Hebrew National – Picnic with a Purpose from Jo-Lynne on Vimeo.
Hebrew National Picnic Video
May 31, 2009 By 3 Comments
Hebrew National Philly Moms Picnic
May 30, 2009 By 4 Comments
What fun to see so many bloggers in one place. I love real life meet-ups! Today was no exception. The weather was awesome and I got to see many dear ladies from around the Philly area and beyond! A video is coming but I have put it in the trustworthy hands of Jo-Lynne's husband Paul to connect the dots of my various snippets of the day.
Thank YOU, Hebrew National and The Motherhood for sponsoring the event and to Jo-Lynne of Musings of a Housewife for organizing! It was an incredibly lovely day and we were able to hear from the women of Home of the Sparrow who shared more about the ministry to moms in need of emergency housing. They certainly appreciate all the donations brought by the mom bloggers.
Whew – just got all the names linked the blogs. Looks like a few ladies didn't make it in the picture. We appreciate YOU ladies coming too. Sorry we didn't capture you on film.
Colleen, Stephanie, Jo-Lynne, Mel, Whitney, Melissa, Kim, Beth, Shannon, Amy, Sarah, Megan
Now, that is art on a dog! And, here is my sweet Lindsey who spent the day reading, followed by a picture of a carload of donations and then the pretty flowers planted by the children for the front porches of the women's shelters.
Sun & Earth Cleaning Products **GIVEAWAY**
May 22, 2009 By
Contest is CLOSED. The winner is Grammy Janet! Thank you for playing!
Sun & Earth has come out with a complete line full of home healthy cleaning products and you can WIN your very own huge collection:
(1) 50 oz. 2x Concentrated Laundry Detergent
(1) 22 oz. All Purpose Cleaner
(1) 22 oz. Extra Concentrated Dishwashing Liquid
(1) Automatic Dishwasher Detergent Packs
(1) box of Unscented Dryer Sheets
(1) 40 oz. Ultra Fabric Softener Liquid
(1) 22 oz. Glass Cleaner
(1) 8 oz. Hand Soap
(1) Reusable Sun & Earth Shopping Tote
WORTH: $52.00 but invaluable around the home!
Leave a comment TODAY for a chance to win this nice selection of products. Leave a comment every day for more chances ALL THE WAY UNTIL June 1st!
On June 22, we are taking a tour of the local Sun & Earth factory. I will make sure to take pictures and tell you more then. If you are local to the Philly area and want to join us, feel free to comment on that as well.
GIVEAWAY DETAILS:
WIN BY: Commenting HERE no more than once a day, tweeting it and letting me know with a comment, and/or blogging it and letting me know. When the Random Generator pulls a number, more comments mean more chances of winning!
END DATE: June 1st
Good luck! Thanks for stopping by!
Live Country Auction on June 13
May 21, 2009 By 1 Comment
If you live close, come join us:
Live Country Auction & Chili Cook-Off Dinner
Bake Sale & Kid's Activities
Sat., June 13 at 6pm
Sponsored by Grace & Peace Presbyterian Church
Held at West-Mont Christian Academy
873 S. Hanover St., Pottstown PA 19465
An evening of fun for all ages!
(Benefitting Summer Missions Project in Canada)
For info, contact 
610-323-2021
610-323-2021(If you are local and have items you would like to donate to benefit this cause, we are always happy for extras!)
Wordless Wednesday: Here's looking at you, kid.
May 20, 2009 By 5 Comments
For more Wordless Wednesday, check out 5 Minutes for Mom and the official WW HQ!
Poetry Contest: Gross Food Combinations
May 20, 2009 By 3 Comments
Here's my daughter's entry for the contest running on Terra's blog. It is going until May 26th, so get your entries in! Write 4-8 lines of poetry about a gross food combination and link up at Terra's for a chance to be featured in Justin Matott's new children's book.
Fried monkey brains are so blech
that not even the birds will peck.
So why do they serve them
with marshmallows and fries
in all of the craziest pies?
– Lindsey, 11
Coming Up: Interview with Author Justin Matott.
(And here my entry that I just found from brainstorming the other night!)
In my blender goes the mix
Seaweed, strawberries, and crunchy Kix,
Slurp, snerp, ready for more
Pull out the fish brains and apple core.
Fill a shake to eat with cake
full of fish from the lake.
Yummy, yummy, lick your chops,
hold your nose and swallow your blops.
Frugal Living: Cleaning with Vinegar
May 19, 2009 By 1 Comment
Here's an excerpt from my latest frugal column:
Did you know that the word vinegar comes from the French word "vinaigre" which means "sour wine?" Did you also know that the historically pungent, acetic ingredient is the one of the mainstays of eco-cleaning, right beside baking soda?
According to VinegarTips.com, vinegar has been used for over 10,000 years for cooking, cleaning, and disinfecting. From Babylonians preserving and pickling their food with vinegar to Cleopatra dissolving pearls in it to prove she could consume a fortune in one meal, it is a well documented essential for the household, any chef's kitchen, your personal skin treatment kit if you are fighting the Bubonic plague, your bath if you are taking advice from Helen of Troy, or your arsenal of army supplies if you need to break apart huge boulders like Hannibal as he moved troops through the Alps.
Vinegar has an amazing history of uses which are well documented in The International Vinegar Museum in Roslyn, South Dakota. If you are so inclined, you can even attend the International Vinegar Festival in June each year, also in Roslyn.
