High-End Groceries

That heavenly salad was my lunch today made possible by a 9AM bus ride to the new high-class Kroger in Maumee. Oh, that’s not my snotty opinion about the newer Kroger being high-end, that’s Kroger’s stand. I got this knowledge from one of the workers at the store I usually go to and it all started with a coupon!

I had a coupon, actually 2, for Sargento Tastings. Tastings are small “tastes” of specialty or gourmet cheeses. They had the little Havarti right on the coupon; it was screaming for me to try! It was a Kroger coupon, specifically find this at Kroger. I’d tried several times to find out where in the store it was. The dairy sent me to the deli, the deli sent me to the dairy; I couldn’t find them anywhere. Finally David looked and couldn’t get a good location from asking either, and guys don’t like asking where things are. He wrote “where?” on the coupon he was holding and threw it on the customer service counter.

The last time I was shopping on my own there was someone stocking cheese in dairy. I needed help getting yogurt off the top shelf so when I went to ask him for help, I also asked him if he’d ever heard of the “Sargento pieces of cheese…” I couldn’t remember the name at the time. He finished the sentence, “Tastings, I know what they are, but we don’t carry them. They have them at the Maumee store.” Hmph. I asked why they only had them at one but not the other. That’s when I found out our nearest 2 Krogers were Kroger Value Stores and the new one in Maumee is a Kroger Specialty Store. Our nearest store concentrates on value and lower prices while the new store targets variety and harder to find items. I found the Sargento Tastings in Maumee and my favorite balsamic vinaigrette that they don’t carry at the Value store. I also took my bags over to the in-store Starbucks ad had a latte while I waited for my bus.

The bus drivers had been asking if I tried the new Kroger and I hadn’t because it wasn’t as close. Several have encouraged me because it’s the same $2 if I go a mile or 10. The prices are comparable for items both types of stores carry and the specialty items do have specialty pricing. I got all my veggies, some flavors of yogurt I can’t get at the other store and a bag of black beans for soup which was the same price either location. Still, I looked over the receipt while I sipped my Starbucks latte to figure out where I spent roughly $25 more than I usually do for my biweekly grocery trip. My conclusion is that I’ll shop my usual store twice for every once I shop at the specialty store. That puts the overage at roughly $8 and change per trip. Ah, but that piece of Sharp Wisconsin Cheddar with lunch was good!

I was going to tell you about the new cat-tower David got for the kids but Marco is yanking on my arm because he want to tell about it. So stay tuned!

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Happy hump day! Not a ton of detail this morning. I want to have the kitchen done at the end of the day, which means I need to have everything for David to move out ready when he gets home. Words can’t express how cool it feels to have one of my 9 targeted rooms, including both bathrooms, almost finished!

Now, on with the Wednesday Hodge Podge, courtesy of Joyce at From This Side of The Pond.

1. The first day of spring is here...do you enjoy working in the yard? Weeding, raking, mowing, planting-your favorite springtime garden chore? How about your least favorite?

I enjoy planting flowers. I enjoy it because it’s necessary for watching them grow! My physical problems keep me from doing a lot of lawn work. David and I are not home and garden enthusiasts at all. We keep the lawn treated and mowed and landscape, well we landscape enough that our neighbors next door and across the street, who are lawn and garden hobbyists with beautiful lawns, don’t throw things in our yard! ;)  My least favorite is pulling weeds. The only thing I like less than pulling them is looking at them in my flower bed.


2. What puts a spring in your step?

Sunshine. Feeling it warm on my skin just makes me happier than usual.


3. Describe a time when you had to spring into action?

I sprang into navigation action on a stormy evening in Atlanta in 2000, after I flew in that morning for a job interview. In the waiting area for the plane, we saw lighting hit the tarmac and the entire airport’s lights flashed off then on. Our plane with several others was still in the air and did not land. The airport was a mess for the whole weekend and I couldn’t get a flight until the next morning. I was going to have to sleep in the airport because I didn’t bring enough cash for a hotel room and they were filling up fast anyway. A woman scheduled on the same flight I was asked me if I knew the area well enough to get to a hotel if she got a room. We talked a bit and she offered that we could share a room if I could navigate the subway. It was a business expense for her. It worked well. She wasn’t searching all over for a hotel she couldn’t find and I didn’t have to sleep on the airport floor!


4. We're having carrots for dinner...would you prefer yours raw or cooked?

I’d definitely prefer raw and organic. The organic ones are just like candy!


5. Do you take the shampoos and other sundries from your hotel room when its time to check out?

Yes! I use them to travel with in case we’re in a hotel that doesn’t offer them, some of the small4r or cheaper places don’t. Also, everyone should take the shampoos and such. Did you know that shelters are always looking for little shampoos and soaps? If someone seeks shelter after an emergency or in the case of abuse, they usually have not packed toiletries.


6. What's the most enjoyable team or club you've belonged to and what was it that made it so?

My hockey team when I was 9 years old. It was enjoyable because we were girls playing ice hockey in the 70s. We were special!


7. Is cloning a sign of progress?

Depends what you’re cloning. Cloning athletes to make an unbeatable team, no. If they could clone healthy myelin cells from me and replace the spots where my nerves are bare, then it’s awesome progress, bring it on!


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I’m getting pretty good at this coupon thing. We’re averaging about $20 saved when we do the big shopping trips. That helps to make up for organic carrots and almond milk being more expensive than regular carrots and milk. We have a big grocery trip coming up soon and it’ll be Eater candy time! I’ve always regarded Easter as the candy holiday. Halloween is the pumpkin spice holiday! Gimme jelly beans, gimme chocolate bunnies! I got coupons for them!

