Tag: holiday

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Quick Trip for Garden Decor

On my way home from work today I stopped off at one of my favorite discount stores. They have a great section filled with all sorts of outdoor items. I found some upside down hanging planters for only $0.99. I was really excited because they are normally between $15 and $20. I got three and plan to use them for peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries. We already had one with strawberries at home, but the strawberries seem to disappear the second they are ripe so I figured an extra one couldn’t hurt.

In addition to the planters, I got some soil, plant food, and some seeds. I kept walking through the various aisles in search for some cute, kid friendly, garden decorations. I found a pretty wind chime with butterflies that I know he girls will love. I also found some pink and purple bunnies on little wooden posts that will be great for Easter time.

Speaking of holidays, I also found a couple giant four leaf clover window clings that I can hang up on the sliding glass door for St. Patrick’s Day. I think they will look great accompanied by homemade rainbow light catcher ornaments I plan make with the girls.

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Pumpkin Patch Hunting

Today I went to the local Pumpkin Patch and hunting the most perfectly round big pumpkin I could find. I had a large one last year that was taller than it was round and it carved really nice. But I wanted something different this year.

The pumpkin patch had the pumpkins grouped by size. The really big ones were $40! Wow! I couldn’t believe that people are willing to spend $40 on a pumpkin that they don’t even eat – they just carve it and set it outside to decorate their porch.

The one I decided to buy was beautiful and I only paid $25. I think I could have found one cheaper, but this is a charity sale for the church youth group. I figured that since Halloween is supposed to be a holiday for the kids anyway, that supporting a youth group with my money was the right thing to do.

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Wearing Green and Drinking Beer

This weekend is all about Saint Patrick’s Day. Here in Nashville we love any holiday that gives us an excuse to drink beer, so this is a big deal for downtown bars and restaurants.

I heard some big numbers on the news about how the downtown bars and restaurants can only actually seat something 75,000 people on a weekend.

To be honest, I do not drink much beer. I tend to not want the hassle of watching my intake and fretting about driving home without the risk of trouble with cops. And second, I don’t want all the extra calories. Third, I only like beer that is ice cold. I don’t want to hold a bottle in my hand and just sip on it for an hour with the heat from my hand raising the temperature of the beer. I don’t like drinking from a bottle anyway. I like a glass – and not plastic, I mean a real glass.

Sorry if I sound so finicky, but I have learned what I like and what I don’t like and I will certainly seek out the things that I like if I have that option. Maybe once in a while I might be at the boss’s house for a backyard barbecue and have to drink a beer from a red Solo cup, but most of the time I will be seated in a sports bar or a stadium suite and enjoy an ice cold beer served in a glass along with the peanuts or Chex Mix and a good baseball game or hockey game underway.

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Any Big Sales This Weekend?

Columbus Day (free clip art)
Columbus Day (free clip art)
Sorry to admit this, but the Columbus Day holiday has always seemed the oddest and least celebrated holiday of all the official holidays throughout the year. We all learned a little bit about Christopher Columbus and several other notable world explorers while in school. And there is some controversy about whether Columbus really discovered America or did he land on a Caribbean Island or even Mexico or Central America instead?

But for me and anyone else who works in retail, Columbus Day means one more holiday to have an excuse for a sale and it is the last holiday before the big Christmas rush. I think the Columbus Day holiday has lost some of its shine in modern years and people are no so much interested in any sales during October unless it means they can get an early start on their Christmas shopping.

Do you know of any sales going on this weekend that will be worth going to the mall to save money on something you really need? I can’t think of anything, and I’m not willing to start my Christmas shopping yet, either!

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Giving Back to the Community

As a part of giving back to our community this year we have put together a few baskets to donate to families in need. We picked out a few toys to donate to children that don’t have any. We also did a culling of all of the toys in our home to make room for the new ones the kids will get for Christmas. We cleaned out three big bag fulls of toys to donate. The kids were happy to do it because we talk to them about how they can help others and make a difference even though they are so young still.

