Twilight...With Cheeseburgers

I don't know why this cracks me up so much:

RIP Bea :-(

I am so sad tonight after hearing news of Bea Arthur's passing. :-(

I often joke and my friends often give me a hard time about how much I love the Golden Girls, but I am truly upset over this. Betty White and Rue McClanahan are the only Golden Girls still living since Estelle Getty passed away last year. I had no idea Bea was 86 years old. I remember seeing photos of her last year and she looked great. Bea Arthur you will be missed!

I came across this more recent photo of her and Rue. I just love it:

Pimping out Natalie and her pork chop

If you don't already read it, you must check out my dear friend Nat's blog.

This explains the title of her blog and gives you just a bit of insight into how freaking hilarious this girl is. Love her!

I made curtains!

yes the pictures are totally crappy- I blame the iPhone and the utter lack of natural light! I'll take new pics in the morning but I was so excited I had to post it now:


I bought the burlap and the curtain rod at Hobby Lobby last week. I still need to teak the curtain rod and the panels a bit but for my very first major sewing project, I'm really pleased!!

It's just a little bit creepy

My good friend Dusty over at All Things G&D inspired this post. :-) If you haven't been to her blog, you are missing out. D is witty, adorable and has a thing for throw pillows and wine. She recently posted about her adorable tiny milk glass dish that she uses to hold her rings in the kitchen and I knew I had to share my fairly unique ring holder too.

Here she is:


she's a little creepy am I right?! lol

I purchased her (yes, it's a girl!) at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago. Hobby Lobby is like my home away from home- I cannot get enough of that place! I even bought my creepy hand on sale, only $5 if my memory serves me correctly. Not everyone in the Solano house is a fan of the hand though- Mike is terrified of it and says it haunts his dreams. And Pinkie and Marty are still trying to figure out why the hand won't pet them. :-)

The Home Stretch

Our last stop on our little vacation was a visit to the Pea Ridge National Military Park. It was the site of a Civil War battle and also contains part of the Trail of Tears. The battle was fought on March 7-8, 1862. This might sound totally boring, but Mike and I both love history!

a depiction of the battle:

We learned some history of the area and had a really nice time on a gorgeous spring day. Here are some of our pictures:

please note- I am not trying to look angry- I was staring straight into the sun!! lol oooh, and check out my new coat!

Eureka Springs Vol. 3

Whew, are you guys tired of these trip blogs yet? I'm almost finished, promise!

After our fun day in the caves we headed back towards Eureka Springs. Mike wanted to make a stop at a video game store that was on the way so I headed into Cato (it's a small clothing store). The last time I was in a Cato was probably 10 years ago, most of the time it's just nms. But, man I lucked out at this place! I scored an adorable black & white houndstooth coat- with a super cute pink satin lining. The best part? Original price $90... my price $ 20! The coat will make an appearance in my next blog post. :-)

After some shopping we headed to a spot in Eureka Springs that I remember going to as a young child: The giant Jesus statue at the Passion Play site. The statue is 7 stories tall but it seemed much larger when I visited it as a little kid! Some pictures:

Mike being a dork.

can you tell we were freezing?!

no offense but the eyes were super creepy:

the site of The Passion Play also has an exhibit set up with a 10x10 section of the Berlin wall.


there were tons of deer roaming around the grounds:

I managed to get a little bit of the site of the play:

I've never seen the play but I've heard it's kind of terrible. lol I read some reviews of it on tripadvisor.com when we were making our trip intinerary and they weren't good. After our sightseeing we headed into town for dinner. We ate at a great little restaurant, and headed back to our hotel to get in out of the cold. Only one day left!

Friday Night Eye Candy

click to enlarge! (that's what she said)

more at the source:
Dossier photoshoot
GQ photoshoot

Breakfast These Days

I promised to discuss some of the things I've been eating since I've changed my diet. I think I'll break these posts down by meal. Here are some of the things I've been eating for breakfast:

A typical morning: Bear Naked Vanilla Almond Crunch Granola with Soy Slender Plain Soymilk.
I usually add a piece of fruit and take my vitamins & calcium supplement.

or- steel cut oats w/ a little bit of cinnamon or almonds on top.

A weekend morning: I've been experimenting with various fruit shakes/smoothies. It's usually a combination of soy milk, no sugar added applesauce, various fruit and protein powder. Easy!

Eureka Springs Vol. 2

After our bizarre day in Branson we decided to see some of the sights around Eureka Springs. We knew we wanted to visit a cave or two so we chose the Onyx Cave and the Cosmic Caverns.

We headed to Onyx Cave first... and immediately turned around when we got there! It was completely dead, even though the sign said "open" there wasn't a soul there. The brochure was from the 1970's and it looked like that was the last time anyone had been there. It was so eerie and a little bit scary. Mike said he was pretty sure there had been some hillbilly murders there. LMAO!

We decided to head over to the Cosmic Cavern, and I'm so glad we did! It was very cool, our guide was knowledgeable and we had a really good time. Here are some pics:


the lakes were incredible!

these are probably really boring and repetitive to you guys, but I want to document our trip so I can look back on it later. :-)

a lady & a gentleman

you probably saw this on facebook but I had to blog about it here:

(click to make it larger)

I could not believe that Mike agreed to this, but I actually think he had a lot of fun!

Branson

Day 2 of our vacation was spent in Branson, Missouri. What a weird place! I don't know if it was the time of year or what, but Mike described it best when he said it was like a dying town. Tons of boarded up motels and theaters, lots of cheesy tourist trap shops etc. Mike was dying to eat at a Shoney's (since we don't have any near us) so off to Shoney's we went:

Mike rubbing his belly after the breakfast buffet! Eating here was a bit of a challenge for me since the Shoney's breakfast bar doesn't have the healthiest choices, but I managed!

Oh and did I mention that it was about 30 degrees that day? Miserable! After the restaurant we headed over to the Titanic museum, which was actually pretty interesting. It is one of the few attractions in Branson that doesn't involve Gospel music, hillbillies or the word jamboree, so we enjoyed it. :-)

We did some sightseeing, some outlet shopping and ended our day at a really pretty overlook:

Before heading back to Eureka for the night we ate at Dick Clark's American Bandstand restaurant- cute place and pretty decent food! I really doubt we'll be making a trip back to Branson anytime soon but I'm glad we went.

Eureka Springs Vol. 1

We just got back from our mini-vacation a few hours ago and I wanted to share some of my favorite pictures from the trip. We actually did a lot in a short amount of time so I'll probably spread these out over a few posts.

Here are some shots of downtown Eureka:



I love the shadow from the fence:


a shot of us in our cabin. :-)