Tuesday, June 28, 2011

New Project!

As if I don't already have enough projects hanging in the balance, Tyler went and bought a house and I am in the process of moving in this week. We painted trim this weekend with help from him whole family but still have plenty left to do! I'll post more pictures after I take pictures of all our stuff from Goodwill and get the house painted and situated soon!

I don't think my mom has seen the picture (she doesn't have Facebook y'all, and no, I'm not going to show her how to use it...I get my patience from her, which isn't much!) So here's the outside pic for my madre:

Hi mom - are you going to send me pics of the kiddos or not? You said you would last week....


On one of our many many trips to Goodwill, the DAV, and Salvation Army, I spied this super sa-weet couch. Unfortuantely, when I went back to get it (for the craft room), it was gone. Funny story though the girl that does my hair, her friend ended up buying it. I got to see pictures of it in its new home and while I'm happy for her, I'm still really sad for myself.  Let's all take a moment of silence for the sa-weetest couch ever:


Alas, here's the couch we picked out for the living room though:

It'll work. I really just wanted the green one for my craft room, although it would have looked pretty awesome in the living room....just saying Tyler.

Monday, June 27, 2011

My Opinion Monday - Taco Bell HELL!

This picture pretty much sums up my opinion on Taco Bell today:
I saved this to my computer as "tacobellhell"

I didn't actually remember having Taco Bell until this morning...when I went to my car and saw this in the backseat. And Tyler didn't actually take us to Taco Bell, he had some partially eaten taco leftover so I did what I could with it I guess...I'm not even sure I ate any of it.

Let me break down the picture for you:
 - Dress hanging over the seat because it got soaked by torrential downpour that we didn't see coming
 - $5 plastic poncho that saved me from nothing
 - Val's $5 flip flops she bought at the Salvia stand because her boots gave her blisters
 - Umbrella that we did NOT take in with us, but totally should have. I didn't even know it was in my car until now!
 - Taco meat thrown about from the partially eaten taco...I'm really glad I didn't have a whole taco.
 - Pearl earring next to the bobby pin. I lost one at some point so I just took the other one out. At least I now know where one of them is at.

Yep, I'd say that 1) I should not be allowed to eat Taco Bell in my backseat ever again and 2) Big Country Bash was a complete success!

Monday, June 20, 2011

My Opinion Monday - my independence

I've been independent since I can remember. I was never one to need my mom or dad by my side during all that I did. I went through the typical 7 year stint (that's normal right?) as a teenager where I thought my parents were the most uncool people on earth and wanted nothing to do with them. After selecting a college (what I thought was a mere) 4 hours away, I quickly learned that my parents weren't actually wrong and I soon wished I'd made other college plans. But here I am, almost 10 years later, still living 4 hours from my entire family while my brother lives a country 1.2 miles from the homestead.

I go about my day, much like the day before. Wake up, (sometimes, but not usually now) go to the gym (maybe), head home, have dinner, do some projects or shopping or veg out watching TV or hang out with friends, etc and then go to bed. Then I wake up and do it all over again. While I love my job, I do not travel to exotic places - although when the air was out I felt like I was working in the jungles of South Africa (is it hot there? I imagine it has to be!) - nor do I do anything so super awesome from 8:20-4:30 that I feel requires a phone call home to mom and dad....

My independence has always been good for me. For my mom though, not.so.much. Here I sit at 12:51AM on Monday morning because I can't sleep. My independence has gotten the best of me. I've weened  my mom off a Sunday and Thursday mandatory phone call (which we did my first 2 years of college) to a Sunday call. That quickly went to the wayside on my part and I called when I had something fun or interesting to say. As you read previously, not much happens. So I left it up to my mom to call me when she wanted to talk. This ultimately backfired. And tonight (well Sunday night, last night, a few short hours ago) was the night it happened.

I'm not going to get into too much detail because 1) my mom does read my blog ( hi mom!)  and 2) we'll get it sorted out tomorrow, not need for the blog world to  know all!

