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Feed Your Inner Russian

Originally posted November 12, 2010 Borscht, I’ve decided is an acquired taste. I varied the recipe, I posted earlier this month, a fair bit and I did have two helpings (my husband managed one), but you really have to like beets. This is what I did:1. I cut the ingredients back by a third – […]

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Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

Originally posted Novmember 11, 2010 Remembrance Day is the one day of the year that I read “In Flanders Fields.” It is all about being connected, about paying back in some small, more like infinitesimal way, the great debt that we owe to those who did not make it back from the many battles that

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Take an Author to Lunch

Originally posted November 10, 2010 My friend JB told me about a new program at the library.  Apparently it started in Denmark about 10 years ago and has spread. Participating libraries arrange for you to take out an author, for an hour or so, on your library card! Well it’s one way, albeit a very

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Think Pink

Originally posted November 4, 2010 There was an article in the business section yesterday, which was actually “clipped” from INC magazine – (they provide the horoscopes for this site). It was about the importance of having something “flashy” in your store window or among your display samples etc…to get people excited about buying, which in our

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Robert’s Your Father’s Brother

Originally posted November 3, 2010 I promised that I would research the term “Bob’s your uncle” and found some fascinating info. First, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob’s_your_uncle Lots of information about Lords, named Robert, appointed to do things. I did like the one about Lord Frederick Roberts (1832-1914. 1st Earl Roberts, and Roberts of Kandahar) who led a successful siege

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Feed Your Inner Zen

Originally published November 2, 2010 I am relatively happy with the intelligence that I have been given, because I know that I will never have to worry about crossing that line between being a genius and being insane! I was reading an article about Michael Clarkson in the Toronto Star. He is a former “Star” reporter

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Lil’s Not Your Aunt

Originally published November 1, 2010 I was about to write..”OK, you can claim my great aunt Lil as your aunt too, because Taurus, the shawl with the 800 stitch ruffle, did not get finished this weekend.”  Well, I amazed myself. I finished casting off this morning. (I still count finishing off something, from the night

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Lovliest of Trees

Originally posted October 31, 2010 Piglet said, in the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh anyway, maybe even in the real version, “I don’t mind the leaves that are leaving; it’s the leaves that are coming….” He was raking on a rather blustery day. Today is a blustery day and my garden is full of

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The Times They Are A-Changing

Originally published October 30, 2010 I have just spent the last few days mining the V & A’s (Victorian and Albert Museum) knitting section. (see link in “Mrs. Brown” post)  It is AMAZING!! I took this quotation from some text describing a knitted pin cushion (in silk, no less). How many of us have knitted,

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Hallowe’en, Horoscopes and other Happenings

Originally published October 29, 2010 I read my horoscope these days. I don’t live by it; but I find its little ironies interesting. There have been times in my life when I refused to read newspapers, let alone their horoscopes…there was just too much bad news. Yes, the bad news is still there, maybe I’ve