- Part 3

EASY WEEKEND GET-AWAY

September 25, 2013 By Wendy D 2 Comments

Did you hear the AMAZING NEWS????????? Team Oracle USA won the American’s Cup!!!!!!!!!!!! Had you told me that during the last time they raced, I would have said, “Oh neat. What sport are we talking about again?” But this year is different. Because we went to the America’s Cup. We saw it with our own eyes. We cheered for America. And let me tell you what…nothing’s better than cheering for America! It was a fluke that I took the kids down to San Francisco. Darrin was out of town and we didn’t have any plans so I put everyone in the car and just drove. And the weekend was so great, so easy and so totally doable, I wanted to share it with you all so you can do it too. Ok, here’s what you do.

Get out of bed early Saturday morning. Throw everyone in the car and drive to Truckee. Grab a coffee and pastry at The Coffee Bar at 10120 Jibboom Street. It’s fabulous and a perfect potty stop to make sure you make it the rest of the way. You then drive to Walnut Creek (2 1/2 more hours) where you are staying at the Embassy Suites. It’s important you stay there… I’ll explain why in a moment. Now, you go to downtown WC and shop till you drop. As you can see, my kids went to town!

Seriously! Walnut Creek is now known as the Rodeo Drive of the north. It has everything. And it’s beautiful. When I grew up in Walnut Creek, we had a Bullocks. Then came Nordstrom… and Neiman Marcus and Tiffany… truly, the list goes on (except for Justice which I think is totally weird and my 9-year-old daughter thinks is totally ridiculous!) And then, you eat. Just take your pick, people. There are more restaurants in Walnut Creek than there are bars in San Sebastián, Spain. Just drive down Main Street and pick the one that looks good to you. There are literally dozens to choose from. If you want old school Walnut Creek, eat at Sunrise Bistro for breakfast (http://sunrisebistrocatering.com/). Enjoy Lark Creek for dinner (http://www.onemarket.com/larkcreek/walnut_creek/index.html) And if you want to check out one of my favorite hangouts for cocktailing stop by Crogan’s (http://www.crogansbarandgrill.com/) After a fun night on the town in WC, you’ll head back to Embassy Suites (about 2 miles outside of downtown WC) where you are perfectly situated to catch BART in the morning. Literally the hotel is in the BART parking lot. The train schedule is online at http://www.bart.gov/schedules/bystation.aspx You are actually at the Pleasant Hill Station. It looks like this:

You can also figure out how much your BART fare will be here http://www.bart.gov/tickets/calculator/index.aspx For most places in SF from Pleasant Hill it’s $10 round trip per person. Once on the train, you will go through a long tunnel (which is actually the train going under the water of the bay… that freaked my kids out!) and you will pop out in San Francisco. We got off at the first stop which is Embarcadero. This took us to the piers where the America’s Cup was happening. It also is your stop for Pier 39 if that’s your style. Get off at Powell if you want Union Square and SF shopping. We stayed at the races…

meeting the teammates for both New Zealand and Team USA….

and of course chanting USA-USA-USA…

until 3 in the afternoon. After that, we caught BART, now heading toward Pittsburg/Bay Point, got off at Pleasant Hill and picked up our car and headed east to Reno. After a stop at Ikeda’s in Auburn, we got home at 8:30. Really, a perfect get away for a family or just you and your honey. Even without the American’s Cup, San Francisco is fun to hang out in for a few hours and now that I’ve given you a glimpse of the town I grew up in, I hope you go check out Walnut Creek too. And hopefully, just hopefully, Oracle Team USA will decide to host the American’s Cup in San Francisco the next go around! If so, I’ll see you down there!

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: family, TRAVEL

GROWING OLD

September 24, 2013 By Wendy D 7 Comments

When Darrin and I married 13 years ago…

we promised to grow old together.

Since when did “growing old” start at age 41??? Don’t people know 40 is the new 20? Allow me to explain. We recently went to the optometrist for our annual eye exam. That’s your first clue we are becoming geezer. We went to the doctor together! My grandparents didn’t start doing that until they were 80. And only then because one of them could no longer drive. But there we were, Pearl and Earl, driving to the eye doctor.

