A Blogging Break

As evidenced by my complete lack of posting lately, I’m taking a short blogging break.  See you next year, and merry Christmas!

National Geographic’s Photo Contest

I used to subscribe to National Geographic when I was in college, purely for the pictures.  The photography is astounding.  Take, for example, yesterday’s photo of the day.

And that’s just yesterday’s.  There’ll be a new one today, and tomorrow, and the day after…

Aside from the photo of the day, there’s also a photography contest in the works right now.  Everyone is able to vote.  Though I don’t know that the most votes from the masses translates into winning the contest, I do know that it’s loads of fun (and a way to waste quite a bit of time, too).  In my opinion, the photos aren’t worth looking at without reading the captions, so make sure you take a moment to scroll down!

Yahtzee!

Note the very last score…. 458.  Possibly the best round of Yahtzee I’ve ever seen.  It’s my husband’s doing, but to him, it’s old hat.  Legend has it that when he was six, he rolled seven Yahtzees in one game.

Strange that he was playing alone, though, isn’t it?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Image from Manhattan Virtual Office

Wordle

Wordle is one of those activities that even though I know that I have more important things to do with my time, I just can’t rip myself away.  It gives an overview of frequently used words in any given text, or in this case, blog.  It took the most recent posts and mashed them into this beauty:

Love it!  A bit embarrassing that quite a few of the largest words show my unhealthy habits (butter, sugar, oil…), but fun nonetheless.  “I think it’d be neat to do a wordle of my blog every month or so and see how things change over time!

And just for fun, here’s a wordle of my kindergarten class blog:

As you can see, we had Stuffed Animal Day on Tuesday, our author of the month is Tomie dePaola (author of Strega Nona), and we just finished our patterns unit in math.

If you’d like to make your own wordle, it’s a piece of cake.  Just type in your text, web address, or del.icio.us name on the create a wordle page and one will be made for you.  You can then customize to your heart’s content.

Saving a wordle as a document is trickier.  I had to use some super-secret codes to these onto my blog.  Okay… well… not super secret, but the directions weren’t exactly out in the open, either.  Takeascreeshot.org has an easy to follow tutorial.  On my mac, I hit apple-shift-4 and then drew a rectangle around the image I wanted to capture.  It was automatically saved on my desktop as “Picture 1.”

I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do with all of the information (aside from using it the blog, of course).  Couldn’t you picture some sort of framed picture with family names, words about family, etc.?  Hm… maybe that’s a Christmas gift in the making!

 

 

What Are You Into This Month?

Following the lead of Sorta Crunchy, I’m documenting bits and pieces of interest.  If nothing else, it’ll be a fun way to keep track of where I’m at in the moment, and if I keep up with this, it’ll be a fun to chronicle the months as they fly by!  Feel free to snag this idea as well, or post comments on what you’re into this month.

What I Am Into This Month – November 2010

In My Book Basket: Let me just say I’m not pregnant, despite what my book basket contents might tell you.  Right now, it contains:

• Babyproofing Your Marriage by Stacie Cockrell
• Blindsided by a Diaper by Dana Bedford Hilmer
• Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck
• What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharron Mazel
• The Sixty Minute Marriage Builder by Rob Parsons
• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam
• Project Everlasting by Matthew Boggs and Jason Miller
• Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus: Book of Days by John Gray

T.V. Show Worth Watching: Again (or should I say still), I’m all about Bones DVD set.  I’m already up to season three.  I don’t even want to think what will happen when I run out of episodes to watch.  Does that mean I’ll be glued to the television on Wednesday nights?

Movie I’ve Seen: Nothing notable.  We’ve been using Netflix like crazy, but anytime I get to choose something to watch, I pick (you guessed it) Bones.  

In My Kitchen:

Wisconsin Beer Cheddar Soup, Strawberry Spinach Salad, and Crispy Pepper and Parmesan Pork Cutlets have all been hits at our table this month.  As for desserts – chocolate cutout cookies and iced pumpkin cookies have been the only things made!  We somehow had accumulated too many candy bars, pieces of Halloween candy, and other goodies – it would have been excessive to have baked goods on top of that!

Google Reader Trends (past 30 days): 

• 99 subscriptions
• 1812 posts read
• Current unread items: 104
• Most clicked on: My Life in Transition, Simple Mom, Organizing Your Way
• Most starred: Just Another Cooking Chemist
• Most recently starred: How to Make a Flaky Pie Crust by Baking Bites

Favorite Non-Blog Websites: I absolutely love Cook’s Country (unfortunately, a paid subscription is needed).  I also have a newfound fascination with Wordle.

