BRILLIANCE...thanks to Spongebob

Actually, it's cuz of Squidward, but either way, I was watching Spongebob Squarepants when Squidward broke out an ingenious object: His Sunday Relaxation Box.


...

WHAT?!

...

Fuckin' brilliant. A box. Full of stuff. That relaxes you. That you can pull out when ever the hell you want. JUST TO RELAX.

Squidward's had a pillow (that he could place "just so" on his couch), a flower in a vase, flower fragrance and something else that I can't quite remember.

Mine would have other things
Tea
A candle
Probably still a pillow
Slippers?
A book that I love
Maybe even a movie that I love
A great CD (probably a mix of calming songs...maybe just instrumental)
Cookies
A drink mix of some kind (like, lemonade or iced tea...not booze...booze if you want it...)
New socks
Bubble bath?!

I mean, think of what a great gift it would make?!
Get a cute box and decorate it, then fill it with 'relaxing' things your recipient will enjoy. Andrew would love a pillow and a new video game. And some new jammie pants. :) My mom would love a new bed buddy (one of those rice bags you microwave and put on your sore muscles)

So, anyway. I just thought I would share the wonderful idea I got...from watching Spongebob. Take that people who say TV is bad...Spongebob is brilliant. (They use the word prestidigitation in one of the first few episodes. Betcha don't know what that means :P)

Just wanted to share that before I forgot it.
Also, I painted my nails today. There were great expectations for it and I got kind of disappointed when it didn't really work. Oh well. That's what I get for not being ambidextrous.

LATER!

My life is apparently boring...

Sorry for the long wait between posts. I haven't been doing anything terribly important lately...

Currently I am sitting at my mom's house in St. Cloud. My dogs aren't really getting along. In fact, the old one just kind of, well, hates Buster. Nicholas is passed out on one of our living room chairs right now. Buster is being a turd trying to do all the things a puppy can to entertain himself.

I'm watching the movie "Lolita" which is the 1962, black and white version of the book by Vladimir Nabokov. I'm a fan. It's actually not too terrible, though I'm curious too see how they intend to do the more, risque scenes in a 1962 movie...

In all honesty, the only really exciting thing that I've done is play with my dogs...That's about it...

I've been knitting a hat, think I mentioned that earlier. It's really pretty simple. I'll put the pattern up later though. I haven't been taking pictures of it or anything, so there's not much to post about it. I have to make two of them so I'll make sure to take step by step pics of that one.

I'm seriously NOT DOING ANYTHING right now. Kind of a boring day.

Guess I'll update again later.

Random Hiatus =Much Productivity

Took a random hiatus over, roughly, the last two days, but for good reason.
I've been playing mom all week with the mini Andrews, so I've actually been like, doing stuff. Mom-ish stuff. I don't think I posted on Tuesday, so I'll just update everyone on my productive life since then.

Tuesdays mean we get the kiddos overnight, so there's that. On Tuesday I woke up to go meet my chums to work on choreographing our final project for my Musical Theater Dance class. It's pretty legit. I can't tell you what the song is yet, but I'll post a video of it later today, after my final. We're supposed to guess each groups' choreographer. Anyway, while I was in the middle of "studying" for this final, I had a random meeting with my advisor to tell her that I am going to take one class this fall. Pretty darn important meeting.
Then we finished dancing.
Then I went to the shop and sat around.
Then I went back home and showered.
Then I went to go get the boys from school.

Upon returning home, I started doing laundry. I've been doing a LOT of laundry lately. I also almost have it all put away...not really, that was a lie. I'm sorry.

Evidence that I've been doing laundry. See, it's folded, AND almost to where it's supposed to be.

In any event, I did laundry most of the evening on Tuesday, Andrew made foods for us, and eventually we went to bed. Kind of boring day, though I did manage to get those piles of stuff that were in the hallway put away.

All gone!

JUST KIDDING! It's folded now though...

On to Wednesday. Now this day was PRODUCTIVE peeps. I woke up at, get this, 6:30, and when I saw woke up I really mean that I got out of bed, took the dog down stairs, fed him and went to wake up the childrens. They were sweepies and stuff, but they managed to make it down stairs where we ended up getting dressed and ready to go. WHILE that was happening, I started making dinner for the evening.

