Summer In The City

I had a great day in the city with Tresa on Saturday. I took the 7:08 train in and she picked me up at the station. We had an awesome breakfast at a vegetarian place. I had scrambled eggs with spinach, pesto and sun dried tomatoes, wonderful potatoes and warm fresh baked bread. Oh, was it good!

Next, we went to the condo so I could clean the litter boxes for her. Chris was out of town and you can't clean little boxes when you are pregnant. Here is Harley checking out my water bottle, and Casey lovin' her cat nip.




I had also put new elastic in some maternity jeans for Tresa, since they were getting a little....uh....snug...so she tried them on and I finished them up.

It started raining as we headed out to get our nails done. We had to park about 3 blocks from the shop and under normal circumstances a 3 block walk would be nothing....but in the pouring rain with a pregnant woman in flip flops.....well, let's just say even with an umbrella...we were drenched when we got there. The owner of the shop is awesome and threw our sweatshirts in the dryer while were were getting our manis and pedis!

While we were getting our nails done...the rain also stopped....so that allowed us to enjoy the festival on Division Street. Lots of crafts and food booths and most of the shops had sidewalk sales or in store discounts.


I made one purchase and here it is....

Is this not just the cutest little organic hat ever? I can't wait to see our baby boy in it when he arrives this fall! We saw a lot of darling clothes, but everything in the stores right now is for summer....so we will have to wait a little while. It's okay though, I'm finding plenty of cute little things I can buy now.

I did stop in a beading store and couldn't resist snapping this picture for my bead loving blog friends Lanyard Lady and Chile Cats! Aren't the colors just mesmerizing?

After some Starbucks and bit more walking it was time for me to catch the train back home.

It was a great day! Did you have a nice weekend?

Off To The Windy City

Happy Weekend!! I am off to Chicago this morning....catching the 7:08 train. Tresa and I are going out for breakfast, then we are having manis and pedis and then if the rain stays away, we are hitting a sidewalk sale in one of the cute city neighborhoods. We will shop until she poops out on me! I'll try to remember to take some pictures.

I think I might have to take a short computer break this week as well. I have been allowing the things I am not making anymore to expire in my etsy shop, FourDogDay....and my shop is starting to look very empty. I have so many things that I want to make, but I just seem to have gotten really busy lately with....the rest of my life. I could probably spend some time in my workshop in the evening...if I leave the computer off.

I have some great little things that I'm going to be working on. I'll show you when I get some done.

Have a really awesome weekend and I'll post some "Day in the City" pictures soon. :)

What's Up For The Weekend?

Well today is Friday....not just any Friday, but it's Friday of a THREE DAY WEEKEND! Chee Hoo!

Tonight is carry out night for us as always. I'm kind of stuck on the little Blue Cheese Pecan Chopped Salad at Outback. I usually get a sweet potato with it...and then it comes with a little loaf of awesome bread. It isn't exactly on my diet, but it is exactly what I need every week!

On Saturday we will head to the grocery store and then hit Menards for some mulch and try to finish the flower beds. Things are really growing and blooming and I don't even have the beds all cleaned out yet!

Sunday might be a family get together day. It sounds like a good day for firing up the grill.

Monday there is a parade and service in town for Memorial Day. If the weather cooperates, maybe we will head there to pay our respects to those who serve. After that...I think we are going to try making some little bird baths and bird feeders out of old china for the consignment shop. Speaking of the consignment shop.....when I chatted with the owner the other day, she said she knew I had sold one cake stand the first week but could remember off hand if I had sold anything else. So, chee hoo for one cake stand!

Have a super day today. Get out and take a nice little walk and then have some fun this weekend! What kind of plans do you have?

Buy Buy Baby

We had a great time shopping on Saturday. We started out with a wonderful breakfast and then headed over to Buy Buy Baby. What an awesome store! I was just amazed at how much things have changed and how much things cost these days!

The first thing we saw was a sea of pacifiers. My word...how many kinds of pacifiers do we need?

This is the crib that Tresa liked. It was beautiful. A lot of the cribs convert to day beds which makes it pretty handy...unless you are planning to have another child right away...then it's pointless I guess.

