The Chronicles of Nani - Coffee, a le cyber-café

Don't worry if you don't speak French! There's only a little bit of French at the beginning of the vlog and there are subtitles in English. I just wanted to show off that I still actually remember some of my high school French. (I took French 101 and 102 in college because I needed some "easy" elective credits.) I only had to look up one word in the intro that I speak in French.

But this video is about COFFEE! It talks about my personal coffee history, what coffee actually means to me, my favorite coffee and the ridiculous tendency to judge people by their choice of coffee. 

So, stir up your favorite cyber coffee shop beverage and enjoy!

(BTW, demitasse means "small cup." I do realize that every time I say "demitasse cup" I am being redundant.)

Happy Shopping

Saturday was a holiday shopping day for me. I like internet shopping because there aren't the crowds I didn't enjoy shopping in before the wheelchair. But honestly, I do miss the decorated malls and the peppermint lattes!

I would have been exhausted doing everything I did in person. I started surfing around noon. David was home so we shared talk, music and meals. There is no way he'd spend the whole day Christmas shopping with me and not be miserable. With me cyber shopping, he could play poker online and I could still show him things I saw in stores. I enjoyed the social part of shopping and he didn't have to step foot in the estrogen-filled stadium of "shop til you drop."

I'm doing Secret Santa with a women's group I'm in. My Santee is someone I've never met before. It's just like the Secret Santa Soirée was done only I don't have years of her blog to get to know the person I'm giving to. I just have her Facebook wall. We life-bloggers and craft bloggers share more details about our passions and preferences than is usually shared on Facebook. Still, between the Facebook Wall and her paragraph about who she is and the things she likes I was able to have several ideas that I could pursue to find just the right gift. I found it around 11 o'clock Saturday night. There was one other person that I was shopping for but I knew what I wanted to get, down to two possible pictures of it in my mind. I found one of the pictures I had in mind after a couple of hours but, as is a regular shopping thing, I found something else that I just loved. I hope it's opened with as big a smile as it gave me to find it. I'm behind on my page-a-day scrap goal for December already, but it was totally worth it to spend a day traveling all over internet stores and finding the right gifts for two different people!


When shopping the specialty stores to collect my traditional Italian goodies and other special things for the holidays, I like to find occasional edible presents and I also like to try something new myself. In years past I tried cranberry mustard, rum cake cookies and even chicken tortellini.

This year I tried a jar of creama di pistacchio, pistachio cream, from Supermarket Italy. At first glance, it's a jar of green goo. It's greener than I was expecting from the photograph online but since it was creamier, than Lake Erie water during an algae bloom, I decided I wasn't so grossed out that I couldn't give it a try.

O-M-G... I swiped my finger on the pistachio cream that was on the lid and the taste is amazing! If you like pistachios imagine peanut butter only with pistachios. The flavor is a little more pungent than peanut butter but that's because pistachios are a little more pungent than peanuts. Where I could take a spoon and just scoop peanut butter out and eat it, I really think I need crackers or biscuits for the pistachio butter. But, oh my, it is good!

I talked to my dad last night and told him about it. I also wanted help on the pronunciation of pistacchio, pistachio in Italian. Pop said, no kidding, that he didn't remember ever saying pistacchio when he was a kid and only remembers saying it in English. Since I'm not bilingual, I've never thought about there being things you'd learn about while speaking in the new language that you didn't know the word for in your original tongue. I was told that when I was learning to talk I had to learn the English word butterfly because I first saw butterflies often at the park with my grandmother. Noni called them "farfalle" and I didn't know that word was a different language than the one I was learning. Of course since I don't actually remember that one, I don't remember how it felt. I still think it would be more strange to an adult. I also think it's a bigger deal to me than Pop.

Oh, we decided because of the vowel sounds and double-c, it is pronounced
| pee-STAH-chee-o |

Snippets 2

I really did have a few things collected that I wanted to blog about! Yes, it was Buckeye Chuck all on his own again at coffee break time this morning. TASTY dinner last night! hehe...

Today was a comme ci, comme ca day. That’s French for “so-so” but I was hoping a little romance language would make it feel better. Hmm... nope. Asi-asi? Nah, Spanish didn’t make so-so better either.

