December 2019 Bujo Setup

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????????