Saturday, December 4, 2010

A Great Hot Chocolate Recipe! #GiftIdea

 You can enjoy it for yourself or package it up cleverly for Christmas cheers! 

2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/3 - 1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup powdered non-dairy creamer
pinch of salt (optional)


Mix all ingredients thoroughly with a whisk, package it up and seal it, making sure it is airtight!  Mix several spoonfuls with hot milk or water to taste!  Enjoy!  

Thursday, December 2, 2010

To Play Disc Golf! Some Tips For Beginners

A few years ago, our family walked around a vacant field with random bushes and trees here and there and also with a little bridge that crossed over a dry stream into a lower field.  This field branched out into a beautiful park called Bicentennial Park.  These three areas had something in common.  They had steel and chain baskets placed strategically around to equal 16 in all.  The whole area made up one of the 5 disc golf parks in the Utah Valley area.  At the time, we had frisbees and we did our best to find the tee pads where you start and throw to the basket.  I think my frisbee finally made it into the basket in about 12 throws!  That was four years ago and humiliating to think about since I now make it in 4 throws and sometimes even 3!  Since then, my husband took it up as his pastime and I also took it up as a fun sport to do maybe 4 times a month.  Greg wound up winning this last year as one of the division champions of the newly formed Wasatch Disc Golf Club.  I have since played in one tournament with not as dramatic results, but happy I did it!  We each have Revolution disc golf bags, an assortment of discs, which are definitely not of the frisbee variety! This is a great sport to take up for a "hecka" family fun or a way to meet up with other disc golf enthusiasts and get some great exercise. 
To get started, the best way to do this right now is go out and have fun. You're sure to meet up with someone who will be willing to give you a pointer or two!  Don't let more experienced players intimidate you with their distance and accuracy.  Some experienced players with proper technique can easily throw 400+ feet!  Throw an easy to control disc, such as the Discraft Elite Z-Glide and focus on accuracy.  Distance will come with time and experience, so focus on putting your disc down in the middle of the fairway.  Keep it simple and don't try advanced techniques until you have learned some basic form and control.  Throw with 1-step rather than trying to attempt a run up. Try to keep the disc close to your chest and keep it flat as possible.  Wait until you feel you are consistent and accurate before trying to add to your throw!
There are quite a few terms specific to disc golf. For instance, hyzer is the common term for releasing the disc with the outer edge at a lower angle than parallel to the ground, which usually causes the disc to curve left!  Anhyzer means to release the disc with the outer edge at a higher angle than parallel to the ground, which usually causes the disc to curve right!  And don't worry, I still have problems getting the two terms straight in my mind.  The most important thing is to just get out there and start throwing!
Don't know where to find a disc golf course near you?  Try this disc golf course locater!  If you know about one in your area, you can review it and get points for free stuff at Disc Golf Station!
  

Friday, November 26, 2010

To Read More Books....As If!

This is intended as a Facebook tag thing, but I think I'd like to pass it along to you here as well!  This is a great list for books to read!  I'd love to read more of these when I get the chance.  Most of my reading was done pre-kids! This is how well I've done!  

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. …
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame 
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel (own it)
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding (own it)
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell 8
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (own it)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas (own it)
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo 

Thanks to Ramblings of An Empty Mind for this list!

Foods That Heal!

After eating all that great Thanksgiving food yesterday, I am now thinking about food.  It's on my mind a lot, that's for sure! In addition to being one of the greatest sources of enjoyment ever, food really can help what ails you and prevent little things from creeping up.  Nutrition is the most effective beauty treatment and ailment preventative that you can give yourself!  I am actually a believer in additional supplementation with a good vitamin as well, to fill in some of the inevitable nutritional voids left during the day.  Nutrition is a valuable component that can help both athletes and regular exercisers protect themselves and improve performance.  Have you noticed that kids are getting bigger, stronger, faster, more into the weightlifting, more into nutrition, more into size? It is becoming ever more apparent that nutrition is the key to well-being and longevity and performance.

 With that said, let's look at some foods that can help banish the occasional headache or upset stomach, etc.!

Stress - Eat a banana!   It has vitamin B6, which helps the body produce calming serotonin, which can get you through a crisis peacefully!

