Happy 4th of July

I know it's a little early, but Mr and I are leaving for the lake today, hopefully sooner than later so we can beat the traffic. I am trying to plan the menu now so I can grocery shop here and not have to go out tomorrow since it's the 4th. After years of wanting to, this year I've decided to make the flag cake. I'm sure you all have seen it. I have a picture of one, but Blogger is acting up this morning so I can't upload any pictures. I will take a picture of mine and hopefully Blogger is back to normal by Monday, the next time I'll be able to blog.

I'm still uploading songs onto my iPod this morning since this weekend will be the first time I can officially try it out. I got an adapter to work in my car finally. I may be the only person in America with a cassette player in their car and not a CD player, but it turns out that's a good thing. The wireless connector I have for my iPod doesn't work well in my car so I got a cassette adapter and it works great! I was jammin' yesterday as I was driving around town. The CD's I got from the library are old country songs, most of which probably only I enjoy, but that's the great thing about an iPod. You can load everybody's favorites and then ones that only you like.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend. I will "see" you on Monday!

Did you know?

I've been learning some things lately and I've decided to share them with you. I emailed most of you this first item:

1. Kroger stores are pulling more ground beef off their shelves this morning in response to concerns over E. Coli illnesses.An initial recall was announced last week, but now Kroger is expanding this recall in more stores and including more versions of beef.The USDA says the beef is originally from Nebraska.Kroger is now adding all beef packages that were wrapped in clear styrofoam or ones that were purchased from the store's meat count to the recall. Specifically check for sell dates between 5/21 and 7/3. Also added to the recall are "Private Selection Natural Ground Beef" packages in the 16 ounce size. They have a sell date between 7/11 and 7/21.Kroger says you can return all products to stores for a refund.All equipment at store locations that might have come in contact with the tainted beef is being sanitized.

Makes you wanna run right out, buy some meat and make a juicy burger, doesn't it?

2. There are tabs on the ends of Reynolds Wrap boxes that you can push in so the roll doesn't come out of the box while you're pulling on it. 40 years of living and I just learned this. Check it out for yourself. It's true.

3. Watermelon rinds have the same effect as Viagara and may increase your sex drive. True, I just heard it on CNN. Figures that it's the part that no one eats.

4. In a related story, did you know there was such a thing as watermelon pickles? They use the rind in these so I guess you can get the same effect as if you ate the nasty rind of a watermelon. Hmmm.

5. If you eat too much food and don't exercise, you gain weight. I know, shocking. Unless, of course, you eat too much watermelon. Then I guess you have a whole different problem.

Birds

We have a robin's nest under our deck. It has 3 baby birds in it. For several weeks we kept seeing a robin go below the deck and we saw the nest but never saw any eggs so we wondered what she was doing. Well, about a week ago, the babies hatched. Now there's 3. Daisy is obsessed with them.

When I say "obsessed", I mean obsessed. Every time she goes out--which is a lot--she sniffs through the deck to smell the birds, she sticks her head out through the rails to get a better sniff, she runs down the deck stairs to go below and gets up on her back legs to try to get a better sniff. She has a serious problem and definitely needs a 12-step group.

When the momma bird tries to feed them, they squawk and make all kinds of noise, which intrigues Daisy to no end. She likes to run over and smell the babies when they're squawking. Typically, we're out there so we stop her from doing it. I try to explain to her that the baby birds have to eat and they need to be left alone, but I don't think she cares.

Naturally, the momma bird doesn't like this intrusion. She will sit on the fence with a mouthful of worms, squawking and ruffling her feathers in an attempt to chase Daisy off. Sometimes she even tries to dive bomb her to scare her. Daisy isn't even phased. She looks at the momma, I think, trying to figure out why she's making such a fuss, but continues with her obsession of trying to get to the birds. I'm kinda worried at some point that the bird is actually going to peck her. I'm hoping Daisy sits too close to the ground for the bird to reach her, but I think if the momma truly wanted to, she'd get her. Maybe Daisy would learn then, but somehow, I don't think so. Addicts have to hit their own bottom before they give up their addiction and somehow I think Daisy's bottom is very low. We're thinking of doing an intervention.

