A Day in the life of

The other night Jon and I grabbed some dinner at the Desert Edge Pub downtown. Although the sun started to set shortly after we sat down, and the temperature started to drop. It was nice to enjoy the warmer spring weather.

Really?

Go in the store for a few things and it's sprinkling. Come back out to this! Seriously Mother Nature I have two new pairs of sandals I *REALLY* want to wear, but not in the snow.







-- Post From My iPhone

Fabulous Family

I have some super creative and savvy relatives and I thought I would give a shot out to them and what they are doing. Also, their blogs should be checked out.

First my cousin Jeri. Jeri lives in Arizona, but has a blog Budget Menus for the week. On her blog she goes through the ads for the local stores, tells you what is one sale, and gives you a menu of these sale items for the whole week. This past week her menu totaled $70.85. Amazing! Although she is in another state, some of the items might be comparable here.

Next is my cousin Kim. Kim has begun selling adorable petticoats, pettislips and tutus. Barefoot Creations is her blog for ordering and viewing these fantastic items.

Another cousin Lisa, make adorable necklaces and bracelets. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a blog where she highlights and sells these, but she should. ;) Her jewelry is beautiful and handmade.

Rooster

Back in early July Jon and I ventured down to Utah County to try out a new restaurant, Rooster.

It's a nice little restaurant. Emphasis on little though. We decided to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather.

We had already planned on ordering some dumplings, but took a look over the menu to see if there was anything else we wanted to try. The waiter sold us on the idea of trying their bubble tea. I'd heard of bubble tea but hadn't had it before. It's a milk tea that has boba balls in it. Boba balls are made from a mixture of tapioca and carrageenan powder. The straw for the drink was huge, maybe a half inch wide. I don't think Jon was sold on it, but I might get one again sometime.

For dinner we ordered the Rolled Rice Noodles with peanut sauce and hoisin, an order of Shrimp & Roasted Red Pepper dumplings and Veggies & Tofu dumplings. I tried both of the dumplings and thought they were great. Jon only had the Veggies & tofu but agreed that they were good. Neither of us were really in love with the rolled rice noodles. We both love sticky rice with peanut sauce and thought the rolled noodles might be just as good, but didn't think so in the end.

(We were so excited to dig in I forget to get a picture until we were almost done.)

For desert we got their Chocolate Lava Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream. It was *A-MAZING*! I checked their menu as I am typing this and found they don't have the lava cake with ice cream anymore. I wonder if they will substitute ice cream.


If you are in the area or looking for a new place to try out, I recommend it. Plus what can it hurt going to some place new?

Cleanse & misc. housekeeping updates

I know I was going to post this on Saturday, but between everything going on at Craft Lake City and then leaving the next day for the saltflats it got looked over. Finally tally after 28 days is a weight loss of 10 pounds. Woo hoo!

I am going back to the wellness center in a little over a week and will see what will be the next step.

In other news.. thank you to everyone who came out to Craft Lake City and stopped by my booth and said hi. My apologies to those of you who came early while I was still having a minor stress out. Thanks to the fam who ran and got me a plug adapter. I never ended up getting the laptop hooked up to the wireless, but at least I am now set with an adapter if I ever need it again. Also, thanks to my mom and Chicka & hubby. Without them I never would have been set up in time.

I hope everyone had a good time and picked up some fabulous things from the vendors. I know I did!

the salt.

It's that time of year again. What time is that? Speedweek!

As if my life was not crazy enough, trying to get everything done for Craft Lake City, I am also heading out to the salt (salt flats) for a few days to check out the cars and hopefully see some new land speed records get set.

Some might think that the salt doesn't sound like a great place to vacation. But.. I love it! Being out in the middle of the salt flats is like no other place. If you have stopped at the rest stop off of I-80 and walked onto the salt you haven't gotten the complete experience. You need to take the exit after the rest stop (heading west), drive by bend in the road until there is no more road. The races are then held a few miles out from there in the middle of the salt.

Jon and I have been going to Speedweek for that last few years. We get to kick back for a few days, hang out with our friends and watch history be made. I am taking my laptop with me and am hoping to be able to post some pics out there, but we'll see what happens.

(Us last year with Lucy)

Here are some photos Jon has taken previous years.

Busy Bee

The last little while I have been prepping for Craft Lake City. I have even put Jon to work asking for his assistance with painting. For my display I found some nice tables, but of course I had to make things difficult and insist that they be painted the colors I wanted.

I've been a mess the last few days trying to get everything accomplished that I want to. Here's a shot of my the current state of my craft room.

