story time

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks.... eh.... while this book was a page turner I was not impressed. I think that it will make a great movie and I look forward to seeing it, however, it was very predictable and while at the end you think you hate Nicholas Sparks for ending the story that way... you are surprised and yet some how unsatisfied with the ending

I recently finished Skinnydipping by Bethenny Frankel. I love Bethenny! I thought the book was about her life... It is not, however, the character has similar traits to Bethenny and I enjoyed reading about her adventures.

The only down side to the book was that there was a lot of story line and information in the first half, but then the second half was short and quick with little detail.
I recommend this one!

story time

Last book update was on MWF Seeking BFF… from there I moved on to Fifty Shades of Grey… this was not planned, but a co-worker lent it to me and I wanted to know what all the hype was about…

Fifty Shades of Grey: for those of you who are twi-hard Twilight Series fans, you will appreciate the connection I am about to make. This book is the version of Twilight that every adult secretly wanted… and then some. It is for sure XXX rated.

It is the shy, attractive but doesn’t know it girl meets mysterious wealthy man of power. He says to stay away and she can’t… sound familiar Twilight fans? The sexual tension the builds in Twilight that never comes to a close until the final book when she gets knocked up… well that tension builds and releases throughout all of Shades of Grey…

I am not a prude, but this book was too much for me. I had to skip a few chapters because I was afraid to read what would happen next.

I am interested to find out what happens next, there are 2 more books, but I am not sure that I need to read any more tales of being tied up and whipped… yep that is the basic premise of the book.

After that I tried to get through Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close. I ended up skipping to the end just to find out what happens because I could not follow the dialogue in this book. It is written from the perspective of a nine year old boy. It has great potential as it shares the story of a family after they lose someone in the 911 terrorist attack. I wanted to get through the book so that I could see the movie, so now that movie is next on my list.

Up next on the reading list is The Lucky One. Stay tuned for this review.

story time

I have always been a reader, all my life. In my early 20's I seemed to not make the time to read or just couldn't get into it...
Over the past few years I have read on and off. The past year I have been on a reading frenzy!


I among many who have been into the Hunger Games trilogy. While I do not feel the same love that I felt for the Twilight Saga, I am really into the Katniss, Peeta, Gale love triangle!


I have finished the first two of three books in the Hunger Games series and I am excited to get through #3, Mockingjay... then I will give you a review of it all!


I recently was out with friends and someone recommended a couple books, so of course I went to the Library and got them. 


Baby Proof by Emily Giffin- Good Book. Predictable Ending.... if you have ever doubted your maternal instincts or whether you wanted to have children you should read this book! I can see a movie coming out of this sometime soon

Whats next... I am currently holding MWF seeking BFF  by Rachel Bertsche. I am excited to read this and share it with you! 










What are you reading?

quick,easy and inexpensive

It is hard to believe that this weekend is already the Fourth of July… it came so fast I barely had time to decorate for it.

Here are a few quick and easy (also cheap) decoration ideas for Independence Day!

my mantel for the summer is set with sea glass bottles and my two white little bird friends, I just added a small flag and some wooden stars ($1 at garage sale)... wah-la...instant patriotism.

My pepsi box is a year round decoration, but by adding some flags and red flowers from my garden, my entry way is 4th of July ready!

 

This is one of my favorites! some of you might know that I love to save and reuse aluminum cans... check out my friend Martha and her FREE template. I used these last weekend at a party to hold cutlery and straws!

 

This jar is filled with cupcake papers, some cheap bead necklaces and flags... all items were purchased for less then $1 each!

if you need more ideas, check out this site
and look at this house (LOVE)

 and serve these.... YUM


Just a few fun ideas! there is still time!

you can paint that...

...my famous phrase that this time got me into a lot of work! As most of you know I love to paint things to make them look new!


When my in-laws decided to redo their kitchen at the family lake house, I of course could not let them leave the cabinets in their old state…. We had to paint them!

A few weeks later and a plea to get some help, the cabinets were completed and I am very pleased…

 Cabinet Doors before...

 hard at work...

 almost done....

I am very happy with how it looks, still needs a little work, but it really brightens things up! I am going to gently request that my MIL is not attached to the teapot stencil border, but we will see if those ever get retired...

(sorry I do not have any before pics of the kitchen… just the doors)


Paint Color- Valspar from Lowes- Chef White
Hardware- Lowes- Brushed Nickel

a royal confession

I have a confession... I think I want to be Kate Middleton.

OK, I don't want to be a Princess and I do not want to marry Prince William, however, I do want to have her chic and classy sense of style.

She has great hair, and I want to believe that she does it herself
She seems down to earth and friendly....
All of her outfits look seamless while also like it took her 2 seconds to just throw it on and walk out the door... yes I realize that someone probably shops for her these days, but still....
And... lets not forget that I wish I had an accent ...

