Missing my Cat

This weekend one of our cats, Little Kitty, was let out by accident Saturday night. I arrived home from Chicago on Sunday evening to hear the bad news. If you recall, he also was let out 2 years ago in December during our ice storms and was missing for 2 weeks. I'm thankful that the weather is better but I'm still broken hearted. Our cats are our family. It feels lonely in the house without him. Think positive thoughts for his safety and his return. Thank you blog family.

One of our many rocking sessions.

Football season is here.........

Listen carefully and you can hear the death march signaling Football season is here. I say this because my life as a widow will start any day now. Ryan lives, eats, breathes, and whatever else there is, FOOTBALL.

Tivo is set for every single game, fantasy football drafts along with all the trash talking has insued, and my husband is gone. Crazy yelling at the tv, laptop attached to his lap, maker of little post it notes with crazy football player names for "trades" left everywhere around the house, would sell his kidneys and mine if he could see the Bears play this season, man has arrived replacing my husband. This weekend is the ever popular Fantasy Football draft. It's basically Mr. Rogers make believe land all over again only with adult men and minus the puppets. I am making a quick exit to Chicago this weekend to escape this party which is being held at our house. If you too are in my shoes this "season" I feel for you.

****Disclaimer: I LOVE my wonderful husband very much. ; )

New York Recap.......

This past weekend I traveled with two best girlfriends to New York to celebrate our birthdays. The three of us became friends while working together at our junior college almost 10 years ago. Since then we have gotten our degrees, gotten married and 3 children have joined our group.

Our weekend was jam packed with activities and we rarely got time to eat breakfast or lunch! The weather was mostly beautiful with a few rain showers. All in all it was a wonderful time spent with two good friends enjoying my favorite city in the U.S. The highlight of the weekend was seeing Wicked and eating at Magnolia all in the same night. Truly, I couldn't have been happier if I tried.

Beth & I with Matt Lauer

The Cupcake Mecca of NYC, one of the four locations has a

bouncer there due to the high amount of people visiting each day! Love this picture! On our way to dinner and then on to see Mama Mia!

Mama Mia on Broadway
We are enjoying $29.00 worth of drinks here. This was a martini I was drinking. Worst one I have ever had.

Dean & Deluca where we ate breakfast.

Beth surprised us with having cupcakes delivered to our room for our

birthday. They were delicious. I ate more than my share.

On our NYC movie and tv show tour.

Dinner before WICKED!! The owner of this Italian restaurant was kind enough to drive us to the Gershwin Theater in his fancy suv!!

WICKED!!!!!

I have seen Wicked 6 times now. Beth 3 and Court 5. We love

this show and already have plans to see it next June!!After Wicked we went to Magnolia for cupcakes! I had been looking forward to this stop all month!! I bought a Pumpkin Pie & Banana Cream Pie Cupcake. Ridiculously good.

We sat at the Rockefeller fountain and enjoyed the view as we scarfed these down!

We finished the night at the Empire State Building at midnight. Due to the lack of our subway skills we made it home that night to the hotel at 2 a.m. I HATE the subway!

Living it up in NYC!!

Here's just a quick post! We are having a FANTASTIC time in New York!! Here is a picture of last night at dinner before we saw Mama Mia. Tonight we are seeing our favorite musical in the whole world, WICKED!!! Combined we have seen this show over 15 times!! Believe me it's worth it! The show was sold out all weekend and we scored some tickets for this evening!

4 days and counting........

My girlfriends and I are leaving for NYC on Thursday to celebrate our birthdays. Does anyone have any suggestions for resturaunts? If you do drop me an email or comment! Thanks!!

Winter of 2006 in NYC the day we got engaged!

It was so stinking cold!

Lush

My sister told me about Lush cosmetics. This weekend I went up to St. Louis and ran into the store to check it out. Lush uses only organic vegetables and fruit with essential oils in their products. They make every product by hand and a sticker is placed on each product with a picture of the "maker" and their name. Their line is super fun and the smell is amazing. I did some research on their site before I went up their because they have so many products. I wanted to try out their Coal Face Cleanser and choose a mask. The sales associates were super friendly and very knowledgeable about the products. I purchased the Cupcake mud mask and Elaine gave me lots of samples to try out this week. Unfortunately you can't buy Cupcake online because it has to be refrigerated and must be used within 3 weeks. I tried the mask last night along with Skin Nanny moisturizer. This morning I used the Ocean Salt Cleanser. I loved the mask. The mask smells like brownie batter.

