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Q: Chelsea, Why have you not been posting layouts lately?

A: um, because my studio is BEYOND messy and in order to work I do so on a 11 inch square of my large desk….which only leaves room for cards—and seeing as there’s been lots of birthdays and whatnot lately I’ve been doing lots of those! I PROMISE I’m going to do some cleaning though this weekend—because it’s supposed to rain at least one day, and it’s a great rainy day activity. J

Let’s see, besides my really messy studio, what’s new. (and I would like to note that I finally cleaned my cube at work—so that’s totally a start!) Anyway, I’m reading a book about Marathon Training. No, I’m not running a marathon anytime soon—but it’s definitely something I’d like to do in the next couple years-and seeing as I’m so not in shape, I better start reading and training now. Between that and riding my bike and long walks, I’m exercising quite a bit. I’m on a “diet” too—although I hate that word. I’m back on WW points—because I know they work, that is if I actually follow them and don’t give into the French fries and pizza and hunks of cheese that are constantly calling my name. As they do.

Last weekend was my “little” brother’s graduation from College. Jason and I drove down to Missouri for the event. Good times! He's down in Florida now with his girlfriend celebrating being done with school, before he has to go out and join the "real world." This is my older sister, me and Stephen in the Picture...my dad took the picture--which is great, despite the fact that there is apparently a tree growing out of my brother's head (he should probably see a doctor about that)

If you ever want to be bored to death, I encourage you to drive from Southern Minnesota to Columbia, MO. You spend a good deal of time in NOWHERE, IA. And better yet we took a state highway--it was "scenic" or so they said---once you've seen central Iowa once--well, you've seen central Iowa.

We did however happen on the cute little town of Pella, IA though. There's a store there who's owner, Gail Kirby, I'd promised I'd stop by if I ever happened to be in Pella. Of course I didn't plan on that realistically happening, because when the heck would I be in Pella, IA? But loandbehold it was on the way--so we stopped in the little dutch village. You should have seen Gail's jaw hit the floor when I saw her standing outside her store on her cellphone and yelled, "get off the phone!"

On Gail's recommendation we had lunch at the Windmill Cafe in Pella, and then stopped by a local bakery (there's 2 in town) to get some goodies for the rest of the drive. mmmmm, cookies.

On the way back after Graduation we took the long route through Kansas City so Jason could go to the original Arthur Bryants BBQ. mmmm, good eats. You know what I loved about this place-besides the fact that time stood still in there...was that it proved that bbq brings people together. Here it is in a not so nice area of Kansas city, to say the least. But together inside it's walls where people of every color and creed from every walk of life---all to enjoy bbq. and then there was me.....the vegetarian. well, the fries were good. :)