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This used to be mine. It looks much prettier on a sunny day.
It's as cute as a button.

Grandma's Best Christmas Cookie

This cookie was a Christmas tradition of Maud Haines.
The recipe is simple. The trick is rolling them out to about 1/8 of an inch, or less.

Christmas Cut Out Cookie

1 Cup butter
1 Cup sugar
2 eggs
3 1/2 Cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar

Cream the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs and mix.
Add the dry ingredients.
Divide in half, wrap up, and refrigerate for several hours, or overnight.
Roll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters. The thinner, the better.
Sprinkle with decorative sugars.
Bake at 375 degrees for about 7-10 minutes.
You might want to set the oven a little bit lower.

2008 Best Doctors in Hawaii

Here's the Honolulu Magazine article "2008 Best Doctors in Hawaii ".
How come they only list three doctors, and two are orthopedic surgeons?
I love Dr. Peter K. Bryant-Greenwood's proudest accomplishments - his "awesome wife and daughter." Just how is a wife an accomplishment? At least he went to Georgetown and Hopkins, tho that wouldn't guarantee being be an outstanding doctor.
Dr. Thomas Kane's proudest accomplishment is, "personally performing over 5000 successful knee and hip reconstructive surgeries." Well, ok. What, exactly, does successful mean? Does it mean the patient survived the surgery? Or, does it mean she/he can run, and jump, and play again - without clicking or needing a vicodin?

What a Beautiful Bird

Happy Thanksgiving

There's nothing better than a fresh Plainville turkey from Plainville Farms.

First Batch of Fruitcakes

The first batch looks like they came out pretty good. I used coffee cans, and got 5 cakes out of one recipe.
I forgot to add the fruit to the date / raisin mixture, but everything mixed up easily.
I like the King Arthur Flour candied peels and fruits better than the Pennant brand the stores carry. I never knew Pennant was in Plant City, Florida.
I totally forgot to get cheesecloth! King Arthur Flour has the best. We don't have any fabric stores around here, and the cheesecloth they sometimes have at the grocery store is like fishnet.
Here's the recipe:
http://deskdiva.blogspot.com/2006/12/fruitcake-recipe.html

Mother's Best Lemon Sherbet

Mother made this using metal ice cube trays, which she'd put right in the freezer. It was a special day when she made it.
You don't need an ice-cream maker for this. I'll use a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Sherbet, Lemon (Gelatin)

1 envelope Knox Gelatin

1 quart milk

1 1/2 C sugar

3/4 (1/2) C lemon juice

1/4 tsp. salt

Soften gelatin in 1/2 C cold milk. Place dish over boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add to remainder of milk. Mix lemon juice, sugar and salt, add slowly to milk and freeze. Stir it several times while it's freezing.

Time to Think about Fruitcake

I should start baking my fruitcakes soon.
My coffee cans are ready. I like using them because they make a cute, round cake. I fill the cans up about 1/2 way with batter, maybe just a little bit less than half. They'll be about 4-6 inches high when they're done.

Here's the recipe for my Best Fruitcake
Even people who hate fruitcake will love this one.
I posted it here back in 2006. It was my mother's and grandma's recipe. Grandma got the recipe from Mrs. Suits. Mr. Suits was Chauncey Guy Suits, who was the director of research at General Electric in Schenectady from 1945 to 1965.
Here's his New York Times obituary:
C. G. Suits, 86, Electrical Inventor Who Devised Synthetic Diamonds

Dress Rehearsal for Trees

A few of us got together and decorated two trees for local non-profit fund raisers. I was hoping to win the larger of the two, but I didn't.

Decorations on the the larger, pre-lit 3 foot tree, include:
two sizes of pine cones, artificial berries, cinnamon sticks tied with a red bow, birds' nests, cardinals, multicolored sparrows, mittens, red berry wreath at the top, and three Christmas books tied with a ribbon. The skirt will be a white cloud thingy.
Its name is, Heaven and Nature Sing.










