Friday, June 28, 2013

MY HOME TOUR AT A STROLL THRU LIFE

I don't have much to say today (for once!), but I wanted to invite you to a tour of my home over at A Stroll Thru Life.  I'm sure most of you know Marty and follow her wonderful blog.  I am so excited!!

Wishing all of you a great weekend! :)

XO,
Jane

Monday, June 24, 2013

A LITTLE CLEANING & GARDENING AT THE LAKE


Saturday was rather warm...okay, super hot and humid!  I spent most of the day inside cleaning.  I know, I know, you must already thing I'm a cleanaholic, but I'll let you in on a secret, I'm getting to be an old lady and I really just hate the heat.  I see The Husband outside doing yardwork or tooling around his workbench and I just feel super lazy.  So I stay inside with the air conditioning on and make myself useful.  The floors felt gritty as usual from the beach sand, the patio and the garage (which The Husband got around to blowing and power washing), so I swept, mopped, cleaned the bathrooms and cleaned all the dead bugs off the window sills.  Fun!!  At least I stayed cool. 
The Husband grilled some bratwurst Saturday night which we had with roasted peppers.  I'm not going to go off on a long tangent on eating healthy because I know so many of you have been doing that for a long time.  And I know that all of you know from reading my blog that I am a yo-yo dieter and sometimes actually go to a gym.  Last week I read (in two evenings), a book that made such an impact on my thinking about food that I can't stop thinking or talking about it to The Husband, my kids and friends.  It's called Obsessed by Mika Brzezinski....you can find it on Amazon or just read the description of it if you like.  Mika is a co-host on the show Morning Joe which is on every morning at 6:00 a.m. on MSNBC.  She has written a very comprehensive and well researched book on food addiction and the continuing rise of obesity in America, as well as the role of the media and food manufacturers in this epidemic.  As much as we now have access to fresh fruits and vegetables at the many farm markets that are springing up, women now spend an average of 1.5 hours preparing food in their kitchens, as opposed to 5.6 hours that was the average in 1960.  With women in the work force more now than ever and the crunch for time that all women have,  we are relying more and more on processed foods.  I am 100% guilty of that.

I came home last night and I looked at the 3 shelves in one of my cabinets that were filled with packages of instant potatoes, boxed rice and noodles, jars of sauces and gravies.  Let's just say I had a hard time sleeping.  There are going to be some major changes here in Blondieville, but don't fear, I'm not going to stand on my soapbox and preach about healthy eating.  I'm going to make it a real goal and let you know what I'm doing and how I'm doing from time to time.  But do let me have your thoughts.  How do you approach  cooking?  Do you feel any guilt like I do for not always cooking from scratch?  Have you been struggling with your weight for as long as I have because you just make all the wrong choices?  Feel free to share if you want.  It's really just my thought that you might want to have a look at this book, and my hope that you will support me in my goals to start eating right, exercising and and getting healthy, as well as shedding a lot of this excess weight I'm always complaining about!

I hope I haven't bored you.  I don't like ideas pushed on me either.  So take it for what it's worth.  Now, I'm going to just wish all of you a great week and get to getting my house in shape.  The floors are super sticky...I thought my kids were done throwing parties while we were away! ;-D

I'm joining Tracie at Fishtail Cottage for her Garden Party.  Check it out!

XO,
Jane

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

A WEEKEND AT THE LAKE


It was a quiet and restful weekend at the lake.  It rained on Saturday and I mostly just puttered around the house.  I still have a lot to do before the family comes up for the 4th of July (which is coming up so fast!), but the rain was making me lazy.  I read and napped and read some more.  I was useless.



Not only was it Father's Day on Sunday, it was also Emily's birthday.  We got on the road for Chicago early and we all met at a little Irish pub, the whole family and then a few, to celebrate both occasions.  Pizza, beer and a lot of laughs.  We also celebrated our son, Jeff, buying his first home.  He has been staying with us for the past few weeks and he is closing on his house in about 2 weeks.  It is awesome, just beautiful and only 15 minutes away.  We are so happy for him!

So that's all I have for now.  I brought my boxwood clippings home with me and I'm going to get to work on that wreath today.  I've also been working feverishly on cleaning up my laundry/storage room in the basement.  I can't even describe what a mess it was.  I spent three straight days sorting and washing clothes, some that the kids left behind when they moved out, came back, moved out...I can see the floor again.  We also have a big standing freezer that I totally emptied and scoured.  As much as I like to clean and organize, this freezer (and the whole laundry room) was the bane of my existence.  I found whole roasts and chickens going back to 2009.  All sorts of packaged foods that The Husband would load up on at Costco.  I would just forget I had stuff in there.  So it's clean and sparkling and even though it's just a dark, dungeon of a room, I'm happy! :)

See you soon!

XO,
Jane



Friday, June 14, 2013

PLAYING IN THE GARDEN & KITCHEN


Because I get so much shade in my yard from all of the huge walnut trees and so much sun on my patio, I planted 3 tomato plants in this really big pot.  I think they are going to do just fine.  I've had little luck growing them at the lake because of the watering factor, so I'm really happy that I came up with this idea.
Before dinner we had this Loaded Baked Potato Dip that I found here.  Very simply:  Mix 16 oz. of sour cream with 8 oz. of cheddar, 12 oz. of cooked bacon crumbled up and a handful of chopped green onion.  Delicious for dipping potato chips in!

