I might try this....

FAVORITE FRIDAYS

I'm starting something new on my blog. Some blogs do Fashion Fridays, well I'm not really a fashion diva so I'm doing Favorite Fridays. Tune in each Friday to see what I've listed that is something that I hold dear to me as a favorite.

In saying that, here is my first thing that I'm listing. And anyone knows me, this is not a surprise. I can honestly say I will never be without a DVR. We actually have 2 of them. My husband and I both have different shows that we don't like to miss. He is a history/sci-fi/discovery buff and I like reality/drama/learning channel shows. So it works out great that we have 2. We might head to 3 eventually.

Last week we went with my parents to Newport Bay restaurant. The waiter made some suggestions from the menu and one of the suggestions was this: Whole Crispy Fried Red Rockfish. Comes with warm tortillas, salsa and avocado. He also said how popular it was and that the kitchen only had 5 left so if any of us were interested he'd put that order in right away. Well my Mom went ahead and ordered it. I think she got caught up in the limited quantity of it and figured it must be good. When our food came, this is what he brought my Mom....






.....it's a WHOLE fish (like it said but we didn't think it meant literally) thats been DEEP FRIED. Head, bones, fins and all. It was disgusting looking. When my Mom ordered it most of us were not paying attention because we were perusing our menu.

I think if I was a waiter and I was suggesting something like that I would really make sure the customer knew that it was an ACTUAL WHOLE fish. Needless to say my Mom picked away at the crusted thing and ate what she could. But she did leave there hungry.

I found this terrific new site called Sam Moon and it has some cool stuff on it. Most importantly are the purses I found. I love a purse with color and with spring/summer coming I could just picture any one of these 3 on my arm at a casual gathering with a pair of jeans.

Find me on Polyvore

Scrabble Tile Pendant

So here is my recent purchase from Etsy. I've been seeing these scrabble tile pendants for awhile and thought they were so cute. I've looked at a few shops that sold them and recently purchased one from this store called HOMESTUDIO. The store had so many cute styles I had a hard time deciding on just one~for now. I went ahead and went with a patterned one that I thought would go with quite a few different things.

Check em out and they are so reasonably priced too...








ANNIVERSARY GREEN SALE

March is the month for wearin’ green and it’s also our 1-year Etsy anniversary!

-► Sale period: March 1st – March 17th
-► All GREEN Pendants have been marked down 15%
-► All GIFT SETS have also been marked down!
-► Sorry NOT included in this Sale: Magnets, Mirrors, Chains, or Custom items

So the other night I made my first purchase on ETSY. I've been on the site in the past but there was so much stuff it was very overwhelming. Plus I didn't know really what I was looking for.
But lately I've discovered some pretty neat finds, just by surfing the blogging community. I can't get over all the talented crafty people there are out there and it's nice that I can do the shopping from the comforts of my home.

Love is a Movement: The Cora Project is basically what got me back into ETSY and it's just kind of snowballed from there.

WOO-HOOO!!

Anyone that has a Wii Fit I'm sure you can relate to my enthusiasm. I have been close to center balance for awhile now but the other day I finally got it!
I do my body test pretty regularly. I'm by no means where I want to be with my weight but I've loss some and I've been able to maintain and by doing my body test often it keeps me in check of where I am. Or where I'm not.
So here is the result from a few days ago. I just had to take a picture!

I had to share. My pantry has been extremely disorganized for awhile now. The pictures really don't do it justice. So today I decided to do something about it. We had also just got home from getting groceries and I just couldn't bear to add to the chaos lurking in there. So before putting groceries away I cleaned it up a little and tried to get back some order that used to be. I know in these pictures it doesn't look like much, but believe me....it is better.

BEFORE...

AFTER...

Went and tried out FIVE GUYS BURGERS AND FRIES over the weekend. I had heard about the place and I love trying places that are fads. My husband does not. But we went on Sunday to try it out and man were they busy! There was a line that wrapped around the inside. The good thing was that the line moved pretty fast and you could eat peanuts while you waited. And the best part was you can drop your shells on the floor. My favorite type of places allow ya to be the real mess you are.
I love that the menu was simple. Just choices of what you want on your burger. But I liked that because they are not trying to be everything to everyone but sticks to just hamburgers, hotdogs and fries. The fries were tasty and they serve malt vinegar. And everything is fresh, not frozen. I thought the burger was pretty satisfying and the meat was pretty thick. I felt like I was eating real meat from a farm. Have to warn that the burgers are very messy but I enjoy those types.

TREASURE HUNTING

I am a huge treasure seeker. My brother once shared a story of us out camping when we were kids. I had went skipping off and he asked me where I was going and I replied over and over, "I'm going to see what I can see". I have always been that kid. That kid that will fill her pockets with rocks, sticks, ie: treasures! One summer my parents drove us to Yellowstone. We were standing there at Old Faithful when I spotted something very cool. I picked it up and thought wow! What a perfect round rock! I keep it in my hand. We get back into the truck and when we were pulling out of there I noticed my rock was getting soft and losing its round shape. We ended up figuring out it was some persons chewed gum! I guess they had rolled it up into a ball before spitting it out!

