sunshine and warm

it's so nice to get a bit of fresh, warm air. it makes me hunger for spring. it's supposed to be in the 60's tomorrow and then snow and the 30's for sunday. it's been a wild winter. not much new here. kayla and i continue to work on the wedding, but it's fairly easy at this point. she's doing most of it and it's pretty laid back, so i hope it continues at this pace. hope you all are enjoying some spring weather in 'your neck of the woods'.

Bloggin' in. = )

Hi BD Girls,

It's  been a while since I 'blogged in.' (Looks like the rest of  you are at about my speed. = )  

I had a week away with  my hubby to beautiful, sunny, & crowded (St. Pete) Florida. We were visiting family - another birthday trip! - this time for Gary's brother. 

Hoping everyone is well. Still feeling strength and refreshment from our wonderful weekend, Cecelia! 

Praying for Brad & Lonnie's family. 

Blessings to all, Debra

pray for Lonnie's husband

Brad's mother died last night in Salt Lake City. She found out she had cancer just before Christmas and it was pretty far gone by then. Brad has gone already and Lonnie will leave soon to go to Utah. There are lots of decisions to make about his mother's estate and some past tensions among siblings that may make it an even more stressful time, so pray for them all.

Hello Everyone!
Been busy last 2 weeks trying to get 3 business cards and one spa menu done on a computer that was slowly crashing....now, $1,700.00 later, have new bigger,faster,better computer...but way behind learning new things and trying to catch up.(nothing new here!)

Will try to fill in some holes....yes Kat, send me all pics you have to: wattsdesigns@comcast.net
I can photoshop, and then resize anything that needs to be done, and send them back to you for the book.
Birthdays you're all missing from Colorado are: Kay- yesterday- Feb.21, Deb Strawn-Dec. 2, and Me-Nov.10.
Good job on the cleanse Cecelia! Dinner at Deb's next week is going to be SOOOO Good No?!!?
Off to look at the snap fish pics....
Hugs to all of you, Lonnie

cleansing fast

Hi Girls - Don and I have been on a cleansing fast. We just completed Day 7. It's called Master Cleanse and it involves a salt water flush in the morning and 'lemonade' made from freshly-squeezed lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper. Some of you have probably heard of it. Anyway, we're almost never hungry but it gets a little boring and I would just love to eat. We are hoping to make it 10 days and then we'll have 3 days to ease back into regular food. The plus is that I'm losing weight and hope to make some changes that will allow me to keep it off when we're done. The purpose of the cleanse is to flush out toxins. Don and I hope to do it once a year, just to keep fit. Hope you all are doing great.

Hello Girls!

Kathy, you have a great eye for special moments. Thanks so much for taking & posting pics! The tornado news continues to be disturbing - so much damage! Thanks for caring about your new friends here in TN. So sweet.

Cecelia, I hope the Broadmoor was amazing, and that your foot/ankle is much better. The weekend was so-o-o amazing - and with lingering effects. A friend at the Y told me there is a castle-like home (now-resort) that serves high tea in the Springs. Next time, eh?  

Deb, the chocolate pie recipe - did you find it? You can find it where I 'commented' on my on blog (mistake =). I'm getting it though.

My life has been filled with music since arriving home. Husband, Gary, and son-in-law, Josh, have been busy putting polishing touches on daughter, Sarah's 12- song recording project. (Only Cecelia really knows how l-o-n-g this project has been under construction.) So (glass of chianti in hand & reminiscent of the great weekend Cecelia so lovingly treated us to) here's to large and small victories and accomplishments. By tomorrow it will be done. Then Gary & I are off to St. Petersburg, FL for his brother's 57th birthday. Looking forward to family & FL sunshine.

Love to all, Debra

thank you kathy!

those pictures are amazing! it made the whole weekend come back for me. such great closeups. can't wait for lonnie to get hers up so we can see kathy some more.

don and i had our weekend at the broadmoor. it was very good, although too much food and wine. we think don actually got food poisoning on the last night - yuck. anyway, we are now on a fast, so looking at all that good food we had on our weekend was kind of hard!

i've never gone on anything like snapfish, so again, another new experience gleaned from the marvelous 8!

