[serendipity]

a new FREE jessica sprague class

Have you all seen this? I'm on my way over to sign up right now! Nothing like a free class from Jessica to get your day going. :)

 

This makes things right in the universe. That, and hearing from my dear friend Erin Terrell Clarkson . . . who replied to some posts yesterday!  Girlfriend, it was soooo good to hear from you! She and I go waaaay back. Back to the old Provo Craft Dream Team days...1999? 2000? It's been so long I can't remember exactly when it started. ;)

Erin has always had such amazing photography skills--not to mention, scrapbooking skills--that I've just admired. And I did not know she had a blog . . . and she shares some glorious photos!

Oh. Did I just add a link to her blog over there on the right? Why, yes I did. Go check it out!

And I'm sure Dr. Pepper is still safe. It better be. Forever even. :)

WHAT is going on in the universe?

I wasn’t going to post today because I have so much going on but . . .

. . .strange things are happening.

My husband, Mr. Anti-Computer Man–who only used a computer to read the newspapers and listen to Irish punk bands– started a Facebook. He’s happy to have friends. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks (sorry honey ;)).

I’m installing some new software—but before doing it I have the urge to back up my hard drive for some reason. When it’s time to reboot and all, I get a “serious Windows error.” YIKES! I haven’t ever had one of those!  Luckily everything is still working, but I was glad that I backed up my hard drive just in case. Who knows if something will happen down the road.

Then I go to get a Taco Time soft taco. It sure sounded good. I hadn’t had one in ages. I went at noon to kind of beat the rush. One car in front of me. Good. Uh . . . NOT. I waited at least 15 minutes only to get up to the window and be told they need to cook more meat because they ran out and it’ll be at least another five minutes.

What fast-food restaurant runs out of meat . . . at noon!

I was such a nervous wreck from waiting that long that I said to forget my order and left.

Time to turn lunch over to hubby because being gone for a half hour and getting nothing from it was the extent of my patience.

He goes to a local dive to get one of their good deli sandwiches . . . and they don’t make sandwiches anymore! What?!

Off to Blimpies he goes.

He calls me, tells me what happened,  and asks what kind of sandwich, for which I promptly say “Blimpies Best.” My favorite sandwich. Been loving it for years . . . years. Since I was in junior high, so about 30 years.

Um, they don’t make the Blimpies Best anymore. You would think a sandwich that’s called Blimpies Best would be called that for a reason . . . it’s the best . . . the most popular.

They still make me a sandwich with the fixins that they used to make it with on white bread. But when I get the sandwich, is it on a hoagie roll like usual? No. It’s on sandwich bread. What???

What is going on in this universe???

Someone is really messing with my little world.

What’s next, they stop making Dr. Pepper???

Don’t mess with me man.

a spooky weekend

The candy's gone. The pumpkins are gone. The children are all nestled in their little beds. Life is back to normal and I don't have to buy another bag of candy until next year.

Well, my kids didn't get to go trick-or-treating, but they still dressed up. As teenagers, they dressed up more simply and practically.

Kass dressed up as Zach. He had a very distinct style. He was known for his plaid shorts--which he pretty much wore year round, his Vans, his hoodies, his graphic tees, and his beanies. Luckily most of his wardrobe is still in his room because he couldn't take much of that stuff with him.

Jordan's "costume" changed from decade to decade as we could only find certain clothes at Forever 21, that matched, that she had pieces to go with, that were in the right size, and that didn't cost too much. And actually, she found the jacket at Forever 21 and the skirt and shirt she found at Target. She helped pay for part of it. ;) The end result? She went with a mod look and did Audrey Hepburn.

Here they are together.

And here's Kass.

 

And Jordan. But here Jordan put on pants as, opposed to the pencil skirt she wore, so she could sit in the leaves and do a little more classic Audrey pose.

But here she is with the skirt. (We were watching America's Next Top Model that day, can you tell? ;))

And now the pumpkins. Jordan opted to paint her pumpkin while Kassidy had me print out a Calvin & Hobbes image from the internet so she could do that.

That about sums up our Saturday.

Now, to answer a few other questions.

Terri, these "sneak peek" images really are from November 5, however, I work about a month in advance and there was a glitch in the store that allowed people to see and download the images for a short time. Whoops. ;) So if you got them, you got lucky . . . along with a few hundred people. lol But really, they will be out this Thursday for reals.

