Five Dollar Pizza From Heaven

Every now and again the universe sends you exactly what you need in the seconds before you think all is lost. In my case it was a piping hot $5.00 pizza from Price Chopper. Now you are most likely thinking to yourself right about now that I need to step up my expectations in life if this is my version of Heaven. Just read.

Won’t bore you with the minutia of my endless Friday but here’s the condensed overview: Awake at 5:00am after a couple of hours of sleep, get kids up, ready, out, work, errands, run Girl Scout meeting, pick up rest of the pack from babysitter, home, more errands, and then St. Patrick’s day grocery shopping. That brings us to the moments before my manna from Heaven (if manna comes with tomato sauce and a heavy handed layer of mozzarella).

Picture three tired children along with their cranky mom (insert my face) on their way to the second grocery store because first one did not have all of the necessary Irish accoutrements for our upcoming celebrations. It’s after 8pm; no one has eaten, and trust me when I say that doesn’t make anyone in this family any nicer. The wall of glass slides open and in we walk to be greeted by a woman in a flowing robe and a halo. Okay – the children are saying that she was in a Price Chopper polo shirt and the light over her head was the glare off the donut case but hey, we all see what we want, right?

Anyway…..in we walk to find this angel (a.k.a. underpaid Price Chopper employee) approaching us with a box held regally before her. Angels sang as she asked us, “Would you like a fresh, hot, five dollar pizza tonight?”

And there it was – the one thing I didn’t have to think about taking care of on our never-ending Friday. Dinner. Gifted to us from a woman who had to be Heaven sent. Wasn’t the best pizza we’ve ever had, nor was it the worst, but last night it was the most appreciated pizza I’ve ever eaten.

i is for interrupt

I’m interrupting my regular A to Z Challenge post with some exciting news.  Well – it’s exciting for me and anyone eating at our place.  For the rest of you it’s really just an interesting FYI and possibly a reason to turn down a dinner invitation.   I won a contest on another blog I follow!  YEAH!!!!!

The Family Dinner Project is a great blog with a mission to bring people together over the dining table.  It’s not a revolutionary concept – just one that needs some revisiting in today’s hectic world.

Below is a copy of today’s post from their site:

Embarrassing Dinner Habit Contest: We Have a Winner!

Posted on: April 10th, 2012 by Allissa

In response to our “Most Embarrassing Dinner Habit” contest, we received some wonderfully funny and honest submissions. They ranged from watching movies while eating, to serving-up fast food, to finding wads of meat beneath your children’s plates.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories! We thoroughly enjoyed reading them, and could definitely sympathize with many of these habits. In fact, we’ve even examined similar habits in our recent blog posts. For example, in her post about picky eaters, Dr. Anne Fishel gives advice on how to encourage kids to try new foods. And this Family Blog post by a reader named Kim contains several interesting meal-planning ideas.

But now for the contest winner! (Drum roll, please!) After careful deliberation, we decided that an entry about “gross-out” dinner conversation took the contest cake. As Laura describes, during dinner, each member of her family shares the grossest story from their day.

Embarrassing? Sure. But it’s a great example of how using unique conversation starters can get kids talking. Congratulations to Laura, who will be receiving a $100 supermarket gift card!

We’ll be announcing our next contest next week, so definitely be on the look out. In the meantime, please enjoy Laura’s winning entry:

“I would like to preface this entry by noting that our embarrassing dinner habit started out with really good intentions.  To encourage family communication a few years back, we started having our children tell us something interesting about their day at dinner time. 

We used a round table format and each of us (hubby and I included) would mention something that happened or something we saw/read/etc.  Somehow, this has morphed into telling the grossest story you can.  Topics range from school friends who can get milk through their nose on command (okay—truth moment—so can my oldest daughter) to someone’s gory injury to anything my husband has seen at work (he works in the wastewater industry – enough said). 

