As time goes on you really start to realize your limitations both physical and mental. At some point you can not do the things you used to without acquiring some aches and pains. Not that I had the best memory to begin with but the memory seriously starts to dwindle. You end up not worrying about remembering things that there’s a slight chance you won’t need to repeat again.

There is also a point where you do not wish to remember your birthday because the years are piling up. Heck I honestly struggle to remember how old I am as it is and I’m only 35…or is it 36? I think it was almost 10 years ago that I was asked my age as a bouncer was looking at my ID and I honestly couldn’t remember. Didn’t Einstein not know his own phone number?

Anyway, my wife and boys surprised me on my birthday with some Pittsburgh Penguin clothing including this awesome authentic jersey. Talk about a surprise! Now I can get geared up each time we park ourselves in front of the TV to watch the Penguins.

Go Pens!!

Not only did this dish come out tasting amazing but 2 days of left overs for the entire family tasted just as yummy. The recipe came from Gluten Free Mommy Easy Chicken Pot Pie. It really is an easy recipe and honestly seems ‘dummy’ free.

Natalie has some incredible tasting recipes which we have been trying out periodically. This recipe is one that will be requested over and over. It had a wonderfully light crust and was chock full of vegetables and chicken.

I was talking with some co-workers the other day and I came up with this question… “Do we really need all these social networking avenues?” Their answers were various but what it comes down to is this question… “Why do we need all these social networking avenues?” Why do we need an account for Twitter, Blog(s), Facebook, Digg, etc. on top of using IM, Email, and IRC(do people still use it?)? Surely we are setting ourselves up for some sort of “Social Networking Overload”. There are nights that I sit down to do some programming and get caught up reading emails, reading what people said on Facebook, reading articles that come up from Digg, reading snippets of what people are doing now (Reading, eating, commenting on…) on Twitter and reading blogs. Not to mention all the writing we do in order to participate in the conversations or offer opinions.

I remember back in the day when you woke up, ate breakfast, went to school or work, got home, went outside to play or do yard work then went to bed…and I’m not that old. Interaction with others was either in person, via mail or on the telephone. Looking back life seemed a lot simpler then. (Cue daydream sequence) I don’t remember ever being overwhelmed with information even when routing through an encyclopedia for research. The most overload you may have felt was reading the paper while watching the news while listening to a baseball game on the radio. Now it seems peoples eyes are glued to their computer monitors and typing updates about what they are doing while living vicariously through others.

Feeding fuel to the fire are evaluations being done that say people that use social networking at work are more productive. Are you kidding me? Is it even possible to browse in “moderation”? Are they that bent on making social networking an acceptable part of your work day? Unless you’re managing social networking for a living I simply do not see how it can make you more productive. Unplugging from the computer and getting some fresh air while giving your eyes and mind a rest might do better…don’t you think? Are we going to eventually go the route of those portly folks in the movie Wall-E? We already appear to be sitting in our comfy chairs, consuming carbs and sweets oblivious to the world around us.

No doubt there have been some great advancements in technology over the last few years. And now more than ever we have the opportunity to connect with people we probably wouldn’t know existed. But do we really need to ‘connect’ so much that I’m following you on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, your blog and whatever future technology that comes around the bend?

I for one am going to go outside, get a breath of fresh air and absorb what nature has to offer. I’m not buying into the idea that you need to ride this wave to success or drown trying to catch up. First, I’m going to catch up on my tweet backlog then look out nature, here I come.

Using a bit of natures bounty we have been enjoying a very simple and delicious dessert…Chocolate Covered Strawberries. Our local grocery store had a huge flat of strawberries on sale. If you can I would see if you can sample the strawberries first before you buy to make sure they are flavorful and sweet.

Instructions:
Rinse and dry your strawberries. Melt Enjoy Life Foods Gluten-Free Chocolate Chips in a microwave safe bowl or measuring glass. Approximate how much chocolate you need per number of strawberries you have. Using a spoon scoop the chocolate from the bowl and lather onto the strawberry leaving the stem uncovered. Place finished strawberries on a plate covered with wax paper and place the plate in the refrigerator until serving time.

This dish is my wife’s creation and it came out amazing. Here are the ingredients:

• Cooked Chicken (chop in food processor)
• Hummus (or just chick peas and garlic mashed)
• Mission® Corn Tostadas (Estilo Casero)
• Shredded Cheddar Cheese

Lay the gluten free corn tostadas on a baking sheet. Spoon the hummus mixture onto the corn tostadas spreading it to the edges. Next put a layer of finely chopped cooked chicken about 1/8 of an inch. Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese as thick as you like and put the baking sheet in a 325 degree oven until the cheese is melted. Pull the “stackers” out of the oven and place on a rack to cool a bit. When you plate them you can top them with Newman’s Own Salsa, sour cream, lettuce, tomato, olives or just eat them plain.

If you have not already read part 1 of this study I recommend you check it out Managing Your Social Marketing Part 1 – A Store Owners Experience

If you have been in business for any amount of time you undoubtedly had to answer questions about the products or services you deliver. Chances are you had to answer the same exact questions over and over again. This is the way search engines work for people who use the web as their information source…which means pretty much everyone on the web. People have questions, they type them into their favorite search engine the results should have the answers. In comes the blog.

