Smoooooothie Saturday.

When we were at the LPGA last weekend, I indulged in the free samples they were giving out at the Wegman's building. I'm usually an honest-1-per-sampler, however I loved the Dole Sunrise Smoothi so much I hopped in their line 3 or 4 times hoping the worker-bees didn't recognize me!

I took their recipe card and perused the Dole website which I found enjoyable. I made the Sunrise Smoothie today and it was GREAT, next time I'll make sure to chill/freeze the bananas for added affect. They had LOADS of other smoothie recipes I'll have to try.

The easey-peasey recipe:
1 cup DOLE® Pineapple Juice
1 cup vanilla low fat yogurt or frozen yogurt
1 cup DOLE Frozen Strawberries, partially thawed
2 ripe, medium DOLE Bananas, peeled

taste of Rochester.

Tonight we went to a Taste of Rochester. The music was good, however I noted not from Rochester. (boo) Some good eats, but we had to pass on food vendors like Uno's and Papa John's. I'm sure we could have come up with more Rochester focused eateries than them.

Lots of foodies were out, gobblin up goodies - so was 'festival guy'. He is this shirtless dude who dances at all the local rochester festivals. He was dancing so fast he should be called 'blurry festival guy'. I didn't know he is already famous, I took a short video of him and when I got home I saw him already on You Tube.

I passed on the garbage plate (for once) and stuck to the fried dough. I had will power of steel, because I also went home without having a chocolate almond cone from Abbott's. Then again, there's always tomorrorow.....

pickets, pickets everywhere.

Our neighbors down the street put in a new fence. To which I say 'good for them and GREAT for us'. Great for us because we took some of their old picket fence scraps that they were junking.

With all the fence scraps in our garage, LOADS of 'picket-fence' projects are running through my BRAIN. Let's see... I could make garden fences, planter boxes, a cute wall shelf, picket fence headboard, picket fence bookcases, a picket-fence shoe rack... the list is ENDLESS. You could add a picket fence to almost anything and it will ooze cute, shabby chic-ness.

First project up - PLANTER BOXES. McAllister put his new handy-saw to good use and built me my first prototype. They are now up for sale by the Dirty Birdies.

The how-to pics are on project page, check em out! And, because most of you will never make your own, if you're interested - just holler with your color of choice!!

my summer research.

I'm pretty confident that summer has arrived here in Rochester. How can I tell you ask? Well my research has noted my ice cream MELTING much faster, my STICKY legs regretting the choice of leather seats and our LAZY Lucy being noticeably absent around the house.

She can be found sleeping on the COOL bathroom floor or in the basement laundry room.

I wonder if we can train her to fold the clothes while she is down there....

hide your books.

Ok, ok - the secrets out... I'm a self-confessing BOOK thief.

I'll admit it. I've just caught myself red-handed with books borrowed YEARS ago that went unreturned to their rightful owners.

This self-realization came to me when organizing my office bookshelf, by author and color. I had to make room for the FREE books I got at the public market. Low and behold, there was no room with all the STOLEN property that lines my shelves. It's either get a new bookcase or FESS UP. (ok, so there really only was TWO books in the evidence pile - but still!)

What's worse is there is one I never finished, so now I'm attempting to re-read it.

So now I must ask... How long is OK to hang on to a borrowed BOOK?! Comments people - curious offenders need to know...

(I liked what T. Davis had to say about being a book thief.... )

lpga.

Today McAllister and I enjoyed the sunny weather at Locust Hill, watching the ladies battle it out for the LPGA championship. The purse was 1.8M total, which is some BIG money!!

We followed Paula Creamer, Reilley Rankin, Se Ri Pak, and Lincicome for a few holes. It was really neat getting up close to all the ladies. I like Paula b/c she is young, fun and her signature look is PINK. It was very different than watching it on TV, b/c you can't see everyone at once.

We loaded up on FREE stuff, including samples, magazines, food, and even a free 10 minute golf lesson for me from a PRO. She told me I have a ways to go before I can join the LPGA. Boo. Atleast I can look the part!! Check out my pics page for the PHOTOS and many thanks to LANIE for giving us the tix!

i paint rocks.

Another summer hobby of mine.... is painting ROCKS.

While we scour Lake Ontario's shore for lake glass, I also pick up baskets of rocks for painting. They don't seem to miss them! Sometimes, a rock's shape will tickle my fancy and inspire a certain SOMETHING to be painted on it. Like a strawberry or a flip flop, for examples. Both are two of my other FAVE things about summer!

