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Archive for the ‘About me’ Category

Taking A Chance On Myself

Posted in About me, Creativity, Jewelry, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 14, 2010| 7 Comments »


Call it taking a risk, call it following my heart, or call it just plain stupid for quitting my job. I recently quit my job at the clothing store where I worked for almost two years. I enjoyed my work there and I learned a lot about the world of retail and much about myself. As hard as it was for me to leave my friends at work, it was harder for me to stay. My soul kept crying out like Oliver Twist for “more.”

I’ve quit jobs before and, as a matter of fact, I’ve quit a profession before. For more than a decade I toiled as a dental hygienist before I chose an even more difficult job – that of a full time stay-at-home mom. But this time it’s different – I quit because I need to focus on myself. Selfish? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely. With the support of a loving husband, I’m continuing on my journey of finding out more about myself and learning what more I can offer the world. I know what I am – a daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend. But the question remains, who am I?

I’ve never been a risk-taker. Maybe it’s because I’m a middle child and I like everything all neat and tidy. Probably the riskiest thing I’ve ever done in my life was to go for a walk at night with a man I’d met minutes before at a college street dance. What was I thinking? I was following my gut instinct – the guy seemed nice and he seemed harmless. As it turns out, I married that nice man who offered to take me on a tour of the campus. Taking risks can sometimes pay off.

I’m following that gut instinct of mine again and it’s telling me there’s more out there for me. It’s already led me in new directions. Creating What About This? involved taking another risk for me. In creating a platform for my creative endeavors and the desire to spread joy, I knew that writing a blog about my ideas and thoughts would be putting myself out there for the world to see and judge. I always encouraged creative writing in my children, but I was never an active writer myself. However, in the process of writing my blog, I’ve realized that maybe I can write and maybe my writing can help people.

Combining my love of making things and helping people has also led me to crafting pieces of jewelry with selected words hammered into metal. I’ve been told more than once by well meaning people that there are other companies out there making this kind of jewelry. That may be true, but to me the value in my jewelry is really the process I take with my clients to reveal or uncover their specific words of affirmation. Often times affirmations are not self-evident. In my creative mind, I see many positive applications for my jewelry and it brings me joy.

As Alexander Graham Bell once said, “When one door closes, another opens . . . .” The journey I’ve chosen to take feels so right, at least for now. There will be twists and turns and maybe even u-turns in the road ahead of me, but at least I can say I tried and took a chance on myself.

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On a Need to Know Basis

Posted in About me, Kids, Parenting, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

As my husband prepares to leave for a business trip, I pepper him with questions like, “How can I reach you?” “What airline will you be flying?” “Which hotel will you be staying at?” “Who’s the contact person at the conference?” etc. My husband takes it all in stride and patiently answers my questions. He is aware that I’m on a need to know fact finding mission. I’m like this all the time with everyone in my family. Even my parents can’t go on a road trip unless I have their itinerary first.

My daughter, who is seeking her independence daily, rolls her eyes at me whenever I ask her questions about her travel plans. “Do you really need to know this, Mom?” she impatiently says to me. My reply is, “Yes, I need to know and this is why I need to know:  If something happens to you on your trip and I don’t have a clue about your whereabouts, there will be no way of retracing your steps.” Inevitably, I get the information I need to satisfy my overactive imagination.

I need to know my kids are okay. I started “Sunday Night Check-ins” when my oldest child went off to college. Primarily, I wanted him to stay in touch with his siblings and to not lose track of what was happening in their lives and to share with the family what was happening in his. Basically, it was just good to hear his voice. I figured Sunday was a good choice, because if he had gone out of town or if any part of our family had gone away for the weekend, we’d all be back by Sunday evening. When my second son went off to college, he rightfully assumed he’d be making Sunday night calls. To this day he checks in with me whenever he’s been out of town for a while to let me know that he made it back safely. He knows I just need to know.