Part of my stress is due in part to the fact that I have to do a mock set up tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn for the Channel 2 News with Casey Scott. If you are up that early tune in and you might get to see a sneak peek of my both and maybe yours truely!

Mark your Calendars...

Two weeks to go!

I'll be there with a booth for my vinyl chalkboards and whiteboards.
Come check out the crafts!

Craft Lake City

I found out this weekend that I was one of the artists picked to be in the first annual Craft Lake City Festival. Yay! I will be there selling my chalkboards and new whiteboard items. The festival is on Saturday August 8, 2009 from 2 p.m. - 10 p.m. at the The Gallivan Center in downtown Salt Lake City.

You can check out more info at their website.

Amazing

As many of you know we have had an enormous amount of rain the last few weeks here in Utah. The weather report last night said we have another week of this before it starts to clear out and warm back up. Although I look forward to it being a littler drier I am not excited about the heat that will come. Before we know it, it will be in the high 90s.

The other night I was on my way home and as I got further west I could see the storm coming in. I pulled over and snapped a few pictures from the car as it was starting to sprinkle.

Even as I am writing this post I can hear the thunder rumbling in the background. The wind has picked up and the tree in the backyard is swaying madly with each gust. I am sure it will just be a matter of time before the clouds open up and the gutters are overflowing with water.

Green Table

A few weekends ago Jon and I went to one of our favorite local consignment shops, Elemente. It's located in the Art Space downtown near Gateway. We were going to look at a flat file, that we were considering getting for Jon's brother Jason.

We ended up getting the flat file, but while we were there I fell in love with this table.

At the time I didn't need another table, but it has personality and I couldn't pass it up. I told Jon that I would get rid of my current desk at home to make room for it. My desk at the time was a little number I picked up from Target. Nothing fancy, but it worked.

The woman at the shop told me that she thought the people who brought it in mentioned that it was Mormon Pine, but that she couldn't guarantee this. Honestly, it didn't really matter to me, I just loved the rustic appeal of this piece.

I paid and we took the table outside thinking that it we could just throw it in Gherti (my Mazda wagon) and it would totally fit. I have moved two different tables and a vintage metal porch glinder in my car before. Unfortunately, this table was a little too tall and wide to fit. But as we were trying to get it in the car I noticed the following stamp on the bottom of the table.

(St. Louis Coffin Co)

Now some might find this a little weird, a table made from wood from the St. Louis Coffin Co. I. however, think that this table is just more unique and has an even better personality to it.

Piper & Chloe

I am participating in the Piper & Chloe Boutique this weekend. Actually it starts today. If you haven't picked something up for your mother you should stop by. They have 40 different vendors and lots of fabulous stuff.

My table at the boutique is featuring my felt ipod/camera/iphone cases and handmade aprons.

Also be sure to check out the Piper & Chloe blog to get a preview of what you may find at the boutique!

Modern Materials Design

During my daily browsing of the Craigslist ads, I came across an ad for a local store called Modern Materials Design. According to them they are moving due to rezoning and are having tons of sales to clear out their warehouse inventory. They can be visited at their warehouse or online.

Just from looking at their website a couple of their specials are buy 2 doormats and get them for $18.95 each. Don't think to yourself that you don't need two doormats. You have a front and back door, right?

Another sale is for accent pillows. Buy 2 get them for $14.95-$22.95 a piece. Some of their pillows are on sale for $12.50 and up.

They also have lamps, kitchen textiles and all sorts of other things you may not need, but could definitely rationalize buying because it's on sale.

Check them out!

And for those of you who aren't local they do have shipping through their website.

Studio 5

I was on the Studio 5 show this morning, and it was a blast. Everyone there was super nice and although I was a little nervous I think I did a good job. As I am writing this the video from today is not up on the Studio 5 site yet, but it should be by tomorrow and you can find it here.

I am going to be on TV

This coming Wednesday, Feb. 18th, I am going to be on Ksl's Studio 5. I was contacted over the weekend by Brooke Walker who asked if I would be on the show and have my Needle & Pin Production felt cases highlighted. Apparently, they had been brought to her attention from someone she knows; she thought they were cute and wanted to have them on the show. There will be some other local business owners and their products also highlighted during the segment.

The show starts at 11 am on channel 5. I am super nervous. Wish me luck!

Snow Snow Snow

I thought it appropriate to post my pictures of the Christmas snow storm, right as we are gearing up for another snow storm tonight. As I mentioned in my Christmas post we woke up Christmas morning to find that the power went out in the middle of the night. There was a substation to the west of us that was having problems. I am not sure if it was because of the snow or not. However, they also closed 7800s to the west of us due to the drifting snowing and so many cars sliding off the road. Christmas morning before we left the house on our journey to visit with family I took this picture.

