It's my 3rd Blogoversary

It's been three years now that I've been blogging.

I've had a lot of fun and gotten closer to so many people because of blogging.

I've also made lots of new friends through blogging.

I've learned a ton of new things blogging.

I've learned more about people from different areas of our great country and from different areas of our great world!

Through blogging I've learned to look at life differently because as a blogger your mind is always on how you're going to blog about this :-D

Most of all through blogging I've fulfilled a life long dream of being a writer and being constantly in the company of other writers.

Please don't forget to go over and enter my giveaway, just click here for the details on where and how to enter.

Thanks of stopping by and don't forget to show me some love by leaving a comment!

Thrift Shop Treasures

Whew! I just barely made it.
For what you ask?
Well of course for Rhoda's final "Today's Thrifty Treasures" event!

She's going to be taking a break now that fall is here and yard sale season is almost a distant memory.

I barely made it because I just got off a train and raced like a bat out of "H E, double toothpicks" to my computer to write my post to link up to Rhoda.

I just got back from visiting my daughter in Turlock. My mom and I rode the Amtrak! That was the first time for either of us and I'll post stories and pictures later, but let me tell you...I found lots of treasures. The ones below though are from last weekend.

Hey...Happy Easter! I know, I know...it's almost time for Halloween, not Easter, but I just couldn't pass on this! Isn't it adorable! I can't wait for Easter now!


And I finally found a real cloche. This one is pretty small, you could probably fit a cupcake into it. I still want to find a beautiful, ornate stand for it. But it was a great buy and they are hard to find in our area!

And I found this gorgeous bird cage. Still don't know what I am going to do with it. Any ideas? For now I moved the Russian Nesting Dolls and my daughter Tea Cup from the upside down hurricane/cloche and displayed them in the bird cage so the photo would have more than just an empty cage.

I found another beautiful birdcage today at a Thrift Shop in Modesto, but unfortunately because we were on the Amtrak I couldn't bring it with me as I already had my suitcase full and it wouldn't have fit anyway.

So that's it for today. I found lots of goodies this weekend as well; including many pumpkins and fall display items, but unfortunately I've had no time to clean them up and get them photographed and posted. I'm going to have to find another wonderful hostess like Rhoda to get me through the winter months. Anyone?

Be sure to go see what treasures everyone else found. Just click on the button below.

What I StumbleUpon

Sometimes I need to get my creative juices flowing; in order to find something to post about. Not often because most of the time ideas pop into my head all the time.

So when I have bloggers block, I Stumble! No I don't mean I get rip-roaring drunk and stumble around. I mean I go to a great website called StumbleUpon. Actually I have their toolbar and their toolbar has a little button that says Stumble! I click on it and I am magically transported to random blogs/websites/gaming zones/videos, etc, etc. The possibilities are endless. I can even set up my interests and choose for instance online games and it will go to unending page after page after page of online games for me.

It's awesome, I love it. If you would like it then just click here:

So I was stumbling and I came across this beautiful work of art and I had to share.

Is that not right up there with the Mona Lisa? I know it puts a smile on MY FACE! That's my absolute favorite pastry, Cream Cheese Danish...and now, I can make my very own!! Or at least I have the recipe to make it when the temperature is not hell and a half outside.

I stumbled onto a website called Joe Pastry, Baking News, Tips, History and Science. Joe has a whole list of "How To" make things, but I found the How To Make Danish Pastry, of course! It's really an awesome website with easy to follow recipes and great step by step photos.

Well, I can't actually bake right now, but I can do the next best thing. I'm off to make pancakes, but please go visit Joe Pastry, you will thank me!

A Cloche for April...not the month...the daughter!

Hi and welcome to my first ever Cloche attempt!

Marty at A Stroll Thru Life is hosting a cloche party, so I'm trying my hand at creating one. No easy task as it takes a creative mind and yours truly isn't exactly creative...most of the time. But here goes and I hope you like it!

Some of you may be asking, "What is a Cloche"? Cloche is french for bell. It's formed of a piece of glass shaped like a dome and it's purpose is to protect garden plants from cold weather and frost.

