Blog Challenge 6/10/08

Challenge~
Whats the last good book you've read?

I am currently Reading The Firery Cross By Diana Gabaldon. (I have not really been drawn into this book like the others in the series.) I would have to say.. Outlander, Voyager and Drums of Autumn By Diana Gabaldon. The House of night series by PC Cast. Historical fiction and Vampires, what a combo. I am really enjoying the Outlander series. It was great to visit the area where this book took place. You can picture the scenes. I went to Scotland in July 2007. The Kelly's (Kelly J. & Kelly S.) both talked me into reading the Outlander series. Other recent reads I have liked is the Harry Potter Series. Although I HATED book seven, still love the books. It was such a roller coaster of emotion. And it is bad to end a novel with a double digit body count. It tore my heart apart so bad that I have not been able to pick it up to re-read it like I have with the others. The seventh book will always hold a special place in my heart because I brought it home from Scotland.. hehehe If you want to look at other books in my library you will find a link to my Goodreads bookshelf.. Feel free to add me as a friend if you wish..

Picture from yesterdays Challenge

Okay I finally posted my page for the Recipe Swap we are doing for the Club QK meeting next Monday.. It is summery. I am proud to say they I made 12 of these 6x6 pages with paper I had in my stash. The dies are outlined with Stickles.. Love them.. I think I did all of these in under 3hrs. Now I need to work on next month's pages which is Main Dishes..

Here is the recipe on the card.
Cheesy Risi e Bisi Recipe courtesy Rachael Ray (foodnetwork.com)
Ingredients
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large clove garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 cup arborio rice
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 to 4 cups chicken stock,
1 quart size box, available on soup aisle of the market
1/4 to 1/3 cup grated Parmigiano, a generous handful
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 cup tiny frozen peas

Heat a medium skillet over medium high heat. Add extra-virgin olive oil and garlic and onion and saute, stirring constantly 2 to 3 minutes then add rice and season with a little salt and pepper. Cook another minute or so then add wine and let it completely absorb, 30 seconds. Add about 1 cup chicken stock and stir. Reduce heat a bit to medium. Stir often and continue adding a half cup of liquid each time liquid becomes completely absorbed. Cook 22 minutes, using as much stock as is necessary to result in creamy-consistency rice with a bite to it. When rice is cooked to desired consistency, remove from heat and stir in cheese, parsley and peas and stir to combine and to heat peas through.

It sounds good.. Last month I did Fruit Salsa with Cinnamon chips. I can say that the Cinnamon chips are GREAT... I found that recipe from Allrecipes.com.

Blog Challenge 6/9/08

Challenge~
Why is creativity important?

Because... If you had no creativity you would be boring. Creativity is essential to life. It is something we have as a child. It is something that some people put in the back of their brain as they get older. Children should be encouraged to let their creavity flow. If we bottle childrens creativity we will lose some of the great adventor and writers. If Walt Disney did not expand on his creativity where would Orlando be now. Orlando would be not be the tourist hub it is now.

I know this probably does not make sense but my brain is fried after today..

Blog Challenge 6/8/08

Challenge~
What are you scrapping plans today?

I really do not have any. I just have to stamp my name on the recipe pages I created for the 6x6 recipe swap due next monday. I am proud to say they I did this page with all papers I had in my stash. It looks like a summery recipe card.

I guess I will update about my week..

You know some days you just can not win.. I had it all last week. Monday & Tuesday were pretty quiet but very long. Well Wednesday was when it started getting bad. I was putting stuff away in out procedure room and knocked a bottle of Hurricane Spray out of the cabinet. Not a problem.. Until it hit the laptop screen. Yeah. Now there is a problem. We have laptops in every room. This laptop is only one with a soft screen. I should have taken a picture of the screen it was pitiful. The lower right side was distored. Shining light - It was still under warrenty... YEAH... Thursday rolls around.. I am filling the coffee maker with water. Well apparently it did not drain completely from person who made the first pot of coffee. I was pouring the water into the coffee maker and it ends up splashing everywhere and lands on the power strip tripping the breaker. Killed the power for the Autoclave, coke machine, printers and water cooler. Well that put a kink in the morning routine. Some of us really need our morning coffee. I was lucky to fine a plug that I did not knock out and finish the coffee. Thanks to DJ who found the correct power switch and we have power again. Friday - oh Firday.. We are beyond short handed.. Karla is out of the country visiting her mother. Dee has flown to Chicago to see her family. Sharon took off because she is hosting a graduation party Sunday. When you only have 6 MA's to cover all the practioners and over half are out of the office there is a problem. The only other MA in the office has become an even bigger waste of space. She spends all her time walking around not doing a thing. So that leaves me & Natrina to cover the 2 physicians and pretty much all the phone calls and prescription refills. It was after 130pm when I left. A 45+hr week. And some of my bad luck has rubbed off on my doctor. My doctor was packing her car to come to work when her keys feel off her stack of belongings and dropped into the trunk. Well the rest of the car was locked.. So she calls one of the other physicians and he takes her to the surgery center. After her cases she calls me and I go and get her and take her to her car and wait for AAA to come and unlock the car and retrive her keys from the trunk. What a way to start a vacation. So my saving grace is that she is on vacation next week and I can work at my desk. I am going to take a day off just for myself.. I can not believe our boss let all those people off at one time. When I ad to go to court in February I asked for the whole day off and ended up going in and working 1/2 a day. I am just too damn nice. Oh well that week is gone and next is another and a fresh start..

