Mark your Calendars for the Whole Living Expo

They are having a Whole Living Expo at the Northfield High School Cafeteria & Auditorium. I put it on my calendar. It will good to learn about things in our area. Here is information about the event. I am sure it's a drop in the bucket compared to the Green Expo in St. Paul.

I heard about the event in an article in the monthly newpaper we get from Just Food Co-op; we are members of the co-op.

They also have a listing of events & classes that they are offering. One of them that I think I am going to go to is Natural Home Cleaning. It sounds interesting. I figure I could learn a thing or two about cleaning and possibly talk to the lady doing the class on whether she is taking new clients. We have been trying to find a new cleaning lady and have not had very good luck. The last person I interviewed wasn't crazy about the idea about using my non0toxic cleaning products, stuff from Seventh Generation. She wanted to use her own stuff, but I really want to keep a limit on the chemical fumes in our house. And she refused to use our new fancy vaccum that actually sucks up animal hair because she says it was too heavy, even though she would never have to vaccum upstairs and the hose on it is long enough to go up the entire stairs. The old cleaning lady we had started doing shotty work so we had to let her go. But we really would like to find a new cleaning lady. I keep the house picked up, but sometimes it's hard to keep up with the sweeping, dusting, & vaccuming (we do have a big house!) Anyways, I am signed up for it.

They also have another class I may attend. That one is called Gardening for Your Kitchen Workshop.

If Larry Were a Bunny....

Andy sent me this link with the above subject and I thought it was funny. Larry is our 18 pound cat.

The picture is from the website.

Now that would make one helluva pot of rabbit stew. J/K

Teachers See Movie for FREE

This is from their website:

In appreciation of teachers across the U.S. and Canada who give endlessly and enrich so many lives, AMC and Paramount Pictures are offering teachers* an exclusive opportunity to see the highly acclaimed film"FREEDOM WRITERS" for FREE.
Dates: January 26 to February 1, 2007

http://www.amctheatres.com/promos/freedomwriters/

Disturbing

This is one of my child's toys. You stack rings on it and the top ring has Piglet popping out.

It looks like Pooh has this huge boner. Very disturbing.

Spring Break Trip is Booked!

WE ARE GOING TO TEXAS!

We fly into Dallas and the resort we are staying at is Silverleaf Resorts in Flint, TX. It's about 100 miles outside of Dallas.

We wanted to go someplace warm within the US. We also wanted the place to be very near water (lake or ocean, didn't matter). It also needed to have a children's pool, as well as adult pool. Also a children' playground was preferred. Can you tell we are bringing Isabel with us???

We got a 2-bedroom unit with a full kitchen.

We are flying American Airlines and rented a car through Budget.

One of the places we'll probably go check out is the Caldwell Zoo. Also the Tyler Rose Garden & Museum. And maybe the Hudnall Planetarium. Here are a bunch of other things in Tyler.

The average temp there at that time is 78 degrees, which isn't too warm, but warmer than Minnesota.

My First Broken Bone

Check out the bruising!

I thought I would spare you actually having to see my toes (which need to be cut and painted - they currently have paint worn & chipped off - not pretty!)

I broke my toe. It's the 4th toe, the one next to the pinky toe.

The urgent care nurse told me I could get one of these fracture shoes, but she said I could just splint my toe to the next biggest toe and try to wear shoes that are sturdy (or buy the fracture shoe) and stay off my foot for the next 24-48 hours. She said if I needed to I should use crutches.

This is supposed to take 8-10 weeks to heal. Bah!

I did RICES right away. Plus I took some Aleve right away to help with the pain & swelling. I love Aleve; it works well for me.

R = rest

I = Ice

C = Compression

E = Elevation

S = Stabalization

Links for Discounts in the Twin Cities

Get the Saint Paul Fun Card. Not sure what kind of discounts I'll get, but I called to get one sent to me. It is supposed to give you a discount at the Science Museum and the Children's Museum of MN and others.

Here are a bunch of coupons for the Bloomington/MOA area. (There are some other areas as well.) The coupons of particular interest are for the Science Museum, MN Zoo, & Underwater World.

Valpak.com - where you put in your zip (or a zip you will be going to) and get coupons for that area.

Twincitiescoupons.com I haven't had much time to check out what is there, but I saw the Cinema Grill in New Hope is on there. I've been to the one in Edina a couple times and that was always a good time. Actually, as I was looking through it there is a coupon for the one in Edina as well. Score! There are not a ton of coupons on there, but hey, even one good coupon is worth checking it out.

Coupons on the Minneapolis Chamber's website. Some of them are the same as the ones on the Bloomington site, but they have even more on here. The ones that might be of interest to me would be the one for a discount on the MOA book (which I believe you can get that same discount if you use your AAA card), MN Zoo, Underwater Adventures, Murphy's Landing, & Stevie Ray's.

So, check them out and have fun.

One Picture, Three Ways

So, here is the original picture I took this evening of Isabel's left hand.














And then I decided to have a little fun playing around with it. This one I just did a spotlight effect on it.











And here I did this fisheye effect on it. I never had a picture that I could actually do it with that didn't make the person look like it was deranged.

Food & Restaurant Links

I found this, Biologique Foods. It's organic & natural food that you can buy online (fresh stuff too!) and have it shipped to you. The catch is that you have to live in the Midwest. They use Spee-dee delivery service and the delivery fee costs $7.95 (at least to my location it does.) They are located in Bloomington, MN. You could pick it up fro free if you wanted.

Also, I saw the Blue Sky Guide at the Living Green Expo in St. Paul last spring. I have not purchased one yet, but I am thinking about it. There isn't much out of the metro, and with the baby we don't get there much yet. But that will probably change as she gets older. Normally, I purchase the Entertainment Book, but I haven't done that yet this year either. Both books start in November. It looks like the Entertainment book increased it's price by $12 this year. Again, I am not sure how much we would actually use it this year, but when she gets a little older we will probably want to go check out soe of the attractions that they have coupons for in the Cities.

There is also Restaurant.com as well, to save money on going out. They have a lot of resturant certificates for the Cities and other states as well.

Here is information about the Three Rivers Wine Trail of Minnesota. I think this is a more comprehensive list of a bunch of wineries in MN. We have been to Alexis Bailey, Cannon River, Carlos Creek, Morgan Creek, & Northern Vineyards. If you click on the Iowa list, we have been to all of them in the Amana (Colonies, including South Amana & Homestead.)

Andy recently bought a case of Porter made by the Falls Brewing Company when we were in Wisconsin a few days ago. Oconto Falls is nearby my hometown. They have their Brewery set up in an old Hardees building.

Andy sent me this link for French Toast Waffles. I think he wants me to make this some day for breakfast.