BEFORE:














AFTER:

What a HUGE differance! I have been working day after day on this and today I finally finished it, this stage at least. I LOVE it. The old thorn in my side has been removed. The critical design mistake has been painted over. When we picked out everything for this house I was not in my "design" mode but rather my "how are we going to start a new business and build a house" mode. I have learned many lessons since picking out the wrong cabinets to begin with, and the latest was how to paint over them! I'm not done but will take a break for awhile and enjoy the holidays now. Still on the to do list:

• Order and install crown moulding to the top of the cabinets and a base trim moulding under the cabinets.
• Install base moulding around the base of the island.
• Have installed lighting both over and under the cabinets.
• Address overall kitchen lighting, possibly designing and building a new light over the island.
• Window treatments.
• Backsplash tile (already picked out).
• New faucet.

Later on I'd like to:

• Consider new decorative hood over the range and built-in oven, microwave and warming drawer where the kitchen desk is now. (I already have the nook design in my head!).
• New sink?
• New countertops? The ones I have now don't necessarily bother me but I need to think about this before tiling. Love soapstone and granite. Yum!

Thought today I might be on the road the getting new floors when dh and dog spilled LOTS of red wine on the carpet. Came out though, darn the luck.

I will post more detailed photos of the paint project later. Just wanted to share what I've been up to.

Dog Diary

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite!
11:00 am - Went to the vet. Bummer.
12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite!

Cat Diary - Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for these rations perfectly clear, I never-the-less must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomited on the carpet.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies". I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow - but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released - and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicating with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now.

Ok, so I finally got to play with one. Awesome, just like I thought. I love that it has everything including a camera and an iPod. In the real world though I was disappointed to find out that you can't mass delete emails, it's one by one. And then further, once it goes to the trash can you have to delete them once again, one by one. How odd is that?! I've been told inquiries have been made, numerous calls and it is true, this is by design - as of right now. Have they not heard of spam? No matter, I still want one and love it.



Someday. Someday.







And check out these awesome camera bags - look like purses don't they? Wouldn't the camera above look beautiful in one of these? And of course if you have the camera you would need a fun camera strap (Sorry all sold out now for Christmas. Check back after the New Year).

After a little digging I have also found out that previvor was one of 20 words under consideration for the New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year for 2007. Unbelievable! Locavore ended up winning but we were in the running which is absolutely amazing.

Locavore was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. Other regional movements have emerged since then, though some groups refer to themselves as “localvores” rather than “locavores.” Kudos to them.

So, I then checked Merriam-Webster.com to see what was up over there. Their Word of the Year for 2007 was w00t. The defininition is of expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay". An example of how to use it could be, "w00t! I won the contest!" I also discovered that previvor was submitted anonymously on Sept. 15, 2007 to their open dictionary and from another source discovered that it was actually their Word of the Day on Sept. 18, 2007. w00t for that! (Sorry, couldn't wait to use it!) Apparently Merriam-Websters process for choosing the words is a voting process which this year was from May, 2007 thru December 7, 2007. This means previvor could not have been in the running since it had been submitted during the time the voting was open. So, fingers crossed for next year, or following years. Afterall, w00t was submitted back in 2005!

I would love to eventually see previvor in the dictionary, both Merriam-Webster and the New Oxford American. w00t! That would be terrific!

Quick post to say hello from San Antonio. Been here since Wednesday for the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference. A lot of fun and feels great sharing information on FORCE. Being here reminds me of why dh and I are in the process of redefining our families priorities. It's an amazing experience to see all the researchers and doctors who are here for breast cancer. Further, to see all the work being done for the high-risk group is amazing as well. It grows and grows at each conference.

There are five of us here; our executive director and three other outreach coordinators (from Houston, LA and Chicago) - plus myself. What's amazing in itself is three of us are pre-vivors. Normally I'm here with mostly cancer survivors and it's challenging because pre-vivors have our own set of issues. It's great to sit and talk with other women who completely understand everything you have gone through and different challenges we still face. I had never met the other women (with the exception of Sue, our executive director) but you would never know it. As soon as we meet, we share our stories and from that moment on it's as if we've always known each other. It's very surreal. We have been sharing what we have done in our communities and exchanging ideas of what we might want to do going forward.

