A Little Bit of That – Spring 2011

I told ya I’d be back! It’s been a good baseball Mother’s day so far. So far is because the Braves are still playing, but they are ahead by 2 in the 9th. Philly still gets their last at-bat! In the day games, the Reds, Red Sox and Tigers all won,


Still Losing

In the healthy diet world, I’m just a couple pounds away from another goal-gift. I have finally started to see the scale move in the right direction again. Stress is a nasty critter for causing plateaus and even weight gain! I tried a few new things, because weight-loss counselors will tell you to first, stick with your diet even when you’re under stress or on a plateau. Second, they’ll tell you to mix things up a little, swap lunch and breakfast foods or just try something new. SO I’ve tried some somethings new!


I tried Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze, almond milk. Oh my, that stuff I SO GOOD It’s low in fat and only 60 calories for as one-cup serving. I also don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything so good on cereal. It adds a great nutty flavor. Now, almond milk isn’t as high in protein as regular fat free milk, but almond milk is very high in Vitamin E. My neurologist told me to double my daily vitamin E, double that if I can. So, I take my Vitamin E supplement twice a day and also add almond milk, especially at breakfast on Fiber Plus cinnamon or Special K Cinnamon Pecan cereal. I need to see how it tastes on Honey Nut Cheerios! I keep track of my protein and fiber intake every day and even with switching out some of my milk with almond milk, I’m still a decent amount over the recommended minimum. I want to try the dark chocolate almond milk for an occasional treat too. It’s double the calories of plain almond milk, but it’s still less than regular chocolate milk and chocolate and almond, yum!

I’ll be getting the opportunity to check out new things in the store again now. I’m sad to say Flying Grocery, the local grocery delivery service I’ve been using, has gone out of business. As a former small business owner in a rough economy myself, I totally understand. A delivery service with current gas prices has to be difficult to maintain. The weekend of Easter, David and I went to Meijer to get some groceries. I like going to Meijer because they have a wheelchair with a shopping basket. You know, if I can’t do the walking, I at least want to exercise my arms. Well, Easter weekend when we went someone else had the wheelchair and I used one of those scooters. While I really don’t like those things, they make me feel lazy, it’s still a viable way to get the groceries bought. Accepting this means that I can shop at Kroger and Giant Eagle too and I won’t hurt so bad I can barely get the groceries in the house. Still, I’m going to miss seeing Leslie, the owner at Flying Grocery, and I know for me, my business was my baby and I was sad to have to close my doors.



Qwirkle


Last weekend, David and I went to SEMMantics, the Mensa event in Farmington Hills, Michigan, that’s responsible for us meeting. If he hadn’t been giving a talk there, he wouldn’t have asked me to come see his multimedia show and give him some professional thoughts. That email inviting me to his program is how we found out we both like trains, baseball and cats.

This year, David placed fourth in the Texas Hold Em tournament. David’s wife finished third! I SO seldom ever finish better than him at poker, I was tickled pink! We also discovered a new game! We played Qwirkle, which is a matching colors and patterns game. It’s a fantastic and addicting game! We promised ourselves we’d buy it after we got home.

There was one problem with the idea of buying Qwirkle after we got home. Why would we want another one? We bought ourselves a new game before Christmas that looked like fun, but since it was Christmastime, we put it away with the other games and well, forgot it was there. I was looking up Qwirkle to get an idea of the cost after we’d gotten home and then glanced over at our games shelves and there it was, still in its shrink wrap, the game we’d fallen in love with during the weekend. We’ve played a game of Qwirkle almost every night since discovering we already had it! Generally the games are kinda close, but I’ve only won twice. So, I need to practice! :)


Okay, time to wrap up today’s this and that. The Braves won that game while I was writing, YAY! All of my teams won today. It truly was a good baseball day!

Outstanding Lunch!

Cream of Italy Soup
2½ cups for under 100 calories!

I just posted this fabulous recipe at Davlicious Recipes. OMG!

If you’re wondering what about this cup of soup is worth teenage text-slang from me, all my recipes are tested multiple times for consistency of flavor and accuracy of measurements before I post them at Davlicious. The measurements on Cream of Italy Soup are sound, so they pass for accuracy.

The consistency of flavor changes depending on the sauce you use. When I created the soup, we had a jar of Ragu meat sauce open in the refrigerator. It made for a tasty soup that was quick to make a and low calorie. Today was the final test. The sauce that’s open in the fridge is a container of my homemade sauce. That’s where the text slang comes in. My homemade sauce Italied up the flavor of the soup and … OMG!

The key here is pick a spaghetti sauce you really like the flavor of, because it definitely makes the soup’s flavor. Whichever sauce you use, it’s still low calorie, still fast and still delicious!

Link: See the recipe at Davlicious!
Cream of Italy Soup

Better Things

I’m enjoying the turnaround in things lately. I really do believe strongly in the power of positive thinking and it’s held me up again, where could have been brought way down, as it has many times. At it’s simplest staying positive is seeing the “but” in everything, realizing that it really could be worse when it’s bad and being grateful for the good things you still have. I think I might be a bit of a basket case if I hadn’t become somewhat of a master at it.

In the last few weeks, I’ve done poorly on my first test of the semester, had quite a few non-Wife 1500 compliant days and fallen behind n the scrapbook catching-up plan. That’s okay. I crammed that test in the middle of tending to my responsibilities for Grandma. I don’t regret that. Traveling for funerals/memorials and all of the necessary preparation made planning careful eating almost impossible. We even had a family dinner of fried chicken one night in Connecticut. When family is opening their doors to you, you don’t ask to be treated special at dinner. You take the fried skin off the chicken and load up on the asparagus! I don’t regret not being the ugly sister-in-law either.

Things are getting back on the track of organized now. I‘ve been having some major knee and back trauma. That pain is chronic right now and I live with it, but my back muscles have been really weak, so I’m not so up for going to the store. But we do have enough in the way of frozen, boxed and canned stuff that I’ve been able to get back on a solid Wife 1500 menu. I have a vitamin order coming in that will help too. I’m out of my glucosamine and condroitin and I’m adding vitamin C and E with my daily B12. These are all vitamins that increase oxygen, circulation and help to increase muscle strength.

I hope that I can feel up to getting to the grocery store tomorrow, at least for a short trip. I am dying for some fresh fruit and veggies! Specifically I want oranges, bananas, salad and zucchini. Well, okay, I always want zucchini! But I need to get the fixins for Valentines Day too!

No, my calendar isn’t broken. David and I were traveling home on Valentines Day, so we decided to celebrate it this Sunday. I’ll cook our traditional Lovers Shrimp Scampi and I need to make a call to Baskin Robbins to order a mini ice cream cake for dessert. We’ll still get our romantic evening for the holiday. We did share some half-off chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, but roses and shrimp don’t go on a half-off sale, neither do ice cream cakes. I hope I still get my flowers, but the romance is what’s important!

