Category: Thursday Thirteen

Thursday Thirteen: Ritzy!

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13 Things to be Puttin’ on the Ritz

 

I found the coolest thing at the grocery store yesterday. I know I paid too much for it, but it made sense for our house. You know how Ritz crackers come in those huge sleeves that are supposed to feed like 10 people? Ok, so either the whole thing gets eaten or only a handful get taken out and then the rest go stale. This new packaging is probably not the most environmentally friendly, but I bet we waste a lot fewer crackers!

My favorite thing to put on Ritz crackers is Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It can have other stuff like strawberry jam OR pepperoni or a variety of things. No olives though… Bleah.

Anyway, having a whole box of Ritz crackers in nice little convenient packs, I decided to look around for some ideas to put something different on top of them. These are all form the Nabisco site, enjoy!

1. RITZ Cheesy-Crab Topper
2. Creamy Apple Bites
3. RITZ Hot Cheese Snacks
4. Blueberry Cracker Bites
5. RITZ® “Bruschetta”
6. Buffalo Chicken Bites
7. Mini Cracker Sandwiches
8. Zesty Roast Beef Bites
9. Ham and Cheddar Snacks
10. Peanut Butter and Apple RITZ
11. Fiesta Topper
12. RITZ Cheese Nachos
13. RITZ®-y Bitsy Cheeseburgers

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Tuffy the chihuahua 2 SandyCarlson 3 Shannon
4 sobeit 5 Diana M 6 SJ Reidhead
7 marcia@joyismygoal 8 Carol 9 kim
10 Talk About My Favorite Authors 11 Paige Tyler 12 Tempest Knight
13 Marina Berryman 14 Alice Audrey 15 Rae
16 Karen of Sillymonkeez 17 Myrtle Beached Whale 18

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Owls

 

13 Owls My Daughter Likes

 

DD is crazy about owls. For nine years she has collected owls: stuffed owls, puppets, ceramic, carved stone, ones made of gourds, rings, necklaces, any kind really. She is a walking encyclopedia of owl specific knowledge. She loves explaining how you can tell male and female Snowy owls apart, especially if someone refers to her first owl as a “he”.

Her favorites are Snowy Owls because when she was two, DH brought her back one from Seattle. Snowy has been just about everywhere DD has been: school, camping, the doctor’s, the Zoo and several other places. She’s a well-traveled little owl. Unfortunately, she looks it too. Her beak has been replaced, her wing resewn on, and she survived major neck surgery when her head popped off at one point.

BTW: IE 7 sucks and may completely undo my careful formatting. Firefox is much better for you anyway. =P Go get it. Now. Kthxbye.

1. Barn Owl – these guys have white heart-shaped facial disks. Soren from the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series is a barn owl.
2. Boreal Owl
3. Burrowing Owl – You probably recognize these owls from the movie and book, “Hoot” written by Carl Hiaasen. They are different from other owls, because of living above the ground in trees or cacti, they will take over abandoned fox dens or holes in the ground to live in.
4. Elf Owl – These cute little guys live in catci in the desert.
5. Great Grey Owl – the mothers are VERY protective of their chicks.
6. Great Horned Owl
7. Northern Hawk Owl
8. Northern Sawhet Owl
9. Pygmy Owl – these little guys weigh around 3 ounces and are between 2 and 4 inches tall.
10. Short-eared Owl
11. Spotted Owl
12. Spotted Wood Owl
13. Snowy Owl – You can tell this is a female because she has spots. Male Snowy Owls are pure white. The chicks start out grey and as they get older they gain more white feathers.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 gdaybloke 2 Lilibeth 3 Allison
4 Susan Helene Gottfried 5 Carol 6 Di
7 sobeit 8 SandyCarlson 9 Stephanie Secrest
10 Talk About My Favorite Authors 11 Ava Rose Johnson 12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Apps

Thursday Thirteen

 

The 13 Applications I Use Most

 

What computer programs do you use that you just couldn’t get through the week without? Yes, this is a biased Mac user’s list. Anyway, mine are, in no real order of preference:

1. Microsoft Word

I use this on a daily basis. My journal entries have been kept in this as my handwriting has deteriorated to an unreadable scrawl because of typing everything and a decided lack of practice. I can also type faster than I write so, it seemed no contest. I’ve learned to use many of the features that I’d never touched before. I’ve learned to merge files, use the comments and revision tracking, set up different styles and even how to set up a concordance file to generate an index. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to jump to those indexed entries automatically within the program. One of the joys of using a Mac is not everything is as advertised for PC.

