Surfer Sunday 85

By Karin at 9:03 am on August 31, 2008 | No comments

Everybody Needs Gadgets

Fruit friendly lunch box

One can never have enough garlic presses, can one? ;)

I just think it’s pretty.

Food! Glorious Food!

Blueberry muffins

Key lime cookies

Last day to vote on the next Jelly Belly flavor.

Everything you ever wanted to know about S’mores!

Peanut butter and honey cookies

Sopapillas

Creative Pursuits

Win a 2 week DSLR lens rental.

Understanding ISO

15 spectacular lightning images

A fun bag to make or just look at

Techno Geekery

Home inventory software

Life Is a Highway

Yard sale guide

Cleaning guide for different surfaces

Halloween ideas for thrifty people

Find the best bra for your figure.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Noctilucent clouds

Have you ever thought hot water felt cold? I said that to my parents a time or two when I was a kid and they immediately decided I didn’t know the difference between hot and cold, so I shut up. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t crazy!

Creative business cards

For the Kids

A parents guide to online safety for kids

Too Much Time on My Hands

Where should you live? Strangely, Tucson was #1 on the list (I hate Tucson), but Phoenix was on there as well, along with Nashville; Lexington, Kentucky (some of my family came from around there oddly enough); Amarillo, Texas (family there, too); Richmond, Virginia; Bellingham, Washington; Greenville, South Carolina (some family came from there); St. George, Utah; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; El Paso, Texas (ugh! no!); and several other places in the southeast. Why so much southeast I wonder? I told the quiz I hate humidity. :P

Yet another procratination tool.

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Cupcake of the week

Video of the week

Bonus video of the week (This one’s for the kids, too!)

Yet another bonus video

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She Cracks Me Up

By Karin at 8:39 am on August 28, 2008 | No comments

It’s no secret that we are not fans of the Democratic Party around here. John McCain is not my first choice for president, either, all truth be told, but he’ll get our votes. And I may have to drop my television from a high building before November 5 because I’m already so sick and tired of political ads. I do think, however, that it’s fitting that the night an African-American accepts the presidential nomination for a major political party for the first time is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Anyway, funny story…every time a Barack Obama ad would come on, LG would say “He said Barack Obama!” And I started saying, “We don’t like Barack Obama. We like John McCain.” So now, every time B.O. comes on television, she says “He said Barack Obama! We don’t like Barack Obama. We like John McCain!”

Cute. But. It’s gonna be a very very very long 2 months.

P.S. For the record, I’d have no problem whatsoever with an African-American president. Just not that one.

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Mistaken Identity

By Karin at 1:29 pm on August 25, 2008 | 1 Comment

I have several email addresses, which I’m sure a lot of you do. I even have a couple of gmail addresses which I rarely use and don’t give out to people I meet in real life.

Today, I got an email from someone saying she now had my info in her address book and it was great to meet my husband and that my band sounded wonderful. Um, huh? It took me a few minutes to wrap my brain around it all since I do have a husband and he does have a band. And technically, I guess I’m in a band, too, if you count our church band, but we haven’t done anything since May and won’t again until next month. And, as I said before, I don’t give that email out to anyone!

Anyway, I did the logical thing. I wrote back and said, “do I know you?” She wrote back and said I had just given her the address and was visiting someone in the hospital. Well, obviously, I’m at home and haven’t given anyone any email addresses in a hospital. So, I emailed her back and told her that this email address didn’t belong to whomever she was talking to.

I also went to my gmail account to make sure nothing looked fishy (nothing did) and did a google search on my gmail address (nothing came up) and also mygmailaddress with a number instead of a number word at gmail dot com. Bingo! Someone named Karen with a band has that email address. Very very weird coincidence, but a legitimate mistake. I wrote back to my “newfound friend” and gave her the other email address, but as of yet, I haven’t heard back from her. I imagine I probably won’t. But I thought it was nice of me nonetheless! There was also a selfish reason in wanting to make sure that there wasn’t someone out there trying to steal my identity or something. ;)

Anyway, there’s my alternate universe story of the week. My life is so weird sometimes.

Filed under: Life Unscripted1 Comment »

Beijing Olympics - The End

By Karin at 10:37 pm on August 24, 2008 | No comments

I freely admit that I’m an Olympics nerd. I cry when they light the torch. I cry when they play the national anthem for every gold medal. I cry when people win who aren’t supposed to. I cry when people win that are supposed to. I cry over pretty much every human interest story. And I cry when the torch goes out. So yeah, there’s a lot of crying packed into the two weeks. But it’s good crying.