Where It Began

That was the opening line to my very first favorite grownup song, Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. But for today, Friday, I can totally “begin to know it,” and it not “going strong!” I’m trying to get 2012 started with some real interest in Friday By Request. So here’s what I’ll do for January.

If I don’t have a request for the week, I’ll repost from the first year of Friday By Request, back in the days of Yahoo 360. Today, I’m reposting the very first FBR ever. I hope these will be an example of what you can request and inspire my readers to challenge me!

================

Friday By Request
Originally Posted at Yahoo 360 Chronicles of Nani, August 4, 2006

All right bad poetry fans! I was writing poems last night, actually one about the cats, when David challenged me. "Why don’t you write a poem about the groceries?” So I did and it gave me an idea.

I will do Friday as “Friday By Request.” The first person to make a request before Wednesday will give me my challenge for Friday. It can be a topic for a poem, photo or the script for a TV or Radio ad. Try other ideas - challenge me! It can be for any topic or product, all I ask is that you remember this is a family blog. I have kids on my friends list! Send me your suggestions with the subject “For Friday?” through the Yahoo 360 messages. If I don’t have any requests on any given week, I won’t do the Friday By Request blog. If I have more than one, I’ll do the first one I get. If I don’t do yours, feel free to resubmit it any time after the Friday blog is posted.

It might be serious from time to time, but more often than not it will be bad, funny or both!

Without further ado, here is David’s request…

A Poem about Groceries
For David
Apples, oranges and plums
The fruit bowl cries for purpose
Lettuce, tomatoes and peppers
The poor crisper has none

Burgers chops and chicken
The freezer meat shelves empty
Ice cream, veggies and entrées
The top shelves barren too

Flour, sugar and coffee
The canisters sound so hollow
Cereal, soup and pasta
The cupboard shelves collect dust

Dinner rolls, cookies and Pop Tarts
The bread box, light as a feather
Cinnamon, chili and garlic
The spice rack bottles are clear

Let’s go to the grocery store!

================

There ya go, the very first FBR! Of course now, don’t send a Yahoo private message. These days requests for Friday can be sent to chroniclesofnani@gmail.com. If I have a request for next week, I’ll post it. If not, another repost as will be true for the month of January. Come on! Challenge me!

Free Is Good

I’m in grumbly money mood. Okay, not that grumbly, but David and I went out and did grocery shopping before he went to work Monday. It was the big shopping trip where I bought all of the ingredients for my Davinities as well as groceries and some of the non-perishables for UNO and the Fabulous Dessert Bar, less than 2 weeks away! When you put all those items together, well, my pocketbook is still warm. At least a few hours later it stopped smoking!

I love to give, but not to the stores! So to get the nasty money out of my head I thought about some of the things I’d been given for free!



I got this ornament from Bronners, my favorite Christmas store, in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Yes, it’s true, I got the free ornament because they had the right way to say “Merry Christmas” to enough special people on my list, but it was still a nice freebie!


This is a freebie I didn't have to buy anything for! Café Escapes had joined my followers on Twitter! So, I checked them out and saw that they’d offered a sample of their 4 K-Cups to someone and asked them what I needed to do to get a sample. They told me to send a private tweet with my address!


I’ve tried the chai latte and the mocha. I wasn’t crazy about the Chai, but the Mocha is awesome! I have a dark and a milk hot cocoa left!


So the internal tremor of my grocery bill has calmed and I am ready to put hands and heart to the first Dainties of 2011 tomorrow! And while I’m appreciating the freebies that brought me the inner peace I craved, I want to share a freebie too!


It’s Christmas All Over The World was the first professional scrapbook kit I did when I had my store at Scrap Bird. The shining jewel of that kit was the ornaments that say Merry Christmas in English, Italian, French, Spanish, Polish, German, Swedish and Portuguese. I still like how those and the world map ornament turned out and I’ve repackaged the ornaments to share! Just click the preview to go to the download.

And ya know what? Now I feel even better!

Merry Christmas!

Finishing Thursday

Mmmm…. A nice warm cup of Caramel Crunch decaf and a hearty piece of thickly frosted devil’s food cake. It’s totally okay cake, and totally delicious. We finally found a local source for The Butterfly Bakery sugar free products locally! I don’t “need” my cake to be sugar free, but the piece of sugar free cake is a lot bigger than the regular sugar cake for the same calories! When I first tasted the double chocolate sugar free muffins, David didn’t realize were sugar free when he got them for me, I thought they must be sweetened with Stevia. Stevia is the only non-sugar sweetener I’ve ever tasted that has absolutely no not-quite-sugar taste. Even Splenda, which I love, has a slightly not-sugar taste. But The Butterfly Bakery doesn’t sweeten with Stevia, their sugar free products are sweetened with Lactitol, a sugar alcohol made from milk! I used my pocket Weight Watchers point’s calculator and I could have one of those huge muffins for breakfast and still have yogurt, fruit and coffee! In the Toledo area you can find The Butterfly Bakery products at Giant Eagle in the refrigerated section of the bakery. David brought me home the frosted devil’s food cake. With that Devil, I’m in Heaven!

A couple hours after dinner, dessert was easy. Tonight, dinner was the challenge. David picked up a package of Amish chicken breasts when we were at Sofo Foods, my Italian grocery in town, Monday. After a couple of nights he worked, and he had steak last night. When David has steak, I usually have tamale. I get a six-pack of corn husk tamales from Schwan’s every now and then and they fit perfect when David has steak because he likes tamales as much as I like steak! Tonight I was going to do the chicken breasts the easy way – Shake-N-Bake. They were huge and I figured I’d cut one on half and cook one for me and whole breast for him and freeze the other half and whole for dinner next week some time. So, I opened up the package and was a little bit frozen looking at them.