I didn't have a formal cloche or bell jar or apothecary jar, so what I did was take my hurricane lamp and turn it upside down, which makes a bell shape...hence a cloche!

I thought long and hard about what I would put under my cloche. I wanted something fall like, even though it's still in the high 90's outside. So I decided that I would do a little display for my daughter April.

A few months ago she took a job about 4 hours away and I've only seen her once since then. She's coming home this Saturday just for the day and so I figured I would go ahead and use some of her most loved things.

So here it is...my Cloche. April is collecting tea cups. This is the first one that she has found. She has four others because she's claiming the four that belonged to my former mother-in-law, April's grandmother...lol. Right now all five are in my possession. Also pictured are April's Russian Nesting Dolls which I gave her as a gift this year for her birthday...on Aprils Fools Day and yes, that is her actual birthday. I added the tray, flowers and candle just to give the display some fall colors.

I'm going to display it on my kitchen table, but I might move it on the weekend to my coffee table so I can see it while I do my "couch potato" thing. :-)

Here's a closeup of the cup and saucer. I love this picture, the way the light is reflected in the glass and mirror on the tray.

Here's a closeup of the Russian Nesting dolls...I felt they had great fall colors. The little orange candle in the background just is a nice fall color and also smells great! The little brown tray is from Goodwill and I've been debating painting it. It has a mirrored bottom and I keep it on my kitchen counter.

And the silk flowers were given to me by my sister. The rest of them are displayed in the barrel planter on my patio. I do great with silk, not so much with real flowers. I believe these would be mums?


So...what did you think of my first every cloche? I had a fun time creating it and now I hope you all head over the Marty's, A Stroll Thru Life and see what everyone else created!

Trash to Treasures at Along the Way with K & J

I had a very nice visit from Katie with Along the Way with K & J. She asked me to link up to her blog for her Trash to Treasures post and I did, so be sure and visit her blog. She's very proud today to have been featured on The Best of Your Before & Afters for her makeover of desk that looked pretty unsalvageable to me but she turned into a work of ART! I think I'm spending my morning looking at other makeovers that The Best of Your Before & Afters has featured. If you're visiting from Rhoda's be sure to read the previous post for my Thrifty Treasures and please become a follower! Happy Labor Day!

Moral Dilemmas

I was stumbling again today and I came across a Website called Some Moral Dilemmas. This websites gives a list of moral dilemmas from a book called Moral Reasoning, by Victor Grassian (Prentice Hall, 1981, 1992).

Reading this website brought back memories of an Ethics class I once took where I argued with a professor that ethics and morals have a religious background. If you don't know right from wrong because you were never taught as a child what God considered right or wrong than how can you know what is ethical or moral? This professor did not agree with my theory and brought up the question of atheists who don't believe in God, weren't taught right or wrong as decided by God. Did that mean atheists didn't know how to be ethical or moral? It made me think. But I think what I was trying to say is that for me, making ethical or moral decisions is based somewhat on WWJD - What would Jesus Do, even way before that saying became popular.

So in reading some of the moral dilemmas on the website I noticed that my decisions are based on my faith, my religious upbringing and WWJD. Read some of them and see what you think? For instance...here's a random one:

A Parent's Agonizing Choice
You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

My immediate reaction is that God says Thou Shall Not Kill. He doesn't say Thou Shall Not Kill unless your children are in mortal danger. So morally and ethically according to my religious upbringing I answered that I would not do what the guard wanted me to do. Not because it was my son, but because it's not in my hands to take another person's life. Even if taking that life will save another.

But then I got to thinking further, that peace officers and soldiers and doctors make those decisions everyday. Sometimes you have to take the life of someone to save the life of someone else. Peace officers may have to shoot a bank robber who has taken hostages in order to save the lives of the hostages. Soldiers may have to take lives of innocent bystanders in order to save the lives of even more humans in the community. A doctor may have to terminate a pregnancy in order to save the mother.