It's awesome!

Lesson learned... medical bag (ie: blood glucose monitor, glucagon, infusion set, batteries and quick sugar juice) do NOT hold up well under car tire. Ironically I was leaving to drive to Walgreens to pick-up his glucose strips. Since the monitor was now crushed, made an executive decision to NOT pick up the strips. Luckily we had a back-up unit (different model and different strips). Happily, ds called Accu-check and said company is sending out a replacement unit free of charge. DS now knows not to place his medical bag near car tire when car doors are locked and he has to run back into the house. I was just happy it wasn't Oscar I ran over. Ouch!

These are all things on my mind lately, not in any particular order. I have decided this holiday season is not going to get the best of me. I refuse to let things get out of control. Although I have made a tentative Christmas gift list and begun shopping I haven't really done it justice yet. The end of this week (and *gasp* weekend) will be the time most of it will be done (I think). Next week will be mostly a wash because I'm going to be out of town for four of the days - going to the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference to represent FORCE. Such a great time, feels good to help make a difference. Most everyone I'm shopping for doesn't "need" anything - my boys included. I asked for a Christmas list and believe it or not they had a hard time putting one together. Seems like I'm the only one not having a hard time this year. LOL!

Our family just bought our first - how do I say? - religious cd. Was that politically correct? Makes my soul smile that Alex has already downloaded it to his iPod and while Chad did ALL his homework tonight (3 days worth - he missed last week) we had to listen to Track 2 (Song of Hope) of the Robbie Seay Band too many times to count and way to loud for him to adequately get his homework done. This song was sang at our Sunday service and obviously made an impression on our entire family. So fun to be going down this path together. The boys are enjoying it as much as dh and I are. Yeah for us!

Finally made a dent in my kitchen project this weekend - getting 98% of the trim work done. Not going to worry about lighting or crown molding trim, that can be done later. I have to run out in the next couple days and get a few more pieces of trim to finish up. Then onto staining and painting. That will be the easy part compared to what I just did. Seriously. All I have to say is I'm loving our table saw - yes, I think I have a good grasp on how it works now. Been ripping some boards baby! And, my absolute favorite tools are my numatic nailer (with air compressor) and my bitty baby pry bar. Now, Oscar doesn't have the same fondness for the numatic nailer. He still doesn't "get it" and barks every time I bring it out - which is a lot! (Oh, can't forget my other favorite tool - the bitty hammer my dh made when he was in tech ed in either junior high or high school. This has been "my" hammer for too many years to count. Such a favorite of mine I used to tell him that if we ever got divorced this was the only thing of his I wanted. LOL! Really that is meant as a compliment!).

Only complaint I have right now is our home office tech (work) did some "configuring" of my computer and my keyboard is "off". I'll be typing a way and my cursor will end up a paragraph or so above where I'm typing. Really messes things up. I have no idea how to fix it either. Any suggestions?

Happy holidays to all - and best of luck shopping to each and every one of you. Enjoy the season!

Look at designer Kenneth Brown's new place in Hollywood, CA. Oh how I would love a loft. Check out those windows and the beautiful floor. Brick, lots of huge windows, loft... can't ask for much more then that. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

Did you know? Did you know? Did you know?... that if your computer crashes but your harddrive is still working you can, yourself retrieve the data off the harddrive? Did you know that you can actually take this harddrive out of the computer and make it into an external harddrive that you can use as back-up, or to carry around your photos and stuff? Did you know this? I didn't, but now I do and I am loving this!

We have two laptops that have died recently (the motherboards). This was confirmed by techies who do this sort of stuff for a living. These same techies however didn't inform me of the above. It wasn't until my dh asked one of his clients about retrieving data off one of these laptops did this little bit of information come out. I was concerned that we wouldn't be able to see the data because the video portion of this laptop wasn't working. The screen would go black and not come back up. How in the world would we get the data? When I spoke with him I mentioned my concern. He said he could pull the harddrive out of the laptop and install it in a device he has that when connected to another computer it shows up as an external drive. We then could just copy the data we need from the device onto the new computer. Awesome!

