Meeting the Pioneer Woman

My family and I got to meet the Pioneer Woman on Friday night! It was so much fun. Our local bookstore, Jo Beth Books held a book signing of her new book called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.  My sisters were there early and ate at the little cafe in the bookstore called Bronte's that was serving recipes from Ree's cookbook. They said their meals were good.  She did a small talk session first and had a question and answer time. She said she was really nervous about talking in public but I have to tell you she is just as nice and down to earth as you can imagine she is. I've never been to a book signing before but it was lots of fun! She signed my book to Gommy, with love, Ree.......I now have her cookbook and Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.
 How's everyone been? Yea, I've been a slacker blogger again and we're hardly into the New Year but my sisters and I have been dealing with my Dad's health issues. It's so tough when it comes to the point where the children are taking care of the parent and I'm sure he's having a hard time dealing with this too.  He turned 86 on Valentine's Day and I have some photos of his birthday party which I'll try to post soon!  Have a great week everyone!!

Some Java Love.............

Can you be in love with a machine? Because I think I am in love with this little guy! And my sweetie loves him too. LOL I picked this up for Valentine's Day as a gift for the both of us. We usually don't do the whole Valentine's Day thing but I had used this coffeemaker when I went to visit my friend Sherra a few weeks ago and just loved it. We have been using it now for a little over a week and it is wonderful and so easy. Just turn it on and pop a little coffee pod in it and you have a cup of java in less then a minute. And it makes the most wonderful lattes and cappuccinos. It's great for us because my sweetie gets up early for work everyday and he can easily make a big cup to go and I can make one when I get up. On the weekends I use our big coffeemaker. I got ours at Bed, Bath and Beyond but I have also seen them at Target and the best part is if you love lattes and cappuccinos like I do you will save some money in the long run by not going to Starbucks as much. :-)

Cappuccinos, yum..........this comes with it's own milk pod..........so easy..........

Lattes..............my favorite.................this also has a milk pod...........

I have not tried the hot chocolate one yet but will keep a few on hand for the grandbabies. It even makes tea if you are a tea drinker.

Yea, I think I am in love.............LOL You can go here and learn all about the Tassimo hot beverage maker. I bought the Tassimo one but there are others out there. Happy Monday and happy coffee drinking!

The City Examiner has Six Random things about Joan in it!

You better run to the stores and get your copy of the Six random things about Joan before they sell out! :-) I've been tagged by my good buddy Donna at Cottage Days and Journeys to name six random things about me. That cute little doll baby on the cover of the City Examiner is me when I was a wee little baby. So here are the rules and my six random things:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog (copy and paste 1-6).
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

1) I love to wander around book stores, I could spend hours in them and if they have a coffee shop in them I could spend all day there.
2) I don't watch a whole lot of regular TV but I do love Lost(which will be back in January) and 24(which has a show on tonight,yea!). Jack Bauer will save the world in 24 hours!!!!
3)My favorite restaurant is Brio's Italian Grill. I always get the same thing, the salmon, yum!
4)I am not much of an athlete. I always wanted to be good at some sport but I am sadly very uncoordinated.
5)My sweetie and I took dance lessons before our daughter was married so we wouldn't look like total idiots dancing at the reception. It was a blast.
6)My favorite snack is pretzels, give me chocolate cover ones and I'll be your best friend for life. LOL



I am a rebel so I am not going to tag anyone but everyone is welcome to play along and let me know if you do so I can read your six random things! Have a great Sunday!

MONKEYING AROUND

This is a magnet I got at Target the other day. I thought it was funny, it's like Jim Borgman's How Do you Feel Today chart, only with monkeys. So how do you feel today according to the monkey chart? I think I feel happy but I like the chick next to the happy guy with her glasses and pearls. LOL I have some awards to post and pass on so I hope to get to them by the end of the week. Have a great one!

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's off to Shop I go.............

