CPS Card Sketch #113

This is the CPS card sketch for this week and also my version of it. I'm still trying to get half as good at this as some of the other card creators out there, but I am enjoying the process. Plus I need this card for a birthday party on Saturday.

Lavender!

I love the smell of lavender. It's kind of an addiction. I used to grow it, but it attracts tons of bees and Krissy is deathly afraid of bees, so I don't grow it anymore. But I do love finding good sources for lavender products.

My sister brought me this wonderful lavender mist for Easter. I spray in on my pillow before bed and I just love it. I think I was in the middle of opening this gift and telling her she didn't need to bring me presents, until I saw what is was. I than told her she can bring me this...anytime.

If you love lavender too, here's the link for Hillhouse Naturals. Enjoy.

The Big 50!

This is a picture of my little (ha) brother Jeff and myself at my surprise 50th Birthday Party three years ago. Now it's time to turn the tables because Jeff is 50 years old TODAY!!

Growing up, Jeff was my best playmate. We played everything together. School, house, war (there's another story here that I might share with you some day), you name it we played it. I clearly remember playing elevator in his closet once. Of course, it wasn't a regular elevator. Our elevator took us all over the world. Strange, but fun.

We used to love to play with my Creepy Crawlers kit. Does anyone remember that? This kit came with brightly colored goop, a heating element and metal molds. You would squirt the goop into the molds and then carefully place the mold in the heating element, where it would cook until it became solid. We would then use the prongs to remove the mold and place in a cold water bath to cool. Then...magically we would have these rubbery bugs...hence the name Creepy Crawlers.

(I actually found images of Creepy Crawlers on Google...unbelievable. Got to love Google.)

They also came out with Flower Power (it made flowers) and Pic-a-doo (it made little pictures). We could play with this stuff for hours and hours. Now in retrospect, I do have to wonder what the hell they were thinking giving a heating element to children as part of a toy. It's amazing we didn't burn the house down. But boy-oh-boy, Jeff and I sure had fun with that stuff.

My favorite Christmas memory includes Jeff as well. I'm not exactly sure how old we were, but clearly old enough to be left alone as Mom and Dad went out one night leaving us alone. Mom left firm instructions NOT to plug the tree lights in. Soon after they left, we naturally plugged the tree lights in and put "Mitch Miller's" Christmas album on the phonograph. If you aren't familiar with Mitch Miller, he had a TV program where the words to the songs would come on the screen with a little bouncing ball so you could sing along at home. Of course, his albums came with sheets of printed lyrics allowing us to sing along. And that's just what we did. All night long we sang Christmas carols. Somehow, we remembered to unplug the lights before Mom and Dad got home, again saving the house from burning down. (I just realized that Mom and Dad owe us a big thank you for saving the house so many times.)

It's easy to see that Jeff is very special to me. He is so integral to many of my wonderful childhood memories and these memories have bound us together over the years, despite our lives going in many different directions.

With all of the best wishes...Happy Birthday Jeff. I love you more than you could ever know.

In Bruges Movie Review

We watched "In Bruges" last night on HBO. Highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. Although, I need to warn you that this is a dark comedy with lots of violence. Think Coen Brothers meets Brussels travelogue. Some of the lines were laugh out loud hysterical with the F bomb heavily sprinkled throughout. Very well acted, written and directed. Colin Farrell's Golden Globe win was well deserved.

Best Movie Sequels

Caity's husband, "What's Up Doc", loves movie sequels. He's kind of become the family authority on sequels including the fact that there are a few sequels that he loves to watch, but will never admit to it. Here's the scenario....let's say, it's late at night and you can't sleep. You turn on the TV and flipping through the channels you come upon Grease 2. What do you do? If you are a normal, everyday person with taste, you immediately turn it off and put on the nearest infomercial. But if you are What's Up Doc, you leave it on and feel a great sense of satisfaction that you were lucky enough to find it.

Under other circumstances, his taste in movies is much better then that, so without further ado, here are the Top 10 Movie Sequels. Well...a little more ado. The sequels on this list are on here because they were better then the preceding movies. This doesn't imply, that the other versions weren't good, it's just that these sequels were really good.

