Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

"Christmas at the Curve" by seven (Found at Creative Commons)
"Christmas Ornament" by bc anna (Found at Creative Commons)
"They left the cats a Christmas tree" by bc anna (Found at Creative Commons)

It's weird but for some reason it doesn't feel like Christmas. Everything is so devoid of the Christmas spirit it seems. Two weeks ago when we did our Christmas market we were the only ones who had Christmas bows on our table and twinkling lights. We wore Christmas earrings and dressed up Christmas like and had smiles on our faces. Yes, there was Christmas music but everyone was glum. Everyone is afraid to say "Merry Christmas" as it isn't politically correct. Yet Jews can say "Happy Hannukah" and no one minds. People say "Happy Holidays" but there is a look of discontentment on everyone's faces like is this all there is? There is the rush and the hubub and everyone is in a hurry and cranky and they forget the true meaning of Christmas. You would be hard pressed to find a nativity scene in any store and you have certain people being offended by Christmas trees. It's sad that we have become so devoid of the holiday spirit and are afraid to embrace the
season.

"Feliz Navidad/Merry Christmas" by arquera (Found at Creative Commons)
"Equal Cross Mandala" (Found at Yahoo images)
"Manger" by singer (Found at Creative Commons)

I wanted to wish everyone out in blogger land a blessed Christmas and leave you with a twist on the classic "Twas the Night Before Christmas" For the classic version of the tale CLICK HERE (This one has music as well)

Merry Christmas to all,
S.

'Twas The Night Before Jesus Came'

written by Unknown Author

'Twas the night before Jesus came and all through the house
Not a creature was praying, not one in the house.
Their Bibles were lain on the shelf without care
In hopes that Jesus would not come there.

The children were dressing to crawl into bed.
Not once ever kneeling or bowing a head.
And Mom in her rocker with baby on her lap
Was watching the Late Show while I took a nap.

When out of the East there arose such a clatter.
I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash!

When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But angels proclaiming that Jesus was here.
With a light like the sun sending forth a bright ray
I knew in a moment this must be THE DAY!

The light of His face made me cover my head
It was Jesus! returning just like He had said.
And though I possessed worldly wisdom and wealth,
I cried when I saw Him in spite of myself.

In the Book of Life which He held in His hand
Was written the name of every saved man.
He spoke not a word as He searched for my name;
When He said "it's not here" my head hung in shame.

The people whose names had been written with love
He gathered to take to His Father above.
With those who were ready He rose without a sound.
While all the rest were left standing around.

I fell to my knees, but it was too late;
I had waited too long and thus sealed my fate.
I stood and I cried as they rose out of sight;
Oh, if only I had been ready tonight.

In the words of this poem the meaning is clear;
The coming of Jesus is drawing near.
There's only one life and when comes the last call
We'll find that the Bible was true after all!

---

Missing California and yummy salt.

Lately I've been missing California. Years ago I went to a university there to get my English degree and I loved it. I have to confess I love TV shows that take place in California because it reminds me of my time there.

Well one place I spent a lot of time is Newport beach and there is a long pier there. At the end of it is a 50's Diner called Ruby's. I even have the T-shirt that I used to wear although it is quite ragedy and worn but still brings fond memories of yummy French fries. They also served malt vinegar there which was great.

So I can across this cool video that was done in Newport Beach and no I didn't live exactly where this girl lives and didn't have those cool chocolate dipped ice cream bars but the beach and pier are still the same so I thought I'd post it here for a little taste of California.

So this is a continuation of my favourite things. On a whim I bought some of this wonderful Antartic Pure sea salt. The first one I bought was the black pepper and sea salt, then sea salt and seaweed and this time I got the pepper/salt and then just one plain sea salt. You can buy it already in a shaker which I did but a couple of times I went to twist the cap and fell all over my plate. After that I found another salt/pepper grinder in the house to use but recently came across this shaker which I love. It has an adjustable grind dial at the bottom. This salt is really good and stands out among ordinary salt. Right now I can only find it in one store.

Have a lovely dovely week-end everyone out there in blogger land,

Wishing you well :)S.

Some of my favourite things...

