A week of fun...following my BLISS

Okay...this week has been one heckuva week for me...from going on a maiden voyage on a friend's boat...freezing batches of pesto, canning salsa and pear sauce...first high school football game of the season (yay Jake for getting the game ball with 14 tackles and one sack!)...Donny and Marie...canoeing on the Tittabawassee river with the man I love...sewing aprons, making lemon curd filled cupcakes, making sugar cookies, and now tonight: The Cake Decorating Class. Oh I'm so excited to do this. I'm going to have to take my camera along to document this process. Keep you posted.

Better get back to sewing those aprons. Of course I offered to make them for our cake class. I finished Jen's and Jordanne's (even though Jen can't be here with us to take the class, sniff)...I still have to make one for Shelby and Sheila...and maybe a new one for myself. Oh the things I do for the girls I love.

my childhood dream come true

Tiger Beat posters of Donny Osmond can't touch seeing Donny and Marie LIVE IN CONCERT at the Soaring Eagle Casino last night. I seriously thought I was going to pee.my.pants! What a class act. They brought their Las Vegas show to Michigan and Holy Whuh...was it amazing.

Yep, you guessed it...I was in love with Donny Osmond when I was a young girl. And last night my childhood dream came true. Swoon. He even sang "Puppy Love" and "Go away little girl". OMG. seriously. I had tears in my eyes! I wanted to tell my dad so bad. He always used to tease me about sleepwalking and looking into the floor register as I told him, "Donny is going to come for me...we are going to get married."

I tried to call my mom after the concert but she must have been at work. I was so excited to tell her. To think how many years I dreamt of seeing Donny Osmond in person and last night...was THE NIGHT.

Wow, those two can put on a show.

Eat Pray Love

Let me just start by saying I don't get out much...especially to movies. So when I even consider going to a movie I read the reviews first...NOT because I am not capable of forming my own opinions...it's because I'm frugal. And if I'm going to drop ten bucks on a movie in the theater...It's gotta be something I absolutely cannot wait to see. (which is why I generally wait for it to come out on dvd and then rent it.) Oh, Patience is a virtue...

I read some reviews on this movie...and decided it was NOT a movie worthy of my ten bucks. I just don't like the story. I'm sick and tired of the "Sex in the City" generation with their narcissistic, self absorbed, gotta "find myself" views on life. Get over yourself already. The world DOES NOT revolve around YOU.


"Oh how I've yearned to find someone who'll call out "finding yourself" as the total bullshit it is. 99% of the time, "finding yourself" is a polite way of saying, "I want to abandon my responsibilities to everyone and everything else and pretend that adult life is what I thought it would be like when I was 15 years old and didn't know any better".

First step in "finding yourself": occasionally think about something other than yourself."

{Posted by: Churchston Winsthill}



Perhaps if people really wanted to "find themselves" they should turn to the instruction manual they got from their manufacturer. Yep...the one who created the masterpiece. The "BIG GUY"...ya know, G.O.D.

skip the movie...and read the instruction manual...or better yet, get to KNOW the producer of your own movie.

Whoa! A New Look!

I woke up this morning and realized my blog was visited by the graphics fairy! A few weeks back I was complaining to Jordanne that I didn't really like the recent changes on my blog background. Being a recent photography and graphic design graduate, she customized a newly fashioned header for my blog. I LOVED this photograph she took this spring on a her trip to Kentucky so she knew just what I would like. LOVE IT, Jordanne! ...but not nearly as much as I LOVE YOU! Thanks a bunch, kiddo!

SKUNKED!

Well our puppy was so excited to have us return from our week long vacation up North. So much so that he really didn't even want to go outside...he just wanted to keep us in his sight. About 1 am this morning, Pat finally put the dog out...and about a minute later he says,

"Do you smell something?"

We both looked at each other and said, "SKUNK!!!!"

UGH. Duke came running inside, rubbing his face on the carpet. I bent down and sniffed his face. I nearly vomited. Oh dear God, this is NOT what I felt like dealing with at 1 am.

I grabbed my laptop and quickly googled: HOW TO GET RID OF SKUNK SMELL.

Two hours later we had lit candles, sprayed the house with OUST, baked cinnamon on a cookie sheet, cleaned the area on the carpeting with ODO-BAN, sprayed clorox bleach water on the deck and counters to neutralize the smell, and bathed the dog in a mixture of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, and DAWN dishwashing liquid. (which worked like a charm on the dog, by the way)

But- The smell still lingers in the house... I still can't figure out why we smelled the skunk in the house before the dog came in... It was so strong, I thought for a minute it was an inside job.

First thing this morning I opened up all the windows to air out the smell. Ryan and Shelby came over tonight and immediately said,

"EWWW- what's that smell?"

Dang. This is NOT going to go away for awhile.

Go on over to Mabel's House

I read a beautiful post on a blog I frequent that made me cry. It said so much...and on the eve of driving 8 hours north to go see my mom...I thought I'd send you on over to Mabel's House to read Liz's awesome writing and insights.

I love you MOM! I can't wait to see you soon!

The Shack- Summer reading

Taking a personal "time out" to do a little reading and soul searching.

Jacob was assigned some "summer reading" for school...and of course, I just had to see what they assigned the senior class to read. One of the books was "The Shack"...and for me, it's turned out to be exactly what the doctor ordered. And who says God doesn't speak to people these days?

...Sadness has a place in every human life...and unfortunately we all experience it from time to time.

The Bible says “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Eccles. 3: 4). We will all experience sorrow. In Wm. Paul Young’s novel, The Shack, it’s called "The Great Sadness".

Lately I feel deeply saddened by circumstances that are going on right now. I can relate to "The Great Sadness" the author speaks of. I am only half way through the book right now...I am savoring it like a delicious piece of decadent cheesecake. Letting the author's words settle into my spirit and grow; leaving me hungry for more.

What I’ve learned today is that, "Great Sadness is one of God’s greatest gifts; that it has an important place in every life, that it has many faces, many expressions; and that God offers special grace to those who mourn, through us."


“It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. I’ll be at the shack next weekend if you want to get together. – Papa.”

...so happy for mandatory summer reading...Now if only I could get my kid to read it. Now I'm going to go have a piece of cheesecake.