I’m hoping to get my catch-up plan running smoothly again on Saturday while David is working. I’ve still been dong 2007 layouts, but not quite one a day. I have kept up with Java 365 and I’ve been keeping up with them thanks to the Project 365/52 challenges at Digital Scrapbooking Studio and My Life and Scrap. A good challenge is a super way to keep you on top of things!

I haven’t posted my Java layouts since week 3, but I’ve been doing them! Here is the update:

Week 4

Credits: Papers from Morning Mocha collab
by Little Red Scraps and Nibbles Scribbles,
Template Project 365 J2 by Digitalegacies Designs

Week 5

Credits: Cozy Winter by Brenda at Millstream Cottage,
journal mat from Paperscraps Journal Papers by mITSYBELLE,
coffee tag on hook by Eileen Gery, other elements from
Morning Mocha collab by Nibbles Scribbles and Little Red Scraps

 

I just loved the shadow box in Brenda’s kit! I moved just a couple of the dividers and it became a perfect frame for the week!

Week 6

Credits: Kit – January 2010 PDW Color Challenge by Bubbles Babbles,
Template 30 by Sweet Tomato Designs, Font: Lima Bean

Of course even if late, when you see a Digitalegacies template in the credits, like in Week 4, it usually means a freebie. After reading all of my woes today, don’t you think you deserve a freebie?

Click to preview to go to the download.
The password is more-coffee.

As always, I LOVE comments at The Chronicles of Nani and if you use any of Digitalegacies stuff, I’d love to see your work!

Stay tuned to The Chronicles of Nani for an answer to Edna’s query about the black eye I mentioned in a sponsor-post a couple weeks ago and another freebie I’m finishing up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Fish Story

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of HealthyTuna.com. All opinions are 100% mine.

The big one that got away, That giant fish we’re trying to catch, pregnant women shouldn’t eat tuna, all myths! That last one is the worst of all of them! Tuna is one of the most versatile and tasty fish you can eat. It’s low in calories, high in good fatty acids, mild flavored and not fishy tasting and is wonderful in recipes hot, cold, mild or spicy.

When you or someone close to you is pregnant, she should stay away from fish that are high in mercury, like swordfish, mackerel or shark to name a few, but tuna is not in that list! In fact, according to recent studies I’ve read about at Healthy Tuna, eating fish during pregnancy can reduce the chances of depression for Mom during and after pregnancy and increases Baby’s brain and behavior development. In the article I was reading, Dr. Ashley Roman, OB/GYN, suggests eating at least two to three fish meals a week during pregnancy

Okay, no, not pregnant here, but I did have tuna for lunch!

My healthy tuna lunch today was a real simple tuna salad on medium-well done, warm toast served up with some yummy crunchy celery. Yes, I’ve been told that I’m one of very few people that ever uses the term “yummy celery,” but I’m among many who say that about the tuna!

My Dad uses tuna in the summer a lot in salads. Back before he retired, when he was in construction and out in the heat all day in the summer, a salad done with tuna, chunk cheese, olives, cucumbers and fresh tomatoes with his homemade vinaigrette was hearty but not so filling to made him uncomfortable after a hard-working day. I remember he used oil-packed tuna when I was much younger, but he switched to healthier water-packed later.

Mom used to make a tuna casserole when we were little that was great! That was another of her fantastic ways to stretch a dollar, but it was so good! I’m going to have to leaf through some recipes and see if I can reconstruct Mom’s recipe for that one. It was done with a soup for the creamy base, or maybe it was milk, but done with tuna and shell noodles with crunched up potato chips on top. I feel all full and warm inside just describing it!

As for me, I do a basic tuna salad that's on Davlicious Recipes, but it’s tuna, sweet relish and Miracle Whip. The salad I did today was smaller in proportion than the one on my recipe site because I used the 80-calorie, single serving envelope from Star-Kist. But I’ve also tried tuna steaks at home and tuna a couple different ways at good seafood restaurants.

Hey look, that’s three different ways to prepare tuna, all of them tasty and all of them satisfying! If there are any expecting Moms reading this, hit print! Everyone should checkout the Healthy Tuna site for more recipe ideas and articles about tuna. As something that’s good for everyone, tuna is the real deal, not just another fish story!

Happy National Popcorn Day!

Word art by Create with TLC

(This would have been up before NPD was over, but we lost Internet for a few hours!)

It's National Popcorn Day! Anyway, it way, it was. I found out about this holiday surfing the net. There was a link to a freebie stamp that brought me to Paulette’s blog, Create With TLC . As a popcorn fan myself, I just had to snag the stamp and discovered a wealth of fantastic freebies and sets, modestly priced, in her store. There are some fantastic things you can add to your digital and hybrid layouts to give them great character!

Of course, I popped a bowl of popcorn to go with my Bacon Ranch salad for lunch. I had errands to do and, craving a salad, I drove through McDonald’s after my bank stop, before I came home. Then, in honor of National Popcorn Day, I made another bowl for my afternoon snack! No, I very seldom make popcorn twice in a day and it really was, to me anyway, for the holiday! I made my popcorn with my trusty air-popper, seasoning it with butter flavored cooking spray and Kernel Seasons caramel corn. It’s a completely Wife 1500 approved treat, 120 fat-free calories for 5 air-popped cups, or 2 tablespoons of kernels, however you want to measure it. I usually measure 2 tablespoons into the air popper.

Here’s my layout to commemorate the day!

Credits: Kit – Amica by digiMom Designs, Template by
Lindsay Jane Designs, Word Art by Create with TLC

My scrapping in the now while I’m catching up is going well! I have no photos to scrap for 2010 right now and I did “The Good Lives” with the remaining photos from the folder of the layout I finished up last night

The Good Lives
Credits: For You by Mamrotka,
challenge template by Tiger Lily Digis

And now, April 2007 is done!

Dinner tonight was late. Popcorn is very filling. So, after David got in from a late night, I asked him if he was hungry. He was and we had the ham soup I made yesterday. I love Honey Baked Ham for soup! We got a quarter ham for Christmas dinner and I took the leftover ham out of the freezer last week for diner. We had Christmas dinner, dinner last week and I have one more package in the freezer that I made for another dinner. The end was a decent-sized piece with a bone in it! I cut the end in half and froze the half without the bone. I poured the remaining glaze in the zip-loc with the half with the bone in it to make soup.

Honey Baked Ham Soup

That was yesterday’s project. I browned an onion in a half tablespoon of oil, then added the piece of bone-in ham and a gallon of water. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer a few hours until it’s broth. Last thing add salt to taste. It’s really simple to make! Anything baked 0or roasted makes very flavorful soup that doesn’t need a lot added. That made enough broth that I had some for dinner yesterday with an ounce of the ham from making the broth and tonight we shared the rest of the broth with mini farfalle noodles and the rest of the meat.

David hadn’t tried ham broth before and I was really hoping he’d like it. He did! I love soup! It’s filling, cozy on a chilly night, low cal and just tastes good! Making soup also makes the price of just about any kind of meat go down!

