Wedding Rehearsal

Picture of the Day for 7/31/2014. Tonight was my niece Corinne's wedding rehearsal. I was delighted to be invited despite the fact I'm not technically a member of the wedding party. I guess being an auntie counts for something though!

Waiting to begin:

First run-through:

Second run-through:

 

Mother of the groom (Julie) and mother of the bride (Paula) talking:

Strange Brew

Picture of the Day for 7/30/2014. I tried a weird way of making hot chocolate. I took one heaping teaspoon of cocoa powder, one teaspoon of Stevia, and 1/8 teaspoon of cinnamon and mixed those ingredients into a cup of very hot water (I let the water rest for about 30 seconds after boiling it in a tea kettle). It's actually pretty good! It only has a few calories and is sugar-free.

Good-Bye James Garner

Picture of the Day for 7/29/2014. One of my all-time favorite actors, James Garner, passed away recently. Upon hearing the news, I immediately got on Amazon.com to order one of his movies. Support Your Local Sheriff wasn't available so I settled for Murphy's Romance which is a very charming movie.

Flaming Oven Mitt

Picture of the Day for 7/28/2014. So what happens when your oven mitt catches fire when it accidentally brushes against the heating element in your stove?


This is what happens. Ow, ow, ow, ow!!!!!

More Cute Shoes

Picture of the Day for 7/27/2014. Once again, I was mesmerized by the shoes worn by the woman who was teaching the Relief Society lesson in church today. She was wearing a navy blue blazer with a striped lining over a dress with navy blue stripes. She paired this outfit with these orange shoes. I want these shoes! They would actually come in handy for my niece Corinne's wedding this Saturday as her colors are orange and gray. So, I have a practical reason for coveting these shoes. Really...

Unlikely Odds

Picture of the Day for 7/26/2014. I was changing the mattress pad and sheets today and when I was putting them on the bed, I correctly guessed the correct side the first time for both the pad and the bottom sheet. This never happens. I usually end up trying to to put the short side on the long side of the bed. I'm not explaining this very well, am I? You get the point though. This was the first time ever I didn't go through my usual complicated wrestling process to get the pad and bottom sheet on the bed. It's one of the reasons I hate this particular household task.

Really Big Hair

Picture of the Day for 7/25/2014. At any given time in the privacy of my own home I wear my hair piled on top of my head. I outdid myself tonight in the tower of hair I was able to create. 

Cooking "Hard Boiled" Eggs

Picture of the Day for 7/24/2014. I've been seeing articles on the internet lately about cooking "hard boiled" eggs rather than boiling them in water. I decided to give it a try and my oh my, cooking them in muffin tins at 325 degrees for 30 minutes (and cooling them down immediately by putting them in a bowl with ice cubes) produced the most divinely perfect eggs. I will never boil eggs again. 

Alligator Figurines

Picture of the Day for 7/23/2014. I saw these silver alligator figurines at a Ross discount store. I thought they would be a PERFECT wedding gift for my niece Corinne who HATES alligators and has claimed she will NEVER set foot in Florida. Her fiance, Ian, was totally on board with this. He said he could hide them in the shower to torment Corinne.

There is a precedent for hiding things in the shower to torment Corinne. Check out this past blog entry for details.

Mystery Branches

Picture of the Day for 7/22/2014. I often find mystery branches in my yard which I know aren't coming from my trees. This came in handy the other day as I needed something to prop up a poor plant of mine that's grown too tall and is too top heavy to remain upright. I went outside and found the perfect branch for the job. It's like I have my own personal branch store. Hmm...wonder what else I can do/make with the branches. 

No Navajo Tacos for Me

Picture of the Day for 7/21/2014. I was driving home from the gym when I saw a sign for Navajo tacos. 

Hey! I like Navajo tacos so I decided to investigate. 

I followed the signs, but there were no Navajo tacos to be found. Sigh.

I finally found a sign indicating that the Navajo tacos were being sold as part of a fund-raising effort and I had missed the event by a couple of days. Dang. No Navajo tacos for me. 

Now all I can think about are Navajo tacos. 

45th Anniversary of Apollo 11

Picture of the Day for 7/20/2014. Today is the 45th anniversary of the first manned moon landing. I was six-years-old at the time and I don't remember anything about the television broadcast from that Sunday night, but I do recall during the week that the news coverage pre-empted Mr. Rogers, my all-time favorite television show. I was outraged I tell you! Outraged! I recall precisely what I thought at the time. "Who cares about landing on the moon?" In the intervening years I've more than made up for that childish disinterest and I've been fortunate enough to meet all three crew members of Apollo 11.

