2011 in Review...

Java over a Never Growing old is taking today off for New Years so I thought I would share some of my favorite posts with you from 2011.

In January I went with a friend of mine to Minneapolis so she could have some medical tests run and found some great information on hotel shopping that I passes along in Hotel Happiness, I also found a new blogger friend Meg Hart and her great book Housecat Confidential, a view of life from a cats perspective, that I posted in my Sunday's media madness.  If you get a chance you can check out Meg's new blog at Hart Stories, she is a terrific writer and I highly recommend her book and her blog.

In February I started getting a little antsy to play in my garden and a friend sent me some info on hay bale gardening that I passed along because it is easy and inexpensive and a great way to have a garden quick in an area that may not have an easy place to plant stuff.  You can check that out at Hey! Hay! Hay! Garden the easy way...

March brought two awards that I received, one for the Cherry on Top award and one for the Incredibly Sweet blog award, both required me to share some information about me which was fun, with the Cherry on Top one I also shared a favorite picture of my grandmother.

In April I shared a great recipe for my favorite Easter treat, Hot Cross Buns together with a little history on them.  I also started doing posts called Saturday Sojourn that were a lot of fun for me and included tips on saving while traveling.  One of my favorites was the one I did for Saint Paul, MN since we were heading there ourselves for a short vacation. 

May brought the release of a book from a series that I love by Jess Loury so I was able to do a little review of the book Octoberfest to share with my readers, May also marks Memorial Day and I was able to thank our armed services folks and post two great old pictures of my grandfather and my dad looking very dapper in their uniforms from WWII.

In June I had two great guest bloggers while I was on vacation for my 25th anniversary, the first was Alexis from from Simply Beautiful Veg.  and her great post on ways to organize, including a great pocketed organizer project you can make yourself.  My other guest poster was Nina from The Adventures ArtsyNina.  She did a wonderful post on making a Pallet Kitchen Cookbook Shelf, a very cool and extremely inexpensive project.

In July I stopped doing the Saturday Sojourn's and replaced them with Silly Saturday, my first one I loved because it emphasises simplicity.  I also love this time of year when all the fruits and veggies are getting ripe and took the opportunity to share a wonderful no bake blueberry cheesecake for everyone.

August was a great month for my Media Madness section for me, I found a couple of great apps, Uno and Conde Nast Traveller Magazine, that I love and use all the time.  The other was for the book The Help, which was wonderful and I would recommend to anyone looking for a good read.

September was a moth of highs and lows, the low being the sadness that came with the 9/11 memorial ceremonies I watched that day, the high was going on vacation to Chicago with two of my best girl friends and being able to share a bit of what we did and how we saved a ton of cash along the way.

The October posts were where two of my favorites are, one is one of my many favorite pictures, this one was of a small grey tree frog in our backyard that I used on the Thursday's picture perfect deal, the other was one of my favorite Silly Saturday's featuring a great photo shopped scene.

November was all about sharing my favorite things, including a list of movies, a great app called Flipboard and a recipe I always make for Rosy Fruit Salad, a wonderful frozen concoction that is from the 1950s.

December was all about relaxing and getting ready for the holidays and vacation, but in between that I was able to post one of my favorite ever pictures of my dog Tucker loving the first snowfall from last year.  Java also posted a wonderful Meet Me On Monday with 15 questions to tide us over until after New Year's, and being a good bit Irish, I couldn't end the year without and Irish Christmas Blessing to all my readers.

Thank you to all my readers for reading last year, I am looking forward to 2012!

C.Q.

Rewind...

I sure hope you all had a beautiful Easter!! We were blessed with news that we have a showing request for our house today so we have spent the weekend cleaning to perfection anything and everything. Because there is no Meet Me On Monday hop this week and I have been overly stressed I haven't had a chance to prepare something for today's post......Enter one of the best friends a gal could have and you get a great story from Bernie over at One Mixed Bag. I made a special request for the Thrift Store Story, a tale of madness and mayhem....I hope you all enjoy it, please check out her blog if you haven't already, she is sooooo much fun to read!

C.Q.

I Live With A Super Hero

After unpacking our few boxes of Christmas, we decided to head to the thrift store to beef up our lack of Christmas decorations. I had a few ideas in mind and you never know what you can find. Who knows what treasures were awaiting for us to snatch up.

While I was looking for Christmas stuff, Mr. Bernie was looking at tools and other assorted items that I could care less about. I lost track of him for a bit. I struck up a conversation with a couple who were just poking around as well. We were having a nice chat when all of a sudden Mr. B found me. It was not a little, "Oh, there you are." No, he came running up and hopped in front of me and said, "Look what I found!!" I about died, he was wearing a black helmet and bouncing around like a little kid! The gal I was talking to stared at him like a deer in the headlights and quickly scampered away. I took it all in, Mr. B. standing in front of me wearing a black helmet and grinning. He asked if he could have the helmet for when he rides his bike. Its one thing to carry the helmet, but another to actually wear the darn thing in the store and bounce around.

I had a couple other things I wanted to look at and suggested that he might want to take off the helmet. He explained that he wanted to wear it around and followed me around like a puppy. He kept saying, "Do you like my helmet? Does it make me look sexy?" Finally, it was time to go check out. I suggested that he take off his nice helmet so the cashier could ring us up. He pouted and whined but did take it off. As soon as the lady had rung it up, he snatched it back and promptly put it back on his head, grinning. I reminded him that I only had him signed out of the home for a few hours. I had to say something as I think the cashier thought he had lost his mind. I hissed under my breath to take it off. But he had selective hearing and chose to ignore me.

He walked out of the store with the helmet on. I walked a few steps back. We get into the car, with him still wearing the helmet. I told him that, "Nobody wears a helmet to drive, now take it off!' He looked at me as if I was the one who had lost their mind and said, "Race car drivers wear helmets, Vrrrooom, Vrrrrrroooommm!" I'll be dipped if he didn't wear that helmet all the way home. He got quite a few odd looks. Shocking, I know. Everyday you see someone wearing a helmet during a commute home. *eye roll*

We have a running joke about him wearing a helmet and cape. He always wanted to be a superhero. Now he has a helmet and so I wanted to get a picture of him looking all Super Heroish. I asked him if he wanted a green cape, (one of my green towels) He explained that he wanted to wear his special ORANGE cape to have his picture taken. When one is going to ask so weird, does the "cape" color really matter? I found out that Yes, yes it does.

~Bernie~