This and That

As I posted a couple of days ago, I was concerned about my sunflower bloom not being proportional to the height. However, I think things are changing! I think the bloom is getting bigger! Is this possible? Also, I have many other buds about ready to bloom!!! Yeah sunflowers!!
This bud picture is slightly frighting. It has a Venus fly trap look to it. Frankie better stay away!
Speaking of Frankie.....once again we are a two dog family. Or as Frankie would say, a Pug and a dog family. We are dog sitting the same dog as a few weeks ago, and I hope this week goes better! Needless to say, Frankie was not super thrilled to have him back. He turned into a pouting pug.

Thanks for all the help on identifying the chestnut! We will have to try and roast some! I even looked online to find out how to do it. Does anyone like chestnuts? However, Katie commented that I can't save them all to roast in the winter. Why is this? Do they go bad? You all will have to fill me in on all your chestnut knowledge.

What Is It?

Here we go with another round of everyone's favorite blog game....What Is It?
We first discovered these things when we were tearing out the bushes in the front yard. They are coming from a very large tree in the yard. As you can tell from the picture they are VERY pokie. I opened one up with an axe and it had a nutty center.

Our friend Any had us over tonight for a barbecue, and seeing that she has a green thumb we took one of these to show her. She was very fascinated with it, but did not know what it was. She did want to know what the leaves of the tree looked like, so here is the leave if this helps anyone out!
So if anyone can help I would love it!

Alpha Pug!

Frankie the Pug tends to think that he runs this house. I have no problem with this seeing that Frankie is the most wonderful pug in the whole world. However, Donnie thinks that HE should run the house, and Frankie should know his place as a dog.
To solve this problem I thought it would be a good idea to have an election for the alpha dog position. Frankie asked me to be his campaign manager, and I was more than happy to help him out.
To spread the word, Frankie and I made a bunch of posters and hung them around the house. Donnie however did no campaigning what so ever!
Also Frankie and I wore signs to show our support of the true alpha dog! Well..the election was held last week, and not surprisingly Frankie won by a landslide. Donnie is wanting a recount.

Around the House

While I was Internet free last week, Donnie and I (and my mom) tackled a big yard project. We tore out the front two bushes! This turned out to be much more work than I thought it was going to be! However, at one point Donnie went to Meijer and bought a new saw. The job went much faster after that!

This is the house before

And this is the house after!

I think it looks better. What do you all think? Donnie was very fond of the bushes when we moved in. However, one of them died so we knew it was time for them both to go.
In other house news, my sunflowers are blooming! This makes me thrilled. I was thinking for a while that it was never going to happen! Here's the odd thing, the sunflowers are SO tall, so I thought that the blooms would be equally as large. However, the bloom part is not really all that big so I think it sorta looks funny. Maybe I'm being over critical. You can be the judge.

I'm alive!

I know many many people (like 2) are concerned that I have not posted in a long while. To ease your minds, I am alive. However I have been sucked in to the world of........
The kids I nanny for both got webkinz about a week ago, and I had so much fun just watching them, that I knew I had to get one! So yesterday I bought an elephant that I have named Penelope. (I got it for 20% off because I had a coupon!) It is SO addictive!!! Once I get online to play it, I can't stop!!! But its so fun! I love it! Has anyone played the Sims? Its JUST like the Sims but for kids. My Penelope stays much happier than my Sims ever were. And she is much easier to care for. So if you don't hear from me for awhile, I'm with my webkinz. :-)

Fasting

This week my church is encouraging people to fast and pray for the church and our community. For the past year or so I have been really thinking about fasting, but have never done it. I came to the conclusion that I love food (mainly ice cream) way to much to not eat. I know that is a horrible reason not to fast, seeing that God told us to do it.

However, I have decided to "fast" from the computer. I'm going to go from tomorrow to next Monday with no computer. This means no email, no spider solitaire, and worst of all no blogging. Will I make it? I hope so! I don't think anyone has died from internet withdraw...have they? I might be the first.

Seeing that I spend WAY to much time on the computer, my hubby asked me if I was going to be spending all the time I would be on the computer in prayer. My answer to him was no. Yes I will be spending much more time in prayer, but I also want to spend time doing other things for the Lord. This may be cleaning the house, writing letters, or doing laundry but I will be doing them for the Lord.

