Midnights With Molly

I took Sophie on a REALLY long walk this afternoon and completely wore her out.  She is lying next to me on the couch snoozing away as I blog and look at lots of interesting things on Pinterest.  She can be a real sweetheart when she wants to be.  However, it took several hours of biting, jumping, peeing on the kitchen floor, and tug of war to get her into this state.  ;)  It's so cute how she has to be touching my arm at all times, even though I'm typing.  It doesn't seem to bother her too much... Lily Ann celebrated her 6th birthday last weekend...I can't believe it!!!  She is growing up so fast!  We had a dolphin-themed birthday party at Grandma's house on Saturday!  Lily got lots of birthday presents and even had a dolphin cake.  (Way to go Teri and Al!!!  Looks awesome!)  Here are a few pics of the celebration!!

School and work finally caught up with me...I have neglected to update the blog for almost a month because I've been busy studying all about politics and nursing!  (Who knew the government could be so interesting?!?)  Not to mention working 4 evenings a week and trying to squeeze in time for the family in between!  Makes for a pretty hectic schedule!  So why not add one more thing, right?!? Introducing... SOPHIE!!!!! My little baby goldendoodle has arrived!  She will be 9 weeks old tomorrow and she is one cute little ball of puppy fur!!  :)  She has a sweet personality and loves to chew on ANYTHING that's lying around (i.e. my shoes, the rugs, the legs of the table, my hands, blue jeans).  We're gonna have to work on what's appropriate to chew and what needs to be left alone.  She hasn't grasped the concept of potty training at all yet, but hopefully soon?!  We've made lots of trips outside in the rain already...and I'm so glad it was at least WARM

Today was a BEAUTIFUL fall day in Ohio and I was delighted to get to spend a few hours of it in Amish Country!  The drive was gorgeous as all the trees have turned and the hills of Holmes County are now layered in shades of red, yellow, brown, and green.  If I hadn't been driving, I would've snapped a few pictures to document the beauty of fall. Instead, I kept my eyes on the road and avoided several Amish buggies and a few folks on bikes and arrived safely home with this new addition to my office... My bookshelf has arrived!!  :)  It's beautiful and just begging me to fill it up with books from top to bottom!  I hope to do just that the next time I have a few hours that aren't spent at work or with my nose in a book learning about health policy and politics.  :/  So...maybe by Christmas...  :)

Okay, so I think it's safe to say that summer is officially over.  Though the sunshine and warm afternoon temperatures are lingering, the world starts going dark around 6:30pm and I can almost see my breath in the bedroom when I wake up in the morning.  Since summer has vanished, I figured I better post the remaining items on my "Summer Bucket List."  A few of these were done in some way shape or form, but weren't quite worthy of a whole blog post.  Others just didn't get done...like going to a drive-in movie.  (And that was NOT due to a lack of time to make the trip, but rather due to the fact that there are very few movies that were playing this summer that I was even remotely interested in viewing.)  :) 1)  Take a bike ride once a week. :  I DID ride my bike several times this summer and even got to load it up on my brand new bike rack that Dad installed on my Jeep and took it to a bike trail one Sunday afternoon.  Lots of fun and definitely going on the li

19) Re-decorate a room in my house. This project has taken the better part of the last three weeks, but I think it's been worth it.  It started out with a simple paint job.  I figured I'd just throw some paint on the walls and paint the ugly wood trim white and be done with it. As with any home improvement project, what started as a simple paint job ended as a complete overhaul of the whole room.  Here's what the room started out looking like:    First and foremost, the trim needed painted.  I just dislike the yellow-ish looking trim that is all through my house.  It looks so 1970.  And I'm eager to bring my house into the year 2013.  :)  So... Step 1.  Paint yellow-ish trim bright white. Step 2:  Paint accent wall dark grey. Step 3:  Paint remaining 3 walls light grey. Step 4:  Scrape old paint off of closet walls and give it a fresh coat of paint. Ste

9)  Go to the city and do some shopping at an outdoor shopping center. A month or so ago, I drove to Dayton, Ohio to meet up with two of the best friends in the world!  It was a quick trip, but jam-packed with lots of girl-talk, shopping, and yummy treats!  On the way home from this trip, I felt the "call of the mall" and I gave in.  I stopped off at a beautiful outdoor shopping center in Dayton called "The Greene."  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  I could've shopped for two whole days there!!  I only had about an hour, so I limited myself to a store called " Charming Charlie " that I LOVE looking through.  They have just about ANY style and color of jewelry you could ever possibly want.  I had lots of fun dreaming of all the fun jewelry that I would have loved to have purchase, but I was a good girl and left it all in the store.  ;)

