Happy Anniversary!

Today was our 19th anniversary!! We spent the day together and went to the movies and went to Olive Garden for dinner.

Olive Garden has the best coffee and our favorite dessert...their lemon cake. MMMM good stuff!!

The movie we saw was Obsessed. Had Beyonce in it, she is actually pretty good. Sometimes you wonder about a singer moving to acting. But she was good. Ali Larter played the obsessed....she is sooo pretty!!!

New Little Babies

We have had a bird cage for 10-12 years now always hoping a bird would move in and nest. This finally happened this year.

There were four little eggs....

And today we saw we have babies.....

Castile Soap

Well I guess I have been neglecting this blog….mainly because I highly doubt I have much if any visitors, but hey if nothing else it will be fun for me to read back on.

Well my newest obsession is soap making, here is a picture of my castile soap I just made this past weekend.

Castile soap is 100% olive oil. Some say it can be any vegetable oil, but in my reading the good ol’ fashioned kind is just 100% olive oil and nothing else.

A lot of people don’t care for it. Some will say the lather is creamy and smooth…others will say it is slimy. I will let you know in 6 months after mine has gone through a good and proper cure time.

Weekend of Caching

We geocached this weekend…like what else is new right?? We now have over 900 finds….just over 100 of those are FTFs. FTF is “First to Find”. That is something to brag about! You gotta be first....well we think so.
To do so…yes we have gone out late at night in our jammers. I blame this behavior on empty nest syndrome. When you don’t have small children to tend to…well you do silly things.

So this weekend we tried to go up higher in elevation in hopes it was cooler. It was a little bit cooler. Got a nice sunburned since we had the top of the jeep off….yeah note to self…SUNSCREEN!!

Hooked on Caching!

We are huge fans of a "hobby" called Geocaching . In essence we spend lots of money on "tools" such as a GPS and a PDA to send us out to search for a treasure, which is the equivilant of McDonalds toys and other unnecessary stuff tucked into various types of containers that have been hidden in the city or the woods by other geocachers.

For us it isnt about what the container holds, it is more about the hunt and making the find....and to be FTF (first to find) is the best find of all.

We began this "hobby" to get out of the house on the weekends, but then shelved it when 2007 turned out to be more tragic than I could handle. We have since picked it back up FULL FORCE, as it is now pretty much the only thing that can get me out of the house. We have now pretty much become addicts. My friends think we need to find a Cachers Anonymous....but surely no such thing could exist, because a true cacher would think there is nothing wrong with this behaviour.

I spend hours online, searching, planning our weekend routes, thinking of a new cache to create. We are obsessive and try to convince all of our family and friends that geocaching is the best thing EVER, and we pretty much talk about nothing but geocaching.

So yeah, we are hooked on caching...and see nothing wrong with this.

Life Can Be Tragic

I have lost my daddy.

He flies helicopters, he has since Vietnam. He has flown medivac, tourists, and in recent years he flies flighting fires all over the US.

July 23, 2007 he was flying in Happy Camp California on the Elk Fire, where there was a tragic moment that took his life.

The shock of it all has been so hard to get over. The first week was denial, that went away when we finally saw him, but the shock still burns.

Lip Balm

I have decided it is time for a new hobby, so I am going to try my hand at making lip balm and lip gloss. So I have read up on it everywhere I could online, and here is the basic concept, hopefully I have my oils identified correctly:

40% Liquid Oil
Castor Oil
Grapeseed Oil
Olive Oil
Avocado Oil
Aloe Oil
Jojoba Oil
Hemp Seed Oil
Sweet Almond Oil
Sunflower Oil
Apricot Kernal Oil
Emu Oil
Kukui Nut Oil
Borage Oil
Shea Oil

25% Solid Oil
Coconut Oil
Shea Butter
Aloe Vera Butter
Mango Butter
Palm Oil Lanolin


20% Beeswax

15% Brittle Oil
Cocoa Butter
Palm Kernal Oil

For my liquid oils I am going to use Jojoba, Hemp Seed, and Sunflower. Either one at a time, or a combination of the 3 of them.
Emu oil is very expensive, but I plan to use it at a later date.
Shea seems to be tempermental when melting and, if not done just right it will make your lip balm grainy.
Kukui nut sounds like something I really want to use, but for gifts I am staying away from any nut oil in case people have allergies.

For my solid I will use Mango Butter and Aloe Vera Butter. Shea as I said above has to be melted just right, coconut is a maybe in the future, and Lanolin will give people with wool allergies a reaction, and again because of gifts I will stay away from those potential problems.