Now, I know your'e thinking that sounds weird, it was only 7 am after all, BUT, I made a hugenormous pot roast in the crock pot, so I had to trim it down and shove everything in there and turn it on. It took longer than I wanted, but it all worked out in the end, so I don't care.

I made Delicious for dinner

I had told Vinny and Dom that we could go to Starbucks in the morning before school the day before, so we loaded up in the car and headed out. Vinny got a DECAF short mocha and a brownie (I know, brownies for breakfast? Well, he wanted a chocolate donut, but we stopped selling them apparently...) Dom got an apple juice and a regular donut. SO cute. Of course, Vin didn't want his mocha by the time we were leaving so he handed it to me and I kind of forgot about it until it spilled in my car later...Dom asked if he could "save" his donut for later after we dropped Vinny off at school and I said, "sure." I didn't do much more than just leave it in my car and forget about it cuz, well, I forgot it was there until I picked them up from school again. However, that is not the point. After everyone was safely at school, I went and RAN ERRANDS.

Holy poo. Errands? Yup. It happend. Went to Lowes. Lowes you say? I needed something to put on our deck so Buster can't be seen when he goes outside...on the deck...on his fake grass...

...

I'M POTTY TRAINING MY DOG DAMMIT!

...

 

It's a tarp made for outdoor dog kennels to give puppies shade. It actually took me quite a while to do this cuz it was just one big piece of material that I had to use my amazing seamstress skills to deconstruct. (I used a scissors...use your imagination)

Sorry. I also bought a new drying rack for clothes. This one is made of metal because the wooden one was destroyed under the weight of wet clothes...go figure.

*shing! Sparkle, sparkle*

Then I went to Michael's for yarn because a friend of mine has commissioned me to make her some more hats. Did you know I knit? Cuz I do. In fact I'm making a hat. If you're my friend on facebook you can look at my "stuff I make" photo album to see how cool I am.

Messy coffee table with cup of coffee and knitting. Yes, sometimes I AM 80 years old. Get over it.

Beginning of the hat. I'm about five or six rows into the brim. 2 by 2 ribbing for about 10 rows. 

And yes, the lego is helping. It's the secret to my amazing knitting skills

So...then I went to Target and got really pissed off that everything is moved around. They're remodeling and it's superfuckingdumb because I can't find everything. I hate it when stores decide to move everything so you have no chance of actually finding what you need. Like a mug tree, not that Target carries those anyway, cuz they don't...GRR. But I did get more laundry soap. I'm weirdly running low. Must be all that laundry I've been doing. And the blanket washing that happens three times a day thanks to my pee freak dog...Seriously. He pees on everything. It's mostly when he gets excited, but it's obnoxious. Hence the attempt to outside potty train him.

After wandering around Target, desperately looking for a mug tree I went home and, once again, began doing house hold things. Like putting up the deck-screen thing. That sucked...it was windy and junk, but I figured it out and now it isn't so bad. Then I ate and showered. And then went to more dance practice. We managed to finish the dance up and I went home to bum around for a bit (I might have done more laundry...don't remember) until I had to go get the kids again.

And so my evening repeated itself a little bit, though I did throw a nap in there.

I know, it all sounds SO exciting, you can't believe what you've read.

If you're feeling unproductive after reading my amazing-ness for the last two days, don't. So far today I've been away for almost three hours and the only productive thing I've done is feed the dog and make myself some coffee. The rest of the morning has been spent on the computer cuddling wif da Busters.

Lazy ass dog...

All I have to do today is go to my dance final. WINNING.

I will also be posting the pattern for my wonderous hat that I am knitting. It's pretty ballin'. Might even post the coffee sleeves that I make if you want. Those are handy dandy as well.

Until later!

Let the fun begin!

