cat with sunflower

On eBay I very recently discovered another fabulous cat artist, Carol Springer, though unlike Katie-Cats, she doesn't paint cats exclusively--check out her listings:

affordable!!art

Here's the painting I won--I'm planning to bid on at least one more.

2 html entities

{ = & # 1 2 3 ;

} = & # 1 2 5 ;

| = & # 1 2 4 ;

in simple terms, opening and closing French brackets/braces; pipe |.

Katie-Cats

Katie St. John is one of my favorite artists; here's her website and here are two of her paintings I've won on eBay:

Meow Mix ® House

This is very cool; hover your mouse to get messages from the cats.

Meow Mix ® | Tastes So Good Cats ask for it by Name! ®

Aaron Neville @ Summer Pops

my blog about Saturday evening's wonderful concert

cute bear mugs

48% girly

You Are 48% Girly

You're a little girly, a little boyish, and probably a whole lot indie. You have your own unique style, and it pretty much defies gender lines.

How Girly Are You?

surrender

Lord, in the quiet of this place,
I am surrounded by Your grace.
I come with heavy heart and soul;
I long for You to take control,
and I surrender, Lord!

wednesday: starsplash

sweater pic

I'm still awaiting the arrival in the snail mail of this sweater I won on ebay on July 6, esp since soon it'll be the right weather for wearing it.

»-(¯`v´¯)-»

»-(¯`v´¯)-»

»-(¯`v´¯)-»

»-(¯`v´¯)-»

»-(¯`v´¯)-»

The Resolved Church;

here's my blog about it.

summerday

free lunch; paper, etc. samples

For lunch today I went with Judy to the place where her company gets their paper supplies; they were having a Customer Appreciation lunch. The lunch was wonderful: delicious buffet including hot flour tortillas, carne asada, chicken enchiladas, guacamole, green picante salsa, red picante salsa, pico de gallo, rice, refritos. We also got our choice of a cold 16-oz bottle of soda, so I picked diet coke.

They don't do printing, but I got a ton of paper samples from the Neenah rep and others. Besides a whole lot of paper, I came home with an envelope/letter opener, pad of stickies, tablet of unlined paper, high+++ magnifying glass (to inspect the paper and printing I get done), a ruler and other stuff.

thursday evening...

...and I just almost pretty much finished my last furniture painting project, the toy(?) chest from forever ago. I've painted it in the same lavender as the two unmatched (the newer one is two basic shelves and no drawers, the older, other has four legs, a single drawer and bottom shelf) guest BR nightstands plus the arctic blue of two of the guest BR walls--the other two walls are a parallel green.

Tomorrow evening I'm going to Summer Pops on the Embarcadero again--gonna hear some Beatle sound-alikes I've been told have captured the sound and essence but are better musicians than the originals. Yay! Stayed tuned to my blogs.

Walk through the World

by Marc Cohn and John Leventhal,
from The Rainy Season; © 1993 Museum Steps Music, ASCAP.

Walk Through the World

I'm writing you this letter from some old hotel
I can feel the distance between us
From the Spanish Steps to the Liberty Bell
I know the angels have seen us... seen us, baby
They see you down on Seventh Avenue
While you're just hanging by a thread
And I'm sitting in a lonely room without a view
Wishing I was there with you instead

Won't you walk through the world with me
Walk through this world
Over the miles of mystery
Walk through this world with me

I'm staring out across the rooftops
I've seen the writing on the wall
Heard a little bit of thunder at the seventh wonder
But everything is bound to rise and fall, that's all

Walk through this world with me
Walk through the world
Over the mountains and the shining sea
Walk through this world with me...

Let me get this ringing out of my ears
Let me get these stars out of my eyes
'Cause I just want to look back over all the years
With you right there standing by my side. Could you just...

repeat chorus

today's house work, etc.

At the 99¢ Only store I bought California Pears, California Peaches, 1 pint of 1/2 & 1/2, a Chrome Orange folder for papers, etc and a small orange notebook with cats on the covers that matches the cat, star, bear, heart and powerflower folders, pencilcase and notebooks I bought there previously.

At home I washed sheets and mattress pad, the blue stripe nautical boats comforter and two light yellow bedroom rugs that are getting increasingly lighter.

I painted the security door and realized I need to buy more paint; this container is almost gone.