Please pray for me this week while I'm internet free!!!

Weekend Fun

This weekend has gone SO fast! I also feel like this summer is going SO fast! The kids I nanny for go back to school in like a week and 1/2. Crazy. Here's a bit of what went on this weekend


Friday
Friday night Donnie and I always go out to eat. I have been making Donnie go to Bob Evans a lot recently because they have this Strawberry Shortcake that is out of this world! Here a description of it from their website.

NEW! Fresh Strawberry Shortcake So irresistible! Indulge in a treat that starts with a Bob Evans® freshly baked buttermilk biscuit, split and topped with a scoop of creamy vanilla ice cream. Smothered with fresh strawberries in a sweet strawberry sauce then finished with whipped topping and a sprinkling of powdered sugar.

As always we had a great time, and the strawberry shortcake was great.


Saturday

Saturday I left our house at 7:30am and did not come home until midnight. Needless to say it was a LONG day. In the morning I headed to my parents house to help my dad have a garage sale. We did the sale last year, and thought it would be fun to do again. So my dad and I ran the sale until 4pm then we closed down. I made $34!!!! I'm rich! From there I headed over to the family that I nanny for and watched the kids for the night. When I got home I went straight to bed. It was a long day, but I made money!!! :-)

Sunday

This brings us to today. In the morning we headed to church. They are doing a series called Playlist, and Donnie and I greatly enjoyed the message. After church we stayed in Royal Oak and got some lunch. It was nice to spend time together seeing that yesterday I was gone all day!

This afternoon I got to meet someone very special for the first time! I had "met" my dear Sherry online from reading her blog, and today we met in person! I had some school stuff that I did not need anymore so I offered them to her because she homeschools one of her daughters. It was so great to meet her in real life!

The rest of the day has been spent cleaning and going to CVS. Seeing that I had a bunch of extra bucks from last week I knew I wanted to go spend them today. I ended up getting toilet paper, 5 1 liters of propel fitness water, and 10 2 liters of pop, all for 48 cents. Not too bad. I love CVS.

I hope everyone had a great weekend!!

I feel like a wife!

Yesterday I went to Meijer to pick up some odds and ends. One thing that Donnie needed was some new boxers. As I was picking them out I felt like a real wife! How funny. I will not be adding pictures for this post. I don't want women swarming my house trying to steal my hubby!!! hehehe

P.S. This is my 200th post!!!!!

Crafty!

I was feeling extra crafty last night and decided to make a picture mural. I took a box and peeled off one layer to give it a corrugated (I think that's the word I'm looking for!) look. Then I made frames and the letters for our initials out of it. Then it was time to paint and print the pictures from the computer. All that is left is some tape and its a picture mural. What was the cost of this project? It was free!!! I just used things I found around the house!

I Love CVS!

Has anyone looked at the CVS add this week? If you buy $20 worth of post or Nabisco products, you get $20 in extra bucks! That's like getting free food!!!! And I love it!!! In all I spent $30 (I did have to buy some stuff that was not on sale), I saved $18, and I got $23 in extra bucks!!! You can't do better than that! :-)

Funny Dog

As I posted a couple of days ago, Donnie and I are having the pleasure of dog sitting this weekend. The funniest thing happened the other day.

Before Donnie left for work Friday morning he told me to put the dog in their crates and then give them breakfast. He was afraid that Frankie would try to eat Snickers food. When he told me this I did not think that Frankie would ever do such a thing. For one, Frankie is not found of dog food to start with, so I thought there would be no way he would try to eat Snickers food. Secondly, I put Snickers food inside his crate. Frankie does not like his own crate so I was sure there was no way Frankie would go inside Snickers crate to eat food he does not even like.

However, I was wrong. (I know this is shocking to most of you) I was on the computer and I hear some dog CHOWING down on Snickers food. I assumed that it was Snickers, but when I looked over I saw Frankie eating Snickers food amazingly fast. I was shocked!! He did not even eat his own breakfast! I then proceeded to tell Frankie to stop and he just kept chowing down! I had to push him off of Snickers food! I was shocked!