Now, I know this makes me sound incredibly clueless white collar suburban, but the chicken breasts had BONES! I have never in my life cooked a chicken breast with bones in it. I have cooked whole chickens with bones, the carcass makes great soup, but never, ever, have I done just a breast with bones. David had never really seen a raw chicken breast with bones in it out of the package either. I am so glad I decided to do Shake-N-Bake tonight because the bake time for with and without bones is different! Learn something new every day, huh? Now I know many of you reading this are looking incredulously at the screen and more are probably laughing at me. It’s oaky. I only aim to entertain. The chicken, by the way, was wonderful. Amish chickens are a cut above, even if not a cut away from the bones.

It was windy today! I was working on this week’s school assignments and would get a chill because I was seeing fluffy masses falling out of the corner of my eye. It was relief that it was NOT snow! It was leaves falling from our oak, and the neighbors' oaks. All falling in our yard. I had to do some budgeting this year after our spending last year and either the snow plowing or the leaf raking had to go. Since that was my bill, I got to choose. Easy enough, really. Rick from Rapid Snow Removal plows the driveway, shovels the walks and salts everything. I have an incredible fear of falling on the ice. Okay, I have an incredible fear of falling in the kitchen too, but the fear when there’s ice is about quadrupled. I feel less guilty about leaving David to rake the leaves than shovel the snow. From when I used to be able to do both, leaf raking is less strenuous than snow shoveling and the temperatures are more extreme with snow too. So we aren’t getting the leaves raked this year so I can be sure that no matter how much snow we get we can get a professional plow job. Still, it would be nice if the wind could figure out a way to blow the leaves out of our yard instead of in!


Weigh-In day wasn’t a happy one this morning. I was up a pound. I know that had everything to do with not really sticking to my plan yesterday. A little too much candy and a big bowl of popcorn. Popcorn, even air-popped, does that to me because it makes me retain water. Weigh-In day is Thursday and as a rule, I don’t eat popcorn on Wednesdays.

We’re going out for Pop’s birthday Saturday to my favorite local Italian restaurant, La Scola. I’ve wanted to take my Dad there since the first time we went. That first time happened to also be with Tori and Rina and they both said at that time, “We have to come back and bring Papa!” Well, that will be Saturday. After dinner, the girls are going to spend the night with us. I need to have the dining room ready for games night!

I was very pleased to find out that a problem I’ve been occasionally having since July is more than likely an MS symptom. In perspective, anything that’s an MS symptom is not something else wrong with me. I am a member of a discussion group in the Weight Watchers community of women on the plan and dealing with MS. So I threw my since July problem out there for discussion to see if anyone else had experienced it. It doesn’t happen every night and it has never happened more than once in a night, but sometimes as I’m just about to fall into unconscious sleep, I hear a loud noise that instantly puts me wide awake. When it first happened in the summer, we were sleeping with the window open and I thought it was from outside. I woke David up and asked him if he heard something. Yeah, dumb. If he’d heard it, he’d be awake too. It happens once or twice a week. The responses were as varied as MS symptoms are. But about half of the replies were that they had experienced that noise that wakes you up as you’re falling asleep. We all agreed that it was one of the less debilitating symptoms, but I encouraged everyone who’s had it happen to mention it to their neurologist next time they see them. I have an appointment with my new local neurologist in January and I’m definitely going to mention it in that first visit. Like I said in the forum, in the long run we owe it to each other and to everyone not yet diagnosed to tell the doctors everything. If one neurologist has just one patient with a given symptom and she talks to a colleague who has just 2 with that same symptom, it could start some dialog that could eventually add another piece to the MS puzzle, no matter how small it seems. That one piece could complete a section that suddenly makes sense to researchers. But the doctors can’t compare notes if we don’t give them notes to compare!

Okay, much homework to finish tomorrow, so bed time! ‘Night!

Links:
The Butterfly Bakery

Rapid Snow Removal

La Scola Italian Grill

Sunday Ponderings

Just a few things that have been on my mind today, a little long, a little controversial too.


“Grow Up and Eat Your Vegetables!”


I love this time of year, veggies a plenty! Whether it’s a roadside stand, a farmers market or that friendly sign at Kroger or Giant Eagle telling me how they are supporting local farmers by carrying Ohio-grown produce whenever possible, the fruits and veggies are naturally ripe and fresh! Last weekend when Pop barbecued for my birthday, he also gave me my birthday present. My birthday presents from Pop are always awesome! I got a bag of cherries, a half dozen white peaches and a big bag of zucchini. Pop always picks up my favorites, down to choosing the white over yellow peaches. With him working in the produce department, he picked my goodies up after work Saturday morning. I couldn’t get fresher if I got them myself. But, I also get the “pick of the litter.” Pop knows what looks the best coming off the truck in the morning! I still have a couple of zucchini left, but the peaches were finished by mid-week and well, the cherries lasted through Sunday!

In the world of trying to make less of me, I tried Nutrisystem. It’s a good program if you can afford it and if you have a modest amount to lose. For me it was a good jump start. I dropped 40 pounds after a slow start. Their counselors on the phone are great. I switched a few things around and changed my dairy or protein add-ins to mostly protein instead of dairy and then I started losing better. Well, the start of the year I quit losing, even gained a little. Mostly due to stress as I was going along on the journey to the ultimate MS diagnosis.

