You say it's your birthday...It's my birthday too, yeah

Our beloved CEOreo turns 8 today. These were taken when she was just a little pup, probably not more than 8 weeks old. John got CEOreo her first bone. Already spoiling her.This was her first birthday. We got her a cupcake from the regular bakery. If you blinked you missed it.Last year we got her a cake from the pet bakery,Bag of Bones Bakery. It's better for her since it was made just for dogs but I forgot to put it in the refrigerator, so she got half a cake. Apparently cream cheese frosting needs refrigeration. This year, Gregg, one of the owners of Bag of Bones Bakery, made sure to remind me a few times to put this one in the fridge. This year I made room just for her cake. The cake was so beautiful and she loved it! Of Course she loves most things that she can eat. And it's gone. Thanks again to, Bag of Bones Bakery for making such an awesome cake. I highly recommend them to all my doggie friends not just for cakes but for healthy treats, wholesome dog food and high quality dog toys. Oh yeah, it's my birthday too! Yes, CEOreo and I have the same birthday. I think that is part of the reason mom picked her.

My birthday weekend started on Friday with Eet Gud donuts at work. Sweatshop worker Kimmy gave me a gift card so I can go to Olive Garden and have some raviolis (yummy). Saturday morning I received flowers from mom, Ralphie and CEOreo. They are so cool. I think that once they are wilted beyond help I'm going to re-do the arrangement with artificial flowers.
Then I had a really nice lunch with my good friends Chris and Dave. I have known Chris for over 20 years. This is us in Animal Kingdom in Dec 07. They took me on Expedition Everest for my first ride. We went to Uno's and talked Disney and upcoming March of Dimes events. I got a gift card to Torrid, love there stuff, Ace of Cakes Season 1 DVD and a Disney Pin, love the pin. They keep me out of the house for a few hours over lunch so mom and her kitchen elves could decorate my cake. Mom made me a cool and different cake again this year. You can see lil bro and SIL Sharon assisted. Look out Ace of Cakes, she's got a team of hard working and talented cake decorators too!They made me these guys. Aren't they cute? In case you haven't been to a Hallmark store in awhile, let me introduce you to Hoops and Yoyo. They are a bit odd but really funny. I have a secret crush on them. I go to there web site all the time to play around with their e-cards. I am friends with them on Faceb00k. I even have a few of their ring tones.
And not only were they cute, they were delicious too! They were the theme to this years birthday. I got several cards that I'm sure I will were out (they are the talking kind), a cool manners book Hoops and Yoyo style, a christmas ornament, a fridge magnet and a t-shirt (from mom) all with them on it. And don't forget the talking gift bag too!

Lil bro and SIL Sharon also got me tickets to the Billy Joel/Elton John concert this summer. As you know SIL Sharon is an incredible knitter with a shared love of Disney. She found some really great sock yarn that have the Mickey colors and she said it screamed for her to make me a pair of socks with it. I'm sure that she will blog about it soon. But I have the first pictures.
The best part is that they can be seen threw to holes in my Mickey Crocs.Hubby got me a really cute penguin, a Reese Peanut Butter cup, a card mocking my list making habit and some pins. Mom got me some pins too. You know me and pins.
I had a great birthday. I relaxed, crafted a bit, had a nice dinner with a Mango Mai Tai and had yummy cake. I'd say that is an excellent day.

Why don't we get drunk and screw......

We'll it is Valentine's Day after all. Thanks to Jimmy Buffett again for the great blog title. But it doesn't mean what you think it does, you dirty minded friends of mine.

My wonderful hubby has had a hobby for many, many years. Long before I met him he started to collect cool antique radios. He has more than a few. Until a few weeks ago they were safely stored up in the attic. He has finished everything that he had planned on doing on my honey-do-list. That doesn't mean everything got done, just what he had planned on finishing. He is now getting bored and he needed something to tinker with until he gets called back to work. So out came the radios. All over the living room. All over. (It's ok, breathe, it's ok it will get back to normal when he is back to work) The bar, the desk, the buffet table, the coffee table, the fish tank and on the shelf over the TV all have radios or radio parts scattered on them. It's a work in progress.

So today he was multi-tasking thus the blog title.

Unfortunately, not all the radios were stored safely. One got broken, pretty bad. But it became a challenge and now a work of art for John.

First, he glued the piece in place and then once dry covered it with epoxy, the bondo didn't work. Then he sanded it smooth and painted it. He found a color that was very close to the original, Hammer Tone Blue. You would never tell, unless he showed you where it was broken.

To make sure he keeps busy during the day, I got him a radio for Valentines Day. I secretly got it for him and he was very surprised.