What I’m Looking Forward in December: Advent!  Advent!  Advent!  It’s my absolute favorite season.  I’m excited to start opening our Advent Calendar so we can do plenty of Advent activities.  Gingerbread play dough will be fun to make for school, as will Christmas candy with my mom and all types of holiday goodies at home.  Our city’s holiday parade is coming up, so I’m getting ready to enjoy a cup of hot cocoa while staying nice and cozy by watching it from the comfort of our couch.  If I’m feeling adventurous, I may even trek downtown to watch it in person!

Advent Envelopes

Yesterday I posted all of the activities I put inside our Advent envelopes, which means all that’s left to say is how I made our calendar!

I found a template online and used Microsoft Word to size it to a height of four inches.

My first thought was to trace the template 27 times, but laziness won out and that plan was quickly abandoned.  I instead cut out 4″ squares and used the template as a guide to cut notches into the sides of the paper.

Though it would have been better looking, I didn’t round the corners.  (Again, lazy.)  A few folds later…

An envelope!  I placed an activity (handwritten on a small card) in each envelope and strung them all up on the banister. Voila!

The Official Advent Activity List

Our Advent calendar is complete.  It took me a couple of hours, but I think the effort was worth it.  I now have Advent Activities from November 28th (the First Sunday of Advent) to Christmas Day.  It’ll be hard to wait to open them all!

I’ll post about how I made the “calendar” (a series of little envelopes) tomorrow.  For now, enjoy our official list of activities!

November

28.  Decorate the house for Christmas
29.  Organize and choose Christmas recipe
30.  Buy misteltoe

December

1. Burn off the “Thanksgiving Five” – go work out and create an exercise schedule
2. Hang up Christmas lights
3. Hang up stockings
4. Plan a Christmas party
5. Write Christmas cards
6. Drink hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows
7. Buy a Christmas wreath
8. Make paper snowflakes
9. Pick out a Christmas tree
10. Make homemade caramel corn and watch a cheesy Christmas movie
11. Go to Mass
12. Bake Christmas cookies
13. Drive around the city to see Christmas lights
14. Watch “It’s a Wonderful Life”
15. Make painted glass ornaments
16. Go to the winters farmers market
17. Make Christmas candy
18. Have a game night
19. Buy a Christmas CD
20. Take a winter walk
21. Have a formal dinner
22. Have a game night
23. Donate to Goodwill
24. Open one Christmas present early
25. Merry Christmas!  Kiss under the mistletoe.

This Year’s Advent Activites

Last Year's Advent Calendar

My favorite time of the year is Advent.  The waiting, the anticipation, the excitement, the music, the warmth… it makes me wish it were even longer!  Four weeks will have to suffice, though.  To make the most of it, I fill our Advent calendar with Christmas activities so we have something new to do each day.  This year Advent starts on November 28th.  To prepare, I compiled a list of activities from last year’s ideas and various ideas from around the internet* to make one (long-ish) list of ideas from which to choose.  I’m not sure how I’ll narrow it down.  Perhaps Advent may start a little early at our house this year!

• Burn off the Thanksgiving Five – write out a workout routine, AND FOLLOW IT!
• Take a winter walk
• Drink hot chocolate with homemade marshmallows
• Donate to a charity
• Volunteer
• Bake Christmas cookies
• Donate to Goodwill
• Go to Mass
• Make homemade caramel corn and watch Miracle on 34th Street
• Watch It’s A Wonderful Life
• Have a “formal dinner”
• Hang mistletoe
• Pick out a Christmas Tree
• Make Christmas cards and tags
• Donate canned food to a food drive
• Make gingerbread men
• Create a Christmas craft
• Make painted glass Christmas ornaments
• Make Christmas candy
• See the The Nutcracker
• Go see Nutcracker in the Castle
• Drive around the city to see Christmas lights
• Watch a Christmas concert
• Open a Christmas gift early (on Christmas Eve)
• Listen to Christmas music
• Buy a Christmas CD
• Hang stockings
• Put out Christmas decorations
• Write Christmas cards
• Go shopping for Christmas gifts
• Go to the winter farmer’s market
• Read Christmas stories to each other
• Hang up Christmas lights
• Do a winter sport (sledding, ice skating, cross country skiing, or snowshoeing)
• Get a Christmas wreath
• Have a holiday party
• Visit relatives
• Get a gift for someone on the Angel Tree
• Make paper snowflakes
• Have a game night
• Make a winter bird feeder

*Thanks to the following blogs for ideas:  A Peek Inside the Fishbowl, We Are THAT Family, and The Beckley Blog.

Images that Make Me Happy, first edition

Favorite Links : Advent Edition

Happy Advent!  I have only two links for you today, but they’re timely and fantastic (I promise!).

Advent from We Are That Family
She gives a fantastic list of Advent activities to do – one per day to put in an advent calendar.  I used many of her ideas last year – loved them!  My Advent calendar has only 25 boxes, and as the length of Advent varies from year to year, I’m not always officially “Adventing” on the correct days – however – at least I’m in the spirit!