Unfortunately, while the switching out most of the dairy worked for getting the weight loss going, lowered Vitamin D goes with MS and my blood work said my Vitamin D levels were DRASTICALLY low. That’s not Nutrisystem’s fault or the fault of the counselors. I didn’t even know I had MS when that “fix” was made in my diet. A year later the only “good riddance” feelings I have is to the prepackaged food. The diet plan is sound but the food as a whole isn’t so great.

So, I did some doctoring with the food, adding spices to save the flavor. Some of it was beyond help. Those things were mostly the dinner entrées, which are usually just swimming in not-so-good to gross gravies. I do still have a few breakfasts left that I will miss when they are gone.

Visiting the community message boards there was a shock! I was hoping that someone had already called counseling and gotten an “Okay” to dump most of those gravies or at least had some good ideas for fixing the flavor. What I found was a lot of very unsupportive people insisting you had to “do it MY way” because they were “experts.” It only takes losing some successfully and posting a lot to be an “expert.” Oh jeez, I can’t stand uncredentialed experts. The board bullies were brutal to people and probably lose Nutrisystem as many customers as they help.

The one thing the board bullies had in common was that they HATED vegetables. Oh, GROW UP! I’m thinking that’s maybe why they ended up there in the first place! For me it was mostly the nuts. I discovered my greatest nemesis in the weight gain world was the portion sizes of nuts, pumpkin seeds and the like. Maybe that explains the cholesterol issues for me? I got my fat servings under control and not only did I drop some weight, but I got my cholesterol levels down too. Of course, I didn’t get the adults who don’t eat vegetables. I mean, they hate ALL vegetables? What are teaching their kids?

I’ve always eaten a lot of vegetables, often raw and when they are cooked I only seldom add any more than a little spice or a touch of butter. The bully experts told me I had to eat all the gravy because it was important for "the stats." They all seemed to agree that the answer to the gravy issue was to steam large amount of vegetables and pour the gravy over them because it made it easier to eat the vegetables. What? After already saying that I ate lots of veggies raw or naked and liked them they tell me to put the gravy I don’t like on my veggies? My answer was that I quit ordering the stuff with gravy. That made the selection very limited.

So, I switched to Weight Watchers when I found out how bad my Vitamin D level was. Like I said, not at all blaming Nutrisystem for it, but I’m eating lots of dairy now and losing again. I’m also not bored at all and no gravy baths for anything because I cook it and my veggies-a-plenty are raw or un-gravied too! I’m diet-wise in a better place.


Stem Cells


I’ve always thought that stem cell research was a good idea. The results there have been in tests are near miraculous, but I’ve never climbed on the soap box and supported it because it didn’t promise a benefit to ME, so I hadn't researched a lot. My bad on that one. You never know when something that’s a good idea for “other people” may end up being an idea you want more done about for YOU! That’s kind of where I am now. There is a lot of research being done on the results of stem cell treatments for MS patients. So now I’m stepping up on my soap box in support of it. It was a great idea before, but when it became personal, my eyes opened wide enough to see my empty soap box.

The political world is quite threatening. I am not a registered anything but a registered voter. As far as party goes, I’m American. But I’m a disabled American now and I’m starting to see myself leaning left enough that I could totally walk away from the Republican party members because they have become quite anti-people. If that party has its way, the healthcare reform that was passed will be revoked. In addition to healthcare for people who can’t afford it, it also means that if my husband were to change jobs, I’d be uninsured with a life-long debilitating disease. That reform includes the end of “pre-existing conditions” as a reason for an insurance provider to refuse to cover someone. In the end, money is SO much more important than care, right?

Also, greatly influenced by the religious anti-choice nuts, the Republican party is really paying at least lip service to cutting funding and halting stem-cell research, because I guess research to save lives encourages abortions.

Don’t misunderstand me on this one. Anti-choice is a carefully chosen term. As an American I am pro choice. I don’t understand how anyone can not be. Personally, I would never have an abortion or encourage anyone close to me to have one. I also personally don’t condone use of fertility clinics. My personal thought is that there is a reason for unplanned pregnancies and a reason some who want babies can’t have them. It’s my spiritual beliefs that say if you are pregnant, didn’t plan to be and don’t want a baby, DO NOT KILL IT. Have the baby and give it up so the parents who want a child can adopt it.

Of course, I realize my belief that it’s killing a baby is religious. In a country where we have the freedom to choose, or not choose at all, a religion that’s right for each individual, we cannot make laws that prefer one religion to any other. If there are religions that do not hold that a fetus is a human life until birth, how can we as Americans govern when the fetus is a life?

The mini-abortion rant does go back to stem cells, really. There are two things the Republicans that are sleeping with the church ladies need to consider. The first is that not all stem cell research is embryonic stem cells. There is a hospital I was reading about, not in the US, because the treatment isn’t approved here, that uses your own stem cells, drawn from fat cells that are processed and reinjected. There have been good reviews from MS patients who have the courage and money to try it out. Last I checked the most obese country in the world has plenty of fat to donate to that cause.

The second thing, while they are kissing butt for the anti-choice religions, is MY religious beliefs. Who do I have to cozy up with for my religious convictions to be a political star? I don’t know if someone is going to Hell for having an abortion. As a ‘lil old human, I’m, not qualified to say “God says….” Best I can do is say “I feel like what I am doing will or won’t please God.” But let me ask this of those church ladies. If it’s a baby before it’s born and it’s killed. Does it go to Hell too? My belief here, it would be un-American to choose a religious influence to create a law, my spiritual beliefs find some solace in that the stem cells from aborted fetuses can be instruments to save people that are already living with diseases. The anti-choice church ladies may be seeking to strip those lives of their purpose.

