Category: Restaurants and Food

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Breakfast for dinner

A few afternoons ago they were talking on some day time talk show about eating breakfast for dinner and although I wouldn’t even attempt to try any of their recipes or ideas I did decide that last night I switched it up and got  to cooking breakfast for dinner; blueberry pancakes, sausage links and hominy.  Hominy isn’t something that I get to fix an eat much these days so it is a nice treat as well as a wake-up call that I am perfectible capable of making it more often and promise myself that I will.  While cooking, my young son came in the see what was smelling so good. That is when I informed him that we were having breakfast for dinner, and asked him if that was O.K. with him.

He laughed and said that it was fine, but that it was a good things that he liked these types of foods, because he had already eaten breakfast foods for breakfast, and for lunch at school. I’m so glad that breakfast is his favorite meal of the day!

Go figure . . . 

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Groceries

Depending upon where you live in the U.S., the store where you buy groceries can be very different from the grocery stores in other parts of the country. In some states you can buy liquor in the grocery store. In Virginia, you can buy beer and wine, but not liquor. I hear that in Tennessee you can’t even buy wine in the grocery, but you can buy beer except on Sunday mornings.

Close to my house, the best grocery store is Food Lion. We are lucky that it is one of their larger stores. The produce section is especially nice – a huge variety and all the vegetables and fruits are fresh and bruise-free. We have a large selection of meats and several aisles of frozen foods. I try to limit my shopping to once a week, but it is so convenient that I can run by there any time.

When I was growing up, the two main grocery stores were Giant and Grand Union, and if you were willing to drive all the way into Rosslyn you could shop at a Safeway store. I don’t think there are any Grand Unions anymore – they disappeared, Food Lions sprang up and now we have Wal-Marts, too.

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Elton John in Vegas

My folks are leaving next Wednesday for Las Vegas to attend the big annual convention for my dad’s company. They always have the convention in Las Vegas and wives are encouraged to go, as they host events that couples can attend and they also leave large blocks of time for networking or spending time on the Strip. Dad wants to surprise my mom with tickets to a show that she thinks he does not want to see. He told me that the truth is he would like to see the Elton John show, but he wants her to think otherwise so he can surprise her. They are going to be in Vegas for the convention until Sunday, but my dad decided to stay an extra night and have some fun. So they have several nights there to fill with entertainment.

Since they go to this convention every year, they have already seen a lot of the big shows. The Elton John show is new and only there for a short time, so he wasn’t sure he could even get tickets. I told him about the web site that I used last time I was in Vegas, www.BestofVegas.com and that if he wants tickets, this is the best site for buying them. All the top shows in Vegas are listed on the site and you can read show reviews, see clips of the different performances, and buy your tickets online. Elton John is one of the biggest Las Vegas Shows booked this year, and my folks are lucky that the convention coincides with Elton John’s appearances. My mom has been a huge fan of Elton John since she was a kid. Her favorite song is “Candle in the Wind.” When she hears that on the radio it makes her think of Princess Diana’s accidental death and it makes her cry. I think any song that can make you cry is a great testament to the strength of the song.

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Did you know…

It doesn’t take much to find all types of trivia these days, but I found this information on a print out that they give the customers at the coffee store that I go to once in a while. I don’t drink coffee, but once in a while I’ll treat myself to a nice hot mocha with whipped cream. It’s a nice quiet little place and I love that they have things for their customers to read and contemplate.

Shocking: An electric eel has a current-producing organ that can generate an average charge of 350 volts. The rivers of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Peru are where you’ll find an eel that produces the greatest shock – from 400 to 650 volts.

Devoted daddy: The male emperor penguin shares incubating duties with the female when she lays her one large egg. Later, the female is away feeding when the egg hatches, so the male feeds the baby by regurgitating a milky substance.

Always the name: A nine-banded armadillo has an unusual claim to fame. It almost always gives birth to quadruplets of the same sex, resulting from the fact one egg usually divides into four parts.

The mile: It was Queen Elizabeth I who decided a statute mile should be 5,280 feet or 1,609 meters. It was based on walking distance established by the Romans, who said 1,000 paces made up a land mile.

Waking early: In 1787, Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, came up with one of the earliest versions of an alarm clock. For the rest of us, it might not have been too attractive. It could only ring at one time – 4a.m.

Taken from Coffee News “News to be enjoyed over coffee”

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Fundraising Is A Fact Of Life

Gone are the days in most cities and towns across America when kids were sent knocking on people’s doors trying to sell folks items for a fundraiser.  Let’s face it, schools, churches, sports and all the other non-profit groups, they all desperately need money and fundraising can be a lucrative way to get it.

