My reading goals for 2011 were pretty simple; For starters, I only comitted to reading 50 books. Goal NOT met, due to major disruption in my life this year. I also wanted to read 4 new-to-me Classics; again, goal NOT met, with only two read, Dracula and The Woman In White. Ah well. Tomorrow IS another year! Third stated goal for 2011 reading was to read 4 Christian Classics or non-fiction. I’ll count this as a win! The Five Love Languages, Words To Live By, When The Hurt Runs Deep, and Surprised By Worship.

1: The Teaberry Strangler
2: Dracula
3: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
4: (THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES)) BY Chapman, Gary D.(Author)Paperback{The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts} on 01 Jan-2010
5: The Secret Life of Bees
6: Dead As a Scone
7: That’s (Not Exactly) Amore
8: Trial by Fire
9: How Does Your Garden Grow? and Other Stories (Poirot)
10: Dragonsdawn
11: The Final Crumpet (Wheeler Large Print Book Series)
12: The Woman in White
13: Word of Honor
14: 16 Lighthouse Road
15: Scones & Bones
16: Jane
17: The Yada Yada Prayer Group
18: Heart of Lies: A Novel
19: Mr. Monk on the Road
20: How to Knit a Love Song: A Cypress Hollow Yarn
21: Equal Rites
22: Words to Live By
23: Messenger of Truth
24: An Incomplete Revenge
25: Eats, Shoots & Leaves
26: When the Hurt Runs Deep: Healing and Hope for Life’s Desperate Moments
27: Surprised by worship : discovering the presence of God where you least expect it
28: The Help
29: Snuff
30: An Amish Christmas: A Novel

I have not decided on any goals for 2012, but think it likely I will try again to do something similar to 2011…only THIS time….meet ALL the goals!

What did YOU read? Did you make and/or meet your goals? Inquiring minds want to know.

May your New Year be blessed with love and joy. Ruth.

PS…if you want authors…go to the Reading List page.

Places I have been and have not been. . . .( No really, I think I’ve been to all of these!)

I have been in many places, but I’ve never been in Cahoots. Apparently, you can’t go alone. You have to be in Cahoots with someone.

I’ve also never been in Cognito. I hear no one recognizes you there.

I have, however, been in Sane. They don’t have an airport; you have to be driven there. I have made several trips there, thanks to my friends, family and work.

I would like to go to Conclusions, but you have to jump, and I’m not too much on physical activity anymore.

I have also been in Doubt. That is a sad place to go, and I try not to
visit there too often.

I’ve been in Flexible, but only when it was very important to stand firm.

Sometimes I’m in Capable, and I go there more often as I’m getting older.

One of my favorite places to be is in Suspense! It really gets the adrenalin flowing and pumps up the old heart! At my age I need all the stimuli that I can get!

And, sometimes I think I am in Vincible but life & God shows me I am not!

One of my favorite authors passed away yesterday. Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books came into my life sometime back in the 1970s. I can’t remember for sure if I was in Jr High or High School when I grabbed the first book off my dad’s table (he was done with it) and fell in love with Pern.
I think I have a copy of every Pern book, including those produced in collaberation with her son Todd. And, while Pern was definately my favorite of the world’s Anne created, I also enjoyed the Ship Who Sang series, the Tower and Hive series, Crystal Singer, and Powers That Be (PTB) series as well. Restoree, her first book, and a few odd non-sceince fictions novels of Ms. McCaffrey’s also passed muster with me, including the short No One Noticed The Cat and Black HOrses For The King.

Hm….in looking over her bibliography, it seems I didn’t miss much over the years….

I guess I won’t be able to look forward to any new stories from Anne, but perhaps Pern will continue with Todd at the helm. However, given the number of her books on my shelves, I don’t believe I can truly say I will miss her, as I can reach out for one of her books at any time quite easily. I will say that my world was made richer through the writings and imagination of Anne McCaffrey. For this, I am thankful.

Hi there. Remember me?

