Just for fun: Take a guess

I'm not going to say what this is...but take your guess in the comments and I'll have the answer on Friday!
(It almost reminds me of a bobsled!)

Free Rice

Free Rice is a site where you can play a word game and for every word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program. Not a bad cause, plus you get to test your vocabulary skills! (So far I've donated 5420 grains of rice and my best level is 36!).

russell+hazel finds

I love this set of sticky notes from russell+hazel, much more chic than post-it notes.
And the woodpecker scissors...well they're just fun!

Here a tulip, there a tulip...

...everywhere a tulip tulip.

That what we did on Saturday (delayed post, I know). We drove down to La Conner (in AMERICA as C's hubby would say, LOL!) with our bikes in the back of the car for a day of adventure. Besides a 90 minute wait at the border and traffic problems through Bellingham (which we knew about by seeing it on the news before we left, go figure), we made it to La Conner via the back route old highways along the coast. Trevor was so directionally confused at one point, he looked out at a large body of water across the street we were on and said 'there's some sort of big lake there!'. *ahem* It was the OCEAN. But no worries, since I am a superior navigator (thanks to our gps TomTom) we were never lost, and got to see some interesting little towns and were witness to the 'biker code' of acknowledging each other (although those little pocket rocket bikers don't count). They wave at each other ALL THE TIME. Little nods, waves, flicks of the wrist, but they all do it.

Once we arrived in La Conner we didn't hang around the town (although Trevor wanted to start biking from the high school there -- I won that battle as it was going to be a boring ride anyways, the tulip fields weren't close). We drove out to some free (and crazy) parking at an area called Roozengarde. The crazy parking came from the bumpy soil we had to drive through to get a spot, it was so up and down (almost like driving a clown car) that I laughed so hard I had tears.

We set up our bikes (which was such a smart thing to bring, we got around way faster than people in cars) and peddled out to the big field. Here's the photos of what we got to see:Tulips.More tulips.More tulips again.Daffodils, the odd ones out.

Hair pins

I was annoyed at some of the long-ish sideswept bangs I have earlier today, as they had a mind of their own (and wanted to stay right in the middle of my face for some reason). This wouldn't have happened if, a) I chopped them off or b) had one of these cool hair pins from Cara Lyndon:

My inspiration for the day

This is a series from Zach Kowalczyk that show items removed from their packaging. I love how all these photos look together. Amazing how great a pot of instant noodles look once you get artsy with them!

There's something so quirky about this

Inflatable mouse

For those of you who have inflatable girlfriends/boyfriends and the oh-so-10-years-ago inflatable furniture, you can now put your hot air to good use with this inflatable mouse.

Make your iPod look meaty

I doubt this will catch on, but if you've always wanted your iPod to look like a small block of meat, this is for you.
• via tokyo times

A little bit of Friday goodness

I like the cards over at 8mm ideas.

Three Potato Four

I came across this shop recently and I'm already compiling my wish list. ;)

Crafty pursuit: eBay frames

I found these frames on eBay and saw some potential (plus the price was great, $2.99!):
So I spray painted them with an antique white finish, and sanded the edges and detail areas to give it a bit of shabby-chic-ness:
And voila! I think they look much better now!

Seedlings

These are sitting on my kitchen table at the moment. I've got every seed that I've planted popping open and getting big (making me wonder if I really needed to start them indoors 6 weeks early...). The pumpkins were the first to grow, followed closely by the sweet peas. The tomatoes, watermelon and yellow pepper took a little longer, but they're here!The pumpkins.Sweet peas.
I still have to plant the zucchini and beans outside once the chance of frost passes (mid-May around here). It's going to be a jam-packed garden around here this year!

Flowers for me

Today I would send this bouquet to myself....ahhhh!
From housemartin.

Gotta get me a pair of these

They would be great for doing squats...

My favorite blog of the week

I am so glad I happened to click on Adventures of a Food Slut's blog. I could spend far too much time reading through it, but here's the shortened version: she sets out a meal plan for the week, cooks it, and blogs about it! One of my favorite posts so far is about a marshmallow recipe, which I've always wanted to try.

More shopping

I haven't bought anything here...yet! Whimsy Press has everything, and I especially love these:

Etsy find

I really like the goodies at loveoneworldzero's shop.

Sickie and a weekend

Trevor was pulling a sickie all weekend long here (started on Friday, went to full-blown cold by Saturday). It was like living with Barry White as his voice gets all deep and croaky. He didn't sing anything though. lol

Friday night we lay low and had delivery pizza therapy. I also mowed the lawn for the second time with the new mower (love it!!!) and did a little edging with the weed-eater (which I thought was a questionable birthday present, but have now changed that stance as it's AWESOME and makes my life easier).

We did manage to get out and about on Saturday to Ikea (I bought those tall pots in WHITE), Home Depot (a few pots that were on sale -- I need to make room for my sweet pea seedlings), Cactus Club (hello key lime pie), some random furniture stores (we want to sell our two loveseats and get two chairs for the Trevorplex downstairs).

Sunday was a bit more productive around the house. I taped and painted the crown moulding in my office/hallway area, and painted some doors (first coat at least). (I also got crafty with something I bought off eBay, but I'll do a separate post on that later!)

And...we also had the first bbq'd meal of the season! We went to our favorite butcher in town and got two of the most delicious looking sirloin steaks, did a dry rub on them and voila...sooooo good. Best. Steaks. Ever. lol

You would think that by reading all of this that I dragged sick Trevor out against his will...but strangely enough he was a willing participant. I guess that might explain the naps that were taken...

Delicioussss

I made the mistake of looking at Bakerella's blog today. Oy, does this look good. It's a chocolate chip cookie pie. All together now...mmmmmmmmmm!

A cupcake you can bathe with

These are from LilyBaySoap's Etsy store. The best part is that the 'cake' part is birthday cake scented and the 'frosting' is cherry vanilla. Yum.

Practical?

I found this on Costco's website. It's a backyard 'drive-in' projection screen. For those of you who live in the boonies (and like to park your car on the lawn), and don't have neighbours (or moths, mosquitos or other things attracted to skin or bright light), invite me over for a drive-in party. Until then, I'll stick to the warm, bug-less, car-less indoors.
(Imagine storing this behemoth too!)

Loads of colour

I'm not a knitter (I have made the odd scarf and abandoned project here and there), but if I were a big time knitter, this would be the wool for me. (What makes it even better is that the colours were inspired by Wonder Woman!)If you're of the knit-inclined, you can find it here.

New fabric for the office

I've been searching for the perfect fabric to make some panels for the sides of my open stainless steel worktable for a long time now (to hide all of the paper cutters, trimmers, adhesives, paper...). I wanted something fairly graphic with some contrast, but interesting. At first I looked at stripes and some other patterns, until I saw this:
Woot! Love it! Now I will just have to dust of my sewing machine and get cracking. (It's a J. Dewberry Manzanita. I got it here.)

Future project: Front porch containers

It's usually around this time of year that I start to get an itchy green thumb. The leaves are starting to pop out and things are starting to grow, and it sets my head in overdrive thinking of all the new plants I want to try in the garden this year. So far I've had my heart set on growing something like this (as seen in Fine Gardening):It's a really nice mix of textures and colour using Canna lilies, ornamental cabbage and kale and some creeping Jenny. I want to put two of these on the front porch, and I've been eyeing up Ikea pots (Mynta) that could work:

I'm trying to decide if the terracotta or white is better to use. hmmmm...