Summer in the City???

By this point in June I expected to be sweltering in the heat, and buying popsicles in bulk, but instead am wrapping in sweatshirts and warm PJ pants! The weather is kind of depressing, but sadly enough is better for me. If it was beautiful and sunny out I would be depressed about the fact that my life is ALL WORK, and NO PLAY! so at least the crummy weather helps me not be completely bummed.

For those of you who read the blog (i am hoping there is at least one person), you may have been wondering where we have been. Matt and I are working as usual. I got a summer job at a student insurance company in Quincy, MA so i shuffle off there every morning, and then when i get home it is the mad dash to:

• make dinner
• work out
• look for an apartment with 2 parking spots and an outdoor area
  
• pack lunch
• eat dinner
• study for the CPA exam, which I am supposed to do 3-4 hours a night...yeah, right!
• talk to matt about his day
• sleep

It is quite exhausting, and since i never do all the studying I am supposed to I am constantly feeling guilty and stressed out. It is not good for morale. However sometimes I do fun things... like last week, I pickled things!



I have an unnatural love for all things pickled! Oh how a jar with vegetables, vinegar and salt can make my heart swoon!!!


I made pickled carrots, pickled green beans, 2 jars of pickled snap peas, 2 jars of sliced pickles and 1 jar of pickle spears! I have already eaten all the carrots, 1 jar of snap peas, and have been nibbling on the other jar of snap peas... I am anxiously awaiting for the pickles to be ready! I kind of improvised on the recipes, and made them the way I thought they would be good, but everything was adapted from The Joy of Pickling. You should go out and get it right now and start pickling...it is seriously addictive :)

Well, now I am going back to studying. Wish me luck!

A Show and Tell Weekend

Hello All!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend. Here is the past weekend in a short recap. Yesterday Matty and I went to the grocery store, home depot, Michaels craft store, and best buy.

Here is a picture of my awesome new lamp we got in Burlington, VT for my birthday! I never included it in a blog post before so i figured better late then never!

Here is my Hagen Renaker Collection shadow box house! I got this at Michaels and painted it today! I found this collection last weekend when I was home visiting my mom. It really is her collection, but I always played with it as a kid and brought it home to live in Craft Village :)

After painting the house I planted the herb garden Matt bought me as part of my birthday gift! I love early gifts and I love the beautiful smelling basil, lemon thyme and parsley that are now adorning my windowsill!




And after the herbs I made cupcakes! I don't bake a lot but the cupcakes and frosting were on sale for about $2.50 total, so I couldn't resist! They are so soft and fluffy. I want to eat them all!
The ones on the bottom left have strawberries mixed in. They are so delicious. Every time berries are on sale I buy boxed muffin mix or cupcake mix and experiment with adding them and making berry sauces.

Well, I will try to not be such a stranger to my blog! Hope you are all having a fabulous day!

Where have we been?

Matt and I have just finished a super busy few weeks!

We kicked it off by celebrating Matt's birthday in Vermont. It was so fun, we stayed at the Sterling Ridge Resort Log Cabins in a deluxe cabin! We explored Vermont and then would take nice jacuzzi tubs :) It was just what the doctor had ordered! I will post all about the trip soon!

Then after we got back from the trip Miss Holly came back into our lives! We doggy sat for her while her parents went to London. It was great having her around. I really missed her, and she is a great snuggle bunny! The day after Holly came to stay with us something else exciting happened....

I GRADUATED!!!!

I still cannot believe that I am all done! It is a relief in some ways, but I do not start my full-time career job until September, so now I am stressing about what to do for work for the summer....

I know I should be enjoying some time off, and studying for my CPA exam (when my materials come), and crafting, but right now I am just being a bum and stressing. I am going to try and be better!

Hopefully I will be updating soon about how I have a summer job, or am at least less stressed!

-Meghan

Knock knock...

...whose there? Spring!!!

I am finally beginning to feel like spring time has arrived. It is still chilly and gray out, but it is still just an iota warmer so I am calling whatever this weather is spring weather!

The next few weeks will be a really busy time for me and matt. His birthday is the 23rd of April, I graduate May 1st, and in between now and then I have a million and one things to wrap up and do. I am not fond of finals and final papers. But after that I have to figure out what to do for works for the summer (I have a fall start date for my full-time job).

Part of me wants to hang out and relax because i never will have another summer or a lot of time off until i retire... but taking time off is not my nature. I also have a huge professional exam to study for...sigh.