I wanted to make something special for my nieces/sisters to display all the fun papers/artwork/crafts they will be bringing home from school this year.  I saw an idea similar to this on Pinterest and kinda tweaked it to make it my own.  :)  This is what I ended up with...   I gave them to my sisters for their birthday this weekend, even though the gift was sort of more for the nieces...  I'm excited to see if they get some use out of them once school starts up in the coming weeks.  The girls were so excited (all FOUR of them) to take them home and hang them up!  Such a fun and easy project!!  :)

10) Wash the car once a week in the driveway. So, maybe once a week was a little ambitious.  Try once a month.  Much more achievable goal.  :) It's so pretty when it's clean!!  :)  I love my Jeep!!!

I love doing fun things with my nieces one-on-one.  They chatter nonstop when they are alone with Aunt Molly and I always find myself grinning at the cute things they say.  Today was Ruthie's day and she wanted to go to Oh-Yo's for a cool summer treat.  As we were driving there she said to me, "It sure is a long way to Oh-Yo's!"  I think it seemed extra long due to the endless construction throughout Wooster...guess a 15 minute ride is a little long for a 4-year-old.  :)  We had a lot of fun though and I am grateful for the opportunity to spend some time with this little cutie!   Yes, that is in fact a bowl full of candy with a very tiny amount of Very Berry Sorbet in the bottom.  What can I say?  The girl likes sugar!!  :)

3)  Go swimming. My gracious cousins have been so generous in allowing me to swim in their pool a few times this summer (on some of the few afternoons when it wasn't raining...)!  I had a blast playing monkey-in-the-middle with them and just lounging on a raft catchin' up on life.  SO much fun!  :)  I also got to go to the pool with Ruthie and Luke a few weekends ago where they spent a solid hour jumping into the pool and being lifted out of the pool by Tammy and I.  Boy were our arms ever sore after that day!! Unfortunately, though I've had a ton of fun splashing around this summer, I failed to take ANY pictures!!  Oops!  However, I DID take a picture of this HUGE swimming pool in Pensacola, Florida!  :)  I had the privilege of swimming here for over a week back in May...beautiful beach and gorgeous weather!!

17)  Read a novel just for fun. Ahh...what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than in an adirondack chair in the sunny backyard with a novel written by one of the coolest authors ever?!?  (Well, okay, I guess if I was on a BEACH in an adirondack chair reading a novel with the ocean at my feet that would be a slightly better way to spend a Sunday afternoon...but I live in Ohio...I take what I can get.)  ;)  LOVED fulfilling Number 17 today!! 

This is totally not on "the list" for this summer, but I've been wanting to try it for awhile, so I'm including it on the blog this week. When I was a kid, my absolute FAVORITE kind of pie was scutterbotch.  Instead of birthday cakes, I would request scutterbotch pie.  My Grandma Lane used to make it for me from time to time just because I loved it.  My Mom made it for holidays and special occasions and it was oh so good!!!  :)  Life happened and I moved away and the scutterbotch pies came less often.  I can't remember the last time I had a piece of scutterbotch pie.  About a month or so ago, I wanted to make it for some reason...can't recall why.  I didn't have the time then, but decided to give it a go today.  It wasn't TOO terribly difficult, although, I resisted the urge to call my mom in the middle of my pie-making endeavor when I read "brown the butter and brown sugar over medium-high heat" and thought to myself, "BROWN the BROWN

14) Make a new, refreshing, cold drink to share with friends. 16)  Eat hamburgers and hot dogs at a cookout. Ohio has been a little crazy this summer when it comes to the weather.  We've had one week of hot, humid summer-like weather and the rest of the time it's been raining and very, very cool.  I'm not complaining...well, not TOO much.  I crave the heat and the sunshine and we've been lacking it a little too much for my liking.  However, I've been trying to make the most of it anyway since ANYTHING is better than snow and 25 degrees.  :) I planned a little get-together with my friends.  Girls' Night Out.  We were going to have a super-fun outdoor party involving tiki torches, a campfire, and s'mores.  Then, Mother Nature said, "Nah, I'm gonna rain on her party."  Not just for an hour in the morning.  But for the entire day.  Ugh.  So, our party was moved indoors.  And even though it wasn't exactly how I had it planned in my head, I