Read Central Florida Top 5′s write up about the event HERE. Check out the spot below!

Upcoming: Science Night Live at Orlando Science Center, June 8th. (21+ event)

The Food Blogger Bake Sale is a National Effort to support Share Our Strength – an organization fighting to end childhood hunger. Did you know that nearly 1 in 5 kids in America are struggling with hunger? It’s statistics like that which make events like the 2012 Food Blogger Bake Sale so important.
Last year $25,000 was raised through 26 Food Blogger Bake Sales across the U.S. This year’s goal is to raise $50,000 – and I can’t wait to contribute!
I will be at the Food Blogger Bake Sale in Winter Park, Florida on April 28th from 10 am – 1 pm. All of my proceeds will go towards “Share Our Strength”.
What can you do to show your support?
• If you are local to the Central Florida area,  attend the event on April 28th – buy some cupcakes and donate to a great cause!
• Donate on the Share Our Strength website
• Spread the word by tweeting, blogging, and facebooking about this great cause! Use hash tag #fbbakesale

I know many of you are not local to the Orlando, Florida area, so here is a link to a great list of bake sales that will be happening all across the U.S.  on April 28th ! The contact info for each event is listed.

Thanks in advance for your support! Stay Sweet!

Xo, Jill

After that I headed to Lifestyle Family Fitness, my home away from home these days, and did the dreaded triple.  Spin, run, then jump in the pool.  I actually felt pretty good after only running yesterday morning before coaching all day.   The spin room is a dark room where I go by myself and hammer, to my special music of course.  Plain and simple.  I didn’t stop my legs on that one bike for an hour and 25 minutes, adding tension constantly.  Felt pretty darn good!  After that I walked (meandered aimnlessly) over to the treadmill, soaked in sweat, and started to run. People must think I just got out of the pool fully clothed.  That’s how soaked I was.  Did a 7-miler.  I think I ran out of sweat.  haha!  Felt okay on that one.  After a delirious walk to the pool, I jumped in and swam down a 1000.  Great Day!

Weight: 204  Knees: still not to good, but I am over talking about it, I mean really.  Attitude: I am getting meaner

See you tomorrow, maybe I’ll swim in the a.m.

 

During my recent foray to Mount Dora, I had the pleasure of sitting in theMount Dora Coffee House reading a quarterly magazine called Pulse, which covers local events in Lake County. In an interesting article entitled “After the Apocalypse” by Mari Henninger, I read author Pat Frank was living in nearby Tangerine, Florida when he penned the classic novel in 1959. Apparently Alas, Babylon‘s quaint town of Fort Repose was actually based on Mount Dora. See the rest of the article on Central Florida Top 5′s blog.

Since we have done away with our traditional, free-standing website (where we used to list all the different Top 5 categories), we are now listing the monthly Top 5 here on this blog as a static page. (See the top just to the left above the giant girl’s head? Right there you will see November Top 5!) The nice thing about a blog page, though, is we can highlight each category further, with pictures and even more information about the events.

You can also find out even more information on our Facebook fan page.

So, we hope you enjoy checking out November’s Top 5 events and that you will explore all the great things Central Florida has to offer!

So, it would be natural that I would want to continue doing the wonderful things that work, and move past the things that are not as successful. (For example, I will never hold another video contest!) Keeping those things in mind, the Top 5 is evolving by moving entirely to Facebook, Twitter, and the Top 5 blog.

The separate, free-standing Top 5 website is being discontinued as updating it took several days of tedious web work and design each and every month.  So after much thought and discussion, it was decided I can convey the same information about upcoming events and streamline my audience by simply posting that info on my blog and Facebook pages. And, the much-loved calendar–by far the most-visited page on the free-standing website–can be recreated on the Facebook page. (In fact, the Calendar App is upgrading and getting ready to launch even as I type this!)

Our Facebook Welcome Page - go check it out!

And even better, Facebook will be a “one-stop-shop” where you can view the Top 5′s latest Youtube videos, photo albums, tweets, and other info.  Also, it will be even easier for you to interact with me and give feedback, let me know about other great events happening around town, as well as state how you liked the events you attended. It seems like a real win-win!

So, to those of you who enjoyed my separate, free-standing website, forgive me for simplifying my busy life. I hope you will transfer over your following to this blog and become a fan on Facebook, and I hope to provide even more complete coverage through these online venues. (Yes, there will still be the Top 5 events in different categories each month… you will just visit my blog to see them!)

So, thanks for hanging in there and I hope you enjoy this new format for streamlining my information to you. I do love writing about Central Florida… so here’s to you, readers and fans! Thanks for being there!

This story is from my wife Bess… thought it was good to share. She reveals a very interesting use of a swimming pool!

So, I was walking my Big Dog late last night. [Correction: He was walking me--100+ pounds of Weimaraner galloping through our streets. There's a reason we walk after nine at night...very few people left out to be terrified of a humongous grey ghost.] And, just as any cool night gives him an extra pep to his parading, the added wind sent his big ears flapping and set his tail to wagging even harder. It was pure bliss on the streets last night!

Now, you must know something…Big Dog is ten years old, which is “over the hill” in big dog years, and so he mostly just lies on his bed from morn until night. Somehow, though, that internal alarm goes off about nine each night. When that happens, he will come and sit staring at me with his big blue eyes (yes, some Weimaraner have blue eyes) and I hear the ever-present “tch-tch-tch-tch” of his tail wagging against the floor. This will progress to whimpering, and finally a gigantic paw on my lap if I don’t quickly proceed to the door to walk him.

So, I bundled a sweatshirt over my pajamas and ventured out alone because my husband and son weren’t budging. [Correction: They were actually involved in an online battle of Call of Duty 2 and totally ignoring everything non-virtual in the household, including me.] So, it was just my Big Dog and me. [Note: There is a Little Dog, a Yorkie, who slips through our fence daily to walk himself around the neighborhood. Joggers' Achilles beware!]

We were only partway down the street when through the trees I could see the southern skyline, beautifully dark with these graceful white clouds silently sailing past. Funny how rain clouds look white at night. At any rate, these clouds weren’t just sailing past, they were flat-out motoring! [Note: At this point in our walk, Big Dog is hunched over to take a dump, so I am trying desperately to blend into the shadows because I've forgotten a "doggie bag." Meanwhile, our Big Cat, a humongous Main Coon who is part bloodhound and leans more towards his dog heritage than cat, meows loudly from behind. He has decided to go on our walk with us. "Shhhh," I hushed him, but Big Cat decided he was coming.]

Big Dog is finally off and galloping down the street, and so I avoid tripping over Big Cat and manage to return my attention to the clouds overhead. I find myself reminded of the clouds swirling the night Hurricane Charley made his riotous stomp across in Central Florida.

The rest is continued on her blog…..http://centralfloridatop5.wordpress.com