Well, I am off to drink my tea! We need to go shopping today to buy Matt new pants (He only has 1 pair that don't have a rip now :) )

Hope your having nice Saturdays!!!!

-Meghan

For the Love of Tea

Matt and I gave up drinking coffee daily over a year ago. I LOVED coffee....a little to much. I had to stop because I was drinking so much a day it was making me feel manic. My throat would feel like it was restricted, and my heart was beating so fast, like a little humming bird in my chest, and then after I drank it my energy would crash and I would need more and more...it really was a vicious cycle!

Matt had to stop because he has a heart murmur, and too much caffeine makes his chest feel tight. So now we drink coffee once a week on average. We use it as a treat for ourselves when we are running errands, out for breakfast etc.

So, now all you caffeine lovers are asking the same thing we asked when we quit, "what are they going to drink??!!" The answer to that question was easy....TEA!

I LOVE TEA NOW! I always have liked it, but now we love it. I have gotten addicted to that now! I drink at least 2 cups a day, and usually want it more! The picture above was a good find from when we were Gnome Home jar sleuthing at the thrift store.

Matt and I love crappy tea. We get the cheap Lipton Tea that is 100 bags for about $3. We have tried others, but realize we like the cheap stuff! (isn't it always great when it works out like that!) We used to store it on top of my recipe box in the Lipton 16 bag box...which was driving me nuts. We would put the bags from the 100 bag box into the little box...and it was getting all worn and ripped. When we first got our tea jar Matt was skeptical, but now he is as much a fan as I am!

On a non-tea note, I have been making terrariums. I have made 8 in the past 2 days, which is rare for me. Matt normally makes them, and I take the photos and make the clay stuff and list them and pack them and all the other stuff. However, Matt works from 11:00 am until 7:00pm, so the last thing he wants to do at night is make terrariums! So, instead of studying I have been procrastinating doing my work by making terrariums. I have been really proud of myself! I think they have been coming out nicely. This one is one of my favorites, and I made it 100%, from the terrarium to the house!

I also have changed some of the photos, put some new snazzy backgrounds up. I really think they make the terrariums pop!

Well I hope you all had a nice day!

~Meghan

Tiny Tea Cup Terrariums!

Hello All!

This week is my spring break week. Since we could not afford to go away I have been engaging in some good ole' TLC today. I slept in late, drank my tea, watched The Biggest Loser, made these little tea cup terrariums, ate a sandwich while listening to the Virtual Labs Critiques, watched Jon and Kate Plus 8, started dinner (veggie cacciatore)... and now i am waiting for the boy to get out of the bathroom so I have some company!

Tomorrow I am going to visit my family. My mom is taking Friday off from work to hang out with me, which is super exciting! I want to go to Joann fabrics and Christmas Tree Shop and just hang out with her. My mom is my best friend (excluding the boy, naturally) so I am glad to have the one-on-one time with her. I have an awesome nephew, and a precocious niece who my mom watches 3-5 times a week, and when they are over it is hard to have quality time with my mom.

The boy took Monday and Tuesday off work to be with me... keep my company on my spring break at home. We went into the city to have lunch (he tried Indian Food for me!) and shopped around for the multiple Birthdays coming up (Brothers on the 8th, Moms on the 24th, Nephews on the 30th). While looking for the brother/mom we came across these awesome tiny cups, and a few other jars we have yet to post!

I hope you all had good Wednesdays! Thanks for reading!

Easter Eggs for Everyone!!!

In anticipation of the upcoming Easter Holiday we have decided that every customer from now until April 8th will receive a FREE Easter egg figurine for their terrarium!

My mom has always made Holidays special, and I mean every Holiday, by decorating and giving thoughtful little treats. I have been really nostalgic lately seeing the Easter egg dye kits from PAAS in the grocery store, and remembering how much i used to love dying eggs with my mom, so this is our way of spreading that love and joy with all our awesome supporters.

The eggs are so fun to make, I love mixing the colors to get a nice pastel marbled look... I think they look like dyed eggs do after you dip them. (at least i hope they do!)

A Farewell to my Little Friend :(

Today Holly moved to her new home. She was adopted on Tuesday by an awesome couple who live close by. I know they will give her a great home, but it is still really sad and bittersweet...the apartment feels kind of empty without the little pitter patter of her little paws.