The big storm front that started in Iowa hit us at about 6:00 Wednesday night, right when everyone was coming for dinner.  A lot of dogs don't like storms and Milo is one of them.  But then Emily and Mike showed up with Rusty, they didn't want to leave him home alone.  Then Kevin and Mary Clare came with who else but Tucker.  Talk about a madhouse!  All the dogs forgot about their fearfulness and ran around like crazy!  Luckily the bad part of the storm swept through just miles south of us and all we had was a tremendous downpour.  

So, we're off to the lake in a few hours.  I have pots to plant there, too, and I'm really excited...I bought curtains for the French doors that lead out to the balcony off our master bedroom.  We've never had curtains there before because the view of the lake is so pretty.  These are just white tab top curtains that we can leave open.  The room is quite large, I have a comfy chair and floor lamp for curling up to read, and The Husband eventually wants to get a desk for the corner so he can get a little extra office work done when he has the time.

So, I'm off to get a few things done, pack my bags and get on the road.  I hope everyone has beautiful weather this weekend.  The rain really ended all the humidity we were having and it is just gorgeous! :)

XO,
Jane

Monday, June 10, 2013

A LITTLE SHOPPING, MAKING CANDY & WAITING FOR THE RAIN TO GO AWAY

I hope everybody has started their week out well.  I had a slow weekend...okay, interpret that to be boring.  I did make candy, though!  Isn't that odd?  The only time I make candy is around Christmas so this was a little fun.  While perusing blogs yesterday morning, I visited, Lisa at Texas Decor and she had a post up about making these Hershey Pretzel Hugs.  How cute are these?  And they have that sweet/salty flavor we all crave.
Another new blogger friend of mine is Diane Cayton-Hakey, and I had the good luck to win a gift certificate on her blog to Holly Lane Designs.  I picked out these earrings and it wasn't easy.  This website can be as addicting as the candy...so many pretty jewelry pieces and great quality.  I would have shown you these on but I have no one here to take a picture!  Now, visit Diane as well.  What a lovely lady; smart, beautiful, hilarious and she writes some really relevant posts that gets everyone commenting.  Thanks, Diane!

Onward to Old Navy.  Not exactly your place for quality clothes but you can always find something fun and affordable.  Hence, this little cotton summer dress and sandals.  And I found a white tank top to wear under it...all for $37.00!  My biggest treat throughout our little shopping spree was that Emily kept telling me it looked like I had lost weight!  Well, I had given up on that notion even though I have curbed my sweet tooth radically.  I said, "That's great, Emily, because right now I'm so hungry I could faint."  Silly me, no breakfast or lunch and it was 3:00.  She came up to me a little bit later with a fruit and nut bar that made me want to gag looking at it.  "They had Hershey Kisses but since you look so good, I bought you this!"  What a sweetheart.  So I have my fingers crossed that I just may be slimming down, but I'm not going to dwell on it.  I'll be starting a new insane diet.



Oh, by the way, we missed going to the lake this weekend so Milo missed out on being in the Ugly (handsome) Dog Show.  What a disappointment, all that money on teeth whitening and having his chest shaved...

See you soon!

XO,
Jane

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

A LITTLE OF THIS & THAT AND A DIY PROJECT


We were fortunate enough to make our getaway to the lake on Thursday night...yes, central air!  This is Layla watching the front door as we load up the car, always afraid we  are going to leave without her.  I'm usually on my second wind after the long drive up.  At about midnight I was sitting in my rocking chair by the big windows reading when  I looked up to hear the wind picking up and   the trees were almost bending while leaves swirled around..  A huge storm blew in and although it was a little frightening, it took the hot weather with it. 

Even with the cooler weather, my allergies continue to be terrible.  With the wind blowing cotton wood puffs all over the place, I tried to stay indoors as much as possible.  I had seen a little DIY project on Pinterest that I wanted to try...I didn't re~pin it since it was pretty simple to figure out, so I don't have a source.  . 
I found a wooden hanger (thanks Judy, for offering to send me one!), and I had some gray spray paint in the garage.  All I did was give it two coats and I had the hand towels.

I have a list of projects a mile long and I totally blame it on the allergies for keeping me from starting on them.  Last week they were so bad, I gave myself an eye infection from rubbing them.  This weekend my face broke out in hivey blotches.  I don't mean to complain about the little aggravations in life, but I'm not the type to just plow through when I feel crappy.  Just let me lie on the couch with a cold washcloth and sneeze myself to death.  Okay, I finally took care of the front porch, swept the best I could with the wind blowing the leaves everywhere and put my cushions on the furniture.  One project leads to another and although I didn't do it, one sunny day I need to scrub them down with Oxy Clean.  And my wisteria has to be trimmed big time, the tendrils kept getting caught in my hair and it felt like they were ripping it out.  I do have some pretty purple flowers on it, but my gosh, it's  wild looking stuff!

So that's been my week.  My hives have gone down and after an hour of blowing my nose when I wake up, I'm pretty much okay.  I'm sort of behind on all things housekeeping due to the wretched heat last week so I have my day cut out for me.  See you soon!

XO,
Jane