The Lazy Blogger's Rafting Post

Ben and I joined our favorite CORE Group on a rafting trip the weekend before last. I keep meaning to blog about it, but have been super busy at work. So, in an attempt to not fall behind on my blogging - I am cheating. If you really are interested in our trip, click here to view Ashley Cosby's post on our white water rafting adventure.

Thanks for letting me lean on your great, up-to-date blogging skills, Ash!

The Good Wife's Guide

I was reminded of this article the other day by Martina Penter. She pointed out that it would be quite fitting for "The Happy Life of a Happy Wife" blog. Please read with as much sarcasm as you can imagine...

from Housekeeping Monthly, May 13, 1955
(It's a wonder why this magazine is not around anymore.)

• Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, in time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.
• Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
• Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
• Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc. and then run a dustcloth over the tables.
• Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
• Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children's hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part.
• Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.
• Be happy to see him. Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
• Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
  
• Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner, or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.
• Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.
• Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone though that day.
• Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
• Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
• Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
• A good wife always knows her place.

I am convinced this was written by a man.

Crescent Apples

This recipe is from the amazing Maghan Craig. I made it for CORE Group last night and had several requests for the recipe. Can't take credit for it, but here it is...

Apple Crescents
2 cans of crescent rolls
2 Granny Smith apples
1 stick of butter
1 cup of sugar
water
cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Peel apples and slice into eighths.
3. Wrap each apple in a crescent roll and place in a prepared baking dish.
4. Melt butter and mix with sugar. Add a little water to thin out mixture.
5. Pour sugar/butter mixture over apples.
6. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
7. Bake until crescent rolls are brown.
   

My Favorite Things

I have to apologize now for the late and brief posting this week. I have only listed 5 favorite things in an attempt to keep my list full of only My-Favorite-Things-Worthy items and not dilute it with mediocrity. More explanation can be found in the list below.

1. Electricity. I often say I wish I had been in born a different time period. But after spending nearly 3 hours with out power Tuesday night, it is apparent that I do in fact need the modern luxuries of today.
   
   
   
2. Girl Talk. We went white water rafting last weekend with 4 of our favorite couples. On the drives there and back we split into a car full of gals and a car full of gents. The whole trip was fun, but my most favoritest part of the entire weekend would definitely have to be the girl talk on the 3 hour drive home.
   
   
3. Cilantro. Love this herb. A very vibrant flavor.
   
   
   
4. Watching movies with my husband. Luckily, I married someone who loves movies as much as I do. This week alone we have watched 3 very recommendable movies:
   
   • The Dark Knight.
   • P.S. I Love You (a.k.a. P.S. Prepare yourself for emotional torture before watching this movie)
   • The Bee Movie
     
     
     
5. Great ideas. One of the "girl talk" topics this weekend was of course blogging. I mentioned that it is getting harder and harder to come up with 10 favorite things every week. I mean, I have done something like 16 lists now. That's 160 items! I really want these lists to be things that I LOVE. Not just space fillers. SO...Martha Hovater had a "great idea". I should poll my readers for their favorite things. Just leave me a comment and I will check it out. Every week I will pick a reader's Favorite Thing and list it on my weekly post - giving the reader the all the credit, of course. What ya think? Pretty neat idea, eh? So start sending me some suggestions already!

The Paper Nest

I haven't checked with the Secretary of State offices to make sure that this name can be trademarked yet...but I am thinking of naming my little design business "The Paper Nest". Here is a little logo I have worked on... both are subject to change.

Happy Birthday Squared!

Two of my dearest friends are celebrating birthdays today.

Betty is one of the sweetest people I know. She never has a bad thing to say about anyone or anything. Always a pleasure to be around! I hope her birthday is as wonderful as she is! Happy Birthday, Betty!


Manda Pauley is celebrating a huge year this year. She bought a new house, graduated from med school and is turning the big 26! I wish I were there to celebrate all of it with her! Happy Birthday, Manda!

My Favorite Things

1. Saffire Restaurant. After church on Sunday, Ben's brother and sister-in-law took us to lunch there. It is in a little suburb of Nashville called Franklin. The food was the best I have had (besides Restaurant Eugene) in a long time!
   
   
2. Reid & Sawyer. It is fun having nephews!
   
   
3. Cheez-its. I am snacking on them as I type.
   
   
4. My travel fan. I am completely unable to sleep without a fan. This used to pose a dilemna until I found my handy, dandy, trusty, old travel fan. It is the size of a pancake and fits perfectly in my carry-on bag!
   
   
5. Coming home to my cat. Even though he threw up twice while we were away it was so good to see how excited he was that we were home.
   
   
   
6. Lists. I am a list maker. That has probably become obvious by now. I have lists for everything you can imagine. It is the only way for me to keep my thoughts straight.
   
   
   
   
7. Jalapenos. Have I mentioned this one before? You could put jalapenos on rotten eggs and I think I would still eat them.... especially the pickled ones.
   
   
   
   
   
8. Fishsticks. Okay, so apparently I am hungry since this is the fourth time I have mention of food on this list. I hadn't had fishsticks since I was a kid, but ironically I got a craving for them when we were at the Aquarium.
   
   
9. Rainy days. I don't like to see too many in a row, but there is something about a well placed rainy day that soothes the soul.
   
   
10. Weight Watchers Santa Fe Rice with Beans. I was on WW for a minute before my wedding. I found these in the frozen section during that time. I have long stopped "counting points" but I will keep a stock of these in my freezer from now on. They are so good!
    

A Love Affair with a Beluga

I am in love with a Beluga Whale. She is the sweetest thing! I have tried to explain the beginning of our friendship, but it is better told with pictures....

