The Latte the Better

What is this, cup of Vincent Van Jo? I saw this on another blog and thought I'd pass on the giggle to all my fellow caffeine addicts. Wonder if they do Chai- nese art for tealovers too?

Latte Art - video powered by Metacafe

Not a Carie in the World

I just found out my laptop has a blue tooth! Who knew? Should I consider dental whitening for my electronics now? Gee, I thought saving up for braces for my kids was bad.

Treat Me Right

Hello dears. Glory here. This week I'm putting up the recipe for lamingtons, those little cakes that look like they're suffering with dandruff. Lamingtons are the staple of all good Aussie fetes (school or church fairs.) They're said to be named after Lord Lamington, Governor of Queensland from 1895 - 1901, but personally I think they were named after Ned Kelly. He was the one on the lam after all.

Ingredients:

6 eggs
2/3 cup castor sugar
1/3 cup cornflour
1/2 cup plain flour
1/3 cup self-raising flour
2 cups (180g) coconut, approximately

Icing:

4 cups (500g) icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
15g butter, melted
2/3 cup milk
Method:

Grease 23cm square slab pan. Beat eggs in medium bowl with electric mixer about 10minutes, or until thick and creamy. Gradually beat in sugar, dissolving between additions. Fold in triple-sifted flours. Spread mixture in prepared pan. Bake in moderate oven about 30 minutes. Turn onto wire rack to cool.
Cut cake into 16 squares, dip squares into icing, drain off excess icing, toss squares in coconut. Place lamingtons on wire rack to set.
Icing: Sift icing sugar and cocoa into heatproof bowl, stir in butter and milk. Stir over pan of simmering water until icing is of coating consistency.
Makes 16 lamingtons

A Cooking Tip: The cake is easier to handle if it's a little stale. Day old cake is ideal, which means if I want to make lamingtons I have to hide cake from Gabriel and Henry. Sponge or butter cake can be used. Lamingtons can be filled with jam and cream, if desired. Best enjoyed with billy tea, good friends and wonderful conversation. What's your favorite treat?

Blessing Glory B- a christmas story in the making

Biblical Lego

I kid you not. Check it out! http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_life_of_jesus/the_last_supper/mt26_20.html

Questionable

There's nothing so fine, as a great come-back line.
As the following so rightly prove --

Q. It is considered in bad taste to discuss two subjects at nudist camps. One is politics, what is the other?
A. Paul Lynde: Tape measures.

Q. When you pat a dog on its head he will wag his tail. What will a goose do?
A. Paul Lynde: Make him bark?


Q. If you were pregnant for two years, what would you give birth to?
A. Paul Lynde: Whatever it is, it would never be afraid of the dark.


Q. According to Ann Landers, is there anything wrong with getting into the habit of kissing a lot of people?
A. Charley Weaver: It got me out of the army.

Q. Back in the old days, when Great Grandpa put horseradish on his head, what was he trying to do?
A. George Gobel: Get it in his mouth.

Q. When a couple has a baby, who is responsible for its sex?
A. Charley Weaver: I'll lend him the car, the rest is up to him.

Q. Jackie Gleason recently revealed that he firmly believes in them and has actually seen them on at least two occasions. What are they?
A. Charley Weaver: His feet.

Q. According to Ann Landers, what are two things you should never do in bed?
A. Paul Lynde: Point and laugh.

How Much Can We Bare?

One frazzled mum, two bratty kids and three days of school holidays to go.

 

More Soul than Heels

One of my mates is walking her designer heels off to raise money for cancer research. Can you help? She'll make it worth your while. She's running a competition and giving away free books to the generous. Why not check it out?

The Rules:
1. Donations must be a minimum of $10. Donating $20 will enter you twice, $30 three times, etc.
2. If you've donated before, thanks, but it doesn't count for this contest. I know, I know, it's not fair. Would you rather walk the 60 miles yourself?
3. Since there are three books, there will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize. First place gets their choice of the books, second can pick from the two remaining and third gets what's left.
4. If you enter more than once with a donation of more than $10, you can win more than once. So technically, if only one person donates $30, they win all three books.
5. Once you donate, the site keeps track of amounts and dates donated, so you don't have to do anything else.

Here's her donation page:
http://www.kintera.org/atlanta06/kristenpainter

Email her at kristen@romancedivas.com if you have any questions.

Fanny ... er Fan Lit

For some reason not known to myself I have entered the Avon Fanlit competition and written my first chapter of a Regency. Talk about stepping outside my comfort zone. Heck, I think I invented a whole 'nuther universe outside my comfort zone. But it's been an interesting experience.

For a laugh I thought I'd include all the comments on my work, both good and bad. I particularly like the one about my writing being stilted since it sounds like it's been twice translated from another language. Gotta love the irony in that.

So without further ado, the comments... enjoy.

I liked the title! Loved your descriptions. You've created interesting characters.

Excellent turn of phrase--lovely Regency voice. Plot was very intriguing and story flowed beautifully. I'm dying to know what happens next! Loved, "tongues wagged with envy-spiked malice." Well done!

