SITS Blog-a-thon!!!

A few months ago, Heather and Tiffany started the blogging experiment that is The Secret in The Sauce, affectionately known as SITS, as a way for bloggers to get exposure and connect with other bloggers through comment love and support. I love SITS, and although I don't always get there as often as I like, I check in as often as I can, and I have met a lot of great bloggy ladies along the way. The following are my top 5 of the hundreds (probably thousands) of fabulous potential bloggy friends you could find at SITS.

Kathy, at Mama's Losin' It

Debbie, at This is the Life and now Blog Around the World

Stephanie at Live.Laugh.Love.

Lula, at Lulaville

~and~

John Deere Mom

Be sure to check in at the blog-a-thon! They are giving away fantastic prizes every hour, and a phenomenal grand prize to one of us who's linking up :)

Have a teriffic Tuesday!

~ my husband rocks! ~ fun!

Hello and happy Friday everybody!


How did MHR Fridays get started?



Austin is wonderful! He makes me laugh all the time, and he is such a good sport about waiting for me to run and get the camera so I can record our silliness for posterity :)

And he's such a hottie!!! (even as a cartoon!)



I love him, and I have missed him so much this week, I can't wait to see him this evening!

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If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Writer's Workshop! #1 Princess Jasmine

Ms. Mama Kat's Writer Workshop assignment for today:

4.) Write about a memory related to a holiday.

I spent hours that year watching my favorite movie of all time (all time was only nine years, but they were good years, and I had seen a lot of movies). I sang along with every song and I memorized every word of dialogue. All of my make-believe time was spent in Agrabah and every stuffed cat was named Raja.

When the time came to decide upon our Halloween costumes, it was a no-brainer! My mom and dad and sisters and I bundled into our mini-van and drove to the fabric store. We found the perfect flowing fabric for the sleeves and pant legs, and some wonderful stretchy jersey material for the bodice, cuffs and waistband. I helped cut the pattern pieces, and watched with rapt attnetion while Mom pinned and sewed them together, until I had to go to bed. Then came a stop at the toy store for the perfect Arabian accessories. A lovely scepter and jeweled headband completed the most beautiful costume I had ever imagined.

Halloween dawned bright and cold - freezing cold! If I remember correctly, it had even snowed that week. I put on long underwear beneath, but staunchly refused to cover my royal raiment with a coat - heaven forbid! I don't remember how the candy count compared with previous years, or if I couldn't feel my knees. I didn't care . . . I was a princess!

What a haul!!!

Ahhhh . . .

I have just returned from one of the most fabulous activities - curb shopping!!! In our area they have what they call clean-up days where twice a year people can put their junk out on the curb, and the city picks it up free of charge. This may not seem like an optimal situation for finding those little things we cannot do without, but you would not believe the things that some people throw away!

It starts out kind of like this:



and ends up:


I was first introduced to this fabulous pastime by my wonderful inlaws when I first moved to Iowa, and they let me tag along again tonight which was tremendously adventageous because I made out like a felon! The above picture is me sitting in the back of their van with half of my haul!

It was crazy fabulous!!!

The mother-lode includes:

a really nice wicker hamper, loads of throw pillows, tablecloths and cloth napkins, AN ELLIPTICAL MACHINE, several books, some great wreath forms, a huge, gorgeous clock! I'm in seventh heaven!

It's like the best garage-saling day ever - except everything was FREE!!!!!

I really need to get to bed, hope you have a great night :)

Birthday Tea Party at Jan & Tom's Place

Today is the day!

Autumn Afternoon Apple Tea Party

I absolutely adore fall, the colors, the scents, the weather . . . the food!!! One of my autumn faves are all the fresh apples! They combine the amazing colors and the delicious food!



Welcome to our Autumn Afternoon Apple Tea Party! Please sit down and make yourself comfortable! We have two different flavors of apple tea, you may enjoy it hot or iced. We also have apple cider, lemonade, and water if you prefer, although with the chilly breeze today, I don't expect to use much ice :)

Onto the good part:




Papaya Green Apple Salsa w/ Cinnamon Chips


Chilled Green Apple Soup


Apple Chicken Salad Sandwiches


Apple Crisp

Of course you could always have one of these:

if you prefer!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed our Autumn Afternoon Apple Tea Party!



