I'm sitting in Atlanta Bread Co. in Aiken, SC catching up with Facebook, email, and my blogs that I follow through Google Reader. I will be here for a few weeks, WITHOUT any stamps, etc.! I will probably be here until the stamp convention in Columbia in February is over, and then I intend to go home and stamp my little heart out! I have been sitting here for hours on the internet, and I hope my feet don't lose circulation. Not to mention that I am dying to go...Oh well, we won't go into that.
Andy's transmission blew up on the way back here a couple of weeks ago, and it looks like we are going to get a lawyer and sue the dealership who worked on it because they are responsible for this. He had to get a motel, have the truck towed from Columbia to Aiken, rent a car, and have a rebuilt transmission put in. Oh, and he lost a day's work. They owe us big time!!! And this is the second Dodge truck that this problem has happened to. Fortunately the transmission didn't blow up in the other one.
Wish I could put a sample on. I will try to transfer some pictures from my camera later this week and post them. One bright spot: we hooked up the converter box last night and we can get 4 channels! Yay! Well, it beats nothing now, doesn't it? And one of them is a retro channel; last night we watched Knight Rider and The A-Team (old favorites), and Airwolf came on this morning! Wow! Haven't seen THAT in a long time!
Isn't the warm air wonderful? Hope to post again this week.
Blessings,
Janis
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
ONGOING FOOD ADVENTURE:
Now that things have settled down, I am back to eating better and exercising consistently, and the results are good! I have lost a pound this week, and I intend to lose another one before another week has gone by. After months of trying to find time and energy to make soup, I made a pot of Rachael Ray's Chickpea and Fire Roasted Tomato soup. It looks disgusting, but it is pretty good. It is seasoned with garlic, coriander, cumin, and turmeric, so it's really good for you. I have been eating it with salad, and that's another story. I have always thought it would be disgusting to eat a salad with just oil and vinegar on it; I'm a Ranch dressing kind of girl, the more the better. In fact, I like salad with my ranch dressing. But I have some heart healthy dressing from the Olympia Restaurant that is olive oil based, and I put a little of that and two teaspoons of safflower oil on my salad Tuesday, and I realized about halfway through that I really couldn't taste anything but the vegetables, and it was good! I used safflower oil because the latest finding is that 2 teaspoons a day will melt belly fat. They said that without changes in diet or exercise it would melt the most stubborn belly fat: the fat in postmenopausal diabetic women. Yay! That's me! Lord, please let this work!
STAMPING:
My stamp club had it's Christmas get-together today. Better late than never! The gifts were great, and the fellowship was wonderful. We exchanged gifts, went to Charlie Magrooder's for lunch, came back and talked some more and did show and tell. Did we put a stamp to paper? Of course not! Next week hopefully we can get together and actually do something. We have a tendency to do a lot of talking and very little of anything else when we get together, but we do have fun! And we have produced some really nice projects, such as the antique optical lens necklaces we made some time ago. Oh, that reminds me, I took a picture of the faux porcelain flowers that Tammy made last week.
She die cut flowers from cardstock, formed the flowers from Wendy Vecchi's instructions which you can find on Tim Holtz's website, and then dipped each round of petals in Ultra Thick Embossing Power (UTEE). The results are spectacular! Tammy is my BFF and stamping buddy, Tammy Harper. I am going to be putting more of her stuff on when I can get some pictures. She's good!
SPIRITUAL JOURNEY:
I am still reading The Misunderstood God, and I read the most tremendous chapter this week. I had been questioning whether God kept His hands off of things completely and let nature take its course in order to honor free will, or if He helped us when we are in trouble. I understand why bad things happen up to a point, but then I get stuck on the question of why some people are helped and others aren't. Then I picked up the book a few days ago and read a chapter that addressed the very things I was wondering about. I can't explain what he said, but it was very helpful. At one point he said that when bad things happen to us that is the proof that God loves us and is protecting us. I was like "WHAAAAAAAAT?" But the more I read , the more it made sense. I am going to read it again, and if I can explain it, I will in a later post.
QUIRKS OF MY LIFE:
I flipped the channel to QVC last night, and saw a blank screen which said at the bottom: Kitchen Ideas. I said, Ok, Janis, you can watch this but you CANNOT BUY ANYTHING! I already have a kitchen full of gadgets to make cooking easier. No sooner had I started watching it when they showed a silicone thing that you can put stuff in the bottom of, like garlic and herbs with a little water, then put a colander on top of that with a vegetable like potatoes, a rack and then another vegetable on top, then a lid.You then put this IN THE MICROWAVE and cook it for a FEW MINUTES! I'm there! Then I got on the computer to order it, and discovered a little option that I hadn't noticed before: Speed Buy. I clicked twice, and it was mine! I really didn't need to know about that little feature; it's too easy. If this thing works like they say it will, it will be worth its weight in gold to me. Especially when I 'm staying in the camper with Andy. It is supposed to steam the vegetables and infuse the flavor of whatever herbs you put in the bottom into the veggies. Man I hope it works well. It will be healthy too, if nuking the food doesn't hurt us.
Now that things have settled down, I am back to eating better and exercising consistently, and the results are good! I have lost a pound this week, and I intend to lose another one before another week has gone by. After months of trying to find time and energy to make soup, I made a pot of Rachael Ray's Chickpea and Fire Roasted Tomato soup. It looks disgusting, but it is pretty good. It is seasoned with garlic, coriander, cumin, and turmeric, so it's really good for you. I have been eating it with salad, and that's another story. I have always thought it would be disgusting to eat a salad with just oil and vinegar on it; I'm a Ranch dressing kind of girl, the more the better. In fact, I like salad with my ranch dressing. But I have some heart healthy dressing from the Olympia Restaurant that is olive oil based, and I put a little of that and two teaspoons of safflower oil on my salad Tuesday, and I realized about halfway through that I really couldn't taste anything but the vegetables, and it was good! I used safflower oil because the latest finding is that 2 teaspoons a day will melt belly fat. They said that without changes in diet or exercise it would melt the most stubborn belly fat: the fat in postmenopausal diabetic women. Yay! That's me! Lord, please let this work!
