Fashion Friday & Friday Fabulousness: Pretty Polka Dots

It's being called one of fall 2011's hottest fashion trends--polka dots! They're everywhere you look.

According to this fashion blog:

Popping up on shoes, tights, hats and coats, POLKADOTS are making their mark for Fall 2011. Expect to see the graphic technique used in feminine blouses and accessories as well as on interesting textures for dresses and jackets. Polkadots will be a big influence for Holiday collections utilized by Contemporary and Junior designers in dresses and skirts.

For your dotty viewing pleasure....

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I have a couple of polka dot favorites of my own...here's one I'll definitely be wearing again!

I'm linking up today with Fashion Friday, hosted by Blonde Episodes...

...and Friday Fabulousness, hosted by Bottom of the Ironing Basket...



Join the fun!

From the Archives:Thursday 13: 13 of My Favorite Recipes

Nine of these are ones I've featured here on this blog...the other five are ones that I plan to try because they look delicious!

Here we go:

1. A delicious chicken skillet recipe

2. The easiest, best banana pudding recipe ever

3. Incredibly delicious fiesta chicken recipe

4. Yummy taco soup recipe

5. French toast casserole

6. The very best spinach salad recipe

7. One of my all-time favorites: The Weight Watchers graham cracker dessert

8. My sister Beverly's incredibly delicious, easy-to-make lasagna (you'll have to scroll down a bit)

9. My beef stew recipe (again, scroll down)

And here are a few I've tried or want to try

10. Sauerkraut salad--I know, sauerkraut...but I had this at a restaurant in Texas and it was fantastic! My sister Lisa made this recipe using Splenda instead of Equal, with great results.

11. Orange Beef Stir-Fry with Broccoli and Red Pepper--I've made this one, and my family loved it

12. As a diabetic, I really miss carrot cake--so I want to try this Carrot Ginger Muffin Recipe I saw in the current Women's Health magazine.

13. This Chipotle Chicken Alfredo Pizza , currently being featured at Ashley's Cafe, the recipe blog of Ashley, who happens to be a Pampered Chef rep. It looks mouth-watering! In fact, scrolling down the page on this blog is enough to make me gain five pounds. Everything looks so delicious.

I'm participating today in Thursday Thirteen!

Today is Invent A New Sandwich Day. Which begs the question...

...is there a sandwich you enjoy which is uniquely of your own creation?

AND/OR...

What's your favorite sandwich?

I can't lay claim to creating a new sandwich variety. The sandwiches I make at home are pretty run-of-the-mill.

Oh, I might throw on some sweet peppers to make it interesting, or slap it on my George Foreman grill for an instant panini. I've been known to get creative about what I put in my tuna salad--I like pretty much everything but the kitchen sink in there, to the consternation of my daughter, who wants some Miracle Whip thrown in and nothing else.

However, I CAN tell you what my favorite sandwich is, currently, and has been for some time.

The Door County Melt.

The Door County Melt is from an amazing little restaurant we have here called Egg Harbor. (The name is misleading; there is oh so much more than eggs at this charming eatery.)

Here's a description of the sandwich, from the restaurant's own menu:

"Our famous all white- meat chicken salad blended with dried cranberries, toasted pecans and crisp diced apples grilled on multi-grain bread with Jack and Cheddar cheeses and ripe tomato."

To quote Ferris Bueller: "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

My husband Doug and son Justin at Egg Harbor recently

So, have you invented a sandwich? If not, do you have a favorite? Let me know in the comments!

My favorite beauty guru, Emily Eddington, talks about ELF

I admit it. I love make-up. I never met a cosmetics counter I didn't like.

I eschew the "natural look," because I think that's the domain of young girls who still have flawless complexions and rosy lips and cheeks

Being a woman of "a certain age," I employ such tricks and tools that are at my disposal to help me look my very best.

That's kind of how I got started on YouTube beauty tutorials. One of my favorite YouTube beauty gurus is Emily Eddington, whose Beauty Broadcast usually focuses on the more affordable beauty items that can be found in drugstores, at Target, Wal-Mart, etc. (Read my 2-part interview with Emily here and here.)

