We sure have had some bad luck when it comes to our memories. Ever since my husband and I met we had been collecting personalized Christmas ornaments and handmade our ornaments every year with our children. We started with barely anything on our tree and ended up with many beautiful and special additions. Unfortunately, these ornaments were mistakenly placed in an artificial tree box and the tree was sold at our garage sale. Please, if you ever buy something at a yard sale that contains something possibly sentimental that may have mistakenly been placed inside another box, please please double check with the family and return it if at all possible.
Anyway, next I thought I was going to be smart and put all of our pictures from our digital camera on an external hard drive for safe keeping. Yeah, it hurt when I dropped the hard drive on the floor and it never worked again. There were approximately 2-3 years of pictures on there.
We’ve gone through a couple of video cameras in the last 12 years. The first was a full sized VHS camera. Yep, used VHS tapes and everything. Then we upgraded to an 8mm camcorder, and finally to a digital camcorder. Of course, we didn’t consider how we were ever going to watch those 8mm tapes from an analog camera that didn’t hook up to the computer without a video capture card that I have never been willing to purchase.
Now I have a bug up my behind to get everything digital backed up on external hard drive, zipped on CDs and burned to DVD along with keeping the original tape in a safe place. Overkill? Maybe, but I am not taking any chances.
After hooking everything up, we found that our 8mm tapes were destroyed. We don’t know how it happened but everything was wiped out. But we did learn how to do the transfer after a long search on the interwebs turned up nothing helpful. We don’t have a VCR and I wanted to get everything onto the computer eventually so here is how we made due with what we had and hopefully it will be of use to someone out there.
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Here in this little town in Wisconsin the weather has been almost unbearably hot. We had two days in a row with heat advisories and the days would have been well spent at the beach. Unfortunately, I’m not a lake kinda gal. There’s just something about stagnant water with green things floating on top that just doesn’t give me the welcome mat. Maybe I have been spoiled by the ocean, with the beautiful waves crashing on the shore and the constant renewal.
I suppose I’m just a little weird when it comes to the ocean as well. While living in California I loved going to the beach and swimming in the ocean. But when we lived in Hawaii, the only time I felt comfortable in the water was when we would go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. This picture isn’t of Hanauma Bay but gives an idea of the beauty of the area.
To beat the heat I’ve made up a couple of yummies that I would like to share. The first one is a Strawberry Lemonade recipe that I found on the ‘net. The only changes I made were omitting the sugar because I used a tub of sweetened, sliced strawberries that I got for way cheap awhile ago. I like my lemonade quite tart and this was delicious.
The other yummy was homemade ice cream sandwiches. This one is really easy and flexible.
I found the recipe awhile ago, not sure where, and it called for refrigerated cookie dough. Since I make my own instead, I decided to use that. In either case, you want a fairly soft cookie. I made them double sized, put a couple of scoops of vanilla fudge swirl ice cream in between and froze them for about 20 minutes. They turned out really well but next time I will make the cookies a tad smaller because it’s just entirely too much to finish in one sitting!
A quick post today, but one with a great link that I just discovered. Sometimes meal planning is difficult for me and we might end up with the same meals over and over again. This is when we become bored and are more inclined to eat out. Other times I just want to use up what I have in the back freezer or cupboard. I have some great recipes that I found from the ‘net and a lot that came from my mother, grandmother and aunts, but there are times when I’m not wanting to go through those to find a recipe using the ingredients I have on hand. Wouldn’t it be something if Google put their awesome search capabilities to use on just recipes?
Well, they have! Cookin’ With Google is a great resource. When you click on the link you will be taken to a no-frills page with a simple search bar. Type in just a couple of ingredients. Go ahead, first I tried “chicken pasta” just to see what would come up. You’ll get a couple of Google ads then underneath there will be the option of narrowing your search to different types of dishes such as seafood, low-fat and crockpot. Or, if you prefer, you can start the hunt for recipes under that.
You can add as many ingredients to the search as you want and you will get plenty of results. The results include recipes from sites such as Rezipezaar, Allrecipes, Cooks.com, GroupRecipes, and other ‘food’ websites. I didn’t see any results from blogs, which is where I tend to find my best recipes.
Try it yourself and see if you like it. I will definitely use it often.
Several years ago I wanted to update my blog and create a whole website integrating a common theme. After doing a bit of research I came do a stunning conclusion: I have no idea what I am doing.
I had created a couple of websites from the ground up, but it was extremely labor intensive to accomplish the smallest task. I was using CSS and HTML, with Dreamweaver, and I learned quite a lot in a short amount of time due to necessity.
When it came to my site, I decided to ask for help. Okay, I decided to have someone else do it. A friend of mine does this sort of thing and is pretty darn good at it, so I turned to her and her expertise. She created the OnBeingMe theme, installed Wordpress, and a couple of site pages. It turned out really well and was a good representation of me at the time.
