Excel Recipe Manager/Shopping List Creator

I came across this fun and free Excel tool for meal planning. It's an Excel spreadsheet that allows you to list your recipes along with the ingredients you usually have to buy to make them. Once you have the recipes entered you can click a button to have it give you a random 5 recipes to make for the coming week. You can pick from those or click again to get more choices.

Once you've selected which recipes you want for the week, simply click the Shopping List tab where you will find a shopping list already generated and ready for printing. Pretty cool!

The tool is called Cathy's Recipe Manager and you can find it here at Juice Analytics, a web page about Excel. The article is called "Instant Shopping Lists, or... How Excel Can Improve Your Marriage."

When I first looked at it I was concerned because the dropdowns did not have the recipes in alpha order so it was a little difficult to find the one you wanted. But then I figured out that I could sort the Recipe Main sheet by recipe and voila - alphabetized dropdowns.

If you have Excel and want to try this out I encourage you to do so. It's super easy to use. And I'll answer any questions if you get stuck with it.

Happy meal planning!

Beautiful Day

What a beautiful day we're having today. It feels as though Spring is almost here. As I was driving down I-5 toward downtown Seattle today I noticed quite a few sailboats on Lake Union. Of course I was not able to stop and take a photo, so I found this one on the internet. Today's view had almost as many sailboats as in this photo - a lot for a January day. Seattle is such a beautiful place and I feel fortunate to live here.

Post-Surgery

Walter's mother's mastectomy surgery was today. She's doing well after the operation. They had to remove a couple lymph nodes in addition to the breast. The difficult part now is waiting for biopsy results to tell us whether the cancer has spread any further than thought. Apparently those test results won't be back for a week. Please keep Genora in your thoughts and prayers.

The "C" Word

A week ago yesterday was a sad day for us. We got two pieces of bad news on the same day. First, Walter's brother called to let us know that Walter's mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer and she must undergo a mastectomy this coming Friday.

As a woman I can't imagine what it would be like to be told one has cancer. What a scary thing. At first Walter's mom was so upset she had to ask Rusty to call Walter because she was afraid she would be too emotional. Walter has talked to her since of course, and I spoke with her just the other day. She seems to be handling it okay, but I know it's hard. As she put it to me, "you just never think you're going to have to say those words: 'I have cancer!'" Surely that sort of thing only happens to other people. None of us thinks it will be us.

Genora's breast cancer is Stage 2 which I'm told means she needs a mastectomy but should not have to undergo radiation or chemotherapy. The blessing as I'm told by my mother's doctor and also by Genora (who heard it from her doctor) is that when you are "more mature" shall we say, you have less hormones which feed the cancer and your chances of survival are greater because the cancer does not spread as quickly. That's why you hear about very young women dying of the disease.

Are you on schedule for any mammograms needed? Do you do your breast checks monthly? (Those questions are for the ladies, of course.) No one deserves to go through what Genora will be going through, but sometimes it happens. We have to take care of ourselves as best we can.

Now for the second piece of news received. Last year my good friend Betty passed away. I try to keep in touch with her dear mother Helen who is a very sweet lady and did a wonderful job of caring for Betty in her last year of life. We got a New Years' card from Helen. Her note inside explained that she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early December.

I don't even know what to say about that news. I have been told that pancreatic cancer can be particularly painful. I am going to try to call Helen tomorrow. I wish there were something I could do to help her.

On the up side, both these ladies have families who love them and who will do a good job of taking care of them. Please keep Genora and Helen in your thoughts and prayers.

Digital Photo Frame

I mentioned in an earlier post that my mother-in-law got me a digital photo frame for Christmas. What a fun gift! I decided the best way I could show it to you was to actually show it to you. So here is a little video demonstration.

You can click the big button below to view the video here or if you would like to see it a bit larger click here. Be sure your sound is on.

Thank you Genora!



Digital Photo Frame

Blog Upgrade

I mentioned previously that I would eventually need to do an upgrade on this site. I finally decided to stop procrastinating and dig in. I'm happy to report that the upgrade is complete and I am pleased with the results.

For the most part, Cozzie's Corner should look very much the same to you. I made a couple minor changes over on the right hand side. Do you remember that Flickr badge that rotated a set of photos and postcards? That was a cool idea I suppose, but eventually it just got too distracting. So I removed that and added links to my Flickr picture sets and also to my Webshots photo albums.

