A Good Dose of B-12 and Crashing Hard Drives

The past few weeks have been something else! We have been traveling up to Michigan to my parent's place in order to help fix up the house. It has been amazing finding a number of childhood trinkets and tons of pictures from the past 60 years! Seeing my father in lederhosen as a boy and blue polyester hounds tooth pants when he came over here in 66, my mother in some of the most amazing and stunning fashions, my sister and I doing all sorts of crazy poses for the camera. I had to take a double look at some of my baby and toddler pictures thinking that it was my daughter. We had such a wonderful hardworking time.
The Posh Event is starting to take off again with more business which is a blessing although also quite hard to keep up with. My daughter has been quite demanding lately and school keeps adding more assignments. Figuring out an officiant workflow has been quite challenging. So, my mother being the guru of vitamins told me that I must take B-12 to help with energy and stress. I could write a blog on just the different vitamins and supplements my mother has found and used over the past few decades. She is like the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with Windex. Anything goes wrong in your life, there is a vitamin for that, anything goes right in your life, it was due to a vitamin...ok, maybe not that dramatic, but you get the point. My mother was prepared and had these B-12 drops that you put under your tongue and hold there for 30 seconds. I am sorry, but those drops looked just like that horrible medicine we were forced to take back in the day that would leave that bitter taste in your mouth for as long as your ailment. I very nicely declined. She then went on to show how it wasn't bad by giving it to my sister. My sister of course had to look like someone just poisoned her. So, once again, I said ever so nicely...
no way! My mother decided that she was going to show me how she takes it just fine. She put it under her tongue and had to keep it there for 30 seconds. My sister did the count down...1...2...3...I had to add my own spin on the count down by throwing other numbers and saying holding up a bag of my Dad's ever so precious walnuts..."would you like some of papa's nuts mom??" "They may be a little salty"..."oops, I just drop papa's nuts, they may be cracked now" by time 30 seconds came around mom was just about gagging on the drops and I was getting ready to run. So at that point, all niceties went out of the door and my mother and sister were just going to hold me down to give me the drops. I learned a few things from my daughter. Stand tall, face the ceiling, shut your mouth and duck and weave! That worked great especially since I am taller than both of them. I escaped with not having to take it, but the bottles did go home with me still.
Tuesday I returned home with a few hundred emails waiting for me and a bunch of work on my desk. My husband who was just offered a promotion at work had a meeting with his boss to discuss the offer. Poor Dave was really stressed about that and I was stressed about it for him. Our daughter's schedule was way off so I was desperately trying to get her to take her nap and to eat for the day. But she just wanted to hang out on my lap and play on the computer with me. By time Wednesday came I decided to break down and take the B-12. Amazingly, it didn't taste as bad as I thought. I figured that it couldn't hurt. After taking the vitamin and doing breakfast with my daughter I sat at my desk to start on work. The computer had just finished an HP update and needed to restart. Only that, it didn't start back up. I tried a few more times, I then ran a diagnostics test on the system rather annoyed. This computer is under a year old and has had more problems on this one system than I have had on my 10 past systems of other brands over the past 15 years! I started to think about a number of things I didn't have backed up as yet and really started to panic. As the test ran I figured as long as the hard drive was ok, then I would be fine. The test started to work on the hard drive...10%...30%...60%...80%....FAIL! WHAT!? I mean, this thing didn't just fail, it FAILED with a giant red X and the word in capital letters below. It was as if the computer was going to blow up. I started to hyperventilate! I put my daughter in her playpen with my water bottle and a few toys as I went to sit down to try to calm down. I called my husband, as he answered I couldn't even talk, the situation really sunk in. All I could do on the phone was "Gasp...Gasp...Gasp!" Dave told me he would be here in 20 mins. I was able to calm down who knows, maybe the B-12 actually helped! So, I sit her patiently with my laptop waiting to hear the fate of my hard drive and the information on it. Wish me Luck!

I don't know what I made for dinner, but it was darn good!!

Tonight I made dinner with no plan in mind. I have a ton of vegetables from the garden and farmers market, so I decided to just "go with the wind" on this one. This is what I did...

1 med candy onion chopped
1 large green pepper chopped
3 small zucchini chopped
2 small finger eggplant chopped
2 med carrots sliced
1 green chili pepper minced
1 large garlic clove minced
4 roma tomatos diced
1/2 cup corn fresh off the cob
1 lb chicken kind of chopped up
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tbs ground ginger (freshly grated I think would be better)
1/4 cup garlic sesame sauce
3 tbs soy sauce
1/4 cup splenda/sugar (either or)

I put all of the veggies in a large pan with the olive oil and sauteed until onions were glossy. I then added the chicken with ground ginger. After the chicken was cooked I added the sauce and soy sauce. Then I added the splenda.

I made a side of white rice since I was out of brown rice.

It was really delicious! Sweet and Spicy. I have no idea what to call it, but it was great!
Feel free to leave a comment and name it or if it sounds like something that is already out there I would love to know!

Beautiful Beaches, Sites, and a Baby in Ohio...

