It's like you want me to, like you want me to fail.

I saw this on Pinterest a few weeks back and immediately pinned it-I just knew Maddy would have so much fun with it!

Source: Uploaded by user via Hailey on Pinterest

The little blurb under the picture said to cut open glow sticks and pour them into bubble solution, and tada! Glowing bubbles! Can't get much easier than that!


So I went around last week and got supplies and told Maddy about it-we were all sooo excited, it was pretty much all she talked about on Sunday night. 


We go outside Sunday night and start playing with bubbles and when it starts getting dark, we cut open a glow stick, pour it in and try it out. 


 Nothing. 


 Hmmm... maybe these are just small glow sticks, let's just put in another. 


 Nope. 


One more? 


Nada. 


The bottle was glowing, but the bubbles were just plain, old bubbles- Maddy and I were so disappointed! 


After she went to bed, I got on Pinterest and clicked on the picture, taking me to the website that explained everything... Well, apparently you're not supposed to use glow sticks at all! The woman said to use glow in the dark paint and people in the comments were remarking on the fact that someone had skewed it on Pinterest to say glow sticks and no one was having success! Apparently, I wasn't the only one lol 

Moral of the story? 

Read the website, not just the Pin lol

FAIL

Make me feel a little better-

Have any of ya'll had any Pinterest fails?

It’s Memorial Day in America, everybody’s on the road. Let’s remember our fallen heroes. Y’all be sure and drive slow.

Since the business I work in is open 363 days a year, I was pretty excited when I was able to take Memorial Day off-Jimmy and his daughter were both home so I was excited to spend the day together!

We started the day off with some Coney Island breakfast and some shopping before it got to hot out (it reached like 95*!)  

After we got back from all that, I started cooking and Madison did some drawing. (Ever since we went to my parents a few weeks ago, Jimmy has been raving about my mom's potato salad so I made it for him. It's actually my grandma's recipe and I was pretty impressed with myself at hoe it turned out! He wouldn't even let me eat the leftovers because he wanted them to take to work lol So I consider that a success :-)

We did some more lounging around then we went down to the pool to cool down. It was amazing! I'm usually not big on pools or swimming, but I have a feeling I'll be spending some time down there this summer lol

Eventually, we came back and started to cook dinner-yummy steaks and potato salad and I made a patriotic dessert lol

Our food coma kicked in, so we just laid around for the rest of the night and watched Maddy do puzzles...

No, really, that's how she did her puzzle... lol

 Hope you guys had a relaxing Memorial Day!

So what if I was the only one who did sparklers? lol

It's a family affair, it's a family affair

We started off the weekend with lots of family stuff before the Memorial Day stuff. On Saturday, Jimmy's dad came into town for his 50th birthday so his family got together for dinner. After dinner, Jimmy and I went up to the driving range before meeting up with his dad, brother and his girlfriend and one of his cousins to watch the UFC fights at Buffalo Wild Wings. (Can I just say I do not get that "sport"? It's soooo violent!)

I was more than a little tired at work the next day (hence, the coffee and large sweet tea lol), but after work, we went over to my parents for dinner and ice cream. My mom and I even convinced Jimmy and my dad to play Euchre! It's actually quite a feat, so we were pretty happy :-)

After dinner, Jimmy decided to play with his smoker and make some jerky so me and Madison hung out outside and played with bubbles (more on my gigantic bubble fail later this week :-/). It was a nice beginning to the weekend, which was even better because I didn't have to work Memorial Day-since, I work in food service, that's pretty rare so we were looking forward to enjoying some holiday fun!

Summertime and the livin's easy

Source: therubberpunkin.blogspot.com via Kristi on Pinterest

It's officially summer! 

 I hope everyone is enjoying the first day and remembering the real reason we have the day off-Thank you to all the men and women who have served and who continue to serve so we can live the life we do!

Now, I have a date with a pool...

 Later, gators!

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers. So mothers, be good to your daughters too.

I posted on Mother's Day about my mom, but what I left out is where she gets it- from her mom, my grandmother.

