Monthly Archives: December 2010

31 December 2010

Good Bye, 2010!

By Nicki

I started out the morning writing a year in review post that did not involve my running at all.  I realized by the time I was 3/4 of the way done, that was pretty boring and there were just a few highlights from my year.  Some did involve running – mine or someone else’s – and some did not.

 

I have managed to keep in somewhat touch with friends from high school that I reconnected with in 2009.  While a solid group of us started getting together every month, that dissipated in 2010 but we did see each other now and then.  I am truly hoping we can get back that once a month groove in 2011.

 

I am an elected official in the state of New York.  I went through the process, ran for and was elected to the Maine-Endwell Central School District’s board of education.  While this is not a big office, it is one that deals with two things I know a bit about – children and education.  I am enjoying my time on the board so far and will serve my three year term with pride.

 

I did my civic duty in 2010.  I spent a month, from the end of April until the end of May, as a member of a seated grand jury.  This duty did not involve every day at a courthouse but did involve being on call for two days a week for the three weeks after the initial week.  I was floored by the number of people I knew in the initial pool of jurors since the constant mantra was how diverse the jury pool now is.

 

I realized, as I was compiling and writing the post you will most likely never see, that regardless of how much I am looking forward to an empty nest in the near future (a couple years still), I am as much a mother now as I have ever been.  My months evolved around activities for my kids, whether high school plays, Confirmation, band concerts, college athletic competitions or school open houses.

 

2010 was a good year overall.  Here is to an even better, more balanced 2011.

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Family, Fitness, Just my Thoughts

31 December 2010

2010 in Review

By Nicki

I did my last review of my big goal for 2010 in July.  This review took place at about the half way point of the year and had already seen one revision in my goal for the year.  My big annual goal had started out being that I was going run a race in every month but January and February.  I immediately ran a February 5K and altered the goal to be run 12 races in 2010.

 

People may say, so what?  Well, to be totally honest, I never ran a race until December of 2009.  To run 12 of them in the 12 months following that first race was a daunting task.  On top of that, I did not choose just 5Ks.  I will have run 15 races since my first race in December of 2009 when tomorrow’s Resolution Run is over.  Of those races, three were half marathons.  Two were ten milers.  Five were 5Ks.  There were also two 10Ks, a 20K, a 15K , and an 8K.  So, for those of you like me – who like numbers, that is a total of just under 95 miles in race routes for the year.

 

On top of those races, I put in almost 1500 miles in running this year.  It is looking like I am going end the year just shy of 1450 miles.  This is an amazing feat to me.  For the two previous years, I had set a goal of 1000 miles for the year and had failed to meet my commitment.  I had given up at some point and not continued on.  This year I didn’t set the goal for x number of miles but for so many races and the training around those races helped put me over the 1000 mile mark the beginning of October.  Since then I have added over 330 plus miles to that total.

 

As I said back in July:

The benefits of this training are that my body is looking pretty good.  I am not a skin and bones person by any means but I have dropped four pants sizes since I started running in September of 2007.  I have dropped bra sizes from a 42D to a 38C.  I have more muscle in my body composition than I have had in the past.  Singing – actually anything that involves breathing – comes easier, even with allergies and asthma.  My abdomen is actually developing some definition – nope, no 6-pack abs but some definition.

So, I am officially declaring 2010 a success!!

 

Did you set goals in January of 2010?  Did you review them throughout the year?  Did you meet the goals you set?  Are you setting goals for 2011?  What are these goals and how do you plan to hold yourself accountable?

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Fitness, Just my Thoughts

30 December 2010

Christmas in Photos

By Nicki

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

3 comments   |  tags: , | posted in Art, Family, Just my Thoughts, Religion

30 December 2010

Goals or Aspirations or Resolutions

By Nicki

In a quick glance, the three words – goals, aspirations, resolutions – may all look and mean the same to you and to me.  This is not the case at all.  If you are sitting around trying to figure out what your resolutions for the New Year are going to be, you are probably setting yourself up to fail.

