Teddy Pendergrass

Wow, I just heard about Teddy Pendergrass.
This is one of my favorite songs by him.

Can't We Try



Teddy, This One's For You!


Love, Laughter, Peace and Blessings!

It's still Hot Tea Month

I found this pic/recipe while meandering on the net. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds yummy.
Enjoy some tea this month!

recipe found here

Great Graffiti!!

I found these pics while stumbling around the internet.
They were taken in Brazil and I think they're just fabulous!
Someone, probably many someones, has lots of time and creativity.
Hey, if you have to have drains they might as well be colorful!






more pics to be found at DailyCognition.com

Have you written your letter yet?

January 8-12 is Universal Letter Writing Week. This is a great time to practice the almost lost are of letter writing. In this computer age, we tend to write short email messages,text messages or IMs. If we're not careful we may lose the art of writing a letter.





Everyone enjoys receiving mail. Sending a letter is the next best thing to showing up personally at someone’s door and says "I'm thinking of you." (that picture is kinda scary isn't ? but I just love it!) Don't your eyes just light up when you receive an actual personal letter in the mail? Mine do. Of course, I can't remember the last time I received a letter. Emails and text messages..yes...a letter...no. The best way to get a letter is to send a letter. So, I suppose I need to start writing. Not wanting to do this alone, I invite all of you (yeah, the few who read this) to join me in sending a few letters out into the world. Hey, maybe we can start a whole letter writing resurgence! (the post office would love us!)



IF you really want to make letter writing and receiving fun, you can make your own stationery. Using paper bags to make stationery is simple and can usually be done with objects you already have on hand. If you want to get really fancy you can actually Make Your Own Paper by recycling scraps of paper that you have at home.
You'll find information on a simple ways of making paper at home at this link

To get started right away on your letters (I know you can't wait) try making Paper Bag Stationery

Materials needed:

* Paper bags (you can use brown grocery bags or bags from department stores)
* Scissors, if you have any with decorative edges they make very pretty stationery
* Paper punches, many paper punches come in shapes (hearts, stars etc)
* Colored Pens or Pencils
* Optional - Rubber stamps and ink; stickers

How to:

1. Cut pieces of the brown bag into rectangles, squares, hearts or whatever stationery shapes you wish. The size of the "stationery" depends on the size of the envelopes you'll be using.
2. The paper will look more decorative if you cut it using scissors with shaped edges. Or you can use regular scissors to round the edges of the paper.
3. Use the paper punch to decorate the edges of your stationery.
4. Draw designs on you paper using colored pens and pencils or decorate with stickers and rubber stamps.
5. Be sure to leave space in the center of the stationery to write your letter.
6. If you wish you can cut designs and patterns from old cards, wrapping paper or fabric with plain or decorative edge scissors and then use the designs to decorate your paper bag stationery.


Now that you gone through the trouble of making your own writing paper, why not make a few special envelopes too? You can make envelopes using leftover wrapping paper or attractive magazine pages.

How to make Envelopes from Recycled Paper

Materials needed:
* Pages from old wallpaper sample books, leftover wrapping paper, magazine pages, slightly heavier paper holds up better
* An envelope
* Cereal box cardboard
* Pencil
* Scissors
* Glue

How to:

1. Search your home or your friends homes for old magazines or wrapping paper. You can also go to stores and see if they have any old wallpaper sample books. Usually they give them away.
2. Take a small mailing envelope and carefully pull the glued edges apart. Use this as your pattern.
3. Trace the envelope on a piece of cardboard (cereal boxes work well) so that you have a durable pattern.
4. Place your cardboard pattern on the paper you have chosen for your envelope and trace.
5. Cut out the pattern.
6. Fold carefully and glue.
That's it! You now have a unique envelope ready for mailing!!



For parents and teachers, Universal Letter Writing Week is the perfect excuse to get kids to practice "traditional" letter writing which also includes a little work on penmanship, grammar, spelling and sentence structure (but you don't have to tell the kids about that). Need something to jumpstart their interests (or yours) in letter writing? Check out this list of Picture Books that Inspire Letter Writing that I put together on Amazon (don't ya just love Amazon?).
One of my fave "how to" books on this list is Messages in a Mailbox: How to Write a Letter by Loreen Leedy . It's a fun book but full of all kinds of information on letter writing, some of which we may have forgotten.

Happy Writing!!!

Bubble Bath Day!

Yep, January 8th is Bubble Bath Day! And just in time!
I'm sure we could all use a nice relaxing bubble bath.
So, pour in the bubble bath and get your self a glass of wine, or a cup of tea....whatever relaxes you.

Don't have any bubble bath??? Make your own!
Here's a very quick 3 Ingredient Bubble Bath Recipe:

you'll need:
/2 a cup of light colored shampoo,
3/4 a cup of water
1/4 teaspoon of table salt

Directions:

1. Mix the shampoo and the water in a bowl
2. Add the salt and stir until the mixture thickens slightly, approximately 1 minute.
3. Pour the mixture into a clean jar. Your bubble bath is now ready for use.
4. If you wish to add color to your bubble bath: place a drop of food coloring on a plate; dip a toothpick into the food coloring and then add to the bubble bath mixture a little at a time until you reach your desired color.

