Jamie, I accept your challenge:
Respond and rework:
1. answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own invention,
add one more question of your own.
2. Tag other un-tagged people.
Here are the Questions:
When was the last time you went on vacation? I am kinda having a vacation now. I am relaxing quite a bit at Jeff and Keri's house
Who was the last person you hugged? Greg
What’s your favorite dinner? I could not possibly choose one thing!
What was the last thing you bought? good bought or boring bought? Mocha at Starbucks yesterday morning.
What is your favorite weather? Mild
Say something about the person/s who tagged you. I miss all of the time we used to spend together.
What is your favorite flavor gum? Minty gum is good.
What did you want to become as a child? an artist
What do you miss? alone-time
What's your favorite brand of jeans? Levi's
What's your favorite dessert? milkshake
If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go? Here is fine
What is your most challenging goal right now? Maintaining my lawn
What’s your 5 year plan? I do not make 5-year plans
What are you looking forward to right now? Tomorrow night's pizza
Why is today special? We have been spending time with a special new friend.
What is your favorite sport to watch? Is cooking a sport
What is your favorite piece of jewelry that you own? a pair of small silver hoop earrings
How did you meet your spouse? I should have erased this question instead of the other one, per the instructions above.
What's one thing about you that you would change? my indecisiveness
What is something about you that no one would know? I can't imagine. I feel pretty transparent.
What would you do with a free hour? Knit
What book would you recommend to a friend? A Brave New World
What's your favorite memory? Again, I could not choose just one.
I do not have anyone to tag, but if you are reading this, and you have a blog, you should feel free to use this for blog inspiration. :)
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Birthday follow-up
I have pictures to share of Emma's birthday yesterday. And, I have a recipe, too. Let's do the special birthday stuff first:
She opened a couple of presents after breakfast (recipe for tasty coffee cake coming up), went to Red Robin for lunch with a bunch of friends, opened a couple more presents after we got home, and generally had a good birthday. We are having the real birthday party next weekend to be sure that some special invitees are able to attend.
The coffee cake I made was really easy and delicious. Here's how:
Graham Streusal Coffee Cake
Streusel:
10 whole graham crackers, crushed
1 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
Mix all until blended; set aside
Cake:
1 (18 oz) box white or French vanilla cake mix
1 (3 oz) box French vanilla instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13x9 baking dish. Beat all cake ingredients until blended. Pour half of the cake batter into dish. Sprinkle half of the strusel mis evenly over the batter. Carefully spread the remaining cake batter over the streusel, then top with remaining streusel. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
I will post again very soon with some stuff from the past couple of months. I have loaded the pictures onto the PC, but we are not feeling well and should get a little rest now.
She opened a couple of presents after breakfast (recipe for tasty coffee cake coming up), went to Red Robin for lunch with a bunch of friends, opened a couple more presents after we got home, and generally had a good birthday. We are having the real birthday party next weekend to be sure that some special invitees are able to attend.
The coffee cake I made was really easy and delicious. Here's how:
Graham Streusal Coffee Cake
Streusel:
10 whole graham crackers, crushed
1 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
Mix all until blended; set aside
Cake:
1 (18 oz) box white or French vanilla cake mix
1 (3 oz) box French vanilla instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup water
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13x9 baking dish. Beat all cake ingredients until blended. Pour half of the cake batter into dish. Sprinkle half of the strusel mis evenly over the batter. Carefully spread the remaining cake batter over the streusel, then top with remaining streusel. Bake for 40-45 minutes.
I will post again very soon with some stuff from the past couple of months. I have loaded the pictures onto the PC, but we are not feeling well and should get a little rest now.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Happy Birthday, Emma!
I can't believe Emma is six today. She is becoming quite an amazing young lady. We make each other crazy, sometimes, but I love her more than I could have ever imagined.
I promise to post some birthday pictures sometime tomorrow.
For today, though, I want everyone to take a look at this:
Skip the Latte on the 7th. I know this is late in the day to be posting it, but like Mr. Logelin says, you can donate any day, and no amount is too small or too big. And, if you have never been to Matt's blog, please look around and see how amazing he is. A horrible thing happened to him, and his story is inspiring and seriously touching.
