Anniversary Gift Reveal!!

I know I have been keeping you in suspence for far too long for this sooooo.....

A personalized View Master!  It is from Image3D and I got my idea because of Cheri at I Am Momma Hear Me Roar.  She was able to review one and made it for her boys.  The bf is so very much into 3D lately that I thought it would be the perfect gift for him.

It was a bit on the expensive side but I think for a special gift it was worth it.

Tried to get a good pic of the pictures that were on there.

The verdict?  He loved it.  Was super surprised.  And repeated said I was the best girl friend ever.

Git 'Er Done Link up

Welcome any readers visiting from Cheri's Git 'Er Done Link Up Party!!  I am very excited to be participating in my first "crafting/creative" link party!  I hope you enjoy and leave a comment so I can say hi and thanks for stopping by!


The project I share with you today was started weeks ago.  You remember it right?  No, the mess was not splayed all over the floor like in these pictures.  I like piles so once I stopped this project it was all stacked up nice and neat... on the floor.  Okay you got me on that part.

But it did take Cheri over at I Am Momma to inspire me to finish it.  She spent this week sharing the chores around the house she had kept putting off doing.  I thought, “hey I have one of those!  I should join the link up party on Friday!!  Maybe I can make some more blog friends too!!”  Yes.  I am all about making new blog friends.  Everyone is so nice and creative and I just want to know everyone!!  Okay, way off topic…

The whole purpose was to get rid of my accordion coupon holders for a more visually appealing, and not to mention easier to use, option.

Now I am not a big couponer.  I love a good coupon but because of my allergies and make up provider of choice (what up Mary Kay!) I don’t use many of the standard coupons.  But I still have enough that it took me way to look to search for usable ones before a trip to the grocery store.

I started by emptying the accordion folder and sorting the coupons into a few different piles.  Expired, close to expiring, and not expired.

Now I keep my expired coupons and give them to my coworker.  She found out that the military men and women stationed outside of the US can use the expired coupons at their stores.  She sends them once she has a big stack.  Google it.  You can find tons of websites that tell you how to do it.

I then took the close to expiring and decided if they were items that I needed during my next shopping trip or I knew they were already on sale (gotta love when that happens).  If I was definitely not going to use the coupon it went in the expired coupon pile.

With those two piles tackled and my grocery list already started for the week I moved to the last pile of coupons.  The ones that I wanted to keep.  I took a few moments to decide how I wanted the coupons within the book to be sorted.  Did I want to do it by store placement, dates, type of foods, cold vs. non-cold?  I finally went with how the Publix I shop at all of the time is laid out.  That way I could bring the binder with me and easily flip the pages as I went to the different sections of the store.

When buying my binder necessities at the office store I could not decide between the types of pages I wanted.  I ended up buying a pack of the baseball card size that opened at the top and a business card sized pockets that opened horizontally.  I decided which page style to use based upon the coupon shapes for that area of the store.

I was so proud of myself when I was done I decided to use the extra binder I bought to make a binder of all of the restaurant coupons we have.

Enter the mess… again.

But look how lovely they look!!  Much easier to use.

I even put in some sheet protectors at the back of the restaurant binder so that we can put the delivery menus in there!!  Everything all together.  Just like I like it.

 

 This project was easy, fairly inexpensive, and will be used on a weekly basis!

A big thank you to Cheri for inspiring me to finish the project I started.  I am linked up at her place today for the party!  You should visit to see the other projects her readers completed.

Oh and for my regular readers: I didn't forget to show you the surprise I got for the bf.  I will share it tomorrow... and the  I Am Momma visitors have already seen it.  Cheri had gotten one for her boys.  Hey what can I say.  I am a copy cat, but I like to give credit where it's due.  :)

Anniversary

Today is my 3 year anniversary with my bf.  I have quite the surprise for him and he better like it.  I promise I will put up pictures.

I was able to go out to lunch today with a few friends.  It is always nice to get out of the office for a little while.

Sorry I don't have any cute pictures to share today.  I am a bit tired after staying up waaay too late watching the finale for the latest MTV Real World challenge.  I have not even really watched the season so why did I need to watch the finale?  I don't know.  I knew most of the people competing so I was curious.

