Easy Gardener - Earth Friendly Friday

Okay, it's not really gardening season here in P.O. but it's never too early to start dreaming about planting and I love to read seed catalogs and think about what I'll do in my garden next spring. So, I thought you might like to see something that's earth-friendly and helpful for the garden.

Weed Block Natural

It's made with renewable corn to stop weeds while saving our precious natural resources. It stops weeds for ten years and won't harm plants. So we bought a package. We're planning to try it out. It's made by Easy Gardener. And the weed block isn't their only earth-friendly product. You can read more here.

So Happy Gardening - or at least Happy Dreaming!

Answer to Thought for Thursday

The world's tallest Christmas Tree in 2003 wasn't on the White House lawn or in Trafalgar Square, it was in the Styx Valley, a tract of ancient forest in Tasmania. If you want to read more, check it out here.

And while you're there stop and check out a little bit about Green Peace International.

Thought for Thursday

The Tallest: The year was 2003, what city claimed the tallest Christmas Tree?

Take a guess, it could be Chicago, New York, or . . . ?

Put your "thought" in comments then come back around 3:00

that's how you'll see

if you were "write" or wrong

or you can google it but that might take too long :)

Chocoholic?

EZ Ice-cream sandwiches at home

So much for heart-healthy recipes - what was I thinking? It's the holidays and I LOVE sweets - just look at me and you'll see it's true.

One night I was having one of those CRAVINGS for chocolate--you know the kind, the I WANT CHOCOLATE that screams in your head kind of craving and so I decided to make some home-made ice cream cookies and this is how I did it.

Ingredients for chocolate chip cookies:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups of chocolate chips

(mix ingredients together and bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, every oven cooks differently so start checking them at about 15 minutes. If you're softening the butter in the microwave, add the chocolate chips after the mixture has cooled - otherwise the chips will melt and you might have chocolate cookies but there won't be any chips ;)

Let the cookies cool--if you can-- 'cuz that's the hardest part for me. Then spoon in a tablespoon (or two, or three) of ice cream (I used Rocky Road) and squish the top and bottom cookies together. Eat then or put in a baggie to freeze for later. Yummy for your tummy!!!

Any other chocoholics out there?

Holiday Hats

This is another Christmas project I've been working on: Hats for the holidays :) I thought I'd start making some scarves and hats and maybe even some fingerless gloves. I figure without the fingers they'd be pretty EZ.

Any other knitters out there? What projects are you working on? Done gloves?

I'm thinking of forming a knitting circle at work - we had one at my old job and we'd get together once a week at lunch to go over projects and really to just stay on task.

MOVIE MONDAY

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE .

It's a cute book about Max and his journey to another place: an island filled with wild animals. On this island everyone joins in the fun: a wild rumpus. Which I pictured as a dance more than anything else. However, in the movie, the wild rumpus was short-lived and the story grew to all sorts of lengths and went to all sorts of ends to say something about family and relationships-some which are dysfunctional.

Somehow the movie was too dark for me. And this coming from a fanpire. I love zombie and vampire movies but then I expect dark. Here I was expecting fun and the film was short on fun-at least for me.

My son loved it. Of course he's 25. And I did agree with him that the characters were absolutely perfect in their graphic creation. They looked just as I would have imagined they would. So that part was perfect. However, I was looking for a wild dance, a journey of fun and exploration. Here, the story seemed more about relationships to me.

Somehow, I think it lost its fun in the translation from the written page to the big screen. But that's just my opinion.

Anyone else see it?

Word Tips

Word Tips:

First one definition: "Ctrl" = your control key

Center paragraph: Ctrl + E
Right justify a paragraph:Ctrl + R
Left justify a paragraph: Ctrl + L
Italic: Ctrl + I
Copy: Ctrl + C
Cut: Ctrl + X
Paste: Ctrl _ V
All Caps: Ctrl+Shift+A
Auto Text: F3
Doc Close: Ctrl + W
Exit: Alt +F4
End of Document: Ctrl + End
Paragraph Down: Ctrl + Down
Print: Ctrl + P
New Document: Ctrl + N
Go To: Ctrl + G
Go to previous location: Shift +F5
Find: Ctrl + F

These are basic Word Hints but I'm hoping you'll find them helpful :)