The Missing Warning Label

I purchased the wii fit plus for Christmas thinking, This will be fun!  Exercise and wii! and although it is fun, the training/games part, what isn't fun is the body test section and some of the sound effects.  My favorite sound effect is the one that sounds like it's saying "Ooooo" or "Owwww" when you step on the balance board and to be fair, sometimes it says "Great!"  I've decided that this product needs a warning label: "Product may be hazardous to your self esteem". 

For those of you who have used wii fit, you probably already know what I'm talking about, but for those that don't, let me explain. 

When you take the body test, it weighs you and gives you your weight, if you choose, and also your BMI. 

My son did it last night.  Kyle is one of those people that can eat anything and not gain an ounce, like my brother was as a kid.  The wii put him in the "at risk for overweight" catagory.  At his recent doctor's visit, he came out as average to just below his expected weight. 

After it tells you how jiggly you are and asks you to choose a reason for that, you can take body tests so it can give you your wii fit age.  Now, I realize it is saying it's your Wii Fit Age, and they are not claiming any medical stuff about it, but when you are in the moment it can be very shocking!  Last night, after completing the body test activities it told Kyle this: 

Ha ha, and look at how his Mii character is taking the news! And for those of you who don't know, Kyle is only 16! 

When I took the test yesterday my wii age was 28.  And as much as I enjoyed bragging about it, I'm not kidding myself here.

I was also amused at how it tries to get personal, somtimes in a somewhat creepy way.  This is what it said to me when I logged in yesterday.

I know, I know, Wii Fit Plus, we miss her too. 

And having said all that, we really are enjoying the time in the evening gathered around the TV playing wii fit games and challenging each other's scores.  It's been a fun way to spend time together, but I'm still not letting anyone else in the room when I take the body test. ;-) 

 

Paying it forward...giveaway style!

This holiday season created such a large demand on my goat milk soaps, more than I've had since starting my business!  It was incredible, amazing, delightful! 

It's left my soap shelf very bare, but that's a good thing because that means that I get to make more! 










I'm thinking about what kinds of scents to include in these next batches, other than my top sellers, so I'm looking for some input, with a twist!

I've been so fortunate to follow other people's blogs that have giveaways that I have had the opportunity to participate in, so I'm paying it forward....

I'm giving away two 4-bar sets of goat milk soaps to two randomly chosen winners. 

To enter:

Just leave a comment telling me what kind of soap scents you like!  Are you a fresh scent person?  Berry/fruity?  Citrus?  Earthy?  Herbal? Or do you prefer the designer fragrance type?   This info will be helpful for me to determine how much of each type of scent I will be soaping.

If you aren't a follower of my blog, no problem!  You can follow easily by registering by your email address, or just comment using the anonymous choice on the drop down menu, just be sure to leave your name so I know who left the comment!

Deadline for entries is Sunday, January 31, 2010, at 8:00 PM Eastern time, and YES I WILL SHIP THE SOAPS INTERNATIONALLY!
One entry per person please.  Winners will be posted here on Monday, February 1, 2010!  So spread the word and good luck everyone!!

Rainy, windy days and Mondays (even for a squirrel)

Hanging around...

Nothing to do but frown....

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.

The storms a'brewin'

We're in for some interesting weather this week, starting tonight.  Heavy rain and thunder storms tonight into tomorrow morning, and this is January in PA???  Then we are into the deep freeze again and possibly snow by the end of the week.  No wonder I'm starting to feel like a prisoner in my own home. 

Dear Mother Nature,

Please send some warm sunny weather here soon!  I'm not getting greedy.  When I mean warm I'll settle for anything in the 50's. 
Thank you!
P.S.  And extra thanks for the extended daylight we are experiencing now.  Keep it coming!

Be afraid. Be VERY afraid...

I knew this day was coming.  That my youngest child would one day turn the big one-six.

And you all know what THAT means...

Um.....ACK!!!







But then he did this:

And this:

I kept singing "Jesus Take the Wheel" to myself, then I took a deep breath and decided to take it one day at a time. 

Dream a little dream...

Tony was on vacation today so I invited him to drive me out to Lancaster County, just a quick 25 min trip across our county line.  As soon as we cross the border, it's farms as far as the eye can see.  Amish buggies and Amish working their fields.  I have no pictures of the Amish because Tony lectures me on how they don't want their picture taken, so I respect that.

I drive this route quite often to pick up supplies for my candle & soap making.  This is an antique barn in such a pretty setting.









But my very, very favorite part of the drive is this:

My dream house!

I love everything about it!  I told Tony that if we ever remodel our house the contractor will have to make it look just like this.  Every time we pass it I tell Tony that one day he will drive me there, pull in the driveway, and it will have a big ribbon wrapped around it.  He will look at me and say, "Welcome home, Honey!"

I know, I know, but a girl can dream, can't she?

My week so far, presented to you in coffee mugs...

I love how using a 35mm lense makes my kitchen look super clean!

Baby's back to school.  I miss her already!

Life

I'm thinking of my friend today that is going through such an impossible situation.  Actually, I've been thinking of them all weekend.  I wish I was better at knowing the  right words to say.  I wish I had the power to make everything better.  I wish I could take some of her emotional pain, and burden on my shoulders to lighten her load.  It's frustrating that there's some things we can't rely on others for, and must handle ourselves, and hopefully not lose our faith along the way.

