I'm so happy I received this award, not because I was necessarily jealous about Jason or my new BFF Grandma J not awarding it to me (even though that's kind of true too :), but because I LOVE quizzes. I was going to steal this quiz anyways and just do it on my own cuz quizzes are so much fun. However, since JLo awarded me the Brillante Award, I get to do it legally. So, yay!

Here it goes...
A. attached or single? single

B. best friend? Kristen

C. cake or pie? cheesecake

D. day of choice? Friday (after work)
E. essential item? ipod

F. favorite color? red
G. gummy bears or worms? Umm, french fries kind of look like worms, right?

H. hometown? Valencia
I. favorite indulgence? shoes (even though that's not socially conscious, but that's what a guilty pleasure is)

J. January or July? January
K. kids? No, thank goodness

L. life isn't complete without? laughter
M. marriage date? see letter A

N. number of brothers & sisters? a spoiled only child
O. oranges or apples? oranges
P. phobias? snakes

Q. quotes? huh?
R. reasons to smile? life
S. season of choice? tie between fall and winter

T. tag seven peeps! (see below)
U. unknown fact about me? I'm scared to go to the doctor and dentist

V. vegetable? broccoli

W. worst habits? roll my eyes when I am annoyed

X. x-ray or ultrasound? what does this question even mean?

Y. your favorite food? pasta
Z. zodiac sign? Libra

I am supposed to tag a lot of bloggers for this and I think most of my blogroll has received this award already and I'm not sure if I can give them out again so here are my award choices.

Cortney from Cortney Chronicles (Cortney is a giver)

Mike from What a Mess (even though he doesn't blog very much after he promised to blog weekly)

Elemento-P (cuz she's a shoe-a-holic just like me)

Tami H. (even though she's just a lurker who doesn't comment, she loves quizzes too - I expect an email my friend.)

OK guys here's how it works:1. When received, you may post the Brilliant Premio to your blog.2. Link to the blogger you received it from.3. Give it to 7 bloggers.4. Link to those 7 blogs.5. Leave those seven bloggers a comment about receiving the Brilliant Premio. I hope I am not stripped of my award since I only gave it to 3 bloggers and a lurker. At least I got to do the quiz.

The New Look

Well, after a slow start, the votes are in and 63% of my readers love my new look. I love the red and the flowers. It's totally me, but like some of my readers, I don't like the transparancy of the pictures. However, since it took me about 2 hours to redo all my widgets, it's gonna have to be this way for a bit. I couldn't figure out how to save my widget html while editing the layout html. So I had to open up the old layout, right click all my links and copy and paste them into the new layout. It took forever. If anyone knows of an easier way to do this, I am all ears. For now, it is what it is. You can enjoy the red and the flowers when you visit.

My Mom Had Cows In Her Backyard...

Which wouldn't really be funny if she lived on a farm or anywhere else known to have cows, but my mom lives in Hawaii.

I talked to my mom on the phone the other day and this was the conversation.

Mom: Well I had an interesting night last night.

Me: Why?

Mom: Oh, it was about 1:00 in the morning, and I heard a noise in the backyard.

Me: Yah?

Mom: I listened for a bit and the noise kept getting closer and closer to the house.

Me: Oh, no (feeling scared)

Mom: I got out of bed and ran to the front of the house. I figured if it was a burglar trying to break in the back door, I could run out the front door and yell for help.

Me: Oh, jeeze

Mom: I stood by the front door and listened. There was still a lot of noise along the side of the house and I thought this was the loudest burglar I have ever heard.

Me: Yah, cuz you've heard a lot of burglars before.

Mom: (Laughs) Right, no I just figured he was being pretty loud for someone trying to break in.

Me: Right

Mom: So I quietly opened up the front door and walked out onto the lanai (that's what they call the patio in Hawaii). I hid on the linai for a little bit.

Me: (Imagining my poor mom scared and hiding on the patio.)