My eye exam went fine. I rested my chin on that thin little bar and said “first, second, horizontal, horizontal, diagonal, yes the red dot is on the house, the last line says k-b-z-o-n-w” … you know the drill. The doctor then typed away at her computer and just like at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, the printer produced a golden ticket that read, “Congratulations! You need reading glasses!!” I was less than thrilled. So the kind doctor walked me out to the room with glasses lining every inch of all four walls and who should be sitting there trying on spectacles? Darrin!!!!!!!! “What are you doing in here?” “I need glasses for when I drive at night. What are YOU doing here?” he smirked. “According to my golden ticket I need reading glasses.” I was so convinced I didn’t really need them, I grabbed the first pair off the wall and bought them.

Well, here we are.

I tried reading my book and dammit! The glasses helped! I should have taken more time picking out my new specs!

Darrin is pretty happy with his new set of eyes as well. So, hate to tell all of my 40-year-old friends, but…

The shit hits the fan in this decade apparently. What happens at 50? Walkers with tennis balls??

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: family, GROWING OLD, HUMOR

SWEET BROWN

September 19, 2013 By Wendy D Leave a Comment

If you said something like, “I have to go to the grocery store on my way home from work,” to, say, a co-worker… and said co-worker replied with, “Aint nobody got time fo dat!” would you understand what she meant? Well you will after watching this 2 minute video. It just may be my favorite 2 minute video of all time. And while the first 30 seconds are great, make sure you watch the entire thing! Thanks Jennifer Burton for enlightening me.

Filed Under: In Case You Missed It Tagged With: HUMOR

PALEO BREAD-BANANA NUT

September 17, 2013 By Wendy D 2 Comments

What can you buy for 30 dollars? A super cute new fall sweater at Old Navy. 7 lattes at your local coffee shop. A full day kids lift ticket at Soda Springs Ski Resort. You know what I got for $30? Two loaves of bread. Paleo bread is apparently made with edible gold. One was coconut, the other almond.

Here was Darrin’s reaction. Eva felt the same way.

Domi gave it a weak smile, but that’s just because he loves me and my crazy Paleo antics.

Apparently, I had to master my own Paleo bread. And thanks to my fellow Paleo pal, Lisa, I did just that! She gave me a recipe for banana bread and it’s FANTASTIC! Honestly. I do add walnuts but that’s the only change I make to the recipe. And it makes amazing toast. Darrin and I eat it for breakfast all the time. Let me know what you think!

http://www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-banana-bread/

And thank you Elana for this great creation!

Filed Under: Eat, Wendy Tagged With: eat healthy, paleo, paleo diet, paleo recipes, wendy's family

STOOPID PURCHASES

September 16, 2013 By Wendy D Leave a Comment

I’ve had some interesting grocery shopping in the past week. Sounds pretty boring… but I swear only I could make going to the store a story.

We begin at Petco. I needed to get Donner some better food. A few days ago, Darrin took his quad out to the desert to check his cows and he took Donner with him. She had a great run and was actually exhausted when she got home. Seriously, that means something. My dog is NEVER exhausted. Well, the next day, she couldn’t even get out of bed. She just laid there and looked at my like, “Ah, just take the kids to school. I’ll just hang back here and lick myself.” So I went to Petco and asked the dog food gal what she recommended for an athletic dog that tends to get sore. She said Blue Wilderness for sure. Perfect. I threw a 24 pound bag in my cart. I also grabbed a $30 scratching post for my cats. As I was checking out, I realized I didn’t ask how much the dog food was but I figured my total bill would be around 50 bucks. So the clerk said, “That will be $93.” “93 DOLLARS???????? I screeched back? How much was that dog food?” “56 dollars, ma’am.” Now, in my head, the conversation continued this way. “What in the hell is in that stuff? Kobe beef? Hand picked organic carrots? Shark fin?????” Instead, out of my mouth came, “OK great, thank you!”