1. Godfather II


2. Empire Strikes Back


3. Terminator 2: Judgement Day


4. Aliens


5. The Dark Knight


6. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly


7. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King


8. Bride of Frankenstein


9. X2: X-Men United (This might be bounced off after the opening of the new Wolverine movie. It sure looks good.)


10. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Mid-Life Musings

As some of you may know, I am a 50-something mom and grandma (otherwise know as Muma and Oma). This new age bracket has brought many joys (RJ and Baby Aus) as well as many challenges. I could write buckets about the challenges associated with this time of my life. The hot flashes, the joint stiffness, the moodiness, the inability to get a decent nights sleep....see I could go on and on. But, since the point of this blog is to highlight the best of things, I'm not going to focus on that. (I do know I'm not supposed to start a sentence with the word but. Twelve years of Catholic School, weren't entirely in vain. It's just easier to write, the way I talk.) Instead I am going to focus on the good things that have come from being in my 50s.

So, here are some of my favorite things about being in my 50s:

1. More time - With my kids, mostly out of the house (Stinky is about to turn 17...and other then his general messiness, traffic tickets and occasional attitude issue, he's pretty easy to deal with.) I finally have time to do and think about other things then being a MOM.
   


2. A Burst of Creativity - Honestly, don't know where this came from. Never really had it before. My guess is that I was just too busy creating children that everything else got lost. Suddenly, I'm making cards, invitations, Christmas ornaments, cooking, baking and now blogging. I do think this is a natural part of the aging process. I have a very dear friend who after years of neutral tones, painted every room of her house in a different, brilliant color. I think it was her way to express her new and changing inner self. (And so you know, it looks amazing.)
   


3. Relaxed Attitude - I find that I just don't care as much about what people think about me. By this point, the people in my life are there because they like or love me and that's all that really matters to me.
   


4. Wonderful Girlfriends - I have remarkable and fantastic girlfriends whom I cherish now more than ever. I think I first realized this at Caity's bridal shower. We invited a group of my girlfriends, who are all from different parts of my life, but I have been able to cross-pollenate them, so that they now all know and enjoy each other. Sitting at the table surrounded by these wonderful friends, filled me with such joy and happiness. I realized at that moment how lucky I am to have these women care about me. I'm also lucky enough to still be in touch with a group of girlfriends from High School. How cool is that! Later this month we are having a get together at Miller's (a bar in Dearborn with great hamburgers) to plan out our 35th High School Reunion. Truly amazing and enpowering.
   


5. Sage Advice - At this age you find yourself being much more retrospective. I so wish I could talk to my younger self. There's so much I would like to tell her. Mostly, just relax and enjoy the moments. Don't be in such a hurry to have the kids grow up. There will be time to do all the things you want to do. And to all you younger women out there, please cherish all those hormones surging through your body. Revel in them. Be proud of them. Cause you won't believe how much you will miss them when they start leaving you.
   

Now, if you sat down for a few minutes with my 80-something Mom, I'm sure she'd have different points on her list. Which only means, I'm still not done learning and I'm still not done evolving into my better me.

Easter Bake Off Part 2

The second thing that I baked for Easter were cupcake pops. I got the recipe and instructions from http://bakerella.com/. Here is a picture of what they should look like: Aren't they adorable? And such a nice photo too.

Well, mine looked a little different. It wasn't for lack of effort, it just had more to do with the fact that these are kind of hard to make and I'm just not as artistic as I'd like to be.

So, without further ado and with my continual crappy photography, here are mine:

Ugh! I've decided to call mine "Bomb Pops" cause that's what the really resemble. Little bombs. I posted the second picture to let you know..I made a lot of these things. On the up side, everyone said they tasted great.

I do have to admit, they were a lot of work and I'm not sure I'll have the gum shun to make them again, but with every day the fear subsides a bit and who knows, I might jump in and try these again. (Krissy thinks I am borderline insane for even thinking about making these and she might be right, but that's a whole other post.)

And please, visit Bakerella's site to see how these really should look and all the amazing versions she creates.

Top Gear

I've added Top Gear to our favorite TV Shows List on the left. The girls don't watch this, but we watch it at my house every Monday night. It's one program that appeals to all three of us and trust me, we all have very different tastes. It's on BBC America, so you need cable or satellite TV to make it happen. It airs at all different times during the week and we can even watch it on "On-Demand". It is honestly one of the funniest programs on television. It would probably be even funnier if we understood all the British references. I know it's fundamentally about cars, but the 3 characters who host the program are hilarious and the adventures they get into are bizarre and ridiculous. Search it out if you can.