Susy, you just crack me up girl!

MaryRuth, I apologize for not getting to your 50% Unlimited Subscription question. Hopefully you either saw a post I did earlier or searched for it on the internet. I apologize for not making sure I'd stated everything about it.

Cindy, each of the words are connected on those little wavy word titles, so basically you just need to align each word vs. each letter. Nice. I mentioned I like convenience, yes? ;) Also, you can use the transfer paper to put it on your wall, which is a very nice tool! You place the transfer paper over the top of your vinyl piece, remove the excess vinyl from the transfer paper, rub the vinyl piece into place on the wall, and then gently pull the transfer paper away. Voila! No guessing where it should be!

And dear Ada, you are not alone girlfriend. You may have asked the question on my blog that spurred my answer, but it was a great question and one that gets asked more than you think. So, I really appreciate it! And hopefully your life craziness has subsided a bit now that Halloween is over . . . until Thanksgiving all starts up, that is. Oh, then Christmas. Then maybe you'll get a nice break. ;) It's amazing how fast the last three months of the year go by, isn't it?

Oh, and one last note. If you're thinking that banner kind of looks familiar, it's because Karen Russell sent out that negative strip frame to her photo students a while ago. I'm always looking for different presentations for my banner each month and thought that would be fun to do for the month of November . . . showcasing what I'm most grateful for at this time of year when gratitude seems to be abundant and on everyone's mind.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

goodness gracious!

Crazy busy these days. I can't believe today is the last day of October! Are you all ready for Halloween? Have you been eating all the candy and now need to go buy more . . . like I probably should? ;)

Well, I missed my usual Friday ritual in sharing a little peek at next week's release. Whoops. You all probably already saw this in full-fashion over on the Silhouette blog (I shared a peek at it here on mine). I thought I'd just post it again so you can see that Christmas word tree that I'm just danged excited about!

 

And here are a few more images available on Thursday. Oh, and if you haven't gotten the 50% off Unlimited Subscription yet, today is the last day! It's an incredible deal and I highly recommend it!

Have a great Halloween! (and now here's some Christmas stuff. lol)

Love these little Santa things.

How cool would this tall Santa be as a 12" border along the side of your page?

 

And then there's some cute little things like this to cut in vinyl on your family room wall...or in your kid's bedroom.

 

And these little titles are fun. The base--in this case, "Winter Wonderland"--is pretty much all connected and then you can layer it with a complementary color of just the one word on top, if you'd like.

 

And this holly wreath is just two pieces as well. You cut out the background and then cut out the holly berries. I'm all about convenience. lol

Well, the rest of it you'll just have to see on Thursday! Fun stuff!

understanding silhouette

Ada, I know you are not "blonde." :) You ask some very good questions. It's hard to fully understand how Silhouette works unless you can see it in action. So hopefully I'll be able to share some things today that might help you--and others--understand the process just a little bit better.

HOW IT WORKS

If you are familiar with the Cricut, the basic function is the same, it's just the location the machine is getting its information from is different. Rather than having a little cartridge that's full of images to tell your machine what to cut, your images are stored on your computer and your Silhouette is connected to your computer with a USB cord.

If you're not familiar with any cutting machine, you can kind of think of it in terms of how a printer works in that you have an image (=a word document) on your screen, you need to cut (=print), you click the Cut (=print) button, your machine sends the information to the Silhouette machine (=printer), and rather than it spraying little dots of ink, a blade moves around to output the image giving you a fun little die cut.

THE PROCESS

When you want to cut a shape that you don't own, this is what you'd do from start to finish.

The Silhouette machine uses the Robo Master Software to access, create, and design your shapes, so open the program and bring up a new document. Your screen will look like this:

To access a new shape, Click the Purchase Online button as seen in the lower-left of the screen (circled in red above). Then you get this screen.

From here you can click on New Releases to see what the latest releases are, search by keywords, browse all the images .  . . there's a plethora of ways to find images.

On this screen, I've done a search for Halloween images. Say for example I needed that ittle Halloween title. I would simply click on it and follow the steps to download that image to my computer. Once you've purchased an image, it's yours forever.

This image now gets added to your My Library. Which is located just above the Purchase Online button. However, when you purchase new images, your My Library automatically comes up. My Library can be a powerful tool in helping you organize all your shapes. However, this is something I still haven't done. ;) This is what it looks like.