2. Microsoft Excel

I’m a spreadsheet junkie. I have one set up to track how many words and how much time I’ve been spending on a project. I’ve used this mostly during WriMos to chart my progress. I also use it a lot for Cub Scouts.

3. Microsoft Entourage

E-Mail. Can’t live with spam and can’t live without the cheap, fast communication. I subscribe to far too many mailing lists and newsletters. I would not survive without all my rules for sorting the deluge into separate folders that I can check based on priority or curiousity. I’ve also been using the calendar function and it’s made getting events onto DH’s calendar at work much easier as well. I also use this to organize contacts over the default address book.

4. FireFox

I only use the above Micro$oft products because there aren’t alternatives with which I’m willing to spend the time it would to familiarize myself and not lose productivity. Firefox is just plain better than IE in many ways. It’s not just a religious war, it’s a practical thing as well, since things render correctly in Firefox and NOT IE. *grumble* That and they’ve even stopped supporting IE on the mac, at least the banks and other finicky places are mostly allowing FireFox access now.

5. Online-Stopwatch

Ah, this is my friend for chat challenges. I wore out my kitchen timer last fall. My laptop doesn’t like it as much as I do. It tends to make it run even warmer than usual. You can use this little flash applet on the webpage or download your own. Twenty-minutes of focus, coming up!

6. Adobe Photoshop

Why don’t Macs come with a basic paint progra any more? Oh yeah, they expect people to be more hardcore. I’m learning all sorts of stuff with this one as well. I finally broke down and put it on my laptop.

7. iTunes

I often forget I have music at my fingertips. I used to listen to music all the time, but lately it’s been an after thought. On the laptop I’ve limited song choices to instrumental pieces as I find lyrics very distracting as I’m trying to write.

8. A Cook’s Books

I love collecting recipes. I may never fix some of the ones I’ve got, but I love reading them and getting ideas. This is as powerful, if not moreso, as MasterCook for the PC. What’s better is that it reads MasterCook and several other formats and has a great developer who cares about what he’s making and good food as well.

9. Adium

Ahh… another time sink. This is basically an instant messenger client that talks to all the different servers. You can use AIM, GoogleTalk, yahoo and several others. Everything’s in one place and you don’t have to think about who’s on which service.

10. BBedit

This is a mac text editor. I use it for composing html, Thursday Thirteens and anything that needs sorting lists that aren’t already in excel. This is a holdover from the text game days, but I love it.

11. Quicken Personal Finances 2007 for Mac

Quicken. Yup. I have a bachelor’s in Business Administration and Economics. I hate balancing my checkbook. This at least makes it kind of fun with the fast reports and pretty graphs. They just need to support the Mac better. C’mon, guys!

12. Delicious Library

This is a fairly new tool for me. I haven’t used it enough as I need to. My laptop came with a camera in it. You can use this program and the camera to scan the barcodes on books, CDs, DVDs and computer games to keep track of what you have. I got one bookshelf done. Phew. We have WAY too many pieces of media that need to go in here.

13. Adobe Reader

This is my reader of choice over the mac’s Preview. There’s just something about it’s two-page up view that makes reading e-books on my laptop more comfortable.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Lanie Fuller 2 Heather 3 Carol –
4 Talk About My Favorite Authors 5 Savannah Chase 6 amy
7 Susan Helene Gottfried 8 Tempest Knight 9 Paige Tyler
10 Los Angeles Traveler 11 Bernie 12 Winter

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Internal Editors

[[Edit: For the non-writers out there, an internal editor is that voice in your head that tells you everything sucks and is always suggesting better ways to word a sentence, even if it just suggested changing it away from that particular wording not five minutes earlier. It can prove a block to writing if you let it overwhelm you.]]

