mmm...donuts

All I can think about this morning is donuts. doughnuts. doh-nutz. I cannot get them out of my head! Cinnamon sugar coated. Perfectly glazed. Bavarian cream filled. Chocolate dipped. Twisted. Powdered sugar sprinkled. DONUTS!Why do donuts sound so delicious? Could it be because Krispy Kreme has finally opened its doors again to the maddening crowd of Arizona? (You bet.) Maybe it's because Marta posted this delightful picture of donuts from Daylight Donuts and I want to pluck one of those babies right out of that virtual box? (Right, again!) But I'm putting my money on the fact that it's because I'm suffering through major sugar withdrawals from my "no-sugar ventures". Don't get me wrong, I did have a Oreo milkshake on Saturday night and enjoyed it throughly. I also had a smallish slice of Grasshopper ice cream cake last night after Sunday dinner. It was also very delicious. However, during the week, I've been pretty good. No "weekday dessert" for me and I've been diligent about working out and cutting out fat. The results are finally starting to show. Yee ha! I can't wait to show up at the beach with my rockin' new Shade suit, killer sunglasses (can't afford 'em, but love 'em), a very cute beach bag and a tan/toned bod. I will conquer!

But seriously, don't donut(s) sound soooooooooooo good?

{shabby apple}

This dress from Shabby Apple is perfection. I really want it.

{resolutions}

10. Crack open the self-teaching calligraphy book I bought 4 months ago.
9. Train for the half marathon.
8. Look smoking hot at the beach without shorts on (see above as a reference).
7. Save at least $5,000.
6. Grow hair 3 inches or cut 3 inches.
5. Learn to sew more than a straight line.
4. Resist impulse online purchases.
3. Watch less television.
2. Read the Twilight books.
1. Get a little closer to who I want to be.

To All My Democrat Friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishes.

To My Republican Friends:
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

{all I want}

Have you missed me?

Christmas WISH list:

1) A Bloodhound puppy named Frankie












2) These awesome Zumreed headphones.










3) This stellar Danish grandfather clock that I fell in love with in Boston. Good luck forking out the $2,000 price tag.




















4) This super cute shirt from Shade.
















5) These slippers could easily rock my world.








6) Gilmore Girls Complete Series. Sigh. I miss them.

{little blue coat}

I am IN LOVE with this coat. I want it. I want it. I want it!

{oh beautiful day}

Although I just LOVE Autumn, I think these Spring flowers are delightful.

I can see myself now walking through those open gardens in a beautiful, white linen dress. I can smell the grass and the sunshine. I can taste the grapes that I am munching from my hand. And then, I lay down on a soft quilt with a feather pillow and read a delicious book with my head in David's lap.

Sheesh, I feel like the words "bring me the head of a pig" should fit somewhere in that paragraph. Cheeser, I am. However, I do wish that the weather could be lovely all year round.

{jeans}

Have you all heard of Zafu.com? I know I’m not the only one who can’t find a good pair of jeans to fit my thighs while making my waist appear smaller and my behind appear tight (emphasis on “appear”). I have yet to go jeans shopping lately but when I do, I know that I will be able to pick and choose between 47 choices of jeans that look good on my body type. I'm really leaning toward these David Kahn's.

P.S. The website can also help you determine pants, plus jeans and bras for your body. Rock on Zafu!

After a wonderful weekend of General Conference, planting my garden of sweet peas and herbs, making cinnamon rolls for Saturday morning conference, enjoying some much needed fall weather, decorating Halloween sugar cookies with my girlfriends, eating dinner at Flancer’s and cuddling while watching Casino Royale (p.s. Daniel Craig is FINE) . . . David and I finished off the weekend by going “house hunting”. We didn't leave the house on Sunday until 5 p.m. and I was getting itchy with the inside air. We thought it would be nice to go for a drive. With the windows down and the cool air blowing through my hair, we drove around for 2 hours looking at houses that we could hypothetically buy. After looking at about 80 brown houses with gravel landscaping and bite-size yards, I proclaimed: “Please don’t make me live here!” The thought of moving 40 minutes outside of town into a suburb of homes with color choices of brown, beige, tan, coffee, russet, auburn, taupe and BUFF! Look up those words . . . they are synonymous and it makes me want to barf.

House hunting can be fun in the following areas: La Jolla, California; Salt Lake City, Utah; Canton, Massachusetts; West Linn, Oregon; Denver, Colorado.

Hurrah! My chair fabric came yesterday! It is as beautiful and perfect as I imagined. I am very impressed with the eBay shop I bought it from: The Fabric Bolt. I highly recommend it.

Sorry I don't really have time to blog lately but I have a ton to do at work and then I'm going home to recover those chairs so we can sit on them. I can't wait! I'll post pictures of the finished product as soon as I can (and all my Halloween decorations that I've already had up for a week! It looks spooky!)