The beauty of Silhouette is that so many images are customizable. Erin Lincoln recently showed a couple of great examples doing this here and here. This is one of the coolest features of Silhouette. You aren't always limited to the shape that's given. Love that! You can see exactly what your getting. You can even layout your page on the Robo Master screen, if you wanted. You can read about that here.

After you find your image in My Library, click on it and it will bring you to your open document where you will see a box that is the size of your image and once you click on the open document, it lays it down there. So it looks like this:

At this point you can Ungroup the image and separate the mat from the title, rotate it if you want, resize it to any size (with the maximum width being around 8.25"), and cut it in different colors or vinyl even. Cardstock, patterned paper and vinyl are the main materials that Silhouette cuts. I've heard that you can do fabric if you spray it with a fabric stiffener, but I haven't tried it . . . yet. ;)

Additionally, you can create your own shapes, use most any font you own, and even weld words and shapes together. Silhouette is a powerful little tool. If one is not very "computer savvy", it may come across as "intimidating", but I can tell you it's not. I've heard many stories where a user wasn't necessarily computer savvy and Silhouette ended up being much easier to use than they thought. As with anything, you need to kind of go through it a time or two to get used to the workings, but once you get started you can't stop! It's addicting!

And don't even get me started on using the Print & Cut feature! It's like your never-ending supplies of printed embellishments. With Print & Cut (noted with a "P" when you're purchasing an image), you bring up the image, it looks like a pretty and colorful little thang (as opposed to a cut outline that's just red) and it has a cut line around it. In simple terms, you print it and then run it through your Silhouette to cut out the exact image. Great for when you're making your Christmas cards, Halloween treat bags, Valentines, whatever. You can read more about it here.

Oh, and another beauty of Silhouette is that you can access any image any time without leaving the comfort of your home. A lady once mentioned that she was up at midnight, scrapbooking, drinking a beer, in her pajamas, and needed a particular shape. She didn't have to go anywhere but the Online Store to get what she needed. That story made me laugh. And for those of you outside the country? How sweet is that you can just buy a machine and never have to worry about trying to find another card or cartridge to get more shapes? Nice.

Now, just to be clear, I think other cutting machines like the Cricut and the Slice have their positive points too. I think they are both great little machines. Everything you purchase has its pros and cons. I just find that the Silhouette has so much more versatility for me and I really like that. It suits my needs best.

That's the basics of the process of this little machine. Sooooo versatile! You can read many tutorials about how to use it on the Silhouette website here. There are tons of great tips and tricks there.

You can also download the Robo Master software without having a machine--it's free. Check out the shapes, play with the software . . . see if it really suits your needs. You can download the software from here.

Ada--my little "blonde" friend (hee hee), and anyone else who's been wondering just what Silhouette is all about, I hope this helps in some way. :) And I can tell you, if you like diecutting, it will be a purchase you'll never regret. And if you haven't read the Silhouette stories that people shared on the Silhouette blog a couple days ago, check it out--there are really a lot of great stories.

This baby is amazing. Now if I could only get it to clean my house. ;)

i KNOW i can't dance

My girls took dance for years . . . they can dance. Which is why I guess they love So You Think You Can Dance, which was on last night and they begged me to TiVo because they had a young women's activity to go to.

Now, I'm not really a big watcher of the show even though there have been people on there from here. In fact, Jordan and/or Kass' hip hop teacher was Jaymz who was in the first season. I don't know if our little area just breeds dancers or what because they are all over the place on the different dance shows.

Well, this go around of the show has a friend of Zach's, Mollee Gray. He always had multiple friends with the same names and I always had to think of clever ways to remember who they were. He had two friends named Molly and I always referred to her as Mollee the Dancer (the other one was "tall Molly"). So this makes the season just that much more fun for the girls. And since I was TiVo-ing it for them, I watched. She was amazing last night! Wish Zach were here so he could see his friend. Guess I'll have to be there to support her as well. Exciting.

Okay then. You're probably wondering who all won the ribbon eh? I sorted them out into three piles and each pile is so much bigger than that little stack I showed you. And I even found a few more goodies during my reorganizing that I'm going to do for a giveaway on another day. Fun stuff.

