Sponsored by Mom It Forward.

• Every Tuesday night from 6PM-9PM Pacific (9PM Eastern!) via Twitter.com!
  
• Different topic each week and special Guest Tweets who are experts in the topic or at least passionate about the topic!
• Use the ‘hashtag’ #GNO in each tweet.
• A custom Tweetgrid is created each week making it easy to participate.
• Do you have to be a girl to participate? NO!
• Do you have to be a mom? NO!
• Do you have to have a Twitter account? YES!

See you Tuesday night!

My MIL learned to make hand dipped chocolates the old fashioned way–
from her MIL.

I was always supposed to learn how to make those fancy cherry chocolates, and chocolate covered fondants from her.

It never happened. I lived too far away for too many years.

Instead.

I learned to make Cream Cheese Filled Pumpkin Rolls, and from scratch Gingerbread Men that create heaven on earth while they bake and taste even better(!) and a family recipe for Danish Pastry (it uses more butter than one cow can make in a month!) and my personal favorite: English Toffee. Yummmm.

What is the food you cannot live without during the holidays? The perfect Turkey? Grandma’s secret recipe for walnut stuffing? How about the desserts? Ooooh…pumpkin pie of course! But what about the weird things, the experiments gone awry, the goodies only your family loves?

I’d love to share my recipes with you. Will you share yours with me?
I have an over the top Hot Chocolate recipe, one your kids WILL NOT like, it’s that good.
It will be your reward for sharing with me.

Join us for GNO Tuesday night over at Twitter.com. Our Guest Tweet is Nicole from PinchMySalt.com. Bring all your foodiest thoughts and questions, I can’t wait to ask her about those dipped cherry chocolates!

In Oregon?

• There are no polling booths.
• No hanging chads.
• No cute elderly people sitting at a table helping you find your dang name in that dang book. (Oh? I’ve come to the wrong booth? GREAT!!)
• No walking into a school/church/golf course (we once voted at a golf course in Utah, no kidding?) with your three little kids hanging on you while you try to read the impossibly small, small print about an election measure you cannot begin to decipher.

Because the writing is:

“Shall (County) voters adopt a proposed (County) charter and become a Home Rule county under (State) law? “

What? Adopt a what, to do what?
How should I know how many commissioners are needed to run a county? I just need to know whether it’s gonna be MacNCheese or Nuggets for lunch. ThankYouVeryMuch.

So? How’d you vote?
Did your vote count this year?

We manage to live in extremely hot or cold areas. Brooklyn? Dems and leaning so far to the left we barely spoke the same language.

Utah? Um yeah, the OPPOSITE. Same result.

I end up in the middle wherever I am, whatever my slant. Here in lil ole Southern Oregon? Kind of weird. Oregon as a whole? Liberal, hangs to the left. My new town? VERY conservative, as in puts Utahns to shame, righty tighty they are. Current position for me? Again. In the middle. And I almost didn’t vote at all. Neither candidate is making me very happy with the nasty rhetoric and negative marketing. One’s um..old. The other? Lately seems so slippery?

I did make my decision. Then I placed my ‘mail-in only ballot’ in the drive-up ballot box outside city hall.

• No one even noticed that I voted.
• No one gave me a sticker. (humph)
• No one gave my 4yrold a lollipop.

I did my thing and drove away. Did you?

LeeLou is HAVIN’ a PARTAY!

She has nachos, and that awesome 7layerdip, and rootbeer floats, and I think she does a great hula dance! (That’s her Halloween costume) Srsly. Go check it out.

She has giveaways (uh huh! free stuff). She has awesome templates. And Hello? Some of them are FREE? Yes. I know. But even better, she has Holiday Blogger Layouts for not a lot of $$. (If you hurry they’re only $20.) I can’t wait to see her President’s Day Diggs. Oh Oh? Valentine’s! Did I forget Groundhog Day? Who wants a header with a rodent on it?

Anyway.

She’s very nice. And you’ll love her designs. And I hear she is taking custom orders again…better hurry and get on her list, it get’s longer than Santa’s…

And if you’d be so kind. When you get there. Will you remind her that she promised to ‘figure’ out Twitter with me? She’ll need this link as a reminder that TONIGHT is the Newbie Night on Twitter. Yup. If you want some help figuring it out, with just a few friends, join me on Twitter.com around 7PM Pacific. 10Pm Eastern. The tag is #GNOnb, my username is @Rogbark.

