Wedding Weekend/Family Get together

I don't see my parents all but maybe once a year. Last time I saw them it was November of last year for Thanksgiving. I had a cousin getting married in the same state they reside in, so a trip was in order! 

Colorado is one beautiful state. God's country is what I think and feel every time I am there. 

Can I also say although the Denver airport is big, it's probably one of my least favorite airports? Very confusing with all the book your ticket here then go down through security and take trams here and to pick up your bag you still have to go down more stairs. Oy vey! 

This is the view from my parent's backyard! Breathtaking! 

A view of the aisle the theme was very country :) I loved it! Lots of Mason jars!

I am one of 14 Grandkids, and now my grandfather has 3 great grand kids! Here's most of our crazy crew (4 grandkids couldn't make it) Plus the bride and her 2 brothers aren't in the photo either. 

My Stepmom loves to host, she made just about everything for our get together. It's definitely not summer without some fresh watermelon!

A view of the backyard, just another angle. 

Bros & Sis. Me & my brother. My cousin and her brother. :) 

This net got lots of use. We had a very competitive game of badminton and volleyball!

Lots of beverages (this was just the beer selection) 

Bow tie pasta salad and fruit salad.

My contribution was my famous cheesecake stuffed strawberries! Yum! 

If you are from Ohio then you know what dessert these are! :) 

The beautiful bride and groom!

And there you have it! What I've been up to as of lately! 

My number ones

Music plays such a big part in our lives--whether you are old or young it still finds a way to touch our souls. 

I can remember what albums really moved me from my early teen years, to high school, to then college. These artists that I am about to share are what I feel the epitome of a talented group of individuals and or music groups. They are real game changers of the music we listen to today. 

I'll start with Elementary school. If there is any one artist I listened to over and over, and knew every single word to all of her songs, it was Janet miss Jackson if your nasty. I listened to her cassette tape to the point where some of her songs sounded worn out from me fast forwarding/rewinding it so much! It's the one album that I can still listen to over and over at the gym or in the car and not get sick of hearing her tracks. 

All seven of RN‘s commercial singles – “Miss You Much,” “Rhythm Nation,” “Escapade,” “Alright,” “Come Back to Me,” “Black Cat,” and “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” – hit the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, even breaking the record previously set by brother Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Her record still hasn’t been broken! So for me, what Janet Album is her best? Why Rhythm Nation of course!

I'll move right into Madonna. I spent a lot of my 5th and 6th grade years rocking to Madonna's Immaculate Collection (also on cassette tape!) Who knew that Like a prayer would be the ultimate bar song years later when I was older! Madonna was way more sexual with her music and videos than Janet was initially, but she she still made great music. The Immaculate Collection is still one of my favorite Albums of hers. 

Moving on into High School. When I think of high school, I only think majority of one group, and that's Dave Matthews Band.  How influential were they? A song from one of their albums was our "theme" to our senior year prom! I kid you not! I own all their albums on CD, and had a really tough time picking which one I thought was the best since they are all so dang good. But if I had to pick one that I feel is a step above and means the most, it would be under the table and dreaming. 

In college the artist named John Mayer rolled around and the acoustic guitar was all the rage with music. He's had several albums out since my college days, and Battle Studies, in my opinion, is his best work. 

If you had to pick your all time top 4 best musical albums you have ever heard in your life, what would you pick? What molded or shaped you growing up in the music sense? 

Other Honorable mentions that I listened to quite a bit as well..

Elvis Presley (all his songs not just one album)

Brian McKnight

Christina Aguilera 

The Backstreet Boys

Bush 

Reba McEntire

Michael Jackson 

Garth Brooks

So where did this entire blog post stem from you ask? Honestly I was at the gym, getting my cardio sweat sesh in and Janet came on my play list and my heart was pumping. I felt like I could push through anything listening to her sing Rhythm Nation! And that my friends is what made me really think, what were my all time favorite singers/music groups that to me, I felt were the best of the best in my childhood, and paved the way for a lot of musical artists who try to live up to them today. 

Life...as of lately

Hubs and I did a little tour of the CLE Art Museum! Did you know that this museum is FREE to the public? I can't remember the last time I went to a museum that had Monet, and Picasso masterpieces on display and it was free to get in!










We did a little walking around downtown CLE and grabbed a bite to eat before heading back home.







Couldn't be out to late with this little one awaitng for us!

DIY Chalk Paint

I know Annie Sloan's chalk paint is the bees knees, but I was searching for a cheaper alternative and found this chalk paint by Americana from Michaels and thought I'd give it a whirl. 

The first item I tried it on was a metal mirror. I really like the crackle effect it gave on it! 

What you'll need: 

• Paint brushes
• Chalk paint
• clear wax 
• clean rag/towel 
• sand paper 

Then I saw this on Pinterest and said why stop there!?! I was needing something to store all my paints since we've moved and I don't have my classroom as my art studio anymore!

image via pinterest

So I began to hunt around for a vintage carpenters tool box and was on my way! 

