Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Thurs 8/24 Blog Prompt
What do you like best and least about where you live?"

I live in a community with a very diverse ethnic mix. We have a high concentration of Greek, Italian, Jewish, Puerto Rican, Polish and many other ethnic groups. And with this we have GREAT mom and pop resteraunts where you can get authentic cuisine...cooked the way it was in "the old country" =). (Why does it ALWAYS come back to food with me????)

"With the opening of the city's steel mills, Youngstown proved to be a popular destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, Germany, Greece, and Ireland. In the early 20th century, the community also saw an influx of immigrants from non-European countries including Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Such ethnic diversity continues to be reflected in many of the community's neighborhoods, where a Hungarian Orthodox church may share the same street corner with an Italian restaurant." --- Quote from Wikipedia

Another wonderful benefit is the festivals and cultural exchanges that are yearly events here. We have very little racial polarity here and I love that about my town. It is the town I grew up in and cost of living here is GREAT ( live in a 4 bdrm, 1.5 bath 2000 sq ft house in suburb with great schools and my house is worth about 45k)

What I don't like about here is amount of violence. Our community has LOOOONG history of Mafia connections and corruption. Here is another quote from Wiki that NOT so positive

"Meanwhile, the city has attempted to come to terms with its troubling reputation for corruption. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Youngstown became identified in the public mind with Mafia-related murders (committed chiefly via car bombings). Consequently, the metropolis gained the nickname "Bomb City," and the phrase "Youngstown tune-up" became a slang term for car-bomb assassination. Today, however, the city has accelerated measures to limit the influence of organized crime upon all sectors of municipal life. For some observers, the climax of this ongoing effort was the arrest, trial, and 2002 conviction of former US Representative James A. Traficant Jr. on bribery and racketeering charges."

I have done several reports on our Mafia history and its fascinating in abstract or on paper but the effects on our lives can be devastating....

here are some nicknames for my town from the urbandictionary.com

1. The armpit of Ohio
   
2. Murdertown U.S.A in the 1950's & 1960's
3. Rundown Steel City halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh
4. Corruption

I am happy to say we seem to be ushering in a new era for my city and I hope it continues to grow into the great city it used to be.

Mon 8/21 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Mon 8/21 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Happy Monday all! Today's prompt is from Laura Lou!
From racecar driving to rock stars, Dodgers camp to tossing a football with Joe Montana or playing in the Super Bowl, fantasy camps for adults make dreams come true. If you could design your own fantasy camp, what would it be like?"


My fantasy camp all stars would be :

1. Paula Deen


2. Rachael Raye


3. G. Garvin


4. Ina Garten


5. Bobby and Jamie Deen

I made myself hungry just thinking about these people. I love to watch their shows and pick up tips. I have used quite a few of Paula's recipes since my dh is from Texas and loves that Southern style cooking!

Tues 8/15 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Tues 8/15 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Today, list 10 attainable goals for you and/or your family that can be accomplished within the next year.

10 attainable goals



1. Complete hours in timely manner for virtual school


2. Attend at least 3 home games to watch my daughter cheer


3. Complete my Field Experience for school


4. Visit dh family in Texas


5. Visit my family in Cincinnati


6. No tardies for the three kiddos in regular schools


7. Have a family portrait done


8. Have an anniversary portrait done of dh & me


9. Use our Y membership weekly


10. NOT BE PREGNANT next summer. After three summer pregnancies in three years, I can't survive that!

Mon 8/14 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Mon 8/14 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Today's prompt:

Start 10 sentences with the words 'I love...'

You can elaborate as much or as little as you like from there. Have fun!"

This is almost TOO easy for me as a married mom of 9...so I won't take the easy way out and name each of my kids and dh....

I love ....