This whole time Snickers is standing next to Frankie looking up at me with the SADDEST little eyes. I swear he was saying, Why is he eating my food? Make him stop!!!! I got the biggest chuckle out of this!!!

News

We are currently a two dog family. I'm sure many of you are asking how did this happen. It happened like this..we are dog sitting. My first ever adventure in dog sitting. Right now things are not going all that great. (for the time being I will spare everyone of the details) I guess dog sitting is not as easy as it looks! However, Donnie said it will be fine for just the weekend. Snickers, the dog we are dog sitting, has been enjoying a lot of time in his crate while Frankie lays outside of it. Its too funny. Wish us luck for the rest of the weekend. I hope we all survive!!!

In other news, my hubby is blogging! He started a blog awhile back, and now he is making lots o posts! He wrote a great blog about our money situation. Check it out here!

Pillows

Last year when Donnie and I were registering for our wedding we picked out pillows from Target that we thought we loved. However, the love affair is over. We both hate our pillows now. They were on the cheap side, and I'm told you always get what you pay for, and I think this is true with our pillows. This is where I need some help. Does anyone have pillows that they love? I would love to hear from you! We need new pillows asap! (FYI I did not take the above picture. I found it online)

Flowers!

On Saturday morning my mom, my cousin Shawn, and I went to Eastern Market. I LOVE Eastern Market! I love all the fresh food and flowers there! I think I could live there. I was not really planning on buying anything....until I saw this lady selling flats of flowers for $1!!!!! How can you go wrong with $1!!!! I know it is late in the flower season, and its a lot of work for not a long time of blooms, but I went for it. I bought four flats for our front two flower beds.

So far I have one bed planted. I would have planted the other bed, but it has been SO hot. I can't stand to be outside! Donnie when he came home today watered the plants because he said they were looking a bit thirsty. He's such a great guy!!!! (sorry the picture is not the best)

Pride? Me? Never!!!

Yesterday was a good day. Not only did I get to my doctors appointment on time, but I also met up with my friend Katie. Katie recently got back from a medical missions trip to South Africa, so I was excited to see pictures, and hear stories. The picture above was taken by one of Katie's teammates. I hope its okay that I use it!

We got talking about how Katie raised money for her trip. She told me that she had 72 people donate money for her to go on her trip. I love missionaries, and I love Katie, so when Katie told us she was going, Donnie and I were happy to give. All the money that Katie was given went through her church, so she got a list of the people that donated money for her trip, but not the amount of money that each person gave.

This fact really surprised me. And to be very honest I was upset. Donnie and I gave generously for Katie's trip. I thought that when she saw the amount that we donated she would be singing our praises forever. I thought she would say things like "Wowie wow wow, that Stacey and Donnie are good Christians" Needless to say none of this happened.

I was thinking a lot about this, and then the Holy Spirit brought to mind a passage in the Bible.

Matthew 6

Giving to the Needy

1"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Wow....did I mess up. I was definitely looking to be honored by a person and not by God. I thank Katie for helping show me how pride can sneak up in my life!

But I still say if she goes on a trip again, I'm writing the check in Katie's name so she can see how great I am. hahaha Just Kidding.

Wow!

I have the bestest hubby in the world!!!! He cleaned the study and bathroom, and vacuumed the whole house!!!!! Wow!!!! I'm so blessed!!!! The best part about having a small house is the fact that we can plug the vacuum in the bathroom plug and vacuum the whole house!!!
Seeing that he did such a great job inside I thought I would head outside to do some weeding. Well..I'm not sure what got into me, but I found a saw and started sawing away!!!! A big part of the yard was overgrown with all this shrub like stuff, and I had enough of it!! I hacked it all down. I was so proud of myself!!!! Frankie was out with me to make sure I was doing a good job.
All the stuff that I cut I throw into our makeshift compost pile. Every time we work in the yard we have been throwing the waste into an empty flower bed. Donnie and I have named it our compost pile. At some point we will need to bag it all and take it to the curb.


Here is a picture of some sunflowers that I'm growing. They have gotten so tall!

Black?

Many a post back I made a comment that I was going to change my appearance. Well...today was the day! Today I dyed my hair black. However, here's the problem. I was so worried about getting the back of my hair that I sorta did not think about the front as much. Therefore, the back is much darker than the front. It sorta looks like I have black hair with a couple brown highlights in the front. Now I can't decide if I want to leave it like this, or redye it. When I see you folks in person I will have to get your input. Right now all I have for you is a picture.

