fish and dip

me and ang went to garage sales last friday. they were having a couple around the square and we wanted to see what crown point had to offer so off we went! didn't buy too much - except this sweet fishy pin <3

and a few other little things. mostly though, we were inspired by the cool art shops we didn't know existed until that day. go crown point! there were a few places selling local artist's work and just trinket after impressive trinket to keep our minds buzzing. our next project is going to be with this stuff:

yes, plasti-dip! ang says we can dip stuff in this, and it gives it a coat of plastic to basically preserve it and give it a smooth, lasting finish. 'nuff said for me! i can't wait to try it! will post pictures when it's all said and done:):):) and i'm still working on my table collage... will need to finish soon though because our furniture gets delivered on friday! so excited. will post pics of that also. until then, it's bedtime for me. i'm sleeping at my parents tonight. feels kind of nice to be back in my own room, sorry sweetheart:) more later...  

Swordfish

"swordfish" would win a ton of points in words with friends lol. obsessed much? i love that game! but anyway, hello:) it's late sunday night and i am wiped out! happily, though. it's been a pretty great weekend so far -- and we still have another day! hooray for that. i gotta say though, if i did have to go back to work tomorrow it would suck a little less after the past few days. a lot of that's because of how so so happy i've been teaching pilates. my first client from flossmoor came on friday, and jt brought his mom, and angela came with jon:):):) so i had my first ever full class and that was very awesome. everyone did SO great. then on saturday sweetheart came! i was dragging myself out of bed in the morning when he asked to go and that made it much much easier to get excited about being up that early on a saturday. we picked up our friend amy on the way too. i think sweetheart was surprised by how much he liked pilates, and how hard it was! lol, but he did so awesome and amy had perfect form, so bravo to her:)

well, pilates ended up turning into lunch at our house with amy. one of the reasons why i like her so much is because she's a kindred spirit when it comes to food. she loves veggies and interesting varieties of stuff from other cultures, and really loves organic or locally produced things. amen to that! so today she brought over some eggplant to roast on the grill with some chipotle blackbean burgers that i could've probably eaten 12 of! seriously, where have those been all my life? tasty, tasty things. and then lunch with amy turned into the beach:) it was a beautiful day.

and tomorrow is Gram's birthday -- so  happy birthday to you Gram, love you! xo xo. it's also the 4th of july lol. cant wait to eat cotton candy while watching the fireworks cuddle up to sweetheart. cheers everyone. more later...

Sar

Turnovers

Hi:)

here are the snippets i cut up this weekend for my collage. there's a red theme because our kitchen is red!:) i showed sweetheart today and he seems really pumped. i hope it turns out well. i'm gonna need about 3 times as many pieces in order to cover the surface of this:

but i think once it's done we should have a cute original piece for our house. we've only been looking for furniture for about 3 months now! i know. but i refuse to buy anything that makes us look like the Cleavers, and everything he likes is ugly. haaa:) i'm just playing honey. i don't know what's taken us so long, but i do think we're both sort of still in disbelief that we're at the stage of picking out furniture. we were just talking about how everyone we know either recently got married or is preggola, and we just look at each other wide eyed and agree to one step at a time. i guess for us that's furniture! 

anyway, so today was so weird. when i went to leave this morning my car wouldn't start. not even a little. so i had to call sweetheart and ask him to come try to revive her. well after about an hour and some much needed assistant from our neighbor with his jumper cables, the car still didn't have enough power to turn over and start. well this is awful because lets just say car batteries are not in this month's budget for me. not even a little. but it turns out a friend just so happened to have my kind of car battery and gave it to us... free. i could barely believe my ears. what a blessing. 

then it was off to pilates. i called brother in virginia and got so into our conversation that i missed a turn! but i did recover just fast enough to make myself remember that i left the keys to the studio at home! could not believe myself. it was too late to go back and the next instructor wouldn't be there, obviously, until after my class was over. and the staff leaves at 4:30, hence, why you have to remember your keys lol. but i drove the rest of the way there anyway because i thought at least i'd be able to see if anyone actually comes. luckily though, when i got there the owner of the studio just happened to have come by to take some photos of the product she sells. so i of course jump at the opportunity to tell her how much i love photography and would love to help her get some great shots! and we sure did spend the next hour on our mini photo-shoot lol. it was pretty fun, and nice to get to know her a little. and i used a canon for the first time in my life! if she uses the shots i'll be sure to post! but anyway, that's why the day was weird. what started as mishaps ended up pretty cool. thankful. more later... 

