Sunday Favorites - Ice Cream Cone Cupcake

Today I'm linking up to Happy to Design for Sunday Favorites. I've always loved this meme but it's been a long time since I joined in.

Today I'm sharing an old post about Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes. I'm sharing this one because I'm really craving ice cream and we have none but I don't want to get dressed an comb my hair just to go get some! I hope you enjoy this post from September 6, 2008.

Sunday Favorite

September 6, 2008

A cupcake...baked in an ice cream cone. I found this on this website and it seems like this is an ages old idea, but I had never heard of it or had one. I think they would be great for kids party's or just for fun. I want to try them.

read more digg story

I also think this is such a great idea. It makes me want to have little kids again so that I can throw a party and make this.

Iwanna Wednesday and a Betta Named Dallas

Several years ago I had a Betta Fish named Dallas. I loved Dallas. He was such a good fish. He just swam and watched me. No judgment, no demands. Nope, he was perfect. But alas, I killed poor Dallas!

I didn't do it intentionally. No...we had a bad case of fleas in the apartment where we were living. So one day I decided to take off for the weekend in order to bug bomb the apartment to kill the fleas. I removed and covered all the food and dishes as is suggested on the label. I opened the cabinets, cupboards, and closet doors. I covered furniture with newspapers. I did everything except take little Dallas out of the room. I left him there...all weekend; swimming in poisoned bug-bomb water!

It was a horrible sight to come back after the weekend and see poor Dallas belly up in his little fish bowl! We gave little Dallas a fine burial at sea, (if you know what I mean). I never replaced poor Dallas, but lately I've been thinking about how beautiful he was and how relaxing it was to just sit and watch him swim back and forth. I even enjoyed cleaning his slimy little home.

So what Iwanna this Iwanna Wednesday is a new Betta Fish; Dallas the Sequel!

Dallas the Original was sort of bluish-purplish. But there are so many different colors of Betta Fish, sometimes known as Siamese Fighting Fish.

Take a look at the coloring on this one. I can't tell if it's jade or turquoise or seafoam green! But it's so pretty and Iwanna one just like it. Love the whitish ends of the fins/flippers/wings...whatever.

But maybe a beautiful blue one. I really love then little pincher ends of the fins/flippers/wings on this one. They remind me of those pincher bugs aka Earwigs.

But I've already had a bluish-purple Betta so maybe just go extreme with a bright RED one! This one looks like he's wearing an elegant, red salsa dancing dress!

I love the shininess of this one. He's almost glow-in-the dark Neon isn't he? All glittery and all. Iwanna one of these. I wonder where I can find one?

And of course Iwanna and Dallas the Sequel will wanna a new home too. Check out this one. Is this unique or what? Kind of a pewtery/silver color.

But Iwanna this one also. This one is soooo unique! I just don't know if there's enough swimming room with all the long beautiful fins/flippers/wings that Betta's have.

Ahhhh, and as Goldilocks said....This one is just right! Lots of elbow room :-)
Gold with little curlicue things decorating it. And seeing how beautiful that little guy looks inside maybe that might be the perfect color for my new Betta. This is one Iwanna Wednesday wish that will probably be fulfilled this weekend. I'll let you know!

So what about you? Have you ever bug-bombed a loved one? And what color Betta is your favorite?
Happy Iwanna Wednesday!

Iwanna Wednesday Celebrates a Birthday

Well it's Wednesday again and Iwanna share a special birthday with you. My birthday! Not today; yesterday. What does my birthday have to do with Iwanna'ing something? Well what Iwanna do is Iwanna thank everyone for such a great birthday and Iwanna share with you what a great birthday it was!

First the day started with a big birthday hug from my mom! Iwanna thank her for giving me life and for always being there for me. I love you mom!

Then a birthday text from my brother Fred, "G'morning, happy bday. Hope ur day goes purrfect, Love Fred." Iwanna thank my brother for thinking of me at 7:08 am! Love you too Bro!.

Then a birthday phone call from my sister Lisa. Iwanna thank my sister for sharing the ride via cell phones to work each morning. Each morning without fail she calls me at around 7:45 and we talk until about 7:58 and just start our morning with what we saw on the news or our own personal news regarding our families, friends and jobs! I love you little sister!

Iwanna also thank and share with you the great surprise from the ladies in my office. First off they brought me a lovely cup of my favorite thing to have at Starbucks...a Venti Breve Latte with One Splenda! Yum! But they also gave me this beautiful floral arrangement and a card to match! Big beautiful Sunflowers!

Then of course...all throughout the day, Iwanna especially thank all my Facebook friends!