 

Our 2009 Advent Calendar

How Do You Advent? from How Does She…
This is a little bit of a cheat here, but it’s a link full of links.  There are about a dozen tutorials of how to make your own Advent calendar, in case you don’t have one yet.

 

The Best Birthday Cake Recipe in the Universe

Dinner: A Love Story is one of my favorite blogs.  Why, may you ask?  Behold the glory:

Dunkin Donut Cake
from Dinner: A Love Story

Cover a concave platter with tissue paper. Stack three Dunkin donuts in the middle and shove your candles in the top one. (The top one should be festive with sprinkles.) Dump 75 assorted munchkins around the stack.

Just feelin’ yucky

Right now I’m sitting on my couch doing something that it seems I haven’t done in ages.  I’m sitting around, doing nothing, computer on my lap, television on in the background, and not feeling guilty.

Between work and helping Paul with his editing job and picking up the slack around the house (due to the long hours Paul’s putting into the new job), I just feel beat.  I woke up today with a monstrous sore and and an achy body.  Nothing that would require me stay home from work, but just feeling a run down.   Given a choice, I would never choose to feel this way, but in a way I do enjoy it a bit.  It allows me to slug out without feeling a twinge of guilt.

I think my next step is putting on my jammies and making a cup of tea.  Sounds good to me!

Happy Halloween!

Babies in costumes just melt my heart.  My two favorites?

A Hamburger and Hot Dog from Young House Love (and to give a complete picture - the dog's name is Burger)

The Cutest Gnome on the Block (It's Baby Truman over at My Life in Transition - you MUST go and check out the rest of the photos - his shoes, oh, his SHOES!)

Because we didn’t have 28 candles…

One will have to do.  Happy birthday, Paul!  We had a fantastic celebration for Paul’s 28th this week, which included breakfast in bed, a trip to HuHot (with three times through the buffet line), and two games of bowling (neither of which I let the birthday boy win).

a few things i’ve intended to blog about, probably won’t get to, but wanted to show you anyway

chicken enchiladas…

refried beans (this is obviously the “before” photo)…

chicken pot pie…

and the best cat in the world.

What Are You Into This Month?

Following the lead of Sorta Crunchy, I’m documenting bits and pieces of interest.  If nothing else, it’ll be a fun way to keep track of where I’m at in the moment, and if I keep up with this, it’ll be a fun to chronicle the months as they fly by!  Feel free to snag this idea as well, or post comments on what you’re into this month.

What I Am Into This Month – October 2010

In My Book Basket: Right now in my book basket?  It’s relatively empty at the moment – The Quick Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, Julia Child’s The Way to Cook, The Ultimate Cooking Course, Real Simple’s Meals Make Easy, and Private Life by Jane Smiley on Playaway.  I just finished up Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum, and John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck are on the nightstand right now.

T.V. Show Worth Watching: Netflix has just about taken over my life at this point.  Bones is on in the background nonstop – it’s on “instant watch” so I can just keep going through season one.  At the moment I’m watching PBS’s “The Meaning of Food.”  As for “regular television?”  I’d have to say Modern Family and In the Middle are about the two shows that I enjoy catching, though I don’t make a point to watch them.

Movie I’ve Seen: The Proposal, Julie and Julia, and It’s Complicated have been my Netflix picks over the past few weeks.  I am really looking forward to Life as We Know It – perhaps even enough to beg Paul to see it in the movie theater.

In My Kitchen: As my Happiness Project theme is cooking, I’ve been spending plenty of time planning and cooking!  Over the past few weeks, I’ve done chicken pot pie, spinach and ricotta stuffed shells, chicken enchiladas, taco casserole, empanadas, tomato pie, bangers and mash, cheddar cheese crackers, artichoke dip, refried beans, and zucchini bread.  I’ve made quite a bit of progress going through the family cookbook I was given for my wedding shower (a year and a half ago now!) and my 100 Things to Cook project.

Google Reader Trends (past 30 days): 

• 97 subscriptions
• 1047 posts read
• Current unread items: 439
• Most clicked on: Wild Olive
• Most starred: Cheap Healthy Good
• Most recently starred: How to Choose Freezer Friendly Recipes from Home Ec 101

What I’m Looking Forward in October: Our one-year marriage anniversary; making pumpkin pie scented play dough for school;  3 days of inservice at the end of the month (and while this doesn’t sound fantastic, our principal may just choose some or all of those days to let us work in our classrooms or even stay home, fingers crossed); passing out Halloween candy to tiny tots in the neighborhood.

Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and Bakey

Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey!  Yesterday was International Bacon Day.  Hope you enjoyed your day o’ fun.  We celebrated with BLT’s for dinner.  Okay, if we’re being honest here, we happened to have BLT’s for dinner, and then this morning I found out that yesterday was International Bacon Day.  A happy coincidence, though!