Sar 

Ketchup

Hi:) here goes the past couple days: on friday I had my pilates class. JT came, that was awesome! he's pretty great - once i showed him which muscles to use he had no problem! yay for him:) then he came with me and sweetheart to taco fiesta at mels. that was also awesome because shanaz was there and I <3 her! And then afterward JT really wanted to go dancing so i changed real quick and we headed out. but, wardrobe malfunction. wahh wahhhhhh....my sweet new geometric bubble skirt from the thrift store was too tight at the bottom to move my legs LOL. i looked like a dang two-steppin fool on the dance floor. JT, I'd like a do-over.

saturday I slept way too long in the morning and then putzed around in the afternoon cleaning and snipping magazines for a collage i'm working on that may just turn out to be pretty cool... hopefully! otherwise, i will waste a perfectly good table lol. then sweetheart and i went to have margaritas with kyle, bri, and rowan! blast. 

and today! i finnnnaalllllllyyyyyyyy got my eyes checked! yay! i can see again! but i have to say... it was much more like an assembly line in there than people interacting with other people. the woman who did my exam looked kind of surprised when i said hello to her... she must not get that a lot? lol.  i don't know. but im happy to be able to see things sharply again. pictures to follow tomorrow for my collage project. until then, xoxo

Sar

The T is for Succotash

hello!!! it could be because i'm on a dairy queen sugar high, but i feel like today was especially GREAT:) it was one of those that just flowed without any real time lag or rush. i got up and did some computer work then organized around the house, and before i knew it my stomach was making it's familiar reminder to feed it. first i made a delicious pair of eggs, over medium, with some fresh avocado on top. 

then i decided while i had the pan and the veggies out, i'd make some succotash for dinner. i found the recipe a couple weeks ago - right about the time my corn on the cob phase was losing it's appeal to sweetheart. for some reason this summer i'm crazy for corn. but i like this dish because a.) i'm a fan of things that combine a lot of ingredients, flavors, textures, etc, and b.) it's a great way to use up any extra veggies you have leftover that may be about to go bad. 

it looked so good when it was done that i added a few salami slices and ate a bowl on the spot! lol i love veggies. and salami. 

and it wouldn't be a proper post unless i mentioned how cool pilates was today!!! tex and sara came! they let me teach them all kinds of things while we giggled and flexed our way through the movements. anything i do involving those girls is always more fun! hooray for pilates. now to bed:) goodnight to you! more later... 

Sar

 

The M is for Cookie

today was spent mostly conquering the clothes mountain that grew like a monster sometime when i wasn't looking. sneaky clothes. but i did manage to squeeze in a little bit of yummy fun:) momma had given me a bag of gluten-free baking flour a couple weeks ago and I decided today was just the day to experiment. so i called Mel to come over and she and i made cookies! it went a little something like this:

YUM! we were so happy to discover they tasted exactly like regular chocolate chip cookies! they were even sweetheart-approved. up next: gluten-free bread : ) - take that $6 loafs at the store! i will have my beloved toasted pb&h very soon. 

and tomorrow! is my second pilates class at the new space. I'm pumped that Tex and Sara are coming, and maybe even a few other lovely familiar faces. people have been incredibly supportive and i'm soooo thankful for that! and also thankful that the charger for my d90 has been recovered! hooray for cams:)

goodnight everyone! more later...