But then I began thinking... if he can do this why couldn't I? Was this something only those in the biz could do? I would really like to have the ability to recover the data we needed as we needed it instead of having to make sure our initial visit together I copied everything at that time. I began googling and found this. Bingo. I immediately ran to Best Buy (couldn't wait for an internet purchase at a cheaper price point) and got this. This morning I turned on my fireplace, got out my tools and began disassembling my old crashed Gateway laptop. I found the harddrive, popped it in the enclosure case and plugged it in my kids desktop and it worked! The computer immediately recognized it as a new external drive, and there the files were. YEAH! The process was sooooo easy. It actually took me longer to gather the tools, unscrew all the screws and to locate the harddrive (I've never been inside a laptop before). I am definately on my way back to BestBuy to buy another one for the other laptop. The best thing is I'm doing it myself, I'm doing my version of recycling (going green you know) and I now have two more devices to work as additional drives for anything I need.

My dad is thrilled, he wasn't aware of this either. And from the information found at that website, you can do the same thing from harddrives from desktops. The only difference is the size of enclosure you need; 2.5" for laptop harddrives and 3.5" for desktop harddrives.

I'm so happy!

My latest project - our Christmas tree! Decided to forgo the traditional Christmas Tree skirt this year and I LOVE the result:

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Lyon's family. May peace be with them as they go through this difficult time. I've been following this family's difficult journey since I was made aware of their blog via a link from Ali. My heart goes out to them this holiday season and on.

Have a great day!

Fall is my season. Fall is my color choice. My house lends itself well to this season. Realizing this as I'm trying to get ready for Thanksgiving - which has not been an easy task. Something always gets in the way of my plans. Today, Alex was sick - again. His diabetes trying to kick his..., and it almost got him. This is the second time in recent months that he has been sick. The doctors and I believe his insulin pump is to blame, which is why we are in the works for a new one. I've said it before but we were soooo close to going to the hospital. This time it took until 5:00 pm to get him under control and we had to bypass his insulin pump and do shots. Shots. We haven't done shots since he was diagnosed four years ago. After a brief freak out session in the other room, I composed myself and went in to just "get it done". And, we did just that. I worked all day with the doctors office (every two hours calling in) to get him under control and his diabetes wasn't cooperating. Then, 5:00 pm hit and all of a sudden, his numbers were normal and he only had trace ketones. He goes from large to trace like that! So odd. Still doesn't make sense to me. So what does he do at 5:30? Run out the door to play hockey that's what (with doctors approval and strict observation on our part). Diabetes (type 1) is unpredicable and every changing. It was a stressful day for mom, to say the least, and it totally threw off my entire schedule. As a result, I just got back from the grocery store (11:00 pm). Actually, it's not bad shopping this late.

Here are a few things I've been working on for Thanksgiving. I'm having an impossible time finding a table runner for our 8' dining room table. I don't have time to make one from scratch so I decided to semi-make one. I found at Tuesday Mornings some really great place mats that I'm going to hold together by some fancy ribbon I picked up at Walmart this evening. Here's a picture of it (although the color of the ribbon is a bit off):

And, here's a picture of the table setting (work in progress). I've been struggling with what type of center piece I want for this table. I finally decided on Hurricane lamps. I chose four with a cranberry candle. I used nuts as the filling around the candle. I love doing this and can't wait to keep filling it up with different goodies as the seasons change. I picked up the Hurricane lamps at Pier One. Here's a close-up of the Hurricane lamp. Notice the cut little acorn salt and pepper shakers. Got those at JCPenneys Home Store for only $6.00. Love a bargin!

Thinking I should have angled the camera the other way for the first shot. Oh well, still learning.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving. Having some of John's family over, my best friend, her sister and boyfriend and another great friend who is coming in from out of town. Keeping our fingers crossed the weather doesn't go crazy because I would love to crank up the firepit as soon as it gets dark out.