Want to meet LeeLou? See you on Twitter tonight.

Have you read Twilight?

I did. I was totally obsessed. Read the book and THEN read the whole Stephanie Meyers website. If I had seen the mass Edward shirts? I would have bought one. I would have dressed up as Edward for Halloween for Pete’s sake.

Then.

I read the second book.

Um? Not so good. And when I realized it wasn’t ending? And all that stuff about Jacob…NO…Edward….NO…? Oh brother. Not for me. I did read the third one, but only barely. Oh let me guess there’s going to be a 4th book. No thanks. Just KILL her off already!

I guess it’s like sexual angst, only it’s Should I Kill her instead of the whole virginity issue? Blah?

Convince me? The Fourth one…Or not?
One last week here at my site…Mr. Linky is here for your enjoyment. Join us for #GNO. Sign up YOUR TWITTER URL to play on Tuesday night! (And get your love/hate post up for the follow up Topic Talk–We will be highlighting your posts over at the GNO blog!)

I’m not really anti-twilight, so don’t send hate mail just yet…

I vote for THIS kinda TWILIGHT…

All the GNO details over at: mommygossip-gno!
New Guest Tweet for you to check out.

I moved.

(In case your forgot.)

When I moved. I didn’t know anyone in my new town. But I still had all of you. My little online world. But talking to you through your blogs, or emailing you and waiting for you to get back to me, was taking too long. And for a long stretch there I had no adult interaction.

IT all started when I asked a couple online friends to join me on Twitter so I could chat with them sorta kinda live? I worked out a time late one evening when all three of us could be online, and they slowly grasped how Twitter does it’s thing. They each had that head smacking moment where you GET Twitter and go: “Oh my gosh, this is soooo easy! Why did it take me so long to get here?”

We had a blast. And we thought we were so cool.
We agreed.
For sure the next week…

And my friends?
Twitter Girl’s Night Out was born.
It was bald of course. (All my babies are.)

There were about 15 gossiping gals that next week. And over 50(!) the third week. I called in a massive favor to relative new-comer to the blogging world: Jyl, Ms. MommyGossip herself. I said, hey? This is bigger than I know what to do with! Help!

And look where we are now? I can’t even find a way to tell how many amazing tweeters join in on Tuesday nights? 75, 150, more? But we tweet at a blazin’ 300 tweets per minute, and I expect that to RISE!

• Topic Tuesdays.
• Topic Talk (for following up on Topic Tuesdays)
• Featuring You and your input, ideas, and posts…keep ‘em coming,
  we are writing this all down!
• A Calendar of Guest Tweets.
• A Shopping Directory for Our Gossipin’ Gals Great Stuff!
• YES! A blogroll!
• Tutorials (You know me too well…?)

And now….
In honor of Halloween, we thought the best way to really celebrate in true MommyGossip style?

Twitter GNO will be All Twilight, All Night.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

We decided a few years ago…taking a vacation without the kids?

No fun.

Lining up the childcare, making grandma keep up with their schedules, worrying?

It was all a nightmare, and by the second night away? I wished the kids were WITH us. Seeing the ancient volcano, trying out snorkeling, tasting an authentic dish.

We’ve also learned that the HOTEL POOL is usually more fun than any vacation activities. So we found that staying in a condo with a pool and with a kitchen cuts down on our travel costs. And airfare for 5 is out of the question.. so we find places within a 15 hour drive. The kids are troopers and make it in one shot now.

This is outside our Hotel in Palm Desert last winter.
(That would be near Palm Springs, one town removed).

We rode the tram, cuz the guide book said it was a no miss. But in our opinion the ridiculously high priced ticket with the snow and cold at the top and the fancy lunch prices NOT fun for kids, and WORTH missing…

However the awesome walking trails nearby? Oh my gosh, soooo beautiful. The kids had a blast, and it looked like we were walking in an alien forest!
And meeting up with friends from New Jersey in California? Seriously cool.

Whatdya think? Christmas Card worthy?

And outside the children’s museum…
These are vacations WORTH taking the kids along!

How do YOU travel?