The first Olympics that I can vividly remember was the Winter Olympics of 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria when I was all of 9 years old. I don’t remember the colors because we only had black and white televisions back then, but I remember that I was so very excited. My parents didn’t make as huge a deal out of it as I did with LG this time, so I think she might be able to remember the Olympics when she was 3 1/2.

So many of my greatest sports memories are of the Olympics. So many names imprinted in my mind…Dorothy Hamill, Nadia Comaneci, Carl Lewis, Florence Griffith Joyner, Bruce Jenner, Eric Heiden, Dan Jansen, Mary Lou Retton, Kerry Strug, Alberto Tomba, Ian Thorpe, Janet Evans, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, Scott Hamilton…the list goes on and on and on.

I’ve never been an athlete, but that doesn’t stop me from appreciating those who push their bodies and minds to the limit, who achieve things that most of us could never even dream of, who dream big dreams and make them come true, and those who dream only about participating and think that just doing even that much really is good enough. I admire their sacrifice and their drive and their belief in themselves. I cry when they fail and I rejoice when they succeed. I am inspired and amazed by them all.

My mom passed on her love of sports to me and I hope that I can in turn pass it on to my little girl. My mom was an avid sports fan, and so am I. My dad not so much, but he did take me to basketball games and football games and put up with me watching sports all weekend long. Oh, how I miss you Jim McKay and your Wild World of Sports. It’s kind of funny that Mike is not really an avid fan, but he is a fan, and he enjoys watching with me and with LG.

This Olympics gives me plenty of names to add to that list I mentioned above, including Dara Torres, Nastia Luikin, Natalie Coughlin, Shawn Johnson, Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh, and of course, the name that will start LG’s own list: Michael Phelps.

I like to think that one day she’ll be watching the Olympics with her own little one and reminiscing on the first Olympics she remembers. And I kind of think it will be 2008 - Beijing. Or maybe she’ll walk in with her country and compete and remember where her dreams began. Who knows what the future holds, but whatever it is, I think she has become a sports fan, just like her mom and her grandmother before her. She even cried when the torch went out. And I cried right along with her. In 18 months, we’ll do it all over again. Oh, how I love you Olympics. I really need some sleep, though. See you in Vancouver.

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Surfer Sunday 84

By Karin at 3:30 am on | No comments

I really thought this had published, but apparently it hadn’t. So you’ll get a double dose this weekend.

Food! Glorious Food!

Peach cobbler

Fried okra is sort of a comfort food for me. It brings back all sorts of childhood memories.

Mayonnaise!

All about peaches

Creative Pursuits

How to win a photography competition.

How to take an outdoor portrait.

Before the Torch Is Passed

US Olympians quiz (I got 12 and I’m mad at myself for missing the other 3.)

Life Is a Highway

Four steps to becoming a calmer person.

5 best sources of protein

How to hold a better yard sale.

The pictures in this post brought back so many memories of fresh eggs from our chickens when I was a kid. That’s one of the great things about blogging, isn’t it?

99 ways to make your home a healthier place.

Make sure you do not have this dog toy.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

This is not acceptable.

Good Reads

About falling in love with child number 2.

How your brain controls time. Yes, it’s all in your head.

Interesting tricks of the human body - some great stuff in here!

For the Kids

Homemade watercolors

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

If the Earth had a Facebook account…

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Cupcake of the week

Tip of the week

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Beijing Olympics - Day 15

By Karin at 2:11 am on | No comments

There are results spoilers in this post, so I’ll put those after the jump… (Read on …)

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Beijing Olympics - Day 14

By Karin at 8:12 am on August 23, 2008 | 2 Comments

 

In Which We Get Back Some of Our Track and Field Glory:

  • Bryan Clay won the Gold Medal in the Decathlon (first USA gold in 12 years), joining a prestigious group of Americans that includes Bruce Jenner.
  • Both the men’s and women’s 4×400m relay teams easily made it to the finals.  I think they learned their lesson from their 4×100m teammates.