I am looking forward to being able to sleep in and not walk a dog in the rain and the snow, but I got so used to having a little buddy lay in bed and read with me, and snuggle. It will take a little while to get re-adjusted to a life sans doggie.

Holly was with us for a month, and will always be in my heart. She was such a special girl, and I am glad we can still e-mail her new family and visit her from time to time. The picture is from when we have her a bath :) I think she looks like a little yoda!

Well, from now on the posts will be about Me and Matt and Gnome Homes again! Hope your all having a great Saturday!

Holly, my little cutie frajooty!

Holly has totally won over my heart. She is such a sweet little dog, and is so well behaved.

As you can see, she has totally bonded to her bed and her fishie. This is her while i work on the computer! She is either sleeping in her bed if i move it in the office, laying in the crate I keep in here for her, or laying on the floor at my feet. She loves to be with people.

She is so funny with her fishie. She carries it from room to room and only puts him down in her beds. She puts him in her bed, her crate, and the bathroom and kitchen mats. I think she thinks they are little beds for her too. When i wash dishes she lays at my feet on the kitchen rug, and when I get ready and do my makeup she sits/lays at my feet on the bathroom rug.

Matt and I decided she can't sleep in the bedroom at night with us anymore because she kept us up all night the night before because she snores so loudly. She is louder than my father, which if you have ever heard his snoring is pretty loud. So last night we kept her in the kitchen, which went really well. She slept and hung out, and didn't cry or seem to be upset, which was my number one concern. It broke my heart to keep her out there, but she definitely is not a good person to invite for a sleepover.

Thats about it for now! Hopefully i will be back soon with more Holly stories and hopefully we gets Gnome Homes restocked again!

~Meghan

Day 1 with Holly

So, i just had to update with what has happened with Holly on her first day with us!

We left to get her some things (more food, new leash, fleece blanket etc) and go to the grocery store. Between everything we were probably gone for 4-5 hours. We put a huge box across our kitchen doorway and a chair behind it as a temporary gate. When we got back she had managed to move the box and was free willy! I was worried she may have gone to the bathroom in the house, but she was a perfect little pooch and there were no accidents.

Once we got home I set up her crate. I don't plan to use it as a way to pen her in, just as an option. So right now her bed is in the living room and her crate is in my office. She follows me around and settles into whichever bed is closest. She is snoring in her crate as i type.

Well, after both of our dinners, and a walk outside in the freezing cold I sat in my beanbag to play some video games. She decided to keep me warm!

And then when i got up she decided that maybe two beds wasn't enough and she decided three was better! She is too funny! Thats it for now, stay tuned for more updates :)

Introducing Miss Holly!

I would like to introduce you all to my boston terrier foster dog, Holly. She arrived this morning and after acclimating herself to our space has seemed to settle in quite well! I made this dog bed for her last night, and was worried she wouldn't like it, but seems to have taken to it like a fish takes to water. Also i gave her one of the stuffed fish i made for 2lilmonkeys and she chewed it a little and then carried it around the apartment, i'll take that to be a good sign...lol!

She really is a love bug, she just likes to curl up and cuddle. I was hoping to have a calm dog so I can still get HW and work done, and she seems to fit the bill. I have just been moving her bed around to wherever i am and she plops right down and sleeps. Right now she is besides my desk snoring away.

If any of you are interested in adopting Holly you can go here to read about her and learn about the process.

Let there be light!

I have a 5 arm lamp I use in the office/craft room that has been down to 2 bulbs for quite some time now...and just a second ago I put in the new bulbs i bought for it this weekend, and let me tell you, what a difference 3 light bulbs can make!

I love lots of light, almost all the time. I am not really a mood lighting type of person, and even when I am watching movies I like to watch with the lights on, so sufficed to say the lack of light when i am sewing or studying has been very frustrating!

I watch Real Simple Real Life on TLC every week, and find a lot of it very inspiring! I always wish someone would come make-over my life. But this weeks episode made me want to tidy up my life a little, so I took my sewing machine off my sewing table, because I honestly never use it, and now it is my reading/studying table. I really hope that it makes me want to study more... This is my last semester of classes and I am finding it increasingly hard to do everything I want to in regards to classes, Gnome Homes work and my job on campus. I am trying to get myself on a good schedule, but have not been doing well at it.

Hopefully rearranging some space and some time will get me off on a better foot! Now i am off to make some tea for me and the boy!

~Meghan

A Big Day for Gnome Homes!