Updates

I realized this weekend that several times I mention things, then I never mention them again so today I thought I would give you some updates of things I left hanging...at least the things I could remember that I left hanging. I didn't read all of the entries so if I missed something, leave me a comment and I'll give you an update.

--my weird itching episode. That stopped all on its own just about as quickly as it started. I took the round of steroids and it gradually got better and better and eventually stopped. I haven't had it again (knock on wood). Weird.

--I finished 1 of the 2 books I got from the library. Yay me! I took them back yesterday because one of them was late. I know, hard to believe. I didn't even get to read that one. It was a 14-day book and I didn't realize it. Oh well, there's my donation to the library. I got another book "The Sound and the Fury". You would think that as an English major in college I would be extremely well-read, probably having read all of the classics. I haven't. In fact, there's very few of the classics that I have read. I saw this one on the shelf and thought I would try it. Plus, it had that it was an Oprah book club book so that made me a little more motivated to try it.

Actually, I think those are the only 2 things I hadn't updated you with. I guess I'm doing a little better than I thought.

Our surprise party on Saturday was really good. S & C are longtime friends of ours. It was S's 40th birthday. I actually lived down the street from C and Mr lived next door to her when he was married the first time. I worked with S at Frisch's, my very first job, and found out that he was going to the same college as I was the very next year. We hung out a lot during college and I was the one who introduced them to each other. It was a fun night reminiscing about old times and how we are all getting older. Here is a picture of the 3 of us from that night.

I wanted to wait to post this picture until I had the picture from college where we were all 3 together so you could see them side by side, but I have no idea where that picture is. I will look for it because it is hysterical!

Mr played golf yesterday afternoon with male child, my cousin and girl child's significant other. While they were doing that, I did the dreaded task of trying to shop for a bathing suit. UGHHHHHH! When I am at my normal weight, shopping for bathing suits had actually almost become fun. I said almost. Now, with me having gained weight and being over 40 and fat is showing up in places it never has before (like a lovely little muffin top on my middrift), it's so much harder and more discouraging. I found a suit, but after bringing it home, Mr and I decided it was definitely an old lady suit so it is going back. I am kinda back at square one, but with a new determination to get this weight off. You can't hide anything in a bathing suit, I'm here to tell ya. They show every flaw you have and if you get one that does hide them (like the one I bought last night), it's an old lady suit. I guess at this age it's time to embrace my body the way it is. No, I don't like the condition it's in now, but it's what I've got right now. There's no reason to continue to hate it and obsess about it. I can only take one day at a time and make better choices each day. It will either change or it won't. It's amazing to me that when I quit smoking, I gained 15 lbs. so logic would say that since I started back, those 15 should be gone, right? Apparently it doesn't work that way.

Watch out, I'm gonna getcha!

Borrowed from Rosie's blog.

Who doesn't like cupcakes?

Here's something I did today--strawberry cupcakes. I got a coupon for a free box cake mix and I decided to get something different. I think strawberry is my new favorite cake. I was going to make a cake, but then I thought I would make cupcakes because I absolutely love them. I was thinking that I would get cupcakes instead of a cake for the baby shower. I could put those little mint pacifiers that I'm going to make on the top of them. I think they would be adorable. I haven't decided yet, though. I'm leery of cupcakes because the ones we had at our wedding were horribly dry. They were super cute and just what I gave her a picture of, but dry as the Sahara.


I didn't meet my goal of getting thank you's done by yesterday. I actually probably have 85% of them done and mailed already so there's really not many left to do.


Tonight we are going to a surprise 40th birthday party for an old friend of mine. I am so excited to see if he's going to be surprised. Also, I'm glad to have another member to the club. 40 has been very, very good to me.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. I am leaving you with a picture of the most rotten, spoiled dog ever...but isn't she precious?

