Favorite Little Princess

We've been in the Tampa area for over 10 years now and every year we say we are going to check out the Bok Tower Gardens in Lake Wales.  The weather was beautiful and it was spring break so we were out of excuses.  The gardens and tower are a National Historical Landmark and you can't ask for a better place to spend the day.    It was an adventure around every corner as  the girls led the way. The gardens were full of little surprises.   Who would have thought to make a wall of air plants? Well, me - at least now that I see this  amazing display. And the flowers were displaying every color imaginable. And this little flower is full of poses for every picture.   My mom was dwarfed by this huge palm. If only I had a gardener to make my  yard look like this! If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend you visit the gardens.  Bring a picnic and eat on the lawns...that's what we will be doing next time.  Don't forget to bring a c...

Did you miss me?  I know it's been a whole week, but things are back to normal now.  I decided at the last minute to take Spring Break week off with my girls.  I really "unplugged" and tried to stay away from work and social media.  It was a nice break, but back to reality. We stayed busy playing tourists all week long.  I don't think I've ever walked so much in one week.  It wasn't all fun and games, though.  Kassidy still had homework - ah the joy of being an IB student.  Luckily, one assignment was right up our alley.  There was an Egyptian exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts , in St. Petersburg, FL and this was an assignment we could all participate in.  It was our first time there, so we made a day of it.   There were some amazing displays and some strange things, too.  The Egyptian exhibit was ok, but didn't seem nearly as big as the Ramses exhibit I saw when I was a kid.  Maybe it's because I'm bigger now? We en...

I collect yarn.  Not always by choice.  It just seems to find me.  Usually it's not enough to make something I want, which leaves me searching for ways to use up that yarn.  Here's a quick simple project to use up that stash.  It's simple enough that even the kiddos can help out.   Grab some yarn and wind it into a ball.  Mine is fairly small, because I have little dogs, and this ball is to be their new toy.   After you wind it to the size you want, tuck in the end.  Get some string.  I used my leftover bedspread weight yarn (Size 10 cotton).  Wrap it evenly around the ball to where you have 17 strings.   On each end, start weaving the string over and under the 17 strings.  Doesn't have to be much, just enough to create some stability.  Grab your yarn needle and leftover yarn and start weaving away until you cover the entire ball. Weave in the ends and go find a dog! She's wasn't too thrilled with the camera, but l...

Note to my  subscribers : RSS feeds have finally been updated to reflect the change in the name to my blog.  Please  resubscribe  to get the current feed.  If you aren't already  subscribed , why the heck not?!?  Don't know what this is?  It's an easy way to get new posts delivered to your email instead of having to come back to web to check for a new post.  Try it out! It's true.  I'm totally addicted to green tea.  I'm not even sure when it began, but it's progressively getting worse.  I guess there are worse things, right?  Don't get me wrong, I still have my cup of coffee every morning. After that, it's only green tea or water.  Sometimes I will drink up to 8 cups a day, especially if it's cold.  I used to get dehydrated during the day until I started drinking green tea.  Not anymore!  Check out what WebMD has to say about green tea.  Studies have even suggested that the high level of...

I love a good Crock Pot meal.  With my busy schedule, I've been trying to dedicate at least one day a week to cooking that way.  This was probably one of the quickest chicken meals I have ever made.  I served it with a garlic rice (Uncle Ben's) that I will NEVER buy again.  I love garlic, but this way overkill.  The smell was overwhelming, so I knew it was going to be potent.  But the chicken ended up nice and moist, so it wasn't a total loss. And at 189 calories per serving how can you go wrong?  Want to try it? 4 - 5 oz. boneless skinless chicken breasts 1/4 c. all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 tsp. pepper 1/2 tsp. dried basil 1/2 c. marsala wine 1/2 c. low sodium chicken broth 2 T. butter, broken into small pieces (margarine is ok) 8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced 1. Put the chicken breasts in a 5 quart crock pot. They can go in frozen, but make sure they don’t overlap as much as possible. 2. Mix ...

Do you ever have one of those projects that turn into something much bigger than it started out?  You know, like when you say I'm going to fold the towels, but you see a counter that needs to be cleaned off so you stop to do that and then that turns into emptying the trash, and so on and so forth. This reminds me of the children's book about giving a mouse a cookie? That was me this weekend.  I went to get something out of a drawer and couldn't find what I was looking for. So I started with this drawer. Not bad, but impossible to find stuff.  And why do I need all of those screwdrivers in the house?  Oh, and how did a Velcro curler get in there?  This just won't do.  Besides, I already have one junk drawer so I'll just clean that one, too. But I'll need to clean out the third drawer to keep stuff together.   See where I'm going with this?  This eventually grew into cleaning out 3 more drawers for a total 6!   Ok, the last one I had a...

Let me just start by saying this was the HOTTEST 5k I have ever participated in.  Isn't it still winter?  At almost 90 degress, it sure felt like summer. Heat aside, we had a blast. Along with 13,783 people.  Yes, you read that right.  It was a HUGE turnout.  Look at all those people!  Those were just the ones in front of us.  We couldn't even see the start line.  While waiting for the race to start, we kept ourselves busy posing for pictures. Ok, so it was my second slowest time ever, but that's ok.  We stopped for beads, we stopped for water, we stopped for walkers, and then we stopped to play in the sprinklers - yes, I was running with the little one.  Sometimes time isn't everything and nothing can replace the time I have with my girls. After we nearly passed out from heat exhaustion, we were given smoothies, water, fruit, and beer for the grownups.   We went inside to find our names on the big wall of participants - it...