Today is a big day for Gnome Homes! Probably the day that really helped it sink in for me that we are a real business, not just two people playing with moss :)

We got our business cards today! Excuse the bad photos, i just took the photos at 9pm because i was too excited to wait!!!


We ordered these last week, and i have anxiously been tracking them on their journey. Today i came home and looked all over my lobby for them and they weren't there. It was quite upsetting...but then i saw my neighbor signed for them, and i had to wake him up to get them (i wasn't aware he was sleeping when i tapped on his door!)

The past few days have been busy and great for us, but we are down to 4 things in our shop and really need to get our butts in gear to get more little gnome homes into the shop.

I love Gnome Homes, but right now with work and all my classes and Gnome Homes i am feeling overwhelmed with how much i want to do for everything and how few hours are in the day! I just wish it was warmer out, i think the cold weather is making me tired...I just want to hibernate!

Well i am off to package up some little lovelies! Have a wonderful night and very sweet dreams :)

~Meghan

A Post at the End of a LOONG Day

I felt like today was the longest day of my whole week. I have been super tired this week because I am not used to being back at school/work yet. The Christmas break got me so entrenched in my Gnome Homes life i forgot what normal life was like for a while. Also i realize that classes wear me out in large part because my mind keeps whirring along all day...

Right now I am taking my last semester of classes, which is super exciting. I am taking some interesting and some not so interesting classes (intro to computer science, corporate governance, business law, and income tax).

Today we did all our grocery shopping for this week and I was super excited that ground turkey was on sale (we don't really eat ground beef, so we use this for turkey meatloaf and turkey chili!). The 20 oz. package is normally priced at $4.69-$4.99 and today it was $2.69! Which of course meant that I bought 6 packages...hehe! Honestly I love grocery shopping when i can save, and today was a great savings day. As a hint to anyone else who eats quaker breakfast stuff I got 2 boxes of Life for Matt, 2 boxes of oatmeal for me and 1 box of Chewy bars for $4.65 (i used coupons from the newspaper and the $3 off coupon in my shaws flyer!) I thought that was good. I almost always go to Shaws since they have better sales, and if you don't already you have to sign up here on their site. It gives you extra coupons and easy week night recipes.

After the store we came home and FINALLY cleaned our apartment. Our place is almost always tidy, but we organized a bit and did the one house chore i HATE.... I vacuumed! I have long hair, so I tend to shed...a lot... and my hair starts to create tumbleweeds with the dust bunnies that eventually take over the corners of my rooms, and now they are all clean. I find it kind of amazing really...lol! But the real reason behind the clean was that we had a home visit today about being a foster home for dogs. I don't really want to talk about it much until more is finalized, but maybe in the next month you will be reading about some furry buddies that are keeping me company :)

Well, that is probably one of my longer blog posts, so i will leave you for now....

~Meghan

P.S. If you like our blog, and read often please follow it! (click the link on the column on the left!) It will make me feel loved and inspire me to blog more frequently.

Just one of those days...

Today seems like it has been longer than it actually has been... I don't know if it was sitting through some dull classes or the fact that when i got out of classes it was pitch black, or some other sad things we discovered today, but I am feeling run down. I honestly think the root is that I am hungry...lol!

But lets move into some happier things...

I realized recently that the blogs I love to read

1. Aren't all about selling on etsy, they have a personal side too!
2. Have photos of things they like
3. Include pictures and recipes of food

And then I realized I do very few of those things! So as part of my new years rethinking process I have decided to try to move the blog more in that direction...some about me...some about matt...some about Gnome Homes...

So, here are some pictures I took earlier. They are some of my absolute favorite things in the world!





This is a necklace Matt bought me for our two year anniversary and surprised me with when we were out at dinner...it was extremely sweet and romantic and now it is rare if I am not wearing it... I wear it almost every single day!

Here is my new favorite pins! The flower is from my sister-in-laws boutique, Details, in Providence, RI!

And this little lovely came from the multipackof pins from MultiplePeronality on etsy! Matt got them for me as a stocking stuffer...you can see the others on my pin bag :)

Here is my pin bag...which i kind of think as my Etsy bag since I use it every time we go and buy jars for Gnome Homes.







And last but not least is our gorgeous new dish from Playswithclay!

You have to admit that it is gorgeous, and as such a home body it really makes me smile!



And on that note I am going to do lie down...today has really kicked the stuffing out of me! I hope you all have a great night :)

~Meghan