This week I am prepping to head out for my second Blissdom.

If you recall, last year was my first time attending Blissdom and to say I was terrified that I didn’t know anyone is a COMPLETE understatement.

My first night there I tweeted out (to the sound of crickets) to find another newbie to make dinner plans with and just as I began to think I was going to be alone forever, I saw a fellow newbie who I recognized from a project we both were a part of for Cheerios.

The rest was history.

Pretty soon we met  a bunch of great gals and they knew a lot of other cool gals (including this dear friend) and the #untribe was born and somehow it all changed my life a wee bit .

So what does all of this have to do with a snack mix?!?

Well since Cheerios kind of gave me the initial connection to all of these gals, I decided to whip up a big ole batch of one of our favorite snack mixes with a few tweaks to share with my (now) old friends and new friends I will meet… and all the great friends from home that are going to Blissdom this year too!  (Oh and to leave some for Miss Add who insisted on it ).

Start with a box (21.6 oz) of Honey Nut Cheerios

Add 2 (12 oz) Bags of M &Ms

12 oz of California Raisins (Who just so happen to be a Blissdom sponsor )

6 oz Dried Cranberries

12 oz bag of Dry Roasted Almonds

Stir it all up and you will have plenty for friends new and old!

Perspective.

It’s a funny thing.

It changes everything.

A life lived  in fear of what it takes to follow your dreams or to fear more a life of dreams never fulfilled.

To be afraid of what others think or to be who God intended you to be.

The pursuit of perfection or to be comfortable in one’s skin.

To go along with the crowd or the courage to say take me or leave me.

Oh, I pray you always see what I see.

A kind face, full of compassion.

A fearless encourager.

A humorous soul with a heart for God.

An energetic force who isn’t afraid to go after what she wants.

Someone who knows she is loved and how to love others.

Ya see when I see you just being you, you encourage me to be me.

Oh to show you what a life of dreams pursued looks like.

What it looks like to be comfortable in your own skin.

What it looks like to say take me or leave me– to be what God intends you to be.

Because my dear sweet girl, your perspective will shape everything in this life.

Everything.

Dear Reader-

I have a confession…

For years and years, I used to dig my heels in and not buy-into a lot of new technologies.

My techy friends would laugh to know me now, but when DSL first came out, I opted (for years) to stay on dial-up…

I was the same when it came to DVD players… I begrudgingly purchased a dvd player only AFTER Best Buy stopped selling VHS tapes and I wanted a new yoga series for my fitness regimen.

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While the change was somewhat gradual, I think it is the DVR (TiVo) that did me in…

The convenience of being able to pause live TV and what my favorite shows on my own terms.

I started to realize that all these new-fangled thingie-ma-bobs could grant me a bit of control over my entertainment  choices and MY schedule.

Pretty soon, I was sold on most that technology had to offer… and today, I  totally embrace my inner geek and not only is technology a huge part of my career, it adds a lot of convenience to my day.

My latest fav?

Streaming video.

Truth be told, I never much liked video stores… not the stores so much, but the fact that I never seemed to get my videos back to them on time.

The Netflix mailing envelopes helped, but streaming video… dude I love it.

For $7.99 a month, we can watch any movie in Netflix’s online library, whenever we want. I have caught up on a many of TV series and movies this way. We did away with the envelopes and now we just stream video.

For a longtime we used Puddie’s Xbox to stream, ( or you could stream from a Wii).

But my favorite way to stream is from our little Roku boxes.

Roku easily plugs into your TV and walks you right through the steps of connecting it  to your internet.

It allows you to stream Netflix and all kinds of other great web apps or programs that offer great entertainment options.

If you can’t find the video on Netflix, you could rent it from Amazon or Hulu.

You can also access fun sites like Pandora, Facebook and YouTube from your TV.

Miss Add can easily access her favorite shows and I love the commercial free option streaming video provides.

It tends to lessen the “I want thats” and the “Can we please gets” that commercial laced programs… just sayin’

So how about you?

Have you taken the streaming video leap?