When I woke up this morning, it was around 70 degrees outside (a HUGE improvement). It felt soooooo good and I was almost a little bit chilly getting into my car. It got me thinking about how badly I want a porch to sit on and enjoy the nice weather overlooking my beautiful yard . . . kind of like this covered terrace.

Do any of you have a lovely porch I can relax on?

four legs and a leaf

We inherited Grammy's dining table this weekend. I'm excited to have this sturdy, "tobacco" stained, East Coast-made, solid wood table in our home. Since we got married, we've been borrowing my sister's awesome round table with a "lazy Susan" and we have loved it but I'm happy to have something of our own that's a little more formal. The 6 chairs are upholstered and need new fabric. It's quite outdated so I'm wanting to find something like this.

Unfortunately, this is wallpaper (wish it were upholstery fabric) from Brocade Home. Does anyone know where I might find some great upholstery fabric that resembles this?

air

The day my sister died was the same day our niece, Isabel, was born. My sister gave her new daughter the middle name of "Charity" to remember her. My sister's mother-in-law delivered her grand-daughter that morning and had spent many hours comforting and rubbing the aches and pains that my other sister had dealt with for two years. On this day of life and death, she wrote a poem describing how one took their last breath and one took their first.

Today, I found out that C Jane is expecting a baby. She and her husband have been painfully tried for years with infertility. She has received mountains of happy wishes, praise and loving rejoices from friends, family and strangers after this heartwrenching journey.

Today, about 20 minutes ago, David's grammy died with her two sons next to her. It was quiet and very solemn and there were no smiles or tears of joy. I'm sure there were wishes still, praises of what a wonderful woman she was and rejoices that she could be reunited with her family again with no pain. Although Courtney's little baby has yet to take its first breath, many lives will end and many will begin with air.

Today, I am appreciating each breath I take.

It is Thursday and I still haven't done the following things this week:

1) grocery shopping
2) fold clean laundry that has been in the basket since Saturday
3) make dinner (but there are good reasons)
4) unload the dishwasher
5) wash David's khakis
6) write "thank you" notes
7) lose 2 pounds

This week has felt like a dream, but not a good dream. Like a slow-motion, exhausting and sometimes-sad dream. Lots of visits to the hospital to visit David's grammy, tennis lessons, 3-hour haircut, mall returns, WWW ("West Wing Watching"), work assignments, school assignments, painting for my Etsy shop and various other things that fill up the time I have each day to myself between 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. In the next few days, I will accomplish more things on my list. "I know it!" (see Madama Butterfly - Un bel dì)

So, I leave you with one of my favorite "LOL Cat of the Day"s from Karren's blog. Thanks KT for always posting such hilariousness!

Last night I had a dream that I bought a dog. I was sitting around with friends trying to think of a name for it and someone suggested Victor. "Great idea!", I said, "Then I can call him 'Vic' for short". What? Perhaps I subliminally want a Russian breed, but then again, I don't. My nieces and nephew's godparent's just got my dream dog. Those ears kill me!

Anyway, also last night, David and I received our ClearPlay USB and watched Little Miss Sunshine. I have been dying to watch it but due to the rating, I was forced to put off the watching for a few months until we purchased this filtering DVD player. It was such a great movie! I loved it. We also rented The Last Kiss, Shooter and The Good Shepherd. If you couldn't tell, the last two are my husband's pick.

I really love the weekends because I get to do whatever I want. This weekend, I wanted to make a lot of things. So, here is what I made:

- 8 beautiful word templates for bedroom wall (more on that later)
- 1 dinner of grilled shrimp kabobs basted with honey butter sauce served with mango salsa
- 2 paintings
- 4 loaves of homemade bread
- 4 blog headers
- 3 decorated cards
- 1 handmade bird book
and I almost successfully convinced my husband to buy me an armoire from Goodwill for $40 so I could strip it, paint it, new-knob it and love it. He said no but I'm still working on him.

Next week, I will begin selling a lot of my "makings" on Etsy. Get ready!

SYTYCD finale recap:

I have to admit that I am surprised that the winner last night was Sabra. Don't get me wrong, I love that girl but I also really liked Danny and Neil . . . don't get me started on Lacey though. When she was the first to get kicked off last night, I was sitting across the room staring at the t.v. when I heard that she was outta there. I began my best "Mr. Burns" impression with each of my fingers and spoke to myself in an evil tone, "yes. yes. yes. YES!" Go America! I'm impressed that America could see that all she was is a stinky booty dancer.

Anyway, I am proud of Danny, Neil, Mia and Wade. Those two rock my world. I cannot wait for The Office (September 27) and LOST to start. I am sick of summer t.v.

I am dying

to have

one of these.

What kind of

dog do you have

or want?