September 26, 2012

 

Woo Hoo!! Wednesday

I'm so excited to finally be able to share this with you.

It's been hard keeping it a secret. I've been SO excited.

My friend TheMistressT  recently moved to Montana.  Boo because I miss her, but yeah because, ROAD TRIP!
You can read all about her (mis)adventures on her blog, Suddenly Surrounded by Taxidermy . Don't you just love that name!

Moving across town is stressful enough. But moving to another state with 2 dogs, 2 U-Hauls, and towing cars can be more stressful.
                                                 Picture courtesy of TheMistressT

I hatched a plan and sent messages to all her friends I could from her Facebook page. I had to be sneaky about it. I couldn't just come out and ask her for her friends email addresses.

One of her friends, Ellen, was fab! She immediately responded to my plan and said she would contact the embroidery group for me.  Yeah! Thank you Ellen :)

Here's my plan, sent via email:
I asked everyone to send a card, postcard or goodies to the post office in Montana. So when my friend and her man went to set everything up they would be surprised by FUN mail! I knew she'd only be expecting boring bills and junk mail.

My plan worked beautifully.
They were THRILLED! All those cards made them feel so loved :)

I'm hoping this idea spreads like wild fire.

Wouldn't you love it if someone did this for you ? I can tell you it gives you a wonderful feeling knowing you brightened someones day.

Text, email, Facbook it's all good. But there's something about receiving  a card.

If you like this idea, do it for someone you know or share this idea let me know. I would LOVE to hear about it. Fizzy Party on Facebook and Twitter 


Related: Fizzying Up Garage Sales 

September 19, 2012

 

Woo Hoo Wednesday! I won I WON

I won the Beautiful Blog Award !!!!!  Thank you Cupcake Crusaders  for nominating me for the Beautiful Blogger award and the fabulous things you said about my little blog. 

This is one of the things I love about the blogging community.. All the fabulous support we give each other.  

Lets get the legal stuff out of the way first, shall we?  
1. Thank the person/people who nominated you and link back to them in your post {check}
2. Share seven things about yourself. {check, see below}
3. Nominate bloggers you feel deserve this award {check, check and check}
4. Contact the chosen bloggers to let them know and link back to them {checkity check check}


Seven things about moi 

Ichi  I took 2 years of Japanese and did really well.  I tried to take Spanish and just couldn't get it. My friends all said Japanese seemed WAY harder than Spanish, but not for me.  When I was taking Japanese I could understand way more than I could speak.  Sadly  I haven't kept up with it so have forgotten pretty much all of it.  I can still read some, remember how to write in Hiragana and can count up to 100. I'm teaching you a little Japanese too. My numbers for all seven items are in Japanese. Ichi means one.  I'm thinking I need to start learning again.  Work out my brain, grow some more cells. 
Ni  Speaking of working out my brain, I love to lift weights too.  Any one who lifts weights knows that sore feeling you get two days later after a good work out.  I love that feeling. Where you start walking up the stairs and your legs are so sore from that hard work out you did but it feels SO good. Squats are one of my favorites.  The strength you feel in your legs. I use an Olympic barbell that weighs about 45 lbs by itself and I usually add on plates to bump the weight up.  I lift to fight osteoporosis, I want to be able to fall at 70 and just get a bad bruise, not break my hip. And I LOVE the feeling you get when you start out for example doing 3 sets of 15 reps of triceps kick backs with 15 lbs and graduating up to 3 sets of 15 reps with 25 lbs. There is no feeling like it. 

San  I'm a black cat girl.   Something about those bad luck little fur balls.  I've read they're less adoptable than any other color of cat. Good thing there's me to rescue them :)  Here's my little baby. He was 9 when we adopted him and to me he's the cutest thing ever! He's a Bombay and I love this breed. 