Usain Bolt:

  • The best sprinter in the world donated $50,000 of his own money to Szechuan earthquake victims and helped lead his team to the 4×100m relay gold.  Very classy move.
  • I think I talked about this a little in swimming, but is there a finite point at which the human body cannot move any faster (without chemical assistance)? Since Bolt showboated at the end of the 100m, we don’t know how fast he really could have gone, but it was estimated it could have been as low as 9.55.  I’m in awe watching these sprinters run.  It seems impossible that the human body can move that fast.  So here’s the thing - a big part of the reason the swimmers set all those records was because of the pool itself, but the sprinters don’t have that advantage on the track.  A track is a track is a track is a track.  So, is there a number the human body will never be able to get past?  Usain Bolt didn’t just break the world record, he smashed it.  Can he go even faster? Can anyone go faster than him? It’ll be an interesting thing to watch.
Goodbye Softball and Baseball:
  • It has been suggested that part of the reason softball and baseball were removed from the Olympics for 2012 is that they are not as popular in Europe (where most of the IOC honchos live) as they are in the Americas and Asia. There are lots of sports on the Olympic roster that aren’t as popular in the Americas as they are in other parts of the world.  So, let us have our softball and baseball! The soonest they could be back in the Olympics is 2016 when the Olympics might be in Chicago.  It would be a crying shame to have the Olympics on US soil and not have two of our most popular sports represented.  Get with the picture IOC!

Three for Three:

  • The Lopez siblings, Steven, Diana and Mark, win bronze, bronze and silver in Taekwondo. This is the first time since the early 1900s that three siblings competed and won medals in the Olympics.  The only downside is that Steven lost for the first time in 6 years and didn’t get a chance to defend his two gold medals.  But still, they all medaled, and that’s pretty awesome.
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Beijing Olympics - Day 13

By Karin at 7:52 am on August 22, 2008 | No comments

The Shocking:

  • If you would have asked me at the beginning of the Olympics, which gold medal was the surest thing for the US, I’d have said Women’s Softball. So, you can understand why I was totally and completely in shock when LG woke me up at 5:45 yesterday because she had a bad dream, and the TV was still on from the night before, and I watched the Softball team lose their gold medal match to Japan. Totally and completely shocked. But we still love them! And it should still be an Olympic sport. You hear that IOC?
  • The 4×100m Relay Sprint is traditionally an American power for both the women and the men.  And I don’t think they’ve ever won less than silver.  However, this year, they both dropped the baton in the qualifying heats and they were both disqualified.  Shockingly bad.

The Slightly Disappointing, But They Still Got a Medal:

  • US Women’s Water Polo can’t get that elusive gold medal, but they still won silver and that’s not bad!
And Now, for the Good News!
  • Women’s Soccer got gold, yet again. Men’s soccer we don’t talk about. But women’s soccer? They rock! But what is with the Brazilians in soccer and beach volleyball all going by their first names? What’s up with that?
  • The Men’s Beach Volleyball team won gold, completing the first US sweep of the sport. Actually it was the first sweep for any country of the sport. Now, let’s get gold in indoor volleyball, too and prove our dominance in that sport. Hey, if the Chinese can sweep diving (although they have one more to go), we need to sweep something, right? ;)
  • And finally, the US Men swept the medals in the Men’s 400m. The defending champion got the silver and was defeated pretty soundly, but at least he was defeated by another American. And by the way, I still think most of the male sprinters are arrogant.
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Beijing Olympics - Day 12

By Karin at 11:22 pm on August 20, 2008 | 1 Comment

The I Have to Tip My Hat to Him Even Though I’m Still Irritated with His Behavior:

  • Usain Bolt of Jamaica did what no one has done (in the Olympics) before. And that’s win both the 100m and 200m races as well as setting world records in both.  Carl Lewis was the last to win both back in 1984. Michael Johnson set a record in the 200m in 1996, I believe it was, that most people thought wouldn’t be broken in our lifetimes. I’m still really irritated by his showboating at the end of the 100m.  And somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m having a hard time believing he did all that without some kind of “help”, if you get my drift.  But the fact remains, he was really amazing.
The Wacky World of Track and Field:
  • The silver and bronze medalists in the 200m (from the Netherlands Antilles and USA respectively) were both disqualified for stepping on the lane lines, which allowed the other two Americans to move up into their spots and get the silver and bronze.  Weird.
The Awesomeness of 6 Feet of Sunshine and the Misty Mountain Hop:
  • Okay, I have no idea what Misty’s real nickname is, but I liked that one. Anyway, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh not only won their 108th straight match, along with a small little thing called a gold medal, they did it without losing a set.  I know a lot of people think beach volleyball is somewhat of a joke, but I have to tell you, they are both incredible athletes and it’s just amazing to watch them play.  You try defending a court with only two people, in the sand, and in this case, in the rain!  Oh, one more thing, they defended their medal - the first team to do so in the Olympics since beach volleyball joined the Olympics.
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Beijing Olympics - Day 11

By Karin at 8:06 am on | No comments

The Rants:

  • First of all, NBC News, you are being sent to the Naughty Chair.  Thanks SO much for ruining the outcome of the Balance Beam tonight.  I spent the entire day doing my best to avoid finding out the results ahead of time, and then you nonchalantly spoil the results that are going to be shown later on your own station!  Wth???  I have been watching the Nightly News during the Olympics because 1) you have cool stories about the Olympics and 2) you haven’t spoiled the results that follow in primetime…up until now.  Won’t be making THAT mistake again.
  • Softball is losing its status as an Olympic sport at the next games in London. Why?  Well, I don’t know for sure, but speculation says that it’s because the USA dominates the event.  Okay, if that’s the case, let’s also get rid of Table Tennis and Badminton (which are not really athletic competitions anyway, if you ask me) since the Asian nations are the ones who always win all the medals anyway.  Oh, and let’s also just wipe Diving off the boards as well since no one wins Gold medals in that sport except China.  (I miss you Greg Louganis!) Especially the most boring sport ever invented - Synchronized Diving.  Could there possibly be anything more boring than that?  I bet if it was some other country dominating softball other the USA, it would be kept in.  
All right, enough ranting, on with the results…

 

The Incredibly Disappointing:
  • Lolo Jones, the American hurdler, was the favorite going into the race. We’ve heard many times that the hardest thing to do is win when you’re expected to, and this held true unfortunately.  She was leading pretty much all the way, then clipped the 2nd to last hurdle and finished well out of the medals.  The good news is that another American won, but I felt so bad for Lolo, who proved herself to be an incredibly class act. She congratulated the medalists.  She gave interviews.  She didn’t make excuses.  She conducted herself like a true champion.  And yes, she did cry, but so would anyone in that situation.  Lolo Jones may not have won a medal, but she gained a fan in me.  And I hope to see her on the medal stand in London in 2012.
The Great and the Surprising:
  • First the great - Shawn Johnson and Nastia Luikin again finished 1-2 in a gymnastics event - this time the Balance Beam.  The difference is that this time Shawn got the gold and Nastia got the silver.  It was a fitting ending to a great Olympics for both of them.  Shawn ended up with 4 medals - 1 gold and 3 silver. Nastia earned 5 - 1 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze.
  • On the men’s side, Jonathan Roberts gave the performance of his life on the High Bar and earned a surprising silver medal.
The Feel Good Story of the Olympics:
  • This story happens to involve an Arizonan - a 21 year old son of undocumented Mexican immigrants. The youngest son of a single mother, who grew up in poverty, but whose mother always told him he could do anything he set his mind to. It makes me cry every time I see it or think about it. Here’s to gold medalist Henry Cejudo, a 121 pound wrestler, who is truly living the American and Olympic dream.
I need a tissue now!
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Beijing Olympics - Day 10

By Karin at 5:40 am on August 19, 2008 | 1 Comment

The Great:

  • Our men swept the 400m Hurdles.  Way to go, USA!  Bring back our Track & Field glory days! ;)
  • Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh won their 107th straight beach volleyball game en route to a semifinal win that puts them in the gold medal game.  You go girls!

The Should Have Been Great But Was Derailed By Stupid Scoring Rules:

  • Nastia Luikin tied with a (13 year old*) Chinese gymnast for first place in the Uneven Bars standings, but because of a the most convoluted and ridiculous tiebreaker system known to man, she won the silver instead.  Un-friggin-believable.  Yet again, one of our girls was robbed.  Ugh.
*I don’t care what they say.  There is at least one girl, possibly two, on that Chinese team that are not 16 years old.
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In Which I Spend an Entire Post Talking About How I Didn’t Get Doughnuts

By Karin at 8:44 pm on August 18, 2008 | 2 Comments

Have I ever mentioned that I love Dunkin’ Donuts? I do indeed love Krispy Kreme as well. In fact, I’ve never met a raised doughnut I didn’t like to be perfectly honest. However, when I was a kid we went to Dunkin’ Donuts on a regular basis and my very favorite doughnut there was the Bavarian Creme. I would always always ALWAYS get a Bavarian Creme doughnut there. (For those of you who don’t know that doughnut, it’s basically a Boston Creme with powdered sugar on it instead of chocolate.) In my later years, I also came to love the Vanilla Creme doughnuts, and those were my two very favorite doughnuts in the big wide world.