High Blood Pressure - Raisins are extremely high in potassium, which is proven to bring down blood pressure.  Also anything having to do with grapes will aid your heart because of the high polyphenols!

Constipation or gas - Yogurt is great for this because it has cultures that feed the intestines.  The beneficial bacterias found in it will improve your gut's ability to digest food like beans and dairy, which produce pain and gas.

Kidney Stones - Eat dried apricots.  It has a great combination of nutrients that will help prevent  minerals from accumulating in the urine and forming calcium oxalate stones, the most common form of kidney stones.  

Winter Blues - Tuna fish has 800 mg of omega-3's, which treats the kind of blues that make someone feel low or anxious. But the top source of omega-3 fatty acids would be flaxseed and walnuts.  Eat a good supply of this and you're bound to be less depressed this winter!

Nausea - Pregnancy or motion sickness can be treated with ginger, one of the oldest remedies for nausea. Keep ginger ale, fresh ginger or ginger cookies on hand. Purchase ginger root capsules and take according to directions.

Other Stomach issues - Cramps or diarrhea can be caused by bacterias such as Salmonella or Listeria.  Basil, which contains eugenol, can ward off and kill these before they have a chance to wreak havoc on your system.  Use fresh, minced basil in sauces and salads for great flavor and preventative maintenance.

Coughing - Even more effective than OTC cough remedies was thick, dark brown honey!  It limits severity and frequency of a cough in children. 

Fatigue - Orange juice has natural fructose, a perfect pick-me-up when you're feeling sapped of energy.  Also the Vitamin C helps combat oxidative stress caused by free radicals and helps metabolize iron, which helps move energizing oxygen through the body!

Insomnia - Studies show that people with insomnia are deficient in tryptophan.  Eating 3 oz. of turkey will give you all the tryptophan you need in a day.  So eat a turkey sandwich before bedtime if you know you'll have trouble sleeping! 

Yeast Infection - Garlic has an ingredient known to kill Candida. Have plenty of garlic in sauces, marinades and dressings!

These are just a few things I found on the internet and in Prevention Magazine.  I always believe that natural is better because it provides the body what it needs to heal itself.  Before you reach into the medicine cabinet for that drug of choice, go and Google some natural ways to help yourself and as always, an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, so eat up on those great foods that you love and find out what good they are doing you while you enjoy them!  
 One of the foods that I really enjoy, not only during Thanksgiving, but all year long, is yams or sweet potatoes.  These are full of  beta carotene and resin glycosides, a relatively new nutritional group that scientists are very optimistic about.  I also found a really great blog post about the debate concerning sweet potatoes vs. yams with some great references about the different varieties of sweet potatoes!  Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving and are well on your way to another happy holiday coming up in a few short weeks!  


 

Friday, November 19, 2010

$10 Target Gift Card Giveaway!

Congratulations to #6, Jan!  I will send this card out with delivery confirmation!  Thanks so much to all who entered.  More great giveaways to come!

I've got one more Target Gift Card out of the 3 that I purchased this last summer with you in mind!  You have been so wonderful and I appreciate all the visits and support with the giveaways that I do.  I've started working full-time at a remedial high school with at-risk boys.  I'm the support teacher and I work with a really great man who has been doing this for a long time!  It has been a treat to see him at work and see the progress these boys make.  Some of them come from very trying circumstances.  My blogging time has been cut a bit, but I still absolutely love it!  I would love to get this card out to one of you for Christmas shopping!  So here is what you can do to get it! Just give me some comment love!
Read one or all of the four blog posts below and make a comment there.  Or enter this giveaway!  Come back and let me know which one(s) you did!  You can do as many as you'd like. Two of the posts are regular entries about my life and two are reviews that I have done recently.  There is a possibility of 5 entries.  That's it!  I will choose a winner on Dec 1, 2010 with a random number generator!  I'll e-mail the winner and mail the card out with delivery confirmation to make sure you got it! Thanks again!

Blog Posts:
1) NGlassworks
2) Cooking Class Adventure
3) Bronzed Envy
4) Halloween Ride

Just a Couple of Ideas from GOOP!