I have done it! I have officially begun my cleaning/organizing journey for the summer. I actually did a shit ton of stuff today, despite sleeping until noon (which was glorious by the way...). So, quick rundown, for those NOT religiously following me on facebook...sheesh.
Woke up when Andrew's alarm went off.
Rolled around until I fell back asleep.
Woke up again when Andrew yelled "FUCK" really loud cuz he was late.
Got a surprise kiss cuz he was, ya know...late.
Fell back asleep.
Woke up randomly.
Looked at the dog, decided we would sleep some more
Fell back asleep.
Woke up at like, noon-ish and decided to be less of a pile.
Fed the dog.
Lolled around on the interwebz.
Actually did become less of a pile cuz I showered.
Went to Starbucks at like, two.
Drank coffee and bummed on the interwebz some more.
Went and picked up Vinny and Dom from schoolz.

And thus begins my epic tale of awesome-ness.

I got home with the kiddos and immediately began to do laundry.

WAIT. WHAT?!

Yes. I cleaned something. That something happened to be some blankets that the dog peed on (that's the real reason I started cleaning...our blankets depended on it.) I figured our sheets could probably use the wash anyway so I stripped the bed and brought e'rrything down stairs to be washed. Started the laundries and went back upstairs to...wait for it...MAKE THE BED. WHAT! Yeah. That totally happened. I didn't take pictures of that though.

Well, once the kids were set up doing something entertaining to a five and six year old, I decided I was tired of the messy floor in the laundry/dog/bathroom so I started to clean it. This led to not only washing the floor but also throwing stuff away and organizing the cupboards within the room. Now it looks all pretty and organized (at least more so than before)

Like I said, it's a laundry room...and a bathroom...and the dog's room when we aren't home. BUT THE FLOOR IS CLEAN!

These usually have lots of stuff on top of them, but not today!

This was COVERED in old laundry soap. I don't know how it happened, but soap would drip out of the containers and make a sticky, soapy layer on everything in the cupboard. 

Not anymore though. I cleaned it! *thumbs up*

Also, I didn't by the Oxi Clean, Andrew uses that when he does the laundry. I use the white thing and the blue stuff (all: Free and Clear and Downy: Fresh...something) AND bleach. Bleach is good.

 Cupboard above the dryer. Notice, the dryer sheets and iron. I don't have an ironing board. I use the top of that hamper thing you saw in the first picture if I need it. This also doubles as the dog's cupboard. You can see all the nifty dog stuff (like his tooth brush) on the left side. Brilliant.

I was clearly on a roll so I moved on to the kitchen, after all, the childrens needed to eat at some point. This was scary.

I don't even honestly know what half of that stuff even is...

Our kitchen just isn't big enough...*le sigh*

And so I began the arduous task of being a grown up and cleaning stuff. The first step was dishes. Yes, we have a dishwasher, but not all the dishes fit in it. I got as far as I could before I had to breakdown and, dare I say it, wash dishes by hand. I hate doing dishes. Like, for real, I would rather pick up my dog's poop all day than wash dishes. But I did it. I washed the dishes. 

This is the sink before I started doing the dishes, but after I started the dishwasher. It's a work in progress...again, my kitchen isn't big enough. :/ blargh

EVIDENCE OF ME DOING THE DISHES. IT HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE PEOPLE.

Dishes...eww.

This is where clean dishes go because there's NOOTHERCOUNTERSPACEGODAMMIT. Also I don't have a dish strainer. And by "I don't have a dish strainer" I actually mean "My dish strainer is lost in the bowels of my garage and has been there since January when I moved in..." but more on that at a later date.

...clean dishes...DUH.

So, I obviously cleaned off the counter before doing dishes...I guess I kind of missed that part, but it's all kind of a blur now.

Clean counter YO.

 BY THE WAY, if you ever want some kind of miracle cleaner I recommend this stuff: 

Seriously, it's magic or something. PLUS it smells awesome. Cucumber or something. I don't know. It's cool. Buy it. 

Also, that little dude is Dominic. He's five. He's pretty sweet too. Currently he and Vincent (the six year old) are murdering each other in a video game. Seems legit to me...

Where was I? Oh! The counter has been cleaned, the dishes have been started, the children have been fed and I am still cleaning religiously. Dishes, dishes, dishes and MORE dishes... and then I got to clean more counters...and the dreaded stove. Ick. The stove. There are both pluses and minuses to having a glass cooktop. The pluses are it's flat, so when you clean it there are no crevices to clean. The minuses are it's flat, so everything cooks to it and you have scrape things off it to get it clean.

