Bully Hill

I am in love! I am really not a big drinker of alcohol but I do like nice relaxing glass of wine and I found one that does not give me a headache! It is called "Love My Goat" and it is made in upstate New York by Bully Hill! I found it quite by accident tuning in to a wine question/answer page. I went to the local Total Beverage  liquor store that carries hundreds of brand name wines and found it last weekend for $10.99. Actually the hubby found it. I went back today to buy another bottle because I shared it with Noelle at her Sunday dinner last weekend. They were sold out. So The hubby and I drove to the Discount Liquor a few miles away and they carry it for $6.99!

It is just a quirky little thing I wanted to share. My oldest son Jeremy runs around saying "Show me the goat" and teasing everyone is his path! They carry a line of t shirts and I am going to by" the Goat " shirt for his birthday! LOL! He will love it!

My husband is a good man and he cooked a great dinner, thin spaghetti and also mostacella with yummy red sauce and meatballs! I baked the cheesy Texas toast and tossed a big salad. I added my glass of Bully Hill Love My Goat semi sweet wine and I am ready for the week!

HGTV Dream Home Giveaway

Visit this exciting and beautiful Spanish style home

I'm A Big Chicken But In Desperate Need of A Household Make Over

I am posting a few pics and hope everyone will toss their idea's my way!

First of all I have a chair that is from my parental grandmother's house. Her home was built around 1900 so I am sure this wooden chair has had a full life. It currently resides in Nick's room and it was originally painted white and repainted apple green when I was into the 70's (ha ha, I really lived through those years) and painted all my bedroom furniture Apple Green. One of the kids scratched "Hannah Rocks" into the seat of the chair. Hmm...I wonder?! Anyway I would like to give this oldie but goodie a makeover. Suggestions?

Next I have two very vintage oval picture frames. Look at the shape and size of my maternal grandparents Wedding photo. These two empty frames belonged to my paternal grandmother. There were photos of my dad's two baby brothers who died from Influenza in 1918 and 1920. For whatever reason I shall never know, my brother gave these frames to me but took the pictures out! I was heartsick over this for a long time but got past it. Now I want to honor my Kocman phamily heritage by using these frames. They are very large. The frame is the one closest to my light switch. They are currently in storage and this wedding frame is almost identical. Any help I can get would be so greatly appreciated.

My wedding picture is an 11 x 14 so I am thinking those oval  picture frames would hold at least an 11x 14  picture. Anyone with knowledge of how I can preserve these beautiful frames but make them useful please help me here. Thanks.

This next project idea I have is this, the hubby and I have been married for 25 1/2 years and we have never had a headboard on our bed! We have a nice king size bed but as you can see the wall behind us is sad and depairing. We rent this old ram shackled house and it has a mold problem. Until we can move, hopefully this summer I would like to cover the wall because the old leaky windows the landlord had in here plus the mold problem has ruined the walls. Any idea how I could put up a drapery or curtain something to hide the flaws? I pinned up my curtain on the window so I could show the damage but I want a look for a headboard. Is this hopeless?

Finally today I want to show you my bookcase/desk. We bought these 3 oak looking book shelves in 1984 when we married. They were sturdy and well made but I think an updated look might be in order. I am not sure they could be painted but any experts out there can give me some advice. This bookcase has the drop down desk top and one is a full bookcase. The third one has two doors and two shelves inside of it. Thanks for any advice or tips you can give me.

I think if I can sort these projects out and start smaller ones first I can accomplish great things. I have my mom's beautiful cedar chest and her family's original cradle that my late uncle said he slept in first because he was the oldest. Since he was born in 1908 and everyone of my children and my mom and dad's five children and Grandma Steblay's 9 children all slept in that cradle, it has gotten incredible mileage through the years! I would like to try to clean it up and give some TLC to mom's cedar chest. But those are projects for another time.

Thank you for sharing and helping me with these smaller projects..

Mini Giveaway for February Heart Health Month

I am doing a quick mini giveaway. In honor of February and Valentine's Day and Women's Heart Disease along with the Go Red Campaign I am giving away 9 identical Red Dress Pins along with five different flyer's from my early Princess House days. These cool Easy Idea's are filled with decorating and cooking idea's.

All you need to do to win is leave me a comment. I also love new followers but I will choose 9 random winners on Saturday February 6, 2010 at Noon MST. Each winner will get a mini Red Dress Go Red pin and five different Easy Idea flyer's filled with great entertaining,decorating and cooking idea's. All blogger's are welcome to enter this quick & easy drawing.

Remember that heart disease is the number one killer of women. Let's stop this disease in it's tracks.

I want to thank my beautiful daughter Hannah for showing the items to all of you.

Thanks and I hope you will stop by so you can win! Love your heart!