The one thing that I do not envy about her right now are the wedding day jitters... I remember what my pre-wedding and wedding day feelings were and I am just an average American.... She is marrying into the Royal family and millions of people are going to be live watching her every move.... insert vomit

I wanted to boycott watching the wedding and all the hype, but I failed and I am officially sucked in to the spectacle. While I may not wake up at 4AM to watch the Joan Rivers review of the processional, I will watch! After all... I have to see her dress.

For all you locals reading, be sure to record the 6 hour event  and then go to Jenis Ice Cream and order some of the YUMMY Royal Wedding Ice Cream Flavors to enjoy while you watch.



Cheerio

happy earth day

*pictures courtesy of Ohio Gardener magazine. my talented lanscaping, flower selling husband was featured in this magazine for this job, a local home where he and his team planted over 30,000 daffodil bulbs! *

happy birthday

Today marks the birth of my best friend and best husband ever!

It also marks the start of his final year as a twenty something.... I hope that he has enjoyed his twenties as much as I have, especially the past 5 years that we have spent together. We are not scared of 30, after all it is the new 20 right?? luckily it is not happening this year!

This is the fifth year that we will enjoy his birthday dinner at Thurman burger, home of the Thurmanator...
Tomorrow we will spend time out with friends and then have a fun weekend filled with friends and family.

Happy Birthday B! Love you

St. Pattys and stages of life...

Top O'The Morning to ya!!

I love St. Patricks Day, I am pretty sure I am not Irish, but today I always pretend that I am.

I love the color green and the fact that it is a Holiday that is one step closer to the Spring season... I love the enthusiasm people have around this day, even though it is all about beer...

I look back at this day over my lifetime... it makes me realize that I am getting older... lets reminisce..

High School: we would take the day off school, sometimes calling it in for each other rather then our parents knowing... meet at a friends house, start drinking (yes there was underage drinking)
Some years we drove down to the Cleveland St. Pattys Day Parade... we wore an over load of green attire! It was a big day!

College: we were only lucky enough to have St. Pattys Day on campus twice... our University was smart enough to schedule spring break around this Holiday to deter the craziness...
The day in college revolved around drinking at 5AM... wearing crazy green outfits and bouncing from bar to house party and back... we made breakfast at home for friends and served beer to the friends as they came back from class to join the parties.

Post College: (the early years) I worked half days to be able to go out to enjoy some of the St. Pattys Day celebration. I still wore green, just a scaled back version. I was introduced to the local bars that had all day celebrations with fun bands and places where you always ran into people you knew.

Career Life: I wake up as in any other day. I make Corned Beef to honor the tradition of Irish cooking. I plan to drink beer with dinner... No plans to go to the bar... I wear green to work and wonder, why no one else follows... I wish that my boss would say "take off early and lets go get some beer"... it won't happen! I role my eyes when people schedule meetings on St. Pattys and think... why are we at work today...

Maybe I will take off work next year and head to the bar at 6AM, I am up anyways...

one lucky winner

that winner is


JANA @ Not Yanas Blog.

This was a fair and square draw a name out of a hat drawing... my hubs made the pick.

Congrats jana, your bulb is on its way!

Check out what my 4 amaryillis bulbs looks like these days...

for someone lucky

I have mentioned a few times that my husband is from the Netherlands. His family is in the Flower Bulb business. This does not mean that I know anything about plants or flowers, but I am learning. I have learned that there is more to Dutch flowers then the Tulip... yes, that is the most famous and popular but there are so many more!
There are quite a few bulbs that can grow indoors, those are my favorites! I love fresh flowers in the house!

One of my most favorite is the Amaryllis. This is such a cool flower, it grows indoors- well atleast that is the requirement for the Ohio climate. It likes warmth and sunlight. It takes very little watering.
When they start to grow it is such a fun process to watch... each day the stem gets longer and longer...

Here are some picture of my recent batch.

I have 4 bulbs planted in a pot together! Each bulb can produce 2-4 blooms!

Now for the best part of this post. I am giving away an Amaryllis bulb to one lucky winner!!!

Leave a comment about your favorite flower and you will be entered to win!
It is that simple!

My favorite flower has changed over the years... I love Lilac Bushes, I love Peonies, I have a special love for Dahlias because we grew our own for the wedding...

Giveaway is open until March 4!




I can't wait to hear about your favorites!!

you picked me?

My good friend in and out of blog world Mrs. Hopeful has honored me with THREE awards! Thank you friend! If you read my blog and have not checked out Happy Hopefuls, you must! Honestly, you might not come back to see me again because she has a lot better story to share :)

I am going to start by accepting 2 of the 3 awards today and I will accept the third on a seperate post. The reason is for the sake of time and quiet honestly content...

