Snowstorm coming? Don’t forget the carrots!

1 02 2010

Well we survived the great blizzard of 2010 with no power outages or other disasters other than gaining about 7 pounds in 5 days.

I was über prepared in that I made 2 kinds of soup and chili and a whole pant load of sweets ranging from peanut butter cookies to rice krispie treats to honey butter biscuits. I had bread and peanut butter and lots and lots of wine. I was READY for the 4-6 days of predicted power outages. I would not be stuck again without tasty snacks and more importantly enough wine to last through it all again. Last year was terrible…

So of course, there were only about 100 power outages total reported in Fayetteville. Yet I still managed to inhale all of the food I made and most of what was in the kitchen that I could lay my eyes on. We haven’t left the house since Thursday… the madness continues.

Our streets in our neighborhood have not been touched – the only reason I can figure is that since we are flanked by schools the city see no need to clear the streets since kids aren’t coming in, no one needs to get out. I’m fortunate that I can and am able to work from home which actually serves as a quiet zone and a way to get caught up on projects etc.

I was featured in the paper and didn’t even leave my house – ah the power of the interwebs! … and knowing people on staff.

I can’t say have gone completely stir crazy – we had a wonderful time playing scrabble with Barnes’ and the Strickland’s. We actually purchased the board game to potentially fill the void of WORDS with Friends should the power actually go out for more than 5 minutes – there would be no surviving that. So Mike and I bundled up and took a little walk through the neighborhood – it was so quiet and still and actually not all that cold since we were dressed like abominable snow people. Upon arrival we opened bottles of wine and feasted on some super tasty extra cheesy and cream chicken soup!!! We commenced to playing Scrabble and all decided that Words With Friends is much easier … and better… there’s no pressure on le iPhone!

On Sunday we finally got around to going outside to “play.” We made 3 snow peopleque items. They were kinda sad which brings me to my title point of CARROTS. I didn’t have anything to make appendages or facial features. I used coke bottle caps as eyes and then gave up searching.

Had I had carrots in the fridge, not only would I have had something to decorate our snow things AND I might have thought twice about eating everything in sight…





Preparing for Ice Storm 2010

27 01 2010

Today is the 1 year anniversary of the Ice Storm of 2009, it’s also the eve of the predicted Ice Storm 2010. The local weather stations are already telling people to be prepared to be without power for 4 – 5 days… I’ve stocked up at the liquor store and figured out a plan of attack on the items in the freezer and refrigerator. The ice cream will get eaten first!

Here are links to my posts during the ice storm last year – be warned – it’s not a pretty sight, me, my dog nor the poor trees on the ground!

 http://graciefabulous.com/2009/01/30/ice-storm-09/

 http://graciefabulous.com/2009/01/27/a-couple-of-weather-letters/

http://graciefabulous.com/2009/05/08/forgot-to-post-last-night/





Coming soon…

24 01 2010

At the very very tip top of not published 30 before 30 items is to launch my business website. I’m about 5/8s of the way there in that I have the name, the logo, the domain name and the legal rights to do it all… and even lots of things to add. I just don’t have the site built … yet. And I’m actually almost finished with that! It will be a site of party fabulousness of all types – baby showers, wedding showers, bachelorette parties, birthday parties for kids and kids at heart, anniversary parties, tuesday parties, political parties, monday lunch parties, etc…. you get the point.

There will, of course, be a “brought to you by” page within the site but I can go ahead and tell you the letters today’s post has been made possible by – MZ, AB and SBJ. It all goes back about 9 months ago when MZ was working stealthily for about 6 weeks with AB to get the legal rights to By Blonde assigned to me within the state of Arkansas which I have to say is by far THE BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER! I was presented with the paper work on my birthday and I put out feelers for some design work for my logo. Immediately, the talented and willing SBJ came forward, you can check out the sneak peak here on her blog The Dramatic!

So this is the project I’ll be busy with for quite a while and I’m excited to get everything in motion!

…and incase you are counting – 188 days until 30!





Ask and ye shall receive through social media

12 01 2010

A few weeks ago I face book posted about my irritation with Walmart about their packing of wine bottles.

The story is this…

In January, one of our Supercenters were granted legal rights to sell beer and wine – this is a BIG deal being in the heart of the Bible Belt – you can’t by alcohol in any place in NWA except the liquor store.
So with the pending snow forecast I went to Walmart with everyone else to stock up on milk and soup and chips and other junk food when I remembered I could buy wine … WINE – a must have if you are going to be stuck at home. Ok who are we kidding, it’s always a must have but you should double or triple up for a snow day or potential snow day or chance of rain or if the stars are going to be out …

I get to the check out and hand the checker my recycled bags to use to bag my junk food collection.  When she gets to my wine, {which I had nestled in my coat in the child safety seat so it wouldn’t rattle and alert to everyone rationing out crackers that I was just planning on staying drunk through my potential snow day} she wasn’t sure what to do. So she took each of my many bottles of wine and wrapped them in not one, not two, not three but four plastic bags each. I appreciated her care for my precious commodity but that ended up being 20 additional bags that ended up in my recycled bag.

