Things I Love: Day 8

Poppies.

It may have something to do with my name...

And Tiffany if anyone has any castoffs they're looking to get rid of.

Things I Love: Day 7

It was many moons ago when I saw this at a City Wide Garage Sale.

It instantly took me down memory lane to the good ol' days.

We used to have one of these when I was growing up and I just had to have it.

"No matter the cost!" I shouted to my cohorts.

That day my pockets were lightened by twenty cents!

Two whole dimes!

But, we don't have Saltine's. 

We have fancy-schmancy Ritz!

I can afford them because I paid so little for the cracker box.

As a side note and the reason I remembered I had this picture - Yesterday, I am not quite sure how I managed to meander over to a section of Etsy where people were selling these.  They were selling them for between $10-12.00!

My memories of the cracker box are certainly not worth that kind of money, are anybody's, really?

I mean, I looove my cracker box but c'mon peeps isn't that a bit excessive?

Things I Love: Day 6

Nothing Earth shattering or ground breaking in this post. 

Not that there usually is...

But it is simply beautiful.  And mine.

My Wedding Ring.

Nothing "normal" for me.  Nope, no way, nuh-uh.  



Things I Love: Day 5.5

I may have mentioned once, here, that I enjoy making New Traditions. 

It started innocently enough with The World's Cutest Salt & Pepper Shakers:

As witnessed in my blog post -- To Have or Have Not.

Well, I got this crazy idea in my noggin that I want a pair of Special Salt & Pepper Shakers for each and every month and only set out for that one month. 

Odd? Yes.  Totally Me? Hell yes.

October: The Awesome Halloween Spider Couple

December: The Cutsie Snow-Couple

Etc.

Etc.

I only have six pair thus far... I'm hunting down some more.

This is March's set

Perfect, huh?

I'll have to get out April's on Friday.

I can't wait!

Gah!

I missed a day! I had a picture all lined up and everything... then I started reading. 

And kept reading, and reading, and reading...

I'll tell you this, it's a really good book and I'm one chapter away from finishing it.  And, I started it Saturday.  If I hadn't been so busy this weekend I'd be done.

I'll finish it off this morning at work on my break.

Things I Love: Day 4

Three things:
Earth Hour
Scrabble (especially by candle light)
Winning (I don't do it very often)

The opening volley in my battle to smoke Mr. Wonderful.

I won.

Finally.

Okay fine, he one a game too.  We finished the night in a tie.

Things I Love: Day 3

I am a culinary namby-pamby. 

Mr. Wonderful has adventurous appetite.  He will try nearly anything!  He likes virtually all foods!  There isn't a single veggie he doesn't like or eat with a certain joie de vivre.

Unfortunately I am able find the smallest, most infinitesimal, bit of something which offends my taste buds and I will immediately think "What is the quickest way to get this horror off of my tongue?" 

Mushrooms? Never.  Not a snowballs chance in Hell you'll ever get me to eat fungus.

Onions? Stinky, slippery, slimy.

Okra? Hairy! Who wants to put hairy stuff in their mouth?!

Garlic? S-t-i-n-k-y! I think I am part vampire.

Broccoli? Tried to like it, it smells sulfur-ish when it gets close to my mouth.  Even covered in cheese.

And that's just veggies.  Poor Mr. Wonderful.  I try to add flavor to cooking with spices since I'm such a lily-livered picky pants.

One day I was on a tear demanding that he go find the poor, burning body of whatever beast had crawled into the heat duct and died. With the putrid smell of charred fur and my eyes burning I went and counted the cats, just to be sure.

I was literally on my way to a teary meltdown thinking of the poor animal that died and was stinking up my house when I realized he was making brussel sprouts.  I had never even smelled brussel sprouts before.

Honestly, I hadn't ever banned any food from the house.  Until that day.  He'll have to go elsewhere for his brussel sprouts.

Anyway, back to the thing that I love: Mr. Wonderful's love of all different types of food.

We saw this at the grocery store.

I giggled like a school girl.









This is what it looks like on the inside.

He swears it is wonderful.
I nibbled a piece.  After taking out what I think may have been raisins.
I wish I were braver when it came to food.

Things I Love: Day 2

Icarus.
Icky.
Ick.
Icky Monkey.
Stinky Icky Monkey.
Icky Cat.
Mr. Meowser Socks.
Thunder Paws.
κακό αγόρι
The list can go on for days... You can come up with a lot of nicknames in 13 years.

This is my special boy.  I picked him out at the Humane Society in 1998.

He has been with me through it all.  I love him.  Always will.

Even when he aerates the toilet paper.

