Razzmatazlady

Author: CherylK

  • Fat Tuesday

    Here’s the real skinny on Mardi Gras.

    Many people think that Mardi Gras is a period of time preceding Fat Tuesday. But it’s not. Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday are one and the same!

    Yes, indeed. It’s true. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday in French. Actually Mardi is Tuesday and Gras is Fat so speaking literally you would say Tuesday Fat – ha!

    Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

    It’s the final day of Carnival (pronounced car-ni-vahl) which begins 12 days after Christmas (Twelfth Night) and lasts exactly 47 days.

    Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday is the 47th day!

    Mardi Gras is celebrated all over the world. In the United States the place to be, of course, is New Orleans, Louisiana. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Venice, Italy are the cities most famous for their celebrations outside of North America.

    Here’s a fun little fact. On Bourbon street in New Orleans, store owners coat poles and columns with vaseline to keep wild and rowdy revelers from climbing them (and perhaps falling).

    So there you go! Happy Fat Tuesday!

  • Do You Squidoo??

    Saturday morning Jack went over to Mount Vernon to hang out with my brother-in-law and to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday.
    I stayed in Winslow so I could work, uninterrupted, on my website. Well, I didn’t finish the website but I DID finish my first Squidoo “lens”. What’s a lens, you ask? In the words of Seth Godin (who is multi-talented – I love his blog), the founder:
    “Squidoo is a website hosting hundreds of thousands of handbuilt webpages (just to be difficult, we call them “lenses”). Each lens is one person’s look at something online. Your take on football or business or the best thai food in town.
    Lenses are free to set up.
    Lenses are easy and totally non-techy.
    Lenses pay a royalty to hundreds of great charities. (Or straight to you! Lots of lensmasters earn hundreds or thousands of dollars a year).
    So I created my first Squidoo lens. I’ve heard that it can be addicting. I think it’s true. In fact, it could be so addicting that I may not even do a website. I could just do multiple lenses on all sorts of subjects.
    Any royalties that I make I will share with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I’d also like to add the MS Society but there wasn’t an option for that. Have sent a query to the “powers that be”. So here’s the link to my lens. http://www.squidoo.com/QuestForAGreenerLife.

    Check it out!

  • Groundhog Day

    Today is Groundhog Day. I checked the official website of Punxsutawney Phil who, as everyone knows, is the official reference regarding the end of winter. He comes up from his little hole in the ground and looks to see if he has a shadow. If he does, winter is six weeks away. If he doesn’t see his shadow, spring is just around the corner and he remains above ground. Here’s the scoop as reported this morning:

    Phil’s official forecast as read 2/2/08 at sunrise at Gobbler’s Knob:

    “As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me. Six more weeks of winter it will be!”

    Well, rats! If the little bugger had been here in Washington state, it would have been a different story, entirely…

    If you’d like to check this report for yourself, just click on this link to the official website.

  • More Bainbridge Island…

    We’ve returned from our outing and managed to snap several decent pics! This is one of the ferries that travels between Seattle and Bainbridge Island. We were on the other side of the bay but I used my zoom. Dark clouds were rolling in just about then.

    Here are two shots of boats in the marina. There are hundreds of boats! All kinds from small sailboats to yachts!

    I love the reflections on the water in the picture above. Almost looks like a painting. In fact, it would make a great painting! Good idea. Maybe I’ll paint it. Sometime.


    This is cool, too…all those masts standing at attention. Just waiting for someone to climb aboard and set sail.

    Just up the road we stopped so I could take this picture of the Seattle skyline. A little bit of sunshine making a brave effort to get through the cloud cover…

  • Winslow, Bainbridge Island

    A pretty garden near the house. I think the gate with the leaded glass is such a neat idea.
    We have several gardens back home and I’m always looking for great garden art. I think this spring I’ll try to find a similar piece.

    It’s sunny (so far), today, so Jack and I are going to take a drive around the island. Not sure how long the sun will last, however.