The smaller, 18 inch tree, without lights, includes:
Canadian hemlock cones, dried white Chinese lanterns, lots of wired artificial berries, cardinals, birds' nests, a red ribbon garland, some holiday notecards and a date planner tied with a ribbon. The base is wrapped in red plaid fabric.
It's name is, "Silent Night" - unless we change it.

P.S. We love glue guns. Next year - seashells.

Cyndi - I Drove all Night

Cyndi - Change of Heart

JetBlue Misses Me - Mr Soandso

The other day, I got an email from JetBlue saying they hadn't 'seen' me in a year, and that they 'missed' me. It started out,
"Dear Mr. Soandso,
We haven't seen you in a year and the truth is, we miss you! We really wish you would jet out of town so we can spend some quality time together ... "
Today, another email came from them with their apologies for incorrectly addressing the previous email. I didn't even notice the Mr. Soandso, but others must have, and complained. I wouldn't mind flying JetBlue again if they had a direct flight to TPA from SYR, or anywhere, other than JFK. I wouldn't mind seeing their new terminal, but it's not worth it. Flying just isn't fun anymore. Lousy terrorists. They've ruined everything, least of all, flying.

Harder than it Looks

I can't wait to see them lit.
For all of you who can't see, they're my Obama pumpkins.

Here's me. Good to go.

Stoner Lake, New York

Mom and teenager at Stoner Lake

New York

Tonight

It's snowing, and it's sticking.
I'm tired of Campbell Brown, and Joe, the unlicensed plumber.
Google has ruined iGoogle. People also had a fit when Google put the 'i' in front of Google, but their complaining didn't make any difference. It's still there: iGoogle.
I'm pretty sure neither candidate campaigned in New York state. Did Obama visit NYC?

Here's a great site - Yes We Carve
It has photos and templates of Obama carved pumpkins!
I'm going to do two.

Hard to Find 800 Numbers

This is a handy site. PC World had a link to it.
Hard to Find 800 Numbers
I like the list of the top five.
Surprise, surprise - there's Google at #5.
I bet it wasn't on the top five list two weeks ago.
I like Google very much.
They just really messed with the iGoogle something awful.

Yahoo Wins

I tried a few start pages - Yahoo, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Protopage. Yahoo wins for several reasons: The weather module is great in the 'compact' view. I can have mulitple cities with graphics only for the main city. A major plus. It's just a nice list of cities with the highs and lows. The calendar is plain, and neat.
Also - I can preview Gmail, and open it up right there. Google made a mess of Gmail in the new iGoogle design. My bookmarks from iGoogle imported without a hitch. They got rid of the annoying advertisement that used to be there. They made the Personal Assistant an option. I got rid of it. The tabs are on top. I splurged, and made three pages - all tabbed.

I'm still looking for a clock. There doesn't appear to be one. I really miss the Dreamcatcher clock I have on iGoogle, so I placed it here, over on the right. I just about died when I read some of the comments about it over in Google gadgets. A few people thought it looked really neat, but they had no idea how it showed the time. I'm really getting old.
Yahoo's themes could be better, but they're ok. What's really nice is - everything works. Everything opens, and expands & minimizes, with just one click. The new iGoogle requires lots of clicking.
Netvibes is also great, but the weather module only allows one location.

Other Places to Try for Homepage

http://www.protopage.com/

http://www.netvibes.com/

http://www.djinngo.com/

http://my.excite.com/

http://www.pageflakes.com/

http://my.yahoo.com/

http://www.takemethere.com/

http://www.webwag.com/

http://www.mywebaloo.com/

http://www.live.com/

Still Trying Out Start Pages

Goodl, old Yahoo might win out. It looks like they might have gotten rid of the annoying advertisement on the right side. They also let you delete the 'Personal Assistant'. The choices of themes are lousy - my green tea is no longer available to choose, but at least I can still keep it. The new 'green tea' is garish.
So far, Google hasn't moved the tabs back to the top, or offered the option of going back.
That's the end of this topic.