Steve from Florida

My Precious Daughter April

My dear friend Anita, who even brought a cake!

My son's bestfriend,William who is serving his country in Iraq. He sent me a super funny video. Thanks William!

Many friends from High School:

Claudia

Grace

Janet

Debi

and Dora

Then of course my friend Stacie, founding member of the Tiara Club and Iron Chef Night, and the greatest study buddy ever! I would have flunked Statistics if not for her!

My bloggy friend Summur! Iwanna especially thank you for being such a good friend and for taking part in the joy of this day!

And of course....Family. Cousins, 2nd cousins and cousins-in-law!

Stella and Pedia together... Stella with some loving words...as always. Pedia with a great compliment!

Anna and her brother Richard, my cousins Fay's kids

My cousin Laura...cousin Jr's wife

and last but not least, my co-worker and dear friend Angelica who decided to take MY birthday off!

But she's bringing me a cake to work, so I have to forgive her!

But the birthday festivities didn't end there! The ladies at the office also had a little surprise planned after lunch. Instead of cake (since most of us are trying to watch how many carbs we eat) Michele refrigerated me a birthday jello cake with lots of whipped topping. It was raspberry flavored, sugar free and delicious! Iwanna thank the ladies of CVIS!

But that wasn't all for goodies for the day. My wonderful daughter April sent me an Edible Arrangement!

I've never received one of these but you know Iwanna'd one for the longest time!!! Mmmmm, it was delicious. Especially the chocolate dipped strawberries and the pineapple stars!

But the day was young and Iwanna wasn't done. I was treated to dinner by my brother Fred, my sister Lisa and my mom Tomasa. Mom's favorite place is Denny's and even though it was my birthday and I would have loved Mexicali and a frosty Margarita, if it wasn't for mom I wouldn't be here, so Denny's it was! I had a yummy Grilled Cheese Sandwich, then after we came back to my house and enjoyed some more Edible Arrangement and each other.

I wasn't kidding about devouring that Edible Arrangement as you can tell by the picture of me and my sister Lisa! Iwanna is the one on the right.

Brother Fred, mom and sister Lisa on the patio. Looks fresh and lovely doesn't it? It's about 100 degrees at that time!

My sis and bro together! Aren't they photogenic?

And as the sun sets in the West...Iwanna bids you all farewell. Iwanna thank everyone who shared in my special day and Iwanna thank everyone that shared in my sharing of my special day. And then thanks to those who shared in my sharing of the sharing of the special day that was shared. Ok...let me just end by saying, Iwanna more of those chocolate dipped Strawberries!!!

Happy Birthday to Iwanna!!

Match-making

One day last week I was visiting one of my favorite blogs, A Cup of Jo, and she had done a post on Date my Single Kid. You can read about it here. Apparently the mother of a friend of Joanna's is always trying to set her son up with single women and she's launched a new website called Date My Single Kid.

Reading that reminded me of when I first met my husband (who is now my ex-husband and has been for the past 17 years, but it's still a cute story) back in 1977 or 1978, I forget exactly what year. I was attending Bakersfield College and there was a super funny, intelligent, older woman in one of my classes and we became friends and would often have coffee together.

This woman would tell me all the time that she had a son my age that she really wanted me to meet. I told her I had just started dating someone so sorry...I wasn't interested. This continued for quite a few months until one night when the guy I was dating told me he had forgotten something at home and would I mind if we stopped by to pick it up and by the way his mother would be there; would I like meet her? I said that was fine even though I was terrified to meet "the mother".

We walked in and he introduced me to his mom, Marge and Marge yells, "Alicia! It's you." I didn't recognize this woman at all and didn't have a clue as to how she would know who I was. She realized I didn't know who she was so she says, "Wait a minute" and runs out the living room into her bedroom. A few minutes later she returns and I recognize her and I yell, "Marge!" She laughs and says, "I knew you didn't recognize me without my wig!"

Marge was the dear older lady that had become my friend at school and the son she wanted so badly to introduce me to was the man I was already dating! How's that for kismet?

No, I haven't seen your lipstick!

My daughter sent me this in email. She and I are both lovers of Shih Poo’s and this is the cutest picture of one I’ve seen in a long time! Hope it makes you laugh and say, “Awwwww!”



NO, I haven’t seen your lipstick!


Why would you even ask me that?


I’m insulted!


Every time something goes missing around here, everybody looks at me!


For your information, I don’t even wear that shade.


It doesn’t flatter my complextion and it tastes terrible!

Iwanna Wednesday is back, Baby!

