The Sartorial Splendor of Football Media Days

My editor's assignment was simple: Participate in the MAC media football day at Ford Field in Detroit, taking on the task of a sports reporter and asking questions to find out more information about the football teams across the Mid-American Conference.

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More pictures from this weekend

Dave is caught playing with grandkids.

Weekend fun

Kari, Mark, Aydan and Charley came over to visit. We checked out the Telegraph Cruise. We saw a lot of fancy classic cars and listened to a rock 'n roll band. Charley danced. She is so active. Wish I had all her energy.

Violent women

The Shock (women's basketball) in Detroit just went crazy and started fighting with the other team they were playing. At the start of the fight, one Shock player walked up to another player and just walked her down. The cat fight was on.

When did women stop being demure, refined, and lose their dignity? I think I know when and where. Reality TV. The Soup did a show called "Chicks, Man" and it highlighted the reality shows like Bad Girls, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and Rock of Love, to name a few. Reality shows ask that women act stupid, get drunk and disgusting, vomit, eat gross things, cry, get angry at the drop of the hat, dress like skanks, and pretty much degrade themselves in any way they can. No wonder the women of Shock allowed their emotions to get the better of themselves and start a fight during the game. They are acting just the way they think that society wants to see them act.

Whatever happen to depicting women as nurturing, loving humans? Is this a sick way for men to feel better about themselves? Have they been feeling like women have been demasculating them on TV and so they want to humiliate women on TV?

Why are women allowing this? This is disgraceful. I encourage women everywhere to NOT WATCH shows that depict women in this horrible way. Do not allow your young ladies to watch. Entice your significant other to not watch these shows. Boycott the shows. Soon they will disappear if we do not watch and do not give credence to these types of stereotypes.

dancing conure

Riley groovin' to the blues

weekend update

Well, since I enjoyed reading Kari's account of her weekend, I thought I would write about my weekend.

Saturday we got quite a bit done. First we took the Focus into Midas to get the brakes looked at. Then we went to Bob Evans to eat breakfast, our weekly ritual to get out of the house. Then we came home to wait to hear the bad news about the car. While at home I worked on the computer a bit. Found that we might be able to "sell" the ebook on Amazon published as a Kinele book, but I will have to reformat it.

The car needed new shoes, rotors, and two link pins. Oh my. Oh well. Had to be done. So we authorized the work to be done. They said probably it would be ready around 1 p.m. Dave and I decided we needed to get out and move around a bit, but since the car with the Metropark sticker was getting fix. So we went to Farmington to their Founders Day celebration. Did a lot of walking and looking. Saw a man dressed all in gold, acting like a statue, tipped his hat when we walked by. Wow - he was good. I thought he was a statue.

Then we came back to get the car.

I then made pork chops with gravy, low calorie. Very good. I recommend them. I am having fun making all these new low calorie recipes. It gives me ideas for more or at least how to modify them so that we like them even better.

Sunday morning comes.....we hang out for a bit. I decide to start the laundry I needed to do. Then I wanted to shorten the curtains in our bedroom. That didn't take too long. By the time I was done, Dave was ready to get out and do more sight seeing. We went to Royal Oak's largest garage sale. It was a garage sale that was in a parking garage. It was huge. Nothing there caught our eye. Lots of junk.

Last stop was Como's for pizza. Then home to vegetate in front of the TV and computers. I did little things like changing the bed sheets and wash towels.

Healthy appetizers

Dave has been giving me suggestions for food to fix for him and I that is lowfat, low calorie, or both.

This is one that I made that I recommend:

From the Healthy Living magazine.

Mini Bacon Quiches
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup reduced-fat ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup shredded reduced-fat cheddar cheese
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Dash cayenne pepper
Dash pepper
2 packages (2.1 oz each) frozen miniature phyllo (fillo) tart shells

1. In a small bowl, combine the first nine ingredients. Place tart shells on an ungreased baking sheet; fill each with 2 teaspoons mixture.
2. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until filling is set and shells are lightly browned. Serve warm.

They were good cool also.

MAC Facilities Begin Upgrades

With kickoff of the 2008 football season just six weeks away, Mid-American Conference fans will no doubt notice upgrades at a couple of venerable facilities while fans in another MAC city will be celebrating the final season in their school's home stadium.