Ah but, these are the same people who throw their own children in front of cars to keep people from going in to a family planning clinic. People or a soul’s purpose have little meaning to them compared to their own agenda and being right at any cost.

If you have an opportunity to talk to a candidate or your legislators, ask them where they stand on stem cell research and if they’re against it, WHY?


Feline World


David and I are thinking of expanding out family again. It’ll be a while yet. We didn’t want to run out and adopt another cat right away, part because we wanted to honor Baggle’s memory and let Kaline and Carla get used to each other without him. Yeah, they are a little different together than they were. Kaline and Baggle were that way after we lost Chester too. But the other part was that we do a lot of weekenders in the summer and have vacation plans coming up too. It wouldn’t be fair to introduce a new cat and then leave. All three of them needed us there as they got used to Carla being in the family. There are definitely things we could have done better with introducing Carla and I’d like to make sure we do them better with the next new cat. So, we’re probably looking at mid to late fall, like we did with Carla.

We do have a name picked out, Joe or Jo Morgan, Joe for a boy and Jo for a girl. I think we’ll probably use the middle name, but as David says, “it depends on the cat.” I guess I gotta agree with that. The reason for the choice was that we have a Red Sox cat and a Tigers cat. We give bonus cat treats when all three of our teams, Tigers, Red Sox and Reds win. I thought we ought to have a cat named for a Reds Hall of Famer. But David thought it was a little unfair to have two cats named for my teams and only one for his. Joe Morgan is the name of the Hall of Fame member of the Big Red Machine, 1972-79, and also the name of the Boston Red Sox manager, 1988-1991. No, not the same guy. Their playing careers overlapped just briefly at the end of the Red Sox manager’s career and the beginning of the Big Red Machine member’s. It’s a puurrfect name for our third baseball kitty!

Wrapping up Monday

A little taste to kick off the week!

The first bit of business I need to address to start this week is a “fix” from last week. I got several points wrong in my early rant about how Sally, the mother goose from our post office, died. I didn’t correct the mistakes or take down my original post because I don’t want to delete the comments and my demeanor hasn’t changed. It’s settled now after a few days, but the anger about it is a little fueled. The stupid mistakes were made by people who should know better, WAY better. The people who moved the family were from a center for the “rescue” and rehabilitation of wildlife. When they moved the goose family, with three goslings and two un hatched eggs, to a “better” place across the street, they were caught by surprise that geese are territorial and the incumbent geese in that area would threaten the new geese and try to drive them out.

Yanno, I just don’t get how you can work for a wildlife center in an area where there are a lot of geese and not know that. They said it was a “no win” situation because Sally was nesting in an area where there was so much traffic. How about carefully move the family to somewhere that there aren’t geese already living? I mean, if you’re moving the geese and have already invaded them, why not put them someplace safer than where they already are? Sure, a busy parking lot by a busy road is not ideal, but it’s not like no one knew they were there. Putting them in an area where not only is there the human factor but also territorial other geese sounds like a “maybe lose” or “lose big” choice and they chose lose big.

You can read the story on the Toledo Blade’s website here: Blade article



I SO don’t want to be all doom and gloom n a cloudy Monday, here in northwestern Ohio. We’re still on the lookout for that arc! ^The rain was hard and nasty Friday night into Saturday morning. The tulips took quite a beating! In the front half of our side bed, there is a lot of petal litter! That’s from the blooms that just exploded from the driving down rain on them. I’m glad I got my photos when they were strong and healthy! There are more exploded tulip blooms in the front section than the back, so there are still flowers, just not as many. The smaller tulips seemed to fare better than the taller ones, but they weren’t as open. David reported this morning that the absolute las6t of the crocuses, a couple of the stripey ones that bloomed later and stayed a little longer, had finished for the year now. That ups my resolve to get some bulbs in the ground for summer and fall. Now if we can just get a day that doesn’t rain. Our forecast for the beginning of this week: today was “cloudy with a shower or two,” we got three or four, then “mainly cloudy, showers around,” and on Wednesday,“ warmer with showers.” Hey, at least it’ll be warmer! Just give me one weekend day that’s cloudy, but no rain, so David can help me, and I’m good!


There are things that make me happy. The Reds swept the Cardinals out of town over the weekend and hold first place again and they beat up the Cubs in the sixth inning tonight for another win. I like this kind of roll!

David and I got out to the grocery store yesterday and left with many bags of groceries and a lighter pocketbook for the effort, but we saved BIG TIME with coupons, careful sale shopping ahead of time and a good buy ten and get $5 off deal at Kroger. I also got my almond milk supply refilled and Dannon Greek Yogurt comes in peach now! This morning I made a cup of warm cocoa with almond milk and a scoop of Splenda-ized dark chocolate. MMM!!!! I let David try a sip and he was impressed too!

Okay, it was a little bit of a mundane Monday, but it wasn’t a bad Monday. I still really do like Mondays, even if the telling of them is really just wrapping up the weekend. It’s a fresh start to a new week.

Now if we can just get it stop raining or get passage booked on that arc…

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!

Wrapping Up January With a Bow

From Holiday Elegance by RK Designs

Happy end of January! Man the first couple of months just seem to fly by, don’t they? It’s not time itself speeding though, not really. I always think, “yikes, fast!” at the end of January, but by the end of the year I think back and January seems so long ago. I think it’s just that everyone is so busy planning their projects for the year and making and breaking resolutions. It could be too that I am busy trying to break the mid-winter doldrums and that accelerates the time. Whatever the reason, I really don’t mind if the winter passes a little faster.


