Happy Turkey Day!

Renting Mother Nature....

Christmas is looming around the corner.  Don't get me wrong, I'm excited - in fact my decorations have been brought up from the basement (but not put out yet, I'll wait until after Thanksgiving).  BUT I have no idea what to get for people that already have everything. 
I think the hubs and I are going to be lame and buy ourselves a new mattress for Christmas - we are so exciting, I know.
I was thinking about getting Rent Mother Nature leases for a few people I have absolutely NO idea what to get.
This is from their site :

Here's How It Works

1 We farm for you: We have a network of farmers, dedicated to sustainable agriculture, who will deliver a share of their absolutely fresh harvest to your gift recipient's door. 

2 We send the Lease Document to your gift recipient: The lease is a handsome parchment-like certificate that is beautifully illustrated, embossed with a gold seal, and personalized with the name of your recipient. This is sent at the time the lease is ordered (or at a time of your choosing) along with an illustrated Gift Announcement (which includes your gift message) describing the program you selected. You can also choose to have the Lease sent to you for personal presentation.

3 We keep the 'Lessees' up-to-date with Progress Reports: As the crop is nurtured, informative and entertaining newsletters are sent to your recipients -keeping them up-to-date about the harvest season. As a humorous option we'll even go out and take an action photo of their tree, hive, cow, sheep, or field hard at work and mail it with one of the Reports.

4 We deliver the Harvest: 'Tis the season... The fresh and natural harvests are delivered right to the door. Yields are guaranteed, along with your complete satisfaction. We do all the work and you get all the raves (while helping America's family farms).

What do you think?  Would you be excited about getting fresh cheese and supporting local farmers?
What are you buying for people this year?

Illegal Biscuits....

A number of you lovely readers and followers commented on this tweet the other day :

Apologies for the terrible cell phone photo, but yes - they were delicious.   And really really easy.  I promised a few people a recipe so here it goes :

I didn't really have a recipe so I'm just going to tell you what I did and let you improve upon that -

1. Buy Pillsbury Grand Buttermilk Biscuits

2. Cut in half, then cut in half again to get 4 'bite-size' pieces per biscuit.

3. Melt some butter, probably like a stick, maybe a little less (I don't know because I didn't make a whole batch).

4. Add in fun stuff.  I chose parmesean cheese (to give a nice cheesy crust) and cut up some bacon.  We almost always have a bag of cooked bacon in our fridge - is that weird?  I hope not.  Its kind of my favorite.

5. Bake according to the directions on the package - maybe a little less since they are smaller, I didn't really time them, just took them out when they looked a little brown.

Sorry for the least precise recipe in history, but go make them now.
Now.

Pinterest Obsession....

I’ve discovered two new things lately.

1. A new (reaffirmed) love for writing with Ultra Fine Tip Sharpies.

2. Pinterest (thanks to Brooke for the invite).

image

How does it work?
You get a little button on your favorites bar (much like the CraigsEasy button, if you did that) and then you can *pin* images and place them onto different boards in your collection. Its super easy.

Why is pinterest so great?
It just is.

• I don’t have to save images on my computer anymore, freeing up precious hard drive space – (and you don’t have to worry about a crash).
• I can save images anywhere (home or work) and they all go to the same place.
• It keeps the source of the image. So if I’m posting an image of a DIY project into my ‘Thing to Make’ board, I can always click on the image when I actually get around to wanting to make said item and get the directions. No more bookmarking tutorials. I would also think this would make a great cookbook…..I may need to start a food board.
• You can share with other people and other people can see your collections. I signed up using my twitter account so I’m automatically following the people I follow on twitter who also have a Pinterest account (and you don’t have to ask them to follow you, or request to be their friend or anything :)). You can also follow other people whose collections, or single boards, strike your fancy.

Basically it’s a visual reminder of a million things I like, in one place, that is easy to access and contribute to. It’s a virtual sketchbook and I’m obsessed.

I have 5 invites to give away – who wants one?

We're Expecting!

We'll folks, it's official - 

image

If everything goes as planned, a special someone will be born December 19th.

We have narrowed down our shortlist of names and I have one in particular I'm rooting for.

The best part of this pregnancy?  No stretching, weight gain, random food cravings or morning sickness here - (okay, well random food cravings are actually part of my everyday existance) - but the absence of all other symptoms is due to the fact that someone else is doing all the baby making for us -

image

Four little paws will be scratching up our hardwood floors in no time, and I coudn't be more excited.  

A few fun facts about our puppy process :

• We will have been waiting for 6 months before we get to take our little guy/gal home.  It has felt SO long and we still have a few months to go.  Our new arrival will come home with us in February if everything goes as planned.  I can't imagine 9/10 months of an actual pregnancy.

• It will cost us almost 4 times more money to get puppy, than it would be to have a baby.  I know over time, things will swing the other way, but I find it pretty amusing.  (I'm comparing the hospital delivery costs after insurance, to our adoption fee.)  Crazy right?

CraigsEasy....

The people behind CraigEasy contacted me a few weeks ago after seeing my post on 6 tips to Mastering Craigslist and I regret to say I didn't have a chance to test it out until now.  I had a bit of time this weekend and finally got around to testing it out, and was so excited I finally did!  Basically their 'Easy' button translates all the endless Craiglist listings into only titles with images.

 It makes scrolling through the endless listings SO much faster.  There is no program to install either, simply go to their site CraigsEasy.com and drag the orange 'Easy' button to your tool-bar area.  (They have two quick videos you can watch if you aren't sure what I'm talking about.)  Visit craigslist as you normally would and search for whatever you like, then hit the easy button on your toolbar and it will translate the site into image like the photo above!  If you click on a listing it will bring you to the standard craigslist listing.
So easy!
We may be having Thanksgiving at our house this year, so I'm on the prowl for a decent table and chairs to accomodate our guests!

What do you think?  Will you CraigsEasy?

*I was contacted by the people behind CraigsEasy alerting me to their site, I have not received anything for this review.