Saturday, February 23, 2013

Winner! Winner! Winner!




I know I promised to announce this days ago, but we have a winner for the Loova basket!


It is Dee6000 with the comment:

Well...since I am trying to lose a few pounds, this would be perfect for me since I believe it is not edible chocolate! Also, this is the closest I will have come to any semblance of a spa day, manicure, pedicure, facial, etc. having put two boys through 33 hockey teams over the past 14 years has left little time or money for those guilty little pleasures! Send it to me please!


All of your entries were fantastic, but Dee6000 really tugged at my heartstrings.  Dee, send me an email here with your address and I will make sure you get your basket ASAP!

Just finished some waffles and I'm having some coffee before heading out on the mountain.  Mister Fergs is in Vegas and I'm taking my Aunt, Uncle and daughter skiing today.  This will be my first time being solely responsible for Biddy on the slopes and my Uncle has not been skiing in 23 years.  Pray for us.





Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Catch of the Day

I always say that the worst time to live in Western Pennsylvania is the long stretch between Valentine’s Day and the end of March. I think that’s why I took up skiing—to distract myself from the bitter cold temperatures and perpetually gray skies. That and the fact my husband would probably leave me if I didn’t ski. He really loves it.


I have officially had it with the snow. Today I had another vehicular brush with death due to icy roads, which prompted me to get on the horn and order some new tires. Nothing like a good scare to loosen your purse strings! Now the quilted Burberry coat I had my eye on will have to wait, but at least I will be alive to wear it when I get around to making the purchase.

I have been ridiculously thirsty lately, which has convinced the hypochondriac in me that I am developing Type II Diabetes. Instead of quenching this thirst with something sensible like water, I decided to drive through McDonald’s for a Diet Coke today. When I pulled up to make my order, I noticed an advertising campaign for their new Cod Filet Sandwich. When I saw the sign, I started laughing so hard I could barely ask for my drink. Why? A few years ago, someone told me that the “Cod” was not an actual breed of fish. They explained that “Cod” stood for “catch of the day,” so when I saw that on a menu, it really meant whatever random fish was on special. This explanation seemed legit to me and I believed it for many, many years until Mister Ferguson ordered it at a restaurant and I informed him that he should really clarify the actual breed of fish with the server before ordering. To this day, I don’t remember who told me that and also if they were joking or believed it themselves.

You may be wondering when the winner of the Loova basket will be announced and the answer is tomorrow! If you want to enter, you have one more day!

I’m sorry for the lack of blog posts this past week. I have no excuse other than I haven’t really been inspired to write anything and also have been busy developing Diabetes (not really). Anyway, I missed you all terribly and promise to do better this week.





Monday, February 11, 2013

Friday, February 8, 2013

I Loova You

Let's try this giveaway thing again.  Maybe last time the concept was new and you were a little hesitant to comment.  I get it.  Hopefully after I tough talked all of you after the Freaker contest, you have come to your senses and realized that by typing one little comment at the end of this post, you could potentially win an amazing prize.  No shipping cost to you, no strings attached.  In a world where you can't even buy a pack of gum without giving the cashier your whole life story, this is a pretty good deal.

I have a crafting/running/drinking buddy named Val who owns a great bath and body store named Loova.  She also has a case of the babies and I can't wait to find out what she's having so I can start making her baby blankets!  Anywho, Val has graciously donated this Chocolate Lovers Basket for this giveaway!


The basket contains chocolate scrub, soap, lip balm and a bath blaster.  I have been a faithful customer of Loova for years.  I love to go to her store and pick up my favorite sugar scrub at a five finger discount (I don't actually STEAL per se, she knows about it). 

I'm going to make this giveaway a little more interesting.  In order to win, you most comment on this post and tell me why you want to win this basket.  I will pick the most creative response.  No random numbers, no luck this time.  If you don't win this basket, but want to buy one of your very own, you can visit Val online here.

Good luck!  xoxo






Thursday, February 7, 2013

Mi Blogga Es Su Blogga


A few posts ago, I mentioned to all of you that if you ever wanted to write a little something for Tiddy.com I would love to publish it.  It can be anything--a story about something that happened to you, a revelation that you recently had, a Pinterest experiment or even a little bitch session about the current state of your affairs.

One reader who I had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with during the Super Bowl of '09 took me up on my offer and emailed me this fun story titled, "Bring Your Goat to Work Day."  In order to differentiate her words from mine, I have made them a lovely shade of purple.

