Happy Birthday, Corinne!

You are the best, most wonderful sister in the whole world and I'm so glad we were able to help you celebrate on Sunday!  I wish you many more years of health and happiness!  Have a great day and don't party too hard ;). xoxoxoxoxo

Customer Shout-Out

This is the beautiful Sara!  This is Sara in front of the photo of the Million Dollar Quartet at Sun Studios in Memphis (she's very fancy). Sara has been a customer (more like a friend) of mine for years now and I've been asking (basically begging) her to show me a picture of herself for a looooong time.  She finally agreed (yay!) and she even let me put it up on my blog!
Thanks Sara, YOU ROCK!! xoxo

Tomato Hornworms

A few days ago, upon daily inspection of my tomato plants, I saw this uninvited guest:

After screeching and gagging, I ran to my computer to investigate.  I found out that this is the larvae of a tomato hornworm that has been parasitized with wasp eggs.  Basically, a wasp layed eggs on this moth larva, slowly destroying it. The wasps will kill the hornworms when they emerge from the cocoons and will seek out other hornworms to parasitize...pretty gross but pretty amazing!

Necklace Giveaway

My friend Kelly and I are teaming up for my first ever giveaway.  Go visit her blog: http://www.kellypurkey.typepad.com/ to win a sterling silver initial necklace from my shop: http://www.etsy.com/listing/61963050/teensy-tiny-silver-initial-necklace

This self-portrait (of Kelly) was taken straight from her blog

To enter the giveaway, leave Kelly a message telling her what your favorite accessory is and she will pick a winner by Thursday.  Also, use promo code "Kelly" at my Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/basilthecat to get 15% off all purchases until July 31st.

Happy Shopping!

The Sweetest Place on Earth

Hershey, PA

We spent our 4th of July Weekend at Hershey...it was soo much fun.  I wanted to share a few pics from our trip:

In the car, on our way, Charlie insisted upon wearing these "sunglasses"

Hershey's bar at check-in

5 minutes later, after RJ devoured his bar (did I mention it was 9pm???)

The most delicious Reese's EVER

The cute train passengers

The ski lift ride I was too scared to go on

RJ and his winnings

Me, The Boys and the "Meow" according to Charlie (in his defense, it does sounds like "Kitty Cat")

Outside ZooAmerica...I love this picture!

The Characters

We had such an amazing weekend, I hope to do it again soon!

You Get What You Pay For

  A couple of weeks ago, Charlie ran to the dining room window, spotting a fire truck parked in our neighborhood...a highly unusual occurrence.  We took him outside to investigate. When we got up to the truck, two fireman came over, proud of their shiny vehicle.  When we asked them what was going on, they told us that they had received a grant to replace fire alarms in older homes.  They were going door-to-door to see if the folks in our neighborhood were interested.  About an hour later, they arrived at our home and asked if we were interested...we immediately said "Yes!"  They replaced all of our alarms (except one), with new alarms with a 10-year Lithium battery...we were beyond excited.

  Flash-forward to the NEXT day when I'm preheating my oven to 450 degrees, readying it for a Boboli pizza (a new family favorite).

My kitchen fills with smoke (no, this picture is not blurry, it is smoke-filled), which is relatively common at such high temperatures in my oven, and instead of the usual screaming from the two closest alarms, all we hear is silence....

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!