Thank you to everyone who sent Emma presents from near and far. She is working on some lovely thank you notes as I write this.
I promise to post some birthday pictures sometime tomorrow.
For today, though, I want everyone to take a look at this:
Skip the Latte on the 7th. I know this is late in the day to be posting it, but like Mr. Logelin says, you can donate any day, and no amount is too small or too big. And, if you have never been to Matt's blog, please look around and see how amazing he is. A horrible thing happened to him, and his story is inspiring and seriously touching.
Thank you to everyone who sent Emma presents from near and far. She is working on some lovely thank you notes as I write this.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
100 books
Stolen from Jamie:
Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How many have you read?
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. (x = read some or Cliffs Notes, X = read all)
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) (W) if you saw the movie or play of it! (Jamie added that one)
How many have you read? 22 so take that BBC!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X W +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee W
6 The Bible - x
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X W
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X W
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X +
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis W
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X W
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X W
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen W
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X +
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker W
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X W
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce *
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker W
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White X W
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -Roald Dahl X W
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
That leaves me with a total of 24 X's. And a good list of books to read in the future.
Apparently the BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How many have you read?
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. (x = read some or Cliffs Notes, X = read all)
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) (W) if you saw the movie or play of it! (Jamie added that one)
How many have you read? 22 so take that BBC!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X W +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee W
6 The Bible - x
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X W
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll X W
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame X
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X +
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis W
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden X W
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X W
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood X
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen W
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X +
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov x
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold X
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding X
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker W
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X W
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce *
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens x
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker W
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White X W
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Alborn
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle x
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare X
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory -Roald Dahl X W
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
That leaves me with a total of 24 X's. And a good list of books to read in the future.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Happy Birthday, Paula!
I don't know if you read my blog, but I can't send you an e-mail from work.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little sister! I hope you have a great day!!
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my little sister! I hope you have a great day!!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Ten things I do well
I have found a new blog that I like. I don't know this lady, but I always feel like I do know people after I read their blogs for a while. Anyway, check her out, if you like: http://www.monster-yarn.com/.
She inpired me today to make this list of things I do well:
1. Crafty stuff. I like to knit, mostly, these days, but I dabble in all sorts of other crafty things.
2. Cooking. I reluctantly admit this, but I do okay with a recipe.
3. Killing time. I can do this remarkably well.
4. Finding stuff. I lose things quite a bit, so it makes sense that I am pretty good at finding things. I've had a lot of practice.
5. Helping people. I do like to help most people.
6. Getting things done at work. Not so much at home, though.
7. Getting distracted. I have trouble focusing sometimes.
8. Settling arguments by finding facts on the internet. This is something that I love to do.
9. Talking on the phone. I have had a lot of practice at this as well.
10. Making lists. How appropriate!
She inpired me today to make this list of things I do well:
1. Crafty stuff. I like to knit, mostly, these days, but I dabble in all sorts of other crafty things.
2. Cooking. I reluctantly admit this, but I do okay with a recipe.
3. Killing time. I can do this remarkably well.
4. Finding stuff. I lose things quite a bit, so it makes sense that I am pretty good at finding things. I've had a lot of practice.
5. Helping people. I do like to help most people.
6. Getting things done at work. Not so much at home, though.
7. Getting distracted. I have trouble focusing sometimes.
8. Settling arguments by finding facts on the internet. This is something that I love to do.
9. Talking on the phone. I have had a lot of practice at this as well.
10. Making lists. How appropriate!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
2008 in review survey
I swiped this survey from Jamie. Enjoy!
What did you do in 2008 that you had never done before? I made house payments with my own name on them.
Did you keep any New Years resolutions? Are you making any for 2009? I don't remember my 2008 resolutions, if I did make them, so I probably didn't keep any of them. I am not sure if I am making official resolutions this year. I'll decide by mid-July for sure.
Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes! Congratulations to my sister and to Leslie.
Did anyone close to you die? No.
What vacations did you take? We went to Seattle for Emma's birthday and then again for my birthday. And Thanksgiving. And Christmas.
What would you like to have in 2009 that you didn't in 2008? More time!!!
