It's My Life

I am just going to apologize right now. I seem to have taken a lot of photos of food while I was in Portland. (it was easy to do because the food all looked and tasted so darn yummy!)  Voodoo Donuts. The small bit of information I gathered before I went to Portland is that Portland is odd. And they LOVE their oddness. Voodoo doughnuts are one of those odd places that people LOVE to go to! We landed at 8:00 p.m. and went straight to the donut shop that is in the cities Northwest side close to 3rd and Burnside Street. Normally you will encounter a line out the door (I have not seen a line like that since Chipotle was privately owned) but on our first night there, there was not so much of a line. (We walked by Voodoo several other times during the weekend and there was always a line.) You must have cash when you visit Voodoo. They do not take plastic cards.  We ordered three doughnuts and took them home to enjoy while we caught up and m...

My Girls Weekend has been so much fun! We are in Portland, Oregon. One of the truly unique things about Portland are the food carts. I am sure every city has some food carts. I know Kansas City does. Denver does. But man: nothing beats the food carts here! Food carts rent space inside a parking lot. Carts often form a pod. A pod is a collection of several food carts in one parking lot. The carts are amazing and vary in type of food they serve. Some carts only serve one item. Others have a small menu. Since being in Portland we have had the majority of our meals from different pods in different parts of the city. We have been downtown. To the Southeast. And this morning we will be heading to breakfast in the NE. Last nights pod in the SE had ten carts in one pod. They had an ice cream cart, a pie cart (sweet and savory pies), wood grilled pizza, Indian food, Central American cuisine, Fusion, A Waffle cart (yes, they put sweet or savory food in a waffle),a b...

I have been running around all week getting ready for today. The house is clean. The laundry is done. I have all my Halloween tasks completed. The family has enough food to last them for the weekend. I have packed my bags. I have printed my tickets. I even checked in online. I am heading to Portland, Oregon today!! It is time to visit Miss Medical Student. I have two task left: The Short Chic's preschool Halloween party and baking brownies for The Boy's pre-season basketball game. Then I am leaving on a jet plane! But hey....while I am gone, you still have a chance to enter my FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY! The details are  H E R E ! ! !

I showed you all my Short Chic's Halloween costume (check it out here ).  She is going to be Princess Jasmine. But I need to show you all The Boy's costume. These costumes have been months in the making. NO, silly! They are not that elaborate. The story has been developing over the past several months. The Easter Bunny gave The Short Chic a Disney Princess CD this past year. We listen to it a lot. And being in gender roles BIG TIME, The Short Chic will only allow The Boy to sing along to songs that have a boy in them. Quickly, A Whole New World  has become their song. So, she is Princess Jasmine and she asked her brother to be Aladdin. Here is my  her Aladdin! His costume was super easy. A pair of  old pants. His brown loafers. And two t-shirts. One purple, one brown. I just took a pair of scissors to the t-shirts and started cutting. I turned the purple one into a vest. I cut a ring around the brown one to make a belt. Do you a...

My Short Chic is planning to be Princess Jasmine for Halloween. My original plan was to dye her long hair with one of those spray cans that temporarily does the job. Then she cut her own hair (check that out here:  Operating Without a License ) and left me needing a back up plan. So, I decided to make a yarn wig. Can't be hard right? I gathered up some supplies: black yarn a frosting cap from my local beauty supply shop and a darning needle. If you have never seen a frosting cap, they are simple plastic cap that has holes all over it. It came with a little visor and neck flap that I cut off. It also comes with ties to tie the cap under your chin. I have yet to decide if I am going to use these or not, so I have not cut them off. The first step was to figure out how long the hair needed to be. Then double it. I was planning to go in one hole of the frosting cap and out another.  Luckily for me, my kitchen island was just the perfect width....