However, I WON THE WAR AGAINST DIRT! And now my stove is pretty :D

Buster thought he would help a little bit too. Mostly he just got stepped on. But he's really fucking cute, so you know, whatever.

So I cleaned the kitchen and laundry room today, WHILE doing laundry. Multitasking bitches. That's what it's called.

And now I bet you are all DYING to see my clean kitchen in its entirety, aren't you? Well, luckily I documented it with pictures. Winning. Here it is in all it's clean glory y'all.

It's a counter, if you couldn't tell by it's label. The background counter is supposed to look like that, don't worry. Remember how I don't have a big enough kitchen? 

This is that corner...I know, it looks messy, but it's actually clean, just full of stuff...cuz my kitchen is, well...you know.

I'm thawing chicken in the sink, but it's really really clean :D (and shiny...)

'member that time I told you all that I'm addicted to coffee? I wasn't kidding. This is my espresso machine, on it's clean counter!

That drink there? Yeah, it's a vodka cranberry. I feel like I deserved it.

So, that is my evening in a nutshell. And now I'm sitting here with my love and the kidlets. They're, like I said, murdering each other. See:

Yeah, the vodka cranberry followed me to the living room. Clearly I have to clean that next.

It is completely necessary for them to be THAT close to the GIANT TV

Delicious :P

So, what's next? Well, this:

Believe it or not, these are clean, just not folded. That and this:

...are my next cleaning task. And the living room. 

*Sigh* Cleaning cleaning cleaning. That's what I'm gonna be doing. Woot.

While everyone else is doing finals and stuff, I'm gonna be vacuuming and scrubbing and all that jazz. 

On the plus side, I kind of what to make a roast tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. ;)

Until later my friends, here is a video of Dom and Vinny being crazy ninjas playing video games

Oh, I forgot to mention my really sweet sunburn from the dog park yesterday...that's what this is...and, you know, my butt. 'Sup. 

PEACE.

Adventures in Nature!

Today is a Sunday. And it was also a sunny day! Ha ha! Okay, so that was lame, BUT after sleeping in for a really long time (cuz apparently I was like, exhausted or something), Andrew and I decided we needed lunch but we were both too lazy to do anything. In lieu of cooking, we threw on some clothes and hopped in the car...with Busters! He likes to go for rides. Anyway, there is what I would call a strip mall of sorts near our house (and near Target...) with food stuffs in it, like Starbucks. In fact, it's the Starbucks I worked at. Anyway, he wanted Jimmy John's so I demanded we also get coffee. Demanded is the wrong word, more like, required.

Long story short, we ended up sitting outside for a few minutes while we each waited for the other to purchase said food stuffs. This made us want to be outside more and since Mr. Buster doesn't get to go out very often, we thought maybe we would go to the dog park. What a novel idea, no?

After running back home for some supplies, such as Andrew's textbook (he was supposed to be studying all day after all), we hopped back in the car to go to the park. In the car, on the way there we were talking about something mundane when Andrew cut me off mid-sentence to point out the window and say, "What is the girl doing in the middle of the street?!"

Lo and behold there was a small child WANDERING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODFORSAKEN ROAD. And not just any road. No we were on one of the busiest intersections in town. He literally stopped the car and jumped out. I watched as he just bounded across traffic not looking for cars and snatched the girl up to bring her to a safe location.

After a few seconds of stunned silence on my part, I came to and climbed over into the driver seat to maneuver my way over to Andrew and the little girl, whose name we learned was Madison.

She was very shaken up, but we gave her a juice and let her sit with us on the grass until a nice officer showed up to take her back home. Apparently, her g-pa was watching her and her siblings and when Madison said she was going to go to the park, he didn't hear her say anything or even leave. He called Andrew later to thank him profusely and apologize for not paying attention. Andy was very kind to the poor guy, since he was clearly shaken up by it as well.

So there you have it. My wonderful Andrew is a hero! Woo hoo!

