gold eyeshadow

Can I wear gold eyeshadow?
I just bought some at Target...

Randomness

I have been asked to update my blog. Sorry I was absent, but I've been busy. The past couple of weeks have been a blur of Olympic wonderment. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympics and watched as much of them as humanly possible.

I don't have much to post about, so let me share some random tid-bits.
1. When cooking I normally double the amount of cheese the recipe calls for. For instance, if the casserole says "top with 1 cup of cheese" I easily use the whole two cup bag. I just can't help myself! I love cheese!

2. I have a fantasy football team this year. After at least three years of begging my brother to let me have a team in his league, he FINALLY broke down and let me. I know it was because they needed to fill a spot, but I'll take what I can get. I think I have a great team (great looking anyways!) but Robert told me tonight that two of my players are out hurt for the season. Guess I'll need to pick up a few new good lookin' guys!

3. We are taking a run at parenting this weekend. We will be keeping our friends Julie and Aaron's two kids from Thursday night to Sunday night. They are great kids and we are looking forward to it. But something tells me I'll be tired come Sunday! I'll keep you posted on our fun filled weekend!

4. I am in the process of publishing my first cookbook at www.tastebook.com. It's a super neat website- some of you might even get my cookbook as a Christmas present.

5. Speaking of Christmas, we are three months from Christmas! I get excited just thinking about it. In fact, I told Nick this weekend that my fall decorations are coming out in a week!

Guess that's all, for now....

U-S-A

I LOVE the Olympics. I am partial to the summer olympics. Now that I have DVR I come home to about 8 hours of Olympics to watch. While I watch most of it in fast forward (comon' how many prelims are there in swimming!?) I do watch MOST of it. I am spending this evening catching up on the past few nights.
I have roped both Nick and Robert into watching it with me- I think mainly cause I am control of the tv in the bonus room, so they can't play Playstation. But man, I can't keep staying up till after midnight!
The other night we were all watching the Women's Gymnastic Team Competetion. It was about 10 something and the competetion was heating up. Robert said, "well, I can't go to bed now, I have to cheer these girls on. Give me a flag or something to wave!" Then he and Nick get into the scoring and start giving their own scores.
After we lost (which by the way, there is NO way those girls were 16, hello, she had BABY teeth and my sister is a dental hygenist and 16 year olds don't have BABY TEETH!) anyways, back to the story... after we lost, Robert said, "that's it I'm boycotting rice!" and went to bed!
It really is fun watching the Olympics with these two boys!

Happy Birthday

Fifty one years ago today one of my most favoritist people was born....
my momma!

Happy Birthday, "Old Lady"!

name brand vs. brand name

I went to the dreaded WalMart on Wednesday with Marty to do a little grocery shopping. I really do HATE that place, but since I was buying so many groceries, I broke down and went to WalMart. Thanks for being my tour guide Marty.
Before she got there I picked up a few things I knew I could find, one being garbage bags. I opted for the Hefty odor sheild. Marty saw them and suggested I save some $$ and get the WalMart brand. Now trash bags are one of those things I never buy the off brand of, just not sure how they will do. (I'll let you know how these bags work)

So, this got me thinking. What are other items you do not buy the off brand off...
Here is my list.
1. detergent. I choose liquid tide (bought at sams)
2. Cokes. I tried the Publix cola once because it was only a penny, totally won't do that again.
3. Toliet Paper. I think we all know why.
4. tootpaste. that off brand crap is just nasty.
5. Pickles. ewww, they are like rubber and nasty. I like Klausin (sp?)

I had a whole list going in my mind, but this is all I can come up with right now. So add your suggestions to the list...

best trip ever, the finale

So, how did we get all these purchases home. Well, Friday after shopping we decided mom was going to need a different carry on, since hers was TINY. We went to Target to buy bubble wrap, tape, and a new bag for mom. We headed back to Newell to try to pack up.
We unpacked everything from Fiesta onto one bed, this was the staging area. We wrapped it all and packed it on the second bed, the packing bed. The goal was to get all the fiesta in my carry on, mom's carry on, and Anna's carry on. The problem was Anna and I both couldn't carry a purse since we were both carrying on two bags, well, Anna was carrying on a picture frame. More on that later. We actually, surprisingly, got all the Fiesta in our carry ons. Mine and mom's weight about 40 pounds each! The very tried to pack all the Ikea breakables into my suitcase which I would check planeside, rather than have it go to the basement where the gorillas handle it. Yippeeee, everything fit. So we had two bags, mom and Anna's in which we had to fit ALL of our stuff and the leftover Ikea stuff. Let's just say it was tight.......
We ordered a pizza and headed to bed praying for the security personal tomorrow.
We were off to the airport. Now, let me give you a mental picture of what we all had. I was carrying on a about 50 lb bag of fiesta and had my rolling suitcase as my bag to be checked planeside. All in all, I was toting about 90 lbs. Mom had her 40 lb fiesta carry on and a STUFFED checked back. Her bag weighted 52 pounds, but the nice lady let it go without charging her the $90 for an overweight bag! Anna had her fiesta carry on, hers wasn't as heavy for some reason and a HUGE picture frame as her carry on. She tried to check a bag, but it was WAY over weight, so we ended up opening it and moving random things to over bags.
So we got the bags checked and headed through Homeland Security. The men were so nice to us, even with our heavy bags and picture frame. They were helpful and didn't even question us. Awesome! The only person who wasn't so nice was the man at the gate who told me I should not be checking my bag planeside because it was bigger than a carry on. I kinda just said, well that lady told me I could and kept walking. I couldn't risk losing the Ikea bag!
We had to change planes in Cinnicantti. We boarded the plane and were sitting there when the pilot came on and told us "due to a lack of staffing, we are going to have to de-board and wait about 2 hours". What- are you kidding me. We were so close....
Everyone on the plane was grumbling, but what can you do. Some people were starting to get off, when they came back on and said, someone had shown up so we could leave. I said, kinda loudly I guess, oh yeah, I want to kiss him on the mouth. The two guys in front of me and Anna apparently thought that was very funny and just laughed at me. Oh well.
So we made it home safe and sound with nothing broken!! Nick and William picked us up at the airport and we went to celebrate a little tax free weekend. We could buy as much as we wanted now since we didn't have to worry about getting it back on the plane!