It's been a week since I have blogged. We just had our last big Christmas show and it was a smashing success. Picture below is of Green Tea bath drops for a bath or a manicure or pedicure (you just drop one in-too cute I say). My sister and I can now get caught up on all the TV shows we are behind on.So onto some of my favourite things at the moment. My mom made these igloo mellow treats which are homemade marshmellows rolled in coconut and are so yummy. They are soft, light and airy and better than store bought marshmellows.
We often make our own homemade pizza. After seeing a picture of my friend Jen's pizza I was craving it all over again so we made some. It was so good I wanted to eat the whole thing. Usually it's made with soy cheese which is a wonderful alternative for people who don't eat dairy products. If we bring to a friends house we make half soy cheese and half with regular cheese.
I was shopping at one of my favourite stores (it's like a Wal-Mart idea but much bigger and has everything in it). Anywho I love anything that is clear, ie cups, plates, anything plexi glass. My dream is to one day have a plexiglass desk (I used to see them all the time years ago). Plexiglass is expensive so I'll keep my eyes peeled. Anywho I'm digressing here... I bought these clear mugs.
So after I bought these mugs I went to my favourite city by the sea and what did I see at a store I popped into? More clear mugs, but these were stubby, chubby ones and of course see through. I got them for a song and stood there in disbelief that they hadn't been snatched up.
Along with these beauties I saw another mug I had to have. It has more of a country look to it but I like it's rustic qualities. It will be great for hot drinks.
Now I love cats although I don't own one due to my sister's allergies. We have lots of neighbourhood cats though which is great. I like cats that are a big plump and have lots of tiger stripes. When I was a kid I called Taby cats Toby cats so now that is my nickname for them. I also bought a meow mug. Can you tell I love mugs of all shapes and sizes. Well the bigger the better.
Along with mugs I also collect sterling silver rings. About two years ago I took a silversmithing course and have a whole silversmithing studio. The problem is my soap and beauty line keeps me busy so hopefully I'll be able to get back to that now that the madness has died down. Sometimes though I see a ring I can't pass up as was this case. Maybe I can make one similar.
Who doesn't love a good pair of flannel jammies? I like flannel that is plush and not real flimsy. So I was out shopping the other day and found these jemmers. They are so comfy and warm I could relax in them all day and drink hot tea.
Awhile back I posted about this yummy organic bread I buy at the market I sell my products at. Well I knew it was made with red Fyfe wheat so I decided to make my own since it is costly. I don't have a wood oven though so I did the next best thing and made it from scratch. I found a flour that is considered the cousin of red fyfe and I made bread last week. It is so divine. Mine tastes more like sourdough bread so I'll have to work on getting the taste of the hardy bread.
I'm a jack of all trades and like to have my hands in everything if you haven't noticed. Now that I've left everyone hungry I'll say: "So long farewell, I hate to say good-bye..." Have you all heard that Gwen Stefani song that has one of the "Sound of Music" theme songs in it. Oh man everytime I hear that song I can't stop hearing it in my head. "Wind it up."

:) S. is out,

Top Secret Drum Corps Video

We have had a couple of home shows this past week so it's been busy around here.

A friend sent this to me and I thought it was pretty cool. It starts off slow but picks up after a minute or so. They do some amazing stunts with drumsticks.

S. Out

My home in White Way of Delight, Narnia

Well as you can see how lovely it looks in Narnia today. The snow is absolutely lovely and our neighbour helped us shovel which was great. Then we had tea and stayed cozy inside. The tree shown is the one infront of my house.

Also I made some lovely candles as well: Cranberry and Warm Vanilla Soy ones. They smell great.




Maybe tomorrow I'll run into
Peter, Lucy, Asland, Thomas
the fawn and the white witch.

In the land of Narnia I bid
Au revoir,

S.

Craving My Bed Poem

When C and I had our big Christmas show a couple weeks ago we were going non stop to get everything done in time for the show. So we had a lot of late nights and were getting cranky and tired. The last night of our big push I came up to my room to get something and was dreaming of being in my bed. I wrote this poem. (see below)

Ta ta for now,
S.

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons "Colour Palette" by Pager PG

"Bed? Where Do You Dwell?"

Sweet mystery of bed
where do you dwell?
In my mind
somewhere in my head?

Perchance we shall
meet up soon.
As I toil by the
twilight of the moon.

My body craves rest
as I long to doze
off in my nest.

S. © 11/9/06 6:24 p.m.

John Mayer's Blog

My friend Linda told me about John Mayer's blog and I really enjoy his music and asked if I could also post his blog on my blog as well. I've only read a couple of his older entries but was very moved by this one in particular (see below). His writing is very personal and has a soul connection to it which I enjoyed.

Hope everyone is enjoying their week so far. Everyone is probably glad it is Friday. Yesterday I did a catering gig for a friend which was a change of pace.

Toodles for now,

S.

Sunday October 29, 2006

CHANGE

I've been thinking about something lately.

