5 YUMMY hidden treasures ...

Have you noticed that there are a bunch of new restaurants in this area? Service that is as fast as a fast food joint but the food is much more amazing. Here are 5 little hidden treasures that you may not have known about that I recommend that you check out ...

1) Firehouse Subs - 119th & Blackbob - Hot/Cold Subs ... http://www.firehousesubs.com/

2) Smashburger - 119th & Blackbob - Burgers/Chicken/Dogs/Salads ... http://www.smashburger.com/

3) Jersey Mike's - 119th & Blackbob - Subs/Wraps/Salads ... http://www.jerseymikes.com/

4) Freddy's Steakburger - 135th & Metcalf - Steak burgers/Dogs/Ice Cream ... www.freddysfrozencustard.com

5) Unforked - 119th & Metcalf - Little bit of everything ... http://unforked.com/

So those are my 5 recommendations for you to try. Comment and let me know your review after you have visited one of them.

:) Melody

How to escape the heat ...

There are lots of places to enjoy inside this summer. Overland Park, Lee's Summit and Kansas City all have indoor pools that residents can enjoy. Overland Park actually has 6 outdoor pools to keep you cool and 1 indoor pool. The cost is only $4-$5 for residents!

You can visit http://www.opkansas.org/ for more information on where the pools are located.

How about visiting the Great Wolf Lodge? They have some good summer deals. I took my son and my nephew there last year in June and it was a great time. It was HOT so we played outside for as long as we could stand it and then went to the inside water park. Once we were done playing, we just walked back to our room. You can have dinner inside the hotel and really shouldn't have to leave the hotel for anything, at least we didn't. You can find out more at www.greatwolf.com/kansascity. Make sure you look under the "Suites and Deals" tab for Summer Specials.

Whatever you choose to do this summer, it is important to hydrate by drinking lots of water and avoid outdoor activities in extreme heat to stay safe. People of all ages should be careful not to overexert themselves. Getting out of the heat if only just for an hour is said to give your body a chance to recover.

Follow these TIPS to stay safe in this blazing hot summer:

*Wear lightweight, light colored and loose fitting clothing.
*Stay hydrated.
*Eat smaller meals more often.
*Avoid caffiene, alcohol and carbonated beverages.
*Take regular breaks.
*Slow down ... If you have to get your hour of exercise in despite the heat, do it in the morning, usually between 4:00am and 7:00am.

According to the Mayo Clinic, signs of heat exhaustion are: feeling faint or dizzy, fatigue, excessive sweating, heat cramps and a headache. "Heat exhaustion is one of the heat-related syndromes, which range in severity from mild heat cramps to heat exhaustion to potentially life-threatening heatstroke," reports the Mayo Clinic website.

If you suspect someone is suffering from heat exhaustion, you should get the person out of the sun and into a shady or air-conditioned location, lay the person down and elevate the legs and feet slightly, loosen or remove the person's clothing, have the person drink cool water or other nonalcoholic beverage without caffeine, cool the person by spraying or sponging him or her with cool water and fanning and monitor the person carefully. Heat exhaustion can quickly become heatstroke, so don't be afraid to call 911 if you need to. Heatstroke is an EMERGENCY!

I moved here from Tampa, Florida 6 years ago and I have to tell you that it is HOTTER in Kansas now then it ever is in the dead of summer in Florida. It is a different kind of hot here! Colder winters and hotter summers. What was I thinking??

Keep cool ...
Melody Goss :)

Bobbin' For Skeins ... A Knitters Delight

A few months ago I was getting overwhelmed with all the bags and stashes of yarn that was taking over my apartment after downsizing from a two story home with a basement and moving into my home here with one bedroom. The yarn could not be purged from the move and I did have a craft room dedicated to the storage of my hobbies. My yarn and stuff was set up like a store for this Virgo 60+ years of knitting. My grandmother who came from Bristol, England taught me at age five along with her favorite game of Chinese checkers. We had high tea every day and would sit and knit together. My solution was to take the small coat closet in the living room that I wasn’t using that much and put some wire freestanding shelves inside. The cubes make a perfect storage and I can shop easily in my very own “cotton closet” as I call it since that yarn doesn’t need special care. I use pretty vases and containers on flat surfaces to store my knitting needles so they are art décor rather than having another storage thing that hides from me when I need a particular size of needles. All art or special care yarn are safely tucked in tissue and shrunk in those amazing bag that can slide under a bed or be tossed on a high shelf.

