Sunday, November 23, 2008

Warm hands


I love this hot chocolate photo I found on the web, 'cause even though it looks as if there's a pat of butter (?) on top of it, it imparts that wonderful feeling of wrapping my hands around a warm cup of something on a really cold day.

May your week not be so cold as to require hot chocolate, but if it is that cold may there be a cup of hot chocolate to warm your hard-working hands.

33 comments:

Nancy P said...

Monday already???!

olivia said...

Not ready for it Nancy ... :/

That looks like a homemade marshmallow (=square).

maryb said...

yum. It's cold here but not biting. But I'd like hot chocolate anyway. And Olivia, I had no idea there was such a thing as homemade marshmallow.

I'm worried about katiebird because she, of all people, didn't show up in the library thread. Does anybody know where she is these days?

AndiF said...

It's definitely warm-your-hands-weather here. And the leaves are all pretty much off the trees.

Which is why it's time for Monday Picture Post Fallapalooza Farewell Tour starring ...

The Pointy Heads, [LINK]

Sycamore or Less, [LINK]

Paths on the Head, [LINK]

and The Back Beyonders [LINK]

The Big Bad Winters have announced their own tour, much, much sooner than anyone wants.

(P.S. Mary, she didn't comment but katiebird showed up and rec'ed the FFF diary at Boo.)

Anonymous said...

It's a no school Monday and slept in a bit. Yaahoo.
I have to go to school and work for a while though--Jury Duty next Monday, so have to have work for the kiddos in place.

Hot chocolate with homemade marshmallow(thanks Olivia)--What's not to like.
I've gone into my hot drink time of year. Cold hands and feet plague
me. Hubby can track the seasons by my wearing socks to bed or not.
It's warm here though 60 and predawn.

More deep cleaning, grocery shopping fill my day. No rest for the wicked.
Waves to all that come.
Andi pics -- Thanks for frolic in the woods.
Marvelous Monday to All.

Maria Lima said...

Mmm, that cup o'choccy looks fabulous!! - especially with this morning's 27 degrees.

Glad for a short work week and off to NJ on Thursday to visit Dina for turkey day.

Blood Lines (book 3) proceeds apace (by which I mean, notes happened)

Marvelous Monday, all!

Nancy P said...

Hi, Olivia! Homemade marshmallow? That sounds like fun. Any shape? I want a 4-leaf clover.

Mary, I'm having bfast with kb on Wednesday! I'll report back--or badger her into posting something here.

Andi, I first read that as Big Bad Writers. Puffed up my chest and said, "Yo." Now off to look at pickshures.


Lisa, jury duty? As a teacher, can you be excused? (I enjoyed my one brief stint on a jury, but I didn't have an important day job.)

Maria, "notes happened," lol. I hope rewrites happen to me today.

Larry Kollar said...

Morning all! After picking up three $#!+loads of dead chickens yesterday, I'm looking forward to getting to the office even if the work-week will be abbreviated. Me, I thought the thingy in the hot chocolate looked like a plop of cream cheese. Anyone really nutz enough to do that? It could be an ice cube to cool it down to drinking temp.

Andi, nice pics. I put up a pretty cool looking cloud pic on TFM over the weekend; the morning's auto-post of FAR Future has pushed it down though. It looks to be cool & rainy here today, generally getting warmer through the week.

I've sat on a couple of juries. My name came up pretty often; Mrs. Fetched said it was because I wasn't related to anyone in the county & thus could be assumed impartial. I sat on a drug bust case, in which we all figured the guy needed new friends more than jail time but we had to go with the framework we had; the second was a lawsuit in federal court involving the victim of a DUI against the estate of the drunk who died in the wreck. Pretty sad, really.

Well, I suppose I should put the laptop down and shuffle off to a quiet, chicken-free office.

dina said...

Hi, all. I want that hot chocolate with the nice melting marshmallow!

Off to change the bed for Maria.

olivia said...

Maryb -- yep. Here's a recipe for them from my favourite recipe source (I get their magazine every month - the recipes are always so good): Fine Cooking Marshmallow ... :-)

And Nancy, I think we could use cookie cutters to make them into whatever shape we'd like.

Morning all.

Anonymous said...

Foggy Monday, all. KB showed up at my place a few days ago. Glad you're seeing her, Nancy - give her big hugs from all of us!

It's amazing what you can make - graham crackers, marshmallows, bagels, ketchup - many of the things we buy automatically, we could be making ourselves.

Enjoy the day off, Lisa. More tasks here today, getting ready to close up the house for a few weeks/months.

Dead chickens, farf? Ugh. Sorry - no wonder you weren't having a great day.

Off to make hot soy milk, and pretend it's hot chocolate.

