Happy Hunger Games!

Confession: I am completely obsessed with The Hunger Games.

Great book (trilogy actually) about a dystopian future where our country is now controlled by a few (called the Capital) who enslave the rest (the districts) and punish them each year by conducting the Hunger Games in which 1 boy and 1 girl from each district is chosen to fight to the death for the Capital's entertainment.

It's a wonderful series narrated by the protagonist, Katniss, a girl of 16. I *heart* Katniss. She's everything I think I am but, like, 50 million times cooler. (Last January my NY resolution was even to learn archery and be a bad ass like Katniss--I still haven't given up that dream yet). I am so in love with these books I even dedicated my pumpkin carving to it back in October if you remember.

I've been a HG fan now for 3 and half years but with the movie just being released it has gained popularity in leaps and bounds. My daughter and I have been on the band wagon awhile but it's amazing how many other people are now coming to us with, "Have you read the HG?" to which we reply, "OMGosh YES!" and go on to gush about how much we love love love 'em.

It's a growing phenomenon. Almost all the women at my work have read them and even a few officers are at least aware of them (one Corporal even mentioned how his wife is obsessed with them). My family calls me up, "Hey, have you read...?"
Ummmm...old news peeps, old news.I'm already obsessed.
But I love when people approach me about it cuz then I can go on and on and on about how awesome they are and they at least get it. This Christmas my father in law even bought my daughter the HG because he had read it and liked it (not knowing she already read them and we owned them). LOL

So, since we've been waiting for the past year ("we" meaning my daughter and I) for the movie to finally arrive we were ready when opening night came this past weekend. A whole group of us were going and since I'm a fanatically crazy person about the HG I decided to do it right by having a mini party before the movie to celebrate.

First, I browsed the trusty internet to find all kinds of HG themed things to do for my little potluck party. I made invitations for those coming over:

For the main course I made pulled pork BBQ sandwiches (since they were so easy to throw together) but luckily I figured out how to incorporate the dish into a HG theme:

Cheesy but whatever... I mean we're talking about a themed party so cheese is par for the course, right?

For those of you who are not aware of HG a lot of this will be confusing so my apologies (you should totally read the books-have I mentioned they're awesome?)

We had sleep syrup for drinks:

And Prim's goat cheese with Peeta's bread (spinach/artichoke dip with bread):

And for dessert we had "nightlock" tarts (the deadly berries):

For decoration my daughter and I hung parachutes up around the house, a poster on the front door to welcome those in, and some quotes we wrote on poster board just to get people in the HG mood!

It was a blast and really didn't require a lot of effort (except the posters) or money (about 10.00 in all for decorations) but made the night just a little more exciting and special.

So, if you haven't had a chance I recommend reading the books (books first-not movie!!) and remember:
 
May the odds be ever in your favor!!!

To My Sister...

So, 2 days ago my sister had a birthday. I remembered it. I even called her.And her present will be in the mail within the next week (I promise!) But I forgot to blog about it (which has been a longstanding tradition for the past 2 years-basically, the life of my blog). Anyhow. I meant to blog about it and it slipped my mind, which, let's be honest, is no big surprise since my mind's pretty much been MIA since I've been on mids the past 2 months.

But let's pretend that I was just stretching out those younger years for her so she didn't feel older. Yes, that's it folks- I didn't forget her blog post- I just postponed it so she could soak in a few more days of her younger age. How nice am I, right? So now that I'm putting up her birthday post it is officially official (<<---technical terminology):  

Today my sister is old(er).

And even though her present has not yet been sent (okay, okay, so I'm a procrastinator-whatevs!) I figured this would cheer her up:

I'm sure she'd rather have this guy telling her Happy Birthday instead of me. So there ya go.
And because my brain is mush and I have no amount of wit left in my body  I'll leave it at that.

Love,

Before/After...dresser obsession cont'd.

Soooo, a really long time ago I started to paint and makeover this dresser:

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the hardware I wanted at the price I wanted so it sat naked forever, and ever, and E-VER. Then miraculously I found what I wanted (Ebay) at the price I wanted (approx $1.00 per pull) and all was right with the world! But then I sat on pictures for-EVUH again and that leads us to this day.
A bit anti-climatic but nevertheless, here is my finished product:

It's just basic white paint, distressed a little, with spanish pull rings. If only I could rip out the carpet to give it a beautiful showcase on pretty floors. Oh well.

