Coming Soon: One Big Happy Blog

Happy Columbus Day, to all those who celebrate it. Which means if you work in a bank, the post office or for the government happy day off. ;-)

So everybody say hello to Puff! No, scratch that. If we all say hello to Puff he’ll type “you will will will you you will.” That’s what Puff types if the microphone is on, David’s home and there’s a ballgame on TV. Too much input makes Puff stutter incoherently. Just know that Puff is here, but don’t talk to him.

The first couple games of the ALCS have been exciting. I think the series being tied 1-1 is a good representation of how the teams match up. Of course I’ll tell you the Tigers are just a little better but David (and Edna & Seamhead Gypsy) will tell you I have no clue what I’m talking about. That's pots calling sweet little truth-speaking kettle black. I’m just looking forward to one more live game before the season is over! SQUEE!!! I’m also in search of Detroit Tigers earmuffs.

I’d kinda like to see a replay of 2006 but this time we win. But if the Red Sox take the series they’ll have my loyalty in the World Series. My Cardinals fan friends know this will happen. They’re even okay with it.


Diversification & Consolidation

I’ve been giving some thought to the blogs I keep up, or haven’t been keeping up. The Chronicles of Nani has two sub-blogs, three if you count Behind Orange Eyes. There is one blog specifically for recipes (Simply Davlicious Recipes) and one that specifically documents my life with MS (It’s About What I CAN Do) and both of those blogs are badly in need of updates. Behind Orange Eyes has been idle for a while too. I think it’s a good time to do some consolidation. I’m going to post my occasional MS entries here with the label Want_I_CAN_Do and link to this blog from the MS blog. I plan to slowly import the recipes back here using the label Davlicious_Recipes that already exists. I’ll be making some other minor changes in the bulletin board at the top of the blog and maybe design a new header by the end of the year. (Don’t hold me to that new header idea; this or something better, remember?)

I’ll be talking to the cats about doing guest posts on The Chronicles rather than us fighting over the computer. That also means Marco will get to do an entry every now and then; Kaline and Carla won’t let him have the password to join the writing team.



Last but not least for now a FREEBIE! While going through my blogger’s block I still created a few freebie things, I just didn’t package or post them. I did this layout in July for the trip we took with Rina in 2008 to Altoona, PA, for Railfest.

Credits: On The Right Track by Keystone Scraps

The free Digitalegacies Designs template is in psd and tif files and offers 16 spaces for photos, paper or elements.

Click preview to go to download

That’s it for now, enjoy the rest of your Monday. GO TIGERS!
(Red Sox fans you know I love you…next week.)

Apples and Wine and a Davlicious Event!

“Apples and Wine” is the new color kit from Digitalegacies Designs. It’s the kit I did for Boo’s Color Challenge at SAS and the first time I’ve ever created a mini kit for the purpose of doing a particular layout!

Sorry, this link is expired.

Please leave comments here rather than jumping through the hoops to leave them at 4-Shared. Besides, if they are here, you know I’ll read them!

Apples and Wine is an old family cold remedy that actually tastes better than the old world remedies usually do! I remember Mom told a story about Nono’s cure for morning sickness that she never tried! It was something like milk, honey and whiskey. EW! Not sure how that STOPS nausea!

But apples and wine is a sweet and spicy mulled wine that tastes good and does a remarkable job of rushing that cold out of your system!

Here is the layout the kit was designed to make!


What is this? ANOTHER recipe page??

Today is the day! For about the past month, I’ve been slowly transferring the old archived recipes from Simply Davine and adding some new ones to a new blog, Simply Davlicious Recipes! I’d like to invite everyone to take a look at the new blog! Bring a napkin for the drool!


Some of the recipes at Simply Davlicious Recipes have links. Those links are for the SDR Cook Book Pages. They’re not hard to spot! That recipe will have the a cookbook page at the top of the entry and the link will take you to a download page were you can have the full resolution page, 12X12 in 300 dpi. You can print them out, add them to your own cookbook, they are my gift to you! As part of the grand launch of the blog, you’ll find Cook Book Pages for 8 recipes, including 5 that have never been offered before!

All downloadable CBPs are offered with permission of the individual designers of the kits used for each page. The blog URLs are available in the download package, so if you like the kit, stop by the designer’s bog and leave some love!!

