Gone Country/ Road Kill

View From the New House

So I am a few weeks into my new Country Home and the time has FLOWN by. So I guess I have officially been inducted into country living as I hit some sort of furry animal on the road the other day. I believe it was a ground hog. I wish I could tell you that I hit it on some back country road but I would be lying. I actually hit it on a State Route 104. I was going about 60 MPH along with a bunch of other cars going the same way in a two lane highway. There wasn't much I could do, I swerved a little but couldn't avoid it and then the lady in the car behind me also swerved. Obviously I don't like to kill animals, I am a vegetarian after all, but it does happen. I'v been warned about the deer on my road. I've seen deer three times now in my yard and side yard. Apparently in these parts, many get hit by cars on the road I live on.

The Country Project...

My Facebook Status Tonight:

I am going to write a new book called, "The Country Project, Or why I spent a year trying to countrify myself, silly stories of a suburbanite gone country, and tales of apple orchards, country music, trucks, bon fires and square dancing." We have a close date!!!!! :-)

You've probably noticed I haven't been posting as much since I am up to my ears in boxes. I do like my book idea, for those of you that haven't read it or don't know about it yet, it is a spoof on the already existing book called "The Happiness Project, Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun." This incidentally is a really good book that my book club read.

Gotta run to pack more boxes the country is calling....

My Etsy Shop



My Etsy Shop is up and running. Since I am moving I am currently selling only my Mom's work. I am happy to have it back up and running. If you click on the laurasgiftboutique link, over on the right, it will take you directly to my shop. If you click on Etsy it will take you to the general Etsy site.

If you are not familiar with Etsy it is an online site for people like me who want to sell handmade items. There are also people that sell vintage items and supplies such as beads, You should definitely check both out!!!!

P.S. I actually sold the one in the photo already. However there are more in the shop!

Good news update: Police find guitar stolen from Webster church | www.WHEC.com

Good news update: Police find guitar stolen from Webster church www.WHEC.com
This is a link to a news story from my local news station. This happened at the church I attend, which incidentally also is not very far away from where I live. How sad that someone or some group of people would break into a church and steal stuff. This is a touching story, however, of a sentimental item that is going to end up back in the hands of the rightful owner.

There are TWO more interesting articles from the town I live in...
http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S2498393.shtml?cat=565 (About a school board member whom apparently was using his position to intimidate teachers.)

http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S2497270.shtml?cat=565 (About schools being rezoned, there are going to be some upset parents on this one! Some children will have to switch schools, even if they have been there for three years.)

Valentine Topiary Tutorial

As promised (a few posts ago) here is the tutorial on how to make a Valentine Topiary.

Materials You Will Need:

1 Foam Ball

1 Circle Foam Piece (for bottom of pot)

Metal Pail

2 packages Mini Muffin Cups

1 small dowel rod

1 stamp pad pink or red to match your pot OR acrylic paint

Decorative Gift Filler (white)

Hot Glue Gun

Valentine Candy Hearts with sayings

 This is the piece that I used to put into the bottom of the pot. It came with the double stick square tape, just peel it and stick it on the bottom, then push it into the bottom of the pail.

 Like so, I unwrapped the plastic first of course.

Unwrap your mini muffin cup and you can use these 2 ways. You can either put the color facing out or facing in. I did it both ways on mine to add interest.

 Use the end of a new pencil that hasn't been sharpened yet, wrap as shown.

 Then add hot glue to the bottom (DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!!!!)

Then push it into the foam ball. Keep doing this until you fill up the whole ball, be sure to insert your dowel rod onto the bottom of the ball, it helps to know where your bottom is. :-)

Put some stones in for weight! Stamp or paint your dowel rod. When it drys hot glue it into the bottom part and the ball part, hot glue will make it stronger.

Hot glue on the rod three heart sayings. Add the white decorative filler and sprinkle some hearts on top of it. You could also add ribbon to the dowel too. Happy Valentine's Day!!!

In the process of moving....



My posts have slowed as I have been in the process of buying a new home and selling the current home. Packing up current home to move to new home. Inspectors, appraisers, mortgages, lawyers, and the like make up my life right now. And trying to clear out clutter that I do not want to pay to have moved to the new home.