Now, my sleepy self is going to have some popcorny dreams!


Links:
Create with TLC
Create with TLC Shop

2010, Week 1

Well, it’s a week into the second decade of the third millennium AD…

That’s the key to happiness – make every day an event. Think about it, there has never been a January 7, 2010 before and there never will be one again. In your lifetime, you will meet people who weren’t here for this day. They’ll only know about it by your memory of it. This days belongs to US.

Today was the first day of the semester for me. I earned my first 10 points for the class by posting my introduction in the discussion forum. The forums are how you earn your class participation in online classes. I also now have 50 pages to read between tonight and tomorrow so I can get working on the assignments. So now all of my New Year goals are in process!

I did my catch-up layout for today this morning, picking up the notes for the speed scrap at Designs in Digital. The speed scraps there are due by 5 the next day, to give all time zones the opportunity to join in. I got it done in just over an hour while I had breakfast!

Credits: Kit is Aidan Again by Retrodiva Designs

Today’s “scrapping in the now” layout is the first week of Java 365!

Credits: January Recycle Bin by Mrs JayBob,

Template is modified from Project 52, Week 1 by Dogs Day Designs

After blogging tonight, I owe me one more catch-up LO. I didn’t do one yesterday because I was in the Motherland for most of the day. I went to visit Grandma first. That’s become a visit that’s a little draining for me, but still one I’m glad I do. Her confusion is increasing, but there is so much she still fights to remember and understand. It’s the moments of fire in her eyes, that glance of happiness that I’m there that make every bit of difficulty and every mile of the drive worth it.

Then I stopped at Cracker Barrel in Belleville to meet Tracy and Heather for dinner. My plan really was to leave for home by 8:00 and NOT close the place like we always end up doing. Well, the guy who locks down the rocking chairs on the porch at close held the door open for us when we were leaving. I frustrate myself, but I don’t take it to heart. I know how lucky I am that I have dear friends that I can just get so wrapped up in being with that we all lose track of time. And they are friends that make the same effort I do to be together, it’s that important to us. I got into the house 45 minutes after I left the restaurant, just as I was getting the “I’m home” text from Heather. I texted back “Me too,” and sent an “I’m home” to Tracy who sent back “Okay, me too now,” just a few minutes later. So, now I need to finish up another catch-up layout to keep on track. A small price to pay for such awesome people in my family!


Friend of Wife 1500

I found an awesome diet tool online! LiveStrong.com has some great food and fitness tools. You can choose to use them in your account privately or publicly in the online community. I choose to use the tools privately. I know that a lot of people do well with steady support or by making a detailed public affirmation, actually writing about this on my blog is my affirmation, I just don’t do well with a “diet stage” where strangers encourage you to change. Even if I want to make changes in my life, I don’t want a stranger agreeing with me! Some people like to post a picture of themselves at their physical worst where they can see it all the time to keep them from “cheating.” I think looking at a picture of myself that looks as bad as I can is putting way to much importance on appearance and fostering a negative self image. I prefer to get a really cute blouse that doesn’t fit…yet and have my reward as a goal!

I have my food, water and exercise diary at livestong. They have a fantastic food database for counting the calories and nutrition stats. I even found Bauli Panettone, Mac Snack Wraps and Cracker Barrel sides there! They also have the stats for all of my Trader Joe’s favorite items! So far this week, I’ve hit between 1000 and 1500 calories every day, which is my goal range. That total is low enough to reduce me, but high enough not to lower my metabolism. That was my problem with the South Beach diet when I tried it. I have elevated cholesterol and have had for a while. I have to keep the fat content of what I eat in check. Low carb diets are made for people with high blood sugar and no problems with cholesterol. I knew the recipes in South Beach were a fat content that was essentially heart attack on a plate for me, so I cut the fat out. I was consuming 500-600 calories a day. I felt sick and lost three pounds the first week – then I gained 4 the next week.

At livestrong.com, I get to analyze the stats at the end of the day, and I LOVE analyzing stats! My averages for this week have been at about 100% or less of the RDA carbohydrates and sodium, very low in fat and cholesterol and high in sugar. That doesn’t really surprise me because I’m really conscious of the fat and cholesterol intake. I’ve never had issues with blood pressure and my blood work has consistently been perfect in the area of blood sugar levels. So, if the balance is a little high in sugars but low in fats, I’m okay with that. What I love, is that I now have a calculator that will measure all of the other levels for me so I can concentrate on the calories and just make sure I keep the other levels in check. So, “My Plate” at livestong is my Wife 1500 best friend!


Tomorrow is going to be our undecorating day. The tree stays up and lit until epiphany, which was yesterday. It’s always a sad day for me when the tree comes down. I love the lights and our tree is very personal, all the bits of David and me, from the crystal ballerina Mom gave me in recognition of my dancing as a child to the glass poker chip stacks recognizing David’s evening hobby. The cats, the coffee cups, the baseball and train ornaments and all of our dated ornaments, one for every year we’ve been together, our tree is a beautiful celebration of the holiday and the hearts that make ours a home. Oh the love and smiles will always live here, but the magic that is the holidays will go back in the boxes to sprinkle it’s glitter again in another 11 months!

Okay, now I’m going to celebrate what’s left of my one and only January 7, 2010, ever. I hope you all enjoyed yours!


Links - livestrong.com

Food Fanatic

1 cup of oatmeal with 1 TBS chocolate & butterscotch morsels,

2 strips bacon, half grapefruit
and coffee with Coffeemate 360 calories

Breakfast was yummy this morning and filling enough that I skipped my mid-morning snack time. Like I said yesterday, I’m not going to show all the food I eat every day and I’m not going to talk about food on my blog every day, but today is one of the last couple of days off until school starts, so I have the opportunity to blog about it and establish a healthy food obsession. I’ve mentioned that before, that I need a decent obsession about food to keep me focused on doing it right!

Here was lunch:

1 cup Trader Joe’s Roaster Tomato and Red Pepper soup,
salad with 2TBS Newman’s light Balsamic Vinaigrette
and an Italian breadstick 215 calories

I LOVE that soup! It's the one I bought three boxes of last month when I stopped at Trader Joe's when I was in the Motherland! Some of the things I really enjoy about eating in a healthier balance are soups and dips! I have a copy of the Campbell’s Soup for Life book and it inspired some great ideas. I love to make soup, love to eat soup. Soups and stews are about the most creative I get to be in the kitchen and they are tasty, satisfying and make into gorgeous presentations! I always serve myself a setting that looks elegant, homey or both! Dips are very similar. I stick to lower fat dips like hummus, bruschetta or yogurt-based dips, but the content of the dip is determined by the maker of the dip, so often I make my own dips for crunchy veggies or crackers. I get to be creative with dip-making too!

I’ll stop in later with more food. But now is time for The Monday Mug Shot!

