That's Disgusting!

I was tagged by Cinnamon over at My Life as a Work at Home Mom for a blog challenge of posting a disgusting thing that I found at my house. I've read a few others who were tagged and they were indeed disgusting! lol!

The rules are simple:

1) Post at least one disgusting thing you have found in your house.
2) Link back to this post
3) Link back to the blogger that Tagged you
4) Go tag another blogger.

So, let's see... something that I found disgusting would be a wet swimming suit and towel that were left in a plastic bag from Labor Day until the following May! My youngest went swimming at a friends house and when she came home, she left her wet swimsuit and towel in the plastic bag in the closet of her room. I kept asking her where it was, and she kept saying she didn't remember.... Somehow it had other things piled on top of it all winter long and was not found until she did Spring cleaning in her room. When she opened the bag, it reeked so bad that we threw the whole bag away! YUCK!!!!

Ok now that I’ve aired my dirty laundry, it’s your turn!

Tag you are it!

Anita and Kara at A Tale of 2 WAHM's

Lauren at ScrappinWAHM'sJournal

Val at Working WAHM

Rest in Peace, Ruth

My best friend's mother passed away this week and today was the funeral. Ruth Cravotta had been ill for the past month, but it was still a very hard time for my friend, Angela and her sister, Nikki. Their father, Angelo has also been in the hospital for the past month (she went in the day after he did), and was moved to a nursing home yesterday. Unfortunately, they were not in the same hospital, so it has been a very difficult and trying time for the girls, going from one hospital to the other, during ICU and CCU visiting hours. We'll keep praying for Angelo to get stronger so that he is able to come home again.

Ruth was one of those ladies that everyone couldn't help but love. She was a sweet little old lady who loved to tease, and loved to talk. I have many, many fond memories of being in her house while I was growing up, of seeing her at church and at school events for Angela when she was younger, and then at her grandsons' school events. She was so proud of those boys. She loved God, she loved her family, and she loved life. She will be sadly missed.

I will keep my memories of Ruth with me forever. Farewell Ruth, I love you....

Mother's Love

There are times when only a Mother's love
Can understand our tears,
Can soothe our disappointments
And calm all of our fears.

There are times when only a Mother's love
Can share the joy we feel
When something we have dreamed about
Quite suddenly is real.

There are times when only a Mother's faith
Can help us on life's way
And inspire in us the confidence
We need from day to day.

For a Mother's heart and a Mother's faith
And a Mother's steadfast love
Were fashioned by the Angels
And sent from God above.

Michael Olakunle Adesanya

Unique Auction Site

I stumbled upon a very unique auction site called Bid4Prizes where the lowest bidder wins the prize! The lowest bidder? Yes, you read that right. Unlike most normal auctions where the highest bidder wins, this auction is actually a reverse auction game, where the lowest unique bid wins the prize. And the best part is, the prize is actually a Free Gift!

Even though you win the prize with the lowest bid, you actually do not pay anything when you win your prize, other than shipping costs to have it delivered to you, or any taxes that may be due to the IRS. It's more of a sweepstake than an actual auction, but it sure is fun and very easy to play!

Prizes range from a new 2007 Scion, Apple I-Phones, Playstation 3, Designer Bags, PLASMA TV's and even Cash Prizes! You simply either text the keyword with your bid or you can bid online. There is a new winner every day! Stop on over at Bid4Prizes and check it out. You might be the next winner!

High School Musical

Jillian went with a friend last night to see High School Musical in Greensburg, PA.

She is still beaming from ear to ear! She absolutely loved the show! This one was performed by Stage Right, School for Performing Arts & Professional Theatre Company. She's watched the show on tv many, many times and she was afraid she wouldn't like the stage production as much. But her friend's mother was able to get them excellent seats so they were able to see everything so clearly!

Jillian is our little actor... she has performed in many plays and musicals at school and she's only in 7th grade. She's been in the Wizard of Oz and Beauty, Beauty and the Beast and Once Upon a Mattress in the chorus, and this past fall, she had a small part in Annie as the Star To Be. She actually got to sing a solo for that show! And she was in the chorus as an orphan as well.

Both girls went to NYC last year with the Band and Chorus and they were able to see real Broadway shows... I'm so jealous! They saw Beauty and The Beast and Phantom of the Opera. Some day I'll get to go....

Now I need a Credit Card!

With Prom expenses, and a trip to Quebec in June with the French Club at school for my daughter Becca, I'm going to need another credit card!

