You may have heard that my husband is a musician. He’s been playing music all his life and loving it.

He was in a band when he was younger that made an album and now we get to announce the release of a long awaited 2nd recording!

Bob Ryan does all the song writing and Terry adds instruments to the arrangements.  They’ve played at local venues as well as at the Tucson Folk Festival and Sunnyslope Art Walk.  They’re anxious to share their love of music with everyone.

Hope you’ll love it as much as we do!

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bobryanterryhann

Pass it along to your friends!

Filed under: About Me, Creativity, Family & Friends, I'm a Fan of..., Music & Musicians Tagged: Americana, Arts and Entertainment, Bob Ryan, Folk, music, Rough Cut CD, Terry Hann, United States ]]> http://touristoflife.me/2013/04/20/new-cd-from-bob-ryan-terry-hann/feed/ 0 nanhann Rough Mix CD Cover http://touristoflife.me/2013/03/31/easy-easter-quiche/ http://touristoflife.me/2013/03/31/easy-easter-quiche/#comments Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:59:29 +0000 Nancy Hann http://touristoflife.me/?p=5281 ]]> Happy Easter!

Happy Easter
by Don & Tonya Christner

If you’re thinking of making Quiche for an Easter Brunch, here’s an easy recipe that I’ve been using for decades.  The secret to keeping your quiche from coming out soupy or runny is to toss the grated cheese in a little bit of flour before baking (see recipe).

I also love the fact that you can use a variety of cheeses and a variety of fillings.  I’ve used Swiss, Monterey Jack, Mozzarella, Cheddar – most any semi-soft cheese. For fillings I’ve used ham, bacon, broccoli, crab and more. Just choose your favorites.

This link also takes you to a couple of other tasty brunch recipes.

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating our risen Lord with family and friends.

In the beginning of the year I was winding down after the holidays and very focused on developing my website, Traveling With Purpose. Things were going along swimmingly and we were inching closer to launching the next phase of the site when things hit the proverbial fan.

At the end of January my husband’s mother was admitted to the hospital. It’s a long complex story, but the final result was that she has been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  It’s called a low grade glioma and is rare in people her age. It’s much more common in children and teenagers. She was in and out of the hospital for over a week while they did tests and a biopsy to determine the diagnosis. Then due to the fact that she was showing signs of confusion, difficulty communicating and had not been cooking for herself, the family and medical team determined that it wouldn’t be wise for her to go home to Prescott by herself.

Since I was the only one in the immediate family (in Arizona) that wasn’t working and we have a guest room, we decided that she would come home with us for the time being.  We realized that it would be best to have someone with her during the days and she has been with us since that time.

She is such a sweet woman and has always been so kind to me. It’s an honor to have her here.

This is Carole and her oldest son (my husband) on a Skype call with her sisters back east on Saint Patrick’s Day. We’re realizing that she understands a lot more visually than by talking on the phone or hearing someone talk.  She sometimes doesn’t know who we’re talking about when we mention a name, but if we show her a photo she understands, so Skype is better than a phone call. We need to do more of it.

Mom is Irish through and through and she loves celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. So much so, that she requested that we bring down her decorations from her house so we could use them here. I don’t have a lot of St. Paddy’s decor, so it was fun to have her items to scatter around the house. As you can see she was dressed for the day as well, with her Snoopy sweatshirt and Leprechaun socks.

And of course we had corned beef and cabbage, even though it’s really an American Irish tradition.  We all love it. I always cook it in the crock pot, which makes it so easy. For the first batch, I added chicken broth to the water, and for the second I added Guinness Black Lager (brewed in Dublin). Mmmm, both were very tasty. I cooked the 2nd one a week or so later to go with the potatoes and carrots that we had leftover from the first batch. Let me know if you want the recipe.
So since the end of January we have all been busy with doctors and more tests, discussions about treatment options and how to best care for her in the coming months/years. They have a big family, so we’ve had lots of visitors to the house.  She really enjoys her visitors for the most part. She’s been eating much better and has good times and bad when it comes to understanding all that’s happening around her. She will be starting radiation treatments next week…once a day, five days a week for 6 weeks.  We’re praying that the side effects will be minimal, but we’ll see how she does with it all. The difficulty will be in explaining any side effects in a way that she can understand so that she wants to keep going with it.

Please keep her in your prayers. There is a very slim chance for improvement in her condition with the radiation, but mostly it’s just to slow down the growth of the tumor.

So this is just a part of what’s been going on since the first of the year. Am I forgiven for being away so long? What has your new year brought?

More to come on everything else…and there’s a LOT more.

Hey friends,

I wanted to share with you that I had the chance to do a guest post yesterday on Lemon and Raspberry’s New Year’s Day Blog Party!  What a fun way to start 2013 and so much available in one day.

Amy always provides lots of information and motivation for all kinds of business and personal projects throughout the year and this is the way she kicks it off.

You’ll find tips and inspiration about Memory Keeping, Blogging, Photography, Travel, Marketing and just general creativity and productivity.  She also provides creative prompts for journaling the details of your life.