Speaking of the Weather

I have been watching, reading and listening with all the empathy I can muster as my friends and family in the states that have been hammered so bad with snow this year. One thing I NEVER did was giggle because it wasn’t us, which is what David says is the reason a major snow is coming through again and making a point of stopping in Toledo. Oh, he knows it’s not me, but he also knows there are people who laughed because it “missed us again.” Well, this time we’re gonna get it. The snow is supposed to start tonight, with 1-3 niches expected. Then Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday all day, we’re expecting up to a foot by Thursday morning! They are calling for wind too, making near blizzard conditions. :( Nani doesn’t like snow!

I’ve already canceled my afternoon therapy for Wednesday and Rapid LLC is scheduled to do driveway scrapes tomorrow morning and Wednesday night so David can get in and out for work and then the full plow-shovel-salt after it all stops. I am entirely blessed to already be on the regular customer list with Rapid. I won’t be scrambling all over trying to figure out how we’ll ever get out of the house before March while David is trying to dig a tunnel to his car. Whenever possible, proactive is the way to go!


A Black Eye

No, that’s not a metaphor for anything. I have one! I can’t tell you how much I DO NOT fancy this becoming an annual thing! If you’ll recall, last January I did a number on the left side of my face with a fall. This year, Thursday, I stumbled on some shoes by the door and couldn’t regain any balance. I fell face first into the corner of the refrigerator, putting a gash in the side of my face with the hinge on my glasses and leaving the right eye pretty well blackened! I didn’t hurt anything else, in fact, some of the things that are sore seemed to loosen up a little, but the shiner is so ugly! Yeah, I look tough, no one will mess with me, but I’m a people-person! The scary look just doesn’t suit me!


MRI Results

So Friday I went to therapy in the morning and my appointment with the doc to discuss the results of the MRI, sporting my new colorful eye. Well, see the back and eye are related like every other issue is related to the back. What makes me so unstable and makes me fall is the disk trouble and subsequent nerve trauma from more than on troubled disk! After doing some research and talking to some people who’ve had back surgery, I knew what I wanted. The doctor kept talking about pain management and steroids and I’d rehearsed my line. My Idea of pain management has no drugs – I’m in pain, I’ll manage. Except that I’m really not in pain. My pain is mental, I’m frustrated because I’m too weak and too unstable.

My first thought was happy and victory when the doctor came in holding the MRI results and said, “Well, we need to get you to a neurosurgeon for a consultation." Then it kicked in. If my steroid-advocating doctor is jumping to surgery, it’s bad! I’m waiting on the call-back from the Neurologist to set up an appointment for the consultation. There are several disks that range from deteriorated to herniated and screwed up nerve endings to go with them. Beginning with the end in mind, I’m ready to begin the six months of rehab after surgery. Then the surgery word hits me. Wow. Scary stuff. I’ve had oral surgery, but I’ve never been unconscious while someone carved me up before.

Well, right now is the consultation, finding out what insurance will and won’t cover and figuring out what I can afford that they don’t. This is big and I don’t want it done half way! So, I’m going to take it one day at a time, says the recovering ibuprofen addict.


Flying Grocery

The definition of “flying grocery” USED to be that I’d stumble to the door, sore from grocery shopping, and toss the bags in the house, hoping I didn’t break anything I’d forgotten I’d bought that was fragile. As of last week, Flying Grocery is how my groceries come to me without being tossed anywhere! I’ve been getting sorer quicker lately and David will get any groceries I put on a list for him except fresh produce! Most of what I cook, what I eat is fresh produce. So I did a search for grocery stores or markets that deliver locally and found Flying Grocery, a small service company in the Toledo area.

I expected the prices to be high or for a large delivery charge for that kind of service. I was so pleased! Delivery is $5.00 and the prices are so slightly higher than I pay when I hobble in on my own. The delivery charge is waived for the first order, so I figured I’d take a chance. I selected a delivery time, between 5 and 6, when I knew I’d be home. At 5 minutes past 5 there was a knock on my door. The owner of the company made my delivery herself. She refused a tip and instead gave ME a bouquet of flowers as a thank you for the business. The produce was all but perfect! Instead of the easy to grab bag with red delicious and granny smith apples with oranges, I got gala apples, my favorites, bananas and Bartlett pears. I also got a cantaloupe that is still making your refrigerator smell like a piece of Heaven with one piece still wrapped up on the shelf. I got beautiful, crisp and unblemished bell peppers in 4 colors, cucumber, celery and a bag of salad plus a bag with some beautiful zucchini. I got a couple of other things too, some lunch meat, a couple frozen dinners and egg beaters, to try out the non-produce part of the service too. Flying Grocery is a godsend now as I’m sure it will be through surgery and recovery for my back.

Let me add another thought, if you are in the Toledo area, imagine going on vacation and submitting a grocery order from your computer that will be delivered the next morning instead of trying to scramble to fill the cupboard and refrigerator after your plane gets in or after driving all day so you have basic lunch items for work and school the next day. With Flying Grocery, it’s that easy! I can think of a ton of great reasons you might use this service on occasion, sick kids, major project at work, anything that would have you picking up dinner on the way home instead of cooking a healthier meal, and in the long gun, more expensive than the delivery price.

I’m getting ready to place this week’s produce order, but for Friday, after the snow.


Okay, January blogging is a wrap! Back to school!

Links
Rapid LLC, Toledo snow removal and more!
Flying Grocery, awesome grocery delivery service in Toledo, Ohio

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!

Options For 2010

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Safer® brand. All opinions are 100% mine.

As I’m getting ready to ring in the New Year, I’m planning the things I’ll do to make it a better year. Part of this is, of course, thinking about spring and what can I do as a fan to support the Reds and Tigers for a solid start. A big part of that is I can be a healthier fan so I have the necessary energy to be an enthusiastic fan! So, along with thoughts of bats and balls go plans for cucumbers and tomatoes!