I'm off for a fun day of shopping with my best buddy Vickie today. We are going to try to do our best to boost the economy. LOL Just kidding sweetie, those words really will send him back to the emergency room. :-) I used to make alot of jewelry, nothing exciting, most was pretty simple. Vickie taught me how and she can make awesome jewelry. Someday I'll have to show you some of the things I made. So we are off to the bead store and it just so happens there is a mall down the street from the bead store. How did that happen??? LOL And that mall has Ann Taylor Loft in it and Trade Secret in it.................... A girl has to go and look, ya know? It's been so long since Vickie and I had a fun day out so I am looking forward to catching up with her. We've been friends since high school and her and her husband are coming with us in September to Hilton Head for vacation. We go for two weeks, our kids come the first week and Mike(her hubby) and Vickie come the second so it's the best. Anyway, hopefully I'll have some goodies to show you tomorrow. Don't forget Brenda's Photo Challenge this Saturday. I finally have a link up on my sidebar showing everyone that I know of who's playing along. If I missed you let me know and I'll put you up there. And please play along if you want to, everyone is welcome. The theme this time is orange. I already had my first two orange photos picked out and yesterday I am driving along and I see my last one so I pulled over on the side of the road and got my last orange photo. LOL I can't believe I am now whipping out my camera and stopping my car on the side of the road to get a photo. Play along if you can, these gals are just so nice. Well, gotta go, the stores are calling my name. Just kidding again sweetie.........

Cleaning Out My Desk.........

I was cleaning my desk out the other day and came across this photo of me and my girls about ten years ago with Amy Grant. We went to her Christmas concert here in Cincinnati and were invited backstage to meet her. We were invited to meet her because she is good friends with Stephanie's(my niece, but I consider her one of my girls) aunt who lives by her in Nashville. My oldest daughter said "Mom, don't post that photo, my eyes are closed" Hey look at my 90's hair but man my nails looked good back then. LOL From the left that's me, then Steph, Melissa, Christina and Amy. Steph will be 21 years old this year so she looks really young in this photo. I do remember Amy Grant was just so nice and gracious to take the time to meet us. So that's my one and only brush with someone famous. How about you guys? Ever meet anyone famous and do you have a photo you would want to post? Hey, I put me out there from the 90's. LOL I don't know which time period was worse, the 90's look or the 70's.

HAPPY FEET!

Happy days are here again! I am back to wearing sandals so I stopped in TJ Maxx to try on a few and had some fun. The first pair were so cute. What's not to like about these? They are pink and sparkly and fun. They also hurt. See that pink round thing in the middle, imagine that digging into your foot each time you took a step. OUCH! But they were pretty to look at.

These were much more comfortable but the little flower petals kind of tickled the tops of your feet.

And I just tried these on for the bling bling factor. They were major bling and also major killers to walk in. I took three steps in these and said no way. I was just killing some time before an appointment but it was fun to try them on. Yes, my toes are freshly painted and my feet are happy to be in sandals again! What more could a girl want? LOL Oh and don't worry sweetie, I resisted the pretty sandals calling "Buy me Joan, I am so pretty on your feet." :-)

Good Times, Good Friends

What a great weekend it's been! This is a photo of my sweetie and our good friends Mike and Vickie. They are standing in front of the fountain on Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati. We had just got done eating a wonderful dinner across the street at McCormick & Schmicks Seafood Restaurant. What a great place this is to have a nice dinner, the seafood is fresh and really good. It's a little pricey but really good food. I had a grill halibut with broccolini and bread pudding for dessert and a really good glass of red wine. YUM! Look at all three of them, it looks like they all got together and decided to wear black. LOL

Now I of course am wearing my favorite pink jacket. Do I look a little chilly? It was just a little chilly when we got done with our meal.

These two are some of our best buddies. Vickie's hair is natural curly and she is also one of these people who can eat whatever they want to and never gain weight. Not that I am jealous of that or anything. LOL
And these young people were going to a prom last night and were just having a ball. They stopped and let me take their photo. We also went to see the movie 21 on Friday night. It is based on a true story of some very smart MIT students who go to Las Vegas to count cards. The kid that stars in the movie just starts off trying to make money for his schooling but soon gets sucked into it all. Kevin Spacey is in this and he is always a great actor.