On to the next store. Smith’s grocery store. Now, for those of you who don’t live in Reno and watch me on the nightly news, I will tell you I’m the health reporter for my station. I take it seriously and live a healthy lifestyle to try to set an example. I honestly wear sunglasses and a hat, fake mustache if I could find one, whenever the kids talk me into going to McDonald’s. So imagine my horror when the kids and I were walking around Smiths and Eva eyed Twinkies a few isles down. She literally started running, as if racing in a 40 yard dash, screaming, “Mom…Mooooooom, they have Twiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinkies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” OK, let me explain. When Hostess went belly up, I asked the kids if they’d ever had a Twinkie. They said no and I lamented that fact they were probably the only America children who would never eat a Twinkie. Well, my kids are NOT ones to be left behind… for anything… even mashing their face with trans fat. So they begged me to buy a box before they vanished forever. However, all the way cooler moms gobbled them up and Ebay was my last resort. Hell no was I buying a Twinkie on Ebay for $32.50! Sorry kids. The Twinkie Fairy died with the rest of the 2009 economy. Fast forward to this week and the old saying that Twinkies could outlive cockroaches in a nuclear attack proved true! From the ashes of the still recovering economy rose the Twinkie in all of its golden glory. So I bought a damn box. Eva ate two bites and said, “They’re just OK. Like I really don’t get what all the fuss is about.” And after taking one bite, Domi started wiping his tongue with a paper towel muttering, “Why is my tongue coated with wax?????” After all that, the Twinkies ended up at my work where they were devoured in 3.4 seconds.

Finally, my last shopping snafu was actually online. I was flipping through Facebook and stopped at Julian Bakery. Paleo Bread it boasted! Sign me up! I cook soooo much living this Paleo lifestyle. And if someone is going to bake me bread, I’m all for it. So I purchased a coconut and almond loaf. I entered my info, clicked make purchase and then the screening lit up saying “Thank you for your $30 purchase!” WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????? 30 DOLLARS FOR 2 LOAVES OF BREAD? HAVE I LOST MY FRIGGIN’ MIND? Apparently I have.

So let’s recap. In one week, I spent $90 and brough home some dog food, a box of Twinkies and two loaves of bread. Lets just keep that between us.

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: HUMOR, wendy's family

CAKE DECORATING-PART 2

September 4, 2013 By Wendy D 3 Comments

Yesterday, I told you how I made Sally a cake for her 15th wedding anniversary party. Today, I’m going to tell you how I got said cake TO the party. That’s the story behind the story. The story where I cuss… a lot!

So I made this beautiful cake on a day that was 104 degrees outside. But I knew this! And I had a plan. The night before I was going to bake, I turned the swamp coolers in my house on high. I was going to make my house a gigantic refrigerator. Ok, are you laughing yet? Those of you who know how swamp coolers work are laughing your asses off aren’t you?? Come to find out, swamp coolers work really well, except when the temperatures get into the upper 90′s. I was dealing with 104!!!!!!!! They simply can’t keep up with the heat and so your house remains a steady 80-85 degrees. Not the 65 I was looking for. So as I was frosting the cake, I kept returning it to the freezer for a time SO IT WOULDN’T MELT!

My next challenge became how to get the three tiered cake to the party which was about a 15 minute drive up the Mt. Rose Highway. Not to worry! Again, I had a plan!! About 2 hours before we were to leave, I pulled my car out of the garage, rolled up all the windows and put the air conditioning on high. Now THIS was going to be an icebox. At this point, however, I should let you in on a little secret. My car is 13 years old. And apparently 13 year old cars don’t do too well sitting in 104 degree heat in the sun with the AC on full blast. I know this because moments after the entire family piled into the car to go to the party, Darrin says, “WOAH!!!!!!!! your car is overheating… I have to turn the heater on to try and bring down the temperature.” Now let me set the scene for you. I’m in the front seat holding the bottom cake. Eva is in the back middle holding the middle layer. Domi is sitting next to the window holding the top tier with the sun shining down on him through the car window. The car wasn’t that cold to begin with and now the heater is going full blast. I’m screaming at Darrin to just drive and chance it, Eva is crying because her cake is starting to melt all over her polka dot dress and Domi is whining he’s now sweating sitting in the sun holding “this dumb cake that’s dripping all over my fingers!!!”