In addition to the toys we are donating, we’ve also put together food baskets and toiletries for men and women. I used coupons and got a large variety of health and beauty items for free or next to nothing. I always use these items to give to shelters. It seems silly not to take advantage of the sales when there are people in need that can use these things. Each toiletry basket has tooth brushes, tooth paste, body wash, deodorant, as well as a comb and a brush.

We’re taking everything to be donated this afternoon. We enjoy giving back to the community. How does your family or work give back the community you live in?

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Happy Birthday, Aunt Tina

I guess every family has a renegade, of sorts. My family has Aunt Tina. She is very colorful and always has exciting stories to share at the holiday dinners when she comes. She moved to Maine and has a little house there, but she travels all over the country and we never know where she is. LOL

But I do know that today is her birthday, so I hope she stops by my blog and sees this post:

Happy Birthday, Aunt Tina!

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Weekend Clean Up For The Holidays

image credit: libertgrace0

This weekend I’m spending time cleaning up the house in preparation for the holiday.  I can’t believe Thanksgiving is only a few days away. Before any big family gathering I like to do a big deep cleaning if time permits.  I hate to think about someone coming over to my house and leaning against the mantle and being covered in dust.

It brings images of the white glove check to mind. If a white glove can’t pass over the area and remain white then it isn’t clean.  That’s the principle I was raised on. I remember my mother and grandmother walking into my room after I told them I cleaned it to do a thorough check.  It was  always a scary thing and I hoped that I didn’t miss a spot.

Today I plan to tackle the dusting of every room, vacuuming, and  steam cleaning of the carpets. It sounds like a lot but it really isn’t when you break it up in to chunks throughout the day.  The longest part is waiting  for the carpets to dry after they are cleaned.  Once they are cleaned I just have to make sure that the kids, or anybody else for that matter, do not track dirt in all over them again before Thursday. It drives me nuts when that happens and I have to do it all over again.

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A Day Filled with Hearts

Because Valentine’s Day falls on a Thursday this year, my husband and I decided that we would celebrate it together this weekend. Tonight we will have fun and do something special with the kids.

I decided to a bit overboard and decorated the entire house last night before I went to bed. When the girls got up this morning they were surprised by all if the heart balloons in the living room and play room. I also scattered hearts in a variety of sizes throughout the rest of the house. There were window clings on the bathroom mirrors and the sliding glass door that leads to the back yard.  I had laid out a few heart shaped pages for the girls to paint later in the playroom too.

To make the day even more memorable for the girls, I made them heart shaped pancakes with little heart shaped banana slices. I used a teeny tiny cookie cutter I got from the craft store to cut out the bananas. And even though it’s not really healthy I sprinkled a few heart sprinkles on top of their pancakes to make them extra special. We enjoyed watching the girls light up this morning. I can’t wait to see their faces when they see what we have planned for them tonight.

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Clearance on Snowflake Chocolate

Hello, my name is Suzi, and I’m a chocoholic!  Chocolate is one of my weaknesses.   I can’t help myself when I see chocolate, I just have to have it.

I was walking through the aisles of my grocery store and came to the clearance section.  On the table was a huge stack of dark chocolate morsels in the shape of snowflakes.  They were marked down more than 50% just because they were deemed “holiday.”  I have no problem buying and eating chocolate in any shape, as long as it tastes good.

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Major House Cleaning

One thing that always ends up being one of the last things to get done is the major cleaning before the holiday guests arrive.  My mother in law is coming to stay with us for the holiday weekend and I want to make sure the house is nice and clean.  I would hate to have someone come over to my house and not have it be clean.  I need to straighten out the guest room and add more towels to the bathroom.  I like to leave out a few different lotions and soaps for people to choose from when they come over.

I don’t want my mother in law to take a shower in a dirty shower so I really need to scrub it out.  I wish those automatic shower cleaners worked really well.  If they did I would have one in all of the bathrooms we have.  Once I’m finished with the shower I need to scrub the toilets and mop all of the floors.  Dusting is another thing that really needs to be done but doesn’t get done often enough.

There is nothing like a host guest coming to get you to clean your house.  My house isn’t dirty I just like it to sparkle when we have company.