Blog Challenge 6/7/08

Challenge~
What do you do with all of the things you write about?

A little of this and a little of that. Work, scrapbooking, my family and most of all my crazy life.

This week I have not blogged much because I have been working toooo many hours at work. Me and 3 of the other MA's at work had almost 40hrs Thursday night. This means every minute we work on Friday was Overtime.. I have over 5 1/2 hours overtime when I left Friday. The sad thing is when you look at the paycheck really does not show it. And the overtime just about covers a tank of gas. I know our gas prices here are not as bad as it is in other places. I paid $3.91 a gallon yesterday. It cost me $55.00 to fill my tank. Yikes!!! that is regular unleaded. Not the mid-grade my little Rav4 likes. Yes my Rav4 is on a diet it with me.. hehehe... Why is it when the price per barrel goes up we see it right away. But if the price per barrel goes down we never see that change. When I bought this Rav4 in 2006 it cost me $32 to fill it's 14 gallon tank with premium gas. Now just over 2 1/2 years later it costs me $55. This is outragous.. And the oils companies are turning over a $40 billion dollar profit. That is very wrong. Me and a co-worker who lives a block from each other thought about riding the bus. If we want to ride the bus we would have to board the bus at our house at 1:30am to be dropped off at the local airport at 2pm and sleep there until 7am tp be dropped off at the hospital at 730am. That is crazy. I really do not think they would appreciate a whole bunch of people sleeping in the airport.

Thank you

Thank you ReneP for for the nice comment on my blog. It really touches me that someone like to read about my crazy life. I must admit that blogging is a lot easier since I was put on medication for depression. I must say that Welbutrin has really helped. I feel a lot better. I feel like I did in my early twenties. That is a why my blog has come back to life.

Thank you to ReneP and any others who wander across this blog and enjoy reading the craziness.

Blog Challenge 6/6/08

Challenge is~
What are your favorite pages to work on?

Right now I have two scrapbooks and a new photo book. My current scrapbooks are an All About Me album and Trip to Hogwarts Volume II. I started the All About Me over 2 years ago. I had only finished about 7 whole pages. In February I was cleaning the scrapbook/office and came across the memory keeper with the 8x8 album, papers and embellishments. I have been working on mostly my cards for the Quickutz club and friends. I decided one night to take it to the boys house to work on it and try and figure out what to put in it. That night I did 4 complete and 2 half complete pages. I must say that I have made a dent in it. I have completed about 30 pages. My biggest problems is I do not have a lot of pictures of my past. My mother was not a pig photo taker and when we asked the state help to put my mothers stepfather in a nursing home, they trashed all the photos. They stole a lot of memories. So I have put out the request for family to help get these some photos to add to my book. Now there is what is taking so long for me to finish. It is one of the few books that I have actually complete journalling in. As for my Trip to Hogwarts II album -- I must confess that I have not started it yet... I am trying to find an album like the one I have the first trip in. In the first album I used 2 styles of paper throughout the book. Now I have to decided which pages to use then the next problem is to try and find enough to do a whole album with it. I just have not seen the right papers for the book.

Back at Christmas time I decided to make a photo book and went to Mypublisher.com. I started working on one about my summer trip to England and Scotland. I downloaded the software and would work on it here and there. Well I finished that one and made just a book of my photographs. Well that was a hard decision to make as to which to put in. So the first week in December I uploaded the 2 books and paid my $56 and a week later I had 3 5.75x7.75 softcover books delivered to my front door. If you sign up for their newsletter they send you a code for a free book of the one you are ordering. I was playing around on my favorite message board - 2Peas - and came across a post about photo books. Someone asked whether this is the way scrapbooking is heading. Of course it is not. It is just like digital scrapbooking - some like it, some do not and some just don't get the hang of it. (Raising hand at the last part). I like these books for the coffee table or for a gift of a grandparent. Well someone posted the website Blurb.com. With mypublisher.com they have a whole rage of book sizes but they are still early in the software and are still adding fonts and designed. Here is the different book sizes:
mypublisher.com - 7.75x5.75, 11.25x8.75, 15x11
Blurb.com - 7x7, 10x8, 8x10, 13x11
well blurb's software has a lot more font and you can create a lot of different backgrounds, framed and layouts. This is still in the planning/playing stage. We will see how this goes.

Blog Challenge 6/2/08

Challenge~
What is your greatest joy about scrapbooking?
I enjoy scrapbooking because it is my creating outlet. I can sit and be by myself or I can be with friends. Igives me a chance to do more with my hands other then typing which I do all day. I is Me Time.. Plus all the pretty papers and accents.

Blog Challenge 6/1/08

Challenge~
Why do you write?

I write because the blog is the only place where my feelings are actually heard. I spend more time listening to all my co-workers bitching and moaning. My blog will not interupt and will not take offense. I can write what I really think. My blog listens to me.