I think it was through Emily that I found out about ELF (eyes lips face) cosmetics, and they have become a staple in my budget-conscious make-up collection.

Many ELF products cost only a dollar--ONE DOLLAR!--and I've been very pleased with the majority of products I've bought.

But I'm going to let Emily tell you all about them, because she's really good at doing it!



Be sure and check out all the helpful videos on Emily's YouTube channel!

Life Made Lovely: Lovely Vintage

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In case you hadn't noticed, vintage fashions are more popular than ever--and movies like "The Help," set in 1962, just add to the trend. Bloggers like Fleur of Diary of a Vintage Girl and Amber of Mrs Amber Apple dress almost exclusively in either vintage or new clothes in the vintage style, and look adorable doing so.

For your enjoyment: some lovely vintage fashions!

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Linking up today with Life Made Lovely Monday!

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Pink and Green Thursday: Kelly Green the hot new color for fall

According to PureWow, the hot new color for fall is Kelly green:

Often written off as the requisite color of Izod fans and Nantucket vacation-goers, Kelly green is now the most elegant hue for fall. Not only does it add an unexpected pop of color, it's also the ideal summer-to-fall-transition shade.

And Christine Suppes writes at fashionlines.com:

Just back from New York where the color of the moment is kelly green, from camisoles seen at Downtown Cipriani to handbags at the Metropolitan Museum...

Below, some of the prettiest Kelly green looks I've found on the internet.

I'm participating today in Pink and Green Thursday, hosted by Pink Preppy Lilly Lover!





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Today is Permanent Press Day. Which begs the question...

...do you iron?

I do. Oh, yeah, I've been known to pull things out of the dryer and hang them up immediately before they get a chance to get wrinkled.

But by and large, clothes get ironed at our house. Our ironing board pretty much stays up, and spray starch is a regular expenditure.

My husband is one of the best ironers (is that a word?) that I've ever known. He can iron a crease on a pair of pants that you could cut your finger on.

Some clothes are just meant to be worn crisply ironed.

But ironing hasn't always been easy!

I can remember, as a little girl, opening the refrigerator door to find a bunch of damp clothes inside. Before the advent of said Permanent Press, apparently a lot of clothes were made of 100 per cent cotton, and that can be murder to iron. Keeping the damp clothes in the fridge kept them from souring before Mom could get to them, and apparently eased the pressing process.

I can remember also my mom teaching me to iron by having me iron pillowcases and my dad's handkerchiefs. Wow, is this showing my advanced age, or what? Ironing PILLOWCASES?! and who carries handkerchiefs, or "hankies," as my dad used to call them, anymore?

According to halife.com, Permanent Press Day is " a day proudly to wear polyester and keep the iron unplugged."

Please don't even get me started on leisure suits. Those polyester-filled monstrosities will still be sitting in landfills hundreds of years from now!

How about you? Got any ironing memories? And do you still grace the ironing board from time to time? Do tell!


Photo Credit

Home Again After a Wonderful Vacation

With my husband Doug, celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary while on vacation in Texas

If you happened to notice that my blogging has been a bit sparse in the past couple of weeks, you'd be right! I was gone for two weeks to one of the hottest, driest places in the country--central Texas, the Austin area.

No matter what the weather is, that area draws me like a magnet because there are a lot of people I love there--including my two sons and daughter-in-law, my two little grandsons, my mother, my sister and her family, and my brother's family (he is currently out of the country.)

While there, my husband and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary surrounded by loved ones. We ate at an amazing BBQ place called The Salt Lick, then had cake and ice cream at my mom's house.

I thought I'd share a few pics from our visit to the Lone Star State--one of my favorite places in the world!

My daughter Elizabeth (l) and niece Katie at the Hula Hut in Austin--AWESOME restaurant!

My grandsons, Payton and Josiah, enjoying a splash park--a fun way to beat the heat!

My plate at The Salt Lick in Round Rock. I wish I had this in front of me RIGHT NOW!

