Insert Happy Faces....

Church this morning was really nice. We had a couple of good talks and lessons. Lately, my husband has had to do a lot of traveling for the church, and, therefore, we don't get to go together much. *insert sad face* All our of our children have left the nest now and so, I am there all by myself. It's really hard, especially since we just moved and are new to the ward (congregation).  I am happy to say, though, we have quite a few friendly people that come up and shake my had each Sunday. That feels nice. *insert happy face*

Today, my husband had to travel a couple hours to get to the ward he was to talk in, which meant he had a couple hours to travel home after the meetings. I beat him home, of course, and grabbed something to eat and talked to my mom. I love talking to my mom. *insert another happy face*  When my husband got home, he told me he had something for me...it was a cute little sugar box a lady at church had made for everyone. It is always nice when someone thinks of you. He even picked one with my favorite color...yellow. I like purple and pink too....*insert yet another happy face*

Dancing Does Make You Smarter

Today, as I scrolled down my facebook, I see this.

I always knew dancing was good for you in every way, and this study proves it!  I've been dancing since I was three, and have always loved it. I love the way it makes me feel; energetic, happy, etc. I have tried to keep active over the years, and many of the things I learned to do as a dancer, I try to keep doing now. Ya know what? At the age of 55, I can still do the splits! And even though I could stand to loose a few LB's, my core is pretty strong. Not understanding that one, but, yes, I have really good balance, and I contribute that to my core; and I contribute my core muscles and the know how in balancing, and flexibility to my dance background. 

As far as mental capacity, it is so true that dance can help with that. Learning a sequence of steps, for example, helps one to develop memory.

 Funny story...so, several years ago when I was in a tap class for adults (most of us had children who were taking dance at the studio), the teacher would teach us a step. When we got that down, we would learn another step, and then a third. After having the three steps perfected, she would then tell us to put them together. I can't tell you how many times we would stand there and look at her with a blank face and then finally, someone would say, "What was the first step." See? This is how one can develop and increase mental capacity and memory. lol

This is a picture of my first recital. I am the one third from the left looking away. I am almost four here, and I remember that dress. It was green, my favorite color, and I loved it. We did a tap number to "The Ice Cream Man." 

I am grateful that my mom took me to dance classes and am thankful that I've been able to be a part of dance my whole life. Now, my daughter has followed in my footsteps with the love of dance. She is much, much better than I ever thought to be, and love to watch her in motion. Now we have a new little girl in our family, my grand daughter (my daughter's baby), and it will be interesting to see if we have yet another generation of little girls taking classes and loving dance.

My daughter ready for her ballet class so many years ago.

And here she is now in yoga poses spelling her name out

Ashley...

Supermarket Healthy by Melissa D'Arabian

What I like about Supermarket Healthy by Melissa D'Arabian, are not only the yummy looking pictures, but also the strategies she gives; Supermarket Strategies, Kitchen Strategies, and Entertaining Strategies. Melissa tells how you can make your supermarket work for YOU! These boxes throughout the book gives tips on ways to save money and making choices while in the store. Sometimes it is hard to find what you are looking for, because the store does not carry it, so what can you substitute? Melissa will help you....

Melissa also gives you time saving tips in the Kitchen Strategy section and the Entertaining Strategy boxes help you to learn to stretch your food and  maybe even give your dish a little spin, as in stepping it up a notch or two.

Many of these recipes are healthy and call for ingredients that are easy to find in YOUR neighborhood store. 

Melissa D"Arabian is a well known Food Network star, who has a family to feed at home. Her recipes are family friendly, and also Mom friendly, because they are easy and delicious. Healthy is the key word in the title of this book, but taste and satisfaction are not compromised. 

, "I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

Messy Bead DIY

Here is a video on how to make a messy bead that you can use as a pendant, or bead itself. 

Here is an up close view of the pendant I show in my video.

Here is a picture of the finished product. 

I plan to use this and more that I make like it, in a necklace. When I get it done...I'll post.

Thank you for watching!

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Finally, A New Fridge!

We have been in our home a little over a month now. Our new home did not have a fridge, and we had to leave the one in our home in Kentucky there. We did, however, have an old fridge that we have carried on our moves from Arkansas to Indiana, then to Louisiana, Kentucky and now back down to Louisiana. That has been a great appliance. The only problem...it did not fit into the space in our new home. Which meant, we had to buy a new one *sigh*

We have been looking for a fridge forever, it seems; and during this time our old one has been in the garage...it has been a pain in the you know what, hauling stuff back in forth. 

When we moved to Kentucky 2 1/2 years ago, we had asked for the fridge to stay. During inspection, we found that it did not work, so we were given an allowance to buy a new one. I loved that fridge. It was one of those side by sides with the freezer at the bottom...and it was BIG! I was sad that our buyers asked for it, and we had to leave it. 

As we have been looking lately to buy a new refrigerator, we have found they have gone WAAAAY up in price :P  We also found that a lot of the them were too big; and the ones that did fit, were $500 more than the bigs ones. Not sure why.

We narrowed it down to two, one was a stainless, small version of our one in Kentucky, and the other was a small version of what we already had. In our current kitchen, we have a black oven/stove and a white dishwasher, so I really did not want a third color in there, so we decided to get the black one, besides the black fridge was $400 less. 

I'm so glad I don't have to make trips back and forth from the kitchen anymore.

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