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Archive for About Me

Funny thing happened on our way thru NC, we bought a Ski Lodge !

Posted by: | Comments (4) This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Yes, it was a funny thing all right ! 

how to save money buying a house

Cabin Hunting in North Carolina

My husband has always wanted to live in the mountains.  He was born and raised in Jacksonville, FL and at 47 years old, we are both retired now and thought we would take a drive through North Carolina to look at some little cabins for sale.  We still have a teenager at home with 2 more years of high school left, but it wouldn’t hurt to look at what is on the market right?

Funny thing happened along the way … we discovered that a) the mountains were calling us and b) the foreclosure & housing market deals out there are INCREDIBLE.  What if those same deals aren’t there in 2 years when we are able to move full time to another state?  I am the master of all deals, and it sure is hard for me to resist a good one.  We traveled thru Franklin, Asheville, Lake Lure, Blowing Rock and Boone.  It is truly gorgeous country, especially if you are used to flat, flat, flat land of Florida.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Florida Sunshine and weather, but there is something about the mountain air that was calling us.

We took a look at our finances and discovered that even though mortgage rates are low and savings rates are even lower, we really had enough liquidity to just buy the house outright. We weren’t able to get much income on that savings without too much risk in the investment market.  A cash deal would make our negotiating power stronger.  I just didn’t know how MAXIMIZED our power was going to be yet … Read More→

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Rustic Chocolate-Cinnamon Bread Pudding Easy Recipe with Kraft #cbias

Posted by: | Comments (3) This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 10th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

College Football Championship Recipe to please all your Linebackers !

When planning party food for your Football Season everyone thinks about the old standby Pizza and Wings.  We can order those in easily enough.  I say easy because that is what I love.  E A S Y.

Every night Google figures out what is for dinner.  Sure fire hit recipes for what you have already in stock in the pantry result from a quick google search.  If I have pork chops and peanut butter then I’ll simply google “pork chops” “peanut butter” and I always add “easy recipe” to the search. With kids running around, errands to run, I never profess to be Chef Julia Childs, heck I don’t even pretend to be Chef Jessica !  I want E A S Y.

So cut to the football game, The wings and pizza have been ordered but  whats for dessert?

Google to the rescue!  No, I didn’t google this one, because actually Collective Bias sent me to http://www.kraftrecipes.com for a Football Party Shoppertunity. They asked me to share with you how easy it is to whip up some Homemade Chocolate Bread Pudding that will keep those football fanatics satisfied.  And so the story goes… err I mean recipe…

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1/2 of 8-oz. tub) PHILADELPHIA 1/3 Less Fat than Cream Cheese
1/2 cup  packed brown sugar
2  egg whites
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1-3/4 cups fat-free milk
6 cups cubed whole wheat bread (6 to 8 slices)
2 squares BAKER’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, coarsely chopped

How To Make this Easy Chocolate Bread Pudding

HEAT oven to 350°F.

BEAT reduced-fat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with mixer until well blended. Add egg whites and cinnamon; mix well. Gradually beat in milk until well blended.

PLACE bread in 8-inch square baking dish; top with chocolate and cream cheese mixture.

BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until center is set. Cool slightly.

There you have it.  Easy Peasy Chocolate Bread Pudding

Preparing to make this treat was easy also !

  1. I looked thru the Kraft Recipe website and decided what my football freaks would enjoy.
  2. I printed out the easy recipe and easy printable shopping list right from Kraftrecipes.com.  The selection of recipes ranges from breakfast, lunch, dinner, holidays, game day food, tailigating, and many more!  So many are very easy that I am going to have to bookmark it instead of searching google every night.  I can trust that these are time tested and taste good !
  3. Of course I always search online for any promotional coupons or offers that I can save money with. There always seems to be Kraft printable coupons available.
  4. I usually don’t shop at Food Lion.  I don’t really know why, because it is the closest grocery store to me.  Since I was in a hurry, I just ran in there to get all my ingredients for the bread pudding.  I started to think, why don’t I go here more often?  It’s only 1.8 miles from the house !
At Food Lion
  1. I had already printed out my shopping list directly from Kraftrecipes.com and checked the pantry for everything I already had.  SO, I scurried down the aisles with list in hand.  The store was much neater and cleaner than I had remembered.  And unlike where I normally shop, I got a great parking space so I could get in and out easily.
  2. Once I was there I only had to pick up some Philadelphia brand Cream Cheese, Eggs,Wheat Bread and some Bakers Semi-Sweet Chocolate.  Everything else I already had in the pantry.  However, while I was there, Chef Jessica called and I asked her how she makes her bread pudding and she said she adds a little INSTANT COFFEE and Vanilla Extract to hers to jazz it up a bit. Yes, INSTANT Coffee ! ha !  So, I quick put some International House into the cart to give it a try !  I already had my vanilla, cinnamon, milk and brown sugar waiting on me at home.