Check out some more rocks!

robust rhubarb.

McAllister and I went to Niagara on the Lake for Memorial Day weekend. We did our USUAL - visited with friends and family, had bonfires in the orchard, took long walks along Lake Ontario looking for lake glass and shopped at Ikea.

Now from time to time, we may SMUGGLE stuff on our way back across the border. Since I was quite envious of my soon-to-be mother-in-law Sue's crazy big rhubarb plant, this time was no different. (I'm convinced they feed it steroids) We decided to try to risk it all and smuggle a couple stalks home with us.

Unbenounced to the US custom officials, our well-travelled rhubarb made it all the way back to the Roch. However, by the time it made it's way out of our trunk and into a planter - the wilty rhubarb's outlook didn't look promising.

Around day two, I decided to put one of my lucky rocks ('GROW UP') into the planter to help the poor thing's transition to US soil. Within a couple days, the droopy stalks all fell over and died. Then just as I was ready to shove something else in the dirt and pray like MAD it would grow, 2 teeney-weeney stalks starting SPROUTING up!

If this keeps up, I may need to start making more good luck rocks.

Day 3 - 4 dead stalks

Day 21 - two 6 inch stalks!

dirty birdies live.

Sondra and I went to the Rochester Public Market last Sunday to sell some 'Dirty Birdies' junk treasures. We were received pretty warmly from the crowd - we sold some items and handed out a bunch of cards. You too can have a fun garden fence or picket fence planter box for your yard, just holler and the junk birds will make it happen.

I don't know if we had more fun selling our JUNK, or running around from booth to booth buying other people's JUNK.

short changed.

What I like: Finding something that perfectly meets your needs when you're looking for it.

What I don't like: Buying that something perfect and then having it go on sale the very NEXT day. BOO.

Case in point, I went to one of my fave stores TARGET to get an outdoor rug for our front porch. As usual - I decorate through trial and error and have to buy one or two that didn't work before I find mr. perfect outdoor rug. I bring it home SATURDAY, set it up, love it lots for one evening and then on SUNDAY while reading the paper - I notice it's on sale for 10 whole dollars cheaper! BOO.

Now I'm mad at my mr. perfect rug. I sure hope my friendly folks at Target will give me my 10 whole bucks back without me having to lug it off my porch and into the store. We'll see!

sephora.

The female beauty gods are shining down on Rochester this weekend. They have listened to all our girly prayers and brought a SEPHORA to our local mall.

YEA to fun makeup, beauty products and tools all served up in a fun, inviting and hip store. No more stocking up on necessities while travelling to out of town larger cities. Now - when Justine steals my favorite Tweezerman's - I can run and get another pair rather than threaten to kill her if she doesn't ship them back to me.

To celebrate the store opening - I treated myself to a bareMinerals starter kit from Bare Escentuals. It's all I've heard about for months and many fun girlie girls are raving about it. This is my 2nd day with it and I just HEART it. The lovely named Kabuki brush is phenomenal and I'm digging the Mineral Veil.

It's the perfect solution for the 'no makeup' wearing crowd!!

tipping the scale.

garden art
Originally uploaded by cunhatuna.

Our front porch got accessorized last night.

I had some flowers left over from the market and no fun pots, containers or baskets to put them in. (boo) After rummaging through the basement, I 'found' the old scale I 'found' a couple months ago on a junk outing.

It was like CHRISTMAS all over again!! I threw in some dirt, the flowers and added some water and POOF - our porch got a fun new hanging basket!

I think the Empress of Dirt would be impressed!

dirty birdies.

Everyone knows how much I like JUNK. Well Sondra, my junkmate in crime, and I decided to take our junking habits to the next level. We're selling some of our most popular junk creations under the clever brand name - DIRTY BIRDIES.

Last weekend, we gave some of the creations a trial run at Sondra's garage sale and we were PLEASED. We got great feedback, sold a few items and even took a pre-order!! Fancy that. Sondra made us those super-cute labels (above) that doubled as 'biz' cards for some interested parties wandering on through!

Our garden fences and planter boxes seem to be customer favorites and we also sold my large ruler easel that I made a couple months ago. I'm surprised the book vase didn't go, it's one of my FAVES. I have some pics online of our creations.

We're going to be selling some of our trash treasures at the Rochester Public Market this weekend for Garage Sale Days. If you are in the area - stop on by!!

happy 100th anniversary.

100 as in the NUMBER of posts I've contributed since my relatively new entrance to the blogging world.

