POTD (a few days)

7.27.11

The hottest day of the year so far!

7.18.11

(Little Birdies seeking heat relief from my sprinkler)

7.12.11

(The last real "soaking" rain we have had)

7.10.11

P&L from Skies restaurant

7.10.11

Liberty Memorial

Kraft Homestyle Macaroni and Cheese

So if you know me..you know my love for macaroni and cheese. :) Well... Kraft has a new product out, that I found at my local grocery store for "Homestyle" Creamy Parmesan Alfredo.  And let me tell you, for it being from the folks that make the "blue box stuff" (which I still love!) This seemed more "adult" and "homemade" so I had to give it a try. 

With just a few more steps then the boxed variety it was ready in about 20 minutes.  Boil noodles, add seasoning and milk and return to a boil to thicken, add cheese sauce and stir through while heating to melt, add noodles and serve.

Real creamy Alfredo sauce mixed with chunky elbow macaroni noodles and a sprinkling of grated parmesan cheese on top! I loved it from the first bite. YUM!!  It also comes in Hearty Four Cheese and Classic Cheddar.  I will definitely be buying this bag again!

100 Things Your Kids May Never Know About

Audio-Visual Entertainment

1. Inserting a VHS tape into a VCR to watch a movie or to record something.
2. Super-8 movies and cine film of all kinds.
3. Playing music on an audio tape using a personal stereo.
4. The number of TV channels being a single digit. I remember it being a massive event when Britain got its fourth channel.
5. Standard-definition, CRT TV's filling up half your living room.
6. Rotary dial televisions with no remote control. You know, the ones where the kids were the remote control.
7. High-speed dubbing.
8. 8-track cartridges.
9. Vinyl records. Even today’s DJs are going laptop or CD.
10. Betamax Tapes.
11. Mini Disc
12. Laserdisc: the LP of DVD.
13. Scanning the radio dial and hearing static between stations.
14. Shortwave radio.
15. 3-D movies meaning red-and-green glasses.
16. Watching TV when the networks say you should. Tivo and Sky+ are slowing killing this one.
17. That there was a time before ‘reality TV.’

Computers and Videogaming

18. Wires. OK, so they’re not gone yet, but it won’t be long.
19. The scream of a modem connecting.
20. The buzz of a dot-matrix printer.
21. 5- and 3-inch floppies, Zip Discs and countless other forms of data storage.
22. Using jumpers to set IRQs.
23. DOS.
24. Terminals accessing the mainframe.
25. Screens being just green (or orange) on black.
26. Tweaking the volume setting on your tape deck to get a computer game to load, and waiting ages for it to actually do it.
27. Daisy chaining your SCSI devices and making sure they’ve all got a different ID.
28. Counting in kilobytes.
29. Wondering if you can afford to buy a RAM upgrade.
30. Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time.
31. Turning a PlayStation on its end to try and get a game to load.
32. Joysticks.
33. Having to delete something to make room on your hard drive.
34. Booting your computer off of a floppy disk.
35. Recording a song in a studio.

The Internet

36. NCSA Mosaic.
37. Finding out information from an encyclopedia.
38. Using a road atlas to get from A to B.
39. Doing bank business only when the bank is open.
40. Shopping only during the day, Monday to Saturday.
41. Phone books and Yellow Pages.
42. Newspapers and magazines made from dead trees.
43. Actually being able to get a domain name consisting of real words.
44. Filling out an order form by hand, putting it in an envelope and posting it.
45. Not knowing exactly what all of your friends are doing and thinking at every moment.
46. Carrying on a correspondence with real letters, especially the handwritten kind.
47. Archie searches.
48. Gopher searches.
49. Concatenating and UUDecoding binaries from Usenet.
50. Privacy.
51. The fact that words generally don’t have num8er5 in them.
52. Correct spelling of phrases, rather than TLAs.
53. Waiting several minutes (or even hours!) to download something.
54. The time before botnets/security vulnerabilities due to always-on and always-connected PCs.
55. The time before PC networks.
56. When Spam was just a meat product — or even a Monty Python sketch.

Gadgets

57. Typewriters.
58. Putting film in your camera: 35mm may have some life still, but what about APS or disk?
59. Sending that film away to be processed.
60. Having physical prints of photographs come back to you.
61. CB radios.
62. Getting lost. With GPS coming to more and more phones, your location is only a click away.
63. Rotary-dial telephones.
64. Answering machines.
65. Using a stick to point at information on a wallchart.
66. Pay phones.
67. Phones with actual bells in them.
68. Fax machines.
69. Vacuum cleaners with bags in them.

