Boob Tube

Ahhem...I said...Boob...hehehe

Yeah, not sure where that name came from...but my dad used to call our television, The Boob Tube.  Have you ever heard that term? Maybe because it acted as a pacifier of some sort to his small child (i.e. me)?


I don't know because I don't recall being pacified a whole lot by TV growing up.  I mean there were the usual shows that I would watch after school: Punky Brewster, Mr Belvedere, Different Strokes, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Webster, Threes Company... OK, wow, maybe I did watch a little too much TV.  Hmm....Those shows were the best though.  They sure don't make them like they used to.

What prompted this post was I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard that people spend on average 34 hours a week in front of the TV these days...Yikes!  That is a lot of unproductive time.  Almost like a full time job.  That just seems like an awful lot of time in front of the TV.  And with all the different medias these days I thought for sure sitting in front of the TV actually watching regular TV was decreasing....With the Internet, Wii, Play Stations, Ipods, Kindle, etc...Go figure...

I do like to sit and watch a good show every now and again.  And I do get addicted to a few... ahem...reality shows (Survivor, Hells Kitchen....) Did I just admit to that? But 34 hours?  I don't have enough time to watch TV for 34 hours...I am working, blogging, watching my children, blogging, taking care of our home, blogging, cooking, blogging....(not necessarily in that order).


34 hours?  Really?  How much TV does your family watch?  Do you limit the amount of time your children watch?  What are some of your "old school" favorite shows?

Raspberries

Succulent, dark pink, perfectly ripe, juicy raspberries...

Add them to a piece of short bread with some whip creme or vanilla ice cream...is there anything better?

Heavenly...

Willamette Raspberries from Oregon of course are the best..BTW, did you know there are 40+ varieties of raspberries?  Me neither...


I know, I know not the right time of the year for raspberries...but we can dream about them right? 

Or how about, the raspberries that our daughter does...ALL THE TIME....hehehehe...(she was blowing raspberries this morning right when she woke up for her morning feeding).

Those are pretty awesome too!

Every time Miss K sees me these days, she lets out a BIG raspberry....spit flys everywhere so watch out if you are within a few feet from her.  Drool is forever dripping down her chin....(she even has a little rash below her lip from all the spit)

She thinks it is the funniest thing especially when we do it back to her. On her cheek, in her chin rolls (yes, she has a few chins), on her belly when we are changing her diaper, on her arm...any exposed skin....

We have quite the raspberry competition going on in our house these days...and everyone is partaking in it...even her brothers get in on the action....She loves when they do it even more, she just gets to giggling uncontrollably...


It is the cutest darn thing in the world!  Just like her!

Aren't those just the sweetest, most robust cheeks you ever did see? And the baby blues?  Love them!

Wacky Wednesday

I hear that mini vans are making a comeback...Not for your every day average soccer mom...anymore....



Maybe this is why?











Have you seen the "Sienna" Family videos?  They have definetly brought the "sexy" back to the mini van.





Don't be jealous....I don't have one either...I have a mini van but not a Sienna.






Note:  This is not a paid endorsement

Envelope Please.....

And the winner is…..Dave Ramsey!  Yes, Dave Ramsey…Do you know him?  Have you heard about him?

Although, I have not had the pleasure to take one of his classes, I have heard great things about it from people that I know.  And right now our church, Harvest Christian Church in Troutdale is offering the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University.  This is a 13 week class that will change the way you look at money!

If you can't attend Harvest class, if you go to the Dave Ramsey website, you can locate a class in your area.

Here is an outline of the different subjects they teach from week to week:

Jan 17, 2011	Super Saving - Attend free!
Jan 24, 2011	Relating With Money
Jan 31, 2011	Cash Flow Planning
Feb 7, 2011	Dumping Debt
Feb 14, 2011	Credit Sharks In Suits
Feb 21, 2011	Buyer Beware
Feb 28, 2011	Clause and Effect
Mar 7, 2011	That's Not Good Enough
Mar 14, 2011	Of Mice and Mutual Funds
Mar 21, 2011	From Fruition To Tuition
Mar 28, 2011	Working In Your Strengths
Apr 4, 2011	Real Estate and Mortgages
Apr 11, 2011	The Great Misunderstanding

One of the lessons that I always hear about on budgeting is the Envelope System where all your money is "deposited" into envelopes and labeled.  Each envelope has a designated amount of money in them based on your budget for a particular expense.   For example you might label envelopes as follows: Entertainment, Groceries, Clothes, Savings, Tithes, etc... Once you spend the money within the envelope, then it is gone until your next pay period (deposit).


This allows for you to visually see how much money you have at any given time and then perhaps help you think twice before spending it.  I know for us personally when using our debit card, which comes directly out of our checking, we still spend more than we should.  And we don't realize how quickly it adds up until we shriek when we look at our bank statement. 

The class itself cost between $80.00-$100.00 depending on where you take it.  And like our pastor recently said, "If you don't have an extra $80.00-$100.00 a month after all your bills, food, etc than you NEED to take this class."

So many people, after taking this class, have paid off huge amounts of debt sometimes even while still taking the classes.  Cars, Mortgages, Medical Bills, Student Loans, GONE!


What do you have to lose?  (more money?)

Note:  This is not a paid endorsement

N & J's Excellent Adventure

In my Wrap It Up post I teased about a new adventure my husband and I were going to be taking on in 2011...Well, here it is!

Without further ado....

In order to get us out of our funk of going to the same ol, same ol restaurants around town, we are going to go to 52, YES, 52 new restaurants this year.  One new restaurant each week. 

And we are going to blog about it! 

We do however have some rules that we are going to adhere to:

1.  Must be locally owned not part of a franchise.
2.  Must be locally owned and have 5 locations or less (which rules out McM).
3.  Even though we are going to blog about the 52 restaurants, does not mean that these are the ONLY restaurants we will visit.  Which means we can go to McM just not going to be part of our blogging adventure.
4.  We will visit many types of restaurants including family friendly and budget friendly.
5. Some of the restaurants currently on our list are some that we have visited before but will only visit once again during this adventure so not to duplicate.
6.  We have items that we will be critiquing at each visit and will share these with our blogging audience.
7.  We intend to have this be somewhat of an interactive experience so we are definitely looking for other ideas of restaurants to try as well as your thoughts and ideas of what you want to know about the restaurants.  (Please comment on this blog post for now and we will add to our list)


We have set up a separate blog (www.52weekspdx.com)  for this project however it is still in the design phase and will be online this next week.  We already went to our first restaurant yesterday for lunch and will share that in our first blog post scheduled for this next week.

We hope you enjoy this new adventure and glean some useful information from it!

Cheers!

Thank you Bill & Ted