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

Read More 1 Comment | Posted by Cathy |

Completed a Senior photo shoot session today at Babler State Park. It was a lot of fun! I still have a lot to learn about photography but with the resources we have available to us today it's not too difficult to fix a photo. The original photo colors were a bit blah so I tried tweaking them using Photoshop Elements and some purchased plug-ins. I think they turned out much more interesting. Here are a few of the shots:

Thanksgiving for 7-12 people at our home. Beginning to prepare my list and get things in order for the big day. I'm beginning to feel better and will take things easy best I can so I don't go backwards and get sick again. Here's a start to my To Do's:

• Order 20 lb fresh turkey. Check.
• Find Mashed Potatoe Bake recipe online. Check.
• Dig out my favorite stuffing recipe. Check.
• Decide if I'm going with canned cranberries (tradition) or try a new cranberry recipe. Decided to go off the board and follow a new recipe. Check (sorry can't find it online).
• Decide if I'm going to go with the traditional Green Bean Casserole or venture out and try a new one. Decided to try a new one. Check.
• Decide what dessert(s) I will serve. Pending.
• Order bread from Panera Bread Company. Pending.
• Plan for table decorations. Pending.
• Get games and puzzles ready. Pending.
• Determine if I need to run out and get some coordinating serving dishes. Pending (and likely! Yeah for me!).
• Plan cooking schedule and delegating job schedule. Pending.
• Decide how I'm going to cook the turkey this year. Pending - have decided though against using the turkey fryer. I think a 20 lb turkey is too big for that way, although a bit sad about that. Last time we did it, I loved it!

I really enjoy Thanksgiving and I'm weird but I totally prefer doing the whole thing by myself. This year I'm getting smart and am preparing recipes I can make ahead of time (up to two days prior for a couple of them). Oh no, just got a call, maybe two more people. Might need to add a couple more side dishes. Fun!

I'm still under the weather. Coughing now with a tad bit of wheezing. Going back to the dr today and when I begin feeling better will post more. Didn't do a lot this weekend due to my condition. Getting tired of this stuff. A week is long enough already! Yuck!

EDITED: I now have Bronchitis, completely unrelated to the other two infections I had earlier in the week. We have now switched anitibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed this one works and nothing else pops up. I think it's time for my immune system to be rebooted.

Ok, so I have a problem with my nose. I have a pretty ugly staph infection but from what I understand it's not that bad staph infection where my nose is going to fall off. (At this point I wouldn't be opposed to that). I got this after being sick the end of last week. It's horrible and definately far from pretty. Today, while I was working, Oscar was sitting next to me I swear staring directly at my nose. I told him, "You looking at my nose? You looking? Stop-it. Not nice. Stop-it". Keeping his body in the same position he turned his head away as if to say, "I'm not looking. Nope, nooootttt looking..." Then, after a perfect pause, only his eyes turn back to me (not his head or his body) and again stared directly at my nose. I swear he was saying, "Ok, I'm looking and by the way, that is way worse then my butt!"

And, speaking of Oscar, Oprah is having Tyson the Skateboarding Bulldog on today. Check it out. We are making Oscar watch too.

Too funny. Ok, I'm working all day today and while I'm waiting for stuff to load I keep bouncing back and forth checking out Bloglines to see what blogs I subscribe to have recently been updated. It's becoming a bad habit I'm afraid but I regress... Donna Downey (a scrapbooker and artist) was having 5 give-aways today and I thought it would be fun to participate (seeing as I've never done this sort of thing before). After all I love free things and how hard could this be? The deal was every hour, on the hour, she would post it was time for the give-away and the 36th person to post a comment would win. As simple as that! Ok, I will periodically check and participate by making a comment, and maybe I'll be a lucky winner.

