This Week's Carnival of the Recipes

This week's installment of Carnival of the Recipes is up at Prochein Amy. Looks like she'll be watching this year's Rose Bowl.

Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and a Marine

Here's a great laugh. Thanks to Instapundit for the link.

Lynne Cheney Reads Blogs

The VP's wife reads some of the same blogs I read. It was apparently in today's Wall Street Journal but I'm pointing you to the post at South Dakota Politics.

Carnival of the Cats 12/26/04

This week's installment is up.

Great Blogging Article

Fortune has a great article on blogging. Thanks to InstaPundit for the link.

Bush & Blair Compared to Roosevelt & Churchill

Martin Gilbert has a very interesting comparison of Pres. Bush and Prime Minister Blair to Roosevelt and Churchill. It's worth a read. Thanks to PowerLine for the link.

Books About Dayton, Ohio Online

There's a great new site filled with books, pamphlets, and articles concerning the history of Dayton, Ohio online. Thanks to Dick Eastman for the link.

Congratulations, Peyton!

He did it!

I Love Dark Chocolate

Mom always said that chocolate didn't get dark enough for me. Later I discovered that I had Swiss ancestry so that was a good excuse for my chocolate affection (and it really did seem to come through that ancestral line). However, a new study shows that dark chocolate is good for the heart. Now I have another excuse for indulging!

Missing Cincinnati

I love snow! We don't get enough of it in East Tennessee. I do remember a 14-16 inch snow in the area northwest of Cincinnati where I lived. Looks like this one is going to be 13-20 inches when all is said and done. Maybe they'd like to share some with me?

Digging in Cana

This is exciting even if they aren't the jars used in the first miracle.

Wonderful to Know that the Democrats are "Out of Business" in the South

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.) offers some encouraging news--the headline reads "Democrats 'Out of Business in the South'." Now - if we could only put them out of business in the "blue states."

Ole Miss Forgot to Do a Background Check

Seems the new Ole Miss coach has been arrested not once, but twice for domestic violence. What kind of example is that for football players who are already prone to violence? I keep telling them, they made a mistake in firing Coach Cutcliffe! By the way, I hope that LSU hires Coach Cutcliffe if Nick Saban leaves LSU.

ROFL - Cat Creation

Cat's version of creation.

I'm Crying . . .

This is so sad! I don't even want to contemplate losing Brumley. My heart goes out to northstar.

Ed Orgeron Heads to Ole Miss from Southern Cal

I'm actually shocked that ANY coach would actually consider going to work for Pete Boone at Ole Miss. I hope he can be successful and have a winning season each year, because if he has one bad year, he'll be out the way that Coach Cutcliffe is. (Can you tell I'm still upset?)

Google & Harvard

Some great news for family historians!

. . . And it's not just Harvard!

Blogging Cat

I love Blogging Cat. I especially like the post from a couple of days ago about humans changing their fur all the time!

Carnival of the Recipes #17

This week's installment is up at Mary Beth's.

Custody of Cats?

I was reading something online that talked about some couple fighting over custody of their cats. Since when does a human have "custody" of a cat? Anyone who has cats knows that the cat owns them, not the other way around.

More About Ole Miss

My sentiments exactly - who would want to work with Pete Boone?

Key Lime Pie History

A rather interesting blog entry on key lime pie and its history.

The South Carolina Situation

Well said.

I'm in Trouble Now

Late this afternoon, I went to the mailbox to retrieve the mail. A kitten (and a dog) followed me down the driveway. I needed to get something out of the car, and the kitten started climbing my legs. It was obvious that the kitten was scared of something. It was so tense. I picked it up and began petting it. It followed me to the door. I picked it up and petted it again and put it down. Brumley was watching me out the window. When I opened the door, the kitten followed me into the house. I could see Brumley did not like this one bit. I picked the kitten up, tried to console it, debated calling the vet listed on the rabies tag (which happens to the one we use) and inquire about the owner but decided that it was the kitten who had followed kids trick or treating on Halloween and figured it was close to home, then I put it back out. Brumley was keeping his distance. A few minutes later, the dog was barking outside. I went to see what was going on, and the kitten came into the house again. I put her back out. Brumley was not happen. Ever since the incident, he has been keeping his distance or hissing at me. I have a feeling I'll be sleeping alone tonight! (No furry friend to sleep with me!)

Gift Ideas for the Men on Your List

Barking Moonbat has some great suggestions.

Top 25 Christmas Songs

Over at Random Thoughts from MaryBeth is a listing of ASCAP's Top 25 Holiday Songs.

Puzzles

This brings back memories. We used to always have a puzzle up at Christmas on the card table. I usually purchase a puzzle or two that we work when I'm at Mom and Dad's over the holidays now, because it's just "what you are supposed to do."

