document life now

my other blog

I started another blog back in July. 

Mykiah and I (and to a lesser extent, the rest of the family) are deep into planning our 2012 mega-Disney trip.

You've heard this one before. I know. But we're not changing our minds this time. If I could buy our airfare on Southwest right now, I'd do it. That's how sure I am that we are going to Orlando for two weeks next June.

My son will graduate from high school in June. And it's been five years since we last went to WDW. Both worthy of a celebration.

So I started a blog with our pre-trip plans. I rant a bit about corporate Disney. Do we really think Walt wanted his parks to be so expensive the average family couldn't afford them? (I think the answer might be yes... but that's beside the point.) 

If you're a Disney addict, like me and Kiah, you might enjoy reading along. I haven't been really great about updating it lately, but it has a good 3-4 posts up to including the fact that we're planning to rent a pool home rather than stay on property. 

I think from here on out I'll probably feature a mix of our planning updates and Disney stuff I find around the internets. If you're interested in it, add it to your blog reader. I made my brain hurt pretty bad last night in order to get that "subscribe in a reader" button down in the left column, so I'd love to have you join us on this journey. I have a bunch of ideas for this blog, including a "what I wore" in the parks feature once we're there, so I can report on the comfort of various articles of clothings/shoes/bags, as well as packing lists and other checklists that anyone planning a Disney trip would find helpful.

In the meantime... two seventy four. It's gonna fly.

Celebrate the Future Hand in Hand, our Florida 2012 blog

my dog is giving me gray hair

I'm sure he's not the only one responsible for it, but Hayden is giving me gray hair, an ulcer, and just in general causing me all kinds of worry.

He stopped eating this week. He's eaten the same food for most of the seven years he's been with us. At one point he was poisoned by his dog food and for almost a year after that he was on a prescription diet... until he refused to eat it. 

And now he's pulling the same stunt again.

Who me?

He quit eating sometime over the weekend. When he was poisoned, the vet told me that his lifespan would be shortened. That we'd maybe have another five years. That was four years ago. 

So when he stops eating again, I think... is it time? 

However, he's eating treats, and cat food that he can find (we keep it on top of our freezer so he can't get to it, but those stupid climbing cats can) and table food. So it's not that he's not hungry. It's that he doesn't want to eat for some reason.

He does this when we're gone, but I always put that down to him missing me terribly. 

Now I'm just fairly annoyed by it. We've tried several different foods, which is tricky because the vet also said that we should try to keep his protein intake under 10%. Look at any dog food. They have 20-30% routinely. 

I think I've stumbled upon the trick. Actual cooked ground beef. I'm going to brown a couple pounds, and then freeze it in small portions. Sprinkle it in with his dog food. 

Hopefully this will work.

The work I will do to get my dog to eat. 

I was seriously stressing myself out about the dog and his eating. I didn't realize it until I started yelling at my kids one evening. The stupid dog and his stupid refusal to eat was wearing on me. So cook ground beef, I will. 

And take photos from under the bathroom door so I can be sure he's eating... yeah, I'll probably do that too.

Review: Pictures on Canvas

As one of my hobbies is photography, I have a few photo canvases around my home. One was ordered from Winkflash last year on sale and was my Christmas present from my family (even though I ordered it). One is a float mount I ordered from the photographer who did my son's senior pictures. I assume it was purchased from one of the online pro photo developers. I made a few for my girls and ordered them from Artscow. Those aren't photos, but more along the lines of subway art. 

Easy Canvas Prints offered to put one of my pictures on canvas.

Why yes, I'd love to do that. And I know just the picture.

I chose a lovely shot of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland. I just smile every time I think about Disneyland, especially the time we send just sitting near the castle, soaking up atmosphere. And because I was going with a canvas, I spent some time editing the photo to really make the colors pop. 

I went to the Pictures on Canvas website and found it incredibly easy to order my canvas. Not only do they have a variety of sizes, they also have a variety of borders. I had sized my photo to include some extra for the wrap part of the canvas, but they also offer a nice "mirror" wrap, which repeats portions of the photo so that it looks seamless. If your photo is not sized to where you can wrap the photo, and the mirror option doesn't look good, you can also choose to put a solid color on the border. Any of these options is included in the price of the canvas. Finally, for a small fee you can have your photo converted to black and white or sepia, as well as have minor or major retouching done. I didn't need any of these, so I just ordered away.