Think of a business blog as your repository for information about your business, industry, products and services. When you are in business you gain an intimate relationship with whatever you offer. You know how it functions, it’s quirks and you probably have insight into its future. This information is valuable to current and future customers alike. It builds consumer confidence in your business and leverages you as an authority figure in your field. Incidentally, this is one of the “assets” I talked about in Part 1 of this study. If you use other social media for marketing your business, having a blog(if used correctly) gives your more relevance and clout.

Having a blog is not for everyone. An empty or seldom updated blog is akin to having an e-commerce store where you sometimes if ever process orders. It is useless unless you fulfill its function. The business blogs function is to inform, educate and feed those looking for ever changing information. If you are not comfortable doing research and writing information you have two options. One option is to not have a blog. The second option is to start with small frequent blog posts until you are comfortable delving deeper into subjects. We will touch on this more in Part 3.

Start that blog! If you choose to get your blog rolling…blogroll: list of recommended blogs listed on the sidebar of a blog…you will either need a little technical know-how or someone that possesses the technical know-how. If you have the technical know-how then you will need web hosting that supports the blog software you wish to use. WordPress is a very popular blogging software and is one I recommend. There are hundreds of “skins” for WordPress that can take you from the normal “blah” layout of a standard install to completely sheik in a few clicks. After that you just need to familiarize yourself with the amazing administration portion of the software and you are ready to blog.

If you are not technically inclined there are companies that can help you get your blog off the ground. Solid Cactus is a great company that helps business owners develop their online presence. They take care of everything from e-commerce to search marketing to blogs to a number of other services.

Once you get your blog up and running there are some key things you should be conscious of when writing your posts. We will go over that in the next part of this study.

We happened upon this delicious little snack at our local Panera Bread in Scranton, PA. Ryan got a kids entree and enjoyed a bed of lettuce and some sliced turkey along with this tube of organic lowfat yogurt from Horizon Organic. We read the ingredients and it was completely safe for Ryan which means no gluten, no wheat and no food colorings. Perfect! The two flavors we have seen are blueberry and strawberry.

A word about Panera… While they do not have anything that is explicitly “Gluten Free”, they are more than accommodating when you ask for something on their menu without the bread or other accompaniments. My mom walked into the store tonight and asked if they had any more of the Horizon Organic Tuberz. They did and she asked for two boxes. The manager came out and hooked her up with the boxes at a very reasonable price (not retail). Kudos to that manager and Panera for their attention to customer satisfaction. They made a little boy extremely happy.

(Written by Susan)
Day 7
The day begins and I am feeling great. I have my usual Chex with Craisins and all is good. For lunch, I heated up the leftover pizza in the oven which allowed the crust to become crunchier. Today, the pizza tasted even better. Greg and I agree that we would like to continue using this recipe. Along with the pizza we had a tossed salad with our favorite sweet Italian dressing.

Shortly after lunch, we headed out to a birthday party. Our friends were great about having foods that were safe for Ryan to eat. He was able to have treats from the prize bucket (tootsie rolls), chips and ice cream. I received notice in advance that there would be cupcakes for the kids, so I made sure to bring a cupcake for Ryan so he would feel included. Ryan had a great time at the party and he even received an ice cream bowl containing treats that were safe for him as a party favor. I can only hope that all the parties Ryan attends will be so accommodating.

We had a special dinner to conclude my gluten free week. Greg helped me prepare a roast chicken with roasted red potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots. I baked a loaf of gluten free bread in my bread machine and we also prepared cold slaw as a side dish. To complete our delicious meal, we had strawberry shortcake. The shortcake tasted amazing and was a great way to finish a very successful week. I am excited to continue to eat gluten free foods and to prepare meals for my family which are healthy and safe for everyone to eat!

This recipe requires three components: the biscuit, the strawberries and the whipped cream. We had this as our dessert the other night and it was out of this world good.

Strawberries:
Clean and quarter a small carton of strawberries. Put them in bowl, lightly coat them with sugar and place in the refrigerator.

Whipped Cream:
Put a quart of heavy cream into a mixing bowl and start blending it. While you incorporate air(blending) add some sugar and gluten free vanilla extract to taste. If you are really generous with the amounts you can get it to taste like Cool Whip. Stop periodically and remove the mixer to test the stiffness. Over blending could result in butter. Keep refrigerated until needed.

Biscuits:
The biscuits came from a great recipe we found online here: Roben Ryberg’s Biscuits (Gluten-Free). We followed it to the letter and the biscuits came out amazing.

We got the thin pizza crust recipe from the book Easy Gluten-Free Baking. Instead of the prescribed method we mixed the dough in our bread machine. Elizabeth Barbone also has a web site Gluten Free Baking that you can join for a small monthly fee and get amazing recipes.

Tomato sauce does not agree with Ryan so we make his pizza with sliced black olives and cheese. I think he would eat a whole can of black olives if given the chance…he loves them. We made a regular cheese pizza with sauce and a couple of pizzas with broccoli, olives, garlic and cheese.

The salad in the picture was topped off with T. Marzetti Sweet Italian Dressing which is gluten free along with a number of other T. Marzetti’s dressings. I like sweet things and this dressing is simply the best Italian dressing I have ever had.