TV Commercials

TV Commercials. You either hate them or you love them. Or you love some of them and hate all the rest.  Am I right or am I right?

Me, I'm slightly indifferent. I'm the person that forgets I can forward the commercials while something on the DVR. I love some and others annoy the crap out of me but I don't mind that they interrupt my shows. For some reason I started thinking about old commercials that I just love. The ones that have stuck with me and I wish were still on TV. I thought I would share some of them with you!

First, my all time favorite. Is the old old cool whip commercial they would play around the holidays. You know the one where the go "Do the coo ooo oool whii iiippp COOL WHIP!!" (I know the effect is lost in writing)   I still wish this would play around the holidays. Love it!

Then there is the old Pepsi commercials with the little girl. You know who I'm talking about! The little girl with the big curly hair that HAD to have a Pepsi! Those were always great to watch as well! Awesomeness!

And one last one though there are quite a few that get stuck in my head! You remember that yoplait yogurt commercial right? With the song "she wore and itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini..." in it? Now did that get stuck in your head or what! In high school one of my teachers banned us from singing that any more. (Yes, we sang it enough that was necessary.)  One of those that just caught you up. Ya know?

Well, now that you want Cool Whip, Pepsi, Yoplait yogurt, and have the itsy bitsy song stuck in your head, y'all have a good night! Oh, and feel free to comment about your favorite commercials as well! Spread the madness!

Just a Side Note

There is a pigs head on our dining room table. (Actually it's a boars head) But it's still a head sitting on the table and it startles me every time I walk into the room. I have no clue why it was put there or why it is still there. 

That is all. 

Curse the cold and other things

I have a summer cold and I strongly dislike it. And when I say strongly I mean I am cursing the cold. (I want to yell it like "curse you Perry the Platypus but it just doesn't have the same ring to it)  Along with cursing the cold it has also made me extremely irritable today. If you would like confirmation I can give you a list of coworkers who heard, felt, and witnessed my irritation today. Speaking of irritation I don't know what was with people this week. I dealt with a TON of attitude this week that I did not appreciate on top of this cursed cold. (Now that sounds good. Cursed cold. It flows.)   

Now for the other things.

I worked on some fun projects last night. I will tell you about them when I get decent pictures. They didn't turn out exactly as I imagined but I like 'em.

I want to change up my blog. Make it exciting, easy to use, nice, and just change it up. I added a new background if you didn't notice. But the other stuff is a little more difficult to figure out.

I've decided I need to get out of my comfort zone. Not sure how I will do that yet but....it's in the works. I'm very much stuck in my rut and realized it isn't good. Are you stuck in your routine and normal stuff? Ever tried to change it up? What did you do? I'm open to suggestions. (That aren't outlandish or freak me out) 

My last other thing is an announcement. I'm working on a top secret project! Very very top secret. You can't know anything about it until the appropriate time. Which cannot be explained because of what it could give away. All I can say it is brilliant and those that know about it LOVE it! (Don't let the anticipation kill you please! 

That is a wrap up of my other things. Now back to nursing my cursed cold...

The Storybook Life

Do you have a favorite book, story, or fairytale? One that you will read over and over again then daydream about wishing your life was like that? Or are you someone that loves reading fiction (like me)  and think about how fun it would be if your life was like that story. 

I read for the escape it offers. The more I have going on in my life, the more stress I feel, or the more upset I am the more I read. It lets me escape to different worlds, experience different things, and in a sense "live" someone elses life.

I had a conversation with my work buddy today that made me think about that though. I like to say "how nice it would be or how I want that storybook situation/life." Yes, I think we all want that in our lives but it rarely if ever happens. But I wonder if I focus so much on wanting my storybook life that I forget that there is a reality much different. Or I forget to allow for reality. (Does that make sense to you?)  I or we get an idea in our mind and nothing is okay until it all fits into place. I think sometimes women do this even more because of our romantic sides and dream of being the "princess".  

I need to remember that I'm most likely not going to get my perfect storybook life. While I'm not going to settle for anything less that fantastic I need to make sure I don't forget about the reality around me. I'm not sure if all of this made sense but I have a lot on my mind and sometimes the thoughts within don't flow very well into words for me. 

Quote of the Day

"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

-Benjamin Franklin

My Favorite Cartoon Ever!

My favorite cartoon ever is one I just recently found! It is Phineas and Ferb by Disney!

If you have not watched this you MUST! This coming from someone who isn't a huge cartoon person at all. I LOVE Phineas and Ferb! I think it's HILARIOUS! (I mean can't you tell with all the capital letters??)  I love the theme song too!

