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It's time for ...

Betsy's Favorite Things!

I was reading a few of my favorite blogs this week/weekend. Many of them were doing their own version of "Oprah's Favorite Things" in the form of a blog post, and then sharing what they came up with. I missed my chance to post on the starting day AND I couldn't narrow my list down to just 5 items. So, here you go ... in no particular order!

My DVR: It's hard to believe that just a few short years ago, I was taping my favorite shows on VHS if I couldn't be home when they were on. Now, I record anything from Oprah, to SNL, to my new favorite show, Auction Hunters. {Check it out on SpikeTV!} Oprah's last Favorite Things show aired on Friday ... but she's doing another on Monday! Haven't watched yet, but I bet there was some great stuff!

Apothecary jars: I collected these over 2 years and waited patiently to put them up until I had my own place. Love how they can create great decor pretty easily, and for not too much money.

Bath & Body Works candle: It's my all-time favorite scent! The store doesn't always carry this passion fruit & guava scent, so when I find it, I try to stock up. I'm always happy to get this as a gift. (Ahem ... hint, hint).

Beautiful painting: Passed to me from Aunt Susan. It's giant, and unique, and I love it! Oh, Minnie likes to hang out by it, too!

OPI nail polish: Lots of favorite colors (for my toes), but my MOST favorite is "Ladies and Magentamen"!

Canon Rebel XS: I still love, love, love my Canon PowerShot, but I feel like this new camera has made me a much better photographer. I have to work harder at getting a great picture, which is frustrating at times, but good for the process.

Rings: You can see how they take over the majority of my jewelry box. Some are from family members. Some were gifts. Some cost $1.00. One was bought in Italy. Most were bought at stores around town. I like to wear rings every day, and when I don't, it feels strange.

Bootcut cords from New York & Company: These are a new favorite. I bought the khaki-colored pair first. I got so many compliments on them the first time I wore them, that I went back right after work and bought the green pair. I just went this week to pick up the gray pair. That's how I typically buy things ... find one I like, so I buy all they have. They still have them in the stores.

Eyeliner: I love all kinds of make-up, but I tend to really experiment with eyeliner. I'm not a brand snob, and most of these come from drug stores. My current favorite is the ULTA store brand. I'll wear any color ... I think it's fun to change it up every once in a while.

Diet Coke: No explanation necessary. I'm not a coffee or tea drinker, so I need to have some caffeine to start and get through my day.

Perfume: I've never had fancy perfume. My two favorites are Clinique Happy and Tommy Girl. I still get compliments when I put one of them on (which I don't remember to do every day). They last me a long time, but I'm actually out of Tommy Girl, after several years. I'm a sad girl ;)

Panera: Not only do they have good food, but they have free WiFi and I enjoy working and grading papers so much more when I am out of my house.

Double Twelve Dominoes: If you haven't gotten on the Mexican Train bandwagon, errrr train, then you're missing out! Great game for the family during the holidays!

Garden Veggie Straws & Chips: Of course, my Wal-Mart doesn't carry these, but I picked up a box of the lunch bag size when I was at Costco with Mom. They are yummy & a bit better for me than the other kinds of chips I normally pack in my lunch. I thought I would hate the rosemary olive oil flavor, but they were my favorite.

Top Sites: This is the home page on my MacBook Pro (another favorite). It picks the sites that I visit the most often (you can also set them) and then it notifies you when the site is updated with a blue star. It took me far too long to realize that was what the blue star was for! Are YOU featured on my top sites?

Wrapping paper: I have a ridiculous amount of wrapping paper (and bags, and tissue, and ribbon, and boxes), but I LOVE wrapping presents! I'm dying to wrap what few presents I've already purchased, but promised myself I'd wait until I had my Christmas decor up.

Fuzzy blanket: This picture doesn't really show just how soft this blanket is. I have a few of these (picked up from HomeGoods or TJMaxx) and Minnie and I curl up with one of them most nights during the winter.

Pens: All colors, all brands, anything that makes grading hundreds of papers more enjoyable. Last year, I purchased a set of fine-point LePen markers online that are great colors, but I still like this basic set of Flair Pens.

Vaseline Lip Therapy: No flavor, no color, inexpensive and works miracles for chapped lips! Found at most drug stores & grocery stores at the check-out counters, too! So easy to find :)

Target store brand vitamins: I've NEVER been a girl who takes vitamins. I have good intentions and I'll buy a bottle of them, but then the taste and size of those huge multi-vitamins scare me off. A friend suggested the fruit-flavored gummy daily vitamins to me. I bought them and I actually remember to take them every day! The last time I was there, I thought I'd look at the other kinds and picked up the gummy calcium supplements, too. Mom thinks they're disgusting, but I feel better knowing that I'm taking something ... and I think they are yummy, too!

