January 8, 2014 by Stephanie

30 before 30 Update 2

Here we are for another month’s update on my 30 before 30 list. There is not much to update since we were doing holiday stuff for most of the month and were gone more than we were home for December.

1. Crochet something else besides blankets or scarves-so something that isn’t straight lines.

· This totally happened if you saw my post from earlier this week. Next stop hats!

2. Do a 30 day photography challenge

· I have plans for the timing. Now I just need to find a good challenge. Any suggestions?

3. Visit 3 cities I have never been to before

· Nothing new here.

4. Tour at least one of the distilleries in the area

· Nothing.

5. Send at least 5 snail mail a month

· We sent all of our Christmas cards, so I happily exceeded this!

6. Become a “professional” photographer

· We are coming up with an Facebook ad for the Clarksville area for a promo in February, so hopefully that pans out. I just need to be patient and be ok with the slow start.

7. Run at least 5 races (any distance)

· I have plans in the works.

8. Go camping with Tom

· We have plans for this for next summer for our anniversary.

9. Pay for the car behind me in a drive through

· Not yet. I will be honest, I don’t seem to remember this when I am in the drive through.

10. See Tyrone Wells live again

· Nope.

11. Tour Fort Defiance here in Clarksville

· This is more of a summer thing.

12. Water ski with my dad

· Also summer.

13. Do a 5K with my mom

· We did talk about it over Christmas, but no plans yet.

14. Take a swing dance class with Tom

· I am still trying to convince Tom to do this with me. This may come near the end of the challenge.

15. Read at least one fun book a month and one professional development book every three months

· I caught up from November. I read two books over break. Blogging buddy, Ellen, and I are planning on doing a virtual professional development read. We picked a book yesterday and will be reading a chapter a week, so I may have this done this next month.

16. Take a pottery or stained glass class

· Things have been too crazy schedule wise to make this happen yet.

17. Learn how to make sushi

· Nada.

18. See both a Clemson and UCM football game live

· This will have to wait until fall.

19. Volunteer with MCFOTS and Special Olympics on a regular basis

· I am loving volunteering for MCFOTS. It is a great shelter. And it is super fun to go play and love on dogs that aren’t mine for a few hours a week. (Well most of the time, last night I was not too happy with one dog who wanted to play chase for a half hour in 20 degree weather. She just wouldn’t come back inside from playtime! Also I sliced my thumb open on a dog treat trying to coax her inside. Overall, though my shift are pleasant and tug at my heartstrings. Two of my favorites got adopted this week. (Which is good, because Tom and I almost ended up with a third boxer.) Like I said, this volunteering gig may be a bad idea.

20. Explore Land Between the Lakes

· Summer plan.

21. Ride in a hot air balloon

· Tom is off the hook on this one. My other half and best friend from college and I are going to make plans for this in Kansas City.

22. Go to at least 10 “new to me” restaurants in Clarksville.

· Since we were gone most of December, nothing happened with this one. We still have 8 to go. Any of my Clarksville friends have suggestions?

23. Stay at a bed and breakfast

· We have the place picked out in our old college town. We just have to find a weekend we can do it.

24. Spend a day without electronics (phone, t.v. and computer)

· So this didn’t happen over winter break.

25. Go to the Kentucky Derby

· Ok so reality sunk in that this will not be a possibility financially. However, I do want to go see the museum. And in cahoots with my sister in law, I want to have a Derby themed birthday party on my 30th.

26. Go to non-touristy parts of Nashville

· No time this month. We did find some cool activities though that we want to do in upcoming months. Tom has a lot of ranges coming up so he will be gone a lot, so we’ll see how the plans pan out.

27.Watch at least 10 movies that I have not seen before that won Best Picture at the Oscars and at least 10 documentaries (not necessarily Oscar winning)

· I didn’t watch any of the films, but I did watch a documentary. I watched “Behind the Myth” which is about the myths behind bully breeds and the horrible laws that have ensued because of it. It was kind of heart wrenching to watch, and I may have cried. It is a little outdated, but it does a good job showing the history of the bans and the grassroots efforts that have sprung because of the stereotype and trying to debunk it.

28. Sew an item of clothing from scratch.

· We did get a new sewing machine. Now I just have to figure out my first pattern.

29. Find a church home here in Clarksville

· We did find a church, but we have been the last few weeks with traveling.

30. Become a mom

· We both met with my physician before we left for the holidays. The only thing we weren’t already doing that she suggested was for me to be taking prenatal vitamins. Apparently, you should start taking these before you get pregnant as well as the duration. I had no idea. So we got those for free at the base hospital, score! I also had some blood work done this week to check my hormonal levels. We will also be meeting with a fertility specialist in the upcoming month. For some, I know this may seem like we are being really impatient considering it hasn’t been a full year since we started, but the Army is covering all of these expenses so we figured we would take advantage of it while we know we are both here for a bit. Also my physician said that even with everything perfect, there is still only a 20% chance of getting pregnant, so we want to make our odds as high as possible.

