What I've been doing (or not)

1. ... [not] blogging of course. Why? I'm not too sure. I'm a slacker. And I've been uninspired.

2. Babysitting a sweet girl, Junebug.

3. Watching Big Love, season 1. I didn't know this show existed until a few months ago (we don't have a tv, ok?). I'm not sure I really like it yet, or that I want to spend the time watching all the way through season 4. What I do know is that Bill Paxton sure gets a whoooooooooole lotta sexy time. Wow.

4. Taxes. Ugh. Not fun when you're self-employed.

5. Enjoying the gorgeous spring weather we've been having.

6. Sewing here and there. I've been making lots of aprons, but I'm seriously considering starting to make some clothes for myself. I will need lots of help though.

7. Planning our vacations. We are going to Hilton Head with my family in August, and Josh and I are hoping to go to the Cape Cod area for our anniversary this year. Please let me know if you have suggestions on where to stay/what to do!

8. Teaching my little rascals. 10 of my students are under the age of 8. Lord help me.

9. Making my own pizza dough. Here at the Macs, we eat a lot of pizza. Mostly homemade. It's kind of my go-to meal. I've been using Fleischman's pizza dough yeast (not bread yeast), and substituting some whole wheat flour. It turns out great!

10. Planting a garden with some friends. More to come on that later... As soon as I figure out how to get the pictures from my iphone to my computer. In the meantime, I can't wait for yummy veggies this summer! And we will have LOTS.

Baltimore Day 2

Day 2 of our mini-vacay was another gorgeous day. We got up early (because there's no sleeping in when married to my man) and went for yet another walk.

We were trying to find a nice little cafe near the harbor. Who knew that there are NO places to eat breakfast on the water? None that we saw anyway. We walked probably 2 miles. We did pass Babe Ruth on our walk though. Good times.

We finally ended up back at our hotel, out of breath and starving (and me cranky because I didn't have my coffee yet).

So, when we got back we looked up some breakfast restaurants and finally settled on one back near the harbor, but not ON the harbor. We were so close. Well, it was a good decision (thanks again, Yelp) because the food was deLISH. Josh loves eggs benedict, so he got this "southern" eggs benedict with corn cakes and pulled pork barbecue on the side. Yeah, whoa. Definitely a man's meal.

I got a veggie and goat cheese omelet with yummy hash browns and a biscuit that tasted like Cracker Barrel's biscuits... YUM!

Then on our way home, Josh said, "You know, I'm craving a milk shake. McDonald's has good milkshakes. And I've heard great things about the Shamrock shake that they have out right now." So, we stopped at a dive of a McDonald's and got milkshakes. Josh went with the plain ol' vanilla, and I took a risk and got the Shamrock shake. Umm... disGUSTing. So gross. It tasted like chemicals. I do NOT recommend.

Josh happily sipping away at his safe milk shake.

(he shared with me, because he's nice)

Here's mine. Yuck.

It was a fun, much needed trip- minus the whole milkshake fiasco. When we got home we hugged our kitties. We always miss them so much when we are away, even if just for a night. Weird? Losers? Yep, Yep.

Baltimore Day 1

Friends,
I'm sorry for being so MIA. I've been down in the dumps having not much to blog about, but the weather this past weekend brought me out of it a bit. AND it's supposed to be in the 50's all week long here in the Tri-State Region!

This past weekend Josh and I took a little mini-vacay to none other than Baltimore, MD. It's not far from where we live, and neither of us had ever spent any time there. Josh found a great deal using Hotwire for a hotel. So on our first day we went to the Aquarium ...



and found Nemo, who knew?


I gave some change to make a change


This poor guy only had three limbs


And forgot that you can't take pictures with flash in a mirror


Saw a dolphin show


Went to a 4-D show. We got squirt with water and poked every chance they got.


Josh was not amused.


Then for dinner, I used yelp for the first time and found a great tapas restaurant. It was so yummy and fun. And they had REALLY yummy sangria. We walked like a bazillion miles to get there because we didn't want to pay for transportation. We also walked out of the first restaurant we went to because it was NOT tapas like Yelp said. Yelp fail. I'd probably say I've never been MORE embarrassed, walking out of a restaurant after already being seated, but we had ONE night, ONE nice dinner to attend, and we weren't about to waste it on a restaurant we didn't want to be at. So, have any of you ever done that? How embarrassed were you on a scale of 1-10??

I'd say we got to know Baltimore pretty well. Let's just say my legs are still sore.
But that's not hard to accomplish.



I'll do Day 2 tomorrow!

Cupcakes for Haiti- Thank you!

Hop on over to the cupcakes website to see some pictures from our cupcake baking night. Thank you to ALL who helped make this possible!