And it is an absolute beautiful Spring day here in Cincinnati. Here's another photo of my Star Magnolia tree, it is so pretty but the flowers don't last long. I know, kind of boring to look at a tree but when you have been without sun and warmth and flowers all Winter, you tend to get a bit excited about these things. I am getting ready to get supplies for a grill out today. I will share my Weight Watchers turkey burger recipe that we are making for dinner tonite in tomorrow's post, it is really good. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

My Mini Me And Ikea

Look, the gals at Design Her Gals made a virtual version of me doing two of my favorite things. Traveling and blogging! Hey, if I had another hand I would be holding a coffee cup also. LOL Anyway, check out their site, it is so much fun, especially for a girly girl like me. It's like playing virtual paper dolls. The funny thing is she really does look like me, okay so her waist is a little smaller and she has no wrinkles on her face, little details..... But she is wearing pink and she loves to travel and blog. Anyway go check out Design Her Gals and have some fun. I have the print at home package and have made cute little business cards and matching stationary.
In other news an Ikea store opened here in Cincy today. People set up tents and camped out for days to be the first in the store. I know the first few hundred people in the door got something free but I still don't get it. I can't imagine wanting anything so bad that I would camp out in the cold for days. I've never been to an Ikea store and I've never been on their website so I have no idea what the big deal is. So if anyone has a clue, let me know. LOL I'm sure I'll check it out sometime but it won't be until the hype dies down. Have a great Wednesday!

Baby You Can Drive My Car!

Baby you can drive my car, yes I'm gonna be a star
Baby you can drive my car and baby I love you
Beep beep mm, beep beep yea!

Okay all you baby boomers, what group sings that song? And ten extra points if you know the album it's from. And sorry because now this song will be in your head for the rest of the day. LOL
I am feeling so much better today. I'm not as "under the weather" as the past few days. Do you ever wonder where certain phrases in our language come from, like under the weather for one. I mean if you were just learning the English language and someone said to you "I'm a bit under the weather today." Would you not be totally confused? So my question today is now that I'm feeling better am I over the weather or above the weather? Okay enough, have a good Wednesday! :-)
And yes that is my pretty little granddaughter Maddie in the photos, if you click on them you can see what a little girly girl she is, wearing her "pitties" and fur trim sweater. I wonder where she gets this girlyness(is this a word?) from??????????? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

See Ya Later Alligator!

My sweetie and I are getting ready for our annual visit to his Mom's in Naples, Florida in a few weeks and we were talking the other day about the year when the alligator came across the berm where we were taking a walk while we were visiting her. He just came out of the water on one side of the berm and went into the water on the other side. We were actually closer than it looks in the photo. I, of course had my camera with me so I handed it off to my sweetie and jumped on the tram that was coming down the berm. Sometimes it pays to have that camera with you at all times. LOL Have a great Thursday! I am off to the coffeehouse to have coffee with all my girls.

A Bunch of Stuff

Warning! This is a long post with lots of photos! The pictures are not in the order I wanted them to be, but I'm not in the mood to fight with blogger today. So you win today blogger but next time I will win.This first photo is of the dinner at my friend Mickie's house. She's the lady on the right. This lady is 8o something years old and she had a few of us over for dinner the other night. We are all travel agents and most of us work at the same agency. In fact two of these ladies are over 80 years old and still are doing travel work and traveling all over the world. Anyway, Mickie is so cute, she must have made five desserts and had so much food and she put a little stocking for each of us on the back of our chairs and we each had our own little Christmas salt and pepper shakers at our seats along with ornaments that she bought for us all when she was in Germany this summer. She lost her husband of 60 something years this past Spring and it's been hard for her and she has no children living near by. I had a great time with these ladies.