My post is called Memory Keeping with a Purpose. If you have a few minutes stop by and say hi to Amy, check it out and tell her that I sent you. She’s running a free mini online workshop and several giveaways as part of the New Year’s Blog Party, so sign up to participate or for a chance to win one of the prizes.

I’m running a contest on the Traveling with Purpose website and you can enter to win just by adding a comment below the post where it says “Leave a Reply”.

Contest runs today (Sunday 12/9) only, so go over check out the details and answer the question to win!

We won’t actually be doing much celebrating today, but will enjoy some special time together later this week. You see December is a great month for a wedding, but a crazy month for an anniversary.  There are always so many other things going on and so many other things to spend money on that we’ve often celebrated in January or February. But this year we’ll have a chance to get out of town for a few days and just hang out together. No big presents, no big parties, just time together, which is my favorite kind of anniversary celebration.

So in honor of the big day, here are 35 things I love about my husband…in no particular order

1. he’s willing to go on all kinds of adventures with me.
2. he loves Jesus
3. he loves our kids
4. he loves to read and was the most creative reader for our kids.  He did voices and everything!
5. he keeps me warm when I get cold
6. he’s a talented musician – guitar, mandolin, harmonica, bass, banjo…
7. and humble about his gifts and talents
8. he’s so smart about all kinds of stuff and he’s really good with numbers
9. he loves astronomy, history, music, sports, food…
10. he loves chocolate almost as much as I do
11. he’s a funny guy
12. he’s stuck with me for 35 years
13. he encourages me to follow my dreams even when they’re things that he wouldn’t dream of doing.
14. he loves to drive on road trips
15. he always willing to drive (so I can fall asleep on the way home)
16. he takes good care of himself
17. he has always taken good care of our family
18. he’s really good at setting up technical stuff, like connecting the cable box to the TV and receiver and Roku and all
19. he’s steady and strong
20. consistent and committed
21. he works hard at his job, but doesn’t make it more important than his family
22. he loves to travel and has always been committed to making it a priority for our family
23. when we were dating he drove all the way across town to pick me up for church even though he lived a block from the building
24. he does all the yard work even when it’s 115 degrees
25. he laughs hard with me about the silliest things, even to the point of tears
26. he kills bugs and takes out the trash
27. he’s good at researching purchases, trips and all kinds of stuff
28. he let me have a cat (for 21 years) even though he wasn’t a Cat Person. He fell in love with that cat too, even though he wouldn’t admit it for the first decade or so.
29. he lets me host big get-togethers with friends and family even though his ideal size group is about 6 people (including us)
30. he’s great at grilling AND always helps with clean up
31. he goes to musicals with me and doesn’t make fun of them, even though he thinks they’re kind of silly
32. he’s romantic
33. he lets me take pictures of his food when we’re out for dinner, and he stops and waits when I want to take pictures (without complaint) wherever we go.
34. he’s flexible and accommodating
35. he loves me so much more than I deserve! (of course, you can probably tell that)

I’m so thankful that God brought us together. I think I’ll keep him around for another 35, if he’s willing.

O.k., here goes! Journal your Christmas 2012 has begun.  Attempting to do a blog post each day in the month of December.  Already resigning myself to the fact that it won’t happen every day, but maybe I can post a photo and a caption at least to document the day.  Then later I’ll put it into a Blurb book like my clever daughter did last year.  Although she was doing a different project, called December Daily.  At times I’ll be focusing more on documenting traditions, holiday activities, etc. with Shimelle and her gang at Journal Your Christmas.  I’d love to have you join me.

See you tomorrow!

Here’s a link to more info about Project Life.

And here’s a link to the new eBook that was just released.  It’s called Project Dig Deep. Amy’s offering a discount, as well as a drawing for a free copy of the eBook.  But hurry, it won’t last long.

She’s the one in the top left corner.  So proud of her!

Do you enjoy memory keeping or scrapbooking?  If so, you might enjoy Amy’s blog, LemonandRaspberry.com.

What’s your favorite memory keeping method?

Thanks so much for stopping by.  In case you haven’t heard, I started a new blog and soon will have some other snazzy additions as well.  I’ll still be posting here periodically, but I’d love to have you come over and visit me at TravelingwithPurpose.com and tell your friends, too.

I’m sharing regularly over there on these topics and even more.

• Learning for Fun while Traveling
• Service-oriented and Volunteer Travel
• Money-saving Mondays
• Travel-related Gift Ideas (just in time for the holidays)
• Travel Inspiration – Photos and Quotes
• Travel Gear Reviews
• Travel-related contests, giveaways, etc.

Please sign up for my newsletter there, so you won’t miss a thing.  I hope to see you soon!

You can also follow and like TWP on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s a bit of autumn inspiration for today.

This is a bench at the former home of the great American poet, Robert Frost.

And this is the view from his front porch out onto the mountains of New Hampshire.  Now wouldn’t that inspire you to write like a poet all the time?

Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?  We’ll have lots of family time with both sides of the family.  Have a blessed holiday!

I’m so thankful for the two of them and how they love each other and are best friends.  I hope they have many many more years of happiness together.

Happy Anniversary Amy & Andrew!