Rocking Out With My Bestie

So twice a year I get to go and truly get my rock on. The International Gem and Jewelry Show comes to Collinsville, IL, and this year I can honestly say that I got to go BOTH times! Seriously, this is like getting Christmas three times a year for me, Rock Christmas and then regular Christmas. At all of the Christmas's I get presents! The Rock shows I get to pick out my own gifts, which I totally love!

Just .01% of the show

International Gem and Jewelry Show Link

Ever since I was a little girl I was a rock hound. Rock Hound, noun, informal meaning, a geologist or an amateur collector of rocks, fossils, or minerals. Ever since I could remember I was drawn in by rocks; their sizes, shapes, different colors, all of that captured me and hung on to my soul. I remember when I was young having so many that I had stacks upon stacks of egg cartons in my closet and each little egg holder had a rock or two in it. I had books on rocks, at one time had a rock tumbler, and a microscope so that I could look at the rocks and find the difference between them all. It shouldn't surprise any of you that I had my GIA certification in colored gemstones, but since you have to get re certified every year that didn't last long. My love for rocks, fossils and minerals has never ceased or even slowed down. In fact I am taken in even more by everything rock related. Maybe in a past life I was a geologist, if it paid better I'd probably be one in this life too.

So this is moonstone, just one of my three birthstones. I ended up buying one of the multicolored strands

Just one of the hundreds of cases of jewelry

If you can't find something to suit your fancy, then I don't know what to say
 because seriously they have EVERYTHING!

They even have rock trinkets if you aren't into jewelry

This is a jasper ink bowl, it was $7. I totally should have bought one.

Petoskey Stone or Fossilized Coral

This is what you can expect to see at any one of the bead tables

OMG! I could have stayed at this vendor for HOURS. He had matching
Jasper pairs!! This was the Intrinsic Trading table and he had a TON of beautiful rocks!

So my three favorite vendors at the show are as listed:

Intrinsic Trading - if you are ever in Round Rock, TX you need to go see these people!

intrinsic-trading-round-rock

Holy & Pure Gemstone Inc - I really liked their merchandise

holygemstone 

and Sun Light Gems - this man's off white chalcedony was to DIE FOR!

sunlightgems

So after three hours, yes three, and I could have easily spent six hours in there. After three hours I had reached my limit and spent my wad. I only went $15 over my budget too, which considering I was in the mother of all candy stores for me is pretty darn good! I totally should have gotten that square off white chalcedony strand! 0.o Oh well, maybe next time, it's not like I don't have Reena's card. So what is the best way to decompress from three hours worth of hunting and searching for THE MOST PERFECT scores? Mexican food, yes, the answer is always Mexican food and Margaritas just in case you weren't sure. 

KID YOU NOT THIS WAS THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD EVER!

If you are ever in Collinsville, IL and you have a hankering for Mexican food you need to stop in to Zapata's and order either a California Burrito or a Chicken Enchilada! Both were amazing! Seriously if I lived closer I'd be fatter for sure. 

My bestie had a regular margarita and I had an Italian margarita.
Italian margarita has a shot of Amaretto and it's lined with sugar instead of salt.

Obviously I couldn't finish this by myself so I needed help.
Next time I'll order the SMALL one. 0.o

So what did I add today to my ever growing collection? These days I'm keeping it small since I seriously have three or four HUGE boxes of rocks, fossils and mineral specimens out in the garage that haven't seen the light of day in about six year. Little ones and rocks do not mix, trust me on that one. 

My SCORE!

So I got some pewter findings for a $1 a strand, seriously this is awesome! I got a Tiger's Eye Strand for $7, not to shabby. I bought a 7'' strand of Kyanite 8mm beads for freakin' $15! A STEAL and the kid told me I was gorgeous so I'll take that any day of the week! I bought a strand of those heavenly multi-colored Moonstones for $30. It was worth it, that stand was EASILY $75-$85 strand. That was my big splurge. Also on my grocery list of gemstone strands was Picasso Jasper/Marble and picked that up for a song at $5, a Pietersite strand and the Petoskey Stone coral strand for around $8 a piece. Also not too shabby, then went back to the Sunlight Gems table again for the second time and picked up a beautiful strand of labradorite for $15. Plus with my two pairs of matching Picasso Jasper sets at $7.50 a set I was done. And last but not least my little Jasper Buddha for $6. The kid that told me I was gorgeous asked me how much I paid for the little guy and I beamed and told him he was only $6, to which he told me that was a good price. Thank you handsome young man, but I knew that already. He also doubles as a bead, but I'm not ever going to be rocking him around my neck. Pun intended.

