Aggie Shoots. Aggie Scraps.

If you love parties, get-togethers and entertaining guests at home, chances are, you also have a barbecue grill. Barbecue grill parties are the most convenient, easiest and popular get togethers there is. People can come in their casual attires, bring food that can complement grilled food and most importantly, everything can be cooked on grills ~ barbecue, steak, veggies, seafood!

It will always be wise to invest on a quality grill if you often will be using it.  While charcoal gas grills are popular, you might want to invest on a gas grill especially if you will be using it indoors. A gas outdoor grill like fire magic grills will be better too for reasons such as:

1. Easy clean up
2. You have rotisseries for chicken
3. Sear burners – this is one of the best features of a gas grill. You can cook something at high heat for a short period of time.
4. More accessories – lighted cooking surfaces, warming drawers, vent hoods to clear the smoke, cocktail stations and any number of other great accessories to add spice to your outdoor cooking experience.

You can also invest on twin eagles grills. These are developed by the award winning designer, Dante Cantal, who developed cooking systems for many national restaurants and hotel chains.

But even if you ask around, the best consensus on the best grills are going to be lynx grills!

The Lynx Professional Series of free standing grills with built-in rotisseries are a fantastic choice to meet your grilling needs and more. They come with anywhere from 30 to 54 inches of grilling space and can include up to four brass burners, feature stainless steel construction and they are exquisitely designed to distribute heat evenly throughout the grill, offer an electronic ignition and of course, the rotisserie, for classic rotisserie-cooked meats to add to your selection of grilled foods.

Here are some of its features:

1. Lynx grills use an advanced ignition system to ensure that the burners ignite as they should. To make sure that your food cooks evenly, a lynx outdoor grill offers a heat stabilizer that ensures that the heat at the grilling surface is not affected by wind. The burners on these grills are made of cast brass, unlike the hollow tubular steel burners that are used on nearly all other grills. The burners hold heat very well and and radiate heat better at higher temperatures.
2. The Lynx trademark LED blue lights not only look outstanding, but they also serve a purpose. These lights make it easy to control and change the knobs, and when you open the lid of the grill, there is a halogen light that turns on so you can easily see what you are doing, even in the dark.

I have been surviving using my laptop for two months now ever since the motherboard of our computer gave up on us. While I am ok using G (my lappytop) for work, it is sometimes a pain when I scrap. I have been used to scrapping using a big screen and sometimes when I load Photoshop it takes forever to load. I am not keen on upgrading my laptop or getting a new one because with a 2GB RAM this is already fine (I just have too many applications open at once). We are saving for a new desktop though, and the husband has been convincing me to just apply for payday loans online so we can have a working computer already. I am still thinking about it as we are still paying off something from our credit card. I do not want to pay too much on loans every month. I just finished paying off a three-year loan and I won’t be doing it again.

Technically, a point-and-shoot camera lust. Ever since becoming involved with Project365 I want to make sure I have a camera everywhere, so I lug my SLR along. There are times that it wouldn’t be safe if I bring it along (when I commute) so I essentially miss some pictures I would have wanted to take, like for example, withdrawing money from the ATM or my son having a hair cut at the barber’s. Unimportant things that capture our life at its finest – does that make sense? Hopefully I would be able to get one after we enroll the kids for next school year and we buy big goal #1 in our list this year. This makes me all the more determined to save. Since I do not work in an office setting, I no longer qualify for a payday loan .

I am choosing between the Canon Powershot SD990is and the Panasonic Lumix LX3. The Lumix has better reviews but I cannot afford a $400 point and shoot camera – my husband thinks it’s impractical.

Whoever needs baseball kits, there are two kits at Sweet Shoppe Designs that might interest you!

Everyone is now eagerly awaiting the change of seasons. Winter has been the worst season of all. I heard there are states which only had a day of sunshine last January? Can you imagine that? No wonder many people are affected with Seasonal Affective Depression every time this year. You all know that it is already scientifically proven that we need sunshine to get some vitamins in our body going, and some of that vitamins (or hormones) are responsible for getting our serotonin levels up, which is the one responsible for our mood elevations (feeling good).

No wonder people are so attracted to sports and outdoors. It gives them a sense of adrenalin rush, makes them feel good and physically (and emotionally, socially) healthy. I would like to have my kids get involved with sports soon. Maybe this summer. I am not very fond of contact sports as I am a worry wart of a mother so when one of my kids showed interest in baseball, I grabbed the chance. Baseball Equipment is not that expensive and there are kid equipment suited for their age.

