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iPod
Sweepstakes
Click here
for more info on how you can win your very own
iPod Shuffle from OnyxRain.com!
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May
10th, 2008
| I
need your help, folks! As many of you know, I've
had over a dozen photos showcased on national Jones
Soda labels over the past few years. My oldest daughter,
Sabrina, has been on about 6 or 7 now (I'm beginning
to lose track!). Her sister, Juliana, has never had
her photo selected. |
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| Jones Soda
is coming up on their 10,000th label, so they decided
to run a contest. People submitted photos, and after
wading through 3,889 entries, they selected their
top 20 favorites for people to vote on. Juliana is
in the top 20! The bonus is that even if she doesn't
win the coveted 10,000th label... they will be printing
the picture for a national label run. Unbeknownst
to Jones, they gave Juliana an early Birthday present.
She turns 4 next Wednesday. So... if you would please,
click on her black and white picture there, and go
vote for her! If you would like to forward that on
to all your family and friends, and have them vote
too, that would be awesome! Thanks! |
March
28th, 2008
Get Healthy Mission: Week 5 update
We've cut out 95% of the sugars from our snacks and meals.
We use Splenda as our sweetener alternative when needed.
We eat whole grain breads... and keep an eye out that
they don't include high fructose corn syrup. Watch out,
because a lot of breads do! Once a week we allow ourselves
a "regular" treat. I'm eating a lot more oatmeal,
and if I feel the desire for sweetener, I use the Splenda
brown sugar alternative. We are all drinking a lot of
water. I tend to gravitate towards the 0cal Aquafina Flavorsplash
waters. If I want to drink just plain water, I stick with
steamed, distilled water. Steamed tastes so much better
to me than spring water.
I've lost about 14lbs! My clothes fit a lot looser on
me. I've hit a weight milestone that I haven't been at
in over 6 years. Can't wait to get down to the next dress
size!
March
24th, 2008
I'll be selling some of my craft supplies
on eBay. Check for listings by "the_magic_forest"
to see what's available!
March
5th, 2008
For those of you that can watch the Food
Network, tune in to reruns of an episode of Unwrapped
entitled "Fizzy".
The first segment discusses Jones Soda and their carbonated
candies... and if you look closely at the Jones bottles
that they repeatedly display, you might just spot my daughter
Sabrina
on a bottle of Berry
Lemonade!
Thanks to Herb Woerpol and the Northwest
Advance for featuring me in an article
in this week's paper!
February
20th, 2008
As part of our Get Healthy mission,
I've made the decision to quit drinking soda. For years
diet soda has been a part of my daily routine. I thought
it was OK. After all, it said diet, right?
A doctor recently told me that carbonation
in drinks, diet or not, will leach the minerals from your
bones. That leads me to think that carbonation could be
a contributing factor to osteoporosis... and considering
I've got close family members suffering from the disease,
it's best just to get it out of my life all together.
On top of that, I've been reading health
reports about the sweeteners used in diet soda. Apparently,
they slow our metabolism and thus make it more difficult
to lose weight. How is that diet?!
That same doctor told me that the best alternative
sweetener to sugar is Splenda. Unlike Nutrasweet, which
is only a compound with a sweet flavor, Splenda is actually
sugar that has been modified to turn off the element which
makes the sugar absorb into our bodies.
You can't bake with Nutrasweet. The heat
will nullify the sweetness. You can bake with Splenda.
This is a good thing. My daughters were on the verge of
tears thinking they'd never be able to have a cookie or
a piece of cake again. Even with Splenda, I told them
it's only in moderation, and only on special occasions.
So... it's now day three without any diet
soda. I've got a caffeine withdrawl headache like you
wouldn't believe. Can't wait for this part to be over!
February
17th, 2008
We're on a mission here at the Tiensivu
household. It's time to get into shape! After all, summer
isn't too far away... and I don't know about the rest
of you Michiganders, but I am SO ready for it.
Enough with all this snow!
The two things we are working on are, of
course, diet and exercise.
I am definitely not the world's greatest
cook. There aren't that many dishes that I can prepare.
We're all very sick of pot roast at this point!
Every once in a great while I'll throw something
together that turns out tasty. Tonight was such a night.
You will find a link at the bottom of this page that will
lead to my (good!) recipes.
As for the exercise... We're doing 60 minutes
every day of crazy free range dancing to a selection of
upbeat songs. We'll work on a more structured exercise
program over the next few weeks.
February
13th, 2008
Just a note on email... Not sure who it
was, but someone tried to send me a 21GB email this past
week. Yes folks, 21 Gigabytes, not Megabytes. My
husband said it probably took the sender a week just to
get it processed from the mail servers on their side.
There is no way I could have ever downloaded
it. Not only did the message disrupted my mail service,
but every other email account hosted on the same server
as mine. It was deleted before I even got a chance to
see it, and I don't even know who it was from. So to whomever
sent it... try sending me a text only message next time.
If you have to attach a photo to your email, please
make sure it is under 1MB! Thanks!
February
1st, 2008
I am pleased to announce that I am able
to attend my first ever creative workshop. Of all the
classes I could have come across, I could not be more
excited about this one.
In late April I will be learning more about
sculpture from none other than Wendy
Froud. If you are unfamiliar with Wendy or her work,
you are in for a treat. She created puppets for two of
my favorite childhood films; The
Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.
In fact, her then-infant son played Toby in Labyrinth!
You might have heard of her most famous work... the little
green creature she sculpted for The Empire Strike's
Back; Yoda.
Needless to say, I am really looking forward
to this event!
January
30th, 2008
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Newest Portrait:
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Once again I decided to play around with
photoshop, dreamweaver and flash to make a new site layout.
For as much as I enjoyed creating and displaying a pure
flash site, I realized that the web crawlers weren't able
to pick up my content. It was back to the drawing board
for me. I decided to go with a simple/neutral color scheme
this time in hopes that the site wouldn't be a distraction
for visitors viewing my other creative works.
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