Stirring Up Wishes

Sheila here, and you may be aware that the Make A Wish Foundation is near and

dear to my heart. You can bake up some delicious cupcakes or muffins for your loved ones and help grant wishes to LOCAL children with life threatening illnesses all at the same time. Betty Crocker's Stirring Up Wishes promotion started this month, and the company's hoping to raise half a million dollars for Make A Wish.

When you go shopping, just look for the specially marked packages. Ten cents from every sale will go to Make A Wish to help give children hope, strength, and joy. The offer is good on products like Bisquick, Betty Crocker cake and frosting, and Hershey brownies. It's guaranteeing a donation of $250,000!

Even better, if you donate five dollars through Betty Crocker's website, the company will match that five-dollar donation, and you can designate that your money stays right here in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, or Southeast Indiana. Wish kids "star" on the site, and you can read about some of the wishes they hope will be granted.

I hope you'll visit the site. Your family will love the goodies, and the families of our Wish Kids will be so grateful for your help.

http://www.bettycrocker.com/community/StirringUpWishes?WT.mc_id=vanityurl_web_StirringUpWishes

Rucksack

Not that I am in the market for a rucksack, but I came across this one and it was love at first sight. You can find it at the Japanese store Beauty and Youth -- it looks amazing. It is water repellent too, bonus. This one is pretty sweet too.

(via Josh Spear)

Greenhouse Picnic Wedding

Did you see the stunning photos that Chelsea posted on Frolic and Project Wedding? They are breathtaking and the greenhouse theme and styling is perfection. See more images and all of the images credits here.

(photos by Lisa Warninger)

a 1950s tablescape

Hee, I wish I could still subscribe to this magazine. 50 cents is a steal! I kind of like the simplicity of the yellow and blue table setting...

Dinner time

The new rule in our house - no distractions during dinner. The TV is off, no work is allowed. We sit and eat our dinner like civilized people (even if we are on the couch or the floor). We catch up on our days, we talk about things that are coming up. For such a little step, it's amazingly refreshing.

{gyoza}

This was always supposed to be the rule in our house, but we'd gotten busy and lazy and tired and let ourselves slip out of it. You know how sometimes you come home and you're just too worn out from your day to even want to talk about it? That was happening too often.

{wine + cheese + olives}

It's a good reminder that nothing just happens. D and I have been together for years, so it's easy to take our closeness for granted and sometimes that's just fine and even exactly what we need. But we have to remember that relationships (including friendships) aren't static - they constantly change and evolve and that's the best part. We have to stay active and interested in the process. I have friends from all stages of my life, which is wonderful, but it takes effort. Fun effort that I wouldn't trade for anything else, but effort nonetheless.

{pesto!}

When it comes to the most important things, you just can't afford to be lazy. At least, not all the time.

Not Mr. Clean, Mrs.

Good morning, Sara Celi here.

I have to laugh at myself lately. I've never worn the title of neat freak, I've never been the type to obsess about having everything in it's place. My type of clean is usually moderate, with most everything organized, but not to an extreme level.

That's why my recent behaviour has made me laugh at myself a little. I've caught the spring cleaning bug, and the home repair one too.

Yesterday, I met up with the handyman who does repairs to my condo complex. After three years of living in the 2 bedroom place, Tony is about to get a tall order from me. Together, he and I are going to spend the next four months or so transforming it. We're starting with shelving in the garage. By Saturday, he says I'll be able to stack, straighten, and store to my heart's desire.

That shelving is critical. Once I have it, I'm promising myself (and you) that I'll get into the condo and really get rid of the things I don't need. That should be interesting.

The plan is to follow all that with an interior makeover. I've only done some moderate upgrades to the condo since I got there. Honestly, the place needs work. I'm not talking about extravagance, but the mission is to make this place look more up to date. The kitchen needs a overall, with a new floor and appliances. The washer/dryer has seen better days, and so has the dining room.

It's time.

I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Your Neighbors Need Your Vote

Good Morning Frank Here...

I am old school when it comes to my job and local television news, I always say I wish I was in this business back in the early days when the pioneers and legends of our field were basically experimenting with new ideas live on air, somethings worked and somethings did not. That was the exciting part, pioneers of local television pushed the envelope and kept reinventing themselves. One thing that has remained the same is that it is our job to serve you and while there is a lot of bad news there is also a lot of positive news to share.

One of those stories I shared with you a few weeks ago, was about a great organization called Little Hearts Big Smiles, out of Wilmington. The group provides support for families with special needs and they are currently in a competition for a 5,000 dollar grant for a handicapped accessible playground and they still need your vote. Here is a great e-mail they sent me and I wanted to share it with you and hope to get your vote again and or for the first time, the link is provide in the body of the e-mail.

Mr. Marzullo,

I would like to personally thank you for promoting the Kaboom.org grant that Little Hearts Big Smiles is trying to receive for $5,000. Our volunteers from Clinton Massie Local Schools are some of the most wonderful kids. They are learning valuable lessons about people with disabilities.

I'm writing to ask if you would be willing to promote our flyer again with the link to the Kaboom.org voting. We are currently in 2nd place and voting will end March 31st at 11:59 p.m. EST. The day you posted the link and showed the flyer on the news we got in first place and were ahead by over 1,800 votes!

The link is http://projects.kaboom.org/voting/elections/video_2010 or people can go to http://www.littleheartsbigsmiles.org/ and the link is on our home page.

We would love to talk about our project of building a fully handicapped accessible park in Ohio and get the word out to as many people as possible about the needs for accessibility.

Thank you for your time,
Deirdre Wulf - co-founder LHBS
Publicity Chair