You may also notice that the archives list looks slightly different. You can click those little arrows to expand and collapse the lists of posts for each year and month.

My favorite change, though, is the addition of the labels feature. If you look at the bottom of this post, and at the bottom of each post on this page you will see that there is a label (category) or two assigned to each post. If you scroll down past the archives list on the right-hand sidebar you will see a list of all the labels I have used and how many posts are assigned to each label. If you click one of those labels you will see a list of all posts labeled in that category. Pretty cool, huh?

Going back and labeling 195 posts would take quite some time. So for now I just did the last 25 posts and then went back and labeled a few here and there of the older ones. For example, I labeled all the posts relating to Walter's eye surgery as "eye report." That's so it's easy for me to find all those posts. I will try to go through and label a few more posts each weekend until everything is labeled.

I thought about changing the template - the look and colors - of the blog, but decided against it for now. I may revisit that idea later - perhaps when the blog celebrates its 2nd anniversary in October.

WINTER Pansies

This is what my pansies looked like about a week ago when the temperatures dipped to 19 degrees in Seattle. I seriously didn't think they were going to make it. They are supposed to be winter pansies, but this is not a normal winter for Seattle. And I know they are more vulnerable in little pots like this than they would be in the ground.

As of yesterday though they are back to normal and looking perkier than ever. I suppose I should take a new picture....

Good News on Mom's Tests

It turns out that my mother is the perfect patient for the kind of tests she had today - endoscopy and colonoscopy. She did a great job with her prep, drinking down the ucky liquid in 3-1/2 hours when told she had to finish in 6. She said it didn't taste that bad to her.

And after the procedures today she said "nothin' to it!" She had feared the worst, and she hardly felt a thing thanks to the great sedative they gave her. Her throat was a little sore afterwards but that's to be expected from the scope they put down to look at her stomach. The sedative made her a little weak and wobbly, but that cleared up very quickly once she was able to have some lunch.

Best of all, the tests showed nothing to worry about in her stomach or colon. That means we still don't know the cause of her anemia, so she has to get another simple test on Monday. After her success story today though I'm expecting great things.

Go Mom!

Time Off

I'm taking a few days off work this week. Mom has a doctor appointment tomorrow and then an endoscopy (upper GI) and colonoscopy on Wednesday. I think she's pretty nervous about the procedure. I'm glad it will be over for her soon. Hopefully the results won't be anything unexpected.

I'm looking forward to a little change of pace and getting some things done I haven't been able to get to while working.

Snow and Ice

We've been having some uncharacteristically cold and wintry weather here in Seattle. As I recall it started with yet another blustery windstorm with a little rain, then the temperatures dropped.

Here is a photo Walter took looking down the street from our apartment complex. This was taken on Wednesday - the day the snow began. There was more snow the next day, but not too much. I think we had just about an inch total.

The temperatures dropped quickly though and all the snow we got compacted into ice and is still with us.

In the City of Seattle it dropped to 19 degrees last night. As I write this it is 29 degrees and that was the high for the day. There have been more snow flurries today, but so far as I know nothing appreciably adding to what's on the ground.

Since I have to drive to Olympia in a couple days I'm glad there is no prediction for a big dumping of snow. In fact it's supposed to start warming up.

I hope you are keeping warm out there. Remember - dress in layers!!

Flags for Ford

Tuesday, January 2nd was a day of mourning for Gerald Ford, our 38th president who passed away December 27th at age 93. As is this country's custom, flags were flown at half mast in remembrance.

On the morning of the 2nd I went out for my first walk of the new year. I had recently discovered that I could take videos with my camera and post them here to this blog. We had a storm coming in that day, and the morning was quite blustery so flags were flying in the wind. On my walk I go by the North Precinct of Seattle's Police Department. There I stopped to take note of the flags flying at half mast. I thought it would be nice to post a brief video of it here. So I went back home to get my camera.

When I take photos with my camera it is not uncommon for me to turn the camera sideways if it's more a vertical image than a horizontal one that I want to capture. So that's what I did - I turned my camera sideways and took the video. Imagine my dismay when I transferred the video to my computer and I had to tilt my head in order to view the sideways video!

Turning a video is not as easy as turning a photo. But I looked up instructions on the internet and figured out how to rotate my little movie. If I was stuck with a sideways movie I would have posted it anyway, as I know President Ford was a forgiving man. :) But that was not necessary.