So, I go back to work and after a bit I remember this is going on. I check and all of a sudden I have missed 3 of the give-aways. What? What has happened? Then I realize, there must be a delay since I'm accessing her blog through Bloglines. Normally this isn't an issue, however, when time is this important I need to be directly on her page! I check the clock and realize it's only 7 minutes before the next give-away. Ha. I'm so ontop of this now! I pull up her site, refresh. wait. refresh. wait. work. refresh. work. refresh. wait. refresh. wait. refresh. Ah Ha, it's there. The new posting with 0 comments. I decided to go ahead and post a comment as a test comment because posting this early surely I'm going to be commenter 3 or something like that. I put my quick comment, press post and all of a sudden I'm like commenter 50ish. What the ________???? I look back at all the times and there are a ton at 3:01. Everyone is doing what I'm doing.

Ok, so obviously I didn't win. Bummer. I then begin to think, how many people are just hanging out waiting for her posts? Insane. No wonder her dh is working with her now. I'd love to have a business where people are just hanging out, waiting for my next word. You go girl! I mean, I know free products are a draw but seriously that's amazing! Ok, only 42 more minutes to go until the last round. What do you think my odds are?

Last post I said I would fu with photos - here they are. This has been put together based on need, not a lot of thought has gone into it. All the stuff on the walls and in the shelves were just in the room on the floor - getting in my way. I finally had to break down and hang things up so I could walk in the room and get shelves to try to be better organized.

Turning out to be a geometric room isn't it?

Have to say I have a whole new appreciation for photographers who photograph rooms. It's not easy to do. My photos never turn out to look like what I see when I look at the room.

Ok, feeling better - not 100% but much better. Having some residual issues from being sick (which I will spare you the details) but that didn't stop me from working on a Sunday project while the boys were gone for 3 hours today at skating school. I completed my version of an inspiration board - well in my case an inspiration wall. I turned one entire wall in "my room" into a cork board. Unfortunately, I haven't taken pictures yet because I'm still cleaning it up. I also added a couple bookcases in there and hung up some stuff on the other wall. I do not have drapes in there yet but have picked out the fabric I will be using, which matches my inspiration wall perfectly. It will all make sense once I can attach some photos.

Also, was able to attend church this morning. Since we are new, we don't know anyone yet, so that made it really easy to attend and leave without worrying about talking with anyone when not looking my best. It was a great service but very sad. When we left dh asked Alex if mom was crying the entire time. He said, "Of course!" (We didn't sit by each other). It was about troubles in life and how we deal with them. They told the story of a young boy in our community who was a top ice hockey player and was in a simple car accident on the way to school (in carpool) and he was the only one injured. So much so he is still in a coma five months later. They go to this church and the boys father got up on stage and talked to everyone. It was amazing, so sad but so much hope.

Resting now, getting ready for a day of work tomorrow. Have some phones to get installed at the office and some work that needs to get done that I wasn't able to get to last week due to fil in hospital and then my being sick. Here's to a productive week to all!

I've got the flu - so I suspect. Have had it for a couple days now and can tell (fingers crossed) I'm in the getting better phase now - thankfully! Yesterday was the worse of it; full body aches, chills, fever, runny nose, stopped nose, sore throat, cough... About 3:30pm yesterday my fever broke and I started to feel better. Today I'm taking it easy, I'm still in bed but much more alert. Chad is sick too, Alex and dh have been missing in action. It's not good if they get sick so I'm glad they've been keeping busy and staying away. My boys and I did get the flu shot the other day but it appears I got it a little too late. I haven't been sick this bad in about five years. Here's to no more flu symptoms!

Hospital - Lung Cancer:
Spent the last two days at the hospital tending to my father-in-law who had surgery for lung-cancer. He has already gone through Lymphoma and one lung cancer surgery over a year ago. This was lung cancer surgery #2. We get the detailed path report back tomorrow but good news he looks really good considering. Actually much better then the last surgery. I'm thinking positive! Bad news, wasn't until the end of the day today that I found out the hospital does have wireless internet and discovered the sign-on. Point-to-remember: The wonderful elderly volunteers who man the ICU unit aren't well versed with internet issues.

Halloween Prep:
Last minute Halloween prep for costumes - for our neighbors. They came over to get our opinion on costumes. They were awesome! As far as my boys, Chad is all ready to go. Alex not so much. He is at that age that he is no longer prepping for Halloween and he has missed his Mom help window. It will be interesting seeing what he comes up with.