So that was my awesome morning at the Gem and Jewelry show with Noelle and Jen, followed by lunch, a lovely birthday party over at Roo's best friends house and then dinner over at the neighbors. The company and the food today was just amazing and now I'm about ready to keel over from exhaustion. I hope what I typed makes sense to everyone. So without further ado I hear my bed calling my name quietly from upstairs. So on that note, have a great rest of the weekend! This mama is off to get some much needed rest!

Sunday Soup Recipe: Creamy Curried Vegetable Soup

Anyone who knows me knows that I can bake...and I'm even kinda good at baking. Any novice knows that baking and cooking are NOT the same thing. While you can be good at one, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are good at the other. I can hold my own in the kitchen when I'm asked to cook which, luckily for me, isn't very often. My husband likes to cook and maybe he even cooks out of necessity. In our house it's either cook or watch the kids. Clean up the dishes or give the kids a bath. Usually I'm watching the kids while he cooks and then they go into the tub for a dip while he cleans up.   I think that's a pretty fair shake don't you? Well, I have decided that now is a good a time as any to really start honing my cooking skills. I'm going to attempt to cook at least one night a week. I see my mother smiling from here. The only way to learn the art of cooking is by doing right? Right. So here it goes.

So sometime last year if memory serves I stumbled upon a soup recipe that looked pretty tasty, so I decided to give it a go; problem was that when I looked in our fridge we didn't have ALL the ingredients listed in the recipe. Crap! So in total "Keva Fashion" I improvised and sure enough it turned out pretty freakin' tasty! Even Mitch asked for seconds when I brought my somewhat off the cuff soup to the table. My littles ate it and loved it too! Granted, they eat whatever we put in front of them. Our kitchen is not a short order kitchen. If you don't like what we serve, you don't eat. This does not include when guests come over, but when it's just us...that's how it goes in our house. On this occasion that didn't even come into play! So yesterday I decided to give the soup recipe another go and put it out here for all you fine readers.  So here it goes: My Creamy Curried Vegetable Soup

All the ingredients you'll need

Ingredients

1 bell pepper (yellow, orange or red)

2 Tbsp of olive oil

1 small onion- yellow

3 medium garlic cloves

Salt and pepper for taste

Fresh Thyme

A big dash of Paprika (1 tbsp +)

4 cups of chicken/vegetable stock

1 medium to large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

Half to ¾ head of Cauliflower, core removed and chopped

1 apple cored and chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

Curry powder to taste (1 tbsp +)

Preheat broiler on high. Cut one bell pepper in half and place it on a foil sheet

Broil until it blisters and blackens, in my oven this takes about 6 minutes

Next, put your olive oil in a sauce pan and put in the onion, garlic, and carrots

This is what it should look like when you are ready to add the salt, pepper, thyme and paprika

Next you pour in the 4 cups of chicken stock, you can also substitute vegetable stock if you'd like

Add in your sweet potato and your cauliflower, bring to a rolling boil, and then let it simmer

After your vegetables are tender add in your apple and your bell pepper

Time to break out the blender that's stashed away in the pantry

This is what it should look like once you've blended it to death, don't forget to add in the Curry

Et Viola! Creamy Curried Vegetable Soup

I haven't figured out how to put this into an easy printable version so please just cut and paste the recipe below into a Word Document and you should be able to print this off if you'd like.

Creamy Curried Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

1 bell pepper (yellow, orange or red)

2 Tbsp of olive oil

1 small onion- yellow

3 medium garlic cloves

Salt and pepper for taste

Fresh Thyme

A big dash of Paprika (1 tbsp +)

4 cups of chicken/vegetable stock 

1 medium to large sweet potato, peeled and chopped

Half to ¾ head of Cauliflower, core removed and chopped

1 apple cored and chopped

2 large carrots, peeled and chopped

Curry powder to taste (1 tbsp +)

Preheat broiler to high. Cut pepper in half and place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Place the peppers on the shelf about 4 inches below the heating element and broil until blistered and blackened. Remove, set aside to rest until cool to the touch.  Once cooled, use a knife to peel off blackened skin under running water. Coarsely chop the peppers and set aside.