I try to imagine internal editor stuffed into an ironbound box when I’m working on a first draft. This has benefits and a couple drawbacks. First, it’s a good thing that I can’t hear her muffled cries from inside the box. I’ve found the best way to accomplish this for me personally is to set a timer for 20 minutes and just write until it dings. This works best when I know someone else is on the other side of the chat room doing the same thing and will expect a word count at the end.

The drawbacks to this are found when I finally do unlock that box. Boy, everything’s fair game then, even grocery lists. I have to make sure I don’t let her out in the middle of a draft, or I’m liable to never finish it for fiddling with it.

There has to be some middle ground. I’ve now got one draft that needs revisions and some rewriting and another that’s nearly done, just about 50 more pages to write. I need to find a routine that allows forward progress on a rough draft as I polish previous ones.

Anyway, Andi and I were talking about internal editors and I sent her this list after she mentioned hers was preventing her from gaining any sort of momentum and she pushed for me to share them with everyone. So, here you go:

 

13 Resources for Dealing With Internal Editors

 

General Pros & Cons of Internal Editors
1. Orson Scott Card’s thoughts on why we need them.
2. Dr. Ken Davis weighs in at Manage Your Writing.
3. The Thinking Meat Project compares writing and improvisational jazz.

 

Discussion of Making your IE work for YOU
4. 11 ways to take control of your Internal Editor via The University Blog
5. Turning your editor into an ally from About Freelance Writing
6. Deanna Hoak’s illustration of an IE at work and also her discussion with Jay Lake about internal editors suggests trying fast-flash fiction
7. Befriending the Internal Editor article by Beth Adele Long at absolutewrite.com

 

Dicussion of how to get around your IE
8. How to Bypass Your Internal Editor at Daily Writing Tips
9. internal editor be gone! Liam O’Donnell on NaNoWriMo and how it helps quiet the IE
10. 6 Steps from eHow — easier said than done?
11. Squishing Your Internal Editor by Amy Anderson who’s is quoteworthy for this little gem: “Ultimately, being able to edit your work is incredibly useful, but not if it prevents you from ever finishing your first draft, or even first chapter.” How true!
12. Internal Editor is Loud in which the blogger references Garthmeister J’s Tips and Tricks for Surviving NaNoWriMo
13. Turn Off Your Internal Editor and Write Your First Draft Faster from Associated Content which has what sound like crazy tips like turning off your monitor or refusing to use the backspace/delete key. I’ve heard people rave about their alpha smarts because they can only read about 4 lines at a time. They can’t go back and edit as they’re writing.

 

Isn’t it amazing how we fool ourselves?

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried 2 Nancy 3 Nicholas
4 SJ Reidhead 5 kay 6 SandyCarlson
7 On a Limb with Claudia 8 Carol 9 Savannah Chase
10 Winter 11 Peter Plum 12 nina pierce
13 Talk About My Favorite Authors 14 Paige Tyler 15 Tempest Knight
16 Alice Audrey 17 18

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Icecream!

 

13 Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Flavors

 

April 30th is/was 31 Cent Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins. We didn’t event try to buy 13 flavors, but we could have for only about $4.36! There was a limit of 10 scoops per person. And there were about 80 people outside the shop waiting to get inside!

Anyway, here’s some of the flavors we COULD didn’t want to stand in line for. DS got mint chocolate chip, DD got bubblegum, and I had butter pecan from Dairy Queen.

