Solitude, Strawberries, Sour Cream, Shoes & Swamp Creatures

Don't you just love alliteration?

Rob left on Thursday for yet another work-related camping trip grumble grumble. I won't lie that it made me a little sad to say goodbye, as it usually does. I trust my husband implicitly and without question, but I still wish I could be in the woods with him rather than alone with my dog.

When Rob was in the Army we both met some pretty jealous wives (one of whom threatened to get Rob in trouble with the FRG because I talked to her friend's husband for five minutes...but that's another story).  Though I may whimper and moan about him being gone I'd say I'm pretty damn cool about him going into the woods with the ladies he works with.

Anyway when he's gone I wallow around and mess around on the internets try hard to stay busy and active.  Yesterday was no exception.  First, after walking the beast, I took a break from work and went out to breakfast with my friend Rachel.  Her wedding was the first I ever photographed "professionally" (I use this term loosely) and I think she's just lovely.

I also bought some organic lavender because I really wanted to make lavender lemonade.  Unfortunately I'm lazy and didn't want to deal with the whole boil-water-and-actually-make-lemonade thing, so I basically added about 1/4 cup of lavender into a Simply Lemonade bottle and left it there for around 4 hours. Surprisingly it came out pretty well,though it actually required even more work than the boiling since I had to strain it, put it into a giant drink dispenser, then get it back into the Simply Lemonade bottle. I'm also not sure anyone would want to drink lemonade this color if they didn't know it had lavender in it:

As you can see the straining didn't go particularly well...

Additionally I found some organic strawberries so that I could try out a recipe from my good friend Ayla, involving organic local strawberries, sour cream, and brown sugar.  Sound weird? Whatever, it was delicious. Like, seriously delicious. You'd think that the sour cream would be all up in the strawberry's face, but it stays remarkably mellow, providing just the right amount of tart before your taste buds are sung to blissful sleep by the sweet maiden brown sugar:

I think I could probably write for some sort of food magazine.  Recommendations now being accepted.

In other ridiculously exciting news, I finally broke down and bought some wedges the other day and holy jaysus how did I not catch on to this earlier? Wedges are amazing, especially with high-waisted shorts!

Sorry for the crap cell-phone quality...no husband around to take pictures!

Finally, I wanted to share with you a random story that happened to me last week. I was sitting in my chair working, minding my own business and wearing purple striped pajama pants, crazy hair and an oversized blue sweatshirt that said "Stewart/Colbert 2008" when I decided to get up off my ass and just style my hair rather than, you know, take a shower (someone told me I always mention 30 Rock, this is the moment where Liz Lemon and I become one).

As I was preparing the bathtub, Cypress began barking madly downstairs. I ran down in the aforementioned outfit and without my new glasses.

And there stood my husband.  With two of his female college student coworkers.

And me, in all my frumpy, pajamalicious glory.

So that you fully appreciate the gravity of this situation, I hired an artist to render an approximation of how I looked in this particular moment:

Now, the terrible secret about why I don't post many pictures of myself on my blog.

My darling, sweet, thoughtful husband said brightly, "We needed tools for work! I told them you might be pissed." I think I mumbled an apology, talked about some restaurant we'd been to, and told my husband, with an edge to my voice, just how much I loved him.  I also think at one point my skin turned a lovely shade of crimson awesomeness.

Have I mentioned how awkward I am?

Truthfully I feel worse for the girls than for myself.  As the above photograph quite obviously demonstrates, working-from-home Caitlin can be a truly stunning and frightening site. And since I know at least one of them reads my blog with some regularity, I would like to grant them my deepest apologies.

How has your post-holiday week been?

Also, for your Question of the Blog (totally a thing): What are some of your blogging pet peeves, either about blogging in general or reading material on other blogs? Without getting snarky, mean, or personal of course.

Things I Love Thursday

Time for yet another installment, friends!

I may have bought this lovely seersucker dress. Hope it fits!

Making sense of dreams: an infographic.

Kurt Vonnegut explains drama. Amazing, especially because I love Kurt Vonnegut.

Loved this entire article: How to Talk to Little Girls.

Check out these close-up images of human eyes.

These images are creepy as hell...but still enjoyable!

Super creepy images (detect a theme here?) of a deserted Six Flags in New Orleans.

Looking for a fun new color scheme for your blog? Check out the Color Scheme Designer.

The Art of Negative Space.

Look at this amazing toilet paper roll art! WTF?

If you haven't seen Dear Photograph, check it out now. Super amazing/inspirational/tragic/heartwarming.

Really cool story and pictures.

When a photograph is not just a photograph.