It's hard to see in the picture unless you zoom in, but the snow is coming down sideways. This was because it was so windy. To go clean off the car so we could leave Jon got all bundled up.

When we were coming home on Christmas night we encountered another storm. The next morning/afternoon this is what it looked like.

We didn't drive my car over the holidays and so she got covered in snow and had to be
dug out.

Hopefully the storm coming tonight won't be as bad, but as I am typing this the news just reporting sideways snow falling in Cache Valley.

Books

I have been looking for a new book to read. Lately I have just been reading magazines and the readers digest. The book Twilight was suggested to me, however, with the recommendation I was told - "If you loved Harry Potter you will love this!". I never read any of the Harry Potter books. I am sure this declaration is making some of you gasp. I just never had any desire to read them. But anyway, back to Twilight. I have asked a few people who have read it their opinions and got good feedback. I am still a little nervous though. Why? I am not sure.

I did order a hardcover copy off of Half.com the other day and hopefully it will be here shortly. I'll update the internet world on my opinion once I start to read it.

On a side note if anyone else is looking for something to read I recommend the author Wally Lamb. I have read both I know this much is true and She is Coming undone and loved both of them. He has another book coming out in November and I am anxiously waiting it's release.

Homeownership and HOAs

I have been a homeowner for several years now, which don't get me wrong, I love. However, I was not completely prepared for life in an HOA. HOA are for some people, but I have come to find out I am not one of them. I do not like paying a monthly fee to cover services which I feel are basic and not worth what I am paying each month.

This weekend I received a letter in the mail from the HOA management company, advising that someone had complained about our 1962 Mercury Comet being parked in the driveway and that the car had made a stain on the driveway. Maybe its my humble upbringing, but a stain on a driveway seems pretty commonplace to me, since you are parking cars there - which do drive on the dirty road and contain various types of different fluids.

Anyway apparently this vehicle and stain are bringing down property value for everyone else. The letter also asked that the vehicle be stored in the garage in the future and to make sure there was something protecting the concrete in the garage from damage from the vehicle.

HOAs may be for some people. They are definitely not for me. This has made me more motivated to find a new house.

Continuation of July 14th post

On July 14, 2008 I posted a pic of canning jars and said to stay tuned. As usual with my life I made a slight change of plans. My original plan of attempting to make homemade raspberry jam (first atttempt) stayed the same, but I found new jars I thought were cuter.

Here is the final product -

The jam turned out great, in my opinion. I do have a few extra jars I would love to share with anyone who might be interested. Just let me know!

Quirks

As was pointed out by my cousin Kim I really haven't blogged in a long time. Not for lack of anything going on, but rather there has been so much going on I just haven't had a moment to.

Since I was tagged by Kim for this.. Here are the rules:

-Link the Person who Tagged you
-Mention rules on your blog
-Tell about 6 quirks of yours
-Tag 6 fellow bloggers to do the same
-Leave a comment to let them know


I am sure I have more than 6 quirks - it's just a matter of if I want to talk about them in public or not. :)

1 - I have a very unhealthy fascination with ric rac. If you don't know what I am talking about it's the zig zag trim that is sewn onto clothing and other things. I *LOVE* this stuff!! I want to put it on everything. I have several colors of the stuff and probably a total of more than 300 yards. I would have more but I have controlled myself.

2 - When I am driving in my car and stop at a light I don't like to keep my foot on the clutch so I put my car in neutral. Even though I do this 99% of the time, I sometimes still forget it's in neutral and try to take off - revving my engine.

3 - I like to name cars. I haven't ever owned a car that I haven't named. The 2003 Mazda P5 is Ghertrude. I call her Gherti for short. The 1962 Mercury Comet is Lucy.

4 - If I get hot when I am under the covers I stick my foot outside the blankets to regulate my temperature. When my foot gets cold, I have usually cooled down enough and so I pull my foot back in.

5 - I don't like paperback books, only hardbound. If I try to read a paperback book I usually end up breaking the spine and then the pages fall out.

6 - Just as with ric rac I love stationary and pens. Whenever I go to a store that sells either of these items I have to personally restrain myself from purchasing one or both. I don't know what it is about those two things, but they get me every time.

Now to tag 6 people who must say their quirks.. I pick - Jon, Megan, Niki, Jennifer R., Tyson and Stacy.