July is over! What a whirlwind month!

As always, here is the direct link for the items in the birthday giveaway announcement if you really don't want to read the whole post. 

I feel so exhausted and have so many irons in the fire and I’m SO EXCITED for my first plan-free weekend in months it seems.

I want there to be happy medium of the boringness of 2020 and the chaos of 2021. I’m hoping this fall is a little slower paced! 

We started off July in Colorado for almost a week! It was so nice to see that part of the United States, so majestic and vast! I have lots of pics and videos from it and do you think I’ve posted any? 

NO. Major fail.

That is on my to-do list. In fact, I want to make a video of it because I like watching video recaps. Let’s be real – how many of you look at ALL one million photos someone posts of their vacation? No one does!! I also really enjoy making little photo books of our vacations (and our family holidays too) so I will definitely do that too! {Adding to my list for the weekend.} 

We also went to Wyoming for one night which I thought was a really fun addition to our "no plans, just show up" vacation!!! Every dang day is so busy and planned out, the last thing I wanted to do on vacation was have every minute spoken for! Kudos to BLarson for coming up with this fun add-on!  

Should I do a blog post about our trip? Let me know in the comments!

After we got back, it was the Sauk County Fair week and my birthday!! I was a vendor at the Ladies Night and it was a pretty slow vendor market. Not sure if the word wasn’t spread about the event or if people just didn’t come to the fair? Either way, I was happy to see the people that came and with the slowness, it gave me a chance to talk a little longer with the people that lingered at my booth. We mostly talked about having a Cricut and SO MANY of you have a Cricut and don’t know how to use it!! One gal said I should offer classes on how to use one!!

Ok … but for real, is this something people are interested in?! I wouldn’t mind implementing something like this, would have to be customized to the specific person and their skill set of course. Something to ponder.

BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY ANNOUNCEMENT

Thank you to all who commented on my last post regarding their favorite birthday memory!!

I choose ELLIE MOYER as the winner of the birthday giveaway! I have details of the giveaway below! I loved her birthday memory of sharing a cake her mom made that had a Barbie IN THE CAKE! How fun!! 

My birthday was a little crazy this year – we had a really bad storm hit Baraboo the evening before so we lost power for 14 hours. I woke up hot on my birthday from no power and no A/C! I took the day off and tried to donate blood but my hemoglobin levels were too low so I went back home and caught up on life some.

We went out to dinner that evening and had a fun filled weekend of Caustic Bingo at Rock N Wool Winery, seeing Charlie Berens Comedy Show (The Manitowoc Minute) and then I was a vendor in the Baraboo Sunday Market. Talk about a whirlwind!!!

On top of all of this summer chaos, I’m the chair for the Fresh Food Fest on Sunday, September 5^th! It’s in Downtown Baraboo and the Baraboo Young Professionals are collaborating with the Baraboo Sunday Market for the venue location! It should be a great time! If you are interested in selling fresh food as a vendor there, please reach out to me!

Also, on July 21^st, our garage contractors showed up to start building the garage!! So fun to be able to work from home and watch it happen! And I’m glad I was able to be here, they had some questions along the way! It’s done now, except for the electrical, overhead door and door handles for the walk-in door! I love the weathervane and cupola!

The following weekend in July was another whirlwind of excitement, I did the Baraboo Wine Walk on Friday night which is always a good time. It was very hot and I did my best to be “good” but I still felt every minute of a hungover 37 year old the following day!!

We went to Milwaukee to visit friends that afternoon and saw the Van Gogh art exhibit which was really cool! (Once again, took a ton of pics, haven’t posted any!)

The following day we drove “home” via Northern IL to see my family and most importantly my Grandma who turned 97 on July 20^th!! It was so good to see her and I’m already planning on making another trip there next weekend when I’m back in IL for a bachelorette/girl’s day weekend in Geneva!

That leads me to today, the last day of July! I feel EXHAUSTED but I have the house to myself as Brandon is up north at his cabin and I have gotten quite a few crafting projects crossed off my list and ran a few errands. I'm overdue on a blog post about all of the custom projects I've been doing lately. Stay tuned for that!

Does anyone else therapeutically clean or is it JUST ME? I can vividly remember as a kid when we were home for summer breaks while mom was at work, we would come in for lunch and if the house was in need of a deep clean I would tell everyone to just leave me alone to clean. They usually did and the house was usually clean when they returned! Even as an adult, I still find solitude in peaceful cleaning. Probably should be doing that instead of writing this!!

Ok, back to the birthday giveaway goodies!

Did I make you read this whole blog post just to get to this? Why yes, yes, I did! 

I gave Ellie some of my favorite things and if you read the prior blog post you know what a couple of them are!

Contents:

'Hello Gorgeous' canvas bag (from Essentially Alison)

Gold Eye Masks (from Amazon)

Stress Away Bath Bombs (Young Living)

Make me a Morning Person scrub (from Amazon)

Eucalyptus & Lavender Himalayan Sea Salts (from Time for You)

Lavender Himalayan Bath Salts (from Time for You)

Dreamy Sleep Balm (from Rosey Skin Care)

Loyalty Essential Oil (from Young Living - no link because this is a product only given to YL distributors, sorry!)

Bubble Bee (from Rogers Pure Honey) Soap – Lilac

Bubble Bee (from Rogers Pure Honey) Soap – Deadly Weapon

I have everything linked here and on my links page, if you want to check it out!!

Thank you all for reading thus far and as always, the thoughts and opinions shared are indeed my own and I’m still not getting paid to write any of this!!