Super Late Super Bowl Report

As I previously posted, I have found MANY blog-worthy photos on my camera. Today's topic: our fabulous 1st (hopefully annual) Super Bowl party. It was a smashing success and we had a TON of food. The Colts lost but everyone seemed to have a great time and I don't think anyone left hungry.

First on the menu: CUPCAKES!

Of the mini variety. Note to anyone interested: Just 1 box of cake mix will make 96 miniature cupcakes. You and your waistline have been warned. But don't they stack up pretty. Don't worry, this is not all 96, there are more pictured later in the post. These were just the "extras".

This is our well accessorized Offspring dog, Sirius. I bought some Mardi Gras beads at the Dollar Store and I thought it would be funny to make the dogs wear them.

All went well until Matriarch Canine, Missy, (pictured above) decided that the necklace was a chew toy. This ended dress up time for the puppies. But weren't they cute?

Just a few of the dips we had available. It was a BYOC&B party. Bring your own chips & beverages.

The rest of our dips. You can't see the dips per se but they aren't the showcase in this picure. The showcase item us the kick butt triple crock pot! It was a FABULOUS Christmas gift from Moma & Daddy. Thanks!!

Now, the rest of the cupcakes. I was so proud of my cupcake football field. I had originally hoped to have enough room to have the proper number of yard lines and have them numbered complete with hash marks but, this was pretty impressive none the less. That is, in my own extremely biased opinion.

On a non-Super Bowl related note, my interview went well today. I feel pretty optimistic about a call back. We'll just have to pray and see what happens!

Well, it's late and I think I might try to persuade Hubby that it's bedtime. I hope all is well in your world!

DAW

It's a Slow Moving Wagon

I just uploaded pictures from my camera and realized that I have a lot more blog subjects to share than I thought. I'll start with the most recent - my SUPER COUPON DEALS! I just can't tell you how excited I am.


Store Visit #1: Target

This is my loot from Target. It may not look like much but please note that the batteries are 24 packs and that there is a Venus razor, lightbulbs, swanky Iams cat food and 3 bottles of body wash. (I bought 3 to get a hefty $15 rebate that when added to the $2 discount I got with a coupon and a free bottle I got with another, I actually make $5.32 profit from buying this bodywash!). I got all of this for a whopping $30.66. According to my reciepts plus the rebate I saved $71.44. Some of the deals didn't work the way I wanted because Target didn't have the proper items in stock but all in all, not bad.

Store Visit #2: Harris Teeter:

Not pictured is 40 pounds of Purina Dog Chow. So, picture the Dog Chow plus this haul (not the wine in the back) - I only paid $35.70. According to my receipt I saved $34.03. Again, pretty good haul. The sushi rice in the front wasn't a deal really but we're making appetizers for our supper club this weekend and we needed rice. Asian Pork Balls will be a recipe for another day, I promise.

I hate to deal and run but I have to make sure that I have everything together for my interview at High Point University in the morning. Say a prayer. Cross your fingers. Cross your toes. I need a job!

Love!!

Back In The Saddle

So, as you can apparently tell (if I have any readers left at all besides myself), I took a pause. What can I say? Life got busy. To sum things up, we had a great time in Maine and came home in September. I never thought I'd be so happy to see a Bojangles in my life. It's February now and we're both still looking for jobs. I keep praying and having patience and faith. The right job is out there. I don't know where yet, but it's out there!

In the meantime we've tackled various projects. We canned this fall and made a large amount of jams, jellies (well, we attempted jellies), preserves, and other such things. They proved to be very popular Christmas gifts and we may have to try doing the same thing year after year. It'll be really nice when we have our own fruits and vegetables to can. We've cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the house yet it always seems to be a mess. I'm not sure how that happens. I guess it's a result of two adults living here and not leaving sometimes for 4 to 5 days at a time. We've visited friends and family. We're sorting out ideas for a business plan and I'm thinking of writing a cookbook. Now we just have to turn those two things into a reality.

At the moment I'm working on cross stitching a sampler for my Grandaddy's 77th birthday. At the rate I'm going I might be finished with it by May. His birthday is March 1st. I'm sure if I bake him a banana cake he'll be OK with waiting the real present out.

