Monday, June 28, 2010

Giveaway! Food! and a Tour! Oh My!

I wish that I could say that I have been gone doing fun stuff. But.... I can't. I have taken over the duties of office manager/bookkeeper for my husband's business. The bitty one is going to be going to preschool in the fall, so I am gearing up to take over parttime then.

No fun...

Do you know what is fun?

Getting this awesome giveaway from Lori at Wildflowers! You have no idea how much fun I have with this headband. I have been catching up on the bookkeeping wearing them. It's fun to see if I can get them to bump against each other. Love this magazine! I think that I have read and reread it about 30 times already!

I also got this awesome bag, card and cupcake too. I still want to know where is my royalty check for using my pic on the card though!

She also tucked in some cute recipe cards and coasters. My husband says the way I shop a psychiatrist would be cheaper though! She also sent some yummy candles too. Thank you so much Lori! You are just too generous and too sweet!

MWAAAAAAAH!

Next up we got some vittles! I invented this all by my lonesome! It is so yummy! My kids love it if that isn't proof how good it is!

I took a small tub of ricotta cheese, a package of frozen spinach, an egg, 8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese, salt and pepper. Mix together in a small bowl.

Then I took out all my aggression on a package of boneless skinless chicken breasts and pounded them flat.

Put a layer, not too thick, of the spinach mix onto the underside of the chicken breast.


Rolled it all up in puff pastry sheets cut into thirds. Seal up the ends really good. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour or until golden brown.

Oops almost forgot! I also sprinkled shredded Asiago cheese on the top before baking.


Mmmm.... doesn't that look yummy? Probably has about 3000 calories in it....


I also have a couple of pics of Mr Simpson and his fans! He did a walk through of the halls for the last time while the kids all lined up to wish him well. This is before he was sporting my contact lens on his shoulder.


Here is me and the bitty one before the waterworks started and ruined a perfectly good makeup job.

So now here we are up to the exciting and thrilling tour of Hartland, MI! Don't blink cause you may miss something. If you have to pee or need a refill on your coffee you will want to exit the bus now and do so.

This was a walking tour. 3 days of walking and I didn't even lose one stinking pound! Day 1 was the east side of Hartland. Day 2 was the west side of Hartland. Day 3 was the cemetery. I spared you with day 3 since we have already been there.

It started from my oldest's school which is about a block or so from the four corners in Hartland. No stoplights, just stop signs.

This is one of my favorite houses. It's an original Victorian that they have converted to a tea house/souvenier shop. It even has a cute name "Thyme Well Spent". It sits at the four corners.

This building used to be the hardware store. You can tell from the shape of it.

Here is the antique store. This was a general mercantile kind of store. I didn't get a pic of the top of it but it still has the false facade on the roof to make the building appear taller.

Another old building. You can see the facade to make it taller in this pic. Anyone want to rent a store in downtown Hartland?

Here is another old original house on Main Street. The door on the far left that faces the porch is a coffin door. The coffin door was for funeral purposes to bring the coffin in and out of homes when the body was on display. I have this same kind of style of house so I am wanting to pull off the siding to see if we have one of these. My hubby won't let me though. Funsucker!


An old barn that is part of this house.


Over in that tree line is the cemetery. Isn't it strange my morbid fascination with the cemetery and coffin doors?


Here is the 51 building that is used for the school district now.


This is was the courthouse. Now it is a church.

This church is original also. It was built in the 1800's. I love the stained glass! One of the windows has the name of a man who was killed building the steeple.


That was the east side. We are back to the four corners. Now for the west side.

This building used to be the firehouse. The large double doors on the front were to bring the fire wagon in and out. The historical society has purchased this building and is turning it into a museum.

Here is the old town hall. Now they call it the music hall and have different performances here throughout the year.

Here is my absolute favorite house in Hartland! I love love love this house! I would love to copy the second story and porches on our house. I keep telling my husband that one day I am going to ask the people if I can look around on the inside. He just rolls his eyes at me!

This home is one of 4 in Hartland that used to be a hotel. That tall rock in front of the house is actually and old soapstone pillar that was used for hitching up horses. There are two and they still have the hitching rings on them.