Note: Roku doesn’t know who I am, but Amazon links are affiliate links as always.

I remember a while back when that movie Unstoppable came out… ya know, that one about the run away train…

Most people were a buzz, talking about what a great movie it was. Thrilling, heart-stopping, emotionally-driven action flick at its best.

Around my house on the other hand, my 10 year veteran of the railroad of a husband was singing a much different tune…

“The dispatcher didn’t do that…”

“A yardmaster would never be in that situation…”

“It is physically impossible for the train to even do that…”

For weeks, he shared his frustration over how Hollywood got it wrong and how no one cared or noticed.

Thankfully though, for now, railroader jobs, ethics and livelihoods aren’t being called into question over Hollywood’s tendency to shape the details the way the want them to make for a “good story”. For the most part people see my dispatcher husband in a GOODe light and I appreciate that…  Hollywood’s gotta make their money, right? So they tweak the details to sell their tickets and we all let the details slide a little.

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But what if someone called the ethics and the livelihoods of your husband or your best friends or your neighbors into question… for the sake of making a buck or two (or say millions).

Enter Chipotle…

Yahoo claims they almost stole the Grammy show with their commercial and from the looks of Twitter and Facebook, they might be right.

Although I have to tell you being someone who grew up a farmer’s daughter and currently works with farmers everyday, my streams were filled with a much different message than the cheers for the brilliant marketing score by the altruistic burrito maker.

Words like “disappointed”, “grossly distorted”, “misrepresentation”, “fiction”, “mis-characterization” filled my streams.

To put it plainly, my friends feel they have been lied about.

Not only that, but that their integrity and morals had been called into question by this two minute cautionary tale that was served up as the truth to a hungry public.

*****

My heart goes out to them.

I can only remember one occasion where someone told a bold-face lie about me to cause me harm. Man did it sting. I felt so helpless. It wrecked me because I realized that when that person decided they could make up their own truth about me, there was no foundation of integrity to rebuild trust or work together to find solutions to our differences. Someone stood up for me that day, thank heavens.

I can’t imagine how it feels to have a company’s marketing budget thrown at you- demonizing and demoralizing what your family works hard for 365 days a year- all  for the sake of selling burritos, albeit to the tune of $178M.

And, truth be told, at least for now, that is what this seems to be all about…

Turns out farmers are claiming that  not only is Chipotle not sourcing their food from the types of farms they are serving up to me and you as ideal, but even when given the opportunity, Chipotle is NOT practicing what they preach.

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I might be wrong, but I personally feel the biggest misrepresentation here is that Chipotle isn’t talking about some immoral misguided farmer some place somewhere.

No… if you live in a rural area or grew up there, Chipotle is calling into question those farmers who happen to be your school teachers, your church deacons, your neighbors and your friends and you may not even realize it. (You may have missed it because they don’t have a huge vat of green goo outside their farm… just sayin’.)

Ya see, commercial/traditional farming is not some face-less industry to me.

It is the girlfriend I can chat for hours with.

My youth group leaders growing up.

A former colleague turned friend.

An accidental blogging bud.

A shoulder I cried on.

One of the most creative people I know.

The blogger I stalk and the friend I stalk with.

My Blissdom Roomie.

The farmer that took hours to show me around his farm.

A friend I think about often.

One of the sweetest people I know.

The friend that everyone wants to hang out with when she comes to town.

One of the funniest bloggers  I know.

A mother I can relate to.

I could go on and on.

Let me say that I think the emotions the commercial stirred up are good. I think people deserve to know where there food comes from. I walk among those folks everyday and I feel a sense of pride–not shame.

And, if someone wants their food raised “all natural“, grass-fed or organic, I support their right to choose and the farmers that provide that choice to them.

But here is the thing… I don’t like being lied to and while that commercial paints ideal imagery of the way they think things should be for everyone, I have been on farms of all sizes all over Indiana and not once did the negative imagery in that commercial fit a single large farm I have been on…nor does the positive apparently reflect Chipotle’s real life situation either.

