a little eye candy

as it seems I have fallen off the blogging wagon...

I turned this recipe into a scone recipe and now I am in love.

This week is kookier than kooky. The mister and I finally, finally, finally found a place of our own. It is almost as tiny as the casa de a-go-go but with more closets and a kitchen that won't have us bumping into each other. It is both a good thing and a scary thing as I still have not found consistent employment and the rent is high enough we're not sure we can afford internet so things may be trickling in dillydilly land. We move this Friday, wish us luck!

friday's confessional: july 8

Today's confession is a bit frivolous and not at all embarrassing or thought provoking. I could go there but I'm duking it out with some angry allergies and am far too tired to get wordy on you. Today's confession is all about gift wrap.

I love wrapping gifts. LOVE it. I think this is why I like giving gifts, the wrapping part. Once, I even wrapped my own birthday gifts. Yup, I'm that dorky. And did you know that I created coloriffic swap-o-rama purely for selfish reasons involving gift wrap?

I also like to plan a color theme for my holiday wrap. The planning begins in August (sometimes sooner). I've used record bowls, cereal boxes, cloth bags and glass bottles to wrap gifts in. Once, I even used a piñata.

Earlier this week, it was the mama-a-go-go's birthday. While I managed to tone it down for the gifts, I kinda went all out on the wrap. Color coordinated...of course (and sometimes chicken coordinated).

What geeky thing to you obsess over?

recipe: cake batter sugar buns

Do you remember this recipe? With a little yellow cake mix magic, I turned 'em into cake batter sugar buns! Sooo good!

 All you need is the crescent rolls that are round. You can of course make your own from scratch but those would prolly be just as delicious on their own. To make it all cake battery,  add a quarter cup of yellow cake mix to a cup or so of cream cheese frosting and prepare...make sure you seal the ends though. I had a bit of a mishap because I forgot to do this and well...at least it was pretty.

guest blogging: the pink couch

 I'm a guest-postin' over at The Pink Couch! Hop on over for some papery quilty goodness!

scenes from the 4th...

 mister a-go-go and I joined the sister a-go-go jr. & family for a July 4th picnic and fireworks adventure on the beach. With the adventure bag full of picnic food; quilt and camera in hand, we were off! I didn't actually take many pics and only wished I'd wandered up to main street with it in hand to capture the splendidity of red, white & blue. Instead, you get happy colors and sand...

 Earlier in the day there was a sandcastle contest. Most of the sculptures had been washed away and/or destroyed by the time we got there. It didn't stop the nephew from a lickity-split tour only an eight year old could deliver. He dashed about from one to the other faster than we could approach the first one. Reminded me of a zoo adventure with some nanny charges years ago. Ah, the attention span of a child who has many interests and too much to see. It was especially nice to see him holler out "Hey! That man is destroying the crab!" as we watched an adult kick in a sand sculpture with barely an expression on his face. Ah, humanity (I know, my punctuation is horrible, it always has been).

 I wandered up to the main street once to accompany the brother-a-go-go (in law) for a cuppa. The tiny coffee shop we wandered into had almost been cleaned out. I wish I had remembered to bring my travel mug as they were all out of lids. However the cup did make a nice receptacle for our cherry pits.

 And I only slightly regret drinking that coffee as I forgot about beverage consequences and the need to relieve one's bladdery-bits. Relievance of such kind is never a walk in the park when at a happily populated event and portable privacy chamber (pots). Have I told you how much I love my p-style? Seriously. I really do. If objects could be married to, this would be my honey-bunny. Girlie-friends, if you do not have one, you MUST remedy this (and you, my friend, consider yourself remedied, times two).

 The nephew a-go-go dug himself a fox-hole in which to observe the fireworks (which were spectacular). He spent the entire day digging away and assisted a neighboring group of older boys in a hole so deep it filled with water and we were quite a ways away from the waves. My favorite moment was overhearing him scold an older boy who was throwing, THROWING  a real honest-to-goodness sharp-tippy-tipped shovel as if it were a missile. His words were..."Dude, seriously, you need to stop throwing the shovel. Seriously!" The boy has been hanging around me too much.

hope your 4th of July and/or Monday was dandy!

july 4th: odds & ends wreath

I am quite tardy in this wreath making post. I don't even have tutorialized photos of the whole shebang. Truthfully, I was stuckity stuck on it for more than a week but it all came together (somewhat) just in the nick of time. Phew!

To begin with, I think I asked mr. a-go-go to cut too large a wreath shape for me. That is what I get when I answer "steering wheel sized" to the question of "how big"? I had the egg cartons all painted up and imagined them to be all fire-worky but when I liberated them from each other they looked less like fireworks and more like...painted egg cartons?

My next mistake was gluing on the crepe paper ruffle before I had a chance to wrap any yarn or string or twine around the large white donut thing. That kept me quite limity-limited.

I kept playing around with the cut egg carton bits placing them all the way around the wreath, stacking them on top of each other, clustering them to one side or the other...balancing them on my head as if they were tiny hats.

Thank goodness I rediscovered a small stack of small white doilies. I think the doilies saved the day. Rather than plan it all out, I kinda just dumped them in place added glue and hoped for the best.

I would really like to thank those cupcake liners. If not for them I do not think the egg carton bits would be making any appearance except of course as tiny hats. I should have planned a parade. So there ya go, a holiday wreath created from scavenged recyclables. A cardboard box for the wreath shape, stitched crepe paper trim and bow and a smattering of paper doilies, cupcake liners and tiny paper hats...er...egg carton cups.

Happy Fourth of July! May you have all sorts of pic-nic-y fun on pretty blankets with oodles of homebaked goodies, fresh fruit and lemonade.