the pomegranate tiger

Menu Choices Well, I'm ditching the Kahlua Mousse idea for dessert. It's delicious, but too much work. I'm going with simple and easy. While leafing through my old binder of recipes, I came across a dessert from one of my aunts that I haven't used in years. It's refreshing and light-tasting -- good following a heavy meal -- and very easy to make: Fruit-in-Snow 2 envelopes unflavoured gelatin 1/2 cup cold water 2 cups milk, scalded 1/2 cup sugar 2 cups light cream 1 T Almond extract (vanilla, if you don't like almond) 4 cups diced, prepared mixed fruits (or canned, well-drained) Soften gelatin in cold water. Add hot milk and sugar. Stir until gelatin and sugar are completely dissolved. Add cream and flavouring. Pour into pan to depth of about 3/4". Refrigerate until set. Cut into 3/4 inch cubes. Gently mix with fruit. Add a few maraschino cherries and it looks quite festive. As for the sweet potatoes versus yams decision, I've decided to go with a ...

The decorations are up, presents bought, and all I need are a few stocking stuffers. Things seem remarkably quiet for this time of year. Number one son and his s.o. have asked for my help in cooking their first roast turkey. They're providing the turkey at her family's gathering on Christmas eve. Then they will come to our house on Christmas day for another turkey dinner. In the past, I've tried to suggest a change in menu (duck, anyone?), but no one will hear of it. I'm looking forward to the day when I don't have to do the turkey and just need to show up and eat! Number two son is currently in New York City with his girlfriend, visiting some of her relatives. They're trying to cram in as many art galleries, museums, tourist must-sees and shopping as they possibly can. He called last night to say they're having a wonderful time. They'd just gotten back from the musical, Wicked and he loved it. He was a bit skeptical going into Wicked (he wanted ...

I give up. No more image in header.

Aaaargh! I still cannot get my header image to look the way I want it to look. I like to use the Minima Stretch template because it allows both posts and photos to "stretch" larger or smaller to fit whatever width of the window (i.e you don't get the right side of the page cut-off and have to use a scroll bar along the bottom of the page to view the rest of it). Just a personal preference of mine. Since the problem with the header images, I thought I'd make it easier by just changing to a template that was easier to fix. The header looked fine, but then I found that with a different (fixed width) template the wider photos I have on individual posts got cropped off. So,I've gone back to the original template and come up with a work-around that I'm not entirely happy with, but will have to suffice for now. I know I complained about this the other day , but it really bugs me. After reading the help discussion forums, it seems Blogger made a change in the wa...

I've always been a curious person. I cannot get enough information, trivia or details. I cannot stand not knowing about something once it enters my consciousness. Ask me something I'm not familiar with and I'm compelled to look it up. The problem is that it doesn't stop there. Once I find what I'm looking for, it inevitably sets off a chain reaction sending me further into cyberspace, ricocheting from one idea, word or concept to the next, sometimes for hours. I never end up anywhere close to where I started. Sometimes, I can't even remember what got me going unless I look back at my browsing history. Who was it that said curiosity killed the cat? Maybe one day I'll be found dead in front of my computer; hands still on the keyboard; typing one last query into the Google search bar . . . . Not such a bad way to go. *Another Encyclopedia of Me blog.

Sorry to those on feeds for so many edits. :( I've recently been going through my old blog posts and trying to update their tags and labels. It's been a rather onerous task. When I started blogging in November 2005, I had no idea what or how tags and labels worked, so I didn't label anything. Big mistake. I ended up with a long list of post titles, some of which were less than enlightening (what the heck did I talk about in Odds 'n Sods on a Sunday?). Thus, in order to gain some semblance of order to my posts, I decided that it's worth the effort to label them properly. This has meant going back and actually re-reading what I've written over the last two years. It's been a bit of an eye-opener. I barely remember some of the posts, yet others are as fresh in my memory as if I wrote them yesterday. I'm not done yet, but a few posts jumped out at me more than others. I've come to realize that the totality of all my posts really does capture who I am...

I have spent the better part of this evening trying to add an image to my blog header. It should have been easy. But it wasn't. I wanted to use the same picture that I used on Word Press. On WP it was very easy and it even had a built-in crop feature, so I didn't have to re-size the image before uploading it. I followed Blogger's edit feature, which seemed simple enough, but it wouldn't center the image properly. After I tried everything I could think of, I looked at Blogger's "Help" section. Well, it appears that I'm not the only person with this problem. They've been trying to fix the situation for a few days now and while their so-called fix helped some, it made the situation worse for others. Take a look at the help group discussion titled My Headers are messed up! I took the advice of one of the people in the discussion thread and changed the html on my template so it looks better, but it still isn't quite right. I'll take ano...

