May SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to May's SOTM Blog Hop. All the artwork will feature CTMH's May SOTM, Cherish the Moment. This will be my last blog hop for now. My projects are starting to pile up and I seem to have lost my creative mojo in our move last month. I need some extra time to reflect and get my creative life back in order.

As you can see this month I went simple, simple and simple with this card. It was the first thing I've made in our new house. It felt good to get the papers and ink out. I kept it simple because often I (we) over complicate cards and pages. I (we) put to much pressure on each page and card to be just perfect and fabulous. It was hard for me to walk away from this card so simple as it is. When you have great paper and awesome stamps sometimes you just don't need more then that. It was also a way for me to try and get my creative juices flowing. Simple can be beautiful. I know the recipient of this card will love it just the way it is.

If you came from Annette's blog you are on the right path.

Now head on over to Judy's blog to check out her artwork this month. Keep following the circle to see all the wonderful pieces inspired by this months SOTM.

Full Circle Farm

We've been getting our organic veggie/fruit box from Full Circle Farm on 3 different occasions now. I love picking it up and opening up the box to a big surprise of fruits and vegetables (Even though, yes, I get to pick out what comes in it. I still feel like it is a surprise).

We get a box every other week and the produce has been in great condition. I'm fairly picking with what I pick out in the store and so far it's measured up. I'd say the only down fall has been the fruit is often not ripe. Which makes sense that it can't always be perfect and ripe at the same time, but it's hard to have to hold off eating the yummy pears for a few days until they are ripe.

Every other week is working out great for us. I have had to pick up a couple oranges, apples or various other veggies here and there, but it means that we are eating organic 75% of the time at least.

Here is what came in our box this week:
3 Fuji Apples
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch broccoli
4 D'anjou Pears*
1 cucumber
6 ruby grapefruit*
4 valencia oranges
2 lemons*
3 peaches
4 minneola tangelos*
1 tomato

The * items are things that I picked to substitute for an original item in our box. And the grapefruit was a "double" order. I LOVE the control I have over our box, and that there are so many items I can pick and choose from. There was even a surprise flower in our box this week!!!

Menu Monday

I've been MIA this week. Shane and I had a nice visit to Sequim and then a busy weekend at home catching up on life in general. Now it's a new week and time for some menu planning.

Monday -- leftover turkey burgers from dinner last night

Tuesday -- Breakfast for Dinner -- potatoes and eggs

Wednesday -- Something made up in the crockpot using beef Kenny picked out at Costco recently.

Thursday -- leftovers (assuming it turns out okay)

Friday -- Chicken and potatoes (lots of potatoes in the house that need to be used up)

Saturday -- leftovers

Sunday -- Dinner Surprise

Menu Monday

Shane and I are headed out of town to visit Mema and Papa after Toddler Group tomorrow. Daddy-o will be on his own most of the week.

Monday -- Tacos (it will leave lots of left overs for Kenny to have something to feed himself for a few nights while we are gone)

Tuesday through Friday -- Mema and Papa's where the food is good and made for you!! A dinner vacation. YAH!!

Saturday -- Cowboy Burgers (a Rachel Ray recipe)

Sunday -- Leftovers

The New 'Hood

We have resident ducks in the new neighborhood. Daddy and Mommy Duck, if you ask Shane. Mr. Duck is quite the little talker and will follow you where ever you go. The minute you step out of the house they come running from where ever they are to talk to you and I assume hope you have food for them. I watched them this morning move from house to house as people came out for the day. Hilarious!!

You can see Mommy Duck laying in the grass.

Shane took his trike out last weekend to get some riding in around the cul-de-sac. It was recently paved, so perfect for a new trike rider, who doesn't seem to like to ride that much.


Our tulips are out. I had the toughest time getting a good picture of them. I just couldn't get the right angle. You'll have to see in person all the colors, heights and shapes. Beautiful!

2 Year Blog Anniversary

Today I'm celebrating two years of blogging. Who would have known! I sure didn't. Looking back on some of my first blog posts brings back so many memories. Events that don't feel like two years ago. Pictures of Shane that I can hardly believe my eyes. Wow, has he sure changed and grown up. And little things that I don't think I would have even remembered if I had not blogged about them. This is truly like a family digital scrapbook.

I thought in honor of my 2 year blog anniversary, I'd repost my Life List from 2 years ago. Feels like just yesterday that I wrote it. Let's see if I've made any progress....

My Life To Do This: (originally posted on May 19, 2008) (Today's additions have been written in purple.)

