Man-Dates

Have you ever been out and seen a guy or talked to a guy at the store and thought to yourself...."Man.. he would really get along with my husband/boyfriend. They have alot in common."

You haven't? I have.

My husband has great friends. Friends that would do anything for him anytime. Friends he has known since high school and friends he has met at work. But who doesn't want new friends and to meet new people that you have stuff in common with? It makes life fun and keep things from getting boring.

I think my husband would love to find more friends that would live within walking distance of our house. A guy with kids our kids' ages who is about our age.Who doesn't want a bud to go walk down and drink some "Buds" with in his driveway?  But what guy really wants to be introduced by his wife/girlfriend  to some stranger or neighbor he's never met before? If  they both didn't know it was happening...mmm....they might.

Organize the South Side : Clothes

Sorry it's blurry but you get the idea. Those are bags and boxes of extra clothes/

My sister L wanted me to help her organize.... and she has stuff. Alot of stuff. And she does have a house but she wants to reduce the amount of stuff in that house and in her life. Ah... the whole metaphor for our houses representing our lives. Deep.

She has many categories we will be tackling:
-Clothes
-Shoes
-Bags
-Magazines
-Books
-Paper Stuff
-Kitchen Stuff
-Memorabilia
-Dog Stuff

Stack of t-shirts with logos

So she decided she wanted to start with her clothes. She has alot of clothes that are seasonal and she doesn't need in her closet all the time. First we went through all of the closets she has and put everything on the bed. We also lined up some plastic bins she bought from Target against the wall in her dining room.

The bins ended up being:
-Give away
-Maybe
-T-Shirts
-Memory clothes ( you know stuff you don't need or don't want or can't fit into but don't want to give away)
-Skinny Clothes(2x) ( clothes she wants to wear when she looses some weight)
-Winter Accessories ( hats, gloves, scarves)
-Kid Stuff ( like a hope chest)

We went through everything. She tried on almost everything. She used these very handy gray slimline hangers to make putting things back in her closet alot easier.   In her bedroom closet,  we put her work clothes: short sleeve on top and long on the bottom. In the front entryway closet, we put all jackets, hoodies, and coats.  Any long dresses or pants she didn't want to crease, we put in a hanging closet downstairs.


When we were all done that room you saw earlier looked like this..

I was a great first project and I can't wait to help her with the next  one which I think she said will be the kitchen.

Word of the Day: Momnipulator

(n) : a mom who uses her kid or flattery to make you think she's your friend (she really isn't) and she likes you (she really doesn't) so you will help her, do things for her, and not feel bad about it.

She's like a frenemy but worse because kids are involved.   Learn to spot them before they spot you :) This has been a pubic service announcement.

Places I want to visit: El Dorado Royale....oh how I miss you

Hola! This beautiful weather here in St.Louis makes me think of where I want to go on vacation.  That could be very soon or just some day. So I decided to start the " Places I want to visit " series.


One of those places is the El Dorado Royale in Rivera Maya, Mexico.  To be fair, we have been there before back in 2004.  It was such a good experience that I would like to go back someday. It was really great. The flight was nice and short (4 hours) the bus ride to the resort was not too bad (45minutes)

View from main building looking towards the ocean.

The resort was visually beautiful and clean and sparkly. The staff was very friendly and I never felt weird or cautious. We had a beach view room with a king bed and jacuzzi tub. And a comfy blue hammock on the balcony.

Main Building

The restaurants were great. There was a fresh breakfast buffet with fresh omelets every morning and mimosas
(I mean...hello). There weren't any I was disappointed in.  It was just so nice to not have to cook for a whole week. Or do dishes. Or go grocery shopping.

Our building we stayed at

And did I mention that this is an adults only resort? yes....yes it is.  I love my kids more than anything in this world  but if I am going to leave them someday and go somewhere international. I don't want to be reminded that I miss them so much.  Nor do I want to hear anyone else's kid having a major meltdown. When we had gone there before we weren't even engaged so I didn't yet understand how relaxing that whole part could be.

J had flowers delivered to our room for our "dating" anniversary at the time.

Looking at the pictures now on the website and pictures from others we know that have gone... I can't believe how much the vegetation has grown and I'm sure how much else had changed in 8 years. There have been a few hurricanes that have blew in there since then and I'm sure they've tweaked things here and there.