Things I Love: Day 1

It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words.

And lucky for me I have a picture outlet right here.

I want to try something, just for a week or so, and like the Something New, I am going to be sharing a picture a day.  This time however it will be things that I love.  Hence the nifty title.

This is the flower I wore in my hair for my wedding.

It's made of reclaimed fabric and lace.  Upcycled is actually the term used.

And the sparkly in the center, I love me some sparkly, is a vintage earring.

The lady who creates these is a genius.

Painting Project

Sometimes you just get a bee in your bonnet and you need to some fixin' uppin' around your place.

The half bath on the main floor was just one of the bees in my bonnet and I needed to do something about it.  STAT.

The first thing I did, after two years of living here, was a few weekends ago I got rid of the horrid mini-blinds. We put up some privacy stuff that looks like "stained glass".  It looks great in there, especially in the morning and guess what? I don't have to look at nasty blinds ever again!

Unfortunately for Mr. Wonderful the half bath is "his" and that's the one I decorated in Mermaid's when we bought the house.

Notice the dull, dingy, pale blue of the walls?

Before: Blah.



So, after only minimal pestering on my part Mr. Wonderful and I headed up the our local home improvement store a few weekends ago and there I showed him some of the color cards.

"Which one?" I asked "Because you're the one who has to stare at it the most."

He picked, oddly enough, a paint called Mermaid Song.

I said "Are you suuuuuuuuuuuure?" and he replied "Yep!"

So, I got a gallon of No VOC paint (and tint) in Mermaid Song, located my iPod and I set out to paint the bathroom.

After: A very bright shade of 1950's turquoise

Mr. Wonderful loves it because he says, and I quote, "I love brightly painted rooms." 

This, I did not know about Mr. Wonderful.

Oh, and....

Do you know what I don't own?

A step-ladder.

Notice in the mirror the corner isn't painted and neither is the two inches below the ceiling.

Maybe next weekend.
And then we can replace the floor.
And then we can get a dual flush toilet
And then....



Pretty Little Plate

Icky and Nike on Sunday, all ritualistic like, share a 5.5oz can of Newman's Own Organic Cat Food.

They loooooove it passionately and Nike, aka Princess Pukes A-Lot, has stopped barfing so much.  She's still a puker but not nearly as bad when I was feeding her the other stuff.

And since yesterday was Sunday and I happened to be at the ReUse center, both things having to do with the plate, I remembered that I wanted to show it off to others.

MommaBean loves it.  Icky & Nike know only that their Sunday Dinner is delievered on it. They come running when they hear it hit the counter.

I picked it up about a year ago for about $.50 at the ReUse center. 

The blue flowers and the light green leaves have faded since then, probably because of the weekly dishwasher washing and crusty cat food picking offing that it goes through...

But I love it.  You should too.



Something New: One Week!

I've done it! I've posted a picture a day for a whole week... I didn't follow the one single rule I set for myself one of those days.  But, whatcha' gonna' do when you're a rule breaker?

Mr. Wonderful and I ventured out into the city today, we made a whole day of Ann Arbor.  It was fun!

We went to the ReUse Center and I bought all sorts of goodies for projects I am cooking up in my pretty little head and Mr. Wonderful picked up a few totally awesome vinyl records.

Then we headed to the Ben & Jerry's Scoop Shop to try out the new Jimmy Fallon's Late Night Snack ice cream which was wonderful! Who ever came up with chocolate covered potato chip bits in ice cream should be knighted.

When we polished off our ice cream we went to a nifty little independent book store and shopped around for an hour.  Mr. Wonderful picked out some books for us.  Oh, And I got a bumper sticker - "Give Bees a Chance". Hehehe.

Anyway folks - on to the picture!

Ann Arbor, MI

March 20, 2011

A Road Whose Name I Don't Remember

Doctor Who Fans Rock!

Can I do it for another week? We'll see, I'm game to trying.

Does anyone care? Probably not, but it's interesting!





Something New: Eve of the Spring Equinox

Tomorrow is the Spring Equinox, it is officially the first day of Spring.  It has been very, very long winter with lots of snow.

We've had a couple of nice days where it got up into the 60's.

This here is the last vestiges of snow on the lawn. Until next week.  It's supposed to snow.  Again. 

How disheartening.

South Lyon, MI

March 19, 2011 @ 7:45 a.m.

My Front Yard

Something New: Bad Habit

I am having a bad, bad day today.

I had a bad dream which woke me, then I couldn't get back to sleep for about an hour and a half.

Last night when I made the coffee and set it to brew at 3:30 this morning -I forgot to put coffee in the coffee maker.  I awoke to hot brown not-quite-tea looking liquid waiting for me. 

