Well, my attempt to make my own birthday cake did not end well. Because I’m a Libra and can’t make a decision, I conducted a survey.

Survey says:

Turtle Cake. Nom! But then, that’s what I thought of all of the final four choices.

So I began my birthday making the cake. I was having so much fun. In  between steps, I was responding to the many birthday wishes on facebook and twitter. I mixed up that cake to the hard driving sounds of White Zombie.

Then my cell phone rang and it was my friend, Denise. I turned the music down and talked to her while I was stirring, continuously, the beginnings of the caramel. I was at a point where I had to go forward. There was no stopping.

It was sort of hard to talk and stir with the cellphone being so small. It doesn’t tuck under the chin like the bigger house phone does. And when it came time to add the cream, I just dumped it all in so that I could keep stirring and talking.

This may be where I made my fatal mistake. I’ve never made caramel before and, in retrospect, I think it might need a little more attention and a little less Metallica than I was giving it.

I ended up with a big rock. Kinda like a crack rock.

Although I’ve never seen a crack rock but I did taste the caramel that was liquid. Oh. My. Goodness. It was AMAZING! I wanted to suck it through a straw it was so good.

So I drowned it. Yep, I ran water in it until it was just a creamy memory.

I didn’t get any cake for my birthday but it’s not the end of the world. I’m sure I’ll snag a piece of cake somewhere really soon. And I’ll be sure to put a candle in it. 🙂

Michael Strahan is awesome. He’s cute and funny. I loved watching him play football and I’m so excited he’s joined the Fox NFL Sunday crew so I can still watch him “play”. 😀

The only way that fivesome could be better is to take Curt Menefee out and replace him with me.

But then I don’t know who would keep order.

Flan is just icky. I can’t get past the texture.

So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, adieu
Adieu, adieu
To you and you and foursquare.

I loved it, I did. The badges, the points. Ahhhh.

If you want to know why I removed it, ask me.

All I’ll say here is foursquare stalking.

Sigh.

My Mom was a very creative person. When we were small, she made us groceries out of plaster of paris so we could play store. The produce looked SO real we wanted to eat it.

I’ll never forget my 6th birthday that had a Mary Poppins theme. She created Mary Poppins out of a hanger, sewed her outfit, including her carpet bag and this graced the center of my party table. We played the usual party games but I remember the prizes going along with the theme. I remember very specifically a yellow pin that looked like a parasol.  How I wanted to win those prizes!

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, Mom joined Weight Watchers. This was way back in the dark ages and, once her weight was lost, she became a lecturer for them.  She would draw her own posters every week to illustrate the point of her lecture and I think this was the first time I realized that Mom could really draw.

She drew a self portrait in the 80’s that my brother and sister and I saw here and there. We all agreed we needed to throw that away when we came across it while packing up her apartment last November.  She looked angry in the self portrait and I don’t think any of us wanted to remember Mom like that.

Mom was fun and she was unique. We always knew when she was angry though because her left eyebrow would raise, seemingly on its own.

I brought quite a few boxes of mom’s stuff home with me after we went through her storage units in May. I haven’t really had time to do much with them but I keep being surprised by the things I find when I take some time to look.

I was speaking with someone this a.m. who suggested I read The Traveler’s Gift. I told her that I have this book, it was in Mom’s things, and I pulled the book out of the box it was in while I was talking to her.

I just opened up the book and look what I found?

A little hand drawn, cut out, lady with a dog. I know Mom drew this. It’s like she’s still making me paper dolls. 🙂

It has come to my attention, that I may be obsessed with cardboard. That fact hit me last night as we were opening the new Mr. Coffee maker that we had to buy when I took the old coffee carafe out of the dishwasher and it was broken.

David was helping me to get the new coffee maker out of it’s packaging. If you’ve ever done that before, you know that with the styrofoam, etc. it’s kind of a two person job. Especially if you don’t want to break the new carafe.

As I was unwrapping the machine, I was handing the packaging pieces to David. After I thought it was all unwrapped, he said, “Aren’t you going to take that cardboard off?” pointing to the burner. Lo and behold, there was the most beautifully round piece of cardboard I have ever seen!

He tried to take it away from me to put it with the rest of the discarded packaging and I snatched it back from him. “No! I want to keep that.”

I stood there admiring my beautiful cardboard circle. Honestly, I have no use for it but I do love it.

This morning, I looked across the room and saw this:

What is that? Boxes. More cardboard. I just can’t bring myself to throw them away. I might “need” them.

I also have quite a collection of these:

These come to  me when my pageant contestants send their headshots.

I suppose I should really just throw all of these cardboard fancies away but it makes me feel kind of good when I can recycle one of the boxes or the one time I actually used one of the flat cardboard pieces to protect a mailing.

You’ve seen, I’m green, I’m the Cardboard Queen. 🙂

I’ve written before about the fabulous info we learn at the Bartlesville Marketing and Communications Association meetings and I have another story for you today.

Last Thursday’s meeting was about the impact of QR codes on your business. QR code? What in the heck is that? The pageant isn’t like a normal business so I was convinced I would learn nothing of any use to me. I didn’t really even want to go to the meeting, I was that sure it wouldn’t be worth it. But I decided that had to go to the meeting because I am the secretary of the association and I didn’t really have a good excuse not to go.

I am not a secretary kind of gal. I take horrible notes. I get too caught up in what’s going on, or too distracted by other things if I’m bored.  Attention span of a gnat. But being the BMCA secretary is awesome because I get to live tweet the event. That keeps me interested, focused and occupied. 🙂

Once Scott got started, I was enthralled. How had I never heard of a QR code before? They are big in Japan and you can find them on buildings and billboards and CDs. They are everywhere.

What is it? It’s a code, kind of like a UPC code, that when scanned, will take you directly to a website, dial a phone number or send a text. How cool is that?!

I felt a little Veruca Salt-ish. “I want it and I want it NOW!”

I couldn’t wait for the meeting to be over so I could get to work on my first QR code. This thing that I thought would have no use in my business, I suddenly knew had endless possibilities.

Here’s my new non-pageant business card. The QR code in the lower right corner, when scanned, takes you directly to the Rott-I-Tude facebook page. Awesome!

Expect to start seeing these in my life. I will for sure be putting one in the pageant program book and am thinking of putting one this year’s t-shirt for the contestants. And now, you will know what it is when you see it!

Scott referred to me as a social media queen but, honestly, I think I’m just a geek. 🙂

Click the link here to see David Austin’s interview with Scott Townsend about QR codes.