Big Fat DIY Fail...

It has officially happened.  I 100% failed at making tissue paper pomanders.  Even my cat was ashamed of them.  But, while Charles the cat teased me about my massive DIY failure I came up with a new idea...and you can read all about it on Weddzilla!  Happy Monday all!

Mother's Day Fun!

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the Mommies out there!  I figured I shared my crafts and creations for the day we all spend appreciating the most important women in our lives!

First up, cards.  I made all these using the "Wild Card" cartridge for my cricut (highly recommend that cart, it is really fun):

This one was for my Mom:

This one was for Bryan's Mom:

And these next two were for Bryan's Grandmothers:

We went to dinner at Bryan's Uncle's house, and for that I made brownie pops!  Both delicious and adorable!  I used this recipe for the brownies, then cut them into small brownie sizes and rolled each into a little ball.  Then I dropped a ball in the chocolate ganache (from that recipe - it says to pour it on top, I skipped that so I could cover them at this point), shoved a lollipop stick in them, and propped them up in some styrofoam to solidify:

Then I decorated them with nuts, sprinkles, colored chocolate, or peanut butter, and put them in the lovely little structure I made (I used cardstock for the box base then wrapped ribbon around it and used my cricut to cut out some flowers.  Then I painted a sytrofoam cone purple for the pops to be stuck in):

And then I wrapped the whole sucker up in plastic wrap for the trip to Byran's uncle's house.  They were a huge hit!

And, because I have the best fiance ever, my babies (aka my dogs and cats) got me this lovely Mommy Day present:

I love pearls, and I absolutely adore this ring!  Most definitely wearing it when we get married!

Did you do anything special for Mother's Day?

Blogger ABCs - MandaMack Edition!

I'm jumping on the bandwagon...hehe...

A. Age: 23

B. Bed size: King – anything smaller just wouldn’t cut it with 3 large dogs who like to snuggle!

C. Chore you hate: All of them?  The worst is washing dishes because it ruins your nails.  And no, I won’t wear rubber gloves, they make my hands smell and feel disgusting.

D. Dogs: aka my babies? Gabby, Dudley, and Tyson! 

 E. Essential start to your day: The first thing I do when I wake up is check my emails (on my phone).  I know, it’s pathetic.  But you never know when there’s gonna be a killer groupon, and if anyone left comments on my blog while I was sleeping it is a very happy start to my day (hint hint)!

F. Favorite color: Purple.

G. Gold or silver: Can I say white gold?

H. Height: 5'8”

I. Instruments: In elementary school I played the flute.  I stopped because I was doing too many extracurricular activities and my band instructor flipped out.

J. Job title: Associate Business System Analyst

K. Kids: Only furbabies for now…other than the dogs, gotta give a shout out to the cats, Charles and Louie

L. Live: Pittsburgh

M. Mom’s name: Kathleen – good Irish name!

N. Nicknames: My family members call me Mandy (this is not an invitation for anyone outside of my family to call me that) and my father calls me Midgie (short for midget, because although I’m the tallest now, being the youngest sibling at one point I was the smallest).  And Bryan calls me Babs because I call him Bunny!

O. Overnight hospital stays: Once – different story for a different day.

P. Pet peeve: I have so many if I listed them all I would sound like the biggest bitch in the world.  But a good one for today is people that are in business/business casual attire and wear sneakers for their commute.  There are plenty of comfortable flats out there people!  Your bright white sketcher shape ups look ridiculous with that suit!

Q. Quote from a movie: “Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life.  You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.”  That’s from Tuck Everlasting (movie/book) and I love it.

R. Right or left handed: Right – lefties are evil.

S. Siblings: Two older sisters, Rachael and Katelyn

Thats us mocking my mom for a face she makes in pictures to
make her cheek bones look more defined

 T. Time you wake up: Around 6 basically every day.  On a rare occasion the dogs will let me sleep until 7 on the weekends, but those days are few and far between.

U. Underwear: VICTORIA SECRET!  I used to think buying expensive panties was a waste until I bought them and realized how worth it they are!

V. Vegetables you dislike: Raw carrots.  Raw red peppers.  Apart from that, I actually really like vegetables!

W. What makes you run late: The dogs/cats being adorable and snuggly so I don’t want to get out of bed.  Realizing I have to iron my clothes (I have a new criteria for a good work shirt – if it is cute and doesn’t have to be ironed, it is mine).  My hair being crazy and me trying to tame it until I give up and just pull it back into a bun.

X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth at the dentist, my spine (I have degenerative subluxation of my lower lumbar spine – aka I my spine looks like a ? from the side instead of an S), my hips after I got hit by a car.

Y. Yummy food you make: 95% of the stuff I make is yummy (what can I say, I’m a good cook).  Topping my list would have to be raspberry cheese cake with a chocolate crust and my mom’s recipe for a Boston Crème Ring…yummmmm.

So that one cracked...it was still delicious!

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: To wear…zebra.  Although I would never wear real zebra skin, I just really like zebra print.  Favorite animal to just look at would be an elephant!  They’re just so majestic looking.  I’m actually wearing an elephant necklace right now (they’re supposed to be good luck).

You can get one too from the Etsy seller Leslie 23

Most Productive Weekend - EVER!

Seriously, whoever said weekends are a time for relaxing was lying.  But I don't mind, I love being productive!  And this weekend I got so much done...

