13): Patron Saints, Catholic Fiction & The Walking Dead

By bobbi
July 25, 2013
5 Comments

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This is Day 5 of Jen’s 7 Posts in 7 Days Challenge. I am also linking to her weekly 7 Quick Takes. 🙂

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Happy feast of St. Anne and St. Joachim! St. Anne is my patron saint and my name sake (Bobbi-Ann) so this day has always been a special feast day for me, especially when I was single. St. Anne and Blessed Anne Maria Taigi were the two I asked to intercede for me in finding a holy husband. They did an excellent job. 😉

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Speaking of St. Anne finding me a man, Grace shared her how-we-met story and put a link-up for people to share their stories as well. My sister posted hers and it is so sweet. E & V are a perfect match! I feel like I have told my how-we-met story so many times that I am like this…

and you’re like this…

But on the off chance that you haven’t read it yet, here’s the link. 😉

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Brian was telling me about a website that he loves – Catholic Fiction.net. It is a great source for finding out about Catholic novels and since he reads all the time, he is always going through various Catholic fiction books. If only I could get him to do some reviews! Anyway, I was excited to see one of the books I am reading right now featured on there. It is Mysterious Albion (Vatican Vampire Hunters.) So far I am loving it. If I get it done in time I’ll review it for next week’s “What We’re Reading Wednesday” hosted by Jessica.

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I’ve added Comment Luv to the blog so if you are a blogger and you leave a comment please add your blog link. When you do your latest blog post link will show up under your name. That way I (and others) can visit your blog as well. I especially love to visit the blogs of new visitors. 🙂 Once you’ve typed in your link the first time, it should automatically come up when you visit again.

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I don’t watch Brittan’s Got Talent but a friend had this clip on her Facebook page and I watched it. Ohmygoodness, it actually brought tears to my eyes. So beautiful! It is worth the watch.

~ 7~

Here are two other videos if you are a Walking Dead fan. I binged all week and finally finished season 3 so I’ve got zombies on the brain. The first is the hilarious Walking Dead Bad Lip Reading Video. (Note – Only watch this is you are already a WD fan. Otherwise, skip it.) La-Bibbida-Bibba-Dum 😉

The second is called Zombie Story: A Mind Blowing Comparison of Toy Story and the Walking Dead. Pretty funny… and coincidental?

Have a great Friday! Thanks to Jen for hosting! 🙂

PS – You can follow RoL on Bloglovin, Feedly or another news feed. If you are a social media fan like me, we can stay in touch through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GoodReads or Instagram (bobbi_rol). 😉

Theme Thursday: Askew

By bobbi
July 24, 2013
4 Comments

This is Day 4 of Jen’s 7 Posts in 7 Days Challenge, also making it the 4th post written in the wee hours of the night. I’m tired so this shall be short and sweet.

I’m also linking up with Cari’s Theme Thursday: Askew.

I was at the Mission the other day and as I was looking down one of the walkways, the slanted roof gave the appearance of looking askew, even if it was not.

What may better qualify for the word, is this photo of the boys building a DVD case tower.

All was going well until the tower started leaning askew (is that the proper phrasing??) and it finally toppled to the ground. (Yeah, mom thought it was really cute until there were DVD’s everywhere. ;-))

Find more askew photos here.

Five Favorites (Vol 9) & What We’re Reading Wednesday (Vol 2)

By bobbi
July 23, 2013
5 Comments

We’ve got a lot of linking today for one small post.

This is Day 3 of Jen’s 7 Posts in 7 Days Challenge.

This is linked to Hallie’s (guest hosted by Grace) Five Favorites

Lastly, Fave #4 is linked to Jessica’s What We’re Reading Wednesday. Enjoy!

