Valentine Giveaway!

I wanted to spread the word about my dear sister's fabulous new soap-making biz - Soap Sudsations - plus show my readers how much I love them, so I'm combining the two into a Valentine Giveaway! :) 

Here are the hand-made, emollient glycerin soaps that the winner will get - a gorgeous frond soap:

One of these adorable Peace soaps - who couldn't use some peace, love, and clean underarms?

 And a sweet little leaf soap:

These soaps are not only works of art, but they lather beautifully and have great scents. To see more of Monica's super cute soaps, check out her website at SoapSudsations! (Pssst, her husband makes amazing boxes for the gift sets that are a lovely keepsake after you've used up the soaps...so I recommend buying the gift sets.)

To quality for this giveaway, just leave a comment.

For extra entries, do any or all of the following:

~follow @SoapSudsations on Twitter, and let me know your Twitter handle in your comment here if I don't know you already

~re-tweet this giveaway to your followers on Twitter; again, let me know your Twitter handle in your comment here if I don't know you already

~blog about this giveaway – this will net 2 extra entries - give me the link to the post in your comment here

~LIKE the Soap Sudsations on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soap-Sudsations/255967871101924 - and comment on her Wall that you’re entering this giveaway

I’ll put all the entries into a random drawing on Monday, February 6^th. If I have a way to contact the winner – through Twitter handle, or on SoapSudsation's Facebook page, or if you left a contact in your comments - I will get in touch with you. If I have no means of contacting the winner, you will have one week (Feb. 13th) to get in touch with me to let me know your mailing info.

*Giveaway is open to those living in the U.S. and Canada

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Happy Chinese New Year!

Or Happy Lunar New Year, whatever you prefer.

It's the year of the Dragon - oh yay, that means I turn 48 this year. I am, of course, thrilled. This puts me that much closer to that coveted AARP membership.

I have to apologize for not visiting some of your blogs recently. Our wonderful satellite internet provider has determined that we're overusing bandwidth and has downgraded our internet speed to that comparable to dial-up. And by "wonderful" I mean some choice four-letter words that I can't write here since this blog is rated G.

In order to get our speed back, we have to cut our bandwidth use down for a month. Even if we didn't have to cut our bandwidth use down, it is next to impossible to load pretty much any blog using dial-up speed...especially the blogs that have BIG gorgeous photos (you know who you are). I'm only keeping up with my blog posts mostly by doing them whenever I get to go somewhere (like our public library) where I can get free Wi-Fi and scheduling them to post for future dates.

Some happy new year indeed.

On the bright side, hubby roasted a 5-spice duck for dinner and it was most excellent!

Will you do anything fun for the Lunar New Year? Did you even know it was the Lunar New Year?  ;)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Obsessed with birds

Robin's posts about the books she's reading inspired me to post about all the bird books we have in the house.

Because we're a family of birders, we have, um, just a few books on the topic, as you can see - click on the image to pull it up larger if you're curious about all the titles:

The only guide that's missing in this pile is the Kaufman Guide which is ds1's favorite and we keep it in the car so that we can reference it anytime we're out and about.

And because I won another haiku contest from WildBird magazine on Twitter, we will have a Peterson's guide to add to our stash soon!

Right now, we also have 2 bird books that we borrowed from the library. As if books weren't enough, we also have a bunch of birding magazines:

So, what do you think? Just a little obsessed? Maybe for some future posts, I'll compile my art books, knitting/crocheting books, the craft of writing books and science fiction books.  :)

What about you? Do you have a hobby that you love and have too many books and magazines of?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Monday mish-mash

Just a few random thoughts...because I can.

I tried making yogurt for the first time with store-bought yogurt as starter instead of the powder starter that I normally use.  And, it worked! It's good to know it really could be done (by me).

And you wanna know the potent potable equivalent of heaven? Alcoholic Creamsicle! Take my word on this. I accept thanks in the form of checks (or cheques in case of my fellow Canadians).

Totally unrelated, but it would appear that the renters across the road are determined to keep their backdoor light on 24/7. The light was off for a couple of nights - oh bliss! - but now it's back with a vengeance. I suspect that because they left the light on all the time, the bulb finally burned out and they replaced it with one of higher wattage. Great.

As my neighbor to the east once lamented (about the even worse light emanating from their neighbors on the other side), why do people move out to the country and light their property up like football fields?

But in the good news department, my good friend Michelle has re-started her blog! Go check out "Within The Hive"...and her new blog, "Pages from My Mind". Michelle writes thoughtful and well-researched posts that you won't want to miss!

Want to share a random thought or two with me?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

The food...oh, the food

What better way to start the year than with a post about food?

Hubby made a nice batch of sauerkraut with our cabbages this winter - about 4 gallons' worth. Our cabbage crop doesn't always cooperate, so we're thrilled when it works out.

And I discovered the best banana cream pie recipe in the King Arthur Flour cookbook. I went for a graham cracker pie crust this time and it was perfection in a pan.

How did you start your year?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams