Boo !

We went to the beach and I just got back home.

It was a lovely spring break.

I ate good food.

I slept late and read 2 whole books (kindle style)

I ate while looking out over the ocean.

I watched my beauty bounce around in the ocean.

I got sun-burnt in the spots where my bathing suit rubs off my sunscreen....oh what to do?

I missed my doggies....dearly.

I will promptly get right back to the business of blogging.

It's nice to be home.

Sleeping on the Porch

I am sleeping on the porch these days.....yep.
Not because the Spring nights feel so good.
Not because Mr. JaneSays and I can't be within one foot of each other without screaming.
Not because I stink.
Not because I have no place to sleep inside my home.

Because I am mother and wife to the home-run derby champions.
That's right....2 big-headed...ego-toting home run hitting fools in my house.

Chloe won her division and Mr. JaneSays won his.
There is no room for lil' ole me....the afterglow of the home-runs is still lingering...Chloe stares lovingly at her trophy and took it for show-n-tell today to share her GOOD NEWS with her buds !!!

So here I'll be....on my virtual porch where there is room for me until they come down from their home-run cloud and their heads go back to normal size.

Yay for my home-run hittin family.....very cool.

Swell Seven

Love the vintage, worn out look of these and if you could get your hands on some old wood they look easy enough to reproduce.
It is still so good to get some snail mail.
L.O.V.E this idea. (no source, found on Pinterest)
What is better than an OREO, an OREO cupcake.
I think my studio needs more red. (no source)
Anthropologie may I borrow your stylists for a bit.
Brilliant !!

Baby Fat

How many times have you tried to lose a few pounds ? I have gave it a half effort a few times since Chloe arrived and wreaked havoc on my body.
Nothing I have ever tried showed me results that I could notice in a few weeks, so that made me lose interest and give up.
Now I can hear those of you who know me in "real life" going "pppfftt......serious...April you are so tiny you don't need to lose a pound."
Well I know I am small, I have fabulous metabolism, I do eat whatever I want and up until a month ago drank Pepsi. All. Day.
I wear size 2-4 jeans and can wear the XL shirts in the girl department...so yea I am small. But I am smushy and the baby fat lingered especially on my tummy, giving me that slight muffin top on certain days and making me feel uncomfortable after a big meal....ya know that too full feeling not caused by food but by your belly busting at your jeans button.
OK Well...I decided to try 30 Day Shred, I don't' EVER and have NEVER tried any weight loss craze that the rest of the planet seemed to be trying....this is a first. While browsing blogs, as I do daily, I began to read a lot about people trying the Shred and some BRAVE women even showed their before and after, and you know what their bodies were changing....amazing.
After 20 days on the Shred I can honestly tell you I have lost a big portion of the smushy baby belly. My abs are forming I can sense them getting stronger, it's like I notice them all day they just feel different.
My legs and arms are more shapely and I do feel better.
The ONLY other changes I made are - I quit Pepsi, but I still drink sweet tea.
- I stopped eating until my plate was clean and instead I stop when I am full, which I never did, I LOVE FOOD.
- I make a conscious effort to engage my abs all day and sit and walk nice and straight, it feels better and reminds my abs what we are going for here.
- I have missed a few nights because some nights I just can't get it in.
- I started with 3lb. weights and now I use 5lb. and I did progress the levels I am now on level 3 of the workout.

It is hard I swear you will HATE every minute of it. But it's short....so short, it's over before you know it.
To make them time pass even more I go to my bedroom, watch Shred on my laptop and turn on a favorite tv show on the TV and watch TV while I Shred, it helps me get thru it.
You will be sore the first few days but that went away quickly and I like that pain, it let me know it was working.

I have no clue if this assumption is correct or not, but to me it would seem it's a little more difficult for small people to lose a bit and trim up, I don't know if that is because there is not much to lose to begin with or if it is just harder to see the results...either way I have never seen as much progress and as many results so quickly to be a small as I already was.
This workout works and if you need a little weight loss or firming up give it a go !!!

No, I am not being paid to say any of this Jillian and I are not best friends nor do I know any of her family and I didn't go to school with her manager....it's all my opinion. If you want to send me a check though Jillian I won't be offended.

Extreme Couponing

Let's talk a minute. Did you watch this show Extreme Couponing on TLC. I recorded it and watched while I ate my dinner last night and it's a miracle any food stayed in my mouth because my jaw was in my lap the entire time.High five to all you "normal" couponing ladies, I think what you do is amazing.....but this is a different story. Look at the boxes of noodles in this cart, if I recall correctly she purchased 218 boxes of noodles. Yea I know...right? What ? Even if they are all free, and I think they were....what business do you have buying that many boxes of noodles....just get 10 boxes....that's more reasonable....no? Will you ever eat 218 boxes of noodles ? Isn't that waste ? A thought did occurr to me, if you could get piles and piles of food and household supplies FREE and then you could donate them that would be awesome.

Sadly enough though as you can see in these photos these items are not donated they are hoarded way in stockpiles...entire rooms of their homes devoted to stockpiling.

