This Stop Willoughby

Welcome to Willoughby's Blog Style Cocktail Party. I hope you will find some new blogs to follow and expand your circle of blog friends. I know you're all anxious to mingle, so I'll get right to it. I'd like to introduce LB from the blog Muddy Runner. I know you'll enjoy his blog as much as I do. About Me Luis Bueno Riverside, CA, United States Father, Husband, Runner. Greetings! This is LB from the blog Muddy Runner . I would first like to thank Willoughby of the fine blog This Stop Willoughby for letting me have the opportunity to guest blog. I'm honored to have the chance to guest blog here and hope This Stop Willoughby's trusty readers enjoy my guest spot. If you are not familiar with my blog, you might be wondering about the name. You might be asking, "What exactly is MUDDY about your blog?" I'll spell it out for you... M ud Runs and M arathons, and everything that running them entails. I started my blog to blog about my experience in tra...

I am so pleased at the response I got to my Cocktail Party invitation . When I posted the idea, I wasn't sure anyone would be interested. Checking my comments was like checking the mail for response cards when we sent out our wedding invitations. It was so exciting! I know that some of you have questions regarding your posts, so I will try to answer all of them. First of all, I would like to start the party tomorrow if anyone is able to provide me with a post by then. My plan is to post a guest blogger every other day until everyone has had their turn. If you have more than one blog, I would be happy to publish a post from each one. As far as content is concerned, feel free to blog about anything you like. Whether you chose to create a new post or use one that has been previously published, I think it would be best to go with something that represents a typical post from your blog. You want to give new readers a sense of what your blog is about on any given day. I would also like t...

Over the past week, I've seen several bloggers post about increasing their readership. It does seem to be something we all think about. I know I get downright giddy when I get a new follower. Not because I hope to get rich and famous by writing a blog, I just enjoy expanding my circle of blog friends. I also get excited when I find a new blog that I enjoy reading. So here's what I'm thinking about. I'd like to extend an invitation to all of my blog followers to be a guest on my blog. Instead of just posting links, I would like to put an entire post (or just an excerpt if you prefer) of yours on my blog to share with my readers. It can be a new post, or a favorite from a while ago. Of course, I have no way of importing your background and other elements of your page, but I will also include a link to your blog in it's usual home. You will be under no obligation to include one of my posts on your blog. I want to give my blog friends a chance to mingle and maybe make s...

Welcome to Willoughby's Coffee House. We serve coffee every morning, but today we have cappuccino with foam. Can I get you one? Yes, you're right, it is rich and delicious. You say you'd like to know my secret? Okay, I'll share it with you, but it's so incredibly simple that you have to promise not to laugh. Instead of cream or milk, I use..... .....melted ice cream. Yes, you heard me correctly, I use melted ice cream. Why, you ask? Because it's rich and delicious and because it comes in so many flavors, including fat free and sugar free varieties. You can make a cappuccino in almost any flavor you like. The cappuccino pictured above was made with melted vanilla fudge swirl ice cream. Here is what you do. First of all, make a pot of your favorite coffee. While it is brewing, select your ice cream flavor of choice and place several scoops in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for approximately one minute, or until melted and foamy. Pour melted ice cream into a cr...

Joanna at The Fifty Factor , had a fun post the other day. She was given five words by another blogger, and then had to post what each of those words meant to her. In turn, she would give five different words to any other bloggers who were interested in playing along. The point is to get to know someone by their definition/interpretation of the words. Of course I was interested in playing! These are the five words Joanna gave me: Music I can't imagine a day without music. I listen to it anywhere and everywhere that I can. I enjoy singing along (badly) and dancing (also badly) and as long as I'm not disturbing anyone else, I like it loud. I also like to go to concerts and scream and cheer until I'm hoarse. My taste in music is pretty eclectic. I spend most of my time listening to Alternative Rock and 80's music, but my playlist also includes Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, The Glen Miller Orchestra, Bach, Mozart, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Randy Travis, Garth Brooks, a little bi...

I know you've done this. You sit down at the computer to search for something and an hour or more later you're looking at something completely different. Sometimes you never even find the information you were searching for in the first place. It usually happens something like this. In a passing conversation the topic of leap years comes up. You think to yourself "I wonder when the last leap year was? I should Google that." A few weeks go by and then it pops into your mind out of nowhere. You go to your computer, pull up Google and search "leap years". A sight catches your eye that has ideas for fun ways to celebrate leap year. One of the suggestions is baking leap year cookies, so you click on the recipe which takes you to a cooking website. You scroll down to read the comments posted beneath the recipe when you spot a recommendation for a great home and garden website that has more cookie recipes. You wander over to that website and get interested in an art...