1. Oreo Cookies & Cream
2. Very Berry Strawberry
3. Chocolate
4. Chocolate Chip
5. Pralines & Cream
6. Cookie Dough
7. Rocky Road
8. Peanut Butter ‘n Chocolate
9. Pistachio Almond
10. Gold Medal Ribbon
11. Nutty Coconut
12. Chocolate Fudge
13. Pink Bubblegum

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 kay 2 Meg Cypher 3 Kimberly Menozzi
4 Debbie Mumford 5 Nina Pierce 6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 Paige Tyler 8 TLC 9 Susan Helene Gottfried
10 Robin L. Rotham 11 12

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Old Friends

 

13 Repeatedly Reread Books

 

I’m sort of borrowing this idea from Nicholas over at A Gentleman’s Domain. I’m sure there will be little overlap.

When he posted his list the other week, I commented saying how some books were like comfort food. It’s just comforting to curl up with them and spend some time with old friends. Some may be familiar to you, many may not. I’ll curl up with them any time.

1. Joan D. Vinge, The Snow Queen: Definitely from my sci-fi/fantasy period. This book is battered and worn from all the times I read it in high school. I’m also ashamed to say, the edges of the pages are garishly colored with marker. I knew it was mine though!
2. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hawkmistress: I think I scoured every local bookstore, new and used, looking for Darkover books. I’ve reread many of them, but these two are my favorites. In this one a young girl with a talent for telepathy with birds ends up caring for three monstrous banshee birds and doing her part in the war.
3. Marion Zimmer Bradley, Stormqueen: This one graphically illustrates what happens when uncontrolled hormones are unleashed. It’s your every nightmare about the teenage years, multiplied a thousand-fold because the heroine controls the weather. Except for the part about the weather, I could relate.
4. Madeleine L’Engle, The Moon by Night: Yep, I read all the Murray books (A Wrinkle In Time et al), but I was always partial to the Austins for some reason. I still use the word “zuggy” to describe the richness of lobster and how you can only eat so much of it before feeling sick. Zachary fascinated me with his older, more sophisticated ways just like he did poor Vicky.
5. Madeleine L’Engle, A Ring of Endless Light: Zach’s back and he’s still flirting with death. However, Vicky has a new friend, Adam (from Arm of the Starfish also well worn). This one never fails to make me cry, yet overall it is uplifting. It definitely sits at the crossroads of hard science, philosophy and science fiction.
6. Anne McCaffrey, The Lady: Another coming of age story. With horses. I think this actually belonged to DH (his family loved Pern too). It’s become a close friend of mine as well, along with The Year of the Lucy.
7. Anne McCaffrey, Three Women: Three novellas in one. Horses, dogs and back to Ireland. Ring of Fear is probably my favorite of the three, followed closely by Mark of Merlin which is actually a WWII set story. The Kilternan Legacy rounds out the volume and is a fun but at times too realistic a look at dysfunctional people. Ring of Fear has its share of those as well, but I’m a sucker for the horses and I love Orfeo (the horse) and Eurydice (the Maine coon cat).
8. Debra Dier, Scoundrel: Even after knowing the “mystery” I keep going back to this one. There’s something about the characters that keep pulling me back to them.
9. Kat Martin, Gyspy Lord: I was on a Gypsy obsession for a while trying to find a book I’d read in the 80s. It was about a Lord who had grown up with his Gypsy mother and ended up fighting for Romany rights in the House of Lords. This isn’t that book. It’s good in its own way, but I wish I could find the other again.
10. Shirley Busbee, Gypsy Lady: This time the girl’s raised by the gypsies and focuses on her story as she must decide between her two worlds.
11. Marguerite Henry, Misty of Chincoteague: Did I mention I was horse mad when I was younger? We owned several Appaloosas at one point. I think I’ve read just about every Marguerite Henry book in print numerous times. This and King of the Wind were two of my favorites. It always impressed me that those Spanish ponies survived on Assateague as long as they did.
12. Suzanne Enoch, England’s Perfect Hero: Post Traumatic Stress Regency style. This is the second in a series and my heart breaks for this poor guy trying to rejoin the world he fought to preserve. Amazing read.
13. Julia Quinn, The Viscount Who Loved Me: I had a hard time picking between the first several Bridgerton books for a representative one. I picked this one because I’m allergic to bees as well. Thankfully not as tragically as Anthony’s father. I also have a soft spot in my heart for Kate, and what a wicked game of Pall Mall. I’d love to have been there.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried 2 marcia v 3 storyteller
4 On a Limb with Claudia 5 Nicholas 6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 Debora Dennis 8 Kimberly Menozzi 9 December
10 Bethanie 11 Maribeth 12 Imogen Howson
13 Bethanne 14 Winter 15 Paige Tyler
16 Robin L. Rotham 17 Di 18 Debbie Mumford
19 Kathleen Oxley 20 21

