The bitches love 'em!

Let me start out by apologizing for offending anyone with my post title! I'm actually just borrowing the tag line for one of my new favorite doggie supply companies, Walk-e-Woo.

A few weeks ago, Minnie was in desperate need of a new collar. I use the term "need" lightly, because it was more of a want. She was sporting a cute, preppy, pink & green with flamingo print collar for the first part of the summer. I loved it, except it was a big, fat $1 from Target and it broke 3 weeks into the summer. I wasn't that upset since it didn't break the bank.

So, I just happened to be in my favorite pet store in town last week and found this cute collar:

Normally, I would go for pink, but I thought the lime green was a nice change of pace for us. Anyhoo ... she looks super cute in it and I wanted to check out their website to see what sorts of awesome stuff they have. I found a lot, but mostly, I was amazed by this photo displaying collars and leashes and the FAQ section.

Here are some of my favorite questions and answers! I think they're hilarious!

Q: If I don't like the color or quality of my web order, am I stuck with it?

A: Nah, we treat our customers right, free exchange or full refund if not happy with any web order. Just don't send it back to us a year later, we're on to that.

Q: Isn't your tag line "the bitches love 'em" offensive?

A: It shouldn't be offensive to anyone. Per Webster's Dictionary: bitch - n. 1. A female canine.

Q: Are your collars only for bitches?

A: No, but don't be surprised if his bitch friends start paying more attention to him (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, caveat emptor).

Q: Will Walk-e-Woo take financial responsibility for my bitch becoming impregnated as a result of wearing a Walk-e-Woo?

A: Walk-e-Woo is not responsible for any increased sexual activity your pet may experience as a result of our collars, period. Furthermore, we strongly encourage pet owners to have their pets spayed or neutered.

Q: Are you sure you are not just using the term 'bitch' gratuitously?

A: Absolutely.

For those of you that are good owners who buy new collars for new seasons for your dogs (tee hee), you should go check it out or check your local pet store for their line of dog accessories!

Common Craft - Paper dolls for adults!

Somehow, I found this cool website {Common Craft} that makes very simple and easy to understand descriptions of technology "mysteries" for those of you/us that are technologically challenged. They explain either in written form with simple summaries or these cool videos that have a voice-over to describe the neat-o "paper dolls" that are being moved around to help visually show how things work. For instance, they explain social networking, wikipedia, blogging, podcasting and photo sharing.

I originally watched the video on Twitter. Jill brought this up the other day at the pool, and I was baffled. Is everyone Twittering? Am I the only one that isn't? Is this something I need to be doing? Someone ... PLEASE TELL ME! I have a feeling this is something else for me to become obsessed with checking and updating. Do I really need that?

Here is the video for Twitter:
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They also explain blogging in a simple way. I assume that since you are reading this, you understand the basics of blogging, but you should watch this just because:
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Is anyone out there Twittering that I don't know about?

Ladies Night on the Town ... Fixed!

I mentioned earlier that a few weekends ago was Amy's Bachelorette Party. I'm finally finding time to upload pictures for a post ... and fix the original post I made. Stupid blogger! :)

The evening started with a yummy dinner and opening of presents at a friend's house. From there, we wanted to find a place to go dancing. We ended up at Manhattan's (135th & State Line) which was actually pretty cool!


I kept thinking that this place would be even more fun if people actually knew about the club. It had nice, comfy furniture, a big dance floor, an oval bar in the middle of the place, the NICEST bathrooms I've ever been in (complete with a chaise, beauty supplies and kick-ass sinks), attentive wait staff and a DJ or band most nights. The manager (that stopped by with shots) assured us that most nights it is packed. So much so that the night before there were so many people that he ordered more chairs the next day!

Anyhoo ... this is where we ended up, and even though we made up about 90% of the clientele, we had a blast!

Here's the bride with some fancy drinks! Doesn't the green martini look HUGE? It is actually normal size and the one on the left is a tiny shot glass. I love how the colors turned out in this picture.



Here are the girls living it up on the dance floor! Can you tell that we were basically the only ones on the dance floor?! :)




All of Amy's girls ... from all different areas of her life (family, high school, work, friends through TJ)!

Congrats, Amy! The wedding countdown clock has officially started! :)

Back to work!

Tomorrow morning ... actually in just about 7 hours ... I go back to tutoring and working. This last week off has been nice, but it will be good to get back into a routine AND pick up some cash along the way, too!

I tried to get to Panera today to update the Bachelorette party post from last week, but their wireless wasn't working. That will be my goal for this week. I've got to do something with it because the red x's for pictures makes it look like all the pictures were censored! Ha!

Okay ... I'm up late after painting away again tonight (more on that later) and watching the Bachelorette Finale! I don't want to say anything, because I know some people might be a bit late in watching it; but I am ready to discuss with anyone that is willing! I thought it was GREAT!

Off to bed, so I can actually get up to my alarm in the morning. Night!

3 McKnights & a Lund Painting Service

I've just ended my second of two painting shifts today at Casa de Construction (aka Molly & Erik's). The workmen are finally done, so now it's time to paint so that the rooms can really be done!

Yesterday morning, we got up early to go to the paint store to get a new color for their master bathroom and ceiling primer and paint. Today, we went to another paint store to get paint for the trim upstairs (thankfully to be done by a hired painter later this summer) and the living room, hallways and office.

We got started after a quick lunch and Molly and I remembered why we hated painting ceilings: it sucks! You spend 1/2 the time leaning back so far on a ladder that you might fall off, and the other 1/2 the time trying to figure out what you've painted so far and where to go next.