I have a painful issue with my foot right now, so while it heals, I'm spending less time on my feet and more time looking for things to entertain myself. I love puzzles of all sorts, as I've said before. One of my favorite types are jigsaw puzzles. I don't get to do them very often, though, because I just don't have a place to leave one set up for a few days until it's done. For that reason, I really enjoy online jigsaw puzzles. They're almost as much fun as the real thing without taking up space on my dining room table. I found a great puzzle website today called Jigsaw Planet . There are some fun puzzles to do, or, better yet, you can create your own puzzles with your very own photos! You can make them simple or difficult and share them on your blog, or email them to your friends. Take a look at these. [Your web browser does not support frames or is currently configured not to display frames. However, you may visit the related page .] [Your web browser does no...

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, mateys! Get yer Pirattitude on and have yerself a drink! Cap'n. Willoughby and I have a shooter for ye, tonight. They go down smooth, so careful how many ye have! Shiver Me Timbers Shooter 1/4 ounce coconut rum 1/4 ounce Kahlua 1/4 ounce chocolate liqueur 1/4 ounce butterscotch schnapps Pour coconut rum, Kahlua, chocolate liqueur and butterscotch schnapps in a double shot glass. Stir if ye like, but ye don't have to! Drink 'er down all at once. Repeat if ye want to! Drink yer Shiver Me Timbers Shooters responsibly, mateys, or the Cap'n. and I will make ye walk the plank! Enjoy the rest of yer Talk Like A Pirate Day!

On a road near my house, there is a speed limit sign that says "35 mph ends" . Why don't they post a sign telling you what the speed limit is instead of what it isn't? Every local radio station has a morning show with two or more people making witty banter and taking calls from listeners. Why do they assume everyone prefers humor to music in the morning? Socks are often packaged by sock size. Why are sock sizes and shoe sizes different? If you've ever bought socks for your children you know how frustrating this can be! Why are clothing sizes and underwear sizes different? All diet product advertisements have this disclaimer in tiny writing at the bottom of the screen "Results Not Typical". What would the advertisements look like if they showed typical results? If my local supermarket is open 24 hours a day, why don't they stock the shelves at 3:00 am when the store is empty instead of at 5:00 pm when it's jammed with shoppers? Why are the horizon...

A few weeks ago, we spent a Friday evening at the Michigan State Fair. It is the oldest state fair in the country and sadly, after 161 years, this was it's last year. It's apparently not profitable enough for the state to continue running it. We were a little hesitant to go at all because it's in Detroit. Even if you've never been to Detroit, I'm sure you know it's reputation for crime. A few years ago there was a shooting at the fair. We weren't entirely confident about our safety. As it turned out, we had no problems whatsoever. I did have to explain to my daughter what a prostitute is when we saw one on the way home, though. We didn't spend much time on the midway and we didn't ride any of the rides or play any of the games. Instead, we spent most of our time touring the animal exhibits and walking around the 164 acre grounds. The smell coming from all of the food stands was amazing, and there were so many of them. The pigs seemed pretty relaxed d...

My husband and I are avid do-it-yourselfers and I have training in interior design, so I'm always interested in home improvement projects. I like to read articles in magazines, peruse do-it-yourself websites, and watch home improvement shows on television. Today, I was reading an article about determining what home improvements you should consider based on your home's value. The number one tip they had was not to over improve you home. They suggested you research home selling prices in your neighborhood before starting any project so you wouldn't risk making your home more valuable than you might be able to sell it for. If you purchased your house strictly as an investment, that's probably good advice. If, on the other hand, you purchased your house because you love the area and want to have a comfortable home to raise your family in, I don't think it makes any sense at all. Why should you stop short of making it your dream home just because you might not get ...

Over the summer, I started to notice that my daughter was growing quite a bit. All of sudden, it seemed that her shirts were getting too short and her shoes were getting too small. When we started going through her jeans from last year, most of them were too short. The jeans that had been far too long at the end of the last spring don't drag on the floor anymore. I didn't measure her at the beginning of summer, but I think she grew about 4 inches between May and September. When I measured her this morning, she stood at 54 inches tall. I wondered where that put her on the growth chart and it turns out she's 7 inches taller than average, although at just under 60 pounds, she's a little lighter than the average nine year old. I know, you're thinking "So what? Kids go through growth spurts", and you would be correct in thinking that. But with my daughter, it's truly amazing. She had a long way to go just to get on the growth chart at all. She was ...