From Dictionary.com, I take the following definitions:

goal: the result or achievement toward which effort is directed;aim; end.

resolution:  a resolve or determination

aspiration: a goal or objective desired

So, now that you can look at those three definitions side by side by side, which two are best for what you set for yourself and your life to start a new year?  Hopefully, you actually follow some advice I gave last year in a post called “Goals and How to Reach Them.”

 

Do be sure that you set something to reach for as you look to make 2011 a fantastic year.

 

Do you set New Year’s resolutions?  Do you set New Year’s goals?  Do you check back in on these directives throughout the year or is it just lip service to a tradition?

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Just my Thoughts

24 December 2010

Homemade Ornaments

By Nicki

Thanks to Heather at Then Heather Said, I joined a homemade ornament swap this year.  I absolutely love to make ornaments.  I have been letting my crafty self go and ignoring it quite a bit but not this Christmas.  I love to make things – especially ornaments – but do realize that making just one is usually a pain so I let Heather know that I could make and mail three.

 

Of course, I had many different ideas of what I was going to for the ornament swap.  I have all kinds of craft items from shrink plastic to clay to paper to inks to card stock to …that’s it! To dominoes.  Here is the a quick tutorial.

 

Items needed:

De-glazed dominoes (if ceramic)

tissue paper

white glue

cup

water

paint brush

ribbon

E6000/super glue

 

1. Deglaze the dominoes.  If you are using those old-fashioned, ceramic-type dominoes, they come with a glaze on them that needs to come off.  Soak them in some water with bleach in it and then wash with dish soap and let air dry.  I do this as soon as I get home with my dominoes so my children realize these are not household toys.

2.  Mix plain white glue (Elmer’s works great) with water so it is really runny.  I really can’t say the exact proportions but you do not want it to feel like it is glue, more like paint.

3.  Use the paintbrush to “paint” some of the glue mixture on the domino(es).

4.  Put small torn pieces of tissue on the domino where it has glue mixture.

5.  Paint over the tissue paper.

6.  Repeat until the entire domino is covered.

7.  If you have a particular item you want on the domino, cut it out and place on the domino following the directions above.

8.  Let dry.

9.  Put super glue/E6000 on the edge and put ribbon along edge.

4 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Art, Just my Thoughts

23 December 2010

Kenny Rogers

By Nicki

I have to apologize as I have been remiss in actually getting the thoughts out of my head where you all can read them.  The holiday season is busy.  The mileage is cranky up for my  marathon training – 41 this week which I am just not sure how I am going to get it in with Christmas this week.  No real excuses except I have been ignoring my blog.

 

When I first heard Kenny Rogers was coming to Binghamton to do his “Hits and Christmas” show, it was bittersweet.  Even though my dad has been gone for almost two years, I know this concert would have been one he would have been arranging his schedule around.  He would have been willing to work earlier in the day and go back after the concert if it meant he could go to the concert.  I thought I should get tickets and go but I then decided I really couldn’t afford to go this year.

 

Then, a week before the show here in Binghamton, my friend Christine – who lives in Ontario – tweeted that she was taking her parents to see Kenny Rogers.  I was torn again.  I really wanted to go but knew it was not in my budget this December.  Christine told me that the show was fantastic.

 

The day of the show I received a message from a co-worker of my father’s.  He had two tickets if I was interested.  He indicated he couldn’t find anyone interested enough in country music that wanted the tickets.  I was a bit thrown by that as I don’t think of Kenny Rogers as country.  You see, I remember Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.  I have actually – admittedly it was past their peak of success – seen them in concert.  The gist is that karma was on my side and I ended up with two tickets to the Kenny Rogers show in Binghamton so my 23 year old daughter and I headed out for the concert.