Pumpkin Seeds:
INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds
2 teaspoons butter, melted
1 pinch salt

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).
Toss seeds in a bowl with the melted butter and salt. Spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes or until golden brown; stir occasionally.

Made them tonight and they were oh so good!

Chardennay Wine & mis-matched PJ's:
Tonight was a wine night. Wanted a glass and had a couple. I'm ok with that, given the day.

Have been a long time user of the Living Cookbook which houses my most used, yummy recipes. However, I have never really taken the time to enter all those recipes I tear out of magazines or neighbors give me. Since I'm back to a laptop, that task seems more manageable, something I could do while sitting on the couch and watching TV. As I began transferring data to the new computer I began to wish I had a software program that not only contained my recipes but also allowed me the ability to track what I eat and something to help me get a grip on what I feed my family, something the Living Cookbook didn't provide. So, I began to research.

Found out there are a lot of online websites that you can enter that data but decided I don't want online exclusively because I'm not always online. I began looking closer at the Living Cookbook website and found they have a sister site called DietPro. Here was the software I was looking for. It has all the features and much more that the Living Cookbook had. I immediately downloaded the software and having been playing with it ever since. This software has so much capability and the only disadvantage I can see right now is it doesn't have a fast food or restaurant database, although it does have an extension food database. So, if you cook a lot at home this point will not be an issue. If you are like us and go out a lot, there is a workaround, by using CalorieKing.com online food database. Just search what you are looking for and print out the Nutrition Facts to manually enter them into Diet Pro. Doesn't take too long to do at all and I understand this feature is planned in an upgrade of Diet Pro currently in the works.

To start out I did need to do some initial set-up such as entering my current weight and my goal weight, including my timeline for wanting to lose the weight. To be realistic (which normally I don't do) I went directly to WeightWatchers.com and was able to get my ideal weight range by inputting my current height and age. So easy! This is the information I entered in my Diet Pro profile. I then played around with the preferences on Diet Pro to find out what charts I liked and ones I didn't need to see on a daily basis. This program is highly customizable, which is nice! After doing this, Diet Pro tells me the amount of calories I need to eat per day to reach this goal weight - something good to know.

Next questions is how exactly do I want to use it. The great thing is I can use it as little or as much as I want. I don't have to commit to anything. I can use it exclusively as a software recipe database if I want like I was using Living Cooking. But, I do have capabilities now of getting so much more out of it, depending on my commitment level. I can also create meal plans, track what I eat, set goals (for not only overall weight loss but additional goals such as losing belly weight), create grocery shopping lists and get this - I can even inventory my grocery stock! Yes!!! LOL! Now, I'm not planning on doing this because I would be way to anal at that point but it is very intriguing. You can purchase (separately from here) your very own barcode scanner and scan your groceries when you put them away. I will never be this organized! So exactly how am I going to use this? For now, I'm not going to jump right into a diet but rather just begin by tracking what I'm eating and find out what it says. Here's my screen shot for what I've eaten today (for lunch only):

Not sure how clear you will be able to see this but in looking at my Arby's lunch I see I have already exceeded my calorie intake for the day as well as pushed the limits on my daily recommended allowances in several of the categories. Note, I did not have any breakfast and of course I still need to have dinner. Now, instead of being upset by this I'm viewing this as a good learning experience. I'm beginning to go down the path of understanding what better choices I need to make to get the outcome I want. It would be interesting to compare this to a McDonalds lunch and see what that difference is because I mistakenly thought the Arby's sandwich would be a better choice. Maybe it was a better choice but not the best choice. I'm going to do this for a week to see what I end up with. Should be interesting!

Some additional features this program offers is the ability to track your calorie intake and banks calories that aren't used. If you input you have exercised it adjusts your calorie bank accordingly. It also has a points tracking system that you can customize. I mimicked mine based on the Weight Watchers point system because eventually I will go back to Weight Watchers for additional guidance.

So, whether you just want to get organized and quite having recipes scattered all over your kitchen, or you might want to dig deeper into what you are eating, I highly recommend either the Living Cookbook or Diet Pro. Check them out!