Didn't realize I was going to end my favorite things post on such an exciting item (ha!) but here we are at the end. Hope you found something you might like ... or something you didn't know about. Maybe you can even get some gift ideas for someone on your list. Maybe YOU should write a post of YOUR favorite things to share with all of us! :)

Here is the link to the original start of the Favorite Things Post.

Woof, Woof!

Remember when I was shopping at the Mission Road Antique Mall and found those adorably cute doggie bookends back in March?

Then, one day my Aunt Susan called to say that she had called the Antique Mall to have them pull the terrier bookends to reserve them for me. She was going to get them for me as an early birthday present.

I drove over to the Antique Mall and they had pulled 3 other sets of bookends, but none of them were as cute as the ones I had picked out a month earlier. I purchased & immediately went home to find the perfect spot for them.

Here they are ... looking very cute in my loft with some great reads AND a lot of other books that I have yet to read.

Thanks, Aunt Susan! You're the BEST :) I love you to pieces.

Thanks for the new toy, Grandma McKnight

This is the new toy that mom got Minnie for Christmas! Doesn't it look like fun? It's colorful (yes, I know she's colorblind) and bouncy and made of tough rubber.

Wait a minute! What is that on the floor near Minnie? Is that candy? Nope ... it's part of the toy. After seeing that, I watched Minnie carefully bit EACH AND EVERY ONE of those balls off that toy.

What I thought was interesting, was that after she bit each piece off, she spit them out in a little pile. Minnie was so sad that I took the toy away from her & threw it away. I'm so sad that this was yet ANOTHER toy that seemed to last just a matter of minutes! Why can't my dog play with toys like most dogs do, NOT eat them?

Here's a video of her biting the pieces off & spitting them out in a pile.

Thanks for the toy, Mom/Grandma!

Winter Break Review

I was feeling bad that I hadn't posted in a while, but I didn't really know how to sum up what had been going on since the beginning of my Winter Break. So ... here it is in pictures. I have a few more days of break, so any additional pictures, you'll just have to check out my photo blog. I've decided to continue with it for year two. I really enjoyed doing that blog since it was simple & quick. I also felt that it was a great way to work on my photography skills. My goal for this year is to save up enough money (ha!) to treat myself to a fancy digital SLR camera.

Here we go!

Part of my Christmas decor. I love the way my condo looks with all my decorations up. Last year I took it all down by January 7th. I'm hoping to put it all away by the time I go back to work next week.

This pic pretty much sums up Christmas morning. Ellen wanting to get her hands on all the presents & Minnie looking flustered and running around.

The cute moss terrarium that Molly & I made for Mom and Ann. They were doing so well the first week and now they seem to have some yucky mold growing in them. I will read into some quick fixes ... but the best fix may just be starting over from scratch. They are so darn cute, I hate to see them do poorly.

I came home on Christmas night to find this lovely leak in my living room. After FREAKING out & using my fancy ear-to-wall detective skills, I realized that it was snow/roof related ... not pipes/bathroom related. It continued to drip pretty steadily for 4 days. Now it has stopped, but the plaster on the ceiling fell off & the ceiling is stained much more than what this picture shows. The HOA workmen say they'll be out in a few weeks to fix. Hopefully this will, in fact, be covered by my HOA dues!

It snowed ... and snowed .. and snowed ... AND SNOWED! I'm not sure when I've ever seen this much snow in Kansas City! I don't think Minnie has even been alive when there has been this much snow. It's NOT fun walking her in the bitter cold, but at least she'll go out!
The crew at the Wagner's annual Cookie Decorating Party. It was the 20th (or was it the 21st?) year of the party ... so it was 1989-themed. A fun time was had by all ... unfortunately we were missing some due to snow, family & plumbing disasters!

My cookie this year! I normally just do one cookie. I earned the 2nd Runner Up prize with this snow globe. It took me close to an hour ... well worth it!

Look! It's a Snuggie! You can even knit when you are wearing it. Mitz & I were so cold, we both wrapped up in the Snuggie that Adam & Jill got at their family gift exchange.

We spent a lot of our break playing Wii. Big Brain Academy is always good for a laugh! I call this girl on the right, "angry, unicorn, gap-teeth" when I'm trying to remember what the characters look like! :)

Becca & Charlotte playing at the girls' gift exchange. Charlotte is so funny when you put a camera on her. She blinks & smiles right when she sees the flash!

It was so nice to get together for our gift exchange. Thanks to Megan & Emilie for cooking up a wonderful dinner. Love you girls!