It’s just inches away. Scroll down!



Wait for it……….




Wait for it………….




Wait for it……………

Goaltending Starts in the Morning!

The personal goal of better health and weight starts when I wake up. It’s Monday and David will work a little later, so we’ll probably do hot breakfast, as we often do when he’s working late, then we’re hoping to get to the grocery store to stock up on meats and veggies for the week, including some fruit for me and cup-o-soup, which rates way up there for Nani-snacks! I’ll try to remember to photograph breakfast so I can show it off with the calorie counts. I’m not going to do that every meal, every day, but tomorrow being the 2010 kick off and all, I’ll ask you all to indulge me!

Since the educational goals start later this week, I’ll be doing some organizing and scrapping on Monday. Scrapping in the now and a page-a-day in catching up starts officially tomorrow. I already have my layout of the first photos of 2010 done, with a few photos from BORTrail this weekend that will make a page or two. I decided not to do a show of my train photos this year. After the months that ended last year, I just wanted to take a break between the holidays. Besides, my Mac is getting way up there in years and very slow. It’s not that it won’t make movies anymore, but I know that right now it’s more stress than I wanted to deal with waiting forever for each bit to render! I’m hopeful that by next December I’ll either have a Mac upgrade or at least some decent calm in my life that I won’t mind the extra time the undertaking needs right now! There were a lot of fellow railfans that were surprised and a little disappointed that I wasn’t representing the BORT Women on the screen with my usual solo act. David did an awesome job on his show! He did a “talkie,” narrating rather than music with his slides and ended his show to an ovation from the fellow railfans when he showed his excellently exposed shots of the rainbow we saw on our honeymoon!

So, tomorrow, in addition to at least one catch-up layout, I’ll get probably page 2 and 3 of 2010 done too. I said that a page-a-day will officially start tomorrow, but I’ve been trying to keep that started since just before Christmas. I got a lot of catching up of the holiday stuff done as Christmas challenge layouts in 2009. I finished up 4 that I’d started before the end of the year on New Year’s Day while David was at work. I figure that counts as 2, since it was 4 half-done ones! I wasn’t home yesterday and didn’t bring my laptop with me because I know BORTrail runs late and I’m usually very tired by the time we check into the hotel. But I did get a catch-up layout for today d0one!

This is the begining of February, 2007:

Credits: Lions Fan Kit by Midnight Scrapping (except NFL trademarks),
template 11 by Designs by CMR

That one is a little fun ripping on the home football team of my Michigander days! I had only been an Ohiogander for 6 weeks when the frozen-over pictures in Hell, Michigan were taken!


Java 365 Update

Three days in and I have three coffee photos! Yay! I joined My Life & Scrap, who is doing a Project 52 challenge, which opens up to either a weekly layout of daily shots or weekly photos. You get a free template every week, that you don’t have to use to complete the week’s layout, and If you have 52 pages done at the end of the year, you win a year of access to Dogs Day Designs’ store, she’s the challenge host for the project 52, plus a year of store collabs! As if the free templates and encouragement wasn’t enough incentive to keep with it. WOW!

Well, I’m going to wrap up tonight in planning and scrapping. Is anyone else doing a project 365 or 52 this year? Anyone want some comment space for goals or resolutions, to brag, get some support or just make a public affirmation? Please feel welcome to shout it out in the comments. We’ll all raise a mug of cyber-coffee to your planned success!

Wrapping Up The Old, Prepping For The New

YUM! Low-Guilt Holiday Leftover Lunch

That was lunch, baked potato quarters with leftover chunks of Honey Baked Ham and cheddar cheese with a shaken salad in balsamic vinaigrette. The potatoes and cheese are leftover ingredients form my first ever made-from-scratch scalloped potatoes. This is a low-guilt, not no-guilt lunch because I try to keep my lunches around 300-350 calories and this is about 400. Now, true that I’ll resume Wife 1500 with a vengeance on January 4, but the leftovers in the fridge won’t just sit around and wait and I was in the mood for a lighter lunch than the holiday overload of the last week and a half.

There’s been plenty of good food, treats and I will totally confess that I really like my own baked goods too! My favorites from the brownies were the Cordial Cherries and Boughs of Peanut Butter, not to slight the candy canes and well, I think David left one classic chocolate on the tray and I‘ll let him have that for dessert tonight. I’m also a total sucker for the Mr. Goodcookies, which I after all, created to be the best cookies I’D ever tasted! We also have a couple of dishes of chocolates and yesterday, Pop brought the bag Auntie brought for us from San Marino, which has one of the wonderful dark chocolate and wafer tortes, for which the Fatherland is renown in Europe and a large, incredible, milk chocolate hazelnut bar that’s made in Milan. She’s sent us that chocolate before and it is pure heaven to eat! The gift bag also had a box of pocket coffee, espresso filled dark chocolates, and chocolate covered espresso beans. David said those two are for me.

gifts from the Fatherland!

I saw Pop yesterday because he came over after work to pick me up and we rode together to Angola, take 2, to meet Dave and Laura and bring the girls back. Boy the weather has just presented a huge family challenge for the holidays this year! As we sat together, ordering lunch and exchanging gifts in a smoky restaurant just off I-69, Tori gave a line that I wrote down for the scrapbook! “Wow, Christmas at a truck stop. Interesting.” That and another couple quotes will go on the layout from lunch yesterday.

David and I got a new “party camera” from his brother’s family for Christmas! I call it a party camera because it is easy to use and figure out for passing the camera around, unlike my past few point-and-shoots that people have had a hard time with. This one is a Canon and it takes great quality candid pictures, has a good auto setting for sharing the camera and a quality macro setting too. It is also much more jiggle-resistant when the flash is turned off than my old Minolta. The Minolta will still be my train camera for now, though. The Canon doesn’t have a viewfinder, which makes it essentially taking blind photos when the sun is behind you, and it’s very slow in getting ready to take a second shot, the picture quality is a little better, but it’s not a big enough improvement to make up for the limited capability in the field. But what it does for people, cats and ambient shots is wonderful! I was looking forward to getting some good photos for scrapping at lunch.

I passed the camera around, but I didn’t really get any great shots. The best one of the girls is blurry. We’ll chalk that up to getting used to the new auto settings. I took that one and it focused on the ketchup bottle in the center of the table! But I’ll use what I do have and some added journaling to get a good page anyway. A good rule is that just days after Christmas don’t take a new camera to dinner and expect many photos taken with it because people will be checking out the new camera and the niece who also got a new camera will pull hers out to compare and you won’t have good scrapbook photos! I don’t even HAVE one of Dave or Laura! I’ll see if Tori has any to swap from her camera!

It’s been a Christmas of some challenges, most from the weather, but I’m making up for that now. After visiting Grandma tomorrow morning, I’ll stop at Pop’s and pick up Tori and Rina to take them to lunch. There is a Cracker Barrel not far from where Pop is and that is one of our collective favorite restaurants!