Be sure to stop by and wish Jan a happy birthday! :)

Wordful Wednesday: mud puddle and awesome campfire

If you remember, in this post I described the situation that led to the picture above:

"The place we ended up camping for the rest of the weekend belonged to some friends who were also camping out, and who just happened to have several horses and mules and donkeys, so we all got to go riding! The last time Hoss & I went riding was on our honeymoon in September, and it's an activity that we both really enjoy, so it was a nice surprise addition to our already fun weekend! The donkey that I was riding was older and not too keen on getting his feet wet, so he sidestepped each puddle, which wasn't that big of a deal except that it had been very rainy the week before, so there were puddles that took up the entire width of the trail. One of these trail-wide puddles was on a portion of the trail that was surrounded by trees. In his attempt to sidestep this particular puddle, he had to cross under some branches that were tall enough for him to get under, but not tall enough for the both of us to get under. Long story short, I ended up in the puddle!"

Another fun feature of that camping trip was the rainbow campfire:

This phenomenon occurs when you throw strings of colored Christmas lights onto the fire. I know that this is probably really environmentally terrible, but it looks really cool! All in all, a fun weekend with some great friends!

Wordful Wednesdays is hosted by Angie:

Thanks for reading!

Random Thoughts . . .

Ok, trying to plan my week a little bit, and I'm super excited.



I'm doing my "fall cleaning" this week, so I'm getting all of my to-do lists in order, and planning what I'll do when. I am definitely not a born-organized homekeeping whiz, so I'm doing a speed version of Sarah Mae's 31 Days to Clean between now and Friday (I'm doing 8 days today, Wednesday, and Thursday, and 7 on Friday :)). That means days 1 through 8 today. I've done most of them before, so I'm using my same priorities list, mission statement, etc. I'm mostly using it as a blueprint of where to clean/organize/declutter and in what order. I'll let you know how it goes!

I'm also very excited to try out some new recipes for tomorrow's Birthday Tea Party at Jan and Tom's Place! Tune in tomorrow for my fall-themed Apple Tea Party :)



Speaking of Jan & Tom's Place, today is Come to Jesus . . . and Pray. I am always encouraged by visiting their site, and Sarah at Burgeon who participates on a regular basis.

Also, I'm looking into this whole "Mystery Shopping" gig. Anyone have any experience with this? Is it just a hoax or does it really pay? I don't know . . . Sorry to be so random :)

Happy Tuesday everybody!


photo credits

Marriage Builder Monday

If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, then you know that I have a pretty high opinion of marriage. You probably also know that I feel as though marriage is tremendously undervalued in today's society, a fact that makes me alternately irate and deeply saddened. With that in mind, I enjoy participating and encouraging others to participate in blog events that prompt us to positively impact our marriages.



I have only been married for one year, but I have learned, even in such a short time, that a truly great marriage is the result of a lot of hard work. I would by no means say that Austin and I have achieved this in every way; however, we are both committed to each other and our marriage, and we both work to be better people and better spouses, with the help of God.

Our pastor's series the last couple of weeks has been on marriage and relationships (tying into the release of Fireproof), and he has made several wonderful points along the way. Here are a couple of my favorites:

~ Love has to be a daily decision because everyone is constantly changing and growing, so we have to decide, with God's help, to love our mates every day even in the midst of the changes.

~ Human love cannot always whether the storms of life or stand the test of time, so we have to depend upon the Lord to help us love the way he loves.

My Marriage Builders for the week of October 5-11:

1) Continue reading The Power of a Praying Wife.
2) Help him pack for his business trip.
3) Include daily trip notes in his bag.
4) Have a pecan pie waiting for him when he gets home :)

Hope everybody has a fabulous Monday! :)

My Favorite Things Monday ~ TempurPedic

Good morning and happy Monday, all! Hope everybody had a fabulous weekend! We enjoyed what will most likely be our last motorcycle trip of 2008 on Saturday. We drove around the countryside with our gang, the Wild Frogs! (lol, even saying that just makes me giggle :) ) We enjoyed lunch on the river, and the beautiful fall scenery. For 11 hours. No, that's not a typo. We literally rode the bikes for. eleven. hours. Which would have been fine, except we had forgotten to switch from our stock seat to our cushy after-market seat, so needless to say, our tushes hurt something awful by the end of the day. Not to sound like a complainer, but my joints were pretty sore, too, I understood the hips and knees and ankles, but elbows? I don't know . . .