    My sister has this to say about weather in Washington state, “High of 40, Low of 40” and “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute and it’ll change.” So far she’s right on both counts! But I guess if the climate was any different there wouldn’t be all the lush, beautiful, green landscapes that are famous in western Washington! And that would be sad, indeed.


    Here’s a close-up of more art in this same garden. I think this is a sculpture of a spirit from the folklore of Alaska but I’m not really sure. I’m going to try to find out. Maybe Mother Earth? Notice the owl “cap” on her head. Isn’t it so intriguing? I love it.

  • A Couple of Pictures from Port Angeles

    I really wanted to get some spectacular shots on the way to Port Angeles. However, even though it was sunny, it was cold and windy and I took this through the windshield of the car. Not fabulous but it’ll have to do. This is the view when you drive down into the Discovery Bay valley. The scenery is wonderful; however, zipping along in a vehicle is probably not the way to get the best pictures!

    Driftwood at Ediz Hook

    There is a spit of land in Port Angeles called the Ediz Hook. It’s more than three miles long and it protects the Port Angeles Harbor (which is the pacific northwest’s deepest harbor). Back in the mid-nineteenth century the people would burn driftwood at the very end to provide light for the ships that came into the harbor. President Abraham Lincoln eventually authorized the construction of a lighthouse. The lighthouse is no longer there – I think I read somewhere that it was sold and moved and is presently a private home.


    The Ediz Hook is a very busy tourist attraction during the summer months. On a clear day you can see Victoria, British Columbia. We drove out there to see if I could get some good photos but it was just a bit too cloudy for good shots of Victoria. Here are a couple of pictures of the driftwood that is strewn along the beach there. As I made my way down to the shore, I noticed that somebody had stacked little stones upon the rocks. I don’t know how long they’ve been there. But it was kind of neat, I thought, so I took a picture.


    Then, as we were driving back, I took these pictures of the view of Port Angeles from the Hook. Doesn’t look like the busy town that actually it is. Really, none of these pictures do justice to the actual landscapes. Oh well.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that, unless you’re a pro, it’s hard to translate the beauty of the Olympic Peninsula in a simple photograph. Guess you just have to see it to believe it.

    In any case, it was a great trip!

  • Going to Port Angeles

    We’re going over to Port Angeles, WA today to see my sister, Val. It’s her birthday and we’re going to celebrate it and then do a few little things around her house.
    I’m going to take the camera and try to get some nice shots to post tomorrow (or later today). It snowed at Port Angeles last night and there might be more snow tonight but right now it looks pretty good. It’s partly sunny but cold – so what! It’ll be a beautiful drive if the roads aren’t icy and if they are we’ll just turn around and come back – flexibility is our middle name.
    I’m going to take pictures today regardless of where I am, by golly!
    Later, ‘gator.
    1/28/2008

  • Whole Grain Pancakes

    I love to cook. Always have. When I decided to create a blog I planned to include a good recipe every now and then but I never have.

    This morning’s Seattle Post Intelligencer has a recipe in it that I haven’t made but have every intention of doing so. I noticed that the Seattle P.I. got the recipe from the New York Times so I’m pretty sure I don’t need permission to reprint it. If I do, someone will let me know.

    Our nine-year old grandson, Jake, is crazy about pancakes. I don’t know what he likes better – quiche or pancakes but I do know that those are his two favorite breakfasts. So this is for Jake.

    Whole-Grain Pancakes

    Serves: 6

    Prep/cook time: 30 – 40 minutes

    Butter, as needed

    1 cup whole-wheat flour
    1/2 cup buckwheat flour
    2 tablespoons sugar

    1 tablespoon baking powder
    1/2 teaspoon ground coriander or cardamom
    1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    2 large eggs, separated
    1 cup milk.

