Writer's block

I has it. Bad.

Must.... get... over.... blockage... Brew coffee.... black.

Hurry................

Spastic cats and fragile things...

Should never reside together:

Deceptively calm, yet still living up to her namesake:

I'd like to thank the Academy....

My family likes to watch the Academy Awards with ballots in hand. We mark who or what we think will win in each category and then see how well our predictions match the actual results. The winner - the family member who gets the most right - doesn't get anything, except a fleeting feeling of superiority.

Last year I didn't do very well, but this year... I won! I got to feel that sense of superiority - even though I was the only one who actually stayed up to watch the whole show. At least my dog was duly impressed when I informed him of my superiority before I went upstairs to sleep.

I would like to thank everyone who made this possible.

The Illiad, Troy, and Brad Pitt

Last night I happened to turn on the TV and what should appear on the screen but my favorite fight/battle scene of any movie - the fight between Achilles and Hector in the movie Troy.

When the movie first came out I was so disappointed in the choice of Brad Pitt to play the legendary warrior Achilles, that I almost didn't go see the movie.

But, as you can see, Brad Pitt was a very nice choice indeed:

In fact, just about all of my favorite scenes in the movie have Brad Pitt in them. Not just because he happens to *ahem* look good, but because of the way the action plays out.

And I must say, too, that Eric Bana was a superb Hector, Hero of Troy:

In the scene where Achilles challenges Hector before the walls of Troy, the two actors didn't use stunt doubles. It was all them.

Now, I've never actually seen combat between two actual warriors before, but if I ever had, I think that it would go something like this:

Before I saw the movie, I got a hold of Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiad and read it. It reads almost like a regular book and not an epic poem written thousands of years ago. I would highly recommend this translation.

And I may be strung up by purists for saying this, but I think that the movie did a very good job of "modernizing" the tale. I think I like what the script writers did with the epic characters to bring some actual humanity to them instead of merely presenting them as iconic warriors, queens, kings, etc.

And lastly, but not leastly, I liked Brad Pitt's pronounciation of Patroclus, his cousin's name. It sounds almost like Patrick, with the emphasis on the 'a'. Somehow that was touching to me, that he pronounced it that way, and not in the grand way with the emphasis on the 'o'.

Anyway. That's my take on Troy and Robert Fagles' translation of The Illiad.

It matters to that one

You've all heard about the guy walking along a beach full of washed-up starfish.

He's picking up starfish and tossing them back into the water as he walks when a stranger says to him, "You can't possibly throw all of these starfish back into the water, what you're doing won't matter at all in the long run."

To which the man replies, pointing to where a starfish just plopped back into the water, "It matters to that one."


Don't let people who don't get it try to tell you what you're doing doesn't matter.

Embarrasing Moments

I've had a few.

Like the time when I was selling homemade candies at the farmer's market and accidentally drooled while pointing out my wares to a potential customer, saying, "And here is the fudge." (I really like my own fudge)

No, they didn't notice. They were busy looking at the fffuudge. And, no, I didn't drool on any of the candy.

Then there was the time I fell into the refrigerated egg case at the grocery store.

Yes. People noticed that one.

Please don't ask why these things have recently come to mind.

I've opened an Etsy shop!

I recently participated in a worldwide giveaway event. The item which I gave away was a decorative bag containing two homemade herbal salves, one calendula and the other goldenrod.

When I made the batch up for the giveaway, I was left with enough to fill four more decorative bags with two herbal salves each.

What to do with with these extras.....? Sell them on Etsy!

So I've opened an Etsy shop for these four items. You can access my shop through the Etsy shop logo in the right hand margins of my blog, or you can follow this link.

Blueberries and Chocolate

Happy Valentine's Day!

My hubby gave me four blueberry plants for my garden and a 3 pound box of Malley's chocoaltes.

I'm so happy!

Skulduggery Pleasant

I just finished listening to a wonderful little audio book, Skulduggery Pleasant.

Now, there are audio books and there are audio books. How the book is read is very important. I've listened to some which have put me to sleep simply because of the boring delivery. And I've listened to others which make my head hurt because grown-up readers seem to think that all children have whiny, screechy voices.

And then there are those which are perfectly read. Perfectly performed. This is one of those books. I doubt if I would have had as much fun with this book if I had read it myself instead of listening to it, but by all means, read away if you can't get a hold of the audio book version. You won't be disappointed. My kids would have loved this book when they were younger (they are both in college now). Actually, they might even like it now.

Stephanie's eccentric uncle dies and leaves her his house, his possessions, and one big fat problem involving a friend of his, who happens to be a skeleton. Oh, and the little, eensy feat of saving the world - with magic.

Stephanie's only twelve, but she's got enough spunk to face everything that rises against her with an open mind, and, when necessary, a closed fist and a well-placed kick. Can she and Skulduggery work together to retrieve the incredibly powerful Scepter of the Ancients from her uncle's hiding place? Or will the evil Nefarian Serpine get there first and use it to rule the world?

It's incredibly fun finding out which it will be.

OWOH Giveaway Winners!

There are two winners in my One World, One Heart Giveaway. My prize was a little decorative bag containing two homemade herbal salves.

The winners are:

Deci and dreameyce - CONGRATULATIONS!

And a big thank you to the over 200 people who entered my drawing and the many more who came to visit my blog over the past few weeks. This was a terrific event and I had fun visiting as many of the over 800 participants' blogs as I could to see what they were giving away and to get to know new bloggers.

Think about joining the giveaway and the gypsy caravan next year!

