Thursday, November 13, 2014



Oh My! Winter is coming and I am soooooo NOT ready for it. Yes, that would be a sheet of ICE on the top part of the pond there. It's gotten too cold, too quickly this year. I'm worried it's going to be a hard winter. Florida here I come? I wish! 

Tomorrow we are heading down to Madison to pick up half a cow! Not sure what we're going to do with half a cow? But it's grassfed, and free range. We are actually buying from the In-Laws of our nephew. We're making a weekend of it. BIL and SIL (parents of the nephew) are coming with us. They are buying the other half.....We'll tour the farm, and then we'll be hitting a few Wineries! YES!! It's all good, if wine's involved! 

Friday, November 07, 2014

Gotta Love Happy Mail Days

So excited! I got the final shipment from my first Campaign in today! LOVE all of it. The Sabrina Bag on the left will be my new go to bag for running around and that Make-up kit on the right is a Christmas gift for one of my girls.
This is one of the Eye-Shadow quads - in Stone Taupe. I wore this today and was quite pleased with it. 

Beyond Color Plumping Lip Color SPF 15 in Uptown Pink. This is a really nice Bold Pink!

 I also needed a good Night Cream. This is from their new Vitale line of Anew products. I received a day cream in my start-up kit and received a Cleanser in an earlier shipment from this campaign. So now I have a full set. 
 Also needed some Nail Products. Starting with Base Coat, Top Coat, and two Nailcolors. Barefoot Beige and Pastel Pink. I also received two other colors in my initial kit. Real Red and Berry Smooth. 
 In here we have a cute little Christmas Bundle of minis. Lotions, Bubble Bath and Chapsticks. I think I may offer a few of these in a giveaway soon. There's also a Nail Art kit in there for my daughter in Let it Snow. Snowmen and snowflakes. Should be fun for the Holidays!
 And who knew Avon carried a line of 3 wick Candles??! They even sell a couple of sleeves for them(which I didn't choose to purchase) I ordered two scents but unfortunately they were out of one of them. I hoping to order it again. This order was thru my Webstore which should have a different distribution center than where my regular orders come from, so I'm hoping I can get it with my Campaign 24 order. This one is Holiday Spice and smells divine..Like cinnamon rolls! The one I didn't get was Peppermint Cocoa.


Thursday, November 06, 2014

Long Time No Maggii!

Yes..I've fallen off the face of the earth, yet again! Who knows how long I'll be back THIS time! But I have so much I want to share. So much is going on these days!

First! I can't believe I never posted about this but Drama Teen-Not a Teen Anymore got engaged this past summer!! How could I have not posted about that?!
We are all super excited! Looks like they are planning for a Spring 2016 Wedding! Gives me a little time to plan!  

2. I never did share more of our England and Paris Trip. Will have to get on that!

3. Back in February I signed up as a Beach Body Coach. Yes ME. I'm working on finally losing that weight! I'll be 50 next April and my goal is to be in the best shape of my life by then. Only 5 months left. Need to get my butt in gear! I have just started another round of 21 Day Fix. It's one of the awesome workouts they promote. 7 different workouts. One for each day of the week. So you don't get bored. They are only 30 minutes. But they kick your butt. I'll be sharing progress pics soon. I'm also using Shakeology, which is their Nutritional Meal Replacement Shake. I'm actually thinking of doing a 3 Day cleanse with it. If so , I'll definitely share my results. You can buy the programs and/or shakeology thru me at these links:



4. I think I may have shared that Hubby and I have started our own vineyard and making wines! We bottled our first batches last fall and it has been a great success! Everyone loves it. We bottled a TON more this fall, so we will see how it all goes this time. Hubby is still interested in buying more land to expand the vineyard and make this a commercial adventure. Not sure how I feel about taking so much on. For now it's a nice hobby. 

5. And finally, I've also signed up to be an Avon Representative. I did mark. for so long, but recently they fazed it out as it's own company and I had been toying with the idea of switching up to Avon and finally decided to go for it. They have some really awesome products and so many fun and exciting things coming for Christmas! You can shop my store here:


I also have Facebook Pages for each of my New businesses:



I'll be updating more often. I'll be sharing my weightloss progress. That will be a big one for me as it's my main goal for the next 5 or 6 months. I'll also be sharing all the great Avon products, especially with the Holidays right around the corner. But I'll still be sharing just my everyday life as a wife, mom, and friend. I'm hoping to start a youtube channel and sharing vlogs as well. 

Wednesday, September 03, 2014

Our second day in England brought us to the neighboring village of Knaresborough, where we toured out first Castle Ruins and Mother Shipton's Cave.