Maybe tomorrow I'll have lunch pictures!

Goals and Projects for 2010

Christmas Eve Breakfast Still Life

Isn’t the photo cool? The photo isn’t all breakfast. Just one slice with coffee, but the full sliced quarter of the Panetonne looked better for the picture! That is a sample for my Project 365 in 2010. More about that later! I cut the huge Panetonne my Dad got me into quarters and wrapped up the other three to freeze. I’m the only one in our house who eats it, but the Panetonne brings back such sweet memories of Noni and the fact that she always made a special effort to find the ones without the candied oranges for Mom and me. It’s also quite tasty as a mildly sweet breakfast bread to the portion of my taste buds that are authentic San Marinese and a rather large and filling slice is only 310 calories!

This week’s Photoblog Wednesday was the final photo of Patch 365. No, we didn’t choose to go out to celebrate our first anniversary the night before for that reason, but it was a neat byproduct of the scheduling! So the book starts with our first married photo and ends with us celebrating our first anniversary with 52 weekly pages and some pretty cool extras in between. No, I’m far from done scrapping it. I have each week’s photos in a folder wi0th the notes for captioning them so I have the facts and memories recorded to catch up the scrapping as I can. But I think it’s going to be a pretty cool book to have on our coffee table recording the special days and the things that made the ordinary days special of our first married year!

I decided that I’d do a selfish project 365 this year and try something fun and a little artsy just for me. Now, I really do believe that scrapbooking is selfish, but in a giving way. It’s sort of like the great painters. They can be called selfish because they created works for their own fulfillment, their expression of what was inside of them. It just so happened that the beauty and emotion of their efforts touched many people and that beauty became a treasure and the mark, the legacy they left to the world. Isn’t a scrapbook the same thing? A well-done scrapbook is a beautiful piece of expressive art that becomes a cherished treasure to those with whom it’s shared. So for 2010, my Project 365 will be a special to me book when it’s done. If many years down the line it becomes a special look at me or a fun book for anyone else to look at, bonus! But the project is all for my own expression and nothing else, just for fun for me.

2010 will be my year of Java 365. I’m going to take a picture of coffee every day. It will most often be my coffee, but I’m not limiting myself to that, it could also be ambient shots of coffee shops or another Sapp Brothers water tower, something like that. It will usually be my coffee, but not just a photo of the cup – that would get boring. I’m going to set up still life presentations with the coffee, with a sweet roll or other accompaniment. I took a picture on the steam train trip we went on in October of my coffee on the window sill, obviously on a train with the countryside in the background, I’ll probably do holiday accents for the holiday coffee pics. I’m just going to have some fun with it.



As 2010 starts, I have 4 major goals I’m working on for the year. The first one is, of course, school! Spring semester starts January 8 and this term I’m taking an XHTML class, which is the first Network Security class. It’s a prerequisite to moist of the security certificate classes and a suggested prerequisite to the intro security class, which is part of the Networking certificate. In the fall, I’ll take the second Microsoft Server class, but rather than doubling up this semester, I’m going embark of major project number two, which is getting myself exam-ready for Network+ certification. I have a couple practice exams and I figure I’ll start with using one to really study and sign up to take the official exam when I can get a passing score with no notes or internet on the other. This will definitely keep me out of trouble and off the streets! I don’t like to be on the streets when it snows anyway!

Project number 3 is a recommitment to Wife 1500. I did not gain from Wedding day to first anniversary, but I didn’t lose much either. Like I’ve said before, it was an emotionally rough last half of the year, but there will always be challenges in life and I can’t allow myself to make them worse by using them as an excuse not to take care of myself. I’ve asked David to do a couple things to support me on this. First is not to skip dessert because I’m not sharing the same dessert. I’m lucky that he shares my taste for Jello as a lighter dessert, but if at the end of the day I don’t have adequate calories left for a piece of cake and/or ice cream, I want him to have it if he wants it. The surest way for me to not stick with my eating plan is if he’s not having things he wants because of it. He should NEVER feel bad if he’s having a brownie with ice cream when I’m having three strawberries with a tablespoon of chocolate!

The second thing he agreed to try to remember to do is recognize that if I’m eating something out of a bag or box and it’s not a measured portion in a bowl for a snack, something’s wrong and he should ask me about it. Even if I don’t want to talk about what’s bugging me, and in fact, I may not even realize that something is bugging me, it will call my attention to the bad-for-me habit and I’ll effect an immediate change in it!

My last major goal for 2010 is a scrapbooking goal. I am in 2007 in my scrapbooks. I am going to do a minimum layout a day to work on catching up. I start a new book at the beginning of the year, so I’m going to scrap 2010 in the now while I’m catching up the other three years. 365 layouts may not catch up three years if I do the minimum, but it will make a big dent! I average about 150 pages per year in my books. If I can start 2011 having made significant ground on the years that need caught up without adding another year to those files, it will make for a much more pleasant start!

So those are my ambitious plans for the first year of the new decade. Do you do goals or resolutions? What are some of your lofty plans? Hey, that’s probably a good first layout for 2010!

Holiday Crunch Time Has Officially Begun

I turned in my last assignments this morning and my semester is complete. Now, I am a couple weeks of school behind on my Christmas stuff. Yikes! But I’ll manage.

The biggest crunch of everything is cleaning the house up and getting it ready. The kitchen counters will get a good scrub, but I’m not going to do the grout with the DT this year. That’s too time consuming and hard enough on the back without rushing it! So, no dead toothbrush scrubbing tiny circles in between the 1950’s design tile counter this year. That will make up some time!

We haven’t seen snow yet. I’m okay with that! This afternoon was an odd weather thing for me. I heard the rain. It was just a few windy pelts on the window, so I pulled up the shade. It was raining right next to us, but not on us. I looked out the front at our street and I could see the line where the street was getting wet, then it stopped. That was pretty cool!

The neighbors across the street and next door have some great lights up already and that prompted David to say that he might want to throw some lights on our bushes. I’m not die-hard on the outdoor lighting because where our tree sits, you can see the lights from the street and I spend as little time outside in the winter as I can, so I don’t see the outside of our house much at this time of year. But I totally enjoy the neighbor across the street’s lights from our living room, so I think it would be nice to return the spirit.

We want to get a new tree this year. We had one of those prelighted ones, but a huge chunk is burned out and we filled it in last year with a string of lights. It was more wires than ornaments I think! We do still have that tree just in case. I’d rather use it again than not have a tree if we don’t get a new one. But I’m definitely going to add getting a tree to our schedule. Maybe we can do that when we get our ornament for 2009.

I have baking and one meal to plan. I’ve been picking up a few of the sweets I serve at UNO and the Fabulous Dessert Bar, but I haven’t heard back from anyone yet, so I’ll be sending out the second email tonight or tomorrow with the RSVP request.

