There’s something about long weekends that make me want to grill out.  Memorial Day Weekend, Fourth of July, Labor Day…it’s like the heat outside isn’t enough, so we all just want to sweat over a hot grill.  I don’t know what it is honestly, but I also find myself wanting pies….lots and lots of pies.  Which completely counteracts all of my efforts at the gym…but whatever, it’s a holiday right?!

I posted a couple of recipes awhile ago that I think are worth pulling back out for this holiday weekend.  I’m telling you today because in case you’re a planner (unlike myself) you might want to hit the grocery store tonight before all the weekend traffic makes it insane and everyone else buys up all the goodies I’m about to suggest that you make.

First off is Ribs.  Baby back ribs that fall off the bone and are so good they make you want to smack your momma.  Ok…so maybe they won’t make you want to smack your momma, but what I’m saying is that they’re so good they make you a little crazy.  Which you’d have to be to actually smack you momma I’m thinking.

Anyhow…make them.  They are good, and you will love them.  Your friends that you’re hanging out with over the weekend will love them too…and subsequently they will probably love you more for making them. HERE is the recipe.  I even took pictures along the way to make it easier to follow in case the idea of ribs intimidate you.

No holiday weekend meal is complete though without dessert.  I personally don’t think you will always have your life for dessert if you don’t ever actually eat a dessert.  🙂 This one is seriously a favorite of mine…an all-time favorite. HERE is this recipe for my most favorite Classic Key Lime Pie.

My friend Amber called to ask me for some thoughts on pies yesterday, and we ended up talking about her menu for this weekend.  This is pretty much the menu I recommended…and lo and behold she called me from the store today making sure she was getting the right stuff.  And it got me to thinking…maybe there are more of you hemming and hawing over what to make and would just like a good suggestion.  Well, here you go.

Best part about both of these recipes is that the bulk of the cooking can be done ahead.  For the ribs, all you’ll have to do when your guests arrive is toss them on the grill since you will have done the pre-baking part earlier in the day.  And the pie is best made in the morning or night before so that it sets up really well.

In my opinion, the key to easy and seamless entertaining (and the kind where you actually have fun too) is to do as much as you can in advance of having guests arrive.  Set your table early in the day, pre-select serving platters for your food items and put sticky notes in the center of each one reminding you what dish goes where, make your drinks ahead, cook as much as humanly possible ahead, and the real key is selecting a menu that allows you to do that.  By the time people arrive, whatever didn’t get done…let it go.  It’s always better to enjoy the people coming than to stress about the things they’ll never even realize were “supposed to happen.”

Come back tomorrow too. I have a really hilariously fun craft/meal to share that your kids will LOVE!  Ok…you will love it too.  I did.  There’s just something fun about kid stuff that makes me want to be a kid again too!

Guess what I got just in time to celebrate my 33rd birthday this past weekend?!  It’s something I’ve never had…like, at all.  I guess I’ve been pretty lucky to have made it this far in my life without it, and now that I’ve got it, I have to be honest and say that I haven’t missed it.  It’s not an ipad, or a pony, or a new vacuum…no friends, nothing so pleasant.

For my birthday… I got acne.

Source

Seriously…acne.  Like I’m 14.  But I never had it when I was 14.  In fact, I’ve never had it at all.  Sure I’ve had the occasional obvious pimple on the tip of my nose right before a dance in high school, or one giant blemish between my eyes just in time for a date function I’d been looking forward to in college.  I’m pretty sure I had one that was coverable on my chin just in time for my wedding, but this new widespread mess is completely new to me.  And I have a new-found sympathy for anyone who’s ever dealt with it!  It is awful!  It hurts, it’s hideous, and I can’t for the life of me figure out how it came or how to get rid of it!

Maybe it’s the new gym routine, or getting up earlier for school, or stress of having a kindergartener now, or some random shift of horomones….I have no clue, but I do need to figure out how to deal with it!

I bought $25 worth of Burts Bees acne medicine (I thought perhaps the natural route would be the way to go)…some salicylic acid spot treatment and a toner, and while that seems to kinda maybe help…it’s not going away!  So here I am…a year older and 75 pimples different!  Seriously…32 was fine.

And no…I’m not pregnant…and “that time of the month” isn’t the problem either.

One time, my friend Mck came to stay with me years ago and she had some Proactive with her.  She never really had bad skin, but she said it helped her keep her skin clear, so I thought if it worked for her…and for Jessica Simpson….then I should try it.  So I did…despite the fact that I didn’t have a single zit to speak of then.  I woke up the next morning with a completely red, dry, peeling face.  I looked like I had a chemical burn all over my face and it was that way for about 4 days.  Awesome.

All to say…at 33, it seems my face just ain’t what it used to be either!  Any suggestions on how to treat this mess from cyberspace out there?

UGH!