Thank you for your guest blog Alison! 



My sister was sad the other day. I like to tell her funny stories when she’s down. I was saving this one for a crappy day. I had a crappy day yesterday, so telling it made me feel better… it was totally worth saving. It cheered her up and she said I had to give it to Tiddy for a guest blog.


Through a series of events, my husband and I connected with an acquaintance from middle school and his wife. Through a series of additional events, we’ve become friends with some of their friends and often go down for events. They live in Jupiter, FL.

Jupiter is about a two hour drive for us. It’s like visiting fancy town. Their Publix (Giant Eagle equivalent) has valet. Literally. Our friends all have nice cars and good jobs and talk about things like gun control and politics over beers. It’s like another world to us.

Last weekend we had plans to go down for their Annual Brew Fest event and stay with one of our guy friends. The liquor store in CCB wasn’t open when we left home, so we planned to stop near our friends house to pick him up a bottle to thank him for hosting us. We stopped at his friendly neighborhood liquor store…the first one we saw pulling off the highway. It was what we would call a bodega store…privately owned, usually run by an ethnic person, in a strip mall, etc.

As we approached the door, I realized the owner was standing out front with his dog and getting some sun. It was a lovely January day in Florida. Sunny. About 75 degrees. A beautiful day to be outside and enjoy the sun. As we entered the store, the owner held the door for us and let his dog in the store. He was clucking and talking to the dog so sweetly. It was kind of adorable. Only it wasn’t a dog. It was a goat.

We were in one of the nicer parts of Florida, in a more affluent neighborhood, and the dude had a goat in his store. I guess I didn’t realize it was “Take your goat to work day.” When I mentioned that, my husband said yeah – he’s never heard that before!








Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Craft Porn Volume 3

I recently lost six pounds. Truth. Before you go hating on me, I will admit the weight loss is due to stress. But since I’ve already started down the right path, I have decided to parlay this little unexpected gift into a bigger plan. I’m going for 15.


I’ve always thought that the secret to successful dieting is to find a way to trick yourself into thinking you are being bad, when you are actually eating food that is low calorie and semi-good for you. I say semi-good because I will never be that person who shops in the organic section of the produce aisle and/or pays attention to sodium content. If you are that person, I think you are both amazing and a kook.

Things I enjoy eating almost always include buffalo sauce and ranch dressing, so when I saw this on Pinterest, I clicked on it immediately. It involves rolling chicken soaked in buffalo sauce into eggroll wrappers. I took it a step further and made my own ranch dressing out of Greek yogurt and ranch seasoning.

So here’s the link to the original recipe. It is way too long for me to post here, but has lovely photos and is really easy to follow.

This is what I did:

1. I threw a package of chicken in the Crock Pot and poured an entire bottle of buffalo sauce over it (I used Frank's, it was good). It cooked all day.

2. I shredded the chicken with a fork and it looked like this:




3. I put the chicken in the center of the eggroll wrappers and rolled them up like (you guessed it) an eggroll. I forgot to take pics of this step, but there are great ones on the original recipe. It also calls for blue cheese crumbles and broccoli slaw, but I didn’t have that and did not feel comfortable substituting Kraft singles and Iceberg lettuce.  If you're like me and had no idea you could buy eggroll wrappers, you can find them in the produce aisle.

4. I put them on a cookie sheet and baked them at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

While they were cooking, I busied myself making a faux ranch dressing. I took one cup of plain Greek yogurt, one half cup of skim milk and a packet of dry ranch seasoning and whisked it together. That’s all. It surprised the shit out of me to learn that I had a whisk of my very own, but that’s a story for another day.

This is what it was supposed to look like and what mine looked like. I’m pretty proud of myself.





When I went to get the recipe off of Pinterest today, I noticed several of you had repinned it, so this might be old news to you.  I repinned it from my cousin Lindsay's board titled "Buffalo Chicken."  It made me laugh she created a board just for that.  I need to get more specialized with my boards.

Calories: 103, Fat: 3.2g, Cholesterol 19.5mg, Sodium 237.7mg, Carb: 9.9g, Fiber: 0.5g, Sugars: 0.3g, Protein: 8.1g

See what I mean about the sodium?





