New Years, New Years, New Years
So we spent the New Years Holiday in Wolcott, Indiana with my really good friend Amanda! Our friends Chris and Carrie and their son Miles drove up from Evansville. Ed and Laura from Lafayette also drove out to hang with us for the New Years. We had the opportunity to meet new people (from Amanda’s Church), and to gossip with her about her new boy toy…When am I going to meet him…hrm?!?! And drink alot of really good scotch. It was a great night. I had the opportunity to hold Chris and Carrie’s son Miles until he fell asleep and then cuddle with him in a chair for about an hour. Heaven! All in all it was a wonderful way to ring in a New Year!
This weekend was the first in a long time that Pete and I had no where to go! Yea! We went to the mall and Bahama Breeze on Friday. Then we were hanging around on Saturday, when I decided I wanted to check if the new Tomb Raider game was available for the 360. So Pete and I drove the mile and half to the Village, and headed to Gamestop. Well that one did not have a copy of the game, so we began debating driving another 1/2 mile to the Adam’s road Gamestop or just going home. We walked back out to the car, got in (still debating mind you), and Pete turned the Key. Nothing. Not a crank over, not a light coming on, nothing. The battery was dead, and it was cold, and neither of us was really dressed to walk a mile and a half…but we did any way. Back to the house. In the cold. My ears were frozen! We picked up Pete’s car and drove back up to the village and jumped my battery. Then we drove to Sears – which by the time we got there was too full, and back home…no new battery in site. We got up and left the house around 11:30 on Sunday and drove back to Sears, where we were able to FINALLY get the battery changed – YEA! Then we grabbed lunch at Kabob Grill in the Village and went to the Adam’s Road Gamestop and were able to find the New Tomb Raider – a used copy at that! And I spent the rest of the evening playing to my hearts content!
And now back to my job – and the neurotic people I work with! It’s a real examination of the human psyche in this joint! It’s really fun to play with people’s minds as well (insert evil laugh here). Afterwork, my coworker Caitlyn and I headed off to Royal Oak for an Acting Class at the Actor’s Workshop. Yup…You heard me right an acting class. I used to be a part of theater in High School, before I lost my confidence in myself…so here I am getting my feet wet and trying it all over again. Our class has 11 people in it…5 women, 6 men. So last night was interesting. We started with a relaxation excercise, and then onto a warm up exercise. Then we proceeded to do a memory imprinting. We were paired up, and one person told a very vivid memory to another person, and the second person was to tell the memory with imagry as if it were their own. This week I was the one taking possesion of someone else’s memory, and next week I’ll be telling my memory. Then we did a repitition excercise, and then onto Inprove. I am not very good at this whole improve thing…so that’s my goal to get better at that. All in all it was a great experience!
So the long and short of it…I had a wonderful New Years…an eventful and relaxing weekend, a normal day at work and a fantastic first class. 
Happy 2009 – Hope you try something new this year!
What do a .44 Magnum, a .22 Rifle and a .410 Shotgun have in common?
Hunter’s safety class for Whitni! My mom and I took Hunter’s Safety this weekend at the River Raisen Sportsman’s Club in Blissfield. It was 8 until 5 on Saturday (a TON of videos), along with a tree stand and bow hunting demonstration, and ending with some shooting oportunities, which is where I got the opportunity to shoot a .44 Magnum. And then 12 until 6 on Sunday. With the test (which by the way I got 100% on), and then training on when to shoot and when to not shoot, gun safety, and then indoor target shooting with .22 rifles and outdoor Trap shooting with shotguns (I used the .410). I did really well on the gun safety, and the .22, however not so good with the .410. My mother hit one of the trap out of 5, I only hit 0. Yes folks that’s Zero! However, my target shooing with the .22 I had 4 out 5 shots within only a cm of the bullseye (at 50 feet). So that was pretty cool.
Other than that our weekend was pretty quiet. Peter is on his way to Chicago for a couple of days for work, and will get back on Wednesday. Then I will be leaving around 4 on Friday to drive down to Evansville for our friend Emily’s Wedding Shower. Should be a good time. Hopeing to see some of our fantastic friends!!!! Things seem to be going better all around! Whoo!
Green Makes the World Go Round
So my quest and desire to go green, more organic keeps on keeping on.
Pete and I have missed out (again mind you) on signing up for a local CSA 
*Boo, Hiss* However, while looking thorough localharvest.org last week, I stumbled on a local buying club (year round even) called La Vida Local. The owner Julie is a very upbeat and friendly woman. The buying club runs this way: she works with local farmers and producing companies to procure items that are organic and green. Every week she sends you a shopping list (and it is quite extensive). This past week our list had oh so many items, ranging from Dairy to produce to meat to beauty items as well as cleaning items. You pick out what you want (we got a beautiful Steak (HUGE), ground beef, Cottage Cheese, Raw Milk Gouda, Spaghetti Sauce and Ricotta Gnocchi as well as a stainless coffee/ice tea mug for me. Then you pay her though pay pal for your times and $5 for delivery and she delivers these items to your home. It’s fabulous. I cannot wait to try what we bought…I feel steak coming on.
