Nov082011

30 Day Photo Challenge : Favorite Food

Yes, popcorn really is my favorite food. While I prefer it homemade with a bit of oil in a tightly lidded pot, microwave kettle corn is pretty darn good as well.

Some of my favorite toppings are garlic, salt and Splenda (tastes enough like kettle corn to me!), salt, chili powder, Lawry’s seasoning salt… you name it! And when I need to scrape the last bit of seasoning from the pot, I add about a tablespoonful of butter to melt down and drizzle over the gigantic bowl.

How do I make it? Grab a pot with a tight fitting lid as you’re going to be shaking the pot quite a lot and popcorn pops very high! Add about a glug of oil (or a tablespoon, your choice) and 4 or 5 kernels of corn and place on the stove on High heat. When those all pop, pull the pot off the burner, dump enough kernels to cover the bottom of the pot and a sprinkle of whatever seasonings you want. Do not over season! A little goes a long way when added at this stage. Shake the pot for about 30 seconds (with the lid on!) off the heat to make sure everything is covered with oil and seasoning. Put it back on the heat and keep a close eye on it. Once most of the kernels are popped, turn the heat off and dump most of the popped corn into your bowl. Put the rest back on the stove and let it pop away. This way gives me the least amount of unpopped kernels.

Plus, popcorn is one of the many food that my little Lola loves. She will chase popcorn all over the house.

What is your favorite food?

For the full list: 30 Day Photo Challenge : Gratitude

Nov072011

30 Day Photo Challenge : Gratitude

I think this is a great way to bring more life to my blog. Post a picture and write about it. Starting tomorrow (or maybe tonight if I can find something good for my favorite food) I will be taking on this challenge.

Who’s with me?

Source: positivelypresent.com via Karen on Pinterest

Apparently there is an entire blog post devoted to this on the Positively Present website.

Nov022011

Working Out.. And Taking Control

On Saturday, we joined a gym. I haven’t belonged to a gym since.. umm… maybe 2008 or so. I mean, I worked for the YMCA, but I only worked out a handful of times in the almost 2 years I was there.

We had gone into our local Planet Fitness a little over a week ago and toured the facility. It’s pretty bare bones as far as gyms go with no pool, classes or steam room/ sauna. However it has TONS of machines running the entire length of the (huge) wall in 2 rows. They also have free wrights and those machines that all gyms have. Clearly I’ve spent very little time in gyms. But I do know this place is huge. And open during the times I want to work out. Oh, and is $10 a month for the cancel at anytime with no penalties plan. The other plan was $20 a month which included tanning beds, massage chairs, some funky infrared light machine thingy and some other perks. We opted not to do that one as there is a minimum of 3 months at the current club before transferring to another club. And since we have no idea how long we will be living here..

Monday was our first day working out. We’re definitely going to have to rearrange our gym times as by the time Steve got home, changed and we got there, it was 9:35am. In order for me to make it to Home Depot to meet my dad to drive into Coral Gables for work, I need to be in the shower by 10:15am at the latest. So, basically, we walked on the treadmills for 20 minutes with a 5 minute cool down.

This morning I am aiming to get there by 9am so I have a full hour to workout. Hopefully I can keep it up for 3-4 days a week. I know for a fact that when I actually work out (which I’m not a fan of), I lose weight pretty quickly. My biggest problem with weight is that I don’t eat properly. That is, I don’t snack, emotionally eat or randomly eat all day, I just don’t eat. Well, no, I eat when I am hungry and stop when I get full. I also don’t eat balanced meals, or at least rarely eat them.

Yeah yeah, it’s terrible. Trust me, I know. That whole bought of “anorexia” (umm, my diet pretty much consisted of diet pills and alcohol) in college and the forced Weight Watchers diet when I was 12 has done a real number on me.

Working out will hopefully kick my metabolism into normalcy and make me hungry so I start eating on a regular schedule.

My “physical” goal for my 35th year is to get in shape, feel better about myself and look awesome in the bridesmaids dress in Felice and Chris’ wedding. More specifically, I want to be in shape enough to actually have my body work properly again even though we are planning on adopting siblings from foster care. This also means that I will be able to run and play with our children and not get winded. And be able to strengthen my seriously weak ankles that keep spraining. Yeah, they’re holding up quite a bit of weight and never healed properly from all the sprains.

I have absolutely how much I weighed in this picture, but it was taken 8 years ago and I think it’s a good goal to have. I remember the size I wore (based on the job uniforms hanging in the closet) and that would be a pretty drastic change from where I am now. Man, I sure do wish I could go back and dye my hair and brush it better…

So now I’m off to the gym… Cheers, my friends!

Oct292011

Shutterfly Holiday Cards Giveaway

I dunno about you, but we love us some holiday cards. No, not Christmas cards, and not Hanukkah cards, but holiday cards. We have a mixture of religions on our address list, so our message tends to be generic. I have been sending holiday cards out myself for many years prior to even meeting the hubby, and they are always fun to give and receive.

But I digress! I wish I could say I’ve been loyal to one company, but let’s face it,I am a deals shopper. The last couple of years we used Shutterfly; this year will be no different. I haven’t been disappointed yet! The cards are always high quality and they have so many designs.

