Home sweet home

Starting in 2004 (and continuing endless finish work through present day), we've poured blood, sweat and tears into constructing an addition on our home. 

Now that the house at least looks decent from the outside, I sent Lindsay from Paint Me a Picture some exterior shots and she created this adorable custom painting of our home:

I am in love with the painting.  Lindsay's work is amazing!  Check out her affordable shop today!

Curse of the errant marker

When Griffin called me from the other room asking where I kept the baby wipes, I should have known better than to think it was because he was interested in changing his own diaper.

At least green jives with orange.

Horse-drawn buggies and marshmallows

Surprisingly, I have not consumed all four bags of cereal marshmallows single-handedly...yet.

To share the love (and not gross out my family by eating dehydrated marshmallows by the handful), I made this s'mores-ish type graham cracker/marshmallow/milk chocolate chip cookie using an oatmeal cookie recipe as the base.

A big thanks to my super blog friend Kim at Party Frosting for surprising me with two additional bags of cereal marshmallows she scoped out at an Amish store. 

Horses and buggies and cereal marshmallows.  My way of life.

Where I've been this week

The blue screen o'death.

Luckily, now repaired, but funny that it read, "the volume is dirty." Like my basement.

Conveniently unappealing

I'm a purchaser of convenience.  Grated cheese?  Check.  Pre-diced potatoes?  Check, check. 

But sometimes, the line of convenience MUST be drawn, epecially after I saw these questionably funny items at the store:

A big "thanks" to my local Wal-Mart for the laughs.

DIY Valentine's Day gift tags

Gearing up for Valentine's Day?  Click here to download my Good Gravy! DIY printable gift tags! 

Please hold your applause for my efforts to get this out more than three days before the holiday.

And one Valentine friend of mine is going to get a jar of my beloved cereal marshmallows, as seen below.  Now, that's true love.

Tell me I'm not alone

I'm quite certain that finding a solution for world hunger among the infinite time I'll need to refinish the ghastly cupboards and popcorn ceiling in my kitchen could happen...

...before I can match one stinkin' lid to its plasticware companion.

Imagine this in your shower

Since my sister enjoys taunting me with creepy dolls, I decided to taunt her right back and had this shipped to her house:

Fleshy baby doll soap by Stinky Bomb.  Best. Jokey. Gift. EVER.

Sleddy sled

Either the sled is getting smaller or the Gravy Kids are getting bigger.

 

Victory and glue sticks

Remember the awesomely bad tiger painting?  I was challenged to give it up over a round of tabletop shuffleboard last week. 

Let's just say that I kicked the pants off of my opponent and instead of getting my tiger painting, he is now the proud owner of this *customized* game of children's Penguin Shuffleboard I found in the clearance aisle of Target:

Today's lesson? Don't mess with a girl and her glue stick with access to your Facebook photos.

Muscle marshmallows

I've eaten a fair share of the cereal marshmallows I ordered online and have lived to tell!

But I will admit to a little red flag that made me pause for a second before hitting the  "I-will-purchase-these-online-marshmallows-even-though-your-store-name-makes-no-reference-to-online-marshmallows" button:

365 days of bacon

You know your love for bacon is real when your friend acknowledges the affection with a "bacon love" desk calendar...

...all while wishing you "a crispy New Year."

I smell like soup

Note-to-self:  Despite prior and successful attempts to keep your arm brace* clean, if you're sauteeing food on the stove - even with your "good" arm - your brace will inevitably end up smelling like soup.  And that's just gross.

*The arm brace is to stabilize what may be a badly pulled ligament from November's car accident.  Good times... that now smell like soup.

Hold the cereal

The following statements are all true:

1.  I love dehydrated marshmallows. 

2.  I hate the oat-y cereal that comes with them (rhymes with "Yucky Charms").

3.  I researched the internet and found JUST the marshmallowy goodness.

4.  When my husband said, "This is the dumbest thing you've ever dropped $20 on," I retorted, "Fine.  More for me then."

5.  I think four bags will only take me through the end of the week before I succumb to a delicious marshmallow coma and/or all my teeth fall out.

So, for all the times I was the jerk-sibling who rifled through and stole all the marshmallows from the cereal box, to my brother and sister I say: hide your cereal from me no more for I have discovered the motherload.

Flour + butter + sugar = heaven

When this:

Turns to this:

Bye-bye, resolutions. 

Double the anise extract in this recipe and you won't be sorry.

The glass only hurts before the bleeding

Dear phone store guy,

It must be painful to be you - being the smartest man on the planet - and having to deal with peons like me who drop their beloved mobile phones in parking lots. 

Clearly, your special telepathic powers allowed you to tap into the worldwide resources of cellular devices without checking if anyone carried what I need in the 3,000 mile radius of where we stood prior to you blurting out, "I can't help you."

So, I bowed to your genius and left the store, waited for your donut break, and then returned to ask your colleague who was, not surprisingly, more helpful than you.

I retract the donut joke because that's not nice.  You were probably out curing cancer with your phenomenal brain instead.

Hugs and kisses,

Step aside, velvet Elvis

Last year, I gave a friend a giant gummy bear on a stick.  In return, she re-gifted to me this paint-by-number piece of "art" from a white elephant party she attended:

And here I've been wondering how random, strange things come into my posession.

The random zebra head

A resolution of mine is to clean and purge the house, and we came across this gem I purchased for fun in 2000.  Remember this sock puppet 'spokesman?'  The commercials for this now "dot-bomb" company were hilarious.

Even though the puppet is going for a whopping 99-cents at online auctions, I'll still hang onto him for nostalgia. 

However, this zebra thingymajig...not so much:

I don't even like zebras, and this is kinda freaking me out.

Now with 25% less silly

When calling out for a silly faces after enjoying a New Year's Day brunch with friends, three out of four cooperating children is considered successful:

Apparently, Griff just isn't into the ladies yet.