Color Me -- Orange

Although some people think of orange as only an autumn color, in our town orange is always in style. The reason is because orange and black are our high schools colors. There actually is more than 1 high school here, but only one 'big' one. And it's the high school our kids go to, so we usually have plenty of orange on hand. The last couple days, however, I've been looking for orange things to put in this post, it's amazing what's out there...

Paw print banner at the high school

My piano teacher's cat

Pumpkins, of course (and yes Otin and Matty, they had white ones as well)

Mini pumpkins too

Tubing near a construction site

Moving van

Part of a rug we bought in Cartagena, Colombia

I adore candy corn and pumpkins. If you think it's too sweet, add some peanuts into the mix. Tasty!

Powerade - always handy to have around if you have athletes... or people puking.

I should have been in marketing, don't ya think?

And lastly, Bob's collection of orange shirts to wear to games. And just because he likes orange.

Just for giggles, here's some pumpkin wine. I'm disappointed that it's not orange. However, it's not mine. It's his...

Color Me -- Wine

I don't know what it is about the color of red wine, but it really turns me on. No, not like that. I just mean that I love it. My "old house," the one I lived in pre-Bob and 4 step-daughters, was all done in green, gold, and burgundy. I loved it. The greens were sagey, the golds were, well, goldish, and the burgundy was like a fine red wine. Last year we repainted the house we are in now and Bob (bless his heart) had me choose the colors. I should tell you now that I'm not an artist. I can't envision the way things are going to look. I try to "feel" it, but it usually doesn't work. I am just much too left brained. I need facts.

Anyway, I really loved the colors in my old house, but figured that they needed to be updated. I really liked all the chocolate colors that are so hot right now, but I was worried it would be too trendy and I would get sick of it. Instead I chose a toffee color (it looks just like a skinny caramel latte, and you should know by now how I feel about those...) for the entry way and the family room. The kitchen is green (kinda sagey, but different. Scotland Road is the name). And the focus walls in the hallway and family room and under the chair rail in the living/dining room are Vinyard Estates. There is my fine red wine fix. I truly love the colors we chose, and I think they fit my personality.

But I totally got off track. This post was supposed to be about the color of red wine and how I often find myself surrounded by it.

I don't know what these are, but aren't they beautiful?

My upstairs hallway. I think the toffee may look a little yellowish in this light, but it's not. It's beautiful. I love it.

Fireplace mantle in the family room

A tray. I don't know what else to say about it.

How adorable is this guy??

A lace making thingie in Ste Genevieve, MO

Front foyer

Wine drinker? Moi? What makes you think that?

In my living room

Doh! Yep, there it is. Mighty tasty...

So I'd guess it's pretty obvious that this whole wine color (burgundy, maroon, reddish-purplish?) is my color. What color do you identify with?

Color Me -- White

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. After I saw Julochka's Color Me series I thought I do one on fall colors. I love the dark reds, oranges, yellows, blues... and yet when I was looking thru my photos I found quite a bit of white. I figured that was a good way to ease into the Color Me theme...

Juneau... he's so sweet...

White pumpkins

Scary ghosts...

Scary pumpkin with spiders

Not so scary Lladros

More Lladros

Ok I'm kind of a Lladro addict...

Speaking of addicts

My favorite color of rose... I wish I knew the name.

Found in the oldest cemetery west of the Mississippi, or so we were told while we were in

Ste. Genevieve, MO.

Our fountain last winter

Juneau and his friend Sally last winter

The perpetual flame memorial in Panama

A light house in Kennebunkport,  ME

Nature walk, Blog Camp Reno

And just so you know it's really me, here is a nice glass of white wine. Not sure where this was taken but I'm sure I enjoyed it! Salud!

If I were really good, I'd have my wedding picture up here. Alas, I don't have a digital copy. Bummer.

So I think that's about it. If I pull out all my white photos I'm libel to be here all night...

Have a Great Tuesday and don't forget to come by next week for our regularly scheduled

Random Tuesday Thoughts brought to you by the fabulous Un Mom!