My son was 8 at the time and I had just dropped him off at school. I took my daughter, not yet 2, into the living room and gave her some toys and turned on the television. It was my usual habit on weekday mornings to give her some television time with Bear In The Big Blue House or Winnie The Pooh, or something similar while I did a quick bit of house cleaning. The television was still on the channel we had been watching the night before, but was showing the local news. Before I could click over to Disney or PBS, a burning building caught my eye. I didn't know what building or where, but there was a lot of smoke. With my daughter content, I went into the kitchen and turned on the television to find out more about the burning building. Along the bottom of the screen it said "World Trade Center, New York City". The picture never left the screen, but the newscasters were explaining that a plane had accidentally hit The World Trade Center. I assumed it had been a small...

It never occurred to me to explain what outhouse races are when I posted my last blog. I do wonder what some of you might have thought they were! What they really are is quite simple; races using outhouses on wheels. Each team consists of four members, one rides in the "outhouse" and steers it while the other three push or pull it to the finish line. Here's a picture from a past festival. Sorry it's in black and white, it's from the newspaper. Can you tell I live in a small town? If you're interested in seeing them for yourself, the races will take place on Main Street at 6:30 on Friday evening. Stop by for a drink afterward, just don't block my driveway!

Tomorrow kicks off the beginning of our town's late summer festival. There will be a carnival, parades, outhouse races, a strawberry shortcake social, library book sale, tours of local historical buildings, outdoor concerts, a demolition derby, an arm wrestling tournament..... I could go on and on. It sounds like fun, doesn't it? I wish it did to me. Let me share some of my most vivid memories of festivals past. About 8 years ago a bus pulled up to the curb along the street that borders our backyard. Six or seven drunk men got out and used our shrubs for a toilet. We had to call the police. Seven years ago the birdseed was emptied from my bird feeder and replaced with empty beer bottles. Six years ago empty liquor bottles were thrown onto the sidewalk next to our house from a car parked in the street. When I asked them to pick the bottles up and dispose of them elsewhere, they swore and spit out the window at me. Five years ago we were sitting in the backyard watching a mov...

We have been having my parents over for dinner on Sundays lately, so I'm always trying to come up with something different to serve. This past weekend, being a holiday weekend, I wanted to make dinner and dessert a little extra special. For dessert, I had my heart set on cheesecake. I didn't want to use my standard chocolate swirl cheesecake recipe and I didn't want to fool around with using my springform pan, so I combined a few recipes to come up with a version I could bake in a 9 x 13 cake pan. I used a shortbread style crust instead of a traditional graham cracker crust. It was fast and easy and baked up beautifully without a single crack in the top. Even if you're new to baking cheesecake, you can make this one and look like a pro! Creamy Cheesecake Shortbread Crust: 2/3 cup butter 2/3 cup brown sugar 2/3 cup finely ground pecans 2 cups flour Cheesecake: 32 oz. cream cheese (room temperature) 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 4 eggs 2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract Preheat o...

Fall is in the air. The kids are going back to school, the nights are getting chilly and the leaves will soon be changing. Apple picking, hay rides and bonfires will begin to dominate the weekends. Stew, chili and apple pies are being planned. Brightly colored mums and pumpkins are starting to show up at roadside stands. It all makes me feel very....well, sad. I've been feeling a bit blue about the passing of summer. Or maybe it's the passing of time in general. It's like sand slipping through my fingers. No matter how hard I try, I can't stop it or even slow it's momentum. It seems to me that June became September in the blink of an eye. I don't want to let it overwhelm me, though. I can't control the passage of time, but I can try not to let it get the best of me. There's a line in a song that goes "I wanna live every minute so hard that I wear it thin". I like that. I'm realistic about it, I don't expect every minute of every day to ...

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, yesterday, and I didn't like what I saw. There are a lot of things I'd like to change about myself, but, in this case it was my hair. I know I've told you before just how much I hate my hair and how it never looks quite the way I want it to, but this was beyond sub-par. It was neatly pulled back in a clip as it usually is, but it has gotten too long and it just looked hopelessly outdated. Remember what Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show looked like when her hair wasn't in a bun? Put denim shorts and a hoodie on that image and you'll have a good idea how I looked. Yes, I am exaggerating a little bit, but you get the idea. I don't want to be one of those people you see who can't let go of the past and have the same hair style and wardrobe they had when they went to Woodstock. My first reaction was to grab a pair of scissors and start hacking away. I wanted to gather all of my hair into a pony tail and give it a chop...