SLOVENIAN GOULASH

1 lb. lean beef
1 lb. veal
3 TBSP. fat
1 large onion
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. paprika
1 cup strained tomatoes
8 small peeled potatoes, cubed

Cut meat into cubes and brown in the hot fat, stirring occasionally to brown evenly. Add seasonings and strained tomatoes. Simmer for an hour and a half, until meat is tender. Add potatoes after one hour of cooking and add more tomatoes if needed. Serves 6 and best when piping hot!

Note: Some folks do not like to cook with veal so you can certainly change the recipe to all beef.

I will be publishing more recipes from my Slovenian heritage. I hope you will enjoy it!

Sassy Mini Dolls & Sissie's Shabby Cottage

 

Check out Sissy and her totally cool blog and then check in to her lovely giveaway! I am loving this giveaway and stumbled upon her blog and giveaway quite by accident! Or was it? Hmmm...

Balliwick Studio

Go to this lovely blog for some fun giveaways.

Flea Market Style

Check out this blog and the cool giveaway. I am posting it on my Facebook page also.

Pink Saturday!

I wanted to share some randoms pics and items that reflect my pink personality. Above is a photo dated June 14, 2009. It was taken from the front of my house and shows an awesome rainbow! I love this picture because it shows the pink in the rainbow and it reminds me that summer will soon be here! "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth." Genesis 9:16

This is an undated photo of my middle daughter Rebekah who is 21 years old. This was taken when she was approximately two years old and she is decked out in hot pink! She still loves to wear hats today! My lap top case is serving as background for the pic.

 

This is a vintage 1960s seashell bracelet I received as a gift from my aunt's sister Kay who lived in Los Angeles and worked for the Broadway Department Store. It is a real treasure and I enjoy reflecting on those days and how fun and carefree life was back then.

 This is a very yummy dish! Fresh Pink Salmon with lemon and Rosemary. It is an awesome healthy dish to serve with some fresh asparagus. The rosemary is fresh so it gives a nice flavor to the fish and the thinly sliced lemon slices keep it nice and moist. It is a quick pink dish to whip up in less then 30 minutes from prep to finish! Voila!

This is my favorite pink (with blue) this weekend.  My paternal grandmother Mary Kocman hand made this delightful doily. It is one of the very few things I inherited from my late mother because it was tucked inside my mom's cedar chest which I have. These are both treasures to me but I am so proud to own this little piece of my history.

As always I must graciously thank Beverly over at How Sweet The Sound for hosting these Pink Saturdays. They encourage me to meet new bloggers each week and also look into the creativity of others. Thanks Beverly! You are an awesome lady to take time from your own busy life to coordinate all this every single week for 52 weeks each year! Thank you so much!

I am in such awe of Beverly and Kalee for starting this circle of friendship to help Collette and honor Frankie. Please make sure you stop Beverly blog and post a comment and then go to Kalee's page and post there and also leave a Face Book message for Collette.

Now I want to remind everyone who stops by my place to make sure to visit other "Pinks" in the Pink Saturday realm.  I scooted over to see Val at Wanderlust & Pixie Dust. Check this lovely blog out for yourself. Then I had to stop by to say hi to Tes at Gardening with Soule. This blog reminds me of Springtime. Finally I said hello to lots of old friends because so many of you I stop by daily and feel like I have known you for a very long time.

Happy Pink Saturday to all and I am going to learn to link up properly with everyone. Enjoy some pink today!

Wonderful New Blog

Check out this great new blog I found through Beth over at The Stories of A to Z. Nikki at Lovely Scribbles has an awesome blog! I love the look of her personalized place cards! I am having so much fun finding new blogger sites and making new friends!

...And did I mention there is a giveaway involved!

Two more cool giveaways & My Future Giveaway

Go check out Noelle at Lil Bits and Pieces of Me and GypsyNurse at Writing Out Loud. They both have super cool giveaways! I love giveaways!I also like checking out new blogs (Noelle) and visiting old friends (Gypsy Nurse. I am still learning to link to other blogs and properly display their blog info here.

I am trying to hit 50 followers so I can give away a duplicate of my super cute tea for one and other matching tea time items! Check my January 15, 2010 post for a cute pic of the tea for one. Spread the word! I was hoping to do a Valentine Giveaway and giveaway a pair of red stone wear heart shaped Princess House ramekins! They are soooo cute! Plus anyone purchasing this item from the company during Valentine's Month (February) will help with the Go Red campaign which is helping to fight heart disease in women. Currently heart disease is still the number one  killer of women. I am planning to stock up on this awesome item so I can have them on hand for great give away's and also great gift idea's! Just add a brownie recipe, a brownie mix and a ribbon and you have a super gift to give to anyone special in your life. Let me know if I can help you with a purchase.

Noelle has a link on her blog to great giveaways! Check this out!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Great Beachy Giveaway

Come follow me to this cool beachy blog with a super cool giveaway! I won't give away all the details! But this will make you yearn for sandy beaches and cool waves! Check it out!