Imagine this:

You're on an airplane, sleeping with your head against the window, your heart set on being home this time three hours from now. All of a sudden, something goes very wrong. The plane stops moving across the air and instead starts falling through it. The lights are flickering and the movie is skipping. The plane dips hundreds of feet in seconds, and the yellow cups fall from the ceiling. They're a brighter shade of yellow than you remember, because unlike the demonstration, these cups have never been handled before. "Flight attendants take your seats now", you hear, the pilot's voice trembling over a cacophony of alert tones. You get that smell in the bridge of your nose like you've just been hit with a football. That's what the fear smells like. The plane is going down.

Four more drastic drops in under a minute. People are crying. For all the folklore about how your life flashes before your eyes, you're remarkably fixed on one vision - your parents. They're sleeping at this very moment, in a bedroom so quiet they can hear the clock in the kitchen. And you can see them, clear as can be. You wish you could see a playground or a first kiss, but all you can see is your parents sleeping. Huh. Well, that's that.

Several long minutes go by. Then, all at once, the lights come back on and the plane somehow rights itself. Some people cheer, but most people cry harder. The plane lands about an hour later, and as soon as you feel that touch down - hell, even when you were within 50 feet of the ground and could still technically survive a fall - you realize that however you brokered the deal between you and God worked; you've just been granted life in overtime.

Here's the question: what do you change? Whom do you call that you haven't spoken to in years? Whom do you realize has been toxic to your heart and drop with surprising ease? What trips do you cancel, and what trips do you book? What can't you be bothered with anymore? What's the new you like?

Think about that, and then ask one more question. Why not just change it all right now?

(Working on it...)

POSTED BY JOHN MAYER AT 04:48 AM FROM SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Alive after our Christmas show & my new favourite candy!

So we had our first big Christmas show this past Friday night and Saturday and I'm so glad it is over. We were dead on our feet after going nuts all week making products and staying up way too late. By the time Friday rolled around we were exhausted and our eyes were glazed when it started at 6:00 that night and went until 10:00. On Saturday I saw a few friendly faces. Thanks for stopping by. The candles were popular. (See above picture: white is Fresh Fig, orange is Pumpkin Pie, red is Cranberry and pink is Kailua Bay) These are the tealight size but for Moss we will have them in a tin with a lid. I can't wait.

So I sell at a market 6 months a year and last year we hit it off with the vendor beside us. This year she was our neighbour again and I found out we both love sour candies. So she pulls out this cute tin of sour black cherry candies and I ask where to get them. So after some searching I find them at this small grocery store. (see picure right)

Well a few weeks go by and I'm loving my black cherry candies. I'm at the market and she starts telling me about these new sour candies she found at a store near her and they are even better than the first ones and cheaper. I try a couple and love them instantly. She has the berry flavours ones. A few weeks pass and she brings me the other flavour as a treat. They aren't as good as the berry ones so for weeks I'm looking in every grocery or corner store I go to and can't for the life of me find them. She tells me to try little convenient stores but still no sours to be found. So finally my mom goes out for a walk the other day and goes into a little gas station store and low and behold they are sitting on the candy shelf. She surprises me with them and I'm so excited (yeah simple things amuse me) I thank her and start munching on them instantly.





Peace out,

S.

Britney Divorces K-Fed and Cute Sleepy Cat

This is probably old news to some of you by now. I wasn't surprised by shocked they stayed together so long. Just the other day I got magazines from the library one from June saying the marriage was in trouble and all the problems with it and one from July about how K-Fed was going to make the marriage work as his baby called him Dada. The view had a celebration over the event. I'm glad it is over between them only because I didn't think he was the right guy for her and when her show "Chaotic" was on he seemed like he wasn't in love with her. For the highlight from Much see below.



Since I love cats and found this video I couldn't resist putting it on here.



Crazed beyond belief with our craft show I say S out.

We all need a hug!

Well as you know I'm in a huge Christmas show this Friday and Saturday and so my sister and I are in the midst of making a huge batch of soap for it but I wanted to post something.

A friend sent this to me and I thought it was a warm fuzzy type of video about how we all need to be hugged. It is a free hug campaign video by the group Sick Puppies. You guessed it the video comes from youtube of course.

S. Out

Computer Technology Madness, I'm loving it

All pictues from Yahoo images.
This is the model I own.
A cool shot even though I don't
own this exact model. (Other photos L to R: my PowerbookPC with logo, itunes logo, another shot of my powerbook)












I've been going crazy lately with all the technology. I own a PowerbookPC G4, and a older iMac Ruby DV G3. So I've been on Apple sites asking for so much help lately.

Figured out a few weeks ago how to burn a DVD using Disc Utility and creating and image, then burning on CD's using itunes, and figured out why my computer wasn't taking cheap CD-R's after hours of using 3 different ones. I solved that problem and am able to use that brand. In case you want to know why they wouldn't work. Well after testing them out and asking for ideas. I know think they had been written on (in that when I had tried them over and over again in the drive in the past and the other day, possibly they got burned on a bit and the burner couldn't read them).