So far real good! Friday night worked on our family room drapes. Not done yet but making significant progress. As a matter of fact I should be finishing one of the panels now but decided to get in a quick post. Will be sharing photos once at least one is made and hung. Looking good. Feels great to have real panels, with interfacing and lining. No one but myself will probably notice that but when you feel them you know they are nice. Makes me feel like a grown-up.

Yesterday, Saturday, ran out as a family (minus one) and got a birthday gift for a belated birthday for an out of town family member. We got the game shinney. It's something my boys love to play and we hope will be passing on the newly made tradition. Fun! Also, decided on some landscaping ideas for the backyard, cleaned up the garage and then went to our neighbors sons ice hockey game with dinner following. So much fun! I forgot though how cold ice hockey is! I also forgot that when the boys fall, since they are on ice they slide. LOL! Kind of funny! It was also shocking at the age of 13 how much they check. It was awesome and a great time as usual with our neighbors. Oh, and I did I mention I got to take a nap too? This is becoming a new thing for me on the weekends. Something I normally NEVER do. I'm liking it! Oh, also ran by dh's grandparents house to chat. Just love seeing them. They are so neat!

Today we went to church again. Another great service and further confirmation that I want to continue at this church. Went to Rombach's Pumpkin Patch for our yearly pumpkin search. We all wanted to go but I can tell the boys (as well as us) are getting older. This was the first year we didn't mess around. Got in, found our pumpkins and left. Still managed to get some pictures and even some video of our pumpkin search. We almost took Oscar but since the Pumpkin Patch is close to church we decided to just go without him. Poor Oscar. We then went out to lunch, came home and took another nap. Now up and getting ready to work somemore on the drapes before heading out to a soccer game. Unfortunately tonight I do have to do some work, but not too much.

To make things even better I have come up with a design plan for "my room", my scrapbook, craft room. I already have a closet system in place but it's still not functional. I need more storage and a place for inspiration. I really want a large bulletin board to post some items I'm working on, to post some magazine cutouts for inspiration, to jazz up the space. And, boy do I have a GREAT idea. Not going to share just yet, you will have to wait. I'm so excited about it.

Weather has been great. Family has been fun and loving (love). Inspiration flowing. Great weekend. Hope yours has been just as enjoyable.

EDITED (11-25-07): Reviewing old posts and have found out that this previous Halloween Hangman has now changed to Christmas Hangman. LOL! No telling what the link will change to next.

Chad and his Nana made these for us this weekend while we were setting up for the garage sale. I knew they would be good but wondered how the marshmallows would taste in a roll. They were wonderful! Definately a keeper! It tasted just like normal cinnamon rolls, didn't taste marchmallow at all. I highly recommend these, and what a fun conversation piece as well. Here's the recipe (although not exactly the one they used it should produce the same outcome):

MARSHMALLOW CRESCENT ROLLS

2 pkg. crescent rolls
16 marshmallows1 tbsp.
(plus) cinnamon
1/4 c. sugar
1 cube melted butter

Separate crescent rolls (16). Take a marshmallow, roll it in melted butter then in cinnamon-sugar mixture, place it on the long end of the roll and roll up to the small point (the roll is around the marshmallow). Dip the roll in melted butter and place in a muffin tin.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Frost while warm with a frosting made from powdered sugar, water and nuts.

It's time to start thinking Christmas - Christmas cards that is. Now is a great time to take photos you want to use, make and/or order your cards. We have been big holiday card slackers for the past several years and this year I have committed to sending one out. Not only are we going to send one out but it's going to be a family photo holiday card which I'm not sure we've ever done. Now, I'm not sure DH and I will actually make it in there but the boys will for sure. We have put on our personal calendar time set aside this weekend to go around town and take these pictures. Can't wait!

How much time do you have?
For any blogger out there that has a lot of time on their hands, you might want to check out PC Magazines 100 Top Blogs. There has to be something for everyone out there! I stumbled upon it because a couple of the blogs I frequent (see side bar) were chosen. Fun reading!