Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway - March 31, 2008

With only two comments about the little Scottie dog from last Monday, the choice was 50/50 for those who made comments. Amy is the winner, but I have no email address or blog - could you contact me?

And now...

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

For details about the FREE (Yes, FREE. No strings attached. Well. Except you do have to visit my blog.) White Elephant Blog Giveaway, just click here. Now, make a comment. You know you want to.

I love fairies. If I can ever get over the fact that a tattoo hurts so much it makes you cry, I will have a fairy tattooed on my lower back. So, when I saw this little ceramic fairy, I had to buy her. She is about 4 1/2" tall and is in perfect condition. If you have room for her at your house, make a comment.

Good luck!

For Fun Friday, March 28, 2008

Do you deserve your high school diploma? I would have done MUCH better without the math questions.

http://www.gotoquiz.com/do_you_deserve_your_high_school_diploma

How fast can you type? I got up to 69 words a minute.

http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com/

Take this personality test to find out what career suits you best. Luckily, mine was education. Good to know I didn't waste the last 20 years.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

Thanks to my sister for finding this one. If you like Scrabble, you will like this site.

http://www.scrabulous.com/

Admit it. There are times when you wonder what kind of muffin you might be. This test is TOTALLY ACCURATE since it said I was a chocolate chocolate chip muffin. But of course.

http://www.allthetests.com/quiz25/quizpu.php?testid=1205688282&katname

Could Anyone BE More Organized Than Me? I THOUGHT Not.

Since Tom and I are now the only ones currently living at the old homestead, I find some of my recipes are a trifle large for just the two of us. So, I have become JUST LIKE some of the women in those inspiring women's magazines you see in the checkout lane at the grocery store and have started dividing my recipes in half and freezing part of them. This process allowed me to be labeled as SUPER MOM when Liz was sick and I was able to send home a meat loaf and potato casserole because I HAD THEM ALL PREPARED AND FROZEN! God. I am so, like, totally amazing.

So, when I made a cake recently because my sister was in town and was coming to dinner, I decided that a whole cake was just ridiculous. We could not possibly eat a whole cake. It would go to waste! It would mold! So, I bought two smaller pans and made two cakes. One to eat. One to freeze.

Why, yes. That is homemade pineapple cake with homemade cream cheese icing. Because, you know. I am SO FABULOUS.

I carefully wrapped up one of the cakes and put it in the freezer and served the other one. The cake was a big hit. We all enjoyed it. There was some cake left over. We were good to go. That was Wednesday.

This picture is from Sunday. Why, no. That is not the first cake pan. That is the SECOND. We had to UNFREEZE it so we could scarf it down. My plan was really fabulous. And it might have worked. If we weren't total hogs. But, man. That cake was good. Cakes. I should say cakes.

An Alternative Use For Energy

I have already told you about how geeky we are with the silly games we play about TV shows like Smallville. I thought I had told you how we embellished the game when the characters were no longer in high school and we didn't see crows anymore, but I guess I forgot to tell you that we started competing to see who could yell "Code Blue" first whenever one of the characters had to visit Smallville General. Which was fairly often. You can pretty much count on at least one person on the show getting banged up in some manner during every episode.

So, Code Blue. The new competition. Which he TOTALLY wins all the time because I lose my concentration and am actually watching the show, unlike some people who sit on the edge of the couch and watch for that freakin' Smallville General. And then yell loud enough to almost make me wet my pants.

And the evidence that he might be just a trifle obsessed about this?

This was on the fridge the other morning when I got up.

Notice how he cleverly turned the W because, not to name any names, but someone's grandson must have hidden the other E.

Now. Obviously, this required some concentration. Some effort. Some work.

This is the same man who is INCAPABLE of putting trash IN THE TRASH CAN. He thinks putting it on the lid is the same as putting it in the can. I am CONSTANTLY finding empty cracker boxes on top of the trash can.

Uh, no. No. Not the same.

Maybe he should expend the same level of energy on household chores that he expends on aggravating his wife.

But I have to face it. That is probably not going to happen.