Something that took me all of a day to makeover took me more than a year to show you.
Yup, that's me. Right on time. I think I need to distress the embossed detail on the top drawers a little more to show their distinction but overall I'm satisfied.

Nerds 101

The other day I realized that Luhvah and I are raising a total geek (like us). Luhvah would prefer to say, "we're raising her right" but imagine my surprise when I read this note that my daughter left for me before heading off to school:



That's it. That's all she wrote.

If the reference is unknown to you just check out this video (start at 5:28min):

Now, let me explain. My Luhvah likes to be weird (I'm sure other dads out there like to tease and be weird with their children too) and since Star Wars is one of his favorite movies (hers too) he's taken to quoting stupid things from the movie.
It goes something like this:

Luhvah (yelling from another room): Hey, monkey! (his nickname for her)

Daughter (yelling back---as you can see, we're a loud family): What?!

Luhvah: I need you to do me a favor! (still yelling)

Daughter (whining): Uuuuuughhhhh. (insert teenage angst and drama here). Yeah?

Luhvah (frantically screaming in a panicked voice): SHUT DOWN ALL THE GARBAGE SMASHERS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL. SHUTDOWNALLTHEGARBAGESMASHERSONTHEDETENTIONLEVEL!

And she laughs hysterically. And the first time I heard it, I did too. Cuz it's totally outta no where. Like, we'll just be watching t.v. or something and he'll suddenly say it to her. And we're a totally geeky family because we get the reference without any explanation.
So, imagine my surprise (and laughter) when I got the note. Because this is one of those weird "dad" things that she laughs at, not really that she instigates.

Yeah, we're raising a lil' nerd. We're raising her right.

Happy Valentines Day!

I know it's been awhile but I've been here:

The graveyard shift, that is.
I am working nights and it's pretty much F-ed up my whole life this past month or so. Plus, I'm really busy with work (hey, those drunk college kids aren't gonna arrest themselves) so I've been out of pocket for awhile. The good thing about working mids (midnight shift for all you non-police peeps) is that my laundry is, like, always clean. I mean, what else am I gonna do while my luhvah is sleeping? It's not like I can sand the stairs or anything (ummm, mom... that's not a euphemism, 'mmmkay?). So I've been doing laundry like a BOSS as of late.

And here I am, back with a vengeance because, even if all my time has been sleeping, eating, and working (oh, and eating while working, or eating while sleeping -don't even ask me how I'm capable of doing this...) I've still been able to do some crafty/decorative things in between all that eating and sleeping and mids shift work. I just haven't had a chance to blog about them.

Now, whether or not you're a luhvah or a hater of V-day the colors are just dreamy and romantic, right? Pink, white, and, my all time favorite, red. Consequently, I'm a hater of V-day even though I'm in a lovingly squishy relationship. But the edgy sarcastic side of me just eats up the hate on V-day (awful, I know). I saw napkins at the store the other day which I wanted to buy but weren't really appropriate for me so I passed on them but they were sooo cute:

 

We celebrated Vday last weekend when my luhvah got tickets for the theatre to see Les Miserables. Ummmm...it.was.awesome. I've never seen the musical  but I've read the book and I've always wanted to see it. So, we went to dinner and the theatre for our Vday night. That's like, my perfect date night. And the cool thing was that Luhvah suggested it-I didn't even know it was coming to town. He really does have the key to my pants to my heart! What a wonderful, lovely man. Le Sigh. I've been singing tunes from the musical all week long.

Anyhow. I wanted to show you my Valentine's decor. There's not much, just my mantle and a small table.

I made the heart wreath from inspiration off of, you guessed it, Pinterest. You can find the original link with details on Tatertots and Jello's blog. I amended it to fit my needs (a heart instead of circle and I used mini foil cups only because I couldn't find pretty swirly cupcake holders like she had). I think in total I spent 3.00 on the wreath. I couldn't find a heart form so I made a redneck version with duct tape and pink piping that I already had lying around the house. So, the only thing I bought was the cupcake holders. A $3.00 project-awesome.