So, how do I know which credit card is best? I found an online tool that will help me compare credit cards so that I know which one will work for my circumstances. Do I want one that will give me airline miles, free gas, or hotel or car rewards? Or do I actually need a business credit card? I do have a small business, so maybe an Advanta credit card would work best for me....

They also have some interesting articles on applying for secured credit cards and one that I really found helpful entitled, Why Your College Student SHOULD have a Credit Card. Becca will be leaving for college in a little over a year and I definitely need this information!

At CreditorWeb, I can compare credit cards and even easily insert any search criteria that I'm looking for. This helps me become well informed before I even apply for a credit card.

Time for Prom!

Yes, it's that time of the year when all the schools are having their Prom, and our school is no different. Our oldest daughter, Becca is a Junior this year and will be attending her first Prom! I think I'm just as excited as she is! We're going shopping tonight for her dress. This is her favorite.... she found it online at the Deb Shop:So, we're hoping they have this one in the store, but if not, and she doesn't find something else she likes better, we're going to order this one online. Notice how she accessorized it all?

The Prom is May 4th, so we have less than two weeks to get everything together! A friend of ours is a beautician, so she's coming over to our house one day next week to play with hair styles... then she'll come back over the night of the Prom to get her ready for the big night! I'll be posting pictures of the big night later!

Blogtipping. . .

Please mark your calendar to go blogtipping with me on Tuesday, May 1, 2007 - the anniversary of the first Blogtipping Day!

Blogtipping Definition: Blogtipping is where you publish a blog post in which you link to three unsuspecting blogs and offer three compliments and/or one helpful tip to each blogger. (Or adapt those numbers to your own preferences; the principle of selflessness is what matters most here.) Blogtipping is a refreshing and useful surprise that can start a blogger's month with a huge smile!

The first calendar day of each month is a new Blogtipping Day. Who will you sneak up behind and tip next time? :)

So come back on May 1st to see who I've Blogtipped! I'll be posting who I've Blogtipped with links to their sites. For each of my 4 blogs, I will be Blogtipping three other blogs that are similar to my blog, so I'll actually Blogtip 12 blogs on May 1st!

Ain't

He was just a little boy, on a week's first day.
Wandering home from Sunday School, and dawdling on the way.
-
He scuffed his shoes into the grass; he even found a caterpillar.
He found a fluffy milkweed pod, and blew out all the "filler."
-
A bird's nest in a tree overhead, so wisely placed up so high.
Was just another wonder, that caught his eager eye.
-
A neighbor watched his zig zag course, and hailed him from the lawn;
Asked him where he'd been that day and what was going on.
-
"I've been to Bible School ," he said and turned a piece of sod.
He picked up a wiggly worm replying, "I've learned a lot about God."
-
"M'm very fine way," the neighbor said, "for a boy to spend his time."
"If you'll tell me where God is, I'll give you a brand new dime."
-
Quick as a flash the answer came! Nor were his accents faint.
"I'll give you a dollar, Mister, if you can tell me where God ain't." :)
-
Author Unknown-

The Best No Bake Cookies

I LOVE these cookies, and so do all my friends. They often tell me that they've tried many different No Bake Cookies and these are the Best!

Chocolate/Peanut Butter Drop Oat Cookies 2 cups sugar
4 tbls cocoa
1/2 cup milk
Mix together in sauce pan, bring to boil, stir frequently, then boil for 2 full minutes.

Remove from heat and add
1/4 lb butter
1 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla

Stir still smooth and everything mixed.

Add 2 cups oats, mix together, then drop on wax paper.

Just Say Hi....

Dating sites.... considering I'm a happily married woman of 20+ years, I don't have a need for a dating site. However, you can't help but notice that there seem to be hundreds of different dating sites available today. Everywhere you look, whether it's online or on TV, or even on the radio, you'll see ads for various dating sites.

So if I were single, how would I choose between them all? Do I want to pay to find someone, or do I want a service that is free? Do I want to leave a phone message or be able to see a picture of someone on line?

Just Say Hi offers you the chance to "check someone out" by their online profile. You can even look for someone by zipcode and/or age. And, it's FREE! They want to help you find the relationships that matter. And, they want to spread free love to the world!

If you don't want to pay for online dating, check out Just Say Hi. It's FREE!