The kids love it, and occasionally someone from the “under 12” friend pool is allowed to participate…but we don’t really talk about family dinner with any friends we want to keep.”

http://thefamilydinnerproject.org/project-team/#

                                                                    

G is for Gastronomy

Day 7 of the Blogging From A to Z challenge April 2012 – G

Gleeful gents and gals are getting geared up as green grass and great growth gives way to grand celebrations. Guests and grandparents gladly gather as we give grace to God on Easter (or as my hubby says, give props to the guy in the sky).

Gastronomical gluttony grows gargantous guts as we gorge on gravy, grains, goodies, and grapes.  Glad are we for children’s giggles gleaned from grandiose games and gifts of gelatin globes.

Gotta go get my goose eggs……

◊             ◊             ◊             ◊             ◊

PLEASE NOTE:  This is my original material so…..Greedy grabbing is a gaff and I will be galled at your graceless behavior.  Don’t be gauche.

Goodbye!

BlogHer Conference

Having grown up in her outskirts I am stoked (yup – I said stoked) to be spending a summer weekend in NYC.   In addition to gelato in Little Italy, massive amounts of people watching, and an afternoon of theatre, oh yeah – I’ll be attending the BlogHer 2012 conference.

I found the conference quite by accident after reading a recommended piece about the founders of the BlogHer.com website.   If you haven’t been there yet, BlogHer.com is worth the look-see.  They have amassed a fine collection of bloggers who pontificate on a regular basis.  Like all blog spots there’s some fact, some fiction, and a lot of opinion in between.   The self-description on their website states:

“Today, BlogHer is the largest community of women who blog: 37 million unique visitors per month (December 2011, Nielsen Site Census). Engaged, influential and info-savvy, these women come to BlogHer to seek and share advice, opinions and recommendations. BlogHer’s team works hard to bring you the best and brightest conversations, writers and speakers – online and in person. That’s what we do best.”

The narcissist in me said, “Hmmm, I came to their site – I must be one of those engaging, savvy chicks” while her counterpart, my negative nemesis, gave me, “Oh please, I think you fall under the “unique aka oddball” category”.  Either way, I’m now part of this community.  (For the record, I am leaning toward my inner narcissist)

Here’s a wee bit of information on the conference:

“Welcome to BlogHer Conferences!    http://www.blogher.com/conferences

In 2005, BlogHer Co-founders Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone held a conference to answer the question, “where are all the women who blog?” Today, BlogHer conferences bring together thousands of these women from around the world to discuss, inspire and connect with each other.”

 – BlogHer Webpage/ March 2012

For moi, the immediate gratification factor of an in person conference vs. online tutorial is the opportunity for spontaneity.  To get those tidbits of information that are not preformed, edited for content, and polished but instead drop unfettered during impromptu conversation.   It’s the chance to glean more about the inner workings of the blogosphere from those who have been there, done that, and are STILL right here, doing this.  In addition to the segments offered in structured speaker/audience format there are endless opportunities to connect with oodles of other people who spend their days pouring the fruits of intense neuron bursts out of their brains and into cyberspace.  It’s a chance to come out from behind the keyboard and meet up with heaps of other creatives who blog about hundreds of topics. I’ll equate it to summer camp for grown up geeky gals but with better breakfast foods.

Have you been to one of these before?  What’s your thought?  Would love to hear your opinions/suggestions/ideas on blog conferences.

Is Zombie a food group?

“Bring out your dead!”  (if you cannot identify this quote then you need a Monty Python intervention stat)

Well this is not a reblog but more of a repost – kind of.  I am not actually sure what you call it when a close friend takes a cool picture and puts it on her FB page and she also happens to have a blog and you copy and paste that picture into your own blog and then give her kudos.  Is that Refacebooking or Reposting or stealing?  Such blurry fine lines.  Anyway, this photo is courtesy of my friend Kim who you can check out at http://kfsfindingmyway.blogspot.com.  We’ll file this under books you wish you had thought of yourself.