STAMPING:
My stamp club had it's Christmas get-together today. Better late than never! The gifts were great, and the fellowship was wonderful. We exchanged gifts, went to Charlie Magrooder's for lunch, came back and talked some more and did show and tell. Did we put a stamp to paper? Of course not! Next week hopefully we can get together and actually do something. We have a tendency to do a lot of talking and very little of anything else when we get together, but we do have fun! And we have produced some really nice projects, such as the antique optical lens necklaces we made some time ago. Oh, that reminds me, I took a picture of the faux porcelain flowers that Tammy made last week.
SPIRITUAL JOURNEY:
I am still reading The Misunderstood God, and I read the most tremendous chapter this week. I had been questioning whether God kept His hands off of things completely and let nature take its course in order to honor free will, or if He helped us when we are in trouble. I understand why bad things happen up to a point, but then I get stuck on the question of why some people are helped and others aren't. Then I picked up the book a few days ago and read a chapter that addressed the very things I was wondering about. I can't explain what he said, but it was very helpful. At one point he said that when bad things happen to us that is the proof that God loves us and is protecting us. I was like "WHAAAAAAAAT?" But the more I read , the more it made sense. I am going to read it again, and if I can explain it, I will in a later post.
QUIRKS OF MY LIFE:
I flipped the channel to QVC last night, and saw a blank screen which said at the bottom: Kitchen Ideas. I said, Ok, Janis, you can watch this but you CANNOT BUY ANYTHING! I already have a kitchen full of gadgets to make cooking easier. No sooner had I started watching it when they showed a silicone thing that you can put stuff in the bottom of, like garlic and herbs with a little water, then put a colander on top of that with a vegetable like potatoes, a rack and then another vegetable on top, then a lid.You then put this IN THE MICROWAVE and cook it for a FEW MINUTES! I'm there! Then I got on the computer to order it, and discovered a little option that I hadn't noticed before: Speed Buy. I clicked twice, and it was mine! I really didn't need to know about that little feature; it's too easy. If this thing works like they say it will, it will be worth its weight in gold to me. Especially when I 'm staying in the camper with Andy. It is supposed to steam the vegetables and infuse the flavor of whatever herbs you put in the bottom into the veggies. Man I hope it works well. It will be healthy too, if nuking the food doesn't hurt us.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
The Madness Continues
Man, I've got to get a grip! Friday we went to K&W for supper, and I was SO hungry. Did I want grilled chicken and salad? Of course not! I wanted country style steak and mashed potatoes and gravy and black-eyed peas. Did you see a mention of a green vegetable in that? Of course not! I usually don't eat that much food, but this time I ate the whole thing, and then topped it off with sugar free blueberry pie. As if that wasn't enough, Andy and I went to Waffle House this morning for breakfast. I won't even go into that. AND I missed doing my exercise routine yesterday. Was going to do it today, but did I? OF COURSE NOT!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Stop the Madness!
Good grief! The madness continues. We went to a New Year's get-together last night, and I ate a lot of stuff that should never have passed these lips. Jim and Cynthia brought his hot crab dip, and boy, was it ever good! I ate it on crackers at first, and then later, when I should have been through eating, I discovered that someone had brought a small loaf of bread, cut perfectly for dip. There is nothing better than crab dip with bread. Nothing! So the eating continued. Today, I absolutely must get back to saying NO to desserts. I do so good until the holidays; I am obviously going to have to figure out how to make more stuff with stevia. I thank God for that product every day! I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but Brown Cow plain yogurt with the cream on top is wonderful sweetened with stevia. I am thinking about how to make something with stevia and cream cheese. Any ideas?
Blessings,
Janis
Blessings,
Janis
Warm Winter Wishes
I have been following a lot of stamping blogs for several months now, and I have learned a lot and ramped up my stamping. I eventually want to sell some of my stuff on Etsy, but the problem is that, while it takes very little time for the people I am following to turn out a card, it can take me a week to do one. So I realized that if I were going to sell anything, I had to learn to do a card in much less time. I also needed to make some "flat" cards that I could send through the mail without extra postage. So I actually sat down yesterday and turned out 2 cards in 1 day! And one of them is flat. The other one would be if I hadn't stuck a bow on it; I just can't stand to make a card without a bow. Here is the flat card: (I did make a few mistakes, darn it!)
I thought that if I made a flat card, it wouldn't be very pretty, but I have a new embossing folder from Cuttlebug, the snowflake one, and when you use an embossing folder it's going to be stinking beautiful no matter what you do! I wish you could see the glitter; when I put the Stardust Stickles on the blue snowflakes, I gasped because it was so beautiful! I think if you click on the sample, you can see the glitter. I also used Spellbinders small classic oval and small classic scalloped oval dies, and a Martha Stewart border punch.The stamp is from Stampin' Up!, and is discontinued.
The next one is very simple, but so beautiful because of the Textile embossing folder, again from Cuttlebug. I used the Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies and a stamp from Stampendous.
The next one is very simple, but so beautiful because of the Textile embossing folder, again from Cuttlebug. I used the Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies and a stamp from Stampendous.
I hope that everyone has the best year of their life in this new year. I am looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us!
Blessings,
Janis
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