I really want to get a bush cucumber plant and a potted tomato plant for our back yard and maybe a small herb pot. Wow. I can almost taste the fresh gazpacho writing about it! I really miss the garden we had in our backyard in Michigan and while I’m not looking to go as gonzo as Pop does with gardening, I especially miss the cukes and tomatoes!

I’ve talked before about my strong desire to keep my personal gardening organic. I just prefer my veggies without added chemicals and the taste is better. I got hooked on organic carrots at Detroit’s Eastern Market a few years back. I love to munch on the baby carrots from the packaged bags, but a quart of organic carrots almost didn’t make it home the first time I bought them! It really does make that much difference in taste! Unfortunately, organic also makes a measurable difference in cost, so while I’m not ready to grow my own carrots yet, growing the cucumbers and tomatoes will save me enough to supplement them with purchased organic carrots! Now I just have to get my plan to prevent bugs on my plants to make this awesome salad work!

Luckily, I know where to go. saferbrand.com is the best first stop to get ready for Organic Gardening. The Organic Gardening 101 section gives you all the information and support you need to get to work on growing healthy and pest-free plants without the chemicals and poisons you don’t want in your body or even just altering the taste of your fresh veggies! Their extensive insect library can help you identify the bugs in your garden and determine if they are beneficial bugs or bugs that need to be eradicated from your plants along with the safe, organic way to do that!

There are even more choices to keep up-to-date on the organic gardening secrets that will keep you in the best tasting and safest fresh veggies this year. Safer brand's facebook page will give you information on their updates whenever you login to your account. I like that affirmation of my commitment to my garden plants and eating better. Safer brand is officially on twitter too! You can friend them and get and give Tweets on your living organic choices and what they can provide to help you help yourself live a better-tasting, healthier and longer life.

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!

Is That A Banana In Your Pocket?

When I don’t have a request for Friday, that’s what you get for a post title when it’s not baseball season! I was thinking in the shower, which is where I have a lot of my “I’m gonna have a V-8!” moments. It’s good to have those moments when you can still have the V-8, right? ;)

What I was thinking about was funny slogans for bananas. Do you remember having fun with the banana stickers when you were a kid? I always put them on my nose. Mom had to find bunches of bananas with two stickers so my brother and I wouldn't fight over the sticker.

Have you seen the new banana stickers on the Chiquita Bananas? Back in the day, it was just the logo. They were still fun, but now there are new slogans. “I heart your heart” is cool, I put the “Great In Lunch Boxes” one on David’s visor in his truck and there is one that just says “LOL.” The stickers are in the traditional blue and there are some in dark Purple. They are promoting Chiquita’s website I think. There is something in the small print about going to the website for fun.

Yesterday, I got bananas. I’m the only one in the house who eats hem. I love bananas, but David isn’t crazy about them and cats are offended by the smell of them. That’s a theory I’ve tested on four cats now. Every one of them looked at me like I’d offered them a sniff of a week old ashtray. I’d say it’s past theory and is a well known fact. Since no one shares my love for them with me, I buy small quantities. Yesterday, I bought two perfect yellow ones and two green ones to ripen in the fruit basket.

Each pair of bananas had a sticker on one of them. These stickers made me wonder who writes the phrases for the stickers and to whom they are marketing! One reads “Pocket Size Fun” the other reads “Let’s Play!”

I was having some fun last night. I put one of the bananas in David’s pocket and was going to put the “Pocket size fun” sticker in the front of his pants pocket. But I thought, maybe just a little over the top for a family blog! Also, the average man’s dress pants aren’t tight enough to actually see the banana unless it’s hanging out of the pocket anyway. In fact a tall man’s pockets are deep enough to make a banana disappear!

I still wonder how do you get the gig writing the banana stickers. That could be fun. But I bet they fire the ones who REALLY have fun with that job!

Monday Mug Shot

North Carolina

This morning I made breakfast for David and me. David had eggs over easy, sausage, toast and orange slices with pineapple-orange-apple juice. We’ve been getting the POA juice a lot lately because we both really like it. I had toast and sausage too and of course coffee, but I did a fruit plate with yogurt instead of eggs. My fruit plate was fresh bananas and orange slices with Howell Melon and raspberry Whips yogurt. YUM!

Saturday I met my Dad, Aunt Judy, Sheri and her Dad for lunch at Cracker Barrel in the Motherland. I had breakfast for lunch since David is not crazy about Cracker Barrel and although we do go once in a while, when we are out and about for breakfast it’s for train casing and there is NOT time for a sit-down breakfast. I LOVE Cracker Barrel for breakfast, well, I love Cracker Barrel period, but I hadn’t had breakfast there in quite a while and was really in the mood for biscuits and gravy with turkey sausage!

I was in the Motherland because I was getting together with girlfriends Saturday night and I never pass up the opportunity to make the most of my gas budget when I travel to Michigan. When we left Cracker Barrel, Pop had a gift for me - A huge bag from the Farmer’s Market in Hartland! I’ve mentioned before that one of the areas where David and I are very different is that he wasn’t raised with an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. Oh, he had plenty of veggies as a kid, just not fresh ones in the variety of kind and preparation that I was raised with. Often times, he’ll stop and pick up grocery essentials on the way home from work. When he calls and asks me what’s on the list on the dry erase board on the refrigerator, I’ll say “bananas” ad he’ll tell me we’ll get bananas when we both go because he doesn’t know how to pick out the good ones. No problem there, because I don’t want him bringing me ten green bananas that will all be ripe at the same time so most of them become overripe! I usually buy three almost yellow ones because like them yellow with no green or brown on the skin.