Work has piled up. I cannot believe how it ever did, considering I was very diligent in managing my time wisely last week as I knew I would be gone for two days this week. I didn’t anticipate that I would need two days to recover from the two days I was gone! I have been a zombie the past two days, spacing out, tired all the time and just really wanting to sleep. In fact, instead of trying to catch up on work yesterday and last night, I decided that sleep was better. And I slept beautifully, only to wake up being so tired again. I think I am coming down with something. Unfortunately, if I don’t work, I don’t get paid and I need money to celebrate my birthday next week (yes, I am getting old!). So here I am. We have a lot of deliverables this month so I am working hard to getting some things done. My hosting package is due up for renewal too and since maintaining 11 blogs is no joke, I always make sure that I am on top of whoever is the best in the hosting industry these days. The top 10 web hosting companies change every year, and I am grateful that my host remains in the top two all the time. I get my sources from AllReadyHosting. Not only do they keep informed, they let me save a lot with web hosting coupon codes, ratings, and promotions.

You guys know I rarely scrap if it needs to be on a short-term notice. I just have a hard time scrapping under pressure. It also takes me time to work around showcasing a kit if I just received and downloaded it. But it all changed when I saw SSD’s latest offering, the Petit Fours!

I have never scrapped with kits so easily. Trust me, these kits will be worth every penny!

And this is a first for me – showing layouts I scrapped the day I also downloaded it Hope you like them!

Please Note that our Limited Edition Petit Fours will be available for the month of February ONLY! When March 1st arrives, these special kits will be retired into the Sweet Shoppe Vault for good. In the tradition of our classic 2 Scoops and Triple Dips, Petit Fours were created with lots of love and sweetness by a team of 4 of our talented designers just in time for our 4th Birthday.

If you have asked me six years ago if I can imagine myself involved (and working) with anything computer and technology-related, I would have laughed at your face. I was completely not internet-savvy up until 2003, when I started working for a registrar company. Would believe I just acquired a Yahoo e-mail address that same year? Fortunately, I was quick enough to learn the ropes and within months, I started blogging. From then on, I was able to establish readership and even real friendships that went from reel (online) to real (offline). Fast forward almost seven years later, I am now working full-time at an industry involving the internet! Life indeed is full of surprises. Right now, I am still hoping that I get to practice what I have worked and studied hard for but this industry is where I can earn money while I take care of my kids so I am grabbing the chance – I want to see my kids grow up with me alongside of them. It is hard work – maintaining 11 blogs (I am about launch two more, I just need to let my birthday month pass so I can enjoy it in some way). Somehow, I want to get professional seo services to boost their rankings on search engines. The amount I earn is proportional to my blogs’ ranking on search engines so I work hard on that. Globe Runner has had great feedback among clients I do contractual work for – I might need to try them soon.

A few friends welcomed the new year by travelling overseas. All of them went with their families to the happiest place on Earth – Disneyland! Thanks to discount airfares and friends’ travel tips, they were able to have the vacation that their kids will remember for as long as they live! The kids who experienced Disney had their ages ranging from 1 to 4 years old so they were very much a handful. I think a friend of mine who has two kids (one of them a year old) had to rent another stroller from Disney because their 4 year-old cannot walk anymore. Imagine travelling with two kids in tow for the first time! It must have been so tiring! But as my friend said, it was really worth it, just seeing the kids’ faces light up upon seeing the Disney Characters! I cannot imagine if you would need to travel with a baby who is less than a year old! You might need an infant travel bed that can serve as his sleeping bed and changing station too. The Eddie Bauer Infant Travel Bed would be perfect for travelling:

So I just looked (and deleted) my pictures for the month of January and it boiled down to 749 pictures. Not bad, considering I could not delete before (I would have wanted to delete more). From that number, I would be choosing around 20 pictures to be printed as loose prints (50 maximum because that’s the amount I get for free from Artscow!). I need to stick with a budget regarding scrapbooking because I cannot spare much this year (that didn’t stop me from getting Cindy’s new templates – they were on sale and I use them all! – and some xbox accessories but I digress).

I also did a quick look on my folders and I managed to get 17 pages done – WOOT WOOT! I obviously didn’t share them at all in my blog so here they all are, just click on the thumbnails for a bigger view