Some of you may know that I was raised by my grandparents. My grandfather died when I was still in high school, but my grandmother only passed away about eight years ago. When she died, somehow I inherited a whole bunch of unused greeting cards. All this time they've been sitting in a box in my studio, just collecting dust. Well, I'm slowly in the process of downsizing because I have waaaay too much stuff for this house. I don't want to just throw these cards away because that would be a huge waste.

About a month ago, I received an email from Aloha Island Lei with a review request. My first reaction was to chuckle. What was I going to do with a lei all the way over here in Michigan? Knowing though, that people would be getting married or having fun summer parties, I said sure, what the heck? Today, out of the blue, a long box appeared on my front porch. Opening it, I was amazed to find not one, but two gorgeous fresh flower leis.

I apologize for not taking pictures of the packaging, but I was far too eager to get them unwrapped! They smelled absolutely amazing and I couldn't wait to see them. I wasn't disappointed! These are beautifully made, smell delicious and are absolutely beautiful. Don't believe me? Check out this picture where I forced the boys to wear them and stand on the front porch..hehe...

Don't they look handsome?

What amazed me the most...other than the fact that I got them to do this for me? These came all the way from Hawaii and still looked this good! You'd have thought I'd picked them up on the island and snapped the picture within minutes! Honestly, if I ever get the chance to have a lovely beach themed party, I'm going to want one of these around my neck and the necks of my guests!

If you'd like some gorgeous flowered leis of your own, check out Aloha Island Lei! I've been very impressed and hopefully you will be too! Now, just for fun...my boys being all summer stylin'!

Roger - Age 12

Ben - Age 13

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In honor of what I saw out my window this morning, I bring you Happy Monday!





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Woo! It's Thursday and it's been such a great week so far. The boys have been here and while we haven't been super productive, we've had lots of fun together. We've been reading book 1 of the Percy Jackson series and really enjoying it. We've also been catching up on our iCarly watching. We did some cleaning out in the garage and would have done more if the weather hadn't suddenly gone cold and rainy on us.

They don't know it yet, but I'm going to be surprising them on Saturday with a trip to Swede's for lunch. They're going to love it! I love when I can surprise them, even if it's just with little things like some of the most delicious wet burritos in the whole world.

Since today is nearly done, I think my time for me is going to be just sitting back and relaxing and enjoying the rest of my night with the boys. We've decided on spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner and it's time for me to get in that kitchen to make it!

I know how shocking this must be to everyone! *grins* Abby..yes, the one whose blog is right over there ---> in the list and one of my favorite people in the whole wide world challenged me to use the above picture in my blog. How could I resist such a "tough" challenge? Abby's daughter (another Katie) built our shared name with megablocks..how much fun is that? Well, Miss Abby, I think I succeeded in your challenge. What do you say?

Okie, so on my list of things to do is seriously to blog. I dunno why I don't do it. Ok, yes I do. It's pure and total laziness. Shame on me! So to make up for it, I'm gonna write a whooole post here tonight about..ermm..well...ahh...

Oh! I know! I could tell you about my friend abby's blog. I seriously go there multiple times a day to see if she's posted. Her posts always make me smile and let me tell you..she is like the Queen of doodling. I doodle and it looks..well..horrible, but when she does it, it's art! I'm so envious. If you want to check out her blog, it's over on the top of my list. Somewhere over there ----> (or click on the above linky)

I called and talked to my boys tonight. Ben was very dramatically telling me how they had a substitute today because Mrs Garland wasn't there. It was Mrs Hubbard, who he likes,but she gave them a lot of work! They did math and Michigan history plus Mrs. Flynn gave him homework too! But, by 7pm he had it all done because he "has to leave the tv off until his homework is done."

Roger, my chatter box, told me in something like super sonic speeds about the video games they had just gotten, all the characters, all the bad guys, all the special moves and who plays which character. He did something like 3 games in 10 minutes. When I asked what else he was doing, I got ummm...as an answer. Apparantly though, the only thing he's doing in school is math. Why do I doubt that's the case? Heh..