While he's been fiddling around with that I have been busy cutting out plastic canvas football helmet parts. Sweatshop is busy working hard so we can try to be ahead of schedule this year. We have already sold three. The Superb0wl Helmets were gone before game day and bought buy the same guy. I've also been working on patterns for some baseball teams this year. I'll let you know how and if that turns out.

I hope everyone enjoyed this Hallmark holiday.

We know the CEOreo did!

Honey, Did that meatball taste funny to you? Our Vacation.

Sorry, I didn't get to this when we got home but it's been a bit busy around here in the craft world, more on that next blog post. This post is about our lovely vacation to what is suppose to be warm Florida.

We left Trenton bright and early Monday morning to catch our flight to Orlando. All went smooth regarding our flight and rental car, except that one toll booth that didn't have anybody working at it and we didn't have any change, but I digress. We checked into the POP Century and our room was ready, which is always a nice surprise. We grabbed a quick bite in the food court and then off to Magic Kingdom. I was very excited since it was John's first trip there. I couldn't wait to tell him about all the cool little tidbits and trivia.

The hotel gave him a 1st time Visitors button to wear. They gave us both an Anniversary button too. That was really nice. John graciously wore his on his hat. He is a good sport. We rode the Jungle Cruise, Carousel of Progress and we went to see the Tiki Room. John went on Pirates of the Caribbean with me! Yeah and he survived the drop! Double Yeah! And then I tortured him by riding It's a Small World which we have both now renames It's a Creepy World and have sworn the ride off from any future trips. Been there, done that, no need to ever go back. We got to see Daisy Duck, Tinkerbell and her friends, Rafiki and of course Mickey and Minnie.

We had dinner at the Crystal Palace. The food is normally really good here. All in all it was ok for a buffet and for me it was about Winnie the Pooh and friends. I tried to make reservations that allowed us to see the characters without having to stand in line and wait a long time, not hubby's strongest quality. So we took pictures with Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger. Again, John was a great sport.

While we were enjoying our dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken and meatballs, John asked, "Do the meatballs taste funny to you?" Mine were cold so they didn't taste that great to start with. But we didn't think any of it till.....later on that evening when the local EMS arrived checking us for dehydration. Yes, the EMS. They arrived about 3 hours after John, then myself got ill. Very, very ill. I think food poisoning but Disney will never admit to that. We didn't know if we were coming or going, well mostly going. We had fevers, sweats, chills, a stomach ache right out of Alien and only two rolls of toilet paper. Thankfully we had two garbage buckets. 'Nuff said.

THREE DAYS LATER!!! We had managed to drive ourselves to Key West and began to eat solid food again. Key West was great but a little cool for the area. Of course when I called home to say hi, we made it to Key West and we are starting to feel better but it is cold here, all we got from mom and Kim was "It's 63 degrees there HA! that isn't cold, it's 12 degrees here with a wind chill of -3 degrees." No sympathy.

We rode the Trolley around the Island again this year. And I got to go to the historic lighthouse.

And John dragged me to the Butterfly Conservatory which was nice as long as they didn't land on me. Freaked me out all the bugs, over 1,000 of them, just flying around you. But they were pretty.

And we were feeling much better because we were able to get our drink on at the Rum Barrel, which we will most definitely be returning to next year. I made a quick call home and to work so everybody could see me on the web cam on Duval Street. John did this for me the last fall when he took a quick trip to Key West without me. It was cool to see him waving to me from there so I wanted to wave to somebody at home too! We didn't get to see the sunset festival this year because they had some stupid ESPN Boxing match set up in the middle of the pier. That's ok because we just got some ice-cream and sat out on our deck with our new friends Ethel and Fred, the mourning doves. Who never stopped cooing. We sat there a lot since it directly over looked the ocean.

The best day weather wise, of course, was the day we left. We woke to blue skies and a morning temp of 71 degrees. But we were heading home.

We are hoping to try it all over again next year. We hope to spend a few nights in Disney again and maybe catch the Luau and make it to another park this time. And spend a few extra days longer than we have in the past in Key West. But I do know one thing we won't be doing next year, eating any meatballs.

Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude

As you are reading this I am somewhere in warm, sunny Florida with my wonder hubby. We are on our vacation. My part of the trip is two nights in Walt Disney W0rld and his part is three nights in Key West.

This will be hubby's first trip to Walt Disney W0rld. Please pray for me that he has a good time and that we both are granted with great patience.

This was a test run this summer in NYC. I hope he feels some of the magic.