Happy Bubble Bath Day!!!

Make Your Own Chai Tea Mix

January is Hot Tea Month!!

Chai Tea Mix
Ingredients

* 1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
* 1 cup powdered non-dairy creamer
* 1 cup French vanilla flavored powdered non-dairy creamer
* 2 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 1/2 cups unsweetened instant tea
* 2 teaspoons ground ginger
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon ground cloves
* 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
* 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions

1) In a large bowl, combine milk powder, non-dairy creamer, vanilla flavored creamer, sugar and instant tea.
2) Stir in ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom.
3) In a blender or food processor, blend 1 cup at a time, until mixture is the consistency of fine powder.
4) To serve: Stir 2 heaping tablespoons Chai tea mixture into a mug of hot water.

January 6th is Bean Day!

Really! I am not making this up. Today is Bean Day!
So, in honor of this "Oh so important day" we should all do Beanie things!
Umm...let's see..Oh, okay let's all sing Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow...everybody sing!
Ooops! If you don't know the words you'll find them at the end of this blog.
Moving on....

And, course there is that all time favorite bean folk tale Jack and the Beanstalk!

Aaaand....sorta last but certainly not least, we have a marvelous recipe for ...what else? Beans.

CROCKPOT BEANS AND RICE
--1 can of black beans --1 can of pinto beans
--1 cup of rice
--1 can (14.5 oz) of diced tomatoes
--1 T olive oil
--1/2 t kosher salt
--1 t Italian seasoning
--1/2 T dried onion flakes

The Directions.

--put the 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the bottom of your crockpot, and add the rice. Swirl the rice around in the olive oil, until it is coated nicely.

--drain and rinse the beans, and add them

--drain the tomatoes, but reserve the liquid in a measuring cup. I got a little under a cup of tomato juice. Add the tomatoes.

--add water to the measuring cup with tomato juice. You need 2 cups of liquid.

--add seasonings stir well, and cover.

Cook on low for about 6 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours.
It's done when the rice is tender.
Brown rice or wild rice will take longer to cook than white rice.

recipe found at A Year of Slow Cooking Blog

Happy Bean Day to all!!!

Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow is a traditional British and American folk/play song.

Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Can you or I or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?


First the farmer sows his seed,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
He stamps his foot and claps his hands,
And turns around to view his lands.


Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Can you or I or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?


Next the farmer waters the seed,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
He stamps his foot and claps his hands,
And turns around to view his lands.


Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Can you or I or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?


Next the farmer hoes the weeds,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
He stamps his foot and claps his hands,
And turns around to view his lands.


Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Can you or I or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?


Last the farmer harvests his seed,
Stands erect and takes his ease,
He stamps his foot and claps his hands,
And turns around to view his lands.


Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
Can you or I or anyone know
How oats, peas, beans, and barley grow?

This video shows kids performing some of the movements in the song.

For My Friends

You will always be the light of my life....no matter what!

Have a Bubbly 2010!!

Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous 2010!!

I just threw this next pic in 'cause it's a really cool vintage New Year's calendar circa 1910. It was posted by the Graphics Fairy.

Blue Moon

This evening, New Year's eve, December 31, 2009, we'll have a blue moon.
Contrary to what some believe, there is no real noticeable difference between a Blue moon and a regular moon. The term Blue Moon refers to when there is a second full moon in the same calendar month. In the past, every full moon throughout the year was given a folk name.

"According to some folktales during a full blue moon, the moon was said to have a face and talked to those in its light. Some pagan beliefs hold the second full moon in a calendar month holds the knowledge of the Goddess and contains very powerful three-fold the energy of a regular full moon. Special rites and rituals were held only on a blue moon night.
Sill other traditions believe the different moon phases represent the transition of knowledge within the Goddess. The maiden is represented by the waning moon, the full moon represents the mother goddess and the waxing moon the grandmother goddess or crone. When the blue moon enters the cycle it is said to be the transition of the crone to the divine level of existence or the great transition."

info found at Blue Moon Origins and Traditions

So, while you're celebrating the New Year, take a moment to check out the Blue Moon.
The next Blue Moon won't be around until August of 2012.

Happy New Year!!!

Ooooo! Here's a little music to watch a Blue Moon by....

New Year's Resolutions

(New Year's Postcards sold in 1915)

It's that time of year again.
The new year is here and everyone decides that this is the year that they will......well, fill in the blank with just about anything you can think of.
I have stopped making these promises to myself. Well, mostly.

My new thing is to just say that I will do my best to do my best.
Yeah, it sounds kinda wishy-washy but it isn't...really.

I mean, hey, if everyone did their best....I would like to think that things_life_ the world_ would be a little better.

Of course, that's in my world (y'all can join me there if you wish....we're a friendly group!).