Six Word Sunday

Yep I know it's Sunday and this says Six Word Saturday, but I spent yesterday with hubby so I'm late. Deal with it! Anyway, I found Cate's site, Show My Face, thru the always fabulous Fragrant Muse. So this is their fault.

So here's my 6 words:

NEED INSPIRATION? VISIT BLOGS I FOLLOW.

 I do follow some great blogs, so go take a look :)

Happy Hour Friday

Woo Hoo! I love Happy Hour any day, but Happy Hour Friday is a good way to look back at the past week and see how good life is. I have been pretty crabby this week, and I'm not sure why (well, other than the obvious). I had several comments on my Rant and Rave that it was all rants and very few raves! Hahaha that made me laugh. I'm actually usually a pretty happy person. I think I just need to focus on some good stuff. Are you ready to get in a good mood??

• Earlier in the week my youngest caught me at a weak moment and asked me if I'd take her and a friend to Six Flags on Saturday. I said yes (GASP). I hate parks like this. The problem is that ever since I was pregnant -- with HER -- I get so motion sick it ruins my day. I get car sick, sea sick, roller-coaster sick... I can even get car sick when I'm driving! How silly is that?! I can be on the calmest lake and still I feel like puking. If someone is kicking my seat at a theater I want to barf. It's that bad. Needless to say, I don't want to spend $36 to walk around and do nothing.  So where's the good news? Youngest daughter and her friend are old enough to be dropped off, then hubby and I are going to spend the day together. I'm not sure what we are going to do, but it'll be just the two of us. And hopefully some PDA... 

• Season opener of Gray's Anatomy. Dr. McDreamy. Need I say more? Now if I could just get him into a kilt...
  

• Cake. My youngest daughter is making a cake. This actually makes me not happy because now I'm going to have to eat it. A lot of it. Every time I walk by it I'll have to snag a bite or two. I really like cake. Maybe even ice cream...Yummmmm... Of course you know that I'll be bitching about it on Wednesday.
• Since it's Happy Hour I'm just gonna stick my neck out there and say this: I like wine. I know, it's shocking. I'm a little surprised myself. At the moment I am enjoying one that we bought at Montelle Winery in Augusta, MO. Was it last weekend? Two weeks ago? Hell I can't remember. The point is, it's good!

•  Diana Gabaldon makes me incredibly happy. If you read my book post you should know that she is my very favorite author. Well, as you may recall, her new book is due out... wait for it... it's already out!! Hooray it came out on Tuesday!! Of course, I haven't started it (this part makes me sad) because when I found out that she had another book in the series I decided to go back and re-read all of them. Right now I'm on The Fiery Cross, then I'll read A Breath of Snow and Ashes, then the new one, An Echo in The Bone. So, I am waiting patiently, well, reading patiently and catching up on all the characters and what they have been doing. Plus, Zena already bought me the book, so I have to wait for it to come in the mail anyway (although I'll probably also buy it on my Kindle). Thank you Diana for giving me the fodder for many, many, many dreams. Jamie is so.... well, you know...

If you Google Jamie Fraser you get about a bazillion photos of what people think he might have looked like (you know had he been a real person, but for me he is real). Anyway, I looked thru a ton of them and he's just not there. They are all cheesy or ugly or not hairy enough. Sorry but my Jamie doesn't have a smooth chest. Anyway. Read the dang book and you'll get your own image of Jamie.

Ok. That's all I have for right now. Click on good ol' Mr. Linky. You know the deal. Go see Otin!!

Rant and Rave Wednesday and WTF Wednesday too!

Happy Hump Day everyone! Be sure to check out Little Ms Blogger for the Ranting and Raving,  it is all her fault! Then you can go check out Hit 40 for the WTF Wednesday because that's her fault!

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Rant: I can't decide if I should rant that kids put dishes in the dishwasher incorrectly or that they don't put them in at all, but since I ranted about this last week I'll just skip it. WTF??

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Rant: I always have a hard time deciding what to wear in the fall. I can't stand it when I see people wearing springy clothes in September. It's a pet peeve. I know, I know, I'm a bitch. I get it. But seriously, in September you can't wear a pink and yellow flowery shirt. It doesn't look right. You might as well wear black velvet on a hot and humid day in july.