Simple Successful Habits

I've been tagged! My kids often play "tag you're it!" and now I've been tagged on the web by another blogger as a part of an ongoing meme, the theme of which is "simple things that make you successful". Thanks to Wendy at Adventures of A Suburban WAHM for including me in this fun little game.

So, now I have to decide which things I feel make me successful. In order to do that, I've broken it down into 5 categories where I feel I'm successful: My faith, family, life in general, work outside the home, work at home.

Faith - My family and I are very active in our church. I am the director for our Angel Food Ministries program which allows anyone to purchase $50-75 worth of food for $25 each month. That program is very successful and I was the one who presented it to our church. It's not successful because of just me... it takes many, many hands to make that program work each and every month, but I am thrilled to be a part of it. I am also a Certified Lay Speaker for our church, so I am called on often to share God's word when the preacher cannot be there. I'm also in our church choir, bell choir and I teach the adult Sunday School class. My life is blessed 100 fold by my participation in these church activities.

Family - I feel I am a successful wife and mother. I've been married to my sweetie Frank for 20 years (almost 21!) and we have two beautiful girls who are 16 and 13. The three of them are my life. Without them, I can't even imagine living. My husband has a successful job that he loves and our girls are really, truly good girls. They each are on the honor roll at school consistently each semester and very involved with our church. They also have many outside activities at school that keep me running :)

Life in General - Last summer, Frank and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary with a trip to Gatlinburg for a week while the girls were in church camp. When we got back and I had our pictures developed, I was disgusted with myself... I had gained weight the last few years, so I decided to make a lifestyle change effective immediately. Since then, I have lost just over 25 pounds and I'm 10 pounds away from my goal weight! After searching for a local support group to help both Becca and I lose weight, I decided to start one of my own with the help of TOPS. So, I'm the leader of that group and we conduct weekly weigh ins and meetings to help us all stay on track.

Work Outside The Home - I am the Office Manager for a very busy Funeral Home and Monument Company. We provide monuments for about 30 other funeral homes in our area, and I do all the design work, ordering of granite and foundations and keeping everything straight! lol! It's a very rewarding job and I feel I am very successful at it. When I started this job almost 5 years ago, we sold to about 12 funeral homes and had sales of about $75,000 a year. As of December of 2006, we have just over 30 funeral homes purchasing from us and our sales exceeded $400,000!

Work From Home - I have had several successful work at home businesses over the years. Unfortunately, due to problems with the companies themselves, two of them have closed their doors. I was one of the first Directors with 1800Partyshop and was on the Presidential Leadership Board. At one time, I had over 7,500 people in my downline with that company. Unfortunately, they closed their doors and it was all gone in an instance. I then became a consultant for a Christian Book direct sales company. I was on my way to making Manager with them and had 5 people in my downline. However, they too closed their doors. Now I am trying my hand at blogging! I am putting all of my free time into my 4 blogs in hopes that they will bring me some additional income on the side.

So, those are the 5 areas where I feel I am successful! My turn to tag a few people! I like to check with folks first and make sure they want to play, so I’ll edit this after I have five rounded up.

I have two takers so far!
Check out Work At Home Mom Revolution
and Fighting Fatigue The Blog Hog

If anyone wants to participate and I haven’t tagged you, please feel free to join in the fun! All I ask is that put a link back to this post! Have an awesome day!

Bev

One Million Steps...

Becca and I are members of TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly), a weight loss support group, at our church. We were challenged by the Area Captain in February to make a goal of taking 1,000,000 steps from the beginning of February through the end of July.

Sounds impossible, doesn't it? But actually it's not at all. It's very doable if you break it down into daily goals!

I figured there are 181 days from the beginning of February through the end of July and then divided it into 1,000,000. That meant I needed to take 5,525 steps a day to reach my goal!

I started out February averaging about 6,000 steps a day. That would help me reach my goal of a million steps, but in reality, that is not burning enough calories to help me lose any weight. So, by the end of February, I was up to averaging about 8,000 steps a day. In March, I took it up a notch. I decided my goal was to hit 10,000 steps a day as many days in March that I could. I hit that goal every single day except for 5. So for 26 days in March, I had over 10,000 steps each day!

For April, I decided to kick it up another notch! My new goal for April is to take at least 12,000 steps a day! So far, I've been averaging about 13,000 steps a day!

If I would have set a goal of taking 12,000 steps a day from the beginning of February, I would be on track to take 2 Million steps by the end of July! Unbelievable, isn't it?

How many steps do you take a day?

Quick and Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Here is a quick and easy Chicken Pot Pie Recipe for a fast easy and yummy meal.