An old barn across the street that used to shelter the horses for guests staying at the hotel.

This is a beautiful stone house. The only one in Hartland. The family was poor and couldn't afford building materials so they went to farmers fields and collected the rocks to build a house. Ironic isn't it that these houses are pricey now.

It's hard to get a good pic of this house. This is called the sawdust house. The house is actually insulated by sawdust from the sawmill across the street. It was originally used as the ice house and converted to a home. The sawdust kept the ice cold until it was sold.

Here is the old sawmill across the street. They have added quite a few additions onto it to make it a home. You can still see the original sawmill though. The right side is where the water wheel would have been to operate the mill. Through the basement of this house the creek runs through it.

And now we are back to the four corners. The west side I forgot to take my phone with me to take pics so I drove past everything to take pics. Aren't I good to you?


That concludes our tour of Hartland. Exciting huh?!

Ugh, I guess now I have to get back to building the website and doing accounting.

One more thing!

Don't forget the Inspiration Party on the 30th! Hopefully once things get settled and more into a routine I will post more. I've got little itty bitty veggies to show you, lots of projects I have in mind and changes around the farmhouse!

So much to do! I better get scooting!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

I'm Doing Good Cause The To Do List Is Shrinking!

I know it is only 3 days, but it is. The first day I sat cowering on the couch watching the kids run around. OMG! I do have to spend the entire summer with these crazed lunatics?!

Day 2 I got busy. The hubby is out of town but I googled some images that are close to what I worked on. I cleaned the porch. As you can see from the before pics it really needed it!



As you can see from the after pic it cleans up pretty good!



It really is a nice porch. So nice to sit out here at night!

Day 3 I painted the boys room. Ok, so this was a cheater one. I started to paint the boys room and stopped about halfway. It was ok though cause the old color and the new color were so close you couldn't tell. I also did the trim too. I do need to add the ceiling to be repainted but maybe after more of the list has gone.



Ok, so maybe his room isn't as big as the Sistine Chapel, but it sure felt like it!

Thank goodness the hubby gets home tomorrow and you can see the real thing.

I know all of you are on the edge of your seats waiting to know. It seems that maybe the 180 year old lady was right. Those weeds that I have been pulling really are black eyed susans! And to think that for the last 5 years I have been pulling them and buying more! They must have her locked down really good this time cause she has not been by.

I also noticed how big the bitty one has gotten in one year. Last year, she loved to strip down naked, fill a bucket up with water and sit in it all day!



THIS year she won't even take off her shirt cause "everyone will laugh at her"!

It is going to be a long summer though. The oldest one wanted to take a shower this afternoon. I told her that she had to take a bath cause I had taken down the shower curtain and it was in the dryer still. An hour later she tells me that the bathtub is leaking. WHAT?! You gotta be freaking kidding me! Have no fear though. Seems she was just in teenager mode and besides the fact that I told her NOT to take a shower and the fact that the shower curtain was missing, she still took a shower. She still thinks the bathtub is leaking. I guess she believes there is some magical force field that keeps the water in the shower. The shower curtain is merely for show.

Margherita anyone???

Monday, June 14, 2010

Just catching my breath here

Last week was so incredibly busy! The last week of school though!

Woo hoo!

I am still at the stage where I imagine getting all kinds of things done. I figure about early July I will enter Stage 3. Stage 3 is where you realize how much you are not getting done. You also get a few times you wish school was ready to start again. So until then, I am on a mission!

Have you seen my to do list?

It just keeps growing.... So my goal is to get one thing crossed off the list a day. Any more than one is a bonus. It's 2 pm and I still have yet to do one thing on the list yet. Yeah, we are off like a herd of turtles! But it's the first day of summer vacation though....

As for last week, sometime this week I will have pics and a tour of Hartland. It's actually a cute little town though. I toured the old part with my oldest daughter and a group from her Social Studies class. They had to find out about certain buildings and say a little blurb about them. It actually was interesting. There is a house that is insulated with sawdust and another that the creek runs through the basement. I also found out what a coffin door was too. I so want to rip off the siding on our house to see if at some point in time we had one. I think we did since our house is about the same age and style. But that will have to wait til the hubby gets back from Chicago so I can use his laptop to pull the pics off my phone.