Here is Tresa looking at some of the bed linens and things that she liked best. She seemed to like more neutral colors. Let me tell you, if I were a baby and opened my eyes in the morning and saw some of the colors and patterns they are selling I would start screaming! There were some pretty wild sheets and bumper pads!

There were a lot of cute browns and blues. This little guy was part of a mobile. Those sure have changed from the mostly wood ones that my kids had to lots of fabric ones.

I think this was Tresa's favorite part of the day. She found a recliner/rocker that she liked a lot. There were no wood rockers to be seen.

Bern made it difficult for me to get any pictures of her face. The kids hate that I bring my camera with me everywhere we go. I got lots of pictures of the backs of their heads.

I think the look of the swings were the biggest shock to me! This looks more like an alien vehicle than a baby swing! Remember cranking those swings up and they would click, click, click as they rocked back and forth? Can you believe this thing? Wow!

Okay, here is one nice looking stroller. Right?

For a minute I thought I was at the car dealer! Look at the price on this thing! Yikes!


Here is a nice little baby carrier by Baby Bjorn. It think it was about $130 for the organic one. :)

Now I started to feel right at home. They did have ONE umbrella stroller!

I seemed to gravitate toward all of the little girl things. I'm not sure if that's because I had Tresa and then the two boys. There are some really, really cute little girl things! Aren't these sweet?

Tresa actually looked at an awful lot of boy things. Here I caught her looking at some pink stuff, but that didn't happen very often. The only reason she was looking here is because these were Cubs sweatshirts!

I was so surprised and so thrilled that there were so many organic lines of clothing for babies. I thought these were so darn cute!

Look at that face! When I asked her to hold it up so I could take a picture of it, she held it up and turned away. I told her to turn around, and this is what I got! Tresa seemed to like a lot of things with little elephants on them. Not sure why that was, but it happened often. What she doesn't like is baby clothes with words on them. She would see a cute outfit and then say, "Why did they have to ruin it by putting "that" on there?" Bern and I just kept smiling.

Just more cute stuff! I could have stayed there all day long just looking and touching. It was all so awesome!

Now THIS I liked and I'm sure Chris will too....and boy or girl....that baby will be wearin' Cubby blue!!

What a fun day it was. We went from the baby store over to the mega mall and looked around there a bit. Then we headed over to a nice strip mall, grabbed a delicious Starbucks (Have you tried the new Dark Cherry Mocha yet?) and strolled around there a while. It was a great way to get my walking in!

So Grandmas and Grandpas.....how much do you spoil your grandchildren?

Where Have All The Shoppers Gone?

When Tresa and I were shopping on Sunday, we made purchases in a number of stores. Some of them were J. Crew, Anthropology, Eddie Bauer, Starbucks, Lord and Taylor and Sears. We made purchases in IKEA, and when I was headed home, I made purchases in Walmart, World Market and Kohls. In all of those stores.....the longest line we stood in was in Starbucks. In every other store, we either had one person in front of us or none.

Yes, it was Sunday morning, but there is only one more weekend before Christmas. Normally when I shop at this time, the stores are mobbed. The lines at the registers are very, very long. Waiting 20-30 minutes to check out would be expected. Not Sunday.

Sure, it was awesome to be able to walk right up to the check out....but when you think about the reason you are able to do that....it doesn't feel all that good.

Irv and I are very, very fortunate to have our jobs, to be able to buy food for ourselves and to donate to the local food pantry. I am able to throw a little money into every Salvation Army bucket I see. Even though we set spending limits for gifts this year, we are still able to shop for our family for Christmas.

I know what the unemployed are going through. We were there at one time many years ago. I know what it feels like to cry yourself to sleep because there isn't enough money to pay the bills. I know what it's like to be behind on your mortgage. I know how it feels when the phone rings and you don't want to answer because you know it is the collection agency. I know what it's like to charge every single thing you buy, because there is no money to pay for it.

I know that not being able to Christmas shop isn't the worst thing in the world that can happen, but when you have young children that don't understand....it hurts.

My heart goes out to all of those who are living that life right now. I hope that they know that people care, and that one day things will be better. There are so many ways to help....we can donate a toy, or food, or money or time. I hope everyone that can.....will.

Make it a wonderful day for yourself today.

Oops.....

Saturday was a long day of shopping with just "some" success. I would have liked more, but I am a patient woman, so what I didn't find today.....I will find another day.