Crescent Rolls - and not the Pillsbury Variety

BamaBlog has some yummy looking crescent rolls pictured on her site (and the

More on Ole Miss Situation

This is a great article! They should listen to that national sports writer at Washington Post. Sansing miscounted the seats at TN though; he's about 17,000 under.

A Downsized Christmas?

Here's an interesting post.

Attorney's Night Before Christmas

This was kind of funny.

Which Country Are You?

This was kind of Cool!

You're Egypt

Curator of ancient mystical secrets, your life on the surface is fairly typical these days. Though you are in denial about more things than most people. Nevertheless, you're trying to convince people that you're safe despite your more volatile and unstable times that seem to be behind you. You like cats a whole lot. You'd probably really appreciate The Blue Pyramid. Take the CountryQuiz at the Blue Pyramid

Now - how did they know I was a cat person?

Christmas

It seems like there are more and more people who are trying to do away with Christmas. Years ago, I remember a song on an album (remember those LPs?) we had at our house sung by George Beverly Shea, I believe, called "Put Christ Back Into Christmas." It seems like Christmas has become more and more secularized over the years. Religious displays aren't allowed in so many places nowadays. That's a shame. Yesterday, I heard someone on the O'Reilly Factor talking about the Denver Christmas Parade that is sponsored by a private organization. They are not allowing any parade entries with religious themes or religious songs. They are taking things too far. [I just checked FoxNews Web site to find a link to the story, and it looks like they got a lot of complaints and are letting Christmas stay for now.]

The first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.

Note: We're supposed to be able to freely exercise our religion. Why can't celebrate the real reason for Christmas?

Read Laurel's post over at The Purple Needle entitled "Christmas Is Not a Dirty Word."

Cape May Street

Taneya is working on a gorgeous cross-stitch picture of Cape May Street. How does she get that much done in three weeks?

The Friday Five (on Saturday)

1) Do you enjoy letter writing [as in snail mail]? When's the last time that you wrote someone a letter or a note? When's the last time that you received something in the mail from someone [not including regular stuff like bills, junk mail, etc.]?

I actually do. I prefer to type the letters nowadays though. I sent notes to a few folks this past month. I actually received something in yesterday's mail that was real mail. (Family historians like myself do tend to write and send letters more often. Even though we do send a lot of email, there's still plenty of cause for use of the US Postal Service.

2) Do you plan to send out holiday cards this year? Why/why not? Do you spend a lot of time on them? About how many holiday cards do you usually send each year?

Yes. I love receiving them myself. It's also the only contact I have each year with some people. I used to spend more time than I do now. I write a newsletter to insert in each one now and write personal notes on a few. I sent about 75 last year.

3) Have you ever had a penpal? Where and when? How long did you write to them, or are you still in contact with them? What kinds of things did/do you talk about with them? How did your penpal relationship come about?

I had several back when I was in junior high/high school. Most of them were folks I met when I was at church camp of some sort. We used to attend a family camp in Oklahoma each year. I wrote to friends in Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas from that. From my church camp in Mississippi, I had a couple of good pen pals. However, the most enduring pen pal relationship was with a friend I met while camping. I don't even remember exactly where we were camping when we met. It may have been in Alabama, but I'm not positive. However, we kept writing. She lived in South Carolina. We kept writing through college. (She attended Air Force Academy in Colorado.) We even wrote a bit after that. Now we are down to exchanging cards.

4) Do you feel that you have good penmanship? Did you ever have to take a handwriting class in school? Do you prefer typing letters or writing them by hand? Have you ever had yourhandwriting analyzed?

My penmanship varies in quality. I can write neatly, but I can write sloppily. No handwriting classes besides the usual teaching kids to write in elementary school. I love handwritten letters, but I prefer to type them. My cousin's wife analyzed it once years ago.

5) If you could receive a personal, hand-written letter from anyone in the world right now, who would you choose and why? Why would you want a letter from him/her?

Wow - that's a tough one, but it would be someone in the family or a friend. How about all my friends and family send me a letter, and then I'll decide which one I liked best? LOL

YUM!

Check out this week's Carnival of the Recipes.

Laughing Gas in 1823

Who would have thought of this use for nitrous oxide in the year 1823?

More Agreement about Cutcliffe

Everywhere I look, the sports editors and articles are agreeing. This one sums it up: "It's a sad day for Ole Miss."

I'm Not the Only One Upset . . .

I'm not the only person who is upset about the firing of Coach Cutcliffe. Looks like Archie Manning questions the decision.

Fire the Ole Miss Athletic Director

Okay, they fired Coach Cutcliffe when he had one bad season. He still has a winning overall record and brought some class to the team. I think we need to fire the A.D. who got rid of Colonel Reb and then Coach Cutcliffe. He's made a big mistake!