Tuesday night Oct. 21st!
6PM Pacific
7PM Mountain
8PM Central
9PM Eastern

Hosted by: Carissa @ GoodNCrazy and Jyl @ MommyGossip

<a href=”http://goodandcrazypeople.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter%20GNO” target=”_blank”><img alt=”Twitter GNO Button” src=”http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj139/ODCrogers/GNO-sidebark.gif” border=”0″ /></a> <br /><font size=”1″><em>Hosted by: <br /><a href=”http://twitter.com/rogbark”>Carissa</a> @ <a href=”http://goodandcrazypeople.blogspot.com”>GoodNCrazy</a> and <a href=”http://twitter.com/jyl_mommygossip”>Jyl</a> @ <a href=”http://mommygossip.blogspot.com”>MommyGossip</a></em></font></p>
FIRST: Go See Jyl’s Blog.
Funny Top Ten WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN US TONIGHT….

My little girl was sick a few weekends ago. Her little brother had to fill in for her at the local 5K run/walk the Dad had signed her up for. And then we had to draw straws over who was going to stay home with her from church. (Actually we switched it out, half and half.)

And this past weekend? Poor hubby has a cold.

Wait. Not just a cold.

A MAN COLD.

If you do nothing else all week.
Please Press the little ‘play arrow’ below. ONLY 1 min 24 seconds.

If you aren’t laughing or at the very least forwarding this to the Man in your life? I’m very sorry for you. (Poor. Poor. Bunny.) …You would get that if you pushed the button…)

TOPIC for Twitter GNO.

How do you deal with sick children? Sick husbands?
And when you get sick?
Then What?

(Also)
Do you know how to embed a youtube video into your post?
Or how to embed a Flickr photo from the Creative Commons area of Flickr?

Please RSVP for GNO on Mr. Linky below!

Please leave your TWITTER Username and Twitter URL. If you also want us to see your website hit ‘refresh’ and re-enter your site name and your site’s URL.

Times: Same as last week:

6PM Pacific (for surfers)
7PM Mountain (for skiers)
8PM Central (for cornhuskers and tornado-avoiders)
9PM Atlantic (for Broadway-watchers)

The second topic will be about quick fix meals.
The good, the bad, the ugly.
I am getting my recipe ready to share with you right now…hmmm is it on an old post somewhere??

One of our very own GNO chicks has just re-launched her website!
(Am so Jealous of Kate Turnbow!)
And lucky for us, she’s got goodies to give away! Take a look!

Announcing!!

Our very first ‘Expert Guest Speaker’ for GNO next week! How cool is that!

Stay Tuned..more info is coming. As always contact me with any questions. And send out lots of tweets over the next 24 hours! Let’s have a record turnout!

Note to all twitter newbies…This is the place for you, we are experts at helping you figure out Twitter…you’ll have all of us following you in no time! Please join the TwitterMoms Group devoted to Twitter GNO for even more discussions.

See Tutorial for help with #GNO tags!

Hi! So glad you are joining us this week for Twitter GNO!

Hosted by:
Carissa @ GoodNCrazy and Jyl @ MommyGossip

<a href=”http://goodandcrazypeople.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter%20GNO” target=”_blank”><img alt=”Twitter GNO Button” src=”http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj139/ODCrogers/GNO-sidebark.gif” border=”0″ /></a> <br /><font size=”1″><em>Hosted by: <br /><a href=”http://twitter.com/rogbark”>Carissa</a> @ <a href=”http://goodandcrazypeople.blogspot.com”>GoodNCrazy</a> and <a href=”http://twitter.com/jyl_mommygossip”>Jyl</a> @ <a href=”http://mommygossip.blogspot.com”>MommyGossip</a></em></font></p>

I have it on good authority that it never rains in my new high mountain desert home. Yeah, right.

It’s been raining and/or cloudy for several days now. And it’s making me nervous. Is Autumn really here for good? I refuse to turn on the heat.
(Go put on a sweater if YOU’re cold!–Sound just like my mom, eh?)
I’m told there is often snow here for Trick -Or-Treating. Great.

How Do You Decorate for Halloween? Rosh Hashana? Autumn? Thanksgiving?