Here's my final result!

2 months of catching up!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts it's been yet again crazy around here! From April till now I haven't had much time to do anything other than pack, move, unpack, potty train a pup, job search, get lost and learn my way around CLE, OH just to name a few!




How am I 33 years old!?! Where has the time gone!?


Within 2 weeks of being settled in Ohio, I could hardly stand being alone so for my 33rd B day, hubs agreed to add a new member of our family. 

Our hearts are full! She's completely different from Aspen girl that much I can tell you! Lucy barks (unlike Aspen) she also chews everything! Ahh! Fingers, papers, door stops, you name it! We have mastered the potty on the pee pads and sit now if we can just get her to go outside or let us know she has to go we'd be in good shape! 

Introducing Lucy Lu! 

In case you were recalling be blogging last summer about moving..... Here's a refresher.
Last summer we attempted to move back to Ohio before our house sold. (Mistake) as it forced us to come back to AZ. Well we upgraded a few things this time in our house, (Granite countertops in the kitchen and changed out a few gold hardware door knobs for silver and presto magic our house sold in 4 days this past March!) 

We then decided to have me finish out the school year of teaching and decide to relocate back to Ohio for good this time.  I think this big change was a good thing. Losing Aspen was so hard and being in our home in AZ was hard everything triggered memories of her. I now completely understand why people (including my dad) decide to move or leave homes after someone dies. It's just easier. As a child when my mom passed away, I was super angry for my father uprooting us kids out of our childhood home. I thought it had everything to do with my step mom who just didn't want to live there. But in hindsight, it was really about the pain my father felt going inside the home that my mother passed away in. It was just to hard. I don't blame him. 

As far as teaching in Ohio goes, finding an art position is no easy task. The openings are slim to none for full time. :( If any of you that read my blog know of ANYONE in the school district in the CLE area please let me know! :) 

For the love of Burlap

When hubby and I got married in 2012, I put on my wedding registry this adorable burlap monogram print. The print came from a seller on Etsy of course that custom made burlap prints for $20-$25 for an 8x10 sized print. 

Since then, I've had some time for once to actually try out little art projects for our home, rather than for my students or teaching related stuff! 

I did a little research and attempted my own burlap print. I am happy that it turned out just marvelous! 

Here's what you need:

There are 2 ways to do this-- the first way I attempted it had a few more steps involved.

• IRON
• BURLAP (cut to fit the size of your printer)
• SCISSORS
• FREEZER PAPER
• INKJET PRINTER
• YOUR IMAGE OR TEXT you want to print via from your computer!

Take your iron and iron the freezer paper to the burlap SHINEY SIDE DOWN on the burlap. 

Go over it a few times your main concentration should be around the edges. 

Place your burlap into your printer. This is the only tricky part because everyone's printers are different and feed differently. I had to put my burlap face down to get it to print the right side up! Do a test sheet on regular paper to get an idea of which way you need to load the burlap. 

Don't be nervous about putting the burlap in the printer. So long as you don't have any frayed edges you'll be fine! 

The other way you can do this project is buy buying pre cut burlap from walmart. They only give you 3 sheets per pack for around 3 dollars a pack. Ideally, this is the way to go. No iron or freezer paper needed as the burlap is already coated for the printer. 

And the final results turn out like this! 

Adding this beauty to our gallery wall! 

The Age of Adaline

"Like many women, Adaline (Blake Lively) is 29 this year, and was 29 last year and the year before that. Unlike other women, she is telling the truth: She has been 29 for 78 years, and “The Age of Adaline” is an entire century and change.

Echoing “Groundhog Day” and “Benjamin Button,” “The Age of Adaline” is a romance with an enticing emotional structure. Adaline (who stopped aging after a freak accident that combined hypothermia with a lightning strike) feels she can’t tell anyone about her condition, so she hasn’t allowed herself to be photographed since 1954 and uses forged identity papers. Every 10 years she picks up stakes, changes her name and creates a new life, retaining emotional ties only to a series of identical spaniels and to her daughter — who today looks old enough to be her grandmother and is played by the venerable Ellen Burstyn."-blurb taken from NYPost 

So I saw The Age of Adaline on Friday afternoon and loved it. All I wanted to do was time warp back to earlier eras so I could be around the fashion and good mannered people of those times. Seriously why don't women today dress as they did back then!? It kills me! 

Some might say the narration in the film is a little cheesy, but then again you know going into the film that no one lives forever or doesn't age so you have to play along. I couldn't drag my hubby to this one, so I went alone. It's worth seeing in my opinion. I couldn't tear my eyes of the big screen from Blake Lively. She was stunning. 