Rhea at The Boomer Chronicles posted this question on her site the other day : If you could pause the aging process, at what age would you choose to do it? Rhea's response was: I always liked 24, but now that I’m older, I would be happy to be around 34. I am blessed with good health and a sturdy body, so it’s not about that. I don’t really know WHAT it’s about. I just like the sound of 30s. The comments that followed were interesting. I was surprised at how many people wanted to be twenty or thirty-something again. Only a few said they wouldn't want to be younger. I'm pretty sure I don't want to go back to a younger age. The only possible reason I might want to halt aging would be for the physical benefits -- because I sure wouldn't want to revisit my younger years mentally or psychologically. It's tempting to dream of the physical benefits of a younger, fitter and, hopefully, healthier body and, at times, I think it would be nice to have young knees, a ...

I've been considering migrating this blog from Blogger to another platform. This is, in part, prompted by Blogger/Google's recent change in their comments link and trackback system. I'm considering Wordpress, Movable Type and Typepad. My main criteria: - Easy to import my current blogs to the new site - Flexibility and ease of use - Free or inexpensive My thoughts so far: I set up a new site on Wordpress and imported my x365 project over to see how it works. The import process was quite painless and I like the look of their templates. I also like the look of Typepad, but don't know too much about it. I think Movable Type is more than I need. I'd be happy to hear any opinions regarding the above platforms and any advice or suggestions. Or should I just stick it out with Blogger?

When I was about six years old, I had a walking doll. She looked a little like this: Walking dolls were all the rage in the 50s and mine had been given to me as a Christmas present. She was about twenty inches high and was the most beautiful doll I'd ever owned. One summer afternoon, when we'd run out of things to do and boredom was setting in, my cousin, Bobby, decided that it would be interesting to try and open up the doll and see what was inside. I thought it would be interesting too, but didn't think it was such a good idea. Cousin Bobby persisted. He assured me that it would be okay. It would be like an operation and we'd be able to put her back together again. He "promised". What did I know? He was a whopping two months older than me and always took charge about these things. Against my better judgment, I agreed. We found a pair of my grandmother's sewing scissors and Bobby set to work. With the pointy-end of the scissors, he poked a hole t...

Lately, I've come across several Encyclopedia of Me blogs. Some of them have been around for awhile and a good number have been abandoned. Still, I'm always looking for ideas to prompt my writing and this one seems to have merit. As far as I can tell, it originated with a meme dreamed up by Bella Dia in this post and she, in turn, got the idea from the book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, titled Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life . The instructions are simple: Write a post per day (or thereabouts) for one month using the alphabet from A to Z as the prompt. It can be about anything to do with your life - past or current. It can be short, long, serious or whimsical. Pretty much anything goes. Since there seem to be several variations of the original (just do a Google search and you'll find lots), I've also decided to do my own take on it. Instead of one letter per day for a month (and because I think this should be a pleasure, not a chore), I've decided not to have...

She's back!! Wooohooo! I just had to say it. Ronni Bennett is back today at Time Goes By . This morning, I clicked on TGB to read more comments about her departure . The last few mornings on TGB, there has been only a brief post about the latest story at the Elder Story Telling Place. Today, there was an actual TGB post. At first, I thought it might be a guest blogger. But no, the first few lines sounded like Ronni. I quickly scrolled down to the by-line and there it was, "posted by Ronni Bennett". She's written a lovely, heartfelt post about her feelings and decisions over the last few days. I was always hopeful she'd be back in some form or other, but wasn't sure when or where. I'm so very glad she's back now. We can never have too many voices speaking out about injustices and the important human issues we face today. The comments on her blog this week, show just how far-reaching one voice can be. Christmas Shopping Well, I've put o...

It's been a couple of days now and I'm slowly coming to terms with Ronni Bennett's decision to shut down her blog, Time Goes By . It was a shock to me and many of her devoted readers. The last time I looked, there were over 100 comments to her "resignation" post. And 'shock' is the right word. I couldn't believe it. Even as I read Ronni's entire post explaining her reasons, I couldn't quite wrap my brain around the idea that she wouldn't be posting at TGB anymore. I guess I had come to expect that she would always be there, expressing my precise thoughts and feelings about aging, health care and other important societal issues much more coherently than I ever could. When I started blogging two years ago, her site and voice was one of the first that made me sit up and shout, "Yes!!" Finally, here was someone willing to write about a segment of the population that society wants to ignore. She taught me a lot. I thought I was...

I found this old black and white photo in a bag of old pictures that an aunt gave me many years ago. I remember briefly flipping through them at the time and thinking I should find out more about them. I put them away in a drawer and only recently took another look. Most of the pictures didn't have any identifying information. They were snapshots of a time and place vaguely familiar, yet mysterious at the same time. I'm sorry I didn't sit down with my aunt (who died several years ago) and go through them one by one. However, this particular picture had an inscription on the back: You can see where the original writing has faded and someone has written over it in a darker ink. The closer I looked at this picture, the more I recognized the girl in the picture as one of my aunts (not the one who gave me the photos). I thought of her back in 1915 and imagined her on a family outing to Second Beach. I wondered what she did dressed in her sailor outfit and broad-brimmed hat....