Shiny Things

I'm no-baking

2011-12-05T20:22:00.001-05:00

Nancy's Not Very Quiet No Bake (left) Emily's Whipple-Scrumptious No Bake (right) This was my plan: Run home from work, throw together one batch of couldn't-be-easier no-bake cookies, eat dinner, make second batch. Go to store and buy fruit or veggies or some other snack option to go with cookies for birthday treat tomorrow. Then do other Important Things. At my no-longer-new job, it's my

Always in season

2011-11-24T09:50:00.001-05:00

The house is still quiet. Pie no. 3 is in the oven (pecan) and I'm enjoying my coffee and letting the college girl sleep a bit longer. I've been reading other people's posts - a mix of thankful lists and menus for the day. Is it ridiculous that we are making six pies? And that I was fretting that we could only make six because we are limited by the number of pie plates in the house? Last night

Twice on Tuesday

2011-11-15T19:09:00.001-05:00

Guaranteed smile-maker I shared this over on Finding Joy and thought it worth sharing twice. A co-worker's pre-teen daughter packed her lunch today. This is what I saw this morning when I opened the door of the fridge at work to put my lunch inside. Not only did it make me smile, but it warmed the hearts of all of the women in the office who saw it. I suspect some of the guys, too.

Il faut chercher la joie

2011-11-08T23:09:00.000-05:00

Pays Cathare, en route to Foix I totally forgot about these photos. Anyone looking for a room in an old mill? C'est très charmant, non? As part of a writing "thing" this month, I'm mostly hanging out over here with a few writer friends. We're posting daily on a variety of joyful topics. I'll pop back over to Shiny Things from time to time, but feel free to come visit! A day, a weekend, a

Words, words and MORE words!

2011-11-01T18:52:00.001-04:00

This is about the niftiest thing I've seen in a while. Not my mug on the page here, but creating a self portrait out of words. Hey - that's almost like writing, right? Thanks to the American Heritage Dictionary, you can go make your own portrait! Please go do this right now. And I thought I was fresh out of words today. Phew. Crisis averted.

A plethora of pumpkins

2011-10-27T21:15:00.000-04:00

Pumpkin panorama Photo credit: Tom Twaro Last Thursday, 40 pumpkins were dropped off at our office and we were asked to kindly carve them up. Sounded like a good idea - and we're a creative bunch. My co-workers have been bringing in their pumpkins all week. Most carved one. Some carved two. Some asked their spouses or significant others to help. Our copy director's

Wild and wooly weekend

2011-10-25T00:06:00.000-04:00

A. Raise your hand if you knew this was how Brussels sprouts grew. Well, not that wild and wooly ... Friday: While most of the family went to the Red Wings game, I came home from work, ate leftovers and watched a movie on Netflix before picking up Sharon's friend's daughter at the airport. She and I then went to Walmart at 1 a.m. because the airline lost her luggage and she needed a

The second Sunday in October

2011-10-04T20:54:00.001-04:00

Women and girls carry water home in Geles, an Arab village in Darfur. Credit: Paul Jeffrey/ACT-Caritas The CROP Walk in our community is always the second Sunday in October. I've walked the 6.2 miles of our local Walk almost every year for the last 16 or 17 years. (Two years ago, I helped hand out snacks at my sister's church, which was one of the rest stops.) It is a wonderful annual

Can you hear me now?

2011-10-01T09:14:00.003-04:00

Where's the jelly? I lost my cell phone at work yesterday. I remember picking it up off my desk and putting it in my purse before heading out for lunch. And then later in the afternoon realized it was missing. I completely retraced my steps after work ... nada. A mystery. So even with things like email and Facebook (and LinkedIn and Twitter) and a regular phone, I still feel disconnected.

Flower whisperer

2011-09-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

Swirled ... Today's post is dedicated to my neighbor, C, as she heads west to Abiquiu, New Mexico ... aren't her posies giving her an appropriate send-off? I wanna do nifty things like this when I'm gracefully retired. Or now. Now would be good. Have an unforgettable time, C! Unfurled!

I yam growing pumpkins!

2011-09-24T11:54:00.000-04:00

Orange they nice? Shrumpkin = shrubbery + pumpkin Right here in the city ... the birds took seeds from smashed pumpkins between my garage and the neighbor's and we've been enjoying watching the swirly-twirly vines working their way along our driveways. I have a pumpkin patch of three - two outside the back door and one entwined in a shrubbery. The neighbor has one

Chewy, gooey fun

2011-09-20T06:50:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, we had TWO birthdays to celebrate at work. Birthdays=interesting treats. In the morning, we were treated to marinated cheese and Ju Ju fish. Awesome combo. As much as I love cheese, I'd never heard of doing this before (the cheese thing, not necessarily pairing it with Ju Ju fish). Boy, am I behind the times. I Googled it and got more than 6 million results. Here's one version,

Savoring

2011-09-19T07:18:00.001-04:00

Aunt Linda's homemade whole-grain breads ... heaven in a basket (in our N.C. hotel room). Lentil sprouts, instant espresso and Eastern Shore coffee ... necessities when traveling! Reflecting on a perfect weekend-y weekend and the winding down of another too-brief summer ... I'm savoring ... ... the rain drippity-dripping outside my window ... those last delicious moment snuggled in

I don't cheap main

2011-03-07T22:40:00.000-05:00

Just sayin'. I never shared this, did I? This is the transcript generated by the speech-to-text function on a friend's "smart" phone last year. Hey ___, It's ______. Ha me if you get this. I just tried calling your dad any pick up in bonanza. I went to paste it by T. I was just up here in this month and got some things for the 3rd for your mom. I don't cheap main. I. E. N. E. But reading

So long, Kroger. I'll miss you.

