Taylor's Birthday

Strawberry Jello Salad

Grandma Florence’s Strawberry Salad

Boil hard the following:
1 pkg. Tapioca pudding (not instant)
1 pkg. vanilla pudding (not inst)
1 small box strawberry jello
3 cups water

Take off & cool well overnight.Mix in one small carton Cool WhipMix in sliced strawberries. Garnish top with strawberries to look pretty!

I doubled the recipe for our Cinco de Mayo party.

Leadership...

From the Marriot Hotel -



1. Continually challenge your team to do better.

2. Take good care of your employees, and they'll take good care of your customers, and the customers will come back.

3. Celebrate your people's success, not your own.

4. Know what you're good at and mine those competencies for all you're worth.

5. Do it and do it now. Err on the side of taking action.

6. Communicate. Listen to your customers, associates, and competitors.

7. See and be seen. Get out of your office, walk around, make yourself visible and accessible.

8. Success is in the details.

9. It's more important to hire people with the right qualities than with specific experience.

10. Customer needs may cary, but their bias for quality never does.

11. Eliminate the cause of a mistake. Don't just clean it up.

12. View every problem as an opportunity to grow.

Photography...

Photography can be so powerful. Check out this link.

Leslie's Really Yummy Bread

Beer Bread

3 c. self rising flour
½ c. sugar
1 can beer or carbonated beverage

Mix al ingredients for 20 strokes, mixture will be lumpy. Pour into a break loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 50-55 minutes or until golden brown.

Leslie's Chicken

Aunt Borghild’s Chicken
Serves 6

6 boneless chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
6 slices of cheddar cheese or Velveeta
¼ lb slices mushrooms (fresh is best)
½ c. white wine
2 c. Pepperidge Farm Herb Stuffing
1 stick butter

Place chicken in 9 x 13 glass baking dish.
On each piece put a slice of cheese.
Put mushrooms over cheese.
Mix soup and wine and pour over chicken.
Spread stuffing over top and pat it down so it acts as a cover.
Melt butter and drizzle over stuffing.

Bake uncovered 1 hr. at 350 degrees. (You can leave it in oven at 250 for another ½ hr to make sure chicken is done.)

anytime...

we joined a gym yesterday. I am so glad to finally be able to work out regularly. We went last night and I hopped on the treadmill for 30 minutes. It felt great!

Sleepy...

Taylor is still sleeping! I put her down at 10:30, so she has been out for almost 2 full hours. We have stuff to do today, so I'm wondering if I should be waking her up. Plus, she has to be hungry!
Although I made Spaghetti-Os for her and just ate almost all of them. Oops.

Library

I am a huge fan of the library. But I do need to keep better track of the books that I read.
I just finished "How to Talk to a Widower" by Jonathan Tropper. Really really enjoyed it! A funny and sad but speedy read.

Leinies!

We did the Leinenkugel's tour Sunday when we were in Chippewa. It was a fun tour, I love breweries. More fun to be there with Isaac and Marit as well!

Matt and Jessica's Wedding

a few pictures from the wedding this weekend. I love that mike and i did a ring shot, but we never got one of matt and jessica. oops.

Today's goal...

Today's big goal is to finish booking all flights and hotel for the extravaganza. I'm not technically working today, but I am going to go in as soon as I get ready and try to crank through that stuff. I have enough to do that I should go, especially since I bailed on taking Taylor today. I just need a day to catch up with stuff.

Only a couple of weeks till I get to go to California! I'm so jazzed!

Meanwhile, the snow is melting off the roof like crazy right now...it is supposed to be warmer this weekend!

working smarter

It appears that today working smarter is working from our couch. I got up early to drive Todd to the airport, then came home and crashed. I got a little work done before heading to the funeral today at 2 pm. It was a nice service for Allen Cederstrand, always good to be with family no matter what the reason. Grampa did a great job sharing about his older brother, talking about a sledding run that he had built when he was a teenager. Apparently it was quite amazing!
Then home to the couch and sweats and I cranked through a bunch of Extravaganza stuff. I think it is almost coming together!
Mike should be home soon to clean the kitchen, then I will cook dinner while he choses between my two movie selections, Ratatouille or The African Queen.
And thank goodness for a new OAR CD.

A New Year

Wow - a new year already! 2007 went fast! It was a good year...not too many changes in our lives, but that means nothing sad or horrible happened either!
I'm not really super into resolutions, but here are a few things I have been thinking about:

1 - wearing my retainer around the house more. stupid, right? I'm 28 years old and I have to wear a retainer. But I can feel mhy front tooth shifting and I do not want to have to get braces again. So totally worth it to wear my retainer around!

2-Be more concious of spending money.

3-Be healthier! No, I do not want to diet, but just to be more aware of what I am eating, when I am eating, and how much we are working out. We are hoping to join Anytime Fitness which would help.

4-Be tidier.

5-Be more compassionate.

6-Work smarter.

7-Spend more time doing the things I love with people that I can about.

8-Enjoy the moment.

I don't think I have a 9 or 10, but I'll keep thinking about it today.

Happy New Year!