I was so lucky to be able to have her in my life for 17 years and I have a lot of really special, important memories from that time. My grandmother and my mom are two of the sweetest, most gentle souls you'll ever meet- and even though my grandmother is gone, I'm still so blessed to be able to see her family who is just as sweet and kind as she was.

On Thursday, my family was able to get together with my great-aunt and uncle, and my mom's cousin and her husband for dinner. It was so nice to be able to see them again! My great-aunt and uncle live in Atlanta so we don't get to see them super often but we always have a good time when we do.

Cousin Nancy, Aunt Barbara and my Mom

I'm so blessed to have so many amazing women in my life who have shown me the way!

It's Friday, it's Friday

Dear Tigers Baseball, tonight you're looking good-don't blow it.

Dear People Who Use Hashtags Incorrectly, you don't need hashtags on Facebook, nor do you need 72843472 for every picture you post on Instagram. Let's get it together.

Dear Bathing Suits, I'd like to find some middle ground between teeny-tiny porn star two piece and full on grandma. Why is this so difficult?

Dear People At Work, we're all adults, right? So why, for the love of God, can we not make it in the toilet?!?!?!

Dear Weekend, I'm glad you're here. I missed you-I take it you feel the same.

Happy Friday, ya'll!

Summa, summa, summa time

Hey everyone!

I'm over guest posting for Kodie at One Day You Will sharing some summer essentials today!

Check it out here!

I guess I got a bad habit...

So I have a horrible habit...  

(let's face it, I have waaaay more bad habits...but we won't get into all those lol)

When I'm running late (read: every morning) and I don't have time to do my makeup, I just grab my little case and do it in the car... it saves time and occasionally allows me to sleep an extra 5 minutes, meaning it's totally worth it.

Sometimes, it does cause problems-like when it's 468472467 degrees and my eyeliner melts, or when it negative 5695868 degrees and my mascara freezes, but barring those, it's not too bad.

The other day, I was running behind so I did my make up in the car and all was well. Except when I came out to my car after work- My makeup mist which usually looks like this:

via

Looked like this:

It had pretty much completely melted!

Oops...

Yeah, I live life like the weekend.

Now that I have Saturdays off and it's getting nice out, Jimmy, his daughter and I were able to spend sometime outside-it was great!

Whew! What a weekend! 

I was exhausted! The four-year-old...not so much! haha I wish I had 1/4 of the energy she had!

What'd you guys do this weekend?

Anything exciting?

Happy Monday!

Love is, love is, love is the greatest story.

Source: preppie-bettie.tumblr.com via Amanda on Pinterest

My baby, she wrote me a letter

I've seen this link-up on quite a few blogs and it looked like fun so I thought I'd join in!

Friday Letters

Dear August, Are you here yet? I'm ready for a vacation. 

Dear Jimmy, the notes you leave me in the mornings make my day. You're the best <3

Dear Pay Day, you have no idea how happy I am that you're here.

Dear Sunshine, You're nice and all, but I could do with out the 90+ degrees and 100% humidity. Let's work on this-Thanks.

Dear Jimmy's New Grill, you're my new best friend. You make me delicious foods and I love you for it.

What Friday Letters would you write?

Go link up and check 'em all out!

You got to work hard, you got to work hard If you want any at all

I started working in a new position a few hours a week at work-I've been working with the marketing department and will be doing some updating of websites and such while our marketing director goes on sabbatical.

To celebrate my new position, we decided to have spirit week (keep in mind, the marketing department doubled in size when I joined... to two people haha)

 Tigers day and hat day (which was, of course, a Tigers hat lol)

She also created a task list for me, complete with a picture of me and my future husband... if you can, read the list... so effing funny.

We're only two weeks in, but I'm excited to be learning some new things!

I said I thank you, I'll always thank you. More than you could know, than I could ever show. And I love you, I'll always love you.

Guess who didn't take one.single.freaking.picture of her Mother's Day weekend?

This girl, right here.

Oops.

