Bless Your Heart

me! I can’t believe I almost forgot to recognize the official 1st birthday of Sparkle and Shine. Thanks to all who sent well wishes last week when I prematurely celebrated.

You know what this made me think of? I don’t do an “annual” thing. Like So & So’s 8th annual Memorial Day Bar-b-que. I need to start an annual thing of some sorts. If anything, just so in a couple of years I can say “Hey- don’t forget, Saturday’s our 4th annual Hooziewhatsit!”

I bought this awesome magnetic bulletin board from IKEA to hang over my craft table. I needed good strong magnets that would be able to hold up paper, pictures, etc. I couldn’t find any anywhere that would do the job so I thought I would make my own. I found inspiration here and directions here to try and make magnets that look like this, but don’t cost $15 for 12. So I went to Michael’s and bought round flat magnets (8 for $1.99), clear pebbles ($2.29 per bag), and a bag of star confetti ($1.99). The first set I made I used my dragonfly punch to punch out little dragonflies in bright colors. Then I decorated the dragonflies with metallic gel pens and glued them on bright background paper. I think they came out pretty cute! So last night I tried my hand at a set of star magnets using the confetti. They were still drying this morning, but hopefully they’ll be cute too. They’re difficult to take pictures of because the flash reflecting off the pebbles, but I think you can get the idea. The star ones weren’t ready for pictures last night. If I get really good these could be awesome little gifts!

Who’s Your 80s Movie Icon Alter-Ego? Find out @ She’s Crafty

to Rachel! I hope today is amazing for you.

How cheesy was that title huh? =) So last night we finally deep fried our pickles and call your mama- they were so good! We used a recipe we found here. It’s posted in it’s entirety here.

First we assembled our ingredients. Husband added in the beer. Funny, it wasn’t in the recipe and never seemed to make it to the batter!

Then we made up the batter & flour mixture while our dill strips were soaking in their buttermilk bath & lined them all up to make dipping and dredging easier and less messy. Into the fryer they go! Then they drain. We served them up with some ranch dressing and voila!

Have you heard? The Osbournes are now licensed. You can buy an Osbourne bobblehead in September. See a bigger picture here. And coming to a novelty store near you: a complete line of Osbournes merchandise! How odd that must be for Jack & Kelly to be teenagers with licensed merchandise. I can’t wait to see what all they’re coming out with.

In other odd entertainment news…

Driving to work yesterday I heard a radio ad for “Mama Mia“. Apparently ABBA has created a musical including 20 or so of their songs. This would be husband’s version of hell. I have to say though, I’ve always liked “Fernando” & “Waterloo” but I don’t know if I’d pay lots of $$ to sit through a couple of hours of other people singing the songs!

They’re baaaack

OMG- I’m so excited! Look! Over to your left! Archives! Holy Schnitzel!

Nachos!

My sister and her husband gave me a deep fryer for my birthday. It’s really for my husband though. He’s so excited about this. Tonight we’re going to deep fry pickles. If they’re successful then I’ll post results! In the meantime, check out what we did the other night. We made nachos. We even made our own tortilla chips! First, I used my big pizza cutter to cut the tortillas into quarters. We used white corn tortillas from Mission. . Then we popped them into the deep fryer for just a couple of minutes until they were crisp. We drained them on a cookie cooling rack (a tip we learned from Alton Brown.) . I cheffed up some seasoned ground beef & onions which we piled on top of the chips. We added sour cream, salsa & a little cilantro and voila! Nachos! We were very impressed with our chips. No little punk crumbs like you get in the bag at the store. All nice, uniform crispy chips. Although, in our little fryer we could only do 6-8 at a time. Now that we’ve been successful with our first frying venture, the possibilities are endless!

baltimore trip!

** warning ** very long post, but hey- i’m catching you up on a solid week of shenanigans!

monday, 8/5

our travel day. meet our travel chicken. i brought silly putty along for entertainment. husband would call out something for me to sculpt and i’d turn my hot pink silly putty into a car, bug, whatever. in this case it was a chicken. he turned out pretty good so he hung out on the dash until he started to melt. we got off to a bit of a late start, so we didn’t get to woodbridge, va until almost 8. after checking in to the hotel we searched for a restaurant for dinner, but due to the late hour and our lack of knowledge about the town, we had limited choices and ended up at ihop. it was good though. pancakes at 9pm are always good. our waitress was exceptionally perky. and the guy at the next table was quite a character. he kept singing with the muzak, very very loudly. then his cell phone rang -with the loudest ring ever- and he wouldn’t answer it. he just held it and stared at it. it drove me nuts. his phone rang i swear, 17 times and he just kept looking at it. punch a button why dontcha! send it to voice mail! something! you always meet the most bizarre people at ihop- no matter what time of day.

tuesday, 8/6

we started the day at ikea. it only took us a little over 3 hours to get through it this time, including lunch- swedish meatballs of course!. we bought all kinds of stuff. i’ll show you pics of all that later once it’s all in the house. we mainly went for a new kitchen rug and an office chair, but ended up with so much more. *quick funny story* after lunch we filled out a bunch of free ikea postcards to send at the incredible post office next door. we called it that because it obviously used to be an incredible universe (remember, those old electronics stores?). we thought it was an awfully big fancy building for a post office. so after shopping we drove over to the post office happy to get our post card duties out of the way so early in the trip. husband was dropping me off in front, armed with my stack of post cards. i go to get out of the car when i finally notice the words written on the front of the building. they do not say usps. no, i was about to march into the marine corps avionics research facility looking for post card stamps!