 

The show was absolutely amazing.  Rogers – who is 72 and has 6 year old twins – had a little trouble moving on the stage but his mobility did not hinder his voice at all.  He started the show with a set of about 40 minutes that was his hits.  He sang all the favorites from his country career (oops, I guess he is country) – “The Gambler,” “Islands in the Stream,” “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town,” “Coward of the County,” “Lucille,” and many more.  He had a guest that sang a couple of songs also.  One of my favorite moments was when he sang the First Edition song “What Condition My Condition Is In.”

 

There was about a 20 minute intermission before the Christmas section of the show began.  This is the part of the show that is personalized to the area Rogers is in.  It included five young (elementary school age) children who came out and sang with Rogers’s guest.  It also included the concert choir from Binghamton High School who sang with Rogers and his guest.  Can you all tell I can’t remember the guest singer’s name?  Ooops! Notes are a necessity once you reach a certain age.  I absolutely loved the Christmas portion of the show.  There was not a song I would recommend removing at all.

 

I would highly recommend one of Kenny Rogers’s Christmas shows to anyone.  Next year I will be looking for when he is going to be local.

 

Special thanks to Chris for the tickets and to my daughter Elise for the photos as I didn’t haul my Nikon D3000 to the Arena with me.

2 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Art, Family, Just my Thoughts

16 December 2010

Spice Cookies

By Nicki

The email said “Spruced-Up Spice Cookies.”  I have to be honest.  I am sort of an instant gratification girl when it comes to baking.  I want to make the dough and plop whatever in the oven and have baked goods shortly there after, maybe an hour or so if I am talking breads.  I am not one for refrigerating dough as it tends to disappear.  Either I eat it or my children do before the dough ever becomes cookies.  I gave up making my mother’s sugar cookies because of this issue.  I went to making gingerbread people and cut out for the holidays.  So the idea of a spice cookie, a slightly healthy one until I frost it, made me happy.  I was set to try.

 

I got a good look at the recipe and was fairly happy.  No eggs – good thing in my mind.  Ooops, calls for pureed banana.  I had no bananas in the house.  Now that I think about this, the lack of bananas may be the reason for my calf cramping problems of late but that is for another post.  I did happen to have some very chunky applesauce and some pumpkin puree.  The applesauce was too chunky and, even as much as I bake and cook, I do not own a food processor so that was out.  I decided to use the pumpkin instead of the banana.

Spruced-Up Pumpkin Spice Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons ginger, ground
2 teaspoons cinnamon, ground
2 teaspoons allspice, ground
1/2 teaspoon  salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick margarine (I used a half cup of Smart Balance margarine as that was what I had on hand.)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 c pumpkin puree
1 t decorating sugar, candy sprinkles or sugar in the raw (optional – my son chose to frost the cookies but no photos of the frosted ones)

DIRECTIONS
Sift all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. If you do not own a sifter, use a whisk to combine dry ingredients. Place the margarine in a mixing bowl, then add the sugar and mix until creamy. Add the pumpkin and continue to beat at medium speed for 2-3 minutes. If the mixture looks loose, add one tablespoon of the flour mixture to the wet mixture. Add all the flour mixture in small amounts until combined. Divide the dough into 2 balls, wrap and press each one into a flat disk (I had some freezer paper on hand so wrapped in that). Chill for at least two hours. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the dough balls between two sheets of wax paper (again used the freezer paper) and roll out as thinly as possible. Stamp with a small (1″-1 1/2″) cookie cutter. Sprinkle with decorating sugar, if using; bake 8 minutes. Immediately after cooking, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. Store cookies in an air-tight container for up to one week. One serving equals two cookies.

Number of Servings: 36 (less if you use bigger cookie cutters)

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Food and Recipes, Just my Thoughts

13 December 2010

Decorating the Tree

By Nicki

One week ago today, my high school aged son had his first snow day of the school year.  We did seem to get a little snow overnight but I think it was more the slowness in getting roads cleared that caused first an announced delay and then closure.  The Christmas tree had been sitting in the living room for a week but was not decorated yet.

