Saturday, May 11, 2013

We've Moved!

Guess what?

Life With Four Boys...Coffee Please! has MOVED!!!

Becca Ludlum designed me a great new site (she can for you too!) and you are all going to love it, I'm sure.

If you are reading this post, you need to click over and see the new site.  Once there, sign up to receive email updates as before because otherwise, you won't be getting any more and that would make us all sad.

So, same blog...new site.

I am giddy excited over it!

Click HERE....

Monday, May 6, 2013

The Giant Blue Racer that Climbed a Tree

While sitting at Wicked in wedges and a new dress, I was sent this photo....

That is a snake.

A blue racer.

And it's still alive.

Apparently, as they were walking across the field (at my parents, thank goodness, and not here) (Sorry, Mom!) the caught sight of a snake.  Avery large snake.  And when they all screamed shouted snake, they ran for it.

Where it slithered.....

Up
A
Tree


Is there no safe place?

None at all?

Snakes in trees?

The boys let the blue racer go.  They are hoping to catch it again later this summer.

So now I have THAT to look forward to!

Good grief. 


Friday, May 3, 2013

New L.L. Bean Signature Dress



After the woodchuck for dinner incident, I ordered a new dress.

I don't think anyone blamed me.

I have looked at the L.L. Bean Signature dress for over a year...I make up my mind at turtle's pace sometimes...and I finally ordered it.  I wanted it for my trip to see Wicked as well as something new to wear for Mother's Day.

The problem was that the dress is in all navy, or in color blocked skirt, or in brown and white polk-a-dot.  How does one choose?

Also, the dress is modeled with adorable blue and yellow heels.

I decided on the navy dress, the original, the one I first went "ooooh, that is classy" over.  I figure I can dress it up with red heels (haven't found them yet), dress it down with flip flops, and it would work well with a scarf I own as well as a little cute yellow sweater from Downeast Basics.

I. Love. This. Dress.

Pure cotton, fully lined, pouffy skirt that makes one feel all classic, it has a high neck, pockets in the skirt, wide tie belt to wear a variety of ways and it just oozes classic charm.

Love. This. Dress.

When people have seen it - on the one day I have worn it thus far - I was told how well tailored it look.

If you are looking for a easy to wear, comfortable, classy dress - this is it.  If I could, I would get it in every style!

Shop now!

DownEast Basics

I wrote this post simply because I love this dress and I think you should know about it.
I was not paid for my opinion and the L.L. Bean dress I bought myself.
 And I am so glad I did.
Downeast Basics just has really cool clothes. Really cool. 
Now go shop!

 

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Women Making a Difference

The new magazine is out and ready to be read!

Click

The cover - how I love it.  When Sue asked me about it, I literally had goosebumps because I love this photo of Maureen ever so much. 

I secretly love wings like those, well, I guess it's not a secret anymore.

This was a tough article for me to write this time around.  I basically gave Sue a list of possible article subjects and sorta mentioned one and she picked my sorta mentioned one.

Figures.

She was right to have me work on that.  And I am glad she knew better than I.

But enough of all that!

We have GOOD stuff in this magazine!


And adorable jackets from Big Mama's Melanie Shankle!

Of course, there is the normal articles from Sue Cramer and Ronel Sidney

Check it out and let me know what you think!!!

To purchase a hard copy, a real paper magazine, click HERE. It will cost you $13.80 an issue. 

Our summer themed magazine will be surrounding the word Freedom.  Can not wait to see what that will bring!

So brew up some coffee or tea or iced tea and settle in for a great read.

Enjoy!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Wicked

Over the weekend, the book club I belong to traveled to Kalamazoo's Miller Auditorium to see Wicked.


As we are a book club, we read the book.  Well, some of us did.  One of us did not and I shall not name her here but she also said that she does not hear us saying one good thing about it that made her wish she had read it.

We weren't fans of the book, sorry if you are.  That said, we have never discussed a book to death more.

I read a synopsis on goodreads of the other books in the series and I won't be reading any of them.  The last one is listed repeatedly as "dark".  Well, I found Wicked to be dark so I wasn't interested in reading something MORE dark.

But here is this tricky little thing, I actually liked Elphie in the book so it wasn't a total waste.  I'll just never ever reread it.  Ever.

My book club, how I love it!  We have been the group since the beginning and we all decided we would do this thing, see this play.  We dressed up.  We painted our nails. We had sitters.  We were out on the town.

We settled into our balcony seats and I was trying to act all calm and not jump up and down in sheer excitement because this was my first musical play and I. Was. Excited.

I was also nervous to see all these little girls there to watch the play and I worried what they would see because the book was that bad.

However, whoever wrote the musical Wicked was brilliant because it didn't follow the book much at all and I. Loved. It.

I mean, I really really loved it.

As the play went to intermission, I thought it was over, and while an odd spot to end the play, I stood and cheered and was thinking it was great and then realized we were only half way through!

And it ended just beautifully.

Romantic sigh, beautiful.

The music is now one of my pandora stations.  I looked up the price of a t-shirt or book to remember this amazing show but the shirt was 40 and the book was 20 and I didn't purchase them.  I'll just add them to my "if I ever win the lottery or my chickens begin laying golden eggs" list.  