This was beautifully executed and the best entry I've read so far. An enjoyable chapter, and the dialogue between them was brilliant.

This is well done with innuendo and double entendre on many levels. I love that both the hero and heroine (I assume this is the case) are intelligent and at odds. This could be a tour de force-- a la Shakespeare's The Tempest.


Wonderful voice! Entertaining chapter...and "spotted dick". LOL


Great sotry! Loved it!


Nicely done!


More more more, I want more. Good luck.


I found it a bit stilted in the writing.


I'm intrigued. Spotted dick........I laughed at that. Good work. A few easy punctuation errors to fix. Nice work.


You've got a way with words, but there's too much psychological musings by him- and I've always found the idea that a hero can just 'tell' if somebody's a virgin or not to be improbable.


I got confused: Damien; Lord Cromwell: and whether or not he's an Englishman or working for the Prince of Monaco or the Prince of Wales.


Intriguing premise. Just the right amount of information about the main characters' motivations for the first chapter. Well-written but sometimes comparison slow pace too much.


Quite a few errors and pacing was a little too slow.


Great stuff - I liked your characters and the setting was great. I'm fascinated and would definitely read on.


Whippet is a great word


Loved the writing and the dialogue. Very intriguing.


Can't wait to read more.

I don't know about comparing someone to a dog...Some modern phrasing that need reworking! But not a bad story overall!


Very nice writing and some great innuendo. However, I don't buy Damien's suspicion, and some anachronisms threw me out of the story.


LOVE THIS ONE


Interesting start. Witty, and funny. I enjoyed it.


Funny and interesting. I enjoyed it!


Bravo! Best of the five I've read so far.


good!


A slightly different take on the story that i found interesting. good voice. some of the areas of the story kinda confused me. I wish i could explain better sorry


Intriguing...I like the twist with the pendant.

The Wild and Free

Money free that is. It's school holidays here and I'm the one getting lessons in subtraction. Two kids to the movies, a sandwich, drink and cookie each from Subways, 2 haircuts and one school uniform short-sleeved shirt and pair of shorts for each boy, $5 worth of dog muchies to recompense our poor old pooch for the chiblings being home and running her ragged, and voila, empty purse. Not even enough left for the coffee I desperately need to keep up with them. School holidays --grrr. We've made biscuits (cookies for you Americans), painted cards, gathered seaweed for our compost heap (which is a lot more fun than it sounds), and um, what the heck else can we do that costs nothing, doesn't make a mess and takes little or no effort? One more week to go.  I think I can, I think I can...

And "The Wild"? Well, it's not as witty or entertaining as "Over the Hedge" or "Madagascar", but I love the Cockney Koala. I notice on Disney's official site you can see what semi-digested eucalyptus leaves look like. Oh goodie-- mustn't miss that. ;-) 

A Message From Glory B

Hello? Never can work these darn techno things? Hello? Is it on?
Oh good. Just want to say it's good to meet you all at long last and.... hmm?......No they don't want to know about me. It's the food they've come for, and who could blame them. My kitchen is always full. Especially when Henry the sixteen stone moggy squeezes in. No, he's not REALLY sixteen stone, just four, but he does so hurt my feet when he sits on them.
Anyhow, it's my firm belief that it's never too soon to practise cooking your treats for Christmas or birthdays or anniversaries or .... well, you get my my drift. So in honor of it being the first Wednesday of the week .... oh, it's TUESDAY? CLose enough ... I'm sharing with you my delicious recipe for Snicker Doodles. No snickering, dear, not unless you have a ... nub of butter going soft. Anyway, without further ado, let me get to the real reason you're all here....

SNICKER DOODLES

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix butter, sugar and eggs. Add remaining ingredients. Roll into balls the size of walnuts. Roll in a mixture of 2 tbsp. sugar and 2 tsp. cinnamon. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes in 400 degree oven.

Eat them in good health. Don't let my brother Gabriel near them, and see you again soon. God Bless.

"Blessing Glory B" - a christmas story in the making

In Silent Remembrance

911

More People Should Take Up Smoking

Apologies in advance for the long rant but Babe is spitting the dummy.

I recently got slice and diced on another blog for my comment about poor writing in some erotica getting sold because it was covered by bad words and crassness. Now why folks were offended is beyond me. For one thing, as I pointed out at the time, I've read very little erotica so chances are good that I haven't read their work and equally my perception could just be from reading a poor sample of what's available. Even those whose work I might have read a little of would have been in RD contests where we're still honing and perfecting our pieces so it would hardly be a definitive example of their work. Most of my disrespect of erotica comes from pubbed stuff I've won or seen in the library and read enough of to want to puke, then put back/thrown away. Just this week I read about 20p of an "award winning" erotica writer and came across sloppy writing and some stuff that was medically inaccurate. I hate bad writing in all its forms, and yes, I realize that what constitutes "bad writing" may vary and I am not the standards police, but firstly , my opinion is as valid as the next and secondly, some tenets of what makes good writing must surely stand or else what is the point of learning craft at all?