On Saturday, Jimmy's family came into town to take his grandmother to dinner. It was my first time meeting most of them, but I think it went well. They were a lot like my family - lots of talking and laughing - so I think I fit right in. After we met up with them, we went across the street to a little street fair that was going on to do some people watching (one of our favorite activities haha) before heading home and grilling some ribs we had bought earlier in the day. Jimmy bought a new grill this week and has been using it as much as possible, not that I am complaining in the least :-)

After work on Sunday, I met up with my family to see the Avengers. Jimmy was golfing but ended up being done in time to meet up with us to see the movie, which was nice. The movie was pretty great - the rest of my family is into comic books so they were really excited to see it and I think they got a lot more of the jokes, but I enjoyed it (especially Thor...and Robert Downey Jr...and Mark Ruffalo lol) When the movie was done, my family cooked out with their neighbors so me and Jimmy went back to hang out with them and eat - it was delicious, as per usual. It was nice to see my family as well, I feel like I've been so busy, I haven't been able to see them as much as usual :-/

Me and Jimmy were able to relax a little bit that night as well - watched some baseball and sat outside. A pretty excellent weekend, if I do say so myself.

Did you guys have a good weekend?

Any Mother's Day celebrations?

If you never hurt, you never feel a thing.

A few weeks back, after Jimmy and I saw the Revival Tour, I did some research on it and found oiut a few of my favorite artists had been on the tour at various times, just not when they came to Michigan. Tim Barry had been on earlier in the year and after stalking his website, his solo tour was announced and he was coming to Michigan!

So I dragged Jimmy with me (I say dragged, but I think he's starting to come around to the music I listen to... lol) and we went to Hamtramack to see him play.

Katie Grace and Jenny Owen Youngs opened up for him. I really liked Katie Grace-she just seemed so excited to be playing haha You could tell she really enjoyed what she was doing, plus we got to talk to her between sets and she was super sweet! Jimmy really liked Jenny Owen Youngs-in fact, I'm pretty sure he downloaded her album when we got home lol 

When Tim Barry came on, he immeadilty, grabbed the mic, jumped off the stage and came down into the crowd to perform the first few songs.

He got back on stage to perform the rest of the show and it was amazing! I saw him a few years back when he opened up for the Gaslight Anthem and he was just as good as I remembered-not only is he a rally good story-teller through his songs, but in between he loves to talk about anything and everything, it really makes for a great concert experience.

He played lots of my favorite songs- especially most of his new album 40 Miler (he even explained what that means...apparently, it's a term about someone who rides trains for fun, not exactly the nicest term lol) and 28th and Stonewall, my favorite album of his. He even played Prosser's Gabriel, even though he was hesitant to play it. I just love that song-he's so passionate about the song and the story and it really comes through when he plays.

He played for almost two and a half hours, so we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home but it was totally worth it!

Hey Mama, I want to scream so loud for you 'Cause I'm so proud of you, let me tell you what I'm about to do. You know I love you so, I'll never let you go.

When I was younger, I idolized my next door neighbor. She was a few years older than me and just so cool-everything she did, I wanted to do right behind her.So whenever we went to the movies, and she got a package of Sour Patch Kids, I wanted a package, too.

Except, I didn't like sour things.

So my mom would suck the sour sugar off so I could eat the gummy part. I can still remember watching her face pucker after the umpteenth Sour Patch kid, just so I could eat the middle.

That's the kind of mom I want to be.

 via PostSecret

Happy Mother's Day!

Your daddy told you when you were a girl the kind of things that come to those who wait.

So I have a lot of lists of "___ to do before I die" - most of them are sports related, i.e. see all the major league baseball parks, attend an Olympics, go to an oversees soccer match. There's also "places to see before I die" - Ireland, Australia, Israel. But one list I've been lucky to cross off the most entries from is "bands to see before I die" - there were some, like Dashboard Confessional, that seemed really important at the time, and they aren't as important now, but I'm still glad I saw them but some like Bruce, Elvis Costello, Matthew Sweet, are bands and performers I still love.

Fountains of Wayne was on the list. And I'm happy to say I was able to cross them off!

When the concert was announced, I was debating about buying tickets because Bruce Springsteen tickets went on sale the same day and I kenw I would probably have to choose, which seriosuly broke my heart. But then! My dad offered to buy one, and I could buy the other, which was awesome. But even awesomer? My dad buying my whole family tickets to both shows so we could all go together!

