Stage Fright
“What’s wrong? You’ve done this a hundred times before. You were fine during last night’s show? How can you have stage fright now?”
“Last night I didn’t know I wasn’t any good. I’d never seen myself sing until you showed me the video. Now I realize I have to do it differently.”
“Relax. It’s just a stage you’re going through.”
“That’s what scares me.”
Think you can write a story in 55 words? Go visit the G-man to see those who did.
13 Nettiquette Observations
Nessa is doing a meme on nettiquette. I’m going to do a little combination thing with both Nessa’s meme and TT. I took my socks thing down, and will put it up again next week. Sorry.
1. I have little tolerance for really confusing sites. Those “magazine” style ones particularly send me for loops. There are even a couple of bloggers I like whom I never visit anymore because their sites became so convoluted that even multiple visits left me scratching my head.
2. One of the things that used to bug me has become my own habit. Specifically, people who post more than two posts a day. When I went to visit, if I couldn’t find what I was after, especially in favor of some advertising type thing, I’d gnash my teeth. Now I do this photo post every day, and something off my menu, and maybe a third one, like on Friday, and it’s gotten out of hand. As soon as I hit day 365, the photo thing will be a thing of the past.
3. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers come and go in the three years I’ve been blogging. Mostly, they drift away from blogging entirely. It’s painful to see them go. I’m hoping some day some of them will come back.
Ah Maria, There’s always a Right Man for the Job
When you think about it, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria had a truly uncanny knack for delegation.
As important as the military reforms were, Haugwitz’s civil reforms were at least as significant. He abolished the separate chancelleries of Bohemia and Austria, which had up till that point been fighting one another tooth and nail for royal recognition.
The judiciary separated from regular government administration. The judiciary became a branch of government embracing most of the empire. Judicial matters in Hungary were more or less left to the Hungarians. The courts embraced the Austrian legal code as their foundation.
Hand in hand with this was Maria’s revamping of said code. Begun in 1752 and finished in 1766, the Codex Theresianus defined civil rights within the Empire. Again, it was not her intention to be revolutionary. She wanted things done efficiently. Things were very far from efficient, or honest, when she ascended the throne. She was going to change that.
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Mermaid Splash, Sunshine, Honest Scrap, Snakeman’s Awesome, and Wise Words Awards
If you haven’t received an award from me before, and/or are not familiar with my take on the whole thing, please click on the link at the very bottom of this post.
Mermaid Splash
Heather let me claim this one. I’ve been drooling over it for a while, so I jumped at the chance. Thanks Heather!
The rules are as follows:
1. Put the logo on your blog/post.
2. Nominate up to 9 blogs which allure, amuse, bewitch, impress or inspire you.
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have been splashed by commenting on their blog.
5. Remember to link to the person from whom your received your Splash award.
6. Have F~U~N
Candi. Check out her Yellowstone pics.
Scott, the Bull Rhino
kaye I tried to resist, but couldn’t.
Sunshine
Cate Masters gave me the Sunshine award. Thanks Cate!
According to the guidelines:
Post the award, pass it on to 12 bloggers, and link to everyone involved.
Bantering Blonde kind of fell off my radar a while back, which is a pity because she’s fun.
Quilly
Nessa Because you’re all shiny. No need to post if you don’t approve of awards. I’m just saying I like you.
Red Cat Society I know it’s a bit early to be giving you awards, but I thought you wouldn’t mind.
A. from A Changing Life
Marta The queen of slow travel.
Carver
Felicitas
Jabblog
Inez Kelley
A Catherine Noon
Adelle Laudan
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a385/AliceAudrey/Blog/award-honestscrap3.jpg
healing magic hands gave me the Honest Scrap Award
Honest Scrap
You are supposed to nominate seven other bloggers for it, who can then do with it what they will. The other portion of your assignment is to blog ten little known and interesting facts about yourself.
