Heartbeat 5000

There is a walk on June 25th to support Children's Heart Health and raises money for the cardiovascular care program at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.  As you know, my nephew Deaken was taken too early from us due to heart complications.  It would be great if we could find a cure for a condition that affects so many other children.  Follow this link to join our team "Darting for Deaken" and donate to a great cause!  If you would also like to register for the walk, you can do that under the "register" tab at the top of the screen.  Thank you in advance!  :)

ill with a fever

Sorry about the lack of blogging over the last week; nothing really has been really news worthy to write about.  I try to blog when I have something interesting to say, I don't like to post just to post.  I like to keep you interested.  :)  I like to compare my blogging to something my 4th grade Social Studies teacher said once that I will never forget.  He was having us make a map of a country in the world and we had about a week to do it. He also said that if we had time we could make more maps for extra credit.  He told us though to focus on our main map and make it good before working on the extra credit.  He said "I would rather have one really good pizza than ten bad pizzas."  This is so true, isn't it?  He put it in such simple terms but it makes perfect sense!
Anyway... back to the post.

I STILL have Idol Fever.  I think I am more obsessed with Scotty and Lauren now than I was during the final show.  Every time I see there is a video clip of them being interviewed I am all over it like white on rice.  I cannot get enough!  I am SO glad those two made it to the end--their personalities are so genuine, they are contagious!

americanidol.com

During my obsession yesterday, I checked out my usual site for celebrity gossip- accesshollywood.com and was reading every article on these two.  I clicked on this article and could not believe I read this tweet from Jennifer Hudson (a singer, celebrity and a former Idol contestant herself): “Hey yal didn’t tell me tonight was American idol finale ! I had no idea !!” 

Common J-Hud, unless you have lived under a rock for the last week, you should have had some inkling that Idol was coming down to the finale.  Didn't one of your fellow tweeters have something to say about the final show being on that night??

Would you like to save twelve cents today?

No, actually, I wouldn’t. Because it’s not really SAVING twelve cents when you have to PAY more to save the twelve cents.

Here I was, on my way to my softball game Wednesday night when I decided to stop at the local Holiday to fill up the MINI and pick up some of my and my teams favorite Giant Sunflower Seeds (Salt & Pepper flavor). Now if any of you are familiar with Holiday and their wonderful selection of Giant seeds, you will know that they have been 2 for $3 for the past I swear, three years. Normally I am a sucker for the deal, but Wednesday, I refrained. I told myself that I only needed one bag…there is no reason to buy two. Don’t get me wrong; I was tempted. I had to hold myself back from buying that second bag…the yellow 2/$3 tag on the little metal post was just screaming at me to pull the second bag off of the bar, but like I said, I held back….or did I??

I mosey on up to the counter to pay for my gas and my seeds. As I tell the cashier my pump number and put the bag of seeds on the counter she smiles (as if she is sickly reading my mind and knows my weakness) and says “These are 2 for $2.88, did you want to get another one?” My mind instantly races to the yellow tag and I say to the cashier -- “they are two for $2.88, not two for $3.00?!?” Cashier: “nope, they are $2.88.” Me: “Ok, hang on.” I literally LEAVE MY WALLET, CREDIT CARD AND CAR KEYS on the counter and go to the back of the store and pick out a second bag. What is my problem??? Leaving my personal belongings on the counter of a gas station because I was flabbergasted by the fact that the sale price had dropped from $3 to $2.88! Wow. It was only after I got to softball and was discussing the situation with my teammates did I realize that it was a measly 12 cents I saved. And really, I didn’t even SAVE the twelve cents, because I had to pay a dollar and some odd cents MORE in order to get the second bag of seeds!
This should be a lesson learned; but we all know that it probably wasn’t.

New Additions

My yard got a little facelift this weekend.
With the help of both parents, I was able to put in a pretty cool fire pit and a garden where hopefully some vegetables will grow!

This is what you get when you combine an old tractor ring, some landscaping bricks, lawn fabric, a yard and a third of pea gravel and some SERIOUS shoveling/edging/raking/leveling:

This is what you get when you do some SERIOUS weeding, raking, digging and a trip to Menards for the plants:

 

This what you get after the lawn gets a haircut and it's all said and done on Sunday night:

 Look closely and you can see my fire pit on the left. Look REALLY close and you can see the sprinkler hitting the garden on the right.

Susie Not-So-Homemaker

The Mission:

 I decided to go all out this weekend and try a new recipe (exciting life I lead, huh?)  featuring the start of my garden right now; The Rhubarbs.  I went online searching for a not so difficult recipe, coming across one that consisted of simple ingredients.  "Easy enough", I thought... I'll give it a whirl.

I started with the stars of the show: Mr and Mrs. Rhubarb:

Used my hand-me-WAY- down mixer to mix up the goods.  After a few rounds of losing the beaters in the batter due to lack of support from the mixer, and my obliviousness of the bowl being too small for the ingredients combined with the laziness of not-wanting-to-dirty-another-bowl-and-switch-to-a-bigger-one, I was able to get everything mixed and into it's appropriate 9x13 inch pan.