*fly in a helicopter
*travel to Europe -- Italy and France for sure
*travel to New Zealand
*spend a vacation on a secluded tropical island
*take a photography class -- COMPLETED!
*take a cooking class -- Getting close, I have gift certificates in hand for Sur La Table in Kirkland, just need to schedule the class!
*foster/adopt a child
*volunteer regularly somewhere
*raise/foster a seeing eye puppy
*be a good enough photographer to volunteer for the
Lay Me Down To Sleep Organization
*get published in a scrapbooking magazine
*have a winter home in San Diego
*get a tattoo
*grow my Close To My Heart business This has been a true struggle for me, but I work on it continually.
*go on a scrapbooking retreat -- I'm going on one in September!! I've been twice now, and have loved every minute of it.
*live a healthy and green lifestyle -- I work on this one everyday!! Got our 2nd local organic produce box today!
*own my own home YAH! As of March 10, 2010 we became homeowners!
*grow a veggie garden -- I planted one yesterday!! We have plans for a raised garden in our new back yard.
*go on a cruise
*have a flower cutting garden The house we moved into has tons of beautiful flowers already planted for me, what luck.
*attend a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show
*see a Broadway show in New York
*become a better sewer.

Wordless Wednesday

Menu Monday

Must say I'm not feeling the menu planning right now. My dinner inspiration seems to have left me. I'm also hoping to not have to go to the grocery store this week. I'm working with what we have in the house. I know in the end taking a moment to make a plan will help me a ton in the end this week. Here goes:

Monday -- Leftover overs from the best local Mexican Restaurant (Plaza Garcia, it's right around the corner from our house) that we went to last night for Kenny's birthday dinner.

Tuesday -- Chicken Rice Casserole (we didn't end up having it last week)

Wednesday -- Leftovers

Thursday -- I am craving some yummy Mac and Cheese from Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook. It's the BEST homemade Mac and Cheese ever!!

Friday -- Leftovers

Saturday -- Spaghetti with French Bread

Sunday -- Surprise Night (probably leftover Spaghetti)

Why?

I got out of the shower this morning to find this:



Me: Shane, Why are you wearing Mommy's Bra?

Shane: I'm cold (even though he had a shirt on when I got in the shower....)

This is also why generally I let him watch TV why I take a shower, no surprise then when I get out.

Furniture Shopping

Having recently moved into our new house, we knew we would need a handful of new furniture pieces. We were certain that IKEA would provide us with what we needed for most of it at a reasonable price. BUT I had reservations about getting so many purchases from there because of previous experiences of missing and damaged pieces after bringing the boxes home. Of course you get to find this out in the middle of putting the item together. Which always results in frustration, annoyance and a trip back to the world of IKEA.

Well, we made the jump and got 9 different things from IKEA (bed, dresser, 2 bookshelves, filing cabinet, 3 piece desk set, and desk drawers). Each piece got put together as we waited on pins and needles to find bad news. It didn't happen until piece number 9. Where we finally met with a large damaged side piece to our dresser. The problem was resolved easy enough. The end result was well worth the risk of purchasing from IKEA.

The interesting part of this story is that we also purchased a china cabinet from a much more expensive furniture store. Kenny's parents were blessing him/us with a belated college graduation gift. We found just what we wanted at a furniture store called Dania. As it was purchased we discovered that it as well came in boxes and needed to be put together. Who knew that you could pay that much for a piece of furniture and STILL have to put it together yourself. Well, well, well....the directions were terrible, it was extremely hard to put together and there was a very important piece missing! Which had to be ordered and shipped to the store. Kenny probably spent 8 hours working on it. The end result is beautiful and it's my favorite item in the house right now.

BUT the lesson learned is IKEA isn't so bad after all.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday, Kenny!

Kenny is celebrating his big 33rd birthday today. It wasn't much of a celebration at our house today. I've sorta lost my creativity and party planning mojo lately. But none-the-less we wish him a great 33rd year of life!!

Easter

We had a very mellow Easter. My parents came over to have dinner and spend the night. Shane was blessed with 3 visits from the Easter Bunny (that is 3 different Easter baskets). Egg dying was success except that there were 3 broken eggs in the dozen, and one used earlier for muffins, so there weren't many eggs to dye, but I don't think Shane noticed. He just wanted to eat them.

Egg hunting was again this year held inside. The darn weather the past couple weeks has been very cold, windy and rainy. He loved finding the eggs and then shaking them to make sure there was a surprise inside.




This is what it takes to be able to go outside these days. Poor kid just wants to get some fresh air.

April Blog Candy Winner

I used a random number generator which gave me number 10. Congrats to Haley D. for winning this months Blog Hop Blog Candy. I'll be contacting Haley via email so I can send her the cute mini calendar/address book. Visit again next month to enter in May's Blog Candy contest.

Menu Monday

Happy Spring! Hope you all had a nice Easter weekend.

Monday -- Ham and potato cakes (creative way to use up all those leftover mashed potatoes) and zucchini.

Tuesday -- More Ham and potatoes with asparagus.

Wednesday -- Ham and eggs

Thursday -- Country Pie (great recipe from my SIL)

Friday -- Leftovers

Saturday -- Chicken and Rice Casserole

Sunday -- Leftovers