So, right now, while I don’t have an income, fresh fruits and veggies are an occasional thing. Honestly, that leaves me insanely craving the fresh stuff often! (Except for salad and carrots - David picks those out fine and I always have them!) But Pop, who thinks this non-veggie freak man is otherwise perfect for his princess, totally understands the insane craving for a large and bountiful variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. That need was instilled in me by him and he always has the greatest edible gifts! Saturday, he gave me 2 cantaloupes, ten zucchinis, including 2 yellow zucchinis and a half dozen fresh tomatoes. David and I went grocery shopping yesterday and I added the bananas and oranges for this morning’s breakfast feast and also got some carrots, tabouleh and fresh parsley for the French preparation I’ll use for a tomato dish tonight. I’ll likely post that recipe here some time this week, so keep an eye out for it.

Now I bet you’re wondering what all of this fresh veggie talk has to do with a North Carolina mug? Well, it does tie in! The North Carolina mug is about something David hasn’t done that I did do with my Dad!

David is a well-travelled man! Just in this country alone, he has been to 46 of the 50 states. Easy guess is that Hawaii and Alaska are two of the 4 missing ones. I haven’t been to those either. But the other two? The Carolinas! David hasn’t bee to either North or South Carolina! This mug reminds me of a trip to Myrtle beach, by way of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina that I took with my parents in 1994.

My Dad is a fan of The Andy Griffith Show. As we were driving on the freeway, we saw signs for Pilot Mountain, the place in North Carolina for which the TV show’s “Mount Pilot,” “the city,” to Maybury townsfolk, was named. Pop chuckled about driving to “Mount Pilot.”

As we got closer to Pilot Mountain, we could see the very define shape ahead and Pop suggested stopping. How could Mom and I say “no?” He was giggling like a star-stuck kid! So, we got off the exit to Pilot Mountain.

Let me first say, that Mount Pilot and Maybury are TV fiction, especially the part where Mount Pilot is “the city!” Pilot Mountain is a woodsy area with a park, picnic tables, trails, not a city or even town at all! We pulled into the park and took the cooler to a picnic table for a snack. We had driven up quite a way and it was just a beautiful area. There was a walking/climbing trail near where we were sitting and Pop wanted to see what there was to see . Mom didn’t want to do the hike, but I was eager to join! So Pop and I went for a walk on the rock trail.

Some of the trail was level walking ground, but most of it was crawling along a mild rock climb. I’d say it was, as far as rock climbing goes, probably junior novice level, but as neither Pop nor I had ever done any actual rock climbing before, that was pretty ambitious for us! We climbed all the way to the summit of Pilot Mountain and for our effort got just a breathtaking view of North Carolina.

Of course, my camera was down at the picnic table with Mom so it wouldn’t get banged up on the climbing parts of the hike, so I don’t have any pictures of that spectacular view. What I do have is a mug with a drawn picture that reminds me of it and the vivid pictures in my mind of the hike, the beautiful view and a special memory of that just father-daughter adventure.

Morning Musings (2/22/08)

This is a bit Nanicentric, I know, but aren’t we all a little me-centric?

As I was combination preparing breakfast and taking grocery store notes this morning, I got to thinking about area grocery stores and how there is not just one where I can do all my shopping. This isn’t a market-size issue because I never had that luxury in Metro-Detroit either. I’m not talking about preferring fresh fruits and vegetables from a produce market or farmer’s market in season or meat from a butcher. I’m talking about not being able to buy canned soup, yogurt, coffee sweetener and frozen dinners in the same store.

Start off the day with coffee. Mmm.... This morning was the first pot of the Verona David gave me for Valentine’s Day. Interesting note on the Verona - you can buy a pound of Starbucks Verona at Starbucks... Kroger, Giant Eagle, CVS and Rite Aid! The Cinnamon Spice Splenda I prefer for a sweetener however, for that I need to go to Giant Eagle! The closest Giant Eagle to us is a few miles south. I mean, it’s a 20-minute trip to a grocery store for that one item. Kroger, of which there are several in a couple miles’ radius of our home, carries the Splenda Coffee Flavors in hazel nut, mocha and french vanilla, not cinnamon spice! I saw on the Splenda website, that the coffee flavor sticks also come in caramel, which I’d love to try but haven’t seen anywhere!

Now, I could just wait until I have a full list and do my shopping at Giant Eagle. They are the only store in this area that carries the peanut chicken Lean Cuisine, my favorite of that line, but I haven’t been able to find Creamy Latte Yoplait Whips yogurt there. That I get from the Kroger that’s the second closest to us. The closest one doesn’t carry that flavor. Of course, neither one of the Krogers carry Vegetable Medley Soup At Hand. That’s at Meijer!

So here is my request to the Toledo area grocers - Carry Nani-Food! When I grab a cart, I want to put Cinnamon Spice Splenda, Blended Vegetable Medley Campbell’s Soup at Hand , Harvest Tomato with Basil or Italian Tomato with Basil and Garlic Campbell’s select soup, Creamy Latte Yoplait Whips yogurt and Chicken in Peanut Sauce Lean Cuisine in that one cart. While you’re catering to me, make sure you have Masterpiece Barbecue Ruffles for David, Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms, Baci if you’re going to carry David’s Ferrero Rochers, and your should carry the Rochers, and make sure the Bananas or not green but don’t have any brown spots yet either.

:) Find me that store, and they get ALL my grocery money!

So, leave me comments! What specific items would the grocery store who wants all of your food budget carry?