What I did find was my other pair of $14.99 drapes, my 12 forty-nine cent candle holders, 6 forty-nine cent dish towels, a darling white lantern for $5.99, 100 votive candles for $3.99, 3 black matted picture frames for a few my favorite pictures of Matt's for $5.00 each and some very awesome fabric for a secret project I am going to start....if it turns out...I will be making these for my etsy shop FourDogDay. I will show you when it's done. I am SOOOO excited. Saw it in a magazine and had to have one!!!

I will share photos of all of my goodies with you soon, but I decided to share some other photos with you first. We have been leaving sweet little Maggie, our newly adopted border collie mix out of her crate when we run out for a couple of hours to see how she does. So far, things had been going well. Today, I think we exceeded the amount of time that she will nap and quietly entertain herself with her toys and bones. Read on.....

The dogs all greeted us at the door when we walked in and the first thing Irv said was, "She has fuzz all over herself." As he let the dogs out, I walked into the kitchen and saw this....that would be feathers on the kitchen floor. I don't pluck geese in my kitchen, so feathers on the kitchen floor can never, ever be a good thing.

Backtrack......we had these two big throw pillows that Tresa gave us when she changed her decor. Here is one of them....nice pillows, probably not cheap.....


Right after we got Maggie, she managed to chew two of the corners of one of the pillows, but only the cover and not the feather filled insert.....do you get where this is going??????

Yep, you guessed it! She completed what she had started!

Can you believe that many fluffy little feathers came out of only 1/2 of that pillow?

So, we scooped up as much as we could as they billowed around the room, vacuumed up the rest, had to shake out all of the dogs blankets and afghans and vacuum the couch. Even when she came in from playing outside for 45 minutes, she still looked like a dog that was turning into a goose with little white feathers sticking out all over her black fur! I would have liked to have seen her face when she got the end open and the feathers started pouring out.

I'm sure Wrigley was sitting in the hallway, away from the action saying, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! You are in some BIG trouble my friend!

IKEA Here We Come....

We are heading to IKEA this morning. Do you have an IKEA where you live? Man, I LOVE that store. It is so much fun to walk around and look. They have so many awesome little things....and I love little things. Lots of little decorative things and kitchen things....not that I spend much time in the kitchen cooking, but I do love the cute little cooking things....lots of candle things and plant things and towel things.....just lots and lots of things. I hope to come home with some things today.

Last week when we went to get the chairs and the drapes...if you recall...I was in extreme pain. We walked in, got our chairs and drapes and walked out. That was all I could handle. It was so sad to be in IKEA and not be able to look at all of the little lovely things.

My list today says:

One more pair of drapes since one pair isn't quite enough for the front window. So cute and dirt cheap at $14.99 a pair! Here they are.....

Candle holders that I saw in my Country Living magazine. I think I want about a dozen or so. One side is a candle holder....flip it over and it's a votive! Love them for 49 cents each! Here they are.....
Some white candles for the holidays

Black picture frames....I'm going to frame lots of black and white photos for the shelf in the living room. I think I just want thin black metal cheapies from the dollar store, but even something like this would work for $2.99....A little round table for between the two new chairs. This is so darn cute for $19.99, but I might want to shop resale for my table and find something old and beat up for even less!

A couch cover....even though I can't find one online at IKEA that would fit this couch right, I'm going to look. I don't think they have quilts and that is my next option. I really want to find something this weekend.

And any other fun and funky little things that I might just have to have because we are going to IKEA and I love little things!! Chee Hoo!

Why Can't I Ever Find The Great Deals?

Well, I just got back from the mall. It's a really nice outdoor type mall with really great stores. I have a couple of pairs of black pants so I just wanted two tops....one that I could wear to our shower Sunday and then one that I could wear to Chris's family's shower next month. Tresa went shopping on her lunch hour yesterday and found a cardigan sweater for $11.00 and a blouse for $6.00. I was hoping to find some really great deals.

Those of you that follow my blog know that I do not like to shop. When I need something and have to go shopping, I never find anything. When everyone else, like Tresa, tell me they found all these great deals, I never find any.