It's interesting to contemplate all these different dilemmas and choices that can be made and why. For instance, this dilemma:

The Fat Man and the Impending Doom
A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. [But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite.] There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using [that] dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?
Since the fat man is said to be "leading" the group, he is responsible for their predicament and reasonably should volunteer to be blown up. The dilemma becomes more acute if we substitute a pregnant woman for the fat man. She would have been urged by the others to go first out of the cave.

What do you think? How would you vote?

Thrift Shopping is like Disneyland?

My sister hates shopping.
HATES it!
Once in a while though, when she feels I need or deserve a special treat (like I'm her little pet dog) she will allow me the privilege of going thrift store shopping with her.
Did I mention she hates shopping? Well she especially hates thrift store shopping. She doesn't mind so much going into a store like JC Penneys or Walmart and going right to a certain department and getting the exact items she has on her list...but she doesn't have that "Thrill of the Hunt" that is inbred in me from the Tarango side of the family!

My Tia Leonor was the Queen of Thriftshopping the Queen of Yardsaling and the Queen of Antique Stores. You could not drive past a yard sale with Tia Nor and not know that you HAD to stop. And she could find treasures like no one else could. Her home was filled with her treasures and we all know about her "cuartito" that was filled with...um, well I don't know what it was filled with cause no one ever let us kids in there, but I'm sure it was filled with treasures.

Later as we all grew up Tia Nor filled the buses that Tio Tino and Tio Jesus had parked on her property with more treasures. And she knew what was in each of those buses and in the cuartito and if people needed something she knew just where to go and get it. She also had a pretty lucrative business selling clothing she picked up at yard sales for a song and selling it for a profit to migrant farm workers. She was my hero! heroine?...well you get the point.

I especially remember a plate that she had hanging in the kichen. The plate had John F. Kennedy on it. I loved that plate and always wished she would give it to me. I guess I should have asked, but I never did and I never knew what became of that plate. I hunt for it online, but although I've found others similar, it's not the plate I remember.

So thrifting is in my blood and I remember a few weeks ago for some reason on the way home Lisa suggested that we stop at one of my very favorite thrift stores, Goodwill on Rosedale Highway. I was thrilled and the closer we got the more excited I got. And when we were in the middle lane waiting for a pause in the traffic so I could turn left into the parking lot Lisa was laughing at me about how excited I was. And I told her that to me, going thrift store shopping is like a little kid going to Disneyland, you just get all excited and you can't wait and dad can't drive that car fast enough into the parking lot for you. Remember that feeling from being a kid whether it was going to Disneyland or to a County Fair or Circus? That's the feeling I get about thrift shopping, and I thought I was the only one until today when I read the blog Manic Thrift Store Shopper.

This guy Brian, is my spiritual Tarango twin and he speaks in a language that only true thrift store connoisseurs understand, just listen to him write about how he feels...

"When I drive past a thrift store, I often imagine that I feel a little pull to go inside. I think that something, some object, is calling out to me to be found and rescued from the shelves piled high with junk. I believe that if I look long enough and hard enough, that amazing object will be revealed and I will be rewarded for following my instinct, for turning from the street into the parking lot and getting out of my car."

Please go check out his site, he has so many "pretties" for you to see and he's one heck of a writer as well.

It was a great weekend!

I've really been having a lot of fun the last two weekends thrift shopping with my mom on Sundays. Eddie Ross and Rhoda at Southern Hospitality have really gotten me in the mood. And even more so since Eddie is coming to California for a shopping excursion at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I'm trying to get a little group together of me, my daughter April, my sister Lisa and my co-worker Angelica, so we can all go and meet him and shop with him. It should be so much fun I'm really hoping we can all pull it together and go!

But til then, let me show you some treasures I found the last few weeks. This isn't everything, but it's just some of my favs and the ones I can show you since I don't plan to give them as gifts. These are MINE Baby!

First off is the lovely watercolor picture by the artist Laurie Korsgaden. This photo doesn't do it justice, the colors are so vibrant and yet soft. I love it! I hung it in my bedroom to make me happy first thing when I wake up!