I subscribed some time ago to GOOP, the e-letter that is put out by Gwyneth Paltrow.  She is really quite the savvy gal and I just wonder how many subscribers she has to her newsletter!  I really liked her ideas for personalized gifts.  If you don't get her letters, they are great.  She has a taste for the fine and expensive, but she also comes up with some great ideas for everyday people too!

Cocodot is an online invitation and greeting card service that is getting rave reviews.  Gwyneth has used this for her cards this holiday!  There are several collections from different artists and one of them is Kristi Hume from Scotland.  She has greeting cards with a Scottish Flavor.  I like that since I am a little bit Scottish!  For instance, one section has a ton of old Scottish Sayings such as "May yer lum reek!"  Check it out and save paper this year!


Another shopping site she recommends for gift giving is called Chloe in Style!  It has many unique gifts for everyone.  For little ones- a wonderful collection of adorable ponchos for little girls and some adorable baby moccasins!  For Moms - Some great all handmade slippers from Babush!!

Monday, November 8, 2010

Tropical Traditions Palm Shortening Giveaway!

Congratulations to #62, Eileen, who said - tweeted this! http://twitter.com/2sic2mooov/status/7104529292070912  thankyou!

 


I think Tropical Traditions is the best place to get Healthy Oils of any kind!  I've now got the chance to give away another Tropical Tradition Cooking Product.  It's Tropical Traditions Palm Shortening.  It is derived from Palm Oil, which is the most widely used oil in the world except the US.  Palm Shortening has had some of its unsaturated fats removed, which gives it a very firm texture and high melting point.  It has no trans fats and can be used for baking just like shortening!  It is colorless and odorless as well. 
I received the gallon container of the palm shortening and I absolutely love it for cooking and baking.  It is everything a shortening should be--doesn't take away from the flavors I'm using and I feel good about cooking with it because it has no trans fats!  A whole gallon will last me forever!  I've cooked eggs, meat and vegetables with it and add it to cookie mixes.  It's great!  Everything tastes so much better using it!  I'm not kidding, it takes my cooking to another level.  Right now through Sunday, November 21st  you can get it on sale for $19.85, that's 44%off!     And if you missed it this time, there will always be another opportunity.  Just sign up for their newsletter for notifications on all their great sales and promotions.  


One person is going to win a gallon container of Tropical Traditions Organic Palm Shortening!  I'm excited to let you in on the details here!  To enter, first do this mandatory entry and any other extra entries that you'd like:
MANDATORY:


  • Visit Tropical Traditions and let me know something that really floats your boat there!
Extra entries:
  • Grab my button on the right side bar and put it on your blog or site!  Let me know where! (+2) Leave two comments for two entries!
  • Tell me about your most tropical experience!  Would you want to make it a tradition? (+3) Leave three comments for three entries!
  • Subscribe to the Tropical Tradition Newsletter! (+2)
  • Make an order from Tropical Tradition and e-mail me the receipt at daisydoo200 at yahoo dot com  Must be done within the time of this giveaway.  $15 minimum.  First time orders use this code - 5954910. You will get a cool recipe book with 85 recipes and more! (+5)
  • Subscribe to my RSS Feed (+1)
  • Follow Tropical Traditions on Twitter! (+1)
  • Tweet about this and get 1 entry every day you do!  Leave your tweet status! You can do that by clicking on the date you tweeted! (+1)  
A GAL NEEDS...Tropical Traditions Organic Palm Shortening! #Giveaway http://bit.ly/cWmhqB 11/29/10 #Win

This Giveaway is open to both US and Canada and will end on 11/29/10!  Winner will be selected by random number generator and will be notified by e-mail! Thank you so much to Tropical Traditions for keeping us healthy with your great products!  I was provided product for an honest review and winner will also be provided product by Tropical Traditions!


Thursday, November 4, 2010

A CSN Stores Giveaway!

Congratulations to #75, Domestic Diva, who said. ... . tea kettle: looks just like a fall leaf!  Thanks so much to everyone who entered!  I loved your creative answers and it goes to show that CSN truly has variety and almost anything you could want, in whatever color you want!





I just ended a $70 CSN Giveaway and I'm back with another one!
I thought it would be fun to pick a color and see what I come up with at CSN in that specific color.  So without looking it up beforehand, I picked orange b/c it is such a great fall color and it matches my blog for sure!  Here are some things that are orange at CSN:
The P'kolino Silly Soft IggySeat!  It's bound to be a big favorite with your kids!

