Hollywood comes to Reno

The greatest horse in the world finally got some notice...and brought in a little cash, for once!

Handyman has a side gig, other than remodeling. He does lighting for film and tv. And every now and then, he lets us be part of it. Back in the 90's, #1 got to be in a spot for the Children's Museum. I think that was the last time we got to be part of it.

All the girls wanted to meet Jim Varney, but that didn't work out. #1 wouldn't go meet Jake Lloyd, no matter how much we begged her. She did get to stand next to Peyton Manning, but Handyman didn't introduce them. #2 did get to meet Julianne Hough, her personal hero, and get her picture taken with her.

#3 doesn't get it yet.

After I bathed him and sprayed his tail with Pam spray (a quickie detangler), he was ready for his close-up:

As is usually the case, he did take after take after take, patiently and with good humor. He was a little put off by the big fuzzy mike, but kept his cool.

Meanwhile, the peanut gallery begged for handouts:


The spot turned out beautifully! click HERE

I even got to be in it! But Reno deserved much more screen time. It's the second time in my life that I have received a free, 24-year old horse that has changed my life.

Annual NFL Wacky Name Call-Out

I have blogged about this previously, but in honor of the Superbowl coming up, I will revisit the amazing variety of wacky NFL names...this year, we in the name-appreciation field pay homage to the NFL's missing: Plaxico Burress (currently serving time in federal prison for shooting himself in the leg with an unlicensed handgun, at a nightclub.)

Let's begin with the AFC East:

The Buffalo Bills have: Gibran Hamdan, Justise Hairston, Marshawn Lynch, Richie Incognito, Kawika Mitchell, Jairus Byrd, Drayton Florence, Leodis McKelvin and Ashton Youboty!

The Boring Old Patriots are the least represented in the Name-Bowl with: BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Tully Banta-Cain and Adalius Thomas.

The Dolphins have: Lousaka Polite (sounds like a greek restaurant entree), Ikaika Alama-Francis, Akin Ayodele, Channing Crowder, Vontae Davis, Yeremiah Bell, and Gibril Wilson.

And the Jets--who I will not disparage here, even though their coach tried to trash-talk the Colts before he was handed his season-ender...but I digress. The Jets have: Jerricho Cotchery, the infamous D'Brickashaw Ferguson (whose mother liked the movie the Thorn Birds, so much that she butchered a character's name and gave it to her son), Ropati Pitoitua, Sione Pouha, Lito Shepherd, Kenwin Cummings, James Ihedigbo, 2 Marques and 1 Marquice.

The NFC East Cowboys (how they got in the "East" is beyond me), have: Tashard Choice, Martellus Bennett, Montrae Holland, Flozell Adams, Igor Olshansky, Junior Siavii (which reminds me of Junior Seau of the Patriots, whom I didn't even mention because it seemed boring in comparison to all the others), DeMarcus Ware, Cletis Gordon, Orlando Scandrick and Shaun Suisham. Those last two have pretty ordinary first names, but combined with their last names, I felt the rhythm of the two names together warranted mention. Just my own personal choices, of course.

The New York Giants are a veritable gold mine for name aficionados like me: Rhett Bomar (wonder what movie his mom liked?), Gartrell Johnson (need a standout first name when your last name is Johnson), Madison Hedgecock, Ramses Barden (might as well go for early history ruling figure, all-powerful Pharaoh considered a god by his people), Domenik Hixon, Sincorice Moss, Hakeem Nicks, Darcy Johnson (an Austen fan, like me, I'm sure), Bear Pascoe (really?), Guy Whimper, Sha'reff Rashad, Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora. Wow.

The Philadelphia Eagles are no slouches with: Eldra Buckley, King Dunlap, Fenuki Tupou, Juqua Parker, Brodrick Bunkley, Moise Fokou, Omar Gaither, Chris Gocong, Joselio Hanson, Macho Harris, Asante Samuel (although I have heard this name so often during games, it seems very "normal" to me), Quintin Demps AND Quintin Mikell (what are the odds of that?) and Sav Rocca.