I also found this beautiful Candle holder, another item with beautiful, rich, vibrant colors. I love it! Even without a candle it looks to me like a work of art!

See the beautiful detailing on the bottom... and oh yes, I did crochet the doily/thingy it's sitting on. See...I am a Jack of All Trades. Thanks to my wonderful mother who taught me so well and patiently how to crochet.

and here's a close up view of the top.

Well, these are all the ones I can show you that I took pictures of. But I also bought two books that I love. One is "Napkin Folds ~ Beautifully Styled Napkins for Even Occasion" by Bridget Jones and Madeleine Brehaut and the other is "Decorative Murals" with Donna Dewberry. I just love the whole napkin folding thing even though I have never used cloth napkins. They just display so great when doing a tablescape. Speaking of tablescapes, remember my first post about them?

Well I wasn't really thrilled with the way my first one came out but today my daughter came over and saw it. She thought it looked a little bare and she was on her way to Kmart and told me she would see if she could find somethings to jazz it up a bit. Well she did, bless her lil ol heart! See...

Thank you April, just what I needed, a little pop of color. Now I love it! And, Welcome Home!

Jack of All Trades, Master of None

Napolean Hill, one of America's earliest Motivational Writers says, "The jack-of-all-trades seldom is good at any. Concentrate all of your efforts on one definite chief aim."

That's me. Jack of all trades, master of none. I like saying I know a little bit about a lot of things but not a lot about just one thing. Is that a good thing? Or a bad thing?

It might be a good thing to concentrate all your efforts on one definite aim in your career or business, but not in your personal life and hobbies and interests. While it may be good to be an expert knitter or sewer, wouldn't it be better to be just a so-so knitter and so-so sewer and so-so cook and so-so painter and...well you get my point. Try lots of new things and have fun with them, rather than getting all intense and stressed out about trying to be perfect at just one of them. What do you think?

I like being just so-so about a lot of things. That being said, I have a new interest. Blogger hosts a Blogs of Note award that it gives out daily to a blog they think is worthy. I try to check out the blog of note each day and some of them are great and some of them are things I'm not interested in at all, but it's always fun to check.

The other day, I checked out a blog of note about Tablescaping! What is tablescaping you ask? Good question, I'd never heard of it either. So I clicked on the link and Tablescaping is simply setting a beautiful, interesting, unique, special table for either a special event, or as this blogger does, just for everyday use. Go check out this blog and look at all the great tablescapes and see if you don't get some idea of your own. I know I did. Let me share.

I decided to try my hand at a Valentine's Day table, see what you think. I first got the idea because I have the Corelle Pink Heart dishes like these...

I've had these dishes probably since 1990 or so. And I love them and use them as my everyday dishes. But then I remembered some dishes I bought about 8 years ago while shopping at a Goodwill with my mom.

They have beautiful flowers and a butterfly which I love, so I thought I would try these instead, since they aren't my everyday dishes.

I didn't have a pretty tablecloth or runner I could use, so I stuck with the crocheted tablecloth thingy I've been using on my table, since the color is neutral and it's kind of romantic.

I then looked around my kitchen to see what else I had that would work and be valentiny. Remember the post I did about the champagne flutes my daughter gave me? I mentioned some amber colored glasses, they are really more rose colored, although they do photograph a bit more orangy.

And see the pink napkin above? On Friday I went to the American Cancer Society Discovery Store (a nice way to say thrift store). It's an awesome and wonderful store and I went there again today. I'm hooked! It's so well decorated and the displays are made with such attention to detail, I love it. Anyway, I bought four pink napkins, just cause I like pink, I had no plans at that time to do a tablescape using them, but they sure came in handy!

And here's the whole table. The angel blowing a kiss in the middle was the centerpiece for my niece Sarena's quincinera in August of 2005. I have two of them and I just love placing them in different places around my house. The other one is in my bedroom right now, on a nightstand, blowing me kisses before I go to bed :-) I think I still would like a different centerpiece and I will show you what I did differently at the end. The pink candles I've had forever and had never used them. I have some lilac ones exactly the same, and the hearts strewn about are candies.