I’d say that is still pretty good progression considering what was going on this month. Hopefully January will prove to be fruitful and exciting!

Anyone want to join me on any of these excursions?

Do you have ideas on how I should accomplish any of these tasks?

January 7, 2014 by Stephanie

JollyVoxBox

I recently signed up for a review box from Influenster thanks to a blog friend Erica. A box is sent to you after doing a survey with Influenster. I was really excited to get the box for my very first product review!

These are not big boxes, but they have around 5 small items for you to review. Just the perfect size to try something new and see if want to become invested in that product.

Here is what was in the box:

Puffs Ultra Soft and Strong To Go Tissue Pack: I love these Kleenexes! These have come at the perfect time since this weather is making me a little nasally. I love these travel packs because it ensures that I have a tissue wherever I go. (I am ready to be a mom folks, been carrying the mom bag for years!)
NYC New York Color HD Color Trio Eye Shadow: This is the item I was most excited to receive. I was waiting until we got back from our vacation to go get some new eye shadow, and this is the palate I always get too. I had never tried this brand before, but I love it so far!
Rimmel London Show Off Lip Lacquer: I am not one to use lip color because I am a chapstick girl for sure. I always feel silly wearing anything else, but I am sure I can find someone to try this out since I won’t use it. It looks super fancy!
Skinny Cow Candy: I love Skinny Cow chocolates, but this is the one kind I don’t like because I am not a peanut butter fan. However, as you know Tom loves PB, so these will be gone very soon in one of his pantry raids.
Ducklings Mini Rolls: This item was fun to see as a crafter. This little roll of decorative duct tape will emerge on some craft or labels of some sort I am sure. I love the splatter paint effect.

I did receive all of these complimentary for the review, and these thoughts are my own. If you are interested in getting a box (you don’t have to be a blogger), just let me know, and I can send you an invite. They are a fun surprise!

This is my first box, but the site seems pretty fun by earning badges of things that you have reviewed and checking in your boxes. You can win prizes the more things that you check in, so there are rewards to be interactive with the site beyond just getting the box. It seems pretty self-explanatory from what I can tell so far. The only thing is that I don’t have a lot of the social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter which can earn you more points, so we’ll see how it goes without those.

January 6, 2014 by Stephanie

Crochet Headbands

I have an announcement.

I have succeeded in crocheting something that wasn’t just a straight line!

I crocheted headbands for my adorable little nieces. I did several variations of them.

For all of them, I crocheted just straight rectangle strips. I either did the whole thing in single stitch or double crochet. It just depended on the type of yarn I used.

Then I used a large darning needle to sew the ends together. This is a first for me in my crocheting experience, so I say that is a win for trying something new.

Then for two of the headbands I did flowers. YES to learning beyond the straight line! I used this pattern. It was really easy to do, or I am just getting much better at this crochet thing.

The pieces before.

Then you just sew the flower onto the headband strip.

The finished pieces.

She didn’t realize that it goes over your ears. She also did not want to be my model anymore.

With the other two, I just wrapped yarn over several times to scrunch a piece of it. This is great to cover the seam and the ending stitches, which I always seem to make a mess of. This way is much easier than the patch I made for my first headband attempt.

See how it is just wrapped around there?

I made all of these in about an hour.

Addison wanted to use it as a blindfold.

Since they are for kids, you do not need a lot of yarn. Although, I had to redo one because I misjudged how large my nieces heads are. They are still babies to me!

I happened to use left over yarn from other projects for all of these. Score!

They turned out really well. And since they don’t take up much yarn, I think I have found an easy thing to do with that yarn that I can’t use for blankets. Anyone want one?

I hope you all have a great first Monday of 2014!

January 5, 2014 by Stephanie

Holiday Stats

Glinn Photography

We just resurfaced in Ft. Campbell after 2 weeks on the road. We don’t even know what to do with ourselves.

Here is a recap on how the past two weeks of our travel went.

Basics

14 days living out of a suitcase (or two)
1 state (Missouri) 2 cities (Kansas City and Jefferson City)
2 Christmas celebrations in JC
3 Christmas celebrations in KC
Drove through the town where our undergrad is and revisited old stomping grounds
Rang in 2014
4 family birthdays

We surprised my father-in-law with a 60th birthday party.

The Dogs

Crosby got a new nickname of Hammerhead, to go along with his others of Crosbastic and Crosbilicious.
Neither dog pooped in the house while we were away. Success.
Grace lived up to her name of the Food Ninja by stealing food off the counters.
We saw Crosby in the snow for the first time (with us anyway). He is not a fan. Grace however, thinks snow is candy coming from the sky.
Crosby demolished a Kong toy in the amount of time it took us to open up Christmas presents.

