There once was a unwanted, ugly, ORANGE basket that sat at Goodwill…
But I saw its potential, so I brought it home and gave it a makeover.
Now, the basket has new lease on life and it’s sitting, happily in the corner of the living room!
The End.
A couple of months ago, I started using Windows Live Writer (WLW) for creating blog posts instead of the default blog editor in Blogger. I’ve been meaning to get back to you on what I thought about it. Many of you have asked about it, so here are the highlights (and one low light) in my opinion:
1. It’s Free. You can download it here and start blogging! It downloads to your PC and you don’t have to be connected to the internet to write a post. It’s totally integrated with Blogger, and publishes your posts to your Blogger blog.
2. Photo uploads. Uploading photos to Blogger can be a daunting task. It takes awhile to upload multiple photos, and it’s clunky to move them around once they are uploaded. In WLW, the upload is much faster AND you can apply effects to your pictures. Instead of tweaking your photos in Picasa or Photoshop prior to uploading, you can now apply some fun effects to your pictures right in the post editor.
Chose from many photo borders:
The advanced settings include rotate, add a watermark, and crop:
Adding a watermark to my picture:
And, add effects like B&W, color pop, and emboss on the fly!
3. Preview. You can preview what your post looks like as if it was live on your blog before you actually post it. Your blog formatting comes over to WLW, so it looks exactly the same!
4. Formatting. Do you ever have problems formatting your posts in Blogger? I do! If you ever mess with the fonts and upload pictures, then you’ve probably had this problem too. In Blogger, I’d go to preview my post and find my fonts were really huge and/or spaced out weird. This doesn’t seem to happen in WLW. It’s as easy as formatting in Word. There are more fonts to chose from too!
5. Plug-ins. WLW offers hundreds of additional plug-ins so you can customize what you’d like it to do. It’s kind of like downloading apps for your smart phone. For example, there is a Twitter plug-in that automatically tweets when ever you publish a blog post. I don’t use this, but I’ve thought about trying it out.
6. Signature. The lack of auto-signature functionality is a huge complaint of mine. I cannot find a way to save my signature to the post template! It’s really weird to me that WLW doesn’t offer a quick and easy way to do this, so if you know of a way, please share! What I have to do to get around this is copy and paste my signature code to each post. So annoying!
Overall, compared to the Blogger post editor, it’s way easier and more customizable!
Ok that’s all for now. There is a lot more to WLW, but when you download it and try it out, you’ll see. Let me know what you think!
So far we have had far more success with the Green Bean bracelets than I ever imagined! It’s so wonderful to hear that lots of you would like your very own bracelet!
Guess what Josh and I are up too?
We ordered French, courses 1-5, and are homeschooling ourselves and learning French together! It’s really fun! We’ve set aside time once a week from our busy schedules that we dedicate to doing a session or two together.
We just completed our second class and we started learning questions and answers already! It’s amazing. We both took 2 years of French in High School, but hardly retained any of it. Josh’s only saying in French before we started these classes was: “Je m'apel Josh”!
The best part is, our reward for completing the entire course is a trip to France!! I can’t wait!!
Je voudrais un verre de vin, s’il vous plait!
Last week some friends and I went to Dinner Done. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a place you go to prepare your meals, package them up, and take them home to your freezer. Dinner Done is really fun to do, and it gives you a jump start on meal planning and preparation. I enjoy cooking, so I just supplement my Dinner Done meals in with other meals that I make from scratch.
Most of the Dinner Done’s are a complete meal, but others are just the main dish, so they still require some preparation. The meals give you recommendations on what to serve with the main entre, so that helps with the ideas.
The dinner Done I made the other night was Pork Tenderloin with a Maple Glaze. The side suggestion was Corn Mashed Potatoes. I had never had that before, but it sounded good. Mash potatoes and corn is also right up Josh’s alley, so I decided to try it.
It turned out so delicious, so I wanted to share the recipe with you that I came up with…
Chop up your potatoes and boil (15 – 20 minuets, or until your can easily stick a fork in them)
Drain the potatoes, and then add in some sour cream, milk, salt and pepper, then mash all together.
In a separate pan, sauté olive oil and minced garlic
Add a can of corn to the olive oil and garlic mixture and heat through.
Mix the corn with the potatoes.
Serve and enjoy!
