I did my first vlog this week. I am just figuring out all of this video stuff. I had some difficulty, but I am extremely persistent. I hope you like whats in my bag. I’ll bet you’ll be surprised. I am a baker and I never leave unprepared. Every week here at this blog hop we will have a different topic.
1. You must write a post relevant to the topic for the week.
2. The link added with the widget below must be a direct link to your relevant post.
3. You must visit each link and leave a comment to show your support (over the span of the week and before the next Monday topic is posted).
4. The Misfit Bloggers reserve the right to remove any links deemed by ourselves as “unfit” to be a part of the hop (i.e. irrelevant, inappropriate, etc.)
5. You must post the “Misfit Monday Blog Hop” button as provided in the text area below somewhere on your post.
SUGGESTIONS for taking full advantage of this blog hop:
1. Go all out! Comment, follow, subscribe, tweet about, share on Facebook…anything you can to show your support of your fellow blog hoppers! What do you have to lose??
2. Participate regularly – odds are, the more people see you around, the more likely they are to check out your post and be genuinely interested in what you have to say.
3. Have fun and stay original – blog hops are a great opportunity to pull in new regular readers…spark their interest and get them eager to know more about you!
This past week has been very difficult to say the least. Life has its Peaks and Valleys. I would say this week I am in the valley. I guess the saying goes, when it rains it pours.
Our family said good-bye to my husbands old neighbor last week. He passed away from cancer, after a three year battle. We used to live in the San Fernando Valley and he lived their too. My husband and his son were very close. His son was my hubbys best friend and was in our wedding. When we moved to Palm Springs 24 years ago, his parents also moved near us. They had a wonderful tribute at his funeral since he was part of citizens on patrol. The mayor and city manager and police dept attended. It was pretty amazing and it also reunited my husband with his friend that he hadn’t seen in many years.
A few days later we found out that a friend was in jail awaiting prison. He had made a bad choice and in a moment his life was changed forever. We had been close for many years and just recently lost touch with him. We went to see him this week and it was so difficult. I can’t imagine losing time away from family and friends. I recently heard a verse that says “Jesus came to set the captives free”, many of us are in bondage and chains to thoughts, habits and relationships. I am glad that I have a wonderful relationship with my heavenly Father and I never have to be alone. We will become one of our friends pen pals (I never thought I would find myself in this situation) but God has a plan and I hope He uses me in our friends life.
Yesterday was my friend, Helen’s birthday, she was the one who helped me with my teahouse. The anniversary of her death was one year ago on her birthday. She was also a great neighbor. It happened so quick , she died of a brain aneurism but I am so glad I knew her, but it was really a tough day remembering her and her family that I am close with. I saw people writing to her and her family on facebook. She was truly a wonderful person.
As I write this, we are on our way to say goodbye to a family member getting ready to leave for Afganistan. We just said goodbye to him not too long ago as his family went to Japan. We didn’t think he would be deployed so soon, so we are having a family reunion. He will be gone for 7 – 9 months. Our prayers are with him and his family.
Tomorrow, we will say goodbye to another family friend, Blake, who is moving to Washington. My good friend Kathy is his mother and they are expecting a baby, so it will be especially hard for Kathy, being a new nanna.
As I reflect on all of this, I realize God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, even when it feels like it’s too much to bear. It can be very difficult, but I have a wonderful group of friends that always lift me up when I start feeling down. I also know I have to take every thought captive.
On a happy note, this week is our yearly convention, as I am also an Arbonne Consultant. We will be in Vegas for 4 days and I am going to use that time to be refreshed. I will be with so many of my friends from near and far. I am leaving hubby home with the kids and hopefully my codependant personally wont need to call and check in to make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing.
So tell me how do you handle grief and sorrow? Pray, call friends, go for walks, or maybe Eat Chocolate? Follow me on twitter, facebook and google plus to get updates and keep the conversation going.