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will they answer my question?

I emailed Rod and Mario with the FSN Detroit website asking them a question and they are suppose to answer it on an upcoming Tigers Live game. Will they answer it today? We shall see. The question I asked was: Do the Tigers still do all those fancy-dancy hi-fives they used to do when they hit a homerun and then went to the dugout?

Silly question, but I remember they used to have some very elaborate hi-fives with each other. Choregraphed perfectly. Maybe they will look up old film footage of them and replay them.

so I thought the ebook was all done......

My sigh of relief changed today. Dave was going through the ebook and found that the team schedules had either changed or there was minor errors. So........I had to log into my laptop, go back into the Word document, make the changes, then convert to a pdf file, then upload to the website again.

Okay, done. I can get back to work.

But wait, I forgot to reset the bookmarks in the pdf file. So had to spend time setting up the bookmarks and then upload to the website.

Whew, all done.

Right?

Wrong.

Dave and I were suppose to start working out in the yard in the evenings this week so that we could get caught up on that. Dave started early, but came in when I was done with work and he sheepishly told me that there were more corrections that he found in the pdf.

So while cooking supper, I made the changes in the Word document, converted to pdf and showed Dave how to do the bookmarks in the pdf program. Once the bookmarks were done, I uploaded the files to the website and we were done.

Right.

So we went outside to finish work in the yard. We sweated and got dirty. For two couch potatoes we did pretty good. Dave got a whole section of the driveway weed free and I weeded and then put stuff down to keep the weeds at bay behind the garage where the three bushes are. It felt good to get it done. There is still more to do in the yard, but we will get it done this week. I also have to clean the house. Will get that done also. The bathtub was cleaned yesterday.

Then Dave checked the pdf file again. Yep, one more correction. This one I was able to fix right in the pdf file, so that was quick.

I hope Dave doesn't find any more corrections.

The ebook link is on this blog and I encourage anyone that wants to find out all the inside information about college football for this season - specifically the Mid-American Conference - then buy this ebook. You will be one step ahead of the game.

Finally finished Dave's ebook

Dave has been working hard on an ebook for a football preview of the Mid-American Conference. In the past when he has done this, he hasn't charged for the document, but he put so much work into it and so did I that we wanted to get something for the hard work. Well, I think we have it mostly done and I can breath a sigh of relief. The ebook will go on sale on July 2 and I will put a link to the store as soon as it is up so that all my family and friends can go there and buy it if they feel like it. It will be $4.95 and you can use either a credit card or paypal. I set up the store, set up the website, made graphics so that others can advertise the book on their websites. Dave is getting the advertising for the book out with google adwords and other people's website.

If any one wants to advertise the book on their website, please let me know (Mindy).

having fun at the CVS

So, since I work from home I don't get out much. Saturdays are my day to get out all by myself. Crazy, I know. I usually go to the grocery store, but sometimes I get a manicure and today I had my hair trimmed. But I also went CVS to get Father's Day cards and such. Well, the line was long and only one register open. When a second register opened, I noticed that the people getting in line were confused about where to go, so I decided to direct traffic. So with a smile on my face and lightness in my tone, I started telling people where the end of the line was, pointing out the next in line so that person could go to the second open register.

Then a gentleman in line behind me asked me if I knew if CVS gave rainchecks because he wanted to get one for the Arizona tea that was on sale, but they had run out of. I hollered out to one of the cashiers asking that very question. The answer was yes, so the gentleman stayed in line.

It is funny....the cashiers seem grumpy and hassled... but when I started my joking and stuff, they seemed to perk up and one of them even smiled. It was fun.

old memories

I had this for breakfast: Hard crunchy bread (brownberry will do), butter, jam, olives, cheese.

Every time I eat this type of meal, I am reminded of a trip to Israel. But the memories are very fragmented.

• The hot sun - so bright it hurt your eyes
• hail stones lying at the base of an orange tree with oranges already on the tree.
• Old Jerusalum - crowded, dirty, smelly, clothing hanging for sale, dead animals hanging for sale.
• Not wanting to pay to see the Dead Sea, but needing to use the restroom - a group of us girls led by Marian Selleck chose to go behind the building and relieve ourselves. She was such a rebel.
• bumpy bus rides
• The beautiful color of the mosques
• The head-bobbing, sing-song people at the wailing wall.