 Shi  I day dream about vacations all the time. I blame my love of travel on my parents.  We went some where ever year for vacation.  Montana, Florida, California, Washington, rented a motor-home and went to Utah, Arizona, Yellowstone etc.  Not just the same camp ground every summer like some of my friends did.  If you're going to blame your parents for something, I'm thinking this is a good thing to be blamed for.  In fact right now I'm already planning a trip to North Dakota.  My friend is, as I type this on her way to her new home in Montana.  She's not even in her new house yet and I'm already planning to stop at her place in Montana to pick her up and head to North and South Dakota.  She's totally game for this. 

Go  I use to beat the pants off my brother at Clue every time we played.  I don't know that he ever won :)  Although, he cleaned my clock at Monopoly.  I never could beat him at that game.  Do kids even play board games anymore?  Sad if they don't. They really should. 

Roku  One of the reasons I got into blogging was to interact with other like minded party peeps.  The community is wonderful and I've gotten to know some people who I would absolutely pop by and say Hey, wanna go get a cupcake?  if I was ever in their state.  The bonus of blogging is that I get to meet really great people who don't have blogs too.  I really enjoy chatting with you on Facebook, Twitter or here. So keep it up!

Nana  I haven't ran all summer {gasp}. Last year I ran in a lot of races and just about every day. This summer, meh. Just haven't.  I seriously need to get back to pounding the pavement though.  Such great cardio and I can keep eating cupcakes without any one being able to tell how many I eat ;)  HA HA

And the nominees are [drum roll, sound of envelope being opened]

The French Whisk  I found this girl on Facebook and enjoyed her site so much I had to check out her blog. It's full of great food and fun photo's.

Bakingdom Hilarious!  Her posts make me smile every time, she's a hoot! and I hope to capture some of her spirit as I write my posts too.  AND she lives one town over from me.  How cool is that. I'm trying to arrange a meeting but I think she's one busy lady.  Help me out little fizzy's, put in a good word for me.

The Partiologist  If I am ever in this girls state I am knocking on her door for sure and hoping she has a party going on.  Her blog is a joy to read and she is one creative party diva.  And have you seen her cookies? A-mazing. 

Which blogs would you nominate?

Always love when you leave some blogging love in the form of comments on here or Facebook. 

September 17, 2012

 

Go in for One, Come out with Another

This past weekend I was stalking the elusive new craze, the Candy Cane  Corn Oreo.  I keep saying Candy Cane instead of Candy Corn. Hmm, is there a Candy Cane Oreo?  Yep, I just Googled and sure enough there is.  Christmas is subconsciously seeping into my brain. NOOOooooo. I will NOT skip Halloween and Thanksgiving and zip right on to Christmas. 

The Candy Corn Oreo's are only available at Target.  Or Amazon if you're willing to wait for it to be shipped to you. I drove to the 2 Target's nearest me looking for them.  One didn't even have Halloween candy out yet and the other told me they sold out by noon the day they hit the shelves.  Now I work a day job so I didn't stand a chance. Sure, I could have driven to every Target around but I didn't need them that badly.
I did however find something that sounded tastier than the Candy Corn Oreo's (I'm not an Oreo's fan, *gasp*) Milky Way Caramel Apple mini's!  You know a bag of these leaped into my cart :)
They don't taste much different than a regular Milky Way. Caramely with a hint of apple taste on the back end.  Listen to me sounding all Master Chef like.  I'm a sucker for anything Limited Edition and holiday themed.  

If you were lucky enough to snag a bag of Candy Corn Oreo's let me know what you think about them.  
The Milky Way Caramel Apple mini's should be easier to find. Let me know what you think of those too. 
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Related: Pumpkin Everything 

September 7, 2012

 

The School of Entertaining is now in session

My friend who recently bought a house is all excited to start entertaining.  Something she felt she couldn't really do in her small apartment.  I for one am excited too. Someone else to throw the parties so I can sit back and enjoy.  I LOVE throwing parties, but lets face it, sometimes a party girl just wants to enjoy someone else's party.

School is now in session. Let the lessons begin.

LESSON #1  Just because you have an apartment and not a house doesn't mean you can't entertain.  I'm all about the mini party.  So all you apartment dwellers, throw a party. It doesn't have to be big. Your guests will have just as much fun.