“Listen to me PEOPLE!!!!!! This is Sally’s cake and you aren’t going to move until the damn car cools down just enough to get us up that damn hill!!” And then we sat. And sat. And waited some more. Finally, the temperature gauge dropped enough Darrin thought we could chance it. We pulled out of the driveway, made it to the Mt. Rose Highway and about half way up, Darrin said, “Well, it’s overheating again.” I screamed, “I don’t give a shit what the car is doing, my cake is melting all over the three of us. If you don’t get us to that party, this is all our fault!!!!” With that, he just clenched his teeth, like a good husband should, and barely got the car up the mountain and into the parking lot of the party. I got out. Put the cake on the table. Made sure Sally saw it and the photographer got a picture of it… and I headed sraight to the champagne bar!

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: CAKES

CAKE DECORATING

September 3, 2013 By Wendy D 5 Comments

Sally and I have been friends since college. So when she called to ask me to make her an anniversary cake I gladly agreed. I was her maid of honor when she and Jason got married 15 years ago. This year, they were going to renew their vows. I thought a nice sheet cake, or maybe I’d get fancy and go for two round cakes stacked on top of each other. Easy! And then came the invitation. Invitation?? Why would she be sending out invitations to our group of friends. Wouldn’t a few phone calls get it done? A mass email maybe? Ok, go big… send an evite. But a paper invitation mailed by the U.S. postal service? What kind of shin dig is this?? So I called.

“Hey Sal, got your invitation. It’s beautiful. We will of course be there. And by the way, how many people are you inviting?”

“Well, we have about 65 on the list.”

65?????????????? That’s no sheet cake party! “Ok, fun! I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I scrambled off the phone and into my kitchen.

Here’s some history. I love to decorate cakes. It’s my favorite hobby. It’s the only time I use the right side of my brain. I’ve done a battle ship for Domi.

A Spanish mission inspired cake for Eva.

And a Tangled cake for my God Daughter, Kate. (yes, that’s my mom’s hand holding the tower up… as you’re about to read, I’m vertically challenged when it comes to cakes!)

But it’s always just for fun. For small groups… not parties with guests who received mailed invitations!

Sally’s original cake was two layers, square, with hydrangeas on it. So I decided to go three layers, round, with hydrangeas. Similar but different to represent how their lives had changed. I made the batter with my secret weapon. For the frosting, I used store bought buttercream but added coursely chopped Oreos to the bottom layer. The middle layer was chocolate frosting with fresh raspberries mixed in. And the top layer was a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

I wanted it to be elegant so I bought this Wiltons pre-decorated icing paper.

This stuff is AMAZING! I lightly frosted the sides of the cakes and gently applied the pre cut sheets of icing. It worked exactly like it was supposed to! I added some black ribbon along the bottom of each round as well. I then bought a pillar from the floral department at Walmart. I stuck more than a dozen white roses into the green floral foam and then placed it in the middle of my bottom round cake. Now here’s where I went wrong. I had 5 cake support dowels I put around the flower pillar thinking this would hold my second level. It wasn’t sturdy enough. I have to figure this out better… maybe for Sally’s 20th anniversary. For color, I bought an actual hydrangea plant because at the florist, a SINGLE FLOWER was $10. The plant, purchased at Smith’s Grocery Store, was $14 and came with 4 flowers. I used the purplish blue flowers as the cake topper for all three rounds. And this was the final product:

The third layer, which I didn’t dare put on top of the other two layers, was just for display. Sally wanted that level to freeze for her year anniversary of her 15th anniversary party. Or more easily put, for her 16th wedding anniversary! Happy anniversary Sally and Jason!

