Local Author Needs Your Help

Most of you know that my very best friend, Abbi Glines, is an author of Young Adult fiction. I love her books and I was fortunate enough to get to read all the books in advance of their release. Her latest book "The Vincent Brothers" is the sequel to "The Vincent Boys". I highly recommend these books and not just because she's my BFF. :) Both books are great love stories with believable characters and a happy ending. I'm not a reviewer so I have no idea what all I should write to tell you how much I enjoyed these and all of Abbi's books. She needs your help to get her into the top 100 on Amazon. I'm blogging from my phone so I hope this link worksU. Below is the link to "The Vincent Brothers".

Airplanes, New York, and the Authors

On Tuesday, May 8, 2012 I had never been on a plane in my life. Frankly, I didn't want that to change. However, on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 I boarded my first plane to take the trip of a lifetime with my best friend, Abbi Glines. We were bound for New York as NYC virgins sure that we were going to see all the magnificent sights of New York in four days (ha ha) and come home with the exciting tales of our adventure....... including me throwing up and/or passing out on the planes.

I got my wings!

Fortunately, I made it through all the flying with flying colors! No throwing up or passing out.... just the sensation to do so. New York was even more amazing than I thought it would be and we have some great stories to share (and some that only make sense to us). One of my favorite things about this trip is that Abbi and I laughed for four days straight. We laughed because we went to the 2nd floor of our hotel looking for our room that was on the 25th floor, at the crazy cab drivers, the poor little boy who had to pedal us uphill in a pedicab through Central Park, Abbi's concern that we would be abducted, and the Chinese man in a Chinatown restaurant yelling on the phone for someone to "GET DOWN HERE NOW!". I am still laughing at these stories and more. The city was great, Broadway was amazing, and I had the best time with my best friend.

Abbi & Me - Last pic of the trip

I have to tell you though, in all that excitement, my other favorite part of the trip was meeting Abbi's author friends and listening to their conversation. This amazing group of women are as diverse as they come, from different parts of the country and different parts of the world yet they are brought together by their love for story telling, reading, and writing. I am so proud of Abbi for all she has accomplished and I love that I have been privileged to be there as her dreams continue to come true. In New York I met a whole group of women who are doing the same thing. In the midst of their normal lives, they are chasing their dreams. Two of the ladies were recognized by fans at the book signing we went to for E.L. James. I was so excited and happy for them as they relished the moment in amazement and pure joy. Even E.L. James is stunned by the outpouring of love for her and her body of works. It was such an honor for me to be welcomed into their private group for this trip. I'm not a fiction reader (I usually only read Abbi's books) but after meeting all these beautiful and inspiring women who are chasing their dreams daily, I have a new list of books to read. I've shared the list in the link below.

NY Ladies' Books I Want to Read

Left to right: Tina Reber, Colleen Hoover, Elizabeth Reyes, Tracy Garvis-Graves, Me (not a writer), Abbi Glines, Liz Reinhardt, Nichole Chase, and Tammara Webber. We are on our way to meet E.L. James at her book signing in NY.

I hope you will add these books to your reading list as well. Several of the ladies are finishing up books to be published soon, so I will update the list as the new editions become available. Happy reading! :)

This is How it Started..... Pinterest

Once upon a time there was a girl from NOLA who bought everything from Wal-mart like the rest of the world...... until she found Pinterest.

Now I am making lots of homemade stuff that I intend to tell you all about but this is where it started. I found this blog about making homemade laundry detergent with claims that it only costs $.03 - $.05 a load. WHAT!?!?!?! Are you serious? THREE to FIVE CENTS a load? I have to try this because I HATE (do you hear me? I said HATE) buying laundry detergent. It's ridiculously expensive, even for the cheapest stuff and it's one of those things that just ruins my budget when I have to buy it. I hate buying laundry detergent.

So, now that we are sufficiently versed on how I feel about buying this crap, let's move on to making it. I followed the recipe for the liquid detergent found on this blog: One Good Thing by Jillee. I also followed her update and make three gallons instead of two.

For those of you who are concerned about having to be Suzie Homemaker or Martha Stewart, please, fear not. Here is a picture of my laundry detergent:

You are now looking into a 5 gallon bucket. Fancy, right? :) I've taken the picture inside so that you cannot see the grout stains that were left on the outside of the bucket after my husband so kindly cleaned this out for me to use for my laundry detergent. We are uptown, I'm tellin' ya!