Unfortunately in today’s world it isn’t necessarily safe for our children to go around the neighborhoods anymore.  Most fundraisers specifically request that the kids do not go door to door anymore, they tell you to have family, co-workers and close family friends help in supporting the organization.

With having two kids I have done my fair share of fundraising and I certainly will still participate when I can.  It was a lot easier when members of my immediate family were all living pretty close to each other, now a days everyone is spread out all over the darn country so that puts a damper on using them as a resource, for the most part.

I ran across a really cool fundraising program on the Web called Schoolpop.com and I am going to contact our elementary school and see if they would be interested in participating in this non-traditional school fundraiser opportunity.

By using Schoolpop, you can pay down your tuition and any extracurricular activity costs, it can assist in paying back student loans for college and help your school earn monies, all year round by shopping at the several hundred listed of name -brand merchants and service providers whether it be online, in stores, catalogs purchases, even with gift cards or with the Schoolpop Visa credit card.

You can apply for the Schoolpop Visa credit card right on line!  Every purchase that you make for your groceries, gas, clothing, movies, restaurants  – it contributes 1% to the student’s school.

It sounds like Schoolpop may be a way to raise money that would/should be embraced by our school and the families, we shall see when I call them this week.  I’ll also call my sister who has a son in a very nice private school and see if she would be interested in learning a cool and easy way to raise money for private schools along with us in the public school system.

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Cute Recipe

I found a really cute recipe on a sister site that I am going to try, thought I would share it.  Now that I have reached the age of 50, the Red Hat Society is very interested in me, so is the AARP!

“Pink Stuff”

 From the Red Hat Society cookbook pg 276 

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12oz) container whipped topping, thawed

1 (20 oz) can cherry pie filling

1 (15 oz) can crushed pineapple, well drained

1 (15 oz) can mandarin oranges, drained

Red food coloring – a few drops, optional 

Stir together the condensed milk and whipped topping.  Fold in the cherry pie filling.  Fold in the pineapple and oranges.  If you want a deeper pink color, add a few drops of red food coloring.  Refrigerate at least 4 hours prior to serving.  

  Pink

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A Day at the Pool

Today was the perfect day to go to the pool. Everyone slept in a little late this morning. We didn’t get back from the fireworks until nearly midnight and everyone was wired up from all of the excitement of all of the wonderful displays that our local recreation center produced this year, in celebrating the 4th of July.

Once the house started waking up and everyone had fed their face with some type of nourishment from my fully stocked kitchen. I went shopping yesterday and spent a fortune on items to take with us to the show, things like beer, wine, wine coolers, sodas, Gatorade, bottled water, chips, dips, crackers, cookies, fruits, well you get the point. So the kitchen is now over flowing with munchies that should last all week-end long, maybe.

Anyway, we decided that today was the first nice day that we have had in a while so we packed up all of our swimming pool gear and took off for a day in the sun and water fun. It was great, fun was had by all, even Hubby came along this time, which is rare these days, and now I’m totally beat and sun burned and ready for bed.

By the way, a belated Happy Independence Day to America, may God Bless us all!

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Sheetz Card

If you have a Sheetz gas and convenience center around where you live and haven’t gotten your Sheetz card I would like to encourage you to go ahead and sign up for one. You save 3 cents a gallon when you use your card as well as discounts and freebies galore. With the price of everything continuing to go up and up you have to take advantage of savings when you can.

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I Was So Lonely

My youngest daughter has been watching me blog and has been asking me questions about it, so I thought that I would allow her to post on my blog when she feels the urge to, so the following post is from her:

“Last week during lunch at school I had to eat lunch by myself. Well, I wasn’t completely alone at the lunch table. There were two girls there, but I didn’t know them that well. And they never really talked to me.  But none of my friends sat with me for the whole week! One of my friends sat at a special table for the week. My other friend sat with her boyfriend on Monday and Friday, like she always does, and the rest of the week she went to sit with her “mother” and “sister”. They weren’t really her mother and sister, they were actually just some of her other friends. So I was all alone for the whole week at lunch. Sort of. I felt kind of……abandoned?

I hope this week everything is back to normal. Because if it isn’t, I’m going to make my friends fell very guilty. Wouldn’t you?”

  

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Leftovers

Hubby sure was happy to see us come home from the church supper with a big bundle of leftovers for him to enjoy. He gets to enjoy the good food without having to deal with the in-laws! Not that he minds anyone in my family really, but he just wanted to just stay at home this day and take a day to himself and get some rest. His meds are really hard on him some days and I know he needed the rest. So at least he didn’t miss out on any of the good food.