go sweet love yourself…

i did something unusual sunday- something other than my normal-every-single-sunday-afternoon-nap. i went to witness a new business some sweet love.

that’s right, sweet love.

stolen from the sweetlovebakes.com

and i got to go there first. okay, well not technically first in the door. but close enough and before you first as in a sneak peek. yes, unfashionable, untrendy me…to what will become a very popular bakery after friday. as in today– friday, the 13^th. but i promise you, there’s nothing remotely unlucky about that date except you probably won’t be able to find a parking spot.

sweet love bakes 8210 cantrell road little rock, ar

(Its across from pavilion in the park- in the same shopping center as tzakiki’s and a liquor store—one stop party shopping!)

map provided by yahoo

kelli bakes amazing things. amazing things that are pretty. and edible. you know what i’m talking about- how many times have you gotten something from a ‘gourmet’ bakery place and they’re delightful to look at, but not really so much to eat. sweet love bakes: not just pretty a pretty new face – kelli’s visions actually taste good too. very very tasty.  we had a selection of nibbles to nosh on- every single one made with her hands. made with high quality ingredients.

have you seen a more beautiful representation in chocolate? (pic stolen from sarabeth)

the chocolate chip cookie dough truffles were astonishing. as in ‘slap-your-mama-great’ amazing. stop me if you’ve heard this one:

“a cookie, a truffle and some chocolate sprinkles walk into a bar”

the sprinkles alone- something that no one pays a lot of attention to because they’re just decorative. decorative little dessert interlopers that get a free pass most of the time. but not the sprinkles at sweet love bakes. these were a deep, dark smooth variety- not the kroger kind. not the wal-mart variety either.  these were real, cocoa sprinkles- full of velvety goodness. now, blow those up 1000% into the goodness that went just into a truffle.

and i’m going to tell you that the chocolate peppermint brownie is awful. it is a whole mouthful of awful. do not order them. do not pay for them. because i’m hoping that kelli has a ton of them leftover and has to sell them at a steep discount for my personal enjoyment. but only to me and not the other pesky people that will bother and hound her for them.

don’t believe me? don’t just take my word for it. don’t.

go sweet love yourself.

you won’t be thanking me. but you will thank yourself, your car manufacturer and your advanced gps or yahoo map skills. you’ll be thanking your nose when you walk in, your eyes as they take in a new bakery wonderland. you’ll even thank kelli as she hands over the goods. but mostly, you’ll thank the creator that you have viable taste buds for the sweet love goods.

also, wanna see more?  head over to the facebooks. also, some of the most talented, amazing bloggers Sneak Peeked as well- and they’re way with words and TONS BETTER with pic-a-tures than me:

Sarabeth, Kat, Kerri, Audreya, Kyran, Amy, Katie, Greg, Melissa, Tonya, Jessica, and Gina.

also, i should point out that don’t know kelli marks personally- like i’d give her a kidney-know-her. I know her in a professional/fellow twittererer way. But i’m insanely jealous. of kelli marks. i might as well admit that now. she’s cute. she’s smart. she’s teeny tiny- as in turn sideways and i can’t find her tiny.But she’s so smart – she’s made a radical, life changing decision- one to follow her passion and dreams. one that required bravery. and bravado. and nerves of steel.

she’s opening a bakery. a Bakery. a BAKERY! she’s opening a bakery- which used to be one of my ‘alternative career strategies’, along with florist. and professional think-tanker. and she has this adorable pink chef’s coat- worn with the confidence of a woman who knows what she wants to be when she grows up. worn with a determined, ‘can do’ attitude instead of my defeatist ‘whatever’ attitude. i’m still waiting to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

she’s poured her heart and soul into here. Now she’s offering to pour it out on you. go see kelli and her amazing sweet love…you’ll be really glad you did. Her GRAND OPENING is today and normal hours are Tuesday through Saturday.

you want me to WHAT?

Fellowship North - a child's words

Give more.

I want you to give more. (I bet a bunch of you think I’m all up in your business now…I’m not.)

You sigh heavily and mentally tick off the following:

“I give at church. I give to a non-profit organization. I gave money to the Haiti earthquake last year. We have a mortgage, car payments and payments for braces. We have utilities and I still have CHRISTMAS TO BUY FOR. Oh, yeah, I gave to the school fundraiser. What else can I give?”

And then you come to a decision: I give all the time.

So you dismiss me. Which is not unlike my kids – they dismiss me a lot.

Giving means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Ask 10 of your friends and see what they say- 8 of them will say ‘Give more what?’

And that’s my question to you.

Give more what?

But stay with me here. Berit Kimrey is not specifically asking you to give.

The Bible is more than clear on giving and different forms of it. I’ve shared a few here:

A person finds joy in giving an apt reply— and how good is a timely word! Proverbs 15:22-24

Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy. Acts 14:16-18

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you Luke 6:38

Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Romans 12:13

Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 1 Timothy 6:18

So that’s a lot of random Bible verses poured out into 4 screen inches. But what does it mean?

That’s the beauty of it- let God whisper the answer to you. Let Him tell you exactly how to Give more this holiday season.

The easy (and somewhat obvious) answer to me is to give more money to someone else who needs it. It was my first conclusion because I ask people for money all the time. Here’s a staggering statistic: there are over 1,574,674 tax-exempt organizations. I’m not saying all of them are good or do good work. Here’s a further look at that breakdown:

• 959,698      public charities
• 100,337      private foundations
• 514,639      other types of nonprofit organizations, including chambers of commerce,      fraternal organizations and civic leagues.

Now, since you’re still reading AND you’re a generous soul, give $1 to each one.

I’m kidding.