We also had to say goodbye to the much loved principal at my son's school. Since I am PTO President I had to present him with the gift we purchased him as a thanks for all he has done. I knew I was going to cry. I practiced over and over til I could say it without feeling like I was going to bust out in tears at any minute.

Then came the time to do it. I felt like I was going to cry seeing all the kids clamoring all over him and him just loving every minute of it. He really does live to see his "kids" every day. So we caught him. Halfway through saying what I had planned to say he starts to tear up. I start to tear up. He hugs me and tears are starting to come. I hug him and start bawling like a baby. I am doing everything I can to stop. Suddenly I just felt off. My vision was weird and I felt dizzy. Please God, don't let me pass out! All the kids come and swarm him again. It was about then that I figured out what was wrong.

Yup!

One of my contacts had popped out and was perched on his shoulder!

Good thing they are disposable and I didn't need it back! I mean how do you ask someone if you can get your contact back? How do you get through a mob of 857 kids all trying to say good bye one last time to get close enough to grab said contact? Good thing I didn't have to find out!

So now to catch my breath and hopefully get to work!

Sunday, June 6, 2010

More Wicked Cool Tales from the Gardening Troll!

Well before we get to those we had a birthday party to attend.

My niece Karissa turned 4 and a princess party was in order. Doesn't she look cute dressed as Snow White?


Then we came home to this. Your husband on the roof with a measuring tape and a hammer is never a good sign. He went up there to fix the gutters before he shrinks too much. While he is up there he decided that we need a new roof. This is scary since we still have yet to finish the fence we started last August. I guess the 18 layers of shingles and layer of cedar shake have about pooped out.


Enough with him though, onto the garden!



DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! SHE IS A PROFESSIONAL RAKE RIDER!

I don't believe a crown and heels is required either. I may be off on my gardening etiquette though. Dress however you feel comfortable.


As you can see we are off like a herd of turtles. I used one of those garden claws to turn over the soil. I am probably one of the few that believed they make gardening fun! They don't. They do seem to get the job done though. Until tomorrow when you can't lift your arms from twisting that stupid thing.



I got the landscape fabric laid down. One of the benefits of being married to a contractor is all the leftover materials from jobs. He buys this by the roll and it is a contractor grade. He uses about a roll for a cell site so I get all the scraps which is usually yards and yards of the stuff!



It probably looks like I just stood around ordering my minions to do my bidding while I took pics.
Well.... maybe a little...



I drew out a grid of 18"x18" squares for the plants. I used washable sidewalk chalk so I had to hurry before the rain came. I also used garden staples to hold the fabric in place until I get the rock to go over it. Next year when I replant this I should be able to find the holes to get the new plants in. If you are wondering about the significance of the two different colors of chalk there is none. The bitty one made me give her the blue and use pink cause "she looooooves pink". I usually do what I am told with her cause she is just mean sometimes.



I even made a chart of what goes where.



The bitty one drew on the fabric. That's a picture of me she drew. I don't know when I swapped my eyes for boobs though. Maybe it is how she sees things from her perspective. She wouldn't tell me. I will have to ask the hubby when he has shrunken to about 3' tall.



There they are! What I got is all tucked in. I have LOTS of tomatoes, peppers (red, green and yellow), cukes, parsley, basil and sunflower seeds planted. I still need to get some more plants. I just ran up to Walmart to get these and they were slim pickins. I am hoping that maybe I can cram 22 boxes of leis and more plants in my itty bitty car tomorrow. If so, I should be able to finish this.

I also found the cutest little thing that I have to go back and get. I am hoping that he is still there. Otherwise, I will be scouring stores in the state of Michigan and surrounding states til I find another one.

Also, I am hoping to get some fun projects done this week. It's been so long since I did something fun that I am jonesing. I am so behind on the projects that I have promised too. So look for some fun stuff coming!

Until then this garden troll needs to go and oooh and aaah over her itty bitty plants!




Friday, June 4, 2010

More Useless Drabble from the Farmhouse

It's raining here....

again.

