Let's Dare to Share !

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

I am in Michigan this weekend, so the party is having a little bit of a late start. I am also have some trouble with my Inlinkz link. For some reason I have received a bad gateway error message two or three times.  I will write a little bit about my week, and then I will try again.  On Monday as I was leaving work my engine light went on. As you can see I also needed gas which was $4.49 a gallon where I lived. Ouch!  I added about a half tank of gas, and drove straight home until D could look at my car.  He has some sort of device that tells him why the light came on.  In this case something was loose but he could not tell what, and it was getting to dark to keep looking. He did determine that my car was safe enough to drive to work, but told me not to do a lot of extra driving until we knew for sure.  When I got my gas, the miles on the car said 235 miles.  I drove the 7 miles home.  The next morning when I started my car the number said 169 miles. I was baffled why approximately 50 miles just disappeared. On Tuesday when he was able to look at it more in the daylight, it was determined that my gas sensor was acting up.  He removed the sensor, and went to a couple of auto stores. It turned out none of the auto stores had one. They said he could order one, but it would take a couple of days and would cost $100. Since I was not able to miss work due to my line of work and low staff this week, he decided to put the sensor back in to see what would happen.  When he did that, the engine light turned off.  The numbers on the dash were off for a couple of days. I drove to and from work twice, which would be 28 miles and the tank stayed in the 140s. Finally today on my way to work the numbers aligned again, and the light did not come on.  Has anyone else had a similar problem with your gas sensor? 

Well I just tried the link again, and this time it worked. Since it is already 1:30 in the morning, I am going to post it and get this party started. Link up and HAVE FUN!

 

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It's Party Time! Let's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

I did something fun this week.  We had the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile visit our area the last several days. One of the stops was near my work so I went to go see it.  I have seen  one before a few years ago, but it was late in the evening and it was just parked in a parking lot.  This time it was official visiting hours where they had two reps greeting people and taking photos.  They reps were so nice, and really loved their jobs. 

We had the grand baby over one day this week and she was going through my stuff. I had my Halloween craft supplies out and she wanted to make something. I recently found these felt shapes in the Dollar Tree craft aisle. I also recently picked up some gift bags that are currently on sale for $1.  Since she is still pretty young, making these gift bags was something that we could do together. I put tape on the back and she put the felt shapes on the bags.  I added then added some color with paint markers. I like how they turned out and it is a cute and easy way to make Halloween goody/gift bags. 

As we get closer to Halloween, I am going through some of my old DIYs and crafts.  Dollar Tree still carries the condiment containers which I have used to make treat boxes.  They are easy to make, and fun for parties or in the classroom.  If you are interested in seeing more on how I made them, and a few other holiday treat boxes you can see the post here.

Well it is getting late, so it is time to get this party started. Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

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Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

As I write this post, I am watching one of the specials about September 11.  It is so hard to believe it has already been 25 years.  I still remember that day so well.  Back when I first started to this blog, I wrote a post on the 10th anniversary of that fateful day.  You can read it here.  I am glad that I wrote it, and was interesting to read it again 15 years later.  Back in 2001, I had three young children. The youngest was only 2 months old.   They are now all adults in their mid to late 20s. They were too young to have any memories of what happened on that day, but they have had other big events shape their lives.  What big event do you remember most in your life? 

I was thinking of posting about Halloween tonight, but with the importance of this day, it doesn't seem quite right. 

It is getting late, so I am going to get this party started.  I would love to see what you have been up to. Link up your posts and HAVE FUN! 

 

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It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means..

It's time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

Last weekend on the way back from Michigan, we stopped by a county fair. We had been to this fair exactly 5 years before. We ended up taking a picture in the same spot we did on our last visit, while listening to a band that was playing 80s music.  We also saw one of our classmates there who graduated with us in the 80s. 

