They say you are truly fortunate when your adult children are also friends. Well, today I feel incredibly blessed. I accompanied the future daughter-in-law, at her request, in to the path lab as she had blood tests, because needles scare her and she needed me to hold her hand. Not only my children, but their chosen partners, are people I'm proud to know.

Grandbaby is moving! *g*

It is live!

Lots and lots still to come - games and quizzes and crosswords and a heck of a lot more content - but it is LIVE! :)

Go forth and play with www.houseoflegends.com.au

Why? Well, the HOL Head Honcho, the amazingly talented and delightful Justin, says it better than I ever could:

Do you love fantasy and science fiction writing? Are you obsessed with Eragon? Devoted to the Ranger's Apprentice series? Crazy about The Alchemyst? Then you've come to the right place.

House of Legends is a site devoted to the best fantasy and science fiction out there for young readers today. This is a house where you can hang out — there are competitions, author interviews and videos, sneak previews of new titles, games to play, quizzes to test you knowledge on and heaps more. You can talk to other fans about your favourite books, heroes, villains, creatures and magic powers, and also learn about new books that you might not have heard of before. We here at House of Legends HQ will be constantly updating the content to keep it fresh and interesting.

Special shout outs to hereandnow, who was amazingly helpful and who turned things around on a hairpin (at crazy stupid o'clock - I saw those timestamps!) and to
ashr501for his brilliant CSS slice. I know it was a hard template to work with.

As always, if you manage to break it I REALLY want to know :)

My mother's a huge fan of marble cakes, so it was not surprising that I baked a tri-colour marble cake for Mother's Day last year. We usually have them during Eid, served for the guests in small slices. But for a special day like that, and for a special lady who most definitely loves her cakes, a huge chunk of marble it shall be!

Not wanting to go all marble cake again this year, I took a slight deviation, and baked a zebra cake for Mother's Day this time round.

who suggested we should all find out our battle cry, here's mine:

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Running along the hotel lobby, swinging a vorpal blade, cometh Sharyn! And she gives a spectacular roar: "I'm going to flog you until you acquire caulrophobia!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

This isn't a recipe with coffee so I can't make it a theme post, but these cookies do go well with coffee...my favorite way to eat them, actually...with a big cup of coffee with milk.



( recipe under here )

Dear Enid Olde Lady,

I so adore you and I'm glad I rescued you from certain death and took you home to live with me. I have one request, though: Please stop peeing on stuff. I know you're a good kitty, you love lap cruising when the roomies and I are sitting around, you don't freak out and attack us, but the peeing has got to stop. I'm not sure what your issue is with the bed in the guest room, but that's not your litter box and neither is the rug in the band room. I love you dearly and I wish I could spend all my days just cuddling you, but please keep your waste limited to the litter box.

Your loving mommy,
A.

Lu's Belly ... Let me shows you it!

( Lu's Belly Day 3 )

This whole thing is so fun and exciting.

Yesterday, Kelly and I were in the garage all day cleaning up and setting up an area for the [food] culture tanks for the baby seahorses for when they arrive. (Baby seahorses are called "fry" but to me it's way cuter to say baby seahorses lol)

Some of the garage is going to look like a big science lab station lol. I will post about that and what baby seahorse food is in a couple of days, when the tanks and lines and wires and all that stuff are up and running and I have photos.

So I went downstairs to the rec room to look for some glue (long story), and I was bowled over by the foulest stench I have had the misfortune to inhale in a good long time. Now, the cat's litter box is down there, but I was doubtful that the cat could have produced a funk this pernicious, and also, it grew stronger as you walked away from the litter box. Well, we've had some really severe rainstorms the last week or so, and it turns out that... we have water damage. The carpet under a table (where we didn't immediately see it) got soaked. Reek ensued. We've had to call some people in (Serve Pro or something?) to come dry it out with industrial-strength dehumidifiers and carpet cleaners and fans and whatever. Which means: more money that we have to pay someone. And then my mother started talking about paying off her part of Sister Girl's student loans and I just put my hand up and said, "I can't hear about this until I finish the annotations. You can tell me then. But there's nothing I can do about it--except finish these annotations--so don't tell me now. I SAID, DON'T TELL ME NOW. I SAID LA LA LA LA LA." I already had a massive headache that lasted most of the afternoon as it was. And I know I said that I thought some of my tension was hormonal, but I'm starting to resubscribe to the palpable stress theory.