In a heavy saucepan, heat the 2 tbsp of oil over medium heat until shimmering, add onion, garlic and carrots and cook until onion is transparent and carrots are tender, stirring often, about 4 minutes. Add salt and pepper, thyme, and paprika. Add chicken stock and bring to a rolling boil, add sweet potato and cauliflower, then bring back to a rolling boil.  Next lower to a simmer and cook until vegetables are tender. Add Apples and bell peppers. Puree in batches in a food processor or blender until very smooth. Return to pot and add Curry Powder to taste. Keep warm on low heat until ready to serve.

 Enjoy! 

Ode to the Mix Tape

I’m not sure if you were this kind of kid, but I was the kind that would wait by the radio for hours to hear THAT song on the radio, for the one that I had been waiting forever to hear. It would drive me crazy if the announcer talked over the first couple bars of the song! Oh how I would try and hit the record button at just the right time and have just enough space between the songs so that when I was done I had the most perfect mixed tape.

It’s funny how even after thirty years not much has changed when it comes to mix tapes. Now we have digital music that I can just download off of iTunes. Granted, before the music was free, but I had to pay with my time. Now the music costs, but I don’t have to spend more than a couple of seconds to download a song.

I’ve always loved music. Ever since I was little I could hear a song and within a couple times of hearing it knew all the lyrics. I don’t know about you, but if I couldn’t figure out the lyrics, I’d play my mixed tape and listen to the song, stop it, rewind it, and play it all over again until I wrote down all the lyrics. After I got done with that I definitely would know all the words to any song I chose to study.

 I can’t play an instrument or read music to save my life. Michelle Blankenship tried to teach me way back in the day when I was in like in 1^st or 2^nd grade, but after that I just gave up on it. Regardless of whether I could read it or not I would envelope myself in music anytime I got the chance. Music sets my soul free. I’d rather listen to music then watch television. My tastes range from Heavy Metal like Metallica to Instrumental music like Chris Botti. I will listen to just about anything except NWA. I find Eminem an artistic genius and find George Winston an inspiration.

I sometimes find it hard to find something to write about, but earlier this week my mom was down from Houghton and we got to talking about music. She introduced me to Meghan Trainor, she’s a hot new artist and her newest song came out a bit ago and it’s called ‘All about the Bass.’ It’s a catchy tune with a cute message about being a curvy girl and being okay with what God gave you in the booty dept. The first time I saw the video and listened to the lyrics I was giggling. She’s quite a clever girl. Mom was happy that she, MY mother, introduced ME to some music that I hadn’t heard before. I was glad to hear such a cute song, with such a powerful message.

Here it is for your viewing & listening pleasure: All about the Bass

As we got on with the evening we got to talking about music and how she ran out of the house so fast on her way to come down here that she didn’t pack any music! The whole way down here she just channel hopped! So being the mix tape girl I went downstairs and downloaded Meghan Trainor. I must admit I was kind of disappointed to only find 4 songs. I also went thru our music library and gave her the newest Coldplay. My mother is a Coldplay fan, some OneRepublic, and burned her off two of her own mixed tape CD’s for great driving music which included her four Traitor songs. There is one thing that every road trip needs…and that is MUSIC! The longer the road trip the more music you need. Now I could have loaded her up with at least twelve different genres of music, but like me she can listen to the same music over and over again and not get tired.

Over the years I have made plenty of mixed tape cd’s for plenty of my loved ones and friends. It’s my love of music that I pass on to them. I enjoy sharing. I went All-State in Kindergarten for sharing! At least that’s what my mother tells me. *laughing* The music I give hopefully tells the person that I love and adore them. That I want to give them something that they will enjoy; that they will sing along to the music and in doing so will bring them joy. I pray that the music that I share with others makes them smile, and know that we have a connection thru that music. I heard somewhere that if a person gives you music it truly is the lyrics that you need to listen to, for the lyrics are the feelings that the person wants to convey to you.

