Photography By Line Klien

Just some pics I found pretty cool.

Pur-dy

I love fashion.  I’m not talking Lady Ga Ga Fashion.  Or half the things that are coming down the cat walk these days.  But these clothes that I’m about to show you are B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.

Designs by Vicente Villeran

I miss home.  I really do.  Everyday I dream about how nice it would be to make a run to the Bagel Caboose.  Or stop by Sunrise Grill on the Kittery circle.  Or how about heading up to Castle in the Clouds.  Or hanging at Shir-Bill Hill with family.  Ahhh The Common man.  Sandwich Fair…all of these things are some of my favorites.  But I wanted to list a couple of places that I feel is a “must see” list if you’re in the area.

LLBEAN

This is a sporting good place that has an awesome 100% satisfaction guarantee on all of there items.  They are open 24 hours a day so they do not have LOCKS ON THEIR DOORS.  I found that very interesting.  The quality of there products are just as good as Columbia and North Face (if not better).

When Pigs Fly

If you are in the York/Kittery area this is a fantastic bread company.  Must see.

Stonewall Kitchen

I worked there at one time and I have to say they have some of the best products around. Just to stop by and look around the plant and sample the jams this is so much fun!

Annabele’s

Ahhhh.  This is a secret place. It’s hidden in an alley in downtown Portsmouth NH.  The locals all know where it is.  But this place is a jem for fresh homemade icecream.

Grammy Review

Okay, this had to be the BEST Grammy’s I’ve ever seen.  They packed the first hour with such entertainment I didn’t feel guilty not watching the whole thing.  So here’s the run down.  Lady GaGa.  Cool.  Elton John with her doublely cool.  She had to ripp her glitter glasses off because she couldn’t see to play the piano.  Beyonce.  Always amazing performing live..I did see that she almost fell again though coming down the stairs…She’s really good at mixing up her music so you feel that even though you’ve seen the “show” a million times performance is different in some way.  Black Eyed Peas….hmmmm….been there done that.  Personally I feel they should rename their group Fergie & Will-i-am.  Lady Antabellum  finally sang Need You Now.  What a beautiful song.  I love this group almost as much as my Tim & Faith….but when the curtain fell on her….ouch.  She pulled thru great though.  Taylor Swift.  Okay it’s bothering me that Ms. Swift is getting all of these awards when she can not sing on key LIVE.  I thought it was cool that she wanted to sing with Stevie Nicks (one of my favorites)  but the performance over all just sucked.  Too bad too because it could’ve been the one performance that eveybody was talking about the next day….but instead we’re chanting Pink!  Pink!  Pink! Singing “Glitter In The Air” Lordy, that girl can sing.  Now add doing areial moves drentched in water…yeah.  Pleasantly different but this was by FAR my favorite performance.

Fabric

What do you do when it’s -2 outside and you’re fashionista is bored beyond belief?  You head for Walmart and buy fabric.  The look on Mae’s face when she saw all the choices of fabric…lol. She says “Mommy, all the possibilities is overwhelming!”  So on that day we picked fabric.  She changed her mind . A LOT.  But she ended up with a few basics and splurged on a shiny pink one that was over $6 a yard.  So she decided to settle on half a yard.  She’s really doing well understanding the value of a dollar.  When you put it in terms of how much fabric you can buy with your allowance…it puts things in place pretty fast lol.  She hasn’t started her dresses yet.  She’s still trying to come up with the perfect idea before she makes the first cut.  While we were there I thought it was a good Idea to teach her how to search for a pattern in the drawers.  She caught on fast and was very pleased with how organized the Fabric girl kept the drawers for her to find the right one. I say this laughing because you never know what’s going to impress this girl!  Organized fabric patterns made her day.

What! No Internet?!

One of the first things I do when I wake up is check online to make sure the school hasn’t been canceled for the day. You laugh, but I have learned my lesson.  Never wake up your child and assume that they will have school that day.  Here in Iowa they can close the school due to it being too cold outside.  You all from FL, GA, & LA are laughing, huh?  It’s true.  They can….and they have.  So this morning there was a possibility of school being closed due to an ice storm coming our way and the most annoying thing happened… I couldn’t log on to the internet. This is a very frustrating thing for me because I am not a very patient person and I take most things like being able to connect to the World Wide Web for granted. So not having the world at my fingertips was was very frustrating.  I realized then that I had to go about this the “old school” way. So I sat there watching the bottom of the TV for a good 5 minutes.  That’s how long it took them to go thru alllllllllll the schools that were listed as being “closed”.  They whole time I was wishing for it to hurry up and for nothing to happen that would pull me away from the TV because if I were to miss Meagan’s school in the line up…I’d be sitting there anther 5 minutes. Thankfully nothing needed my immediate attention so I was able to see  that indeed Dubuque School District was closed for the day. I looked at the clock and thought “okay… I have about 20 minutes before the girls wake up to call tech support and fix the internet problem.”  As many mothers know…it’s BEST to do things like this when the kids are sound asleep because the last thing you’d want is to be taking care of the kids while tackling your computer problems. Then it hit me.  Back in the day when I worked behind a desk.  I would call Tech Support and have to tackle work related problems all the TIME.  The only difference was there were NO KIDS at work.  To think a SAHM (Stay at  home mom)  has to tackle the computer AND watch kids at the same time minus the paycheck…… So sitting there enjoying my connection to the internet, thankful that Daisy is under the desk warming my feet and drinking my morning coffee I thought to myself…hmmm, maybe I’m more patient than I give yourself credit for…..next thing to tackle….a shower.

Flowers…for me?

I love going into a grocery store and looking over the flower selection.  I mean, how can you miss it?  It’s usually the very first thing you see when you walk into a store!  Sneaky advertising you big wigs!  Anyways, I try to buy them on a regular basis in the winter.  It’s always nice to look at them and think….one day the snow will be gone and there will be color again.  Carnations are probably the flower I like the least.  But on this day when I saw them piled on top of each other in a large crate…I noticed the colors were so bold I couldn’t pass them up!  I pulled out all the “ugly colors” and tried to highlight the dark maroon color with the limegreen/yellow ones. I think it turned out pretty good…well….for carnations.

Sushi

This weekend we made a trip to the local grocer and picked up SUSHI!  Meagan and I have talked about trying Sushi for weeks now.  It wasn’t the easiest thing to find in the store.  We ended up having to ask an employee where to go.  A very nice girl took us to an end cap where there were two varieties to choose from.  Now I’m not a sushi expert but I know there are many different kinds of sushi.  I guess Iowa only eats two.  Unfortunately for us both had crab.

For those of you who don’t know….seafood+kim=yuck.

Now a side note…I have tried to get over the seafood thing.  Trust me, with my husband and his family being a seafood eating bunch….it would benefit me greatly to partake in the famous Lobster ceremonies that we have over at Tina Beana’s and Shir-Bill Hill Road.  But clearly seafood isn’t meant for me.

Without any other option we decided to try one anyway.  The one we decided on had avocado, crab, carrots, seaweed, and rice.   Survey says!  It’s a winner!  We liked it!  IF IT DIDN’T HAVE CRAB! So next time we’re in California, Meagan and I have made a date at a sushi bar with maybe a vegetarian version of a Sushi roll.

We had fun trying it.  This was a great Mommy & Meagan memory. lol

Silkies

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…these siklies are the prettiest birds ever!

Bertellibici Bikes

Bertellibici Bikes

I just think these pics of bicycles by Bertellibici are pieces of art.