Microfiction Monday Fog

Susan at Stony River challenges bloggers every Monday with a linky party called,  Microfiction Monday.
She posts a picture and in 140 characters or less, you are to write a short story or short poem based on the picture. I have a story and a poem, hope you like them.

~Lovely vacation spot you brought me to Stell.  Oh Stanley, it's just a little morning fog, go set up our camping tent and stop complaining!
 (139 characters)

~Whilst your insecurities can cloud your mind like a dense fog,
your heart will lead you to her
go to her and lose yourself in her arms
(135 characters)

ATC Swap and Guerrilla Friday

Gotta love the post office....they bring me such nice things (except my bills).  Today I got this cute ATC card from Marilyn of Busy Martha from our card swap, the theme was White/Snow:

Thank you Marilyn, I love my ATC card.

My first Guerrilla Friday, yay! Guerrilla Friday was started by Marfi Bradford of Incipent Wings .  It's a day you make something nice for a complete stranger.  

I had so much fun with my Guerrilla Friday this morning.  It was quite an adventure. Look at the view this morning, the little bright spot on the left is the moon...pretty...This is a view of downtown Los Angeles from the third street bridge.  My little escapade took place to the right of all the buildings you see below:

Here's what chose for my Guerrilla Friday:

close up:

It's a little girly but I figured, who ever finds it probably has a daughter or a niece.  The three divas are rubber stamped images I purchased at Stampotique. 

I chose to leave this near the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.  Here's a picture of where I left my artwork with a note that read, "hello stranger, take me with you", lol.:  

It was not easy leaving it there since there's people everywhere you look.  I tried acting like a tourist, I figured my tactic would work because I had the camera.  But still, I may have looked a little suspicious to a group of young boys standing a few feet away.  As I walked away and greeted them good morning, I wondered if they would eventually see it.  But then, as I walked up the street, I saw a bus headed for the bench.  I turned to watch.....maybe one of it's passengers getting off the bus would find it???

Here's a look down the street:

and here's a look up the street:

and a look across the street:



The Cathedral was dedicated in 2002.  The Cathedral was designed by the Spanish architect, Rafael Moneo. It can accommodate over three thousand people.  The ceremonial room stands one hundred feet tall!  The complex is 58,000 square feet and it's twelve feet high.  Here's a picture from Wikipedia:

The organ is amazing, here's a picture from Wikipedia:

That wraps up my first Guerrilla Friday.  I hope it inspires you to try it yourself. 

CSN Instant Giveaway Be the First.....

Are you looking for home decor products to decorate your home to give it a modern look? well, look no further as I have the answer for you.  CSN Stores offer a wide variety of modern decor  products that will satisfy even the pickiest of decorators.  Here's just a little taste of what you can find:

Wallpaper

Serving Trays

Envelope Holder

Accent Chairs

 .....and today is your lucky day because CSN Stores has partnered with Bubblegum and Duct Tape once again to give away a $45 dollar gift certificate to one lucky reader (within the U.S. and Canada).  The gift certificate can be used at any of their 200+ stores.    

This giveaway involves a little trivia, if you are the first to answer the question correctly, by leaving a comment on this post, you will win the $45 gift certificate! instant gratification for both of us.  No more waiting a week or two to find out if you've won.

You are not required to follow Bubblegum and Duct Tape in order to enter.  You can use two life lines, phone a friend or ask google.  I'm keeping it simple because sometimes simple can be good.      

Now on to my trivia question:

In what 1999 Johnny Depp MOVIE did the following conversation occur: Please try to type the exact name of the movie, but I will take a partial name if you only remember part of the name.

"I have shed my tears for Brom and yet my heart is not broken.  Do you think me wicked?"

"no, but perhaps there's a bit of a witch in you Katrina"

"why do you say that?"

"because you have bewitched me"




~good luck!

Are you a Craftaholic?

Do you suffer from uncontrollable shakes when you see an arts and crafts store and when you step inside the store, do your eyes widen like that of a child at Disneyland?

Do you wake up in the middle of the night only to find that you fell asleep on your craft table (again) and now you have to go wash that glitter off your cheeks?

Have you stopped socializing with your non-crafty friends and find yourself idolizing the crafty ones?

Are your fingers petrified when you reach for the glue gun?

Do you kiss your sewing machine when you start to work on a project or officially named it and you are too ashamed to admit it?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, -you-are-a-craftaholic- and once you admit that, you can move on and keep crafting people!!