In my life I have been given four mixed tapes or cd’s; all from the gentleman in my life at the time. I have to admit I don’t know if there is anything more personal to me music wise than a mixed tape. I HEART MIX TAPES! There is even a reference to the mix tape in the recent song Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Hero's featuring Adam Levine. In the movie ‘High Fidelity’ at the end John Cusack makes a mixed tape for his girlfriend. So in honor of the mixed tape I give you this:

Rob (played by John Cusack) the protagonist in Nick Hornby's 1995 novel High Fidelity, gives some of the most influential words of wisdom on how to make a good mix tape. As he puts it in the 2000 movie version, "The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem." High Fidelity mixtape refers to the book and movie High Fidelity, in which the music geek protagonist rants about the art of making a great compilation tape. Whether you are making a tape or a CD for your significant other, love interest, friend or family member, Hornby offers some advice.

Instructions

1. Start your tape with an attention grabber, then immediately take things up a notch.

2. "Cool if off a notch" after the first few songs so as not to blow all of your best songs too early.

3. Avoid having two songs by the same artist next to each other, unless the whole mix is organized in pairs.

4. To paraphrase what Hornby writes in High Fidelity, don't combine music by black artists, particularly Funk, Soul or Blues, with music by white musicians, unless the white music sounds like black music. This can be tricky, since "white" music has a tendency to borrow heavily from "black" music and, to a lesser extent, visa versa.

things-you-miss-about-mix-tapes

Just a few of my mix tape play lists for your reading pleasure:

My Relationship Mix
Mine Would Be you  by Blake Shelton
Ho Hey By The Lumineers
Where are you Now by Mumford & Sons
What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts
Compass by Lady Antebellum
Easy by Rascal Flatts and Natasha Bedingfield
Feel Again by OneRepublic
You're Gonna Miss This by Trace Adkins
It Won't Be Like This for Long by Darius Rucker
Have a Little Faith in Me by Jake Worthington
Stay by Rihanna
Mirrors by Justin Timberlake

Another good one for the ALL Country folks was:
Barefoot Blue Jean Night by Jake Owen
Knee Deep by Zac Brown Band feat. Jimmy Buffett
Smile by Uncle Kracker
Life is a Highway by Tom Cochrane
Take a Back Road by Rodney Atkins
Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts
God Gave Me You by Blake Shelton
Keep Me in Mind by Zac Brown Band
Hell On the Heart by Eric Church
Honey Bee by Blake Shelton
Just a Kiss by Lady Antebellum
We Owned the Night by Lady Antebellum
Something 'Bout a Woman by Lady Antebellum

And just for the Happy Crowd:
Happy by Pharrell Williams
Good Time by Owl City and Carly Ray
Wake Me Up by Avicill
Stereo Hearts by Gym Class Heroes featuring Adam Levine
Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell
Apology by SafetySuit
Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars
Compass by Lady Antebellum
Counting Stars by OneRepublic
Too Close by Alex Clare
Treasure by Bruno Mars

SO there you have it. My Ode to the Mix tape! 

Recipe: Hot Apple Cider

It was a beautiful foggy morning and I really wanted nothing more than some donuts and who doesn't like apple cider to go with your donuts?! If you haven't tried it, then I highly suggest you put that on your bucket list 'cause they are PRETTY DARN TASTY!

And so since we are still celebrating Sophie's birthday week we thought a trip the Dunkin' Donuts was totally in order.

Then once we had our fill of these sweet delicious treats Mitch asked if I wanted to make my annual Apple Cider to which I thought, "That was kinda what I had a hankerin' for this morning." So here is the following recipe for making Apple Cider. By the way, it will make your house smell incredible!

So you'll need to go to your closest grocery store and pick up a gallon or a half gallon of Apple Cider. In our house you just don't drink it like this, we doctor it to make it JUST right.

What you'll need:

2 oranges

2-4 lemons (this year I chose small lemons)

Before I start really prepping I give them a vinegar and water bath to get all the chemicals that might be on them off. I soak them for about 5-10 minutes.

You'll also need 3-4 cinnamon sticks and some whole cloves

If you don't have whole cloves you can just put a Tbsp of cloves into the cider.

Cut the oranges and the lemons and pop all the ingredients in the crock pot.

Once you've let that simmer on high for a good couple of hours then you'll be ready to take on those left over donuts from earlier in the morning. Note: I was kinda surprised we had any left too.