And while I would love to think that a burrito company is interested in changing the world, their approach of serving up fiction as truth to simply to sell their product is personally causing me to pause.

If you can’t trust what they say about others, how can you trust what they say about themselves?

I get that they are trying to make money. But lying about my friends ain’t cool Chipotle… it just ain’t cool.

(Steps off soap-box)

How you make my Aerogarden grow…

Truth be told, my brown thumbs had their doubts at first, but then you started budding… right along with my hopes for a basil crop…

And despite all odds (serial herb murderer here) you grew…

And grew and grew…

Pesto for everyone!

Seriously folks, this contraption is the most miraculous thing… (and no, the aerogarden people didn’t pay me… Puddie got it for me for Christmas).

They claim it is “The Foolproof, Dirt-Free Indoor Garden”… and this fool has proven that to be true!

I plug it in and wait.

It tells me when to water and when to “feed”.

It regulates all “sunlight” and I just harvest when we are making a yummy sauce or a pizza.

I have to note that all the research I did ahead of time says the Classic AeroGarden is much better than the other types. I only have the classic, so I can’t speak to that from personal experience. But as for the Classic, I LOVE it!

It definitely is this mom’s Super Mommy Secret to fresh herbs in the kitchen.

What herbs do you like to cook with?

Disclosure: Aerogarden has no clue who I am, however, the links to Amazon in this post are affiliate links.

New puppy report:

Turns out we are afraid of metal bowls and will starve ourselves silly to avoid metal bowls…

We also will eat ourselves silly when said fear is figured out by the human folk and food is placed on the floor outside of the scary bowl.

Eating ourselves silly will make us need to potty ourselves silly… which the human folk don’t find silly at all.

Rest assured that all bowl, food and potty silliness is now behind us and we are back on… ahem… schedule.

In other news, Puppy Class is going well.

Sit- Check

Lay Down- Check

Comes When Called- Check

Leave It- Check

Drop It- Check

Project Octavius Maximus Always Potties Outside- Please send back up…

Turns out when your bladder is the size of a grape, you go when ya gotta go… That and when the groomer trims all that warm fur away, you might get a little finicky about the “draft’ outside…Folks say that when he turns 5-6 mths, we should have more luck… until then, practice, practice, practice.

My hope is now that he “GETS” that treats come for sitting, laying down and other behavior, he will begin to “GET”  that pottying OUTSIDE is the key to a treat… right now he just barks at me like he is getting ripped off when he potties inside and doesn’t get a treat. Thou dost protest…

In the meantime, we have discovered a somewhat brilliant plan to save our floors. We have lined his pen with a vinyl tablecloth for easy clean up of accidents and sanity’s sake.

Beyond the co-existing logistics, the little fella is a bright spot in the Goode house!

Miss Add can’t get enough of her little buddy and truth be told, Mommy and Daddy are kind of fond of him too

He is already graying (a trait of his breed) so we joke and call him “Old Man”.

He is also a great conversation starter and people watcher dog…

Truth be told, it is amazing how people who would never approach you in public otherwise come up to you and make absolute fools of themselves…teehee…

Puddie told me the other day in the pet store this very large muscle man came up to him, towered over him and started talking baby talk to Octavius… Puddie of course reacted as if the man were calling him (Puddie) a cutie patootie and totally caught Mr. Muscle off guard resulting in a lot of laughter for all parties involved…

Brave man I married

Last but not least, the little guy has almost doubled in size to a whopping 4 lbs… and I totally didn’t notice.

And this concludes the puppy report.

I have been feeling really guilty the last several days…

I have not really been online a lot, nor have I been blogging up all the wonderful things I want to share with you.

I would love to tell ya that I had an amazing reason… an exotic trip or a fun adventure…

But, no.

Truth be told, I have been working a crazy schedule (remind me to talk to the lady that sets that schedule some day, would ya?) and then when I finally came up for air, I was slammed (to the bathroom floor) by a series of migraines that knocked me out.

Now that I am feeling better and my schedule has room to breathe, I will be back soon with all kinds of GOODEies…

Right after I give a little girl a big day of fun and one-on-one attention with a mom who has been here, but not present for far too many days in a row.