My mom and I are very much alike. We're both  stubborn and have a hard time admitting fault, which can make it difficult for either one of us to swallow our pride and just call. I want her to call me, she wants me to call her. When I don't call her, she doesn't call me. And when she doesn't call me, I don't call her. Because we're waiting for the other one to call! And my dad just wants one of us to call so he doesn't have to hear about it from both of us!

So I'll call her tomorrow like I said I would. I'm at least good (I think) about calling when I say I will. And if I get distracted or busy or lazy, I'll shoot her a text and tell her to expect my call the next evening...because let's face it, calling to tell her I'll call tomorrow is like her telling the family bye at a Sunday dinner...you don't leave until an hour later!


(Big shout out to my mom who is reading this, thanks for your support and love, I'll call tomorrow...err, tonite, since it's Monday morning already!)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Back to my roots...and you can put this on your roots!

Well, I finally made it back to what makes me tgdesigns - felt, buttons, hot glue, mason jars, embroidery thread. Oh and a best friend from childhood visiting me (first friend to visit me in Des Moines in the 9, going on 10 years I've lived here...better be seeing some more familiar faces soon!) and I promised her a handmade bday gift. She's way younger than me, just turned 27 while I'm fixing to turn 28 (in 6 months I know, crap I missed my half birthday...again!). She told me she was into zebra print these days. I should have known this since I helped her find a super cute zebra print rug on Overstock one day after a desperate facebook status update! She likes headbands I found out as well so I decided to put the two things she loves into one...

and came up with this:

Zebra headband, tucked in my jar of embroidery threads atop one of my finished chair projects :)
SHE LOVED IT! She even wore it out to dinner and drinks with some of my friends, who noticed and loved it too! I plan to add these to my list of things to go on my Etsy site, which will hopefully happen in the next few months. Sidenote: lots of stuff going on right now, I'm going to be tackling a LARGE project shortly, just waiting for everything to be finalized before I throw it on my blog :) 

It was so nice to have Tiff here this weekend, we've been friends since she moved to town in 1st grade. Our phone numbers growing up were 455-3105 and hers was 455-3150. Her mom and my mom are best friends. Her moms name is Traci and her moms brothers name is Todd. Yeah my brothers name is Todd too. My brother Todd dated her sister for while in Jr. High and her sister also took family photos about a year ago. Our families go way back and it's so nice to have a best friend from long ago, which makes me feel old saying. 

In honor of Tiff's visit, a small gallery of Traci and Tiff pictures :)

Circa 2007 - girls weekend in Chicago

2009 - Christmas time at home 

2010 - night out with Traci, Tiff and Tyler...and some boys that will remain nameless, mostly because I can't remember their names!

2008 - at Gem City, most likely for Christmas or Easter

She has the pictures on her camera of us from the weekend - I'll have to post the "current" pic of us soon, I hope :) hint hint Tiff :) 

Monday, June 13, 2011

My Opinion Monday - who signed me up for this?

I must admit - I'm not a huge fan of kids under the age of 18. Perhaps it's from being the youngest sibling and the youngest grandchild for a really long time. I didn't babysit when I was younger (well one time I did and never did after because I got paid $10 for like 8 hours and didn't get to leave until 2am) and I just haven't been around babies and kids much. I can count on both hands the kids that I do like though - nieces and nephews, close friends kids, a couple younger cousins to name a few.  I'm coming around, but I'm no where near ready to have kids of my own...I just started holding babies 2 years ago - I use to have dreams about dropping them.....

Which is why I can NOT for the life of me figure out how I keep getting these mailing lists:



Coupons for diapers and options for my child's college fund??!? What list did I get on and how in the world did I get there? I am so very confused by these and I get them quite frequently. It's not like I accidentally got them once, oh no, I get them several times a  month! Anyone use Huggies and need coupons?  Or maybe you're not getting the announcement about a kids college savings plan, need that? Let me know and I'll dig these out of the recycle bin - or just save the next set I get :)

Friday, June 10, 2011

I've been asked to bitch more on my blog...