I hope you enjoy the new recipe blog. I loved being able to use tags to make everything cross referenced. You can browse them all or see your favorite topics. if you’re still looking for some ideas for Thanksgiving, click the holidays tag on the side bar!


So, click the Davlicious logo and come on over to my blog-warming party!

Saving The Planet (One Cup of Coffee at a Time)

This one’s a long one so, get a cup of coffee and a piece of that black forest cake!

Who knew saving the planet could taste so good?

That’s right, uh-huh, just call me SOUPER JAVA NANI, defender of Mother Earth!

:::moment of silence with a impish grin on my face:::

Yeah, okay, I’m not really a super hero, even in my own ego, but I do my part where I can to preserve our planet!

David and I were surprised by a fact revealed on The Weather Channel a few weeks back in the segment done by Bill Nye The Science Guy. Bill had posed a question about how many gallons of water could be save annually just by turning off the water when you brush your teeth. I’ll be honest I don’t remember the number, I just remember that it was an astronomical figure that shocked both of us! I’m making a concerted effort to remember to turn off the water between the initial “add a little water to the brush to moisten the toothpaste” phase and the rinse.

But it’s rough to break an old habit. I mean, I’m 42 years old and most of those 42 years I’ve had teeth! I’m a pretty devout brusher. I’m even one of those strange people who actually flosses every day. My oral hygienist back in Michigan said it was a pleasant surprise, most people don’t. But for decades, brushing my teeth has meant, put toothpaste on the brush, run the brush under a little water, brush back and forth, up and down and in little circles and rinse. THEN turn off the water and floss. It never occurred to me to turn off the water while I did the back and forth, up and down and little circles!

So now, how do I remember to try to retrain myself? When I brush my teeth, I think about coffee!

Get that surprised look off your face! I’m not thinking about coffee as mouthwash or anything! Keep reading!

How does coffee make me think about water conservation? Well, I always make my coffee with rescued water! David and I keep a half gallon and a gallon jug on the counter near the sink. When the water is just running, we let it run over a jug. Think about all the times you just let the water run while it’s getting cold enough to drink or hot enough to rinse or wash dishes. It adds up. We fill those gallon and a half worth of jugs in a day easy. Those jugs are “rescued water,” water that didn’t just flow down the drain unused. Cats don’t drink cold water, room temperature is perfect for the kids and I also use the rescued water to make soup, lemonade, cook vegetables and make coffee! So, my coffee could be considered “ecocoffee!”


A New Notch On The Wall

I am proud to announce that The Chronicles of Nani is now a two-time winner of the Proximidade award for fostering friendship and providing special content around the cyber world!


Monika, of Monika Digital Designs bestowed this award this time. I definitely do extend that hand of friendship, but the specialness of content is totally up to my readers. I truly treasure every award you all feel I deserve!

Like I said before, I’m working on ideas of an award of my own to give out. You know I have “a list!” :) But I will be awarding people soon!



It’s Simply Davlicious!

What a way to start the day! This morning I brewed the ecocoffee in my grinder/coffee maker with a cinnamon stick in the grinder half. It ground the fresh cinnamon and added it to the coffee grounds as it was brewing. I used the caramel Splenda that David bought me last weekend for a sweet morning treat! YUM!

And speaking of “yum,” I’ve been tweaking a new recipe for baked apples that I’ll probably be doing a new “Cook Book Page” for, but in the mean time, I’m working on the Davlicious page in The Simply Davine Group to finally get it updated. Davlicious Recipes are all the archived recipes from Simply Davine. Simply Davine was essentially my “life and times of me” before The Chronicles of Nani. A regular blog is much easier to update several times a week than a website. Now that website is the portal to all my web stuff and the Davlicious link is just the archive recipes page. I’m going to be reconstructing that page with all the archived recipes and the original photos from when they were on the website. I’ll also be adding new recipes from time to time. But first, I want to make the archive more user-friendly!

Davlicious Recipes are all original or family recipes that I share with anyone who wants to try them. I did a set of “Cook Book Pages” last month and offered them in full resolution to anyone that wanted them. There were a few requests, which made me smile. I think that’s the “inner Italian grandma” that Noni left with me. So look for “Davlicious Recipes Cook Book Pages” from time to time on The Chronicles of Nani! Hint - when the Davlicious site is ready for the grand re-launch, look for a page or two to celebrate it!