Our trip to Marblehead was amazing despite some crazy weather. In the morning I had a photoshoot of an amazing couple Eric and Sami. We met at Bay Point Yacht Club where they keep two boats and stay there a few days a week during the summer. They knew that I was going to make this a mini vacation with my family so they had a three day guest pass for the club and beach for us as well as some toys ready for my daughter to pay on the beach with. My daughter was more than thrilled. The Beach at Bay Point Yacht Club was beautiful and clean. My daughter had a wonderful time playing with the sand and jumping in the water with her daddy. You could even see Cedar Point from the waterbreak. In the picture to the right if you enlarge it you can see some of the rides at Cedar Point in the background. I can only imagine the view on a clear day. The photoshoot took place on the beach, water break, and then down to the Marblehead lighthouse. And with a little luck the weather held up.

The last time Dave and I have been to the Marblehead Lighthouse was during one of our whim explorations when we thought that we found this little hidden treasure since no one was there. This time there were practically tour busses and company picnics going on at the location. Who would had guessed for a Thursday! It made the photoshoot a little more difficult, but I guess it's nothing that a little photoshop work can't fix. But it is quite the site to see all the same. Plus you can't argue since it's free to the public. My daughter looked to have a good time running around. Although this place gives you direct access to the water where there are just rocks and rather large waves. Not a place to let a little one run wild.
We wrapped up the photoshoot and decided to drive along the lake shore to find lunch. The town of Marblehead is really cute. Everyone raves about the little icecream shop out there. Plus there are a ton of art galleries. The area is a pretty popular vacation area where people (especially from Ohio) have small cabins up there that they go to during the weekends. There are a bunch of bed and breakfast places as well as ads all over for "Fishing Cabins"? I am not sure why they do not just say cabins, it makes me almost feel as if those places are not as nice and that they are just trying to set up some expectation management. Who knows. Maybe one day I will look into that since they also seem quite a bit cheaper, and hey, I love fishing!

We kept driving a long the shore up towards the Putt n Bay ferry on Catawba Island (even though on the map it looks more like a penninsula). We contemplated going to Putt n Bay, but with the weather looming the way it was we figured that we would stay on the mainland. We found a place to eat called Rudders Deli and Cafe. It was really cute although the more we were there the more we realized that it must cater to the tourist going up to Put N Bay. They have a gift shop, a market place, as well as a bakery and deli. They do not have a website though and when I looked it up on Yahoo Local, it considers it in Port Clinton. Rudders Gift Shop and Market Yahoo Local . David had the roast beef and I had the ham with spicy mustard. They also had a children's meal with a hotdog (mind you, the hot dog they advertised as "The best hot dog in Chicago!" good to know when you are in OHIO). The food was decent. All three meals with drinks came up to around 16.00. We ended up going back for a dessert each since they also advertised homemade baked goods. I had the brownie and my husband had the apple bar. The brownie was mediocre at best, but that apple bar was delicious! I wanted to steal it from my husband! My daughter could care less about the hotdog but found the giant cookie in the bag and tried to run off with it! It was a nice visit.

We continued along the Lake Erie lakefront. We kept running into whitout rain so we would slow down or stop for a while. We stopped at Lakeview Metro Park in Lorain for a while. Unfortunately the beach was closed. So we just made it a diaper change pit stop and kept moving. We caught up with the rain again and decided to start heading back the way we came. We didn't realize that there was also a storm coming up behind us. The wind blew feircely and we were in whiteout rain again. The thunder and lightening were intense. I thought for sure that our daughter was going to be scared, but there she was clapping her hands and laughing pointing around. We slowed the car down since we couldn't see what was going on and as fast as it came it went away. As we could see again we started to drive back down the road we came from we were shocked. Trees were down, cars under trees, debris everywhere, powerlines down. The emergency crews flying down the roads and people all over the place surveying the damage. We needed to make another pit stop so we waited to get back to the Metro Park. Trees were down there as well and all of the lifeguard stands were blown over. It was crazy to see all of this!

Following the wind with a baby

Admittedly, it has become significantly more difficult to travel on a whim with a baby. For our first year most of our trips were to go see family members. It involved me being a crazy mother packing 4 bags, a stroller and a pack-n-play...just for my daughter. Dave became a pack mule having to lug all of these things to the car and try to figure out how to fit everything. It would take me another two hours to get out of the house and then we would stop about two times along the way. Don't even have me start on how I would get car sick just because I would keep looking back into the mirror to make sure our daughter was alright. Mind you, she would usually sleep throughout the entire trip. By time we would get to our destination I would be exhausted.
Yesterday my daughter turned 18 months and things have gotten better. We are down to two bags, and closer to an hour late. I figure that at this rate in another 6 months we should be down to one bag... and about on time??
Now that my daughter is a toddler I focus more on clothing since she seems to be able to find a way to get messy in no time. So one bag is devoted to that and the other is supplied with food, drinks, diapers, wipes, and other supplies. So far so good. The only problem now is the fact that she doesn't want to sleep on the trip anymore, she wants to see what is going on and gets restless after a while in the car. So we need to stop a little more often. But, this has become a blessing in disguise! We get to follow the wind in a whole new way. Instead of just stopping anywhere we look for something different. If it is time to eat then we look for a cute little place to eat at. If we just need to get out and walk a little we look for parks or little attractions. We have now been able to see even more this way!
So granted even though it takes us a little more motivation and time to get out of the house, once we are out we are getting to see things on a whim in a whole new way! This was the case with our Marblehead trip last week. Actually, thanks to her, we missed being in a huge storm! That will be explained more in the next posting.

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