Cleaned both bathrooms.

extra turkey gravy

PAN GRAVY

Ingredients

• Pan drippings from roast turkey
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• Chicken broth or water

Directions

1. After transferring roast turkey to a serving platter, pour pan drippings into a large measuring cup. Skim and reserve fat from drippings.
2. Pour 1/4 cup of the fat into a medium saucepan (discard remaining fat).
3. Stir in flour. Add enough broth or water to remaining drippings in the measuring cup to equal 2 cups;
4. Add all at once to flour mixture in saucepan.
5. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly.
6. Cook and stir for 1 minute more.
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Makes 2 cups - 8 to 10 servings

English Room Salad Dressing

Not my original recipe, but a blast from the past, when I used to love feasting at the incredibly crowded, inexpensive and variety-laden English Room on Newbury Street in Boston. Sounds like another undergrad escapade, right? That's what is was.

Recipe Zaar Recipe #148910

30 min - 30 min prep

2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp celery seeds
1/4 tsp salt
1 tablespoon onion, grated
1/2 tsp orange rind, grated
1/3 cup honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1. Mix together sugar, dry mustard, paprika, celery seed, and salt. Add onion and grated orange peel. Blend in honey.
2. Combine lemon juice, orange juice and red wine vinegar in separate bowl; blending well, then add to mixture.
3. Add salad oil in a slow stream, beating constantly with a hand mixer or whisk.

yellow roses

beach stripe colours

white background with
blue
turquoise
red-orange [tomato]
yellow
teal
brown
camel and
lavender stripes

about Advent 2007

This evening I started a proposal for a 4- or 5-part adult Bible study series for Advent 2007; I'm thinking of doing (very definitely not an actual pericope study yet again!) something excitingly and excitedly topical, maybe following a yet-to-be discerned thread or theme through some of the texts beginning with Reign of Christ C through Advent 4 A. I also hope to get (non-tennis) doubles out of my preparation, with a group at one church on a weekday and the other on Sunday mornings.

In Year A the First Lections are from the pre-exilic 1st Isaiah...wonder what that can mean for us? Of course, I'm not convinced I'll still be living in this geographic area that many months from now, but as usual I'm planning for whatever future will be.

Spaghetti Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 8 oz. bottle Italian salad dressing
• 1 package Good Seasons Italian dressing (dry)
• 1 large tomato (chopped)
• 1 green bell pepper (chopped)
• 1 red onion (chopped)
• 1 8 ounce? 12 ounce? 16 ounce? (not sure) package pasta (cooked)
• 1 can sliced olives - choose your own size

Preparation:

• Cook pasta and drain (do not rinse)
• Sprinkle the dry Good Seasons dressing over the pasta and mix well
• Add chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, red onions and sliced olives; mix well
• Toss entire mixture with 1/2 bottle Italian dressing and coat all ingredients thoroughly
• Cover and refrigerate
• Toss again just before serving with additional dressing (if needed)

Additional Advice:

• Make up the night before so everything can marinate well
• Sprinkle and mix in Parmesan or Romano cheese to add extra flavor

My Work Style

Another near-meaningless quiz for today's blog, as I'm beginning to think it would be better to cross-post or link to some old blogs from my other blogs rather than continnue doing so much of this lame stuff.

What's Your Work Style?

Quiz Score: 25

You strike a balance between being an adapter and an innovator.

Take this free PhD(!!!) personality test

key lime

Your Scent is Key Lime

Sassy, real, and totally smooth You're a total flirt who's always ready for a challenge!

What's Your Girl Smell?

Sudan

You're Sudan!

Every time you get a headache, you reach for some aspirin, only to realize that someone destroyed it.  That's just how things are going for you right now... it's hard to eat, hard to sleep, hard to not have a headache.  You try to relax, but people always jump on you about something that doesn't make sense.  If you were a goat, you'd be a Nubian.
Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

orange sunset dress

*NEW* euro-english

This is one of the best ever email fwds--wish I knew who to credit for the original.

Subject: Fw: Official Language Change!!!

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English."

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c" will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w"with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst pla s.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl.

Woodstock.

Which Peanuts Character are You?

You are Woodstock! Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Juilliard? That'll do!

You're the Juilliard School!

With a fantastic reputation and a flair for physical performance, you are one of the most envied of people in your peer group. It could even be said that you are without peer. At the same time, you're rather overly dramatic, and this causes many to find you emotionally exhausting and rather full of yourself. Even music can stress you out. No matter what you end up doing with your time, people will want to watch.

Take the University Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.