Sar

Sunday Funday

oh gosh, this weekend flew by so fast! but i'd say all in all it was so beautiful. sweetheart and i got dolled up saturday to be part of one of his best friend's wedding. i had never been to one so pretty! congrats to ryan and stephanie:) here we are right before the ceremony:

 

we were lucky enough to stay at the millium park knickerbocker hotel too, and wow, we had to pinch ourselves a little bit because it was so lovely. but we danced the night away and really enjoyed spending time with great friends and family. then today we pulled ourselves out of bed early enough to eat at Ann Sathers for breakfast. for a foodie like me, its everything you could ask for in a breakfast joint... by far my absolute favorite! they have cinnamon rolls the size of your head - i think that's all i really need to say lol. i, of course, can't eat them, but i always get their garden variety omelette with hash browns and fresh fruit.... and let me tell you why i feel totally guilt-free about it eating every single morsel on my plate. first of all, i couldn't help it, it was delicious... the omelette really was a variety of veggies, which is normally not the case when i order something like that. AND, the veggies were still nicely crisp, not soggy, meaning they still held a lot of nutritional value and were fresh, never frozen. the fruit cup was an awesome variety too! there were kiwi and orange slices, apples, strawberries, blueberries, and yes, melons as well. and finally... the hash browns. i don't know what they do to these potatoes, but it's now well after midnight and i'm still basically drooling over the memory of those things. go there. you will like it. everyone is happy.

after that we made the rounds to tell our father's we love them, and then i came home to take my sunday afternoon epic nap. mission accomplished:) i feel geared up for the week and am looking forward to what's in store. happy father's day to all the dad's out there! more later...

Sar

Flowing like they used To

I don't know what's going on with my writer's block for blog titles, but they just aren't flowing like they used to lol. Today I drove to the city... And can I just say: lately driving has been the bane of my existence. I keep complaining to Sweetheart that we live in the boonies! It's not the boonies, it's beautiful and it's Crown Point, but still it takes forever to get someplace. Never thought I'd say this, but it makes me miss my hometown. There I can walk to the grocery store, I can walk to the beach, I can walk to Best Friend who lives 4 blocks away, I'm 25 minutes from downtown.... but today, from Crown Point, it took almost 2 hours with traffic to reach my destination. Unreasonable. And I lost a hubcap somewhere along the way lol. Probably serves me right for complaining so much! BUT, I have to say the trip was well worth it. I had been dreaming ever since I got my pilates certification that once I got my own place I would use lights to enhance the experience of class. I would start the class with calming blues, then move to pinks and reds as moves got harder, and finish up with yellows or something - haven't ironed it all out yet, but I think it will be pretty cool. I got an amazing deal all thanks to the best salesman they have up there, and now I have two brand new lights to play with!!! Hooray:) and just in time for my first class at the new space tomorrow. Gosh, I can't believe it's already here. Wish me luck, I'm kind of nervvvvvvous, but totally ready for this challenge. See you tomorrow:) More later...

Sar

I'm sitting here staring at my sweetheart beam back at me while he helps me come up with titles for my first blog. He's proud of himself. I can see all his teeth. Here's some of his finest: 

"Welcome to the Beginning"

"And so it Begins"

 "Here it Is"

.... I roll my eyes lol. But, I also can't come up with anything better, so, you see my dilemma. We will just move on : )  

Today me and Angela drove our way over to Flossmoor to see if the shop owners of that quaint little town would be kind enough to let me post flyers in their windows about my Pilates classes. To my surprise everyone was not only willing, but pretty enthusiastic to help! I don't think I've talked to so many nice people in one day before. Each one wanted to hear about my classes, asked me questions about myself and told me about their businesses, too. It was very cool. Makes me pumped to start teaching out there. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can check it out right here! 

Is anyone else about to start something new? That's one thing about summer I especially love.... besides loose dresses, sleeveless everything, and bare feet, I love how energizing and happy the warmth and extended sunlight makes me feel. It's perfect motivation to get out there and move. Anyway, that was today:) Looking forward to tomorrow. Gonna go look at colored lights for the studio space to give my classes a little something extra! We'll see what works. More later.

Sar