Trade Deadline and Nanifest Report

All I want for Nanifest this year!

I know what everyone looking is thinking! The non-baseball fans are wondering if I’m mad at David. The baseball fans are doing a double take and saying, “Huh? No way, they wouldn’t!” The casual-but-devoted Astros fans are either crying or throwing something and David is laughing!

Last week, in exasperation I asked, “What’ll it take to get Lance Berkman in a Reds uniform...and DON’T say “Halloween!” Well, the question is still the same, but today’s interim answer is “Photoshop.”

But I Just can’t accept Photoshop as my only answer, especially in light of today’s big trade news! Ken Griffey Jr. was traded to the Chicago White Sox. I’m not as much an American League fan as I am a National. My cousin emailed today, asking if I was going to be a White Sox fan now. Well, I am a Reds fan. My American League allegiance is to the Tigers. I cut my baby baseball teeth on them! The Braves are number two in the NL and then, it’s the Cubs. White Sox fan? HECK NO!

I still want to see Junior do well. I wish he could have retired at home, in Cincinnati, but as he is in the twilight of his career and it was pretty much accepted that Cincinnati wasn’t going to exercise their option on his contract for 2009 if he kept playing, it was sensible to make the trade.

That being said, I am NOT giving up the season for the Reds! Nuh-uh, no way! We’re only 9 games away from the wild card, 14 games out of first. But losing Griffey takes our number three hitter away! We need to do some shuffling, and we NEED Lance Berkman! The Astros will have to put him on waivers for me!

Okay, so, what’s in it for Berkman? No brainer there, Berkman is the hottest visitor in Great American Ballpark. His stats in Cincinnati are remarkable! Imagine his stats if he played more games at Great American Ballpark, say 81 of them. Can we say “Hall of Fame career?” So, there is no question that Berkman should be ecstatic over my idea!

What to offer in trade was a bit more difficult. Berkman is a first baseman and I am NOT giving up my adopted Rookie, Joey Votto, at first base. Berkman throws left, a great plus at the right corer. Votto, who has been putting extra practice time in on his defense, has great natural instincts and throws right, better for third anyway. So I suggest moving Votto to third and offering Edwin Encarnacion and a couple of prospects for Berkman. Hey, he’s a .300 career hitter withOUT playing half his games in Cincy. It’s not going to be a straight trade!

So, there is what I want the baseball gods to do for me for Nanifest XLII


Now lets talk cake!

It tastes BETTER than that!

“Plan A” for the Queen Cake was that I was going to make a black forest cake. We’d stop at Kroger on the way in Monday and I’d bake the layers before I took Tori home, finishing it at lunch time Tuesday. But then horror took over!

When I picked Tori up last Thursday, we had engine heat issues. We had to drive home from Fort Wayne with the heat blasting and the windows down. That’s what my owner’s manual said to do. It worked too! David was getting a little rattled at my lack of engine coolant knowledge. I know oil, not engine coolant! Engine knowledge is neither a requirement for Mensa nor a birthright in Detroit, so I don’t think I'm a special needs driver because I don't know coolant! I was on the phone with Scott on Friday and he was walking me through. My lack of engine coolant knowledge wasn’t so frustrating to him. I told him that I needed someone to think it was cute that I was a princess when it comes to radiators and he chuckled and said he’d talk me through it. That’s what big brothers who know cars do! They laugh at little sisters and play the part of the super-hero “Carman.” Well, with David’s help, I topped off the engine coolant overflow thingy, which Scott said should have fluid I could see. Then we left for Hershey in the rental car.

Following David out to take back the rental car, I had the same problem! No steam, but the gage read too hot and the “check gages” light came on. Now stress. I was afraid to go all the way to Fort Wayne to meet my brother half way to get Tori back. He had to work Tuesday and couldn't drive all the way up here.