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Most Played

 

13 Most Played Songs in My iTunes

 

Below is list of my top 13 played songs on my desktop’s iTunes. Wow. I like really depressing music. I hadn’t realized how dismal the outlook in many of these songs was until I looked up the lyrics for all of them. I think “Flower In A Rocky Land” is the exception.

See the problem is, I can learn all the words to a song, read the lyrics even and not always “get” what the song’s about. DH laughs at me for this all the time. Good thing I was never one for calling in dedication requests. Although I did find it hysterical that people would dedicate the Heart song about finding a baby daddy and having a one night stand with him to their boyfriends. Hunh?? Whatever.

Anyway… here’s what are apparently the songs I listen to the most.

1. Duncan Sheik Barely Breathing (Acoustic version — link isn’t that one)
This poor guy keeps going back for more. He knows the relationship’s a bad deal, and yet he’s still gonna repeat the same old pattern again.

2. Sting Tempted (Live Version, Cover of the Squeeze classic tune — link is to Squeeze video)
Nothing like a little ditty about an affair to liven up the day.

3. Talking Heads And She Was
Phew. Not so depressing, but proof of better living through chemistry. I prefer to think she’s high on life, but hey, this is David Byrne we’re talking bout.

4. Alejandro Escovedo Castanets (link is to a live show in Austin. I miss Austin. The sound’s kinda iffy, but definitely shows off the energy of the song).
Rockin’ tune about a guy who likes her better when she walks away. Why she keeps coming back to him, I don’t know.

5. Billie Myers Kiss the Rain
Another little ditty about the other side of the affair. She’s begging him to go out and stand in the rain instead of cheating on her.

6. Kirsty MacColl In These Shoes?
She doesn’t like to walk, she can’t ride a horse, but the way she dances, it’s a scandal! A real shame we lost this artist’s sense of humor.

7. Amanda Marshall Sunday Morning After
This song always cracks me up. Alcholic blackout episodes shouldn’t be so amusing.

8. Dana Cooper Flower In A Rocky Land
The one truly hopeful song in the bunch. We’ve known Dana for a long time now and he’s an amazing song writer. I couldn’t find a video of this song, but here’s another great song of his, Great Day in the Morning.

9. Emmylou Harris I don’t Wanna Talk About It Now
I had to laugh when I saw the offer for a free ringtone of this song. Too funny.

10. Jack Johnson Drink The Water
Dark, eerie and mesmorizing. I’m still not quite sure what it’s about.

11. Patty Griffin Every Little Bit
Amazing singer/songwriter. Another song about a relationship gone horribly wrong and the haunting memories of it.

12. a-Ha Minor Earth Major Sky
Its all about perspective. How inconsequential we are in the universe.

13. Evanesence Bring Me To Life
Yes, this proves how eclectic my tastes in music truly are. She’s got an amazing voice. This one’s about feeling numb and lost inside and yearning to feel alive again.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Irishcoda 2 SandyCarlson 3 Sandier Pastures
4 Debora Dennis 5 Alice Audrey 6 R.G. Alexander
7 Robin L. Rotham 8 Kat’s Krackerbox 9 Paige Tyler

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Tang Soo Do

 

13 Techniques My Kids Know

 

The kids are taking martial arts these days. They’ve been taking classes solidly for six months now and have each gotten two new belts. DS is slightly ahead of DD which is different and controversial in terms of sibling rivalry since he’s a year younger. Before last fall, they’d taken a couple of enrichment classes after school, but the studio is much more focused and a much more demanding learning environment. Both kids suffer from lack of activity and often a lack of focus as well. These classes have helped with that as well as boosting their self-esteem and meeting other kids their ae that don’t go to their school.