Each week I play trivia at a nearby restaurant with a good friend of mine, and D when he is able to go with us.  Over the summer the winners of each round win tickets to our local minor league baseball games. This week we won tickets for tonight's game.  It was a beautiful night, and we won by several points. Near the stadium is a pizza place that sells different kinds of pizza by the slice.  One of the choices this week was this chicken and fries pizza.  My friend ordered it, and said it was really good. I was going to post some pictures from the game, but it turns out I took videos and very few photos.  

Now that it is September, I am starting to decorate for Halloween.  It has been so hot (in the 90s) this week, which  has made it difficult to be outside for more than a couple minutes. I have not done much outside yet.   My grandbaby still likes to play in the cardboard play house I made her last year. We have been decorating it for all the holidays.  This week she helped me change it over to Halloween. It is not finished yet, but she loved the stickers and spider craft kit I bought from Dollar Tree.  She also loves the squirrel stacking pumpkins. She enjoys taking the squirrel off of the stack so she can play with it. The stacking set is really cute and only $5.

Over in my shop in Etsy, I have been adding more Halloween items like these cute treat cards. I have so many items I want to add, and not a lot of time to add them.  Halloween is definitely one of my favorite holidays. 

Here is a throw back to a fun Halloween DIY I made a few years ago.  That year my Halloween theme was ghosts and I made these cute Ghost Dogs that resemble my dogs. We got a lot of nice comments on them from the trick or treaters.    You can see what you need to make them on this post here.

Now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you are up to so let's get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN!! 

 

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Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is Time to Dare to Share! 

It's our Michigan weekend, and we just got back home from the dance. I was able to see many of my dancing friends, and a friend I have not seen in quite awhile. It was great seeing him again. He has had some health problems recently, so it was nice seeing him healthy.  The girls and I  did not get any group photos, so I do not have a dance photo to share tonight.  I did take the photo of the birthday cake this week. Our  grandbaby turned two.  She was so excited about her cake and presents.  It was a big change from when she turned 1.  When was given her cake at her first birthday party she cried because mommy and daddy would not let her touch the flame on her candle.  This year she happily blew out the candles and asked if she could do it again.  

I added a few more things to my Halloween wardrobe this week. Walmart had some really cute things this year like this Hey Boo sweatshirt.  I am also still collecting new Halloween items.  I told D that I will wait until Sept 1st to start decorating, and that is just a few days away. I need to start thinking about my Halloween costume this year. We already have two parties to go to, and I will be celebrating a big birthday that week. 

I have been driving around with skeletons in my car for a little over a week.  I had just one in my car for a few days. D knew about it because he saw it in my Instagram story.  He was standing next to my car telling he knew I had a skeleton passenger when he looked over and said, "Wait, you have two of them?" 

He just shook his head when I told him that Mr. Bones was lonely, and found himself a girlfriend. LOL!  Dollar Tree has these skeletons for only $5 each. I have seen a few more the last few days, so he is lucky I only bought a couple and not an entire skeleton family.   Does anyone else have something unusual in your car?  This is not the first time I have done something like this. I one drove around with a giant stuffed lion in my car for over a month, because my daughter left it in the car instead of putting it in her room.  It was easy finding my car during that time, because there are not many cars with a giant stuffed lion in it.  

Well it is getting late, so I better get this party started. Link up and HAVE FUN! 

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It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

While we did have a few days this week without rain, last weekend was still very rainy.   While it was raining most of the day on Saturday, the birthday party was inside an Hibachi restaurant, so it did not affect our lunch.  We were also able to go see one of our favorite local bands on Saturday night at our hometown festival even in the pouring rain, because we were in a big tent.  On Sunday we had a few hours of sun, so we took our grand baby to large dairy in our part of the state. They are known for their ice cream, and also for their activities for kids.  Toward the end of our visit, we got rained on yet again. We had to run for cover more than once.  She had a good time even with the rain. She got to see some baby goats and ride a carousel.

We were lucky enough to have beautiful weather for a baseball game on Thursday night. An added bonus, our team won 7 to 1.   There are not that many games left this season, so this might be the last one we go to this summer. 