I am very much looking forward to two things this weekend. The first is a "girl's day out" with my mom, her sister, her mom, and myself. This should be fun! My Aunt Bobbi doesn't get to come visit very much so we were all very excited about her arrival today. The second is our Super Bowl Party on Sunday. So far the attendance is looking pretty slim but that's OK. The people who come will have a rip roarin' good time and lots of food and I'll take lots of pictures to share with you.

Well, in all actuality, that's the excitement of my life right now. I'll work on my photojournalistic chronicles of my days again starting tomorrow. Maybe that'll make this much more interesting to read. But, they always say that the first step is the hardest so I went ahead and made that first step back into the blog world tonight.

That's all for now.

DAW

Venturing Out

The sun has finally come out. Just yesterday in fact. Everyone here has been very concerned for my well being and keep assuring me that Maine is not always foggy and rainy like it has been for the past three weeks. I will be honest, the weather was starting to get to me. I napped a lot and I was getting very sluggish. But, after just 2 days of sunshine I feel much better and back to my normal self.

Work has been great. I really enjoy my job. The politics of the members can be very touchy but it always makes me sit back and thing "Really, that's what you're worried about?". Silly rich folks.

We are taking advantage of two days off and have driven to Brunswick tonight. We are staying in a lovely Days Inn with a beautiful view of the Wal-Mart and Wendy's. In truth, it's a very nice Wal-Mart. It even has windows! Tomorrow we head to Freeport, ME for some outlet shopping. I love outlet shopping. I'm hoping to find some great post 4th of July clearance deals. Also, my sweet car gets it's 1st oil change tomorrow. I guess in car speak it's kind of like a first tooth or step or potty training. I'm so proud!

When we are back at home I will post pictures of the lunar moth that set up camp on our front porch for a few days last week. It was HUGE and very pretty. Justin and I have decided that if you would like to collect moths, our back porch is the place to do it. We have seen SO many varieties, shapes, sizes, and colors hanging out around our porch light. The cat enjoys them too although he reminds me of King Kong or Frankenstein or something with them. He wants to play with them and then gets mad when they die because he plays too hard.

Harry Potter comes out in nine days and I can't wait to see it. I have lots of reading to do before it comes out though, I'm only on book 4. On that note, I must tend to my FarmTown and hit the book!

G'night!

Soggy Maine

It has rained for at least 3 days straight. Now, I appreciate the fact that it's not 100 degrees like it is at home but I would like to see the sunshine sometime this week. Just a small request.

We open our restaurant on Wednesday. We are close to having everything put together. I should be writing a wine list right now. But I'm not. I have to have some personal time sometime, right? It seems like I have a good crew. They need a little TLC and polishing but I think it will be a great summer.

Island life is very interesting. Everyone knows everyone as well as everyone's business. It's like living in a small southern town but with a party line. I do have to laugh sometimes. I left North Carolina to work at this very posh country club in Maine. And there are some very prominent members here. However, I feel like I live more in the country now than I did at home. For instance, last week I was on the back deck looking out over the golf course and 2 VERY large deer were at the edge of the woods. I tried to take pictures to share but our camera doesn't zoom that far. Also, I'm not sure if I shared this or not, we live on a dirt road. Really! It's very quiet here. Even more quiet than home. Hubby and I sit on the back deck and listen to the silence and create the sound of crickets and frogs in our heads because that's what we're accustomed to hearing. It's that quiet. I'm quite enjoying it.

Also, on a side note, I am reading the Harry Potter series for the third time in anticipation of the July 15th premier of the 6th movie. I realize that this is in the middle of the week and that I will not be able to attend the midnight showing (small tears!) but Hubby has promised me that we will take an overnight trip to the main land as soon as we can so that I can see it. No one tell me how it is, I want to experience it for myself. I'm such a nerd.

All Moved In

Well, we've been away from NC for almost a week. We got to the island Thursday morning and unpacked the car. It was cold as wizz that night. I really think it was in the 40s that night and we had no heat on in the house and only one blanket on the bed. Friday we got up and headed back to the main land to shop ' til we dropped for house and office supplies. By Saturday afternoon we had Hubby's Subaru packed to the roof with $1,500 of supplies bought on the club's dime. That included some BEAUTIFUL flowers to spruce up the porch with and a couple of tomato plants for hubby. See below:

Office chairs and my new desk while it was in the box. Hubby put it together Sunday morning while I unpacked and put away our clothes. It's pretty super. I felt like I was on Design on a Dime or something!