That is about all I can really remember. I wish I had the pictures from that trip, but I think I gave them all to Jerry.

June 1, 2008 - Jenna's Baby Shower

Last weekend, Mindy, Kari and I all traveled to Grand Rapids for my neice and nephew's baby shower. Jenna and Japhy will be parents soon and my sister will be a grandmother. Such fun. Here are some pictures that I took.

Sister Cindi and Aydan

Mindy, Luke, and Charly

Kari, relaxing, finally without a child in hand.

Cindi, Aydan, and Mindy

Mindy and Luke

Charly

Jenna and Japhy opening their gifts.

Some of the guests.

More guests

Japhy's dad Steve and Mike, Cindi's husband.

having a good day today

Thank goodness it is Saturday. Time to get things done and relax if possible. This is how my day has gone so far today. Sleep in past 8:00 a.m. (8:07?) Take a shower, get dressed. Have my chauffeur (Dave) drive me to Bob Evans where we consumed a good, but cheap breakfast. I had grits and a side of bacon. Then we came home to decide what we would do next. We opted for driving to the Erie Metro Park to hike the nature trail. We chose the 1 mile loop. We did that twice. I was completely worn out from that. On the drive home we made three stops. One to get a candy bar for me. Two to buy some hanging plants to put on our light post out front. Three, BabiesRus so that I could pick up a gift for the baby shower that I am going to tomorrow. Oh, and Dave stopped at the gas station to fill my tank for tomorrow. (Lordy gas is costly.)

Then when we got home, I went back out. First went to the farmer's market up the street and got two medium onions, one large zucchini, two parsnips, a bunch of bananas, 6 ears of corn, two plums, two oranges, one pink grapefruit ($5.81). I am going to keep going back there to get different vegetables. See if I can get more vegetables and fruit into our diet. Riley will eat some also.

Then I went to get a pedicure and manicure. It was relaxing.

Finally I did the grocery shopping. I think I forgot somethings. I need to make a better list.

Now Dave and I are watching the Wings hockey game. Hopefully they will win.

Tomorrow should be a nice day. Going to my sister's house. She is having a baby shower for her son and his wife. Kari will be there with her two kids and Mindy will be riding with me and bringing Luke. It will be fun.

colorful blog design

My eccentric daughter very kindly allowed me to redesign her blog. It turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. I had a good time choosing the colors, working with her to get the right fonts, etc. Needless to say, Mindy is a tough client. She had very definite ideas and that was refreshing. I like to work with people who know what they want and can communicate it.

So if you like Mindy's blog and want to see more, check back and see what I do with my blog. Also, I am available for hire if you want to spice up your blog.

eye twitching - update

I think I blogged about this. My right eye has been twitching. It started about a month ago and for a week it was kind of driving me crazy. Well, it had just about completely stopped twitching until yesterday. Yesterday, Formulawn came to fertilize the grass. (By the way, the yard is looking good, grass nice and green, healthy, and no weeds.) Well, they knocked on the door to ask me if we wanted the grub control, since it didn't look like it needed it. (We had put some grub control on last fall and maybe that helped.) They were spraying the lawn while they were talking to me. The smell was not very pleasant. I quickly went into the house and shut the door so that Riley wouldn't breathe the fumes.

Well, my eye started twitching. Now today my back and head are itching. My eye is still twitching. I just took some Zyrtec so hopefully the itching will go away.

Dave's comment on Dancing with the Stars

We are trying out this new website design. Dave was working on the website, checking out how the articles and pictures were uploaded. He was watching Dancing with the Stars with me, in between flipping back and forth to the Wings hockey game. I was checking out the website design on my laptop whenever he switched to the game. I checked it one last time and noticed the change he had made. (Headline and caption under picture - click on image for larger picture). He thinks he is so funny. It did crack me up because it was so unexpected.

lifestyle change - ongoing

Dave and I are still working on our weight loss. It is frustrating because we have drastically reduced our intake and have been walking just about every day, and we are not seeing a lot of results. Don't get me wrong, we won't give up. But it does get discouraging.

perfect pizza - maybe

This might be my best attempt at homemade pizza. I used a thin crust recipe. The crust was delicious. (click on picture to enlarge and see the crust detail.)