Saturday:

7am - woke up
          made Bryan breakfast
          got ready for the day
9 am - went to weight watchers
           went to Marshalls (and got more cylinder vases)
            went home
11 am - went to lunch with Bryan
             went to the movies and saw The Adjustment Bureau (a little disappointed, not gonna lie)
             got cat food and new collars for the cats
            Made our first registry at Macys!!!!

This is Bryan pretending to be excited to be going to create
a registry, hahahaha

6 pm - Got home, ate leftovers
            crashed on the couch for the evening

Sunday
8 am - Got up
           Loaded all my cartridges on my new Gypsy
           Made breakfast
10 am - Started making the cardbox
             Bryan made me lunch at some point
6 pm - Finished cardbox (yes it took that long)

Isn't it pretty?  More on that later!

6 pm - Started doing laundry
            Worked out for 50 minutes (woohoo!)
            Ate dinner
715 - Took a shower
745 - Continued laundry
8 pm - Watched Amazing Race while finishing my 4th load of laundry!!!!!
9 pm - Done with laundry, passed out on the couch!

Seriously, the most productive weekend ever!  And can I just say that creating a registry is slightly exhausting???  But I'm glad to have gotten that all done!

Did you get to cross anything off your to-do list this weekend?

Weddzilla Wednesday

So, today there will be brand new content from me posted on Weddzilla, so go check out True Confessions of a DIY Bride!  It's all about all my DIY plans, as well as all my DIY tools.  For now, I will just leave you with an amusing sequence of events from this morning (what did people do before they had camera phones???):

Happy Hump Day Everyone!!!

Worst Day Ever

Sorry readers, no Fitness Recap today, because it is the worst day ever (don't worry, you aren't missing much, I only worked out once and that was just running on a treadmill).

So, first we have to back track a little bit.  A few weeks ago our furnace was making wonky noises, so fi called the furnace people and they said there's nothing really wrong with it but we're going to charge you a bunch of money anyway and change a setting so that it heats the house a little more efficiently.  Yay for being a homeowner and getting charged tons of money for nothing.

Right after that, we started having issue with water draining out of our house.  We kind of figured somehow a cat toy (or 10) got stuck in the drain, so first fi tried to snake it out.  And he pulled out some cat toys, but it still wasn't draining.  So this past weekend he called a plumber who pulled out a whole slew of stuff, and then found that there was a break in our sewer line.  He then quoted $12,000 to fix it.  Yeah, my Dad fixes stuff like that for a living, so if they wanted that much money I was going to buy my Dad a plane ticket, rent him an excavator, and throw him a grand just for fun and we'd still be able to get it done for a fraction of the cost.

Until fi remembered we had this warranty thing through the water company.  So we don't have to pay to have it fixed, which is awesome, and they were scheduled to come today to dig it up.

Well this morning I was woken up by crashbamboom from the basement then ::blek:: from Tyson.  Yeah, he threw up right on our comforter.  And we can't wash it.  Because our house doesn't drain water yet.  Awesome.  But what was the crashbamboom you ask?  Yeah, that was our furnace blowing up again.

So let's recap, I have people coming to dig up our sewer line today, a vommitting dog, and no heat.

So fi called the furnace people and they said they could be here between 8 and noon.  I said I'd stay and work from home, so fi could actually go to work (he had missed a few days this week dealing with the sewer thing already, and I think his head would have exploded if he had to face the furnace guy who said there was nothing wrong with our furnace a few weeks ago).

Then the sewer people got here and started digging holes with their mini excavator:

Yeah, I'm totally a creeper and take pictures of the men working

Meanwhile it is getting pretty cold in the house because, you know, we don't have heat.  Well it is getting super cold in the basement (aka Cat Kingdom) so I made the decision to bring the cats upstairs.  They didn't like that.  Charles ran around hyperventilating (I tried to get a video, but couldn't get a good one) while Louie continually searched for higher ground until he found the highest ground in our house:

He was so pleased with his spot he basically started making love to it

 Yeah, that's an Ikea cabinet we have in our kitchen.  I have no idea how he got up there.,  But he's happy, so I'm happy.

Then I get the call that the furnace guy was going to get there soon.  What the hell am I going to do with the dogs???  Normally when people are coming in and out of the house we let the dogs outside, but yeah, there's an excavator out there.  My only option was to blockade them upstairs with a baby gate, like so:

Poor puppies!

And I was trying to pay attention so that when the furnace guy got here I would greet him before he rang the doorbell.  Yeah, seeing as today is the worst day ever, no luck with that.  As soon as he rang it Tyson jumped over the gate and came barreling down the stairs, and I just jumped outside to lead the furnace guy to the basement by the back door.

I then had to carry Tyson back upstairs and place him over the gate (for the record, he's like 75 pounds) but by this time the cats had calmed down:

Louie high on life for finding such an awesome place to hang out

Charles being a fatty in the sun

But then Charles decided it would be really fun to torment the dogs.  Please excuse my baby voice (I can't help it when I talk to them, I swear) but look how pathetic my puppies are:

So yeah, that's my life right now.  When it rains, it pours, right?  Here's to hoping things get better...and they probably will because yesterday I received my crop-a-dile and I can't wait to play with it!!!  More on that later though!

PS - all personal, crappy cell phone pictures!