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: CAKES

DEALING WITH GRIEF

August 28, 2013 By Wendy D 2 Comments

As we walked to the news set the other night, I asked Kristen, my friend and co-anchor, “Do you ever cry in church?” She laughed and said, “I’ll text you the first time I don’t cry in church.” That made me feel better because last Sunday I had an extemely emotional experience in church and I wanted to know if I was crazy. Kristen assured me I wasn’t.

Last weekend, I ended up kidless on Sunday morning and so took advantage by going to church by myself. Going to church alone doesn’t bother me. It’s not like flying solo to a movie. That does bug me. But when it comes to church, I actually prefer to go alone. I didn’t go to my church. But instead traveled up to Lake Tahoe to visit St. Francis of Assisi.

In 2004, we baptised our daughter, Eva Diana, at St. Francis. Since then, it’s always held a special place in my heart. And now, sitting alone in my pew, I was once again happy to be here. When Father Bill entered I immediately sat up straighter. His presence didn’t make me nervous, but rather more alert… like a freshman on the first day of class. I wanted to truly understand the lesson I was about to hear. And learn I did.

He asked us all to allow the Holy Spirit into our souls so that we could forgive those who trouble us the most. The Holy Spirit would guide us in allowing our feelings of ill will to be replaced with love and eventual peace. And when he said, “We need the power to deal with those that cause us the most pain…” my eyes immediately filled with water.

On December 21st, 2011, my best friend died. 4 days before Christmas. She would have survived past the new year, but my brother and I gave her permission to go to the other side… and she did… that night. I thought I was ready. I thought it would be best for her to move on to the next world. But I was wrong. Living without my mom causes me daily pain.

As I glanced at Father Bill, trying to hide the tears that were now streaming down my face in a river of emotion, I was horrified to admit the one person causing me the most pain was the one person who would never do anything, ever, to hurt me… my mom. She would be so sad to know I struggle at the feet of her demise. But I do. We are coming up on her two year anniversary of leaving us and I still feel like that lonely kid who was forgotten at school. I keep looking for her to come around the corner to get me.

So with a deep breath, I closed my eyes to allow the Holy Spirit into my core. I breathed deeply several times to allow the warmth of his being to enter my soul. And I felt… nothing! Dammit! So I sat there some more and waited. And waited. By this time my tears were drying up because I was getting irritated. Where was the Holy Spirit when I really needed it?? I left church feeling a tad disappointed.

On my 40 minute drive home, I looked at they sky, still pale grey with smoke from the fire burning near Yosemite. I thought how my mom would have complained about all the smoke. She hated anything but bright sunny days in Reno. And that thought alone broke me again. New tears followed the dried stains already on my cheeks. And this time, I allowed myself to sob. To release some of the water that filled my emotional bucket. I allowed myself to be angry. I allowed myself to climb right up on that pitty chair and have a party. And then it happened. As I slowly pulled down into Reno off the Mt. Rose Highway, my tears dried up. My anger floated away from me. And a sense of warmth filled my body. A warmth like I’ve never felt. A warm blanket enveloping my heart. And finally… peace.

The magical spell lasted until I pulled into my driveway. The chaos of my kids, now back at home, dulled the sense of warmth inside me, but I knew it was still there. I had released some of the pain of my mom’s death. I have a long way to go to be out of daily pain, but moments like that, where you connect with the Holy Spirit make me realize I will someday get there.

(note: My Holy Spirit is the Divine Trinity. What’s yours? Is it Mother Earth? Is it your own belief that doesn’t have a name? Whatever, or whoever, you pray to, I hope you find peace in your God like I do mine.)

A book that opened my eyes to the Divine Trinity is called The Shack. It’s a fictional story, a good read, but man does it have a thought provoking kick to it! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it:

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: Afterlife, breast cancer, Grief, Grieving, inspirational, wendy's family

NICE BEAVER

August 22, 2013 By Wendy D 3 Comments

Even the title of this post makes me laugh. And hang on, cause it gets better!