If only my skin was as easy to refinish as furniture!  Which brings me to the winner of the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint giveaway sponsored by Jennie Leigh Designs!  Congratulations to comment #116…

Rebecca Halberg!

Rebecca, email me your contact information, your wax and paint color choices and I’ll pass it along to Jennie to get you your paint!

for an EARTHQUAKE!

I’m not kidding you.  I was just standing in my kitchen checking email and my entire house started shaking.  At first I thought the dryer was off-balance and then I realized that my entire island was moving and the walls looked like they were wiggling.  A mirror on the wall was swinging back and forth. Then I thought…”WOW, that must have been a serious lemon poppyseed muffin for breakfast….Opium really must come from those things.” (ok…so not really…I didn’t have a poppyseed muffin for breakfast, but I really did wonder if I was hallucinating.)

So I did what everyone else did and jumped on facebook and Twitter to see if I was insane or if more people felt it too.

Being that I live in Greenville, SC…I’ve never felt an earthquake before.  It was weird.  My house was still shaking and I ran upstairs to grab my kids…Tid Bit came running out of his room scared to death and asking why everything was moving…then the tremors stopped, but I’m still shaking 5 minutes later.

Nothing like a little tectonic plate shifting to make you think you’re crazy and thankful for your life all at the same time.

Wouldn’t have minded having this hanging on a wall across from me when I felt everything shake.

Looks like it IS a good day for a Scripture art Giveaway from Red Letter Words!

Don’t forget to enter in today’s earlier post HERE!

I have had the most unbelievably busy day today.  Unsurprisingly to myself and also surprisingly to myself I have once again bitten off far more than I can actually chew.

I’m organizing a huge picnic for our church and by my own fault waited too long to get all the information that I needed…thus, running myself ragged trying to get things taken care of today.  And in all of my haste to accomplish everything I needed to do today, I had to drive thru McDonalds to get my kids lunch (something that I do more often than I’d care to actually admit.)

And don’t you know it, the wildly efficient and amazing McDonalds around the corner from us even serves food piping hot.  Which is great if you’re a grown up, but if you’re a 15 month old baby…then “hot hot hot” doesn’t fly.  So, I just thought I’d share my super handy trick for rapidly cooling food when you have hungry children and no time to spare waiting around.  This can also work for fries, tater tots, hamburgers…get creative…I’m telling you this method is amazing.

yes, those are chicken nuggets!

For really rapid cooling, crank your temperature down and your fan speed up.  I’m telling you…this method is cooling magic!

I’ve decided to take a break from the Glory Babies story for a tad…I’ll get back to it in the next couple of days though.  I have had a lot of my plate today though and not up to typing around in an emotional story…I know you understand.  Besides, I need to make sure that you all don’t worry and think I’ve gone all permanently serious on you either!

I do have to share something serious, neat, and prayer worthy with you today.

I have a really awesome brother.

Here he is.

That’s obviously me with him.  Isn’t he so cute?!  He’s single in case you have any fantabulous girls who love a guy in uniform.  She has to be UH-mazing though!  Don’t judge…he’s my brother…I’m protective!

Anyhow…see that big fatty aircraft carrier behind him?  Well, that’s the Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He had been on it for 8 months back a couple of years ago when this picture was taken.  That was April 18th, 2009 on the day that he got home.

Today, that awesome Navy sailor brother of mine deployed again and won’t be home til Christmas.

Source: MilitaryTimes.com

This time he’s on the George H.W. Bush and it’s a pretty big deal.  The Bush is one of the newest aircraft carriers and this cruise is it’s first combat deployment.  I just found a cool article about it in the Washington Post HERE if you want to read a bit more about it.  Get this…”Named for the nation’s 41st president, the $6.2 billion warship is the 10th and final in the Nimitz class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers first launched in 1972. They are the largest warships in the world.”  That little nugget is from the Associated Press.  I thought you’d find it interesting…mostly because I did.  This next link is a quick summary of what the Navy themselves say that the Bush will be doing for the next 6 months.  So if you’re fascinated by this too, then you can read that one HERE.

I’m telling you for a couple of reasons.  First and foremost is that I want to ask you to pray for my brother Landon (we like to call him Uncle Buds around here though.)  I don’t even care if you don’t like the military…you should still be thankful that they stick their necks out for you to keep our country safe, and the least you can do is pray for them.  There are over 6000 men and women on this cruise alone…that’s a lot of men and women floating around in dangerous waters to protect YOU!  And that’s not even counting all the thousands of others with different jobs out there.  So pray for them?!  Pray for him?!

