One Million Blogs

I am not sure how many blogs there are in the world. One source said that there are as many as 70,000,000. Whether or not those are active, who knows? But I do know that someone has started an interesting wiki to try and collect links to at least 1,000,000 of those blogs.

I did my part to help by adding both of my blogs to the list. My main blog, Family Musings, is number 1511. This blog, EatingItUp, is number 1512.

If you keep a blog, join the social experiment and head over to add it yourself. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and click,"Add your blog to the list."

F is for Fruit

This list, my 9th edition of Thursday Thirteen, wasn't too difficult. I came up with it pretty quickly.

1. Fruit Loops - Not my personal favorite cereal, but I did see it featured on a poster I liked. It said, "Be the Fruit Loop in a bowl full of Cheerios."
2. French Fries - Is it safe to assume that we all know they aren't really french, they are Belgium?
3. French Toast - This isn't really French either, I don't think.
4. Funnel Cake - Greasy, fattening fair food doesn't get better than this. Unless it is topped with powdered sugar and mascerated strawberries.
5. Flounder (or just plain fish) - This was the only kid of fish I remember even knowing about as a kid. I didn't discover salmon or tilapia until after I graduated from college.
6. Fudge - I am not a huge fudge fan, but I do like fudgey brownies and fudgey cake frosting.
7. Frosted Flakes - Another cereal! I like these better than #1, and they are best with bananas or strawberries on top.
8. Fruit Salad - Just like with a regular vegetable salad, this tastes better when someone else makes it. One time a long time ago, my friend Barbara made one with sour cream in it. I think it was the best fruit salad I ever tasted.
9. Filet Mignon - Beefy heaven. I can't afford these at restaurants anymore, but oh man, these are good. Makes me wanna go and grill something.
10. Fruit Juice/Punch - I don't drink this sort of thing because it has a ton of sugar. I'd rather waste my sugar on chocolate.
11. Flour - OK. Technically, not a food in and of itself, but it makes all the baked goodness in the world possible. And who wants to live without baked goodness?
12. Figs - The first time I tried these I was an assistant teacher for a 3rd grade Vacation Bible School class. We were sampling biblical foods. I was surprised that I liked them, though I don't think I've had then ever since.
13. Flapjacks - Hey, no one said I couldn't use slang terms in my list. Who doesn't love a stack of fresh and fluffy flapjacks?!

Can you think of anymore F foods to add to my list?

Visit the home of Thursday Thirteen for more list fun!

Thanks Edi

Thanks to the awesome Edi at Exotic Eating Experiment, I have my very own copy of Field Guide to Produce: How to Identify, Select, and Prepare Virtually Every Fruit and Vegetable at the Market!

I am so excited because this is one of the giveaways I really wanted to win. It arrived in the mail this weekend and I have already used it. I bought a mango at the store and was unsure how to prepare it for eating, so I looked it up in my new Field Guide.

You see, I've never had a mango before, but it was so cheap, I thought I'd give it a try. This little book sure came in handy, providing instructions on the best way to peel and serve the mango. I can now say that there will be many more mangoes in my future!

Thanks Edi!

Non-food Stash

I mentioned my non-food stash at the very beginning of this blog and made the decision that it wouldn't be part of my experiment here. Instead, it has become its own game, a whole other creature. I thought it might be fun for some of you to see what I did at CVS this week to build my non-food stash, and to see pictures of where it is currently organized.

First, here is a picture of what I bought today. I spent $5.12 for everything you see in the first picture. I did this by rolling my ECBs and using CVS coupons that I either got at the store or in the mail. In exchange for my time and diligence, CVS gave me another $78.04 to spend next time I am in their store. To make it easier to spend, that amount is spread out over several ECB coupons though.

(2 blood sugar monitors, 3 boxes allergy tablets, 5 toothbrushes, 3 tubes of toothpste, 3 dental picks, 2 boxes of Tums, and a pop-up tape dispenser with 2 refills)

I have 6 shelves to hold my non-food stash. This is pretty much everything that I have, except for a few items that I know we will use in the very near future. Those are stored in our master bathroom. Here are the top two shelves. They hold cleaning supplies, some office supplies, and, on the bottom left, lotions. Some of the lotions were in gift packs, but most of them came to me free. As a matter of fact, everything in my stash was free or nearly free (less than $0.50).

On the middle two shelves, I have health and beauty aid heaven! More than 12 bottles of body wash, 20 tubes of toothpaste, several deodorants, toothbrushes, various hair care products and lots of sponges.


Finally, the bottom of this pantry is pretty random. I have smelly things (like the kind you plug in, spray, or leave on the counter), various medicinal items, and women's razors (mostly Intuition).

As I look at my well-organized pantry, I do see that I am very blessed to have discovered CVS and ECBs. If I can keep this up, I will never have to pay for toothpaste, tooth brushes, body wash, deodorant, or lotion again!

New Design

I changed the template on my blog... what do you think?

The background is courtesy of Cutest Blog on the Block. I will just say it was the easiest thing to install too! If you want to add some pizazz to your Blogger blog, I suggest you head over and snag one of her many free backgrounds!

Free Coffee

Who doesn't like free coffee? Hey, if it's good enough for Rachel Ray, it's good enough for me!

RSS Day

I was all set to give my readers a different kind of recipe... one that provided all the ingredients and how to for utilizing RSS feeds to their best advantage. Then, I woke up today and read Abraham Piper's easy-peasy explanation in my Google Reader account. I really can't say it any better than he does. Go check it out then come back and subscribe to my feed in your new Reader account!

Cross posted at Family Musings.