My Bucket List

I'm sitting alone in my living room on a Friday night. There's TONS going on within 30 min of where I live, but we're home because of a few reasons. My husband is a work-a-holic. He's busy working in the shop.

I'm looking at all the fun places people are posting pictures of on Facebook.

This has inspired my bucket list creation. I'm 34, a mom of two. Life can be taken away at any moment.

Here's my list of what I want to do before I die:

• Go to Las Vegas
• Go back to Mrytle Beach and gorge myself at Crabby Mikes
• Go to Mardi Gras
• Stay in the luxury suite of a fancy hotel
• Get good seats at professional baseball game
• Get good seats at a professional hockey game
• Go fishing until the sun sets, lay in the bed of a pick-up truck and stare at the stars
• Buy a professional camera just to take random pictures
• Visit my father's grave site
• Have my husband do something so romantic I cry (dinner with suppliers just doesn't cut it)
• Have a wedding/vow renewal and wear a HUGE wedding dress
• Go to a nice resort in Mexico or Jamaica
• Learn to cook (I mean like just one gourmet meal)
• Attend the Olympics
• Watch my kids graduate from college

R.I.P. Summer Library Program

For years, I took my kids to the Quincy Public Library summer reading program. It kept us busy 3-4 days 1-3 hours at a time. It was great! There would be a free movie with popcorn one afternoon, a craft on another, and Friday mornings always held some sort of live performance. I also carried hefty fines because, I'm terrible at returning books. Seriously, never lend me a book you want back! Had we stayed in Quincy, we may have been able to squeak one more year out of the program. But alas, we moved. The new town has a library smaller than the children's depart of Quincy's. The staff is great, if they don't have a book we want, they get it for us. They do have a reading program, but not near what Quincy has. It makes me sad. I do think the kids miss it (even if they won't admit so).

At Home Date Night

When you're a parent, you don't get many date nights. Sure, there are those women that seem to get a date night out and about every single week. I'm not one of those. My summer date nights at home usually start off with dinner on the patio. This week was started with a nice cob salad, then surf & turf (steak/lobster), with fresh from the garden brussels sprouts  for the main course. Desert with free this week! The lovely folks at influenster sent me a #voxbox a few days ago, and in it was a coupon for free a free Breyers Gelato. OMG! The vanilla caramel was AWESOME!! After dessert, we open up a bottle of wine, plug the playlist in, and relax. Usually the kids are in bed (or at least in their rooms) by 9. That leaves Dave and I time to just dink some wine, listen to music, and talk. Great date nights don't have to cost a lot, check out my pinboard for date night! Date Night Pinboard

This post was inspired by Breyers Gelato. I received a coupon for a free a free container from Influenster.

Looks like fun!

We're having a HUGE open house/BBQ in a few weeks. I found this idea online and I think the kids will love it!

found at http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/71/c9/f8/71c9f898eb457ef8794e81b822d8cb84.jpg

 Here are some other great ideas I found:

Take that! cravings!

I have a little diner about 7 miles down the road (closest place to eat out around here). They have strawberry pie on the glowing menu board every time we are there. Every time, we say we're going to order some. Either we get too full or the waitress is too slow and we never get the pie. I found an easy recipe on pinterest Here's the original link. I don't bake too often so rather than risk a crust, I cheated and did a store bought graham cracker crust.
The original recipe makes too much for the graham cracker crust.

Here's my version:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons corn starch
3oz box strawberry jello
1 pint fresh strawberries
1 graham cracker pie crust

Bring the water, sugar, and corn starch to a slow boil while stirring. This magic thing happens and it goes from liquidy to goopy and translucent.
Remove from heat, stir in the jello mix.
Let it cool for a couple of minutes (I used this time to cut the fresh strawberries).

Pour a little of the red mixture into the bottom of the pie plate.
Add a layer of strawberries.
Repeat until the pie plate is full.
Refrigerate until set firm.
Eat with some cool-whip or whipped topping and YUMMY!!!!

I feel like an old frumpy mom today. Today I'm headed to Emma's school to help with the fun day. That means standing in the sun for the next six hours or so. I have loose/ill fitted khaki shorts and a "teacher tank top" (meaning one that I wore when I taught, so it's overly modest for a tank top). I just feel like blahhhhhhhhhhh.................

So today has been a great day! Today my youngest child (Emma) earned the privilege of a special field trip. The top 5 readers in her school all got to go swimming and eat lunch at Taco Bell. It was nice to have kids recognized for performing well academically.
Funny part is that the kids were treated to Jeep rides.......we own like 6 Jeeps right now. If you check out the Taboo Customs link on the right, you will see that I own a business making custom Jeep parts. My kid rides in a Jeep daily. BUT this was fun and special for her because she was with her friends and going to a cool place. Way to go Emma!

Today was also cool because when I arrived home I checked the mail. Expecting bills, no bills today! We had our Jeep Club event registrations, a rebate check from Menards, as well as a VoxBox from influentster. They sent me some goodies to use & review. Being that I open the mail all of 10 minutes ago, I have not had time to test the stuff out, but it looks cool! In the box there was a Neosporin Neo To Go, Coupon for a free Bryers Gelato Indulgences, Ivory Bar Soap, Avon Anew REvesalist Express Wrinkle Smoother, Puffs to go, and Shell Fuel Rewards Network Card.