Depeche Mode..

This morning while getting ready for work I had MTV on they were actually playing videos.. This video was playing and both myself and my hubby were dancing around singing this song, like fools and then we noticed that a car had stopped in front of the house and was watching us dancing around they were laughing and giving us thumbs up (they didn't stop for us they were waiting for a car to pass to go and must have just looked in the window).

BUSY BUSY Busy

Have you ever had 0ne of those days that you had too much to do that you just wanted to say screw it and not do any of it. Today I have a appt with my trainer at 10am then i need to clean the house up a little and then for my afternoon my options are. Either go to my cousin's bday party, Kelly's activity. Either way I would have to be home by 5:30 to go to another bday party at 6 that I have known about for over a month. Ugh what to do..

Life

I got this link emailed to me and it is beautiful. I thought I would share. I hope you all enjoy.

http://www.greatdanepromilitary.com/Life/index.htm

watch the whole thing..

A childhood story that still haunts me to this day.

When I was a about 6 yrs old, my cousin was staying the night over (it was rarely that we were not together as we are only 7 months apart). Well in the middle of the night she started gagging and my aunt ran into the room only in time to witness my cousin puking up chunks of peaches in my hair. To this day I can not stand the smell of peaches it makes me gag, even thinking of the fuzzy feeling of peaches gives me the chills. Last night I visited a friend whom I have not seen in a long time and I went to use the rest room and she had only peach scented soap so opened up the shower to see if there was different soap to use (yes it is that bad) and she only had peach scented everything. So I had to use the soap and gag while i did this and then make up a excuse to use hand lotion when i came out.

Blue Foundation

I heard this band first on the twilight soundtrack but this song SHINE I love it. I love the sound of it.

The Peace symbol

The CND or Peace symbol.

This symbol (☮) was originally used for the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and was adopted as its badge by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in Britain, and originally was used by the British nuclear disarmament movement. It was subsequently adopted as an international emblem for the 1960s anti-war movement, and was also adopted by the counterculture of the time. It was designed and completed February 21, 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist in Britain for the April 4 march planned by DAC from Trafalgar Square, London to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in England^[5]. The symbol itself is a combination of the semaphoric signals for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament. In semaphore the letter "N" is formed by a person holding two flags in an upside-down "V," and the letter "D" is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. These two signals imposed over each other form the shape of the peace symbol. In the first official CND version (preceded by a ceramic pin version that had straight lines, but was short lived) the spokes curved out to be wider at the edge of the circle which was white on black.^[6][7]

Semaphore 'N'

Semaphore 'D'

Holtom later wrote to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News, explaining the genesis of his idea in greater depth: "I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it."^[7]

U.S. Army PoW Richard H. Springman discusses his peace symbol necklace with his North Vietnamese Army captors during the Vietnam War

The peace symbol flag first became known in the United States in 1958 when Albert Bigelow, a pacifist protester, sailed his small boat outfitted with the CND banner into the vicinity of a nuclear test. The peace symbol button was imported into the United States in 1960 by Philip Altbach, a freshman at the University of Chicago, who traveled to England to meet with British peace groups as a delegate from the Student Peace Union (SPU). Altbach purchased a bag of the "chickentrack" buttons while he was in England, and brought them back to Chicago, where he convinced SPU to reprint the button and adopt it as its symbol. Over the next four years, SPU reproduced and sold thousands of the buttons on college campuses. By the late 1960s, the peace symbol had become an international symbol adopted by anti-war protestors of the Baby Boomer generation. ^[8]

In Unicode, the peace symbol is U+262E: ☮, and can thus be generated in HTML by typing ☮ or ☮. However, browsers may not have a font that can display it.

The original drawing of the CND is housed in the Peace Museum, U.K.^[9] in Bradford, England, where a replica is on public display.

The symbol's resemblance to a bird foot in a circle gave rise to alternative interpretations, ranging from plain mockery of "crow's foot" or "The footprint of the American Chicken" to a number of occult meanings, such as an upside down crucifix with the arms broken downward, suggesting the way that St. Peter was martyred (see Cross of St. Peter), or a representation of Jesus on the cross upside-down. This broken cross of Christianity was commonly conjectured as an antichrist symbol in the 1960s. Others have claimed that the symbol resembles a medieval sign known as "Nero's Cross" that represents Christian heresy.^{[10][11][12][13]} Alternatively, some have suggested that the symbol is an inverted Elhaz rune, which would reverse the rune's meaning, according to the critics, from 'life' to 'death' (although the Elhaz rune is thought to mean elk^[14]). Gerald Holtom's explanation of the genesis of the symbol and his first drawings of it, however, do not support those interpretations. Ken Kolsbum, a correspondent of Mr. Holtom, says that the designer came to regret the symbolism of despair, as he felt that peace was something to be celebrated and wanted the symbol to be inverted.^[15] The peace symbol was also believed by some to represent a swept-wing bomber, the type that would be used to deliver a nuclear weapon. In fact the United States 8th Air Force Museum sells decals of the top profile of a B-52 Stratofortress bomber, which strongly resembles the peace sign, with the words "Peace The Old Fashioned Way" along the border of the decal.^[16] Also, an icon nearly identical to the peace symbol was used by the Nazi German 3rd Panzer Division during World War II.^[17]

Richard M. Spencer, late of the World Wildlife Fund, created much unexpected derision when he used the symbol for the marketing campaign "Have you hugged a panda today?" which featured a drawing of a panda holding a peace sign. The posters were made during the height of the Vietnam conflict and the use of the peace sign turned off many would-be supporters.