Tresa finds good deals because she wears these tiny little baby sizes. You know, when you go to the sale rack and the whole thing is size small or x-small. That's Tresa. I love it when you go to the sale rack and it's packed with stuff in your size, but there are 40 of everything you look at. That tends to mean that no one bought them.....uh.....why is that? Either the neck hole is too small to fit your head through it or the sleeves are a foot too long! Does that ever happen to you?

I went into this tonight with a really great attitude. I knew I would find the two things I needed. I was even considering buying a dress for the shower next month....I can't believe I even considered that...but if I had found a great dress for really cheap...like the $20 one Tresa found last week....I would buy it!

Well I went into Banana Republic first. They have amazing sales. Hmmmmm....nothing really knocked my socks off. So, no luck at Banana. Next, I tried J Crew and then Ann Taylor. They had a lot of great looking clothes, but not much on sale and I really didn't want to pay $80 for one top.

Getting a little concerned, I went into J Jill. I never shop at J Jill because it's out of my budget, but I actually ended up finding a really cute top for the shower this Sunday. It was not on sale, but at this point $50 didn't sound too bad, so I bought it.

It's really cute. It has a couple shades of grey with some black and pink. It has the high waist that reminds me of a maternity top and 3/4 length sleeves. It'll look great with the black cuffed slacks I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I did not find anything for the shower next month, but I still have time. Once we get our shower done Sunday, then I will head out and find something to wear to that one and find shoes and jewelry for the wedding, and a suit, shirt, tie and shoes for Irv!

Getting ready for the wedding would be so darn much fun if it just didn't entail all of this shopping!

Ho-Ho-Holiday Preparations

Oh my...it's almost here! I am so excited as always. How are your holiday plans coming? I really do love this time of year. Irv and I headed out early this morning to finish up the shopping. My plan was that I was not coming home until I was done, and I did it! I must say that Mr. Bah Humbug started to get a bit cranky when we left the mall and headed into town to hit a few other stores. He can only tolerate so much holiday spirit in one day.

Me, I could have circled the mall all day and been very happy. I love the atmosphere. I love the people and the decorations. Ho-Ho-Ho!!!

We went into the pet store and Mr. Humbug wasn't pleased that I spent over $30 on the four dogs. We have two and the boys each have one. Good dog toys aren't cheap. Ours are getting the fleece toys without the stuffing because no matter how strong it says they are....my little toy fox terrier, Sparky can destroy it in no time and she throws that stuffing everywhere! Mine got the cheap toys. It's the boy's border collie and aussie that cost a bit more. Hey, they are bigger and require bigger toys. Ho-Ho-Ho. I don't care. I love the dogs.

We finally got home and Mr. Humbug started straightening up the "guest" room, figuring someone will be sleeping in there. Mr. Humbug was crabby. He didn't want to be cleaning the guest room. I said I would do it, but Mr. Humbug likes to do nice things and then complain the entire time he does them.

Then we talked to Matt and he thought the basement might be a better place for him to sleep because it's bigger and he travels with a lot of stuff. So, Mr. Humbug went down and cleaned up a bit down there. Now, even though Mr. Humbug complained, he made it so nice down there with the little fake fireplace and some Christmas lights. I told you he does a lot of nice things, I think he just likes to hear himself complain.

I sat on my workshop floor (and let me tell you...sitting on the floor is not very comfortable anymore) and got all of the gifts into the boxes and started wrapping and after two whole gifts I ran out of tape. UGH! I had hoped to get everything wrapped tonight. So, Mr. Humbug went to town to get a new furnace filter and tape....and Subway for dinner.

After dinner I will dig in and start wrapping again. Matt just called and he will probably stop for the night in a couple hours. He's been driving for 15 hours already on only 3 hours of sleep. He hit some nasty weather in Colorado that slowed him down a bit and his windshield squirter things were plugged up and wouldn't squirt! He wants to be home by 11:00 tomorrow...he didn't say why, but I would suspect that it has something to do with football.

Oh, we also have to fix our little Charlie Brown tree...he is trying very hard to fall over. We will never, ever buy that type of tree again. The trunk is very soft as are all of the branches. The lights are having a hard time staying on the branches and now he is falling......timber!!!!