 

Number 6 insisted this was the perfect time to decorate the tree.  The driveway had been shoveled.  He put Trans Siberian Orchestra on and started in by putting the gold beads on the pre-lit tree.

What comes next is a mish mash of the whirling dervish you see in one of these photos that would be Number 6 and his older sister, Number 3, as they decorated the tree.

Number 6 is that blur

Shortest, Number 3, always puts the star on

Some additional decorating

After doing the tree decorating and many of the other holiday items, I started getting cocoa ready for the kids.  We all sat, listening to holiday tunes, while drinking our own favorite cocoa.

Tree All Decked Out

7 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Family, Just my Thoughts

11 December 2010

Lunch with Local Social Media Mavens

By Nicki

Those of you that follow me frequently will recall that I received a grand jury summons back in April.  I was a bit taken back at the “wide” representation in the jury pool – just how do we type with sarcasm? – but am very happy that I was chosen as I met some very interesting and very nice people.

 

One of the people I met struck up a conversation with me as I was reading Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh for review.  I explained that the book didn’t hit shelves for a couple weeks but I was reading to post a review here on my blog.  After conversations about her blog and my blog, we discovered we followed each other on Twitter but just didn’t realize prior to the talk.  She told me of a group of “social media” people that got together for lunch occasionally and talked about blogs and twitter and such.  The next lunch I was invited to join.

 

Yesterday, another of our group arranged for us to come and tour the facilities where she is working and where she does the social

Additional Warm Warehouse

media for the web site Garden Shoes Online.  Most of you all may be laughing at me being anywhere near the word garden.  You will realize that I kill most plants.  Wait!  I did have tomatoes this past summer so I am a gardener of sorts.  Anyway, back to yesterday.

 

Garden Shoes Online is one of the stores of GearCor.  As Carol – the owner – took us on a tour of the new corporate headquarters, she gave us a brief overview of how GearCor came into being.  The original online store was Muck Boots Online and operated out of Carol and Pete’s home.  And now my age will show.  I thought I could remember the details, like the year a business began, but I am unsure if that was 2003 or not but that is what is sticking in my mind.  Notes, I promise to take notes next time.

 

The long and the short of it is that GearCor is now a multi-line company and has just recently moved into a new facility in Conklin.

There are two warehouse areas in the new facility, along with office space for GearCor and office space that is available in the near future for other businesses also.  GearCor runs a cold warehouse and a warmer warehouse.  There is only merchandise in the cold warehouse.  The warmer warehouse also houses the shipping area of the company.

Cold Warehouse

Warm Warehouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also in the warmer warehouse is a conveyor belt that contains orders for packing.  As an order comes to the area where it is boxed, there is a scanner system that requires the order be scanned and then the products be scanned.  This ensures that each order is correct.  Then orders are boxed.  Some boxed orders go through a taping machine that tapes both the top and the bottom of the box at the same time.  Having worked in shipping at holiday times, I would have given anything to have a machine like this.

Taping Machine

Once we had learned about how the business works, Carol and Pete provided us with a wonderful lunch in their staff “break” room.  Debbie, another of the members of the GearCor family, set a gorgeous holiday table for us all and we talked web sites, blogs, Twitter and other social media as we introduced our blogs and what we each do to Carol.

Special thanks to Teresa Soule for organizing this wonderful holiday get together.  Special thanks also to Carol and Pete for opening their business to us for a tour.  You all can meet my fellow Southern Tier social media mavens by visiting their blogs: Donalyn Ketchum (Donalyn has more than one blog but you can find other links from this one), Kathy Purdy, and Jenn Fowler.

 

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Just my Thoughts

5 December 2010

Visit Me at Sarah’s

By Nicki

I am participating in Sarah Stanley’s 25 Days of Cheer.  Today I am the featured writer on her blog.  Stop over at Sarah Stanley Inspired and look around.  Sarah is a wonderful  person.  You can read all about light at my post on her site.

Happy December to all of you!!

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Just my Thoughts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,834 other followers