Happy Birthday Sweet Girl~Wordless Wednesday

photo by Amy Hodges 2006
Eleven years ago this delight came screaming into the world. Happy Birthday my sweet girl!

National Toilet Paper Day

Charmin is celebrating National Toilet Paper Day by breaking a world record. Seriously. You can go to their Facebook page and check it out. They have broken the Guiness World Record for the largest roll of toilet paper. {insert your own potty jokes here}
I have to admit that we are fans of Charmin in our house. At the Blogher Conference Charmin brought the always squeezable Charmin Bear and an enormous toilet. You know I couldn't miss that photo opportunity!

And of course I couldn't leave it with just a somewhat serious picture. (How can it be too serious when you're sitting on an enormous toilet.)

So I leave you with that! Any of you in the path of Hurricane Irene, please stay safe. Have you bought your water, batteries, and toilet paper?

I was not compensated for this post. I simply couldn't resist having an excuse to post these pictures. 

A Hurricane is coming, what now?

photo by Nasa Goddard Photo and Video of Hurricane Igor last year


I decided to write out a few of my suggestions because my vlog turned out to be so long! The first and most important thing I want to say is you cannot over-prepare. If you get supplies and don't end up needing them, what have you lost? If we don't have a significant storm or loss of power, we just use our hurricane batteries, food and water over the next several months. Here are some of my thoughts on what to do if a hurricane is coming to your area.

1. Don't forget that hurricane strength winds can last until a storm is well inland. Just because you are not along the immediate coast does not mean you shouldn't prepare. Just ask Charlotte, NC about Hurricane Hugo. 
2. If you can't park your car in your garage, park it car out of range of trees, even if it means parking it in the middle of your beautiful lawn. Some trees break off and some uproot and fall. You can't move your house but you can safeguard your car. 
3. Be sure to gas up your car. If you have to evacuate, you don't want to have to stop for gas. If your area suffers significant damage, it might be several days before gas stations have power to pump gas.
4. Food supplies for 3 days and water(a gallon per person per day)for 7 days. We also make sure we have propane for the grill. If we lose power we can grill meats from the freezer before they go bad. 
5. Take a walk around your house and see what a storm might pick up. Potted plants, birdfeeders, lawn chairs all need to go inside. Put your kids to work and let them help with this.
6. Find your insurance information and put it in a safe accessible place. If you are close to an area that might experience a storm surge, put important documents and valuables in a waterproof tote and put it on the highest floor of your house. 

I also wanted to share a few tips from Verizon Wireless. These are helpful since so many of us communicate mainly through our wireless devices.

• Weather widgets and local TV stations' apps for smartphones and tablets can keep people updated on what the weather is doing if they’ve lost power in their house and can’t watch the news.
• Limit non-emergency calls to conserve battery power and free up wireless networks for emergency agencies and operations.
• Send brief text messages rather than making voice calls for the same reasons.
• Don't leave the house without car-chargers to ensure you have back-up power.
• Keep phones, laptops, PDAs, batteries, chargers and other equipment in a dry, accessible location.
• Forward your home phone calls to your wireless number if you have to evacuate.

My last words about hurricanes. Just because you have never seen something happen in your area doesn't mean it can't happen. Please listen to the advice of your emergency management officials and keep yourselves and your families safe!

Prepare for a Hurricane

Our community has been watching the weather this week wondering what Hurricane Irene is going to do. It currently looks like we will miss the worst of this storm but the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the northeastern states look like they are in danger. The Outer Banks residents are used to having to prepare for  a hurricane, but the residents of the northeast have not been threatened with a storm like this for several years. This video contains my best advice on how to prepare for a hurricane. I hope that Hurricane Irene will continue to curve so it will go out to sea. Just in case the storm hits, it never hurts to be prepared.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Last Days of Summer

photo by Amy Hodges

Pie for Mikey

Yesterday all over the blogosphere families made Peanut Butter Pie. It was the recipe of the day on FoodNetwork.com. CNN picked up the story. Why oh why was Peanut Butter Pie such a big story? It is and was a gesture of love. It's that simple. Jennifer Perillo is a food writer and blogger. Last week Jennifer's husband Mikey collapsed and died from a massive heart attack, leaving her without the love of her life and father of her two young children. In a week filled with pain, she reached out on her website, In Jennie's Kitchen. So many people had asked what they could do. She simply asked asked that on Friday, when they would be having a service to honor Mikey, "make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on." 


I made the peanut butter cream pie last night and today will enjoy it with my family. I can guarantee there will be hugs. 

The Help Movie Review & Giveaway

I have been anxiously anticipating seeing the movie "The Help" since I heard they were making the movie. I read Kathryn Stockett's novel quickly and loved it. She addressed such a tricky emotional topic with a careful respectful depth that was refreshing. The book did not back away from the ugliness that took place during the civil rights struggle. I was so curious to see how the book translated to the screen.
We've all done that, right? We've gone to see a movie based on a book and walked out disappointed. It's actually not very fair. An author has an almost unlimited number of pages to develop characters and storylines and a director has around 120 minutes. It is an almost impossible achievement for a movie to live up to the promise of a beloved novel.



The Help lives up to its promise. Whether or not you have read this book, you are going to enjoy this movie. You will laugh and more than likely, you will cry. I was able to see an early screening of the movie while at the Blogher conference in San Diego last weekend. At one sponsor's booth I had fake eyelashes put on. Big mistake. When I walked out of the movie it looked like two spiders had attacked my eyes. The Help movie lovingly portrays the complicated relationships between women during the sixties. The bigger picture is the heartbreaking civil rights struggle, but underneath it also explores how much we try to live up to one another and the idea of how our lives should be.
I hope you go see this movie and I hope it moves you. I loved the movie so much that I am hosting a giveaway for The Help. Just add a comment below and you can win this fabulous prize pack from Dreamworks Pictures.

   

The prize package includes a woman's size tshirt (S-M-L-XL), a pocket jotter and pen, a paper fan, and a combination mirror and nail file. All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a comment below. That's it!  I will enter all of the commenters at Random.com and select a winner. Be sure that if you comment as anonymous you give me a way to contact you if you win. The contest will run from today, 8/10/11 to Tuesday, 8/16/11 at noon. Once announced the winner will have 24 hours to respond or I will select  another winner. Good Luck and GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

Disclosure: I saw this movie courtesy of Dreamworks pictures and was given a small Help themed gift pack. Dreamworks Pictures is providing the prize package for this giveaway. As always opinions are my very own. 


**EDITED TO ADD**
I have been thinking about this all day which told me I had to come back and add this. When I say above that the film "lovingly portrayed" I wanted to make sure I was understood. The setting of this movie was an ugly time for our nation. I felt like the filmakers did a good job of showing where the strength was in this movie. It was not with the bridge playing ladies who showed off for one another and treated "the help" so poorly. The strength in this story resides with "the help" who showed courage,dignity, and sisterhood in the face of humiliation and discrimination. "Lovingly portrayed" meant that love and care were given to tell their story well.
And? Whoever did the casting for the film should win an award as should Viola Davis.

**AND THE WINNER IS**
Random.org selected lucky number 5, Scottie! I already know your information so your prize pack will be on its way soon! Thank you everyone for entering and I hope you've gone to see the movie!

Swiffer at Blogher ~ Hanging out at the Space Bar

Lots of posts coming this week about Blogher and my review tomorrow of The Help, but a fun Wordless Wednesday picture today. Proctor and Gamble had the Dust Guy from their Swiffer commercial so I spent some time with him hanging out at the Space Bar, right between J and K.


photo from Swiffer