Finally got around to making lemon slice ice cubes., originally uploaded by criana.

I enjoy lemon in my water and saw someone post about this months ago. I finally got around to trying to make these and it’s incredibly easy.

You take a lemon, slice into slices roughly a 1/4-1/3 of an inch thick. Take a muffin tin and put the lemon slices in each spot. Fill with water and then place in the freezer. When they’re all frozen take it out and pop them out. I found using a hot sponge along the bottom of the pan loosened them up enough to fall out. Then I placed them in a freezer bag.

The past few months have been quite hectic. We decided we’d had enough of living in the middle of the state and moved back to the western side. I’m able to have a highway free commute which I love. We’re now closer to the parks we like to hike and bike at. All in all it was a good decision. The implementation should have been smooth but it got crazy with stitches for Craig, a few car related incidents, 3 loaner cars and getting to know a collision repair center very well. At some point I’ll post pics of our new place, preferably after the snow has receded.

I’ve been sorely neglecting my design work in favor of sleep and brain candy. Which I might add, I love Dexter. I’ve been focused on being re-inspired and making a point to get out and visit with others in the field. I’ve been attending the Hartford Build Guild meet-ups, as well as attending Drupal Camp Western Massachusetts in January. Along with all of that fun, Stephanie and I have been meeting up for coffee to give support and share knowledge. Steph has been a great source of books. Borders and Amazon have been enjoying my ordering. I picked up copies of CSS Mastery, Head First PHP & MySQL, Drupal’s Building Blocks, and lastly Objective C for Dummies. Of course I need to find a few spare weeks of my life to read these and implement what I learned.

I also checked out Lullabot’s, Drupalize.me site with training videos. I highly recommend their tutorials if you’re new to Drupal. I should be pro at this point, but I have yet to truly focus on a Drupal project without being distracted onto another project. Currently my primary focus is building a Lemonstand App eCommerce site for a client. It’s taking a bit of wrapping my head around their API, but it is going well. I’m looking forward to posting the link to the site in a week or so.

I’m hoping with the return of warmer weather to exercise more as well as get back to shooting photos. Is anyone living this hectic of a life the past few months?

Black Point Beach

We spent the weekend, courtesy of friends at a beach rental in East Lyme/Niantic. It was a nice break from life and great times with friends. Our friend’s kids kept Craig busy wanting to play games and go exploring. While at the beach Dunkin Donuts flew their banner over head several times.

It was really peaceful to be in a private community where you can walk around, leave the house unlocked, everyone waves and says Hi, and people follow the speed limit. There was also something rejuvenating being near the water and having the expectations lowered significantly for two days. More photos on Flickr.

Craig’s cousin Bryan graduated from college this past May. They combined his party with the 4th of July and I brought my camera. It was a lot of fun visiting with everyone and catching the moments on “film”.

Bryan and his dog Anna

Val and Autumn

Fun with cameras

ttown992, originally uploaded by Lloyd Dangle.

Brilliant. (Found on Richard’s Notes)

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years. It doesn’t feel like 10 years and so much has happened and yet many things have stayed the same. I’m incredibly lucky to have married someone who I love to spend hours talking with, makes me laugh and if I do say so myself looks very good. My best friend and only person I trust everything to in life. I look forward to many more years. Happy Anniversary Craig.

Kerry and I decided to explore Great Wass Island today. The weather was perfect and we wanted to get out of the house, as well as get some exercise. My inlaws and Kerry had gone to this island last year but I never made it. It definitely ranks up as one of my favorite trails to hike.

The trail included several varieties of terrain, from roots and dirt, to boardwalks and several large boulders. I love the trees through these island landscapes, they’re small and scraggly growing in directions clearly blown by the Atlantic wind. In the woods the temperature was perfect, we worked up a good sweat. Along the trail I managed to scare a red squirrel and a spruce grouse.

At the terminus of the trail we got an incredible view of the Atlantic Ocean. We had the whole beach to ourselves for quite a while.

The rocks were wonderfully sun baked and kept us warm as the wind picked up and made for a chilly but sunny lunch. We were able to keep with our vegan eating packing left overs. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. According to the LoseIt app, our 2.5 hour hike totaled 1100 calories burned.  We spent a total of 3.5 hours out on the island.

Onto tomorrow and more adventures!

This year we’ve taken two weeks to vacation/retreat in Maine. The house as it turns out is being rented out to the public for the first time and I think we are the first renters. The view and location are incredible. We’re only 45 minutes from Bar Harbor and 20 minutes from Ellsworth. High speed internet was supposed to be in place, but it took a while for the internet company to get things going. With that said, Fairpoint is so much better to deal with than AT&T.

Unlike last year we’ve had incredible weather. Almost everyday has been sunny with a light breeze and as I said before, gorgeous views. I’m incredibly grateful for that. We’ve spent a lot of time reading and brainstorming projects and future plans. We’ve made some delicious healthy meals and working on sun tans. We both managed to get decent burns after sitting out for 5 hours on one day.

We made a trip into Bar Harbor and enjoyed town life and lots of lobster. I visited my favorite store, Cool As A Moose and picked up some new Life Is Good swag. Today begins the second week and we’re off to do some biking and enjoy the outdoors.

sitting outside with @kregmusic and watching the clouds go by, originally uploaded by criana.

Sitting out on the deck with Craig enjoying this gorgeous weather. We’re reading books, catching up on email and having our great philosophical conversations.

One of my favorite recipes yet from The Kind Diet is the Edamame and Sugar Snap Peas. The recipe is so easy to make and uses only olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, shallots and ume boshi plum vinegar.