Over the recent weeks, one person in particular has asked for some more funny stuff. The request was for more of these types of posts. While I was hoping to keep that one off my blog (for fear of some of the subjects reading it), I say "what the hell!" So here are a few of my pet peeves when it comes to drivers, or people that operate heavy machinery when they shouldn't:

1. Those that refuse to use their turn signals. Perhaps it was because I grew up on gravel roads where stop lights and stop signs were far and few between and I didn't have to use them that often, but damn it people, your turn signal is so I know what the hell you're trying to do while on the road! Nothing like bee-bopping along at 20 over the speed limit to come up on a car that suddenly slams their brakes on then makes the slowest.turn.ever. All without putting a signal on! When I see the brake lights I'm usually like "Oh, must be the person in front of them" or "perhaps there's a child playing in the road (clearly those parents should not be parents)" or "are they really braking for a squirrel? I'm not behind Summer am I? She always stops for those!"....then comes the turn. Bah, I just want to honk my horn, put a scrolling marquee on my car that says "use your turn signal" and squeal my tires as I drive away...so annoying.

2. I have a bicycle. I ride my bicycle. If you've never ridden a bicycle, shut the hell up. I recently had a friend put on their facebook status about how they hated when bikers rode in the middle of the road. The person apparently couldn't be slowed down for the mere 10 seconds it may take a rider to find an open curb to move over and let him pass.I decided to be a part of this rant and commented very politely on the status. To which I received some more crap about how there was a sidewalk, blah blah blah. I responded with some sound data about ordinances in different cities/towns that do not allow bikers to use the sidewalks, etc. We'd all love to have a trail everywhere we go; however, seems like some people (ie. non-bikers) get in a huge uproar when it comes to putting more tax dollars to trails. They don't want their money to go to those because they don't use them. And to that I say, shut the hell up, I'm paying for your child's education, you don't hear me talking about having to wait behind a bus while all the kids cross the street to get on - and I sure hope none of my friends would say "sidewalks available, 10pts a piece." Douche.

3. Val and I's favorite pastime is probably judging the way others do things. For instance, we have been known to take pictures of license plates that appear to have a picture frame of registration stickers around them and pass those along to each other. We find ourselves wanting to ask the owner of the vehicle, "You know those stickers come with directions right?" You've all seen those people, and probably commented about how dumb they look too...don't judge us. But anyways, I don't know if their sole purpose to let us all know 1) when their birthday is each year or 2) how long they've owned that particular car. I just don't understand how these people are still allowed to drive!? I mean, putting your sticker anywhere other than where the little sheet tells you to basically tells the whole state that you can't follow simple directions. What makes me think you can follow "drive on the right, pass on the left" type directions??

4. You know how it is. You're running late to work (or at least I always am) and just as soon as you hit the open road, you're stopped by someone driving far below the speed limit. To those I say, OMG stop driving so slow please! While I do believe that speed limits are necessary - really Traci? do you? or did you just make that up?? - I do also believe that if you can't drive at least the posted speed limit, you should not be allowed to drive. Period. I take side streets to work and nothing makes me more annoyed than getting behind a slow person, only to have them make every.single.turn.I.make. ugh! When I lived in the burbs, I seriously started leaving the house later than I should have, just to avoid traffic. I found myself getting to work 20 minutes later than I should have, but a lot less stressed. Lord knows my work at that time gave me enough stress to worry about! I just figured being there 20 minutes late and in a decent mood was better than me leaving 20 minutes earlier, sitting in traffic for 40 because someone slammed their brakes on 3 miles ahead (probably didn't use their turn signal either) and showing up super grouchy. But now I live a mere 10 miles away, do not have to deal with loads of traffic, but I would appreciate the traffic I do deal with to be going at my pace. Pick it up grannies!