I don’t actually go to Dunkin’ Donuts very often anymore. They’re not located anywhere that is very convenient for me to go there on even a semi-regular basis, but every now and again, I’ll get a craving and I’ll make a special trip. So several weeks ago, I got a craving and headed over to the closest shop with LG and promises of “doughnuts!” I got there and it. was. CLOSED! For remodeling! Until the “end of June” it said! Okay, it was about mid-June, so I figured I’d wait a couple of weeks and try again. (I’m not mentioning the crying and carrying on and the trip to another store that also was closed for remodeling that took place on that same day. Oh, and the crying wasn’t me. On the outside at least. )

So, early July arrives, and I make another trip to the store. Which is still closed! And the sign still says re-opening in late June. Um, wha? I tried to find some info, but no luck. However a couple of weeks later, I read an article in the local paper that said they’d be reopening August 15. Well, finally!

So, August 15 (that would be last Friday) arrives. LG and I had several errands, so I left that one until near the end of our trip thinking that by 10 am, the crowds would have thinned out. Well, we drove up and there were signs and a big giant coffee cup…and a line all the way out to the parking lot. I decided we’d try again this week when things would surely be calmer.

So, we went this morning. Still a line out the door, but I decided to brave it anyway. However, by the time we got up to the counter, they were out of Bavarian Cremes and Vanilla Cremes. Very, very, very sad. I got LG a jelly and me a sugared raised and we took our sorry bag of two doughnuts and went home, my dreams of a half dozen cream-filled doughnuts dashed. They were still very good, don’t get me wrong, they just weren’t what I had dreamed of.

So, we’ll wait another couple of weeks and try again after the excitement of the reopening has died down a bit. And I will get my cream-filled doughnuts. I will, I will, I will!

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Beijing Olympics - Day 9

By Karin at 9:06 am on | No comments

First of all, this is late.  And I may have run out of things to talk about now that Michael Phelps is finished.  But, I’ll give it a go.  (Don’t read if you haven’t watched last night’s Gymnastics yet!)

The Good:

  • Shawn Johnson and Nastia Luiken take home silver and bronze for the Floor Exercise. It’s a tiny bit disappointing because Shawn was leading until the last gymnast, and Nastia was a bit robbed on her marks.
  • The US Women’s Eight Rowing team won their 9 zillionth gold medal.  Okay, not that many, but I’m not sure they’ve ever actually lost that race.
The Disappointing:
  • Alicia Sacramone (I hope I got her name right) was also robbed on her marks on the Vault and didn’t medal.  Bela Karolyi thought it was wrong.  I’m going with that.
  • The Jamaicans sweep the Women’s 100m Sprint and the Americans fail to medal. That was sad.  But at least most of the women are not as cocky and obnoxious as the men.
The Entertaining:
  • Watching Lebron and Kobe - two of the best basketball players in the world - getting so totally into the final Swimming relay race and “cheering with abandon” as Jim Lampley put it.  It’s fun to see them be fans, just like the rest of us. 
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Surfer Sunday 83

By Karin at 8:33 am on August 17, 2008 | 2 Comments

Everybody Needs Gadgets

Pretty disposable dishes

Now you can make grilled cheese in the toaster.

A microwave for your car.

Food! Glorious Food!

Homemade tomato juice

Molten chocolate cake with caramel filling

Carrot-buttermilk tart

All about bell peppers

Chocolate pudding

Creative Pursuits

A simple idea for framed art.

How to dye pasta

What photography equipment should you take when you travel?

How to shoot light trails

One of the coolest laptop cases I’ve ever seen.

Techno Geekery

Diarised helps you pick the best time for a meeting.

Need to escape from a meeting or a date? Here’s your solution.

Let the Games Continue!

What does Michael Phelps eat for breakfast?

Why are there so many world records in the Water Cube?

13 weird, wacky and sometimes heartwarming Olympic stories.

How the camera follows the divers.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Or at least one bad joke.

Can you be a world class athlete and a mom? You betcha!

Life Is a Highway

Much too cute

How to tell when leftovers go bad.

How to make hospital corners.

Is there any animal as photogenic as a Panda?

Are you as fascinated by word origins as I am?

10 creatures people didn’t think existed.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Good news about caffeine

6 interesting things about the Metric system (May we never change!)

Women who live in the past.

Good Reads

I only wish there were pictures.

For the Kids

How to organize kid’s puzzles. (Why didn’t I think of this?)

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

For the Shakespeare and/or Facebook lovers among you.

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Pretty recipe of the week 2

Pretty recipe of the week 3

Cupcake of the week

Cupcake of the week 2

Cupcake of the week 3

Tip of the week

Tip of the week 2

Video of the week

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Later

By Karin at 12:11 am on | No comments

I’m falling asleep and I was distracted by Michael Phelps. Surfer Sunday will be up later today (hopefully).

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