A few days later, my canvas was at my door. I really like the quality and texture of the canvas. The color is true to my monitor and the wrap is excellent. It looks very nice hanging on our living room wall.

And another, slightly wider, shot:

Overall, very pleased with the ease of ordering, quality of product and shipping at Pictures on Canvas. Definitely recommend them to anyone looking for a canvas to decorate your home. 

I think this is the start of a wall of canvas for me... each one of a different Disney park icon. Tree of Life, Cinderella Castle, Sorcerer's Hat, Epcot ball. Definitely a start...

frozen banana bites

I'm not sure if I've told you this yet, but Mykiah doesn't eat sweets. I'm not sure how a child of my blood could possibly not dive into sweets whenever possible, but she resists temptation. 

I've never been one to deprive myself of anything. 

She baked an entire batch of cookies and didn't even so much as lick the spoon.

Strange.

She did, however, make herself a little frozen treat. I had seen a recipe on Pinterest and pinned it with the thought I'd come back and show it to her.

 

Source: neverhomemaker.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

She was intrigued. Bananas are her favorite fruit. She loves chocolate (even though she rarely indulges) and organic peanut butter is the staple of her diet. While cookies were baking, she put together a batch...

She says they're amazing. The best treat ever. She allows herself one or two a day. They'll last more than a week. Just borderline healthy enough for her to enjoy them. Me, I'm thinking of other things to dip in that chocolate/peanut butter mixture... marshmallows, graham crackers, cookies....

$250 dollar cookies

I've probably shared this recipe on this blog, but here's this weekend's story.

Allergies have hit me hard. Saturday I was almost incapacitated by them. I take Claritin every single day of the year... except a period of two months each spring and fall when the allergens in the air are at their peak. Then I take Zyrtec. Or Allegra, because that's what I finally purchased on Saturday. I knew Tuesday that I needed to switch to the heavy duty stuff, but I was too busy to take the time to drive to Wal-mart to get the more expensive, more effective medication. I told myself I could make it to Saturday.

One slight fever and several exhausting days at work later, I finally got it. Then crawled into bed to nurse my sore throat and stuffed up nose.

Dan, however, feels just fine on his Claritin. Doesn't know what I'm talking about. He's just fine. And he wants chocolate chip cookies.

This is where my daughter saves me. I really can't stomach buying premade dough when I have an amazing KitchenAid mixer and baking is really kinda my thing. 

Except when I'm a blubbering mess of tissues and blankets trying to feel better. 

Mykiah, bless her little heart, said she'd make the cookies. I had to coach her through the recipe, and I did manage to scoop a few trays for her (because she was busy with the recipe for tomorrow's blog), but she did the majority of it, and they are delicious.

I selected the $250 Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe for her first solo batch. I don't know. I was thinking Kiah... oatmeal... they seemed to fit. The whole urban legend involved can be read here.

Here's the recipe: 

• 2 cups butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 5 cups blended oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 (8 ounce) grated Hershey chocolate candy bars (we skipped this... too much work and there's already enough chocolate in these cookies)
• 3 cups chopped nuts (we used walnuts, Dan's favorite)
• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 24 ounces hershy's semi-sweet chocolate chips (although we used Ghiradelli 60% cacao chips)

First, measure the oatmeal, put in a blender and pulverize until it resembles flour.

1. Cream butter and both sugars.
2. Add eggs and vanilla.
3. Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda.
4. Add chips, candy, and nuts.

1. Refrigerate for 1/2 an hour.
2. Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
3. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

I don't really care if the whole Neiman Marcus legend is true. They're really good cookies... however the recipe was discovered.

odd cars

On the memory card from Omaha were a couple of... different photos. Apparently these cars were parked in the parking lot of my family's hotel.

Bumper stickers and buttons and very tall strange things on top.

Only to be outdone by...

Empty toothpaste tubes, used toothbrushes, and dentures -- yes, dentures -- on the roof.

That Nebraska is a very strange place.

shutterfly review: Brady's Senior Book

Brady had his senior pictures taken back in late June (by the wonderful Dynae Levingston). We have a big float mount on our wall, but I wanted to create a book where I could feature more photos, maybe show relatives, and get copies for grandparents. 