Printer and chair mats. We just got the printer up today but it's still not hooked up to the computer. I've got to figure out the wireless networking.

The rest of hour household wares. I got to spruce up both bathrooms with new rugs and such, update the kitchen a little with some gadgets, and have SO MUCH FUN buying office supplies. Wee Hoo!

Here are Hubby's tomato and pepper plants. One is a Pineapple Tomato plant named "Pina", one is a Boxcar Willie Tomato named "Willie", and a Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper named "Hungry". We're so creative.

Here are my flower boxes. I've always wanted to have flower boxes filled to the brims with everything that looked pretty to me in all different colors. I can't wait to get them clamped up on the porch rails.

We started working today getting the Golf Club cleaned and organized. The dish machine was down and the Hobart man is coming in the morning. We've still got a large amount of stuff to do and all kinds of help coming in the morning. I finally ordered my wedding pictures today. YAY! It's about time! They'll be here next week along with my Harry Potter books (paperbacks of 1-6). I can't wait!

Well, Mommy's on the phone and Roxy has had a very bad hair day. :(

Travel Journal

It's day 2 of our journey to Maine. We are currently in Lewiston, ME at a very inconspicuous TraveLodge. It was SO inconspicuous in fact that we passed it twice before we found it. You see, the sign out front is a HUGE green sign saying "Chalet Somethingoranother" and you can only tell it's a TraveLodge if you happen to catch the red blinky sign underneath when it happens to say: TRAVELODGE. Silly us thinking that it would have a normal sign.

Anyway, back to the travel journal. We started out yesterday leaving our beautiful home in North Carolina behind. It was sad, I cried for half an hour. But, once we crossed into Virginia I put on my big girl panties and my Dirty Dancing soundtrack and trucked on down the road. The drive was nice. There was very little traffic and beautiful scenery. I saw a shopping center made just for men. There was a Tractor Supply, Camping World, and Gander Mountain all sharing one parking lot. All they need is a Harley Davidson dealership! The farms in Pennsylvania are to die for. If I could move my entire family and have my own Sundrop bottling plant and Bojangles on site, I'd move there forever. We hit a very nasty storm complete with hail when we crossed into Maryland but we stopped for a few minutes and avoided the bulk of the hail and then it was on the road again. Our stop for the first night was Scranton, PA. It was kind of a run down hotel but the employees were friendly and the room was pretty big so the animals had lots of room.

Today began with a bit of a rough start. You see, my cat is not a traveller. We purchased some tranquilizers for him to make the trip a little easier. But Satchel isn't a pill taker so the first one today was kind of a struggle. He only got about half of it. So, we gave him another one and then he was loosey goosey. He didn't give two hoots about getting in his pet taxi which was a stark difference from yesterday. The problem was that he was so loose that he urinated all in the pet taxi during the trip from the hotel room to the car. So, we stopped at a gas station down the road and Hubby went inside and got a newspaper (to line the pet taxi after it was clean) and a pair of gloves to keep us from getting icky. Hubby held Satchel up while I poured a bottle of water over him and the pet taxi. Cats do not like water. Cats that are drugged out on tranqs don't like water either, but they don't fight as hard. Now, I'm sure this was quite a sight to see in a gas station parking lot. Obviously a bottle of water isn't going to get a pet taxi completely clean so my car smelled slightly of cat pee all day. We did get an air freshener at a truck stop so then it smelled like pina coladas and cat pee. Also, the further north you get, the more inconsiderate the drivers. I had to learn to drive like a Yankee and I have to say, I don't like that side of myself. I tailgated. On purpose. Lord, I apologize and be with the starving Pygmees.

Finally we got to Lewiston. We have two more hours of driving tomorrow to get to the ferry as well as a trip to the grocery store. Then, we'll be in our summer home. What a nice ring that has. It so masks the fact that we are the paid help. No matter what gets me there, I still have a better view than a lot of people for the summer AND I don't have to pay for it. YAY! Well, it's almost bed time for tonight. To all my friends I left behind, I love ya!!

DAW