I came home the other night and was immediately told to sit down and shut my eyes. Ok, that makes me a tad nervous but I played along. So Eva, Domi and I sat on the couch with our heads covered with my jacket. Finally Darrin came into the room and said, “Surprise!” Well holy shit, this really was a surprise!! A huge stuffed beaver! It appeared to be swimming past a log.

My San Francisco self screamed, “And What In The Hell Do You Plan on Doing With That Thing?”

“Mounting it on the wall of course,” Darrin said while looking at me like I was from Mars.

Ok, I’m not the alien in this situation. Who the hell has a BEAVER mounted on their WALL???? Apparently I do.

Let me take you back to the summer of 2007. Darrin lined the road into our house with trees. When he planted them they were smaller than our 2 and 3 year old.

Now fastforward to 2012. The trees are more than 25 feet tall. They are gorgeous and the fruit of Darrin’s hard labor.

That is until Darrin noticed all of them were being eaten alive. He assumed a beaver was gnawing on them because a beaver’s front teeth never stop growing so they have to file them down. Our trees were suddenly emory boards.

So father and son went on a beaver hunt (did my San Francisco Self really just say that???).

One night, they took a flashlight and sat on the banks of the ditch that runs through our property and waited. It didn’t take long before a 60 pound mammal came swimming through a culvert and headed right for our trees. With one shot, Darrin and Domi had their beaver. (Note, we tried to trap the beaver several times. It didn’t work. This was truly our last resort)

Living on a ranch, Darrin buries animals when they die. So I just figured that’s what he had done with the beaver. So now fastforward to the other night and imagine my surprise when there, in my family room, was a stuffed beaver.

The kids wanted to name it.

Donner went bananas trying to figure out if she should attack it.

Max figured it was a new friend to rub up on.

Even Cody, who’s rarely a part of my crazy family antics, made an appearance to see what all the commotion was about.

Days later it was mounted on the wall. Now for the rest of our lives, my husband’s beaver will be on display for all to see.

But you know me! I’ve had a little fun with it as well. Like when a couple we recently met came over and I grabbed the husband’s hand and asked, “Would you like to see my beaver?”

Filed Under: Live, Wendy Tagged With: family, HUMOR, wendy's family

PALEO RECIPES FOR KIDS

August 20, 2013 By Wendy D 4 Comments

“Are we eating paleo AGAIN????” moaned my not-so-keen-on-caveman-eating kids.

“YES!!!” I sarcastically groaned back with my paleo-loving-hands-wrapped-around-Primal-Cravings-cookbook. “We are!!” And that’s when I flipped to page 112 and read CRISPY CHICKEN FINGERS. Oh thank Tarzan! I found a recipe the kids just might get excited about.

Is this happening in your house?? Am I the only strung out-working full time-trying to be healthy-exhausted from complaints mom out there?? Please tell me I’m not alone. And if you’re in my boat, albeit a somewhat sinking one, then let me shine some light on your next family dinner. These CRISPY CHICKEN FINGERS WERE AWESOME!!!!!!! The kids loved them. I loved them. Darrin loved them. In fact, we all fought over them the next day for lunch. The only changes I made to the recipe is I used sunflower oil instead of palm shortening to fry them. I’ve used palm shortening before and I thought it left too much of a greasy residue in my mouth. The sunflower oil was better.

Also, I couln’t find tapioca FLOUR. So I used tapioca STARCH. Not sure if they’re the same thing or not, but until I can find that type of flour, the starch works just fine. I prepped the flour and egg wash in the morning and cut up the chicken. So when I got home from work that night, it was a pretty quick dinner to prepare. I usually get home around 7:20. We were eating before 8. That’s really good for us!

Here’s how to order Primal Cravings. Hope you enjoy it!

And next time I’ll share the recipe that makes this book an absolute must!

Filed Under: Eat, Wendy Tagged With: paleo, paleo diet, paleo recipes, PALEO RECIPES FOR KIDS