Apart from being a mom, I can attribute my “need to know” behavior to one particular event in my life.  When I was in my twenties, I went home to visit my parents for a weekend. One morning my parents went out to run errands while I stayed behind. The phone rang and I answered it. A voice pleaded to me, “Where’s my brother? . . I need my brother . . . .” My uncle was on the line, but this was not the voice of the intelligent and funny man I knew. His son, my cousin, was a freshman in college and had become seriously ill. Because this happened before the invention of cell phones, there was no way of contacting my parents directly. As I tried to remember everything my parents had told me about their morning plans, I frantically called store after store and had my parents paged. This proved futile; I could not find them.

Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.“ I can’t really recall my uncle’s exact words, but I will never forget the overwhelming cries of desperation, fear, and sadness in his voice that morning. I learned many life lessons from my cousin’s tragic death, but the one that surfaces regularly is how important it is to know where your loved ones are – so my dear family, please indulge me.

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It’s All About the Food

Posted in About me, In The Kitchen, Recipes, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2010| 1 Comment »

It’s all about the food. Sometimes the best way to learn about a country and its culture is to learn about its food and its cooking traditions. Lucky for me, my daughter, who was a student in Greece for nearly five months, was not only my tour guide to the ancient sites, but also my culinary guide.

From dining in little tavernas that speckle the narrow side streets of Athens to eating fresh-caught fish off the coast of Santorini, I was introduced to the exquisite textures and flavors of Greek food. Sampling inch-long baby okra cooked in a light tomato and onion sauce, devouring tiny fried whitebait fish – head, tail, spine and all, and spreading pureed dried yellow peas on bread, were just some of the opportunities I used to discover the gastronomic resources available to the Greeks. I learned that some of the varieties of legumes we eat today are the same ones once eaten in ancient times.

And because the sun shines most of the year and very little rain falls, Greek tomatoes and peppers are exceptionally sweet. The freshness of Greek ingredients cannot be denied. Most foods are simply delicious because they are prepared with fresh and few ingredients. Very few over-processed foods ever made it to my table while I was in Greece.


Scorpion fish or grilled octopus, anyone? The seafood in Greece was as good as I had anticipated. The subtle lobster-like flavor of the Scorpion fish and the chewy texture of the fresh octopus were both delicious, but it was the fried calamari that really got my attention. Maybe it was the freshness of the squid or the very lightest dredging of flour or the addition of exactly the right amount of salt, but this Greek version of fried calamari was by far the best I’ve ever tasted!

The Greeks love their sweets. The sweet scent of freshly baked pastries found me following my nose into more than one local bakery. Even before I left home, my daughter had warned me about this temptation. I’d heard her stories about Bougatsa me Krema and was looking forward to my first taste. It did not disappoint. How could warm layers of buttery, thin phyllo sheets filled with creamy custard, and sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon be disappointing? Before the introduction of sugar, ancient Greeks used honey to sweeten their food. Thick, creamy, Greek yogurt and honey is a traditional treat and Greeks like to make sweet syrups from honey to pour over their cakes and fried sweets. Many Loukoumades or Greek donut balls coated in a honey-syrup called out to me.

Now back at home, I wanted to try my hand at making the memorable Bougatsa me Krema and I found a recipe online. Flakey, buttery and filled with custard – mine was pretty darn close to the deliciousness I experienced in Greece! I share this temptation with you.

Bougatsa me Krema or Creamy Custard Phyllo Pastry

-Courtesy of Nancy Gaifyllia of About.com with comments by Linnell-

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Ingredients:

* 4 1/4 cups of whole milk

* sliced peel of 1 lemon

* 1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar

* 3/4 cup of semolina (durum wheat flour which I found in my local grocery store)

* 4 eggs

* 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

* 12 sheets of commercial phyllo dough

* 6 ounces of butter, melted

For the topping:

* confectioner’s sugar

* ground cinnamon

Preparation:

Warm the milk and lemon peel in a saucepan. Stir in semolina with a wooden spoon until the mixture is thoroughly blended and thickened. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, and vanilla until light and add to the pan, stirring over medium-low heat until it reaches a creamy custard consistency. Remove from heat, take out and discard lemon peel, and allow it to cool completely. Stir occasionally to keep the custard from forming a skin on top.