I was talking on the phone earlier to Mr. Humbug's and my daughter, Tresa who I shall from here on out call....Ms. Humbug. Ms. Humbug decided that next Christmas I am going to go shopping with Chris, her soon to be husband, and she is going shopping with Mr. Bah Humbug. She likes Christmas about as much as he does. She went shopping today and hated the snow, the people, the lines and everything else about it. Hmmmmmm....wonder where she gets that from.

Fa-La-La-La-La-La-La-La-La

Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful....

but that could mean a day off of work! I really don't think it is going to be that bad, but I am keeping my fingers crossed. I could really use an extra day off right now! They are predicting rain...which it is doing right now, then temps dropping to the 20s and then ice and a few inches of snow tomorrow. I just hope we don't all get to work and then get stuck there!

I had such a great day today. We went and did our grocery shopping first thing this morning. I spent some time last night working on my shopping list, leaving off things from my "avoid" list and adding things that I can eat. Even though I am not making the big switch until after Christmas, I've decided to start eliminating things from my diet that are easy to eliminate. I can give up the potato chips, and potatoes, some of the vegetables and things like that.

For example, my son was here for dinner tonight and normally I would have loved the baked potato with asparagus, carrots and onion baked on top of it......but instead, I had a salad with romaine, red, green and orange peppers, kidney beans, egg, ground flax, chopped pecans, sunflower seeds and carrots with a little fat free Italian dressing. Potato and asparagus are on the "avoid" list....along with a million other things.

I made sure I bought a lot of different vegetables and fruits today since those will be the largest part of my diet. I intend to finish up things I still have some of like my oat cereal and my loaf of bread, but then I will be done with those for a while. I'm not as freaked out as I was the other day....just a little sad to say good bye to some of my good friends...like sugar and croissants, but I can do this!

After the store we headed out to a different mall since we bombed yesterday and only ended up with two gifts. Within 20 minutes of walking in the first store I had gifts for my son and soon to be son-in-law and my daughter. It was great! Everything was on sale, plus I had an all-day 20% off coupon that was good on many of the things. I can't tell you the great stuff I got because my family tends to read my blog fairly regularly and I don't want to spoil the surprise. After that mall, I had to go back to a different mall where I had bought something yesterday that I wasn't thrilled with, but bought out of desperation. Then I found something else for my soon to be son-in-law and headed home. It was a very good shopping day for sure.

I came home and made 3 new funky plates for my etsy shop, but I can't show those to you either, because the glue is still drying. They are so cute, I can't wait to get them listed this week. One is full size and 2 are soap dish size that I made with the little dishes from the resale shop yesterday.

I think I will pack up my lunch tonight since I will have to leave really early for work tomorrow if we do get the ice and snow they are predicting. So, we will keep this short and sweet today. Off to make my lunch!

I Did It! I Found A Dress For The Wedding!

Tresa picked me up at the train and we stopped back at her condo for a few minutes before heading downtown. When we were getting ready to leave, I put my hat on and then I couldn't find my little knit gloves. We looked all over the condo and couldn't find them, so I assumed they were either in the car or I dropped them on the street when I got out of the car. Nope....neither. Where the heck were my gloves? Oh, that's right....when I took my hat and gloves off at the condo...I stuck my gloves in my hat so I wouldn't lose them. Yep! There they were, in my hat....ON TOP OF MY HEAD!

I thought...oh brother...if that's the kind of day it's going to be...I am in BIG trouble. This was the Dreaded Dress Shopping Day, and if I was ever going to find a dress to wear to my daughter's wedding I needed to be calm and things needed to go smoothly.

We actually had a good laugh at my expense, and headed on our way to the bus stop. Tresa decided we would try Macy's on Michigan Avenue first. She thought it might be less crowded than the State Street store. We rode the bus downtown and headed into the store. UGH, the dress selection was really poor and I started to sweat. My plan was to take all kinds of pictures of me trying on dresses, and there wasn't even a dress there that I wanted to try on!

Tresa decided we better head on over to the State Street store. On the way we stopped at a store called Filene's Basement. It isn't in a basement. In fact, we went up a very long escalator to get up to the store. I guess Filene's is suppose to have great prices, but it looked like a big garage sale to me. Definitely not my kind of store. I like things hanging neatly on racks in proper size order and maybe even color coordinated. I was not impressed. It isn't that I don't appreciate great prices, I just don't have the patience to search for things, especially that day. I was on a mission and I was not going home until I had a dress for the wedding.

