Is your head cold?

Okay so soliciting myself might make a few people mad, but I know there has been interest in the past on this... if you are offended by this, look at it as me showing off my knitting!
 I knit pretty much for fun, but I always get compliments on my hats!  particularly my tams! I have a few other great projects i'm working on, but need to get supplies, time and motivation to execute.
The tams are stylish, soft, easy to wear and handknit with love!
I happen to have two, that I just made to be knitting but not with anyone in mind. One size fits all, and i'm asking for $20 for each. Please message/e-mail me to set something up! I've put pictures up below to see the colors and the style of the tam

While I'm at it, i still have a fish hat left over as well!  See below, $25 message me! Fun hat! I love those!

Well its finally friday again!  I have Rotary early in the morning.  A few meetings ago I volunteered to bet he program committee, knowing that being new to the area it would be a challenge to meet interesting people to come talk to us every week... but I spose i felt up to the challenge.  No speakers this week, but the rest of January is covered, with help from my one committee member!
Then I'm off to Ann Arbor for the weekend.  I have some fabulous friends that I've been missing, particularly some girls I went to NOLA with a long time ago, so I'm happy Sharon has motivated me to come for the weekend!
Gotta go do my nails!  Stay warm my friends and followers!
<3
Suz

and the Sugary sweet winner is!....

MICHIGAN! Go Blue!!! only took us one overtime, so take that little brother!!!

It is oh so sweet to be a Michigan Wolverine!!!

Always and forever!

<3
Suzy

El Nuevo Ano!

Happy New Year to all my followers and readers!!
I'm not big on resolutions, although I do think they are a good thing for people to do, if they actually stick with it. I fall more into the school of thought that I don't need 1 day a year to set goals to improve myself.  But if you have resolutions, more power to you and I'd love to hear them!
There is, however, something I have been wishing for for the past few months.  Usually it shows up in this area around this time of year but for some reason the weather does not want to deliver my wish.  I am  one of those "snow lovers"  a rare breed of people who love the cold, the snow and all the fun activities that come with it!
Yes, I got snow on Jan. 2nd!  Up at my lake house in northern MI we got about 8 inches. unfortunately i was leaving to drive back to southern MI the same day and didn't get to ski, but I did get to run around in it, play in it and  watch it fall!

This is the view of it from the back door of our cottage!!! It started snowing on Jan. 1 at night!  So my sister her boyfriend and I went for a walk!

This is how covered I was during that walk!  Still hugging trees of course!

Then the next day I had to leave but snapped a few stunners!

Gorgeous stuff!
So now my tiny new car is LOADED up with ice skates, cross country skiis and my snowboard.  I'm ready at the drop of a hat to do some sort of activity, only it will all melt on Thursday :(

Hopefully we get slammed again soon!

Tonight my school plays football!  I'm heading over to the local bar right now to watch it since I don't get it on my rabbit ears...
GO BLUE!

Hope everyone is having as lovely a new year as they hoped for!  Keep up the positive energy and enthusiasm this year!

<3 Suz

Wrapped up in Fall!

   I've been so wrapped up in fall and integrating myself into my new community, I've hardly had time to talk about it!  I am in one of the best locations for fall, like I've been preaching all summer, due to my location.  I am in a great area to easily obtain local, fresh food!  Last week, to get my pumpkins, I drove about 10 minutes out of my way home from work and stopped at a patch.  I also grabbed some acorn squash, butternut squash for good seasonal cooking!
Tonight I finally carved those pumpkins as a self Halloween celebration, then roasted the seeds my favorite way and made a facial mask with the guts!  Talk about multiple usage of a product!  Also all the ingredients in my home made face mask were from within 100 miles!  I must say, my face does feel soft, but having a food processor would have made the mask more applicable and less messy. Here are the ingredients I used:
Pumpkin
honey
apple cider
milk
an egg
using mainly pumpkin put all ingredients in a food processor and blend,  get it to a think enough texture to apply it to your face without it running.  Leave it on for about 20-25 minutes (or longer if you want) until it is dry, then just wash your face!

Try it, let me know what you think.

This weekend I'll be experimenting with the acorn squash and stuffing it.  Similar concept as stuffing a pepper, but a co worker was telling me about it and just cut it in half and mix up rice and whatever else you want in it then put some cheese on top and bake it!  Yumm! I'll let you know what I find!

On a not to local food note, I bought a harder goat's cheese at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor that I am ecstatic about to pair with a pinot noir that a colleagues son made.   The cheese is from Spain, but well worth the travel....
Last weekend I finally made it to Ann Arbor!!! I miss Ann Arbor desperately and the amazing friends and family who live there!  I will need to be going back more often!  My Halloween costume from Saturday is far superior to my Friday costume.  See picture below.  I hope you can see that I was some sort of abstract, exotic bird

 Below is my flapper costume with my good friends from my dorm hall freshman year!  Love them all!

 Billy and I went to the football game!!! Go Blue!

 If you are easily offended, do not look at this picture of my friends' costumes!  This is me with some of my amazing friends from Nicaragua trip!  Love you all! including those not pictured!

 Billy and John were Zombies for Halloween.  They look super creepy and amazing!

Wetlands

Working extra hours this week to make up for the early month holiday, especially with the student loan and Ann Arbor rent to pay!  Last night's extra hours were pretty awesome though!
  We had our moonlight voyager canoe trip, I worked the later one, at 11 pm 10 of us got into a 36 foot long wood canoe modeled after the ones the French Canadians used to use when bringing furs from Canada to the US.  I felt in touch with my ancestors!  Not to mention it was the perfect night for a canoe trip, clear skies, bright moon, still and quiet.  The moon really was our guide last night though Sima J. Marsh.  It was a peaceful canoe trip, with lots of stars in the sky, Saturn in the southern sky as well.  Fireflies were sprinkled throughout the marsh, adding a sparkle to the peaceful boat ride.  Pat and Kip from Berrien County Parks were our tour guides.  They are naturalists which pretty much means their job is to share their love and astonishment of nature with others, a.k.a. AWESOME job!  We didn't see much wildlife, but we sure did see the marsh in a whole different light and mood.  If you ever have the opportunity to get into a watershed at night, I highly recommend it!
Check out pictures here :  http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.164982786904502.39753.132472263488888
  Tomorrow I'm going to Grand Beach Marsh to check out invasive work that was done on it and a possible encroachment by adjoining property owners.  Got to put that to a stop if it s true!  I'm excited to see another one of our preserves though.  Marshes are great pieces of property, they do so much for the Great Lakes watershed including house a diverse number of organisms, filter out the dirty water from the streams before it goes into the lake (in this case, Lake Michigan), and help prevent floods by soaking up extra water in the area.  The beaches here on Lake Michigan were already shut down 3 times this year for high E. coli levels from houses in the area not even having septic tanks or their tanks are outdated, and agricultural run off.  Preserving the wetlands helps prevent this E. Coli from reaching the Lake and infecting the hundreds of people who use the lake in the area.  Please, everyone, be respectful of your wetlands and remember how much they do for you.

Going to Ann Arbor this weekend to move out, this will be sad, I have so many good memories in Ann Arbor.  I hope to make more this weekend and see a lot of people whom I miss!  Enjoy Harry Potter everyone!  I'm seeing it Saturday with my favorite Spaniard!
Cuidate my readers!