Life Muses by Ro

Being diverted by fun

"The mind ought sometimes to be diverted, that it may return the better to thinking." - Phaedrus

I'm going to play hookey for the rest of the day. I'm going to dinner and a movie with my Wasatch Front Scrap Girls friends. We've been doing this for more than a year now and I've started to look forward to it. We get together about once a month.

See ya later!

Chocolate Review: Moose Munch Dark Chocolate Bar

Oh mannnnnnn.... I'm in love. When I was in San Francisco last week, I gathered a whole bunch of different kinds of chocolate to review. I specifically looked for kinds that I hadn't eaten before.

 

I was feeling kind of hungry - and slightly stressed - and so I decided that now would be a great time to sample one. I decided to try Moose Munch Dark Chocolate Bar.

The description on the side says, "A Moose of a different sort. Our Moose Much bars are made of rich, smooth fudge center, plus our signature snack - fluffy white popcorn, buttery caramel and crisp nuts all dipped in rich dark chocolate. Extravagant? You bet!"

Moose Munch bars are not diet food. However, they are rich enough that a couple of bites seems to do it for me and so I won't be eating all of that in one sitting.

If you can't find them in your area, you can get them online here.

It's a beautiful day: Morning photo journal

I woke up this morning, right before sunrise. I decided that it might be fun to take photos of this magical event. Once it was over, I kept on shooting as I prepared for work.

It was kind of fun.

The mouth of American Fork Canyon.

Towards the south into the Utah valley.

 

Prepare spiritually for what's ahead.

Ready for work

Go away... you're bothering me.

Let me out, please.

Freedom

View from dining room.

Breakfast

Turn on the computer. Ready to go.

A whirl-wind photo tour of San Franciso, a movie, and a great little camera

Remember the wild double-decker bus ride I told you about? I finally got a chance to update a video I took of it to YouTube. When I was taking it, Kaye and Ed thought I was just taking a photo. They were pretty shocked when it turned out to be a video.

By the way...I have to tell you about my (relatively) new camera. When I got this new Vista computer, I was dismayed to learn that my "purse" camera - a Canon Powershot - wouldn't work with it. Since Canon has said that they won't update the driver for the camera, (they want you to buy a new camera, right?) I had to go out and get a new one.

I settled on the Nikon CoolPix P80. It is small enough that it fits in my purse, but it is a fab camera. It has a 18X zoom (27-486) lens and takes 10.1 mega-pixels shots. The zoom works fabulously!

I decided not to take my big camera this time (hard on the back to haul it around) and rely on this thing. I have a big storage card in it and I took my battery charger.

I love the photos! They are as good as my older Canon Rebel takes and I think they are comparable to my big Nikon in many regards. In fact, I find myself using this camera more and more and more.

Another cool thing about it - the lens cap is attached! It hangs from a little cord. I love that I don't have to worry about losing it or that my lens will get banged up in my purse. 

In fact, let me show you a few photos I took. I'm going to do some layouts and will show you more another time. I have over 500 photos to sort through. It's going to take some time!

 

Getting reading to leave.

 

When we walked into our hotel room, Gary said, "Look at that Christmas tree!" He actually thought it was a Christmas tree until I pointed out to him that it was a street.

  

Same street in the morning.

Downtown San Francisco is like a shopping mall. Who knew?

 

 

The keys to the city.

Going into China Town. I loved it and want to take my kids here, someday. Julianne would freak out because the shopping is amazing... and cheap!

I bought the striped purse behind my head. $30 for leather and it has a pink stripe. Of course.

 

 

To see the rest of the photo tour... Go here. (Post was too long to have it all in one blurb.)

Scrap Girls wins two awards this week!

I'm not much for tooting my own horn, but I hope you don't mind if I blow a trumpet a little bit today. Scrap Girls has won two awards this week that really made me feel happy and I just have to tell you about them.

1. I was notified this morning that Scrap Girls won the Gold Award from Top Ten Review for having the Best Digital Scrapbooking Elements Service Available! The Vice President called me and told me himself. Their editorial steam starts out with a large number of sites, then edit them down to the top 50, then 25, then 15, then 10-12 and then they choose the top one. US!

This site specializes in review of technology and entertainment.

Top Ten Reviews

Read the actual review here.

We are going to get an award image which we can put on our website, in our newsletters, all over the place. I can't wait to see it.

There are a couple of edits I have for their chart because our newsletter is the best e-Zine out there (they didn't realize that) and we do take checks and money orders. Their editors are going to update the page

It took our entire team to make this happen! And having the best members around sure helps because the details link talks about our community... that's YOU!

Hugs all around!

2. We got an award from Constant Contact (that's who we use to deliver our newsletters) this week, too. This is part of what they said to me in their email...

That's why we are proud to designate you as a 2008 Constant Contact All Star! You're part of a special group of our customers that we want to thank for setting a great example for other email marketers. Congratulations!

Email Marketing by
Constant Contact

This award really tickled me because the whole team works so hard to get our newsletters out. It's a massive project, as you can imagine, and everyone pitches in.

A special shout-out goes to Heidi and Becca because they make sure it is all perfect in every way (or as close to it as they can manage). They're awesome and I'm so glad to have them with us!