With over 1.5 million choices and counting, there are favorable odds that you’ll find something or somewhere you can feel good GREAT about giving to that you actually believe will do the most good. (If you need an additional recommendation, I have one or two to share).

But WAIT: there’s more.

Give more comes in all shapes, forms and exercises. Giving can be a multitude of things: give time to your kids. You can give someone a parking space and park a little farther away at the mall. You can give away an old coat to the homeless (see two above). Take time to give the high school kid in the drive through a compliment when they look really frazzled and overwhelmed. Pay for someone else’s dry cleaning in the drive through. Give a dollar out the window to the person holding the sign at a traffic light.

Now give more doesn’t seem quite as hard as it did 613 words ago.

So put on your thinking caps:

How will you give more this year?

aunt erma…

How I long for the days of aunt erma! Erma bombeck. Pretty random, right? while it was dr. Seuss and “one fish, two fish” that inspired me to read at a young age, aunt erma kicked the down the door and opened up a new world – one that begged to be written about, frankly and most of the times, coloring way outside of the lines.

Many don’t know just how prolific she was. Or that by today’s standards, she’s the epitome, the original ‘mommy blogger’. I can imagine how she’d hate that term- not because it’s substandard by any means, but because she championed equal rights.  She wrote about life. She wrote over 4,000 columns. She published 15 books- most of which hit the top of the charts.

Maybe it’s because I love her sense of freedom to write about any single thing she wished- often attacking the ‘taboo’ subjects of her suburbanhood-

5 most terrifying words in my lexicon…

I said terrifying. Remember that.

Yesterday was a shitty day. I don’t like to use that kind of language on here. But it was just one of those that at 2 p.m, you look up and say “I shoulda stayed in bed”.

Left work on time. Went to Zombie Kroger for eats as I had forgotten to thaw something out for dinner. Picked up some 2-bite brownies for the kids as a treat. Drove over to pick up the dry cleaning- which they couldn’t find. I’m sitting in the drive through with a million thoughts going through my mind. Dinner? Homework? Baths? Is there anything good on TV tonight? Do we have a science fair project piece due this week? You folks know the drill- its 5:15p and you’re trying to organize your night.

Its Monday. All around.

So I’m sitting in the drive-thru at the drycleaner when it happened.  That’s when the phone rang. That’s when spouse said:

I. Can’t. Find. The. Boys.

remember me? probably not…

so i promised like a month ago i was gonna write more. except that i didn’t.

**whew** great thing i don’t have thousands of followers.

anyway, i found this little jewel when cleaning out folders on my computer.  y’all won’t believe it but i have a folder titled blog. no, i swear, i really do.

___________________________________________________

would you like a side of warranty with that?

 

usually, i wouldn’t take the precious time, space or energy to blog about something
related to walmart.  they get a lot of press already.  but their product
replacement service is outta this world- and i feel the need to share it with
you, if for no other reason, than to have you to dial the number: 866-257-6542.
more about that in a minute.

back story: santa brought thing1 a nintento ds lite for christmas in 2008.  now, santa is a saavy guy and he even thought to include an additional warranty on the ds… not really understanding the nuances but its an electronic device going to a 7 yr old boy. (nuff said)

flash forward to sick week and he dropped his ds in a fit of fever and delirium. and
the bottom screen went out.  now, if you’re not familiar with these little devices, they look like this:

 

and the bottom screen is a touch screen, meaning that you manipulate your game with it (iPhone-ish).  so no bottom screen = no game play.  and thing1 was devastated.
but santa remembered somewhere in the back of her fuzzy mind that there were
papers stored somewhere in the house for this little device. papers that may
possibly get the thing repaired so that mom wasn’t out $130.

2 hours of turning our house upside down yielded the papers.  and yes, it was still covered under this ‘warranty’.  now i’ve always been leary of these things- because rarely have i had a good experience with them. but, i had a crying, snotting, pneumonia-ridden boy and i had loads of work to do at home.  so we loaded up and went to wallyworld. i showed them all the paperwork and she gave me a tri-fold brochure. go home. call the number.

i wasn’t feeling too spiffy at this point and he was catatonic.  calming him down, i called the number. i was on hold.  (again, more about this in a minute)  a very nice sounding lady got on the phone.  now by this time, thing1 is coughing-crying, and thing2 is chasing the cat around the house.  you get where i’m going—it was absolute mass hysteria and i’m on the phone. i explained the situation and viola, she’s going
to make it all better.

she tells me to package up the broken ds for shipping. and i can see the writing on
the way:  ship it, they repair it, and ship it back. then she surprises me and says she’s emailing me a shipping label (and i’m thinking- yea- not out $10 bucks).
then she explains the process- which is not the process i’m expecting.

once the ups driver scans the package, it will automagically trigger the replacement
department to ship a gift card for $150. that’s it. they don’t even have to receive it back before they mail the gift card.  and i’m sitting there in silence- not really believing. and there’s a website where i can track the progress of this entire transaction.  and the whole time, i’m thinking- it was $9.88 for this. that’s it. that’s the cost of the extended warranty on this little device. and they’re refunding me tax,
warranty, and ds price.

true enough, we shipped it off. we looked online and saw where ups scanned the
label. we looked at the website and watched as it went from initiated to pending to resolved.

we got the gift card. a recovered thing1 got a dsi (using his own hard-earned rock
sale money to pay for an upgrade).

and yes, i put another warranty on that one.

+++++++++++

the phone hold thing:

ok- seriously, i’ve never encountered this before. 866-257-6542 is the number. it’s a new service they’ve instituted – while you’re holding, if you press 3- it will compliment you.  and there’s fanfare trumpets and everything- and it says things like “you’re the best customer ever” or “thank you for being such a great customer”.  you have to call
after hours get to play that little game, but it was a scream.