Anonymous said...

Morning Sunshines!

Twilight Movie: Drab, Dull, Dead.

Aside from beautiful shots of "Northwest Washington" which is actually shots of OREGON, PORTLAND, Madison School and the Gorge, the movie was... Drab. Dull. And since it's a Vampire movie... LIFELESS.

I felt like I was watching some subliminal message from a bunch of sexually repressed, religious basketcases about the perils of premarital sex.

Two hours of my life GONE. When I could have been at home making homemade marshmallows which are fantastic btw! :)

And Danni didn't like it either. She thought it wasn't made for the readers of the series. She thinks, and I agree, it was made for adult women who want to be teenagers again. She summed up the rest of the film as "Emo Vampires".

For a vampire movie... this one really sucked.

Both kids have hell week at school due to finals. Me, back to hell week at work. Yesterday we raised $2500 for Meals on Wheels feed a housebound senior drive. We're doing it every day at the store this week. Last year we raised over $160,000 so we're not off to a good start at all.

(((Olivia)))) my sharks are just tearing it up, baby. I'm going to head down to SJ in March for three games in 5 days with my best friend. :) I'll be thinking about ya.

olivia said...

Hiya Janet ... a friend at work wants to see the movie and I've said I'd go with her. I've heard that it isn't very good, but was waiting to see more reviews from people I know. Bummer. Oh well ... :(

I hope you have a blast on your mini-road trip! Give a w00t for me. Since my teams suck I need to cheer vicariously through you. :D

Anonymous said...

Damnit, I missed the library thread.

Having been a military brat, each time we moved I'd find the library and basically LIVE there. Much like Jen, libraraies were my church. My library card was my freedom.

We have a beautiful, modern library here in Beaverton. So much goes on at and outside of it.

Nancy P said...

Andi, that first photo!!

Far, your jury story is kind of sad. So often, what people in trouble need is new friends or a new family! My only jury experience was also a drug case. We were able to let a young guy off on a marijuana sale charge, cause the DA didn't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. We couldn't let him off on pot possession--though we all wanted to, cause, sheesh, half of the jury had smoked it--because he had pleaded guilty to that one.

Anonymous said...

Olivia! Feel free to cheer through me. We have never had a team play like this.

Anyways, the movie: I had heard from co-workers (adult women who loved the series probably more than my daughter did) were equally put off by the movie, too. Again, grown women who loved the book probably alot more than the target audience "tweens".

The dialogue... was so bad it was kinda funny. Danni kept rolling her eyes. She loved the books but she was embarrased by how bad the movie was. She's the one who wanted me to go see it. You know a movie is bad when even teenage girls are yawning through it.

I have a rather strong, young woman for a daughter. This movie is not at all for anyone who likes strong female charachters. I expected the main to start saying, "Oh woe is me, won't Dudley Do Right come and save me."

But as much as the movie sucks, the filming is fantastic. Almost worth the photographic beauty of the scenes. But the same could be said for prescription medicine commercials.

Sadly this movie will be known as "the movie made in Oregon". Goonies it is not. At least Goonies was enjoyable.

Nancy P said...

Janet, sorry to hear about Twilight, and even more sorry to hear about the Meals on Wheels drive being so slow so far. I hope it picks up.

Dina, a recipe for mm?!

Beth, I hope you don't have to pack any boxes next year. (Unless you want to, of course.)

Anonymous said...

Nancy, from your lips to the Packing Gods ears! If I never see a cardboard box again, it'll be too soon. Hence my decision NOT to pack up this house this week and store everything again - I just couldn't face it. Will deal with the whole moving concept again next year...I believe it's a curse. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hola Nancy xoxo!

Well we did do something right. We made a stand with regard to my Mom's family and them "forgiving" us evil doers again and wanting us up for Turkey day and my mom laying on the severe guilt/stress on me about attending it regardless of my work schedule and such...

It was easy. It was the truth.

We said and stood firm on the grounds that "we didn't want to subject our children to their hate, intolerance and racism." (Wayne came up with that and we all here agree)

We'll go up and see my mom after the holidays and our home is always open for anyone in her family to come and visit.

Anonymous said...

Una Mas Olivia: This might be a better review:

The movie didn't totally suck.

We put high expectations on "films" we want to go see at the theatre versus movies we'll netflix or buy.

Our family's rating guide
-Rush out to see in the theatre
-Wait for it to come out on DVD
which has a sub category of:
--but it new as soon as it comes
out
--find it used for under 9 bucks
--wait for it to be tossed in the sale bin for $3.99
-Netflix it

This would have been a "good" movie had it been netflixed.

Kelly McCullough said...