For each award, I have to list 7 things about myself and nominate 15 bloggers.... umm thats a lot of math, but pay attention those that are nominated below... it is: 21 facts and 45 bloggers. so for the sake of time... I will do 14 and 30.

14 things you might not know about me:

1- I have only ever lived in the state of Ohio
2- I went to college with the goal of becoming the next Diane Sawyer or Katie Couric.

3- I am the oldest of 4- two sisters and one brother -ages 27-12

4- My grandma introduced me to my husband

5- I still wonder why I gave up my News Anchor dream

6- I L.O.V.E summer, sunshine,and all things summer related

7- my birthday is in the summer

8- I hate to wear socks

9- I suffer from serious entree envy every time I go out to eat

10-ice cream is my favorite food

11- I have a love hate relationship with excercise

12- my worst fear about getting older is that my butt will grow into my thigh and become one (hence leading to the need for #11)

13- I also suffer from craft and creativity envy- this is why a lot of the people below are getting awards
14- I am not good at math at all... for real its embarrasing

I nominate the following bloggers with these two awards:

Lullabies and School Supplies
The Waltons
Not Yanas Blog 
Senseless sophistication
33 shades of green (and not just because my favorite color is green)
lauren makes
34 isn't that old (to encourage her to get back on the blog wagon)
My Heart Shaped Life


ok, I realize that I have not nominated the right # of blogs, however, I do not follow that many, so I had to pick the ones that I like to read the most... I can add more later.

Thanks again Mrs. Hopeful! And to all the award winners above, keep up the blogging!

happy valentines day

I hope that you all get to feel special today! Even if you have a special valentine in your life most important thing is to do something special for yourself!


Today I am feeling special because:
- I have a super valentine
- I have a surprise gift waiting at home from my super valentine husband
- I had a FREE coffee drink at Java City
- I am loving my new iphone
- I am loving that I got to wear one of my $5 dresses to work today and it isn't black
- I am loving the funny memory of the fact that I forgot to wear a coat to work this morning even though it is only 45degrees it feels like summer after the weather as been in the negatives.
- I have no meetings this morning which allows me to right this post from my desk

What is making you feel special today?






Photo source

if you call me...

I will answer the call on my new iphone!! We have talked about it for sometime and then when Verizon came out with the iphone... it was a done deal.

I am lost and still learning all the tricks of this gadget, but it is truly awesome!

is there an app for how to use this thing? there has to be... there are apps for everything!
source

for the record

I had to reactivate my account with Facebook... I am not pleased about this, but it is a business decision. I am volunteering on the Executive Committee for our local Young Professionals group and I need to make facebook updates and announcements on behalf of this organization... I thought about creating a fake account...

People are already coming at me, emails and texts- "Oh my gosh, your back on FB"... its crazy- i have been back for 24 hours!

I just wanted to publicly state that I honestly survived with out it! It was not hard to part with the site...

I lowered my friend count and I am no longer accepting new friends.

I will continue to communicate with people via phone, email and this blog.

I will support all people that are willing and able to quit facebook!

something to warm your heart

I am so excited to share this story with you.

A few months back my grandmother and I went to a local auction. I purchased an old wooden apple crate for $5, however, I had to take all the contents in the crate with it. There were about 10 frames and pictures in the crate, really random stuff.

When I got it home I placed it all in the garage and of course my loving husband kept asking "when you going to do something with that junk"... after a few weeks, I finally went through the stuff to decide what to do with it. Among the paintings was a hand drawn picture of a beautiful house. On the back was a penciled in address of a farm in Ohio dated 1972. I started thinking that this was a custom drawing of this home and it really belonged with the owners...

I packaged up the picture and typed out a very informal note explaining how I got it and why I was sending it back. I had no idea what to expect. I even used my work address as the return, in case some crazies lived there... clearly I watch too much Dateline.

So, that happened about 1 week ago....

Yesterday, I received a handwritten letter to my office.... it was from the family that received the drawing and the woman wrote the nicest letter that I read outloud twice to my co-workers and every time it brought tears to my eyes....

Here is what it said:

You can't imagine how surprised we were to open your package and find the beautiful painting of our home. How can we ever thank you for such a kind , generous act? The painting is hanging in our living room where it looks perfect!
We purchased this farm in 1998 and moved here from Minnesota. We have two children, Micheala and Gregory, who have wonderful memories growing up here. we have horses, dexter cattle, chickens, dairy goats and have raised pigs& sheep as well. We practice sustainable and organic farming.Our house looks just like it does in the painting. If you would ever like to visit Morning Mist Farm, you would be most welcome!

Again, thank you so much for your kindness: We will enjoy the painting for years to come and will tell the story oftem of the kind lady who sent the painting "home".

How nice is that?? I am going to write her back, thanking her, for making my day! I might just take them up on the offer to visit their farm... I am so glad that I took the time to send this picture to them!
This just goes to show that someones elses junk is anothers treasure!