I have done several intros in the past, and as things evolve, so does Candiland.
I started my blog back in 2010, but didn’t do too much with it. I also have a business blog that I was focusing on so I wasn’t as involved as I am now and hope to be more so in the near future.
A Day in Candiland, is about being a mom with my family of three children living at home, and my high-school sweetheart, who happens to be my husband. I write about living in Palm Springs, and raising children while creating dessert recipes and such.
A few years ago, we bought a Victorian house as a business, and planned on doing tea parties there. I was doing this with my good friend Helen, who dropped everything to help me. It was going really well until the economy changed and we had to sell it. But I couldn’t get the ideas out of my head. So I decided to start selling my desserts to the public. In my journey, I am really trying to figure out balance in our lives while continuing blogging.
While I have been blogging for almost a year now, my goal is to share more about recipes that I love and tips for baking. I also want to create more how to videos.
I am part of a group called the misfit bloggers. We met a few months ago, doing Problogger’s 30 day challenge on The Sits Girls site. Out of the 1000′s that were part of this challenge, a few of us got together and created our own group on Facebook. Since then, we have been helping each other out and supporting each others blogs. We have all different kinds of bloggers in this group from all over the United States with many different topics. We decided to start a blog hop with a different focus each week.
To keep in touch, you can find me on Twitter and Facebook. I would love for you to share your blog intro with me.
This past weekend we spent time with my daughter during baseball. She is the pitcher on her team and she is really pretty good for her first year in this position. Her dad is the sports fanatic in the family, he plays himself on two different leagues. All three of our kids have played. So far her team is doing really well, and they have won most games. This is her third year and we have a lot of fun at her games.
We also participated in our churches Compel night. Our youth Pastor put out a challenge, if 250 youth would show up he would get tazed. (not sure on spelling) They sent out messages to all the high schools in the valley and displayed posters everywhere, and they had 268 youth show up, so with children and adults in their own services we had over 300 in attendance for an evening service. We had the Carls Jr. truck show up and give out over 300 meals. We also had a dance floor where they had limbo and hula hoop contests. There was over 60 salvations and in the end the Pastor got tazed. It was a great evening.
Then this weekend I did a cupcake tasting at Desert Wines and Spirits. I wrote more about it over at Candiland Dessert Company, but I had a lot of fun making cupcakes and pairing them with their wines.
We just finished spring break here, and we had it during two different weeks for my kids, one before and one after Easter. It was a packed week with lots of dr’s and dentist appointments with 3 kids. I am going through a root canal and crown this month. I think that’s the field to be in, they seem to make over $800 dollars an hour.
All in all it was a great week and weekend wrap up. Thanks for stopping by and make sure to sign up for my updates. I would love for you to follow me on twitter.
Well, its been 8 months and as soon as I set up my blogger site, I wanted to move to wordpress. I finally made the move last week. I have to say, that I am having a few struggles with moving comments, but all and all it was worth it.
Every time I joined a blogging group, they were on wordpress and I felt like I was behind the game. I think if you are just blogging as a hobby, blogger is fine. That’s how my blog started. But as time went on, I realized eventually I plan on monetizing it. Blogger doesn’t allow that, and I hear they can close down your site.
So I made the move, and been a little behind on my blogging. I also took a great course from Melissa Culbertson from Momcomm. Its called Content Brew. I suggest you sign up for it, if you are a blogger. She gives you 7 days of content to help you get organized.
I am learning about all the plug in’s for wordpress. I really liked this article that gives you 19 essential plugins from Problogger.net. I am not sure what my favorite one is yet, I am going through the list and adding them. It’s taking me a little longer since I am not as tech savvy as I would like to be.
Another blog that I like that gives me lots of information on social networks is NighLon. Cari is doing a series right now called Blogging from A – Z.
So I am really excited to start working with wordpress more, and recommend it to anyone that plans great things for their blog.