Happy Spring to everyone..

This picture is titled michigan in anticipation photo taken by Viewoftheworl...




I welcome SPRING with open arms and hopefully people will get out of their winter funks.

Whoopie! Cookie, Pie or Cake

I read this article and thought these look good. I might try making them. Has anyone had them before?

Whoopie! Cookie, Pie or Cake, It's Having Its Moment

FOR generations, vacationers in Maine and visitors to Pennsylvania’s Amish country have found a simple black and white snack in restaurants and convenience shops and on nearly every gas station counter: whoopie pies.

Recipe: Whoopie Pies (March 18, 2009)

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

They were found in other pockets of the country, too, from New England to Ohio. But in most of the United States, people could be forgiven for not knowing that the whoopie pie is not, in fact, a pie at all. (It is sometimes described as a cookie, but that is not quite right, either. The closest description may be a cake-like sandwich, or perhaps a sandwich-like cake.)

Now whoopie pies are migrating across the country, often appearing in the same specialty shops and grocery aisles that recently made room for cupcakes. Last fall, they even cracked the lineup at Magnolia Bakery in Manhattan, which helped turn cupcakes into a national craze thanks to the bakery’s exposure on “Sex and the City.” Under the name “sweetie pies,” heart-shaped whoopie pies showed up in the February catalog from Williams-Sonoma. Baked in Maine with local butter and organic eggs, they sell for $49 a dozen.

In their traditional round form, whoopie pies can be found at Trader Joe’s supermarkets, at Whole Foods in Manhattan and at small bakeries like Kim’s Kitchen in Evanston, Ill., outside Chicago.

Kim’s Kitchen (soon to be renamed Fraîche) was an early adopter, first offering its hockey-puck-size pies seven years ago. The cakes come in chocolate and pumpkin, which remains a popular flavor long after the autumn leaves are gone, according to the shop’s owner, Susan Friedman.

“If we took them away after it stopped being fall, there would be a riot outside,” Ms. Friedman said.

Whoopie pies have been on the rise for several years, and nobody can pinpoint the reason they finally broke into the national consciousness. But the snacks evoke a more homespun era that seems to provide some comfort amid the economic gloom. “Pure edible nostalgia,” the Williams-Sonoma catalog calls them.

“Especially now, when people are so stressed out, they are going back to whoopie pies,” said Emily Isaac, owner of Trois Pommes Patisserie in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Ms. Isaac had never heard of whoopie pies before she was asked to make them as wedding favors three years ago. Entranced at first taste, she put them on the menu at her bakery when it opened in May 2007.

There are dozens of variations on the shape, flavors and fillings. Trois Pommes serves what seems to be the classic version: two round mounds of chocolate cake, about three inches across, with French vanilla cream filling.

The whoopie pie sold since last fall at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, in Ann Arbor, Mich., sports a chocolate glaze on its dense chocolate cake and is filled with Swiss buttercream filling.

The basic elements of the whoopie pie turn up in many other snacks that might be considered its far-flung relatives. Amy Emberling, a partner at Zingerman’s Bakehouse, grew up in eastern Canada eating a similar cookie called a Jos. Louis. Oreo sells a whoopie pie look-alike called the Oreo Cakester, while the Hostess Suzy Q is a square version that vies for space on some store shelves with whoopie-esque Little Debbie snack cakes.

Food historians believe whoopie pies originated in Pennsylvania, where they were baked by Amish women and put in farmers’ lunchboxes.

Tired from a morning’s work, the farmers purportedly would shout “Whoopie!” if they discovered one of the desserts in their lunch pails, Ms. Emberling said.

In parts of Pennsylvania, whoopie pies remain a celebrated sweet. The annual Whoopie Pie Festival at the Hershey Farm and Inn in Strasburg, Pa., features a whoopie pie eating contest and the coronation of the Whoopie Pie Queen.

The whoopie pie would probably be Maine’s state dessert, if the state had one. The filling is generally of one of two types: a thick, sweet frosting made from Crisco shortening combined with confectioners’ sugar, or, more conveniently, a dollop of Marshmallow Fluff.

The cake itself is typically not especially sweet, and is often on the dry side, since the frosting lends plenty of sugar and a gooey consistency, said Sandra Oliver, a food historian and columnist in Islesboro, Me.

How the cookies traveled to Maine is a mystery, however.

One theory holds that whoopie pies were brought north during the Great Depression through the Yummy Book, a recipe pamphlet first published in 1930 by Durkee-Mower, the Massachusetts company that makes Fluff.

Don Durkee, whose father co-founded the firm, discredits that notion. After checking the company’s collection of pamphlets, the earliest appearance of whoopie pies he found was during the 1970s. “I’m baffled,” he said.