Dear Reader-

As most anyone who visits this blog knows in 2.2 seconds of landing here, I great big puffy heart Gooseberry Patch Cookbooks.

Over the years I have been oh-so fortunate to not only be able to indulge in their plethora of cookbooks, but ALSO enjoy a fantastic relationship with them with this blog and even have had several of my recipes published in their cookbooks.

So, GOODe Ole Boy and I teamed up to send JoAnn and Vickie and all their great people a little tribute with this super fun video. (Big thanks to my uber talented hubby for using his mad skills to make something special ).

Thanks Gooseberry Patch!

P. S. See a book you want? Check them out on Amazon… great prices and tons of selection.

Disclosure: I am an Early Bird Reviewer for Gooseberry Patch (Learn More). Amazon link is an affiliate link as always. 

Dear Reader-

If you know me very well, you know that a good housekeeper I am not… nor do I like housekeeping in general, but this time dear old Google (I heart you google, really I do) has gone and made a bit of a mess of things… not really a mess… yet, but that is where my head is right now after cleaning up after a puppy every 5 minutes so ahem excuse the metaphor and that smell coming from my shoe

WARNING: A bunch of technical garbliegook is about to follow… see, I told ya housekeeping was no fun…stick with me.

Anyhoo, you might have heard (or maybe not) that Google is doing away with Google Friend Connect (GFC) for non-Blogspot blogs. And, since I moved my darling GOODEness Gracious this past summer, that means that if you read my blog from your Blogger Dashboard or you subscribed to my blog via the little GFC Followers widget (with the pictures of all the followers) that is now missing from my sidebar, you are not going to be able to get your GOODEness come March unless you subscribe another way

But I’ll miss you… Please don’t go.

There is GOODe news though, you can still subscribe via email:

Or RSS Feed.

I also link each post on Twitter, Facebook ,Google Plus and Pinterest and would love to engage with you there too!

So, if you aren’t connected to us other than through GFC, please take a sec to make sure we stay in touch, k?

This concludes the housekeeping portion of this evening…

Whew, I am tired.

This should count as regular housekeeping too, right?

Dear Reader,

We are no strangers to the spinach and spinach artichoke ideas of dipping when it comes to snacking… just sayin’

We have been known to whip up this Yummy “Always Requested Spinach Dip” from time to time…

And, we adore this Baked Artichoke and Spinach Dip as well…

That is why I was super stoked when I saw this yummy spinach dip recipe in Gooseberry Patch’s new Fresh from the Farmstand and I knew it would be just perfect for us with one little tweak.

It is so simple… one of those throw everything in the bowl and mix up… Now, they call for time in the fridge before serving, but truth be told, this stuff never made it to the fridge at my New Year’s get together… and it was Yum-my.

2 Cups Sour Cream (you could always use light sour cream, the dish is so yummy no one will notice).

1 Cup Mayo or Light Miracle Whip…

Chopped Green Onions (4-6)

Mmmm…. Fresh Dill. Chop some up and add to taste… Around 3 T.

Two (10 oz) boxes of Spinach- thawed and drained thoroughly. I put mine in a colander and push all of the water out.

5 Cloves of Garlic- Minced.

Dude, if you don’t have have a good garlic press, get one.

This Garlic Press will totally change your garlic world.  We cook with garlic every. single. day.

Seriously. One of my favoritest kitchen tools… Far superior to other garlic presses… just sayin’

Anyhoo, add an envelope of onion soup… I couldn’t find leek soup, but would love to try it some day!

While the recipe didn’t call for it, I knew Puddie would want artichokes in his spinach dip, so I added a can of artichoke hearts that I drained and chopped.

Mix well and there you have it… You can always serve it up as is with chips and bread or pretzels… Or, you can do the traditional bread bowl by carving out a round loaf of sweet or French bread.

Note: Gooseberry Patch gave me an advanced copy of Fresh from the Farmstand to review and use. Also, all product links are affiliate links as always.