And a big thanks to Lisa Swifka at The Whimsical Bohemian for sponsoring (and dreaming up) this event.

The Girl Effect

Maybe we can save the world. Actually, it seems like a no-brainer. All it takes is passing out a little respect and dignity where it's sorely needed:

Learn more here.

Robert Plant is my Favorite

Favorite what?

Musician.

He and Alison Krauss just won a grammy for Best Album of the Year for their album Raising Sand, which is, indeed, wonderful.

And by all means don't miss out on another of Robert Plant's albums which I love, Mighty Rearranger.

To the Writers Out There: Fears of Letting Go

I often pop over to author Kristin Cashor's blog (she wrote Graceling, which came out last fall). She has a post up that addresses this question which came to her from an aspiring writer:

I love to write, I need to write... but at the same time, I am afraid of publishers and editors and agents. Not so much about rejection letters or working with them, but sending my work to them. I know it must sound weird, or maybe not. How did you cope with it when you sent Graceling away? Was it really hard to let your creation out of your hands?

Her answer is here. Paraphrasing wouldn't do it justice. If you are a writer, you will want to read it.

Crash! Bang!

My computer crashed a few days ago. I'm trying not to think of all the things I might not have backed up recently. And I'm having to steal time on my son's or my daughter's computer if I need to do computer-type things.

But for some reason I'm not upset. I'm not anxious. A strange peace just lays there where panic should reside at the crashing of one's computer.

Don't know why, but I think it will all work out in the end. Somehow.

If I need to write, I have pen and paper. If I need to blog or email, I have the computers of my offspring. And If I'm bored, I guess I can always clean something.... nah. Why go to extremes?

Another Herbal

I received this package in the mail today:

It only came from Pennsylvania - right next door - but it looked like a steamer trunk that had made the rounds to all of the exotic locales.

What was in the mysterious package? This:

I loved her Blackberry Cove Herbal, and I'm very much looking forward to sitting down with Mugworts in May.

Here comes the sun!

Finally! The sun has come out!


And we can see a blue sky over our heads:

The temperature will be above freezing today, in the upper 30's. It feels like a warm spring day outside. The low-hanging boughs are starting to shrug off their burdens of snow:

Maybe someday we'll even be able to sit on our benches again!:

But there are a few thorns in the coming forecast. The warm-up won't last long. Back to bitter cold temps later this week.

But I'll take today and be happy.

Celebrate with Chocolate Cake!

The book, In Defense of Food, contains a passage which tells how a psychologist conducted an experiment in which he showed the words, "chocolate cake" to Americans and recorded the word accociations they came up with. The top word association was guilt. Interestingly enough, he conducted the same experiment with a group of French folks and the word which most often came up was celebration.

My son must be French, or at least he's got his head screwed on right. He turned 21 today and requested a fudgy, chocolatey cake for his birthday.

Upon searching, I found that my own recipe books and notes and folded papers and old 3x5 cards did not contain exactly what I was looking for - I didn't have the perfect chocolate cake recipe - it couldn't even be found in my copy of Julia Child's The Way to Cook. So I did what any 21 year old would have done in the first place, I googled, "fudgy chocolate cake recipes."

I found one likely candidate, but it only makes a small, square cake and really looked more like a pan of brownies than a cake. I decided to try that recipe another time and continued my search.

I went to a recipe site that I'd found upon once upon a time and really like. I searched the site for chocolate cake recipes and found the recipe for this:


It has three rich, chocolatey layers:

And the frosting is buttery and chocolatey - almost a french butter cream, but without all the fuss:

My son took one bite and gave me a high five. I was happy.

You can find the recipes through the links below:

brownie - like cake which I'll try later

wonderful, chocolatey birthday cake which made my son smile

And the recipe site that I found this wonderful cake on is called Simply Recipes. All the recipes that I've tried from this site have been very good.

Planning my Herb Garden

My mailbox held a nice surprise today. An order that I had placed with Mountain Rose Herbs last week had arrived.

I was excited to discover that they sold seeds and in browsing through their offerings I found this:


It's a package of 18 different medicinal herb seed packets with which you can plant a medicinal herb garden. Here are the 18 varieties included in the kit:

They come in quantities of either 100 seeds or 200 seeds per packet. I won't plant each variety. Heaven knows that Burdock is my nemesis and I've been trying to eradicate it from my yard for the past seven years. Never ever would I intentionally plant burdock seeds- and besides, there's plenty of burdock growing wild in the park next door (and sometimes in my yard, despite my best efforts).

I also ordered these seeds. They weren't included in the kit, but I wanted them too:

Even though we have about 20 inches of snow on the ground, with waist high drifts, I'm dreaming of spring.

Snow, Snow, Snow

It's been snowing again. Well, it is wintertime. Have a seat and enjoy the pictures:


Teasel bending with its burden:


Queen Anne's lace all closed up and holding the snow:

Burdock. My doggie hates burdock. See all the little grippy hooks? Burdock burrs were the inspiration for Velcro:

These nibbles are from hungry bunnies. On a walk yesterday I saw bunny prints in the snow all around these low-hanging wild apple boughs. The bunnies had been busy nibbling away at the bark and the little nascent budlings. The tracks are gone today, covered by a fresh layer of snow:

My dog wants me to stop taking pictures and play in the snow with him:

My son gets the wonderful job of shoveling this morning (notice he's wearing the Jayne Cobb hat I made for him):

Happy Snow Day!

Dolphins and Bubble Rings

Relax and enjoy:

I found this via author Krisin Cashor's blog.