Did I mention I DON'T have a grater, so I had to use a serrated knife to
get the rinds off of not one, but two oranges and put into the bowl.
Surprisingly, it wasn't as painful as I thought it would be.

After baking for an hour and a half, it was time for the topping--the Meringue.  I have never made this before so I honestly had no clue what it was to look like.  I figured some white stuff that looked a lot like milk was close enough.  Back in the oven it goes for 15 minutes to "brown".  Looks semi-good, right?

Like the saying goes: Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover.

This was one of the worst "desserts" I've ever tasted.  I took one bite and couldn't stomach it.  I think it was the meringue.  It burnt to the sides of the pan and made a tar-like substance--something you would peel of your high-heel after stepping onto the hot pavement in mid-August.

Into the trash it went.

So much for my first rhubarb run...better luck next time!

Ode to the 'Stache

Downtown Minneapolis will never be the same...
Saturday night we put a spin on the popular bachelorette party that we know today.  We swapped the veil and inappropriate necklace-wearing attire to something even more noticeable...a mustache.
Mustaches have become the butt of many jokes but Saturday night, we were anything but a punch line.
People LOVED our mustaches!  What started out as just a little gag and photo op by a friend turned into an all night mustache festival.  We put the 'staches on after dinner (12 of us) and took a photo.  Well unknown to the friend that bought them, everyone loved them and we kept them on the entire night.  Walking from bar to bar we went with our staches stuck to our upper lips.  It was great.  Strangers went nuts over these things as well; people were high-fiveing us on the streets, wanted pictures with us, we didn't have to pay cover charges and one lady even took a picture of us to show her little niece who puts a fake mustache on her doll! 

There have been many famous mustaches over time, the latest local one grown right on the mound of Target Field...

 

But none will compare to the group of mustaches that tore up Minneapolis this weekend...

 

Here Ye, Here Ye...

I announce to you Princess Ashley and Prince Jeffrey; future King and Queen of England.

Ok, maybe it wasn't the actual Royal Wedding in the Wright/McNamara family this weekend, but it was definitely an affair fit for a King and Queen.
The wedding we all anxiously waited for was finally here and it couldn't have been better!  Everything from the rehearsal dinner (complete with three generations of fine china) fit for royalty on Thursday night to the last gift opened on Sunday afternoon.  So many wonderful events were packed into four days, it would take me days to blog about every one of them so I will give you the down and dirty details.

Thursday PM:
Rehearsal at Church, followed by steak, potatoes, salad, dessert and plenty of adult beverages at the Wright house (mom & dad)
Friday AM:
Pick up the future Mrs. Wright from Apple Valley and go get the beautiful gown and run misc. errands
Friday Afternoon:
Meet bridal party and mom's at Oak Glen Golf Course in Stillwater to decorate for the reception (my job was to alphabetize the place cards)
Friday PM:
Meet bridal party at Pretty Nails in Cottage Grove for champagne and mani/pedi's.

Saturday AM:

Hair appts. for bridal party starting at 7:00am

Bridal party and parents meet at church at 10:30 -- J & A have first meeting

Bus leaves church at 11:00 -- bridal party and parents take bus with photographer to Minneapolis to shoot some awesome pictures

Saturday Afternoon:

Parents and bridal party go back to church -- wait for the ceremony to begin

3:00 -- ceremony begins.  Everything goes smooth

4:00 -- party bus (bus driver is aprox. 112 years old and the transmission on the bus is just as old) takes bridal party to downtown Stillwater.  Beers are had, shots are bought and an awesome picture by photographer Kevin Wood is snapped (I probably shouldn't post the picture because of copyright reasons) behind a bar

Saturday PM:

6:00ish -- bridal party makes grand entrance into reception

Dinner followed by a night of dancing begins...the rest is history!

Sunday AM:

Leave hotel, head to mom and dad's for gift opening

And they lived Happily Ever After

Real Quick...

I have been told twice in the last two weeks that my blog has grown whiskers. I know, I have been a bad blog housekeeper. I am working on some pics from our family's version of the Royal Wedding that happened last weekend and I will try to get that up soon.  But for now, here is a quick post:

Cheddar Chex Mix
c/o General Mills
Minneapolis, MN

Dear Cheddar Chex Mix People:

If I wanted pretzels, I would buy pretzels.  I don't know if you realize this or not, but you can't get the deliciously flavored cheddar chex cereal in the box nor can you get the cheddar triangle snacks alone in a bag.  You can, however, buy a massive bag of original, dry, boring pretzels in virtually any store you walk into.
Please try to keep the over-loading of pretzels into your otherwise delicious snack mix to a minimum.  I don't like navigating through pounds of round circle pretzels in order to get to the good stuff.

No wonder the bag was on a Price Cut at Target this week.

Not-So-Sincerely,
Ex-Cheddar Chex Mix Lover