Thursday, June 26, 2008

Re-Inspired

It's been soo long since I've crocheted anything. Pretty much nil since Camille started walking and nothing finished all year. :::sigh:::

Last night, I decided I needed to make something. So I searched through the project pages on Ravelry to find something cute and easy and fast. And I found this pattern, it took me less than 1 hour total crochet time. I think it took me more time to pick out the buttons than it did to make the cuff.


Sunday, June 22, 2008

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary. How Does Your Garden Grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.

Well, we don’t have marigolds or silver bells, but we do have pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes and more!

We (read – hubby) finally got the outside planter boxes built for our garden. Unfortunately, the seedlings we had growing inside were not able to handle the heat after being inside and all died, so we had to start over. So we had some dirt delivered and got to work.


My friend, Deva, introduced us to the idea of Square-Footing and we both thought it was a great idea. We modified it a bit and just did rows, but having the dividers definitely makes it much neater.


We planted carrots, cucumbers, snap peas, green beans, lettuce, pumpkin and grape tomatoes. I’m hoping that we didn’t plant too late and they will survive and produce. I’m really looking forward to being able to eat our own vegetables - chemical-free, pesticide-free, home-grown vegetables.


And look! Most of the seedlings have already sprouted! Yay! Sorry this pictures sucks so badly, it was dark outside when I took the photo.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Take 5 Friday

Christine, over at Organizational Enlightenment is taking a break from the Take 5 Friday, but I decided to go ahead and participate this week. The idea is to share an organizational tip or project that can be completed in about 5 minutes.

More than organizing, my Take 5 is more like Loonette's 10 Second Tidy from the Big Comfy Couch. Only, I didn't stuff everything under the couch cushions like she does.

Before:


and After:


Gosh, that's better.

The Game

I found this meme on BitterSweet's blog a while ago and created the photo montage on Flickr. I thought it would be fun to share with everyone else.

1. Grevillea Ned Kelly with native bee 2. My first strawberries of the season… 3. This is a bell tower… 4. Make a … wish 5. Billie Joe 6. When waves collide 7. Austrian Mountain Walk 8. Strawberry Shortcake 9. Don’t Worry, Be Happy… 10. laughing 11. Mama Cat 12. Milly’s Round Ripple Blanket

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Kelly - aren't those some pretty flowers!?!
2. What is your favorite food? Strawberries, anything with strawberries.
3. What high school did you go to? Hillsborough Senior High School.
4. What is your favorite color? Purple.
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Billie Joe Armstrong. *sigh*
6. Favorite drink? Water, plain - no lemon please.
7. Dream vacation? Austrian Mountains, really anywhere Eauropean, but I love the Alps and surrounding areas.
8. Favorite dessert? Strawberry Shortcake, naturally.
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Happy
10. What do you love most in life? My children naturally, but I really love the sound of children laughing.
11. One Word to describe you? Mama.
12. Your flickr name? ykelly1 - this was the only pricture that came up in Flickr when I searched for my name. lol



Wanna play along? Let me know so I can check out your photo montages! :)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Blog Contests

Mom's Crafty Life is having a give-a-way over at her site for a $25 Amazon gift card. There's some books I've been eyeing that I could sure use that for...hmmm, as of right now, I am the only contestant. Ok, that's it, no one read further, do not enter the above linked contest, I will be the WINNER! lol


Also, found on her blog was a link to John Chow's website/blog, where he is having a give-a-way for a Market Leverage Nike bag full of goodies. Goodies like a t-shirt, golf shirt, jacket, cap, as well as some really cool goodies like a flip video camera, $200 Market Leverage Amex Rewards card, USB drive that is also a pen, and an engraved iPod Nano. How cool would that be!?!


And last, but not least, Laura over at Organizing Junkie is (was) having a give-a-way for all of the people who participate in the Menu Plan Mondays! The give-a-way is for a Meal-Planning Notebook Planner. It allows you to list and track your grocery list and dinner menus for each week of the year all in one convenient location - not just main dishes, but side items and desserts as well.