Let's see..other than that, nothing new or exciting here. I have about 3 weeks left to classes for this semester and then I can "relax" (aka frantically get ready for Christmas) for a month until the next round begin.

Now, if I'm a good girl, I might actually have thrift store finds or crafty things to post here soon. I'm also working on coming up with a great giveaway so keep your fingers crossed for that! I'm not having much luck lately. If I'm bad, well..flip back and enjoy some past posts? love y'all!

Wow! I never get tagged or challenged, so this is actually pretty exciting for me. I had a red-eye flight out of Phoenix last night so I'm a little brain fried but let me see what I can come up with.

8 shows I like to watch

1. Murder She Wrote
2. Clean House
3. Law & Order
4. Diners, Drive Ins and Dives
5. How Its Made
6. Survivor
7. Court shows (People's Court, Judge Mathis, etc - people are so funny)
8. Iron Chef America

8 restaurants I like to eat at

1. Ruth's Chris Steak House (fantastic food and memories)
2. BD's Mongolian BBQ
3. Anderson's
4. Subway
5. IHOP (because of my boys)
6. The Olive Garden
7. Pine Ridge Pizza
8. Arby's

8 things that happened today

1. I took a red-eye flight back from Phoenix.
2. A beautiful kiss and promise for the future.
3. A taxi ride back here
4. A nice, long nap
5. Dinner from Pine Ridge Pizza
6. Studying for tomorrow's test
7. Byron mauling me and meowing for constant attention.
8. A lot of daydreaming.

8 things that I am looking forward to

1. Finishing this semester
2. Finishing this degree
3. Moving to Michigan
4. Thanksgiving with one of my yay friends
5. Kloey needing me for another expo (hopefully when I can get away).
6. Being back with my boys.
7. Christmas
8. Special moments with special people

8 things on my wish list...

1. To be thinner
2. to be healthier
3. to have my family together again
4. to get my life totally back under control
5. the Pazzles files from Steph
6. to be able to go to Klo's convention in March
7. a giant amazon gift card
8. For the next 7 months with all their difficulties to fly by

8 peeps I'm tagging..and they'd better do it!
hrmm...this one is tough. The folks I'd usually tag have been tagged..

1. Jim
2. Graham
3. Crafty readers
4. Mommy readers
5. Justin
6. Random readers
7. People who don't read and only look at the pictures
8. People who ignore the pictures and only read the text

Ok, so that's stretching it, but if you do go ahead and consider yourself tagged, please comment so I can see your answers too!

So, like I mentioned, I got to go with Steph and Klo to the show in Valley Forge, PA. All I can say is whew, it is always an adventure. I got up at the crack of dawn after like zero sleep and got to the airport. My flights were all on time and I arrived in Philly safe and sound. I think Klo and Steph forgot me though! I had to wait like an hour or more for them to come and fetch me. They were out looking for someplace for lunch! Anyway, they did come get me and I was quite content to sit in the back seat and just relax for the drive. I confess...I love being chauffered around. There weren't many pictures taken of the weekend..yet again, my batteries died. This time I had new ones, but I'd forgotten to charge them before the trip! Oy! Here are the ones I do have, though :


The lighthouse I just *had* to take a picture of for Klo!


Famous Klo -- Trying to hide behind dark shades, but we all recognize her! This time she actually signed an autograph!


Steph's beautiful fence picture.


The gatehouse.

I have no idea how many machines we actually sold..somewhere around 16, I think. I do know that I was worn out when I got home! All that loading and unloading of boxes off of pallets, I think. Steph and I had a lot of fun playing pranks on Klo..like Famous Klo stood here! As always, the company was the best and the food was good. I cannot wait until the next one!

This year, I wanted my kids and I to really enjoy the time that we get together, so I decided that when I could, we would go out and do things. Last weekend, it was garage saling...5 garage sales on Friday and 22 on Saturday. I still haven't gotten the back of the van unloaded from the goodies we found plus the stuff that my ex-husband threw in there.

