I must admit, I had one of the best seats in the house at St. Mary Catholic Church for the Peace Through Music concert, hosted by the Sister Cities Association of Wilmington. I was so honored to be the event's emcee. See pictures from the event, via the Wilmington Star News and Jeff Janowski If you haven't gone to this, you need to put it on the calendar for next year. It was one of the most uplifting performances I've attended. Some people even said it's one of the best programs of the year. I wouldn't argue that! The program centers around honoring Daniel Pearl, the journalist who was beheaded by terrorists in 2002. NC CONNECTION: Senior al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheik Mohammed admitted to beheading Pearl. Khalid Sheik Mohammed attended Chowan College and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He is currently in custody at Guantanamo Bay. Daniel Pearl worked as a bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal and was living in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan to work on a story about a possible connection between "Shoe Bomber" Richard Reid and al-Qaeda. While investigating, Pearl was captured by terrorists. His wife gave birth to their son 12 days after he was killed.
Of course, this rattled the world. A basic journalism principle is that you cannot have a free society without a free press. And, his death was terribly brutal. Aside from Pearl being a hard-nosed journalist, he also happened to be a great musician. He played violin and was known for traveling the world and making new friends through music. It's because of that spirit that peace concerts are held throughout the world during the month of October. I didn't know what to expect for our Wilmington concert, but it was such an overwhelmingly, great event. First of all, the groups are amazing. Secondly, the acoustics at St. Mary's are absolutely divine. Here's the list of groups that performed. I highly recommend you seek them out for their next performance. I know that the Wilmington Symphony Youth Orchestra puts on a free family concert at Kenan Auditorium in the spring.
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The Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas held its annual broadcasting awards over the weekend in Charlotte. WECT and WSFX had a great showing! We, along with WRAL had the most consistent run, and I'm very proud to work alongside people who challenge themselves to do good work. It's a little pat on the back, but ultimately, it means we're working hard for our viewers! WECT and WSFX received honors for the following: Photography, Consumer, Education, Feature, General, Health, Investigative, Website, Political, Sports, Spot News, Reporter of the Year, Photographer of the Year, Anchor of the Year, Producer of the Year, Weathercaster of the Year.
We found some really great deals at Rite Aid, CVS and Harris Teeter this week.
Rite Aid gives you $4 in UP rewards for buying $3.99 socks. And, you'll also get Blistex for free that way, too. Harris Teeter will give you free toothpaste with a 75-cent off coupon from last week's paper. Plus, they're running General Mills deals. If you buy a certain amount of General Mills products, you get $5 off at the register. Cereal and yogurt are super cheap this week without coupons - even dirt cheap with them. CVS will give you $10 back in Extra Bucks if you buy $30 worth of paper products like Bounty and Charmin. We always need toilet paper and paper towels, so I don't mind getting these! You can try to hunt down better deals for TP, but I needed it now. Me: Sans makeup. Crazy hair. Dirty skin... (but also notice the big grin!) Who needs glamour when we be campin'?! We were invited to crash a family reunion of sorts near Asheville over the weekend, and we're so glad we made the drive! Our friends Vicky and Jeff let us tag along with them during a camping trip to Hot Springs, NC. Truth be told, it was a VERY long drive, but we were so excited to have a reason to travel across the state and hangout with some cool people... we were really in heaven. And, the mountains are amazing. The leaves are turning colors! Fall is my favorite season. I mean, duh...I was born in the fall. If you're in the mood to take a road trip and camp, definitely check out Hot Springs. There's so much to write about but not enough time. We are enjoying hitting up Lowes Foods in Leland during their triple coupons promotion. Still, Harris Teeter has got some great Spooky Savings, and Rite Aid is giving you money to buy hair and nail products. In all, we spent about $16 for $138 worth of goods at the three stores. To see a rundown of all of our deals, including the links to the coupons, click here. The video is done and the pics are up! Again, I had such a blast emceeing the Junior League's 60th anniversary gala. Jeremy Godwin logged