Crafty Crafters

I stopped in at Fields Fabrics to pick up some denim patches the other day. Whenever I go to these places I really wish I was more crafty. I love the idea of making my own things and the patterns and fabrics in the store are really neat. I should totally make a cute cat costume or something.



I did finally cut up my first t-shirt the other night. I don't personally like to wear a crew neck t-shirt (or any crew neck shirt for that matter, but I like some of the neat prints on some of them, particularly from woot. I cut off the neck and sleeves and made a tank top. :) I used a shirt I don't really care about to practice on, and I have a few more stashed I'd like to practice on since I don't want to mess up on a shirt I would really like to wear. Maybe I am a little crafty after all.

Too Normal?

I often come here and open a new post page and just kinda stare at it. I feel like I should blog about stuff, but what stuff? I don't feel very original or have too much exciting or new to share.

I made super cute baby shower cake, which makes me think that I really should get going on a website for my cake business. But that would involve actually being productive. This whole Netflix thing is finally starting to grow on me. In the last couple of weeks, new shows have been added that actually peak my interest. Which also means I am spending more watching TV and not being productive. Like normal.

I need to bake more. I think I will buy a bushel of apples and bake.

The Sing Off

This is just awesome. I love The Sing Off.

Switching it Up

We finally bit the bullet and switched to Netflix. No more cable for us. It's a big thing for me, I haven't not had cable for longer than I can remember. And sadly, I don't see any Food Network shows on Netflix. :( Maybe I'll finally start getting all the things done that I mean too during the week instead of spending 20+ hours watching TV..

July

What should I say about July...

It's been a good month.

My grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this month. It's amazing how long they have been together. They have been retired since before I was born, and snowbirds as long as I can remember too. We had a nice little get together at a local park, potluck style. I made a pretty nice cake. My first really nice stacked cake. I also only made one little girl cry - without even trying.

The day after my grandparents anniversary party, Matt and I headed up to the UP with a good chunk of his family. I made a reasonable small list of things I wanted to do while up there, and happily I got to do everything I wanted. :) Kitch-iti-kipi, Picture Rocks, Tahquamenon Falls, Oswald's Bear Ranch, which Sarah spoke very highly of, :) and some of the UP wineries. I also wanted to go fishing, make smores and hobo pies. I love a good camp fire too.

Cover Queen

I love this girl's covers!

Taco Bell Folk Song

This was played on the radio on my way into work today.

June Nights

June has turned out pretty good so far. I love going to yoga three or four times a week. :) School is going well. I like my online class. It's really easy. I've gotten to hang out with friends here and there, more than normal. I made a fun cake last weekend. I'm getting the hang of the cupcake cakes and I really think our friends and their son like it too. I've got two cakes already scheduled for July as well. Matt and I will be going to see Hairspray the the Civic Theater this Friday. I'm excited! I love musicals. Matt, not so much. LOL

We are also heading up to Traverse City this upcoming weekend for Cherry City Comic Book Convention. It's a small convention, which will only take us a few hours to get through. I finally talked some friends of mine to come up to Traverse City with us. Sweet! I can't wait to show them all our favorite spots. I wish we were going up for more than one night, but we only scheduled one night to save a little money. We are going up to the UP with Matt's family in July and we need to save up a little for that trip too. Still more excitement!! I can not wait to go the the UP, I have always wanted to get up there and explore. :)

So Frustrating

When I started volunteering at Crash's, I never expected the variety of questions I would get from people. I get alot of questions about cat care and the cats we have and all sorts of random cat questions.. The thing I am starting to dread is friends and family emailing me about what to do with cats that are not wanted anymore. It's always so 'reasonable' as to why the cat can no longer stay with the current owners, but I still get pretty upset that pets are something people can just throw away. People will justify anything. I guess it's better than some people's more cruel philosophy of just killing pets that are no longer wanted or that are having issues. Looking on the positive side doesn't seem to help me in this situation.

95 Degrees

I picked up a Groupon for Hot Yoga in December (when it was cold out) and finally got around to using it last week, now that it is hot out. I have unlimited visits for 30 days. So, I will be really trying to get my monies worth. I actually really like it. I have always liked yoga, but this style of yoga is what I like the best. The instructor jumps from pose to pose in quick succession, with a few long holds in between. I really feel the work out. I even kinda like the 95 degree temperature. I do get sick of it about 3/4 through. I bring alot of water...

It really is amazing what people can do with their bodies. Sometimes I catch myself just watching people do extreme poses and forget to do my own basic pose. It's also amazing how much some people sweat. Some of the people are just dripping sweat in puddles on their mats. Sure, the rest of us are sweating too, but wow.