I am starting to make my Halloween DIYS for this year.  I made these easy glitter ghosts using Dollar Tree supplies this week.  I would love to start decorating for Halloween now, but I told D I would wait until September 1st. I have been adding a few things here and there around the house, hoping he wont notice  them. LOL   

Now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been up to. It's time to get this party started, so link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

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It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 
It's Time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

This past week has had crazy weather. I am in western Ohio, and it has rained/stormed every single day this week. We had several thunderstorms. I took this picture last Saturday. We went to a festival, and planned on watching a popular Elvis impersonator.  Two storms came through while we were there. There was an 45 minute rain delay when it cleared up enough to hold the concert.  After about 4 songs in, and it started pouring again. Many people ran for cover.   At that point we decided to leave and skip the show and fireworks.  The bad flooding in eastern Indiana is not that far away from us, but we are okay where we live.  Has anyone else been experiencing crazy weather this week? 

My dogs have turned into velcro dogs this week with all the storms. They may be large dogs, but they are big babies. LOL This is my 80 lb Golden trying to get as close to me as she could. 

Because of the rain, I have been home busy working on Halloween listings in my Etsy Shop. I made a Find a Ghost Hunt that I know my grandbaby is going to love to play. She loves playing hide and seek.  I have several more items to list in the next few days.  

This weekend our plans may also been affected by the bad  weather too. We have a birthday party earlier in the day on Saturday, and plan on watching one of our favorite bands play in the evening outside at a festival.  They are expecting excessive rain and thunderstorms again this entire weekend. Hopefully the rain will hold off until after the concert.  Sunday does not look much better. It is supposed to be in the 90s with more rain. :( 

Well it is almost midnight, so I better get this party started. Link up and HAVE FUN!   

 

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Let's Dare to Share!

It is Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It's Time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

I saw something exciting at the store tonight.  It's another sign that Halloween is almost here, the monster cereals are back!  I don't know about you but I have loved the monster cereals for years.  They used to have a few others flavors as well over the years. Does anyone else remember Fruit Brute from the 70s?  My favorite definitely is Count Chocula.  I remember when it was available all year round.  

This week went by pretty quickly.  I am still filling in for our baby teacher at work who had her baby earlier this summer. The babies keep me so busy, that my time at work flies by. 

It will soon be time to dig out the Halloween decorations.  When do you decorate for Halloween? Do you like to decorate early, or do you wait until the beginning of October. I will probably start in September this year. I have been buying items and planning what I want to do, but will need some help getting all of my decorations out of the basement. I plan putting up our purple bat inflatable again. Our grandbaby loves her. I also bought another bat to put out with it this year.  

While I am super excited about Halloween, I know it is also Back to School Season for a lot of people.  I remember the stress every August trying to get three kids ready to go back to school. It was also busy this time of year when I was teaching back in Michigan. Now that my kids are all out of school, and I work with littles all year long, the calmness of not having to worry about school feels kind of strange.  Does anyone here have students going back to school this month? If you are a teacher and want a fun way for your students to get to know each other, I have a Classmate Scavenger Hunt available in my Etsy Shop.

Well it looks like it is time to get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

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Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

It's a Michigan weekend, so the party is getting a little bit of a late start. We are staying at a hotel tonight, and it took a little bit to get settled into our room. We were given a different room at first but the digital key was not working. Thankfully they had another room open because the place is pretty full tonight.    

The dance tonight was fun, and our group of friends danced until the very last song.  

I posted the picture of the ghost above, because I found him at Dollar Tree this week. It is so cute, I ended up buying him.  :) Even though August is just starting, I have Halloween on the brain already. I have been looking in many stores, because most of them are starting to put out their Halloween items.  I am still trying to figure out if I am going to do a theme this year. I have been buying a lot of cute ghosts again, so I have a feeling that will have something to do with the theme. 