Scrap News

Because I don’t have enough to fill my days...if you haven’t already seen the sarcasm in THAT statement, please apply it liberally and read it again...I suggested and am organizing an event with many of the contestants from the Next SAS-y Designer contest. We’re having a “Cast Party” for our after the scrapping reality show event, which includes cast members from the first week and ALL THREE of the winning new SAS-y Ladies!

So, what makes this something worth telling everyone who was NOT part of our cast?

You’re all invited! This cast party is our opportunity to say “Thanks” to all of you who read our blogs, voted and read almost daily pleas for votes in the contest. Now, we’re saying “thanks” with a whole slew of freebies, no strings attached - no begging, just a gift...a bunch of blog-hopping gifts for all of you as party favors!

The party starts next Wednesday, so make sure you visit here for a link to the party room where you'll find all the previews for your gifts and links to the blogs where the gift-givers have them offered. How cool is this?? I’ve already seen a lot of the previews. Trust me, it’s VERY cool!



Jessica Sprague

While browsing some scrapping blogs this morning, I came across The Digital Life and Times of Meg. Meg’s first blog entry on this blog was in August, but she has some interesting scrapbook ideas, a few freebies and a link to an interesting tutorial and classes site! Jessica Sprague is offering a free class at jessicasprague.com in November!


This is not a personal endorsement of the class, since it’s all totally new to me, but the topic caught my interest and I intend to sign up for it when it’s available for registration on the 20th.

Stories At Hand advertises itself as a class for developing the “missing moments” in between photos and scrapbook pages. The promo suggests it will help capture those untold memories in scrapbook pages when you don’t have photos or in video or blogs. From the promotion, I’m getting that it will help you write better, be a better storyteller.

It just has me intrigued and it’s a free glimpse into her class style. So, I’m going to give it a try! Some of The Chronicles of Nani readers have expressed an interest in being better storytellers and some in journaling better. This might not be a bad idea! Another thing, the post I was reading at jessicaspreague.com also says this class is not just for scrapbookers! (that kinda adds more intrigue to me!)



Links Back Up

I think I’ve decided that I’m just not the type to “go pro” at scrapbook designing. I don't like rules and deadlines put on my creativity all the time unless I’m getting a big paycheck when its done!

Oh, I may try the designer contest thing again because I made great new friends in it and I learned a LOT about designing and really a lot about what to design for other people, what people would be able to enjoy and use in their own layouts. This does not mean that I’m going to shy away from doing kit themes that there just aren’t kits for, on the contrary, I think after comments I received about “I Cross My Heart” and the FBR search I did for cheerleading kits, the Digitalegacies brand of theme kits are sorely needed!

Flowers, fairies and frillies are nice. They make pretty, artsy pages and there are tons of gorgeous kits available for making those works of personal art. But in a market saturated with the scrapbooking supplies that thrill the creative little girls in all female scrappers, there are pages to be done about everyday things, sports, men and there are even men who scrap! This grown-up tomboy will always be looking for the elements that represent those memories too and when I can’t find them, I‘ll design them...and share them!

So, now I’m totally overloaded with stuff on my “to do” list! I have a ton of inspired ideas swirling around in my head, including that “heritage” kit I’m hoping to launch this month. But in the mean time, there are a few things I’ve done.

I’d expired some of the older freebie links in contemplation of what I might want to put in a store someday. Those links have all been reactivated and “Train, Train,” “I’m All In,” “Printmps Classique,” “In Only Seven Days” and “She Said YES!,” are once again available for free download. “In Only Seven Days” is now a link to the directory for all seven downloads from the main page introducing the kit

(click on the previews to go to the original post)

"Train, Train"
password is railfans


"I'm All In"
password is royalflush


"Printemps Classique"
password is itsFrench

"In Only Seven Days"
password is Freddie


"She Said YES!"
password is marry-me

Well, I’ve been adding a new piece to this blog entry every now and then all day, which makes for a LONG blog! But this is my scrapping day, so there is much to still be done with the rest of the evening and my presence is requested downstairs for Red Sox, game 2 on TV!