Rant: I hate that it bugs me

Rant: Today I'm wearing capris (black) because it's warm out, I'm also wearing a short-sleeved shirt and sandals. I'm sitting in the pharmacy freezing my tushy off.

Rant: I can't think of a rave

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Rant: I really need to get some CE (continuing education) done, but I'm too busy playing on Blogger

Rant: I have until March to finish it which seems like a long time, but I have lots of hours to get done

Rave: It's pretty easy to do, it just takes some time. Plus I actually learn stuff ( I think that might be the point)

Update Rave: I just did 2 credits worth (woo woo!)

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Rave: Lunch is here! Woo woo!

Rant: How sad is it that I'm excited about a cheeseburger?

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Rant: Lunch is gone already.

Rave: It was probably one of the best cheeseburgers I've had in a long time.

Rant: I should have taken a photo. I don't think I should do that now tho.

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Rave: I got a super wonderful surprise in the mail yesterday. It is so wonderful and fabulous. I was over at Julochka's site and she had a little contest and I won!! She makes these fabulous stones and calls them something wonderful but I'm sure I'll screw it up so just go to her etsy site and see for yourself. She also put some Moo cards in there which we all know I totally adore!

Rant: (WTF??) The photo is blurry and I didn't realize it or I would have taken more, but oh well isn't it cool?!
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Rant: WTF is up with my scale?? It's stuck on that same dumb ass number. I friggin hate it! And little Mister "it just takes will power oh and being sick with no appetite" has lost 10 freaking pounds! GRRR! Why does my life hate me??? WTF??

Rave: Oh there is NO rave when it comes to this crap!

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Rave: We were not busy at the pharmacy today so after looking at Julochka's site (did you click on it up there?) I got inspired and started looking thru a bunch of etsy stuff. I found (and bought) some cool stuff on this site. Here is one of the things I got:

It's a clock made out of recycled computer circuit boards! This isn't the exact one I bought, but it's close.

Rant: The only thing I can think of is that I can't blink my eyes and make it appear in my hand!

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I think that's it for me today. WTF??

Randon Tuesday (and Pharmacy stuff too)

First of all let me say thanks so much to Un-Mom for turning me on to Random Tuesday Thoughts.

Be sure to check her out, she is very cool!

• Why am I always expected to be the grown-up? Maybe I just want to be a friggin bitch, ok? Seriously, I don't always want to be the one that gives in. It's really pissing me off. BUT I can't say anything because I'm supposed to be the mature one. Yeah, right. Just hand me my Depends and get away from me. 
• On that note, let me be the grown up for just a minute and talk to you about cholesterol. Yes, the Silent Killer. It's called this because high cholesterol can cause heart disease and hardening of the arteries and you won't have any symptoms until it's too late. Someone asked me how come cholesterol medications are supposed to be taken at night. The reason for this is that your body makes cholesterol at nighttime. The most common type of medication for treating high LDL (bad) and low HDL (good) is called a "statin" (simvastatin, atorvastatin, pravastatin, etc). Some of the statins are more effective when taken at night, however some have a long enough half-life that it doesn't really matter. It is a good rule of thumb to take them at night tho (or with the evening meal) because overall this will give you the most benefit, especially if you have to change medications due to insurance reasons. However, if you can only remember to take your meds in the morning, then take it then. The important thing is daily dosing.
• My hubby is sick. I wonder if he has the flu. I wonder if he's gonna start oinking. Half the varsity Dance team at our high school has swine flu... we don't have dancers in our gaggle of girls... I wonder how hubby got it.... Hmmm. 
• Why is there so much dog hair in my house? I think I'm going to make another dog out of it. Seriously. At least the new one won't poo.
• Just where have all the cowboys gone?
• How come Jessica can have a GPA that sucks as much as it does get such a high freaking score on her ACT? How come it finally clicks that she needs to do her homework when she only has 3 semesters left? How is she ever gonna make it in the real world without her mama?
• Why is rain on a wedding day good luck? 
• Speaking of, where are all the men in kilts? I really like looking at them. I mean I really like it.
• It's raining like crazy and thunder and lightning. I'm ready to go snuggle in bed (with my oinky husband). 
• Happy Tuesday!
  