I'm finally back with my favorite post of the week. Iwanna Wednesday! I had a post already to go showing you some very decadent desserts I've been Iwanna'ing but then today at lunch I was checking email and in an email from LikeCool.com I saw something Iwanna that is the coolest thing ever!

But first...as you know Iwanna Wednesday developed from my unquenching thirst for everything in the world! My mom and sister well know that I can go to any store and see something and first thing out of my mouth is, "I want one of those!" Hence the term Iwanna! So I decided that Wednesday would be a good day to do a post called Iwanna Wednesday and show you what I'm lusting for at this moment. So without further ado....here is what Iwanna this Wednesday!

You know how sometimes you are walking and you have something you want to say to someone but you can't call them because you are way too out of shape and out of breath to actually talk without sounding like a pervert making an obscene phone call? I know. Happens to me all the time too. It would seem that maybe it might be easier to text...but then if you are texting and walking how do you keep your eye on the road and on the text screen at the same time?

If you are like me you are in fear of stepping into dog poo or walking into traffic. So what Iwanna is one of these. . .

Yes, you can believe your eyes. That is the road ahead of you in on the phone screen with the texting letters so you can text and walk at the same time. Unbelieveable? I know! You're actually look through the camera of your phone. If you would like further details, please click here.

Be sure and come back next Wednesday for those decadent desserts or maybe some other as yet undiscovered treasure that Iwanna share with you. What do you Iwanna this Wednesday?

Take this job and . . .

Have you heard about a new campaign headed by the United Farm Workers called the Take Our Jobs Campaign? Due to the current high unemployment rate many are saying that the undocumented workers currently doing farm work are taking jobs away from unemployed Americans. Undocumented workers and the United Farm Workers are inviting Americans to come "Take Our Jobs"!

Well I'll be quite frank...this is one American that doesn't want those jobs. Of course I have a job I love, but if I didn't have a job...I still wouldn't want to work in the fields. I know this from experience.

During my high school years, which was not so long a long time ago; I worked in the fields during the summer months. My dad was a farm foreman for John Elmore Farms in the Imperial Valley and he would have my sister and I, accompanied by my mom work doing various farm labor jobs.One of these jobs was picking tomatoes.

I would get up at the crack of dawn and put on my work clothes. They looked much like the clothing you see on the workers in the photo here. Long sleeve cotton shirts to keep your arms from burning, oldest pair of jeans and shoes and a handkerchief to either wipe away the sweat, cover your mouth to keep from breathing in dirt and bugs or to blow your nose!

My hat of course was much more fashionable than the ball cap the worker is wearing. I had something more befitting my stylish teen sense of fashion. Something more in the range of this hat. In fact almost exactly like this one!  All right, so maybe my memory is a little rusty, perhaps it was actually a stylish wide-brim straw hat, but still love the hat in the picture, don't you?

So we would all get in my dad's truck with our thick plastic gloves in hand and head out to the tomato fields.

When we first got there and headed out into the rows upon rows of tomatoes it was actually pretty glorious. The sun was just coming out, the dirt was still moist and smelled of clean wet earth. The air was sweet and cool and it was so delicious to breathe it all in after being cooped up in the classroom for the whole school year. Yes...the early mornings were great!


Ahhh, but the rest of the day...the rest of the day was not so perfect. We each would get two plastic buckets which would probably weigh 50lbs each when filled with green tomatoes. We would head out into the field, hand-pick enough tomatoes to fill both buckets, then we had to carry the buckets; one in each hand (100lbs total) out to the end of the row of tomatoes to the waiting tractors which hauled two trailers each.

The tractor driver who would stand by the trailer would take your buckets and dump them into the trailer. You would then hand him a little card with numbers on it from 1 to 500 and for each two buckets you brought up to him he would take a punch stamp & poke two holes through the numbers. Then back out to the field you would head again. Over and over! At the end of the day you gave the cards with your name on them to your crew pusher who would turn them into the boss and that is how you would get paid.

This was in the Imperial Valley, where on a good day it was under a 100 degrees, but mostly it was 105 to 110 with high humidity. By ten o'clock it was hot, humid, sticky. You were covered with dirt, sweat, bugs and green tomatoes are highly sticky! You would be dead tired from walking in and out of the fields with those buckets of tomatoes, 100lbs at a time. Your back and knees would ache from squatting to pick the tomatoes off the plants. All you wanted was to go home, take a shower, get some sleep then start all over again the next day.

I now remember those days fondly because I was out there in the fields with my mom and my little sister. I got to watch what my dad did as a farm foreman. A lot of the kids I went to high school with were out there working for the summer so we had fun.