Need a Good Read????

Book Talk Time

January 2012:

The Hunger Games (Book Club Book)

Wicked Appetite (Had a head start on this in Dec.)

What Got You Here, Won't Get You There (Had a head start on this in Dec.)
How To Make Money Using Etsy

 

So as you can see I read The Hunger Games (Book Club Book) and LOVED it!!!! My book club had a GREAT discussion on this book, it sparked a lot of thought. I highly recommend it, there is a reason it has been on the best seller list for what seems like forever! What struck me about this book was that the author did a great job building the plot, characters and making it believeable. The believeable aspect was something I really liked about this book, since I prefer to read non-fiction. Wicked Appetite is still on my Kindle and for some reason I just haven't picked it back up. I reviewed What Got You Here, Won't Get You There and you can see my review here. I still want to read How To Make Money Using Etsy. I had it checked out but had to take it back to the library. I am going to start fresh in February and attempt my Feb. list. I'll update you again at the end of Feb. so you can see how I did.

 

I am looking forward to reading these in
February:

Keys To Success The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement

The Help (want to read because so many of my friends have said this is a great book!)

They Don't Teach Corporate In College

My book club has chosen The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean. This is a "What if all of Rochester read the same book?" book. The author is coming to town and our book club is registering to meet with her and to listen to her talk about the book.

(You can click on any of the above titles and you will be taken to Amazon.com where you can read more about each one.)

How To Throw an At Home Birthday Party



I have been throwing "At Home Birthday Parties" for 6 years now. I am getting pretty good at it if I do say so myself. Many of my daughter's friends have had birthday parties NOT at their homes, they have had them at Bounce It Out, Bernie's Bouncers, The Little Gym and so on. When I called to price out these parties I would choke at the price. At least $200.00 dollars plus that usually does not include a cake, goody bags, pizza. So I choose to do it cheaper at my home. My daughter loves her at home birthday parties so much that this year I tried to talk her out of one to no avail! She was STEADFAST, "I want an at home party Mom!"
If you are going to throw a decent at home party you need to plan, plan, plan. I will tell you what has worked for me.
Here is a VERY successful schedule that we used I've made the mistake in the past of scheduling a 3 hour party, this is WAY too long. I've found that 1.5 hours is plenty.

11am - Arrival -  have the children play with something, we were doing a Tinkering party (Tinker Bell) So we had set out the LEGOs and the marble building game out. The marble building was VERY popular! The kids arange different tubes for the marbles to go down.

11:15 - Game Time - We played Pass the Tink (which the kids absolutely LOVED, it surprised me as to how much they loved this game, we played it at least three times. When a child would get out they all laughed and giggled. Then we played Operator/Telephone - The birthday child thinks of a sentence to whisper in an ear and then each child passes the secret around the circle and when it gets back it is usually funny. I let the kids say it one of two times then they have to pass on what they hear.

11:30 - Lunch - We had pizza, Goldfish crackers and Tinkerbell gummies. Immediately following lunch I had the kids stay at the table, throw away their trash and we went right to the next activity.

11:45 - Craft - Since I had ten kids. They made foam door hangers. The door hangers were decorated with animal foam stickers. The door hanger looked like a flower. I also had special foam markers that the kids used to decorate them with. They enjoyed this.

12:00 - Cake & Ice Cream - We sung Happy Birthday, had my daughter blow out her candles on the cupcakes I had made. We had purchased the individual ice cream cups with the wooden sticks. They enjoyed both of these. Cleaned up.
12:15 - Pinata
12:30 - Pick Up Time

This party MOVED along quickly and it was a perfect amount of time, not too long and not too short. We saved presents for after the kids left. It was nice to have the focus be on having fun with the kids. Present opening time tends to get boring for the kids. Plus it was nice to take our time opening each one and appreciating what her friends gave her. It was nice to take our time with this and not rush.

In a future post, I will write about how I did this party on a budget.

Date Night - Parents you will appreciate this story!