We ended up meeting in Angola after I put the rest of the bottle of engine coolant in the overflow thingy. I got there and back, not turning on the heat and no overheating. It seems I just needed a little bit more in it. I also know where to check the engine coolant and I check the overflow thingy whenever I check the oil now. BUT in all the stress of the overheating engine, no cake!

So, Tuesday morning arrives. It’s my birthday. There’s no Queen Cake for Nanifest. As David was leaving, he told me not to worry, he’d make sure I had something to put my candles in.

“A Twinkie?” I asked.

“Or something chocolate!” He smiled.

So this incredible double layer chocolate with chocolate frosting and chocolate ganache was the “twinkie” he brought home! My honey knows how to turn what was trying to be a kinda depressing birthday into a heavenly event! He brought me cake batter ice cream too! We’ve been enjoying that dessert a little every night since Tuesday. There’s enough left for tomorrow too!

So weighing out the good and bad things this week, and adding in some stellar postings I’ve found and applied to in the last two days and it’s been a great festival so far - and I’m only half way through!

Photoblog Wednesday

Tori at Hershey's Chocolate World

The intoxicating smell of chocolate in the air,
the heavenly taste of chocolate on our tongues
and the happy smile of chocolatiering on our faces!

Happy Naniday!

So, it’s official! In addition to David 48 days ago, I am now also THE ANSWER - to life, the universe and everything! WOO HOO! I’m Forty Two!

I’m not taking the holiday off, since I just got back from a long weekend, but I do think I’ll be having a chocolate lunch! Well, okay, maybe a chocolate snack, but In honor of Naniday, I am going to enjoy some of my souvenir chocolate!

And now, in honor of my personal holiday, I have a gift for all of the scrappers who visit! password - Nanifest Birthday, named like the Beatles' song, is a festive kit that anyone can use, but it has a few very Nani elements to it!

Sorry link is expired

The colors are shades of my favorites. I love blue and green combined and blue and purple combined. In the right shades, they look great all together too! You’ll also find a baseball paper and a train paper and of course, a black forest cupcake! In all there are 7 papers and 17 elements with matching number candles from 0 to 9! It’s a great kit for scrapping anyone’s birthday, really! I hope you enjoy it! :)




As always, don’t share the link, share The Chronicles of Nani! And leave comments here rather than at 4-Shared.

Have a great Naniday!

Monday Mug Shot

Hershey’s Chocolate World
Hershey, PA

Another niece weekend, another mug? Last weekend was Tori’s turn to be attended to by her single aunt and uncle hopeful. Now, where Rina is the dependable railfan like us, who wants to spend A weekend, seeing ne places, chasing trains, visiting Sheetz and making sure we keep our train brains open to new train things, museums and excursions and such, Tori's not at all a railfan. Tori keeps us from getting pigeon holed into a routine and makes us open up to new experiences. Mind you, we still get to shoot some trains, but that’s not the focus of our trips with her!

A scrapbook metaphor would be that It’s kinda like challenges. There are the ones that give you some different perspective, but don’t take you out of your comfort zone, like a color challenge or an element challenge. There are also some that dare you to try new ideas completely, like a scraplift or ones that as you to use elements you never use. You get great pages as a result and trying both gives you the variety that makes a fantastic scrapbook. So it is with the interests of a variety of people in your life. Variety being the spice of life, that cornucopia of interests makes everything better!

So Tori’s trip this year was Hershey, Pennsylvania, the sweetest place on earth! Our first stop when we got into town was Hershey's Chocolate World! There is so much to see and do there! We went on the factory tour ride first. Upon entering the factory tour ride, everyone got two pieces of Hershey Bliss, the pushed candy du jour. The factory tour ride puts you in a car that takes you through a bit of entertaining song and the basics of mass chocolate production, including those bite-size chocolates made from droppers kissing the assembly line with milk chocolate! When the ride ends, assuming that you ate your first to on the ride, they gave you two more Bliss candies!

