Things I'll Never Say...

Linking up today with Neely over at A Complete Waste of Makeup!

So here are some things you will NEVER (ever ever) hear come out of my mouth.....

I only need a few things at Target so we don't need to do down every aisle....

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I have too many chapsticks...

Source: hellogiggles.com via Brianne on Pinterest

I'm so sick of TV....


I don't feel like coffee this morning...

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....Or wine this afternoon....

Source: twitter.com via B e c k y on Pinterest

I hate roadtrips...

Source: ascotfriday.typepad.com via Kendall on Pinterest

I've caught up on all the housework....

Source: boredpanda.com via Bored on Pinterest

Let's go to a different grocery store, I'm sick of Wegmans... 

Alec Baldwin's Wegman's Commercial - Watch More Celebrity Videos or Subscribe

State of the Garden Address

We officially have a garden people! Most of our time this weekend was spent getting our garden ready. The beau and I debated on what to do about soil. Should we buy it all? Would that be expensive? So what we ended up doing was going to his uncle's in the country and doing it the hard (but free) way.

Ruby played in all the puddles and got very dirty, then jumped in the pond to clean off. She's never experienced so much nature!

And she got to meet the chickens! She could not figure out what those little creatures were...

This is how far we got Saturday before Jeffry had to go to work:

We decided where the beds were going to go, which was hard to do because our yard is VERY shady. We have 3 very large trees and the house so a lot of the day our yard is shaded, and the leaves aren't quite developed on the trees yet so it was hard to judge. Hopefully the spot we picked turns out ok. It does look nice with the beds at the end of the sidewalk to nowhere. We used all the dirt we got from Jeffry's uncles as a nice base, and we did end up buy and bag of topsoil to fill it in the rest of the way. 

We got a 64 qt. bag for $15 and it filled the beds nicely with a tiny bit left over. Our beds are 3'x5'. I like that this soil is supposed to help with over and under-watering since this is my first garden.

So that was Saturday, and Sunday I put some plants in. I started most of my plants by seed, but I did buy a few things. I bought a tomato plant, a cucumber (because I forgot I bought the seeds for them), mint (for that same reason) and onions. I started onions from seed even though I heard they were hard to grow. They did sprout so I was excited, but then they all got wilty and died. Boo. So I bought some young onion plants (which are called 'sets') and put those in yesterday too. My seedlings I have not put in the ground yet, but they did spend some time outside yesterday to help them get acclimated. I did put some seeds directly in the ground yesterday too. My herbs (basil, chives and thyme) and lettuce. Oh, and the plants I bought were like $3.50 each for anyone wondering. 

I also bought this guy for $9 since it is supposed to be for transplanted plants and that's what most of mine are.
Can't be too prepared!

Here is Spencer overseeing from the house:

And here is the state of our garden as of today:

Oh yeah I forgot to tell you about our little fence situation. We of course have squirrels, we have a woodchuck living under the neighbors shed and I know we have skunks in the neighborhood, so I wanted to protect our plants from them. The stakes were $4 for 12, and the chicken wire was I think like $12 and its 2'x25', though we are a tiny bit short. I don't know if we are going to get a whole new roll for just that little bit we might try and figure something else out, but I for sure do not want any little rodent mouths on my little seedlings.

This week is supposed to be really nice, high of 70 or so every day with only a few sprinkles here and there. Perfect for new plants! So I want to try and get the plants I started from seed in the ground in the next few days. I still have bell pepper, hot pepper, beets and carrots to go in!

OH!! I almost forgot I made these too:

Super simple and self explainatory. And a 50% off JoAnn's coupon to boot :)

Friday Fitness & 7 Weeks til Vacation!!

Happy Friday guys! (Thank goodness) I have been sooo tired this week I feel.

So last Friday I told you all about my 3 mini health goals, here. But to recap, I chose my top 3 get healthy goals, and each week I'm tackling a new one. Here's the list:

1- I'm a lazy ass B
2- I cook mostly fatty comfort foods since that it what Jeffry likes to eat
3- I love junk food snacks

And here is how I plan to work on those 3 things over the next 3 weeks:

Week 1- Be active 4 days a week, even if it is just taking walks with Ruby.
            - Each walk try and increase our speed until  I can jog bits
            - Try to add some strength training after each walk even if it is a short workout video.
                (Week 1 is over but I am for sure still working on not being so damn lazy)
Week 2- Use this book which I already own to make Jeffry's favorite foods healthier.
Week 3- Only buy healthy snacks this week so we don't have junk around

This week was tough. I had two birthdays this week so there was a lot to do. I only got in 2 walks so far (insert shame face) but Sundays was a great one. My sister and I took Ruby, and it was the perfect day. Nice and sunny, but just chilly enough that we weren't hot and sweaty.

I also took a nice walk Tuesday with some friends around the neighborhood but I forgot to start my pedometer. It was leisurely, but probably a half hour or so. Taking Ruby brings a walk to a whole 'nother level since my arms get a great workout yanking her around lol.

As you guys (maybe) know, last week I linked up with The Foley Fam for her summer shape up. Today she posted about this workout and I'm gonna try it! I have had the Tone It Up app for a while now but have never done a single thing with it. Cue shame face again. I really need to get my act together guys! Beach vacation in 7 weeks!

Can I look like this please???

If you want, head over and sign up for free! I need all the motivation I can get... Anyway, I'll be back next Friday to let you know how I'm doing, and hopefully I'll have some healthy recipes to share too. If you join the Bikini Series let me know! We're in this together!

Miracles

Who on Earth would have guessed, but this little miracle turns 5 today!!!

