Cheesy Talk

Happy holidays

cheesecorner — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 19:20:52 +0000

It’s been far too long since I have posted anything at all but I’m going to keep this one short.

Here’s to hoping that your Christmas was amazing…filled with love, laughter and relaxation. And I wish you all the most wonderful things for your New Year’s celebration and for the coming year. I for one am so excited for 2012 that I can hardly contain myself. A big fat goodbye to 2011!

Lovely Lanesboro

cheesecorner — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:44:35 +0000

Some of you may have been there, some may not have the slightest idea what I’m talking about but we recently trekked to gorgeous Lanesboro Minnesota. This is a small town about an hour from La Crosse. It is nestled in the bluffs next to the Root river and is truly the stuff of postcards. We happen to go over to a theater there called the Commonweal that always puts on amazing productions. This time we took our daughters to see Little Shop of Horrors, which happened to be the first show that Lance and I saw at the very same theater in 1992. (I’m a tad biased and I thought that the one in 1992 was a little better than the one we saw on Labor Day weekend but that may just be the nostalgia kicking in.) But, like we always do, we took a picnic to the adorable park that has two small ponds complete with ducks to feed. It was booming with campers and people there for the same purpose as ours. We also took a little drive around the town, which claims to be the Bed & Breakfast capitol of Minnesota, to scope out the rest of the recreational opportunities. There is a place to rent kayaks and inner tubes, a bike trail (I’m sure there is somewhere to rent bikes but we didn’t see it), the river, several steep rolling hills and an adorable downtown area complete with a pastry shop and a candy shop.

I don’t really mean to sound like a tourist guidebook but, seriously, so much to do and so much pretty to see. Definitely worth the trip!

Clutter and dread

cheesecorner — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:53:56 +0000

Do you have one of those spaces that you dread going into and dread cleaning out because of all the clutter and debris? I’m a bit of a neat freak and I like the house “just so.” But I”m afraid that, due to a frantic lifestyle which includes but is not limited to two children in various activities, one tiny dog, two stores, one full-time profession, three executive board memberships…well, you get the picture, there are a few places in our home that are less than perfect. One of them is our basement which, unfortunately, has become a catch-all for everything that doesn’t have a proper home anywhere else in the house, in addition to all of the seasonal decor and a make-shift play area where our youngest daughter enjoys the umpteen boxes of cabbage patch kid clothes that my mom made for me when I was young. I have come to terms with the fact that mere days after cleaning and organizing this space, someone brings something down and just “puts” it wherever they happen to stop walking, thus negating all tidying efforts. So this space gets cleaned about once a year so that there is a home for the deck furniture for the winter.

Our other dreaded clutter space has been the laundry room. It’s a rather big room and, when we moved in, became home to the HUGE dollhouse my father made for me when I was little. Basically, we didn’t have any other good place to put it and our girls were too young to play with it. Since then, our youngest daughter has fallen in love with it and it has been pulled into the middle of that room, making it difficult to even DO the laundry.

Obviously, the reason for this incredibly long post is my elation at having attacked one of our dreaded clutter spaces. After taking the girls kitchen set to my niece in the cities, the toy closet became big enough for the dollhouse which cleared the laundry room from the giant cabinet in the middle, thus allowing it to be free for laundry once again! Oh happy day!

As a small aside, dust/lint bunnies in a laundry room can really reach epic proportions!

Casey’s hair

cheesecorner — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:38:51 +0000

Here it is!

He’s such a good sport! Not every guy would be willing to do goofy things to their hair for the benefit of a charity!

Make sure you stop in and give him props for his heart!

Summertime…and the livin’ is easy

cheesecorner — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:58:35 +0000

Isn’t there all kinds of songs about how laid back summer is? “Lazy, crazy, hazy days of summer,” “summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” “summer breeze, makes me feel fine,” even “summer days drifting away to oh, oh those summer nights.” Where exactly are these types of summer days? And am I the only one that feels like the summer days are even more hectic than all the other days?

I think we all pack so much into the summer because we’re SO excited to have sunny, warm weather and our kids home from school (yes, I actually AM excited to have my kids home from school…so far) that we overbook, we scramble and we kill ourselves with commitments. We have tried to not over-commit our kids to tons of summer activities until they were old enough to actually know what they wanted. But they have reached that age. This summer has been a blur of ball games, orchestra lessons, ball practices, band lessons, a failed attempt at a week-long summer school class, ball tournaments…did I mention that we had a little ball?

And then comes August. When the schedule finally clears of ball and lessons and such, we pack in as many fun, relaxing, family time events as humanly possible which, consequently, become stressful, tense and rushed. In order to spend a day relaxing, you have to spend two days beforehand shopping and prepping the necessary accoutrements and another day getting your work responsibilities taken care of and your schedule cleared. And of course, being the moderate neat freak that I am, our house needs to be clean because I hate coming home to any messes. Really, it would just be easier to skip it and stay home!

Tell me, what am I doing wrong? Does everyone have this problem or is it just me? I seem to fall more in line with The Cars who said “Summer, it turns me upside down. Summer, summer, summer. It’s like a merry-go-round.” Of course, they followed that up with “oh, oh it’s magic”…so basically, I’ve got an amazing family to spend it with so I just gotta suck it up and enjoy it while I can!