Another thing I bought this week were these cute shoes.  I had ten dollars in Kohls cash from our shopping haul the week before. Sunday was the last day to use it, so we stopped by to see what we could find. I found these cute white lace looking tennis shoes on clearance for $9.99. My Kohls cash covered the price, so I got them for free. Since I want to keep them looking white, I will probably only wear them on special occasions. 

Since it is already after 1 am, I am going to get this party started! Link up and HAVE FUN!! 

 

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It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday!

I hope you had a good week. We had a pretty good week here. Last Sunday both D and I both had 40% off Kohls coupons.  When we shop at Kohls we like to combine the coupons with clearance items.  Both of us had a pretty decent haul. I got several T shirts for about $3.50, a pair a jeans, and a really cute top to wear the the dances in Michigan.  I loved this cute kitten Kohls cash shirt, but didn't get it because it was an extra large men's.  It will most likely go on clearance at some point, because I don't know a lot of men who would wear a kitten shirt. 

It is has also been a fun week for me, Dollar Tree has been getting their Halloween items in so I had to visit all the stores in my area.  I really do love summer, but I am so excited about Halloween.  I have been posting some reels on Instagram, and TikTok  of my Halloween finds that have been blowing up a bit if you would like to follow along.  

I really love the metal ghost sign pictured above. I usually do a different Halloween theme each year. I did ghosts a few years ago, but I might do it again this year.  I have been finding some really cute pink ghost decor.  Do you like to decorate for Halloween?  

I used a lot of pink and purple in my decorations last year too, because I wanted a cute theme for my grand baby.  She is still pretty young, so I'm considering doing something similar. If you would like to see how I made the ghost candy bucket that holds a ton of candy you can see how on this post here.

Well it looks like it is time to get this party started.  We had a fun day planned tomorrow, and I have to get up on the early side.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

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It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

I didn't really take many photos this week. On my phone it's  mostly just videos from the Dollar Tree.  When I was at Aldi last week I found these cute World Cup soccer ball stuffies.  These two were the only two left, so I do not know which countries they had.  It was pretty cool that both of the teams were still in it at the time.  I think France lost the next day. I am not really a soccer fan, but it has been a lot of fun watching the matches. Who are you rooting for in the finals.  

Is there anyone in the areas affected by the wildfire smoke this week?  My friends in Michigan have had it pretty bad the last couple of days. The air quality was dangerous levels.  This morning in Ohio it was not good where I live either, but we did have some thunderstorms roll through this evening which has really helped. 

I have been busy working on some new listings for my Etsy Shop.. Even though it feels like the summer has just started, back to school is right around the corner.  I listed a new Back to School Bundle for younger elementary students to do at the beginning of the school year.  I will be adding more individual games this week. 

Is there anyone else super excited that Halloween items are starting to appear in stores.  I may or may not have bought a few pink Halloween ghosts at Dollar General today. :)  I made these ghost paintings last year using Dollar Tree printed canvases. If you want to get an early start on Halloween crafts, you can see this and my other Halloween DIYs  here.

Well it is time to get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

 

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Let's Dare to Share!

It is Friday night, and you know what that means..

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! Here is the photo I was trying to post at last week's party.  Here are several of my dancing friends the 4th of July dance. This was taken on the patio, where there is beautiful scenery on a golf course. There are a few more friends that are not in the picture. We always have a good time at the dances, which usually have some kind of theme. It was definitely a good day for wearing shorts, we were in the middle of a heat wave. It was close to 100 degrees that weekend. 

In addition to celebrating America's birthday, and multiple birthdays in Michigan, we had two birthdays closer to home.  Both D and I each have a child who turned 25 this past week. They are only two days apart.  

Are you ready to start thinking about Halloween yet? I am not in hurry for summer to be over, but I have been very excited for the Halloween sightings I have seen this week.  Both Marshalls and Dollar Tree have had code oranges. I have seen Halloween items in both store. I have made code orange reels on both Instagram and TIK TOK if you love Halloween too. I am not sure what my theme will be this year yet, but I will be making some Halloween DIYs.  

