Choice Morsels

Today's Mama Kat prompt is "My Top Beauty Must Haves." When it comes to beauty products, I have two passions: pretty lips and pretty toes. My sister, Jane, knows about my "toe thing" and teases me about it. She even sent me a mini-manicure kit that's the size of a deodorant for Christmas one year that I still use. I live in Florida. Everyone wears sandals all the time. And I happen to be observant. I look down and observe the state of people toes. I have a pet-peeve list of things I don't like to see: * Un-clipped Claw Toes. Men or Women. * Spa Toes: that's toes that once clearly had a trip to the spa weeks ago, but now the polish is haphazardly wearing off and growing out. * French Manicured Toes: looks good on hands; not so much on toes. This polish style usually requires a little bit a length of the toes, which quickly lends itself to claw-toe. For me, when the sandals come out, the toe polish goes on! I don't leave the ...

I'm feeling better today. I ground a little fresh ginger into the coffee I'm drinking prior to brewing it, which gives me the benefit of the ginger without the peppery taste.  I can drink tea; I don't love it. Rather drink coffee. Today's Garden Pics of the Day are more views of my yard. First: A back yard view from left corner: It's high summer now, so not a lot is blooming. I was working in that corner back there this morning, pulling out spider plants (the house plant) because they tend to take over and moving around garlic chives to fill in blank spaces along the bed border. (They make a fair edging.) This corner is on my project list for figuring out what to plant in front of the Elephant Ears & Hydrangea back there under the trees, an area that gets strong morning sun, then heavy shade. Next: Same back yard, other corner: This is the "woodsy" side I want to add more daffodil bulbs tothis fall. The bed in the right corner i...

Greetings!  Today we went to the fitness center. I do Zumba. Hubby rides the exercise bike. Then, once home, I did a some mowing, mostly under the picnic table, since hubby was available to help me move it out of the way, then replace it. I refilled the hummingbird feeder with a commercial hummer food. They didn't seem to like my homemade--though I used the correct ratio of water to sugar.  I have a cage suet feeder Ii'v filled with short pieces of yarn for the birds to use for nesting. Most of it happens to be red yarn. Interestingly, we saw a female hummer helping herself to some of that red yard recently! Really, she's the first taker I've seen interested in it. Today's Good Eating topic is another spice: Allspice! Allspice is often confused with Cloves, but that's because it also has the same eugenol oil in it.  Allspice contains more then 2 dozen compounds with healing qualities. In it's natural form, raw Allspice is a pimento berry about th...

The Mama Kat prompt topic for this week is:  "Talk about a time you took a chance. " I told hubby I was going to do this topic. He snorted and said, "You never take a chance." And, he's right--from a certain point of view--- if taking a chance only means risking your well-being. I would  never take a chance that might put me in harms way. However, "taking a chance" isn't limited to risking one's life or well-being, though it generally involves some kind of risk in order to gain something. But what's risked can be as small as time, or trust or matters of the heart; not just money or life.  So, from that point of view, a major time I took a chance is when I set up my first website to post some fan-fiction on that I'd been writing. You see, I don't take criticism well. I got a degree in Graphic Art only to figure out afterwards I wasn't equipped to be in the commercial art field because I lacked the necessary tolerance...

Today's Garden Pics include a blooming day lily and several garden views around the yard: Below is a Rain Lily. It's something like a crocus in appearance. It's a bulb. I bought a mix of yellow, white and pink (this one is a white one with the tiniest hint of pink the camera can't see.)  What makes them "rain lilies" is they bloom after a rain and the ground is wet. Perfect for a rain garden. Next : a post-rain view of my main rain garden with a good view of the Chocolate Elephant Ears  both in the rain garden and in the back right corner of the photo. I love these Elephant Ears! I love the purple color! It really breaks up the heavy green of a Florida garden. They start green when little and turn dark as they mature. They are not a bulb, but have a root system like a day lily. Very easy to split and move. In fact, I split up the single clump I had this spring and moved them various places; apparently they loved it because they look be...

The Underestimated Power of Cloves Chewing a whole clove is an old-fashioned cure for dental pain, like a toothache. The oil inside cloves is called eugenol and is a mild anesthetic. Clove oil also effective against gingivitis, periodontitis and stomatitis, which is a painful inflamation of the mucous lining of the mouth. Bet your dentist didn't tell you that! Before toothbrushes and Listerine, cloves were used to brush teeth and as breath mints. Clove oil also has healthful benefits as a bacteria & virus fighter. And as a mosquito repellent. (A common ingredient in some natural mosquito repellents you can buy nowadays.) We once tried a natural flea remedy high in eugenol that made the cat smell like cloves, but wasn't actually helpful for the fleas--and she hated it. Cats do not like smelling like a bakery, let me tell you.  Cloves didn't move from dental hygiene use to cooking use until the Middle Ages.  It's a key ingredient in Chinese 5 Spice , ...

I didn't care for any of the Mama Kat official link-up topics this week, but I did use her prompt generator to come up with this topic:   " You got duped. What happened ?" Unfortunately, I'm a bit on the gullible side. Equally unfortuante, my hubby happens to be a leg-puller. Not in a mean way, but a jovial, spontaneous way. The last time he successfully pulled my leg was just this year, back in March while we were visiting home in Indiana. We needed to drive to Effingham, Illinois to pick up my Uncle at the train station, which is about an hour away from Terre Haute, where we were staying with my Mom. On the way, we passed a billboard advertising something about Effingham and I mused out loud, "That's an odd name. I wonder where it came from? No doubt the town was named after someone." My husband smoothly replied, "It was named after Bruce Effingham, the 1848 Gold Metal Olympic Shot Putter." This sounded so plausible, I bought it. So ...