I couldn't help but question and ask my self, why aren't women today more like what I saw on the big screen? Why don't we speak more eloquently and act more lady like? Sometimes I just don't get how all of these great things got so lost in translation over the years. 

I think this quote on the picture below pretty much sums up the movie and why anyone should go and see it! 

San Francisco

Sorry for my lack of posts, I haven't had to much to really share or write about since losing our sweet Aspen in February. 

Hubby and I saved our pennies over the past few months and decided it was now or never to take the trip to San Francisco, a part of California that neither of us had been to. This was such a learning trip for me! San Fran has so much history I felt like I was a student sitting in a class trying to take down as mental notes as I could so I wouldn't forget anything! 

We did a 4 day 3 night trip to San Francisco and decided after seeing the hotel prices in the city that it would be best to stay a little outside of the city in a town called Burlingame. I'm glad we did after hearing from a few people if you stay anywhere near Fisherman's Warf that the noise would just be constant. 

On our "to do" list was of course seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, Alacatraz, tour of Muir Woods, Sausalito, Alamo square  and of course get the whole tour of San Fran the city it's self. 


There were so many things I learned about the city--some things shocking, some things I wasn't surprised! The first interesting thing I found out/saw was that San Fran is a VERY pet friendly city. We saw so many people out walking their dogs, playing with their dogs. There was so much dog interaction it made my heart swell with happiness. I loved this about the city. LOVED IT. I also saw a ton of Frenchies in the city! Apparently that was like "the breed" to have! 

Parking. Is slim to none all the time 24/7 7 days a week. And when do you find it, its NOT CHEAP. Some parking meters we fed coins to were $4 for an hour of parking! Parking garages were anywhere from $20-$25 dollars for a few hours. Compact cars are a must and way easier to cram into small spaces. I Saw very few trucks or Suvs. That was really surprising to me.  We saw more Teslas (electric fancy cars) than we've ever seen here in AZ. 

Public Transportation....everyone rides it. And I do mean everyone. My husband and I referred to the random people of San Fran riding on these as "packed sardines." I often remarked to my husband that I would probably be only thinking if I had to ride one each morning gosh I hope no one stinks and all have deoderant on! There was so many forms of transportation, buses that ran off wires not gasoline, subway looking type cars, trolleys, biking is huge, as well as good old walking. 

Speaking of walking, i did not see ANY women wearing heels. I think it would of been like social suicide to walk on such an incline in heels! hah Having a jacket with you is a must, since the weather changes so much along the coast! Clothing wise I also noticed wearing your work out clothes as your outfit is like the "thing" to wear. IE I saw tons of women dressed really cute in really cute work out clothes mainly lululemon of course but like from head to toe they were rocking matching shoes with their leggings and work tops and headbands. 

My husband and I also noted that people in general were way better mannered than what we encounter here in AZ. People in the city especially the drivers (SHOCKER!!) the drivers don't seem to want to run pedestrians over and don't honk at them to hurry across the street. Anytime we went into a store, restaurant a man or woman always held the door open. It was so nice. 

People in general are also 10-20 lbs lighter than people we see in AZ. No joke we didn't see anyone over weight at all. Everyone is somewhat slim as we are confident with this being due to all the crazy inclines that city people must walk on a day to day basis. 

Food, room and board.....are all EXPENSIVE. Our tour guide told us that San Fran has officially surpassed New York as the most expensive city to live in in the United States. 

Here's what I didn't like about the city:
Super Touristy. Being from the Chicago area, I can honestly say I've never felt more packed in a city than I did in San Fran. There were literally people everywhere and my husband and I often joked that this is what it must feel like to live in China. 

How expensive everything was...let's be real here...there's no way a teacher could live in the city. The rent alone is more than what my husband and I ever paid on our mortage on our over 2,000 sq ft home! I can't even fathom paying 3k for 500 sq ft 1 bedroom apartment! That's insanity! 

The weather. I'm complaining about the weather? hehe a little bit! It kind of drove me crazy that I had to take my coat everywhere or wear it everywhere since you can drive a few blocks over to another section of san fran and the weather would be completely different than what it was. Ladies don't bother curling your hair and be anywhere near the bridge or any water...even the best hairspray won't help you out. lol True story. I tried. Epic fail. Cali=1 C Mae= 0. 

With that being said, we had a great time, and I'm so glad we took a few days to check out the city. It truly was a learning experience! 

A few fun facts we learned:
We drove by OJ Simpson's high school, which I guess had the field named after him, but since his accused murdering days they had to change the name of the field. That same high school was also where Joe DiMaggio attended (He didn't graduate though) 

I had no idea Danielle Steele owned one of the biggest homes in San Fran or that Both Bob Marley and The Grateful Dead resided in San Fran for several years (we drove by their residences) 

That's all I'll write for now, stay tuned for tomorrow's post with pictures of our trip!