Here's a closeup of the napkins and the silverware, I didn't put any knives on it. I don't know why, maybe whatever I plan to serve for Valentine's day won't need cutting?

The napkins look rather plain don't you think? So i found this wonderful website that teaches you lots of different ways to fold them. I did the one below because it was the simplest and also the only one that I saw that didn't require an iron and starch, (I just don't do irons and starch)!

So here is the finished table. Except the angel still doesn't seem right. I think I need to add some pink flowers to her, or maybe something totally different???

How about this? This was my purchase today at the American Cancer Society Discovery Store. I saw it Friday and secretly coveted it. It was $18.00 and that seemed pricey to me, but remember what happened last time I saw something I wanted and I didn't buy it? Well I took a chance again with this item. When I was there on Friday I saw a sign that said that on Super Bowl Sunday they would have everything in the store 25% off. So I figured I would wait til Super Bowl Sunday and if it was there it was meant to be...and it was there!! Yippee!!!!

So here's the final table, sorry about the lighting but it's late in the evening. It still seems kind of bare to me. I think I'll email the Tablescaping lady and have her take a look at it and give me some ideas. I'm thinking maybe if I take the cover off the cake stand and put pillar candles in shades of pink and white in varying heights it might help. What do you think?

How to spend a Sick Day

Today I stayed home sick from work. Something I ate yesterday kept me up all night singing praise to the Porcelain God. I got very little sleep, so even though I felt kind of ok in the morning, I was really tired and knew that it was going to be tough getting through the day. So I stayed home! A 3-day weekend, Whoooo hoooo!

I got plenty of sleep, paid some bills online, shredded a whole bunch of crap and found some really unique items on some really unique websites.

On Pooktre Tree Shapers I found some really unique “tree furniture. Such as the chair below. Some people have so much creativeness (is that even a word?) and patience. I know I couldn't do this. Follow their link if you want to see more.

This website features a photographer by the name of Nick Brandt. Nick’s photographs are of Africa and feature lots of zebras, lions, cheetahs, elephants and monkeys. There's a pic of a monkey actually posing. Nick says this about his photography, “My images are unashamedly idyllic and romantic, a kind of enchanted Africa. They’re my elegy to a world that is steadily, tragically vanishing.”

My favorite photo was this one. It really is idyllic and romantic and ethereal as well.

Ok, this one I love but have no use for as my kids are too old now for me to tie their shoes and I hardly ever wear shoes with ties, usually only when I play tennis. But "How to tie your Shoelaces" shows some really unique ways to lace up shoes, check it out, here’s a sample.

And at The Size of our World I was well…amazed at the size of our world. Makes you wonder about whether these is life on other planets since most of them are so much larger than Earth!

And if it boggles your mind too much to think about the grandness of the galaxy, perhaps this website is more your cup of tea. I tried to place all the states where they’re supposed to be, but pretty much I only know where the original 13 colonies are, California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Alabama and Oregon are. Sad and pathetic I know.

Last but not least I found this amazing baker/artist at Mike's Amazing Cakes. They really do make the most amazing cakes, just like the one below.


Next time you have a sick day, go check out all these websites and tell me what you think.

Candy Fanatic or Not?

I'm not really big on sweets. I do have my favorites, but give me Chips and Salsa every time instead and I'm a happy camper! But I do come from a family of candy lovers. I believe all my nieces and nephews love, love, love CANDY. I know my own kids would rather have candy than Chips and Salsa and my mom absolutely loves chocolate.

So for all you candy lovers out there I've found a great blog for you. It offers documented reviews of candy from around the world. You can find the link here http://www.typetive.com/candyblog/ and of course it's on my links listed in the right hand panel. Go see if your fav candy is listed. They also have a rating system and were not very generous in rating one of my fav candies, Red Vines, darn them!



A few interesting facts:

• The brand of candy that has the most listings on this website is Hershey's with 133 different types of candies. Next is Nestle's with 88.


• The U.S has listed 598 different varieties, with Japan being runner-up with 69 (What does that say about Americans?)