Making it was even easier !

Eating it was the easiest !

(thanks to Mr. Peterson)

I also created a  Google + Story here which gives you all the photos of the drama that happened in my kitchen ! (or lack there of …)
  • This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All opinions are my own.

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Categories : About Me, Hot Deals
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Think PINK and sponsor a runner Susan G. Komen North Florida Race for the Cure®

Posted by: | Comments (0) This entry was posted on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 at 12:55 am
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW. Click the link below and sponsor our friend Claire St. Armand as she runs for a Cure for Breast Cancer tomorrow >> October 22,2011. October is Breast Cancer awareness month have you done anything about it yet? Here is your chance.

If you are anything like me, you’ve often *thought* about sponsoring a runner in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® , but maybe no one has asked you directly. Consider yourself asked today.susan g. comen race for the cure

Whatever you can give will help! Thank you so much for your time and support in the fight against breast cancer! Every step counts and so many of us has been touched by the horrible disease. Both of my grandmothers, my mother and my best friend had breast cancer. 2 survived, 2 didn’t . The odds are stacked against us, but we can fight and we can help by funding more research.

Click here to visit Claire’s personal page and sponsor her run .


No donation is too small. $1 or $100 It all mounts up.
If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://www.komennorthflorida.org/site/TR?px=1194684&pg=personal&fr_id=1080&et=jT1dB3IJSE0dM9iG6_LT2g..&s_tafId=4111


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Categories : About Me, Jacksonville Deals
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Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed, LinkedIn – Unemployed in TX, but still optimistic!

Posted by: | Comments (0) This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011


After being booted from JCPenney and my office on April 13, 2011 . . .

The mousey gray walls of my cube were transformed with

wrapping paper from

container store wrapping paper

THE CONTAINER STORE

Did you even know they carry wrapping paper?

Yes, they do and it is delightfully different!

…Life has certainly changed since April 13, 2011, when I was escorted to HR and told my position had been eliminated, along with about 5,000 others JCP Associates since January all across the country. I had worked for JCPenney for 8.37 years; at least that is what they told me! Unemployment Stinks !

Interviews so far include:

  1. An urban residential holding company (A part of the Crowe family of companies)
  2. A very upscale commercial design firm (Beautiful Offices)
  3. A global restaurant firm (Looks to be loads of fun mixed in with work!)
  4. A trading card company (Old product, but making new strides in today’s market)

Placement firms where I have signed up with are too many to count. If you know the Dallas area, the DFW metroplex encompasses 9,286 square miles of total area, and then you know I’ve put enough mileage on my car to circle the earth at least 5 times!

dallas texasDallas, Tx

fort worth texasFt. Worth, Tx

great dane dogMy best friends now are; Monster, CareerBuilder, Indeed and LinkedIn. They have replaced my dog, Nitro, for carrying on many conversations during the long days scouring the internet for that one perfect job. He doesn’t seem to mind too much as long as he can plant himself under foot. He sure is a GREAT Dane.

But my bestest friends are those that have kept in touch (you know who you are) and continue to be my rock during this rocky time . . .I couldn’t resist the pun.

When I do go back to work, I will put together my helpful hints to finding a new company to use all your brain power, expertise and experience.

Helpful Hint #1: Workforce Texas told me not to put more than 10 years experience on my resume . . . even though I look so much younger than my age, you can still tell, I probably have a little more experience than 10 years, especially if I haven’t “washed that gray right out of my hair” in a while!

guest blog post

by humorist Lyn

Black and White

Categories : About Me
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Yes, 2 emails today because we are …

Posted by: | Comments (1) This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

bumble bee art Yes, 2 emails today because we are …  well, we’ve been busy little bees tweaking things around a bit . Buzzing here and Buzzing there to find all the great deals.