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).

Lightly brush a baking pan (13 X 9 X 2 or equivalent) with butter. Line the bottom of the pan with 8 sheets of phyllo, brushing each sheet well with the melted butter. Add the custard filling. Fold the excess phyllo that overlaps the pan in over the custard. Top with the remaining phyllo, brushing each with butter. Use a scissors to trim the top sheets to the size of the pan. Spray the top lightly with water and bake at 350°F (180°C) for 30-40 minutes, until the top is golden brown.

Remove from oven, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon while hot, and serve warm.

Serving tip: In Greece, Bougatsa is cut with a pizza cutter.

Enjoy!

Adventures in Greece – to be continued . . .

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There and Back Again

Posted in About me, Travel, tagged , , on May 24, 2010| 2 Comments »

As the plane touched the ground, cheers were heard amongst the group of weary travelers. Admittedly, I was one of those cheering to be back on U.S. soil after traveling in Greece for almost two weeks and being in transit for nearly twenty hours. I’m the type of person that the Concorde supersonic jet was built for – the type that needs to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Sitting and waiting do not seem to be among my strengths. I was probably one of those kids that sat in the back seat and asked “Are we there, yet?” Now that I’m back on my own terra firma and supervising fifty loads of laundry, I can take pause to reflect upon certain aspects of my trip.

My daughter has truly become an independent, self-assured young lady. She’s always been mature and independent, but her tenure abroad has added a new dimension to her confidence. She bravely went to Greece alone, made new friends, learned to speak and read some modern Greek – which is no easy task, excelled in her five difficult university courses, and with the ease of a seasoned traveler, she navigated her way around Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Jordan. Her extensive knowledge of Greek history was evident as she proved herself a competent tour guide ushering me and my husband throughout the historic sites in the city of Athens. I listened intently as she spoke passionately about the economic and cultural issues of Greece – a country she vows to return to one day.

Whereas my daughter wants to be a world traveler, I discovered I really don’t enjoy traveling for extended periods of time. I am good for about ten days and then I start to get weary of the hustle and bustle and the lack of a good night’s sleep. Having been fortunate to have traveled a bit, I acknowledge that I’ve seen sights and sounds in parts of the world that other people only dream of. I would never trade my memories of visiting my dad’s village in China or of my first glimpse of the crystal clear, cerulean blue waters surrounding Bora Bora or of the charming little towns of Italy’s Cinque Terre, but at some point during all of these trips, the overall strain of traveling and sightseeing starts to overshadow the wonderment.

Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.” This morning as I sipped my tea, I gazed out of my kitchen window and looked at my backyard. With gazania, geranium, and begonia blossoms painting the garden with vivid splashes of color and carpet roses cascading over boulders like an undulating ribbon, I indulged myself a few moments to take it in. The scent of citrus blossoms wafted through the window and the sounds of water trickling from the fountain welcomed me home. Greece was wonderful to visit, but to me there’s no place like home.

Adventures in Greece – to be continued . . .

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The Traveling Medicine Bag

Posted in About me, Health, Helping Others, Organization, Parenting, Travel, tagged , , , , , , on May 10, 2010| 1 Comment »


Pepto-Bismol? Check. Ace bandage? Check. This is me mentally going through the contents of my traveling medicine bag. Whenever I travel long distances, I grab my plastic travel bag that contains medications and first aid items. I’ve learned that when traveling you can’t always buy medications when you need them. For the most part, my medicine bag is ready to go at a moment’s notice; I do, however, review expiration dates before I leave and replace any items that have expired. Most of the time the contents of my medicine bag does not change, but it may vary depending on my destination.