All of this rambling does have a point. I promise. :) It brings me to a fun new meme I'm participating in:



When we got home from our gruelling ride, we got to go to bed. Which leads me to this week's "favorite thing>"

One of my new favorite things, our uber-fabulous, brand-new TempurPedic Deluxe Bed:

(We got just the matress and pillows, not the bed itself,

although I think the bed is beautiful,

they don't actually sell the headboards & footboards.)

We've had our new matress for a week, and it is phenomenal! They are everything the commercials say they are, which is very rare these days.

Both Austin and I have suffered from back pain, and on our old matress we would both have to shift positions frequently, and had quite a bit of trouble sleeping. The first night, Austin didn't sleep very well becuase we hadn't really broken it in, but every night since then, we've both slept better than we have in a long, long time! I never realized how much the quality of your sleep affects the quality of your days, but it is amazing. This new bed has been such a wonderful blessing!

Thanks for reading!

To participate in My Favorite Things Monday, or to read about more people's favorite things, visit Sarah at Everyday Elegance

~ my husband rocks! ~ Giveaway Winner!!!

How it all began . . .

It's Friday again, everybody!!! I'm so excited to reveal the winner of our uber-fabulous, first ever, My Husband Rocks/Austin & Katy's Anniversary Giveaway!

But before we get to that, I have to tell you more about my wonderful husband, Austin, and why he rocks!!!



Yesterday, I had a conversation with a co-worker that really excited me, and I could not wait to tell Austin about it, so as I was driving home for lunch I called his cell phone. I asked him if he had time to listen to my story, and he said yes, so I launch into a description of the conversation that could have inevitably taken up much of my hour-long lunch break. He listened and was excited with me, and about ten or fifteen minutes into the conversation he said, "I hate to go, honey, but I'm under a vanity, and I've got to finish plumbing in this sink."

!!!!! He had been working away, trying to be as quiet as possible, so that he could hear my silly story !!!! Do you see why I love this man!??!? :) He is so awesome!

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And now, the moment we've all been waiting for . . . .



I added up all the points of all the entrants, and the total came to 501 . . .

I plugged that number into the Random Number Generator (it's fun if you imagine that echoing, lol!) . . .

And the magic number was . . .

203!!!!

I went back throuth my MHR Giveaway Roster . . .

Added again until I got to 203 . . .

And the winner is . . .

***drumroll***

Stephanie!!!!!

Congratulations!

And honorable mentions have to go to Sarah Mae, Kay-Kay, and Kristi who played along the whole way through and earned the most "points" (41, 30, and 29 respectively)!

Thank you all for participating, and making it so much fun to be a part of My Husband Rocks! Fridays!!!

If you did not win this time, do not despair, the beautiful and talented Tara has generously offered some fabulous Cherish Bound prizes for our next giveaway which will take place as soon as we reach 150 participants!!! We are at 98 now, so invite your friends!

Scoot on over to Stephanie's place and give her some bloggy love congratulations!!! And don't forget to check in with everybody bragging on their hubby by clicking on the "My Husband Rocks Participants" button in the left sidebar.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

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If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

What everyone should know about their husband . . .

I found this quiz a looooooong time ago on Jenny's blog The Sound You Hear Is . . . LIVING, and I'd been such a blog slacker as of late, so I never got around to posting it! I thought it was appropriate for today, as today is the final day to enter our fabulous MHR/Austin & Katy's Anniversary Giveaway!

How Well Do You Know Your Husband?

(blast from the past dating pic, lol!)

1. Sitting in front of the TV, what's on the screen? Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, or Man v. Wild

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? No salad - Bacon Cheeseburger, every time! (If he got a salad, it would be ranch dressing)

3. What's one food he doesn't like? Seafood

4. You go out to a bar. What does he order? Long Island Iced Tea

5. Where did he go to high school? Homeschooled w/ Abeka curriculum then Public School for his senior year

6. What size shoe does he wear? 13 or 14 depending on the shoe

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Money, lol (inside joke, sorry)!