I think that's all.  I can't wait to give my gift tonight!!

Gluten-Free Food Review - Turkey Frozen Dinner

Welcome!!  I am still in a super awesome mood from the mail I got yesterday.  Two more days and then I can reveal!

On to what you are here for :)

I have had today's review item several times now and I continue to enjoy it every time.  It is the Savory Turkey Organic Bistro frozen dinner meal.

Doesn't it just look so delicious?!

I was heating this up yesterday in the breakroom and several ladies commented on the difference the picture looked from the real thing.  Especially went it came to the color of the lentil and quinoa pilaf and the lack of sauce.

Regardless of this discrepancy, the meal was very enjoyable.  I must say the consistency of what the meal looks like once it is heated is pretty much the same every time.  The beans and carrots tasted fresh to me and the flavor of the quinoa and lentil pilaf is delicious and almost a little peppery.  The turkey is moist and flavorful as well.  The mushrooms hide within the bottom of the turkey pilaf mix so search them out.  I enjoy mushrooms but if you happen not too, I don't believe the mushroom taste overpowers any of the other parts of the dish.  You are wondering about the sauce aren't you.  Well, I think it ends up getting sucked up by the pilaf.  In the very middle of the picture of the meal it looks a little saucy.  That is about the extent of it.  Even with the lack of luxurious sauce like the box photo shows I still really like this meal.

Like I said before I have bought this meal several times and enjoyed each one.  I like it because it is a quick gluten-free meal that I can bring to work if I don't have time to put something together in the morning (or more like I don't feel like it).

I have yet to try the other meat/side combinations, but they have beef, chicken, and salmon as other proteins.  If you happen to have tried the others please let me know what you think!!

On last thing.  My sister Jill sent this via group text to Staci and I this morning.  I almost died laughing.  Luckily I was alone in my car at the time so no one thought I was crazy.

All of our birds loved looking at themselves in the mirror and talking to themselves.  Obviously they thought it was another bird. :)  Hopefully you enjoy it too.

Long over due Burp Cloth reveal

First off I have to say that I got mail today.  As in a super special surprise mail that isn't even really for me!!  I am so excited!!  It is killing me that I can't share it with you yet...  someone special has to see it first.

Secondly, I have had this project done for what feels like AGES.  I just have seemed to find other things that I wanted to blog about more.  So now for the long awaited reveal of my cutesy baby burp cloth!!!

Now you may be thinking, "hey she already did a burp cloth that she showed us already".  Yes, you are correct.  I did share one set of burp cloths I made here.  But the pack of burp cloths I had came with four and I had run out of rick rack so I decided to use some of the ribbon that I bought from the most lovely website Pick Your Plum.

I know, I have made you wait long enough. :)  Soooo onto the picture parade!

I had one left over from this pack.

I had already washed and pressed the cloth so that it was nice a flat again (they sure do get wrinkly after being washed).  I placed the cloth on the table and practiced with the ribbon to see how far around it would make it.

I didn't make it all the way around before I had to take a picture

I began pinning at the top.  I made sure to have some of the ribbon fold over the edge to decorate the back a little (making sure I had a nice clean edge).

The I pinned all of the way until I arrived at a corner.  I finally decided I wanted to make the corner look a little different so I did this:

See how my finger is poking under the ribbon.  That is my highly scientific way of showing how the fold was.

Then I finished pinning the rest of the way (I made it through the second corner and didn't have enough for the other two corners).  Enter the blue ribbon!!

I pinned it all of the way around and did the corners in the same way.

I sewed the bad boy up with two seams of white thread.  I was even very impressed with the straightness of the seams too!!

Here is what I did on the back.  On the opposite corner the blue was overlapping the green.  I think it gives it a little surprise so that back isn't so boring.

Ta-da!  All done!

AND I even have some extra photoy goodness today!  So I had the ribbon out and it was hanging over the end of the table and guess who decided to play with it...