    1. Melt 3 tablespoons butter. In a large bowl combine flours, sugar, baking powder, spices and salt.
    2. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer or a whisk until stiff peaks form, but do not overbeat. In separate bowl beat milk, yolks and melted butter until foamy, a couple of minutes. Add milk mixture to flour mixture and give a couple of good stirs, but do not overmix. Fold in egg whites and stir until batter is just evenly colored and relatively smooth; it’s o.k. if there are some lumps.
    3. Heat a large skillet (preferably cast iron) or griddle over medium heat until a few drops of water dance on its surface. Add butter as needed (or use a thin film of neutral oil, such as grapeseed or corn). When skillet is hot, spoon batter into pan. Cook until bubbles form and pop, about 2 minutes; you may have to rotate cakes to cook them evenly, depending on your heat source and pan. Then carefully flip pancakes. Cook until well colored on the other side, another minute or two more. Serve or keep in warm oven for a few minutes.

    Lighter cakes: Use 2/3 cup white flour in place of 2/3 cup of the whole-wheat flour. This makes separating the eggs optional.

    Savory cakes: Omit sugar and increaase salt to 1 teaspoon; replace cinnamon with cumin. Serve like bread with soups or stews.

    Serve with: Syrup and butter, creme fraiche, jam, caramelized apples or dried or fresh fruit compote.

    – The New York Times

  • Musings of a Lucky Woman

    I’m a lucky woman. Jack has over the past 35 years tolerated (and financed) most of the whims that I’ve had without grumbling (much). And I’ve probably had more than the average share of whims. You could say that I’ve been a jill-of-all-trades.
    I was a real estate agent for a few years. Loved real estate when I first started in the profession UNTIL I began actually getting clients and listings. We had recently moved to Kansas and our youngest daughter was about seven years old. I thought that if I went into real estate that I’d be able to be spend more time with the family. HA! Not so. Poor old Jack cooked Sunday dinner almost every Sunday while I was holding open houses. I had a couple of buyers and sellers who were impossible to satisfy and, after one particularly stressful period with an absolutely idiotic buyer, I finally told Jack that I’d either have to get out of real estate or he’d have to lock me up!!! I’m sure there have been times when he thinks locking me up would have been the right choice…
    I worked for four different federal government agencies over a period of about ten years. Then I owned a secretarial service in one state that evolved into a free-lance business when Jack’s career moved us to another state. After he retired we purchased a small concessions business (franchise) that was lots of fun and quite profitable.

    I’m also a certified graphoanalyst . I spent two years studying graphology or handwriting analysis. I just gobbled up the lessons and passed the course with flying colors. What really interested me was the prospect of learning how to determine personality and behaviour by analyzing handwriting. It’s a useful tool used by many businesses for employment selection. The courts frequently employ graphoanalysts to study ransom notes, altered records, forgeries, and disputed legal documents. I really, really wanted to be a graphoanalyst.

    But it was while I was taking my final exam that I realized how invasive the field is. It can take eight hours or more to analyze a couple of paragraphs of handwriting. I was analyzing a sample of handwriting from somebody I knew and was really startled by some of the traits that I was uncovering. That analysis haunted me for several weeks when I decided that I just couldn’t look into people’s souls like that.
    Let’s see, what else have I done…well, I’ve raised four children (with Jack, of course) – my proudest accomplishment.
    I’ve studied interior design. I’ve been an Accredited Staging Professional, staging homes to prepare them for resale. I’ve bought and sold antiques and collectibles on EBAY and in an antique mall. THAT was great fun but not as lucrative as I would have liked.
    So here I am off on another search for my identity. It’s just that I can’t imagine a life without something creative to do. I guess you could say that I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!
    Yep, I’m a very lucky woman.
    1/26/2008

  • NEWS FLASH!!!

    Just reported on the Seattle evening news:

    Amtrak is cancelling all trains between Seattle and Los Angeles until next Thursday!


    That mudslide was a real humdinger!