Now my friend is a newbie to entertaining and will make rookie mistakes.  We all do, don't let any party diva tell you she doesn't make mistakes.  That's like an actress/model with a 10 for a body telling you she never works out.

My friend had been bragging for a month about how amazing her home-made pizza is. She sent out an email to me and another friend and the date was set.  I bet you're thinking the email invite is lesson #2. Nope. For an impromptu mini party, there were 4 of us including her husband and herself,  an email is just fine.

My friend set the time for 1:00 p.m. and said we'd have pizza and watch a movie.  Both of us arrived at 1:00 p.m. -ish but we didn't eat until 3:00 p.m.  My stomach was objecting.

LESSON#2 When you set a time for a party where you'll be cooking food for your guests you want to have it ready within 30 minutes to an an hour of your guests arrival.  Both of us were expecting to eat sooner.  The reason for the delay was my friend was giving a house tour. I had seen the house already. Problem was, it was the long side tracked version of the tour.

The pizza WAS delicious. She used Trader Joe's pizza dough, herb and something I think. We got to choose our ingredients.

This was really good pizza. After we ate pizza and salad we watched the movie. During the movie my friend decided to make cupcakes because it sounded good.


LESSON #3  Don't make cupcakes with an electric mixer while your friends are trying to watch a movie you invited them over to watch.  Neither of us could hear the movie while the mixer was going.
The other guest had to leave before the cupcakes were done because of the late start.  I stayed.

My friend has been trying to perfect this chocolate cupcake recipe from The Joy of Cooking  .  She's been tweaking it trying to make it richer and more chocolatey. Sadly, this batch was on the dry side.

Are you gasping that I would write all this about my friend. Aren't I worried she'll see this, you're thinking. Not at all. I already told my friend all of this.  She asked for advice and appreciates it because she knows without feedback, how else will she be able to perfect her entertaining. Plus all my friends know I'm known for my bluntness and not to ask me my opinion if they can't take it :)

September 5, 2012

 

Woo Hoo!! Wednesday

Shopping in the mall on Labor Day weekend I swung into Pottery Barn to grab a catalog.  I love flipping through those glossy pages and day dreaming about all the items I want.  I always circle everything I'm going to buy  dream about.  

Halloween is in the latest catalog and oooohh does Pottery Barn have some items on my lottery list.

These large and medium votive pumpkins look great gathered in bunches at the front door.  Naturally I would want 3 of the medium ones, $14.50 x's 3 = $43.50 and 3 large ones at $29.50 x's 3 = $88.50. So lets see that would be a total of ...only $132.00
These owl lanterns were in the catalog hanging on either side of the door way. They looked very fall and Halloweeny.  I'd want 3 to hang outside where our lanterns from Pottery Barn already hang. Three would run me $177
So my grand total would only be...$309.00 My lottery self could swing that easy.

(I do not get paid or receive free product from Pottery Barn. I just LOVE their Halloween/Fall items. Although IF Pottery Barn wanted me to brag up their products for a little something in return I would be more than happy)

Related: Woo Hoo! Wednesday. Halloween Entertaining

September 3, 2012

 

Fizzying up garage sales

Happy Labor Day weekend for all of you that have it off.  Did you hit the sales? Grill everyday? or just spend all 3 days vegging?  What ever you did I hope you enjoyed it.

I hit a few sales, spruced up the yard and vegged :) One thing I saw a lot of was garage sale signs. It was a sunny weekend to have them. I recently helped a friend with her garage sale.  Hers was HUGE. She's moving to Montana and wanted to sell anything she didn't really need.  Well of course we had to fizzy it up a little.  So I made cupcakes! For us and any of our friends who stopped by and maybe for her dog who  tried to help herself to one when we turned our backs :)

I made 2 different kinds.

I had to make the crab cupcakes because when one is moving from one state to another, one can get a little crabby :)
Recipe found here


The other cupcakes I made were Pink Lemonade because it's summer and summer is lemonade. Look at all those great items for sale.

Recipe found here

May your Labor Day be full of Leisure :)

Related: Woo Hoo! Wednesday, Off to Montana