Oh, and then we went to the dog park. Pretty much the most fun time ever.
Here's a note though, if you're going to go hang out with dogs who aren't restrained by anything, don't bring food with you. They think it's pretty tasty. Also, make sure you take your allergy medications. It's a good choice. Especially if you're allergic to dogs, or the outdoors.

Buster had a blast, and it turns out he is something of an adorable guard dog. Anytime a friend would come just a little too close he'd run around in circles along the outside edge of our blankie. We eventually moved to the section for smaller dogs and met a few new friends named Bailey and Bitsy, a corgi and a poodle/shitzu/chihuahua mix. SO adorable. Didn't get pictures of those two, but I do have a few of Andrew reading and of Buster guarding us.

 

What a good little protector!

Studying like a good boy

He's so tough in his skull and cross bones collar

Daddy before he decided to do homeworks

So, that is my day in a nutshell. We went to bed super early and then Buster decided he wasn't tired yet, so here I am, awake in the living room, snuggling with Busty while my love sleeps away the evening upstairs. Turns out I actually got a pretty decent sunburn from being outside, so I get to deal with that all night too. Meh. I will probably go back upstairs and watch some netflix soon. Perhaps another episode of "Taboo" since it's so fascinating and I'm a giant nerd like that.

Until later my friends! Bon soir!

Getting Things Together

So, here's a story about a young woman who has not yet graduated college and has put off doing all the things she needs to do to function in normal society all semester long and how she plans to use the entire summer to get back on track with life, liberty and the pursuit of...sorry, went off on a tangent.

In case you were curious, I am that young woman. I'm Emily. I'm engaged and my fiance and I are having a grand old time trying to plan our wedding that we decided to have in October...of this year. (Just a little update on that...it's May 5th of 2012...we set our date for October 12th of 2012. Do that math...it's not a very long time for planning). 

Now, I love planning, really I do, but I need tools to help me do it. That's where my blog comes in! Not-to-mention which, I love doing other stuff too, like crafting and I figure, if I can share my experiences with other in the same boat as me, well, maybe I'll be doing someone a favor. 

I don't know, maybe I'll just write about my dog everyday. Or maybe I'll just forget I even have this thing, but whatever dice I roll, I want a blog to just say "blah" on whenever the hell I feel like it. 

So, crazy stuff about me:
I love coffee. I have worked at Starbucks for just over a year now. It doesn't not help the addiction I have to it. 

I'm a terrible procrastinator and I get distracted easily.

That being said, I'm also a great worker, when I actually want to do stuff. 

I love my puppy! This is a picture of him:

His name is Buster. Don't deny the adorable-ness of his face. I fucking love him. For realz.

Umm...Oh! I can sew. Like, actually pretty well. It's a handy thing to have in your back pocket for Halloween and working in a costume shop, like I do. 

BTWs I'm also into theater and acting and singing and junk. It's a fun time. Life is good. 

I can't sleep with socks on. Can't do it. Drives me crazy.

I LOVE any tv show that Seth MacFarlane has had a hand in. I watch reruns on Netflix.

Netflix is awesome.

So is Hulu Plus. Cable is overrated...sometimes.

I believe in ghosts and thing paranormal movies and tv shows are AWESOME.

I'm also a nerd who loves to watch nature shows and science-y documentaries. 

So, moving on. This is Andrew:

He's the handsome guy on the left :) Anyway, I loves him. I talk silly when I'm around him, and he's a pretty sweet dude. Best friend and all that jazz. I'll spare you the sappy specifics. 

I'm planning our wedding. It's in October. It's not very far away and I just quit my job at Starbucks so I can focus on that and cleaning our house. It's kind of awful. I just put things off for so long because of the school semester that it just kept piling up and now I feel compelled to organize and clean EVERYTHING. 

So that's where this comes in. I'm gonna use all my interwebz resources to organize and plan my life and make it easier for the two of us (three of us with Busterz :D) to go about our everyday life stuffs. 

In the meantime, I'm going to go eat a hot pocket because I'm really hungry and I'm too lazy to actually cook. Here's another picture of Busterz from when he was a widdle puppy!

Enjoy friends. More too come...eventually :)