So the winners are:

On Halloween we go to the fall festival at church. This year my husband's band is playing and we're all excited!

Posted by: Marty | October 26, 2009 at 08:43 AM

My favorite is to go trick or treating with my little niece & nephew...and I just love to give out candy...seeing all the excited kiddies in their costumes.

Posted by: Michelle A. | October 26, 2009 at 07:05 PM

We have several like all mentioned above. Another thing we celebrate is that it is my wedding anniversary, it was the only day available when we got married I wanted a fall date, I am huge orange/fall lover.

Posted by: Suzzi | October 26, 2009 at 12:18 PM

Just e-mail me with your info and I'll get those off to you! Probably when I send my son his birthday package with three new long-sleeve white shirts that I'll be picking up this weekend. ;)

And, Suzzi, it really is your lucky day! My husband was reading the comments and he said, “You have to give one to the girl who has her anniversary on Halloween. How cool is that?" Normally, I randomly choose numbers and pick, but he was just so cute about that I had to say, okay. :) I had three to give away, so it seemed like a good thing to do.

And I just have to say how much I loved reading all the fun things you do on Halloween! It's funny just how many of us do chili on that night...of course ours are chili dogs. I loved Allison's little "plant the candy corn seed" and a pumpkin grows for the kids. That was too clever! Of course, when I spouted off the idea to my kids, we immediately went into Elf routine where he starts rattling off the elves' four food groups, which includes candy corn. ;)

Fun stuff that everyone does! Love it! Thanks so much for sharing! Oh, and speaking of sharing, you have, have, have to check out the Silhoeutte blog post for today and see what Nichol Magouirk did! It is absolutely amaaaaazing!

share your silhouette story

Head on over to the Silhouette blog and share your Silhouette story on how you became a fan for a chance to win a $25 download code! A winner will be drawn tomorrow. Plus, there's another carved pumpkin on display using the Silhouette and a brand-new, pumpkin-carving image from the Online Store. Check it out.

And don't forget today's the last day for my little "trick or treat" drawing from yesterday's post. I'll be drawing a winner tomorrow (too ;) ).

a trick or treat giveaway

Can you believe Halloween is this week already??? Crazy!

I had quite an interesting weekend. I need to rearrange my office and ended up reorganizng my ribbon drawers!  I purged many a-ribbon that I've collected over the years during my CK/QVC days--not that there's anything wrong or I didn't like it, I just have way too many ribbons. I went from seven drawers down to four drawers. And I can't believe how much ribbon I still have! It was sure inspiring to look at them all. Made me want to use them. :)

So in the essence of all things good about Halloween, I'm going to do a treat for your own little pumpkin and giveaway . . . hmmmm . . . I think I have enough to do three giveaways of ribbon. It's just going to be a random set of ribbon, so what you see here isn't necessarily what you'll be getting. It won't all be American Crafts ribbon either. They just looked so pretty stacked. ;)

Just leave me a comment telling me what your favorite Halloween tradition is and I'll pick three winners on Wednesday. I do need to limit the contest to the United States though (excluding AK and HI). Sorry guys. But if you are from somewhere outside the US, please, still share your ideas and just mention not to enter you into the drawing.

And Susy, welcome. Welcome to the happiest place on earth. Silhouetteland. You're gonna love it! ;)

P.S. Speaking of Halloween, be sure to check out what I did over on the Silhouette blog today. Please, no laughing. ;) And check out Erin Lincoln's cute holiday things she's been sharing on her blog. She's just so fab! Love her!

[this contest is now closed]

a few random things

SILHOUETTE SHAPES

If you've been on the fence about getting the Unlimited Silhouette subscription, NOW is the time to do it because the 50% off code officially expires October 31. That's it. That goodness cannot last forever. All you need to do to get it is use the "coupon" code of STORE when purchasing it online. I highly recommend doing this because it's an incredible offer!

AND, if you are on the fence about buying a Silhouette and wanted to know more about what kind of shapes there are, now you can do a search on the Silhouette website to find some of the top images being downloaded of the subject you're searching for. Love that new feature!

A COUPLE SHAPE IDEAS

There are a couple new fold-over cards in this last batch that work wonderfuly with the circle Print & Cut images . . . or any circle shape.

This is how they come. As you can see, one has a cut out half-circle and one has a half-circle notch.