9 Years

I wish I could download previously purchased books to my Kindle. I have so many books, that take up so much room, it would be nice if books had a one time code or something that would allow books to be uploaded onto e-readers. Blah. The only thing I don't want on the e-reader is cookbooks. There are a bunch of old public domain books that I downloaded for free, like all the Jane Austin books, The Scarlet Letter, The Art of War and others, but I really like being able to buy any book I want at any point from just about any where.

April Showers

Blah. Most of this month has just been quite blah. I am ready for spring too, so this cloudy, rainy, and cold weather has not helped my soul perk up.

The rest of March was quite uneventful. I made some super cute owl cupcakes for one of my many cousin's baby shower. And Matt and I sold a bunch of toys at the local toy show. We seem to do quite well and we feel like we made more money than alot of the other sellers there. Probably because we sell 'modern' toys. Alot of the sellers there have vintage/antique toys or a bunch of Hot Wheels. There is another big show coming up in May, down in Kalamazoo, but we will just be shopping and not selling.

April has been a bit busier. I made two cakes. My niece's 2nd birthday cake, featuring Dora the Explorer, and a "commission" cake for a guy from work for his girlfriend's birthday. I finally figured out how to do good buttercream roses. Which thrills me, since I love buttercream and roses. :)



I got a Kindle, which is quite neat. It will take up alot less room than all the books I like to buy. Now I just need a cover to protect it and take it everywhere for me. Maybe I'll buy something on etsy.com.

We went to Ludington for a night in the beginning of the month and we will be going somewhere for our anniversary this upcoming weekend. We bought a beautiful print from a local photographer in Ludington of a cat in a window. The art scene in Ludington is really growing.

Class is done for the semester. Good thing next semester starts on Monday. Boo. I have my first Internet class for the summer semester, so we will see how that goes.

Zombies??

I may have gone a little to far at the funeral visitation tonight. Some cousins, Matt and I were all standing around talking about how we should get together more often, but it was sad to get together under these circumstances. People were saying things about making up funerals for non-existent people and making everyone show up. I than said something along the lines of, maybe we could pretend that non-existent person could raise up as a zombie and we could kill them, cut off their head and rebury them and have another funeral. Yup. That is what I said. At a funeral visitation. Standing next to my cousin whose father just died. Luckily they all laughed, but it was shocked laughter.... :/

I think I have been married to Matt way too long.

Inevitability

My Uncle passed away 2/24 at the age of 51. He was my mother's youngest brother. Death doesn't really bother me, it's a part of life and inevitable for everyone. This death has a different feel to it then others I have experienced. I am kinda upset with him for dying, even if it is sort of a good thing. He really threw his life away and choose drinking and drugs over success and family. It is unknown at this time how he passed away, but the long and short of it is that his remains were found in the basement of his burned up home, probably next to the wood stove. Top possibilities are that he fell asleep/passed out with a lit cigarette or fell asleep/passed out and let the wood stove get out of control. I'll update this when the investigation is over and the real reason is discovered. Maybe I'm being too judgemental....Maybe not.

I really feel for his immediate family, his 4 kids, ex-wife, parents and siblings. Everyone has tried so hard to get him to turn his life around and be OK. I'm upset that he died a potentially horrible death and left his family to deal with all the horrible repercussions. My extended family are really stepping up and we will try to make this as smooth a transition as possible.

Free Fallin

My guitar lessons are going well. My teacher says I am doing quite well, which is nice to hear. 8 weeks in with not nearly enough practice time put in, I am learning my first song. The most frustrating thing I have found is all the guitar tabs and youtube instruction are all different. Everyone is teaching a slightly different version of the same song and they are all different then the way my teacher wants me to play. I am not good enough at this point to just hear a song and know what notes are being played. I am having fun though. :)

Tuesday Nights

Busy. I am so busy. As much as I like to be busy, I have gotten to the point that I am tired every weekday, at least it feels that way. I had been going to Open Mic on Tuesday night 10pm to 1am, or later, just watching and having a bunch of fun. But I think that one really late night was throwing my whole week off kilter. I would still do it though. It's just too much fun to pass on. The band that hosted this particular Open Mic was a local up-and-coming band called Valentiger. I think the 3 guys in this band are good at what they do, a fun bunch, and I really hope they make it. They recently shot a music video in GR and I will post it. :)

January 2011

Hmmm. 2011. I really hope that this will be a life changing year. I am determined to make something happen this year.

Looking back at 2010; let's examine what I wanted to get done.

1. Lose Weight - Did not really happen. But I did not gain any weight...That's a plus.
2. Learn French - Did not happen.
3. De-Junk house - Started....Sold some stuff at the toy show and donated bags of stuff to Goodwill. Need to purge more.
4. Drink more wine - Success!! I feel like I really drank a significant amount of wine. We bought lots of wine this year too. Multiple trips up North helped with this.