What date from 2008 will be etched in your mind and why? Valentine's Day. I got a pretty special phone call that day...
Did you suffer illness or injury? I had a minor surgery in May. Turned out to be nothing to worry about.
What was the best thing you bought? Wii
Whose behavior merited celebration? Lots of people. Not any one major event, but new jobs were acquired and things like that.
Whose behavior made you apalled and or depressed? Really, do you want to ask a divorced person such a question?
Where did most of your money go? Home and utilities, of course. And, gasoline.
What did you get really really really excited about? Emma starting school.
What song will always remind you of 2008? 3s & 7s by Queens of the Stone Age
Compared to last year are you much happier, richer, nicer? Definitely happier. That is easy. I'm probably a little richer, and I have no idea if I am nicer.
What do you wish you'd done more of? Cleaning my house, but I was a bit distracted.
What do you wish you'd done less of? Procrastinating
How did you spend Christmas? With Greg and his lovely family.
Did you fall in love in 2008? As a matter of fact...
What was your favorite tv show? I'll probably have to say LOST, but I would have laughed at you if you had suggested such an idea a year ago.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate before? Nope.
What was the best book you read this year? I am ashamed to say that I am not sure I finished reading any books this year. Unless you count owner's manuals.
What was your greatest musical discovery? The Killers
What did you want and get? Too many things to mention.
What was your favorite film this year? I should be embarrassed: Sex and the City
What did you do on your birthday and how old were you? I turned 32, and I spent it in Seattle and went to a super-fun pumpkin patch/corn maze.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I can't think of a single thing.
What kept you sane? You must be thinking of someone else.
Who did you miss? My sister
Who was the best new person you met? You know who you are. ;)
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. If you don't try, you won't succeed.
Quote a song lyric that sums up 2008. I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier.
What did you do in 2008 that you had never done before? I made house payments with my own name on them.
Did you keep any New Years resolutions? Are you making any for 2009? I don't remember my 2008 resolutions, if I did make them, so I probably didn't keep any of them. I am not sure if I am making official resolutions this year. I'll decide by mid-July for sure.
Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes! Congratulations to my sister and to Leslie.
Did anyone close to you die? No.
What vacations did you take? We went to Seattle for Emma's birthday and then again for my birthday. And Thanksgiving. And Christmas.
What would you like to have in 2009 that you didn't in 2008? More time!!!
What date from 2008 will be etched in your mind and why? Valentine's Day. I got a pretty special phone call that day...
Did you suffer illness or injury? I had a minor surgery in May. Turned out to be nothing to worry about.
What was the best thing you bought? Wii
Whose behavior merited celebration? Lots of people. Not any one major event, but new jobs were acquired and things like that.
Whose behavior made you apalled and or depressed? Really, do you want to ask a divorced person such a question?
Where did most of your money go? Home and utilities, of course. And, gasoline.
What did you get really really really excited about? Emma starting school.
What song will always remind you of 2008? 3s & 7s by Queens of the Stone Age
Compared to last year are you much happier, richer, nicer? Definitely happier. That is easy. I'm probably a little richer, and I have no idea if I am nicer.
What do you wish you'd done more of? Cleaning my house, but I was a bit distracted.
What do you wish you'd done less of? Procrastinating
How did you spend Christmas? With Greg and his lovely family.
Did you fall in love in 2008? As a matter of fact...
What was your favorite tv show? I'll probably have to say LOST, but I would have laughed at you if you had suggested such an idea a year ago.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate before? Nope.
What was the best book you read this year? I am ashamed to say that I am not sure I finished reading any books this year. Unless you count owner's manuals.
What was your greatest musical discovery? The Killers
What did you want and get? Too many things to mention.
What was your favorite film this year? I should be embarrassed: Sex and the City
What did you do on your birthday and how old were you? I turned 32, and I spent it in Seattle and went to a super-fun pumpkin patch/corn maze.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I can't think of a single thing.
What kept you sane? You must be thinking of someone else.
Who did you miss? My sister
Who was the best new person you met? You know who you are. ;)
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. If you don't try, you won't succeed.
Quote a song lyric that sums up 2008. I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier.
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