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New School Supplies

Fall may still be a couple months away but it seems a lot closer with all the back to school supplies in the stores. As a kid, picking out new school supplies ranked up there with opening Christmas presents and decades later that hasn’t changed. Happily, my daughter shares my enthusiasm for journals, notebooks and cute pens. Bella and I went to Target the other night and we were giddy picking out new school/ office supplies. It was a lovely mother daughter bonding moment. 🙂

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Photo Challenges

I love those daily photo challenges you see on Instagram and Facebook and I’m currently participating in two – #fmsphotoaday on Instagram and #31dayfunphotochallenge on Facebook.

A friend of the family, Carole, created the FB one so I made the cover shot for her. 🙂

Here are a few other photos I’ve posted so far.

Day 1: Black & White (As long as he stays out of my house we’re good. 😉

Day 2: Something that starts with the first letter of my name – Brian & Beach.

Day 5: Tiny – It is amazing that a tiny round piece of gold can hold so much meaning.

Day 10: My Favorite Color

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My Kindle

Our house is filled with books on numerous book shelves and I do prefer to read non fiction books in paper back so I can highlight and make comments in the margins. However, when I read fiction it must be on my Kindle (or Kindle app on my iphone) or I’ll never get any reading done. I love that I can read a few pages on my computer or my Kindle then open the app on my phone later in the day and it will sync to where I left off on my other devices. I don’t have big chunks of time to sit and read so I fit in a few pages when I can. And if I’m reading a “I-can’t-put-this-down” book then you’ll see my reading on my phone as I’m folding laundry and stirring spaghetti sauce or scrubbing the shower. (Who am I kidding? I cant remember the last time I scrubbed the shower, but I digress.) The point is I love having my current reads at my fingertips at any time!

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What I’m Reading/ Fave Book of the Week: Angela’s Song by AnneMarie Creedon

I love my reading list on GoodReads.com and I have been trying to alternate reading a “regular” fiction book and a Catholic fiction book. Since I did Austenland last week, this week it was Angela’s Song by AnneMarie Creedon, available in paperback or on Kindle.

Amazon Description:

Angela ‘Jel’ Cooke is a widow and mother of three who stays busy so as not to have to face the fact that her marriage was damaged and her husband, Devin, died before it could be repaired. Her good friends realize that no amount of home made lasagna, volunteering at church or late night games of Yahtzee can heal Angela from past regrets. When she meets Jack, the teacher of a class she is taking, he challenges her to face her demons. What follows is the poignant, yet often hilarious saga of how Angela overcomes her guilt and learns to love herself and others.

Many of the stories I read have a lot of action and tension that forces me to keep turning the page but that wasn’t the case with this book. There wasn’t a big, dramatic story arc but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There was an easy pace of getting to know Angela and her story and watching a romance unfold. There were times when I thought Jack, the boyfriend, was a little too perfect but then again, he reminded me a lot of my hubby, just an unbelievable man of God. The writing is well done and this is a great novel for those who like their books to be very “Catholic.” Catholic elements and teaching were entwined throughout the story. For some that is a good thing, for others it’s a turn off.

Personally I could go either way but I will say that some of what was written was speaking to me directly. I happened to be reading the end of the book after I had an argument with Brian. As I was sitting there reading one of the character’s words about marriage and sacrifice and carrying the cross, I rolled my eyes and muttered something like, “Yeah, but wait until the honeymoon is long over…” As I kept on reading the Holy Spirit was at work and the words touched my heart I could see how silly and selfish I was being by staying angry at Brian. I swallowed my pride and apologized and in the end was happy to make up with him. 🙂 If a book could do that, that’s pretty good. That gave it a grade of 4 out of 5 stars. Go check it out.

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“Angela’s Song” Playlist

Author AnneMarie Creedon gets major kudos for creating a playlist for her book on Spotify. It contains all the songs mentioned in her book – from Frank Sinatra to Lady Antebellum to Black Eyed Peas. Pretty cool.

Have a blessed day!

