I went in and ordered a "Jon & Kate Plus Eight"

and this is what I got. I have been in the market for a new hairstyle for quite a while, but in order to do something different, I had to grow it out a bit. I had not had a haircut since February 2 ( I went back and checked the date in my checkbook) and I could hardly stand it anymore. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it until Monday night. I was watching "Jon & Kate Plus Eight." I have always liked Kate's hair, but I noticed that hers had grown out quite a bit in the front and that my hair was now long enough to do something similar to hers.

So first thing on Tuesday morning, I got on-line and found a recent picture of Kate. It was taken at some sort of TLC function, so she was done up a little more than usual and she and Jon were posing for the photo - it was perfect. I printed it and called to make an appointment for a cut, style, and brow wax. I was able to get in that afternoon.

The stylist and I looked through a book and found a picture of what the back should look like. I told her that I wanted to walk out with the styling products that I would need to do it at home. She was very helpful in giving me some tips on how to do it with the least amount of work. I walked out of there with my hair looking quite good. Plus Paul had given me a generous gift certificate for Mother's Day - so it was a freebie.

This morning, it took me a little more than five minutes to do my hair. I had Paul take this picture this afternoon. I had been outside in the wind and it was a bit muggy today. I think it holds up fairly well. I swear, I have been fighting against my stick straight hair for over 30 years and it feels nice to just go with it. I just flipped under the ends with a big curling iron.

Last night I watched the movie "August Rush." It was OK. It was no "Lars & the Real Girl."

Cinnamon Rolls

I have wanted to make cinnamon rolls, but had not found a recipe that didn't make a ridiculous amount. The baking blog that I visit gave a link to this recipe so I thought I'd give it a try. I'd recommend this recipe, but I would make a couple of changes.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ninety-Minute-Cinnamon-Rolls/Detail.aspx

First off, I used butter and not margarine. I don't buy stick margarine. I figure if you are going to use fat in your baking you might as well use the better tasting fat. A reminder that you are using rapid rise yeast and not regular yeast - it works a lot faster. I mixed and kneaded this in my Kitchen Aid mixer. Laurie, it is awesome for that. I added at least 1/2 a cup more flour than what the recipe called for. It was sticking to the sides of the bowl and you could easily tell it needed more.

There was way too much filling. It oozed out and fortunately I checked the oven before it started dripping. I put a baking sheet underneath it to catch it. I will make these again, but I will just butter the dough after it has been spread out and I'll sprinkle a combination of brown sugar and cinnamon over it before I roll it up. I definitely would not use a full stick of butter or an entire cup of brown sugar. I think because this was so easy and they really were good, it's worth trying again with some modifications.

I made homemade cream cheese frosting and it was the perfect topping for it. On Friday, I'm making red velvet cupcakes, so I'll use the remaining frosting for those.

Walleye Fry Night

I took only a handful of pictures when we were in Cyrus last weekend. I got a couple cute ones of Laurie (in her cute "new" skirt) & Carly and another of Paul frying fish. I like the prairie scenery in the background on the horse shoeing pictures. I think Paul's fish fry was especially good this time.

Ellen's Bedroom

Ellen's bedroom has never been this clean before. She's actually putting for the effort to keep it looking decent. We need to get something to put over her bed. You can't see the $3 headboard at all.

Carly's Room

On Monday we had a couple of Paul's coworkers come in and paint the kids' bedrooms. Paul and I cleared the rooms and they got right to work. We spent quite a bit of time decluttering and got the rooms put back together quickly. I'm thinking we are going to go with a more neutral curtain, but in the meantime,we just put back up what we had.

Carly's room is quite pink. I'm still getting used to it. She wouldn't pose for a picture in her bed, but she was happy to pose for a picture with her friend, Ella. They spent Tuesday afternoon playing together.

Lars and the Real Girl

One of the nice things about Netlfix is that it will get you to watch something you would pass off as "stupid" if you saw it in the rental section of a store. Normally I would pass on a movie about a young man who purchases a life size sex doll and treats her as a real companion. But the reviews at Netflix were good, so I thought we'd give it a try.

Paul and I watched this last night. It's a comedy/drama with more emphasis on the drama. It's a feel good movie. There's nothing really even sexual about "Bianca." We really liked Lars, his family, and his town. We even liked Bianca. I don't think I've seen Ryan Gosling in any other movies, but I thought he made this sad, lonely, odd man very lovable. I'm still laughing about parts of it this morning. If you have Netflix, put it at the top of your queue and then give me a call after you watch it. Laurie, it is worthy of pay-per-view. I think Dan would enjoy it too.