 The veiws from the Castle Grounds were spectacular! Here we can see a good portion of Knaresborough....

 I especially liked Mother Shipton's Cave. You can read more about it here: Mother Shipton
 The petrifying well was very interesting. The water from this well basically turns anything into stone within a few months. 
 Here you can see various objects in different states of petrification.

 In the museum are more items that have been petrified with the well...



The story is, that she was born here in this cave and that her and her mother lived here alone for about 2 years...
You can make a wish in the well by placing your hand in the water and letting it dry naturally...




After touring Mother Shipton's Cave we had lunch at The World's End. Again,there is an interesting story connected to this pub. 



The World's End stands at the end of the bridge pictured below. The story is: that one of Mother Shipton's predictions was that the 'end of the world' would come once the bridge as collapsed three times. It's already collapsed twice.....so the owners named their restaurant The World's End.
 We ate outside on the back balcony where we had this wonderful view of the bridge. The food was really good. I had the BBQ Chicken with bacon and cheese and a side of 'chips'(fries), with a lemon ade(which is really just Sprite or something like it)
 Another interesting site in many of the  villages we visited were these, mostly yellow, bicycles all over the place. The Tour de France passed thru this section of the UK and these were everywhere. 




 This was our favorite!! LOL

 (Oh shit, turn left)


Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Cheerio!!

I know it's been quite a while since my last post. So much to catch up on, but the most exciting is that we just came back from a two week European Vacation! We spent most of our time in England visiting our son Nate who is stationed there in the Air Force. Most of our time was touring North Yorkshire. We did travel down to London for a day, and then drove down to Paris for a day! We had such a great time, explored many Castles and Abbeys. England such a beautiful country, so different from the U.S. We made so many new friends, Brits are very friendly and very welcoming. At least the ones WE met were. Granted, most of them were friends of our son. We also spent a LOT of time at The Blues Bar Cafe in Harrogate(where our son lives) It's our son's favorite place to hang out and they had internet!! LOL

We flew from Chicago to London Heathrow and then took a connection to Leeds. We then took the bus from Leeds to Harrogate, where our son lives. We spent that first afternoon in Harrogate, walking around, having dinner at a great restaurant for Fish and Chips and then went on the The Blues Bar Cafe to meet Nate's friends, and listen to some music(and use some internet...LOL)
Our son has a flat on the first floor of this house....

 Starting our walk around town. We walked this hill EVERY day...


 This beautiful park is just around the corner from Nate's flat. 
 More Harrogate...
Finally we end up at The Blues Bar Cafe... We were also very excited to meet our son's girlfriend, Rachel, for the first time. 
I have so much more to share, so I will try to be diligent in posting more updates about our trip over the course of the next few days. 

Monday, May 19, 2014

May BEstowed Box

My May box arrived today, and wow, is it jammed packed! 
1. 479 Sea Salt Caramel popcorn...Non-GMO, gluten free, and low in calories-pretty sure I'll like this. Will probably have it for a snack tonight.
2. Earnest Eats-granola planks? Looks like a granola bar-vegan and wheat free.
3. Eat Cleaner Wipes-to clean produce. Neat idea to keep in the car or in your purse.
4. Litehouse Instantly Fresh Basil-this is a pretty large jar! I use basil a lot in my cooking, so I'm excited to get this!
5. MoveMeFit.com-3 months of free workouts online...
6. Nature's Earthly Choice Farrotto with Zucchini and Peas-hmmn looks interesting. Should make a nice side dish with dinner this week!
7.Rootology-Rootology is a blend of 13 concentrated herbal extracts that work to immediately relieve sneezing, conjesion,sinus pressure, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, and headache.
8. Sneakz Organic Chocolate Milkshake-doesn't really sound that appealing to me, but I'll try it...who knows? It might surprise me!
9.Ziggy Marley's Coco'mon Coconut Oil-I already us coconut oil quite a bit, so this will get used!
10. Ziggy Marley's Organic Hemp Rules-snack seeds? I'll try them...

If you'd like your own BEstowed Box, go here: BEstowed



Friday, November 22, 2013

2013 House Tour

My Hen Friends decided to do a little house tour so I'm joining in. We built this house about four years ago. We've been living in it about three. We did most of the work ourselves, along with a LOT of help from one the Commander's brothers and a little help from other family members. We did hire out some of the work , like digging out and pouring the foundation, the initial plumbing and electrical, the plastering and making and installing the cabinetry in the Kitchen and Master Bath.

Here we start with the Kitchen, it's a bit cluttered but I love it.

Standing in the Kitchen looking at the Dining Area and living room beyond.  I love the color of these walls. It's called Pacific Breeze.