1.What's your favorite time of day, and why?
I think my favorite time of the day is when Josh and I are both finished with the day and when we are tucked in bed and settling down for the night. We usually watch some TV together before going to sleep, and that’s my favorite, most relaxing time of the day.
This is a hard one for me, because there are lots of foods I could live off of. Sandwiches, soups, beans (yes, I love beans), frozen yogurt are all at the top of my list. My number one food that I could live on is cereal though. I think I pretty much did live off of it when I was a kid. Anytime I wanted a snack, breakfast, or I didn’t like what was being served for dinner – I ate cereal!
3. If you could have one wish granted, what would it be?
To have my four Green Beans happy and healthy with me here on earth.
4. What is one thing you get teased about a lot?
I don’t know… maybe wearing glasses? I first started wearing glasses in the 3rd grade and hated it.
5.If you could choose one book, movie or TV show to spend your life in, what would it be?
Legally Blonde? :)
I know it sounds terrible, but I love that movie and Elle Woods made me seriously consider going to Law School!
6. If you could have one talent that you don't already have, what would it be?
I would love to be a natural at dancing. I’m not the most coordinated or graceful person, so having that talent would be nice.
7. If money were no object, where would you go on vacation?
I would take a month long Mediterranean cruise and take my time visiting all the bordering countries. I’d love to see Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt. That would be a dream come true!
8. If you were an awesome singer, which genre would you sing?
I’ve never had a big desire to be a singer, but if I did, I guess I’d do pop music.
9. If you could have a $10,000 shopping spree to one store, where would it be?
Nordstroms! I’d splurge on expensive purses, shoes, jewelry and clothes.
10. If you could live at any point in time, when would it be?
I don’t really have a preference other than modern day or in the future. I like all my modern conveniences!
11. If every outfit in your wardrobe had to be the same color, what would it be?
I love color, but if I had to stick with just one color, it’d be black. I wear a lot of black, and it’s so versatile. You can dress it up or down.
12. If you were one of the seven dwarves, which one would you be?
I’d be the sleepy dwarf, because I can always go for a nap!
13. What's the last album you listened to?
Actually, it’s an old one… Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream
I’ve been a huge blogging slump lately. I just haven’t felt like I’ve had anything to say. I feel like I’m entering a new phase in my journey, now that my babies’ first Heaven Days have passed. I don’t know what’s next, but it feels good so far.
Instead of feeling further from the memory of my children, and from the day that I held them in my arms, I am feeling better. More free from the haze that I have been living in over the past year. More like myself again. Oh, how I’ve missed me!
The grief will inevitably come and go in waves, like it usually does. As you may know, all too well, this whole grief thing is really unpredictable. One of the hardest parts about it, is that there is no controlling it. For those of us who are used to controlling just about everything in our lives, grief can really though you for a loop. I acknowledge this is now a part of my life and I’m learning how to cope with it.
Thanks to our memories, my blog, and all of your support, the memory of The Green Beans will live on forever. They will always be perfect in our memories and in heaven. I’m lucky to have them in my life.
I look forward to what God has planned for me. I can’t wait for what’s next!
Over the past three years it has been flipped upside down. I am 31 years old, and married to my hubby of three years, Josh. We have 4 beautiful angel babies, who are fondly known as our “Green Beans”. The first of my quads, Heidi, held on as long as she could and was born on January 31, 2009 after pPROMing at 17 weeks. A few weeks later, I pPROM’d with my sweet Lily. Lily, Paige, and Rylan were all born at 22 weeks on February 23, 2009. Just after being released from the hospital empty handed, I returned with a high fever and infection. Two of the nights I spent in the hospital that week, I honestly thought I was going to die. It was the sickest and most hopeless I’ve ever been. I’m pretty sure my diagnosis was a broken heart.
Our journey to becoming parents has had its share of happiness and heartbreaks. I got through every day by staying close to Josh, friends and family, blogging, and relying on God that my future will be bright. All the love and support I’ve gotten has greatly helped me manage……I am alive and well, and want to be my absolute best as a result of this.
On May 1st 2011, we welcomed our sweet baby girl, Taylor, into this world. She is our miracle baby and brings so much joy and happiness in our lives. She is such a gift from God.
I have come out of all of this with a better appreciation of life. I hope to make the best of this situation by helping others who will experience a similar loss.