But we didn't have to pick tomatoes because our lives and the lives of our children and loved ones depended on it. We didn't have to pick tomatoes to pay the rent. We picked tomatoes as a summer job so that we could see what it was to work hard so we would stay in school and get an education so we would never have to do field work for the rest of our lives.

So yeah, this is one American that doesn't want the undocumented farm workers job. I wonder how many Americans will sign up. I wonder how many realize what a hard, unappreciated job it is to put food on the tables of America.

Baby, Baby ... All Night Long

There's a song in my head that's been there for a week now. Just the chorus, over and over in my head. I believe they call that an ear-worm? Anyway, I just can't get over it so I thought I would put it in your head as well. So c'mon, join me and sing cause the lyrics are right below the video. I love to put my headphones on and sing at the top of my lungs and annoy everyone! It's so satisfying! Enjoy!

You've been my queen for longer than you know

My love for you has been

Every step I take, every day I live, everything I see

And if I get things wrong

don't want you to think I'm running away

But I heard from Joe about this guy and I want to know

What did he say?

He called me baby, baby, all night long

What did he do?

He called me baby, baby all night long

Why? Why? Why did you need him? Where was I?

Just how close to you is he?

Every smile you gave, every touch you made, every word you said

And it hurts beyond hurt

It was a love that blinds and a love that stings

When I heard from Joe about this guy and I want to know

What did he say?

He called me baby, baby, all night long

What did he do?

He called me baby, baby all night long

What did he say?

He called me baby, baby, all night long

What did he do?

He called you baby, baby, all night long

What did he do?

He called me baby, baby, all night long

What did he say?

He called me baby, baby, all night long

What did he do?

He called you baby, baby, all night long

I know he called you baby, baby, all night long

Blog Award and revealing Top Ten Loves!

Summur at Braley Mama has shown me some love by honoring me with the I Love Your Blog Award!

Summur is a joyful young mother with two gorgeous daughters. She definitely has her hands full with her family, friends and ministry; yet she always makes time for her blogging family as well!

If you need and would love to read a blog that lifts your spirit and brightens your mood then this is one blog you just can't miss! Thank you Summur!

Now I'm supposed to tell you ten things that I love and then name ten blog/bloggers that I love and bestow this award them.

TEN THINGS I LOVE. . .
1. Blogging
2. Online Gaming (not gambling, just word games & puzzles)
3. My job
4. The smell of freshly mowed hay
5. The blossoming of Almond Trees
6. Visiting my daughter and my precious grand puppy Chorizo
7. Thrift store shopping
8. Reading
9. Dancing
10. My Family

TEN BLOGS I LOVE. . .

1. Places with Character - Duta lives in Israel and she leads an interesting life. She is knowledgeable about so many things and she loves to share that knowledge and her life with her readers.

2. Write Place! Write Chick! - Jarielyn's blog is constantly evolving and she's becoming an awesome photographer and showing us the sites of Las Vegas in her photos and sharing her life through her words.

3. A Majority of Two - Jo's blog is so varied...you never know what to expect. She can challenge you through her observations of today's hottest news topics and she can make you gasp with her beautiful artwork and every so often she tosses in a story or photo that makes you laugh, giggle and/or smile!

4. From The Inside...Out - Kathryn has a vivid and entertaining imagination. She is friends virtually and I mean the word literally, with many famous people. If you're going to visit Kathryn's blog you have to be sure you have lots of paper towels handy as you will find yourself spitting our your beverage of choice laughing!

5. Noble Pig - Cathy at Noble Pig is a woman of many talents. Follow her as she and her husband start up a winery in Oregon. She's also a wonderful and adventurous cook and I love her recipes and photos!

6. Project Pine - Toni is a hometown girl! She grew up here in Shafter and I've know her since she was just a little girl with her hair in ponytails and braces on her teeth. She's grown into a wonderful, accomplished young woman and I love reading about her and her husband and their lives, their loves and their home.

7. NuttyMutt.com - Sweets the Shih Poo is the star of this blog. I just love watching videos of Sweets and reading Sweets Mom's comments. I've recently fallen in love with Chorizo the Shih Poo so I can't get enough of them!

8. Sullivan & Murphy - Sue provides me with that "little bit o'Irish" on the web. She's a woman after my own heart. She loves thrifting and antiquing and tablescaping.

9. Sweet Jeanette - Jeanette has a wonderful blog with recipes & craft ideas. I also was lucky enough to win a giveaway she hosted and I won Faith, a lovely Angel handmade by Jeanette.

10. The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Ree Drummond is one of the very first blogs I fell in love with. If you love cooking, giveaways, recipes, awesome pictures of delicious food and a clever and joyful writer, you will love Ree!