 The Tommy Bahama Orange Cay Comforter Set!  Who knew that orange could be so appealing in the bedroom?
The Lexington Studios Recipes Decorative Wall Clock!  This would make a great gift!


Please feel free to enter and enjoy the $70 gift code that you can win and enjoy!  Here is what you need to do to enter:


Mandatory:
Visit CSNStores.com and leave me a link to something that has orange in it, like the color of the leaves outside and the fall pumpkins!  I know I didn't list the only orange items at CSN.  CSN has so much that they must have thousands of items that have that color in them.  So go take a gander and come back here and enter to win!


Optional Extra Entries (Leave a comment for each extra entry):


  • Follow CSNStores on Twitter!  Leave your tweet name!
  • Follow me on Twitter!  Leave your tweet name!
  • Follow me on Google Friend Connect!
  • Subscribe to my e-mails! (Right Sidebar)
  • Follow me on Networked Blogs!  (Right Sidebar)
  • Subscribe to my RSS Feed! (Right Sidebar)
  • Tweet about this leaving me a link! You can do this 1X daily!  Tweet this if you'd like~~A GAL NEEDS...A $70 CSN Gift Code #Giveaway! 11/23 http://bit.ly/da5T18 #Win
  • Like CSNStores on Facebook!
  • Friend me on Facebook!
  • (+3) Read my CSN Review and comment there then come back and comment here 3X that you did!
 This contest will end on Monday, November 23, 2010 at approx. 11:59 pm.  Winner will be chosen with random.org and notified with e-mail. Please make sure that all entries are valid with a legitimate e-mail.  Must be over 18 to participate.  Open to US and Canada.  CSN is not responsible for shipping to Canada. 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

My Latest CSNStores Purchases!

As many of you know, CSN is an online mall of stores with great selections and prices.  For instance, they have an incredible selection of  kitchen bar stools!  CSN is a favorite site of mine to go shopping for a variety of things!  Here are the latest examples!
__________________________________
After much deliberation, I decided to purchase a Chef's Knife.  I have some OK knives in my kitchen, but after attending a great cooking class in September, I knew I needed a better knife for the kitchen.  Thus my decision. This will be my special go-to knife.  After looking awhile, I decided to get this one:

It's the Calphalon 8" Chef's Knife and it's a beauty!  I will now be able to slice and dice like Rachael Ray in the kitchen!  So yes, I'm very excited.  But that's not all!


I have long been eying cowboy boots.  They look so comfortable and stylish at the same time.  And with winter coming up, I need something I can throw on and still look OK at work.  So, yes, I got these gorgeous things:
Laredo Women's Basic Cowboy Boots in Black
And because I was still thinking about the kitchen, I really fell in love with this spice rack.  Did you know that you should never store your spices above the stove?  The rising heat will cause the spice oils to dry out and go rancid!  Well, guess where all mine are?  Until now...I got the Spectrum Euro Wall-Mounted Spice Rack In Black!

These purchases are definitely some things this gal needed!  I'm going to be enjoying these for a very long time!  Oh, did I mention CSNStores also has a great selection of kitchen bar stools?    And please stay tuned right here for another great giveaway sponsored by CSNStores.com!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Fun Halloween Ride!

 Today was a gorgeous day...until 3 pm.  Then it opened up and poured buckets the rest of the day and evening! Greg and I went on a bike ride to celebrate the next to last day in October before the rain came pouring down!  We set off at around noon and I became a bit enthralled with some of the scenery we saw.  I meant to take nature pictures of our beautiful ride and I did take one,


          but ended up mostly taking pictures of people's Halloween fun!                                                                   Here is what I saw:   

                                    Some cool-looking cornstalks and pumpkins!

                                   Cute Pumpkins near some scary gargoyles!
                                    

                          A beautiful front porch with an awesome pumpkin display
                                                      
                                             Some very creative jack-o-lanterns



                             A porch that needed sweeping and cleaning very badly!

              And this strange fellow, running straight toward me.  It gave me quite a scare...

                                Until he wished me a very Happy Halloween!
                                                    I hope you have one too!