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.

Coloring Page

This one I had fun with. I took a picture of our Christmas tree last night, then made it into a coloring page, then made it Sepia, and finally gave it a spotlight effect.

The photo editing software that came with the camera is very limited, although it has been fun to mess around with it so far.

I have started looking at reviews of photo editing software and so far it sounds like Adobe Photshop Elements is the way to go for the amateur, Adobe Photoshop CS2 for the professionals (VERY BIG price difference between the two.)

I mihght try this one out in the meantime, it's Freeware. It's called Irfanview. And there is another one called GIMP. And then there is Picasa, which I have used before and it doesn't have any more features than the software from Kodak. I think I may try the GIMP, as it seems like the only one that can do other things I can't do already.

Some Other Pictures (playing with my new toy)

Pictures of Isabel

Cropped, B&W, & background shadowing

Background Shadowing & Cartoon Effect

Cropped, background shadowing, portrait coloring

A New Bed for Larry

We got some new towels for Christmas and they were in this box and Larry decided to make it his home for the entire day. I think he went in there are 9am and didn't leave (not that we saw) until 7pm.

Silly cat.

New Stuff in the Area

Monte's Steakhouse is opening in April 2007. This looks like it should be a pretty upscale restaurant, which we are lacking here. They will have valet parking too. It will be nice to have something more upscale in the area and not have to drive to the Cities for that.

Also, Cashwise grocery store now delivers. It costs $7 to deliver to our area. It's not like the grocery delivery service we had in the Cities where we had to have a contract and you ordered delivery on a schedule. For Cashwise you could order groceries once or on a regular basis. Plus, I could place an order tonight and get it tomorrow, or even place it tomorrow and still get it tomorrow if their are slots available.

Christmas at the In-Laws

Well, today was Christmas at my in-laws. I receieved some nice gifts that included a new purse & wallet, a tea box (a wooden box with compartments that you put different tea bags in), a bracelet my MIL made with beads in the colors of all three of our birthstones (mine, Andy's, & Isabel's) - looks pretty, a necklace, some earrings from Spain (you can obviosuly figure out who those are from) and some bath salts.

Plus, we opened out Christmas pajamas (something we started as our own family tradition) and Andy picked out a nice set for me. Funny thing though - the bottoms he picked out for me are men's (which is totally fine) but they are the same bottoms I bought for him. I had opened mine before him and when I saw them I said, "Didn't I buy you those?" thinking I had bought for him previously and he already had them, not that they were sitting there for him to open. Total brain fart moment.

We do appetizers after gift opening with them. There was lots of meats and sweets, not that I'm complaining - I'm just saying.

Tomorrow is Christmas for the three of us and sharing gifts we bought for each other (& the cats & dog, they each get a new toy too!) Then Christmas Day is presents from Santa and he fills each of our stockings and just Isabel gets a big present and we also get a family present from Santa too.

What an Insurance Agent....

Here's the story.....

Last late fall, Andy & I were having dinner at a friends house and for dessert they served this White Chocolate Cheesecake that they bought at a cake auction that was made by our insurance agent. Well, over the last year I meant to call him and ask for the recipe, as it was awesome (he made it!) But I kept forgetting. But finally I had a reason to call - we sold the truck and needed to take insurance off it it. So, I asked him for the recipe and he said he would do one better and make one for me. So, last night he arrived with a huge Christmas tin with this amazing white chocolate cheesecake inside it. I am going to get so fat this week!

Mentally Ill Peanuts

Andy says I have ruined A Charlie Brown Christmas for him because as we watched it the other day I was diagnosing all of the characters. I thought he had heard that Chares Schultz had based his characters on the mentally ill and trying to help reduce the stigmatism of mental illness.

This person blogged about it as well.

Read his post – it’s very interesting. But I think I have some other comments to add……

Snoopy who thinks he’s a WWII Fighter Pilot – if that isn’t delusional…..
Charlie Brown, who continually plays the victim
The Red-haired girl, ok, you might think she seems normal, but she’s the one hiding her issues, she the perfect one that Charlie wants to date, but I suspect she could be suffering silently from an eating disorder
Then there is Linus who is obviously stuck in the oral stage….
And Peppermint Patty is definitely going to struggle as she comes to term with her homosexuality that she has been covering up with her obsession with Charlie Brown
And then there is poor Marcy who lusts after Peppermint Patty and follows after her like a little puppy dog, she has to struggle with feelings of rejection or her own hiding of her sexuality. Now, I have to say that I am not referring to homosexuality as a mental illness, but I am talking about the depression and anxiety that may go along with hiding their sexuality or coming out to others.
Lucy – now, there is a controlling loud girl. I fear as an adult she could be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. If Lucy doesn’t get the attention she wants she gets very upset and appears to feel abandoned by others.
Let’s see….who else?
Sherman – the musician – I fear his lack of social skills are going to increase his anxities and he may distance himself further from his peers and soon become afraid to go out in public and just stay in play his piano.
Pig-Pen – just his name alone is probably going to cause some self-esteem issues, as well as feeling bad about never being able to get himself clean. I wonder if there are some neglect issues in the home, which will later catch up with him.

Here’s a whole list of the Peanuts Characters and their debuts.

Lorenzo's Oil

So, I watched this movie for the first time in college, and then I showed clips of it when I taught a course in Developmental Psychology at the local community college. Now, this time I just used it as Cinematherapy for my kids at work. I was wondering what happened to Lorenzo and could not find anything in the last 2 ½ years, which leads me to believe that he is still living and is still in the same condition. Because if he died, it would probably make the news and be on the internet and if he made any additional progress we would have heard about that as well. It’s a heart wrenching movie. I guess dad is still researching for a cure, but mom passed away quite a while ago from lung cancer.

Interesting Website

It's like eBay for handmade items. It's called Etsy.

My New Baby

Ok - I have to ask -- was my house ever REALLY clean before this fabulous, fabulous vacuum cleaner. It is a Dyson DC07 Animal. It is meant for households with animals because getting up animal hair can be very hard. And this thing is amazing, although it should be for the price of it. I just love it. It is scary how much dirt & hair it has picked up -- scary we've been living with it thinking our house was kinda clean. But those "other" vacuums never really got into the carpet and sucked everything up. It works great everywhere. And the hose is long enough that you can go all the way up our staurs with it and not have to carry the machine with you. Truly amazing.

As for that shower cleaner I bought, it does a good job with water spots, but not such a good job with soap scum & mildew. I am glad I didn't spend a lot of money on it since I had a coupon & got a Target giftcard for purchasing it. I will still use it because it is getting rid of the waterspots on my clear shower curtain. It does get all around the shower and covers nicely anything level with or below the machine.

The Tree is Up!

Woohoo! We got the tree up. We can't wait to show Isabel. She is going to love the lights and the sparkle.

We did it differently this years than most.

This year we put up gold beads rather than garland. And instead of all my homemade & glass ornaments we put up non-breakable ornaments in clear, white, & gold.

When I make my new ornament for this year I will use the same colors.

The lights consist of 3 strands: 1 gold, 1 red, 1 multi-color.

The angel & tree skirt are the same I always use.

Got a lot of present wrapped already. I have a few more to wrap and Andy has his to wrap as well.