We headed to State Street. It was still pretty quiet in the city and that was nice. No crowds yet. It was easy to get around. You just have to watch out for ice falling off the sides of the buildings...really!

The dress department at the State Street store was wonderful, and it was huge. I felt pretty confident that I would find something.

We both started going through the racks pulling out anything that was a "possibility". The sales clerk was great and put everything in a fitting room for us as we continued to look. Tresa and I don't really have the same taste in dresses, but she quickly figured out what I liked and our fitting room started to fill up quite nicely.

I had a vision of the dress I wanted when we started. I wanted brown for sure, and something comfortable and a little fitted. We are all doing cocktail length. We found some really cute brown dresses I liked, and also a couple in a neat gray. I passed up the bright colors thinking those might not be appropriate for the mother of the bride.

I started trying dresses on and figured out really fast that brown was not my color no matter how much I liked the dresses and the color. They did nothing for me. The gray ones were the same. Tresa went out to grab a couple in different sizes and came back with some really cute dresses in.....royal blue! I told her I didn't think that was a good color for the mother of the bride and she didn't agree.

So, I put on a royal blue dress. WOW! Royal blue was definitely my color, and a couple of the dresses were really cute. She went out and came back with others in blue. There was one that she loved that had more of a chiffon, full skirt in a darker blue that I nixed really fast. It was not "me". I felt like I was all "hip" in it and I don't mean "hip" as in "cool"....I mean "hip" as in "hippy"...not "hippie", but "hippy".....

Then I put on this dress.......this royal blue dress.....it was really cute, it was kind of fitted and it fit me really well. I was pretty excited! I was 99% sure that I had found THE dress! Now this is another place where Tresa and I differ. Tresa would have said, "Ok this is the one. Let's go". I said, let me try on the other cute ones one more time just to be sure. I got this look, and I knew she really didn't get it, because that isn't how she does things....but I did need to be sure. This is a really BIG deal, you know?

Well, of course I didn't change my mind, and I bought the really cute royal blue dress. I think it was a great decision. No, it didn't come off the clearance rack like I had hoped, and I didn't find it in the first store which was my other hope...but the price was reasonable, I had a $25 off coupon from the paper and we were out the door, dress in hand within two hours of starting.

I do need to get the straps taken up a little bit and still have to figure out shoes and find some kind of a wrap, but that is all minor. I'm thinking silver shoes.....what do you think?

We grabbed a cab and went and had a great lunch at a little corner restaurant and talked about the dress and the wedding and hair and shoes and all kinds of things, and then it was time to catch the train home. Traffic caused us to miss the train I was supposed to get on, so we sat and talked and chilled out in the car for an hour waiting for the next one.

What I have been calling the Dreaded Dress Shopping Day turned into an absolutely wonderful day with my little girl. I love you Tresa and thanks so much for helping me find my dress.

Dreaded Dress Shopping Day Has Arrived

It's here. The dreaded dress shopping day has arrived. If you aren't familiar with my dreaded dress shopping day, you can go back and read my post from November 13 .

Tomorrow morning I will board the 6:23 a.m. train for Chicago. My daughter, Tresa, will pick me up at the station, we will take her car back to her house and then hop on the bus to head downtown.

Tresa is familiar with the stores downtown, so I am letting her decide what stores we should try first. I have been online many, many times and have seen no dresses that I even remotely like, but that's what happens when you don't like dresses.

I told Tresa today that I was bringing my camera to take pictures of our day. I am envisioning this really funny blog post with lots of pictures of all of these hideous dresses and hopefully some nice ones. I see me making faces and just having the greatest time, and Tresa capturing it all on camera.

The only problem is that I really have no sense of humor and Tresa has even less!! After a few e-mails back and forth today I had her convinced that doing a dreaded dress shopping day photo documentary could be fun. Her response was, "I'll try."

So, I leave you tonight feeling hopeful that I will walk into that first store and this amazing kick butt dress in my size, will jump off the rack (maybe even the clearance rack) right at me...I will try it on...it will be the dress of my dreams (even though I only have nightmares about dresses, not dreams) it will fit perfect and it will be marked down to about $50!!

Now that would kick butt!!