I'll wrap up today with the Washington Redskins: Colt Brennan, Ladell Betts, Rock Cartwright (must be Hoss' cousin), Quinton Ganther, Santana Moss (mom loved the guitarist, I bet), Brian Orakpo, Kedric Golston, London Fletcher, LaRon Landry, Graham Gano and my personal favorite, Antwaan Randle El!!

The highlight of my Christmas this year was an Antwaan Randle El bobblehead, in his IU uniform. (Only I thought it was going to be a Droid phone). I love Randle El trick plays--and I probably have three of the only girls in the US who could tell you who Antwaan Randle El is!

I'd love to go on and on with the NFL Name Bowl--we haven't even mentioned OchoCinco yet, but chickens need let out. Handyman is home from his Superbowl Tour and has a great picture of himself with the Lombardi trophy. But I don't think I can post it--he might get in trouble or something.

Happy Superbowl Week!

Menu Plan Monday--AGAIN!

In trying to upgrade my organization level this year, I am trying to stay on the wagon with Menu Plan Monday at the very helpful blog I'm An Organizing Junkie. She has product reviews, challenges, giveaways, ideas and encouragement. And I pretty much need all of it. Her links are pretty great as well.

I used a menu for the last two weeks and both of them were very modest--just little scraps of paper with two-word titles of recipes. But it made a big difference, no only in my stress level, but my demeanor throughout each day. Since I wasn't stressing about feeding my family at the end of each day, I had more energy to take on the big things, like chicken bathing and 47 doggie trips outside and shoveling horse manure!

Here's my plan for this week--gratefully, mostly stolen from OrgJunkie and her links:

Today, Monday: Pasta Fagioli soup with breadsticks--this is a very good Olive Garden knock-off recipe, pretty simple, great results.

Tuesday: Crock Pot Thai Chicken Never tried it, but it sounds good and my mom left me a bunch of frozen chicken legs when she left for FL last week.

Wednesday: Beef and Vegetable Noodle Bowl This is a link from Orgjunkie's Family Favorites list. Pasta makes the world go 'round, doesn't it? It helps a lot here. And I love the yellow box Barilla pasta, although my friend DF can't use it due to nut allergies, so beware.

Thursday: Mexican Lasagna My recipe came from the Saving Dinner cookbook by Leanne, at FlyLady. I do add some add'l stuff, like hominy or corn, if I have those. This makes a FULL lasagna, so be prepared for leftovers. There are a zillion variations, so you can make it however your family likes it. Just google Mexican Lasagna if you've never made one before...

Friday: Crockpot 40 Clove Garlic Chicken Once again, taken from Orgjunkie's family faves list. Worth a try--can't be worse than fish sticks and tater tots. And I got a new super dooper crockpot for Christmas! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Do yourself a favor, and put something down on paper, just a teeny step forward on the organizing path, and let me know how it works for you!

I had a wonderful weekend scrapbooking and being away from the grind for 48+ hours. Being away for even a little while always perks me up to dive back into the fray. I was sad to see Kurt Warner and the Cards go down in such an ugly way, but New Orleans is a worthy opponent to lose to. Won't surprise me if Kurt retires now.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Colts get their revenge on the Jets--who are only in it because they got a big fat gift on a silver platter, from the Colts!! Guess what?? We're taking it back! :)

Politics, again...

I am struggling along, trying to keep the boat afloat with dignity and respect undertowed by fear and loathing.

Here's an interesting blog, highlighting some of President-Elect Obama's future plans:

And of course, one of my favorites, although irreverant and bold--the irrepressible Ann Coulter:

For my birthday, my dad gave me Bill O'Reilly's newest book: A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity. We read it aloud all the way to and from the funeral on Wednesday and it is very entertaining. I wish I had the opportunity to see him more often, but perhaps knowing him from writing is better...

