Giveaway....

I'm going to "blog-lift" this right off my friend Libby's blog - thanks for the idea Lib!

I'm going to do a giveaway and all you have to do to qualify is to leave me a question in the comment section. I'll answer all the questions and then pick a random winner out of those that were submitted.

Best of luck to ya.

Oh, you have until the 8pm on Thursday to participate.

Random Photo.....

Sometimes you just have to take the easy out. I saw this on another blog. You are supposed to look at your clock and note the time then go into you photo folders, find the picture that correlates to that time and tell the story of the photo.
So, for me it was 6:33. I found the 6th photo album and the 33rd photo. If you don't have that many photos in your particular file folder, then you can use one of the minute numbers to select your folder - meaning I could have used my 3rd folder instead.
This picture was from October of 2008. Brett and I were in his sandbox. There were so many Asian Lady Beetles around us that Brett began squishing them with his little finger.

Frugal Friday....

For the rest of the Fridays this month, I intend to dedicate a post to ways in which I attempt to save money. I'm not sure this post will help you, but I was pretty excited when I did the math.

I had a coupon for $3 off 3 boxes of General Mills cereals. Last week Target had their GM cereals on sale for $2.50 each. $2.50 x 3 =$7.50 then I applied my coupon and my total was $4.50. I hadn't realized this at the time, but I had movie codes on two of the boxes of cereal which was enough to get one free movie pass valued at $12.00.
Using my girl math (more about that some other time), I'm up $7.50 at this point ($12 - $4.50). I'm actually getting paid to go to the movie theater!
Low and behold, I was flipping through one of those annoying coupon fliers that comes in our mail that never has deals for things other than oil changes and free cream cheese wontons for all the Chinese restaurants, but I came across a coupon for a FREE large popcorn at the theater valued at $7.00.
Again, doing my girl math, now I'm up $14.50 ($7.50 + $7)! After I pay the $5 per kid to get them into the movie, I'm up a whopping $4.50.
Guess where we're going tomorrow?

Thought For Thursday......

I spent all day at a patient safety conference. For somebody that doesn't work directly with patients, it was very interesting and gave me quite an insight. This post has nothing to do with what I learned, but more about what I observed.
I'm guessing there were about 300+ people at this conference. There were speakers that are known across the country for their expertise. In my mind, people are quite privileged to be at this event and hear what these amazing people have to say. Apparently, not all people think the same as me.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not against a one or two word comment to your table mates when you hear something that the speaker said that really resonates with you. Now, that I've got that out of the way...
Multiple times I witnessed and heard people having full conversations while a speaker was presenting. And these people were not even at the same table as me. I'm not sure if they thought that they were whispering or what, but for the love of God, either zip your lips or excuse yourself and have your little conversation out in the hallway. I find it completely rude and disrupting to the presenter and to all of us that are trying to pay attention.
Now, my question for all of you is, not whether you are a conversation participant, but has anybody ever had to tell you to pipe down or have you had to tell anybody to quiet down?
I wanted to say something to these people throughout the day, but I never did. I did however give them the stink-eye a few times. I did hear people "shush" the talkers a couple of different times which brought me a little joy. A look that I've really perfected being the mother of two boys.

Wordless Wednesday....

Born Again - Cory Chisel & the Wandering Sons

Enjoy the music video of my talented cousin, Cory Chisel.

8 Things.....

I'm in trouble. It's only day 2 out of 30 and I can't seem to come up with a good blog topic. So, I'll just share 8 things about me that you might not have known.

1. When I go up stairs, I find it close to impossible to not count them as I go up them. However, I don't feel the need to count when I go down them.
2. I can sing the French alphabet.
3. I have a bad habit of looking for split ends when I'm sitting at a red light.
4. A girl that lived with me (and 7 others) in college is now a professional wrestler (I realize that technically this one isn't about me, but it's a fun fact none the less).
5. I really don't enjoy having to talk to anybody for the first 30 minutes that I'm awake. Just ask my husband. Or my mom. Or my kids. I'm working on this though.
6. I can't curl my tongue - you know, make it look like a hot dog bun.
7. I played the trombone in my high school band. I was awful.
8. When I meet people for the first time, many times I don't even listen to their name when they introduce themselves because I know I won't remember it.

Menu Monday.....

To help me get through the next 30 days of posting every.single.day. I'm going to have to use some themes to help keep my limited creative skills flowing.
So, I'm thinking that Monday's will be MENU MONDAYS where I'll share a recipe and possibly a few pictures if I remember to take them before I manage to eat all the food.

Without further ado, here's the first recipe.

PUMPKIN PANCAKES

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

4 TBSP melted butter

5 TBSP canned pumpkin

1/4 sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp allspice

a few drops of orange gel food coloring

Combine eggs, buttermilk, butter, pumpkin, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to blend ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and blend with mixer until smooth. Add just a few drops of gel food coloring until you get a nice orange color - it doesn't take much. Pour or scoop the batter onto a hot skillet 1-2 minutes each side.

BLACK CINNAMON SYRUP

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 TBSP flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup water

black food coloring gel

In saucepan, combine all ingredients except for the food coloring gel. Bring to a boil, stirring continuously. As it starts to heat, add in a little of the black food coloring. Allow it to boil for a few moments until the mixture has thickened. Remove from heat, allow to cool and put into a squeeze bottle.

I made these for the boys on Halloween morning. The loved them! They reminded me of a pumpkin muffin. Very tasty. I doubled the recipe and froze them 2 per ziploc bag for a quick breakfast whenever they want them. This recipe was courtesy of http://www.tidymom.net/

I decorated the first pancakes for the kids and then they wanted a chance to be the artist.

Enjoy!