Betsy's Baby Room for Adison

My friend from church, Betsy, is due in six days, and this is her baby room. It was a labor of love by my friend Tonya and I. Betsy picked out a fabric and we went to town sewing. Here are pictures of the completed drapes, crib bumper and crib skirt. There is also a pillow (not seen here). This was my first baby room and I have to be prideful and say I think it looks amazing! We can't wait to welcome the newest arrival to our church.

Self Challenge 2009

So if you remember from last year, I did the Self Magazine 2008 Challenge and lost 11 pounds. I've managed to keep 8 of those pound off (YEAH), and I'm on board again. Anyone can join for free on their website. This time I want to lose 8 more pounds to get trim and fit for our cruise we just booked. We are going on a 7 day Mexican Rivera Cruise out of Long Beach. I am SOO Excited! We took our first cruise two years ago and always planned on going again, so here we go. We leave May 17th. 

Dream Dinners

This is a picture of the event that kicked it all off. My meetup group (more about that at a later date), went for a free trial at Dream Dinners, a local dinner assembly center. I had heard of these type of places before and always thought that's for people with more money than I or people who just can't cook. Well, I was wrong! With money being tight, Dream Dinners is great for us. It keeps us from eating out from sheer laziness of not wanting to cook dinner. Also, since they buy in bulk, I get a cheaper price without having to go grocery shopping so often. 

I'm on the 12 meals a month plan. Each month I sign up for the next month's menu and schedule a date. Since my brother is living with us, it works out great. They are three servings a piece and really help with portion control. All the ingredients/meals are in zip lock bags and stored in the freezer until ready for use. At the beginning of the weak, I place three in the fridge and then we eat them when I have to work my twelve hours work days. I love it! They have a great selection and the food it tasty too! If you are interested let me know, or just visit the site and make sure you put that I referred you. Welcome to twelve no planning required meals a month.

Blogging

So I guess if I am to start an online etsy shop, I should start blogging more. (Hopefully my etsy shop will be up in March selling my handmade goods that I have sewn.) Like most people, I have RSS feed to my favorite blogs. I get bored and sad when they don't blog very much because this is my lifeline to them. How can I complain about them when I rarely update mine? So my goal for the immediate future is to blog more.

I'll kick this one off by talking about audiobooks. Since my last in-dash CD player crapped out on me over 4 years ago, I put my factory stereo with tape deck back in my dash with the hope of no one breaking into my easy to steal Honda Accord. I've already had one CD player stolen. My hubby bought me an ipod and an adapter for my car, so I can take my electronics with me. 

Ok, back to audiobooks. Now I can place whatever books I want to listen to on my ipod and listen to them while driving. Audiobooks are expensive so I rely on the library. Most of the time, I just request whatever I am interested in and then pick it up when it is available. Recently I came across this-a site where you don't even have to visit the library to get your books. Just log on and surf what is immediately available for download and transfer to playable device or burn.

Listening to these stories in the car allows me to unwind on my ride home from work and gives me something to be happy about for my 5:30 in the morning drive to work. I mostly listen in my car like a said, but audiobooks are also a great way to get chores done around the house. I put the ipod on and off I go. When my mind doesn't remember all the horrible tasks I need to overcome, I don't have a problem doing housework. I also ready quite a bit, so I find it is good to listen to a different genre that you are reading. I listen to a lot of mysteries. Agatha Christie is my favorite. Sometime I even listen to my Book Club book on tape. More on Book Club to follow.

My First Time

My friend Becky recently bought a chair for ten dollars on craig's list. She wanted to paint and reupholster it to be the seat of honor for her sister's baby shower. We had brainstormed together, but neither one of us had attempted something like this before. Of course we waited until only days before the shower and set to work. She picked the fabric out, sanded, primed and painted the chair and the next day, I went over with my air compressed stapler and a plan for the re-upholstery. I was a bit fearful, even with my knowledge of sewing. An hour and a half later and wahlaa, a brand new chair that was the rave of the party! 

Halloween

Warning sign. We are not liable.

The front of the house.

Extreme props.

The front of the house.

We went to L.A. for Halloween. My Aunt Judy and Uncle Vance live there and every year they have the most amazing Halloween Yard. It takes over a month to put it all together. We showed up two days before to help put the finishing touches on it and to scare the crap out of people on Halloween. It is a lot of hard work, but very rewarding. Plus, I get to see my other family members from IL and other parts of Cali. See the second post for more.

My 10 Year High School Reunion

Like I said in the last post, I was in Peoria, IL the last week in May. This coincided with my ten year high school reunion. I didn't take many pic's, but here are the ones I liked. The first two are guys I went to high school with and the last two are me with my friends kids. Casey Getz, his wife and son, Jeremy Elsasser, me with Joe and Ashby Patterson's little girl Emma and me with Amber (Aaron) and Jason Redoutey's little guy Caleb. I think I was one of two couples at my reunion without kids. Of course there were some single people and Nathan didn't attend with me so it was kind of weird. I fell back into by old secretarial roles by organizing a list of updated addresses and emails. My ultimate goal of pacifying my curiosity about my classmates was met, plus it fueled me to join facebook. So I guess it was a success.