Take 5 Tuesday

I came across this blog and thought that it would be cool to have a weekly meme to post each Tuesday. However, it doesn't look like it's been updated in a few weeks, so I'm posting my own 5's that I stole from a meme on someone else's blog. If the Take 5 Tuesday blog starts updating again, then I'll start participating there.

5 things on my "to do" list today:
1. Clean off my desk at home.
2. Go through the girls clothes and sort by keep, toss and donate.
3. Go grocery shopping.
4. Finish laundry.
5. Pay some bills.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Build a bigger home for us.
2. Pay off my mom’s house and all debt (I guess hubby’s mom too)
3. Set up college trust funds for the girls.
4. Donate.
5. Invest.

5 Bad Habits:
1. Constant worrier, borderline paranoid.
2. Eat too much, especially when nervous or bored.
3. I have a short temper.
4. Dawdle at work, not focused (for example: posting this on my blog instead of working).
5. Don’t exercise regularly.

5 Places that I've lived:
1. Fort Stewart, Georgia
2. Augsburg, Germany
3. Palm Bay, Florida
4. Tampa, Florida
5. Spring Hill, Florida

5 Jobs that I've had:
1. Cashier at Publix (that lasted about 3 months in HS).
2. Do everything girl at Hell (AKA – Office Depot).
3. Sales Admin at Pulte Homes
4. Wife
5. Most important job e-vah - Mommy

Monday, June 16, 2008

Menu Plan Monday

I've decided that I need to get back into Meal Planning - the last few months that I've been away from blogging/meal planning have been chocked full of eating out, fast-food and random dinners eaten at 8pm because I just started thinking about dinner at 7pm. So, here's our plan for this week.

My hubby is in training again for work for the next few weeks, so our menu will probably be mostly vegetarian throughout the week, with our "meat meals" only on weekends.

Monday: Cheese Ravioli with marinara sauce, whole wheat rolls and a Big Ass Salad.

Tuesday: Morningstar Farms Corn "Dogs" with homemade mac-n-cheese and green beans.

Wednesday: Loaded baked potatoes with a BAS.

Thursday: Breakfast For Dinner! Homemade banana pancakes, scrambled eggs and Morningstar Farms breakfast patties.

Friday: Cheese Quesadillas and fruit smoothies.

Saturday: Parmesan crusted Tilapia, steamed brown rice with beans.

Sunday: Either Roast Beef or Roast Chicken with potatoes and carrots and a nice BAS.

For more menu ideas, check our Organizing Junkie.

Apparantly, I really am a goody-goody

You Are 14% Evil
You are good. So good, that you make evil people squirm.
Just remember, you may need to turn to the dark side to get what you want!



I'm going to try and start posting our weekly menus again. Hopefully later today, I will get one posted.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Chocolate S'mores Cupcakes Part Two

This time, I used the same cupcake but topped with a Mashmallow Frosting, some graham cracker cumbs, a small graham cracker square and a small piece of Hershey's chocolate.


The frosting was a bit runny. I think that the next time I make these, I will try to make it a bit thicker by using less butter and maybe more of the powdered sugar. We'll see.

So - which do you think look better? These or the original? I am baking these for my company's annual family picnic - there is a baking contest. The picnic is this Friday, so I've been testing these out.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

My trip to Phoenix

Many people are already aware of this, but for those that aren’t – Green Day has had, over the years, many side projects: Pinhead Gunpowder, The Frustrators, The Network, as well as other business ventures. Their newest side band is Foxboro Hot Tubs. I’ve not had the chance to hear most of the other side bands, so I cannot compare which is better, but I do love Foxboro Hot Tubs. They have a raw, garage, 60ish, fresh punk sound.

Early-to-mid May they announced a mini tour – in clubs. Clubs that hold maybe 400-500 people. In comparison, the last time I saw Green Day in concert was in a venue that held more than 20,000 people. Of course, there were no dates scheduled near me. However, there was one date scheduled for Memorial Day weekend. But it was in Phoenix, AZ. I live in Florida. I don’t know how, but I managed to talk my hubby into letting us spend the money so that I could go. I’ve never done something so impulsive, frivolous or irrational in my life, but I’m oh-so glad I did. I met up with some people from the Green Day Authority forums, some people that I never knew before that weekend, but I now consider friends. I only stayed for 1 day, but we all clicked so easily. I guess when you’re stuck in line for hours on end, you get to know people.

