"no stores were found"

this year for thanksgiving i wanted to make my turkey the way my mom always does. she e-mailed me the recipe which doesn't have very many ingredients, but is rather time consuming. i went to the store last night to buy hickory smoke flavoring, morton pickling salt and morton tender quick. 3 things. shouldn't be hard-right? WRONG.
we have kroger here instead of dillon's. ours is kind of ghetto but usually gets the job done. well justin asked at least one employee if they had pickling salt or tender quick who had no clue what he was talking about. (honestly, this isn't too surprising considering most of the people who work there are IDIOTS!) anyway, we looked and looked and couldn't find it. so i decided to go to whole foods. they have off the wall stuff-right? WRONG. the girl at whole foods also had no clue what i was talking about. we asked another person who had no clue either. now i'm stumped.
so last night i called my mom to ask her if she gets this stuff from some unknown specialty store. nope, it's just at dillon's and she saw it there that night! she told me to google it to see what it looks like so i can check other stores.
i found the morton website and got on their product locator. it lets you put in your zip code and the product you're looking for and tells you the stores that carry it in an x mile radius. there's got to be some store that carries it within a 50 mile radius nashville-right? WRONG. "no stores were found". not only does nashville not have morton tender quick, the entire state of tennessee is morton tender quick devoid. frustration. i'm going to have to figure out a different way to make my turkey this year.

keeping score

for those of you who don't know, my little brother aaron and i have been having a unofficial contest this year. basically we're trying to see who can go to the hospital more times for the most strange injuries. i think i'm winning for strange-ness. hello 2 inch splinter in my foot! although, adam did drop a hammer on aaron's head from about 20 feet up. hmmm. you decide.

here's the official run down.

first, i had the infamous spliter incident. score one for the home team! anna:1 aaron:0

then, while mom and dad were here for spring break, adam had to take aaron to the emergency clinic because he was really sick and having some trouble breathing. for aaron that's kind of a big deal considering he has a history of his lung randomly collapsing. another story for another day. anna:1 aaron:1

then i decided to slice my finger open helping justin. another trip to the ER and 5 more stitches for anna. anna:2 aaron:1

next, aaron had a slight work accident. adam dropped his hammer while working on the roof trusses. too bad he didn't realize aaron was standing right under him. trip to the ER and a few staples to the head for aaron. anna:2 aaron:2

my turn again. aaron might not count this, but i sure do! i got poison ivy all over my entire body! two trips to the doctor and two steroid treatments later i no longer look like a swamp monster. anna:3 aaron:2

well, aaron decided i couldn't win so he didn't get out of the way fast enough at work and a huge, really heavy, pile of wood fell on his leg. or something. anyway, mom had to take him to the ER this weekend. they checked for broken bones (nope!) and blood clots (nope!) and cleared him. anna:3 aaron:3

i say we should just call it a draw. what do you think?

The Great American Smoke Out

Well tomorrow is The Great American Smoke Out. I'm not sure if anyone who read this is a smoker, but if you are....SHAME ON YOU! But, you also have a fabulous opportunity tomorrow to quit! You will be joined by tons of other people all across America who are quitting with you! I have encouraged my friends who are smokers to quit and I think you should too. I understand that smoking is an addiction and it's not always easy, but there are resources out there to help you and I'm sure you have a support system of people who would be willing to hold you accountable. I was going to post a nasty ol picture of a smoker's lung, but I think I'll just link to this blogger who's got the right idea.

Side Note #1: Sorry I haven't posted in a while, we've been sick-o!

Side Note #2: The first time I typed blogger I accidentally typed blooger and almost left it because I think it's funny.

Love,
Your friendly neighborhood lung cancer researcher

i love fall!

sorry to bore you with all of my pictures, but i can't believe how vivid some of the fall colors are here. of course the camera can never capture how it looks in real life-at least not our little point and shoot. but here's a few that came close. the first two pictures are from the japanese maple in our front yard and the rest are from our drive out to natchez trace.

my favorite part of voting...