Nex we browsed in the gift shop. Tori had a list of souvenir chocolate to bring home! We decided that it would be safer to buy the take-home chocolate on Sunday before we left. We brought my refrigerator cooler that plugs in to the lighter port in the car and also bought an insulated bag and ice pack at the store, but it was still a better idea to buy the meltables just before we left. We did get a Reese's Pieces purse for Tori and this mug for me on Saturday!

Next was lunch at The Kit Kat Cafe. David and I had kinda pricey pasta and Tori had kinda pricey soup. Al I’ll really say about the Kit Kat Cafe was that it was convenient and we had a coupon! Hershey is known for chocolate, not pasta or soup!

After lunch it had become fairly sunny and David wanted to catch some trains at the chocolate plant. As I said before, Tori is NOT the railfan! We struck a deal with David that he could leave us there for a couple hours with our blessing if he sprang for tickets for the 3D show and Chocolate Tasting 101!

The chocolate tasting was very cool! We learned about the different levels of cacao and how that effects the darkness and sweetness of the chocolate. We learned that you can hear the flavor in the snap of the chocolate when it’s broken and you can see and smell the types of processing and amount of cocoa butter. We also learned that you’ll get teased for the rest of he tasting if you’re caught texting in class! (Truthfully, I think Tori liked that attention!) There were two milk and three dark chocolates that we tasted. Tori didn’t care for the darks and the last one, the darkest and bitterest one, I agreed! But the lovely parting gifts after class were another Hershey Bliss and jumbo 4.4 oz Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar that completely made up for that nasty dark one,!

Next was the 3D show which was a blast! We made sure we got some dorky pictures of each other in our 3D glasses beforehand. The show was a fun musical about chocolate that included a spray of water when elephants stomped in puddles, the feel of mice rushing around your feet when the box of them was spilled, a giant purple, therefore not so scary to me, spider that was squished and you got sprayed again with the guts, and streamers falling from the sky. It was just a laugh riot! Tori and I agreed, however, that we expected candy to fall from the sky too, but it didn’t. We did get sample packs of ice breakers sour strawberry chews on the way out. I don’t usually go for sours, but these ones were really good!

Next we called David to come back and meet us for ice cream. Tori, taking a break from the chocolate, had vanilla with sprinkles. David went with the chocolate mint sundae and I had the Reese's sundae that was delicious but almost too much peanut butter for me! It was chocolate peanut butter ice cream with hot fudge and peanut butter sauce with crushed peanut butter cups, whipped cream and a cherry! It was the first ice cream of Nanifest and it was worth waiting until day two for it!

On Sunday, after a sit-down breakfast at Eat-N-Park, where David and I both had a smiley waffle, we went to the Hershey Museum. and then back to Chocolate world before chasing a few trains on the way out of town. I did get a shot or two of the trains at the chocolate plant, so Railfan Nani and Chocoholic Nani were both satisfied!

A couple hours after getting in, I took Tori back to our meeting place to switch her to the Indy-bound parental car with the borrowed refrigerator cooler. I think she definitely had a sweet time!

Nanifest XLII Kickoff

Credits - Stay tuned to this blog!

Today at 5:00 is the start of Nanifest XLII - Nani is the Answer! This year the actual holiday is on a Tuesday, so it’s just a one-week festival! I have a few things planned and one big thing I’m wishing for! Well, you all KNOW what that thing is! (begins with “j,” ends with “b” and has a big number BEFORE the decimal every couple weeks)

My 9 days run from today at 5 PM until next Sunday at midnight. I’m inviting everyone to join in on the festival! Treat yourself to some ice cream or black forest cake...or both! See a baseball game or some fireworks. Have fun! I’ll consider that my gift and thank you! The actual day is Tuesday and I’ll have a birthday gift for my scrapping visitors too!

So for the opening night of my festival, as a gift to me, take your kids out for ice cream and make sure to have a scoop yourself! If you don’t have kids, have a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia or Cake Batter and eat it right from the tub!!