This weekend, it was Surprise Saturday..or that's what I'm gonna call it now. lol! Last night, while checking out some of my favorite frugal blogs, I noticed a few things that we could do together that would only cost me a tiny bit of gas to get to the places. So, here was our day:

Stop 1 : Neighbor's Garage Sale. I've lived here a year and never met them so I thought I would say hi. Darned if I can remember her name though..man, I'm bad with names. Picked up a few things including a like new small samsonite suitcase for $10. She was going to hold it for me since I didn't have the cash on me. Note to self : Stop by tomorrow's sale and pick that up from her.

Stop 2 : Our local library. The boys and I didn't have library cards yet and I was sure that they would be doing a summer reading program. So, we stopped and got our cards and the boys each picked out 4 books as well as some cds to check out. I got a nice stack of 5 books, as well. I did snap some pictures here, but I left my camera in the van tonight...oops. Oh, and no summer program like I thought. I'm used to the read so many books, get a prize kind of thing. Instead, they have a program every Monday that you go to where they do crafts and reading and such. I took a brochure and signed them up, so I'm sure we'll check it out.

Stop 3 : Walmart. Yes, we had to mix errands in today to make this work for us. Got the boys an icee as a treat because it was so hot and sticky today. Managed to get out of there for under $40 and got everything we needed. I was hoping to pick up a 2nd small dehumidifier for the kitchen, but at $70, I can't afford it. Note to self : Put extra bread in the deep freeze since the humidity will mildew it in 2 days if I don't.

Stop 4 : Michael's. Today they were doing free crafts for kids day! Yay! My youngest loves crafting so he loved making pipe cleaner caterpillars and butterflies and then making paper flowers to tuck into a paper "vase." Of course, mommy watched closely so that we can duplicate this project since they didn't give out instructions. Ben wasn't at all interested and more tried to drag on me and act silly, but we still had fun. Money spent : $0 on the projects, $30 on ribbons and color books and a couple other odds and ends.

Stop 5 : Post Office. I needed a few stamps so I ran in real quick. I think I spent $1.78 here.

Stop 6 : Friendly's for our free one scoop icecream cone. Our local R & B station was also there and the kids and I won 3 free cds. I'll be honest and say I have no idea if they're good, but hey..music is always good, right?

Stop 7 : Pizza Hut. The boys had good report cards and our Pizza Hut in Michigan rewarded good report cards with a free personal pan pizza and a drink. Turns out that our one here in New York doesn't. They don't even deliver. I do all my ordering from little local places..which is good because I like supporting the little stores.

Stop 8 : McDonalds. Because they do reward kids. The boys each got a free happy meal for their report cards. It turns out that locally, the stores give coupons to the schools to hand out but because I had their report cards, the manager was more than happy to give us the deal. Only downside? The place needed a serious clean up. I know they'd been swamped but there wasn't a single clean table.

Stop 9 : Grocery Store. Nothing too exciting here other than as usual, I spent too much on groceries. Now, due to circumstances, I don't need to worry about my grocery budget, but still..I think it's time to spend a couple of weeks eating out of the cupboards and such. See how far we can go with it. I'm picking up a couple of boxes of food at the end of the month, so I think July will work great for starting that project.

Stop 10 : Back at the apartment. My annoying upstairs neighbor yet again parked in the driveway so I pulled in behind her long enough for us to unload everything down into our place. Then, I moved the van back to the road. Roger was a trooper and helped carry things down. Ben did as much as he could. Then, on commercials, Roger helped me find all the perishables and put them away.

Now, I am a tiiiiiired mama. But, I am so thankful for all the wonderful women who blog about living frugal and how to find some great deals. I need to remember to ask them..or ask all of you...Do you know if Rite Aid has anything like CVS and Walgreens does? Our Walgreens (almost literally across the street from my place) got bought out by Rite Aid and it seems like a waste of gas to try to find a CVS or one of the few remaining Walgreens stores.