and cheerful colors :-)

My newest hobby

Okay, so I'm a dabbler. I see things I like and want to learn how to do them.

My latest gig is the Ukranian art of Pysanky.

Here's my first one...not so great but not so bad either...

I'm a little shakey and my lines aren't very smooth. My second one is a little better....

comfy?

It's a dogs life isn't it?