This is not Itally...

it's snowing


ahhh its been a perfectly calm day. Except the wind is being crazy.

Wine and chocolate and then decided I needed to watch me some eat pray love I have been reading all about food culture all day.
And I have now decided I need to make me some spaghetti tonight for dinner for sure.

Delightful

In a season of excess. going out of my way to do things like this is just a drop in the bucket but it warms my heart 

Includes a list of  other ways to recycle this Holiday season!!

those are just the ones we droped off :)

Inverse Operator

"Attempt easy tasks as if they were difficult, and difficult as if they were easy; in the one case that confidence may not fall asleep, in the other that it may not be dismayed."

– Baltasar Gracián y Morales

About 

Baltasar Gracián y Morales, the Jesuit scholar and moralist author, was the leading Spanish proponent of conceptism (conceptismo), a method of expressing ideas through puns, epigrams, and other verbal devices. He was born in 1601 in Aragon. The Jesuit leadership frowned on his oratorical style, which included reading a letter from Hell to his congregation. His best known books include The Art of Worldly Wisdom and The Hero, which repudiated Machiavelli. He died in 1658.

a short Video on TED  

 Eric Berlow: How complexity leads to simplicity

...and wisdom make you soul screne

books as trasures, pretty things art work, positive words, christmas this things all seem to be coming up.  share the poem by By Charles Livingston Snell (1914)   spread out over the pages and illustrated
This is My Wish for You: That the spirit of beauty

may continually hover about you
and fold you close within
the tenderness of her wings.

That each beautiful
and gracious thing in life
May be unto you as a symbol
of good for your soul’s delight.

That sun-glories
and star-glories,
Leaf-glories and bark-glories,
Flower-glories
and glories that lurk
in the grasses of the field . . . .
Glories of mountains and oceans,
of little streams of running waters
Glories of song
of poesy,
of all the arts. . .

love, Mom & Dad  12-25-95

May be to you as sweet
abiding influences
That will illumine your life
and make you glad.

That your soul may be
as an alabaster cup
Filled to overflowing
With the mystical wine
of beauty and love.

That happiness may
put her arms around you,
And ...

OKay I need some help

I'd like to change a few things in my blog's format.

Both have to do with titles.

The header and main title for my blog is obviously  a mess. I'd like to amend the very clearly apparent issues with the size of the picture,  etc.  While I'm being clear, let me lay out My first & biggest concern:

--How do I  increase the font of my main title?
see having the picture up is only allowing the 'blog description' to be visible and there was no tab that let me change the font there/


Then this next one seems even simpler.
--I'd like to the titles of my post to be fuchsia 
to match the main header to my blog.  you know just a nice detail to make each entry pop!

I am confused that it doesn't seem to give me the option to do these things.

If anyone knows how to instruct me in making the aforementioned changes, please share your  wisdom! If  you can ameliorate what I find to be eyesores, I -the somewhat technological ignoramus,  would be grateful for your invaluable assistance, as this particular media forum is soo visual.

An anticipatory smile as I gratefully slide these issues over to you, blessed blog-techie :)

THANKS

O00000oo.....

Your kind attention,  please! Bequest you heed the comments, containing important (admittedly relative term) pertinent(rather) Post Scripts, primarily from the author ;) These Post Post (- if you find that more accurate) should be regarded as more important than mere after thoughts, yet at this point, it no longer makes sense to ad them back into the originally posted blog entry.

an Ode to Chocolate. paired with Whine about television

as there is a pause  in network TV. and i have a new found gripe about how HBO is not included in even our expanded cable package, on top of the  shows . I am missing out
my TV silliness refuse to have one in my room. yet a bad habit that I picked up
zone out and alot of times its the only way i can fall asleep and I asure you  i wouldnt have this problem If i had a productive day, my days as a field organizer I had very few nights were i had trouble falling asleep or if i was more active. anywho
I was watching the  distinguied alton brown make chocolate waffels. and it gave me this great Idea make those  as  sandwhich and inside cover  put nutella and  don't put the chocolate chips into the batter put them in the nutella to give it texture. Now tell me that wouldnt quell the strongest chocolate craving!'

• 7 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 1/2 cups
• 1 3/4 ounces sugar, approximately 3 tablespoons
• 1.5 ounces cocoa powder, approximately 1/2 cup
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 whole eggs, beaten
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 16 ounces buttermilk, room temperature
• 4 ounces chocolate chips, approximately 3/4 cup
• Vegetable spray, for waffle iron

Directions

Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. In another bowl beat together the eggs and melted butter and vanilla, and then add the buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir in the chocolate chips just until combined. Allow to rest for 5 minutes.

Ladle the recommended amount of waffle batter onto the center of the iron. Close the iron top and cook until the waffle is crispy on both sides and is easily removed from iron. Serve immediately or keep warm in a 200 degree F oven until ready to serve.

pg 241    WHERE is the Nutella?  --->

A card or a letter, the sooner the better

The half million employees who work for the USPS rely heavily on the five-or nine-digit ZIP codes for efficient and reliable mail delivery. “ZIP” is actually an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan.

Yep!That's the Mailman.. Parked. in my family's driveway.

In the 1960s  USPS intentionally chose the acronym to indicate that mail travels more quickly when senders mark the postal code on their packages and envelopes.The basic ZIP code has five digits. The first three digits refer to a sectional center facility (or SCF),  a network of super post offices. 
 Paraphrased from the dictionary.com article clearly there was some copy and paste action -thus the different style font:) you can read the actual article for a more detailed history on zip codes and how mail travels. Personally, I mostly enjoyed learning what the acronym stood for.


      Lets move on to a word on mail received- I wont touch on the increase of packages delivered in the dawn of online shopping. Rather allow me to now express my appreciation for a tradition that does not have to do specifically with christmas. 

 

...Keepingg it alive!

In an era where kids are learning typing at such a young age (and rightfully so) The fact  that less and less of our population even knows how to write in cursive, it is nice to see that some people still take the time to continue the fine craft of quillmanship. I know there are always at least two people I can count on to artfully address envelopes and merry missives in Calligraphy: my mother's boss and my best friend's (from kindergarden who ,yes-how cute, still sends my family mail:) Mom.