Kathy's pictures

Hi girls,
Aren't Kathy's pictures fabulous?! What would we do without people who remember their cameras? Look at picture #125 (in the slide show) especially--it's worthy of a big print. Also the ones of Cecelia looking like a model laying on the couch. I'll have you know I looked up "lying" and "laying" because I didn't want to publish a grammatically incorrect blog, and it says it is a transitive and intransitive verb meaning "to produce eggs." Well, I hope she wasn't.
Kathy, thank you so much for the album. It brings back such a good time.
Love to you all and an extra thank you to Kathy,
Debbie

snapfish pictures

My little lovely ladies,

I put all the pictures (note that they are redundant ones and unedited) on snapfish. Just go to ceceliabd.snapfish.com/snapfish. The password is 022008 (the month and year of the party). Lonnie, can you photoshop these pictures from snapfish? Let me know if this works as I am a novice at this. Well, it is 5:30 and I need to move this old bag of bones. Later, Kathy

slow as molasses in SD winter

Hi my little dearies,

First of all, Cecelia, I am still so awestruck by the dreamy weekend and humbled to have been a part of it. Your energy, creativity, thoughtful details, and of course the money it took to pull this together is truly mindboggling. It was the best birthday party I have ever been to including my own. It has been a wild and busy week for me so I am a bit late in joining in on the conversation here. I did toon my ear to the devastating news from TN, and since I have newfriends there , it took on a personal touch. I am so thankful you all are all right, but nonethess I suspect you are very much effected by this destruction being so close. I am anxious to try some of the new recipes you all have shared and am going to try to post a few pictures as well from time to time. I have not yet started on the book as it will take some focused time, but will let you know when I am done and I think you should be able to get them off snapfish.com. I will keep you posted. Oh, my birthday is September 10 (just one day short of the infamous 9/11) and let me recommend staying away from those rascally peddlers on ebay. You gals are the best! Kathy

edit on the roast

hey cecelia. yes, i do add a bit of water (maybe a 1/2 cup - unless i want lots of gravy then maybe closer to a cup) ... so sorry for the brain lapse on that one! enjoy your fabulous weekend.... will be praying for that foot/ankle.... did you get it checked out?

editing a post

hi guys - if you decide after publishing your post that you need to change it, click on the yellow pencil that appears under the post. you can change whatever you like and then repost. thanks for the recipes so far. i'm copying them into a folder called 'toila' where i'll keep birthdays and such.

don and i are off to the broadmoor this weekend for my second birthday treat. it's a rather fancy place and i think we will be on our feet a lot (doubt my danskos will look so hot with my black dress) - not sure how that will work with my gimpy foot. i really thought it was almost new but after some shopping yesterday, it was screaming a bit.

Cocoa Tofu Pie Recipe

Hi Everyone,

 Deb requested this recipe. It's just like chocolate mousse w/o the guilt. Hope you enjoy it. Love, Debra

recipe question

marilyn, do you brown the roast before you put it in the crock pot? Any liquid added? I was telling Don about this tonight so I'm glad you sent it.

blogging is just too fun!

ok, so this blogging is way too fun! so, three new colorado friends... post your birthdays as well please :)

recipe i love is for the crock pot:
1 chuck roast
1 bunch of kale
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper to taste
cook on low 8 hours and toila! you have meat and a veggie! drippings make great gravy too!

just finished baking cakes - jim and my best friend share a birthday tomorrow.... one ordered triple layered chocolate torte and the other a white cake.... can you guess which ordered which?! :) hope this finds everyone having a great day..... remember last thursday this time debra? :) (we were enjoying a guiness at the pub in the airport since our flight was delayed)

go-to recipe from cecelia

I am so glad that you two are okay. I hate tornadoes so much - especially in TN where most folks don't have a basement. Here's my go-to recipe:

6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (can use other chicken, just adjust cooking time)
2 sweet potatoes cut into 1" cubes
1 yellow onion cut into 1" cubes
2 T. olive oil
3 T. real maple syrup
3 sprigs fresh thyme

Place chicken, sweet potatoes and onion in shallow roaster. Drizzle olive oil on top and toss to coat everything. Drizzle with maple syrup and season with salt and pepper. Add thyme on top. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Remove cover and cook until nicely browned.