Did you see the picture at the top of the blog? Pumpkin Spice Almondina! Almondina are delicious cookies that I enjoy munching for a quick snack when I’m multitasking. I don’t have to cook or prepare them and they are low in calories too. 4 of the thin cookies are only 120 calories. They’re also great dipped in my coffee. They’re kinda pricey, but SO worth it! I hadn’t seen the pumpkin spice ones before, almonds and pumpkin seeds with fall spies, oh my! I found them when I was getting a prosciutto end for Pop. MY Italian store deeply discounts the ends while HIS charges full price. So I’m his supplier. Sofo is on the way, sorta, to his place, so I called ahead and asked them to hold the end they had for me. Good thing I called too. The guy right in front of me in line asked about the ends and they said they sold the last one already. That was to me, on the phone! Pop asked how much he owed me for it and I told him I just wanted some of the minestrone…and a day to spend cooking with him to learn how to make it!

One of the other things I’m working on is my Wife 1500 plan for January. Now, my wedding outfit still fits, but it’s not loose like I wanted it to be. My anniversary is three weeks from yesterday! The past few months have been hard on me and food was the last thing I was thinking about. For me, that’s key for controlling what I eat and losing weight. I have to think about food all the time. Sounds a little different, huh? But I need to think about what I’m eating and plan what I’m going to eat all the time. That keeps me planning and eating good tasting food in proportions and variety that are good for me. If I don’t think about food, I pop things in my mouth and don’t even realize I’m doing it. That’s how I am an emotional eater. When my mind is obsessed with something else, I don’t think about doing what’s right for me. For the Holidays this year, I am going to concentrate on food during the week and plan what I’m going to eat the day before and let myself relax on the weekends. I find that I can’t totally relax from the food obsession on the weekends once I’m in the swing of it and that’s good too!

Capture the Season

I wanted to share a layout I wasn’t supposed to have done. When I asked in comments about Capture the Season at Simple Scrapper about the template and if it was a tool or if we had to use it, I got a reply that it was a tool and the program itself was a tool to gather things to scrap in January. Hmmm…. In January, I’ll still be scrapping 2007. I try to do a layout a day in my catching up plan. I wanted to do Capture the Season to document some of this year while it is still happening. That’s ultimately my goal, to catch up and be able to scrap in the now, while the memories are still fresh and complete. So, I’m going to bend the rules a little. Can you imagine? Me? Bend the rules?? Perish the thought!

Stop by Simple Scrapper and join in for Capture the Season. The tips for collecting your thoughts to scrap when you have time are great for any time of year and wonderful if you want to collect thoughts and supplies for a wonderful crafting day in January too. But I’m doing the assignments in real time and sharing my layouts with you to encourage you to check out the great tips they have. Maybe you’ll find that keeping up with the program is more than you want to do while you are doing other holiday things, but give it a read anyway. You might find a few things that will make your scrapping easier and better moving forward!

So, here’s the assignment for week one from the site.

“The cornucopia is an ancient symbol of abundance and is a common image around the time of Thanksgiving. Share what is in your personal cornucopia basket this year with at least 4 photos of what is important in your life. Use a list format to detail all the goodness that fills your life with joy and love.”

Keep in mind the actual rules are to collect things to work on them in January. For me it keeps me motivated for my holiday planning and work, to take some time out to scrap the small stuff so I don’t sweat the small stuff. I just enjoy all the small stuff in a big way!

Here’s my first layout made with parts of the Pumpkin Pie Spice blog train from last year. Yes, I guess I do love anything pumpkin. Hmm….

Credits: Pumpkin Pie Spice blog train kits

from Eden Lane Designs and SPinkD

Be sure to check out Capture the Season at Simple Scrapper!

Links

Almondina

Simple Scrapper

Bleh!

Yeah, I know it’s not a very Nani title for a blog entry. But that’s my today. It’s raining...again. But ooh, bonus! Today we might get rain mixed with the first snow of the season.

I know. I’m in Ohio. We get snow.

But it’s only October! While the snow will be mixed with rain and it’s supposed to be in the 40s, so it won’t stick to the ground or anything else, I was expecting better of winter this year! We had such a mild summer it’s supposed to balance with a mild winter, not an early one!

I’m just being cranky because the weather really does have an effect on people. Give me a mild sunny fall day with a little nip in the breeze to tell me it’s that time of year when there is baseball AND football and I’m skipping and smiling. Okay, not skipping unless I want to be falling, but the warmer air and lower humidity are sure nicer on my worn out joints!


I have to share what I’ve been enjoying for the past week! LOOK!


Timothy’s Perfectly Pumpkin K-Cups - just in case I didn’t LOVE my Keurig coffee maker already! I can brew one perfect cup of pumpkin spice coffee, then add the lite creamer and Splenda to make the ultimate sweet drink for only 10 calories! Totally fall and totally Wife 1500 approved!


On the subject of Wife 1500, I’m going to remain committed to that plan as I go on with year 2 of married life. I can’t say at this point that my wedding outfit will fall off me, but I do have a couple more months. I can, however, in the face of vacations and all the a decadent cake at our reception with leftovers, say I haven’t gained, like many women and further I’ve lost a little bit in my first year of marriage. I’m also an emotional eater and I wasn’t very true to my plan for a couple months of trauma and then readjusting with Grandma. Yeah, those are excuses for lack of control on my part, but recognizing those challenges is part of not repeating them, or at least dealing with them better. And like I said, I still have a couple months too!

Spices ready - Let's get cooking acorn squash gnocchi!

This is the time of year that I love to cook! There are so many farmers markets that are really full of local produce and I love fall squashes. It’s also the time of year for soup! I love soup and I love the random creativity I can have experimenting in the kitchen with soup! I have a container of broth I thawed in the refrigerator. I made that one with a rotisserie chicken carcass and some thick-sliced Canadian bacon. The combination of meats made a wonderful flavor in the broth! I’m thinking I’ll thaw some of the reserved meat and veggies and add it back into some of the broth with a handful of noodles for lunch. Tonight I’m going to make some sauce for the acorn squash gnocchi I made last week. I found the recipe online and they are so good! The first time I made them, I made my own brown sugar and sage butter sauce and it was outstanding! I’ll have that for supper while I make a serving of spaghetti for my less adventurous with food husband! In the long run, washing extra dishes is a little more exercise, right?

Okay, I’m going to make that lunch my stomach is now growling for and get back to my homework. Stay tuned for some layouts and scrapping sale news!


Links:
Timothy’s Perfectly Pumpkin K-Cups
Acorn Squash Gnocchi recipe

Checking In…

It’s been a rough so far week here. I’m in Michigan at Grandma’s to help out. Sunday we met with a home nurse who got all the paperwork done to have a nurse stop by three times a week to check her general medical stuff. Dad and I went to the grocery store and dropped a decent sum stocking her fridge with meat, veggies and a few key comfort foods. She’s just plain not eating enough. Sunday, I made us the same breakfast, one egg with an ounce of cheese and one slice of toast That’s 235 calories, served with coffee and hers with juice too, it makes a good start for a day that plans to include a couple of cookies on wife 1500. Unfortunately, it was still like pulling teeth to get her to eat it and she putzed around it ALL DAY! She did promise that “Monday, I’ll eat all of breakfast and whatever you cook.” I didn’t get to put that promise to the test.