It's time to get this week's party started. Now that you know what I have been up to this week, I would love to see what you have been up to.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

  

 

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It's Party Time! Let's Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy 4th of July! 

This picture of my youngest is one of my favorite 4th of July pictures. I took it while we were watching a 4th of July parade. It was taken many years ago, because that sweet little girl is now in her mid 20s and celebrating her birthday this holiday weekend. 

Tonight we celebrated the holiday with our Michigan friends at the dance. I planned on sharing a pic, but is not showing up in my photos on my computer yet.  We celebrated four July birthdays and dressed in our red, white and blue. 

We are still not sure where we plan on watching fireworks yet. We won tickets to our local minor league baseball game for the evening of the 4th, but with the super hot weather and visiting my kids in Michigan we might not rush back to Ohio to see it. 

If you are looking for a last minute 4th of July craft, I made these cute last minute fireworks out of cardboard tubes and cardstock several years ago.  If you would like to see how I made them you can check out the post here.

It is getting very late so let's get this party started.  Link up and HAVE FUN! 

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It's Time to Dare to Share!

It's Friday night, and you know what that means.. 

It is time to Dare to Share! 

Happy Friday! 

We just made it back from our epic road trip.  Overall the experience was great. We visited a lot of places we had not seen before.  There were a few things that we were not able to see, and will hopefully see on another trip.  There are a few things we would change on a future trip. We would not go with such a big group.  Because we were varying ages and mobility, some in our group were not able to do a lot of walking and hiking, so they were not able to see as much as the rest of us.  

We stayed in a wonderful AirBNB outside of Cody, Wyoming that was not too far from Yellowstone for several days. It is so beautiful there. An added bonus is we had sweet horses close by that I got to visit every morning.  We also saw wildlife such as deer and bunnies in the yard.

We spent a few days in Yellowstone over last weekend. The place is so big, and there is just some many different things to see. It took several days to go through, and we were not able to see everything.  We saw this very powerful waterfall.... 

and also saw this very calm river that was reflecting the clouds on the same day. 

Our favorite things to see were the animals.  We saw quite a few different types of the animals, especially the buffalo aka "furry cows."  Many walked right on the road next to the cars. We stayed safely inside our car.  The only big animal that we did not see were the moose.  

I don't remember which entrance this was at, but this sign is near the Roosevelt Arch.  On our last day in the park we left through the Tetons and Grand Teton National Park. 

Going through the Tetons the terrain changed again, and we saw more of the Rocky Mountains, and more wildlife. 

We stopped by Jackson Hole, Wyoming and had lunch at the famous Cowboy Bar. If you go in to have a drink, the seats at the bar are actual saddles. Jackson Hole is a beautiful place to visit.  

 

When we it was time to start heading home, we stayed the night in Cheyenne, Wyoming. While there we went to Union Pacific museum, and saw one of the Big Boy trains. D is a big train fanatic, and has seen almost all of the Big Boys. I think he only has two left to see. Around Cheyenne they had giant decorative cowboy boots on display.  This one was one of my favorites. 

On this trip we went through 10 different states (including Ohio). We also went to several national parks, state parks and museums. We learned a lot about our history, and saw so much beautiful scenery. The flat Midwest terrain is so boring compared to the states in the northwest part of the country.  While I will probably always live in the Midwest, I definitely want to travel out west again. 

While on vacation, I saw several commercials for the new Minions opening up on July 1st.  I remembered I have several Minion party posts from a few years ago that might be good to share again for those planning on seeing the movie, or planning a Minion party. 

How to make Despicable Me Minions

Minion Party Bags

Despicable Me Party Favors

Despicable Me Party Food and Games

Well it is looking to be time to get the party started. We are still trying to recover from traveling over 5100 miles, and adjusting back to normal routines. It will be back to work on Monday.

Link up and HAVE FUN! 

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