A Veggie Tale

Once upon a time, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, there was a woman who was expecting her first child.

She read in a popular pregnancy handbook that the brussell sprout was a great source of nutrition, crucial to the development of her baby. 






This made the brussel sprout happy.

The woman cringed.  She had very bad childhood memories of brussell sprouts.  It was the vegetable that children made fun of in camp songs and from what she remembered of them, it was true!

This made the brussell sprout sad.

But the woman's husband encouraged her to try them, "You just steam them," he said.

So the woman steamed some brussell sprouts for dinner.  Unfortunately, she learned that the first trimester of pregnancy probably isn't the best time to try brussell sprouts.

"Yuck!!" she gagged as she ran out of the room.  I bet you can guess what happened next.

This made the brussell sprout REALLY sad.

After brushing her teeth, and for the next several years, even through another pregnancy, the woman never cooked brussell sprouts again. 

Until one day...

The woman was watching The Food Network.  One of the hosts was making them!  This can't be, she thought, nobody likes brussell sprouts, they're yucky!

But a funny thing happened.  The recipe looked really good and it didn't include steaming!  She thought she'd give it a try!

It started with cleaning and cutting the sprouts in half.

Then she sauted them in butter and olive oil, along with minced garlic, salt and pepper. 

She tasted one and....OH, MY!!  They were actually GOOD!!

"Call me crazy," she said, "but I think my kids will actually like these!"

And they did!

And this made the brussell sprout happy.

And so they ate happily ever after...
 
 
 
 
Well, except when they fought over who gets to eat the last brussell sprout.
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Who knew that teenagers could be so passionate about brussell sprouts?

The woman was shocked!

 

Amazed!!

 
 

 
 

The WINNER!!!

THE END

(Many brussell sprouts were consumed in the writing of this tale)

The light at the end of the winter tunnel

My last few posts have been about my longing for spring and this one is no exception.  It's about this time, the lull after the holidays, that I'm pretty much ready for winter to be over, or at least the darkness.  Darkness when we get up, and darkness that falls way too early in the afternoon.  But yesterday I noticed something, the sunset. 

It's not a big change, but I did notice that it was just a touch brighter at this time of day which was 5:15, and it was beautiful.

About five minutes later and it got even better.

It's the moments like these that make the wait for spring just a little more bearable.

Thinking about summer already...

I thought I'd share some of my favortie photos from my trip to Maine last summer with my parents & Kyle, my son.

 This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. We were visiting my mom's childhood friends at their lake house and they were feeding a family of chipmunks peanuts to entertain the children. And by children I mean me! ha! I was shocked at how close he came to where I was sitting. I took this with my basic lens on my Nikon D40.

I also liked this one of Kyle on the tube.  It was hard to get a shot that wasn't blurry but I managed with this one.

We also had the opportunity to visit some old friends that our family used to vacation with when I was young.  Their son lives in Maine with his partner and they own a cafe there in a tiny town.  I love watching my dad tell a story and people's reactions as they are listening.

(can you tell my mom (dark hair) has heard the story before?)

The punchline:

Can't wait to go back!

Ash-a-lee

I will never understand her.

Sometimes she's affectionate.  Sometimes she's playful.















Sometimes she even cleans my dachshound as if it were her own kitten and then lets my dachshound clean her like she was a puppy.

But most of the time, she looks at me like this:

Or this:

And I'm pretty much okay with that.

The last holdouts..

With each snowfall the parsley in my deck planter has struggled through.  I've been able to continue pinching off springs to toss into recipes.  This is pretty much the end of it though.



Which makes me thankful that I remembered to plant some herb seeds in my front window sill.  It's nice to look out and see some green amongst all the snow and ice. Ahhh...

It gives me hope that spring will be coming right around the corner-even if that corner is still many weeks away.

#1 Reason why my husband will never be a paparazzi

He has NO clue who people are!


Tony took a bus trip to NYC in early December. Tony went to the Plaza Hotel. Tony walked passed Tom Cruise and nodded thinking, "hmm, that guy looks familiar, I wonder where I know him from?" Tom nodded back. Tony kept walking with his Nikon hanging useless around his neck. Tony hears girls screaming "IT'S TOM CRUISE!!!" Tony turns around thinking, "huh, that's why the guy looked so familiar..." ahahahahahahahhaha!!! Grrrr...

Then this is a picture that he took in Macy's the same day. It was packed with holiday shoppers! He snapped this photo looking through the Macy's cosmetic department ceiling display. Love the colors! Love the way the model in the poster looks so happy while the shoppers look so annoyed and in a hurry. Then I noticed the guy walking in front of Tony, right under the picture.

 














I don't know about you, but this guy looks like a dead-ringer for Brian Williams, the anchor on NBC Nightly News:

Tony insists I'm wrong, that he doesn't look anything like him, but I know I'm right!  The only problem is that TMZ or The National Inquirer doesn't pay much, er, anything for pictures of Brian Williams.  Sorry, Brian! haha!

Welcome 2010!

It's a tradition...so I'm still waiting up...because..."A bayberry candle burnt to the socket brings food to the larder and gold to the pocket."  I don't know about you, but I just don't feel the need to mess with that possibility, and besides, I can sleep in late tomorrow, um, I mean today!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!