And this is the end result:

Simple. Classic. Yet you could totally jazz it up too! And of course these could be used for any occasion . . . they just look festive in the example. ;)

SPEAKING OF "THE LITTLE THINGS"

Last Saturday night the girls and I ran to Target to pick up some things. Saturday night on 106.5 is Showtune Saturday night, where they play songs from an array of Broadway musicals. We love listening to it. On our way home Do Re Mi from Sound of Music came on. Music blasting. All of us singing loudly--including different parts. I don't think it gets much better than that. Little things make life grand, don't they?

And Anne-Liesse . . . you were right on with your Serendipity comment. That's why I love that word so much! :)

check it out

Hey guys! Things have been a little bonkers for me of late, but today I posted a mini-album page on the Silhouette blog using some new--and old--images, so go check it out! I'm giving you a little peek here, but you'll have to see the whole thing over there.

I don't think I've ever put so much stuff on a page in quite some time . . . and this baby is only 6x6! lol The one thing I love most is that I'd printed the photo with journaling, but something just wasn't right. I'd pulled out the "Priceless" 7gypsies rub on to put somewhere else and instead, it fit perfectly above the journaling. To look at it you'd think I'd printed it.

I love it when things work out like that.

And don't forget to check out the new Silhouette release today! Fun stuff!

it's the little things

Last Friday the stars aligned for us in the Bradford family. Zach had to push his p-day (prep day) to Friday due to a mission president conference. It's usually on Wednesdays . . . the day I always look forward to because we usually get to chat over e-mail, which is the highlight of my week. And yes, I revolve my life around getting my 'Zach fix'. 

I'm usually the only one that gets to benefit from e-mailing on Wednesdays though.

But last week the girls were out of school Thursday and Friday for fall break. We'd talked about going to Idaho and I'm so glad we didn't because then all three of us were able to "visit" with Zach via e-mail on Friday and it was so much fun! I miss our "front room conversations" where we'd all just sit around and chat about anything and everything. This was the first time in almost seven months since he's been gone on his mission that we've been able to do anything close to that.

I'm grateful for that moment.

Little things.

Janet and Cori . . . just tell me when and I'll be there to come take senior pics. ;) Cori, I'll have to bring Kristy with me, you know. lol

a little senior cousin craziness

These two girls are cousins . . . about 4 1/2 months apart . . . and they both will graduate high school this year (different schools). Busy day for my side of the family since Kass graduates in the morning and Aubrey graduates in the afternoon.

Thought maybe we'd catch some senior fun in the fall. I know Kass wants some spring pictures too, so I'm sure we'll be doing it then too. But for now, here's a few crazy shots of what we did yesterday. Just a note, these girls like having a bit of fun. ;)

the red shoes that jordan never gets to borrow.

 

 

making the photo a little artsy with this one of kass.

 

a little peek perhaps?

ETA: There's a new Silhouette blog up and going now! Be sure to check it out at silhouettemachine.blogspot.com.

It seems to have become a Friday ritual for me . . . the Friday before the Thursday Silhouette release, that is. A little peek at what's to come. Teasing and taunting. I am ever-so mean (she says with a half-smile and a wink).

So, some of you figured out the little peek I did a couple weeks ago. Yes, indeed. A Christmas calendar is  . . . well . . . on the calendar. These Print & Cuts come in groups of fives (six for the last set) and are perfect for making an advent calendar or just documenting the month of December.

 

And do you wanna hear something even cooloer? Those days on there? Yeah, they're editable. You heard me. The files come with individual text for each day of the week. So, what does that mean? Well, you can add more character to your design having the day there plus you can use it over and over every single year. Just swap around the day. Now, how cool is that?

sleep? i wish.

So I awoke at 4:45 this morning, needing to use the facilities, which is a rarity for me. I thought to myself,
"It's still early enough, surely I can go back to sleep." Not. It didn't take long before my mind started thinking of a thousand things and that was all she wrote.