I know!  I am sorry I am talking about winter when we are only half way through Autumn. But the weather is getting colder. We even turned our heat on this past week. The leaves are falling from the trees. The days are shorter than they were. As the temperatures dip lower, you can't help but wonder what type of winter will we have? Will it be snowy? Icy  Could we get lucky and have a mild winter? There is an old farmer's tale that a fruit can tell us what type of winter we will have. The fruit is a persimmon. The farmer's tale says that if you cut a persimmon seed in half you will see either a fork, a spoon, or a knife.  If you see a fork , you are likely to experience a mild winter with light, soft, dry snow.   If you see a spoon , you are likely to experience a hard winter. With lots of heavy snow, therefore needing a shovel (spoon). If you see a knife , you are likely to experience hard winds and ice, that will cut right through you.  Toda...

This may sound like a commercial but I have to admit, I met my husband on Match.com. my Pinterest inspired anniversary photo! The year was 2005. I had been a single mom since 1998 and I was ready to share my life with someone. But, being a single mom, my only interaction was with people at work. (Have I told you all I am social worker? Which means I work with mostly women!) I was done with bar scene. I did not have an endless supply of single friends to introduce me to their single friends. And to top if off, the pizza delivery guys were just too young for me. So, I put an ad on Match.com. Online I became SassyShoeDiva. My first night I did a quick search of men who lived within 10 miles on my home and I found KCHarleyGuy. I winked at him. The next day, he emailed me. But so did a lot of other men. It was kinda overwhelming. But this one stood out. We spent a lot of time chatting, emailing, and talking on the phone. KCHarleyGuy's bike. Taken at the first bi...

THIS GIVEAWAY HAS CLOSED!  You can still visit TuTu Cute by Marie for some awesome tutu's. She will even do custom orders! I am so excited to be doing my very first ever blog GIVEAWAY and I am even more excited that Marie has agreed to be a part of it! First of all, I have a confession to make. I absolutely love tutu's! I was never a dancer myself and maybe that is why I love them so much. Anyone can be a dancer when they have a tutu! Maybe that is part of the attraction for me, they are just magical. Anything is possible in a fantasy world. To help me celebrate my upcoming one year post chemo milestone, Marie from  TuTu Cute by Marie  has volunteered to giveaway a Tinker Bell inspired tutu created by her. Marie's collection of tutu's are available for anyone to see on her Facebook page,  TuTu Cute by Marie . My personal favorite is the black/pink/Minnie Mouse, but if I am honest they are all TuTu Cute! Marie chose to giveaway t...

I made good use of the day to decorate for the upcoming spooky event called HALLOWEEN! I have spent so much time focusing on The Short Chic's bedroom,I neglected Halloween.  I found that most of the good decorations are gone! The aisles at Michaels and Hobby Lobby are full of Christmas. I pulled out all of my Halloween storage boxes yesterday and started digging in. Right in the middle of box two, The Short Chic brought over three of her little neighborhood friends. The oldest one took one look at my living room and said, "Man, your house is messy!"  What I really wanted to say to this pint sized adult is that she should learn to not speak so freely in strangers homes, but what I said out loud is, "Well, yes, I am in the process of decorating." So today, I have decorated and cleaned. I put the football games on three different TV's and wondered around the house from one project to the next. In the end, my house is clean. And spooky! Normally m...

Drumroll please! After nearly two months of working on this project, I am calling it good. (well maybe not, but for my husband's benefit today I am calling it good!) My daughter, The Short Chic, is three and half years old. Up to the point of starting this project, she did not sleep in her own bed. She slept with my husband and I. In an attempt to whoo her into her own bedroom, I decided to give her a "new" bedroom. Her "old" bedroom was smaller. Way too small for her and all of her toys. So, I turned my spare bedroom into her "new" bedroom.  Her favorite colors are orange and green. One day watching television, I saw an advertisement.  I have no idea what the ad was for, I was fixated on the painting in the background. Thank goodness for DVR, I immediately paused the image and sat staring at it forever. A plan developed in my head. I cautiously emailed my husband and told him I wanted to paint diamonds onto my daughters room. It is a good...