Pyrex Casserole Dishes

I paid $3 for the bright orange dish with the sunflower lid and $2 each for the smaller dishes. All three are in perfect condition. No fading, scratches, nicks or any flaws. I thought they were really pretty. They are probably from the early 70s. I got them at the same sale as the bowls. She had a lot of Pyrex items, but some were missing lids, or a set of bowls would be missing one bowl. I've noticed that at our local Goodwill that older Pyrex in used condition is rarely priced less than $4. So I knew these were good prices.

One thing nice about Pyrex is that they do stack inside each other. I did a quick straightening of the cabinets in our kitchen and by getting rid of a few items I was able to make room for all of my "new" things.

Pyrex Bowls

I was pretty excited about this find. There are a lot of people who collect old Pyrex and I have noticed from ebay that pink Pyrex is especially popular with buyers. This complete set in good condition doesn't usually go for less than $50 - then you throw in at least $15 for shipping. I've seen it go close to $100. So for me to get it for $10 was the best garage sale find I'll probably ever have.

This set is from the Gooseberry pattern from the late 50s/early 60s. It had some discoloration along the edges and bottom, but I thought if I gave it a good cleaning I could get most of it off and I was able to. About the only thing I can point out is that the biggest bowl seems to be lighter in color than the other pink bowl.

Old Tupperware

I got some very practical items directly across the street. They were selling a bunch of items from a recently widowed guy in town. My friend Stacy and I were at that place at the same time and she and I both picked up several things.

The yellow bowl in the top picture cost 50 cents. It is now being used to hold steel cut oatmeal in the cupboard. The veggie/dip set cost $1. The lid is underneath it in this photo. I like that the dip holder has a separate little cup with a lid. I consider that to be my best Tupperware find and it will be making many trips to potluck dinners.

In the bottom photo I have two covered left-over plates - 50 cents each. Paul says he will use those to take lunch to work. That is my plan as well. I got another pickle/olive holder. We use the other one all the time for olives and I'm glad to have this one for pickles - 75 cents. I recommend buying one of these - very useful. The measuring cups and spoons were each 25 cents. The tablespoon is missing from the set, but it'll do.

I did go back just a little bit ago and pick up 3 lidded square Tupperware containers that I think were designed with sandwiches in mind. I also bought 3 smaller lidded bowls that would work well for a lot of things. Total cost was $1.50 I've been thinking more about packing snacks and lunches for this school this year.

Garage Sale Day

I had forgotten that this morning was garage sale day in Keewatin. Carly looked out the window and said that there were a whole bunch of cars over at the neighbor's house and that got me right out of bed. Ellen wasn't interested in going, so Carly and I went out.

At our first stop I bought a music stand for $4. It's your basic fold up stand. If Ellen is going to play in the band she'll be needing one soon, so I might as well get one now than pay full price at a music store in the fall.

Another good find was a head board for a full size bed. Ellen's bed doesn't have one and I had been keeping an eye out for one for a while. I'll take a picture of it after we hook it up to Ellen's bed and put on her new bedding. It's just a basic wooden head board and it cost only $3. I couldn't get it to fit in the jeep. Fortunately I wasn't too far from our house, so I just carried it home. Paul just checked it out and said it would be very easy to attach to the bed frame. Now I'm going to post pictures of my deals that I was pretty excited about.

Wednesday, June 11

It was a cool, windy, and rainy day today. Before it started to rain Paul and I went out for a 30 minute run together. Today he ran the entire route non-stop and added on a couple more blocks than his usual. He's doing well. A run seems to go much faster when you have someone else with you.

Carly wore her Snow White dress the entire day since she hosted a ball on and off all day. She picked out a dress for me to wear. So for a good hour or so I wore the dress I wore in Nancy's wedding. I'm pleased to say that it fits as well as it did back in early 30s. I have a feeling I'll be wearing this dress on many rainy days this summer.

Paul and I watched the movie "The Great Debaters." It was really good. Denzel Washington directed and starred in the movie. Denzel is kind of a "sure thing" actor for me. If he's in it, I will usually really like it. Paul and I were both a little verklempt at the end of the movie. I highly recommend it.

Even though it was raining, Paul made a beer can chicken for dinner tonight. It was great. Considering that a whole chicken costs a whopping $3, it's a cheap meal. I also bought a bag of new potatoes and made the crashed potatoes from pioneerwomancooks.com. So easy and really good. That will be a frequent side dish during grilling season. If you haven't made them yet, buy a bag of potatoes the next time you're at the grocery store and try it.