I arrived in Phoenix about 1:30pm and was anxious as I stepped off the plane. This was a buy your ticket at the door (availability limited due to venue size, of course) type of thing. I knew that people had been lining up since 9am and I was nervous that I had just flown across the country without guarantee of entry. I tried to rush through checking in at my hotel, but there were key issues. Once we finally got the key issue fixed, I mad-dash changed my clothes, brushed my hair and tried to make myself look like I hadn’t been sitting on a plane for the last 6 hours.

By this time it's about 2:30 and I am in panic mode about getting a spot in line, even though the wonderful friends I mentioned above had already said I was ok to join their group. I get to the elevator and there's another gentleman there already. I'm on the 18th floor, we get down to about the 15th floor and the door opens and in walks Tre Cool. My heart skipped more than a few beats and I think my eyes almost fell out of their sockets. Managed to keep my mouth shut and not drool, we get down to about the 3rd-4th floor and finally my brain kicks in that if I don't say something RIGHT NOW, I'm not going to get this chance again, so I stammered out "ummm, before I have a heart attack, can I please get an autograph or a picture?" He kind of half chuckled and said "sure, just don't have a heart attack." We're at the lobby level by now, so as we walk out of the elevator, I ask the other gentleman to take our picture and after the picture, Tre gives me a little hug and says "man, you're shaking!" I think that I was soo nervous because he was “off the clock” so to speak, he could have said no or ignored me or been rude. But he wasn’t rude and he didn’t say no.

We sat/stood in line until 7pm when we were allowed in the venue. Once inside we waited for another hour-hour and a half for the opening band. Girls with Guns. They sucked. Granted they had sound issues, and maybe without the vocals they would have sounded better. But, let’s just say that I wasn’t a fan.

Once the main act came out on stage, the already packed crowd rushed the stage. Billie Joe kept telling everyone to “come closer to me!” and boy did they try. I managed to keep my spot, got the bruises to prove it too. The show was phenomenal, soo intense and the band was very interactive with the crowd. Billie Joe did not play guitar at all, they had a guest guitarist for that and he was soo cute, really seemed to be having a blast up on stage with them. Billie Joe and Mike Dirnt both crowd surfed, Billie more than a few times. Billie Joe also kept leaning over into the crowd, right by where I was, and we were all just reaching up touching him – his hair, face, arms and I know a few girls who got a bit more *ahem* personal. There were people from the crowd up on stage for just about every song and the guys seemed to welcome them. At one point, I believe, Billie Joe was asking for more people to get up there.

After the show, our group kind of hung around talking, waiting to see if any of the guys would come out. I saw Jason Freese (touring sax/flute/keyboard/etc player) and Jason White (touring guitarist), but didn’t get a chance to talk to either of them. I then saw Mike Dirnt and went over to where he was. I got a hug from him and after a few different people asked, he autographed stuff for people. I had bought a vinyl of the Mother Mary single, so I asked him to sign that. After that, we tried to hang around to see if Billie Joe would come out but security was practically pushing us out the door.

Last minute airfare to Phoenix: $400
Hotel: $100
Misc. Incidentals: $200
Getting up close and personal with my favorite band: PRICELESS
I'm soo glad I went.

They were very strict about the “no photos” rule, so I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the show itself. It was soo crazy packed, I wouldn’t have been able to even if I wanted though. The only decent picture that I have from that weekend was of our group waiting in line, so I’ll share that with you:


All the way from Ireland (!!!), Oklahoma, Florida, NYC, Washington (state, not DC), Missouri (??), New Mexico (x2), and Minnesota!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Chocolate S'mores Cupcakes

Alright, so they're totally not healthy, or even home-made (I used a box mix and pre-made frosting), but they were oh-so-tastey!