Sunday night after Dad had left, she stated having disjointed speech, she was trying to talk, but the words couldn’t form correctly. I called the nurse, who told me to call 911. Grandma got her first ride ever in an ambulance! I locked up and followed in my car. She’s had an episode like this before. I recalled the same symptoms a few years ago at the orchard in Erie when we were peach-picking. At that time paramedics said it might have been a TIA, mini stroke, but she got over the episode and refused to be taken to the hospital. This time, three paramedics and I didn’t give her a choice!

They let me in to be with her in the emergency room. They did some preliminary tests and confirmed that this time, officially it was a TIA. Thank God I was there, but it really confirmed that she needs to NOT be living alone anymore. She was in the hospital a couple of days and released around 7PM last night. We stopped at McDonald’s, mostly because I hadn’t eaten since noon and was starving. I got a hamburger Happy Meal with apples instead of fries. She said that a hamburger sounded good, YAY, and I got her a hamburger Happy Meal too. Unfortunately, after being convinced all she got was fries and a “big guy” (mini beanie baby panda) until I found the burger under the toy, she ate one bite of the burger and about a half dozen fries.

On Saturday night, she’d told Dad and me that she knew she shouldn’t be alone and was ready to explore her options. Last night she moved up to telling her best friend that she would be moving to a senior apartment. Okay, she also included that David and I would move in with her here, but she didn’t want us to have to move. Her hearing aid isn’t working and she was getting “Dad, Dave and David” confused. What I said was that either Dad or I would stay with her until she had an apartment. I still gotta love the fact that she didn’t want to make us move!

The best thing that happened last night was Grandma proclaiming she was hungry! I served a bowl of melon to us both and she ate every piece, after I’d just watched her wolf down a bowl of watermelon in the hospital, then she said he was hungry for cold cereal. She poured about a serving and a half of Honey Nut Cheerios. I was worried I’d be throwing most of it out as she poured the milk, but she ate every bite of it. Vitamin-fortified and all, we might be eating Cheerios for three meals today!


So, now I’m caching up on other things in my world. As it turned out, I never did get my birthday ice creams before I left home. I gave my coupons to David. He’s not a big Cold Stone fan, so I asked him to get me the fat free cake batter with chocolate chips and cherries and put it in the freezer for when I get home if he gets a chance to stop. I told him to use my free Baskin Robbins scoop as the base of a sundae for him. I don’t think wasted coupons or free ice cream count as big on the penance list in the afterlife as spilled ice cream does, but just in case… Okay, I’d heard an old Irish saying that the difference between Heaven and hell was determined by being put head first in a barrel of all the alcohol you'd wasted in your lifetime. If thre is so little that you don’t drown, you go to Heaven. I modified that when Tori and Rina were little and we said you'd be put head first in a barrel of all the ice cream you wasted in your lifetime. Hey, that almost automatically starts with at least one cone from childhood for everyone!

Now, I don’t know if there will be ice cream waiting for me when I get home or not. David got a new car! We’d been talking about him retiring the old gas-guzzling Explorer in the Cash for Clunkers deal and I spent a few phone calls coaching him on Monday when he was test driving a Ford…I think it was a Ford Fusion. He commented on wanting to think about the Escape, a small SUV, too. I encouraged him to really consider the Escape because what he uses his car for, railfanning and such, lots of dirt roads, fields, etcetera, he’d really be happier with an SUV. He did some more calling, found the deal that was right for him and signed the paperwork on a 2009 Escape! It’s his first brand new car! I think he said it had 34 miles on it. That has me beat! The Camaro had 54 when I drove it off the lot. Our driveway finally has a car whose model year starts with a 2!! Next is me finishing school, starting a job and maybe a 2011 Spectra?


I needed to catch up on baseball stuff, I’ve really only been able to see the scores, weep at the Reds scores and move on. Now I found out why I’m weeping. Right at the deadline Scott Rolen became a Red. Okay, I remember that last year I was ready to trade Edwin Encarnacion, but that was in a deal that would move Joey Votto over to third and put Lance Berkman in a Reds uniform. The only thing positive I have to say about Rolen is he might be more tempting to Houston. The man is almost as overrated as Gary Sheffield. (That’s my opinion and this is m blog, so everyone is entitled to my opinion!) I’ve been thoroughly unimpressed with him since 1997, when he beat a much better qualified ROY candidate in Kevin Orie. Rolen had the home runs, Orie had everything else. This chick doesn’t dig the long-ball. Home runs are just PART of the game. This chick digs BASEBALL and I loathe how many players that can hit the ball far, just don’t hit it to them in the field, get built up so big. Give me a Mark Grace or Barry Larkin any day!

Okay, time for a coffee refill and to get ready for Grandma to wake up. Dad will be back later this morning, so I’ll get a little bit of break later. Maybe I’ll blog again; maybe I'll go out to the ice cream shop in Hale!

Friday Morning Coffee

from Coffee Talk by Beckie Wallace

Another Friday and another week is done! So far I’m doing well at disciplining and time managing in my online classes. I’m taking the free class offered by the State of Ohio for assessing and prepping for distance learning. I just finished up the chapter on time management.

To be true I an so dedicated to the importance of good time management and always have been. This all started in first grade. Imagine, 6 years old and worried about the consequences of not meeting a deadline! Oh, it started as me sneaking out when I was supposed to be getting my coat from the hall hanger and running out to be first on the bus because I was afraid to miss it. I remember one time I realized half way across the snowy parking lot that I forgot something and came back with wet boots. Sister Ann made me wipe up the floor as I whined “But I’ll miss my bus!”

Truth is I had plenty of time to not miss the bus and in retrospect, Sister Ann KNEW I was skipping out to run to the bus before I was excused. I must have appeared to be a young basket case. But in first grade, we still had a boy who was deathly afraid to speak out loud in class and a girl who occasionally wet herself in class, so I guess my psychosis was minor. After I didn’t miss the bus for cleaning the floor, I quit running out before I was excused to catch it too. Have I said before how much I idolized that woman? 36 years later I still list her as one of the first major influences in my life after my parents and she still amazes me with what she added to who I’ve become.

But that was truly a lesson in trust and time management. I had to learn to trust that the people scheduling these things were not setting them up for students to fail and that I had plenty of time to meet my goal, in this case, catching the bus. I became very good at budgeting time to get assignments done. I was throughout all of my schooling rarely the one cramming to finish the project the night before and was successful. That naturally spilled into my professional work habits and that is great for making less negative stress on the job. It’s all good!


Very Cool Opp!