Do you have your kid’s Halloween costumes ready?
Home-made? Store-bought? Good find on Ebay?
Or just a dang hand-me-down?
What was the best costume your kid (or you!) ever donned?

I’m thinking everyone should get a picture of their best past Halloween costume and get it loaded up either on your blog or on a photobucket/flickr account?
And then figure out how to use TinyURL.com.

Because at the twitter GNO TONIGHT (Oct. 7th) we are all going to share our best, our worst, our ugliest, our scariest, our pretty pretty princess-est photos!

Do you think we can find a way to vote for best past costume? Send me suggestions on how to do that? Cuz if you’ve been with us before it is CRAZY!

We could:

Direct Message Rogbark (me) with your vote after seeing everyone’s link on Twitter GNO. And I can compile them later…

or

All vote on one of those voting things back at my blog the next day…but everyone would have to Direct Message Rogbark your entry photo?

Help? I can’t think of any other way?

Run and upload your best past Halloween photo to your blog or your own photobucket account, I can’t wait to see ‘em.

Here’s mine.

It’s not my best though. I’m saving THAT for GNO!

2 Rules this week:

FIRST: LEAVE your TWITTER @username in the name box and your TWITTER URL in the URL box. (like this: http://twitter.com/USERNAME)

SECOND: LEAVE your blog URL IF you link up to the GNO in your blog. (Sorry to be stinky about this but it’s getting confusing).
Check back before Tuesday night to ‘follow’ everyone on the list!

Early Start Times this Week.
Jyl will take the early shift and I will take the late (as usual).

6PM Pacific Time (Oregon, California…)
7PM Mountain Time (Utah, Phoenix, and Napoleon Dynamite-ville)
8PM Central Time (Chicago, Kansas -those middle ones)
9PM Eastern Time (NYC, DC, SC and TallahaC)
Around noon-time Wednesday for you TeachingChallenges! In Australia!

{Remember to use #GNO in all your tweets}

As always contact me with questions!

Oh and PS…. Check out this contest… I think I’m disqualified from entering since he linked to me…so instead… ALL of YOU need to go enter!

I call him Mr. Ratburn.
Ask him why.

How cool is this? A real life honest to goodnes Tupperware Party?

Complete with games, giveaways, prizes and more!
It starts Wednesday (Oct. 8th!).
Doesn’t she have an awesome blog background? Ask her where she got it?

So far so… Great!

We’ve had two rockin’ Girl’s Night Outs! Shall we try again?
Half hour earlier this time?? There were around 35 of us last week… We’re hoping for more and for a lot of new folks…

Do you Twitter? Do you want to learn how to Twitter? Already a pro?
Twitterific!

Please join us this week!

Tuesday September 30th. (Times below.)

Easy instructions for Mr. Linky.

1) In the Name box: delete what’s there and type in:
“username’s Twitter”
(where username is YOUR twitter username, see my example in the first link)

2) In the URL box: delete what’s there and type in your twitter URL.

(Your twitter URL is: http://twitter.com/rogbark
Where rogbark is YOUR username)

PLEASE add your Twitter URL in Mr. Linky first and then (hit refresh) PLEASE add your blog URL. We want to get to know you first of course!

PLEASE comment here!

PLEASE come back and click on everyone else’s twitter link to ‘follow’ them!

<a href=”http://goodandcrazypeople.blogspot.com/search/label/twitter%20GNO/” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ alt=”GNO Button” src=”http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj139/ODCrogers/GNO-tweet.gif” /></a>

Use this button to tell all your friends!

TOPIC for GNO:

Don’t forget to add Last Week’s Twitter Gals!

And…

Instructions for using the #GNO Tag to use on Twitter while participating.

(It’s only 3 steps…and worth it, to keep track of everyone!)

Times:

Pacific (Oregon California) 7:30PM

Mountain (Utah, Arizona, Idaho..) 8:30PM

Central (Chicago-for Arizona who might mix up Arizona’s time?, Arkansas,
all YOU in the middle) 9:30PM

Eastern (Atlantic coast, this means you JiggetyJig! You. can. do. it!) 10:30PM

See you there. — I love this crap!

(Jocasta felt left out. –Whiner. She says that it’s 20 hours in the future in New Zealand. That makes it: 4-5 O’Clock on WEDNESDAY for her? Weird.)