If you do love the military and are like me, randomly accosting soldiered people in random places to thank them, then here’s a way that you can support them.  When these guys are on float (I’m including gals in the term “guys” here too,) they miss home something fierce.  The phone conversations have terrible connections and about a 5 second delay when they call from the ship, IF they get to call from the ship, and the internet for them is almost like dial-up.  My brother said it is seriously the bee’s knees to get packages with goodies.  Landon learned how to share pretty well when he was a kid, and as a result he shares really well when we send him stuff.  There are plenty of people out there who have noone sending them anything.  So…here’s where you come in.

I’m asking you to consider sending a letter or a package to my brother sometime over the next 6 months.  You can mail from the post office and even use the prepaid boxes filled with anything you want.  Baked goods travel well if you vacuum seal them, and any fun gum, candies, and other treats are always a blast for them to get.  I think Landon really liked when we sent him cans of ranch style baked beans last time too….I know…hilarious.  If you want to make sure that he shares (even though he would anyhow) then address the package to Landon Lane and friends.  And do me a favor…tell him you read my blog! 🙂

Don’t worry, I’ll remind you along the way and hopefully sometime you’ll jump on this bandwagon…you have no idea how far this sort of thing goes for them over there!

So here’s his address.  In case you’re wondering they get stuff usually in about a week to two weeks from when you mail it.

AD3 Lane, Landon
VFA-15
Unit 60143
FPO AE 09504-6201

So here’s you’re chance friends…send a sailor some love!  If you even have that one second where you think to yourself, “that’d be cool, I should totally do that.”  THEN DO IT!!!  I know he’ll appreciate it, and because he’s my brother I will too!

this post is gonna be short and sweet people….and probably completely visually uninteresting because i’m typing it on my phone. and i’m in texas right now, and it’s The Hubs’ birthday today too.

i wanted to tell you the winner from the comments on my UBP post was Ashlee!  The pretty earrings that I can’t show since I dont know how to do that from my phone are yours!  (as soon as i get back from Texas, and you email me your snail mail address to Loganberry7 at hotmail dot com.)

Congratulations Ashlee!  But to those of you who didn’t win….don’t fret.  I made those earrings and I can certainly make some more and have more giveaways!  Hopefully you will all keep coming back to find out!

thanks for stopping by!

– Logan

this post is gonna be short and sweet people….and probably completely visually uninteresting because i’m typing it on my phone. and i’m in texas right now, and it’s The Hubs’ birthday today too.

i wanted to tell you the winner from the comments on my UBP post was Ashlee!  The pretty earrings that I can’t show since I dont know how to do that from my phone are yours!  (as soon as i get back from Texas, and you email me your snail mail address to Loganberry7 at hotmail dot com.)

Congratulations Ashlee!  But to those of you who didn’t win….don’t fret.  I made those earrings and I can certainly make some more and have more giveaways!  Hopefully you will all keep coming back to find out!

thanks for stopping by!

– Logan

This morning over my completely-necessary-to-jump-start-my-day cup of coffee I was leafing through a few new magazines that we just got in the mail.  Frontgate, some random catalogue filled with silk flowers (NO idea how I got on that list…I’m still a silk flower skeptic,) and the newest J. Crew.

In 6th grade, I’m pretty sure that Jennifer Jahn dominated the Duckhead shorts and multicolored belt scene at my middle school.  Then by 7th grade, Stacey Price made the sueded silk shirt a “must-have” for all of us fashion conscious girls.  And in 8th grade, we were all about the baggy sweaters and colored leggings or stirrup pants….so awesome!  But thankfully by 9th grade I think The Limited must have headed us in a more classic direction, so by 10th grade I was really loving some J. Crew.

And ever since then I’ve always found something I liked there.

A few years ago though they jacked up their prices so I buy less there than I used to, but I still love to peruse the newest catalogues to make sure I’m not insanely out of fashion since I have little time to actually go into stores to try on clothes with 2 small boys!

SO today, happily sipping my coffee and feeling relatively decent as I compared the things I mix together from Old Navy and Kohls, I happen upon this….what I’d call a Fashion EMERGENCY!

<—-In case you just missed it, I went ahead and took a close-up shot for you to see for yourself.

WHAT?!  Are you kidding me?

Last time I saw this was a few months back when my sweet grandmother was wearing orange socks with her sandals.  And now here…in J. Crew?!

Clearly I’ve missed the fashion boat, but I think that’s really fine with me in this case!

So I read on and for the most part they redeemed themselves in the rest of the catalogue…until THIS!

Again, baffled.  All I could envision was something straight from Beverly Hills 90210 circa 1989-1990.

Looks like this year I may opt out of a few “fashion trends” very happily.

Next thing I know they’ll have boxer shorts hanging out the bottom of a pair of Umbro’s.  Sweet….

Happy Thursday!  Dying to know what you all think of these trends.  Is it just me, or does this seem awful to you too?!

– Logan

** Yesterday in my email inbox I got a notification from JCREW that said “A surprise in your March catalogue!”….I’ll say!  Had to post this hilarious addendum even a few days after this original post!