Target has also started carrying really inexpensive shopping bags that fit into your purse. I picked up two. One was $.99 and fits really easily into my purse, and the other was $1.50 and is huge, but folds up to about the size of small book, but really thin. I keep that one in my car. Great idea for being on the run and not bringing home too many plastic bags.
I also purchased fabric last night to try to make my own reusable menstrual pads. Keep your fingers crossed about my sewing skills!
Well that’s about it. Pete and I are heading to Ann Arbor on Saturday to pick up my dress for my sister’s wedding, and then we are relaxing the whole weekend long! Whoo! Have a great weekend everyone!
There’s a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today…
Well it’s been a little bit since I’ve updated 
Oops! We’ve had an extremely busy (but lovely) couple of weeks here in Michigan. On the 19th we hosted my sister Chelsea’s wedding shower, which might I add was a BLAST! I rock…I know it!
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| Chelsea’s Wedding Shower |
Last week at work was pretty busy. We had a couple of people out of the office and it made for interesting moments. But the weekend rocked. Natalie and Rob drove out from Wisconsin to hang with us and the four of us went to The Police Concert (with special guest Elvis Costello) at DTE (which is an outdoor amphitheaters). It was a GREAT concert…and I must say it may actually tie with seeing the Violent Femmes…Just saying! Elvis rocked our socks off. He was charismatic, and his songs were fabu! Just love that man! Then The Police came on stage. And OH MY GOD! They were fantastic. They did all the favorites, and some newer ones. There were 2 encores, and we didn’t leave DTE until 11:30. It was a fantastically long and beautiful concert. I danced and sang my ass off, and was generally just ecstatic! If you get a chance to see them in concert…GO! They Rocked. Nat took some pics, so when I get them from here, I’ll post them here. We had pretty good lawn seats…so we’ll see.
Pete’s mom is flying in on Wednesday and then the 3 of us are going to see Neil Diamond at The Palace of Auburn Hills…I’ll let you know how that one goes! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
Happy Friday (Couldn’t find a proper title)
Happy, Happy Happy Friday! I love Fridays! Pete has the day off today, to go to the airport and pick up his folks. Whoo! Susan and Thomas will be visiting us through Saturday, July 19th. It’ll be nice to see them. I’m not sure what all we have planned, but I know tonight when I get off of work, I will be heading to Trader Joe’s to pick up some Korean Short Ribs and Fried Rice for dinner. Pete can grill the ribs on the grill. They are fantastic! Yummm!
In other news…I had my first attack of emotionalness with the progesterone today. My boss thought I was mad at her, and came in and said something and I started crying. Seriously. Most of my side effect symptoms to the progesterone have been just extreme tiredness…but today the emotional end hit in. Which makes sense since it’s a hormoney and all. If this works, I will be the most annoying pregnant lady eva!
Uh….other than that…not much to say thus far. …Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!!!
Happy Fourth of July Everyone!!!
So my Fourth of July weekend Rocked? How about yours? We drove down to Amanda’s on Thursday after work and arrived around 11:30 pm. Hung out and talked until 2 and then crashed out! We got up and going early Friday morning and Pete and I headed to Rochester, Indiana. About 1 hour 15 minutes from Amanda’s place to visit with Jess, Andy and Rowan and Jess’ folks. It was a beautiful morning and afternoon. I got to hold my new nephew forever! And Jess’ folks took us all out on a fantastic ride around the lake and we had a wonderful lunch with them! I loved seeing Jess and Andy – although seeing Rowan was the highlight. After that, we left around 2:30 and headed back to Wolcott and met back up with AP. Pete, AP and I headed to West Lafayette, Indiana to Ed and Laura’s house for food and fireworks. Chris, Carrie, Steve, and Lindsay met us there. And we had a good ole time! AP, Pete and I headed back to Wolcott. On Saturday, Chris, Carrie, Steve, Lindsay, Ed and Laura and kids, met us back at AP’s. Chris and Emily drove on over from Illinois, and AP’s friends from Church, Tammy and Dean and Miranda and Paul and kids came over for a fantatically fun cookout! Lots of Food, Lots of Beer and lots of fireworks! Emily’s Chris played tag with the kids for around an hour – and that was a TON of entertainment (and then they pulled him into the corn)! In the morning on Sunday, Chris, Carrie, STeve and Lindsay headed back to Evansville (then on to Savannah for Chris and Carrie). Pete and I headed back to Michigan! We had a wonderful weekend! Thanks to everyone who helped to make that possible! I cannot wait to see everyone again!