a ton of volunteer hours as a friend to the League with this awesome video and Kirbi from White Wall Photos donated a ton of her talents for the photos. What a fun event and an incredible 60 years! There aren't a ton of deals this week, but I do like a lot of them. One of my favorites is the 49-cent Robitussin at CVS, thanks to Delly's Deals. See the breakdown with printable coupons I ended up only spending a few bucks this week on things like cold medicine, organic spinach, cheese sticks and frozen vegetables. I even got cereal for less than what I'd pay for a soda in the vending machine. This week I shopped at CVS and Harris Teeter. Lots of great deals! Overall, I spent about $16 on $73 worth of stuff! That's nearly an 80-percent savings. You'll never buy creepy, leathery beef jerky again once you realize how easy it is to make in your oven. I got the recipe from a book I recently bought at Williams-Sonoma called Jam it, Pickle it, Cure it by Karen Solomon. She teaches you to make your own bacon, cheese, marshmallows and much more! I am trying to get into canning... but I couldn't resist making some beef jerky! LEVEL: Easy
TIME COMMITMENT: 2 days Ingredients:
Remove every trace of fat from the meat if possible. This is pretty important because meat can be cured and fat cannot. If you leave the fat on the meat, it will go rancid later on. If you eat it right away, then go for it, I guess. Lay all the meat on a couple of paper towels so you can press out moisture. Also, tenderize the meat while it's embedded between paper towels. In a bowl, toss the meat with the salt, soy sauce, sugar and garlic. Add pepper and chile flakes if you wish (editor's note: It's really tasty with the chile. Nice kick.) Place a rack over a baking sheet. You may want to brush the rack with oil, but I chose not to do this and it came out fine. Lay the meat over the rack in a single layer, making it as flat as you can. Don't let the pieces touch one another. (editor's note: I didn't have room in my fridge, so I just put the meat in a bowl uncovered... and then placed it on the racks when I was ready to cook. It turned out fine.) Refrigerate, uncovered for 24 hours. This marinates the flavor and helps dry out the meat. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees F. If your oven can't go lower than 170, keep the door ajar with a wooden spoon. Dry the meat in the oven for 3 to 5 hours. Check on it for the first time after about 3 hours. The jerky should not be brittle, but it should tear into strings and not look raw inside. Allow it to cool completely. I put mine in the oven and went to bed. I set my alarm but overslept. So, mine cooked for about 7 hours. Whoops... but it came out really good! So, I don't think you can go wrong. STORE: Refrigerate in a sealable plastic bag up to 6 weeks. A little friend showed up at our doorstep. I wanted to let them play, but I don't know where this little gal came from. So, this is what we did for about 4 hours. Piper made herself real small to be friends. Minnie was forcibly trying to be friends with the occasionally loud bark. Got any cute pics? Upload them here or on our station website! We can share them on the news!
The Junior League of Wilmington is celebrating 60 years of service this year. Recently, the group celebrated with the 60th Anniversary Gala at the Cape Fear Country Club. Special thanks to Kirbi Whitaker from White Wall Photos for some amazing pictures! She did this all free of charge... what a generous offer. Even if you don't know much about the League, the group has actually helped many organizations get off the ground or assist in others' signature projects. Some worthwhile projects or groups include: American Red Cross, Blue Ribbon Commission, Boys Club of Wilmington, Brigade Boys and Girls Club, Cape Fear Museum Discovery Gallery, Carousel Center, Children's Museum, Domestic Violence Shelter, DREAMS, NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher, NHC Friends of the Public Library, NC Symphony Society, Pied Piper Theatre, Thalian Hall Commission, WHQR, Wilmington Health Access of Teens... and many, many more. I had the great honor of emceeing the 60th Anniversary Gala! It was such a fun event and for a great cause. Alison Baringer was the committee chair and put together a fabulous party. And special thanks to City Councilman Charlie Rivenbark. He read the City of Wilmington's proclamation to make September 28th a day for the Junior League of Wilmington. You may know the League through its social events, but the money earned from all of those fun things goes to serious issues - mostly helping the most vulnerable people in our area. The League's project this year is to help students at D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy, in conjunction with the Blue Ribbon Commission.
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