Sunday Miscellany

I've had several things I've been meaning to write about and others that I need to update, confirm, deny, etc so today I thought I'd get it all out. Hang on, it could be a bumpy ride.

•  I'm trying this "jump break" thing in blogger in draft for the first time. Has anyone used it yet? It wasn't up there on Friday when we did Happy Hour. We'll have to see how it works out. Hopefully it's not totally screwing up my post.
• When I was at Blog Camp Reno I mentioned my Chicken Apple Chili recipe and several people asked me to post it. I should have mentioned that it is a Rachel Ray recipe from the very beginning, but I didn't think about it. I tried looking for it online and couldn't find it anywhere, so here it is right from the magazine:

Ingredients:
1/4 c EVOO
2 lbs chicken tenders, cut up bite size (I buy them already cooked and chopped to save energy)
4 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper
2 apples, cut into cubes (I've used both green and red... I think green worked better)
1 onion, chopped
4 tbsp butter
1/4 c flour
2 c chicken broth (of course I use Sweet Sue)
3/4 c milk
2 15oz cans white beans (I usually use Bush's baby butter beans)
2 c shredded jack cheese (I usually use colby-jack)
tortillas for serving (I use crusty bread instead)
chopped scallions for serving (eh, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

Directions:
In a large Dutch oven, head 2 tbsp olive oil over med-high heat. Add the chicken (even if you used pre-cooked like me), chili powder and cumin. Season with salt-n-peppa and cook stirring, for 5 min.
Transfer to a medium size bowl.

In the same pot, heat 2 tbsp olive oil. Add the apples and onion and cook, stirring, til softened (~6 min). Add to same bowl as chicken.

In the same pot (don't you love that?) melt the butter over med-low. Whisk in the flour for 1 min. Whisk in the chicken broth and milk until thickened (~3min). Stir the chicken-apple mixture back into the big pot, stir in beans, bring to a simmer to heat it all back up. Stir in the cheese. Serve and enjoy and send me some too cuz it is t-a-s-t-y!

• A few people have asked me about my name, Bambi, and how I got it. I wrote about it in an earlier post, but that wasn't all there was to it, so I thought I'd just tell it in a nutshell. First of all, my Mom, although she is an Outrageous Older Woman, did NOT name me Bambi. Not even because of my big brown eyes. When I was an undergrad at UNR my best friend was named Sue. We both worked in the basement of the chemistry building in the Physical Chem Dept. Let me just say here that you have to be nuts to be a physical chemist. I'm just sayin. The basement was usually pretty quiet. It was just the profs office, a few labs, and a big computer room (an SGI 10,000 mini-super computer... if you care). Our lab worked on super-critical fluids and in order to run the experiments we had to use a laser, therefore the room had to be dark. Pitch black except for the lovely green glow of the laser. Add that to the quiet hum of the computers and the warm conditions and soft music (ok usually it was hard rock cuz that's what the grad student liked), it made for ideal nap times. But I digress, that actually has nothing to do with it. Anyway, for a long time we were Sue-1 and Sue-2, but our prof (remember, a little nuts) said we needed nick names cuz that'd be easier. I immediately said I'd be Natasha (you have to say it with a Russian accent). Well, as well as I fit the name, Sue-1 wasn't really a Boris. So either the prof or student suggested Bambi. Sue-1 was happy with Thumper, and the rest is history. Or would be. Bambi and Thumper worked in the P Chem lab, but didn't really work well in the rest of our classes. Unfortunately the alias slipped under a rocked for a while. Fast-forward 10 years, both Sues are pharmacists (although working at opposite ends of the country). I started working at a Medicine Shoppe where everyone has nicknames (Hanky Doodle, Goose, Norm) and they all said I needed a nickname as well. I told them that once upon a time I was known as Bambi. Everyone agreed that was a good name for me, and here I am. If you ask why it's good, my answer is because of my big brown eyes.
  

 

Which one do you think fits better??