Shocking Behavior

Have you heard about this? Apparently, there is a new sports bra with sensors built in that can determine your heart rate and send it to a watch you can wear, so that you can keep up your heart rate when exercising. If you are insanely in shape, like me, check out this bra at: http://www.numetrex.com/about/the-system

I am here to tell you that this is not an item of clothing I will EVER be purchasing.

The most I ask of my sports bras, which, as you know, I wear as often as I exercise which is often once in a while never whenever I realize I have, indeed, eaten an entire Whitman's Sampler, is to provide me a little support.

Not to electronically provide me with information. And really. Don't you think this is just asking for trouble? Next they will be making a sports bra that will actually talk to you. "HEY. YOU. Put DOWN the brownie and get back in there and walk on that treadmill." Or, wait!

I know. Next they will make a sports bra that will give you a tiny shock whenever you pick up a an iced sugar cookie.

This could be very, very bad for me. This could easily result in a situation where someone will find me sprawled on the floor of my kitchen, shocked to death.

With a cookie in each hand.

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway - March 24, 2008

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

For details about the FREE (Yes, FREE. No strings attached. Well. Except you do have to visit my blog.) White Elephant Blog Giveaway, just click here. Now, make a comment. You know you want to.

Today I have a really cute little black Scottie dog statue. He has a little paint chipped off but I thought that added to his plucky little character. He's about 7" tall and is made of some kind of plaster which is not very heavy. Remember to comment if you can give him a home.

For Fun Friday March 21, 2008

OK, I am apparently NOT the person you want with you in case of a zombie attack. Help me.

http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/zombie

Do you ever stand in front of your pantry, looking at all the food, wondering what to make? Yeah, me too.

http://www.supercook.com/

This site has tons and tons of videos, basically telling you how to do pretty much everything.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/

OK, this is ridiculous. I actually just got out of my chair to see how high I could kick for this game.

http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/

What kind of accent do you have?

http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have

This Could POSSIBLY Be Why He Likes To Come To My House. Possibly.

Yeah. I'm thinking that's it. For sure.

But I LOVE Going To The Grocery

I have never understood people who say they HATE going to the grocery. I LOVE going to the grocery. Now, given, it can lead to situations where you are wandering through the aisles eating Pop-Tarts, but those situations are rare. Actually, eating a Hostess Fruit Pie is much more common.

Wait.

Did I say that out loud? Forget I said that. I would NEVER eat an entire Hostess Fruit Pie while grocery shopping. And if I did that, say once, I would totally pay for the empty wrapper.

How can anyone not get excited about going to the grocery? There's all this cool, cool stuff there. And new products. Oooooh, I LOVE me some new products. Or even old products that probably everyone in the whole entire world has been using for years and I have just recently stumbled on.

Like these.

I know you have read about my picky, picky childhood wherein, if someone had tried to force me to eat a tomato in any form except Campbell's tomato soup, I would have spontaneously combusted from the heartfelt anguish, but now I am a big, huge fan of the tomato. I, however, had never eaten canned tomatoes. It took a while for me to get over my qualms about chunky things in my sauces, but once I got over it, I got over in a big way. Onions? Bring 'em on. Green pepper? Pepper me up, baby. And tomatoes? Oh my, yes. But who knew you could get luscious, diced up tomatoes in a can? Even flavored and spicy?

Oh. Everyone already knew? Well, what about the fire roasted ones? Did you know about those? Mmm hmm. I thought not. Try them. They are goooood.

And now, in the realm of products which are still fairly new. Have you seen this cheese? It's like the canned Parmesan cheese only NOT. Because it is FRESH. And you grate it yourself. With the handy, dandy grater built into the package.


Is that not absolutely the coolest thing you have EVER seen? And, why, yes. Those ARE scallops, olive oil and Alfredo sauce in the background. Because I am rather a gourmet chef.


OK, not. But when I told Tom I was going to put some Alfredo sauce and some cheese and some bacon on those scallops, do you know what he said?

"Well, you can't go wrong with cheese and bacon."

I love that man.

And he is SO RIGHT. Any recipe with cheese and bacon is automatically excellent. Except for fish chowder. But that's another post.