So, I’m sorry you got 2 emails from us today, but as we make things better for you, some things are bound to get messed up.  And that is what happened at our 9am feed !  Most of you got a garbled mess or a zip file or nothing at all, so we are sending out this 3pm feed so you don’t miss any of these short time framed deals !

Lisa and I have been working very hard to get the deals to you before they expire.  One thing that will help you stay in touch between daily emails is to LIKE our facebook page here.  You will get up to the minute deals there as they are published.

So stay tuned… no unsubscribing please :) Just hit the delete button if you’d rather…it hurts when you unsub :(

Categories : About Me
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Wordless Wednesday a Surprise from Hubby

Posted by: | Comments (4) This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

surprise Porsche from hubby

Hubby came home with a surprise for ME !!!!  And of course he said he got a GREAT DEAL but the BOW was expensive.  I had asked him to bring dinner home … instead he brought this home for no occasion.  And yes, I did ask where was the dinner :)

Categories : About Me
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My House – A Tour of my New Vintage Ice Box Pantry

Posted by: | Comments (0) This entry was posted on Thursday, May 19th, 2011 at 12:40 am
Thursday, May 19th, 2011

I’m in a Vintage mood thanks to my Tide Retro Giveaway.  So I thought I would share my latest Antique Treasure.

Whether it’s a Vintage Ice Box or a Refrigerator I am really not sure.  It is however, my new Pantry for excess stockpile.   I love estate sales, flea markets, attics, garages and anywhere else that I can uncover a rusty relic, and at a local Antique Store this weekend, I found the perfect addition to my kitchen. Read More→

Categories : About Me
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Comments are fixed :) come leave me some love !

Posted by: | Comments (0) This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
Monday, May 16th, 2011

homer simpson duhSo , earlier today I asked you readers to come and comment on several things I’m curious about.  Unfortunately I’m a crazy coupon lunatic and had the comments closed on alot of my posts !  DUH …. SO, it should be all fixed now.  I’m waiting for your comment love on at least these links …

Thank goodness a few of you were reading and contacted me on Twitter or I could have really felt alone :(

Categories : About Me
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Full Feed vs. Partial Feed that is the question

Posted by: | Comments (0) This entry was posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Monday, May 16th, 2011

Everyday , my 2000 subscribers (wow !  yes, 2000 !!! ) receive an email in their inbox with tidbits and teases of what articles I have published in the last 24 hours.  There has always been the debate in the blog writer world of whether you should set your blog to a FULL FEED or a PARTIAL FEED.  plume pen writing blogsThere are several debates and reasons to do each.  For a change, I thought I would try Full Feeds a few times a week to entice readers to go ahead and click over to my main site even though they can read everything in the email.

  • Bloggers make money from Ad Sponsors on the main site, if readers are not “clicking” over to read the article on the main blog, then the statistics will not record their visit. With 2000 daily email subscribers, I still average 7,000 to 8,000 visitors on my site each day.  Those statistics are very important to advertisers and bloggers don’t want to risk losing page views by providing full feeds in emails.   Partial Feeds entice readers to click over to read the rest of the article.
  • Full Feeds allow readers the convenience to browse the entire content all in one email.

So, the debate will always linger on … to Full Feed or Partial Feed… that is the question.  One is better for bloggers, the other is better for readers.  I’m going to test each way in the next few weeks.  If readers would just “click” over to the main blog no matter which way it is fed to their email, we wouldn’t have to debate it at all.  Tell me your thoughts and preferences.  The bottom line is that I am here for the readers.  If I don’t have you , then I won’t have ad sponsors anyway. I can’t wait to read your comments !

Here is how to change your feed to Full Feed if you are a blogger on WordPress :

  1. Go to the WordPress Dashboard
  2. Click on Settings : Reading
  3. Look for the option: “For each article in a feed, show…”. Change it to “Full text”.
  4. Optional: Look for the option: “Syndication feeds show the most recent…”. Change the value as desired.
  5. Save the changes
  6. Make sure you have also updated your Feedburner feed if you use that service.
Categories : About Me
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Amanda Knox Movie on Lifetime – Did you watch it ?

Posted by: | Comments (2) This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 5:07 pm
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

amanda knox hayden lifetime movie

Amanda Knox Movie on Lifetime last night.  Did you watch it  ?

My friend Kas interviewed  Hayden Panettiere last week and it really intrigued me enough to watch it. You can check it out here.  Let me know if you watched it and what you thought.

Categories : About Me
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