• The Ukraine, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Kenya and Peru all have only one listing. I don't think that means they only have one type of candy, but probably the reviewers have only gotten to sample one type from those countries.


• Mexico has 21. I know here in California, candies from Mexico are greatly loved. I went through the Mexico ones and I didn't see any of the ones that we can find in local "carnicerias" here in California.

Stay tuned for posts in the future about:

• Mexican candies we know and love.
• Mexican "dichos" or "sayings" we grew up with
• Mexican songs and lullabies
• Mexican holiday traditions

Cauliflower Soup

“Explaining something sensible to Lord Killanin is akin to explaining something to a cauliflower. The advantage of the cauliflower is that if all else fails, you can always cover it with melted cheese and eat it.” – William E. Simon

I have not a clue who Lord Killanin is, or why he’s so hard-headed. All I know is that I’m making Cauliflower soup and at least I know that you can always cover it with melted cheese. Anything is better with melted cheese, just like any day with BACON is a good day!

Since I’ve been home recuperating from my surgery I’ve been reading food blogs nonstop! I wish the things I read would stick, but they don’t. Thanks to the magic of bookmarking though, I’ve saved a whole folder of special recipes to try. I especially want to try soups even though I know it’s still 85 degrees outside right now. Let’s just pretend it’s cold and foggy and misty!

This recipe is from here. And it seems so super simple. Actually it looks upon further reading that the writer wants me to try making the soup with butter and with olive oil…oops! I only did butter. Sorry Becks & Posh, next time if it turns out well this time, I’ll try it with olive oil.

The cast of characters, 1 lb. of cauliflower florets, 2 tbsp. butter, 1 small onion chopped, 3 cups water, 2 tsp. salt, pepper as desired


I went pretty much just by the recipe as shown on their website:

In a heavy pan with a lid, I melted butter over a low heat. (Next time I will use much more butter, I think like 4 tbsp because I love it real buttery.) Then I added the onion and cooked gently, it did get a little brown on me but I think that gave the soup a richer, nutty sweet taste.


Then I added the cauliflower florets, the salt (next time more salt, maybe another tsp.) and I put in a whole cup of water because it seemed like too much cauliflower to me. I then covered and cooked it for 20 minutes, exactly.


After 20 minutes, I removed the lid and added 2 ½ cups water and simmered on low heat for 20 minutes, stirring gently every once in a while. I got so excited after the 20 minutes that I forgot to take pictures of it during this time and during the cooling process (just let it slightly cool). I also didn't take pictures during the blending process, but puree in the blender (next time, I will not puree as I like it chunky, it kinda had the consistency of Cream of Wheat).

But at least I took a picture of it before I ate it all. That's it in the little red bowl, sprinkled with pepper, next time I would cook the pepper with it for flavor as well. But all in all, it was pretty good. I would serve it in a bread bowl with shredded cheese and some paprika.

Plus side to having Surgery

I'm not a silver lining, glass is half full kinda person, but I have found the plus side to having had surgery and being incapacitated at home. What is it you ask? Well, it's the well-earned right to do absolutely nothing and spend days and days blogging, reading blogs, organizing blogs and posting blogs. Not to mention your mommy comes over every day and makes you breakfast and does your laundry for you :)

I know...I'm super spoiled. But hey, in my defense, I haven't had a vacation in over 10 years, except for the occasional couple of days off to attend out of town funerals! So I'm entitled am I not?

One of the blogs I've read and organized in my new little bookmarking tool, delicious is this one, http://noblepig.com/

I am so in love with this blog and with Cathy, the creator and writer of this blog. She started posting a blog in January of 2008 and so far I've only read up to Mach of 2008 but I just read a post that is a story about a family of liqueur filled chocolate bottles, hopefully this link will get you to this story. I guarantee if you read this story you will be hooked on reading this blog every single day! http://noblepig.com/2008/03/02/chocolate-attraction-a-tragically-tragic-love-story.aspx

If you loved this story, you should check out her recipes. I don't usually read blogs and laugh out loud, but I did with this one.