Enjoy!

Harvesting Herbs

One of the MANY things that my mother has taught me how to do over the years is how to harvest herbs. She and I truly believe that we were born in the wrong time period. We truly do enjoy the simple things in life. There’s nothing better for my soul then to turn off all of the electronics, all the noise of the world,  go outside, really “be” outside, and work. We have a lot of herbs in our garden and I’m truly blessed that Mitch likes to get his hands dirty too and garden. He also is big on fruit trees and bushes, which someday, we hope to have a ton of fruit baring trees and bushes…be it apple, pear, raspberry or blackberry. I want an orchard. Like an honest to God orchard. I have just the spot in my mind where I want to start my orchard too. Someday it will be glorious and quite the sight to see. But, we were talking about herbs not trees. Trees will come later.

In our garden we grow all sorts of herbs. We grow Basil, Thyme, Rosemary and Chives …. I also have a chocolate mint plant that we transplanted to the side of the house last year and that thing is growing like crazy! I swear the first time we bought it I was shocked at how small it was, but we were assured that mint will grow like gangbusters when you put it in the ground. So far, they weren’t kidding. We thought we killed it the first year because we cut it back so far, but it came back twice as big the next year. It hasn’t stopped taking up real estate since! Our mint is planted right next to our raspberries. Our raspberries also have grown by leaps and bounds and we have a lot of volunteer plants that have taken up root as well. Maybe someday we’ll have enough to put in a salad or use as toppings for my chocolate raspberry cookies that I make every year. A girl can dream right?

Herbs are so great to have in your gardens, they help keep away certain pests and they make great companion plants for tomatoes, green beans and other great veggies that you might want to serve to your family. Mitch is now starting to rotate out the summer garden for the fall one. We are going to try Broccoli, lettuce, spinach and I’m truly hoping for some carrots. Last year our carrots didn’t turn out so hot, but we had JUST enough to put into our tomato sauce that we can in the fall.  This year is going to be a big year for our tomato sauce! We’ve got a TON of tomatoes and we aren’t afraid to can them!

If you are interested in companion planting with herbs here’s a quick link to a whole entire list.

Companion Herb Listing

So for today’s herb harvesting we decided that our Basil was getting way out of hand and that it was time to harvest some and get it ready for our tomato sauce. A couple of years ago we went and bought a dehydrator from Rural King. God, we love that thing! Mitch uses it to make deer jerky too. We become dehydrating fools around this time of year. We decided that our five trays were not enough for our dehydrating needs so a trip was made back to the IL side to the Rural King in Waterloo to get more dehydrator trays. Seven trays really have to be enough you’d think to dehydrate the herbs in our garden…I think seven was the lucky number. 

Mitch and I harvest herbs a little differently. As I type this I’m laughing. He goes and just yanks them out of the ground, and I go out with a nice basket and some scissors and I cut them down at the bottom. He pulls them straight out of the ground by their roots and brings them in and puts them in the sink. At the end of the day the end result is the same, but the whole Mars vs. Venus really comes into play when we are talking about harvesting herbs at our house. He did a great job helping with harvesting the dill that I plucked out of the Kenner Plaza Garden. Drying dill, in my humble opinion, is a two person job anyway, at least in the beginning. I guess you can do it with one, if you are in a pinch, but it’s MUCH easier and quicker with four hands instead of two. We used all that dill when we pickled last month. It was a lot. Good to know how much we might need next year when we want to pickle again.

Basil

This year, Mitch had things to do and places to go with the two oldest so that meant that Claire and I had a couple of hours to ourselves to harvest our Basil. She was a great help even though she was still not feeling well. She was a good sport. I’ll take her help anytime. My thought on that is start them when they are young, young enough to still want to help, and still want to learn. That when they are older, they will have these skills along with the knowledge, and that can never be taken away from them. I truly want to raise my girls in a household where dirt is a good thing, where food is grown in the garden as much as possible and not merely gathered at the grocery store, where things are handmade with love, and attention to detail is always appreciated.

 

This is the kind that we use

Littlest Minion helping here mama out.

One huge bowl of Basil

This is what it should look like when you are spacing out the basil

You want to set it on the lowest setting. It took about 36 hours +/-

Before picture

After picture

Helping mom

AFTER helping mom!