2011-02-15T06:53:00.000-05:00

2 red pears 1 red onion bunch of bananas bag of clementines 1 cucumber loaf of harvest grain bread Kalamata olives from the olive bar cut-up chicken to make Pioneer Woman's chicken stock 4 or 5 cans of Campbell’s Soup (variety) and 2 boxes of Cup-a-Soup (chicken noodle) to re-stock my desk at work 2 boxes of granola bars - my favorite kind 2 boxes of tea – red Rooibus and citrus mint lemongrass .

Maybe I need a catitude adjustment?

2011-02-12T10:38:00.000-05:00

Keegan G. demonstrating proper laptop use. Several years ago, we had a writer who was going through a particularly rough patch of writer's block. I'm sure it was amplified by all of the other stuff happening in his life and also some medication he was on. But it was truly like he could not remember how to write. Our copy director pulled out samples of his work and pointed out the brilliant,

Ho ho ho ... ly moly!

2010-12-24T10:14:00.000-05:00

This may be the first Christmas Eve in recorded history that I'm not going out for last-minute shopping. Woo-hoo! Today is all about wrapping and baking and getting in the spirit-ing. Since once again I've not sent out cards (but have soooo selfishly enjoyed the beautiful cards we've received), I wanted to be sure to share my prayer for today: May you be surrounded by the peace, hope and joy of

Apparently, I'm older than Jesus

2010-12-19T22:39:00.000-05:00

Ashton: How old is the Wizard of Oz movie? Lizz: I think it was done in the 1930s ... that's before I was born ... and even way before Aunt Nancy was born. Ashton: Was it before Jesus was born?

Clickety clickety oatmeal

2010-12-11T16:13:00.000-05:00

More trencadis tiling - Sagrada Familia roof. Those are the search terms someone from Helsinki, Finland, used to end up at Shiny Things. I'm sorry to disappoint. I have nothing to say about oatmeal today. And maybe because clickety clackety is what I do all week at work I haven't had much to say here for a while. I felt bad for being a slacker and thought I'd see if I'd been getting any

Ding dong

2010-11-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

Sagrada Familia, 2005 Only my doorbell is more like "Ding dong ding DONG, dong ding DING DONG." At 4 this morning I was awakened from a really sound sleep all snuggled in my flannel sheets to this. I stumbled out of bed, grabbed my bathrobe and headed to the door and just as I got to the window to peek out, he did it AGAIN. In the brief moment before I opened the door, it flashed through my

Giving thanks

2010-11-25T10:32:00.000-05:00

Trencadis tile bench at Parc Güell, Barcelona It's gloomy and gray and cold and drizzly outside. But soon the pie-baking will resume and the house will fill with the warm and spicy smells of apple and pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg ... Last night, I relinquished the making of DJ's chocolate pie to Lizz. I hovered and coached while she made the most beautiful, perfect pie crusts. I was

I'm thankful for ...

2010-11-24T06:58:00.000-05:00

Last year, I asked my readers to share their thankful thoughts and I posted a list on Thanksgiving morning. I think that's a good tradition to continue! So tune in here tomorrow, where we'll be thankful together. Shall we say around 9:30 a.m.? Today I'm especially thankful for shortened work days and long holiday weekends ... P.S. In looking back at the posts of that Thanksgiving week, I'm

OMG. LMAO. TGIF. TTFN.

2010-11-12T22:06:00.001-05:00

Wish I was here It's only Day 12 and I know I'm boring y'all stiff. Sorry. I've been suffering from major brain depletion. So, here are a few links from my Twitter feed to keep you occupied. By the way, Roger Ebert seems to tweet about every 10 minutes. How in the world does he have time to watch movies, let alone write reviews? I wonder if he has a guest tweeter. And I wanted to link to the

126+ reasons to procrastinate

2010-11-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

I've given up on sorting the book list. Alphabetically is the best I can do ... because I wanted to post it sometime tonight. I thought about pulling out the children's books. And the cookbooks. And the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary. But really I love the mix of titles. The range of interests my friends have. You'll see some duplicates with my list. Some of my friends included the author's names.

Sorting things out

2010-11-10T22:44:00.000-05:00

All righty. I only got one response in the comments section to my "influential books" question yesterday but am tallying that with the ones I got on Facebook. I got as far as putting all the books in one giant list and now I have to organize. I'll have the list ship-shape tomorrow. Claudette is obsessed with LICKING things lately. My sheets. Sweaters. Blankets. The carpet. Grocery bags.