I am an unconventional cliche and cynical optimist... trying to follow my mind less and my heart more...
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Trying my hand at creating beautiful ETSY tresuries… maybe one will make the front page someday 
And someone over at Treasure Trove made it easy for people like me to get code to add my treasuries to my blog! Horray!
Generated using Treasure Trove by packagery.com
It has arrived! Here is the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows TRAILER for your viewing pleasure.
Have you seen it yet? I’ve probably watched it 5 times already…
Can. Not. Wait. 
November 2010, in 3D!
And July 2010… ahhhhhhh
While cleaning off my desk today, I came across this list the World Wildlife Fund mailed to me…
10 Simple Things You Can Do To Help Protect the Earth
Put on a sweater. Remember, when you turn up the heat in the wintertime, your furnace is probably burning fossil fuels. A sweater or a nice warm robe will keep you even warmer and will help conserve resources and reduce climate change.
Summer time on your end of the globe? Set your thermostat to 78 degrees when you are home and 85 degrees or off when you are away. Using ceiling or room fans allows you to set the thermostat higher because the air movement will cool the room. Always take into account health considerations and be sure to drink plenty of fluids in warm weather.
Put one foot in front of the other. One hundred years ago, 99.9% of people got by without cars! They took the train; they lived near their workplaces…and they walked. Using fuel-efficient cars is important, but we can save even more fuel by simply driving less.
Go for seconds. Recycling doesn’t only mean separating your cans and bottles. It can mean using things a second or third time. That nice padded envelope you got in the mail, for example? Instead of throwing it away, scratch out the address, tear off the stamps and use it again.
Watch your waste. Items you may be throwing away can contaminate the soil and water for thousands of years. Your community probably has special disposal procedures for things like used oil and batteries. Ink cartridges can probably be recycled where you bought them. And many of the new superefficient light bulbs contain mercury, so proper disposal is crucial. Check with the store where you buy them.
Paper nor plastic. Bring you bags with you! By taking reusable bags to the grocery store, you can cut down on the 350 bags the average American uses each year and reduce needless deaths to marine life caused by plastic bags that end up in streams, rivers and oceans.
BYOB. Last year Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles. Fill up a reusable water bottle at home and bring it with you. Don’t like the taste of your tap water? Buy a filter! (Remember, much of the bottled water sold today is filtered tap water, anyway…)
Flip’em off. In much of America we can’t even see the stars anymore, due in part to all the electric lights. Keep the light on in the room you’re in, but keep the rest of your house dark. You’ll find the dark is soothing.
Get in touch with your roots. Plant a tree! Good for the soil, good for the birds, good for reducing global warming – and good for the air you’re breathing!
Get off. Catalogs are great when they’re from companies you like to order from. But if you’re getting catalogs from companies you don’t buy from, call them and tell them to get you off their list – and that’s an order.
Support WWF. The World Wildlife Fund working to protect endangered species and preserve their habitats. Time is running out for many of the animals you love. There are many more non-profit organizations working to keep our planet healthy too. Here is a list of some more organizations that can use you support!
This pie is definitely a family favorite, and the recipe has been passed down for several generations (on my mom’s side).
Line a pie pan with crust. Take butter the size of a walnut, cream with 1 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon flour. Separate 2 eggs. Beat yolks and add to dry ingredients. Add 1 cup sweet milk and stir up well. Grate the rind of a lemon, add juice of 1 lemon, stir into liquid. Lightly fold in beaten egg whites. Pour into crust and bake in a moderate oven. Bake until nicely brown on top and fluffed up.
Needless to say, this pie never comes out quite the same. Each time I make it, I try to figure out what I did right or what I did wrong, hoping it will come out better the next time.
Once I used too moderate of an oven, or maybe just didn’t let it cook long enough. I brought it to my friend Jenn becuase I know she likes lemon treats… and sadly when we cut through the cake layer, the rest of the pie oozed all over the place. It was still totally edible, we just needed spoons instead of forks 
Now I know, “moderate” is your basic 350 degree oven.
The part of the recipe my family always jokes about it the butter measurement: the size of a walnut. Not that it is an exact science… but what kind of walnut are we talking about?! Surely walnuts 100 years ago were smaller than the walnuts of today. We’ve come to the agreement that a tablespoon is about the right amount of butter
And what to do with the egg whites? Beat them of course, but how long? I like beating them by hand with my big balloon wisk (my arms could use the exercise, and this pie has been made long before the electric mixers were an option anyway, so it can be done!). It’s probably easier to eyeball how stiff the whites are getting when you do it by hand too, I let them get to a stiff peak stage. It’s the folding in part that always makes me nervous. They make it look so easy on TV… I try my best to fold and not stir, and have accepted the fact the filling will look a bit lumpy.
This time, the pie did get “nicely brown,” hooray! Seems the pie needs about 45 minutes in the moderate oven. It is puffy looking when it comes out of the oven… and then un-puffs a little as it cools. Sometimes is pulls away from the side crust as it unpuffs, which makes me sad. But mom says that happened to Grandma when she cooked it too.
I definitely encourage you to try this recipe. If you do, let me know how it turns out!
At the beginning of April, I joined an online gift exchange though Swap-Bot. Basically, I signed up for a specific swap. Then a computer random picked someone else from the swap for me to send to (and someone else randomly recieved my name). The mission: find something on ETSY for $5 and send it to your person.
You have a profile on Swap-Bot for your sender to go by (mine included a list of my favorite items over on ETSY too)... and a couple days ago, I got my suprize in the mail…
Little Penguin Push Pins!! From from a shop called Peg’s Boards. So cute, I just love them! This was my first swap and I think it was a great success.
Have you been on ETSY before? It’s a wonderful site, and I’m not just saying that because I like making stuff. You can find just the most original items, so it’s a great place to look for gifts for hard-to-shop-for people. And all of the items are handmade or vinatage/repurposed. So you’re helping out people like me that like making stuff
Here is a snap shot of some of the fun things I have found. Yay ETSY! And Yay Swap-bot!
| Etsy Buy Handmade InMyLife |