I used a box of Pillsbury chocolate cake mix, prepared per directions. Celeste dropped 8-9 mini-marshmallows into each cupcake liner, and then we filled with cupcake mix. Bake as directed. Once cooled, frosted with Pillsbury chocolate frosting. Tip - if you whip the frosting in the mixer for a minute or so, it makes the frosting fluffier and you can use less frosting, without losing taste. We then sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs, topped with a few mini-marshmaalows and a small square of graham cracker. YUM!

The tast verdicts:
Kaitlyn - moist, tastey and marshmallowey. Celeste - ewey, gooey and delicious!


I'd say they were a hit. :)

Saturday, June 7, 2008

Slow Typer

Well, I used to think I was a speedy typer. I mean I knew I wasn't fast, but I didn't realize I was this slow.

52 words

Speedtest



How fast are you?

CVS Good Deal of the day

I've mentioned before just how much I love CVS. Here's my latest testament to the goodness that is CVS.


3 packages of Pampers diapers
6 bags Chex Mix
2 packages of cotton swabs
4 bottles of dish-soap
2 bottles of kid's mouth wash
7 small packages of batteries
2 boxes of band-aids
and 1 bag of gummy worms

Sub-total before coupons: $73.23

Total out of pocket spent: $15.22

Would have been less out of pocket, but I was low on Extra Care Bucks to start with. I split this up into a few transactions, so that I could use the ECBs I earned for each transaction on the next transaction. Oh, and I earned back $15.00 in ECBs to spend another day.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Update on Milly's surgery

Today was Camille's post-op appointment with the surgeon, so I thought I'd share some info about her surgery.

We had surgery last Friday to remove a dermoid cyst that was on her forehead. We noticed the bump when she was about 3-4 months old, and asked about it at her 4 month check-up. After that, we did an MRI and met with 2 specialists to determine what we were doing. The 2nd specialist, a plastic surgeon, recommended that we wait until she was at least 1 year old before proceeding with surgery. So we waited for what felt like forever, but once it came up on us, felt like it was very rushed. I know that's contradictory, but I'm sure any parent whose been in a similar situation knows exactly what I mean.

The surgery went well, but took a little bit longer than expected. Turned out the cyst was much bigger than they thought it was, it had embedded itself pretty deep into her skull and what was visible was only the tip of it. The surgeon said that it was roughly the size of a marble, whereas we originally thought it was about the size of a small pea. I know we did the right thing by going ahead with the surgery, if it had gotten any bigger it would have worked it's way through her skull.

All of the nurses, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon - they were all wonderful. kept us in the loop on everything, they all appropriately loved on Camille, just plain friendly and nice. It made the whole ordeal much easier.

They were also very pro-breastfeeding and were happy to hear that we were still nursing past one year. Each time I had talked to someone regarding the surgery, I was told that she wasn't going to be allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight the night before. Her surgery was scheduled for 10am! When I finally talked to the anesthesiologist, I asked again if she would be allowed to nurse any time after midnight. She asked "breast-milk, or formula?" When I replied breast-milk, she said that I could nurse her up to 4 hours before surgery because breast-milk was soo much easier for babies to digest. This was a huge relief to me, as Milly has a huge nursing session everyday about 5am, so the timing was perfect.

They also encouraged me to breastfeed Camille as soon as she wanted after the surgery because she would be hungry and "she's going to want that comfort from her mama." It was very nice to hear someone (or in this case, multiple someones) in the medical field so supportive of breastfeeding, even past one year.

Before surgery:

And immediately after:

24 hours later, you can see how swollen and bruised her eye is:

And today, 1 week later:

A new kind of game

So, I found this meme on BitterSweet's blog and thought it was really cool. I wasn't tagged or anything, just wanted to play along. Click on the mosaic, check out the notes and description, and create your own. It's fun and it doesn't hurt a bit, I promise.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

I'mmm baaacckk!

Holy time-warp Batman! I cannot believe it's been 3 months since I've last posted. What a slacker! So much has happened in that time that's blog worthy: Camille had her surgery, Celeste graduated from Kindergarten, last day of school for Kait and Celeste is tomorrow, I flew to Phoenix!, by myself!, to see a band! I'll create a blog post for each, but for now; just a quick note to say I'm still alive and I'm back.