For those of you who wish to make a resolution for the new year, here of some of the ones that I would make....if I were making resolutions which of course I am not....Anyhoo here are some good ones:

exercise more
eat better
save money
improve grades (for all you students of all ages)
learn something new (such as a foreign language or music)
become more organized (hmmm...I just threw that in for kicks)
reduce stress (no stress in my world...join us)
be less grumpy (everybody oughta try this one)
maintain a diary (always nice to look back on later)
Volunteer to help others....okay this one is serious. Heck, I might even break my no resolution rule for it....I'll think about it.

Y'all have a Happy New Year!!!

Peace on Earth

This is a wonderful cartoon!
Although is from 1939 it's still relevant today.
The following information was written on youtube by XmasFLIX.blogspot.com :

Peace On Earth (1939) Christmas Classic MGM War Cartoon. Academy Award Nominee for Best Short Subject (Cartoon), 1940. Originally Released on December 09, 1939.

On Christmas Eve, two squirrel children ask their grandfather what men are. He describes them, then narrates the story of how humanity destroyed itself by war, as chilling scenes of armed conflict play on the screen. After the last human dies, the animals take their war implements and build homes from them, to live forever in peace.



Peace on Earth is a one-reel 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon short directed by Hugh Harman, about a post-apocalyptic world populated only by animals. The only cartoon ever nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize! It was broadcast in the US just after Germany had pre-emptively invaded Poland, a protest against Bush-Iraq-style pre-emptive wars, and before the US was attacked at Pearl Harbor and thus entered WWII.

At first glance this looks like just another typically Disney-esque cartoons featuring cute animals, but once you see those battle scenes you can see that it is so much more than that. This is an anti-war tale with well animated battle scenes that are scary as anything else that has been seen on the silver screen. Those scenes are very unsettling and tapped into the fears that many people held as Europe was at war with itself. This film was nominated for the 1939 Academy Award for an animated short feature (it lost to Disneys "The Ugly Duckling") and was also, according to Hugh Harmon, nominated for the 1940 Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately the 1940 Nobel Prizes were cancelled because of World War II, so it did not win or lose that award.

Fifteen years before this release, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were employees of Walt Disney -- in Kansas City. Disneys first animation studio was in that midwestern city and it was, ultimately, a failure. Following the companys demise -- and with dreams of becoming a live-action director -- Walt headed west. After shuffling around Los Angeles for a while, Disney realized that his best prospect for making a living was the cartoon business.

World War II was barely four months old when Peace landed on theater screens. Given the fact that a mood of patriotism and sacrifice was soon to grip the United States, the cartoons unapologetically anti-war stance is surprising. In the short, woodland creatures elebrate the Christmas season. Two squirrel children stumble over the lyric peace on earth/good will to men because they have no idea what men are. Grampa squirrel explains that all of the men are gone; they succumbed to the fever of war and annihilated one another. Woodland creatures rebuild civilization and mourn their loss.

Walt Disneys most notable cartoon series in those early days featured Oswald the Lucky Rabbit -- a character he did not own. The shorts were produced by a man named Charles Mintz and distributed by Universal Pictures. In 1928, after strong-arming Disney over an extended period with increasingly unfavorable business terms, Mintz took Oswald away from Walt -- along with most of Walts animators. Mintz housed these artists in a new studio designed expressly to produce the Oswald cartoons without Disneys involvement. Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were two of the many defectors.

In a rare instance of karmic justice, Universal elected to create its own in-house cartoon studio and leave Charles Mintz high and dry. This turn of events left Harman and Ising unemployed, but they soon formed a partnership with producer Leon Schlesinger and founded Warner Brothers Animation. Harman launched a series called Looney Tunes and Ising a series called Merrie Melodies. Although these labels would one day feature such cartoon stars as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig, Harman and Ising were not around to see it -- they departed Warner Brothers in 1933 in a dispute over production budgets.

In 1934, Harman and Ising helped found MGMs cartoon studio and proceeded to repeat history. They were fired as studio heads and were no longer in charge when MGM Animation achieved the things which made it famous (most notably the Tom and Jerry series of cartoons and surreal shorts of Tex Avery). MGM later rehired the men as directors, and it was under this arrangement that Peace on Earth was produced.

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera remade the cartoon in CinemaScope in 1955. This post-World War II version of the film, entitled Good Will to Men, featured updated and even more destructive forms of warfare technology such as flamethrowers, bazookas, and nuclear weapons. The new Hanna-Barbera version was also nominated for the Best Short Subjects Oscar.

I wish you a Merry Christmas!!!!

Remember this December, that love weighs more than gold
Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon




Somehow, not only for Christmas
But all the long year through
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
The poor and lonely and sad,
The more of your heart's possessing
Returns to you glad.
John Greenleaf Whittier

The Holly and the Ivy

The Holly and the Ivy is a marvelous traditional Christmas carol. The music and most of the text was collected by Cecil Sharp.


The holly and the ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown:


O, the rising of the sun,
And the running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ,
Sweet singing in the choir.



Holly and Ivy calligraphy by Rosemary Buczeck for the Gilded Quill

Oooooo...Christmas Lights!

My sister sent this to me....don't ya just looooove Christmas lights?!!!