Here is my 10 second video of the flags flying at half mast for Gerald Ford. Rest in peace, Mr. President.

Eye Report

I thought I posted on the blog last month about Walter's vision, but it looks like I did not. Walter had a setback with his vision decreasing since the first of December. It was rather scary because he seemed to have lost any gains made from the surgery. At his appointment in late December the doctor said the transplant still looked good, but the eye was red and the surface of the cornea was rough. He wanted to make sure we weren't on our way to rejection, so he increased Walter's dose of the antirejection drug to three times a day.

Walter went back to the doctor last Friday . His vision is "marginally improved" from last time. Of course I am hoping this will be a trend and it will just keep getting better until he at least has regained the sight he had after the transplant.

The doctor cut back a little on the antirejection drug. The antirejection drug increases eye pressure, and his eye pressure is too high. It's a balancing act with the meds to keep his eye pressure in a safe range yet keep the graft healthy so the eye won't reject it. Who knows how long it will take to see where Walter's vision ends up. For now we wait...

Who Says I Can't Do Video?

I mentioned before that I did not have a way to post videos in this blog. Walter got a camcorder a few months ago, and I haven't taken the time to figure out how to get videos from the camcorder to the blog. We don't have high speed internet access at home so it would be a multi-step process.

But while we were out at Zoolights on New Years Eve there were so many cool animated vignettes that's when I remembered that I can take small movies with my own digital camera. The process for transferring video from my digital camera onto the computer is very quick and easy just like uploading digital photos. And I figured out that once the video is uploaded, it's an easy task to post it here.

Below is a very short video taken at Zoolights. This animated light display has a very Northwest theme. You will see fish (I think they are salmon) swimming in one direction in the water. Then you will see an eagle swoop down from the top right and grab one of the fish before exiting stage left.

What's fun about video as that you get sound too. As I mentioned in my last post, Zoolights is at the zoo. And the zoo means animals. In this video you will hear some howling in the background. You would be correct that howling has little to do with salmon or eagles.

As it turns out, this particular display was set up right next to the coyote area. The coyotes are not on display during Zoolights as it is nighttime, but they are awake behind a fence. Many of the young humans in the area figured out that there were coyotes behind the fence and if they (the humans) howled, the coyotes would howl back. That's the soundtrack you hear - human and coyote howling.

You can click the big button below to view the video here or if you would like to see it a bit larger click here.

Zoolights on New Years Eve

The last few days have been pretty crazy, so I'm a little behind on my posts. On New Years Eve Walter and I went to Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma to see Zoolights.

Zoolights is a dazzling light display they do at Pt. Defiance every Christmas season. I think we went the first or second year they did it (19 years ago) and have been several times since. I highly recommend it. Of course it's especially fun with little kids, but even as adults we just love it.

This year's display included a large rainbow, a representation of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, some spectacularly lit trees, and to go with the zoo theme many animal scenes - both static and animated.

I took a bunch of pictures including the one above. If you would like to see more, click on the photo for a slide show. By the way, depending on your screen resolution you may find it easier to see everything on your screen if you press F11 for full screen. I know that helps for me.

Who's Walter?

When I first started this blog, my husband was nervous about privacy issues. So nervous in fact that he asked me not to use his first name. Well I tried that, and I couldn't do it. I didn't like saying "my hubby this" or "my husband that." To me it sounded like I didn't know my own husband's name.

So I proposed a compromise with him. You see, my husband goes by two different names. His first name is Walter, his middle name is Clay. While growing up in the South his family always called him Clay. When he became an adult and went out on his own, he decided to start using the name Walter. That's how I know him - as Walter. Once in a while I call him Walter Clay. Our friends also know him as Walter. But his family still calls him Clay. I asked him if I could refer to him as Clay on the blog, and he agreed to that. That's why some of you who know me might wonder why I say Clay on the blog when I'm talking about Walter.

It has been more than a year since I've started the blog now, and I have convinced Walter that it would be a good thing to call him here by the name I know him - Walter. In future posts I will do just that. I didn't want anyone to be confused and think I have two husbands. There is only one Walter Clay. :)

I'm Going to Be a Great-Aunt!

We got a wonderful surprise in my sister Petra's Christmas card this year. She writes that my nephew Roberto (we call him Boyboy) and his wife (they married earlier this year) are expecting a little one in June.

Congratulations Boyboy and Roxanne!! We are really happy for you. I can't wait to meet the newest member of the family.