The school they attend follows the Korean form of Tang Soo Do and an emphasis is placed on leadership, self-discipline as well as physical fitness. I usually sit and watch their classes and in the process have learned to count to ten in Korean as well. I think my favorite part is listening to them yell, “YESSIR!” for over an hour. In addition, the codes of the studio are Loyalty to Country, Obey Parents, Honor Friendship, Achieve My Goals, In Battle Use Sense and Wisdom, (which translates to “No hitting or kicking outside of class, but I am allowed to block”) and Have Fun.

DD suggested this as a theme for this week’s meme, so here are thirteen of the techniques they’ve learned. Any mis-spellings are unintentional and entirely my own.

ready stance (1/Hana). Ready Stance: Choon Be
(2/Tul). Front Stance: Choon Gul front stance
horse stance (3/Set). Horse Stance: Kee Ma
(4/Net). High Block: Sang Dan Mahk Ki high block
low block first movelow block second move (5/Taset). Low Block: HaDan Mahk Ki
(6/Yoset). Inside-Outside Block: inside-outside block
low knife hand block (7/Ilgot). Knife Hand: Soo Do Mahk Ki
(8/Yodol). Center Punch: Chun Dan Kyuk center punch
high punch (9/Ahop). High Punch: Sang Dan Kyuk
(10/Yol). Front Kick: Ahp Cha Ki front kick
roundhouse kick (11/Yol Hana). Roundhouse Kick: Tollyo Cha Ki
(12/Yol Tul). Back Kick: Dwi Cha Ki back kick

(13/Yol Set). Free Sparring: Ja Yu Dae Ryun
This is their favorite part of class. This is just a random YouTube video, not my kids at all. Their studio is also a licensed daycare provider so cameras and video cameras are frowned upon during regular classes.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Alice Audrey 2 Winter 3 Debora
4 Savannah Chase 5 Debbie Mumford 6 Jennifer McKenzie
7 R.G. Alexander 8 Susan Helene Gottfried 9 On a Limb with Claudia
10 Paige Tyler 11 Kat’s Krackerbox 12 Tamy 3 Sides of Crazy
13 Facing Abuse 14 Kathleen Oxley 15 Pamela
16 Di 17 storyteller 18

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Happy Birthday!

Thursday Thirteen

 

13 Happenings On April 3, 1968

 

You say it’s your birthday? Well, it’s my birthday too! This is somewhat of a running joke in my son’s Cub Scout Pack. I share my birthday with his den leader, but she’s older than I am =P We also share the day with my other friend there’s daughter who will be three-years old. At the meeting last night, she had invitations for a playdate at the park with her and said I could come celebrate too.

Last year, I yelled at another friend for sending me one of those joke emails that get forwarded to everyone you know because it was directed at women over 40 and how life was so much better for them. I took mock offense since I was still legitimately outside that demographic.

So, how’s it feel to be in it now? Bleah. Turning 25 was hard enough. A quarter of a century gone and nothing tangible to show for it. Turning 30 was a breeze except for lugging my DS around in my belly (and for another 18 days afterwards). But I find closing the decade of my thirties is making me look at my accomplishments so far and find them lacking. Oh sure, I have two great kids even though I call them monsters and a wonderful DH who I wouldn’t trade for the world, but I still feel a lack of something to point to where I can say, “I did that!” Maybe I can do something about that.

So, let’s take a look back and see what else happened 40 years ago:

BTW: IE 7 sucks and completely undoes my careful formatting. Firefox is much better for you anyway. =P Go get it. Now. Kthxbye.

1. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I’ve been to the mountain top” speech in Memphis, TN. It was rather difficult to find other happenings on this date because of this and his assassination the next day. My mom remembers being in the hospital with me as a newborn wondering if there were going to be riots an hour away in Baltimore on the 4th.
2. From all the casualty reports from April 3, 1968, you’d never know that North Vietnam agreed to meet with US Representatives to set up preliminary peace talks.
3. The largest draft card turn-in to date in Boston, MA was the same day. How’s that for irony?
4. Concerts that day included: Jimi Hendrix in Virginia Beach, VA and the Grateful Dead at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, CA.
5. After the NY premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey that night, Stanley Kubrik went back to the drawing board and cut 19 minutes of the film.
6. There was some competition at the theaters, as Planet of the Apes also opened everywhere in the US that night.
7. Of course, if you were the stay at home type, you may have watched the finale of the sixth season of the Beverly Hillbillies instead.
8. Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends album was released that day as well.
9. The Volkswagon Country Buggy was released to the public. The question still remains, “WHY!?” I guess it was their version of the Hummer. Only uglier, if possible.
10. Sebastian Bach of Skid Row was born in the Bahamas. My parents visited the Bahamas during my mom’s pregnancy with me. Wonder if we were both there at the same time, unable to enjoy the view.
11. Mike Lansing of the Montreal Expos was also born that day.
12. Remember the redhead from the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral? Charlotte Coleman was born then too. Unfortunately, she died in Nov. 2001 of an asthma attack =(
13. Tank Girl comic book artist and Gorillaz co-creator, Jamie Hewlett was also born forty years ago today.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Kathleen Oxley 2 Winter 3 Alice Audrey
4 Danica/Dream 5 nicholas 6 Gina Ardito
7 SandyCarlson 8 Deanna Dahlsad 9 Tempest Knight
10 Thea @ I’m a Drama Mama 11 On a Limb with Claudia 12 Jennifer McKenzie
13 Sarah in Disturbia 14 Di 15 R.G. Alexander
16 Kimberly Menozzi 17 Tamy 3 Sides of Crazy 18 Jeanine
19 Sandier Pastures 20 Paige Tyler 21 Robin L. Rotham
22 The Pink Flamingo 23 A. Catherine Noon 24 Laura
25 Susan Helene Gottfried 26 Motherhood for Dummies 27 Gwen Mitchell

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

Thursday Thirteen: Recipes

 

13 of My Standard Recipes

 

I like to cook, hate to clean. If there’s something besides books that I collect, it would have to be recipes. I love reading recipes and I love knowing some history behind the recipe as well.

Back in 2000, I found a wonderful site. At allrecipes.com you can collect recipes in a virtual recipe box, read and write reviews and rate recipes. You can now also do things like compile your collected recipes into a cookbook that they will print up for you. It’s been interesting to watch this site grow over the years and watch how features have been added.

Many of the recipes I’ve collected from this site have turned into family favorites. My MIL always requests the P.R. Meat Patties when she comes to visit. My mom and her best friend always request the Lasagna. The Berry Slush and the Potato Rounds are popular party fare. The Garlic Cheese Chicken Rollups freeze really well.

1. Amy’s Garlic Egg Chicken
2. Awesome and Easy Creamy Corn Casserole
3. Berry Lemonade Slush
4. Best Easy Chicken Croquettes
5. Best Unsteamed Shrimp
6. Broccoli Cheese Soup
7. Cheese and Bacon Potato Rounds
8. Cheese Cake Cups
9. Garlic Cheese Chicken Rollups
10. Honey Garlic Ribs
11. Puerto Rican Meat Patties
12. Puerto Rican Pork Roast
13. White Cheese Chicken Lasagna

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1 Susan Helene Gottfried 2 SandyCarlson 3 Tamy
4 Winter 5 Kathleen Oxley 6 The Pink Flamingo
7 Heather L 8 Alice Audrey 9 Vixen
10 Amanda 11 Di 12 Debora Dennis
13 Sandier Pastures 14 Jennifer McKenzie 15 Kimberly Menozzi
16 A. Catherine Noon 17 Paige Tyler 18 Joyce T.
19 Sarah 20 Debbie Mumford 21 Gwen Mitchell

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!