Bloggin' ain't easy

Do you know how difficult it is to find something remotely interesting to talk about every day? I know, probably a lot of the stuff I share on here isn't interesting to anyone but me, but at least one person is entertained. Today I'm struggling to talk about something since absolutely nothing interesting is going on.

I could tell you about the crazy lady who came into the shop yesterday and proceeded to put a facial mask on and walk around the store and shop while it solidified and other whacky things she did, but somehow I don't think it would translate well into writing. You wouldn't be able to appreciate how much of a whackado she really was.

Or I could tell you how I finally started reading one of my library books with only probably a week left on my loan, but who really cares about that if you aren't interested in reading this particular book. By the way, if you return a video late, they charge you $1 a day.

Or I could tell you that today is Mr and my 2-month anniversary, but this milestone pales in comparison to people who have been married in the double-digit years.

Or I could tell you that I've loaded 631 songs on my iPod, but still haven't figured out how to do a playlist. It really won't matter to you if you don't have my particular musical taste or newly acquired fascination with iPods.

I guess every day I share mundane things with you and if you're still reading, you must find some sort of fascination with the things I share. So I will keep on sharing and hopefully, you'll keep on reading. Maybe tomorrow I'll post a picture of my dirty laundry.

They've been found!

Just about as soon as Mr got home last night he found my CD case. I have no idea how he could find it so quickly when I thought I tore up the house looking for it, but he did. It was in a box that I looked in, but apparently not close enough. I've been loading songs like a maniac--still doing it even as I write--and I have about 350 songs loaded and still haven't made it through all of the CD's I've got. I can't believe I've got so many. I also can't believe how eclectic my music taste is. I have everything from AC/DC (of course) to 50's music to Bob Marley to about 5 Kenny Chesney CD's and virtually everything in between! I'm not even that big of a Chesney fan, I thought! I hate that I waited to so long to load this because it's so easy to do. I am totally stoked to listen to these in my car as well. We be jammin' now, folks!

Mr has been doing lots of "tasks" around the house this week. He hung some cabinets in our laundry closet. It's probably tripled our storage in there now, as long as I keep it organized. Here's a picture.

He also hung our painting from our honeymoon.

And hung the blinds in the office.

He's been a busy bee. We're slowly but surely getting things organized here. I took a load of leftover yard sale stuff to Goodwill yesterday and probably have one more load that I plan on taking today if I don't have to work. We are close to having our garage back to where we can both park in there.

I went yesterday and bought some stuff for J's shower. I bought the diapers for the diaper cake. When I took the diapers out of the box, I couldn't believe how absolutely adorable they are. I mean, look how tiny these things are!

Can you believe a little baby bottom will even fit into them? I hope she doesn't have a big baby. I got diapers for newborns up to 10 lbs. Can you also believe that 96 of them cost $20! No wonder it's so expensive to have a baby. How many diapers does a newborn go through a day, anyway? These may only last her a week!

PSA: hop over to the Pioneer Woman's cooking website. She is giving away a Kitchen Aid mixer today when you leave a comment. Put your name in the hat. Who knows, maybe one of us will win!

Tunes Tuesday

I'm finally figuring out and loading my iPod, which I got last Christmas. With all the stuff that's been going on since then, I just haven't had the time. This past weekend we listened to iPods all weekend and I got determined that I was going to get mine going. Right now I'm loading Miranda Lambert's new CD "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend". I really like her newest song "Gunpowder and Lead". I'm having some problems, though, so I've got a phone call into someone who knows way more than I do about iPods. We'll see how it turns out.

Related to this, I am freaking out because I can't find my CD's. These are my favorite CD's that I keep in a portable case that I take with me lots of places. It used to always stay in my car and then I took them out to take them to the lake one weekend and now they're MIA. I am pretty distraught because they were my most-loved. I've torn the house up looking for them so keep your fingers crossed that they are just somewhere I haven't looked yet.

A couple of pictures from the weekend

Here's one view of a group at the back of the boat as we were cruising along. Beautiful weather this weekend, too.

Here's a self-portrait of Mr and I.