Anyhow, I was shocked to be carved and took my wounds to RD where I did in deed get some support that this woman was just making an ass of herself rather than bringing me down, and some of that support even came from erotica writers I might add so clearly my comment was not offensive to all. But to some it was a red flag. I got a couple of girls who disagreed with me, that's cool, but some others who poured unmitigated venom and defensiveness down the line. Oh boy! Why is it folks who say they "don't blow smoke" think that's an excuse to beat their POV down your neck in an aggressive and disrespectful way? Don't they know that their fire will burn just as bright if they say what they mean politely, and in fact, I for one am much more likely to listen. If I want temper tantrums I'll spend more time with my kids. There is a difference between assertively stating your case and refusing to let anyone else HAVE a case. I find it ironical that those who scream loudest against censorship, even a perceived slight on their right to be offensive, are the very ones who jump on anyone expressing a conservative opinion. Hah! As the saying goes, "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."

So I decided to bow out, not answer and leave them to rant. They weren't really listening as evidenced by what they thought I was saying as opposed to what I really said. There was agenda being pushed whether it fit or not. Unfortunately another girl who could see the agenda and hypocrisy in action tried to point this out and became collateral damage. I feel terrible about that. Furthermore, to keep the peace since I am a moderator on the board, I needed to ask everyone to calm down which could be construed as this girl being in the wrong when she wasn't IMO. The thing is, there are enough real problems in the world without beating up new ego-driven ones. And for a parting shot I might add that I have read erotica writers who IMO were good writers and yes, initially when I found them it challenged what I believed about the genre. Hey, I never claimed to be perfect.

The Fun Vs Safe Tightrope

As a mum, sometimes it is hard to know where to draw the line to keep kids safe. As I write this, my two terrors are using our long, sloped driveway to see how much speed they can get up on their scooters. They're on asphalt and I gotta tell ya, they're really moving. If they fall off they're gonna split lips and take off enough skin to resurface an Egyptian mummy. But they're also having a delightful time, yelling and whooping and letting off steam levels that only mothers of little boys will really understand. It's a sight to behold.

So I'm sitting here in a quandary. Part of me is nervously chewing its nails waiting for the next trip up to the ER, while the other part is going rah-rah like a cheer squad as skills get pushed to their very edge and the boys zoom past my window faster than a flock of fishing ganets. What's a girl to do?

I figure writing is a bit the same. First we wobble, then we're tentative, then we say, "to hell with it" and push ourselves to the max letting our hearts and emotions drive us where angels fear to tread. To fully develop our abilities we must take our skills a hair's breadth from coming unstuck. If we misjudge it we'll be a mess, yet it's when we're fanging as fast and far and wild as we know how that we learn to whoop and holler and fly.

Plover Love

Sometimes the smallest things have more power over us than they think. As spring gets chugging here, not only are we inundated with bulbs that seem to appear out of nothing and explode in a floral rainbow, but zillions of baby animals are born. That's my favorite part of the year. Living in a country area, this population explosion becomes even more noticeable- fields of lambs, foals and calves on every side- gorgeous. But the cutest award would have to go to the plovers.

Don't get me wrong, normally I hate plovers. When they're nesting they commandeer a field and dive bomb anyone who goes near like rabid magpies with PMS. They get so vicious my kids will walk the long way around rather than incur avian wrath by cutting through the field (I guess that's the plover's aim). But nesting is all done for the year now. The babies have hatched and, well, have you ever SEEN a baby plover?

Here I am driving along our road drumming my fingers on the steering wheel and whistling an outdated tune the radio station seems to favor when yikes! Stand on the brakes. The plover family is crossing the road --mum and a flock of itty bitty things the size of large pebbles. They hear the car. They drop, right there on the road. Now they look like a sprawled pile of pebbles, living scree. Seriously, if I hadn't seen them drop I might have driven over them unknowingly. But there they are, still and silent and covering the road where I want to go. I wait. I turn off the car. Nothing. In the end I have to get out and shoo them off the road before I can drive away.

Sometimes it is the smallest things in life that stop us. Why? Because we care about them, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Cry-key

I can't believe Steve Irwin is dead. Yes, he courted death almost every day of his 44 years, but somehow he seemed untouchable, larger than life, and madder than a cut snake, which may explain his passion for reptiles. My kids love his wildlife park. They've nursed his boa. It took both of them and a helper to hold her. It's hard to not to admire what Steve's done for ecology. I wish we had more folk like him. Goodbye to one of Australia's precious and unique sons. He will be sadly missed.

What a great steaming pile of poop!

Chicken poop that is. Yep, manure is the popular scent this Spring, at least to the horticulturally minded. I'm top dressing my garden and spreading in actuality what life has been spreading metaphorically for the past few months. Fertilizing always makes me wonder how stuff that smells so bad that your eyeballs fry and your nose hairs fall out can turn into roses and apples? Magic, huh. Now I'm hoping the rest of the poop in my life turns up roses too. A multibook deal perhaps. Heck, who am I kidding? At this point the margin in a schoolboy's notepad would do.

Spring is sprung,
the poops been flung,
and here I'm standing in the dung
The birdies tweet
And flowers smell sweet
But I can't say the same for my dung-clung feet.

I Love a Man with Brains