One Saturday... when I should have been working on another project... I put together a quick little album. I used quotes from Dr Seuss because they seemed to best fit my son. I uploaded to Shutterfly and then it just kind of sat there because I was too cheap to buy it at full price and I was waiting on a coupon code.

And then I was gifted a code for a free book. That was a blessing.

The book arrived last week and it's absolutely perfect. Here are a couple of quick shots of the book:

If you'd like to see the whole book, you can view it on Shutterfly's site:

 

Click here to view this photo book larger

omaha zoo

Over Labor Day weekend, my parents took Brady, my oldest, and Ches, my youngest, to Omaha, NE to visit the zoo. As you may know, my son is a huge zoo freak and loves to visit them. Barely a weekend day goes by where he does not request a trip to the zoo. Good thing we're zoo members, huh? 

Somewhere, somehow, this group had heard about the Omaha Zoo. Probably because I think my sister went up there one Spring Break. I'm fuzzy on that. Anyway, the Omaha Zoo became the mecca to which Brady needed to travel. 

Folks, I'm not going to Nebraska. I don't even care if the zoo is the best zoo in the Midwest. I'm just not a Nebraska kind of person. I'm sure it's a perfectly fine place to be, it's just not where I want to go. Thankfully, my parents were totally down with the Nebraska thing. So Saturday morning, I drove my children north and off they went.

And Monday, I drove north again and retrieved them and the camera I sent with them. So here's photos taken by Brady and Ches, edited by me, and journaling by Ches and Brady.

This was when we were waiting for the zoo to open. It was nice and 55 degrees outside.

That's Finding Nemo and the anemone. This was at the aquarium before the shark tunnel. It was in a big tank of a tropical coral reef thing. And Dory was with him. They had every fish from Finding Nemo.

Waiting in line to get in the zoo. A tiger skin went right past us. When we were waiting in line, a zookeeper came out with a tiger skin and he had cut out the eyeballs and the teeth. It died at his zoo because it was almost extinct. We were excited to go in the zoo for the first time.

It's a waterfall in the jungle by the monkeys. There's a swinging bridge right behind it. Chesney went on it. It was really scary because it was rocking up and down and it was slanted. It's like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

These are penguins. They were in the aquarium and it was feeding time, so the keepers were out. There was like 100 people in there watching them feed. It was really cool but we didn't get a good view. We used zoom.

The polar bear is a bear which originates in the Northern half of North America. It's common prey are seals and elk. It's only predator is human. This one didn't look particularly hungry. It was just lying and not doing anything like Perry the Platypus or Hayden. There was a tunnel right by it and it had this little circle where you could go sit and watch him.

We were down on the ground floor in the jungle and they had these swinging ropes and stuff and Grandma told me to go get on it. I was like trying to jump on it. You could see up high it was swinging all around. I never got on it.

It is Huey the hippo that I got at the zoo gift shop. It is Grandma's magnet of the meerkats. She always gets magnets and she's getting quite the collection from like Arizona and Disney World and I guess the Omaha Zoo. Then it's Mykiah's bookmark that I got her. She's so happy that it's 100% eco friendly. 

omaha at night

Just a quick one for today. Brady took this over the weekend. I like it.

totally sucked in...

to Pinterest.

The force was strong in me, and I avoided it far longer than I should have. 

I just joined Monday, and honestly, I've been losing myself in it every night this week just because I need a little moment to turn my brain off. It's so... overwhelmed right now. Just so many random thoughts and I just need to shut down.

And pin.

I think anybody can see my boards here: Pinterest

I've got a board for quotes and pretty things that just define who I am. Two for photo inspiration (to help me see things differently when I'm out taking photos). One for teaching inspiration. Not for ideas of things to do with my class, but words to keep me inspired. 

And one for recipes. So much better than my "recipes to try" bookmark. I like pictures. I'm such a visual learner. Pinterest was made for me.

Here's some of my favorites from my boards:

 

Source: etsy.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Source: yourhomebasedmom.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

If you'd like me to follow you, I'd be happy to do so! Just leave me a link or whatever I need (cuz I'm still figuring it out). Pinterest did a mass add for me and then I cut it, probably a little too drastically. Now I need more inspiration!