Someone suggested I bring my old computer back to life so I'm working on that too. Two nights ago I took my old iMac and it was on an operating system of OS9.0.4 and with help from a computer whiz I found where to update it to OS 9.1, then OS 9.2.1, then OS 9.2.2, then installed a firmware update, and today I hope to get it up to OS X 10.4.8. It is so exciting and frustrating learning all this. I know feel pretty confident in the blog world as well and hope to eventually design my own template for my page.

Loving life,

S. Peace out!

Happy Harvest Day!

I'm not sure if I was tired last night but I stumbled upon this ecard while looking for something else and it made me laugh. Go to this link.

My friend made this stunning barbie cake for her friend's daughter and I thought it was amazing. It was her birthday and was a big surprise. She had never done anything like this before. Is she talented or what?




S. out

This Guy is a Real Madman

This guy is something else. I saw this surfing some entertainment news and if you like gymnastics or kung fu you will enjoy this video. The music is good too. If only I could do some of these stunts.


I like it when he does a flip and then kicks the ball in the air.


Hopefully you will find it entertaining.

S. out

A Few Things on My Mind

"PIECES OF APRIL"



So after forcing myself to get through "Pieces of April" I finally watched the end of it on Tuesday night. Literally it took me about 15 different times to get through it. I rented it from the library about 3 weeks ago and had rented some other movies and got 30 minutes into it and lost interest. I'm of the type that usually has to sit the whole way through something no matter how bad it is because there may be some redeeming quality and I just gotta see how it ends. So I put the movie on hold again and got it a week ago and just didn't get around to watching it until the day it was due and knew I had to finish it up.

If you want to see the trailer of it CHOOSE A) OR B)

I'm a big fan of Katie Holmes (Yes I loved "Dawson's Creek" but hated the way the series ended). When this movie came out I had heard a lot about it being so good. Well I was bored to tears the whole way through. They spend too much time on the journey to her house and then we get about 2 minutes at the end of what we wanted all along. One scene that caught my eye was when her little sister in the movie sings "Caro Mio Ben" which I actually had to sing for a voice class I took in university (video footage below).



So that has special meaning for me. There were some deep life changing lessons there for sure but it just dragged on an on into oblivion. When I was done I watched the extra scenes and that was the best part because it eplained the director's point of view and it all made more sense. I disagree with him though in that they should have used music in a lot more scenes to liven the script up and keep me awake. Then I watched a bit of the audio commentary which is way more interesting than the movie itself. I always wish I had more time to listen to the full audio commentary when I get videos. You learn so much about the background of how a movie was made.

FOCUS GROUP

Homicide Suspect Holds Off Police in Fair Oaks by Scoba (found at Creative Commons)


News Media Covering Transit Strike by Ryan Conley (found at Creative Commons)


President Bush js_019_bush by Jaiso (found at Creative Commons)


Last night I went to a Focus Group that a friend told me about and you sit in a room with about 9 other people and yourself. We all sat around a big table at a media company and this man lead the workshop and asked us tonnes of questions about the media. In this case it was about newspapers, television news and internet news. We all talked constantly for an hour and a half. The man who led the group directed us and kept coming up with different questions about where we go for local news, international news, what makes us choose one format over another etc. It was fascinating to hear all these points of view. Of course it was very relevant to our location and city as well and at the end of it we all got paid which was nice.

The one thing that bothered me though was someone brought up the fact they like anything about Bush bashing. Now let me do the honour and say this was about Preside nt Bush and that is how he should be addressed when any reference is made to him. I don't care what your political preference is the man deserves respect for leading the country and he was elected by the people. So everyone who hates this man should suck it up and deal with it. If you think he is doing a bad job then run the country yourself or say a prayer for him. He certainly has had a lot of persecution thrown his way and I for one am so sick of hearing about it. No other president has been attacked this much. My mom awhile ago saw a T-shirt with a rude saying about President Bush and it really was offensive. There are people in this world I don't like but I wouldn't dream of bashing them. Everyone deserves our respect. Okay I feel a bit better now and excuse the rant.

Peace out (my version of Ryan Seacrest's send out when he had his own show),

S.

Paper Art

A friend of mine sent this to me and I was blown away by the creativity. I've never seen this many uses for a piece of paper. There are 26 images.

Today I have to make a lot of scrubs, candles etc. so my head will be buried in lovely scents all day. Only 19 days until our first Christmas show and we are feeling crazed.

S.