Mom: After a little while, I snuck around to the side of the house to see if I could see anything.

Me: Yah?

Mom: I looked around the corner and staring back at me was a....cow. He had horns, not the big guy's horns, but still he had horns.

Me: Oh, god, not again. (Yes, this has happened before)

Mom: So I whispered, "Go away," and waved my arms at him.

Me: (Laughs)

Mom: I wanted him to run out into the street so he wouldn't be on the side of the house anymore, but he just turned around and ran back into the backyard, scraping the side of the house with his horns.

Me: Oh, it was his horns that were making all the noise?

Mom: Well, yes, when he walked along the side of the house. The noise I first heard was of him leaning over the rock wall eating my tea plants and he knocked the wall over.

Needless to say, I was relieved that my mom didn't have a real burglar, just a burglar who wanted her tea plants. There is a field behind my mom's house. Every-so-often the owners of the field let their cows out of their normal area to graze this field. There is an ancient rock wall that lines the field, and that wall is the backyard wall for the houses that back up to the field. The wall is not grouted or concreted in, but rather stacked in a special "Hawaiian" way. So when the cows are sent out to this field, they sometimes eat the foliage of the residents. When they do that, they lean against the stacked wall and the wall falls over.

This is not the first time this has happened. When some of my mom's friends were staying at her house while she was here in CA, a bull knocked the wall over and grazed in the backyard for awhile. The people who own the cows have repaired the wall each time it happens. My mom will have to keep their number on speed dial. She had 7 more cows looking over the wall tonight.

I'm so glad it wasn't really a burglar.

Mamma Mia

As requested, my take on Mamma Mia.

Jason and I saw Mamma Mia yesterday. We were giddy with excitement. We made a day of it. We have both seen the play twice and L-O-V-E-D, loved it.

We enjoyed the movie. It was fun. We both agreed that there is something about the play that couldn't be replicated in the film. The performers in the play were amazing and because it was live, the songs were much more powerful. That being said, we liked the movie. I'm sure if we hadn't the play to compare it to, we would have loved the movie.

The actors did a decent job with the songs (some better than others), and those songs are so great. It was corny and fun, and the scenery was breathtaking. We didn't get up and dance like Grandma J did, but I did sing. Overall, it was a good movie.

The Closet

There were some requests to see pictures of my closet mentioned in the Shoes post. I spent this weekend cleaning the closet so it was presentable. As mentioned earlier, most of my shoes are in boxes with the picture of the pair on the box so I know what's inside. This helps me find the pair of many that I am looking for and has, for the most part, kept me from just throwing my shoes on the floor after wearing them. In the past there were mounds of shoes in my closet and I could never find the one I wanted, or if I could I couldn't find it's match. The shoe boxes were not my idea. I got it from Real Simple a few years ago. Here it is...

Close-Up of the Boxes

The Shelving from the Ceiling

The Shelving From the Floor

The Rest of the Shoes - Flip Flops and Sneakers

I know. Like I said, it's a sickness.

Heifer International

Cortney over at Cortney Chronicles donated a flock of chicks through Heifer International in my name as an award for commenting on her blogiversary post. What an amazing award/gift that was, but not only for me. The chicks were given to a needy family. This is what the chicks can do...

Chicks: A Good Choice
A flock of chicks can help families from Cameroon to the Caribbean add nourishing, life-sustaining eggs to their inadequate diets.
The protein in just one egg is a nutritious gift for a hungry child. Protein-packed eggs from even a single chicken can make a life-saving difference.
Heifer helps many hungry families with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks. A good hen can lay up to 200 eggs a year - plenty to eat, share or sell.
Because chickens require little space and can thrive on readily available food scraps, families can make money from the birds without spending much. And chickens help control insects and fertilize gardens.

Every family that receives the gift of livestock promises to share the gift by giving the off-spring to other needy families. I love that! What a wonderful organization.

Thank you Cortney!

What Do You Think ...

of the new look?

Cast your vote -------->