My Fair Lady

I LOVE the fair. I've been going my whole life. I've tried my hand at different skills by entering all sorts of categories. From Collectibles to the Demolition Derby, I've tried out so many of the competitions. For about a decade, I have worked as a Superintendent at the fair overseeing the Agricultural Education activities. I love that my job allows me to be a part of a tradition that I enjoyed as a child and that my parents and grandparents participated in as well. Every year, I look forward to seeing all of the animals, watching the competitions, and eating the fair food. The latter may have been my downfall yesterday and definitely was my lesson to learn for today.

Well, let's just say that I'm not feeling so fair today. Last night I got some sort of stomach sickness on the way home from the fair. I hadn't been feeling so well all day but then I went ahead and got myself a big helping of cheese fries. I just love those fries smothered in cheese! Then, because tradition dictates it, my mom and I finished off the night watching the beauty pageant and ending with an elephant ear split between the two of us. It's kinda funny that that's our tradition. We watch girls strut across the stage without an ounce of fat on their body while we indulge in a deep fried dessert covered in cinnamon and sugar. Ironic, huh?

I learned on the way home from the fair... and when I arrived home... and all through the night... and all day today... that if you're stomach isn't feeling so good then don't put fried fair food in it. Particularly food smothered in either artificial cheese or buckets of sugar!

I'll be back at the fair tomorrow. I'll be surrounded by all the scents from all the food vendors. I wonder if I have truly learned my lesson!

Catch Up

As you can tell I am REALLY behind in my blogging. I have a plethera of posts that are in draft form. I do plan to catch up but in the meantime, I just keep getting farther and farther behind. So, I'm just going to start posting daily begining today. I'll catch up on the other posts as I have time.

I am writing this here to keep myself in check. I WILL go back and post for all of the days. It was my intent to post daily and I WILL do just that. (Hopefully.)

Time Paradox

I am a big fan of the Artemis Fowl Series by Eoin Colfer. Today I decided to check out the website and found that there is a new book in the series coming out on July 15th. It is called the Time Paradox. I knew Colfer had been working on a new book but in the excitement of my son's first year, it slipped my mind. Eoin Colfer is also going on tour with a stage show to promote Time Paradox. The show is called 'Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence." As I write this, I cannot believe that I am a fan of an author that would have a show with that title. But really, if you've read the books, it actually makes sense. Weird, I know. Anyways, his show happens to be coming to my area. I don't know if I'll attend or not but I am very excited about the release of this book. Now I know which book I will be reading next!

Balloon Fireworks

I saw this post today over on Martha Stewart's website... exploding balloons filled with confetti! How cool is that? Easy too. This looks like so-o-o much fun! I have to try this sometime... birthday? New Year's? The 4th of July? Just for fun? I don't know when I'll do it but I most certainly will. What fun!

Silhouettes

Today, we went down to the beach for dinner on the rocks. The kids love to go down there and for me, it is the perfect end to the day. When we eat at the beach, I don't have to worry about dirty dishes or picky eaters. We eat on paper plates...no dirty dishes. And, if you don't like what we're eating, you go hungry since I only bring one meal. There's no requests to eat ____ that's in the cupboard. It's what we have or nothing. Plus, with the sound of the waves, the fresh air, and the views of nature that surround us, it puts the whole family in a peaceful and content mood.

While we were there, I played around with my camera a bit. I was hoping to get some good pictures of the shadows created by the setting sun. The sand is such a good backdrop for observing shadows. I'm trying to learn how to capture this with my little camera.

My favorite pictures were purely coincidental. Hubby and the baby were standing on the walkway back a ways from the beach and I glanced back and the two of them were perfectly silhouetted in front of the setting sun. I quickly snapped a few pictures and I am quite pleased. I am not a photographer and I don't have a fancy camera. However, success in my photography is when a photo can capture what we saw or what we were feeling. This picture does both of those for me. It captured a daddy and his son engrossed in playing together from my viewpoint of simply observing them from afar. I love that I can't see either of their faces but I know that they are both smiling. Yep, this picture makes me smile too...that's my kind of photography.

Pizza Pasta

My hubby and I came up with the easiest pasta recipe ever! I had to bring a salad to a pool playdate with some of my old co-workers and their children today. I generally don't like salads that are anything beyond fruit salads or lettuce salads. Someone else had already volunteered to make those. I just don't like the taste of mayo or vinegar and most salads have one or the other of those 2 ingredients. As I was lamenting about what I was going to make, my hubby suggested we just make our own. This is hard for me. I'm a follow-the-recipe kind of girl. But then, he started talking about what we could add and in the end we came up with a pretty good recipe and I even liked it. We're calling it "Pasta Salad...Pizza Style" or "Pizza Pasta." It is made up of the ingredients that would generally be put on a pizza. You could vary the recipe with whatever you like to top your pizza with. Here's the recipe with no amounts for the ingredients because we just kept adding until it looked right!



Mix together...Bow tie pasta (cooked), sliced pepperoni, black olives, cherry tomato halves, shredded cheese, and Italian dressing.



That's it. I know that the Italian dressing has vinegar but I didn't add too much. It was tolerable for me. Everyone seemed to like it and my hubby really likes it. We may even make it again for 4th of July at my In-laws house. Yummy, I know I will make this recipe again.

Twilight

I just finished reading the book, Twilight. It is the first in a series of books by Stephenie Meyer. A friend recently read the books after watching her daughter become engrossed in the series. She explains and reviews the book on her blog here. I love children's and young adult novels, so I was definitely curious. However, I am not really a fan of vampire stories. I think that they are generally silly and ignore logic just to get a fright out of the reader. But, I read the story anyways to see what the big deal was and why these books are so popular. The recommendation from a friend helped too.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised! I found myself drawn into the story and fascinated by the twists and turns in the storyline. Despite the fact that it is about vampires, I found that Meyer told the story in such a way that it makes the concept of vampires living among us plausible. I couldn't put the book down and was eager to dive into each chapter. I will definitely read the other books in the series!