I got home and did what every passive aggressive person does – face book about it. I got quite a few comments about this dilemma and potential solutions. Then to my delight, one of my friends {P} offered to send me some of her fabulous sectioned recycled bags made just for wine!

Well I received my bags today and I just CAN NOT WAIT TO USE THEM!!!

This really is a great bag – I encourage you to suggest your local retailer or liquor store to adopt this type bag. P’s liquor store gives them away for free when you buy 6 bottles – and really that’s not hard to accomplish ever.
Here’s a pic with an already opened bottle – hence why I could not rush out tonight and fill the bag up – there’s always tomorrow!
PS – I didn’t even get my snow day – but the wine still magically disappeared!





A tale of Christmas past – the most recent episode

10 01 2010

It was great and fun filled and VERY busy holiday season which might explain why I’m just now getting around to posting anything about it. The other reason is that I was in such a tizy taking down everything that I forgot to take pictures of anything! Very Very sad – I know!

We had 4 trees in total – our big tree, the little tree in our bedroom, the Razorback tree and of course there had to be a tree in the Bears room…. I had a great time decorating the whole house and I’m having a hard time adjusting to not having bare corners.

I hosted 2 events in the same weekend – Holiday Bunco and the annual Cookie Swap party; and no – I didn’t take pictures at either – I don’t know what this world is coming to.

We’re both looking forward to a couple of low key months which should be just enough time to recover from a great holiday season. Then hopefully it’ll be patio season!!!





How I can tell if you’re pregnant

23 12 2009

There’s been a rash of pregnancies among my friends, which is all well and good for them – really.
However, I don’t like surprises so when you show up at my door without warning and say you have something to say, I’ll probably stop you right there in the entry way and offer you a glass of wine.

So my fail safe test is, you guessed it, if you take the glass of wine, you are probably not pregnant. If you don’t take the glass of wine, no matter what – I will assume you are pregnant.

Feel free to go ahead and test me, even if you just want a glass of wine – I’m always game for a glass of wine!

You’ve been warned.





a quote…

21 12 2009

“I believe in overdressing, primping at leisure and that loving is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.” Audrey Hepburn

Since I haven’t blogged in a while, I figured I’ll just post a quote.
I WILL blog while I’m off work this week … I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …I WILL blog while I’m off work this week … I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …I WILL blog while I’m off work this week … I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …I WILL blog while I’m off work this week …

PS the oven is fixed - I paid “the Appliance Guy” $75 to come and screw it back on.





Happy Thanksgiving honey… I broke the oven

29 11 2009

Yes, I broke the oven. I pulled on the handle to open the door to get out the bacon wrapped cherries and put in the stuffed mushrooms and the handle popped off a bit, so I just shoved it back on. Then when I opened it again, a side thingy just fell off and then the front glass shifted out of place … it was NOT GOOD.

This was on Thursday about an hour before we were supposed to be at Mikes parents with appetizers for the entire crowd. I should also mention that my hair was still up in a towel with no hope of getting properly dried! I turned the oven off and took everything out and went to finish getting ready.

We made it to dinner with enough time to finish heating everything up and it turned out to be a wonderful afternoon and evening eating WAY too much.





Betty Draper hosts a party…

16 11 2009




Glitter Free Zone

25 10 2009

Our house has recently been deemed a “glitter free zone.”  It’s a sad day without glitter but I’ll probably survive. It’s mostly all my fault that this ruling came to pass. You see one day I was deep in a craft tornado and had lovely crafty things spread out everywhere. I needed another flat, clean place and the ironing board was out, so I put some glitter coated finished product on the ironing board – seemed harmless at the time… However, long after the clouds cleared from the craft tornado, MZ needed a shirt ironed. Unsuspectingly, he placed his shirt on the ironing board and began to iron. His shirt became glitter “infested” and thus the rule of NO GLITTER was made.
So now, if I do any crafting or decorating that has to do with glitter, it has to be done on the back patio and raced through the house and out the front door and off to it’s destination, because it’s not allowed to be in the house for more than 3 minutes over all.

Remember the rule of glitter when YOU are crafting – it could get dangerous so be very very careful and appreciate your indoor glitter items!