My favorite thing to knit has to be dish/wash cloths because they are awesome to try out new stitches and it’s a quick reward. I absolutely hate to do swatches for big projects so this ends up being something useful and most times very pretty. As most knitters I always have several projects in the works and stashed in the car, different rooms of my house and in my purse. Love the little take along projects for those times you are waiting in line or in an office and are bored. Each stitch counts and those rows do really add up.

Did you know that knitting could heal more than the soul? Recently I checked in with my physician and she was very scolding to me since I hadn’t been to see her in months and she was treating me for high blood pressure. She couldn’t understand why my blood pressure was normal since it hadn’t been that way in 20+ years. I explained that I am in a good place – mind and body. Told her about my lovely home here at The Preserve and that I had picked up my knitting needles again along with getting together with friends frequently to “sit & knit” She was shocked but as a knitter herself she realized that knitting is much like holding a purring kitten since it is all about rhythm and tension in your fingers. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t get in a few hours of knitting especially before going to bed.

I have recently retired, not by choice, but learning to love it. Gives me time to do the things I like to do most (knit with friends, lunch with the girls, shop for yarn, knit some more with friends, sleep in, spoil GingerSue) grins! My only pet is my little Dachshund “GingerSue”. She is called a Tweeny because she is between a miniature and Standard. When I got her, she was only a few weeks old and the color of a Golden Lab hence called a Wheaten. Yes “GingerSue” is very spoiled and soooo deserves it. She is a great support system and Best Friend. The reason I bring her up in this blog is (1) she demands attention (2) she thinks she knows everything about yarn and my knitting. If she is tired of me working the needles she simply sits on my project yarn or walks off with the ball into the other room. If I am picking out yarn for a new project, I ask what skein I should use and she understands and bumps it to me with her nose or picks it up out of the basket.

Wouldn’t it be fun to get together here on the property on those cold, snowy days for a sit and stitch? It doesn’t have to be just knitting but any kind of hand stitch work and we could share books, conversation and ideas. We have lost a lot of wonderful yarn shops but still have some amazing eye candy shopping available and close by.

Check out Ravelry for amazing patterns and ideas on all sorts of things – it’s free: http://www.ravelry.com/

Happy Knitting,
Joanne B.

Extreme Couponing

With new shows like TLC's "Extreme couponing” it's hard not to be curious about how you can save money couponing too. Everybody wants to save money ... But how do you do it?

Extreme Couponing" isn’t as crazy as it may sound. You don’t have to let coupons dominate your life, and you don’t have to be embarrassed at the cash register. You just need to find the right moves to use coupons in conjunction with store sales and promotions, and then enjoy the satisfaction of getting items for free or close to free. It’s about timing, and not necessarily using a particular coupon just because you found it in that week’s Sunday paper. Instead of using it immediately, you’ll hold on to coupons until items go on sale, maximizing your savings and becoming an extreme couponer.

For example, suppose your favorite bacon normally costs $3.29 at your grocery store, and you find a $2 off coupon. If you used your coupon right away, you’d pay $1.29 and leave the store patting yourself on the back and thinking, “Not bad.” But you can do even better

If you wait for a store to have a sale, you can really win out and find yourself saving much more. Imagine that you held on to the coupon for three weeks, and after the initial rush when everyone else used the coupon, the store
is still trying to move more bacon. Now it’s on special, with a two-for-$5 deal. That means the price is only $2.50 each, so you can use your $2 coupon and pay just .50 cents instead, saving $2.79 just by holding out.

Here are 5 couponing tips …
1. Get multiple Sunday newspapers for the inserts and file inserts by month. You don't have to cut the coupons until you are ready to use them.
2. Don't buy items your family will not consume or donate.
3. Watch the sales and stock up when a price is low enough for you.
4. Remember sales roll around over and over. If you miss one, there will be another sale coming soon.
5. If your family needs something, search the internet for a savings. If you find one, great; if not, it's still okay to buy it!