I just don't' get it.

See those green spray bottles in the photo above...when would you ever use that much cleaner?

Kraft salad dressing...isn't that spoiling waaaay before you use all that ?

Look at all that salad dressing.

Seems so wasteful to me.

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On the up side, I was truly amazed at the ability of these people to do all this research and find and match up all these coupons and to see their grocery totals go from $1800.00 to oh....$35.00.

It was good tv, I could not turn away, kind of like a circus freak show I didn't' want to look but I had to.

It would be nice if these extreme couponers would use this skill to load up their local food banks and homeless shelters...that would be so so nice because this stockpiling is just silly. ( that's my opinion, if you are a stockpiler...have fun doing what you do)

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants. This is a good book. I finished it a few days ago, it held my interest all the way thru. I loved the bits about the circus, there is something so enchanting about a circus, doncha think ? Most of the time I could see the scenes in my head...it's a very easy read, I completely enjoyed this book. I am looking forward to the movie release.

He is probably the reason why, oh let's face it He is the reason.

Vampire, Veterinarian that happens upon and joins a circus......I'll take him either way.

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I read sooo much more now that I own a Kindle, it's so conveinient. I love it.

I love that it has brought me back to reading.

The book I read before Water for Elephants was Eat, Pray, Love....I hated this book.

Did you like it ?

It was torture reading thru Italy and when she got to the next country, (whatever that was I was so disconnected from this book I can't even recall) I stopped reading it....not a favorite of mine.

Now I'm reading Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks, can't go wrong there, and the story is set in Southport NC, one of my favorite places to visit on the NC coast.

If you ever visit the NC coast you should go there.

What are you reading ?

1999

Did I tell you I went to see Prince. Not the Fresh Prince

Not Prince Charming

No, not Prince William either

Yes this Prince, the artist formally know as......that crazy symbol.......PRINCE.

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It was a nice date night...just me and the hubs and PRINCE.

The concert was .... well....I have mixed emotions.

It was awesome to be watching PRINCE...live, but yea...the concert could have been better.

He did not play 1999 or Let's Go Crazy or Little Red Corvette, how do you NOT play those?

Oh sure there was lots he did play, what I could have done without was his 45 minute or so sitting down at the piano singing ballads and his 45 minutes or so of old skool stuff that I had never heard....cause well I'm not that old.

My top moment of the entire night was when he sang Purple Rain, the whole place was dark with the excepion of the light shining on PRINCE, there was smoke and purple tissue paper confetti falling all around.

I looked at Mr. JaneSays and said " Do you realize we are watching PRINCE sing Purple Rain?"

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I heard thru the grapevine that PRINCE was tired for our concert as a result of travel screw-ups....and that may have been why our concert was low key.

So PRINCE if you feel really bad about the fact that you didn't totally rock out for us you can come back and do a do-over cause man...I paid BIG bucks for those tickets and I at least wanted to Party like it's 1999.

No School Tree Tutorial

This tutorial is simple and so quick. It was born yesterday when I pulled into my daughter's school to drop her off and noticed that all the parents pulling out of the school still had children in their cars.....strange. Come to find out school was cancelled due to no power....we had a ferocious storm the night before, which was surely to blame. So you know what we do when the kids are outta school We make stuff. I've had this sweet little boring tree from the $2.50 section at Target for weeks now. It has just been sitting in my pantry waiting for me to decide what to do with it. So I grabbed my favorite snaggle-toothed youngin', school glue and some red tissue paper.

and of course the little tree. If you do not have a little tree in need of some help you can do this with some branches, that maybe you have spray painted or wrapped in some tape or ribbon. Then with some glue or flower arranging foam get them into a cute lil' pot. This will certainly do...no need to have the $2.50 tree.

Cut circles from the tissue paper

Ours were about 2 inches.

Now pinch those up like Queen Snaggle is showing you and dab some glue to the pinch.

Then stick it on the end of your branch and hold for just a few secs.

Keep on truckin' until each branch is adorned.

So cute.

and it's perfect in my new family room.

Pics of that whole mess coming soon.

Swell Seven

Woven Memo Board

Sit here and read all day

Fun.

What is about a rainbow cake that makes me think I could actually do this...no other layer cake calls my name...but this beauty does....everytime.

Creating memories.

whatever.

Now that's an idea.

Repetition

This weekend I took part in repetition something I am horrible atI don't like monotony......the same thing over and over

Making a dozen...heck making 4 of anything in one sitting for JaneSays that are similar or alike

is a struggle of mine.

I realize it's probably a better use of time to sit down and make 12 flowers.....5 hand towels.....5 hoops, it is just so difficult for me....to do the same thing over and over.

So when you see more than one of anything pop in to my shop....know that I probably made them over days or weeks not hours because that would just drive me crazy.

12 blooms

created over 2 days

I would have preferred to make them over 9 days because 2 was a little out of my comfort zone....as each one was completed though I couldn't wait to make another. Perhaps too much of a pretty thing isn't so bad.

Now think of the millions of uses for these beauties and buy a few or make some of your own.