...the sticker

halloween

well, i went to a great halloween party! justin had to work-BOO! but it was a good time anyway. the party was actually on saturday instead of friday, so here are a few pictures. the first one is from friday night and the rest are saturday!

poor riley

our girl got beat up at the playground!

lost... and found?

so.... i lost my wedding ring last night. BIG DRAMA!

i was out on the back porch playing with riley and it was fairly chilly which makes my fingers shrink. (disclaimer: my ring has always been a little too big. tension settings cannot be resized.) anyway, we were playing this game where riley runs around with a toy in her mouth and i chase her and try to grab her tail or swat her butt. well (for those of you who have seen our back yard) i was standing on the very far left-hand corner of the patio. riley ran around the front of me and i swept my left hand across the front of my body to the right trying to swat her as she ran by. when i swung my arm, my ring just went flying off all the way over the the neighbor's fence on the right side of our house. i saw it all in slow motion like a cartoon. i just stood there for about 2 seconds before i ran in and told justin to come quick!!

well i explained what happened and that the ring may or may not have gone through the wire fence into the neighbor's yard because i couldn't tell. well i immediately put on a long sleeve t-shirt, gloves and rain boots for fear of poison ivy and started on my hand and knees looking. i bet i looked hilarious. i'm in a bright green long sleeved john deere t-shirt, my gardening gloves, a khaki skirt, brown leggings and my navy rain boots. our neighbor isn't home, so i ask our other neighbor across the street if she can call him to ask if we can search his backyard. well, he has no cell phone, so we left a note on his door. her husband came to help us look because apparently he finds things easily. (a favorite pair of sunglasses in the ocean, for example.)

while brian and i are looking, justin is on the phone with my parents trying to find out where to rent a metal detector. (they had to rent one this summer when dad lost his ring in the backyard. he was flailing because of some little bug or something when it flew off.) well he finds a place that rents them out that's really close to our house-thank God!! brian and i are still combing the area in both backyards when justin gets back. brain decides he's been all the help he can be and goes home. justin and i got to work with the metal detector. he swept the detector back and forth and i looked when it beeped. this would have been a good system if the stupid thing wasn't beeping ALL THE TIME! plus by now, it's totally dark and we're looking with flashlights.

i went inside to make a phone call (we were supposed to go to dinner at a friend's and i was supposed to make mash potatoes (which i hadn't even started). we were supposed to be there at 7 and it was about 6:45. i called her to tell her that we would be late, if there at all. i decided then that i would look until 7 and then i was done, we would have to resume the search tomorrow. justin came inside and i had a total breakdown. completely bawling like a baby. so, we decided that justin would continue to look in the neighbor's yard and i would go handful by handful through the leaves we had raked up to make sure it wasn't in that pile. justin went outside and i was putting on my coat and gloves. he came right back in with his fist closed. "did you find it!?" he just opened his hand and there it was!! he found it right by the fence next to the big tree in our neighbor's yard. it had flown almost 25 feet. talk about relief!! i made the potatoes and we made it to our dinner party a little late. everyone else was late too-so it was no big deal. GIANT SIGH OF RELIEF!! WHEW!!! needless to say i will be getting a spacer put on tonight!

p.s. also last post was my 100th post! woo hoo!

cloth diapers?

ok, let me preface this by saying...

1- i'm not pregnant
2- i have lots of friends who use/are considering using cloth diapers
3- i have nothing against anyone who uses cloth diapers (i just think it's kind of gross)
4- i know people use cloth diapers for more reasons than the environment, for example, cost.

i came across this article yesterday and was really surprised by what it said. this is a british article and i'll post the link at the bottom if you prefer to see the website it came from. i really am interested to hear your reactions to this.

Blow to image of ‘green’ reusable nappy

A government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the £50,000 nappy research project and to adopt a “defensive” stance towards its conclusions.

The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them.

To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.

The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet.

Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the “negative laundry options” outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.

The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2½ years would have a global warming impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4969413.ece

pumpkin carving party!

well on sunday afternoon/evening we had a pumpkin carving party. we had so much fun and everyone carved out their pumpkins so well! here are a few photos of our fun!

my cookies

chris, erich, daniel and rana digging out the insides

kate, me and heather working on our designs

justin shot this video after we were all finished. they look pretty good if i do say so myself!