Yellow!

This year at the candy show in Chicago the marshmallow peeps company brought in this yellow bug with a giant peeps chick on the top. When we were traveling through Hawaii Kaycie was always playing the slug bug game....and she is really good at it. So I took this photo so I can always have a reason to shout out yellow and slug her.

Strutt Your Mutt 2011

I finally did it! After years of trying to get to this event I finally did it and it was so much fun.

Riley, Kaycie and I took Ruby Foo, Cocoa and Armani and met Kat and Ziggy in West Jordan and did some strutting. While I loved it and thought it was great Riley hated it......"are you having fun Riley? Not very much fun" which later turned to "no I am not having any fun" So despite Riley's lack of enjoyment I thnk Kaycie and I, will be joining Kat and I am hoping the dog groomers seen in the photo below at Strutt Your Mutt 2012.

San Francisco June 2011

Purpose of Visit: Visit 3 customers - 1 at a food vendor summit and 2 other customers. One will be talking about Halloween and Christmas the other will be Easter and Valentine's Day -can you see why I never know what the next holiday is?

Best Thing I Ate- Mama Chia drink I purchased at Whole Foods. Cherry Lime juice with whole Chia seeds in it. It is pretty good.

Favorite Purchase: Shoulder and Neck massage at Bliss Spa. Wow I totally needed that after all the crazy plane rides I have been on the last week.

Something to remember for my next visit: Remember the Mark Twain quote about summers in San Francisco and bring an umbrella and a jacket. I am soaking wet, freezing and the proud owner of another $5 umbrella.. Also, establish a budget before I leave. I have spent a boatload of money.

Creative Inspiration: The Ferry Building - from baking, gardening and beekeeping I was inspired by everything and can not wait to get home and work on some fun new projects.

Freak of the Day: Not so much freak of the day but heartbreak of the day - I hate seeing the homeless with their dogs.....breaks my heart. More for the dogs than the people....maybe that makes me freak of the day.

Books Read during this trip-
Rachel Ray Magazine- Not a huge Rachel Ray fan but I am now in love with this magazine.
Vaniety Fair - Great as always -my favorite travel magazine
Kipplingers Guide to Retirement - Boring but necessary
Live it, Love it, Earn it,- Not sure how much I like this one yet.

Special Note: I missed the Pride parade by about 40 minutes- I would have loved to see it. The streets were totally decked out this rainbow flags. A lot of the retail shops had changed out their displays to rainbow colors. Tons of people on the streets in rainbow clothing. I think they go all out here. I have been in NYC a couple of times for the parade and it never seemed like as big a deal as it does here.

Toronto June 2011

Purpose of Visit: Customer visit - one current and one hopefully new
customer.

Best thing I ate: cherry tomato focaccia from SOMA chocolate maker.

Somehing to remember when I come back: i went to the dufflet bakery on
east queens street and found lots of lovely little shops I need to
explore next time.

Favorite Purchase: the greatest gardening boots ever - in red gingham
pattern.

Creative Inspiration: Chapters bookstore near Sherway Gardens. I love
this store I could spend hours here. Their product mix, european
magazines and merchandise displays get me everytime.

Books read during this trip: there have been a number them of because
of my stupid itenerary (SLC, Las Vegas, Toronto - and back again) I
have lots of time for reading -
Thirteen Reasons Why -Liked it
The Everygirls Guide to Life - Maria Menous-Really liked it even though I am not much of a Maria Menous fan.
People Magazine

29 Gifts

On the plane ride home from the Chicago Candy Show I read the book 29 Gifts. Our flight was held on the runway due to thunderstorms for what seemed like hours...good news is I was able to read the book from start to finish during the flight. Loved it! The author changes her whole outlook by giving a gift a day for 29 Days. So of course I decided I wanted to give it a try. Like many things I do I started strong but struggled around day 9 and then gave up. Even just doing it for 9 days was awesome and I want to try it again in a couple months. ! When I decided to do this I knew that one of my gifts would be to Kiva. I have always wanted to make a donation and have just never sat down to do it. So one night I started looking through all of the people asking for loans. I knew I wanted to loan money to a female in retail or agriculture. I am happy to report that my donation went to Rizza who operates a fruit stand. My small donation added to the donations of a few other people help Rizza get her money and she has even started paying it back.

Rizza and her Fruit Stand - I love how all of the fruit is stacked in perfect pyramids - I am guessing she knows a thing or two about visual merchandising.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am fairly obsessed with the show Sister Wives....ok maybe a little ashamed. But not ashamed enough not to take part in a tour of the Sister Wives hot spots in Lehi. Highlights included the home of Robin.

The bigger house - which I must say was so much smaller than it looks on TV

Good times were had by all and we are thinking a trip to Las Vegas, the new home of sister wives and the Williams Sonoma outlet, is in our future.