She's not my child, but she is one of my best friends. We even have BFF necklaces to prove it. Kassaundra was born on April 25, 2008. And she was born with Transposition of the Great Arteries, or TGA. Basically, the arteries that come from her heart were reversed, so the new, oxygenated blood was not going to the rest of her body. Did you know that 1 in 100 babies are born with a Congenital Heart Defect? 

Kassaundra's defect was not caught until days after she was sent home. She is lucky to have no lasting effects of the TGA since her open heart surgery, but many other families do not have the same outcome. If Kassie had had a pulse oximetry test at the time of her birth, the defect would have been caught right away. All a pulse ox test is is a sensor placed on the babies skin to test the babies blood oxygen level. It doesn't even hurt! Simple, painless, and takes only mere minutes. Many lives can be saved by this simple test, so mommas make sure you demand it for your new baby!

This is probably my favorite picture in the. whole. world. I love these two soooo much!

My best girl is growing up to be so smart and sassy, just like her BFF. I couldn't imagine life without her!

Guy Gift Ideas

First I want to say...

and in honor of Jeffry's birthday I thought I would share some guy gift ideas!

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I think this would be really fun for anyone who played guitar

I originally found it on Spoonsisters which unfortunately no longer exists, but I did find one like it on Urban Outfitters  for $30

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How about an iPhone dock made out of engine parts!

This one is from Plane Pieces Inc (marked down to $98) on Etsy

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Food

This one's obvious.

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How about a map of his favorite stadium, or the state where you met/live:

Syke! That's my favorite stadium :P
These are only $40 each from City Prints, not bad!

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So for this one, the link I pinned didn't go anywhere. I literally googled "shot glass card" and found it.
Only $5 not counting the booze.

I mean, what guy wouldn't want this for his birthday? The cards comes with its own shotglass!

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Something I've gotten Jeffry before is a half gallon of his favorite Cold Stone ice cream

Jeffry's fave combo is mint ice cream with mini chocolate chips

It's expensive, like almost $10 for the largest size, but it's a nice treat that he doesn't always get.

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So tonight we will be opening presents (he reads my blog so I can't tell you what he's getting) and he requested fried chicken for dinner. Good thing I'm not working on my healthy eating goal until next week!

Trash to Treasure: Headboard Edition

Here is another project we did for our bedroom. We completed it some time ago but the BF is very proud of it and I wanted to post it for anyone who hasn't seen it.

So you guys remember this post about the dresser from the side of the road.

Exhibit A

Directly across from that is our bed, and henceforth our headboard. The inspiration came from one of my first pins ever. This pic:

here. You can find my whole bedroom inspiration board here.

So the BF was on the hunt for reclaimed wood. He brought home some pallets and those sat around for a while, and then Jeffry found these in a vacant lot:

And I think we heard angels. Just kidding. (Sort of.) We don't know if they were railroad ties or what. They were nailed together in groups of 2 so we thought that was kinda weird. And who knows how long they had been there but they were distressed and they were AWESOME. Not only was the wood old, but they had all sorts of dents and marks, and even big old nails in them. Reclaimed wood perfection. Each beam is 5' long (perfect for our queen bed) and they weigh a wopping 70 lbs. each. This is how we brought them home:

There's probably an 8-12" difference there easy!

 We let them sit in our backyard for a while, and then they got a good scrub down to remove any bugs and plants that had taken up residence. After that they got a few good coats of varnish to seal them

Then we had to decide how we wanted to put it together. The beams were so heavy that we didn't want to use any more than we needed to, so we cut a piece in half to use as a base. You can see that here:

This part is covered by our mattress anyway. We also had to figure out how to connect the beams together, since we didn't want a couple hundred pounds toppling over on our heads in the middle of the night! So what we did was we drilled a hole down through all the beams, and stuffed a 1" dowel down the hole. We used L brackets to connect the whole thing to the wall, and we also used heavy duty screws and metal plated on the back, like this:

Can't be too safe when there's hundreds of pounds looming over your melon!

I love how he sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating ;P

This is the pretty much finished product

Another bit of inspiration for the whole project was that Jeffry found some industrial looking lighting that was getting thrown out at his work, and he really wanted to add them to our headboard. They were originally hard wired, but I found some switched cords at IKEA that we used instead so we can switch them on and off from the bed, and they just plug into an outlet. We are both so happy with how it turned out!

With the overhead light on and off. Complete with Kitty photo bomb.

And sometimes he likes to do this:

He's about 3x that size now the little chunk

A Tribute Mani & Weekend Recap

Some of you might have seen on my Facebook that I was brainstorming ideas for a Boston tribute manicure. I also happened to order some nail polish pens that came in the mail last week. So here is what I came up with.

See how cool those pens are? Super easy to use. Don't mind how messy my fingers are btw.

For anyone who doesn't know and might be interested, there is a Boston tribute run at Onondaga Lake Park starting at the Salt Museum at 6. Jeffry has to work tonight and is super bummed he can't participate.

To find a run in your city check out pavementrunner.com

And as for what I did the rest of the weekend...

*Second hockey game in two weeks! We're getting to be regulars. Bonus! We won this time! 

*Spencer has never sat in this chair in his. entire. life. Until the day we decide to get rid of it. Now it is his little throne.

*Ruby loves my parents front door. The window it the perfect height for her! In this picture she is wondering why her friend Bill left all of a sudden. (My dad had to leave for a structure fire during dinner. and those two are besties)

*Ruby, my sister and I took an awesome walk yesterday. it was the perfect day, sunny but brisk so we were sweating our butts off. More about our activities for the week to come on Friday.

As you can see we didn't do too much. We went to a friends house Saturday night for cards and actually all just ended up sitting on the couch talking while the dogs played! It was still fun though :) 

Here's to an easy Monday!