This reminded me of a recent post that Lisa Bearnson did about a clock her husband purchased. The kind that projects the time on the ceiling. Two no-no's in my book. Some time ago I heard some tips for sleeping better at night and they have helped me greatly. The first tip is to get rid of any ambient light. This is a more difficult one for me in the "open-window" months since we remodeled our bedroom and moved our bed so that it is no longer under the window. Now I see the hospital parking lot light. Annoying. And it's right at the bottom of the window so that even when the blinds are closed, they have to be closed all the way so that I can't see it. Oddly enough, the small forest of pine trees that are on the other side of our fence aren't positioned quite in the right place. Maybe when they get bigger and wider it might change. Keeping fingers crossed for that. ;)

The other tip is to NOT look at the clock. So you can see how the clock Lisa's husband purchased breaks these two rules. ;) I think not looking at the clock has helped me the most. You are much more apt to sleep when you aren't worried that you awoke at 1:34, 2:19, 2:56...etc. Again, since we remodeled, my dresser is a little farther away and therefore, so is my clock. I definitely don't have perfect vision, but the numbers are big, so I can see them with my right eye (both eyes are very different powers--weird). If I wake up in the middle of the night--which occurs several times since I'm a light sleeper, I simply change positions and go back to sleep without ever looking at the clock. I just keep my eyes closed and boom, back to sleep. 

Now, having to get up--for any reason--changes those rules and I wake up. Mind races. All that.

So, there ya go. Trouble sleeping? Try a couple of those. I guess the third tip would be to make sure hubby isn't on his back snoring. lol

Oh, and to top it off, I thought it was going to be great to sleep in at least until 7 since the girls don't have school today and tomorrow. Dang. I'm hoping for tomorrow then.

And speaking of Lisa, her son got his LDS mission call yesterday! You'll have to check out her blog sometime today and see where he's going. Exciting times! 

Also, check out what Erin Lincoln did on her blog yesterday with a couple Silhouette shapes. She's so stinkin' creative! Love it!

a soup du jour weekend

I have two words that describe this weekend: DE-LICIOUS!

I know, I know. That's one word, but said firmly and emphatically makes it two words to double the impact of the word(s). We had such a tasty weekend with a couple different soups . . . and lucky you, I'm sharing both recipes!

On Saturday it was Baked Potato Soup, made with potatoes freshly taken out of a potato field when we were up to the farm last week. True Idaho potatoes. This soup is a family favorite at our house.

On Sunday it was Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili, but it was more like a soup than a "chili." Yuuuummmy! I got the recipe from Good Things Utah. They always have really great recipes and I happened to catch a piece of the show when they were making this. This is now a new family favorite. We all loved it!

Both of these are definite things to try during this fall and winter season. You won't regret it!

BAKED POTATO SOUP

• 3 lbs baked potatoes (=6 baker potatoes)
• 1 T. butter
• 1 1/2 c. onion
• 2 T. minced garlic
• 1 14 oz. can chicken broth
• 3 c. milk
• 1 T. salt
• 1/4 t. pepper

Melt butter in pan and saute onions & garlic about 10 minutes until soft, but not brown.
Add 2/3 of the potatoes--mashed.
Add broth, milk, salt & pepper
Bring to simmer, stirring occasionally
Cut up remaining potatoes into small cubes and add to soup--stirring gently.

Top with sour cream, cheese, green onions and bacon.

I usually just use dried onions because I'm too lazy to cut up a real onion most of the time. Same with the garlic. I usually use the bottled stuff.

Slow Cooker White Chicken Chili

• 2 (14 oz) cans chicken broth
• 3-4 chicken breasts, trimmed of fat
• 3 cloves garlic
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp dried oregano leaves
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp crushed red pepper
• 2 cans great northern beans
• 1 can white shoepeg corn
• 3 Tbsp lime juice
• 2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

Add chicken, broth, cumin, oregano, garlic, salt, and red pepper to slow cooker. Cover and let cook for about 6-8 hours on low or until chicken falls apart. Shred the chicken with two forks. Drain and rinse the beans and corn and add them to the slow cooker. Add chopped cilantro and lime juice to slow cooker. Put cover back on and let cook for 30 more minutes until heated through.

We topped it with cheese and tortilla chips. We also did tortillas the next night. It kind of resembles more of a tortilla soup vs. a chili. Whatever you want to call it though--it is divine.

I also froze apples that we'd picked the previous weekend as well as made an apple cobbler on Saturday. I don't think I've ever had such a "fresh food" day since my mom was alive and we'd eat all that fresh food from the garden when we'd visit her in Idaho. Those were tasty days. :)

Next year I think I'd like to try an herb garden. I'd love a never-ending supply of cilantro.