The chocolate looks very enticing, much richer than my Scottish Breakfast tea. And I love the sound of homemade marshmallow, Olivia. Will be lurking but not posting much as I've got a ton of work to do--I'm thinking it's going to be 3 1/2 months to finish the next books since I just had two weeks pulled out from under me by reprioritizing another project. Hello to all who've posted and all who come later.

maryb said...

Lisa good for you for serving uncomplainingly on a jury. As a lawyer I used to be exempt from jury duty (I was called a couple of times before I went to law school and served on one jury) but there are so many cases in my jurisdiction that they rescinded all the automatic waivers. So now I go to jury duty every 2 years just like everyone else. Police aren't automatically exempt anymore. Not even judges are exempt. And I think that's the way it should be. If our justice system is going to work, everyone needs to pull their weight. We'd all want a jury of our peers if we were accused of a crime. AND if we bring a civil case for the payment of money or if we're sued for payment of money - we want a jury pool to pick from that is at least moderatly well educated.

I will now step down from my soapbox.

Anonymous said...

Nancy, you crack me up. I'm seeing you all puffed up Yoing.
I've been on several juries. All rape cases. A definatly unpleasant trend. I was on one of the first cases in Dallas county that used DNA evidence. That evidence was not well received by several of the jurors at that time. With CSI on almost every night of the week, people think they use DNA testing for everything now. I just hate the sitting and waiting that usually comes with that day.

I did get a chapter edited this morning before coming to school to get things organized, so the writing progresses.

Farf--dead chickens. I know there's a story there. The chicken farms down here are really big. How many birds do you have and are they for eggs or do you sell the birds too?

Beth, spend a blissfull--cardboard free holiday season.

Janet--good luck with the Meals on Wheels donations.
Sorry the Twilight movie wasn't better. Sounds like Danni is a sharp young lady.

Waves to Maria, Dina, and Kelly.

Anonymous said...

Ah Lisa, you know not of the chicken houses...heh heh heh...

Check out my blog from Dec. 11, 2007...

http://bhanggeli.blogspot.com/2007/12/chicken-houses.html

(Dang, I wish I could remember how to insert links.)

Thanks for the cardboard-less wishes! Of course I've jinxed myself...now I need a small one for a birthday present. :-)

Have been called to jury duty 3 times, but had already moved to another state each time. Still waiting.

Anonymous said...

MMM, hot cocoa. Homemade marshmallows? Never heard of 'em but willing to try (IF someone else makes them lol).

Excellent pix again, Andif. :-D

I've only been called for jury duty once and was excused by the prosecution. How'd he know I'm a bleeding heart liberal? :-)

Dead chickens, Farf? Anything to do with Thanksgiving? Maybe they were just playing dead? lol

Enjoy your time off, Lisa. I stopped at the store on the way home. Oh My! I forgot it was food shopping week. Yikes.

AndiF said...

I am impressed with people who have been on juries (multiple times even). I've been on the jury list 4 times and never been called. My theory is the dogs are bribing the judge so they don't have to stay outside all day while I'm in court.

So will the world be divided into those who like Twilight and those who go who needs Twilight and it's pretty, sparkly people when we've got Buffy and Angel?

Anonymous said...

Beth that was a two hanky chicken story. My sides hurt from laughing.
I lived in Nacogdoches in East Texas for much of my young married life. Large poultry area. We were more involved in the other end of the chicken business. Hubby was a security guard at a chicken processing plant at night while a college student during the day. Let's just say it was years before he would eat chicken again.
There's nothing like driving on a two lane highway behind a chicken truck, feathers flying every which way.
I have a new respect for Farf and Mrs. Fetched.

MaryB--I don't complain about jury service because I would want someone like me on my jury. Educated, able to weigh the validity of both sides, and come to an appropriate conclusion.

olivia said...

Probably shouldn't say this out loud ... but have never been called. ***shhhhhhhhhhh***

Andi -- did you read the booK?

maryb said...

O - they have juries in Canada?

< duck >

I looked at that marshmallow recipe - they would need to be waaaaaay better than store bought to justify the effort.

Larry Kollar said...

Lisa, I see Beth has already provided you with the basics. Definitely a factory operation, but does not much resemble the horror stories told by evangelical vegans. :-)

But to me, eating chicken is vengeance.

Anonymous said...

I apologize for butting in, Farf, but I thought she'd appreciate my take on the chicken houses. :-)

You could add your picture, to give her a better idea of their scope.

I'm returning to vegetarianism...maybe it was the fluffy yellow balls...

boran2 said...

Good evening all. (who are left) Cold this am, warming later on. I was actually out in shorts earlier putting out the trash.

First day of my three day week done. Woohoo!

Did my jury duty earlier this year.

Dead chickens?

olivia said...

lol Maryb. :P