We all met up before the show to have dinner at this place my dad has been talking about months - Howe's Bayou. If you like Cajun food and you're in the Metro Detroit area, check it out!

on the left is my catfish po'boy and on the right is was out peach cobbler-YUM!

After dinner we walked down the street to the Magic Bag to see the show!

My parents stayed in the back while my brother and I made our way...where else...up front, to see the opening act and mess around with instagram haha

Nicole Atkins opened up and I really enjoyed her-she had a really beautiful voice!

Then it was time for Fountains of Wayne!

They played a few of my favorites - Little Red Light, I've Got a Flair, Hey Julie, A Valley Winter Song, Radiation Vibe, Red Dragon Tattoo, Sink to the Bottom - but no Leave the Bike, unfortunately :-( Maybe next time haha

Do you have any bands you want to see?

Any other "before you die" lists, or am I the only morbid one? lol

We're living in a dolce vita, this time we got it right.

Ya'll ready to play catch up? haha I've had somethings to post but have kinda been in a blogging funk-I'm still kinda feeling it, but I'm just going to do what I want, when I feel like it. No pressure to post every day or anything like that. If it happens, great. If not, that's cool too :-)

A few weeks back, Detroit held its restaurant week and a bunch of my customer were participating so I really wanted to go-unfortunately, they were all booked solid! We work with some pretty popular places I guess lol I looked through the rest of the menus and decided on La Dolce Vita.

Driving there, we passed it three times-it's sooooo hidden! It's on the out skirts of downtown, so not a lot of places are around it and the entrance is in the back so the only thing visible from the street is a tiny sign that says "LDV". After a view tries, we finally found it!

We pulled around back to the *the* smallest parking lot ever...that still had mandatory valet. Seriously the parking lot was only big enough for about 10-15 cars. When he went to get our car after dinner, he sprinted...for about 7 feet. It seemed a little unnecessary, and slightly comical, but nice, I guess lol

From seeing the building on the outside, I never would have guessed what it looked like on the side-lots of ornate decorations and paintings, definitely suit and tie type of place, and the descriptions that I saw calling it "romantic" were right on :-)

Dinner was delicious! I definitely want to go back another time and try out their full menu (plus they have a cute outdoor seating area that was calling my name lol)

calamari with marinara - portabella mushrooms with balsamic reduction
honey and mustard glazed salmon - mahi mahi with artichoke hearts and capers in lemon cream sauce

The best part of the meal was by far dessert though! All of the desserts are handmade by the owners wife - Jimmy had a canolli and I had tiramisu....I about died it was so good!

If you're ever in Detroit and looking for a nice place to eat, or even just get some drinks and dessert, I would highly recommend La Dolce Vita!

Goodnight, Hollywood boulevard. See you sometime, Yeah, right

Have ya'll heard of the Five Year Engagement? It's got Emily Blunt and Jason Segel? Well, if you haven't you should go check it out-it was totally filmed at my work (well partly! lol)

In the film, the actors work for the deli/bakery I work for and they filmed "on location" haha

A production company contacted the company I work for and wanted to use our name in the movie, along with shooting some of the scenes here. So basically for one whole day of work, they were shooting. It was pretty cool! We got to watch them film a couple scenes, in between doing my regular work. I really wanted to take pictures, but they didn't want anything to get leaked so we weren't allowed :-( They had our whole parking lot taken over with trailers and right in front of my office window, they were doing hair, make up and costumes-so cool!

Along with Jason Segel and Emily Blunt, Brian Posehn is in the film and all three were walking around. Every time I saw them, they were working and I didn't want to interrupt so I didn't get to say hi :-(

But when they were wrapping up, I saw Brian Posehn walking around and I really wanted to say hi!

via
(Just in case you didn't know who he was lol)

So I walked up to him, and said "hi", but even though it sounded really loud in my head, I must've whispered it, because he just kind of looked at me and walked away haha

Only me, right!?!?!

So moral of the story, go see the movie! And if you are ever in Ann Arbor, stop by, grab a sandwich and a pastry and say hello!