We used Shutterfly as the photo dump site for our trip to Las Vegas and other wedding pictures, which was so convenient! We made photo books, and possibly will make a few calendars for gifts this year, and definitely the holiday cards for the December holidays.

Do you prefer to send a flat or tent card? What about receiving- what’s your preference? I personally like to receive flat cards only because it makes it easier to read the messages on our card wall every year.

Not only do I get to send beautiful Shutterfly cards this year, but, my lovely readers, you get the opportunity as well. I have 3 codes for 25 Free Cards of your choice. That’s right, there will be three winners!

All you need to do to enter is go check out the vast selection of holiday cards and leave a comment telling me which one you would choose if you win. Also tell my one of your favorite holiday traditions. (Hey we’re newlyweds and could always use some new ideas.)

Extra entries, leave a separate comment with a link to each:
– Subscribe to my blog or let me know you’re already a follower/ RSS reader
– Share this on Facebook or Twitter: Enter to win 1 of 3 sets of 25 @shutterfly holiday cards from @rbfletcher ~ #giveaway ends 11/9/11 ~ http://rbfl.me/2035
– Blog about this giveaway

I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner on November 9th. You don’t have to be a blogger to win, just make sure you use an active email address when you leave your comment so I can contact you if you win.

Do you notice a theme with the cards I like? 😉 These were 3 of my top choices for this years cards.

This post was sponsored by Shutterfly. I am getting 50 free cards in exchange for providing my opinion on Shutterfly cards. All reviews and opinions are my own. If you are a blogger and interested in getting 25 free cards for your opinion, you can sign up here.

Oct262011

Gred and Forge Weasley Gloves

I am a knitter. You knew that, right? I am crazy about fibers and knitting and finding new patterns and really want to design my own items one day. I’ll probably start with a shawl/ wrap as it’s pretty easy to design a flat triangle of fabric. Or at least I assume so. Yep, I used the word assume. 😉

Anyhow, I am a member of the Free Pattern Testers group on Ravelry. Ravelry, of course, being my favorite site on the entire internet. OK, maybe not, but you get what I mean.

So a few weeks ago, I signed up for a test knit for some super cute fingerless gloves. Sure, it took me a lot longer than the rest of the testers, but I’m immensely pleased with how they turned out! Of course they’re Gator colors. I used stash yarn that I had sitting in a box from years ago and since there wasn’t enough for both gloves, I alternated the colors. So they’re kinda like the Weasley twins… the same, but different.

Oct202011

West Virginia Vacation Photos & a Future Giveaway

Wow, did we really get back from West Virginia 3 months ago? I miss it. While it was a really small town we were staying in and traveling around, it was fun. I met both my sisters-in-law, brother-in-law, 2 nephews, and saw my brother-in-law and mother-in-law again, as well as meeting several of Steve’s friends from when he lived there.

About a month ago, I received an email from Jessica at Inkubook. She saw that I had previously blogged about my amazing experiences with Inkubook (here) and graciously offered up the opportunity for a giveaway for my readers and another book for me to review. Now, I’m not doing the giveaway in this post, but will hopefully be posting it in the next couple of weeks. I want to wait until I have the book in hand.

In the meantime, here is a small sampling of the pictures I took during our week in West Virginia. It really makes me want to move up north so we can be in the mountains!

Create your own Photobooks with Inkubook.com!

I really hope y’all can see the book as I can’t no matter how many times I install and re-install and re-install Adobe Flash Player. It also doesn’t care that I have a full version of Flash CS4 on my computer. So, good luck to you!

Oct162011

Plug: Adoption Bloggers Interview Project

Hello readers!

As y’all know, my husband and I are planning on adoption 2 children from foster care (a sibling pair to be exact) and I have been researching everything I can find on the subject. During this research, I discovered (and became a part of) the Open Adoption Bloggers (see the orange link in the sidebar?)

If I’m not mistaken, some of my readers have found me from OAB. Welcome!

I just found out about the Adoption Bloggers Interview Project from OAB this afternoon. And it’s brilliant! Basically, it pairs up 2 bloggers to learn about each other and post an interview on their blog. You can bet that I signed up!

The Interview Project is open to any blogger…

who writes at least occasionally about adoption,
is interested in meeting a fellow writer with different views and experiences, and
wants to welcome someone into their own online space.

Pop on over there and read all about the Project and sign up. Just be sure to sign up by October 28, 2011 so that you can participate!

** Also, I offered up my services and created the above logo!
** If you know anyone that needs any design work for a blog, website, or a logo, please send them my way!

Oct102011

Happy 1st Anniversary of 10.10.10

One year ago today, we said I Do in our gorgeous suite at the Luxor Hotel overlooking the Las Vegas Strip. My brother and future sister-in-law were there as our witnesses (and celebrating their 2nd dating anniversary) and my fab friend Kelly was there due to her husband being in another 10.10.10 Vegas wedding. Talk about perfect timing!

Sure, we’ve had our share of both good times and bad this past year. We made decisions about growing our family via foster adoption, we visited his family and spent a week in West Virginia, we spent 3 days in Orlando for MegaCon, and learned how to deal with seeing each other for only a couple hours a day due to our opposing work schedules.

Happy anniversary, my love! I cannot wait to move outta here, get grown-up jobs and raise our children together.

Lots and lots of love to the man that supports me and loves me for exactly who I am! I could not be happier to spend the rest of my life with you. <3

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