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Cold cut trio with mayo and lots of pickles

9. What would this person eat everyday if he could? A bowl of cereal. He pretty much does that already :)

10. What is his favorite cereal? Cinnamon Toast Crunch

11. What would he never wear? He's pretty brave where fashion is concerned, but I don't think he'd be too keen on wearing women's clothing, lol :)

12. What is his favorite sports team? default to Iowa State Cyclones (he's not a big sports guy)

13. Who will he vote for? John McCain

14. Who is his best friend? Me! Of course! His parents, sister, Craig, Tyler, and Michael probably come pretty close :)



15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Get involved in girly drama - I try so hard, but it just sucks me in!!! (That's a cop-out, I should try harder, it's not something I'm proud of!)

16. How many states has he lived in? 2ish

17.What is his heritage? DUTCH!!!

18. You bake him a cake for his birthday, what kind of cake? Chocolate cake w/ chocolate frosting, or strawberry cake w/ strawberry frosting

19. Did he play sports in high school? Soccer, I don't think he was in swim team in high school, but he was when he was younger.

20. What could he spend hours doing? Riding his motorcycle.

21. Does he belong to any men's organizations? Nope.

So, how'd I do honey?

If anybody wants to participate, let me know I'd love to see it! It may also earn you a few extra entries in the giveaway as well! *smiling slyly* :)

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Much Belated Award Acceptance

I am oh so very behind! I'm sorry my bloggy friends, please do not think that I have forgotten about you, or that I do not appreciate your love! You mean the world to me!

I have been utterly remiss in acknowledging some bloggy love . . . So, please, please visit these ladies!

Some time ago (on the same day!), I received comments informing me of awards from both Jan and Barb.



Jan graciously presented me with this Kreative Blogger Award, and along with it I am supposed to share 6 things that make me happy, so here goes:

1, My hubby :)
2. Spending time with family and friends
3. Traveling
4. Holiday food and decorations
5. Catching up with old friends
6. Children's laughter

I pass this AWARD onto:

Amy, at Photography by Amy Kay and My Life is Organized CHAOS!!
Tara, at Family Traditions . . . One Story at a Time
Melissa, at A Little Loveliness
Lisa, at Stop and Smell the Choloates
Nikki, at Project: Domestic Bliss
Alex, at My Quill and Pen



And Barb gifted me with the Perfect Friendship Blend Award.

This award comes with a questionnaire:

1. Do you have the same friends since childhood? I have lost touch with some of my friends, but since my parents still live in Colorado, they keep me updated on their lives, and the Internet is a fabulous way to keep in touch with many of my childhood friends.

2. What do you value most about your friends? I value friends who are honest and open and available to listen and talk or just do nothing but spend time together.

3. Are your friends your sounding boards? Absolutely! I have a very difficult time sorting things out in my head and treasure the opportunity to talk things out with my close friends.

4. What is your favorite activity to share with your friends? I love just being with people. But anything creative - scrapbooking, crocheting, quilting, craft projects - is always more fun with a friend! I also adore eating - whole meals or just a cup of tea, at home our out to a restaurant - makes for special bonding times :)

I consider all of you to be my very dear friends, but per the rules I would like to share this award with 4 of my special friends:

Alex, at My Quill & Pen
Sarah, at Burgeon
Sarah Mae, at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee
Anna Mae, atWhispers

Be sure to visit these ladies and give them lots of bloggy love :)


Thanks for reading!

Oh. My. Word.

If you have not yet seen the movie Fireproof, don't wait - go now!!!

Seriously. Now. Leave work. Drop your kids off with the grandparents. Grab your spouse. Go.

I guess you don't have to go right now, but I would highly recommend it!

With all of the junk that Hollywood is pumping out these days (now don't get me wrong, I love, love, love movies, in fact we watch at least 2 movies a week, but I know that there is not much redeeming value to them), it is so refreshing to see a movie that puts Christ boldly at the forefront of positive change in peoples' lives! I don't want to give anything away, but just wanted to let everyone who's on the fence know that I was there. I was afraid it was going to be another corny "Christian" flick, but it's fabulous, absolutely pheonomenal! If you have been, or if you go, leave a comment letting me know what you think! :)

Have a great day!