Me with Neil Armstrong at the 40th anniversary celebration of Apollo 16
held at the Kennedy Space Center on 4-14-2012.

Helping out Buzz Aldrin at Spacefest 6 in Pasadena, California on 5-10-2014.

Michael Collins at Spacefest 2 in San Diego, California on 2-20-2009.

Food Blogging is Hard!

Picture of the Day for 7/19/2014. In January I set up a blog called Polly's Pink Kitchen. Haven't done a thing with it since. Yesterday as I was making apricot jam I thought it might be a good idea to document the process on that blog. I learned that it's harder to blog about food/cooking than you think! It's really difficult to take pictures while you are cooking as these blurry photos can attest.

Exercise Cheat Sheet

Picture of the Day for 7/18/2014. In addition to going to the gym, I also do some isometric exercises and facial exercises I've gathered from various sources. And that's been the problem- the various sources. It's been annoying to pull out different books to refer to the exercises so I created my own cheat sheet that I can pull up on my iPad. It's been quite handy. 

Work as Artwork

Picture of the Day for 7/17/2014. We had these posters made up to display at our table at the very first speech therapy conference where we exhibited back in 2012. They are fabulous posters, but were beyond difficult to transport to Atlanta intact. In fact, we found that most everything we lugged on a plane to that first conference was terribly inconvenient. We learned a LOT from that conference on what NOT to do.

These posters may not be the most practical display items, but they make great artwork. My sister Robynne framed them and now has these hanging up in her house.

Space Artwork

Picture of the Day for 7/16/2014. At family lunch today my niece Chantal informed me that her 8-year-old daughter Sadie has been researching a different planet every day and drawing a picture of it. Of course my space-loving self was delighted to hear that. I asked Sadie to draw me a space picture when she got home and this is what she came up with. I think it's brilliant! LOVE IT!!! I may even have to frame this one.

Mercer Reunion

Picture of the Day for 7/15/2014. Several of my former Mercer colleagues and I met for lunch today. This was the first time in 2-1/2 years I had seen most of them, but it was like we had never been separated. It's amazing how quickly good friends can reconnect after a long absence from each other. 

Purple Car

Picture of the Day for 7/14/2014. Now this is something you don't see every day- a bright purple car.

Parowan Municipal Airport

Picture of the Day for 7/13/2014. I'm cheating and using pictures I took yesterday on my way home from Las Vegas. We stopped for dinner in Parowan, Utah. This is a tiny town in southern Utah that actually, to my surprise, has a small municipal airport. Of course I had to go investigate.

Hershey's Chocolate World

Picture of the Day for 7/12/2014. I dragged my sister Robynne to Hershey's Chocolate World, a store that recently opened in the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas, NV. 

I just HAD to go.

It's CHOCOLATE! My FAVORITE food group!

NOTHING would deter me!

So, now that I've been, what's the verdict? Meh, it was OK. It was like being in a grocery store devoted solely to chocolate (not a bad thing I know). Wish they had a few more chocolate-related novelty items like they have at M&M World across the street. 

TeachersPayTeachers Conference

Picture of the Day for 7/11/2014. I attended a one-day conference in Las Vegas, Nevada today. The event was hosted by TeachersPayTeachers- a website where educators sell their materials to other educators. This is BIG business. One of the keynote speakers was a school teacher who has made more than 1 million dollars on the site. 

In addition to our Teach Speech Now website, we also sell our speech and language materials on TeachersPayTeachers. We’re hoping to make this BIG business for us as well. Hence, my attendance at the conference which provided several useful break-out sessions offering extremely valuable advice for marketing your educational materials. I was furiously taking notes the entire day. This was definitely worth the price of admission, especially since I learned that pretty much everything we're doing is wrong. What seems intuitive to us actually produces the opposite results. For example, we currently offer a weekly free speech/language download every Monday morning. Turns out, we're giving away too much free stuff. And that's just one example. I've got a lot of work to do to revamp our materials and strategies...

Alligator Door Handles

Picture of the Day for 7/10/2014. My Florida/Everglades-loving self was delighted to see these alligator handles on the doors to the Orleans casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.