I was so excited about 100 that while sporting my new 'do and sunburnt nose - I busted out my vintage apron and baked BROWNIES for the occasion last night! They were just as good as the cupcakes I baked to celebrate my 50th post anniversary.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog and provides comments. Here's to 100 more!

locks pics.

it's gone.

Well the day finally came for my hair to go on the CHOPPING block! Today I went to the Thomas Laurence salon in Rochester in order to cut and donate my hair to Locks of Love.

For those who don't know, I've been growing my hair since November to donate it. Once the weather got nice, it started to be a lot to maintain my long locks - so just last month I decided to chop it instead of growing it longer. I made my appointment at the beginning of June with a new stylist, Jason, that my girlfriend Lanie recommended.

Lanie came with to be my photographer and moral support, and she did a great job documenting my experience with photos. The pics are online now if anyone wants to check them out. My story will be up on Kodak's 1000words blog soon enough. It was a great experience for such an amazing cause - so I'm encouraging of anyone even thinking about donating.

Thanks again to the Thomas Laurence salon and stylist Jason, the support from my friends and family and especially McAllister - he has put up with LOTS of my moaning and groaning about ponytail headaches over the last few months.

flowers.

For the first time all year, I went to Flower City Days at the Rochester Public Market last weekend. I can't believe how late in the season I got there!

That said, the weather was NICE and cool for it and I went early to beat the crowds. Without McAllister as my runner or a shopping cart, I had to make many trips back and forth to the car. As the morning went on, I found it tough to remember all flowers piling up in the car!

I usually pick up all my annuals here each year to make my hanging baskets. Which I did the rest of Sunday morning. I also am testing my gardening skills b/c I picked up a Japanese Maple tree as well. The price was right and I've been eyeing one since last summer, but it will be a tough guy to lose to my not-so-green thumbs. I'm off to research tips on how / where to plant it!

Flower City Days' last weekend is this Sunday - so if you're looking for some gardening supplies, head on out!!

gardening gold.

In our attempt to be good, green citizens - we've started a compost. It's introduction required a change in my 'toss in the garbage' behavior. However, like any quick learner - I was speedy up the learning curve. I now look forward to reducing our weekly waste that used to go to the curb.

Up until last night, things with the compost had been going GREAT. Granted - I don't like the look of the ugly thing in the back of the yard, but McAllister has promised me that our gardens will flourish as a result of the organic material that it produces. Plus I'm now distracted with some fun composters I found online and rekha's great comment about using the bamboo fence to hide it.

Well - last night McAllister informed me that those crazy city squirrels of ours have dug a little tunnel underground that leads up and into our compost bin! Those little buggers are FEASTING on what is supposed to turn into gardening gold for us!! BOO.

I guess it's better they eat our onion scraps rather than the onions we planted in the ground - but I'm still fuming. And they better NOT call on all their friends about the feast like they did with our Indian Corn last fall. I'll be really steamed.

Perhaps I'll call my friend Sondra for the ingredients in her squirrelly cocktail. That'll teach 'em.

new pad.

IT'S MOVING DAY!!



THE MOVING CREW!



THE NEW PAD!

No one really likes moving, especially after you have done it more than a half-dozen times throughout college and beyond. But Jon and Lisa endured a move last weekend and are all settled into their new pad in Arlington, VA! I didn't get to join in the muscle building activities of moving, but McAllister did!! He tagged along and was a great sport (at my request) to document all the events of the weekend for me!! What a photographer! Thanks to him, when viewing the pics - it's like I was there... minus the sweating and tiredness of hauling boxes all over the place!

Which, for the record, is my kind of moving ;-)

dinner.

McAllister went all the way to DC and back in 4 days to help my little bro and his g-friend move into their new apt. I was so thankful for him helping out, that I whipped out my DUSTY apron and put my beginner kitchen skills to work to welcome him home after his LONG drive.

A spinach, strawberry salad with balsamic dressing was the starter. For the main dish, I marinated chicken and then tossed a few items in a roasting pan with some basting oil and VOILA.

Roasted chicken a la Nicky!

save the date.

Remember how long my hair was back in November and even just last month? Well it's really, really long now (growing about an inch a month!) and getting unmanageable for me. I'm a low-maintenance gal and the time it takes for me to blow dry this mop could be better spent sleeping in the morning. Plus the weight of my ponytail can give me headaches.

Those are just TWO of the reasons why I'm so excited that I booked my CHOP for CHARITY appointment today!!

Next Friday, June 8th - I'll be chopping off as many inches as I can for Locks of Love. Stay tuned for the pics!