Happy (Day After) Birthday to my Dad!

Yesterday was a big day. My dad turned the big 6-0!!!!! To celebrate this monumental occasion my mom cooked a fest, and had friends over. The food was great!!!! The Cold Stone ice cream cake (the only reason I really went hehehe) was even better!!!!!

I think at some point there was a new tradition in my family of a champagne toast for birthdays. My mom had bought a non alcoholic version for the kiddies. And with out even asking us, my mom gives both Donnie and I the kiddie drink. I feel so insulted. Yes, Donnie and I don't drink, but it would be nice to at least be offered the adult drink. :-)

While chatting with a fellow dog owner last night I was told that you are to never throw a Kong. Now the Kong is the ONLY toy that Frankie will play with. We have HOURS of fun with him by throwing the Kong, and he will chase it all around the house. So when we were told that you are not to throw the Kong I was very upset.

So today I went on their website to see for myself. Thankfully they were incorrect. I found this on the Kong website. All is well with the world now!

Perfect for Interactive Play
Interactive play strengthens the bond between you and your dog. Make this critical time special. Your dog will love getting out in the fresh air to play with you and everyone’s favorite training toy...KONG. Try a few of these exercises developed by top trainers or invent your own. Be creative! KONG Fetch: Use two KONG toys; ask your dog to sit before you throw the first KONG. When your dog brings the KONG toy back, show him the other KONG and ask him to “drop” the first. Then start all over again. KONG Hide and Seek: Stuff one or more KONG toys with any KONG Stuff’N treat and hide them around your house or yard.

Crazy

I had the most mixed up day yesterday. Seeing that I don't work on Wednesdays I try to do all my doctors appointments and meeting up with friends on this day. So I had a doctors appointment at 2, and then I was meeting my dear friend Katie at 4.

Seeing that I did not have to be anywhere till 2 I spent most of the day lounging around the house. I was setting up some other appointments when I looked at my calender and saw that my doctors appointment was at 8am, not 2pm! I had missed my doctors appointment! I was so upset with myself. So I promptly called and rescheduled.

Seeing that I did not go to the doctor, I called my friend Katie and we planned to meet at 2:30, not 4. We planned to meet at "our" Starbucks. Both of us do love Starbucks. So I went to "our" Starbucks and waited and waited...and waited for Katie. She never showed up. I thought that was so odd of her. I ended up talking to her (via voice mail) and there was another mix up. When I said "our" Starbucks I was talking about one that we meet at in Southfield. Katie took "our" Starbucks to be the one in Rochester. So we were both waiting for each other at different Starbucks, and neither of us had our cell phones with us. Too crazy.

Onto another crazy subject. Frankie is shedding like CRAZY! Here is a picture of my shirt after petting him for like 2 min.

To combat this shedding problem I recently bought a Furminator. This thing takes out SO much hair!! It works great, and Frankie loves it. Now I just have to remember to do it more often!

Must Have DQ!!!!!

Hi....I'm Stacey...and I'm addicted to Dairy Queen. It all started with a coupon. One coupon has led to this addiction. This coupon was buy one cone, get one free. I could not resist this great bargain seeing that DQ was so close to my house. At first Donnie, Frankie and I would all go together for a fun night out. But today I was caught eating it alone. I blame my addiction on the drive thru. It is way to easy to get my drug of choice. It has gotten so bad that today I was digging to the bottom of my purse to find change to buy my cone. The road to recovery happens one step at a time, and today marks my first step.

Happy News!

I have happy news. Today after church Donnie and I headed over to Best Buy and bought me a camera charger!!!!! I can't tell you how great it is to have my camera back!!!! Yeah!!!!
In honor of this great day Frankie had his first "real" photo shoot. I have never really tried to do a shoot with a dog before, and I have to say it was not the easiest thing in the world to do. However, it was great fun and I do like how some of the pictures turned out!

Sad, Sad, Sad

So I think I have officially lost the charger for my camera. This is very tragic. Me without a camera is like Donnie without his Transformers. Not a pretty sight. To make matters worse, it was my dear friend Courtney's birthday last night, and I have no pictures from it!