Last Saturday we had a date night with friends to go to a Hibachi restaurant, here in Webster. The food is SOOOO yummy. So our friends live 5-10 minutes away from the restaurant. They left their home and came to the restaurant and we meet them at the entrance. Between the time they left their house and arrived at the restaurant, their youngest fell, and knocked out his two front teeth. He was already missing his two lower teeth. Poor kid. Soooo, one parent returned home and the other stayed with us. Later the first parent meet back up with us so we all still had a really good time. Love the food, and atmosphere there. But would someone PLEASE tell me how to catch a rice ball in your mouth????????

Well, Well, Let us see how I did on my Goals...



Since this is the first time, I have ever, in my life, publicly posted my goals, it has been interesting to say the least. First my dear friends whom read my blog have shared with me what I can cross off of the list. How sweet of them to help me! And the public listing adds a responsibility to me to try harder to accomplish my goals. Interesting feeling. So now that I have been feeling better here is how I did:

My Goals for the first week of the New Year 2012 -

Remember this post on No New Year's Resolutions? Here are my goals as promised!

Health -

Multi Vit. Daily

Emergency C or Airborne Daily
Water Daily
If stamina is built back up begin Zumba

Family -

Plan date night with husband, arrange babysitter

Plan time with Mom (Although I didn't plan anything special, we talk almost daily and I had a meal at her house, plus another coming this weekend.)

Special time with Daughter - Girl Scout meeting

Organizing -

Update Calendar - B-days etc. (I should probably do this, I rely on Facebook.)

Daughter - back to school/calendar etc.

Girl Scout materials gather in one place (again!)
Meal Plan/Coupons
Grocery Shop

Volunteering -

Plan Girl Scout Meeting with co-leaders Tues PM
Implement meeting Thurs. PM

Prepare craft idea for Sun. for MOMS group

Friends -

Schedule Dinner out
Schedule Breakfast out
Send thank you notes to those whom helped me through being sick last week

Read -

Read more and less FB and TV news (I am almost finished with Hunger Games!)

I only have one goal for the week we are currently in and that is to:

Week of Jan. 15 - Jan. 22

Embrace the craziness of life. Seriously, that is my goal.

I have something going on everynight this week, most are functions with my daughter. The weekend brings her kid birthday party which I am hosting at my home on Sat. and Sun. is her real B-day. Her ice skating lesson is on Sunday as well and Dear Hubby is getting ready to go on a training trip. Plus I have some top secret stuff going on too, I'll share when I can.

Winter Fun

How cool is this (no pun intended)? This is my cousin's kid. She was riding her four wheeler and the snow kept on sticking to the front wheels! LOVE it!!!!! They live in Northern New York, near Massena, N.Y. and Ottawa, Canada. I think she will remember this for the rest of her life, her snow joy ride! Too cute!!!!

My First Ever Blog Book Review...

I finished my first book for January (see my book list here)!!! I am excited to say that the book What Got You Here Won't Get You There (How Successful People Become Even More Successful!) by Marshall Goldsmith was well written, kept my attention and tapped into my love of psychology and human nature!!!!! I loved my Psychology major, back in my college days, and this book reminded me of that reading I did in college.

Overall I would probably give it a 5 star out of 5 stars. I think anyone would benefit from reading this book. The author's job is to go to CEOs and "fix" their annoying behavioral problems that bother those under them! He solicits 360 degree feedback from their employees and then gives it back to them! He lets them know what their biggest fault is and what they need to work on.

One of my many favorite parts of this book was when he suggested to the male readers that they should ask their wives "How can I be a better partner?" :-) He states that often whatever your annoying behavioral traits are at work are likely the same at home. And yes we all have THEM (annoying behavioral traits) and we all can improve. After he gives the feed back to his client he then has the client APOLOGIZE to all of their coworkers under them for their bad behavior and then solicit feedforward which is feedback you ask of others, for example "What can I do in the future to get better at X,Y,Z, (ex. be a better listener)?" I love this concept and think that it is so easy for anyone to implement. I loved this book because I feel that ANYONE can read it, ANYONE can implement the suggestions and ANYONE can benefit from this book if they are willing to.