I will have a fun giveaway on Friday Jan 21st around nine-ish in the morning (USA, Los Angeles, California Time) you don't want to miss it.

Paper Bag Recipe Book

Hello readers, thanks so much for coming by.  I have a new paperbag book to show you.  This one was designed by my crafty friend, Misty Grosse.  I don't have a link to Misty's blog because it's under construction, hopefully it will be up and running soon.  You're gonna love her paper crafts, she's a pro and she comes up with the cutest projects.

We made these recipe books last week when a few of us got together.  This is a little different than the one I created a few months ago, you can see that one here.   Along with putting the recipe book together, we also had a potluck.  There was soooo much food there since all fourteen ladies brought a dish.  We had everything from a tasty Peruvian Chicken Rice to a delicious Avocado Dessert Pie to an amazing Chicken Stroganoff.  I shared my Tres Leches cake with them, you can see that recipe here and I'm happy to say I got thumbs up reviews.

Along with the potluck dish, each lady brought five recipes to share with everyone else......doing the math.... I ended up with over 60 crazy-licious recipes!!.   I will share these recipes with you throughout the year.  I'll bet you're still thinking of that Avocado Dessert Pie! let me just tell you, it's delicious! if you make it, your friends are not going to believe that the main ingredient is avocado.  They are going to think that you don't want to share the recipe and you only said avocado because that's the first thing that came to your mind..... hehe, funny.



On to the recipe book:
Misty used the cricut machine, "From My Kitchen" cartridge, to cut out all the shapes and words

check out this tri-fold page with recipe cards:

and this is the back :

The paper clips are used to hold the recipe cards while we're cooking, cool idea!
And this is where my 60 recipes are stored, inside each paper bag:

I hope this gives you ideas for a recipe book.  Hope you have a great day.

The following message is for Betty, her blog just disappeared.  

Hope all is well my dear friend, I miss your posts and Corgi.

Cinderella Card

I made this card for Stampotique Designers Challenge: Put on your best Mask.  The "Masking" technique is very easy to do and it gives your stamped project depth.  It's a popular design choice for many stampers and a single stamp will yield hundreds of possibilities.

Here's my completed card:

The inside reads:  
A new pair of shoes can change your life, just ask Cynderella.

Keep reading if you'd like to learn this technique.....


Fist stamp your image on cardstock and quickly re-stamp on scrap paper:

cut out the image on the scrap paper, this will be your mask.

Next, place your cut out on top of the image you stamped on cardstock.  Now you're ready for your second image.  Stamp your second image on top, like this:

You might be thinking this image is ruined???right?.....remember, I covered my image with my mask.  Here's where my image really is:

It was underneath my mask.  After you remove the mask, you get a nice clean image:

It's that easy!

Microfiction Monday

Susan at Stony River challenges bloggers every Monday with a linky party called,  Microfiction Monday.
She posts a picture and in 140 characters or less, you are to write a short story or short poem based on the picture.

Here's this week's picture.....

~You took my wife, you took my chickens, but you are NOT going to take my pink parasol, take that!..ha-ya!

(105 characters)

Feature Blog

My life swirls and spins  around the holiday season but when the holidays are over, my mind gets a little fuzzy.  It takes a lemon margarita to get my mind back in focus......I've just had three, dear friends, so I'm pretty focused right now.  And thank goodness for that because today I'd like to feature a blog that I recently came across with, Incipient Wings.  It's one of those blogs that inspire you  and you want to keep going back to visit.  The artist/author is Marfi Bradford.

Marfi came up with an idea that has me wanting to join in and try it myself. 
She calls it "Guerilla Friday".  "What is Guerilla Friday?",  you ask. 

Guerilla Friday is a day you give something hand made by you to someone you don't know.....a stranger....someone whom you have never met and probably will never meet!.  You see, you make something....anything....a card, a rag doll, a yo-yo.....what ever, as long as it's hand made by you and place it somewhere, anywhere in the town/city/village you live at.  Next, you take a picture of the item and post it on your blog with a description of where you left it.  Lastly, you  leave your link at Incipient Wings   blog to let everyone know you joined in.  Doesn't that sound like fun?. 