My needs have since changed and, while I know a heck of a lot more about PHP, CSS and HTML than I did, it would still be extremely labor intensive for me to go about creating my own theme.
Let’s face it. I don’t have a whole lot of time on my hands and am a sucker for instant gratification. I set out on a search for some ready made themes that I could just upload and activate. It’s difficult to find quality themes that can stand on their own right out of the box, and I am grateful for the hard work that designers put into creating some really good ones. One of the best things about maintaining my own website is being able to have everything exactly how I want it. Having an aesthetically pleasing, ready made theme is nice while I chip away at my own a little at a time.
The good ones are not easy to find though, so I wanted to share the nicer ones that I have come across lately. more…
Does Natal creep out anyone else or am I the only one? Without going into conspiracy theory overdrive, the applications of this technology are a bit frightening. Of course, if Microsoft has it, the military is already using it. 
Crafting a resume can be a daunting task in itself, but creating one when you have to translate your military skills into their civilian equivalent can be even more difficult. When you are a spouse trying to put everything together for the (ex) service member it becomes complex, especially when you know very little about their day to day responsibilities, as in my case. This is by no means all-inclusive and does not cover every variable associated with each branch of service. I am simply relaying what has worked for us, with the examples presented geared toward the US Navy. Hopefully this series will give you some tips to help in creating an attractive resume and also some that are military specific, including job boards and resources for transitioning military.
Some ratings translate well into civilian jobs. For example, a GSM (Gas Turbine Systems Mechanic) or a GSE (Gas Turbine Systems Electrician) can find many opportunities using those search terms. Some power plant employers even specify that they prefer applicants who are prior or transitioning military in the GS rating. more…
I am usually pretty skeptical when it comes to those ‘As Seen On TV’ products. I look at them and ask myself how they could possibly work or see that they are a huge waste of money, whereas the DH wants every one of them because the 2 minute spot has convinced him that he can’t live without them. Lo and behold, sometimes the DH is right! I’ve branched out a bit since my first experience in 1999 and have tried a few of the other TV products with varying results.
I am in love with Hercules Hooks! I have to say that this is the most amazing and handy product to have around. more…
Over the next few days I will be doing some housecleaning on the site. Hopefully the end product will fit my current needs a little better and allow for easier readability. Bear with me because it will probably take a while.
So, I am a full month into my new budgeting routine and I have to say that it’s going pretty well. I set up the budget in Microsoft Money and it has done wonders to keep me on track. more…
Crafting a resume can be a daunting task in itself, but creating one when you have to translate your military skills into their civilian equivalent can be even more difficult. When you are a spouse trying to put everything together for the (ex) service member it becomes complex, especially when you know very little about their day to day responsibilities, as in my case. This is by no means all-inclusive and does not cover every variable associated with each branch of service. I am simply relaying what has worked for us, with the examples presented geared toward the US Navy. Hopefully this series will give you some tips to help in creating an attractive resume and also some that are military specific, including job boards and resources for transitioning military.
It’s often a bit mind numbing when you first sit down to create your resume. You know what you want to end up with but it can be difficult to break things down into individual steps, especially when the military has been your career. There aren’t many people who truly retire when they end their military career. It is much more common to gain civilian employment past your 20 years. more…
I am usually pretty skeptical when it comes to those ‘As Seen On TV’ products. I look at them and ask myself how they could possibly work or see that they are a huge waste of money, whereas the DH wants every one of them because the 2 minute spot has convinced him that he can’t live without them. Lo and behold, sometimes the DH is right! I’ve branched out a bit since my first experience in 1999 and have tried a few of the other TV products with varying results.
I have seen the BumpIt advertised on television for awhile now and had wanted to try it. more…
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say that it is much more difficult to make hot process (HP) liquid soap than to make cold process (CP) bar soap. Respectfully, I completely disagree! There are so many things you can screw up when making bar soap and not enough opportunity to fix those mistakes. I can tell you from experience, having made both types for awhile now, there is nothing to be afraid of when it comes to liquid soap. The most common mistakes can be fixed quickly and easily and it is a much more leisurely process. This tutorial will walk you through it. Fair warning, this post is very long and heavy on the images. more…
I am usually pretty skeptical when it comes to those ‘As Seen On TV’ products. I look at them and ask myself how they could possibly work or see that they are a huge waste of money, whereas the DH wants every one of them because the 2 minute spot has convinced him that he can’t live without them. Lo and behold, sometimes the DH is right! I’ve branched out a bit since my first experience in 1999 and have tried a few of the other TV products with varying results.
My first experience was buying OxiClean back in 1999 or so, when you could only get it through the phone or web. more…
