Monthly Archives: June 2011

I am having picture troubles on my blog but I think I have figured out how to use flickr, so…

Here are a few pics for you:

I had my first ever garage sale last weekend. Here are some thoughts:

• Make simple signs. Mine just were boxes with “Yard Sale” and an arrow painted on each side. I put some bricks in the box to keep it where I put it. No need to put a bunch of details that you can’t read anyway and I can reuse these.
• A tip I read and liked was if someone is interested in something, make a deal with them and let them buy it. No one else will probably want that thing and you really just want to get rid of it. I wish I had done that with a few items.
• Sometimes it seems better to price things low and just get rid of them.
• I put prices on everything but wondered sometimes if my prices turned people away if they were too shy to try to haggle but thought the price was too high.
• Wear sunscreen.
• Drink lots of water and eat something.
• If we weren’t having another yard sale later, I would just call someone to pick up the stuff for charity after it was over.
• If a man walks up to your garage sale selling homemade tamales, buy them, they will taste good.
• Invite friends to join you. More stuff attracts more people. Its not too hard to keep your stuff separate if you keep it in separate areas of the yard.
• Take a nap after its over and go out to dinner! (We used a gift card–don’t think I broke my challenge!)

So a few weeks ago I mentioned that I would tell you about my high school reunion. Well first I should give you some background. (I don’t know if anyone who I went to high school with reads this blog, except probably Heather and Vicki, but I will try to be diplomatic.)

In high school I guess you could say I was a “nerd” or “one of the smart kids” or whatever. In all Pre AP or AP classes, salutatorian, etc. So my friends and I ran for class officer some years and we were the class officers some years, I don’t really remember which year or which office. But our senior year we ran and I was running for president. It was a small school, often whoever ran got the office, because other than the junior class officers planning prom, most class officers didn’t really do anything at all except have something else to put on their college applications.

So we ran senior year and figured we would be it and that would be the end of that. Well another group of kids got the idea to run and  they campaigned that we would have the most awesome senior year and class reunion ever. I guess you could say they were kinda known to party so I guess people thought they would be more fun than us and they won. We kinda thought it was funny and weren’t upset or anything. We just thought that we probably wouldn’t actually have a 10 year reunion.

Well this year was 10 years and we did have a reunion! It was a pretty low key affair, and not much planning went into it. They only way people were notified was through a facebook event, so lots of people didn’t know about it. It was also kinda short notice, so hard for people to come if they lived out of state. I must point out, that out of the five of us that ran, I am the only one who lives in Texas. They others live in New York City, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma, and California, if I correctly remember who ran.

So I am the only one of the losing class officer candidates who went. There were probably about 20 people there who I graduated with out of a class of 119. It was held at this outdoor hangout restaurant/bar on the lake that had live music, volleyball, and a pool. It was a place that could be fun to hang out I suppose with lots to do, but it was like 100 degrees and all outdoors with no air conditioning! When we got there, we asked a waitress where the reunion was. She said, “What reunion?” So they didn’t even tell the restaurant that a reunion was being held there. So then I had to walk around and see if I could recognize anyone standing in a large group. Well luckily I did see someone I recognized so I could find them.

One of our teachers was there, who also played music with his wife at our wedding, so C talked to him while I walked around and said hi to everyone. I made it back and sat with some folks and talked to them for a while. As people walked up, we would try to remember their names. We decided that it would have been nice to have name tags, even just the plain white kind to write on.

It was listed to be from 3 pm til midnight (I guess when the place closed) on the invitation facebook event. We got there about 4:30 and left about 7 as the sun was setting on the lake and hitting everyone in the face. There didn’t seem to be any more people coming and in fact some were leaving. Not our class prez though. He was quite…intoxicated. As he had been there since 3. And in fact was about to be asked to leave. Ahem.