Crazy Casey

cheesecorner — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:22:34 +0000

I told you last time that Casey was going to do a haircut thing for Relay for Life. Well, it’s all set and ready for your votes!

For those of you that don’t know Casey, he is one of only two guys that we have on the crew at our La Crosse store. He is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet. He is creative, ridiculously funny and always open to something fun or interesting. He has been growing out his hair in preparation for this event and doesn’t even seem too nervous about the thought of what he has gotten himself into.

In our La Crosse store, you will find three jars, each with a picture of a haircut on them. These are the voting jars and your money is your vote. (All the money in these jars will be going to our Relay for Life fundraising goal so it is money well spent!) You decide which (ugly) haircut you think Casey should sport for the Relay and place as much money as you want into that jar. On Monday, August 1st, Casey and the crew will add up the money in each jar and declare a winner. Erin, at Fantastic Sam’s, has agreed to perform this unattractive coiffure as her donation to the cause sometime during that week and Casey will participate in the Relay looking like a tool. It’s all going to be great fun!!

It’s that time of year again

cheesecorner — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 22:13:53 +0000

It’s Relay for Life time again! This is that time each year when I ask all of you for donations. (Sorry about that!) In case you don’t know, I lost my father to cancer when I was 19. This is what drives me to raise money and walk each year. The wonderful team work of Cole’s Cheesy Crew and the generosity of all of our fabulous guests has allowed us to raise almost $3500 the last two years. (The rest of the team doesn’t know this but I set our team goal above $2000 this year. Shhhhh!)

This year, we have already had a very successful bake sale at both stores and the Viroqua store has sold 150 paper feet that decorate the front of the cooler, the ceiling and the front of the check-out counter. Frankly, Viroqua has kind of kicked La Crosse’s hind end so far. But I have no doubt that the kids in La Crosse will kick it up a notch. I know that Casey has a campaign planned that involves voting for which bad hair cut people think he should get. He has to get his ugly hair cut before the Relay and walk that night looking like a fool We’re all really excited about that!

I’ll keep you posted on any other plans that we make. We’re hoping for a GREAT Relay this year!

The recent goings on…

cheesecorner — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 17:56:28 +0000

SO much has been happening since the last time I posted! (I’m sorry that I’ve been delinquent!)

We celebrated the Viroqua store’s 25th anniversary, in case you hadn’t heard. The month of May was one big party! We had weekly drawings at both stores and a grand prize on the 31st. We also sold our one millionth sub. I know that’s hard to believe but our subs are phenomenal and 25 years is a long time. (True story.) Angie Cina bought the fated Dirty Rancher on Friday the 20th and won a “Lifetime of Yum.” That is one free sandwich every month for the rest of her life. This means that she will have at least one blissfully delicious meal each month until she dies. It doesn’t get much better than that. In addition to all of this hullaballoo, we had signing bonuses for our Royalty Rewards program. Sign up that day and get something free, you know. There was cake, and decorations, and flowers; some beads, and even some confetti. It was a lot of fun!

Thanks for being a part of our 25 fantastic years!

25th Anniversary!

cheesecorner — Sun, 01 May 2011 19:27:49 +0000

It’s hard to believe but the Viroqua store is going to be 25 years old this month! Judy, my mom, opened on the 21st of May in 1986 in the tiny front portion of what used to be Tulips. It started as a cheese store and she added delicious sandwiches that July. A few years after that, she shifted everything over to the other, slightly larger end of the building.

I started working there when I was 13. (I have the scars on my fingers to prove it!) And after college, decided that I wanted to be the big cheese. In January of 1999, the sale was final and I tried to grow into the shoes I had picked out. (It was not until 2007 that I listened to my husband about the enormous shoes that he wanted me to wear. Hence the birth of the La Crosse store. But that’s a different anniversary story.)

All these years have been spent sharing a love of food, a love of laughter and a love of community. It has truly been amazingly fun! And to commemorate that, we have a ton of fun for all of you for the entire month of May!

Each week, we will have a prize drawing at both stores. You get to enter each time you come in. All the entries will also be saved for the grand prize drawing on Tuesday the 31st. (You can score an extra entry form with the coupon from our weekly emails.) For the week of May 2nd, the La Crosse prize is 25 slices of Colby cheese and the Viroqua prize is a 12″ cheese tray that serves 25 people. Also for the first week in May, the first 25 people to sign up for our Royalty Rewards program will receive a free cookie! It’s the free club that scores you free food. What could be better than that??

And as if that weren’t excitement enough, sometime this month, the Viroqua store will be selling it’s 1,000,000th sub. That’s a lot of yum! As you expect, we’re going to make a pretty big deal out of that!

Thank you for 25 fantastic years! Come help us celebrate!

Our book drive

cheesecorner — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:41:03 +0000

Thank you to everyone who brought in books for our book drive! We did a really good job! Viroqua gathered 57 books and La Crosse brought us 62. I’ll be heading to the hospitals next week to give them to any departments that need them.

I’m so proud of you guys!

Next on the agenda for the Cheese Corners is our first bake sale for our Relay for Life team! (More information to follow on that one!)

Happy Friday!