The most surprising thing to me about couponing is saving thousands of dollars a year on almost any item needed in a household. It takes a small amount of effort for anyone to save dramatically. The resources are right at your finger tips with internet search engines. Anything you want a coupon/discount for, you can try simply searching the internet. There might not always be one there but it doesn’t cost you anything to try.

Here are some websites that offer online coupons and more information on how to "Extreme Coupon" www.shopathome.com; http://www.coupons.com/; http://www.retailmenot.com/; http://www.couponmom.com/; http://www.thekrazycouponlady.com/.
I could go on FOREVER. Google makes it so easy because the information is right there.

Are you excited? Well, then GET GOING! And don't forget to let me know how you have done!

More fun to come,
Melody Goss :)

It's important to give back ...

I started working for the Fogelman’s in 2004 and before then I never really gave charities a second thought. Sure I would donate money to the Red Cross people at Christmas time, but never really got involved in really helping, or caring. Until one day a few years back, when one of my co-workers asked if I would like to help at the Ronald McDonald house so I thought what the heck. It was an expectance I would never forget. It seemed as though someone just hit me up side my head and woke me up. Needless to say, after that one day my family and I have been involved with the RMHC on a regular basis. Every quarter, I donate half of my check to the kids and families, and prepare food for them. And at Christmas time I also give half my check to help make sure that the kids, and the families have an extra something to smile about. Until you get involved and see what other people have to go through in life, you will never understand. And I owe it all to the Fogelman Family for helping me open my eyes to what’s really happening in the world, and understanding that caring isn’t such a bad thing. So with that being said I need to give the entire Fogelman family a big thank you for opening my eyes that were once shut. If just regular people like me don’t care, who will?

Steve Fanning

Is The Great Mall really that GREAT?

Have you ever visited The Great Mall?

I have lived in this area for several years and never knew anything about The Great Mall. People have told me that it has seen its better days and that the mall is empty but it still has a few good stores like Aeropostale, Journeys, Burlington Coat Factory, Game Stop, and Famous Footwear. There is definitely not a huge selection of stores but there are a few hidden gems. There are outlets like Children’s Place Outlet, Bath & Body Works Outlet, Lane Bryant Outlet. There is a Big Day Boutique where you can have a "Princess Party." You get a professional entertainer sure to make your special little girl feel like a True Princess. There's a Cosmic Mini Golf and a Dickinson Movie Theater. You can renew your license there at the newly opened DMV or take your kids to play at one of the Family Entertainment Centers.

I recently took my son and my nieces and nephews to play at Zonkers Family Entertainment Center. And I thought it was amazing! There is an inside roller coaster and several other rides. Lots of arcade games and face painting with a huge inside bounce house. I took 8 kids, bought them all wrist bands to ride as many rides as they wanted for $10 a piece. It was the most amazing indoor fun EVER. When it's 100+ it is too hot to be outside so this was an amazing find. www.zonkers.com

There is also Monkey Bizness. This is an inside colorful interactive play center where kids can burn off some energy. I haven’t been there but they have Open Play every Wednesday from 4pm-8pm for only $6.00. They have soft play areas and bounce house fun. I have also heard they have an inside roller coaster there too. Excited to check it out.

This weekend ...
Evans Midland Empire Carnival is in town! Funnel cakes! :)
Open July 13th – 16th. Wristbands are $2o from 6pm-10pm and they have several rides on the Northeast Side of the Mall.

July 22nd-23rd
Great Mall BBQ Contest - They are offering free admission to this State Championship BBQ Contest. There is a beer garden, food vendors, mini golf and a bounce house.

September 11, 2011
The Association of the United States Army, Greater Kansas City Chapter will be hosting the Patriot’s Run at The Great Mall. Proceeds from this 26 mile marathon will benefit The Salvation Army in Olathe, KS.

So for a mall that has been said to have seen it's better days, I was impressed. I suggest checking it out for yourself when you have a chance. www.greatmallgreatplains.com

More fun to come,
Melody Goss :)