My wonderful sister Lisa and her husband David with Doug and me at The Salt Lick. My sisters are my best friends!

Can you stand another foodie pic? This was my stuffed avocado at The Hula Hut in Austin--words fail to adequately describe its scrumptuosness!

My son Justin and his nephew, my little grandson Payton--they're great buddies!

My husband with our precious little grandsons, Josiah and Payton. They. Are. My. HEART.

What Today Is: National Relaxation Day and National Lemon Meringue Pie Day

Yep, according to halife.com, today in National Relaxation Day and National Lemon Meringue Pie Day.

Can I make a confession here? I have never made a lemon meringue pie....or anything involving meringue.

Meringue pies aren't even my favorite, although I have enjoyed a slice in my day.

According to Food Timeline (a pretty fascinating site, by the way!), lemon meringue pie has been around since medieval times, and was popular in early America:

"Lemon-meringue pie, made with lemon curd and topped with meringue, has been a favorite American dessert since the nineteenth century."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 182)

Elizabeth Coane Goodfellow (1767-1851) is credited for introducing lemon meringue pie to America in her Philadelphia shops [The Larder Invaded: Reflections on Three Centuries of Philadelphia Food and Drink, Mary Anne Hines, Gordon Marshall & William Woys Weaver, Historical Society of Philadelphia, Philadelphia 1987 (p. 66)

If you'd like to try your hand at making one, here are a bunch of recipes for the tasty treat.

Today is also National Relaxation Day

Relaxing is something I've been doing a lot of (one reason why I haven't been blogging much lately!) as I'm on vacation with my family in central Texas.

National Relaxation Day is billed as "an excuse for every overworked, underpaid person to do what they'd rather be doing."

What would YOU rather be doing?

My idea of the ultimate in relaxation

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From the Archives: My challenge to the makers of nasty comedies

(Originally posted Oct. 3, 2008)

1972's "What's Up, Doc?"--not a nasty comedy

Yes, you, Judd Apatow and all the other film makers of your ilk. Here's my challenge:

Make a comedy--just ONE comedy--that doesn't rely on vulgarity, sex, and profane language to get a laugh. Think you could do that?

Hmmm...I'm hearing crickets. Not only are Judd and the others not listening, but even if they were, there's zero chance they would ever take anyone up on that challenge. I honestly don't think there's any way they could make an entire movie like that, and furthermore, I don't think they would want to.

What brought all this up?

Well, several days ago the 1972 movie, "What's Up, Doc?" aired on cable. I taped it for later viewing with my 21-year-old daughter, who had never seen it.

Now, I don't think I had seen the movie since the seventies, so I was curious as to how it would hold up. Actually, it holds up VERY well. The humor is still fresh and clever, the actors truly fun to watch, the dialogue snappy, the slapstick really funny (and I'm not usually a big fan of slapstick, but this is done very well).

The bottom line, it makes you laugh...and without resorting to filth.

After we watched it, my daughter bemoaned the fact that there are so few movies like that anymore. Even the milder, less offensive ones tend to fall back on sexual situations and bad language. What happened to good, clean, classy, LAUGH OUT LOUD comedies?

Watch "What's Up, Doc?" and tell me if you miss the degrading, cesspool humor. Tell me if you thought, "Drat it, I sure could have used a way-too-much information sex scene or a million F-words. It would have made the movie SO much funnier..."

Am I the only one who feels this way? If you're with me on this, movie-maker Kevin Smith thinks you and I are in the minority. Smith recently said: "[Profanity] turns some people off, but that's how mostly everybody I know speaks. It's kind of strange. Whenever somebody goes, 'That offends me,' I'm like, wow, what kind of weird, opposite, bizarro frame of mind do you live in? Cursing is just so second nature, you don't even think of it as cursing anymore. It's just your lexicon."

Smith, by the way, is the producer of an upcoming new movie about two friends who kill some time by making a porn movie.

So, any suggestions?

Got any recommendations for movies that are funny AND relatively clean? Even if they're old ones, let me know in my comments section!