On the jobless front, I sent off some initial letters to a few recruiting agencies. Then, as I was finishing one of the letters, right as I finished typing my phone number, my phone rang! It was John. He was looking for an update on the weekend. The Saturday we’d originally scheduled his 50th birthday dinner on was a snow storm in Michigan a week after our foot Saturday, so we rescheduled it for this weekend with a regular games night. While I was on the phone with John, another call came in. This was a job related call.

I hung up with John and returned the call from a company in North Carolina that does job coaching stuff. At one site where I distributed my resume in Toledo, they offer a free consultation to go over your resume. That's what this is, except it’s not. This call the gentleman talked about setting up an appointment with the president of their company to go over my resume, their services and what they can do to help me. He set me up the appointment to call them tomorrow morning. I did ask about the fee, he told me that would be discussed tomorrow but gave me their web address.

The average cost for an individual looking for a job for their services is 5 to 10...THOUSAND dollars! For that “investment” I get two weeks of training with the resulting expectation that I will be able to find a job, on my own, in about 6 months or so.

---choke, choke---

Now, if I had five to ten thousand dollars laying around to fix my resume, I probably wouldn’t need it fixed since I’d have to ALREADY HAVE A JOB to have that kind of money laying around. I could probably scrape up a couple hundred for a really good resume, but thousand? THOUSAND? YEESH! What country are they living in? One much more prosperous than the USA right now.

I spent the rest of the afternoon researching local companies that do resume writing and career coaching. There has to be someplace that can just do a professional resume for under a few grand!



I’m A Naughty Clicker!


Well, I’m not supposed to click on my own ads. But look at the picture! Clinique’s own rendition of that was in big and bold and beautiful full length of the Google ad spot on The Chronicles of Nani. My storage is paid for this month and I have been, I’m not kidding here, using HAND lotion for moisturizer for almost 6 months! Thanks in part to the apples I’ve been able to sell, I mean stuff ON an Apple, I have enough to get some proper facial moisturizer. If I stretched out what I had enough, I could foot the bill for my all-time FAVORITE, reason everyone used to think I was so much younger than I am moisturizer and get the bonus with it, which includes an exfoliating lotion and a cleanser. My poor face is so dry and flaky-looking. So I moved my mouse over the ad, the Angel and Devil on my shoulders.

Well ya know what? That Devil actually told me to wait and click for something more expensive because I look good for a senior! The Angel decked him and said “Go on and click honey, Google will understand for one click, you’re making a purchase after all.” So I clicked it.

The nice man from UPS brought my box this morning. Right after lunch I exfoliated and put on some Dramatically Different Moisturizer. It felt SO GOOD! My face just drank it up and I put on another application. My face was already starting to look like me again! Tonight, I’m going to do an oatmeal facial and a mask. I’m anxious to try the utility blusher and mascara too, but I’m not sure what I’ll do with 2 full-size lipsticks. I really don’t wear lipstick. I’m a clear lip balm girl.

Oh yeah, Google either knew it was me or Ad-sense is a bit of a rip off. It registered a click, but no payment for the click. Usually a click is worth 3-50 cents and this one resulted in a sale! That Angel was right, the Angel is always right!


Old Freebies



Next month will be the one-year anniversary of my first kit, “Train, Train.” I think I’m going to do a new train kit. this one will be in the store, the main kit anyway, with new and different stuff and with my skills greatly improved as a designer. I think, for the sake of space in my 4-Shared account, that I’ll retire freebies after a year.

That means if you haven’t seen and downloaded the old kits, you want to make sure you do! By the end of March, “Train, Train,” “I’m All In,” and “Raspberry-Orange Slushie” will all be history



Patch 365 Week 6

Heck, I’m a wise old married lady now! Six weeks, wow.

credits: kit - "Train, Train" by Digitalegacies Designs,
Project 365 Template 4 by Sweet Tomato Designs

Journaling reads:
Tuesday, 1/27 - Baggle alarm clock says, “Feed me, Dad, feed me NOW!”
Wednesday, 1/28 - MORE SNOW! We just might need to get one of those snow blowers of our own! Thank God for great lending neighbors!
Thursday, 1/29 - The icicles are HUGE and they don’t even look pretty anymore!
Friday, 1/30 - Think we can train her to flush too?
Saturday, 1/31 - Durand, MI, those CRAZY railfans!
Sunday, 2/1 - a little bit of pre-Super Bowl railfanning at home
Monday, 2/2 - If Mommy bends over the bed and makes a nice cat-pillow, Kaline is THERE!