Jingle
jams o donnell
gengen
Anthony North
Erica
shakira
Country Dew
Ten facts? Ten? Like anyone is all that interested. Well, all right:]
1. I have curly hair
2. I don’t call it curly because it isn’t all pretty the way curls are supposed to be. It’s frizzy and messy and lame.
3. But I still like it.
4. I don’t actually mind having my picture taken. It’s sharing it I dislike.
5. Because in my mind I’m a whole lot prettier. Almost normal looking.
6. Clear back at the beginning of my blogging days I blogged about it.
7. It got linked to by a published author.
8. For a while that post was my most popular.
9. The person who linked to it also has curly hair.
10. She ended up doing her own version of my post.
Ji gave me the Wise Words Award.
Wise Words
No rules on this one.
Kristen
The Walking Man Just take it as a compliment, Mark. The award made me think of you.
Brian Miller Yeah, I know you already got this one, but it just fits so well.
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Snakeman’s Awesome Award
Jingle gave me this one yesterday. Thanks Jingle!
Wondering what to do about this?
Check this out: How to Accept an Award
Old Pumpkin
Remember the pumpkin? The one I bought for Halloween then never got around to carving… . Well, I finally got around to it. I couldn’t believe the thing could sit around for so long and still be good, but it seemed fine – no soft spots or discoloration or odor – so I carved it up with an eye toward eating it and/or maybe leaving a thin, dry shell that I could reuse as a Halloween decoration in the future. In not either of those, then simply to see what an ancient pumpkin was like.
What it’s like is stringy.
You can see from the first cut-open shot, the glossy strings that you usually have to scrape as the second step of Jack O Lantern making had dried along with the seeds. I went ahead and cook the seeds with salt, and we ate them, but they weren’t nearly as good. The outsides were unusually woody and tough and the insides dry, but still nutty.
Once that was all scraped away, I started scraping out the wall of the pumpkin, trying to thin it for my shell effect and also get usable pumpkin. It was easier to scrape out than a fresh pumpkin, but the walls had developed the consistency of spaghetti squash.
Things went well until I got too confident, and put a hole in the skin of the pumpkin.
So much for drying it out as a future decoration. I simply couldn’t get it whittled down far enough without damaging the delicate exterior.
Wh
at I wanted was to make a pumpkin soup I dimly recalled having seen. The picture of the soup showed a smooth, creamy concoction. I was never able to achieve this.
First I boiled some of the pumpkin while freezing most of it. I thought I could boil it apart, but after a couple of hours, I tossed in some seasoning and ate it like I would squash, which is what it tasted like.
Next I took out the frozen pumpkin and put it through the blender. I ended up with something the size and shape of course-ground coffee. No matter how long I ran the Cuisinart, it would get no smaller. Once again, boiling would not smooth it out.
It didn’t taste like much, and I ended up tossing it out.
So… pumpkins have amazing shelf life, but I don’t recommend leaving them too long.
If anyone knows of a good pumpkin soup recipe, let me know.
Fresh Catch
Jill: If the two fish that went missing aren’t returned immediately, a certain cat and a certain dog will be going to the vet to get fixed!
Gin: Meow!
Tonic: Woof!
Jill: Thank you. Ooo, these are even better than the ones Jack “caught.”
Jack: Better? How?
Jill: These are fresh.
Today’s theme is Fresh
Previously in Jack and Jill Big Provider
The rules for Photohunt can be found here.
Be sure to visit the home page.
And I’ll bet you were expecting Jack to chase Jill around the kitchen.
Suzie’s House 157: A Beautiful Spanish Hussy
Maria Sanchez lay in wait for him in the hall. As Drew came out of the Special Agent in Charge’s office after an upbraiding, Maria fell in step beside him.
“He was completely unreasonable, right? I told you he wouldn’t have anything good to say.”
Drew refrained from agreeing. It didn’t matter if the SAC was reasonable or not, only that he complete the current assignment and get back to Suzie as quickly as he could. Hopefully long before Suzie found out that a beautiful woman like Maria had taken an interest in him.