For my brittle oil I will use cocoa butter, it is nice and smooth, and I really don’t know much about Palm Kernal Oil. I will use the deodorized cocoa butter because I do not want the chocolate smell of cocoa butter to interact with the smells of what I am trying to achieve.

In addition to the above I will add Vitamin E Oil. Most likely from capsules, just puncture a couple and squeeze into melted mixture.

Flavor Oil will be added at a ratio of 1%-3% of the melted mixture.

Colorant, just a hint of oil soluble colorant to match the flavor I will be using, ideas so far:
Strawberry = Red
Banana = Yellow
Spearmint = Green
Watermelon = Pink

So this brings me to my recipe possibities:

Idea #1
1/4 Cup Sunflower Oil
2-1/2 TBL Mango Butter
1/8 Cup Beeswax
1-1/2 TBL Cocoa Butter
2 Vitamin E Capsules
1 tsp Flavor Oil
Toothpick Touch of Oil Soluble Colorant

Idea #2
2-1/2 TBL Aloe Vera Butter
1/8 Cup Beeswax
1/8 Cup Sunflower Oil
1/8 Hemp Seed Oil
1-1/2 TBL Cocoa Butter
2 Vitamin E Capsules
1 tsp Flavor Oil
Toothpick Touch of Oil Soluble Colorant

Idea #3
2-1/2 TBL Mango Butter
1/8 Cup Beeswax
1/8 Cup Sunflower Oil
1/8 Cup Jojoba Oil
1-1/2 TBL Cocoa Butter
2 Vitamin E Capsules
1 tsp Flavor Oil
Toothpick Touch of Oil Soluble Colorant

So these are my ideas, now I am in process of ordering stuff to give it a whirl. I will post my results soon.

Passed Over

Well we didnt get called, but I am surprised to say I am not heartbroken about it. The more the realization hit, the more nervous I was starting to be. I would have been very excited to have been picked, but the more I thought about it the more I thought maybe it wasnt the best idea.

What if..................

• we ended up with Hildi and she put something nasty on our walls (like hay or cardboard as in previous shows)
• they put a TON of holes in our brand new walls
• we had to pay taxes on a room we absolutely detested (they 1099 you $2500.00- $3500.00 on the value of the room)

Besides Ron doesnt think I could have handled two days of labor intensive work, probably not, but I would have had him delivering starbucks to keep me going.
So it would have been an absolute ball that I would have totally loved, but it is not meant to be. Turns out they only called Sedona people (like they cant afford to redo their own room) so in a way that is better than us being turned down because they didnt think we are fun or quirky enough, because anyone that knows me knows I am as quirky as they come. But one good note is that my friend was called for stage two of the process, and now has a 50/50 chance.

They Called!!!!

They Called.....the Trading Spaces people actually called!!

They probably call everyone that submits an application, but at least they still called us. They set up a phone interview with us tomorrow, they are doing the teams seperately, which I think is a bit odd.

I assume the phone interview gives them a feel of sorts to what kind of people we are. I am sure they are looking for fun people who will make a good show. Then after that I have no clue what will happen next. We are starting to get scared now about doing it if picked. The more I read about how Hildi does her room the more scared I get to wreck my brand new home.

Stay Tuned....................

Who defines social??

Social dance class........isn't it being social to just show up for your lesson??
Apprently not!
Social (as per the instructor) is defined as switching partners.

Switching with people you dont even meet until they are touching you.
Switching with people whose hips have a mind of their own......which also has no business gyrating anywhere near mine if I am not married to them.
Switching with people that smell like old cheese.

Well unfortunitely this kind of social is not for us, so dance class is now out, we will find something else for our date night.

I am SOOOO Ready to Trade Spaces!!!

Trading Spaces, a favorite show of mine for years, is coming to a town near me....NEAR ME!!!!! I am so excited....so excited in fact, that a friend and I have applied to be on it. We filled out our application, took our photos and emailed it all in. Now we wait....wait to see if we are quirky enough to be picked to be on the show.
I really hope we are picked, but if not just the thought of it coming so close, and being able to put in an application is so much fun.....but boy would it be WAY the heck funner to be on the show!!
So now we just kind of wait to hear from them if they pick us or not. Don't know how long we have to wait, the suspense is quite maddening actually, especially when you aren't even sure that your email and application even get looked at.
Time will tell!