after ikea we hit the road to baltimore. it’s only about an hour or so away from the dc area. we checked into our hotel and headed off to the game.. camden yards is a really nice park. we were able to get good seats even without buying tickets in advance. we were surprised at the number of people there, it was a huge crowd for a tuesday night. i love the oriole mascot!

wednesday, 8/7

we went down to harbor place at the inner harbor and walked all around. it’s so neat there. we had lunch at legal sea food, checked out the shops & got a nice lady to take our picture. that’s the hard part about traveling together. if one of you is taking the picture then there’s only one of you in the picture! i digress. then we took the duck tour. so fun! it lasted about an hour and a half and we learned so much about baltimore. the coolest part was going from driving on the road to boating through the water, all in the same vehicle! they gave us quackers to quack at all the bystanders.

that night we went to the baseball game to watch the twins lose again. we tried to meet up with rachel , but we couldn’t find her. turns out i did see her boyfriend brian, but i didn’t know it was him. it was chuck thompson bobble head night that night. we didn’t know who he was before we got there, but it’s a cute souvenir! plus, we sold one to a guy out on the street after the game for $5.

when we got back to the hotel rachel & brian came to see me. husband had already gone to bed so he had to wait til the next night to meet them. we chatted for a while in the hotel lobby and firmed up our dinner plans for thurs. they’re so nice!

thursday, 8/8

we discovered this great coffee shop on our way to the inner harbor called java joe’s. we stopped there for breakfast then walked down to the harbor. we walked so much in baltimore! it was awesome- everything’s so close. it was just about 4 or so blocks from the hotel to the harbor & the ballpark, etc. we didn’t see our car again until friday. anyway, this morning we went to the national aquarium. they have a cool seahorse exhibit, and the exhibits are all just so neat. part of your admission is the dolphin show. it was really cool.

after the aquarium we went to the espn zone for lunch. then we walked around the inner harbor some more before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner with rachel & brian. (i don’t have a pic of brian & jon- they were taking this picture)

they picked us up and we went to the paper moon. it was really good- a cool, funky place. the best part was hanging out with them. they’re so nice & we had a lot of fun talking with them. both husband and brian work for grocery stores so they talked shop a lot. after dinner rachel & brian kidnapped us =) and took us on a tour through baltimore. it was really neat to see parts of the city we wouldn’t normally. we would have totally gotten lost had we tried that on our own. all the houses are so cute, especially the one rachel & brian are looking at. and we couldn’t believe the vacancy rate of baltimore! why wouldn’t people be living in these awesome rowhouses in such a cool city? it’s beyond us.

after the tour they took us back to the hotel where rachel gave me my most recent black-eyed susan order. she also gave me my birthday present: a neat sheet! i’m so excited! it’s the coolest thing- it’s water and sand repellent, it stays cool in the sun, you can wash it, it’s big and light- i could go on forever. so i promptly threw a glass of water on it when we got back to the room- and it beaded right up and rolled right off! every parent everywhere should have one of these- heck, every person no matter what their childbearing status should have one. thank you rachel!

friday, 8/9

after having breakfast at java joe’s again we drove up to the white marsh ikea. we couldn’t resist being so close to another one. plus, rachel told us they had the new catalog & new arrivals up there. what should have been a short trip quickly turned into shanny and jon- lost in the maryland wilderness! but we finally made our way to the ikea. we found some more cool stuff then headed back to the city. we took the water taxi from the inner harbor over to fells point. we walked around there for a while then headed back to harbor place to have an early dinner at phillip’s seafood buffet. mmm crab legs. they gave us little wooden mallets instead of the metal crackers we’re used to. we’re pounding away at the crab not knowing what we’re doing at all. the waitress, amber, came over and taught us how to use it. husband takes a big whack with the mallet and sends crab flying into amber’s mouth! i think we’re banned. =) after dinner we people watched at the harbor then walked back to the hotel and packed up. we were sad to go, we had the best time and really loved the city. plus, we had the absolute best weather! it was sunny with no humidity and around 82 degrees all week. we can’t wait to go back.

saturday, 8/10

we checked out of the hotel and drove to springfield, va (outside of dc) where we met up with jon’s cousins tess & jeff. we met their new 9 month old baby samantha and had lunch. how cute is she?!? we were amazed driving through springfield at the prices of these new townhouse neighborhoods. we saw signs saying “new homes starting in the $400’s” we about ran off the road from the shock! all that $$ and you don’t even get a yard! before we left springfield we went into their 2 story target. i was so excited. i wish we had more time there. traffic was just awful between baltimore and dc. it took us over 2 hours when it should only have taken 1. it was just as bad between dc & richmond. but then it got better and we made it home around 11pm. whew!

i’m going to be an aunt

my sister, sara, the one who got married june 29th, is going to have a baby with her brand new husband. she told me sunday. congratulations to the new parents-to-be.