PS – Don’t forget the Pinterest Party Link-up runs until Aug 6 and you can use a new or old post. 🙂

Pinterest Party & Link-Up (vol 8): Corn & Tomato Relish

By bobbi
July 22, 2013
3 Comments

Welcome to the RoL Pinterest Party. Join me every 2nd and 4th Tuesday as we link up and share how we made, cooked, baked, crafted, did, or created one of the pins on our Pinterest boards.

Not on Pinterest? No problem. Link-up your own creation to inspire us so we can pin in to our own boards. It can be a recipe, sewing project, Catholic craft, homeschool project, organizing/ homemaking tip, themed birthday party, whatever you’d like.

Don’t have a post ready? The link-up will be open for 10 days so there’s still time. Plus, feel free to link up a new post or an older post that hasn’t had much traffic lately. (NOTE: Since there are 5 Tuesdays in July, I’m keeping the link open until Aug 6 so you have plenty of time. 🙂)

Don’t have a blog? No problem. Post your photo and a description on the RoL Facebook page. 🙂

* * * * *

I know it is summer and I wish I could say that we have been frolicking at the beach and soaking in the sunshine but on the central coast of Cali we do not get our summer until fall. Right now it is cold, foggy and dreary. I’m looking out the window as I’m typing and there are two women walking by our house and one of them is wearing a parka. A parka, people!

So it is gray outside and I had a cup of hot soup for lunch. I’d share the soup recipe but I do not want those of you sweating out the heat to send me death threats so I’m going to fake it and pretend that the sun is shining and I see beautiful blue skies like this…

…and then I’ll share a quick and easy corn and tomato summer side dish. The original recipe is from Bobby Flay but I don’t think of it as a salsa since there are no chilies, making it perfect for my kiddos.

I make this all the time in summer since there is bountiful fresh corn and tomatoes waiting to be eaten. And it is a perfect dish to share at a beach or park potluck where food sits out in the sun. You’ll find the original recipe here and my slightly altered version below.

Ingredients:

6-8 corn cobs, cleaned and cooked*
24 cherry tomatoes, chopped
2 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

(To be honest, I don’t usually measure any of this. It is a handful or two of tomatoes, 1/2 a bunch of cilantro, 1/2 a lime, a couple dashes of olive oil, etc. So play around with it. Next I want to try it with roasted corn and add avocado.)

Directions: Chop the tomatoes then toss them in a colander with ½ teaspoon of kosher salt. Let drain for 10-15 minutes. Clean the corn and cook in boiling water for 6 minutes. Cool. When done, remove the corn from the cob. Combine the corn, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, lime and olive oil. Mix well. Season with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Enjoy!

* Note: Although you can also use thawed frozen corn, nothing beats the incredible taste of fresh corn!

* * * * *

Now it’s your turn.

1. Choose your creation, share about it and snap a photo if you can.

2. In your post, link back the original blogger/idea, rather than your Pinterest pin. That way credit goes to the proper person. 🙂 (But feel free to add your Pinterest profile link so we can follow you!)

3. Add a link back here so others can play along. Here is the html code:

4. Link up below. Make sure you’re sending us to your actual post, and not to your general blog address.

You have 10 days to post your link, so if you can’t get things done by Tuesday, no worries, put it up when you can. We’ll be here. Have fun!

Lastly, you can follow me on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/rol_bobbi/. 🙂

An InLinkz Link-up

Theme Thursday: Bright & {pretty, happy, funny, real} vol 70: Kitchen Remodel Edition

By bobbi
July 18, 2013
5 Comments

It’s been busy, busy, busy here lately and I took an unintentional week off from blogging. In fact today’s photos were originally supposed to be for last week’s {p, h, f, r} and Theme Thursday’s: Rooms but since I didn’t take these photos until last night, it didn’t work out. haha! So instead of wallowing in my procrastination I looked on the bright side and started a fresh week instead. (Way to keep in theme, right!)