best trip ever part duce

So Friday morning we got up and had a surprisingly good breakfast in the lobby then headed off to the Fiesta Factory. Ok, so picture this. A factory built in the early 1900s (no, I am not kidding) with vines growning all over it, mismatched windows (if they weren't broken out) sitting on the side of a river in the valley. That's the Fiesta Factory.
We had a tour scheduled for 10:30, but of course we were early, so we had time to check out the shop. They had a HUGE room of 'second' pieces that were so cheap- more on that later.

Our tour guide was a somewhat nice lady who had worked there for over 30 years- she really knew her stuff. We put on our goggles and were off. It was the neatest tour. There were are all in our flipflops and goggles walking all around, touching whatever we want. I can't believe this tour hasn't been shut down. We couldn't take pictures inside the factory, but believe me, it's cool. I just couldn't believe that these pretty dishes come from somewhere that looks like that.

After the TWO HOUR tour we went back in the Outlet, grabbed our milkcrate shopping cart and started shopping. We scored some incredible deals. Mom and Anna got a canister set for like $60, when just one piece of mine I got for my birthday was $60! The whole time we are shopping we kept wondering, how are we going to get all this on the plane (much more on that later). We gathered all of our purchases and headed out.... this is what our cart looked like.
Oh, funny story. We all decided to get a grab bag for $2. So this is what was in them and how excited we all were.



We knew we needed to head out of Newell to get something to eat, because as I have told you, there is NOTHING to eat there. We decided to go BACK to Ikea to do a little personal shopping for a friend, Marty, who had emailed me her shopping list. We drove the 45 minutes back to Ikea and had lunch before we filled up ANOTHER shopping cart full of stuff- yet again, how are we going to get all this back on the plane.
We decided to head back to the hotel early and try to get our stuff all pack up and figure out how we were going to get through security with about 100 pounds of fiesta and three bag fulls of Ikea business.
How we got this all home will come later....

the BEST trip ever

We had the BEST time on our girls trip. It's going to be impossible to describe it in words, but I'll do my best.
We left in the middle of the night on Thursday morning. Our flight was at 5:50, so we left the house at 3:40! Whew! All was fine going through security and we boarded no problem. It wasn't until we reached Cinncinatti that we had a little bump in the trip. Apparently I booked mom and Anna on a flight that left at 9:30 and me on a flight that left at 10:15. (why that happened is another LONG story...) so they boarded without me (I couldn't change planes because I had checked baggage.) They arrived in Pittsburg and waited for me in baggage claim. As I am coming down the steps into baggage claim - there they are holding a little sign that says MARY BROWN. Ha!
We gathered our bags, got our little rental car, and plugged Maggie the Magellian in and we were off. We were headed to downtown Pittsburg to take a ducky tour of the city. We were driving along, minding our own business, when out of nowhere- IKEA!!! We all screamed with delight! Mom and Anna had never been, so I was pumped to take them. We continued on into downtown and did the ducky tour, and Anna even got to drive the ducky boat in the water.
Let me just say that Pittsburg is a really cool city. I didn't expect much, pollution and grime, and nastiness- but it's a really clean young, fun city. After the tour, we raced back to the car, entered Ikea's address in the gps and headed that way.

What a blast we had in Ikea- we were only there for like 4 hours....needless to say many funny, funny stories- like when mom hit Anna and me cause she was so excited.
After Ikea we decided to head on to our hotel in Newell, WV and check in then eat. Ok, so Newell is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE- It was like Deliverance. As we are getting closer, I say, wonder where the worlds largest teapot is, we round the corner and BAM- there it is! We, of course, get out and take pictures.


We get to Newell about 8 o'clock. I go into check us in to the ONLY hotel in town and ask where to eat dinner (we had only seen a McDonald's on the way in) The nice lady says "oh, It's 8, it's getting late.... there is either a Subway or a McDonald's in the next town over" Well, great, thanks. We decide to drive on into town (and I use that term loosely) to see what we can find. Crazy, but Newell, has a casino.... totally random, and totally not nice, but a casino none-the-less. We opted to stop at Dollar General and get some "snacks" for dinner... see below

To be continued....