Oh, Hi! I’m slowly awaking from my sugar coma inflicted by the holiday season tornado that sucked me up, spun me around, and spit me out 6 pounds heavier. Although my holidays were wonderful (hence the 6 pounds I gleefully put on) I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things so I’ll be posting more soon. How were your holidays?!

Anyway, if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you’ll know that I live in the country. Every year my small town has a 4th of July parade complete with “floats.” I say floats in a figurative way because they’re not the traditional floats you’d normally see in a parade. Well, that’s not fair, there was one real float. But I digress. Most of the parade entries are hand-decorated trailers pulled by trucks or tractors. This year we even had a garbage truck and a school bus!

My daughter waiting for the parade to start:

What hick-town parade would be complete without The General Lee complete with Rosco P. Coltrane in hot pursuit?!

And who wouldn’t appreciate a little culture and geography lesson with a hick version of the Stonehenge? Isn’t it awe-inspiring?

Of course there were a few 4-H clubs and Rodeo queens:

and the ‘clean-up’ crew following the horses:

a fully restored, beautiful 1936 Farmall tractor:

my mom riding on one of the primary’s float:

followed by the one and only “real” float:

And finally, what’s a 4th of July post without fireworks? Not a 4th of July post at all I reckon

How was your holiday?

The 4th of July is one such holiday. Ever since I discovered Barefoot Contessa’s Flag Cake it became a holiday staple. The 4th simply isn’t the 4th without it now.

Let me say though, I am no Barefoot Contessa. Heck, I don’t even have a pastry bag to make my cake all pretty ‘n stuff….and my version alternates strawberries and raspberries for the stripes. But man, is this cake good.

What kind of traditions do you have for the 4th?

4 random things I like about my (soon-to-be) husband:
1. He makes me laugh. Really hard. All the time.
2. Our inside jokes and the way we talk when none is around.
3. How we’re a team and work together as one.
4. How he makes me feel. I know he loves me and is devoted to my happiness.

4 movies that I would watch more than once:
1. Juno
2. Usual Suspects
3. Tombstone
4. eh, I can’t think of a 4th

4 TV shows I watch:
1. E.R. (sad to see it’s in its last season)
2. The Office
3. The Food Network
4. and now that it’s football season, I suspect I’ll be watching the Chicago Bears by default

4 places that I have been:
1. Mexico
2. Costa Rica
3. Thailand and Amsterdam (same trip)
4. Germany

4 people who E-mail me regularly:
1. my mom
2. my friends
3. clients
4. and spammers, ugh!

4 favorite foods:
1. My mom’s lasagna
2. Homegrown/canned tomatoes, zucchini fresh from the garden, and rice all cooked and mixed together with special spices – the perfect summer dinner.
3. Mexican food
4. Thai food

4 places that I would like to visit:
1. Um, can “everywhere” be an option?
2. India
3. Japan
4. Greece or Turkey

4 random things:
1. I’m double jointed in my thumbs and can fold them on top of the back of my hand
2. I don’t wear makeup often anymore
3. I don’t eat seafood. It tastes like what I imagine dirty fish tank water would taste like – bleh. But, I like tuna – the fishiest of fish – weird huh. Go figure.
4. Although I love to travel, I hate to fly. It makes me feel icky.

4 things that I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. Celebrating the uniting of my family and seeing the joy in my daughter’s face
2. Finishing my degree
3. Spending time with my family and friends
4. Enjoying life!

4 People that I’m tagging:
1. Alette, my faithful blog reader and friend from abroad
2. Dawn R.
3. Kiirsten
4. anyone else who wishes to play!

When we found him the next day he was in sorry shape. His flying was labored and reeeally slow. In fact, we couldn’t even hear the hum of his wings flapping!

We have a hummingbird feeder in our backyard so I ran to grab it. As soon as I stepped in the garage he flew right over and started pigging out. He didn’t even care that I was still holding the feeder in my hand. I had my friend take over holding the feeder and grabbed my camera to get some shots of the little fella.

After he was feeling better (at least he looked like he was feeling better) he decided the fishing pole was his perch. He stayed there on his perch, next to the food, the whole night.

I left the garage door open all night hoping he’d find his way out, but the next day he still was there (although the hum of his wings had returned and he was flying really well). His belly was SO fat too; I think he had drunk as much nectar as he could possibly hold. LOL

He kept flying around our garage ceiling so I thought he couldn’t quite figure out how to get out (the ceiling is quite a bit higher than the door opening). So I took the feeder and moved it close to the opening of the door hoping it would give him an incentive to fly by the opening.

Guess what? It worked! I went out a hour or two later and our little hummingbird friend was gone.

Anyhow, the pic is on the ground level looking up and each one of those grate looking things is the guard on each floor’s hallway. Pretty cool, eh?

Wanna play a game?! =] I made it up…. but it’s cool just the same. LOL. It’s called “Guess that Photo!” and we’re going to see if all you smarty pants out there know what this photo is. (real cleaver name, huh? Haha!)

These shoes are not exactly designed for comfort either; however, they’re much better than the cute, but spawn-of-the-devil shoes in my last post. LOL

I don’t know what it is about this color, but I have been hooked on green. It started with a green purse about two years ago (sorry, no pics as the poor thing is retired now…I wore it totally out) anyhow, back to the story…. my tiny green obsession has moved from the purse, to shirts, to now these little patent leather numbers. Look at those little cut outs — don’t they remind you of the patent lether shoes you wore as a kid?!
[Side note: yay to the comback of patent leather!]

However, my family is um, shall we say, not so much fans and have so lovingly referred to this shade of green as ostrich poop green. Lovely eh? But I don’t care. I love it.

Oh! and what a fun find when I was browsing the jewelry at a different store a few months later only to find a cute necklace that perfectly matches my green patent shoes.

And good gravy I am glowingly white. Note to self: now that Utah has emerged from a looong and cold winter, get more sun exposure. LOL

P.S. Thanks for all the comments — I LOVE getting them. *wink wink*

So back to the subject at hand… I decided I was going to be more girly and work towards having a closet full of cute, funky shoes (not a bad goal if you ask me).

Enter subjects below.

Yes, these are cute. And they’re funky enough. But, boy do these suckers hurt! When I tried them on I thought, “oh, these aren’t too bad…besides, it’s not like I’ll wear them shopping. I’ll just wear them to get-togethers with friends and plan on sitting for most of the night. I can handle them for short distances….” Ha! I wore them today and let me tell you – they were built for looks and not much else! My feet were screaming.

Heh, the things we do in the name of being cute. *insert eye roll here* I do have some great ankles though, right?