Back in June, when we had our annual Church Picnic and Dessert Auction I cooked up two very different cakes for the auction. One was a lovely Lemon Creamcheese Pound Cake, which came with a jar of freshly made lemon curd, and the other was a Dark Chocolate cake with Nutella buttercream frosting. Both “sold” for very nice prices. After the auction was finished, I was approached by two different men with the same question, “if I put some money into the auction fund, will you bake me one of those cakes for later?” In short….answer is YES!

So…last week I baked up the Lemon Creamcheese Pound cake again…complete with lemon curd and raspberries for garnish. No biggie, one cake, all done.

This week, however…..I had the order for the Dark Chocolate cake to be ready yesterday. Hmm….I also need something for the Cake Walk at the Family Farm Festival (say that 3 times quickly)….so….
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Cake number 1 for Auction fullfillment

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Cake number one…Best Chocolate Cake as per recipe on Mybakingaddiction.com with only very minor adjustments, and Dark Chocolate frosting from the recipe on the Special Dark cocoa powder package. All dark, all the time for “Allison’s Husband”.
And…
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Cake number 2 for Cake Walk

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Cake number two was Dark Chocolate Cake recipe from Kingarthurflour.com again, with only minor adjustments. This cake featured a layer of Nutella between the layers, which I only made two of though the recipe allowed enough for three, and a Sour Cream Dark Chocolate frosting on top and sides.

So, what happened to the thrid layer you ask? Simple. It became this, or is that these?
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Yummy dark cocolate cupcakes with an added bonus; they’re filled! I finally got a chance to use my new do-hickey that leaves a space for filling in my cupcakes.   The ones with a pumpkin on top are filled with Nutella. The ones with candy corn on top are filled with Blueberry fruit spread. Note the three different colors of chocolate frosting? Yes, well…obviously some got frosting number one, some got frosting number two, and then….I ran out of frosting! With only two cupcakes left to frost I didn’t want to make a full batch of anything, so I cheated. I melted some chocolate, added a little vanilla, then added powdered sugar to sweeten and thicken, and voila! And, without the coffee powder, it was lighter than number one, and without sour cream added it was darker than number two, so…heh…three.

I haven’t heard who won the cake at the Cake Walk, so no word on how that turned out, but I have it on good authority that the cupcakes were delish. Auction Man didn’t connect in time to get his cake yesterday, but I expect him to blow on over any time now to pick it up. Hope he doesn’t take too long, as it may not be here much longer if he delays. Just sayin….

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know that I make occasional trips down to L.A., specifically to Santa Monica. I did so this past weekend, but this trip was a little different.
Why do I go there in the first place? Is it because it is a lovely beach community with great shopping and a fun “boardwalk” kind of pier? Not really. Is it because I enjoy driving 7 hours in a car only to end up in L.A. traffic? Definatley not! So why?…

I’ve been visiting Santa Monica to visit with my step-mother, who is now 89yrs old, and who suffered a stroke this past February. This was different because…it is likely the last one. The daughter who lives down there and does the care-taking of Jean let us all (the family) know that Jean is slipping away and that we should all make every effort to visit as soon as possible.

This trip was also different because I drove down with Jackie, Jean’s sister, who lives not too far from here.
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Jackie, Jean, and me

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We spent some time with Jean both Saturday and Sunday before starting the long drive home through the Valley. It was bittersweet because Jean was only sometimes aware of who we were and often lapsed into periods of nothing but fantasy. However, she was happy to be out and about with us, whoever we were.

Other than taking Jean down to the Third Street Promenade, we really didn’t go out much the whole weekend. One exception was that stopped at a place Jackie knew of on our way back to the hotel on Saturday. Very interesting!

The Tile House sits in an ordinary neighborhood. YOu don’t see anything unusual until you quite literally on top of the place. Then….wow. What is that?!
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A section of the fence

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Isn’t this crazy? Each section of the fence was made of something different. Golf clubs, flatware, tools,….you name it. Obviously if you follow the link you’ll see more and better photos of this rather unique property.

Don’t feel too sad for me. Jean has lived a long and full life. I know she doesn’t wish to linger on until there is nothing left of what she considers the good or important things in her life. I had not intended to make this journey, but in some ways, am very glad that I did. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to know Jackie much better than I had before. I would have never known about the Tile House. And I wouldn’t have slipped in a short visit to another friend who lives very near Jean. In the final conideration, I must conclude it was a good thing.