 Now that you know how much I love Phineas and Ferb let me tell you what little I know about the show. Phineas and Ferb are step brothers that do and make exciting things everyday of their summer vacation. They have an older sister, Candace, who spends all her time trying to bust them and parents that always seem to miss what they are doing. But the absolute best part of all is they have a pet platypus named Perry. (Don't you wish you had a pet platypus?)  It gets even better. Perry, the platypus, is a secret agent  for the O.W.C.A. (Organization without a cool acronym) who fights his nemesis Dr. Doofenshmirtz while Phineas and Ferb build things. 

Some of my favorite lines from Phineas and Ferb (because it's cool in our house to quote it) are;  "Hey! Where's Perry?" "Doom! If I had a nickel for every time a puppet sent me to doom I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but that means it happened twice....that's weird right?" and "Ferb! I know what we're going to do today!"  I can honestly say these are my favorite since they have graced my facebook wall and status within the last month. I really am just that cool!

I hope this inspires you to go watch an episode of Phineas and Ferb. That is if you aren't already a mom with kids that love it and you recognize all my quotes or if you aren't already cool like me and watch it by yourself without kids around! Because that totally isn't creepy on so many levels.  (BTW Ferb says that like twice!)

Michael W. Smith, Chris August, and Third Day Concert

This past Sunday I was able to go to an amazing Christian concert with my sister and brother-in-law. We had lawn seats but it was still great! Michael W. Smith sang some amazing songs that I already knew and could sing along with. Chris August is a little unknown to me but I enjoyed his music. And Third Day ROCKED!!! They got the entire audience involved and it was so much fun! We took some pictures and they aren't fabulous at all. I didn't even try to edit them or make them better so now you know.

Before the concert started. Please note my "I'm sitting on the ground and don't particularly want my picture taken face."

Third Day had awesome lighting and special affects.

The song we dance to was "I got a feeling."

During one of Michael W. Smith's song. You could see and feel the worship. It was amazing and beautiful to see that many people that love Jesus in one place 

Ruffled Duvet Tutorial

Drum Roll please!!!!!!

My ruffled duvet is finished!! Totally finished and on my bed! How completely cool is that! I'm ecstatic and I LOVE it! Here is the finished project and after that I will be doing a tutorial of sorts. So if you don't want to know how I made this or hear how many mistakes I made stop reading after the picture. If you do want to hear, see links, and read my ramblings read on, read on! 

Okay, here we go! If you don't remember I found the tutorial for this duvet at Lexi Designs here. I fell in love with this chic yet simple look and since I didn't want to spend oh, $200 on my bedspread I adventured to make it. I'm not going to give you a real tutorial but I will tell you what I did and found to help me understand the tutorial I followed. 

First you need supplies. The cheap target sheets didn't come in the color I wanted so after some research and suggestions I looked online at Ikea and found the exact color I wanted for about $8. (What an awesome price right?!) Now here is probably where I should mention that I bought the wrong sheets twice. Yes, twice I went to Ikea walked through the showrooms lost and trying to find the shopping market and picked up the wrong sheets. The second time I didn't catch it until I had opened the packages, washed the sheets, and dried them. (Yes, I am really that unobservant)  My mistake was I bought only 1 flat sheet and 3 fitted sheets. So this is for you to learn from. Check all of the sheets you pick up to make sure you have the right stuff. Okay?  Good.  

Second step (if following lexi's tutorial) is making your strips. Because most of my sheets were fitted we had to do some maneuvering to make it all work. (It works better to iron your sheets before cutting)  My sister and I took out the hem and elastic, folded the sheet and cut off the excess to make it square. Then you cut your strips. Well, you figure our how wide you want your strips and crunch numbers to make sure it all works with the size of your comforter. Because of the sheets we had we figured out we had to put two ruffled strips to match one straight strip. 

Cutting strips 

Ruffling your strips. This took us awhile to figure out because my sister and I aren't sewing proficient and have no manual for our sewing machine. So to make a stitch you can ruffle you have to loosen your stitch and keep the ends open. (Don't reverse your stitch to lock it in) We ran our stitch at a 5.0 and the ruffles worked well. Ruffling is quick but remember your ruffles will get spread out so you don't have to make it super tight. Another ruffle tip! After you ruffled both sides there will be a looong thread on the end. Do NOT cut this! If you cut it, like I did, when you spread out your ruffles you have problems. Enough said. 

One of my first ruffles 

Now that your ruffles are done you are going to sew them to a straight strip. I think everyone will have multiple ruffled strips to straight strips so sew those together first. I didn't really get what the Lexi tutorial was saying about sewing the ruffles to straight. It just didn't click with either me or my sister so we did some googling. (Man, I LOVE google)  We found a different tutorial that made sense here and here. You just keep sewing strips until you have the length of your comforter. You just have to make sure you pin things on correctly so when you open it all up it's facing the right way. I say this because I messed that up as well. 