1. Snapple Lemon Flavor Ice Tea - this is my drink of choice


2. Roller Coasters - preferably the ones at roller coaster capital of the world Cedar Point


3. West Branch Beach - Dating back to childhood up until present, I have had great memories of time spent there


4. Good Books-- nothing like finishing up a good book


5. Muscle Cars - my 8 year old car aficiando has gotten me hooked on them...we love to go to car shows and take pictures


6. Scrabble -- I play a MEAN game of scrabble.


7. My DigiCam -- 8MP..whats not to love??


8. Brachs Candy Corn -- one of my fave treats


9. Summer Time - I love everything about summer and miss it terribly when winter comes


10. and of Digiscrapping!!! -- this is a no brainer

drumroll............................

With much ado...I would like to introduce

Zaniyah Ylonne Kelis
born 08/09/06 1:22 pm
6 lbs 7 oz
20 inches long

Tues 8/8 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Tues 8/8 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "Describe the most serious illness or accident that you have had.

Not accident prone? Someone else's illness/accident that significantly affected your life."

This would have to be in 2004 with the premature birth of my son. At 34 weeks, I was having contractions but they never established a rhythm. The er doc was concerned because although the heartbeat was fine, he was unable to get any fetal movement even after using a buzzer. They kept me in hospital for monitoring overnight and I saw high risk dr in the am. After a pelvic exam, he decided I was 5 cm dilated and he was going to give me pitocin to jumpstart my contractions. This was about 730 am. By 10:20 am, my darling Jorrell was born. He had a perfect apgar score and was doing great at first. However as the day progressed, they kept noticing that his tempature was dropping. during the night the nurse observed that he was having seizure. They transferred him to NICU where they gave him an EEG and discovered he had suffered a stroke before he was born. He was placed on phenobarbital to prevent further seizures and stayed 23 days in the NICU. His (almost) two years of life have been full of ups and downs, innumberable tests and doctors, weekly physical and occupational therapy and the love of my precious baby boy!

Mon 8/7 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place

Mon 8/7 Blog Prompt - Digital Scrapbook Place: "I believe most of us have significant others in our lives, so:

How did you first meet your in-laws? Impressions?"


I first met the Wicked Witch of the South..I mean my MIL maybe a month after dating my dh. She was very friendly and charming to my FACE. However I soon found out that was an act. She is still nicey nice t o my face but has made terrible accusations about me (our oldest child together was born premature and suffered a stroke before he was born and spent 23 days in NICU, when my husband called to tell her he had been born, she insisted that he was NOT premature (and therefore not my husbands) because he weighed 5lbs and that I had convinced the doctors to lie to my husband about that). I can understand her not liking me but to say something like that during such a stressful time struck me as beyond vindictive. DH and I have been together three years and she STILL makes nasty remarks and even tells blatant lies about me to his other family members. I do not hate her but I do choose to keep my distance.

My husband's only sister is definitely her mother's child and too much like her mom for us to ever be friends. She is two faced and likes to cause trouble. DH and I had moved in together and she gave his ex girlfriend's mother our phone number, who then gave the number to her daughter. These are just a few of the incidents that have shown me the best way to handle both of them is with a long handled spoon so to speak.

The only other IL that I know well is my husband's maternal grandmother. How she ever raised my MIL, I do not know. She is sweet as can be. She has always been there for my husband and basically raised him when his mom decided she had other things she wanted to do. She has told me that she is happy that dh has me in his life and to pray for his mother but do not involve her too much in our lives. Her exact words were Wanda is miserable and would like nothing more than for you two to be miserable too.

Wed 8/2 Blog Prompt

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Here's a two-part question for today:

In what way do you indulge yourself?

My number one way I indulge myself is my computer toys and time. I rarely do buy clothes or jewelry for myself but I love having the latest toys for my pc. I have an 8.1 MP camera. I also have an Ipod shuffle, 2 external hard drives, an internal dvd burner, a backup internal dvd burner AND an external dvd burner. My speaker system for the pc is better than one for my home stereo system. My next purchase is going to be a Wacom tablet. Soon as I find a great deal on one that is.....

In what way do you wish you could indulge yourself?

I should spend more time pampering myself spending time away from the family and the pc. I used to go out to lunch all by myself with a good book and just eat and read. It gave me time to renew myself so that I am not always so irritated by demands placed on me by family obligations.