11th Heaven's Homemaking Heaven

Jen at 11th Heaven's Homemaking Haven, 365 Days of TV-Free Toddler Time, and Mega-Family Blogs is giving away a flippin' waffle maker...

To enter, go HERE!!

The Phamily

 

I just love my phamily! We are currently ten plus eight! Avery, my sweet hubby, myself, Jeremy our 24 year old kindhearted(currently  brokenhearted) college boy, Rebekah our Shakespeare expert college girl. Hannah our 18 year old college girl with photography & musical skill and Nick our cross country super runner (16). There is Noelle our beautiful married daughter with hubby Roger and sons Andrew (21) and Colton (13). Plus eight? Phil, Rebekah's current sweetheart. Markus, Hannah's honey and Tarrah, Andrew's pretty girlfriend. There is Christal and Alex, Roger's daughter and her hubby and their three kiddos, Jazlin(6), Alexis(4) and Devin(2). We are having phun and enjoying life to the fullest. We have all had our struggles and we probably never will attain tremendous financial success or own expensive homes or cars but we have something so many lack today. We have good, old fashioned love for each other. We are silly and sometimes loud! We pitch in and help each other out.We know that no matter what happens one of us will be there to catch the other one who is falling. We believe in God and we love our country. We have fears and we have faith. We have triumphs and we have disappointment. We remain intact today in a society that is unraveling. We act as if we are all pieces of a puzzle. We can not be complete until each piece is snugly fit into its place. We enjoy each others company. We all have individual friends we socialize with.We love causes, we like to lend a helping hand and we love our neighbors near and far. We cook together, we watch sports together. We talk about war and peace and politics and the rising cost of everything. We pray and we comfort each other. We are so intertwined we would like to remain that way until we come individually into the presence of Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. We make memories everyday. We compile scrap books of our time together. We share the cost of caring for our pets and we have plenty! Four currently at the Robinson house on Mildred Drive and 2 at Jeremy's apartment a few miles away. Two more at Noelle's place in Littleton. We will come together Sunday with food and laughter and shouts of joy when our team scores in the final two play off games before Super Bowl Sunday! We will continue to hold on to each other and all of us will hold dear the truth we learned as small school children, "Everything in this world that is good comes from God."

I wanted to share a brief glimpse into my phamily. I apologize that I do not have pictures of Phil and Alex in my collections. I will be updating more soon.

Thank you for letting me share!

"And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart."  NASB Ecclesiastics 4:12

More Pinks

Concentrate  on this Sentence

'To get  something you never had, you have to do something you never did.'   When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing  you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better.   Concentrate on this sentence...'The will of God will never take you where  the Grace of God will not protect you.'    Something good will happen to you today; something that you have  been waiting to hear.

 

There  comes a point in your life when you realize:  

Who  matters,
Who never did,
Who won't anymore...
And who always  will.
So, don't worry about people from your past,
There's a  reason why they didn't make it to your future.
Give these flowers  to everyone you don't want to lose  in 2010


I wanted to share this with everyone. The sentences are beautiful and so true. The pink roses are beautiful and a symbol that Spring is not too far away! Happy Pink Saturday Everyone!

 
 

 





 

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PINK SATURDAY IS HERE!

 I want to thank Beverly over at howsweetthesound for sharing Pink Saturday's with all of us. She is a real jewel of a lady and I admire her a lot for starting this great weekend showcase! I am having so much fun! I wanted to showcase the movie version of Grease to start my Pink Saturday ! Sandy was a cute gal but you knew she was going to get the guy! Rizzo was a tough cookie with a tougher shell hiding some pain. Marty was too busy collected guys like my mom use to collect Green Stamps! Jan liked food and we knew she wasn't going  to share any of those tasty goodies with the guys! But Frenchy was a first class gal! When she failed beauty school I was sad for her but I loved her bright pink hair! If you go to my Face Book page Anne Kocman Robinson (or click on my badge here at blog spot) you can view the "Beauty School Dropout" with Frankie Avalon singing to Frenchy! When I was fresh out of high school I took my very first job in an office. I worked for the Pueblo County Treasurer's office as a clerk and my boss was a spry 70 something woman named Mary Shomer. She raised a mentally disabled son and cared for him until the very day she died. I tell you about her today because Mary did not have pink hair but rather what I deemed to be "blueberry frost" hair! She was a very classy woman and she ran a very efficient and professional office.I learned many good job skills from  that lady including honesty in the workplace, respect for my co-workers and working hard without minding other co-workers affairs! I like to think back to those days. Mary was a wonderful boss and I enjoyed that position. Times have certainly changed and people are no longer as reliable or sincere and certainly not loyal any longer. I don't have a picture of Mary to share but I do have some nice pics from "Grease" the movie. Enjoy! Happy Pink Saturday to all and please stop by to visit Mimi and Our Family Attic! The bad thing about visiting new blogs each week, I just have to sign up to follow them! But Betty gave a great tip on Beverly's blog this week regarding right clicking the new blog so you open a new window! Took this clueless woman a long time to learn that but my kids have me that little tip when I first started surfing the web! Thanks Betty & thanks kids! I wish I could post them all but get busy blogging! There are so many great sites out there and lots of cool giveaways!