At the Georgia Aquarium, there is a tank with three Belugas. When we first saw the tank we thought they were cute and moved onto the next exhibit. But eventually we happened upon the other side of the Beluga tank. It was in a ballroom where no one else seemed to be entering. This side of the tank offered a much closer view without the crowds, so we decided to take a look. In a matter of minutes the whales were swimming up to me and rubbing up against the glass. It stole my heart. I could literally scratch at the glass and say, "Come here, girl." And they would come! I stayed at this spot for as long as I could...I wish I could have brought one home with me!







It was like a cat rubbing up against your leg, only she was rubbing up against the glass to let me "pet"her.

She smiled for the camera.

The beluga whale is a small, toothed whale that is white as an adult. The beluga's body is stout and has a small, blunt head with a small beak, tiny eyes, thick layers of blubber, and a rounded melon. They have one blowhole. Beluga means "white one" in Russian. Its genus, Delphinapterus, means "whale without fins", and the species, leucas, means white. The beluga is also called the white whale, the white porpoise, the sea canary (because of its songs), and the squid hound (due to its diet). Unlike most other cetaceans, the beluga's seven neck vertebrae are not fused, giving it a flexible, well-defined neck.

Jamie Grizzle for President

Jamie Grizzle, INC

I have started doing a little freelance design work on the side. I am thinking about expanding this and really getting the word out that I am open to this kind of thing. Products would include, but not be limited to:

• blogs
• flyers
• invitations
• calling cards
• return address labels
• postcards
• bookmarks
  
• menus
• recipe cards
• stationery
• organizational skills
• custom calendars
• brochures

It is still something I am just throwing around in my head, but be watching for more blogs about this topic....

World's Oldest Blogger Dies at 108

I saw this story and thought of all my blogging buddies. I hope we are all still blogging at 108!

SYDNEY, Australia (July 14) - A 108-year-old Australian woman who was promoted as the world's oldest blogger has died two weeks after making her last post about "singing a happy song," her great-grand son and her online forum said.

Olive Riley wrote 74 entries in her blogs, firstly www.allaboutolive.com.au and later www.worldsoldestblogger.blogspot.com. A friend introduced Riley to blogging early in 2007, and was hooked.

Riley "passed away peacefully on Saturday, July 12," a posting on her Web site said. No cause of death was given. "She will be mourned by thousands of Internet friends and hundreds of descendants and other relatives."

She entered a nursing home in Woy Woy, 50 miles north of Sydney, last month, from where she blogged about having a bad cough and feeling weak.

In her last entry, on June 26, Riley thanked supporters for "a whole swag of e-mails and comments from my Internet friends" and described meeting a new friend in the bed next to her.

"She and I sang a happy song, as I do every day, and before long we were joined by several nurses, who sang along too. It was quite a concert!" she posted.

Great-grandson Darren Stone said Riley loved being able to stay in touch with correspondents all over the world and said she believed it kept her mind active.

"It was mind blowing to her," Stone said. "She had people communicating with her from as far away as Russia and America on a continual basis, not just once in a while."

Born in the remote mining town of Broken Hill in 1899, Riley blogged regularly in the last year of her life about growing up in the Outback, raising three children and working as a farm cook and bartender earlier in her life.

Blog Release

Brook has been blogging for a couple of months now, but I just added a header for her. She is awesome! You should check out her husband, Blake's, blog too while you're at it. They are a great family!

Attention Aldi Shoppers

Over the past few days I have had numerous questions as to where Aldi (pronounced All-dee) is located, what they carry and what expect when you get there. Here is some information to help you out and cover my behind at the same time...I don't want my friends and readers to go there and leave wondering what kind of place I sent them to. So please keep the following things in mind when planning your trip.

• Aldi is located on Greensprings Avenue in Homewood. It is across from Publix and next to Mazer's.


• Aldi's is a very basic kind of store. Please do not think that just because it is in Homewood and across from a Publix that it will be anything like either one of those.
• It is all generic brand foods.
  
• The aisles are stacks of groceries lined up in rows.
• You have to deposit a quarter to use the buggy (you get it back whe you turn it in).


• You bag your own groceries with the bags you brought from home.


• They do sell meat and produce, but the selection is very limited.

• They only accept cash and debit cards. No checks or credit.

I would recommend stopping by when you are on that side of town, but please don't make your usual Saturday grocery run expecting to get everything on your list. Adli's is best used as a place to pick up a few discount items (Their milk is $1.99/gallon, bread is $.99/loaf.) and save a little cash. And let's be honest, who doesn't like a little extra dinero?

Hot Town, Summer in the City

For our surprise trip, Ben booked us a room at the Westin Peachtree Plaza in HOT-lanta. It was beautiful and very romantic. We spent the weekend shopping, eating out, walking around Centennial Park, and visiting the fish at the aquarium.

The Westin Peachtree - largest hotel in the Western Hemisphere.

View from our window on the 60th floor!
You should have seen that sunset!

Having a coke with Dr. John Pemberton, the inventor of Coca-Cola.

Dr. Pemberton is a stingy man and wouldn't share his coke with me.

Ben and Andrew Young. Uncanny resemblance.

Although I was fascinated with the fish at the aquarium, I will not bore you with the many, MANY pictures we took. Here are just a few of my favorites...

Our celebratory meal took place at Restaurant Eugene. Highly recommend this place!

We got back home Monday night - the actual Anniversary day. I was excited to finally eat our wedding cake. Not because I love cake, but because I was couldn't wait to get that thing out of our freezer. It had been taking up valuable real estate in there for far too long!

I took this photo in the mirror at our hotel to prove that nothing makes you GLOW like a romantic weekend away with your hubby.

Two Good!

I am proud to announce the grand opening of two very special blogs! Go ahead and add them to you blogrolls now, they are sure to be a hit!