Riding Through The Glen

So, I was looking for some new TV series to add to our Netflix kwee (as my son-in-law called it) in order to fill the DEEP AND ACHING HOLLOW HOLE IN MY HEART left when I finished "Gilmore Girls" and I stumbled on a TV series called "Robin Hood". I thought, heh. Probably some old series that will be really lame but it might be mildly entertaining, so I added it. And we started watching it a couple of weeks ago.

Let me just say. If you like action and adventure and romance and stories about a group of individuals who are friends while at the same time being heroic and smart-alecky; if you like a show that can make you laugh out loud and bring tears to your eyes in the same episode, you are going to like this. Let me just give you one example. At one point, they think Marian is dead (of course, she recovers) and the outlaw gang is standing by her bed, mourning her. And Little John says "Her we liked". And Robin gently corrects him in his oh-so-sexy-could-you-die British accent and says "Her we looved. Robin looved." And it's so sad and so sexy and so fabulous, you could just die. Even if, for some inscrutable reason, Robin is talking about himself in the third person. I'm telling you, go add to this show your Netflix kwee now. You will like it. Let me know.

Apparently, there are all kinds of shows going on that we know nothing about. It's amazing the things going on out in the world that I know nothing about. I am constantly surprised. This show was produced by the BBC last year and actually just finished the second season in December. There will be a third season, probably in the fall. I was also surprised to learn that we get the BBC as part of our cable lineup so there may be other shows we will start watching as well.

While researching this "Robin Hood", I stumbled on a web page and this song began playing.











And I thought, " I KNOW that song. I have heard that song. It is faintly tweaking a childhood memory. It's the theme song from a TV show called "The Adventures of Robin Hood" from the 50's. I must have watched it. All I remember is the theme song. Sound familiar to you???

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway - Strawberry Trivet

The little yellow dishes from last Monday were pretty popular. Here's the results. #5 commenter was someone called cdb655, but they did not leave a blog or email address. If you are cdb655, please contact me!

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

For details about the FREE (Yes, FREE. No strings attached. Well. Except you do have to visit my blog.) White Elephant Blog Giveaway, just click here. Now, make a comment. You know you want to.

Today I have a really cute little strawberry trivet. It's about 7 1/2" X 7 1/2" and could be hung up or used as a trivet. Make a comment if you have room in your kitchen! (And please leave a blog link or an email address or check back next Monday to see if you won) Thanks for participating.

For Fun Friday March 14, 2008

Hey. I might actually be able to play (and win) some of these old arcade games!

http://oldfungames.com/index.php

Feel like shopping for something? OK, here you go. Oh. One thing. You don't get to pick what the something IS.

http://www.somethingstore.com/index.html

Hey!! I'm really good at this one. But READ the rules. I played several times before I realized you don't have to go straight across or down or diagonal like in a word search. Let me know how you do.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/cgi-bin/top_scores.pl?game=multipopword

I already told you how bad I was at finding the states. I'm MUCH WORSE at finding countries in Europle. How about you?

http://www.gizdic.com/freegames/gamespages/europe.htm

Just keep watching. Really. Be patient. It's worth it.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Another Post About Napping. Sorry.

Picture from: http://icanhascheezburger.com/

OK. I realize I have written several posts about napping including the one here and that in one of them I promised never to talk about napping again. I should never make rash promises. You never know when one of the immensely fascinating topics I blog about will, once again, become timely and I will be able to milk another post from it to share some pertinent information with you. Apparently? All this time I have been thinking that napping was just the loveliest indulgence you could possibly engage in, when in reality I was actually KEEPING MY HEART HEALTHY

I KNEW it. OK, I suspected it. OK. I had absolutely no idea. Doctors at the Harvard School of Public Health have discovered that people who nap at least 30 minutes a day (and my personal opinion would be - the longer, the better) are less likely to die of heart attacks than those who don't nap. They even suspect that it might make you healthier by lowering the level of cortisol in your blood, which weakens the immune system. Some companies are even offering napping rooms, a concept I could totally support.

The article I read about this study suggested some creative approaches to getting in this 30 minute siesta, one of which I found rather amusing. They said you could lean back in your chair with a bottle of eye drops in your hand. Then, if someone came in, you could just say you were putting eye drops in your eyes.