Obviously I’m a detail-oriented person, but I’ve learned a lot about packing from my mother. Once when I was preparing for a trip to China, my mother told me, “Throw in some strapping tape and an Ace bandage.” I mumbled to myself, “Why do I need those things?” Being a dutiful daughter, I threw them into my bag. Traveling in China during the 1980s was restrictive. You could not deviate from the schedule and most certainly could not leave the tour group to run to the nearest drugstore to make a purchase. So sure enough when someone in my tour group fell down and sprained her ankle, I stuck my hand up in the air proudly and said, “I have an Ace bandage!” And later during the tour when someone’s suitcase tore, I volunteered, “I have strapping tape, if you need it.” Two out of two – never again have I doubted my mom’s packing advice!

While traveling with my children over the years, I’ve learned that unexpected issues can arise and it’s always better to be prepared. Because of this I’ve had to add items to my traveling medicine bag. I’ll never forget this experience: It was a lovely day in Hawaii and my husband, children, and I were enjoying a day out on the beach. My oldest son was building a sand castle when he stepped on a bee and got stung underneath his big toe. I grabbed my room key, which was a plastic credit card-type, and gently scraped across his skin to remove the stinger. As his foot began to swell, I reached for a chilled can of soda from our day pack and held it to the swelling. Once back in our hotel room, I applied hydrocortisone cream to the area and gave him a Benadryl tablet. Since we were in Hawaii, we could have easily run out to a drugstore, but having these items on hand, I was able to attend to his swollen foot without delay and prevented his symptoms from getting worse.

Like prescribed medications, I keep this medicine bag in my carry on luggage. To make the traveling medicine bag lighter, more organized, and more compact, I remove all medicine from their boxes. Then I dismantle the boxes until they are flat and make photocopies of the important information on them. I cut out the photocopied information and put them into sandwich-sized Ziploc bags along with the medication. Blister packs of medication work well, but If you have bulky pill bottles or Costco-sized containers, pour some pills into labeled (medication name, # of mg/per pill, dose, expiration date) small, jewelry-sized plastic bags before placing them into the sandwich bags with the instruction sheets. All sandwich-sized Ziploc bags then get placed into the traveling medicine bag. I probably would have made a great Girl Scout, because I am always prepared!

Linnell’s Traveling Medicine Bag:
Ibuprofen (Advil)
Acetaminophen (Tylenol)
Pepto-Bismol
Antidiarrheal (Imodium)
Decongestant
Antihistamine (Benadryl)
Hydrocortisone cream
Antibiotic ointment
Alcohol wipes
Assortment of bandages
Ace bandage
Blister pads or Moleskin
Digital thermometer
Dramamine or Sea Bands
Eye drops

If traveling overseas, I might add:
Antibiotics
Dental repair kit

Always read and follow the accompanying instructions on medications and always check with your doctor to see if there are any contraindications for any member in the family to take these drugs.

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Friday’s Fresh Five! (5/7/10)

Posted in About me, Gardening, inspiration, Photography, Recycling, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 7, 2010| 3 Comments »

I lost myself today. I mean I lost myself in the sense of not caring where I was or what time it was. Feeling a little creatively blocked this morning, I grabbed my camera and went outside to photograph my rose garden. There is nothing quite like losing yourself in the magnificence of nature, in my case a rose garden during its first bloom of the season. The first bloom of the season is always a show stopper. After being dormant for many months, the roses put forth a tremendous effort to produce a caliber and profusion of blossoms not seen during the rest of the year. One hundred and sixty-four photos later my head cleared and creative ideas flowed again.

#1 – Flower Power
Here’s a thoughtful way to recycle flowers! If you are planning an event that has flower power, such as a wedding, contact the Flower Power Foundation. Its web site states, “The Flower Power Foundation is currently working in association with world-renowned hospice care centers, nursing and rehabilitation centers, rape crisis centers, Alzheimer facilities, and hospitals. Since inception we have facilitated millions of flowers from being discarded and turning them into heart opening experiences for the receivers and the givers. We are passionate about living in a society that takes care of each other now.”

The wheels of this foundation may not have arrived in your area, yet, but the concept is still viable. Why not recycle and rearrange flowers from an event and give them to those who would really appreciate beautiful gifts of hope?

