Happy Halloween from Our Dogs!

We took pictures of the dogs in their costumes last night... here are some of the ones that came out pretty good!

Group shot:




Mrka as a Witch:








Al as a Bumble Bee:








Bauer as Sgt. K9:

I'm still undecided...

I guess I'm what you call a "swing vote". Honestly, I really am still struggling with what to do with my vote this year. I can see good and bad in each candidate. In each campaign. In each party. I'm really not sure what I'm going to do on Tuesday. This frustrates me because I'm usually a very decisive person. I usually know exactly what I want, what think, what I feel. But, right now I'm very confused. I have big issues where I agree and ones where I disagree with Obama on, and the same goes for McCain. What my difficulty is, is that I'm trying to figure out which issue(s) I feel most strongly about, and that is really what changes for me from day to day. I'll be glad when the election is over. I just hope that we don't have another 2000 election and have to wait however many days/weeks/months to get a final count... how long was that again?

Office Space is really funny...

...I was watching it on HBO (or Showtime or whatever movie channel) yesterday. I totally forgot how funny that movie is!

Coffee Cake - It's What's for Dinner!

At least tonight it was. I had my Fiber Arts Group meeting this evening at the local Starbuck's and I barely made it on time. Work has been totally kicking my butt lately. Anyway, I didn't have time to go home first like I usually do and change out of work clothes, take out my contacts and get comfy. I also didn't have any time to grab anything to eat. So, the best I could do at Starbuck's was two slices of coffee cake. One slice of regular coffee cake and one slice of banana chocolate coffee cake. YUM! I washed it all down with a blended chai tea frappachino with sugar free vanilla. Double YUM! :)

Garden update

I went out and took some pictures of the garden since I've had the marigolds in for a while and recently planted mums. Here's how things are looking!

This is the flower bed on the right side of our house (if your back is to the street) in the front. This used to be horribly overgrown, but we've since taken almost everything out and replaced it with hibiscus, roses and mums along the edge.





Here are the front flower beds with marigolds:








Close-up of the marigolds. They're loving it!




This is the left side of the front. This hadn't been so overgrown, but I planted a few more hibiscus, some purple coneflowers and mums along the edge.





Close-up of the purple coneflowers:





Great shot of a yellow hibiscus bloom:





Close-ups of the mums. I planted four colors. White, purple, orange and yellow.

















Crown of thorns planted along the sidewalk near the house:





Potted crown of thorns on the porch





Gloxenia bloom:





Front of the house from the street:

Happy (belated) Birthday to my favorite pug!!

Our little "Stinky Poo-poo", Al, had his 7th birthday on Tuesday. We celebrated with extra nummies in the morning and more nummies before bed. He had a very good day :)

Happy birthday, little friend...

Propagating Succulents

I have this Jade succulent plant. I've had this plant since I moved to Florida in late 2002. I think it is the first plant I bought here. I'm pretty good with plants, but I've never been good with caucuses. I figured moving to FL, I'd try my hand at a succulent. This bugger is so hardy! She's looked half dead I don't know how many times, and I start taking better care of her and she always comes right back! I've often cut her back to get her to grow from the center more. Or sometimes she's looking sparse at the base, so I'll cut her back and she'll grow from the center again. I recently gave her a "haircut" but this time I thought I'd try to propagate the cuttings.

I had a LOT of cuttings... maybe around 25 or so. I took each one and put the stem in water, then dipped it in root tone and then put all of the clippings in one big pot to see what would take. I think I maybe lost about 5 of the clippings. Everything else started to grow roots! I was so excited! I'm now going to use the first plant as my "mother" plant. She can be cut back again and again and not have to look great. The cuttings I'll keep trying to grow from her. Anyway, here is a pic of the mother plant. There are still some cuttings that are in the dirt on this one, I'm probably going to be able to transplant those soon. Also of note, she has already started to sprout new shoots from where I cut her back!





Here are two of the offspring plants. They're doing great!




Everything out in my garden is doing really well too, and I've planted some mums to go along with the marigolds. I'll have to take pictures of those and the marigolds to show how they've progressed!

Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer

Based on a suggestion from a friend, I've picked up the four Twilight series books by Stephenie Meyer. I've already started the first one (actually called Twilight) yesterday and I'm already three chapters in (note, I had to update my reading list to the left - haha!). The books are really teen reads, but in the spirit of the Harry Potter series, adults have taken to them too... they are totally easy reads.

I'm a paparazzo!

So, we were at Epcot Food and Wine Festival again today with my AWESOME hair stylist and friend and her husband. While we were going "around the world", we had a celebrity siting. Here's some sneaky photos that we were able to snap!





Can you see who it is? Joey Fatone from N'Sync! (or, Dancing With the Stars or Singing Bee)

Here is another shot:





Note, I wasn't the only one taking his photo... hehe:

30 years old today...

Happy bday lil' bro! Love you!

1.6 Million Dollars....

.....is a lot of money. That's all I'm gonna say.

Little bro has arrived!

I've given him one of his birthday gifts, an afghan I made for him in his college (Pitt) colors. I put it all together with the exception of the boarder, and I'm working on that now (after I talked with him about what kind of boarder he would like). Check out my crochet blog in the next few days for pictures of the afghan... seriously, I think it is the biggest one I've ever made!