5. I'm not sure about you, but I've noticed that some of the worst drivers are those that have animals in their laps, as if the dog can do a better job maneuvering the 2000 lb vehicle than their owner, the human. But you know what people, I have a dog too and he doesn't drive my car so neither should yours! Just the other day I was turning left with a green left arrow (what's up with the yellow flashing left turn signals in DSM, anyone know? something new they're trying or what?? I'm confused) and some older lady practically took me out because she was on her phone and apparently left it to her pint size pooch to make the turn. Little did she know he couldn't get his paws wrapped around the steering wheel to make a sharper right hand turn.  Not to mention she had handicapped plates as well. And was driving a hybrid. Thanks goodness for my attentiveness and cat-like reflexes, I pretty much saved the day. You'll learn that after being in 3 accidents in an 8 month span - 2 of which were NOT your fault.

I could go on and on, especially about the handicapped stickers and such. But someday I may run for office and I'd prefer that my constituents use my sexts and racy pictures rather than my opinion about handicapped sticker abuse against me.

Until then, Buckle Up - It's the Law!

Monday, June 6, 2011

My Opinion Monday - HOT, HOT, HOT!

I wish I could find the video of the beloved Dave Price from WHO TV 13's newcast from last night letting everyone know it was going to be HOT, HOT, HOT! Followed up by the weather guy Brett saying "if you have ice cream tomorrow you're going to be wanting to sit in front of your AC vent because you're not going to have any ice left in your cream!" I really, really, really wish I could find this clip - I imagine it's funnier if you're there.

But anyways, yes, it's hot, like 96 today. Now, imagine you're in an office building, 2nd floor, with NO AIR CONDITIONING! Friday was okay, it was only like 82 in the office, but today, well, today was pushing 90+; here's a picture of the thermostat in our conference room, where I happened to need to be a good majority of the day...

Temps are pushing 90 at 11AM!

And when I wasn't in this particular space, I was copying/packing/sorting/packing for our first crack at a statewide conference tomorrow. I could not NOT be in the office today. It was miserable. I was sweating, in places that should only sweat when you're either at the gym or, well, you shouldn't be sweating there! I had sweat rolling down my back to my, um, my butt crack. It was just gross, shouldn't happen in the office. 

The central air will be fixed in 2 weeks. Something about a crane and lots of money, yada yada. Until then, I'll just do a few stretches here and there and consider this my hot yoga workout for the...well forever - it's miserable!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

My Opinion Monday - on a Wednesday?

Yes, I'm coming to you live on a Wednesday, not a Monday - we all know it was a holiday and well, I took advantage of the day off! I slept in until 9 (set my alarm so I wouldn't sleep the day away), made some breakfast, did some 2nd hand store shopping (yeah new project!) and then got drunk. On like 2, maybe 3 drinks. Note to self: eat before you make yourself doubles, mmkay?

So what's my opinion today? Well, it's hot. Like really, really hot. The air in our office building is OUT so it was a not-so-comfortable 80+ in there today. I was wearing a dress, and sticking to my chair - leather chairs are awesome like "hey look at me, I have a leather office chair!" but I would have given anything for a good old fashioned cloth chair today! And I forgot to put deodorant on this morning - just smelled  my pit, buh, not a good idea. annd I was a static cling mess!

And I had a slip on today too...Oh yes, I wear a slip; it's just how I was raised I guess :) Said slip made it even hotter and is not one of those sweat wicking ones either - I think those only come with sleeves, from the athletic department at your local Target. I decided today that I'm on a mission to find a slip that doesn't suck.  I'll probably just end up making one, that's how I roll :) Anyone else wear slips or know where I can find a good one that doesn't 1) doesn't automatically make me old, 2) doesn't create a blanket affect and make me sweat at work and 3) doesn't get all crooked and sideways every time I sit down!

Anywho, I'm off to take a much needed shower and then promptly put deodorant on!
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