This week’s layout was done with a template NOT by me. I found a new blog just yesterday, Sweet Tomato Designs. Yeah, I was drawn to the name. I think it’s pretty cool. If you stop there, you’ll find all four of her Project 365 Templates and a couple of other freebies too!

I did Week 6 with Sweet Tomato’s Project 365 Template 4 and “Train, Train” You know, A year ago I thought “Train, Train” was a pretty big and complete kit! When I do the new train kit some time in the not so distant future, I might add, oh, ribbons, journal mats, more than one frame. Yeah, I’m pleased to say I’ve grown as a designer. But I’m also very pleased to say that it’s still a good kit! I will probably work on photographing for extraction some new signals and signs, but I did a good job on the signal masts in “Train, Train.” So, if you have a train buff, model railroader or little one who loves to watch the freight trains, stay tuned for an even better way to scrap those shots of them in the future! Steam kits are cool, but a kit for lifelike models or real freight trains? You don’t want to let that runaway!

Monday Mug Shot

Canada
(Windsor, Ontario)

I LOVE the Beaver on hockey skates on this mug! It was obviously a made-to-order for tourists mug and was bought in a souvenir shop in Windsor that was owned by an immigrated French national. The fact that the shop was run by a Frenchman is very important to the mug’s story!

In March of 2003, Kelly and Brooke came up to Michigan to visit for Spring Break. It was a “Zoo Holiday,” as Kelly’s visits usually are, for the whole family, a week of gatherings, dinners, and fun activities. One of our day trips was John and I taking Kelly and Brooke to Canada for lunch and a visit to the sculpture gardens in Windsor. I was Brooke’s first visit out of the country!

Brooke was 17 and having spent a decent portion of her years in Missouri, had that funny way of always asking “What accent? I have no accent! Y’ALL have an accent!” She was also excited about going to Canada to hear another language!

Canada, our sister-country to the north has 2 national languages. All the packaging in Canada is written in both of them as are the road signs. This recognizes English, the language spoken in most of Canada and French, the language spoken as a first language in Quebec, the only language in some areas of Quebec. Brooke was completely naive of the fact that there were two languages and that English is still the most common of those spoken there. In fact, she refused to believe that she wouldn’t be showered in French the moment she crossed the border.

Well, as much as the 3 adults, who’d been to the foreign country 20 minutes away from our places of birth many times, told her that in Ontario they speak English, she insisted in knowing how to say “hello,” and other key phrases in French before we got over the border. With a chuckle, I obliged. When we parked the car near the Big Tomato, where were having lunch, the giggles in the three of us became stomach aching laughter as Brooke, insisting that she was going to proudly speak the Canadian language, began to greet people loudly in her “accent free” Missourian tones “Bone-Joor!” The reaction she got was sometimes a laugh, sometimes a quick look away and even quicker steps away and sometimes a look like we were taking our patient out for some fresh air!

She was troubled that our waiter didn’t speak French, not even when she asked him to! She continued to greet strangers at the outdoor sculpture garden with “Bone Jour” and continued to get the typical responses. No one said “Bon Jour” back!

Of course, she did realize that we were being straight with her when we said that they speak English in Canada, but was having a grand time TRYING to embarrass us. When you are a teenager, you don’t realize that the older you get, the harder it is to embarrass you! Actually it was a barrel of laughs and smiling memories for us all!

The end of our day in Windsor was stopping at a few of the souvenir shops. Kelly and I were still browsing in one shop when Brooke drug John along to a store a couple doors down. When Kel and I walked back onto the street, Brooke was excited. “I FOUND MY FRENCHMAN!”

Kelly and I looked at each other, a little surprised but laughing. John was shaking his head and smiling. He told us, it wasn’t even a French-speaking Canadian. Brooke drug us all into the shop. The shop keeper, who was about a grandfathers age to Brooke and spoke English just fine, was laughing at Brooke with adoring eyes. He spoke a few more lines of French to her and she gushed with approval and satisfaction. We were 5 people smiling and laughing nonstop.

Before we left the store, I found this mug, very touristy-Canadian and NOT with any writing in French. But the mug is still filled with great memories of family, fun and a sweet man from France, who absolutely made an American girl’s day speaking his native language to her in his new home country on her first trip to Canada.

Bone Joor, Y’all!