It's been raining for the last 3 days now. Hopefully all this rain will nourish the weeds that were haphazardly pulled and they will flourish to another 7 bags of weeds pulled. One can only hope right?! I was so hoping to get the veggie garden done this week. Here is hoping that this weekend it will go in!

I wanted to show off my last beauty in my irises. I just love this one. It is such a deep purple that it appears to be black. It actually was deeper when I first got it. Some lunkhead wasn't thinking and planted it too close to the whites so it has lightened a bit. It is one of my "snotty b*&$h" plants. I got 2 of them. They know I love them. They know I look forward to seeing them in bloom each year. Yet, they are always the last to bloom and just make me wait.

Isn't it pretty? Probably would of been more dramatic if the sun was not shining directly on it. I got this one a few years ago at Bordines. The other "snotty b*&$h" plant is my red lily. I used to have a whole corner until someone, who's name we won't mention but is not me this time, built a wall on 3/4 of them. They are slowly coming back. Wait til you see them! The lilies just started getting buds on them so it should be any time now. Wow, that sounded weird.

One more week of school! Woo hoo! My son would be correcting me on that. It's actually only 4 1/2 more days of school. He loves to correct me. He doesn't grasp the concept that he has to get through 7 more days til that last day of school. I am so ready for summer vacation. No more homework, no more teachers, no PTO, no more last minute "can you make 50 cupcakes for tomorrow" .... The list just goes on. Next year we are in high school! She is really one smart little girl cause just last year I was putting her on the bus for 1st grade! I can still remember her first year. She wore her hair in ponytails the whole year. We had a ritual. When I saw the bus coming I would grab one of her ponytails, split it in half and yank them up. I started telling her "ok, make a wish time"! Little Miss Smartypants started replying with "I hope you don't pull as hard on the other one"! Hmmmph! Then with the other one she would squeal "my wish came true"! I wonder if for her first day of high school if she would let me put her hair in ponytails....

Next week I have to speak in front of 950+ people. My son's principal is retiring and I have to give a little speech along with a retirement gift the PTO bought him. Why? Cause I am stupid enough to be PTO president. I am only hoping and praying that I don't cry. That is one of my weird things. I cry. Alot. Sometimes for no reason. I cried the other day when my son and my husband went to the Tiger game with his 6th grade class. One of the girls in his class sang the "Star Spangled Banner" at the start of the game. I just heard about it and how good she was and I cried. Why? I got no frigging idea. I just started bawling like a baby. So I am hoping that I can get this over with without any tears. I doubt it though. I went to order lei's for his send off today and started crying telling the lady what I needed so many for. I think I got a 15% discount because she either felt sorry for me or just wanted to get rid of the weird crying lady quicker. Maybe she thought it would cheer me up? I don't know....

In less disturbing news though, I was outside with my husband the other morning. We have coffee on the back patio sometimes. This was one of those times. "Look at this" he says shaking his leg. "My pants are getting longer. I think I am shrinking". I was so glad that I was looking down because you know how sympathetic I am to others. Yes, I had to bite my cheeks to keep from laughing. Like crying, sometimes I start laughing and can't stop. I try but I start laughing so hard that I can't talk so I just think up funny stuff that I could say if I could talk at that moment which causes me to laugh harder. It's not pretty. All I can imagine is waking up in bed and finding a 3" version of my husband next to me. I also wanted to ask him if he thought I should call a shrink for him. So there I am sucking in my cheeks and biting as hard as I can looking like an ethiopian from the 3 chins up and he has this ultra serious look on his face. Then came the tears. Not from crying like he thought but from ROFLMAO on the inside tears. And no, I have not been crazily letting the hem out in his pants to drive the man crazy either. He seriously thinks he is shrinking. I think he just can't pull his pants up as far as he used to.

So that is about it. Hopefully next post will be more constructive than this one. IF the rain ever stops!

A BIG THANK YOU!! to everyone who stopped by for the Inspiration Party! It was so much fun! The next one will be June 30th. I am working on getting a big project done that was inspired by another great blogger! That's all I am saying though. I guess you have to come to find out who. Now to go dance around my yard like a freak hoping that will stop the rain....