**I used Picasa for my pictures below. Click on the set you want to see, then click in the upper left hand corner to get the slideshow options** Enjoy!
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| Fourth of July – Jess, Andy and Rowan Zellers |
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| Fourth of July – Ed and Laura’s |
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| Fourth of July – Amanda’s House |
Friday’s must be Blog Post Days…
Well welcome to Friday! Yea! This has been a pretty slow and yet busy week…Ah…the paradox! Work has been up and down. I still really like my job…it has it’s moments and people I think about slapping, but mostly it’s been pretty darn good and good to me! I’ve been doing a whole lot of research lately on “Greener Living” and it’s pretty interesting. Peter and I don’t do enough, but we’re trying and I think that’s what matters.
Some of the things I have been trying….
- I have gotten whole hog into a company called Lush and I am loving it! Lush is a cosmetic’s company without the makeup….LOL Whatever that means! It has soaps, and shampoo, body wash, lotion, etc. The thing I like about it is that it’s reducing the amount of packaging out there, and it’s using mostly organic and good for your ingredients in their items. I LOVE their solid shampoos and conditioner (don’t knock it until you try it – WAY better than the stuff I got in Salons) and their bars of soap (so conditioning, and better than body washes). Their face stuff is divine…my skin has NEVER looked so good and in control. It’s great. I highly recommend this company to everyone!
- We recycle, recycle, recycle. I didn’t realize while we were living in E’ville that there was actually recycling (the idea was so hidden there). When we moved here, we found out that our garbage company picks up recycling. WOOO. We now have more recycling going out than trash…It’s been pretty happy go lucky for us.
- I have been researching better cleaning products for the home, and items that I can make myself…so that’s been fun. I’ve found a laundry detergent, that I cannot wait to try (once our current environmentally friendly detergent is gone ) I have also purchased those dryer balls to see if those work as good as dryer sheets. I have not been able to give up my dryer or my hair dryer yet…Sorry Jane!
- I’ve also been doing some research on feminine hygiene products that create less landfill issues. Because as most women know…we go through a lot of that on a daily basis! LOL I’ve been researching Moon Cups and Diva Cups (need to talk to the croch doc first), Sea sponge’s and Reusable Cloth pads. We’ll see…it maybe more trouble than it’s worth though….I know the Cloth vs Disposable diaper debate is still on….
- Composting…but do I garden enough to warrant this…The debate is on.
- I really want to ride my bike to work, but there are some MAJOR roads on which I travel…so we’ll see about this one too. I need to take the Clinton River Trail and see where the dumps me off near my office…maybe.
We are also heading down to my mom’s this weekend. My Aunt is having a purse party, and since this weekend is father’s day, we’d like to see my step-father! Then we’ll go to my dad’s for a combo Father’s Day/Pete’s Birthday! Whew! It’ll be a busy weekend, but at least we’re seeing family along the way!!!!
Bike Riding – the New Drug
Pete finally got our bikes in riding order! Whoo! Oakland County has some absolutely beautiful trails. We are in love. After Pete put a TON of oil on my poor rusted chain (very rusted from lack of use (abuse I know)). We finally head out with our dork helmets on. I told Pete – I don’t know if I’ll make it to the end of the DRIVE!!! LOL We ended up biking from our home, to downtown Rochester and back. All told a WONDERFUL 8 mile bike ride in about 3 hours, with a stop for lunch…not bad. I thought I would die going up one of the hills, but I lived (with many, many stops!). This is going to be our new obsession (and at least it’s a healthy one). We ended up going out for about 1/2 hour on Sunday as well after my cousin’s graduation party. So I think we are on the road to good stuff! (Although my butt is killing me…I really think I bruised some of the bones in my butt…who knew there were actually bones there…LOL).
In other fantastic news…I got tickets this weekend…for my sister and I…to…Ready for this…NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK. Oh yes…the boys are coming to Michigan to the Palace of Auburn Hills (which is litterly 5 minutes down the road from our house…Sec 115, Row DD, Seats 1 and 2…we are almost on the floor. Whoo! I am totally geeking about this…mostly because I didn’t get to see them when I was a kid…and oh how I loved them. I know they are old, and I’m sure they don’t sound quite the same…but I will be happy all the same…
So that means, we’ve seen Avenue Q, Eddie Izzard, will see The Police and now I’ll see NKOTB…can I get anymore fabulous!!!!
Went to my cousin’s graduation party this past weekend, and took a few pictures…not much to share…but some:) My Cousin Shawn’s son Jace is getting huge, and did this HUGE dive bomb into my chest…most action I saw all weekend!!!