Seriously, I happened to be looking at some old photos of our kitchen before we moved in and the room is SO MUCH BRIGHTER that I thought heck, I can use the kitchen photos for this week’s theme “bright” instead. So here we go with a TT and {p, h, f, r} mash-up.

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

To put these photos into context, you have to see what our kitchen looked like before we moved in. The home belonged to Brian’s grandmother but she passed away and his aunt that lived with her was moving into a retirement home because she could no longer care for herself. (She has since passed away too.)

To make a long story short, Brian and I (along with a then 4 year old Bella ) would move out of our apartment and into this home. The house was built in the 70’s and I was both elated to have a place of our own and overwhelmed by the remodeling that would need to be done.

We couldn’t afford to do everything at once so slowly we worked on it and little by little and nearly 8 years later, we’ve made our kitchen one of the bright spots of our home.

And before you start thinking, “Wow, she has such a clean kitchen!” you must understand that it took me not minutes but HOURS to wash all the dirty dishes piled in the sink, clear off all the junk and clutter of the counters, wipe off all the smears of peanut, butter, jelly and other sticky substances on the cabinets and vacuum up all the crumbs and stray legos off the floor, wipe the layers of dust and grease off the stove and oven AND start another bag of unused kitchen items overflowing from the cabinets that I will donate to charity. I started cleaning when Brian left for work in the morning and wiped off the last counter when he came home for dinner. He walked into the kitchen and said, “Whoa!” So this is my kitchen after I’ve spent all day cleaning. I would have taken photos of it a mess but that was just too stinkin depressing. Okay, carry on!

It may still seemed a little cluttered to someone who prefers a minimalist approach, but it reflects me. It’s a collage of different items that evoke happy memories or people that I love.

My favorite aspect of the room is the kitchen window that looks out to trees and mountains. I waited until the evening to take this shot because it was the first time we saw any blue sky. It is normal for our summers to be covered with a thick fog, which rolls in from the ocean to the right of us.

I think this is Brian’s favorite spot of the kitchen. His coffee station is ready to wake him up in the morning. Which reminds, me if you are a fan of Mystic Monk coffee they now make single cup coffee pods called Monk shots. (They work just like k-cups.) Brian loves the stronger flavor so much he finished the last box and now I have to order more. 😉

I think Matthew’s favorite spot is the fruit corner where he loves to take an apple and make his own apple sauce. This would be fine except that he uses his mouth to do it and all the peelings can be found all over the house. Something like this…

But when I look for the culprit, all I find it this under the bed…

Okay, back to the kitchen. Remember this wall?

I had a hard time figuring out what to do with it.

I finally got a small metal shelf from Costco and use it to hold our microwave toaster and other larger appliances. We have finally reached a point where Matthew no longer opens up and dumps the flour on the floor (he’s too busy with his fruit) so that’s sort of a good thing I guess. Behind the door there is our family calendar and bulletin board/ command station

Finally, these pictures are the latest things I’ve added to the walls.

These two are my favorites. I looove the retro feel. I picked them up awhile back at my favorite store. (Target, for any newcomers. ;-))

I need this reminder ALL. THE. TIME. (Picked up at Hobby Lobby.)

I saw this at Staples (of all places) for 75% off. I love it because it has six birds, the size of our family, and because it matches the bird “home” decor in the family room.

Okay, I think I have subjected you to enough photos for the week so I better sign off. Thanks to Cari and LMLD for hosting!

PS – Don’t forget that next Tuesday is our Pinterest Party. Share your creativity! (Or epic fails. ;-))

Revolution of Love

Do small things with great love.

Category Archives: weekly quizzes/questionnaires

7 Quick Takes (7/26/13): Patron Saints, Catholic Fiction & The Walking Dead

Theme Thursday: Askew

Five Favorites (Vol 9) & What We’re Reading Wednesday (Vol 2)

Pinterest Party & Link-Up (vol 8): Corn & Tomato Relish

Theme Thursday: Bright & {pretty, happy, funny, real} vol 70: Kitchen Remodel Edition