Monday Movie, not a Review!

I'm trying out my new FlipVideo Camera and wanted to see if I could upload to my blog. So, with all the talk of furry friends on UWIB last week I decided to test it with a video of our dog, Cruz.



Don't worry, Cruz loves this even though he sounds tortured. He jumps right up on the dash every time he gets to go!

Lemon Blossoms and Leatherheads.......

It was such a beautiful weekend here in Houston we couldn't bear to spend time in the movies so I didn't get to see either of the movies on my current list of must see, Fast and Furious or Sunshine Cleaning....

Instead late Friday we looked at the netflix arrivals and saw Leatherheads. If you love George Clooney or even if you don't, take a peek, it's probably worth it. It's silly and fun. Renee Zellweger is okay and John Krasinski from the office is cute and redeeming. If you are looking for something to add to the Netflix lineup it is a good one. If you liked Clooney's O Brother while it isn't as good it is in a similar vein and should be satisfying! ON the super satisfying as chocolate scale I give it a 3.5 out of 5.

If you happened to see Fast and Furious PLEASE comment and let me know what you thought!

ON to Lemon Blossoms

My daughter and MIL watch Paula Deen together and got this recipe from there. My daughter so wanted to make it so yesterday I gave in and we bought the ingredients. Paula Deen's recipes are sooooo decadent in terms of butter, sugar, etc I think I gained a pound just reading the recipe, but if you are looking for a snack sized item for a luncheon, shower, food gift etc this one is it. If you like lemon even a little they are delicious and pretty easy.

Lemon Blossoms
Recipe courtesy Paula Deen
Prep Time: 12 min Inactive Prep Time: 1 hr 0 min
Cook Time: 12 min
Level: Easy
Serves: 5 dozen
Ingredients

18 1/2-ounce package yellow cake mix

3 1/2-ounce package instant lemon pudding mix

4 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

Glaze: 4 cups confectioners' sugar

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice

1 lemon, zested

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons water

DirectionsPreheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray miniature muffin tins with vegetable oil cooking spray. Combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs and oil and blend well with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour a small amount of batter, filling each muffin tin half way. Bake for 12 minutes. Turn out onto a tea towel
To make the glaze, sift the sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice, zest, oil, and 3 tablespoons water. Mix with a spoon until smooth.
With fingers, dip the cupcakes into the glaze while they're still warm, covering as much of the cake as possible, or spoon the glaze over the warm cupcakes, turning them to completely coat. Place on wire racks with waxed paper underneath to catch any drips. Let the glaze set thoroughly, about 1 hour, before storing in containers with tight-fitting lids.

One helpful hint. Use the Pam spray on the tins generously! Otherwise they self destruct when you try to remove them. This is also a messy recipe, so be prepared!

Have a great day!

Lakeway Inn Resort and Spa Austin ......

Family and I went to Austin for Spring Break. Not super far away from us, but with the travel advisory for Mexico seemed like a good choice. We chose the Lakeway Inn Resort and Spa on Lake Travis. Originally built in 1963 but totally redone now it still has a lot of old school charm. Spacious luxe rooms, a little 1960's flavor in the decor and a killer spa. The pool is great, complete with swim up bar and waterslide for the kids. It sits on the side of Lake Travis with wonderful views and deer that would graze beneath our balcony in the evening.

For other entertainment the Hill Country Galleria is close by, there is a marina, golf course and tennis club and of course you can go into Austin, South Congress is my kid's favorite area.

Will on the left is toooo cool for the picture.

Marc in the middle is suffering through mom taking a picture.

Chloe, who is 10, is showing just how dorky most of us are at 10......

Have a great day!

Monday Movie Review - I Love You, Man

Okaay I was soooo not with the public's opinion last week on Knowing ....

This week I saw I Love You, Man with Paul Ruud and Jason Segal. The film has lots of other great actors, Jaime Pressly, Jon Favreau (Swingers anyone?) Jane Curten, Rashida Jones. Let's face it though it's about the Paul Ruud and Jason Segal characters. It's a kinda familiar situation in that Paul Ruud's character Peter has been so busy with life and being a tiny bit uncomfortable in his own skin that he has gone through life with no male friends. When he decides to take the next step in life and get married he realizes he has no best man.

Hilarity ensues as he goes on "man" dates fixed up by everyone from his mom to his gay brother. He finds a great friend on his own and they help each other realize their own shortcomings on the way "down the aisle".

Great chemistry, funny dialog and situations, a fun movie, I give it 4 out of 5 on the as good as cheesecake scale (or suzy q's or tres leches, or chocolate cupcakes, whatever your sweet of choice is).

Back from Hiatus Monday Movie Review

Okay, I know I've been gone from the blog for a while, but had to take a post Oscar break! What did we see over the weekend? no not Duplicity, not Love ya Man, but Knowing...... It was the family choice, what can I say.

I do like Nick Cage though so I went hoping to see a good movie. I expected a supernatural thriller but got something different with the entry of some waxy looking individuals bearing shiny black rocks (still don't know what those were about) and got a not very satisfying ending. It was decent acting from Cage and the others and it sort of gets you thinking about natural disasters but on the whole -

WAIT FOR THE DVD

See you next week with another movie!

Monday Movie Review! Slum Dog Millionaire

Okay, I saw this movie a while back and loved it. It uses a gameshow as a great vehicle to tell this boy's story of growing up in the slums of Mombai. It tells us about his devotion to a girl from the very beginning to finally ending up with her against all odds. It is the ultimate feel good kind of movie, boy meets girl, loses girl, gets girl in the end and in the process as a by product gets rich too!

The acting is great, the setting a bit exotic for an American audience and the vehicle "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" just familiar enough to make your comfortable with the way the story moves along.

I assume it will be re-released with it's win last night, so go see it. It is rated R so and has a couple of disturbing scenes, but, all in all a great show!

How to Make a 125 by 125 Button Ad

With ads in blogs and project wonderful becoming so popular it’s important to have one of those square clickable ads that you can insert. Project Wonderful makes it easy, you just need the art, they put the link with it. But what if you want to put an ad on your own or a friend’s blog?

I figured that this couldn’t be too hard and instead of paying for it I thought surely I could find out how to do it if I spent enough time.

After googleing several different times and reading several different posts and “free” websites that I came across I did indeed find two posts that when combined made sense of what to do. Since I didn’t know the first thing about it I will explain it from the very basics.

You need an image you like for the ad. I used a product picture that I took. I inserted text for my store name and cropped and resized it to 125 square. I use Irfanview, a free software available on the internet, for this but there are lots of other softwares that do the same thing. There are two parts of the ad process.

1. You need to park this image on the internet somewhere that is always “on” - a host for the image. I used photobucket, you could also use flickr or a similar service. You need to make sure that they give html code for the image when you save it. In photobucket it is the third of the four lines they give you underneath the image in your album.

2. You need to write a string of code that includes this HTML for the photo and the url of the site you want to go to if you click on the picture.

This string of code is what you insert in the HTML add a gadget field on blogger or other blogging sites.
The string will look something like this:

Replace the caps with your information. This is what mine looks like for the retrochique button

LOCATION OF THE IMAGE FILE….is the HTML line from photobucket.

The first time I did it I copied and pasted in word until I thought I had it right and then copied and pasted the code into my blog. I was really happy when it worked!

Please leave a comment if you found this helpful. I will post about how to animate your gif button (make it flash different images) next week.
Thanks!