Seriously, I love this stuff but, truth be told, I'm still not 100% sure I'm making it right because it's still very thick. A beautiful young lady that I go to church with also makes her own laundry detergent. (Shout out to Amy & check out her blog here: Instrument Ink) She was not sure about why it was so thick because she makes the dry detergent. She also said that she only uses the Fels soap & Borax because the Washing Soda was irritating their skin.

Since we can all see that I'm almost to the bottom of my bucket of detergent, I think I'm going to try the dry version next time. This will not only be easier and avoid the thickness that I've been battling but I will also be able to upgrade my container from said fancy bucket to a more in vogue coffee tin or mayo jar. :-D

I Brought You In This World.......

How many of you have seen the stand up comedy movie from the 80's - "Bill Cosby Himself"? If you haven't, click on that link and go get it - especially if you are a parent. I cried laughing the first time I saw it and I was in Jr High. It's even funnier now, as an adult! So, anyway, if you've seen it and you're a parent, then you probably relate to the line, "Boy, I brought you into this world and I can take you out. And it doesn't make any difference to me because I'll make another one that looks just like you."

Seriously, my kids are good kids but you know there are those times that I feel as if I'm losing my mind. "How many times do I have to tell you to do that?" "You really think this room is CLEAN?" "We have to go, NOW. No, I cannot wait one second, you've had 45 minutes!" So, you see what I'm saying? The kids have been struggling in the area of keeping up with responsibilities. Mama has been struggling to find effective consequences for infractions......enter Class Dojo.

My daughter's teacher is using this in her classroom and sent an email home explaining how she is using it there. The system is designed for teachers, however, I could see the advantages of using it at home so I set up my own home classroom.

Everyone will have different ways of setting up their home or classroom. I'm not going to bore you with all the details of how we work this system. If you want the details, let me know and I'll be happy to share them with you. The basics are that they get points for positive things and lose points for negative things. You can use their suggestions, add to, or take away from what they have. My kids get points for clean rooms, homework done, chores, hard work, being helpful, kindness, etc. The idea is I don't want to just reward them for what they have to do, I also want to catch them doing positive things and reward that behavior as well. The flip side is that they also lose points for things like being late, disobedience, disrespect of others, fighting, whining, etc. I don't argue, I just take away a point. Each child has to earn or maintain a certain number of points by Friday in order to be able to participate in weekend activities other than family activities.

I'm not telling you that it's perfect and we are not fussing at all. My kids are still learning the ropes and figuring all this out. However, I went to Walmart with them today and didn't feel like I needed to drink heavily when I left. LOL This is a GREAT accomplishment! :)

Creativity Makes Me Crazy......

So, here's the deal. I am passionate about a lot of things. I'm practical and creative. My brain spins and spins with everything from managing finances to creating and wanting to create fun things for our home, my kids, and my family. Sometimes, it makes me crazy. There is only so much time in a day!

My new love is Pinterest. It covers everything! I get great ideas and get to post the things that I am doing. Unfortunately, I have only been posting the pictures of things that I am doing. I plan to fix that with my blog. I will begin blogging the things that I am doing so I can connect the information with the pictures. I know it's frustrating to Pinterest users (me included) when that information is not with the picture.

If you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, I am ATasteofNewOrleans. Since I'm a little ADD with my interests, I'm admittedly all over the place. Homemade food, cleaners, crafts, projects, organization, interesting information, humor, books I read..... and on and on.

Join me as I happily go crazy on Pinterest. :)

A New Beginning and a little liquor

This is our inheritance from our closed business. It reminds me of many pictures that I've seen @NOLAalex post on Twitter. I have no idea what we will do with this much alcohol. We rarely have alcohol in the house. Maybe I should ship it to him. You interested, Alex? LOL

Anyway, I've spent the last week organizing my house, putting equipment in storage, and getting ready for our next adventure. It's exciting! It's fun! It's nerve-racking! It's a new beginning! I feel fortunate enough to have experienced several new beginnings, so the nerves are mostly outweighed by the assurance that God is in control and these situations always work to our benefit.

The realization settled in with the reminder that I like to be me - who God made me & who He's working on me to be. My personal preference is that I drink but not enough to turn into someone else. I love to have fun and I love being me. This alcohol reminds me that the business that was my dream had turned into something else, it was no longer me. People & politics stepped in to change it's dynamics and it was time to let it go.

Although letting go and moving on can be scary, I'm excited to see where God leads us next. One thing is for sure, it is never boring. :)