Yes, it was the kitten.  I love her.  I will have to show you later what she does whenever the bf and I are at the table.  Just killer cuteness... and possibly a little annoying.

Reading Review!

I am taking another weeks break from Mentor Monday to share the newest Fables book I am almost finished with!  Yes, I am a bit obsessed!

It continues the story of the Fables in NYC planning War with the Empire in the Homelands.  I am within the last 30 pages or so and I can not wait to see how it ends!!  I managed to get the bf to buy me the next 3 books (I was totally going to pay but he said he would, hey who am I to argue), which will get me up through book 14.  I think book 15 is the newest arc printed in book form... I will be sad after that since I will have to wait for the next book to come out.

Anyway, back to it!  This book involves many of the standard fables found in most all of the books and some of the more recently introduced fables as well.  There is action, explosions, battle, and valiant acts.

You should check it out... you know after you catch up on all of the earlier ones that is. :)

I'm linked up over at Teach Mentor Texts for What Are You Reading Monday you should check them out.

Pinterest Pick - Photo Books

I first must admit that I have not visited Pinterest very much this week.  I have been busy at work and at home.  Unfortuatley all of that doing doesn't have many finished projects.  Oh well, I must learn to be better about getting five or ten projects started at once.

But on to what you are here to see!  My Pinterest pick this week is......

Photo Books!  I recently had a mishap with my cutesy little panda shaped USB where EVERYTHING was erased from it.  At this time no recovery has been possible.  Lucky for me I didn't have too many things on there.  Some PDFs of free printables from blogs I read.  I have yet to try to find the ones I lost again.  I had some of my Picnik images on there too, but I have them both on work and my home computers.

As a result of loosing everything on my USB I kinda went overboard in my worrying and realized that I have years and years and years of photos saved on my computer and two external hard drives that could possibly disappear in the same way!  Overboard I know.  But it really got me thinking about the safety of my photos.

I have most of my photos because I was one of the Historians for my sorority Tau Beta Sigma.  TBS is a musically based sorority that focuses on service for bands at our schools and elsewhere.  So back to the photos.  I (along with my co-historian) was responsible for taking photos at every event that we had.  Also since I was historian of the sorority I was also automatically historian for the UCF Marching Knights.  I had to take pictures of people at each game.  To make sure that I didn't take pictures of the same people over and over I made sure to take pictures of EVERYONE at EVERY game.  Needless to say my hard drive is full.

I have many of these photos posted up to Facebook so if I happened to loose everything I still would have some of them somewhere.  However that is not good enough for me.  I want them where they will always be safe.

Enter my co-worker and her idea.  She used to make hard copy scrapbooks (which I have a huge tub filled with things I have hardly used that I must show you later) and now she makes them via one of the photo book websites.  She said it is so much faster and easier and takes a lot less time.  The only problem is you aren't able to get as personal as you might like.

Faster and easier?  Yes I like that.  So I have decided that I need to explore and learn about the different websites to see which one is the best.  Thank you Pinterest because someone included a pin perfect for that (Photo Books).  I have yet to read the whole post reviewing each of the different photo book websites them but I will.  And soon because I have a lot of photos to go through and decide if they are worthy of being forever printed in a photo book.  If anyone has experiences with any I would love to hear them.

I realized now that I will have to share more about TBS and the Marching Knights as they were such a HUGE part of my college career.  But not today.  Today I get to drive to Lakeland to visit with my Mom, Aunt, and my mom's Aunt.

Happy day!!!

Change of Plans

Today I planned to stay in the office and eat the yummy food that I brought but a friend convinced me to go out to lunch.  I don't do that very often because I come from a family where lunch was brought to school/work unless it was a special occasion.  Plus I save money staying in by not paying for gas or the food.  So for me to decide to eat out is rare.

I decided to go today because even though I work with my friend I don't ever get to see him or really talk to him.  We work in different areas and our offices are on completely opposite sides of the office.  Our areas don't often have overlapping projects or things either.

It was nice to get out of here and visit with friends today.  Sorry for you that means no recipe breakdown today.

I hope everyone has a great weekend (I know I will cause I get to see my momma!  And my aunt!).