If you’re a scrapper and you haven’t been over to Darlene’s blog this week, make a point of it! Now, I’m very open about being a big time Darlene Haughin fan, often referring to my CT job as a dream CT Spot. Darlene does a blog freebie every Wednesday and this week, the freebie is a contest. She's giving away a full kit of your choice to random winners from the comments. There will be one winner for every five comments, so no matter what, you have a one in five chance of winning a full kit! Head on over to her blog and see the details and by all means check out all of her wonderful designs and put your hat in the comments for a chance to win!

See Darlene’s blog for more details - http://darlenedesigns.blogspot.com




A Little Rhetorical Rant

Maybe I’m showing my age with being a Weather Channel regular, but I’ve done a lot of work outside with electric in my professional and personal life, so the radar has always been essential.

What’s with the music when they go back into the studio? I totally get it for the local forecast, where you’re only seeing graphics and the voice over is not at all conversational, but when they go back into the studio there’s dramatic music that is mixed too loud for the people talking. It’s produced poorly and it deters from the message. You don’t hear music under the news while they are reporting. Music under the dialog is for dramatic effect at prime time. When there is music under the top story, today a tornado in Missouri, it says “fiction.” Add to the fact that the music is too loud so you have a harder time understanding the anchor anyway. Yeesh!


Yummy Morning!

Skinny and The City had a recipe for fruit salad today. They talked about how high in fiber berries are and that they’re in season. I have a container of watermelon I cut up, some raspberries and black berries in the fridge. I’m disappointed with the blackberries. They were on sale and I thought about getting two containers. I’m glad I didn't. They are sour with little blackberry flavor. The melon and raspberries are good though! I had a salad of those three and banana with cherry pomegranate yogurt yesterday for breakfast. YUM! I’m going to try cutting up the blackberries and using the juices in the recipe to sweeten them up a bit. Then I’ll add the nuts and coconut to make the salad after I get some blueberries. It ought to be good!

This, That and a Freebie

A rainbow over the stadium said there was
always hope for the Mud Hens last night!

The baseball game last night, what can I say about the game last night?

We have two new shopping bags! They’re nice ones too, a little smaller than the Meijer ones, just a little, but what’s nice about that is baggers can’t make them as heavy! It seems that everything baggers know, or in too many cases don’t, about bagging groceries goes out the window when you bring an eco-friendly reusable bag. Clue to baggers: when a woman using a cane drives the buggy up and hands you a couple of reusable bags, DON’T put all 12 canned items in one bag just because they’ll fit across the bottom! I can’t lift that much less carry it into the house when I get home. Yeesh!

The new bags are navy with the Mud Hens logo on them, quite cool and as David pointed out, we don’t have to worry about taking the wrong stores bag to go shopping. He seemed concerned about cross advertising for the competition, but I make an effort to take the other stores bag so they don’t think I’m, just buying the bag and try to charge me again. Now we have Mud Hens bags!


I wonder how many other teams, major and minor league, did the reusable bags as a giveaway for Earth Day? If you know of a team that did, leave a note in the comments!

Oh yeah, the game. Well, the season is half official. To make a season official, Nani rules, there must be one hot chocolate game and one three-bottle-of-water game. That is, there must be one where you shiver and one where you melt! Last night was the hot chocolate game. We layered and bundled, cuddled under the Red Sox throw and the Tigers stadium blanket. I’ve been to colder games. Our first date was colder! Still, it’s nice to see a game cuddled up with my hubby!

We got to see Joel Zumaya pitch in the top of the seventh inning. He’s in Toledo on rehab waiting to go off the DL and back to Detroit. He looks ready. But his performance for a half inning, didn’t make up for the other TEN runs the Indianapolis Indians got to the Hens’ only 2. We ended up leaving in the 8th inning, just after the Indians scored number ten. Normally, that’s against my baseball practices, but David had an early meeting this morning.

The Mud Hens are in first place, with the second place Louisville Bats starting a 4-game series tonight, so they have the opportunity to extend that lead! As for Indianapolis, they’re the team in town for our planned reception. The home team’s just gotta win for the (6 months later) bride and groom, right?


Wife 1500 and the Ball Park

Okay, 2 live game into the season, I can say I'm enjoying the fact that ball park food has come a long way. At Oldsmobile Park in Lansing, Michigan, Sparrow Hospital sponsors one of the food carts, where you can get low-carb wraps and salads with turkey breast and the nutritional info is displayed on the cart. At Great American Ball Park, in Cincinnati, they have apple slices and baby carrots available. What I love is that so many parks have grilled chicken breast sandwiches! Depending on the condiments you put on them, they range from 250-350 calories.

The chicken sandwich at Parkview Field in Fort Wayne was just stellar! It was easily better than most of the fast food places who often use parts-is-parts chicken or over processed breasts. The sandwich there was tasty chicken on a good, fresh bun with lettuce, tomato and red onion. Yes, if you don’t care for the onion, order it without it or take it off. I like the red onion. The one last night at Fifth Third Field in Toledo was better than I’d had last year, the chicken was better, more flavorful, but the bun was still dry and crumbly. It did have lettuce and tomato, which was something I hadn’t had there before. I’d still rate the Fort Wayne chicken better.

Oh, I still love my hot dog at the ball park, and I’m sure I’ll give up the 300 calories for one hot-dog that just isn’t that filling, but just not when dinner is at the game. That’s a high-calorie and high lots of bad stuff snack for flavor and ambiance. I still get the grilled chicken when I can for a meal!


Retiring Freebies

Time to toss a few more yearlings from the nest! Follow the links to the original posts where you can get these freebies if you haven’t yet, because when April is gone, they will be too!

Spring Sparklies


This was my first color-challenge kit for the SAS challenge in April 2008
original post - Spring Sparklies


Printemps Classique


Printemps Classique was done for the April 2008 DSO color challenge

original post - Printemps Classique


In Only Seven Days


This was a color challenge at SFS last year and a seven-day download. You can get the links to all seven downloads at the kit’s main page,

Original post - In Only Seven Days


She Said YES!


This kit was an early May kit for the DSO May color challenge.

Original post - SEMMantics Weekend and a New Kit!

If you haven’t downloaded these yet, check them out now! After April 30, they’ll no longer be available!


And now the new stuff!

I’m working on a couple of new kits right now, but the newest addition to my Scrap Bird store is a set of brag book pages in the dollar bin!


These are great pages to showcase wedding, prom or any other formal or fancy photos to slip in your 4X6 album to carry with you or to collage them as frames for a pretty full page layout. Get all four for only a dollar at Scrap Bird!

And of course, to make a new dollar bin item even more celebrated than just the stellar price, I have a blog freebie Laura quick page for you!


The wedding that inspired the kit had three bridesmaids. The triple frame from Laura Favors, accommodates that perfectly in this quick page, but it’s also stellar for photos of the bride, prom photos, even graduation pictures. Since it is helping to announce the Brag Book set in the store, the password for the quick page is bragging. Click the preview to go to the download page!