Love this article, and I hope I remember it if we ever have girls: Why Keeping Little Girls Squeaky Clean Could Make Them Sick.

Some blogs I'm enjoying of late and always: TART, Soul Singing Liv, Delirious Rhapsody.

What are you loving this week?

And, a very important question was asked of me by the cashiers at Hannaford the other day: Who would win in a fight, Kermit the Frog or Elmo?

Handmade Mobile Giveaway Winner!

And the winner is...

Ashley of After Nine to Five!

Ashley, please send me an email with your address at tomakelovestay {at} gmail {dot} com!

For the rest of you, if you're just dying for one of Lindy's awesome handmade items, check out her shop here!

Thanks for following, entering, and making my first giveaway so awesome. I promise to do another one soon!

A Damn Fine Weekend (Rather Photo Heavy)

This holiday weekend was so fulfilling and awesome. I stayed off the computer for the most part (plus there was no cell reception and spotty 3G) and just enjoyed time with both my family and Rob's.  I won't bore you with all of the here-to-there details, but how about a few highlights and then some pictures?

The highlights:

*Taking care of my 19-month-old niece (with a whole lot of help from other family members).
*Teaching my niece "This Little Piggie" and having her extend her foot out to me again and again to do it "one more time."
*Laughing and drinking with my dad, sister, and Robbie, while watching 30 Rock.
*The glory of a homemade (very illegal) fireworks display, watched from my dad's pontoon boat in the middle of the lake.
*My cousin trying to carry me off the boat only to drop me in the water and give me a nasty bruise on my tail bone (don't worry, no pictures). 
*My husband letting me fall so he could catch my camera (no sarcasm there, that was awesome).
*Eating roasted marshmallows during a bonfire because I can't eat gluteny s'mores.
*Gazing at the stars from the middle of the lake (once again on the pontoon boat) with my dad, sister and Robbie.
*Boating around the lake with my dad, mom, sisters, niece, and Robbie on a beautiful, sunny, warm day.
*Going swimming in front of the house I grew up in for the first time in a decade or more.

 *Driving with Robbie to visit my in-laws and noticing the temperature drop about 14 degrees as we neared the coast.
*Seeing Bob Marley perform (stand-up comedian, and he was also the Boston cop from "Boondock Saints") with my husband's siblings and getting to meet him afterward because my sister-in-law was friends with him in college.
*Waking up to see my brother-in-law finish a 5K and get beat by a guy with a stroller.
*Seeing my sister-in-law in the parade in Rob's hometown.
*Listening to my sister-in-law sing "America the Beautiful" in front of the entire town as the flag was raised on the Fourth of July.
*Feeling proud of my sister-in-law as she accepted a scholarship for being so awesome.

*Watching yet another parade from the same spot that my family has watched that parade for as long as I can remembered.
*Spending time with my extended family as the fog rolled in and we waited for the inevitable fireworks cancellation.
*Drinking and watching more 30 Rock with my dad, Megan and Rob.
*Finding different versions of the song "Danny Boy" for my dad. His mother, who passed away last year, used to sing it to him and he's really connected to it. This one's my favorite.
*Picking Cypress up on Tuesday from the kennel and seeing her excited little ass wiggle.
*Taking a little work break today to go swimming with Robbie and Cypress.
*Sun, sun, and more sun.
*Lots of cute dresses and summery outfits.

What better way to celebrate America's birthday than with some awesome people you happen to be related to? The Fourth of July has to be one of my absolute favorite holidays.

What did you do this weekend? Whatever it was, I hope it was magical.

Don't forget that today is the last day to enter my handmade mobile giveaway! Go check it out and enter your little self in!

Why I can never be a Studio Singer

One of the things that positively baffles my husband is the fact that I have extremely sensitive hearing and yet cannot understand approximately 85% of lyrics that I hear.  It's such a frequent occurrence that it's become a running joke with us on every car trip.

I wanted to share with you some of my greatest hits, so to speak:

"Lodi" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Original line: Oh lord, stuck in Lodi again.
Caitlin's line: Oh lord, sucking on old diaphragms.

(...the muscle, not the contraceptive, perverts)


"Bad Moon Rising" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Original line: There's a bad moon on the rise.
Caitlin's line: There's a bathroom on the right.

(To be fair, I've heard that this is a pretty common one)


"Reach for the Sky" by Social Distortion
Original line: Reach for the sky, 'cause tomorrow may never come.
Caitlin's line: Reach for the sky, 'cause tomorrow, they never come.

(Listen to it here, around 0:57)


"Story of My Life" by Social Distortion
Original line: I didn't have much interest in sports or school elections
Caitlin's line: I didn't have much interest in sports or school erections


(haha...erection.)