Everything Else

70. Taking turns picking a radio station, or selecting a tape, for everyone to listen to during a long drive.
71. Remembering someone’s phone number.
72. Not knowing who was calling you on the phone.
73. Actually going down to a Blockbuster store to rent a movie.
74. Toys actually being suitable for the under-3s.
75. LEGO just being square blocks of various sizes, with the odd wheel, window or door.
76. Waiting for the television-network premiere to watch a movie after its run at the theater.
77. Relying on the 5-minute sport segment on the nightly news for baseball highlights.
78. Neat handwriting.
79. The days before the nanny state.
80. Starbuck being a man.
81. Han shoots first.
82. “Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.” But they’ve already seen Episode III, so it’s no big surprise.
83. Kentucky Fried Chicken, as opposed to KFC.
84. Trig tables and log tables.
85. “Don’t know what a slide rule is for …”
86. Finding books in a card catalog at the library.
87. Swimming Pools with diving boards.
88. Hershey bars in silver wrappers.
89. Sliding the paper outer wrapper off a Kit Kat, placing it on the palm of your hand and clapping to make it bang loudly. Then sliding your finger down the silver foil to break off the first finger.
90. A Marathon bar (what a Snickers used to be called in Britain).
91. Having to manually unlock a car door.
92. Writing a check.
93. Looking out the window during a long drive.
94. Roller skates, as opposed to blades.
95. Cash.
96. Libraries as a place to get books rather than a place to use the internet.
97. Spending your entire allowance at the arcade in the mall.
98. Omni Magazine.
99. A physical dictionary — either for spelling or definitions.
100. When a ‘geek’ and a ‘nerd’ were one and the same.

Some of these things are so old that I don't even know what they are! (And I'm almost 30!) :)

Straight hair...Frizz free!

L'oreal EverSleek Frizz Taming Creme Serum

Best new hair product I have bought in a LONG time!!  With the awful summer heat and humidity upon us I decided it was time to try something new!  What the heck? What's the worst that will happen... I will be out the $7.00 and change that I spent?! (And still have extreme frizzy poodle hair?)

Overview:

Free of heavy silicones, this smoothing system* with argan, sunflower and olive oils, weightlessly smoothes hair for 48-hour frizz control. Leaves hair sleek and shiny, without feeling weighed down or coated.

• Silicone free
• Helps protect hair from humidity
• 100% vegan - formula not tested on animals, no animal byproducts

*EverSleek System includes a shampoo, a conditioner and a treatment. Each sold separately.
(May have to try every product in the line!!)

Made in USA

Directions:

After using EverSleek shampoo and conditioner, dispense 1-2 pumps into palms and work evenly through wet hair focusing on the ends. Do not rinse. Style as usual. Use on dry hair to tame flyaways.
© 2010 L’Oreal USA, Inc.

Ingredients Aqua (Water) , Glycerin , Corn Starch Modified , Propanediol , Inulin , Sodium Benzoate , Caprylyl Glycol , Xanthan Gum , Hydroxypropyl Guar , Parfum , Citric Acid , Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil (Sunflower Seed Oil) , Hexyl Cinnamal , Linalool , Benzyl Salicylate , Limonene , Benzyl Alcohol , Citronellol , Coumarin

*So after showering, I couldn't wait to try this stuff out.  I dispensed a pump onto my hands and applied directly to my towel dried hair (focusing at the ends) Blow dried as normal and what do you know...effortlessly straight hair! With a little help from the flat iron (to shape), I was out the door with light weight, bouncy hair that didn't feel weighed down or greasy!  (and survived the day in the upper 90's with 85% humidity or more! This product will definitely be a keeper! 

UV Cake Vodka

The official celebration spirit. For birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, Friday nights or any special occasion! Celebrating UV Vodka’s 10th anniversary with a celebratory flavor.

I have been searching high and low for this newest flavor of Vodka that hit the market June 10th, 2011 and was finally able to locate a bottle of this white cake flavored vodka.  As soon as you open the cap it smells like cake batter! Yum!! The recipe I was dying to try was the Cake Dreamsicle

Cake Dreamsicle

1 oz. UV Cake Vodka

2 oz. Sprite

2 oz. Orange Soda

Splash of Grenadine

Mix all ingredients in a glass filled with crushed ice & garnish with a chery.

It was delicious, and tasted just like a Dreamsicle! Other recipes I am going to try...