Before we had kids, I compared every vacation we ever took, even our honeymoon, to the El Dorado Royale. It is  pricier than other places. But I would totally recommend it for an adult only mommy and daddy getaway.

 A photo of the beach and you can see the coral rocks so  you need beach shoes.

They did offer ( 8 years ago ) free shuttle down the road to Playa Del Carmen which is  beach town that is across from Cozumel and it is a great place to grab some food, drinks , and lots of great souvenirs.

A store in Playa Del Carmen.  That is all vanilla or tequila. Either way...yummy.

The whole street was totally pedestrian which was super nice.

Wish I was here ( and you too)

( I was in no way paid for this article. These are my own opinions. But if they want to give me a free trip, I wont say no!)

She LOVES ketchup

Little S LOVES ketchup. No really...she llllloooooovvvveeeeessss it. Like dips everything in it  loves it.  I'm all about the condiments: mayo, mustard, ranch dressing, honey mustard, and ketchup. But this girl can't get enough.  I'll ask her :

Me: S, do you want some hot dogs?
S:  (shakes head yes)  Ketchup!
Me: Yes, you can have ketchup with your hot dogs
S:  More ketchup!

Food is merely a transport for ketchup for S. Everything is made to get ketchup from the plate to her mouth.  we've tried to branch her out to mustard and she will but nothing like her beloved ketchup.

See...she really loves it. I'm a little scared.


And not to be outdone...K does love her mustard as well. She needed to pose too after she saw S's impromptu photo shoot.

What do you do with all those tickets?

So I had the key chains and  my husband , J, has the ticket stub collection.  Twenty plus years of tickets stubs shoved in an over sized  mug  first on his dresser, then on a self in our closet. There are tons of concerts and tons of sporting events. Some I was around for and a bunch I wasn't.

Close Up....Cardinal Games, Concerts, Blues Games

Again, why have a collection if you aren't going to look at it and enjoy it?

So last year for Father's day I had the brilliant idea of making a poster size collage out of all of them. I started out by very loosely laying them all out on the floor in as much of a rectangular shape as I could and measuring them. Then I went to Michaels armed with my 40% off coupon, as they have every week, and found a frame that was about the size I needed. Then I went to the framing counter and got a black mat to fit my frame. They have in stock and will cut for your plain old mat board. They don't have a ton of  choices but usually a clack, gray , off white  or white. Now if you want anything fancy, that'll cost you.

I wanted to have them in as close of chronological order as I could without looking all matchy-matchy. I wanted the colors, sizes, and shapes to all  blend together in a non-perfect way. Now I'm not going to lie, I had to sacrifice a few to get them into a already in stock frame. But when you have 30+ Cardinals game stubs, I let a couple of them go. I used photo square stickies to attach them in a non- permanent way at first but then they started to fall off so I had to reenforce them.  Now this hangs in the hallway of our finished basement and every time any of his friends comes over they look at it to see if they remember one of the concerts that they went to in high school.  Ahh...memory lane.

Here it is hanging downstairs in the hallway... sorry about the lights.

My giant pile of neverending stuff

Everyone has it. That oooonnnnneeeee spot in your house that you dump your stuff at when you get home. And no matter how much you try to keep it clean  it only lasts a day or two at the most. Why is that? Why can't we keep it clean?


Our spot is our dining room table.  It just collects everything. The mail gets put there, any bags of stuff we buy gets put there, Library books go there, stuff that needs attention (ironically) goes there, stuff K doesn't want S to get  goes there, my camera stays there, stuff that doesn't necessarily have a home goes there until we figure out where it goes or we can't see the top of the table at all.

I consider myself to be very organized. The rest of my house always is but that one.....stubborn....place.

ARGGHH!!(channeling Charlie Brown there)

It's just so annoying. It sits there mocking me as I pass by....." You're never going to get rid of me. Stop trying . I'm just going to keep growing and growing until I fall off the table!"

Sometimes if people are coming over and I need to clean ASAP, the stuff goes into bags and shoved somewhere until they leave.


But life just happens and I can't keep up with it. I just don't think you can get by without some spot in your house where you can dump stuff.  I know some people have a bin or a basket or a box but that's still a dumping spot. If any of you can do it... please.... tell me how to make it stop.