After you make this once, you won't need to use the recipe. Bon Appetit! Cecelia

more chocolate bars

hello all! we too survived the storms last night but i was camped in whole foods for a while where i had gone to purchase more of those chocolate bars!! oh no....cecelia.... what have you done?! :) hope you had an awesome birthday!

kay, my birthday is december 7th.... easy to remember - pearl harbor day. debbie, you are so very funny.... i smiled as i read your post! debra, glad you are safe and sound... pretty sleepless in franklin, eh?

hope this finds you all so well. off to cook for the fam. .... recipe swap anyone? would love to know everyone's absolute favorite recipe - the one you always "go-to".... of course mine are all kid friendly at this stage of my life... and somewhat boring i might add. :)
marilyn

Hello Fab 8!

Toila!~ It's me from Tennessee! Still gloating over all the fun I had with all of you in CO last weekend. I'm so happy to have you new friends. Cecelia, thank you for putting it all together. - I hope your birthday year is an amazing one! So happy you wanted to share some of it with us.

Believe it or not, this is my first-ever blog entry, so bear with me. I'm learning something new. 

Two of the addresses (Lonnie & Deb) came back to me. If  you e-mail me, maybe I can figure where I went wrong. That's all for now. Next entry I'll have the book list from Sunday at the table.

Blessings, Debra

birthday

Kay, my birthday is October 19th and I really like presents that are huge, expensive and difficult to ship. Just so you know.
Debbie

Smiling and giggling

I am still smiling and giggling and basking in the warmth of our fabulous Cecelia's party. Seems to me that we were the ones gifted beyond belief. I would like the birthday dates (ok,ok, not the year)of my new four friends. As if we needed an excuse to get in touch. Cecelia, you continue to enrich our lives encouraging us to blog. A first for many of us. It's not hard at all after the tutoring session. Thanks

Kay

adding pictures part 2

I'm giving this a try. I only took 4 pictures and this is the only one that wasn't blurry but even this one looks as though Debra has a weird arm attached the wrong way on her body! Thank goodness for Lonnie and Kathy.

adding pictures

Lonnie, I added 'toila' by editing the template for the blog, but anyone can add pictures to their posts. When you are in the box where you make your post, look at the light brown border just above the writing area. The second button from the right is a landscrape icon. Click on it and you will see that you can add an image either from your computer or an online image. Then it will give you options about where you want your image to be in the post. So Lonnie you can pull in pictures from a file on your computer or probably even from the memory card you have plugged into it. Let's see pictures from everyone!

now I am blog savvy woman

Wasn't that the best weekend we've ever had? It's a bit hard getting back to normal, but we must all tackle our work once again. Cecelia, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and happy birthday today! My new goal is to lose enough weight so that I can wear all three of my new jackets at once, thus tripling the shopping memory. To old friends, Kathy and Cecelia (and Don) and all the new ones, I love you all!
Debbie

Happy Wonderful Birthday Gorgeous!!!

WHOOO HOOOO !!
I did it, how did you get the pointed brush lettering on the page cecelia?
I hope your day is wonderful and that you and Don have a great time at the Broadmoore with your food and wine tasting, and that you can pull off a gorgeous dress without too much limping on your gimpy foot!
I Love You Friend....thanks for "giving" us 4 new and incredible friends....wow! It looks like tho it was your birthday, you ended up giving the best gifts, 4 unbelievable woman.
You make 50 look SOOOOO Good!
Love you, Lonnie

a gift beyond words

hey all!
cecelia... i so looooove the name of the blog! this is the first "blogging" i've done and i'm so very excited! :)
i echo cecelia's sentiments of this amazing weekend.... thank you for being the "table" at which we all met!
as kathy and i discussed on the way back to the airport, this weekend was an incredible gift and one that i will cherish for a long time.... even as i have re-entered my life of four busy young children and a bakery this day i am basking in the after-glow of a wonderfully authentic time of fellowship, joy, laughter and love. thanks to each of you for that! my heart is full..... marilyn

My Chocolate bar

just had my chocolate bar this afternoon with my chocolate hazelnut tea - yummy. i am motivated to exercise but can't right now with my foot. (very convenient)

when you all get on and start to post, write your posts as a new post every time, rather than commenting on a specific post. i think that will work best - we'll see. let me know if you like the title of the blog.

Afterglow

By now all of you have reentered your real life. I hope what we had together last weekend will go with you. I want to say that you all blessed me more than I can say. It was a wonderful, special time and I think that perhaps what happened during our weekend goes deeper than we may all know. I look forward to seeing how this laughter-filled beginning plays out in our lives. Let me know if you have any problems with the blog.
Love, Cecelia