The author mentions:
The three good things that GOOD Listeners Do:

1. Think before they speak.
2. Listen with respect.
3. Gauge their own responses by asking themselves, "Is what I am about to say worth it?"

He adds that keeping your mouth shut IS AN ACTIVE choice.

My Favorite Quotes from this book:

"Without a measurable goal you are much more likely to blow it off."
"If we had a complete grip on reality, seeing every situation for exactly what it is, we wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. After all, the most realistic people in our society are the chronically depressed."

"To gain a friend, let him do you a favor."  - - Ben Franklin

"Goal obsession can cloud your judgement."

"As a result, in our dogged pursuit of our goals we forget our manners. We're nice to people if they can help us hit our goal. We push them out of the way if they are not useful to us. Without meaning to, we can become self-absorbed schemers."

"Today the key to wealth is knowledge."


I think the "take home" for me personally is I have gleaned suggestions for the workplace and at home, I have learned how to be a better listener, I've learned how to ask for feedforward suggestions. It also gave me insight into what the 'bosses' of today are dealing with. A reminder that there is no perfect person and even the MOST successful among us have traits that they can work on. Glad I read it, wasn't disappointed.

One odd thing about the book though, I felt it ended a bit abruptly, I felt that the author was trying to build you back up and make you feel good about yourself and then it felt like it just ended, that part was a little strange to me. Didn't fit with the rest of the book.

How I (not so much) accomplished my goals for the week...

Almost Sunday and time to review my goals for the week. The deal is I was VERY sick the past two weeks. I had viral bronchitis that turned bacterial, plus two trips to urgent care = a MUCH needed Z-pack and ME finally feeling better. So needless to say my goals were seriously put on hold and many will forward on to the next week. As my friend said to me, "It makes you appreciate your health more." So true!!!!! So with a bit of a laugh and chuckle let's see how I did on my goals:

My Goals for the first week of the New Year 2012 -

Remember this post on No New Year's Resolutions? Here are my goals as promised!

Health -

Multi Vit. Daily

Emergency C or Airborne Daily
Water Daily
If stamina is built back up begin Zumba

Family -

Plan date night with husband, arrange babysitter

Plan time with Mom

Special time with Daughter - Girl Scout meeting

Organizing -

Update Calendar - B-days etc.

Daughter - back to school/calendar etc.

Girl Scout materials gather in one place (again!)
Meal Plan/Coupons

Grocery Shop

Volunteering -

Plan Girl Scout Meeting with co-leaders Tues PM

Implement meeting Thurs. PM

Prepare craft idea for Sun. for MOMS group

Friends -

Schedule Dinner out

Schedule Breakfast out

Send thank you notes to those whom helped me through being sick last week

Read -

Read more and less FB and TV news


So there you have it, not great for the first week, yet not bad for being down and out sick! So here is to next week feeling better and hoping to accomplish more. I will have a tutorial coming soon. I made a Valentine Topiary for my MOMS group and I will share that with you! I am also finishing up the book What Got You Here Wont Get You There, from my book list and I hope to publish a review for you too.

Weekly Goals.....

My Goals for the first week of the New Year 2012 -

Remember this post on No New Year's Resolutions? Here are my goals as promised!

Health -

(I am getting over bronchitis from last week. It hit me hard.)

Multi Vit. Daily

Emergency C or Airborne Daily

Water Daily

If stamina is built back up begin Zumba

Family -

Plan date night with husband, arrange babysitter


Plan time with Mom

Special time with Daughter - Girl Scout meeting

Organizing -

Update Calendar - B-days etc.

Daughter - back to school/calendar etc.

Girl Scout materials gather in one place (again!)

Meal Plan/Coupons

Grocery Shop

Volunteering -

Plan Girl Scout Meeting with co-leaders Tues PM

Implement meeting Thurs. PM

Prepare craft idea for Sun. for MOMS group

Friends -

Schedule Dinner out

Schedule Breakfast out

Send thank you notes to those whom helped me through being sick last week

Read -

Read more and less FB and TV news