I also am interested in trying the new organic line that Origins has out. Has anyone tried Origins? Let me know if you have. I have always been an Este Lauder user. But I'm ready to try

something else.

Here is the mask. My skin felt tone and

very smooth once I washed it off. I'm not going

to lie, I tasted it. You would have too, if you would have smelt it.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

One of my favorites blogs is My Mama Made It.

She recently had a giveaway with a "catch". She completed her first sewing pattern and was giving it away for a couple of bloggers to try out. I love this top and was so excited to enter. I recieved an email this morning saying I was one of three who will be getting my special project in the mail. I then have to attempt to re-create it with her pattern. I'm super excited to get my package. Stay tuned for my attempt to make this fantastic shirt. Stop by here blog. Her projects are amazing!

Let's call it "networking".............

Tonight I met up with some girls from college who were also in the social work department with me at SIUC. We had a great time catching up with each other and discussing whats currently going on with our jobs. All of them stuck with social work with the exception of myself. My current job involves the social work field but my position is more directed at marketing. We had a great time and already have plans in place for another "networking" meeting!

Courtney & Whitney

Lyndsey and I

(my bra looks like it made an apperance as well! Nice!)

Peaches......

My mother in law brought these fabulous white peaches to me this weekend. I wanted to do something fun with them. I scoured the internet for peach cookie recipes and everyone keep saying that the peaches were too moist and made the cookies too sloppy. I also saw a dump cake that looked wonderful but the same comments came up that the bottom of the cake was soggy. So I made a tried and true "crisp" recipe. I peeled 6 peaches, skipped the blanching, and added the "crisp" baked it at 350 for 40 mins. Ryan said it was fantastic. I don't want to try it. My diet seems to have forgotten where I live and can't find it's way back home. I don't even want to talk about the run in I had with a container of vanilla frosting. It kept glaring at me every time I would open my pantry door. Bad times right now..... Oh so anyways, back to the recipe. It smelled wonderful and I'm sure it tastes just as good!

The beautiful peaches

Patiently awaiting their blanket of sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, and calories.
Finished golden and bubbly....

This was Ryan's dish. Not mine! Not going near it. I also took your advice and started slathering on the tan in a bottle. Not so much vampire face anymore. More of a Tang face. This is also me at 9:30 p.m. I look like a bag lady! Good night bloggers!!! I'm going to retire to bed and dream of carbs dipped in chocolate. Night!

A little before and after snapshot.......

Alright, so today I finally finished this room. NEVER EVER EVER will I EVER whitewash a room and ceiling again. It was hard enough hand painting each plank, waiting for it to "almost dry and then wiping it down. Then I got to the ceiling. My mom thought I would be able to use a roller to do it. Like I have said before, it's like painting with milk. When I tried the ceiling with the roller, the paint rained on me and I was covered. I had to hand paint each and every ceiling plank. AHHH!!! I am worn out! I don't have the room put together yet. I am waiting for carpet to be laid and of course the new furniture. But I thought I would show you a little snipit of my progress so far......

This was the room before. Yes that is 2 televisions. This room is a catch all right now. You can actually see the windows that line the room in the reflection of the tv.

This is what the walls look like now. The oar is one of my antique finds. $7.00! I love it. Right now it's just laying against the wall. I plan to hang it above the doorway of the room. It's a big difference from the old cedar rustic look. I'm soooooooo excited to have this room almost finished. I'll post the finished project soon!

A Public Apology.......

This apology goes to my oldest friend Todd Shoemake. I forgot his birthday yesterday. To top it off it was the big 30! Just the day before I was talking to him about being one year older and Wednesday passed without me calling and sending him warm wishes. Needless to say I have no excuses!! I am soooooo sorry! He has threatened to write me out of his will. So please forgive Tipee Toe Tanner. I'm a jerk.

My favorite memory of Todd was when I turned 16 and picked him up at his job. He wanted to take my car for a spin. We got out of the parking lot, sat at a stop light, and 20 secs later my car got smashed into by a lady going 50 mph!! My car was totalled within one hour of having my license. He was my first boyfriend in grade school and from 1st through 7th grade we consistently got into trouble in class for "talking excessively". We also failed foods class (huh, no surprise right?) and almost burned down our kitchen stove in the classroom. Even my mother would consider him apart of our family. Sorry Todd. I hope that yesterday was a fantastic day................