#2 – Wine Bottles In Your Garden!
If you have a lot of empty wine bottles around the house, here’s a way to recycle them. An an article in Lifehacker suggests using wine bottles as garden edging. Bottles are stuck neck down into the soil, two rows wide to form a protective border around vegetable gardens.

#3 – Aphids, Aphids, and Aphids
How many different types of aphids exist? I must have seen at least five types in my garden today. According to Wikipedia there are about 4,400 species! To rid my rose garden of aphids, I dislodge them with a blast of water or run my gloved hand along the stems to brush them off. For more ideas on how to get rid of aphids read this article.

#4 -Reusing Parchment Paper
When I bake cookies I always cover my cookie sheets with parchment paper. Most of the time it’s parchment paper that’s been used before. Every time I’m done baking, I wipe the grease and crumbs off the paper with a slightly damp cloth. After it dries I store the paper on the cookie sheets so they’re ready for my next baking adventure!

#5 – Find Beauty Every Day
You cannot control the world outside, but you can choose what you bring into yourself. If you do not see anything of value in life, begin by finding one thing of beauty every day until it becomes a habit.
Ron Rathbun, meditation teacher

Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderfully dedicated mothers out there!

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Friday’s Fresh Five! (4/16/10)

Posted in About me, Creativity, Helping Others, In The Kitchen, inspiration, Recipes, Recycling, tagged , , , , , , on April 16, 2010| 2 Comments »

This photo says it all. It’s that kind of day. It’s a hula-hooping, sun-shining day and, even though I sound like I live on Sesame Street, I feel that way. Today’s my birthday and I’m celebrating the gift of this very lovely day!

#1 – Gifts That Help
Finding gifts for others can be difficult, but at charitablegiving.com it is not only easy to find unique gifts, it is also helping to fulfill the needs of others. The blog states, The purpose of this blog is to find some of the best stuff you can buy on the Web where a portion of the proceeds are donated to a charity or other non-profit organization in need.

We’ll surf major retailing sites, as well as mom-and-pop sites, to find the best out there. Whether you buy these products as gifts for others or for yourself, you can feel great about your purchase, knowing that you’re not just buying a gift, but helping a great cause too.

Not only does this blog post about products and causes, but it also invites its readers to post about other cause-worthy products. The upside is that you’re exposed to a lot of wonderful products for sale and feel good while buying. The downside is the need to be a smart buyer. Check out the cause and the organization to your satisfaction before making any purchases.

#2 – Creative Gift Wrapping
When wrapping gifts try to think outside the box. Be creative and resourceful. Try to reuse items you have on hand. Here are a couple of ideas to get you going:

Potato Chip Bags:
It’s not as weird as you think! Turn the bag inside out and wash it with soap and warm water. Completely wipe it dry. Wrap your item in tissue paper and put item in the bag. Fold the bag ends in and use double-sided tape to seal. This is a good way to wrap irregularly shaped items and the silver look is interesting. Different sized chip bags for different sized gifts!

Tubes:
Toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, wrapping paper tubes – they’re all the same except for length. Wrap your gift item with tissue paper first, then insert into the tube. Either cut paper or cardboard circles and tape to seal the ends shut or just put packing tape over the ends. Wrap the gift in a piece of paper that is 3-4 inches longer than the tube on each end. Twist the paper ends and tie ribbon on twists. This will look more or less like a piece of candy. If you don’t like that look, wrap it with paper and fold down the ends in pleats and tape.

Reading Materials:
Magazines and newspapers are obvious choices for wrapping, but consider old calendars, postcards (wrap these around tubes), and shopping bags.

#3 – Give the Gift of a Book
According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, “Bookcrossing is the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.” At BookCrossing.com, “Where 854,720 people in over 130 countries come to share their passion for books with the world,” you can sign up for free to become a member and learn how to begin registering and tracking books left in public places.

#4 – My Gift To You
Here’s a recipe for butter cookies that I’ve had since I was a child. Easy to make and delicious to eat!