So you can see that we’ve had a grand ol’ time. This will be used for a lot of different dishes throughout the year. A lot of this will go in our sauce. I will have to go get the mint here soon out of the side bed. It really makes some great tea! Roo loves it and asks for it constantly. Talk about a fresh cup of hot tea! Walk out the back door, make a right around the corner and you’ve got chocolate mint for tea at your fingertips. The next time you see me, ask me to bring you some from home. I’ll be more than happy to share! 

Home is where your "base" is...

 So we've already established that I, Keva Bartnick, am a serious Pinterest JUNKIE. The first thing to do is admit that you have a problem right? Right. Or so I've been told...0.o In my Pinterest wanderings I came across this little gem. Okay, NOT MY STYLE, but me being the crafty sort of person that I am totally saw the potential in this to make something NOT so 0.o <--that's my one eye brow raised icon and more my speed. This below screams 2014. I go for the more classic approach. Something that won't go out of style so quickly.

SO 2014

So with the handy men in my family (AKA my father-in-law and Mitch) I said, "HEY! So I've got this idea. Can we do *insert showing them the picture above* this?!"<--this is how it always starts.  I'm just glad they like me a little bit to go ahead and amuse me. It also gives my dear father-in-law a fun project that drives him into the basement and my mother-in-law I'm quite sure might be a little happy about this herself. Don't quote me on that, but I can see how that might be the case. The second thing you have to do is make sure that it is to scale. So another conversation needs to take place. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Hey babe!? 

Mitch: Yeah........

Me: So you know that base thing? 

Mitch: Yeahhhhhh......

Me: How do you suggest we do that?

Mitch: I know a guy that I can borrow one from. 

It's the real deal, same size base, it'll work. We'll

make a cardboard cut out and take that to my dad, 

and that way he has a template to go off of.

ME: SWEET!

So once we got the wood cut out, painted with primer then it was time for the stitches.

If you've ever had to figure out how to get a perfect half circle for a home base plate, think no further. I have the solution. Took us a couple of minutes to figure out WHAT IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH would be THAT big that could we use?! Et Viola! One standing round fan cover; the isolating kind! Seriously, it was the only thing in the house that we had that was big and round and worked. Necessity is the mother of invention! Think outside the box... and we did. Now the stitching on this bad boy took some time. All, and I mean ALL of those stitches are the same width apart and the same length. Go big or go home when you do a project like this. If you are going to do it make it look REAL!

Next you have to add the HOME

Home is where your base is....

So to get this to look this way, you need a black and white printer, some paper, a word document, and a pencil. Type in the word home onto the Word doc, change the size to fit what you need, choose your font to suit your needs, and hit print. Then once you are done with that...take the piece of paper to the closest window and tape it so the printed side is facing outside. Your word "Home" will show up clear as day, just backwards. Start tracing around your backwards "Home" with your pencil. The graphite in the pencil is going to be what you use to transfer when your are done with all of your letters. So now that you've outlined all of our letters, go back to your base and place the sheet of paper facing right side up. Get it even and where you want your home to show up. Then trace over the "Home" again on the side facing right side up. When you press down the graphite from the first go around will transfer to your white surface. When you are finished and you remove your sheet of paper you will have the same font you just traced! Then all you have to do is lightly trace around it again and start painting! 

So I liked this, but it needed to POP!

Once I was done with the whole thing, all the letters were on this I realized it needed something. It needed to POP! So I grabbed what was around which was a fine tipped Sharpie marker. It did the trick!

This was the end result.

So this still needs a coat of polyurethane on it and some brackets on the back so they can hang it on the wall, but all in all I'd stay this project is done. It conveys a simplicity that I like and I truly believe that it will be loved by my bestie and her hubby for some years to come. PLUS it doesn't scream 2014 and I don't have to figure out how to put a damn bow on it! 0.o You're welcome Brad! LOL!

BTW, Happy 37th Birthday Jen! This is just one of your gifts. You know me I can't wait till the 9th!

I know you'll someday have a baseball room OR better yet you can hang this one on your door and you'll be the talk of the neighborhood when the Cardinals go to the Championships this year and hopefully the World SERIES! Love you Bestie!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

P.S. In doing this blogging thing I have realized that I NEED my own wood shop! JUST an observation.