All in all I was glad I went. It was nice to see some people that I haven’t seen in a long time. I went to school in the same town from kindergarten til senior year so I spent a large portion of my life around these people and we have lots of common experiences. As we talked we tried to remember who we had for which grade and what classes we were in together. Some people turned out about like I thought. Some didn’t. Everyone should go to their reunion if they have the chance just to see how it goes. I enjoyed my school experience and wouldn’t trade it for anything!

Go Big Red!

Man, no takers on the challenge, eh? Well two people on facebook said they would try.

So when you are trying not to eat out so much…you end up cooking more and therefore getting the kitchen dirty more often! You know what else…when you have a baby to feed, you have to wash the high chair tray and bibs multiple times a day. Now I see why they give you two trays!

I think I would like to make more crock pot meals. If you have a recipe you like, please share it in the comments!

Ever heard of Goodreads?

All my reader friends out there should. Especially those of you who list books you have read on your blog. This is a much easier way to do it. See my widget in my sidebar? You just input what you read. Or for that matter what you want to read. You can type in the  name or…scan the barcode with your phone! How awesome is that. I haven’t tried it yet but it sounds easy!

Putting in my “to read” list is why I have gotten excited about it in the last few days, despite having an account with them for a while that went unused. See I always go to the library or book store and can’t think of what I had been meaning to read. So I spent some time today putting books into my “to read” list so that I will know what to look for at the library. It has an app too so I will be able to access it from my phone.

And it has a widget so your fun blog friends can see what you have been reading and what you thought of it. HERE is my profile so you can see what is on my “bookshelves”. HERE is where you can get started on your own account. Let me know if you do join and I will add you as a friend so I can see what you have read.

Little Miss E LOVES to walk with you holding her fingers. She would rather do this than anything! We thought she would skip crawling altogether, but the past day or two she has taken a couple of crawl strides. It sure would alleviate some back pain around our house if she would just crawl.

So VBS finished out well and we really enjoyed our visit from family. We went to VBS family night on Friday and E had fun playing. Saturday we took it easy and enjoyed a lazy day mostly, except a swim birthday party which was fun.

Sunday was church and also two special holidays…Father’s Day (C’s first) and our 7th Anniversary! (Here is a fun post I wrote once about our anniversaries.) We went to church and came home to eat leftovers for lunch. Then E and I took naps. Then we went to Target and Taco Cabana for dinner. It was a nice leisurely dinner with E having fun eating her food and us having a nice chat while trying to get her to not drop her food on the floor. We will go for our actual anniversary date on Wednesday. Our friends will babysit and we have a gift card to use to a nice restaurant.

Last year we went there for our anniversary after attending birth class.

Yes, we spent 6 hours of our 6th anniversary learning about how to birth a baby.

Luckily our instructor was hilarious! It was a Saturday so we had to wait like an hour or more at the restaurant, but we shouldn’t this time, since it is on Wednesday.

Monday I went to Old Navy and used my two groupons. I bought myself one ($10 for $20 of merchandise) and my sweet hubby bought me one as a gift so I had two. Then I went to  Target where I was in search of these sweet little bowls that caught my eye a long time ago. I had found them for $1.74 but there was only one, so I went to a different Target and found a lot, and bought 5.

Today involved a trip to the library where I got some fun books that I will be blogging more about tomorrow.

Hope you had a great day!

The No Eating Out Challenge!

I am challenging myself that we will not eat out until July 15th! Anyone want to join me?

The rules are:

No spending money on restaurant or fast food.

That’s it.

It is okay to get a free meal (i.e. Chick Fil A Cow Appreciation Day on July and it is okay to use a gift card (which we are going to do Wednesday for our anniversary). Also it is okay to eat out if it is someone else’s treat.

The main reason I am doing this is to save money. We really shouldn’t be spending money to eat out right now but we do anyway and so I am going to try to go cold turkey. My hub is really better about this than me, I am usually the one to cave and want something. The trick is when we don’t have anything in the house that sounds good.

So that is the goal, comment if you want to join in on this challenge. I figure if I tell people about it, I am maybe more likely to follow through.