Swerved the whole gosh darn way to work in order to avoid the assortment of dead animals all over the roads.  And thankfully I didn't smoosh Rocky the Raccoon who meandered out into the road in front of me.

The schedule was a mess when I got to work, the copier jammed seven times.

And on, and on, and on...

It was just a bad day.

This is how I cope at work.

Ann Arbor, MI

March 18, 2011 - 7:01 a.m.

 My Desk

I chew on candy cigarettes.

Incessantly.

I'm going to bed soon and forgetting today happened.

Something New: Medjools

I had never eaten a Date in my life.  Until recently when the wonderful Door to Door Organics brought me some.

See, I get a bi-weekly order of assorted organic fruits and veggies delivered right to my front porch by those wonderful folks over at Door to Door Organics. 

They suggested that I get some of the beautiful, sweet, good for you Medjool Dates before they're gone. 

Gone? I had to investigate.

Out to the interwebs I went and the first thing I came up with was an article from NPR (found here:) A Date To Remember
And everywhere that I searched on the internet said that these are the best Dates.  Ever.  That if you're going to eat a Date that this was the one to eat.

So when I got my Friday e-mail from Door to Door Organics I logged into my account and added some Medjool dates to my box for delivery.

And here the beauties are:

South Lyon, MI

March 10, 2011

5:31 p.m.

Aren't they gorgeous?

They are everything those Foodies described them being!

Anyone know any good Date recipes? I have quite a few.

Something New: The Splendid, Silent Sun

Remember the robin post? Well this pic here confirms it!

South Lyon MI

March 16, 2011

5:00 p.m.



Do, do, do lookin' out my front door...

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling;

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard;

Give me a field where the unmow’d grass grows;

Give me an arbor, give me the trellis’d grape;
Give me fresh corn and wheat—give me serene-moving animals, teaching content;
Give me nights perfectly quiet, as on high plateaus west of the Mississippi, and I looking up at the stars;
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk undistrub’d
Give me for a marriage a sweet-breath’d woman, of whom I should never tire;
Give me a perfect child—give me, away, aside from the noise of the world, a rural, domestic life;
Give me to warble spontaneous songs, reliev’d, recluse by myself, for my own ears only;
Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!

O such for me! O an intense life! O full to repletion, and varied!
~Walt Whitman

Something New: Vegan Chocolate Cake

I am not Vegan.  Never was, never will be. 

What I am is a "Flexitarian", funky term, eh?

I recently read an article describing what a Flexitarian was and realized that I had found the term that describes me! For the first time I fit into a nice, neat description!

Anyway, what a Flexitarian basically means is that I eat a mostly vegetarian diet but occasionally I'll eat meat.

For me personally, that means about once or twice a month.

So back to the main point here, a co-worker made a Chocolate Cake and brought it in, which she is wont to do, and in passing she casually mentioned that it was Vegan. 

Being the adventurous sort (not really), I tried it. 

Well okay, only after a few other people had tried it first. 

Just to make sure there were no ill effects.

To.  Die.  For.

And after only minimal cajoling she coughed up the recipe.

South Lyon, MI

March 13, 2011

My Kitchen

The only picture. 

Notice the crap frosting job?

I was dancing around anxiously way too much to stand there for long doing a good job.

(Pssst... look at my pretty plate! I got it at The Hermitage on our Honeymoon)



Something New: Rule Breaker

It hasn't even been a full day and I'm breaking my own gosh darn rules.

I mean really, how is the rest of the week going to go if I'm already thumbing my nose at my one stupid rule?  Doh.

C'est la vie, I suppose.

I took this picture on March 5th but, I wanted to share and I'm too lazy on my last day of Vacation (read: long weekend) to mess with the pictures I took yesterday. 

Which you'll see tomorrow.

Anyway, here it is:

South Lyon, MI
March 5, 2011

The Knitting Room

A hat I knit as a sample for one of the classes I teach.





Something New

I'm going to try something new here - I was inspired by a friend who did it for a whole month but I'm going to start with a measly week and if that goes well I'll do it for an additional week and so on. 

I'll be posting a picture a day.  A snapshot, a moment in time during a day in the life of me.  Aren't you thrilled?

Since I am such a wimp I'll only impose one rule upon myself - The photo has to have been taken within the preceding 7 days. 

And I won't give you any excuse why I am allowing myself to do that other than I'm lazy and forgetful.

So to get this party started:

South Lyon, Michigan

March 9, 2011

Looking out the back door

They're out there!

Chirruping their hearts out - Spring may actually be here!