Click HERE to read the rest at The Phoenix and to get recipes for cleaning with vinegar and baking soda.
What I Learned This Week: Survivor Season Finale
May 19, 2009 By 11 Comments
I learned this week that:
1) Seeing the Survivor Season Finale in person in NYC is totally awesome. At Christmas, we opened a little white box from my sister and her husband, Steve. My sister is known for her love of giving experiences and I knew that one box with both our names on it meant she had come up with something we would both enjoy. I expected a dinner gift certificate but was shocked and thrilled to see the two tickets that she won through a bid at a fundraising event.
Brian and I have seen every Survivor so it was cool to see the host Jeff and all the survivors in person. We were in the balcony and they didn't let us go talk to anyone but it was fun just being there.
More amazing was the set fitting into that little studio at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York. It was over at 11 PM and I was told that the crew would work all night to remove everything and get it back to normal by the next David Letterman taping at noon on Monday. It really makes you reflect on how temporary things in life are but I won't get too deep on that here. Maybe tomorrow.
We got back home at 1:30 AM which was tough but some things are worth the pain!
Here we are on Times Square before the show!
2) My sister is going to run a FULL marathon for the first time with Team in Training this Fall as they fundraise for The Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Last year was her first year to run a half-marathon and now she is pushing herself to run the whole thing! I am so impressed. If you would like to read more on the Philly marathon and the people she is running in honor of, click HERE.
3) Author Justin Matott is having a fun poetry contest for kids. Come up with a 4-8 line poem about gross food combinations, write about it and link it HERE at Terra's blog by May 26th.
4) I love doing background work in movies even if it is exhausting. This week I was costumed and put on a set that I signed a confidentiality statement saying I would tell you nothing about. So, I am officially telling you that I am not telling you anything except that it was so totally fun, it is going to be amazing, I promise to tell you all when it comes out, and I think kids will LOVE it! It mets every need in my overactive imagination to be a background extra. I will probably never be more because I don't have the time and don't need the pressure (even though a little more $ would be nice since we don't get paid much for long days but ANYHOOO. . . ). But, I have to say that it is really a cool experience and I always meet other Christians on the set and have great conversations (since there is always TONS of time to talk but again, anyhooo . . I didn't tell you that.)
Okay, that is out of my system. I have to let it go now until the movie comes out and I can say more.
Back to normal life, laundry and a kid who is home sick but looks fine which is why I am putting her to work.
If you live in PA, VOTE IN THE PRIMARIES TODAY! It is your American right, so use it!
Now, head over to Jo-Lynne's for more What I Learned This Week!
Going to the Circus
May 15, 2009 By 5 Comments
We did it! We made it to the circus where tall men prance around on stilts and beautiful ladies fly through the air. Silly clowns dance and horses prance as all eyes are on the tigers. What big teeth they have. There is nothing like taking kids to the circus.
Thanks again to Mom Central & the Feld Family Activator program for including me, my two girls and a friend at a special circus event Friday night. We had a blast! It definitely still holds its own as the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!
Beginning at Bullies, the restaurant in the Wachovia Spectrum, we started with a special event just for blogging moms where we met several special guests, including organizers Meghan Daly from Mom Central and a representative from the Feld Family Activators. We also got to catch up with our online friends. It is always fun seeing each other in person again.
We met several performers, including Alex, "Zing" master of Ringling Bros and Barnum Bailey Circus which has come out with Zing Zang Zoom, an illusion-based version of the good old fashioned circus we all know and love. The magic added a little zing to the night! Alex shared with us that this was his first year with the circus and that he was loving it. We also met the two human cannonballs and several clowns. All were very nice.
The action packed evening made the miserable drive worth the effort. After the special meet-n-greet, we headed over to the animal cages for a free sneakpeek before going down on the floor of the arena for a free pre-show for everyone. In the center ring, we tried on costumes and saw the performers doing mini-shows to gear us up for the big event.
Once the show started, the glitz and glamour and magic were ON! I only had two disruptions to my evening. The appliance guy I have been trying to reach all week called as the cannons were firing. I had to go call him back at intermission. Then, I had to quick return another call, yelling into the phone, as my kids spent the rest of the little bit of money I brought on circus toys because I am still a sucker for fun, bright pretty things, including the the bright pretty smiles of my growing girlies.
We sat with Mel from A Box of Chocolates and her family and shared blogging tips between ohhing and ahhing over circus acts. Jo-Lynne and her family were a section over and I saw Shannon and Sarah from Chester County Moms up the way. We weren't all in the same section but it would have been impossible to talk anyway with the fun circus music and eye-catching, death defying routines going on in front of us. Oops, almost forgot to say that we saw Melissa and her family. AND, I met one new blogger friend tonight, Elizabeth Norton. It is always nice to make new acquaintances.
Before we knew it, it was over and time to go home. Definitely worth the trip!
(Remember that you can still get the great price of 4-tix for $44 this week using the coupon code: MOM. The circus is here in Philly until May 25th.)
DIY Frugal
May 12, 2009 By 2 Comments
I am experimenting with a DIY Frugal website over HERE this week to see what I can get set up to cover the information I gather for my articles in the local paper. There isn't really anything to see yet but I hope to grow it. If you would be interested in contributing information, let me know!