Looking back at the calender some noteworthy things that happened.
-The saddest thing of the year was Murdock passing. I miss him so very much. Every day. That cat changed my life. And Matt's view on cats too. :) But his passing brought me to volunteering at Crash's Landing. I love my time at the shelter and the great people I have met there. I look forward to my Wednesday nights at Crash's.

-I made some fun cakes/cupcakes. Mia's Hello Kitty Birthday Cake, the engagement cake, Kermit the Frog Birthday cake, Hello Kitty cupcakes, 80'th Birthday cake for my grandfather, and a Hello Kitty Princess cake. See pics on Facebook.

-All our mini vacations. Chicago, Traverse City, Mackinaw Island, Woodstock for Ted's wedding, Ludington, and where ever else we went.

-I have discovered a great love for Groupon and Groupon like websites. LOVE!

Looking forward. Lets try the three things I have been meaning to do for years; plus a extra one.

1. Lose Weight. - I have a treadmill....Why don't I use it more???
2. Learn French. - I have uploaded the language software onto my new laptop. This will make it so much easier to excess and should help me get this done.
3. De-Junk House. - I have too much stuff. Anybody want some??
4. Learn to play Guitar. - I have been taking some lessons and I am enjoying it. Now I just need to keep it up.

Wish me luck!

Cookies!!! 2010

I made cookies. They were awesome.

-Carrot Cake Shortbread
-Bittersweet Chocolate Biscotti w/ Hazelnuts
-Pistachio-Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
-Monster Cookies
-Salted Caramels
-Pecan Rum Bars
-Chai-Spiced Cookies
-Chocolate Star Gingersnaps
-Lemon Lover’s Cookies
-Cranberry Almond Macaroons

Cats and Dragons

I feel like I should have more to blog about, but I don't. I was thinking about updating my blogger background and was playing around with designs and lost all my blogs I visit again. Damn it! I hate that. One of these days I should really save all the urls to a folder or something.

I missed two months on this blog. I really wanted to blog at least once a month. Whoops. Maybe if my life wasn't so boring and monotonous.

October

-Went to the Michigan Renaissance Festival with Ken and Carrie. Bought a cleavage dragon. :)
-School on Thursdays.
-Crash's on Wednesdays.

That was my month, according to the calender.

November

-Crash's on Wednesdays.
-School on Thursdays.
-Scott and Sarah's Halloween Party. Had a lot of fun. Dressed up as a cat. Bought some super cool thigh-high 5" heeled boots that went great with my outfit, but my knees did not care for going up and down the stairs all night. Or chasing the ping pong ball during beer pong so the dog wouldn't eat it. I sure do love those boots.
-Toast the Season in Traverse City. Matt and I love going to this. 16 wineries in 2 days, plus we stopped at 3 extra to try and pick up some wines we really like, but they were all sold out of them. In total we picked up 13 bottles of wine to restock our wine fridge. Lots of cherry wine too. Being in Traverse City means we got to eat sushi at Red Ginger, my favorite sushi restaurant to date.
-Thanksgiving at my parents.
-Black Friday - Bought a bunch of DVDs at Target and 3 seasons of Big Bang Theory. I also stopped at the mall, but didn't stay long. Too busy at JCP. I figure it will all be on sale again later anyway.

September? Where did you go?

And lets not even mention August. I don't even have that much written in for August on the calender, but I'm sure there must have been alot of last minute things. Right?

-School Sucks. My teacher is really old. He graduated college in the 50's.
-I love Crash's Landing. I go through withdrawal if I don't go every week.
-I had a mole removed from my hand, and the pathology came back abnormal, so I had to have more cut out. And it's all good now, except the giant scar.
-I made a really cool cake for my Grandpa's 80th birthday party.
-We went back to Peterson and Son's Winery, which was the very first winery we had ever gone to, way back in the day. The 'Wine Nazi' was great. He actually seemed to remember us and we ended up being there for a really long time. Still one of our favorite winery owners.



-We went to Mackinac Island and stayed at the Grand Hotel. I loved it. The only thing that could have been better would have been if we had gotten a lake view room. I loved the 5 course seated formal gourmet dinner that we had both nights we were there. I also enjoyed the dress code after 6pm. We rented a tandem bike and biked around the island, stopped to see some of the sights. The tandem was an experience in communication. :) But we made it. Oh, and I love fudge.



- Artprize is here and it is awesome.

- Scott and Sarah had their baby girl on 9/21/10, Suzanne Adelyne Schwab.