My problem is that I would probably be so deeply asleep, drooling on the chair back, that if someone came in, I would jerk awake and the bottle of eye drops in my hand would go flying through the air and smack me in the face.

And really. That would not be very relaxing at all.

My Purse Is Fabulous

I went to a purse party last week. Have you been to one of these? Where they have all these designer purses just piled willy-nilly in someone's living room and they are for sale at these ridiculously low prices and you truly WANT TO BELIEVE they are actually designer purses but somewhere in the back of your mind that is not influenced by the shiny, shiny buckles and smooth, lovely smelling leather, you know they probably are not actually made by little Italian fingers in the real Dolce and Gabbana factory in Italy. Or in India. Or wherever they really make those purses.

We were warned that people get a little excited at these parties and there might possibly be some pushing and some shoving and that, much like a garage sale, if you see a purse you like, you had darn well better pick that sucker up because if someone else picks it up and you should happen to say something like "Uh, excuse me, I was just going to pick that up", you can forget it sister. That purse is history. Or, to be completely technical, herstory.

But when it came down to it, my daughter was the only one doing any shoving and that's just because she got a little overly excited and she apologized immediately for knocking me to the floor. Not really. It was her cousin she knocked to the floor. OK. You got me. Nobody was actually knocked to the floor.

However. At one point, I did have four purses hanging from my arms because I couldn't quite decide and I was NOT ABOUT to let someone else pick up the one purse I had decided I could not live the rest of my life without owning. Just as soon as I decided which one that was.

So we bought our purses and we came home and each of us proceeded to instantly transfer our stuff to our new purse and caress it lovingly and speak nicely to it in a low, throaty murmur. Or maybe that was just me.

And when I chose the clothes to wear the next day, it was a COMPLETE COINCIDENCE that my outfit matched my new purse perfectly and set it off beautifully. A total COINCIDENCE.

And I did NOT carry it around all day and show it to every single one of my friends and, just possibly, open the cabinet where it was stored and pet it several times.

Oh. You KNOW I did.

In Like A Lion

Years and years ago, we used to have the big snows. I remember driving home one night from work after a big snow storm had hit and everyone was driving about 3 miles an hour because the snow was piled so deeply on the road, it had made it nearly impassible. But we haven't had snow like that for a long time.

Until now.

In March. When a logical person might think the chance for significant snowfall would likely be over, we got the biggest snow in a decade dumped on us. Luckily, we had plenty of warning and pretty much everyone in town could run to the store and stock up on bread and milk, the two staples apparently everyone needs to survive an apocalypse of this nature. We already had our vitally important supplies of bread and milk, so I just headed straight home when they dismissed school early. We got a dusting in the evening but the worst of it hit Friday night and early Saturday morning, while we were sleeping. And we woke up to this.


As with pretty much any event that occurs in my life nowadays, I immediately thought "I must blog this!", threw on some clothes and grabbed my camera. I honestly can't remember the last time my boots sank in the snow this much.

The bushes and trees had a thick coating of the clean, white snow.

It wasn't very early, but hardly anyone was out and about. I saw a man walking a dog that was eagerly snuffling in the snow and a young man loading a red sled into a car. It was silent. The snow was still drifting lazily down and the already fallen snow was clean and pristine.

Icy rain had fallen before the snow.

A cardinal perched lightly in a tree, sheltered from the falling snow. And the snow kept whispering down. Silently whispering down.

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway - Yellow And White Bowls

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

For details about the FREE (Yes, FREE. No strings attached. Well. Except you do have to visit my blog.) White Elephant Blog Giveaway, just click here. Now, make a comment. You know you want to.

Today I have a set of really cute, small, white, yellow and blue bowls that I found. You could use them for ice cream, jello, pudding or pretty much whatever you want to put in them. They are about 2" tall and about 4" across the top. Remember to make a comment if you want them!