Cake Beer Float

2 oz. UV Cake Vodka

4 oz. Root Beer

Mix in a glass filled with ice & garnish with a cherry.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

1 part UV Cake

2 parts Pineapple Juice

Other recipes can be found here

Funfetti Cake Cookies

 

 Funfetti® Cookies

Prep time: 25 min

Cook Time: 8 min

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1	package Pillsbury® Funfetti® Cake (18.9oz)
1/3	cup Crisco® Pure Vegetable Oil
2	large eggs
1/2	can Pillsbury® Vanilla Funfetti® Frosting (15.6 oz)

Preparation Directions:

1.	HEAT oven to 375°F. Combine cake mix, oil and eggs in large bowl. Stir with spoon until thoroughly moistened. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2-inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten to 1/4-inch thickness with bottom of glass dipped in flour.
2.	BAKE 6 to 8 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets.
3.	SPREAD frosting over warm cookies. Immediately sprinkle each with candy bits from frosting. Let frosting set before storing. Store in tightly covered container. * I can't believe I JUST learned that you can do this!! After a food day at work months ago, I decided I needed to make a batch for myself.  Super easy and half gone already! (It really only made just over 2 dozen..not 3 dozen!) YUM!! :)

A Love for Scentsy

I have a new found love for a product called Scentsy  A simple warmer that melts YUMMY smelling wax.  With no flame, smoke, or soot, the Scentsy wickless candle system is a safe way to enjoy Scentsy fragrances. So how does it work...

Step 1: Plug it in. Turn it on.

Step 2: Place one or more sections of a Scentsy Bar into the warmer dish

Step 3: Enjoy!

It's that simple! My love started when I got a new lead at work that sells the product.  She brought her samples in..and I was instantly hooked!

My first order came packaged so pretty!

I ordered a full size system that consists of 1 Large Warmer and 3 Bars of your choice!  I also purchased a 2nd Warmer and an additional 6 Bars!  (Flavors include Coconut Lemongrass, Paradise Punch, Welcome Home, Groovy Grapefruit, Honey Pear Cider, Radiance, Simply Irresistable, Clean Breeze, and Thunderstorm)

I ordered "Fizz" a modern design with circles on a basic bone white warmer that glows from within

I also purchased a second warmer which was "Satin Black"

Scentsy comes in over 80 flavors with warmers coming in 3 sizes Full size, Mid size and Plug in.

Scent categories are sure to please anyone ranging from Favorites, Spring/Summer, Romance, Scentsy Man, Spa, Corner Cafe and Tropical.

Not only do they carry bricks, and bars of your favorite scent, you can also purchase Room Sprays, Scent Circles, Travel Tins and fragrance foam.

They also offer special warmers and scents of the month! (Sold at a discount!)

July's warmer of the month "Cupcake"

 (Seriously...So cute!!)

July's fragrance "Happy Birthday"

(Smells like Birthday cake!)

I love this product so much I just placed a second order of 6 more scents!

(Cranberry Mango, Mediterranean Spa, Route 66, Mums and Marigolds, Perfectly Pomegranite and Autumn Sunset)

Take a look (and a smell from your local consultant) you won't be sorry!

 

Scentsy Product catalog

Hi, my name is Wendy and I am officially a Scentsy addict!

Currently...

Currently...



Loving.... 4 day weekends, Summer weather, the pool, casual dress at work, dayshift, being able to see my husband more frequently, the visit from my parents last week, finally feeling "home", my new plants, dinners together, being reunited with my elliptical after 3 years, lazy mornings in bed on my days off.

Excited for... My brother to be a homeowner this month, my husbands new assignment (working days, holidays off and  no weekends), our new couch that is being delivered at the end of the month, Tru Green lawncare..(can't believe I said that one!)  Finally...a green lawn and weed free!)  

Worried... What the future may bring...are we ready for kids?

Creating.... Getting a serious urge to scrapbook!  I may have to try and crank out a few pages on these opressive hot days! Continually decorating, trying to create a home (mantle and dining room are a work in progress)

Hating... Stresses of work when everyone "can't play nicely", people who "assume",  high school drama from women who are 30-60 years of age!,  headaches with the weather changes, sweating and showering twice a day, watering the lawn and dragging the hose around (I hope to get an inground sprinkler system...eventually!)

Wondering... about the future lately!

Craving...  Summer food! (Hot dogs, burgers, corn on the cob, potato salad, pasta salad, desserts)
UV Cake Vodka! A coworker told me about this vodka, and apparently it is very hard to find right now..especially after the long holiday weekend. :(

Hoping... Everything continues to run fairly smoothly

Watching.... From Netflix in the past month: No Strings Attached, It's Kind of a Funny Story, Black Swan, True Grit, The Dilemma, Little Fockers, The Green Hornet, Gnomeo and Juliet

DVR: The Real Housewives of Orange County and New Jersey, Keeping up with the Kardashians, HGTV'd, The Little Couple, Hot in Cleveland, 16 and Pregnant, Jerseylicious, Celebrity Rehab, Weeds, Nurse Jackie

Listening... Fireworks last night, birds chirping today. Hopefully splashing at the pool later on!

Looking forward to...  Spending more quality time with the hubby :) Painting the last 2 bathrooms, continuing to decorate our home, having more visitors