Sixteen days & counting........

Tonight I had my girlfriends Beth & Courtney over to plan our upcoming trip to NYC!! We are leaving the middle of August to celebrate our birthdays and to get away for a little girl time. I made my favorite feta and spinach pizza along with a ham and pineapple and a veggie served with a big salad. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake, with pie crust, topped with the fat free whipped cream. We finally finished the night off with chocolate martinis. We got a lot accomplished with our planning (and eating). My hopes of meeting the real Martha in NY are probably slim to none since they would rather ride the subway all day than attend her taping. Oh well Martha, hopefully sooner than later I will been an audience member on your fancy show.

The feta & spinach was gone by the end of the night! It is soooo good!

My strawberry shortcake, crust was in the shape

of little hearts....Pretty sure no one but myself cared!!!
These were dangerousCourtney being our official note taker. Her husband would be proud of her since he LOVES schedules on vacations.

Beth wanted to slap me for taking so many pictures of

her. She finally gave in and let me take one.

Vampire horseface and Courtney. Seriously I know I need a tan but I'm so pushing my luck with the 4 straight years I spent consecutively in a tanning bed in college. I can't afford to do anymore. Maybe I will buy some of those tanning pills on Canal street while I'm there.

You are toooo kind..... (or you feel sorry for me!)

Thank you so much from The Secret Life of Sass & Lex

for this sweet blog award all the way from Australia!!

Isn't technology amazing?

Check out her recipe for The Best Chocolate Cake Ever!

I'm a sucker for "Best Ever" recipes! I will definitely try this one out! Thanks again!!

Whitewashing continued.......

Sorry for the no picture post. I have gotten some emails regarding my whitewashing progress and I wanted to report. I have completely switched my technique from using a rag/sock/t-shirt to using a paint brush. If I would have only started with the tried and true I would have been done days ago! My friend Tobey did the most amazing whitewashing to a bedroom headboard, dresser, etc and used the rag. I found it to be messy and painfully slow. I am 30% done and hopefully will have this completed by the weekend! Ugh.... But that means new carpet and new furniture are next!! Those are the exciting parts!!

Aprons....

My mom and I spent Sunday afternoon antique shopping. I found some great finds for my room redo. I also found this great little apron for $2.50. I have been wanting to make some aprons so I took the afternoon and tried. Tried being the key word. The green one below is the one I purchased. I cut almost half of the bottom off and replaced the pocket and hand stiched the little yellow flower on the left side. The black and pink one was all me. The pink fabric came from a pair of VS pajama pants I had but never wear. Both are super cute and I can't wait to wear them while I burn dinner. Hope all of your weekend's were wonderful and relaxing.

Little too long and boring

Shorter with a little more color

First apron, I now know the basics. More to come in the apron department.

The black thread was a mistake so I covered it up with Ric Rac.

Fantastic night with friends..........

Last night was such a good night for so many reasons. The night started off excellent because of the first picture. Don't mean to toot my own horn but I'm going to. The first picture of me is posted because I am wearing a size 6 jeans! Back in 2008 I was a 10-12. Slowly but surely I have been running it off. Slowly being the key word, jeez...... It also was excellent because Ry and I enjoyed an wonderful dinner and a movie. Then we went to Katies house where we went through a bottle of wine, watched a tutorial on Ryan's "new" phone, and caught up with our out of town friend. Lastly we ran up to a Herrin "watering hole" and saw some more friends and my sister. Let me tell you how weird it is to run into a baby sister at a bar. Still will probably be weird even when we are fifty. All in all it was a good night because it was spent with good people. Now we are off to St. L to do a little furniture shopping and to eat lunch with our friends up there. Have a beautiful Saturday!!

size 6

Me, Ry, Sami
Usually Sami and I look identical, I think Ryan

and her look more a like right now. Probably because I have a case of vampire face. ugh...

Mrs. Parrish & I

Kaite and Leslie

Ryan is obviously telling Leslie how to do a shot. His

name is Camp Counselor Farley because he likes to tell everyone how

to do things usually. He's a self appointed pro at everything.