1 cube butter
1 cup flour
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix all ingredients together and drop by small teaspoonfuls. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

#5 – Consider The Present
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. ~Babatunde Olatunji

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Hard Day’s Night

Posted in About me, Creativity, Photography, tagged , , , on March 31, 2010| 2 Comments »

“It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog.” This Beatle’s song lyric plays through my head as I walk through the back door. I feel fatigue settle upon me as I remove my shoes. My feet hurt from wearing “fashionable” shoes and from being on my feet for most of the day. I tell my husband it had been a “Calgon take me away” kind of day. As I say that, the visual image of soaking in a tub of billowy bubbles, seems like the very thing to do to sooth my weary bones.

With the warm water running, I pour in some lavender-scented bubble bath and watch bubbles miraculously form. “Bubbles are spherical because of surface tension, but the tension that lurks on the surface of your life will evaporate once you sink into an Aura Cacia bubble bath” reads the label. Ah, so wise are the marketers of Calgon and Aura Cacia products.

A heavenly cloud of bubbles beckons me to feel its silky froth. After lighting wonderfully fragrant candles and dimming the bathroom lights, I gently slip into the tub and close my eyes. Minutes of reverie later, I open my eyes and gaze at the mounds of bubbles. How strong, yet delicate the spheres appear to be. As the top most part of the mounds begin popping, they transform into pieces of surreal lacework enhanced by candlelight. I look at this piece of art in front of my eyes and then feel the need to look at it from all sides; I plunge deeper into the water to look straight up at it. I call to my husband to bring me my camera! I snap photo after photo trying to capture the glittery mass of soap and air before me.

I can hardly contain my excitement as I dress and run down the stairs to my computer. The downloaded images are interesting, but my Ambien-enhanced brain says they need tweaking, so I play around with the exposure settings and color adjustments until the medication takes over . . .

There you have it folks! That’s the history of the mystery photo. The correct answer to the contest is bubbles! The photo above is a more revealing view of the bubbles in my bubble bath. Now that you know the answer, I bet all of you will look at the photo and say, “Yes, that’s it!”

Thanks to all of you who submitted guesses. I sincerely enjoyed reading each and every one of them! From this sampling of guesses – from sneezes to my granite counter top to blue speckled granite ware pots to flash reflection in a mirror – you can see the great depth of imagination everyone used in trying to figure out the subject matter.

Stay tuned! The winner of the contest and the winner’s prize will be revealed in an upcoming post! And if you liked the photo of the bubbles and this contest, you should see the photo I have in mind for my next contest!

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Attack the Stack!

Posted in About me, In The Kitchen, Organization, tagged , , , , , on March 24, 2010| 6 Comments »

I’m a clipper. Not a Los Angeles Clippers fan, but a compulsive clipper of magazine and newspaper articles. This condition, along with high cholesterol, I got from my mom. Thanks, mom. For as long as I can remember, my mom has been clipping articles and saving them for me, my siblings, and now her grandchildren to read.  I don’t mind it really, because it shows that she is always thinking of us.

I started clipping during my college years, because I was building up my recipe repertoire so that I could catch a good man. Well it worked – I got myself a good man, but now I’m a clipper that can’t stop herself! I’m following in my mom’s footsteps by clipping articles that I think my kids will be interested in reading. When they went off to college, I dutifully mailed them their monthly stack of clippings. They’ll thank me one of these days, I’m sure. Their envelopes usually contained funny cartoons that reminded me of them or articles about hometown folks and hometown events so they could stay in touch or sometimes the mom-type safety articles such as not using headphones or cell phones in a storm.

With spring cleaning on my mind, I am determined to attack my stacks of clippings. I clip articles with information that I can use on my blog or ones with helpful gardening tips, but I have to admit, the majority of my clippings are food-related. And worse than that, most are recipes that fall into the dessert category (sigh). What can I say other than I am a lover of desserts? But what a dreamer I am! If I live to be 100 years old, I will never have enough time to test all the recipes I’ve collected. And even if I did live that long, I would probably weigh 500 pounds by eating all the food that I’ve tested! So in an attempt to rid myself of all the stacks of clippings I possess, I am going to be more judicious while rummaging through them. Only recipes that look to give the best results with the least amount of labor will survive to be tested. Difficult recipes and recipes with 50 or more ingredients, I’ll just drool over and then trash them. I’ll test a couple of recipes each week and post the recipe and the results on my blog. No matter what the outcome, I’ll provide you with my honest opinion of each recipe. If the recipe looks good to you, you can always try making it yourself – I’ve been know to screw up a recipe by not reading it correctly!