If Wicked is coming near you - Go. See. It.  Don't even bother with the book at all.  Just see the musical.  It's so amazing!

And, on a side note, while at Wicked, I was sent this photo in a text of what my boys were up to.


My son is holding a blue racer.  And it's still alive.  He is wearing gloves because it attempted to bite him but that is another story for another day.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

"That Old Lady Smell"

While cleaning out some forgotten drawer, I found a bottle of lavender spray from the Healing Garden. I sprayed a bit, it smelled wonderful, so I sprayed the curtains in our bedroom with it.

I have been cleaning the house all day and it's pretty much a lost cause.  I mopped the floors in the living room, they are now covered in mud.

I cleaned the bathroom, S3 put his muddy shoes in the sink.



Anyway, back to lavender.

I love the smell of lavender and I thought that tonight, when I went to bed on my just washed today sheets, I would smell the lavender and feel fully spoiled.

I moved on to the kitchen to start cleaning, it's scary messy, when S1 walked in.

He tilted his head to the side.  Sniffed.  Scrunched up his nose.  "What's that smell?" he finally asked.

"What smell?" I asked him.

"That different smell.  That girly smell."

"Oh, that.  That's lavender spray I put on the curtains," I told him.

"Huh."  He stole one of my green apple slices with peanut butter on it.  "When we were in fifth grade, or some grade, anyhow, they had lavender hand sanitizer and we boys called it "old lady sanitizer."

"So the house smells like an old lady?" I asked him.

"No, it doesn't smell like alcohol," he explained.

I couldn't resist, leaning against the kitchen counter with a smirk I asked, "So...old ladies smell like alcohol and lavender?"

Realizing he couldn't win this one, he retreated back outside to help his Daddy.  Guy stuff is so much easier than talking to girls.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Woodchuck for Dinner

Our oldest son had been noticing some woodchuck damage and decided to do something about it.  Last year we had such an infestation of various rodents so he wanted to make sure he had an early start.

He caught one on the first day after setting his auction buy trap.

I knew then that I would have to "adjust" our weekly menu.


All the boys have been waiting to eat woodchuck (or groundhog - but the word groundhog makes me bitter because he said that it would be an early spring and it is supposed to SNOW this weekend.).  Friends I shall leave unmentioned (but drive a blue bus because their family is so large - 16 kiddos from one mama and one daddy and only one set of twins) had assured our boys it was tasty.

As they are known as being tricksters, I was slightly leery.

The school called as S1 was headed back to the house withe the rodent and I had to run in to get S2, who was feeling sickly.  I was so in shock over the fact that I was actually going to be making woodchuck for dinner that I had to share this information with the school secretary.  Oddly, she didn't seem shocked.  I think this should concern me.  


S2 arrived home to watch S1 cut up the meat.  I was quite thankful that crock pot liners have been invented because they were surely being used on this meal.

We had been told that cream of mushroom soup would make the meat more tender, so we added that as well.  

It wasn't looking very tasty.



However, every single time I get a chicken ready to bake I swear I am not eating one because I think they look so disgusting but I keep making them for dinner and we keep eating them.  So I wasn't so quick to judge.

The longer it cooked, well, it didn't smell very good either.  We kept waiting for a good cooking scent, but it never happened.

When I drove into our little hometown to pick up yet another sick boy (it's been a rough week, but we can't blame the woodchuck, it hadn't been eaten yet), I stopped to talk to Alicia at my amazing work place, the heart of our town, the library.

"There's a woodchuck in my crock pot," I told her.

"What?" she spit out.

I repeated what I said.  "That's what I thought you said but I didn't want to believe you," she answered, shaking her head.

When I arrived home, the woodchuck wasn't smelling any better.

I started frying bacon.  Bacon always smells wonderful. Waffles and bacon had never sounded so delicious for dinner.


The meat cooked up dark, nearly black.  My husband began to get a little hopeful. "Bear meat is black and it is some good eating," he told us.  He began dreaming up plans if it tasted as good as prime rib and how we would raise the woodchucks, becoming a woodchuck farm, hitting the jackpot on an untaped market and the recipes I could sell and the money we could make.

All the boys started asking for me to make them a waffle.

But S1, bless his heart, cut up pieces for everyone and was sure that with Sweet Baby Ray's, anything can be tasty.


He was mistaken.

"All this hard work for it to taste this bad!" he moaned dejectedly. 

And it was bad bad.  So bad that when they cleared the table, they wouldn't even give the leftovers to the chickens.  That is bad, folks.

I was ever so thankful for that crock pot liner!

S1 emailed the Visser's the people who told us it would taste good, and they told us you have to boil woodchuck first and then cook it.

It's going to take a little while to get over this, but I am pretty sure that we are going to be trying this meal again.

Lucky us.

I would like to add that days later, they are still bemoaning the fact the woodchuck tasted so tough and terrible.  My husband still laments, "If it only it had tasted good, think of the money we could have made!"

This, people, is my life.

I cannot make it up.