The other way that we spent our Christmas break. A rare picture of me that Jilly took. Mitzi realized that she hadn't played Guitar Hero since she moved last March. We missed it ... but I could do without playing Van Halen GH.

Jilly & Adam rocking out to 80's Guitar Hero.

On the 31st, I actually went up to school to work for a few hours. I gave up after 3 hours when I couldn't feel my fingers to type. The temperature was anywhere from 60-64 degrees while we were up there! Brrrr!

Went later that day to play with Ellen. This was the first time I'd seen her have a bath in the big tub & not the kitchen sink. She LOVES to play with her toys & move around constantly (probably to stay warm)! Look at those lashes!

And ... here we are. A new year!

Like the Sky Mall catalog ... only better!

So, I got my mail today after work and found this catalog in my mailbox. It's the Harriet Carter - Distinctive Gifts Since 1958 catalog. By the picture on the front, I assumed it was for pet supplies.

Then ... I opened it and realized that this catalog is like a giant As Seen on TV infomercial. Are they watching me at home? Do they know that I LOVE watching infomercials? Well, I realized that I've ordered some products online (that I've seen on TV) and they probably sold my name.

Anyhoo ... started flipping through this baby tonight and found some GREAT items ... and some not-so-great items. I thought I'd share:

Portable Yarn Organizer: Jill, aren't you lucky that I know you already have a yarn organizer? Check out this thing! This is for serious knitters!

Rolling Pants Trolley: Seriously? I'm pretty sure I have a wire frame for hanging files at work that looks just like this! I can't really decide if this would do great things or bad things for nice work pants.

Domino Holder: Now, I think this item would actually be helpful. It is kind of tough to see your tiles when they are perpendicular to the table you are playing on. Do I want to pay $13 for all my domino teammates to have the holders? No.

"Peek-a-boo" Dog Bed: Why would Minnie want this bed when she can just play peek-a-boo in MY bed covers? I would only be interested in paying $25 for this if the cute pup came with the bed!

Alphabet Cake Pan: I think you can click any of these pictures to see a larger image, but you might want to look closely at this pan! It's pretty inventive. I bet Erik's Mom would love to try something like this. I'm wondering how well the cakes actually bake in this movable pan.

Hair Umbrella: Can you imagine if you walked into your hair salon next time and everyone were wearing one of these? I would die laughing! I can't imagine that it's really that much easier to clean cut hair out of all the folds in this "collar" than it would be to just sweep up your floor.

Big Top Cupcake Set: Amy emailed all of us this summer with information on this Cupcake Set. She had been up in the middle of the night feeding Griffey and saw the infomercial for this. She had to write to confirm with the girls that this was either a) the stupidest invention ever OR b) something that she could call and order immediately!

Daughter-In-Law Afghan: Your DIL doesn't want this, I promise you that. She would rather that you just gave her the $30 you would have spent on this blanket that would never leave her linen closet.

Microwave S'Mores Maker: Huh? What? Are you telling me that I can't put my marshmallows in the microwave & watch them grow 500x their original size anymore? Thanks S'Mores Maker, for taking the fun out of my yummy treat!

Shredder Scissors: These shredding scissors seem like a good idea ... but I'm here to tell you that they aren't. I bought a pair through our school fundraiser last year. I've used them about 3 times. It's next to impossible to cut through an old credit card with them and it takes too long to cut through junk mail with them. Not only that, but you can't use them as regular scissors (duh) when you need to simply cut something. My hands are MUCH faster at just ripping up mail I don't want anyone else to read. Save yourself the $6.85.

Cat Talk Book: Minnie was thinking about buying this for the mothers of her two kitty friends, Betty & Gracie. I told her that wasn't necessary because their mothers already know what they are saying, "Get that schnoodle away from me AND out of my house!"

Dickey: Should stop being manufactured. Period. End of discussion.

Dog Tweeter: I just thought this was funny because of the name, "dog tweeter". Like this was going to update to the dog's Twitter account as they were on a walk. P.S. I'm fairly confident that if Minnie had a dog whistle on her leash, every time she pulled we'd have all the dogs in the neighborhood following us around.

White Wizard: This product is definitely worth the $7! Erik's Mom, Ann, gave me a tub of White Wizard and I can't tell you how many times it's come to the rescue! Maybe you should know that I'm a complete klutz, I have off-white carpet and I've spilled red drinks on my floor approximately 10 times. I have ZERO drink stains on my carpet, which should tell you how great this product is! If you ever see White Wizard out in the stores, you should buy a tub to have on hand just in case!

Those are the Harriet Carter products that I felt were either completely ridiculous OR totally worth the money! I hope I may have helped out with some of your Christmas (or White Elephant) shopping!