This past weekend, we went with my daughter and son in law and Maddie for brunch with Santa. This is Maddie and Grandpa watching the Grinch before we went in to eat, they both looked into to it, don't they?
Here's a photo of how pretty the dining room was decorated for the brunch, Santa came in on a fire truck.
Maddie liked Santa's elf but we didn't go near the big guy himself because he's not her favorite person.
Here is a photo of Maddie last year with Santa. She was too little to care about him.
And here is a photo with the same Santa this year. If you look close, she's crying and mommy had to get in the photo. Really if looks could kill, Santa would be long gone in Maddie's world. First she looks at him like he's taking up too much space in her world, then she starts to cry. It really is funny.

And last weekend my sweetie and I went to see this movie. I like Will Smith and he is really good in this movie. This movie has gotten mixed reviews and I tend to agree with some of the movie critics on this one. The first half of the movie had some pretty fascinating stuff. Will Smith is the last man on Manhattan in 2012 after an infection kills most of mankind. Actually it was a cure for cancer that ends up wiping out the human race. Will Smith plays a scientist and the first scene in the movie he's chasing deer with a rifle down the streets of New York. He's somehow immune to the infection. But what's cool is seeing New York with grass covering Times Square and cars everywhere and bridges blown up and no people anywhere. I mean it's pretty interesting stuff, how he and his dog follow a schedule everyday, where they hunt and go to a video store that he has put mannequins in to talk to and work to find a vaccine to cure the virus. And he flashes back to how it all happened. So that part was good, then comes the night and the mutant/zombies come out to play. Now for some reason I didn't read the part about mutant/zombies before we went to see this. They scared the you know what out of me. I'm not a fan of mutant/zombies. And these are not your average mutant/zombies, they are smart and almost super human and they come out at night and want your blood and of course to make you a mutant/zombie like them. It just felt like it was two different movies and the ending just left me feeling like something was missing. I would not take young kids to this movie. The mutants are really, really scary. I'm hoping to go and see P.S. I Love You this weekend and I really hope it's good. Hey, I just thought of something, do you think that Maddie thinks Santa is a mutant/zombie? LOL Sorry for the long post and good for you if you read the whole thing. Have a great day!

Mr. Magoo, Peppe' Le Pew and Woody Woodpecker

Peppe' Le Pew
Mr. Magoo
Woody Woodpecker
And the woodpecker who thinks my aluminum siding is wood. Really bad photo, but you try and take a picture of a woodpecker from a closed window. LOL




Anyway, this morning as I was getting ready I heard this woodpecker trying to do his woodpecking stuff on the side of my house only there is no wood there, just aluminum siding and brick. Do you think that the phrase birdbrain came because of woodpeckers? Anyway, it got me thinking about my favorite old cartoon characters. We've been talking about a few of them lately. My daughter had never heard of Mr. Magoo. How can a child grow up and not know about Mr. Magoo? My granddaughter Maddie has been making a face that I call her squishy Mr. Magoo face and my daughter keeps asking me, "Who's Mr. Magoo?" HELLO How did you grow up not knowing Mr. Magoo. Wasn't there even a Mr. Magoo Christmas Carol show.?And if you try real hard I bet you can remember Woody's theme music and how it went. But my all time favorite was Peppe' Le Pew. I loved that skunk and how he thought he was a wonderful french lover and always tried to romance the black lady cat with the stripe on her back. So tell me who was your favorite old cartoon and don't tell me you don't remember any of these guys because you will just make me feel old. Have a great weekend and don't panic because there are only 11 days left until Christmas!

How Are You Feeling Today?

My Mother In Law gave me this magnet years ago and I keep it on my refrigerator. It's made by a local Cincinnati company called Creative Therapy Associates and created by the cartoonist Jim Borgman . Jim writes the comic Zits, which is so funny if you have teenage kids or have lived through the teenage years. I don't know if Zits is in the papers all over the country. Anyway, I think the magnet costs around four dollars and that little blue box can be moved around depending on how you feel that day.


For all of you who have problems seeing small letters (like me), just click on the image to see it better. So what mood are you in today? I should put hyper from all the coffee I've had this morning but I don't see that on the list. So I think I'm feeling mischievous, just because I like his face! And I like the lovestruck guy's face too. Hope you are all in a good mood for the weekend! Have a safe and wonderful one.