No plans for the evening. we still have to watch "Weeds." That's kind of a tough one to get in because you really do have to wait until the kids go to bed for that show. I did notice that the HBO mini-series "John Adams" is out on dvd. I have to add that to my queue. Nancy, have you and David rented anything good lately?

Nothing else to report here. Tomorrow we are supposed to have sunshine in the afternoon and temps around 70 - a welcome change.

Good Baking Website

http://www.cookiemadness.net/

This blog is done by a woman who won the Pillsbure Bake-Off a few years ago. She made a chicken dish that used waffle sticks as stuffing. You've maybe seen her on the Food Network. I printed a chocolate chip cookie recipe earlier this week that I plan to make tomorrow. It sounds like we'll have another windy, wet day on Wednesday. Oh great.

Ellen's Piano Recital

Last night Ellen had her piano recital at the library in Hibbing. When Ellen started talking lessons, her teacher, Lisa, had about 10 students and now has 23, plus she's adding more this fall. It's nice to see her doing well because I really do think she is an excellent teacher.

Ellen had three songs to play - Listen to Your Heart, My Heart Will Go On, and I can't remember the name of the 3rd song. Ellen, would you please give the name in the comments section.? She did a really nice job. You've heard her play the Titanic theme song, but she'll have to bring the music to Listen to Your Heart the next time we are in Cyrus. It's really a pretty version of the song done by the band Heart back in the 80s. It was not an easy song for her to learn and she worked hard at it. She has very nice expression when she plays. It just sounds pretty.

The problem with playing three songs is that the recital took 90 minutes. That's just way too long. At one point Carly and Paul went upstairs and looked at books because Carly could just not sit there any longer. About 60 minutes into it she threw her back and said, "I'm so bored!" She's five! It's hard. I'm hoping that someone will have the nerve to tell Lisa to scale it back to two songs. At least we'd be down to an hour.

Afterward we went to Sammy's Pizza for dinner. In addition to being bored, Carly was very hungry. She ate an entire plate of rigatoni - usually she'll bring half of it home. Sammy's was pretty busy for a Thursday night. That's good to see. When they had their fire at Easter time, I think everyone was concerned that they might not re-open. They've been open for a little over a month now and we've been there three times since then - each time it was busy.

Finally a new post

Ellen got after me for not updating in quite some time and I'm finally getting around to it a few days later. It has been awhile.

The weather around here has been total crap. If it's not raining, It's ridiculously windy. We've had like one 1/2 decent day since school got out. Paul has gone fishing a couple of times and one of those times they were rained on quite a bit. But he will have enough fish for a walleye fry in Cyrus in a couple of weeks.

We've had plenty of time to get caught up in the latest election news. We've made it pretty clear that we are in the tank for Obama. It was quite a thrill to see Barack Obama deliver his speech in St. Paul on Tuesday night. We made Ellen stay up to watch it. I wore my Obama08 shirt for the occasion. Paul has a shirt too ( his is really cool), so we'll have to post a picture soon. We were puzzled by Hillary Clinton's speech that same night. We weren't alone. It will be interesting to see what her speech on Saturday will be like.

Today since it was raining - again, we took in a matinee. Paul has been wanting to see the new Indiana Jones movie, so he took Ellen and Kayla to see that. Carly and I went to "Kung Fu Panda." This movie got really positive reviews, but I thought it was just ok. The animation was appealing. I like Jack Black, but it just seemed like one fight scene after another. Carly didn't like it and said it was scary. Ellen & Kayla really liked the Indiana Jones movie, but Paul didn't really like it. He said there were aliens in it and that they don't belong in an IJ movie.

We were talking about going up to Grand Marais next week, but they got about five inches of rain overnight and it continues to rain there. They have serious flooding problems and it's going to take them a while to clean up. That trip will be pushed back a month or so.

We have the first installment of the 3rd season of Weeds and the movie Juno from Netflix. We'll have to watch one of those tonight. I also bought the dvd of the 1982 tv series "Square Pegs." That is the first show where I was ever pissed that it was cancelled early. I've said for years if it ever came out on dvd that I would buy it. It came out a couple weeks ago and it only cost $25 from amazon. I watched a couple of episodes and was amused by it. It's tempting to sit down and do a marathon, but I'm going to spread it out. Sarah Jessica Parker looks so incredibly young in it. Does anyone else remember this show?