Choice Morsels

It's picture day again! Things are warming up this week, though we weren't unaffected by Sandy--despite being hundreds of miles from the coast. This past Sunday we could  feel  the low pressure from it. My husband and I both felt like we were wearing an invisible "hat" of pressure around our heads all day, giving us both slight headaches.   I feel bad for New York and New Jersey. That was an especially rough storm and they're not even remotely accustomed to such things. Unfortunately, we live on a planet that has--- weather!     But onwards and upwards... For Garden pics I have a couple of nice shots to show you.    First a recent pretty one my rust colored Dwarf Marigolds surrounded by Shamrocks, which happened to decide to bloom again now. (Shamrocks are the cute pink flowers.) Most years they just bloom in spring. I don't know what got in their heads this year! I transplanted this particular smattering of Shamrocks from the original patch that s

    So, with title counting as 1 and this intro as 1, here's 10 funny comments people made about the discovery of that so-called Diamond Planet:     #1) I hear it's imaginary inhabitants are to be known as blingons! #2) I went there in the 60's with a girl named Lucy!   #3) Let's keep looking for Unobtanium---it's worth more! #4) My wife is making me pack, we're heading to NASA tomorrow! #5) Breaking News : NASA no longer has any funding issues as women everywhere are donating half their salary to them! #6) Next they'll find a planet with a floating McDonalds selling unlimited chicken nuggets.    #7) I will go there first and sell it to people on Earth. #8) Maybe we can also find sapphire, emerald and amethyst planets!   #9)  I'm only interested in finding a planet full of oil. #10)  Yeah, that's mine---I bought it a long time ago in the "Own A Star" program!      

Greetings! Welcome to another wonderful fall week in October and Good Eating Monday! Today's Good Eating recipe is a vintage Jello recipe that's from the 50's. It's a snack cake baked in 13x10 pan. Some might call it a type of "poke" cake. Once the cake is baked, a thin lemon glaze is poured over the tooth-picked surface of the cake while it's still hot, so it quickly absorbs. You can use fresh lemons or bottle lemon juice. I like to add a little lemon zest with a hand-grater to both the cake and the glaze. It's served chilled and is deliciously lemony. And I'm not even fond of lemony stuff in general---but I love this cake! Vintage Glazed Lemon Cake Ingredients: 1 box lemon cake mix 1 3 oz package lemon jello (reg or sugar-free) 1 cup water 1/2 cup salad oil (Or sub 1/2 cup  unsweetened applesauce for lower fat.)     3 eggs, beaten 2 Tablespoons lemon juice Glaze: 2 cups confectioners sugar 5 Tablespoons lemon jui

It's raining today. Poured for a couple hours this morning. Some thunder---which means the pool at the Y was closed, so no water aerobics today! Instead I've been diligently working on my calender design. There's alot to it---a front, a back plus 12 pages. It's coming out gorgeous, though!  On to the Mama Kat Prompt topic for today: "Share a favorite fall recipe!" Every year, on the Sunday closest to Halloween, I always make "Spooky Chili and Wiener Mummies"---though that's just a clever name make the meal more festive, when it's really whatever chili I make and pigs-in-a-blanket. I have several different chili recipes I commonly use, but this year, one of the young Air Force guys. who attends our weekly Sunday night Bible Study, said, while he'll eat chili, it "doesn't impress him." I figure he's thinking of all the regular, ordinary chili he's had up to now. Because of that, I'm going to make wha

  Here, where I'm typing on my desk top computer, there's a window right next to me on my right. It's a south facing window and, since it's nice fall weather, it's open a few inches every day to let in a little breeze and fresh air. Laying behind me, on a cat-scratch platform that's even with the window sill, is my cat, Sunni. She naps or suns herself, content to be a quiet companion while I'm working. She doesn't constantly sleep, but often enjoys peering out the screen. There are interesting things outside for her to see, such as squirrels or birds or even the neighbors cat, whom she can't stand. Earlier this week I noticed that she was rather intent on watching something outside.  So, I looked, too-- and lo and belold, I saw something I've never aeen before---a baby box turtle, strolling right into my strawberry bed, which happens to be right under that window. His shell was only 2 inches at most! I excitedly grabbed my camera and dashed

That's today's topic: Pumpkins. Anything about pumpkins! I love pumpkins. I love carving them and eating them! Especially as pie or bread! We carved them as kids, so pumpkins have a heavy family-fun memory association for me. I had 2 sisters, so that usually meant 3 carved pumpkins. Some years, our parents got in on the act and we'd have 5 glowing pumpkin faces of various expressions. Pumpkin choosing was a fine art if we purchased them. We'd pour over the selection of large pumpkins, each choosing our own size and shape. Sometimes we had home-grown pumpkins---though these were usually volunteers that came up on their own. You see, living way out in the country as we did, we didn't have services like sewer lines or garbage pick-up. Nor did we have a garbage disposal. We had a slop pail, a plastic bucket sitting in the kitchen that anything wet or moist, such as melon rines, potato peels or, as in this case, pumpkin inwards went into. Then that bucket would b

  It's been cool here in north Florida---upper 57 to 64 at night, still up in low 80's during the day, but not humid. A/C has been off since the 1st. Just don't need it. Opening the doors and using fans in the evenings is enough. Soon I'll be getting out the winter long sleeved shirts and putting away all my summer shirts! We do have autumn here---but since it's the cold that triggers tree color, deciduous trees in our region, such as cypress, maples, sycamores & scrub oaks, don't show color until near the end of November into early December.  But when they do, they look quite attractive dotted amidst all the green of the pines. A guy from New England at Bible study the other night had a funny nickname native easterners call tourists who visit their region to see the fall color: "Leaf Peepers ." I laughed. I'd never heard that expression before! In our region we call northerners, including the many Canadians, who come here to Florida

  The blog prompt for today is:   "Share a moment when you felt surprised." This prompt brought 2 moments of happy surprise to mind. The first was when I in the Air Force and turning 20. I threw a birthday party for myself and invited several of the other girls who lived in the dorm with me to come. I make decorated cookies and just expected them to share the moment with me. Then later, while was still in the Air Force and turning 24, I had birthday party thrown for me! At that time I had a bunch of Air Force friends, who were waiting as a group for me at the chow hall with a cake and everything! I was totally surprised! It was great!   My second most memorable surprise involved a piece of jewelry my husband bought me. He's not a confident gift buyer. He usually has to have a list from me of gift options in order to accomplish that task. For him to just decide on his own initiative that something is the perfect gift for me is incredibly rare--but this