Thrift Store Treasures & Cool Clothing

I am not much of a model but I had to share some pics of my thrift store fines. I was at my local A.R.C. store this morning and lots of items were 50 % off. I spent $26.00 and one penny and I have lots of great new items to use or to share.

I found a navy pin striped Tribeca Studio two piece suit. A nice jacket with matching dress pants for $5.00!

I found the cutest wicker hand made "Pink Lady". The detail does not show on the camera shot. Cost: 99 cents!

A kitchen plate that states "This is my kitchen and I will do as I darn please." $2!

I  found a handmade basket that is plastic but hand crocheted with paper cards of different winter scenes. Also 99 cents! This item is beautiful and the camera can not express the detail in it.

 A beautiful copy of Stormie Omartian's book "The Power of A Praying Wife" for $1.50.


Lee Rider jeans $2.49. Excellent condition.

A peachy plaid Land's End  new cotton blouse $2

A quilt pattern looking pink & pastel multi colored cotton shirt. $2.00.

A pair of navy pin striped trousers $2.49. The label says Tiramasu!

McCall's  "Stitch n Save" Pattern for a cute summer dress with matching short sleeved jacket, for 49 cents!

Two tin pictures to hang for fifty cents each. One is an apple, the other a pear!

Last but not least is my very favorite a blue sweater top with a hand cut butterfly on the front and a matching hand cut butterfly on the sleeve. My camera can't catch this incredible detail either. Cost: $3!

I am ready to wear a new outfit to work on Monday and therefore I am not freaking out about having to go back! I am just always very grateful to be working for an in demand surgeon with a busy practice.

I shopped for 2 hours and came home with many wonderful items! Tomorrow it is the Goodwill store and Monday back to the A.R.C. They are having a 50% off sale in honor of Martin Luther King Day! Woot! Hoot!

My Pink Saturday Review

This is one of my favorite tea time Princess House Vintage Garden Tea-For-One teapot with a cute Princess House teaspoon holder, my pretty pink clip watch(to remind me it is teatime!) and a favorite Stash Chai Tea (Decaf).

This is my favorite and very old memory box. It is a cute pink brocade jewelry box that is filled with memories including an old love letter from a very old boyfriend(1972)! LOL! It also holds my wrist corsage from junionr prom 1971. I love this box and have carried it with me where ever  I have gone since 1969. It is filled with many, wonderful memories.

This is my First Communion Prayer Book from April 29, 1962. It has a very special meaning to me. I had a very wonderful childhood and attended St. Mary's Catholic School from the kindergarten  through the 8th grade. My mother's cousin had a son who was an ordained priest and he signed this book for me. If anyone sees me following their blog you will see my first communion picture posted there.

This is my brand new copy of Better Homes & Gardens that arrived today! Unfortunately, for me, it will sit with the handful of other magazines I am totally behind catching up with! The cute little framed picture "It's not easy being a Diva but I manage! " hangs in my kitchen. I love it and had to display it today. I also got it for a real bargain $1.10!

This is a pretty handmade shawl that my daughter Rebekah found at the A.R.C. Thrift Store for a few dollars.It is displaying my very warm thinsulation gloves that keep my hands warm when we get the bitter cold weather. I also am showing off my hot pink fleece beret that I wear to keep my head warm because when it is cold outside an uncovered head looses much of your body heat quickly !

 

I want to share a very special gift I received in the mail today. Although it is not totally pink it is an awesome gift that my good friend Barbara Boyack sent me and totally surprised me with! Thanks Barbara until I can properly thank you with a card & note. If it weren't for Barb I would never have started to blog. I am so clueless sometime but I am slowly learning and I think I am going to enjoy this for a long time to come. I have felt so welcomed by so many people and I truly enjoy visiting each and everyone of you as often as I can. Thank you for inviting me to your post's.

Finally I am showing you my Pink Trunk Wine displayed with a Princess House Balloon Hand blown Stem. Cheers to Beverly for hosting Pink Saturday's over at How Sweet The Sound and for each and everyone of you who stop by my blog and all of you who join the Pink Saturday posts. Stop by to see Sherry at A Happy Valentine, she has a wonderful blog and lots of pretty pinks. I visited her blog last week for the first time. I am really getting  to  know lots of  new wonderful people these days! Thanks again and please everyone have a very wonderful Pink Saturday.