Well, I better start planning for my "community service hours"...Yah, Comrade.

It works!

Hey! The laundry soap works great! I made a dry version--got the recipe from my blog buddy Melissa, and it is doing great so far. I washed Handyman's winter carhart overhauls (ewwwww), some bathroom rugs, sheets, regular clothes, etc. No issues yet. I love the fresh smell of the Naptha--sort of zippy. Of course there are no suds, which is a mental hurdle for most of us. But my new washer ($175 on clearance at Lowes)does this funky, slinky little agitation, VERY quietly, that stops whenever you lift the lid. Soooooo, I've learned that I can't watch it anyway, so I just don't think about the no-suds thing. Everything's clean so far.

This is a big weekend in our neck of the woods--large auto race in the neighborhood. The great part for us is that the flyover jets cruise over our house 4-5 times every time they perform. Last year, I swear they changed their course to buzz our house, after they saw me and the dudettes wearing black and white and waving wildly in the field. They went over today several times for their practice and they went over last weekend for the qualifications weekend or the Vietnam Vet commemoration, not sure which. Anyway, tomorrow, we'll be out there, waving again.

Today was the big parade downtown and Handyman had a big role in shooting it. I remembered that several years #1 has gone with him and gotten to watch firsthand. So, this year, he took #2, since #1 was at a special Jane Austen themed sleepover. Well, if it wasn't the bees knees! They left the house sometime around 4:30 am to head to their position downtown. #2 got to sleep some in the truck (with the butt warmers on) while Handyman set up. Several of his close friends were working the broadcast booth all day and I had heard that Julianne Hough from Dancing With the Stars was going to be making an appearance in the booth. I asked one of our friends to try, please try, to get two autographs from her, for #1 and #2.

Now we watch Dancing With the Stars. Other than NFL, some NASCAR and the late news, that's all the tv we see. And the only tv that receives any signal is in our bedroom. This was our second season to watch it. We watch movies of our choosing, but not even that, frequently. So, we're pretty conservative with the tv, and how we got started watching DWTS is all my fault. Somehow, I can make the leap that it's still worth watching.

There is plenty about Dancing with the Stars that I do not like. We talk a lot about the skimpy outfits, and Handyman and I have them close their eyes/ears for most of the commercials (the Bachelor, Lost, Desperate Housewives, etc.). There are some dance moves that are pretty objectionable and we talk about those too--"yikes! That sure isn't pretty! What do they think they're doing?!"

But we like watching people work at it and improve (or not) and be critiqued and be motivated. And we like watching the pros and the live tv angle is pretty cool too! (We saw Marie Osmond faint!) Even Handyman watches, although he tries to pretend that it's because he wants to go to bed and we are all there in his way. My kids know who Jason Taylor plays for now and that the NFL theme song is a Paso Doble. #2 asked me about a particular star and who was she, really...when I answered "Elvis' wife", she was shocked. "I didn't know he was even married!" ;)

Anyway, all this to say, that #2 got to meet someone she greatly admires--Julianne Hough, the 2-time season champion of Dancing with the Stars--last year with Helio Castroneves (race car driver) and the previous season (which we didn't watch) with Apolo Anton Ono. Julianne did come to the booth and spoke graciously to #2 and we are anxiously awaiting the photo to be emailed to us (since I did not get up at 4am to locate my camera--loser Mom!)

#2 was VERY thrilled. I think this is her first celebrity. I'm glad it was someone so nice. Handyman meets and works with LOTS of celebrities. He refuses to be impressed, for lots of reasons. Mostly because a lot of them aren't impressive. Secondly, because it is unprofessional to be in awe, I guess. I still haven't forgiven him for not introducing #1 to Peyton Manning last year on a shoot. They were right there, together!

I'm sure she'll be wanting to work with him again soon!