Marfi has gone on quite a few adventures and has taken us with her.  She has made some awesome hand made items to leave behind during her Guerilla Friday outings.  I'm going to join in on the fun and post as I do.  I'll leave things around the Cities nearby and take pictures and maybe share a little history of the places I visit. I hope you decide to try it too, it will bring lots of smiles around our neighborhoods.  So grab your camera and that cute greeting card you made and head out into the darkness or sunshine to leave a little something for a total stranger.....just to make them smile.  

Ready for Soup

My top three favorite soups are tortilla soup, Vietnamese beef ball soup, and posole.  I've shared my tortilla soup recipe here and today I'm going to share my posole recipe.  Posole (also spelled pozole) is very common at parties too and the reason for that goes back to the Aztecs! they considered corn to be a sacred plant and was to be consumed only on special occasions.  Recently my father turned 86 years old and we celebrated it with posole.  I'm finally over the shock that my father looks more like a grandfather now.  It took me years to get over that.  I'm third from the youngest of nine and when my father started aging and looking more grandfatherly, I had a really hard time with that.  Father's aren't supposed to look like grandfather, right? well, apparently, it happens when you're thirty and your father is 76.  My mother is ten years younger than my father but she looks very young.  I hope I have that gene that makes her look young, lol.

Now, for my posole recipe, you will find quite a few different recipes online as different regions in Mexico make it differently.  The recipe I'm going to share with you was handed down for generations, however, I'm going to use ingredients that are readily available.  They have the ready made posole in a can at grocery stores where you just place in the microwave, but, trust me, you don't want to buy that, they taste aweful.  It's very easy to make and the taste will be worth it. 

1 whole chicken
oregano
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons salt
3 garlic cloves whole, peeled
1/2 onion whole
lemons cut in wedges
relish diced
1 onion diced
cabbage cut in small bite size strips

3 cans of hominy 9 oz you can find it at Alegro Foods .com

1 California dried Chile you can find it at Mexgrocer.com

Directions:
on a large pan, add eight cups of water and the whole chicken, half of an onion (not the dice one), garlic cloves and salt.
Allow chicken to boil until thoroughly cooked on medium heat.  Once the checken is cooked pull it out of the broth and place on a tray to cool down.  Leave the broth in the pan, you will come back to it later.

While the chicken is cooling, you can make the chile sauce.  In a small saucepan, add about two cups of water.  To the water, you want to add a Californio Chile (first take out all the seeds inside).  This chile can also be made into a salsa with the same process I'm going to show you...it's sooo good!

Cook the chile for about seven minutes in boiling water in a saucepan and when done, drop the chile with the boiled water into a blender.  Blend at high speed until you get this sauce: (this sauce can also be a salsa just add salt)

add this chile sauce to your broth and mix with a large spoon.  At this point, you can take out the three garlic cloves from the broth.  

Your chicken should have cooled down by now and it's time to peel off the chicken from the bone.  As you are peeling the chicken, break it with your fingers to shred it.  Once you've done that, add it to the broth.  Also add the hominy with the juice from the three cans to the broth.  Cook in slow heat for about 20 mintues and you're done!
Serve on a bowl and place oregano in a small dish along with the diced onion, diced relish, cabbage and lemon wedges in the middle of the table for everyone to add to their soup, these ingredients should be raw.

I hope you give this a try for your next party or for when you are feeling under the weather....or just to stay warm. 
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by,

Microfiction Monday Mothman

Susan at Stony River challenges bloggers every Monday with a linky party called,  Microfiction Monday.
She posts a picture and in 140 characters or less, you are to write a short story or short poem based on the picture. I have a story and a poem, hope you like them.

~ In the year when man is no longer alive,

Women must survive by making a modern man

sadly for Lea, her man was a cheap

model made from scraps!

(140 characters)

~Young forbidden love

different worlds kept them apart

no one believed he had a heart

his weeping rusted his soul and his parts   

(127 characters)

If you'd like to give this linky a try, visit Susan at Stony River It would be fun to see what you come up with. 

Microfiction Monday Hair Grease

Susan at Stony River challenges bloggers every Monday with a linky party called,  Microfiction Monday.
She posts a picture and in 140 characters or less, you are to write a short story or short poem based on the picture.

Hair Grease

~Although Leo was bald, he was very good at selling hair products.  Not to mention his success in selling rocks "Pet Rocks" he called them. 
(138 characters)

~Real Grease from Hair Products Inc.
Get your Real Grease today, you can wear it on your hair and you can cook your breakfast with it too. 
(139 characters)