Pound for Pound Challenge II

I just recently found out that Yoplait is participating in this as well - for every yogurt foil you save and send in to them by 12/31/09, they will donate $.10 as well. This is enough to buy a pound of food - so each yogurt = 1 pound! They are donating up to $275,000, which is an awful lot of food for the food bank!

I'm not a Yoplait eater myself, as I find their products to be a bit sweet, but a couple of gals at work are, and I'm collecting their lids to send in. Won't you consider doing the same?

Just a quick post

Just wanted to share the photo of my new pendant. It's citrine, which is my birthstone. The main stone is a round stone, set in a square antique head which matches that on my engagement ring. I especially like the beaded/diamond bale. I just love Somos' design!



Did I mention that they are making a matching set of earrings for me? They will be the same as the pendant, but will dangle off of a embellished french wire earring. To keep the cost down a bit, we went with a stone that is 1mm smaller than that of the pendant, and the "bale" will only be beaded, no diamonds. I think they will be ready in a couple of weeks - I can't wait!

I also forgot to mention in my last post that we went to a new Thai restaurant for V-day dinner. We only had one Thai place here in Albany, and it closed last summer. But, this new place opened in December. I hadn't really heard anything about it, but decided to risk it. The decor was a bit lacking, but the food was pretty good. A bit pricey for Thai, I thought, but I think they are trying to be an upscale place. Pete had Pineapple Cashew Chicken, which came served in a 1/2 pineapple, and I had Green Curry w/Chicken, which was quite good. We splurged on Mango with Coconut Cream Sticky Rice, which was SO good! I would definitely go back there again!

Happy belated Valentine's Day!

Wow - I can't believe it's been over a week since I posted! How time flies!

Valentine's Day was nice - Pete is funny - he doesn't like crowds or to shop for things late, so I got my roses on Thursday, and chocolates on Friday! The roses were called "Magic" - they were orange on the outside of the petals and yellow on the inside - just gorgeous!

Then, yesterday, he actually took me down the jeweler who did my wedding set - 2 hours away! I picked out a citrine pendant (my birthstone) from the wish list I had started with them (before our wedding), and then talked to them about creating some matching earrings for me! They were having a special, so everything was 20% off. It seems a bit extravagant for V-day, but we didn't really do much for my birthday or V-day last year, so it isn't really.

I'll post a photo of it when I get a chance!

Some Great Hybrid Projects

Check out these hybrid adorable projects for Valentine's Day:

First, there are some embellishments for bags, mini candy bars, lollipops, tea bags and sandwhich bags:



Then, some great cupcake/muffin wrappers:






Each photo is linked to a blog where you can download the .jpgs of these items. Then you can just print and use. Or, you can use these as templates and create your own versions of these. I won't be making any cupcakes, but maybe I'll make Pete some muffins next Saturday, and surprise him with the king of hearts wrappers!

Google Reader - today's Tech tip!

Ok, so you know how we just started using Google Mail and Google Calendar at work?  Well, now I've discovered Google Reader.  And, it is a very bad distraction at work.  Basically, it's a place where you link it to all the blogs you like to see, and then it keeps all of that complied and updated for you.  I have a bunch of digiscrap blog subscriptions, as well as our local newspaper, Pop Candy from USA today (entertainment blog), several local food blogs, and some fitness blogs - Sqwiggs, Bill's, Turbulence training, Tom Venuto's...

 

So, you don't have to keep checking these blogs for new postings - the Reader does that for you.  The home page shows how many new posts in each catagory, and you can see a quick synopsis of each post, with a link to the actual site.  You can "star" them for later reference, or mark them as read.  It's is a huge time saver for someone who checks a lot of blogs!  And, you can see it from anywhere you can log into it, unlike readers that are specfic to your computer's browser window - you can only see those on your specific computer.

 

The distraction for me is that on the IE tab it always shows you how many new post have shown up.  In that particular IE window, which I am in all the time, I have a tab for google mail, calendar and now reader.  So, when I'm supposed to be answering mail, I'm always seeing that there are new blog posts, and checking into those instead!

Check this out!

I'm testing to see how this works - I am sending this post in via email.  This is supposed to post directly to my blog without my having to log into it to post.  How cool is that?!?!?

 

We had a ton of snow yesterday - well, really about 6", but then it rained for hours on top of it, so it was very heavy.  I spent about an hour just clearing enough of the driveway to get my car in off the street!  Pete did the same when he got home.  It was still raining, so we left the rest of it for today - how fun is that?  We have a snow blower, but it's so big and bulky that it's more work for me to use that than to just shovel by hand.  At least I burn some calories shoveling!

 

Ok - let's see if this makes it to my blog - pressing send now!

A Bit of a Slow Start...

I'll admit it - I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed about all the things I want to write about here - I just don't really know where to start...

As you can see by the previous post, I just pledged to the Pound-for-Pound challenge - starting Monday the 2nd, and ending by May 5th, their deadline. For every pound of weight you lose, they donate $.10, which is enough to buy 1 pound of food for a food pantry. I pledged the max it would let me for that time period - 26 pounds. I would love to lose that much in that time frame. Coincidentally, that's just about a 12-week time period - perfect for doing a Body-for-Life challenge. My friend Sherri is planning on starting one, and I said I'd join her. I've not finished a challenge in probably 3 years - I got through 7 weeks of one last summer, but somehow got off track.

So, I'm making this commitment to myself - I'll start, and finish, a BFL challenge in that time frame, and help to feed America.