Even as an adult I'm always looking for stuff. We'll be skiiing and I will see something up ahead on the ground in the snow and I will slow down for a wide eyed gander. Most the time it's a wrapper of some sort. Plain ole garbage. Every now and then it pays off and it's sunglasses, a hat, etc. A couple years ago at the lake we were driving along the shoreline because the level had just dropped. I ended up spying an anchor! One time out there my nephew was walking along the shore and found a mans wallet that had washed up. The only thing that had survived the submersion was the wallet and a $20 bill. I'm like, "see!"

A few years ago I learned of a pretty cool hobby that surprisingly a lot of people are into. It's called GEOCACHING. Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called Geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment. There are over 700 thousand active Geocaches around the world. I was mostly surprised at how many are right around you at any given moment and you'd never know it.
I went out a couple times with a girl from work. It's a little frustrating until you get the hang of it. My husband and I tried it at the beach one time when we took his kids camping. But we ended up not being able to locate the item. Since then I've not done any searching. My husband is not into it, at all. I'm hoping someday that Mackenzie might follow in her Moms footsteps of wanting to seek out treasures and it's something her and I could do together. It's not about finding something that will make you rich. It's about the adventure and intrigue and using your senses to find something that someone else hid. Some of them have small trinkets for the taking and a log book to write your name in.

So this brings me to my next topic. Today I was at a school yard with my daughter and there were a couple retired guys out there with their metal detectors. We've all seen people doing this. Do they really find things? That are worth their while? Is that going to be me someday? I kind of have a feeling it will be. When I got back to the car I noticed an an older lady sitting in the passenger seat of a car working on a crossword puzzle. Sitting there on a Saturday, Valentines Day of all days, supporting her husbands hobby. I wonder if they ever find anything cool?

Freeman has publicly criticized the celebration of Black History Month and does not participate in any related events, saying, "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history." He says the only way to end racism is to stop talking about it, and he notes that there is no "white history month".

I have always liked him and I agree. I thought the point was to end it. I'm for ending it.

Eerie and sad article...

Sept. 11 widow killed in Buffalo plane crash

WASHINGTON – One of the victims of the Buffalo commuter plane crash, Beverly Eckert, was a Sept. 11 widow who put her never-ending grief to good use to make the country safer.

President Barack Obama, speaking in the White House's East Room, said Eckert "was an inspiration to me and to so many others, and I pray that her family finds peace and comfort in the hard days ahead."

A week before her death, Eckert met with Obama at the White House as part of a group of 9/11 families and relatives of those killed in the bombing of the USS Cole, discussing how the new administration would handle terror suspects.

Eckert was flying to Buffalo Thursday night to celebrate what would have been her husband Sean Rooney's 58th birthday.

When he died in the World Trade Center, she became one of the most visible, tearful faces in the aftermath of the terror attacks.

Carol Ashley, whose daughter died at the World Trade Center, said the grim details of Eckert's death are particularly painful to Eckert's friends among 9/11 families.

"The fact that it was a plane crash, it was fire, it was reminiscent of 9/11 that way, that's just very difficult," said Ashley, a retired schoolteacher from Long Island.

She carried that grief to Congress as she tried to make the government do a better job protecting its citizens from terrorism.

Her husband worked at Aon Corp., a risk management firm, at the 98th floor of the south tower.

Eckert would cry when she told the story about how her husband — who was her high school sweetheart — called her on the morning of the attacks, and told her he loved her just before there was a loud explosion and nothing more.

She became part of a small group of Sept. 11 widows, mothers, and children who became amateur lobbyists, ultimately forcing lawmakers in 2004 to pass sweeping reforms of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

They spent months walking the halls of Congress. All of the women were grieving, but Eckert seemed unable or uninterested in holding back her tears.

When it was over and they'd won passage of the intelligence reform law, Eckert vowed to quit her high-profile role "cold turkey." All she wanted, she said, was to go home, buy groceries, and return to something like a regular life.

"I did all of this for Sean's memory, I did it for him," she said, crying again. "There is a euphoria in knowing that we reached the top of the hill. ... I just wanted Sean to come home from work. Maybe now, someone else's Sean will get to come home."

Eckert was flying to her hometown Thursday night when the plane crashed on approach to the Buffalo airport.

How we spent OUR Superbowl Sunday...

It's been about 3 years since I've been up skiing. Sure has gotten expensive but it's not too bad when you have your own equipment, even as outdated as mine is. I told my husband I feel like I'm up there with my antiques strapped to my feet. I got my gear in the early 90's and I think I might try to upgrade here pretty soon. We would like to get Mackenzie up there in a couple years and it would be something we can enjoy as a family.
So with Mackenzie at her grandparents we thought we'd head up to the mountain and hope that everyone else was home watching the game. We did good. It was a nice day and not very crowded. We only went for about 4 hours, we figured that was about as much as our bodies could take. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday together.

It's beautiful skiiing with a mountain for a view...



The 'stache' is not staying. Him and a group of guys from work decided to do it and he's hated it the whole time. He said his stache compliments my ski's!

Hard to believe I have a 23 year old nephew already...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY! LOVE YA!

This is always good advice.....

In honor of women's history month and in memory of Erma Bombeck who lost her fight with cancer.

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck
(written after she found out she was dying from cancer)

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, 'Later. Now go get washed up for dinner.' There would have been more 'I love you's' More 'I'm sorry's.'

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute.look at it and really see it . . live it and never give it back. STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!!

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what
Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.