You can kinda see the pins at the top there

Finally you are going to sew all your strips onto your bottom sheet. This would be a flat sheet the same size, hopefully slightly bigger, than your comforter. But before you start pinning please make sure you know which side is which. Like which side is the longest and how you want your comforter to go in and lay. Okay? Then you sew it all around but one short side. This is the side you will put your comforter through and then make a closure. I still haven't made my closure but I have an idea on what I am going to do. It includes some of my extra fabric and buttons.  After all of that put it on your bed, step back, and be extremely happy with your handiwork! 

So that's about what I did without talking about the other many fights we had with the sewing machine and snags we ran into. I like the fact that my duvet looks different from Anthropology and even Lexi's. It's unique! I will be adding bright colored pillows and things soon for pops of color. I'm thinking a light blue, bright green, and a purple. Oh, I have plans!

But I hope this made some sense and it helps you if you decide to make your own ruffled duvet! Thank you to my sister who did 95% of the sewing and helped me think things through so we made less mistakes. 

Close up! 

A little bit of Island

I found an island CD this week. I've listened it to it for the past three days and it's been lots of fun. The weather has been nicer, breezier, and just almost with the windows down, the breeze, and the beat of the island music I feel a little bit of Hawaii. I do miss hearing the pounding of local music, reggae, and other things while driving or walking around as opposed to rap and whatever else people blare. The funny thing is the CD I've been listening to is in Tongan or Samoan. I'm not sure which but I love it.  If you want to grab my little bit of island here is a song on my CD.

Gray, messy, time consuming, pretty, mis-measuring, but fabulous!!
I have a big reveal coming soon! Can you guess what it's about?

My final Birthday gift of 2011

Remember when I said one of my birthday gifts was horseback riding with my sister? Well, we finally went! Only about 3 1/2 months later but that's okay!

We went on an hour long trail ride. The picture above is at the end of the trail ride. I don't know why we didn't just leave the helmets since they didn't buckle. Lol oh well, our helmet hair was exciting! I loved it but boy was I sore after! I hadn't ridden in about 3 years so I was just getting used to things by the time we finished. In my perfect world I would know someone with a horse or horses, or know someone at a stable so I could take lessons, ride and work there about once a month. I really wish I had taken more lessons as a kid. Here are some more pictures from while we were waiting to saddle up.

The grass apparently is always greener on the other side! 

His "I do not see a treat face."

Hard to tell here but these are Belgians (like Clydesdale's, really big) 

It was lots of fun and I wish I could go again! I love horses. Happy very belated birthday to me!!! 

Do you sew?

I sew, kinda. I can do buttons, somewhat fix a hem, I definitely can use the adhesive tape for  fixing hems to. (You know, the iron on stuff.)  My sister and I have been using a sewing machine to make my duvet. It's an embroidery machine. Very high tech and we have no instruction manual. It's been very interesting trying to figure out how to work it. Frustrating as well.

Now back to my do you sew question. Do you sew? I think I want to learn. I say think because I've actually taken a couple sewing classes in high school, my mom taught me some as well. But I don't really remember much. I also have little patience. BUT....in all my recent blog stalking I have found a bunch a sewing tutorials for clothes. When I say clothes I mean cute, adorable, fashionable clothes that would probably cost quite a bit of money in a store. Mind you all the tutorials look pretty easy but I thought my duvet looked easy too.  Haha.

My plan for now is to look for some fabric and things to re-purpose within my own closet. I shall for sure let you know how it goes!

I actually won something!!!

I don't know about you but I enter giveaways all the time. For tv shows, magazines, on blogs, and wherever else looks exciting! But I never ever win! I mean I can be consistent and I never win. Until last month! I entered a giveaway on a new blog I'm following called B.Cheniful and I won! You have NO idea how excited I was! I yelled and jumped up and down on my seat! (I'm crazy, I know)   Now for what I won! Check it out!

I'm rockin' her button headband and infinity scarf! Doesn't that button headband remind you of something? Maybe some button earrings??? Shown here. You should definitely check out B.Cheniful and her awesome creations!


Side note! Some progress has been made with my duvet cover!!! Isn't that exciting?! I wish I could take all the credit but my marvelous sister took time out of her busy day to try stuff, google things, and mess around with our high tech sewing machine (that we have no instruction manual for) to get things going! If we keep it up and set time aside for the next couple weeks maybe it will get finished!

Fingers Crossed!