I have more linkspam than this, but I'm tired: ( Read more... )

In efforts to save money and help the environment I made my own laundry detergent this morning, Go me! I used a recipe I found on recipezaar, it called for 3/4 (about 2 cps) of a bar grated Fels Naptha, 1 cp Arm & Hammer washing soda and 1 cp Borax, mix, use about 1 Tbs per load.
So Iv done about 3 loads and everything is great, except I noticed I have a black pair of yoga pants and a dark purple towel that have faded, blotchy spots on them. Now I haven't washed them again to see if the damage is permanent or not. Any ideas where I went wrong? I did follow some recommendations that said to dissolve the detergent in hot water first then switch over to the cold cycle and then put clothes in, plus I also used vinegar in the rinse cycle... any advice would be great!
TIA!
Oh and I have a regular top load washing machine that is about 10 yrs old.

Anyone know of how to recycle non-athletic (i.e dress) shoes? They are NOT in any condition to donate, and the only full on recycling program I can find are for tennis shoes. I'd hate to toss them into the landfill, but they are useless as shoes.

Dear Lyric and Lyre,

Welcome to the family! I know you're still a bit scared of me since I just adopted you today, but I promise I'm not trying to scare you. Give me a chance, and I promise to give you your space while you get used to a new place. And about locking you in the bathroom while I went to work - that is not going to continue forever, hopefully not for long at all. However the first several times you explore my apartment I want to be with you, not stuck at work. I have a day off on Friday. After that we'll see if I still the need to put you in there a bit longer or not. I did provide you with a bed, toys, food, water, and a litter box in the bathroom though. It can't be that bad in there.

To Lyre specifically: you seem a lot braver than your sister, and you let me pet you more. Please tell her it's okay to come out of hiding, and that she doesn't have to jump every time I reach my hand out.

I love both of you, and I am thrilled to have cats living with me again.
-Your Food Provider

Oscar!
Stop biting your brother on the butt! The vet was not amused!
<3
Mum

I know you are concerned about burying your business in the litter box but why be so much more concerned about it at 3 in the morning? You woke me up with all that scratching!

No love right now
Foster mummy

http://www.jenniferfallon.com.au/blog/index.cfm/2008/5/14/The-Tide-is-finally-in-for-North-America

Great news! The Immortal Prince, Book 1 of the bestselling Tide Lords series is finally available in the USA and Canada.  (UK readers will have a to wait a little longer for the British edition, but you can purchase the series in the mean...

Someone in a comment a while ago, posted something that may have come from Flylady. It was rules for housekeeping, and I have tried to find it, and I've used google. I have found things that were close, but not what the comment said. I remember something about if it takes five seconds to do, do it now and something about delegating work.

A friend from work is getting married, and she wants housekeeping type advice along with recipe cards for her shower, so I thought I would put a scrap book together with advice from different places, along with some recipe cards. That's why I am looking for it.

Mmmmm cheesecake! Could there be another dessert item quite as delicious? Well probably, but this was particularly good :)

It's been awhile since I updated my foodblog but I'm glad to finally be getting back in the game and opening up with this lovely creation. It was incredibly scrumptious!

Well, at least into your playground, anyway.

I couldn't, um, bear not to share this...

I have thought about taking on the task of painting my house-it has old aluminum siding that is peeling. The current color is white, but I want to change it to a different color (not sure what yet)

I have gotten quotes for labor around $800 (i get a discount on paint so i would supply that)

I figure i could use the $800 for other things and just have a go at it myself...

has anyone done this? any tips? anyone know what to clean it with prior? i'm thinking this weekend would be spent cleaning the siding and next weekend i would start painting...

help please!