Erik has not been "allowed" to paint since the Cream Paint in the Guest Bath Debacle of '03. That left the two of us to fend for ourselves. Then Mom called to ask if we wanted her help. Yes, yes we do! [I just realized that my title is wrong: we are no longer 3 McKnights ... but when it comes to painting, it might be safe to say that McKnights are good at it, and Lunds need more practice ;) so 3 McKnights it is!]

Anyhoo ... after Molly and I gave Erik a test run with the ceiling painting, we realized he was good enough to be 2 extra hands! We painted this afternoon from about 12:30 until 4:15 when it was time to get ready to head to dinner. After a yummy dinner with family friends, it was time to come back for the second shift. We've been painting since 9:45 and now it's 11:42.

We didn't get as much done as we wanted due to lack of light in the living room tonight. This means that we have a delay in finishing the living room and getting it back to normal for Minnie to come back, relaxing on real furniture and DVR! One more day of working our hineys off. Hopefully this project will be done in the very near future!

Rhubarb Crisp: Step-by-step

A while back, I blogged about Molly making some yummy rhubarb crisp, and many of you seemed interested! The recipe comes from Martha's Everyday Foods (of course) and it fairly easy to make! I'm not a good cook, by any means, and if I can make it, you can, too!

So, about two weeks ago, Molly and I spent a few hours in the kitchen cooking away. I took pictures at the time, and now I finally have a chance to share them!

The beginning! Aren't these colors gorgeous together? We decided to mix this crisp with strawberries, too. I don't think I've ever seen rhubarb in the raw form before. It looks like celery, and I just cut it up into small pieces. This is a 9x9 pan just for reference.

Sprinkled with sugar only (I think) at this point. It really got the juices to start coming out of the fruit. See those onions in the bottom? Those were roasted and were really good, too!

Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and oats at this point. Stir up as best as you can.

Add some small bits of butter to that mixture and sprinkle it to cover the fruit. Those are my hands! See? I can bake!! :)

The finished product! SOOOOOOO good. I recommend to enjoy when it is still a little bit warm, and with vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt.

I wanted to also include pictures from the rest of the cooking that went on.

This is the cabbage that I took apart leaf by leaf and cleaned. Isn't it beautiful! I love the range of green colors that unfolded with each layer.

And here is the slaw I made with it. We added dried cranberries, apple chunks, maybe some nuts and a poppyseed dressing. It was really good!

Here is Molly slaving away at the stove!

She asked Erik to bring home some chicken breasts to pan fry and he brought 4 of the biggest pieces of chicken we've ever seen! She had to pound them down to get thin enough for her to cook correctly. It took 2 big pans to do it, but it was REALLY good!

Here's the third member of our cooking team. He's watching the TV to make sure that it doesn't spontaneously explode and cause smoke to come into the kitchen so we can no longer cook. He was a HUGE help! ;)

Hmmmm ... after I've written all of this, I think it's time to make it all again! I'll see what sorts of fruits and veggies I pick up from their local farmers today!

Boy Meets Grill!

Erik is the grilling enthusiast in our family! He loves to grill so much that even though Molly doesn't get into it as much as he does, she still contributes to his passion. Last year for his birthday, she got him a smoker. She hates smoked meat, and doing the actual smoking, takes a lot of patience and time.

Just for an idea of how much he loves grilling, he has 3 "extra" grills in the garage for tailgating only. For Christmas, Molly got him a chef's jacket to wear the tailgate and he prefers gift cards to Smoke 'N Fire!
So ... this weekend, he got a NEW GRILL! His old one had seen better days and had many, many meals on its record.

So here's the new "Boy" with the new "Grill" in his life!


I'm sure he'd be happy to grill something up if any of you were interested in stopping by for a quick meal! :)

200th Post!

Yippee! I've made it this far. It seems like just yesterday, I was blogging about my 100th post.

Here are some of the stats for just how far I've made it since my original resolution.

• 200 posts in just 196 days. I feel as if I've missed a ton of days, but this goes to prove that I've actually done okay. I must have made up for the missed days with double posts on other days.
• 398 total comments. WOW! Some days I feel as if nobody is reading, but with all those comments, that can't possibly be true!
• 8 comments on one single post. This was the most comments on one post.
• 35 posts with no comments. I clearly need to go back and read those to see what my readers aren't interested in hearing about! Ha!
• ~ 300 hours spent blogging. This is a total guess, but some days it takes me over an hour to get pictures and links and ideas together. Some days I am rushing to get in a post before the end of the day.
• 1st resolution accomplished in several years! I can't believe I've done it. My goal was to blog at least one every day. With my average still above 1 post a day, I would say this is a success!
• Made lots of new friends. It is so much fun to hear from old friends and "meet" new friends via my fancy blog!

Okay ... my goal for this post is to see how many comments I can get! Surely we can pass 8. I always think it's fun to find out who is reading. I've heard from a lot of you that you read it daily, or weekly ... this is your chance to say "hi". There might even be some strangers on here ... you should say "hi" too. For those of you that still haven't figured it out: you do NOT need to have a gmail account to leave a comment. You can chose a nickname to use for your comments; leave a message annoymously (but that is no fun); or just sign your name at the bottom of your comment. There are some of you that I have been missing for a while! What happened to you all!?!?

Thanks for sticking with me and continuing to read. Part of this is hard to share my personal life with the world wide web, and part of it is fun to see what sort of connections have been made! Here's to many, many more posts!