A recipe for disaster

Siiiiiiiigh. The other day, I heard about Dunkin' Donuts pulling a Rachael Ray TV ad while I was listening to NPR.

Internet searching led me to the story on MSNBC.com.


I don't have many nice things to say about this. How ridiculous! Seriously! I ranted to Erik for awhile, but then had to pause and look at the other side of the coin.

When I was headed ton Africa about a year and a half ago, I certainly was more than a little intimidated of some of my traveling companions. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I was skeptical of talking to the guy next to me on the plane from Atlanta to Paris. He looked middle-eastern to me (see how easily we can all buy into being terrified of people different than us?). Come to find out, he was a wonderfully nice business man who spent a lot of time between India and the U.S. on business. He had a young son, who he missed like crazy, and just wanted someone to talk to.

Then, in Niger, Africa, you didn't have to look far to see men wearing head scarfs. Heck, I was spending two weeks in a Muslim country, what did I expect. But did that mean they were all terrorists? No and HECK NO.

Less than one second after disembarking from the bus that took us to Agadez on the edge of the desert, I KNEW why they were all wearing scarfs around their heads. The wind was crazy and kicked up dust and sand into your hair, face, eyes and any other exposed part of your body. It did NOT take me long to purchase a head scarf of my own. Heck, does that make ME a terrorist? No and HECK NO.

I guess my basic message to anyone who reads this blog is this: Just because someone looks or dresses vastly different than you, jumping to conclusions is often the worst thing you can do. If you take a few minutes to engage with someone, you might have not only a new respect for their culture, but a wider world view. And that's something we ALL could use more of.

I'll close with this commentary from The Chicago Tribune. I think it hit the nail on the head!

Cookbook Idea

I'm super-busy this week, so just a short post. I LOVE COOKING and am excited about Tastebook.com as an idea.

I haven't done too much poking around, but it looks as if you can add your own recipes or get ones off of their archives. Yummie! Leave me a comment on YOUR favorite recipe!

Wedding Web Site facelift

Our awesome invitation designer, Heather, is getting CLOSE to having our invites all designed! I'm SO EXCITED!

To celebrate, I changed the look of our wedding Web site to match the colors better. Nothing will match perfectly, because I don't think you can customize the colors .... but oh well!


The old design wasn't spectacular, but they didn't have as many options. Now they have a plethora of choices at My Wedding.

Layoffs

Last week, the HDN let go a full time and part time employee.

TODAY they canned THREE MORE people .... including a 17-year employee.

Glad I'm on the way out already....

Quick Pic...

I really didn't want to be one of *those* people .... you know. The ones who take a crappy photo of themselves and submit it to the paper for an engagement photo. BUT I'm about outta Hays, and due to my awesome opportunity to go to Liana's Business Boot Camp, we had to postpone our engagement session.

SO .... here is the photo .... Yeah, I took it MYSELF with a camera timer. Not spectacular, but I want to get it in the Hays paper before I am too far removed from Hays.


I KNOW Mike will do a dynomite job, so be sure to stay tuned sometime this summer for the photos!

Also, this is the first photo you can clearly see my NEW GLASSES!

Soooooo, after a long absence, here are my new glasses. A few months ago, I posted asking for advice on new glasses. There were SO MANY people who left excellent comments. Thank you ALL for your feedback.

I did a preliminary search, and brought Erik back. I texted pictures to Robin, and finally Erik and I ended up on this pair.

Erik and I had different favorites among the pairs of glasses. He liked some dark black ones (I didn't want them too dark) and I liked tortise ones. He asked if I'd like those glasses in another 9 years (I had my last pair for 9 years!), and I decided I should go a little more traditional. SO, that's how we landed here.

Father Nick's Ordination!!!!!

This weekend I cruised over to Salina to inspect Erik's handiwork in our garden, as well as for Father Nick's ordination to the priesthood. (go post some comments and give him some blog kudos and love!)


Then I headed to Goodland for his first Mass, which was this morning. I'm chillin' in Hays and look forward to staying in ONE PLACE for the next 10 days.

Come July 1, Father Nick will be assigned to St. Mary's, where Erik and I are parishoners, and we're BOTH excited to have him around!

I'm so crazy busy, with WAY too much on my plate right now, so if you need something, talk to Erik. ;-) But seriously, unless it's an emergency, I'm not taking on anything else until about June 15. So if your e-mails or phone calls go unanswered, please don't take it personally!!!!

#2 — Quit my full-time news job

... not done YET, but today I gave my two weeks notice to the Hays Daily News. Another 101 in 1001 almost out of the way!

Now, I feel like THIS:



(Photo by Steven Hausler when I was on assignment at Blue Sky Miniature Horse Farm a few weeks ago).

I am not doing the "salty stomp" out of the news business. It's just time for me to move on past Hays. I need something more fulfilling in life. I enjoy writing, but it is not my passion. It doesn't get me out of bed in the morning or keep me up late into the night. Heartland Photography fits that bill and I'm elated to have the opportunity to go full time! (UGH! I swear, once I'm full time, the new Heartland Site will go LIVE!!!! I can hardly wait to share it with all of you!)

There are SO MANY people who have helped me to get to this point — encouraged me, let me cry on their shoulder and given me sound business advice — they range from my parents who instilled a sense of independence at a VERY young age to Erik who is my number one fan to Mike who really helps me kick my photos up a notch!

There are MANY others (Sarah, Robin, Nicole, Angela, Kim, Kitty, Liana, Tyff & Jeff....), but there's not enough hours in the day to give blog love to those who have helped me. Please know I thank each and every one of you from the depths of my soul.

Dream, dream, dream, dream...

A few weeks ago, I saw the following quote in a post on the suber-fabulous Jasmine Star's photography blog that struck such a deep chord with me.

I can hardly read this quote without tearing up ... and this seems like an appropriate week to share it with you. (BTW, JD is Jasmine's husband)

"Money should never be an issue when dreams are concerned and, JD says, I've given him another reason to wake up and go to work. To him, my aspirations don't have a pricetag."

(emphasis added!)

A poem

Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die,
Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly,
Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams go,
Life is a barren field,
Frozen with snow
~Langston Hughes

This poem/saying was on the bathroom mirror growing up. I must have read it in a literature book and liked it ... and I am spending a lot of time thinking about it this week.

A better update, and less cryptic post coming Wednesday, I promise!

On Marie's Blog!

The fabulous Marie posted the above collage of us BBC survivors on her blog.

Sa-weet!