The reason our group wanted to do this was because none of us had a whole lot to give individually, and we wanted to do something very practical (and yummy) to give more money than we could have given just by ourselves.

100% of our proceeds went to Deep Springs International.

And we raised over $900! THANK YOU!!!

Sweater to Ruffle Scarf

I finally got back to sewing a bit yesterday. I LOVE this project- it was pretty quick. I think I'll make like 10 more with old sweaters I have.

I was given this cashmere sweater from my friend Susie. Hi Sus!

(this is always what happens when I try to do projects)

Ok, here it is:

(oops, kinda fuzzy)

Just a plain ol' sweater. But soft. Really soft.

I came across THIS tutorial a while ago. That's what I used.

And here's how it came out!







(don't mind the background on these pics, I was in my 6x6 studio at the music store where I teach. Hey, I never claimed to be a great photographer.)

it won't stop snowing

I'm so sick of snow. I'm sick of my feet getting wet, sick of the huge snow mounds outside of our apartment that make me have to walk all the way around to get to my car. Sick of being cooped up inside. And I'm REALLY sick of my hairy legs. I mean, it's bad. Really bad. But I have no reason to shave, wearing two pairs of pants everyday and all. So, here I am- me, my hairy legs, and my cats, just watching MORE snow come down. Will it ever stop? Will I ever feel the warm sun again??

You'd think with all of our snow days that I would be the sewing queen. But I'm not. I have projects to do, but I've just been putting them off to spend time cuddled with my hubby (apparently his name is Mr. Snails, who knew?) watching the entire HBO series of John Adams, old episodes of The Office, and doing anything but sewing and shaving my legs. It's been great, but back to the real world this week. Hopefully I'll get back to blogging too!

Guest Post: Things you may or may not know about Mr. Snails

So Abby has asked me for quite a well to do a guest post, probably thinking my fame and popularity would bring her blog to a whole new level. Anyway, she said either her or I could do the "Things you may or may not know about Mr. Snails post." I decided that would be easy enough for me to do, so here we go:

1. No one has EVER refferred to me as Mr. Snails

2. The same person who started calling Abby "snails" tries to call me "slug", I refuse to accept it as a nickname.

3. Even though you will never see me wear a hat in public, I LOVE putting things on my head. If you buy a headband from Abby, chances are its been on my head (ok prob not true) but every time I put on one of her headbands and Abby walks into the room, the looks she gives me is priceless, its a mix between, "I can't believe I married a three year old" and "I am so in love with this guy" or at least that's what I tell myself it means, either way, I Love that look.

4. I write really long run on sentences, am terrible at grammar, yet plan on being an English teacher.

5. My middle finger on my right hand is grossely deformed from going through the crank of a bicycle when I was younger.

6. I secretly love reading blogs even though I would never comment on them because I am far to embarrassed. But I regularly ready: Morman Bachelor Pad, Busy Bee Lauren, Bekah Buttons, Everything but Important, Andrealand, and then other random ones all the time. Last week I found myself on one about traveling fat pants, it made me chuckle.

7. I have started multiple blogs in the past, they have failed, often after one post.

8. Abby makes me make sense, I am truly a mess without her, I get excited about the idea of growing old with her.

9. As a child, I cried all the time, I'm not talking baby, I'm talking like 10, 12, maybe even until I was like 14. Usually I cried because I knew it would get my brothers in trouble, but nonetheless, I put on the waterworks all the time. Now, I couldn't tell you the last time I cried (although Private Practice this week did come close.)

10. I have some OCDish tendencies, for instance, when I am in the shower, I need to first put facewash on my face, count to 30, keep my eyes shut and reach around and find the shampoo, shampoo very quickly, rinse my head, and then wash the rest of my body without splashing any soap up to my head which I already cleaned with other soap, I don't want to mix the scents. Sometimes Abby throws out random numbers when I am counting in hopes of throwing me off, and she will laugh at me whenever she sees my reaching around for the shampoo with my eyes shut.

11. Oh yeah, sometimes we shower together.

12. One time while being intimate on our honeymoon a little Dominican man walked into our bedroom to fill up our mini-bar, It was really awkward, but I also really wanted the mini bar filled.

13. I don't usually call it "being intimate" but this is the internet, like anyone can access it, I wanted to keep it PG.

14. One time I had a steak so good that I became a vegetarian for like a month, I didn't want to have meat ever again because I knew it would never compare. That is ridiculous but so true.

15. I meant to put this as number 3 but forgot and don't feel like going back and changing all the numbers. But the only nickname I ever had that stuck at all was Joshy Squashy. At times I wish people still called me that.

Well, that's 15 new facts for you. I hope you feel as good as I do right now. It's great to get all that off my chest. Abby just woke up so I would rather be with her now than all of you anyway. no offense. so in closing I will say,

aint no thang, k thanks bye