The unlucky Kong and Crosby.

For Funs

We both got to visit with old friends with typical best friend behavior
- My two best gal pals and I downed Chili’s molten chocolate cake under a couple minutes. As our families watched in awe (or horror) at three grown women fighting over cake and ice cream.
- Tom played hours of video games with his bestie.
I went to my first Christmas Eve service that I can remember. Our family lit the advent candles for the service.

My in-laws at Christmas Eve service.

Tom managed to work out every day. He scared a lot of people in the gym with his ranger panties.
On a date with my sister in law, I revisited the winery where we had our wedding anniversary.
I read 2 books and watched one documentary.
The Homemade Christmas items seemed to go over well. More to come on all the crafting that occurred gearing up for the gift exchange!
I got to officially meet the Climes whose son inspired me to run my last half. They are too sweet, except the boys let me die in a nerf arrow fight.
We watched Clemson and Mizzou win their respective bowl games. It is always a good day to be a Tiger!
We gave my parents a Royals neon. So awesome!
My father-in-law works for Budweiser so sometimes we come across gems like these!
We were so excited to give this to them!
Unfortunately, the Chiefs lost by one point in their playoff game. It was a great year for them though!
We only got up before 9am one time. Tomorrow’s 5am alarm is going to be brutal.
I got my brother hooked on the show Castle.
On both the way to Missouri and the way out, we had to stop in the first 30 minutes to search for an open auto parts store in the middle of no where because Tom’s Jeep was acting up.
My dad bought our 3 year old niece a drum set. Bahaha! My poor brother.

Oh grandparents.

Tom got a new gun for his birthday.
We saw snow, ice, rain, sunshine, and temperatures ranging from 4 degrees to 65 degrees.
We told our niece Ava about the Hamburgler, and she went on to talk about the hamburger stealer bad man for the rest of the day. Whoops.
The most played song for us was Miley Cyrus “Wrecking Ball.”
I took about 1,000 photos, but there are less than 10 that I am actually in. Most of them were the family photos we took.

My in-laws

One of the Christmases with my mom, brother and his daughter

We had a great time at home. And we can’t wait for the days when we don’t have to travel so far to have family time.

I hope you all had a great holiday season. Here’s to making new memories in 2014!

January 3, 2014 by Stephanie

Friday Filter-Book “Deadly Heat”

I have had a lot of extra time to read over this holiday break, and I whipped through this read.

This is the fifth (maybe final) book in the Nikki Heat series.

This was a fantastic read, just my style. This book picked up right where “Frozen Heat” left off.

There were two major plot lines in this book. The first followed the previous book and detailed the case of Heat’s mother’s murder. We had found out that her mother was a spy and had found out information that got her killed. This book unveiled new clues and plot twists. I never saw this ending coming. But the book did finally solve that case, hence why I think it may be the last one.

The other case that the book followed was a serial murder who wanted to play mind games with Detective Heat who was intended to be his last victim.

What I liked was how the two cases intertwined and the balance that the department and the detective had to face in order to solve them both. Since her mother’s murder involved CIA operatives, you also had various agencies involved which added a fun layer to the cases.

Beneath all of the mystery was the romance between Rook and Heat. (Rook is still shadowing NYPD for writing purposes.) As the intensity of the cases progresses, you see them getting closer and closer. They learn to lean on each other and begin to peel layers of Heat’s tough exterior. You see the trust being built.

Which again very much parallels the show Castle.

This books was even more forward about the similarities and how everything is intertwined between real real life, Castle real life, and the book life. The character Rook met with Hollywood executives to discuss show possibilities and even discussed actors. They subtly mentioned Nathan, who coincidentally is the actor for Richard Castle (who “wrote” the book). They also referenced the show Firefly a couple times to help crack a code. (If you aren’t familiar with Nathan Fillion, he starred in this show years ago.)

This was a great pick to get me out of my reading rut. It was quick, funny, and kept me guessing. This is a very entertaining read, and a great way to cap the series. However, I am not completely sure if it is the end, I am just making that assumption because they ended Heat’s main focus of her mother’s case. With the show Castle still being wildly popular though, there may be a continuation of the series to maintain the facade of Castle needing to shadow Kate Beckett.

While this is a page turner, I would not suggest this book as a stand alone like some of the previous ones in the series. Many things would not make sense if you had not read the prior novels. Also I think I like it so much because of the connection to the TV show, but I think people who are not avid watchers of the show can get into the books.

Have you read any of the books in this series?
I am a sucker for series, do you have any different series you would recommend?

Friday Filters offer a review that are my own opinions. I was not contacted by anyone associated with these works or compensated for my review. My review has not been influenced by anything other than my love for entertainment and art.