I would love to know what your favorite plug in is, in case I want to add it to my blog. If you would like to receive our recipe and kitchen tips newsletter once a month, Sign up for our free monthly recipe newsletter!
This weekend, I had the pleasure of working in the kitchen with some of the most talented chefs in the desert and beyond. The food and wine festival was held at the end of Fashion Week in a giant tent on El Paseo, You can read more about the event here As a member of Les Dames d’Escoffier, we volunteered in several areas of the event. I was lucky enough to get into the kitchen and help prep for the demos.
In the main part of the tent, were different restaurants and winery’s. For your admission of $65.00 you were able to sample as much as you wanted. During our breaks, I had Chinese Chicken Salad from Escena Country Club, A lemon blueberry bread pudding from US foods, Blu Embers samples and more.
Later I met Sara Moulton from Food Network, Chris Crary from Top Chef and Alejandra Schrader from Fox’s Master Chef. I also worked with other chefs from the desert. It was really amazing to work with them, they were all so gracious and thankful for our help. Once the demos were done, my friend Maria and I went around to see the food booths again.
I will definitely be helping out next year. You don’t want to miss it. You can see more pictures on my facebook page.
Image 1, Felicia and I are both members of Les Dames d’Escoffier Image 2, Chef Alejandra Schrader from Master Chef Image 3, Diana Von Welanetz Wentworth author of Chicken Soup for the Soul cookbook Image 4, Maria and Top Chef Chris Crary
Cari from Nighlon tagged me in a game of blogger tag. I was so excited. I have never done this before and took me a few minutes to figure out exactly how it works.
Blogger Tag Meme Rules:
1. You must post the rules. 2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged. 3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post. 4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!
Here are my questions and answers:
1. How do you stay fabulous? I would have to say, loving myself and taking care and having a wonderful husband.
2. What is your favorite social media outlet? Facebook, I am trying to get into twitter more.
3. What is your favorite commercial? That’s a tough one, Maybe the oscar meyer B O L O G N A commercial. Where he spells it out. My bologna has a first name. Its O S C A R. I also like that was so 29 seconds ago.
4. What is the first thing you do every morning? Hmmm. Are we really supposed to answer this one?
5. What inspired you to start blogging? I started reading others blogs, then saw Julia and Julie. I was in Culinary School at the time.
6. Who is one of your blogging hero’s? There are a lot, It depends on the topic. but one of them would beTomkat Studios
7. Twitter: Love it or hate it? I like it, I am in the middle with that one. You can find me here
8. Who is your hero? I Love Jesus.
9. What is your favorite dessert? Creme Brulee – Any flavor
10. How do you spend your weekends? With my kids and baking and blogging.
11. What is your passion? To rid the world of drug addiction and replace it with cupcake fanatics.
The ultimate goal is to tag 11 people, but it was too hard to narrow it down. So if you feel so inclined to do take on this challenge, please link back to me.
Thanks for stopping by. I would love for you to sign up for my rss or email subscription. You can do so on the right.
I am a baker, I think about it all the time, coming up with new desserts, that is, while spending time with my 3 children. Two of them help me in the kitchen. The oldest doesn't think it's the cool thing to do. I also teach private health and wellness classes including gluten free baking. I like to read and work out in the garden. I finished culinary school a few years ago and volunteer at our church and school. I am busy, busy, busy, but love every minute of it.
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Thanks for visiting. I love to create desserts and my kids love to help me. I like to blog about Tea, Baking and Networking. I am working with new recipes including Gluten Free, Casein Free and No Refined Sugar. I hope you enjoy your time here.
I am a baker, I think about it all the time, coming up with new desserts, that is, while spending time with my 3 children. Two of them help me in the kitchen. The oldest doesn't think it's the cool thing to do. I also teach private health and wellness classes including gluten free baking. I like to read and work out in the garden. I finished culinary school a few years ago and volunteer at our church and school. I am busy, busy, busy, but love every minute of it. 