The framed hearts was another cheapie. Do you remember this picture?

I snagged this cute little frame from my friend when I helped her with her garage sale.

I took out the picture and left the glass and decided to quickly paint the frame pink (acryllic paint and foam brush already had). Then I added ribbon I already had on hand and glued on these cute glittered hearts (1.00 walmart) to finish it off. Uh-dorable. And only 1.00 for the whole project! Love it.

The roses were 5.25 (Walmart again) so the total for this mantle makeover was only $9.25 (already had the candles and red filler). Not too shabby. And most of that cost was for the flowers.

Then I also bought some pretty Valentine's candy (let's be honest, that's what Vday is all about for me). And put them in some apothecary jars I had. Easy-peasy. The candy probably cost me 10.00 in all but will definitely not go to waste.

And that's it. I meant to hang a pretty V-day wreath on the front door but didn't. Oh well. I figure I'm pretty much a vampire now and no one visits us at night so who cares?
Happy Valentines Day!

2012 Check-in...

I'm just checking in because my friend said she's tired of looking at my blog and not seeing a new post. Well, here ya go Steph. ;)

Love,

Christmas, Christmas everywhere

I just thought I'd pop over for a bit to show you my Christmas decor before I fall into another black hole by way of the book that had me at "Hello" (Stephen King's 11/22/63). I realize the past few posts have been nothing at all about decorating and mainly that's cuz after the stairs I took a break. Not from decorating per se, but from documenting every infintisimal aspect of decor. But since it's the season of giving I figured I'd share some holiday decor.

This year was all about easy-peasy-breezy and I didn't want to feel crazy and frustrated. I know we women tell ourselves we will dial it back each year to have a stress-free Christmas but this year I really did. I'm nothing if not totally selfish and that meant doing very little this season so I didn't feel overwhelmed. Okay, I'll admit it-I can feel overwhelmed at, like, brushing my teeth so maybe this isn't saying much. But enough babble, lets move on to pics:

First, my shelf (aka, everyone-else-gets-a-mantle-but-I-gotta-settle-cuz-Florida-is-too-hot-to-have-a-fireplace type of shelf):

Here it is at night:

Yes, that's a yule log fire on my tv screen. We do what we gotta do here in Florida.
Since my theme this year was simple I strung garland with lights interspersed only with glittered silver/gold snowflakes:

I added 2 electric candles on the end as well for more silver. In the middle I put a cloche with silver/gold bulbs. Easy-peasy:

Hung the stockings and voila. Done.

On my dining room chandelier I added greenery with some little picks from Michaels (everything I already had). and hung bulbs from it (again, already had-from Dillard's clearance last year):

My last bit of decor was my favorite Christmas item--my grandma's blue village.:

This was handed down to me from my grandma and I have many cherished memories of seeing this each Christmas in her house. She still had a real Christmas village- with all the individual houses, parks, trees- you know, the ones that everyone collects and can add onto each year to make a bigger town. But this was so magical to me. Even as a child I guess I liked simplicity. Monochromatic designs. Not all that busy "Christmas village" stuff (aka: knick-knacks ***shudder***).

The village is dusted with white glitter giving it a lovely frosting and when it's lit it reminds me of all those cold winter nights at my grandma's when I'd stare at it on the shelf under her t.v. I wanted to play with the little people so badly but mostly, they were off limits.

I still get all warm and fuzzy when I see it at night lit up like this.
Next to the village I added some snippets of greenery from the yard:

 Free and easy.

As I was making this post I realized I never got a picture of my tree. But it looks very much the same as it did last year (I'm traditional all the way never really changing the look of my tree):

And I still have my bubble lights on it:

I didn't even get a pic of my outside because I only hung a wreath on the door and no lights this year. I dunno. It's just been a lighter version of Christmas this season I suppose. It even translated to my gift-giving. Typically, I make treats for my neighbors but this year I saw a cute idea on Pinterest (*heart* Pinterest) and ran with it:

Ho-Ho's and Ding Dongs. $5.00 Christmas gift that everyone loves, I spent no time or energy on, and a kitschy little phrase to tie it all together? Yes please.

And that ends this segment of Christmas. It is so laid-back I'm sure I took more energy making this post than I did stressing about gifts and decor. ;)