(Listen to it here, 0:43)


"When She Begins" by Social Distortion*
Original line: Man I was just looking for a place for this raggedy ol' heart of mine.
Caitlin's line: Man I was just looking for a place a higgedy rattamine.

(Listen to it here, 3:23)

The last lyric in particular demonstrates the fact that if I can't understand a lyric I generally make up nonsense words that vaguely approximate the sounds of the words and belt that out just as loud as the rest of the song. And I find nothing wrong with that.

If Rob is listening and I don't want him to be made aware of the fact that I don't know a particular lyric, I'll simply start adding in my own lyrics about our dog or intentional nonsense lyrics based on our dog's nicknames, like "diddly derp derp scrab."  Then he does it back and I don't look like I'm the only idiot in the car.

Makes total sense, right?

As an aside, I put the query out on Twitter on Monday asking if anyone else had this issue, and my good friend Katie told me that she always thought that "Pour some sugar on me" was "First come to the I love." Rob and I were extremely skeptical until we listened to it and now we can't get the line out of our heads. If you don't believe me that it sounds exactly like "first come to the I love," here's proof at around 1:28...

Katie, I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Oh, and good luck trying to unhear any of these lyrics should you hear these songs in the near future.

P.S. Have you entered my handmade mobile giveaway yet?!

*Rob wants me to note that we performed "When She Begins" together at our wedding and at that time had no idea what the lyrics were.

If I were an Ancient Greek I'd be Sansspectacles: A Photo Essay

So on Wednesday night I was pulling a sweatshirt over my head when I heard a giant snap. This happened:

My 2-year-old glasses snapped in half. I've never had that come even close to happening but here it was.  We tried to tape them:

My amazingly awesome husband tried to super-glue them:

But they were irreparably damaged. And it was 8 p.m. And we live 40 miles from the nearest optician.

I of course couldn't give up my internet, so I sat about 6 inches away from my computer all night.  This is me having an awesome Twitter chat sesh with Ivelisse and Jess:

I was the awkward one.  I'm always the awkward one.

Needless to say I had a little bit of a breakdown since I obviously couldn't drive myself anywhere and I had no backup glasses (smart, I know).

Rob, lovely little husband that he is, took the day off and drove me the next morning to the big city of Lewiston to get my new glasses.  Problem was, I had to spend the entire morning without glasses.

I thought you might like to see the first part of the day through my myopic, glasses-free eyes:

Cypress--or maybe a panther--getting ready to go to daycare.

Either my husband or a stranger come to steal all my things.

What a beautiful day, right?

I hear that Auburn Lake is beautiful this time of year.

Once at the optician's, which was located in a somewhat deserted mall, I picked out a designer brand (Coach, ooh-la-la) because I'm cool like that. I also picked out some prescription sunglasses, which I've never had before.  But of course we had to wait a little bit before I was granted the gift my full eyesight again, so we frolicked around the mall for a bit.

Because we're awesome music nerds, we ended up in the music store, where apparently you can create and sell your own CDs:

I'm not sure what an "Evangelism Explosion" is and I'm not sure I want to know.

Then we went to the bookstore, where we found a book called The Dog Selector (some sort of new anti-canine supervillian?), and I proceeded to take pictures of every dog that looked remotely like Cypress:

After an hour of waiting or so we returned and finally, my transition from Caitlin to some sort of bizarre Caitlin-Liz Lemon hybrid was complete:

I CAN SEEEE

Once I finally re-joined the world of the seeing my husband and I got some lunch at this yummy, eco-friendly and gluten-free-friendly restaurant while we waited for the optician to finish with my prescription sunglasses. I had a veggie fiesta bowl with black beans, rice, veggies and cheese, and Rob had a chicken burrito. I also got a delish smoothie made with bananas, berries and Maine honey. Which is pretty much the same as regular honey, except with more lobster.

We were pretty shocked (and pleased!) that this place existed because the city we were in is known by all Mainers as a bit of a sketchy place.  Most of the other local restaurants fall into the Ruby Tuesday/Denny's/Applebee's category.

Side note: I told Robbie that one of the upsides of eating gluten-free is that we actually have to scout out restaurants rather than just eating at Denny's.  Though most times I'm pretty sure he'd rather eat at Denny's.

Anyway we picked up the sunglasses and drove home having completed our mission.  I'm still getting used to the new glasses because apparently my stupid eyes are more comfortable without any glasses at all.

THE END.

P.S. Doesn't this mall sign look like something you'd see in a 1980s teen movie? There were even LIGHTS on the "Mall" part of it:

Welcome to Maine!

P.P.S. Enter my giveaway! You know you want to!