I’m motivated to attack the stack now. I’m going to power my way through the recipes just like Julie Powell, of the Julie and Julia fame, did. I’m going to start this project just as soon as I finish reading the morning paper . . .

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Friday’s Fresh Five! (3/19/10)

Posted in About me, Health, In The Kitchen, inspiration, Jewelry, Photography, tagged , , , , , on March 19, 2010| 4 Comments »

Thanks to all of you who entered my contest by venturing your best guesses! Although some of you obviously have some pretty fantastic imaginations, no one has won the contest yet, so the contest continues on! By the range of your guesses, I am flattered that many of you think so highly of my photographic skills. I am now going to offer a little bit of information to guide your future guesswork. And in all fairness, with the additional information presented below, everyone who has already submitted a guess, gets another chance to submit one more guess! Read the information and send your best guess via email to me.

#1 – Contest Redux
Keep in mind that photos posted on my blog are taken by me, a point-and-shoot photographer. The contest photo is no exception. Not only was it taken by me, but it was taken inside my home. That rules out any intergalactic subject matter. And other than the macro feature on my camera, no other fancy camera equipment was used. That rules out serious magnification photography.

The only other thing I can say is that I took an Ambien that night to help me sleep and while I was downloading and color adjusting the photo, the Ambien kicked in!

Here are a few samples of the fabulous, but incorrect guesses from the first week:

A drop of water, 1000 times magnified
Water combined with flash photography
Flash freeze photograph of an atomization process
Cellophane Easter grass on a light table
Seaweed
The Universe
Blown glass
A burst of confetti
Glitter
Paint spray
Illuminated crinkled plastic wrap

Don’t give up! I want to award the prize to someone!

#2 – Comparing Apples to Oranges
From my local newspaper comes this nutrition quiz:

1. Oranges contain how many more calories than apples?
a. 4
b. 24
c. 44

2. How much more of the recommended daily percentage of vitamin C does an orange contain?
a. 78 percent more
b. 8 percent more
c. 128 percent more

3. Which fruit contains more fiber?
a. apple
b. orange
c. same amount

4. Both apples and oranges pale in comparison with bananas (422 milligrams) for potassium, but which fruit contains a higher level?
a. apple
b. orange

5. How much more water is present in an orange compared with an apple?
a. 13 grams
b. 53 grams
c. 103 grams

Answers:
1: a; 2: c; 3: c (3 grams of fiber); 4: b (orange 232 mg; apple, 134 mg); 5: a

#3 – Kitchen Equivalents
Did you know that 8 ounces of uncooked pasta makes 4 cups cooked or that a 13x9x2-inch pan holds 14 cups or that 1 tablespoon is the equivalent of 3 teaspoons?

This information plus more kitchen equivalents is right here at your finger tips.

#4 – Tips for Cleaning Silver
Note: These tips are for silver only and for silver items that have no stones.

Place jewelry in an aluminum pan. Cover items completely with baking soda. Pour boiling water over jewelry. Although you’d like to watch the process, it is better to not lean over the pan, since a chemical reaction is occurring! After five minutes, take items out and rinse with water. Dry. If items are severely tarnished, repeat the process.

If your silver items are larger, put aluminum foil in the bottom of your kitchen sink, shiny side up. Fill the sink with enough boiling water to cover the silver. Add a couple of tablespoons of baking soda. Stir. Place your silver pieces in the solution for about five minutes. Make sure each piece is touching the aluminum foil. After about five minutes, rinse off the silver and dry.

#5 – Changing The World
“As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person.”
– Paul Shane Spear-

Make your best guess and have a great weekend!

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