 Here I'm standing in the Dining Area looking into the Living Room. We origionally were going to have built-ins in those alcoves but put it off to save a little money. I kind of like it with the wall units in there so I'm not sure if we'll ever decide to put in built-ins.


 A view of the Living Room from the other side of the room.

 A corner of the Living Room, behind the couch on the left.


A corner off the to right, behind the couch.


 I love this little arrangement on the Living Room window.


 Our current mantle décor, I change this around often. And yeah, you caught me, I'm really into LMN!! LOL


 Top of one of the cabinets in the Living Room.  I love to decorate and collect so I take advantage of almost any surface!


 This is my Library. I've always wanted one, I love books. This was actually supposed to be a Formal Dining Room but we never really USE a formal Dining Room so I chose to put these shelves in and make it a Library.  It's pretty messy right now, I really need to get in there and re-organize and declutter this space. The wicker furniture in the fore-front is actually new furniture for our Sunroom that we are still building,so it's being stored up here in the Entry until it's ready to go downstairs. The Ceiling is a technique called Venetian Plaster. It doesn't show in this picture but it's very shiny and looks almost like marble.


 This room is off the other side of our Entry. It's our Music Room. Our family is very musical so we have a lot of instruments and equipment. Unfortunately no one really uses this stuff anymore. The Commander will sometimes come in here and play guitar, but not that often. The keyboard and drums are actually Drama Teen's(Not a Teen anymore)



Here is the main entry. We never use this as we always come in from the garage. Every once in a blue moon someone comes up to this door but most friends and family also come in thru the garage. The Music Room is off to the left and the Library is off to the right there. For now its' a big empty space. Commander has tried to convince me we should get a Baby Grand for this space, but it's just not something I really want. Neither of us play piano so it seems to me it will just sit there taking up space for nothing? I kinda like the idea of having big parties and this being a space for mingling or even dancing, like our own little Ball Room!


A cute little alcove going into the Master Bedroom.


 The Master Bedroom.


I really need to decorate this wall. I just haven't found anything I like, and I need a better night stand,otherwise I LOVE our Bedroom...




 Our Master Bath, another room I absolutely LOVE. I want to get a big painting for that back wall.

 The walk-in Shower that Commander  really LOVES!


This is the upstairs guest bath. Another of my favorite rooms. I love the darker color in here. It's called Submarine, which is ironic to me since Commander  was a Submariner in the Navy.



Now we are headed downstairs to the walkout basement. You can see the Game Room from the stairs. We entertain a LOT so we have lots of activities for friends and family to have fun when they visit.


We use a pellet stove to heat most of the house.

 The pellets are fed thru the wall from  a bin on the other side,we just open up that little door and out they pour!

And then I pour them into the top of the stove.


 Looking into the Theatre Room( AKA the ManCave) from the Game Room. It's also Commander's Love Me Room,we decorated with all of his Military plaques and pictures, and a Blue and Gold theme.


 The bar area off to the side of the Theatre Room. We have a Beer Fridge, a Microwave and a small Wine Fridge,and another TV..LOL


One of the downstairs Guest Baths. We are going for a "movie' theme in here.

 Storage Workshop area in the Basement.
This is where we store the Pellets.

And this is the bin that feeds into that opening in the Game Room.
 One of the Spare Bedrooms. This is supposed to be my Craft Studio but I still haven't gotten it together. At the moment it's also the room where Commander  is storing tools and supplies for the Sunroom. The new Sunroom addition is thru that door off the the left.


 This is a small hall going to the new Sunroom. There used to be a door immediately to the left to go outside..but because of the addition it needed to be moved further down where that step is. That door now leads into the Sunroom. There is also a Bathroom off the right of this little hall.

 The new Sunroom addition. That corner there is where the Hot Tub will go once the room is finished. The walls are up and have been plastered. We will start painting tomorrow.

 The ceiling that will be above the Hot Tub. We'll be hanging a fan and light from the center.
 A small alcove off one side.  The Hot Tub will be moved.

Another alcove off the other side.

 This is the Bathroom off that little hall,it connects to another spare Bedroom.



And this is the 3rd Bedroom. It origionally was meant to be Drama Teen's(NOT a Teen anymore).She still has a LOT of her stuff in here even though she really never actually 'lived' here much, LOL. 
This also double as BIL and SIL's room when they stay over.

 And finally, this picture hangs in the Stairway Landing. It's a painting of the first Submarine Brad was stationed on--The USS Georgia.



So, that concludes my tour. Please head over to Mama Brightowls Blog to see her home tour. And check out Heathers while you're at it too!


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