I think I will go hunting online to buy another one. sniff sniff sniff

To make up for this sad news I'm posting a video that I took (when my camera was working) of the kitten's at Donnie's Dad's house.

Flaw?

Donnie and I had a funny conversation last night. It went like this:

Donnie: Everyone has flaws

Stacey: I don't :-)

Donnie: Yes you do

Stacey: Name one

Donnie: Your selfish!

Can you believe that??? He called me selfish! How dare he! Just because I have a blog that I just talk all the time about ME does NOT make me selfish. Just because I have a birthday week does not make me selfish. Just because I make everyone celebrate my half birthday does not make me selfish. Maybe when he realizes that the world revolves around me he will change his mind. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

I'm Back!

Now that I'm back from our trip to West Virgina I can get caught up on posting!!! Here's a recap of our trip

Day 1 Tuesday
We did not end up leaving here till about 8pm, so that put us in West Virgina around 4am. Needless to say I slept most of the way through Ohio, and West Virgina. Frankie did great in the car and slept just as much as I did! Once we got there I went straight to bed. Call me anti social, but I had to get to bed.

Day 2 Wednesday Happy 4th of July!
I was not sure how Frankie was going to react to being in a new house. However, early on he was walking around like he owned the place. No need to worry about Frankie!
I was also not sure about how Donnie's dad would react to Frankie. While Donnie was growing up they always had dogs, but his dad insisted that dogs stay outside. Little Frankie is definitely an indoor dog. As it turns out Donnie's dad LOVED Frankie! They ended up being best friends!

We bought some sparklers to celebrate the 4th of July with, but a huge storm rolled in so we had to hold off on the sparklers.

Day 3 Thursday
Today we got to spend time with the cats. Donnie's dad had two cat last time we were there, but this time there were the two cat, and 4 kittens!!! They are the cutest things ever!

On a sad note, they were not very found of Frankie. Every time they saw him they hissed at him. This made Frankie very sad. He kept asking us, "Why do my cousins hate me?"

So we ended up keeping Frankie inside when we wanted to play with the kittens. Donnie's dad wanted us to take one with us, but we were not up to having a kitten that hated our dog.
Later that night we played with the sparklers that we had bought the day before.
Day 4 Friday
Today tragedy struck. My camera's batteries went dead, so I went looking for the charger. Sadly I had forgotten the charger at home. This was very sad news for me! We spent most of the day at Wal-Mart because Donnie's dad was going to the eye doctor there. We looked and looked to buy a replacement charger, but we had no luck. How sad!

Day 5 Saturday
Today we got to spend more time with the cats! Here are some more cat pictures I took before my camera died.

We ended up leaving West Virgina around 5pm to head back home. Frankie was doing very well..until he got car sick. The roads around Donnie's dad's house are very turnie. They go up, down, and around and around. This took its toll on Frankie. Poor Guy.

So now its back to work and our normal routine. However, it has been SO hot that when I come home, I go straight for the bedroom (its air conditioned) and I don't leave. I keep telling Donnie we need to move the computer into the bedroom. So far it has not moved. hehehe

New Plan

Currently Donnie is laid off of work for two weeks. He thought he would use this time to go visit his dad in West Virgina. His plan was to leave last Saturday. However, plans have changed. Donnie came down with a bad tooth ache and wanted to go to the dentist before leaving. The dentist could not see him until yesterday, so he stuck around. Then I thought well...if Donnie waits till after I get done with work on Tuesday, then I could go with him.

So a new plan was born. Donnie and I are going down to visit his dad for the rest of the week. And yes, we are taking Frankie with us. He wants to meet his other grandpa! We are leaving the hammy and gerbils here. They already got to meet grandpa, so now its Frankie's turn! Frankie told us to make sure to pack his food bowl!!!!

I rock!!!

I got an award!!!! Yeah!!!! My dear friend Sherry awarded it to me!!!! Yeah!!! I feel so honored! Now I'm going to pass this award onto other rockin girl blogger!

I'm going to award this to my friend AnneMarie. She has a great blog this is always thought provoking. She has a love for the Lord that is incredible. She's a blessing to many people!