Ingredients:
1 Large Can of Cream Of Chicken Soup
3 Large Cooked Chicken Strips
1 regular size can of peas and corn
1 regular size can of potatoes
1 small can mushrooms
1 ready made pie crust-The kind you have to bake.

Prepare by
Chopping the potatoes into small chunks
chop the chicken into small pieces or to desired size
Take the ready made pie shell and pour the cream of chicken soup into it. You may want to mix it first with a dash of milk.
Pour all the other ingredients into the pie shell
cover with the top pie shell
bake at 350 degrees till pie crust is baked and flaky.
Around 20 minutes depending on your oven.
Check often to make sure it isn't burning.

I take the ready made pie shell out of the foil pie dish it comes in and put it in my glass pie dish because this is kind of a lot for those foil dishes.
You could cut the recipe down though if you don't want to make as much.

Becca Got a Job!

Woo Hoo! Becca got a job! Yeah! We live (and I work) near a very small town (less than 5,000 people) and there's a family run pharmacy right downtown... Becca applied there a couple weeks ago and got called Friday asking her if she wanted the job! No interview, just asked her if she wanted the job! Of course, we've been getting our prescriptions filled there forever...

Anyway, she started last night and it went really well. She'll work 3 days a week, for 4 hours a day, so 12 hours a week to start. He said he'll increase her hours once they see how she's doing. It's not a lot, but at least it's spending money for her and less I have to give her!

They Won!

Jillian's practice team won their volleyball game! Woo Hoo! The JV team lost both games... the Varsity won the first game, lost the second, then lost the third. Then our practice squad played their practice squad and blew them away 25 - 8! To say my Jillian was a little excited would be an understatement :)

Besides playing volleyball, she is also going to be in the school musical, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown. The middle school students are only allowed to be in the chorus for this musical; the high school students have the leads. That's because the middle school had their own musical in the fall, Annie. It was fantastic and Jillian had a solo part in that musical. I'm sure I'll be posting more about that as it gets closer.

Fireman's Memorial

I work in a funeral home... but my main job there is the Office Manager for the monument department. I design monuments for about 30 funeral homes. We also do some specialty work, such as statues and military memorials.

Anyway, we just completed a project for a local county fireman's association in memory of men who have died in the line of duty (during a fire). One of the local tv stations was there when our guys were installing it!

If you go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jPj1iOioL4

you'll see the memorial that I designed

You don't have to watch the whole thing, just at the beginning, it shows a picture of the whole monument completed.

Just thought I'd share!

Bev

Volleyball Season!

Yes, it's volleyball season.... my youngest, Jillian, decided she wanted to try out for the Junior High Volleyball team this year. She's in 7th grade and has never played on a volleyball team before... but she loves to play.

So tryouts were two weeks ago; they had 52 girls trying out and only 24 positions open. They took 16 Eighth grade girls and only 8 Seventh grade girls and unfortunately, Jillian didn't make it. But that's okay, because they allow the girls that did not make it to be on a "practice squad". They get to go to all the practices that the team does but in a separate gym and work on their game. They also let the girls practice with the team once in a while too. Then the girls go to the games with the actual team to help cheer them on and they get to play a game against the other school's practice squads! So they still will get to play games against other schools occasionally if they have a practice squad too.

The practice squad was told that they will be watched by the coaches throughout the season and if they show a marked improvement, they could be moved up to the JV team. So that is Jillian's goal... to keep improving so that she can actually get on the team.

So tonight is their first game! JV game starts at 4:00, followed by the Varsity, then the practice squad. So I'll get to see Jillian playing volleyball! I'll post tomorrow with an update on how the game went!

You Influence 3 People Each and Every Day

A friend of mine told me yesterday that he starts every day with the thought that he will influence at least 3 people that day. It is up to him what the influence is, whether good or bad.

Wow! That is really a deep thought! lol! I'm serious here. Think about it. The way you react to each person in every situation can influence them in some way. Whether it's the store clerk when you are checking out, or the person behind you in the check out line, or the telemarketer on the phone who is just doing her job....

Have you ever noticed that when you smile at someone, they usually smile back at you. But if you give someone a dirty look, they usually get this shocked look on their face like, "what did I do???". For the rest of the day, they are going to be trying to figure out what they did to make you look at them like that! But if you smiled at them, it may make their day a little better.

Influence every single person you come in contact with today in a positive way.... not a negative way.