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

Quinci Huston digs in to a whoopie pie in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Michelle Litvin for The New York Times

FOR $3, JOY Pumpkin-flavored whoopie pies sell well at Kim's Kitchen in Evanston, Ill.

Michelle Litvin for The New York Times

Susan Friedman owns Kim's Kitchen, outside Chicago.

Leslie Land, a Maine writer, said her research showed that the recipe might have been popularized by one of the many local radio programs aimed at housewives during the 1930s.

No matter how they arrived, they have been eaten by Maine residents for at least eight decades, said Ms. Oliver, who publishes Food History News, a monthly newsletter. Labadie’s Bakery, in Lewiston, Me., which sells whoopie pies as big as 16 inches across, claims to have sold them since 1925.

Many of the whoopie pies sold in Maine come sheathed in plastic wrap. Generally sold for less than $2, they can be found stacked next to cash registers, the dry cake growing moister by the hour. “If you peel the Saran off and half the cookie doesn’t come away, it’s not a real whoopie pie,” Ms. Oliver said.

Ms. Friedman, in Evanston, agreed that her whoopie pies have a rustic image rather than a luxury one, although they sell for $3 each.

“They’re not as perfect as a lovely cupcake that has a beautiful swirl of icing on top,” she said. “They’re a little more handmade looking.”

At Magnolia Bakery, maple-cream icing is sandwiched between two brown-sugar cakes. Sina Clark-Murphy, the head baker, said that the whoopie pie’s humble appearance may help it come across as less of a dietary threat than a frosting-piled cupcake or a serving of banana pudding. Unfortunately, they are no less caloric.

At the other end of the simplicity scale are the heart-shaped versions baked by the Cranberry Island Kitchen in Maine, which supplies Williams-Sonoma. The pies wound up in the catalog after a friend of one of the company’s food buyers sampled them at Bob’s Clam Hut in Kittery, Me., and recommended that the catalog stock them, said Carol Ford, one of Cranberry Island’s owners.

Cranberry Island’s whoopie pies, which start at $28.75 for six, are made with chocolate cake or vanilla and are available in shapes like scallop shells and pumpkins. Filling flavors include rum, peppermint, Cointreau, raspberry and espresso.

To Ms. Oliver, the food historian, that upscale approach misses the point.

“It’s like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with almond butter,” she said. “It’s not meant to be fine cuisine.”

smells

OMG tonight my hubby was eating a chicken patty sandwhich and for some reason it is grossing me out. i have no idea why but it is turning my stomach. what the hell. but since i am posting this about smells i wanted to let everyone know about my new favorite candle smell Lemon Lavender from yankee candles i love it i even bought the room spray that is how much i love it. What is your favorite spring smell?

movies

i used to be a huge movie fanatic and i lost it. lately i have been going to the theater more and i am enjoying it again. the hubby and i have been watching more movies together, instead of saying i dont want to watch that. i went and saw the new friday the 13th with my friend kristi and bill and i went with his grandparents to see the movie taken which was awesome and then the following week i went and saw the movie watchmen with my friend brad which was totally weird and showed a lot of penis in it. last night the hubby bought the movie role models we both laughed our butts off and then we layed in bed and watched the movie flock which was sort of disturbing but good. i am hoping to continue the movie spree.

Do Ants Sleep?

I saw a Ant yesterday and thought to myself do Ants sleep. I warned you that this would be the crazy ride of my mind. Looking it up I found a couple of different responses to this and they all basically say the same thing. This is what I found:

Q. Do Ants sleep?* A. In a word... No..... rest Yes This is is not well documentedand and i go into it further at www.goodperk.com it may vary from species to species but it is generally accepted that most ants have periods of dormancy that is akin to sleep.* An ant doesn't have eyelids for its compound eyes, but it does have periods of rest lasting several minutes, where its brain and biological functions slow down and it stops moving.* As workers have to respond to the colony needs, it could be seen as a way of preserving resources(food,etc.) each individual rests as necessary, waking as when needed by the colony. The whole colony does not go to 'sleep' at the same time.Matt Furlong

The Fourth Agreement

Always do your best!

The last agreement is the one that allows the first three to become deeply ingrained habits. Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more no less. It doesn't matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don't judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under. Doing your best you are going to live your life intensely. you are going to be productive you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to everything.

All of the agreements that I have posted about have come from the book called the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

I hope you all enjoy the agreements and feel free that if you use them tell me how it is going.

The Third Agreement

Don't Make Assumptions:

We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything. The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking- we take it personally- then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word. We create a lot of emotional poison just by making assumptions and taking it personally, because usually we start gossiping about our assumptions. We also make assumptions about ourselves, and this creates a lot of inner conflict. "I think I am able to do this." Then you do it and it turns out you can't do it and you get frustrated and feel defeated with yourself. When you hear something instead of going off the handle maybe you should go to the source and calmly talk about the issue. I know that I assume crap all the time. Things get said I go off the handle then I calm down. In reality what I should do it hear what is said and just roll with it. Until tomorrow when I post about the last agreement.