Key West will be wonderfully relaxing. Just a couple of Mai Tai's and beach chairs and we will be all set. This was the view from our room last year. This year we hope to be looking right out over the ocean. Of course will we be stopping every night on our way back to get some yummy banana ice cream.

I will fill you all in on our trip when we return. See you real soon!

Happy Delurking Day!

Come out, come out, where ever you are.....It's Delurking Day! Yep, that's right. Read the site? Comment. Comment all the time? Cool, thank you! A little shy? Come on, comment - you know you wanna. Go comment all willy-nilly all over the blogosphere. You'll be glad you did. And trust me, the bloggers to whom you delurk to will appreciate it.

And you shouldn't just do it on this blog, you should also do it on the other blogs you may read where you haven't commented before. We know you're out there, reading the blog but never sharing your thoughts with us. We've been watching you (we're pretty sure it's legal now). I have lurkers. That’s totally fine with me, I am just thrilled that anyone reads me at all. I don’t want to add to the pressure or shame anyone into leaving a message. But it’s your chance to give me an idea of just how many of you are out there reading my blog, I'm just curious. I would still continue to blog my boring and sometimes crazy life and crafts even if nobody ever stopped by and said hey.

You don’t have to say a lot it can be a simple hello or you can tell me what you had for dinner, either tonight or last night. Or your favorite kind of cookie. Or, maybe, what's great in your life currently? It only happens once a year so let’s get out there and delurk!

2008 - A year in Review

In January, we got a brand new Jeep. That we are still slowly modifying. I was hoping to drive it around and play in the snow last year but the only time it snowed enough for me to even think about playing, I was in Florida for my birthday. Oh well, maybe this year.Hubby and I took out yearly vacation to some place warm the second week of January. We went to Key West, Fl. It was so wonderful and we loved it so much we are going back again this year. Then I had the BEST birthday ever! I celebrated by going to Walt Disney World! My extra special birthday included the Pirates and Princess Party, total embarrassment at several restaurants and to be the Grand Marshall of the 3 o'clock parade. It was AWESOME! If you want to read more I have a complete recap here

Then the floods came. This is a sore spot for me. I recapped it all here First half of 2008 Part 1 and First half of 2008 Part 2.

Mom and I made many cool cakes this year.

My Pirate Ship Birthday CakeThis Chocolate Overload cake.Sharon's Ball of Yarn CakeHubby's Monkey CakeHalloween Party CakesMom's Birthday CakeI also dared to try some new crafts. This is my unfinished quilt. It will be a goal for me this year to get the quilt top sewn together. And this is the one Cross stitch piece I made and will probably be the last that I make for a long time. I like the holes to be much bigger when I sew. Like on Elmo. This tissue box cover was a secret Christmas present for Alex. My favorite 2 year old. There were a couple other secret projects like the Baby Carriage for sweatshop worker Kimmy. And the Christmas Card holder Sled for my friend Chris. If you look back in my Archives you will see that I got sucked into some crazy and silly Meme’s this year. And I'm not sure how we got anything done with our drunken crafting nights. In the late summer all of you had the chance to vote on some on the upcoming projects that I would be doing for the craft show. We were only able to finish a few of the winners but I hope to complete the rest for the next show. These are two of the favorites that we got to making. I also made a secret wedding card cake holder for Sairy and John in September. In the fall mom and I got new Bikes and took some great rides around town and beyond. I hope to ride a lot more this year and maybe even get to see the Eagle that I heard so much about but kept missing.

I found a fun fall hobby, Carving Pumpkins. I carved over 25 different pumpkins this year and I hope to add many new and different ones next Halloween. I had so much fun with these. Then I was lucky enough to make a return trip to Disney World on Halloween with Sharon. We attended Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party. The weather was great and I had a blast.In December came the Craft Show. This is what we work so hard for every year. I feel we did a great job this year. My sweatshop are the best!The holidays came and went and I was super busy. I didn't get a chance to blog at all. Here is just a few photos from the end of December.

Mom in her warm blanket. Made for her by sweatshop worker Kimmy for Christmas. Love that green color.I got my very own Light Box. Now I don't have to hold others for months at a time. As soon as I have something to take a picture of I will let you know how wonderful it is.I got a piece of real Flair! "Yo Ho Ho Ho I'd rather sit on Captain Jacks lap!"And finally I'm going to try to start a new tradition. After 7 years of marriage I hope to start taking a nice, sweet, civil picture of me and hubby next to the tree of Christmas Eve. I hope to look back on them 10, 20 years from now and think, "My goddess, I was so young and skinny"

To all of you who continue to visit my blog, I thank you. I wish everyone a safe, healthy, happy new year! Looking forward to a fun filled 2009!