Winner Winner Chicken Dinner



After a whopping 16 of you commented on "Get Your Freak On" to win a pair of Freaker USA beer sweaters, a winner has been chosen! It is Megan with the comment:

No one drinks more beer than me- that's why I deserve to win;) Mrs Mckeever drinks wine! Oh, and I'm stuck at home with the flu


Megan, please email me with your address and I will get your package out to you right away!  PS--I hope you are feeling better.

I have another giveaway I am going to post this week.  Not to be a shrew (as I really do appreciate the effort), but let's try to participate a little more on this next one.  My stats tell me that 657 people viewed the giveaway, but only 16 people commented to win.  If this apathy keeps up, nobody is going to want to send me anything to give away to you people!  And that just gives me the sads.  Work with me.





Sunday, February 3, 2013

First Class

Yesterday I was the recipient of a random act of kindness. I was returning home from Florida and when I got to the airport, I checked my bags in curbside. The attendant informed me that seat selections were slim pickings as there was an entire Pittsburgh Pirates fantasy camp and a college girls’ basketball team on the plane.


I tend to joke around with almost everyone I meet, so I asked him what it would cost to upgrade to first class. He informed me that it was 44 bucks, but would be close to 70 with my bag fees. I laughed and said, “You would have had me at 44, but lost me at 70.  Don't buy back the sale.” He laughed along with me and handed me my ticket with my middle seat assignment.

Resigned to my fate of sitting in between two men that loved the Pirates so much they would travel to Florida to participate in a fantasy camp, I went through the rest of the motions of airport travel. In security, the man behind me complimented me on my choice of socks, which reinforced my policy that when it comes to fashion, it’s all in the details. I had a brief lunch at Chili’s with my boss and his wife during which we tried to download movies for the plane on our iPads. She wanted “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and I wanted “Pitch Perfect,” but the wifi was too slow and the estimated time to download was 408 hours, which we certainly did not have. I was pissed because I got new Beats by Dre headphones and I wanted to show them off to the baseball fans on the plane.

My contingency plan was to grab a bag of Twizzlers and do a sweep of every trashy magazine on the rack. 20 bucks later, I held a treasure trove of Kardashian, Britney Spears and Leann Rimes gossip. Heaven!

As I approached the gate, I heard the announcer say, “Tiddy Ferguson, can you please report to the ticket counter?”

Ugh. This flight was overbooked and this lady was going to tell me I was getting booted off the plane. I trudged up to the desk with a frown on my face. She handed me a new ticket and said, “Tiddy, we are giving you a complimentary upgrade to first class today!”

OMG! What a nice surprise! The guy at the check in had hooked me up and completely made my day. I stuck my tongue out at my boss and boarded the plane. An older gentleman clad in Pirates gear sat next to me and greeted every other baseball fan with glee as they walked down the aisle. After everyone was seated, he proceeded to take advantage of the free first class beverages with intensity. I’m never one to judge someone’s alcohol consumption, but I will say this was impressive. It was a rare occasion that I did not feel like drinking, so I just ate my Twizzlers and read about what a “See You Next Tuesday” Kim Kardashian’s mother is to her children. Any other day, I would have been boozing it up with my first class companion.

When we got off of the plane, my boss informed me that I had been seated next to a famous former baseball player (I don’t remember his name). Whoever he was, I hope he had a ride home from the airport.

I was tired when I got back, but missed Mister Fergs and Biddy, so I unpacked and made the one hour trip to Seven Springs. It wasn’t snowing when I left home, but when I got close to the resort, it was near-blizzard conditions. I have all-wheel drive, which I have come to find out is not amazing in the snow. As I climbed the mountain at 20 mph with a line of ten cars behind me, my car hit a patch of ice and did a 360 into oncoming traffic, which was an equally long line of cars. Holy shit, that was the longest and scariest moment of my life. Jesus, take the wheel!

He took the wheel because I am not at all a good driver but managed to steer the car out of the tailspin and get back onto my side of the road. I was shaking and disoriented as I started driving again, when I heard someone lay on their horn. Seriously????

I made it to the condo, literally parked my car in a snow bank and collapsed inside. I handed my keys to Mister Fergs and told him he would have to figure it out. I had nothing left.

I got a good night’s sleep and now I’m going to take Biddy skiing in the fresh powder that almost cost me my life last night. We are going to leave this afternoon and go to Mark and Jenny’s for what we are billing as “the most pretentious Super Bowl party ever.” Mark and I were both social chairs for our sorority/fraternity in college and still tend to make every gathering into a themed event. We are going to have steak, lobster and champagne. First class.