(Originally posted Oct. 3, 2008)

From the Archives: Part 2 of My Interview with YouTube Beauty Guru Emily Eddington

"I've gotten emails that have brought me to tears. From the teenager who said her mother was fighting cancer and they used my videos as an escape-- to the overworked mom who said a new makeup look she tried brought about the first compliment from her husband in years.... this is big stuff."-Emily Eddington, Beauty Broadcast

26-year-old Emily Eddington is a TV news anchorwoman in southern Illinois, but her YouTube beauty tutorials may be what really brings her fame! She recently marked the 50-thousandth subscriber to her Beauty Broadcast YouTube channel, and her Facebook page and blog draw thousands too.

In Part 1 of my interview with Emily, we talked about how she became so interested in cosmetics, and her philosophy of beauty--there's a real connection between looking good and feeling good.

Here's Part 2...

CINDY: One thing people love about Beauty Broadcast is that you usually feature very affordable make-up. I know it's trial and error, but do you find the less expensive products are sometimes just as good as the really expensive ones?

EMILY: Absolutely! When I first started watching YouTube videos, I didn't see a lot of people offering budget-friendly advice. That was a void I felt I could fill by posting reviews about all the great inexpensive products I had tried. Sure- that $35 prestigious foundation from the department store might be great- but what's the fun in discovering that? I am practically addicted to the act of going into a drugstore, finding products, trying them out, and reporting on an unexpectedly AWESOME piece of makeup. I love seeing others get excited about the affordable options I recommend. Still, I do like to try out high end items here and there to have a frame of reference for how the cheaper things stack up.



CINDY: Have you always been a bargain hunter?

EMILY: I think so. When mom saw my interest in makeup steadily grow throughout high school, I don't think she would've wanted to get me near a department store makeup counter! She tolerated my interest in makeup, but considering that she was funding this obsession- she wasn't going to let it leave the walls of the drugstore. I was always happy spending a good half hour in the aisles of Wal-Mart, picking out a new item or two every now and then. It was basically all I knew-- my mom always wore drugstore makeup brands and looked great... so why couldn't I?

CINDY: You have thousands of subscribers. How do you feel about having such a huge audience? Any feedback that surprised you, touched you, or otherwise sticks out in your mind?

EMILY: I really can't fathom the amount of people that view my videos. To think that more than 50,000 people have clicked the "Subscribe" button after seeing me sitting in my small extra bedroom rambling about the latest must-have eyeshadow primer is beyond me! YouTube's format is such that feedback can be posted alongside every video. And in the somewhat anonymous world of the internet where an abstract username is your only source of identification- people are very free with their opinions! I'm fortunate to say that the support has been overwhelming. I've gotten emails that have brought me to tears. From the teenager who said her mother was fighting cancer and they used my videos as an escape-- to the overworked mom who said a new makeup look she tried brought about the first compliment from her husband in years.... this is big stuff. It makes any hesitation or fear of a large audience less of a factor, because I know the videos are making a difference.




CINDY: What would you say to encourage someone who has never really used make-up, but wants to learn how?

EMILY: It's never too late to learn, and your routine can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. I'm not a big "makeup rules" person. You will probably never see me make a "makeup do's and don'ts" video, because we all have different methods and preferences- and like art- I don't believe there's any one right way to get it done. I like providing suggestions that have worked for me, but I hope people understand that it's not the only way. In this day and age- there are SO many ways to learn about makeup. Books, magazines, online forums, videos, blogs... they offer so much instruction. Start drawing inspiration from the people and the world around you. Start small, practice, and use the beauty resources that are available to you. You'll be glad you did!



(This was originally posted May 3, 2010)

CINDY: How do you envision the future of Beauty Broadcast? (I could see you becoming your own brand, even writing a book!)

EMILY: I would love to expand Beauty Broadcast! Right now my full-time career (anchoring morning news) accounts for a lot of my time, but I would love to one day take what I do in videos- and do it in person. Perhaps some sort of seminar where I could meet the people that have been watching, and really communicate with them face to face. Or what if Beauty Broadcast made it's way to your TV screen? THAT would be awesome :)