Not long ago, I heard that a good friend of mine was feeling a tad down in the dumps. Naturally, my reaction to that was to plan a trip out to visit her. After all, that’s what friends are for!

So, what to take? Hmm….let me think….of course! Scones and tea. Heh…what else?
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Tea....to go.

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Isn’t that what you would do?
Even though my friend actually drinks coffee, it was all good….because, well, I drink tea. Ahem. And the scones were enjoyed by all. I made my ‘healthy’ scones for the occassion, which is a whole wheat version of the Christmas Scone recipe by King Arthur Flour. I use their White whole wheat flour, oatmeal, and yogurt to maximize the goodness factor. Add orange flavored cranberries for that extra burst of yum.
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Miss Kitty

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We had a wonderful visit of several hours together, and you know what? I left feeling much better than I had been feeling before I got there. Isn’t it wonderful how one can go to ‘give’ and end up receiving far more?

I’m playing Dishrag Tag again this year….not that you could tell from my blog….but, I am. Which is to say, I did…
as in, I got the box, I knit the dishrag, I sent it on to Texas. But….the computer died, and I’ve been a mess, and had to learn how to do things on the new computer….and Fail.
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I rather enjoyed the pattern for the cloth this year…but I wish I had realized sooner that using larger needles than I usually do for cotton would have been a very good idea. The cloth I knit from the Tangerine cotton was a good bit smaller than the one I received, and needed extra repeats to achieve a reasonable size. Ah well, live and learn, right?
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But now, I’m gonna try to make some of that up to my team. We’re Team Two, aka The Round Tuits. My team captain, Alaina, is super. She set up a Rav group and everything! She got the box first, directly from Emily. Then me…because I’m the farthest West person on the team and because I asked. Isn’t it great how that all worked out?

This is a shot of the goodies I found crammed into the box when it arrived here on Sept. 9th.
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Box of goodness

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So now the only thing left to do is…..GO Team Round Tuits!!

Well Phooey! I wanted to include the official DRT V button in this post, but because it is a Bitmap, WordPress won’t let me do it. How is a Bitmap unsafe? Seriously? Sigh….

So Chan and Alison both wanted to know more about the ‘test’ photo from the last post. I guess I forgot that I never posted what happened with the County Fair entires…oops. Ask me if I’m surprised that I forgot…NOT!

So yes, I put four photos into the Fair, and exactly one won earned a ribbon. A third place ribbon. Dear and doggy were helping me to get a good photo of the photo..because, honestly, they are both cuter than I am!
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Cottage on Culloden Moor, Scotland 2010

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I also put my Frankensocks and Tara’s wedding shawl into the Fair, and surprisingly, both of them won ribbons too! I figured out why rather quickly once I arrived at the Fair….my socks were one of only four pair entered into that category, and therefore almost assured of winning something….and ditto the shawl. For some strange reason very few knitted items were entered this year. Though, perhaps now, after the fact, I might have a clue as to why. One of the other local knitters I know also entered socks into the Fair. Her socks placed ahead of mine, and were lovely Cookie A cabled socks. AND SOMEONE STOLE THEM RIGHT OUT OF THE EXHIBIT HALL. OK, I’ll stop yelling now, but it makes me seriously angry that someone would do that.
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Third place Frankensocks

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Second place shawl

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So now you have…..the rest of the story. Happy Chan and Alison?

I have been absent for ten whole days! Not intentional, but these things happen. In the meantime my old laptop died, a new one was ordered, and today, arrived. Still in the learning curve phase as this has a whole new operating system. Oh, and all those passwords you barely remember because you have them set to be remembered by the machine? Yeah…I had to come up with those, too.
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This is only a test

Betty*
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Brown Betty arrived on Friday or Saturday, and she is here to stay! Dearest dropped my cobalt blue pot a week or so before that…sniff, sniff….but the good news is, Betty is an eight cup pot! I’ve wanted a larger pot for a long time, so all in all I guess this was a good thing, right?