For Fun Friday March 7, 2008

I came up with 32 colors. What about you?

http://www.justsayhi.com/bb/view2/colors

How would you do if you had to take the actual citizenship test? I did pretty well, but was surprised by some of the answers.

http://games.toast.net/independence/page1.asp

OK, this is pretty cool. Apparently, a LOT of Ebay sellers can't spell correctly and you can get great deals by locating items they have spelled wrong - because everyone can't find them! Check it out.

http://www.misspelledauctions.com/index.php

How much TV do you watch? Yeah, me too.

http://www.cramersweeney.com/smartmarketing.html

OK, I could TOTALLY sell some of this stuff too. It will be interesting to see if he gets any buyers.

http://davidhorvitz.com/if/index.html

OK. I'm A Little Bummed

So I just finished the last DVD of the last season of "Gilmore Girls". It was seriously SO GOOD. If you have not watched this, immediately go to Netflix and sign up for it. I'll wait.

Did you do it? OK. You'll have to let me know what you think. Because I am so serious. It is SO GOOD. But the only thing is. Now I MISS those people. I MISS Stars Hollow and learning the minutiae of their everyday lives. I want to know what happened with Lorelei and Luke? Surely they got married, right? And what about Logan? Does he come back for Rory?

Yes, I realize these are not actually for real people. But...they SEEM so real.

It is completely different watching a TV series on DVD than it is watching it weekly on TV. With no commercials and the ability to watch one show right after the other, you find yourself totally immersed in these people's lives. And. You MISS them.

So. I guess I need something else to watch. Some new friends. Some new places.

Just give me a minute. One minute. To move on.

You Did WHAT?

I recently sent around this little, fun survey that I got in my email. I don't very often do that but this one was cute and funny and I thought it would be interesting so I sent it to a few friends.

One of the items to check was if you had ever been skinny-dipping outside. I left it blank. I never have. Inside, yes. Once. In college. Never outside.

But here's the really interesting thing. EVERY SINGLE PERSON I SENT IT TO HAD BEEN SKINNY-DIPPING OUTSIDE.

I was really surprised. And curious. Where are all these people swimming that you can get away with doing it naked? When did this happen? What was the situation? My brain is just a-whirl with questions.

So. Have YOU been skinny-dipping outside? Tell me about it. Please. Stay anonymous if you want. I'm just dying of curiosity here.

I Had A VERY Productive Day

We had a snow day last week. Actually, to be technical, an ice day. I decided I would make use of the free time at home to be really productive. To get some things done. To clean. To organize. To work on my Ebay sales. Right after I went back to bed for a couple of hours.

OK. Good to go! NOW I'm going to be productive. Do some laundry. Clean the kitchen. Organize my closets. Clean the bathrooms.

And then the mail came. And I had two DVDs from Netflix. The last two DVDs of the last season of "Gilmore Girls". You KNOW I had to find out how it ended. So. My day was not TECHNICALLY that productive.

Unless you count lying in bed in my sleeping pants, eating tomato soup with Ritz crackers crumbled up in it (the FOOD OF THE GODS. And please. Let's not have another Pop-Tart with butter debacle here. Surely everyone eats their tomato soup this way) and watching "Gilmore Girls" as being productive.

If you count that. I was TOTALLY PRODUCTIVE.

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway - Teeny Tiny Owls

Be sure to check out my new blog over there on the sidebar. I'll be posting there every Tuesday and Thursday.

Only one taker on the little cherry plate from last week, so they automatically win. That makes a drawing pretty easy. Now, let's try again!

Mrs. Who's White Elephant Blog Giveaway

White Elephant: Something of dubious or limited value (value being in the eye of the beholder)

For details about the FREE (Yes, FREE. No strings attached. Well. Except you do have to visit my blog.) White Elephant Blog Giveaway, just click here. Now, make a comment.

You know you want to.

I don't really like owls. I have no owl pictures, owl candles, owl placemats or owl guest towels. However. I fell in love with these twee bitty owls as I was browsing in Goodwill. They are so tiny. They are so very wide-eyed. They are so cute in their little group of three. You must have them. Someone must love these precious little owls. Please. Give them a good home. Each one is about 3" tall, so they won't take up much room.

Just to show you how sweet and weenie they are, here is one with a quarter.

Make a comment before Friday night if you want to give the owls a home. If you don't have a blog, be sure to leave your email in the comment. And be sure to check back next Monday.