Wordless Wednesday

Musical Monday

I wonder how many of you will know this one?
This LP (long playing record for you young ones) came to us with my Father-in-law's collection.

John Charles Thomas (1891 - 1960) was a famous American baritone. His father was a Methodist minister and for a while he wanted to be a preacher as well, but later became interested in medicine. He had entered college to study homeopathy, but was offered a scholarship to the conservatory of music at the same time. He flipped a coin, and music one!

His first New York stage appearance was in "The Peasant Girl" where he stole the show. He went on to appear in Gilbert & Sullivan shows, and various pre-war operettas, but his preference was for concerts.

Hi first concert was in 1918. In 1924, he appeared in his first opera - "Aida"- which was followed by a concert tour, to earn enough money to study in Europe.

He had a contract in Brussels from 1925 until 1930 when he returned to America.

His repertoire embraces all fields - ballads, folk songs, art songs, operettas and opera. He has a rich baritone voice, a command of various dialects, and superb diction in all languages.

This album features some of his performance favourites: Oh, what a Beautiful Morning; Ol' Man River; Annie Laurie; The Green-Eyed Dragon; Steal Away; The Lord's Prayer and I Hear America Singing (a Cantata base on Poems of Walt Whitman).

Frangipanis

Our beautiful frangipani tree has almost finished flowering. I miss the flowers when they are gone, but without their absence, I wouldn't have the joyous feeling of noticing them burst into bud and then watching for the first flowers to uncurl and show off their beauty.

Frangipanis are one of my favourite flowers. Particularly the white ones with the yellow centres. I love the glorious purity of the white, and the clarity and glow of the yellow.

Their fragrance....aaaah! There is no forgetting their sweet, exotic smell.

They are one of the things I love about summer.

Memories come floating back into my mind when the breeze carries their perfume through the air....memories of wearing them in our hair as kids, pretending we were beautiful Hawaiin hula dancers....memories of swimming in Mum's pool with two trees near the fence filling the air with their aroma while we flirted with our boyfriends....memories of them floating in the pool with us, when we swam at night, lit only by the full moon....

I loved their fragrance so much, that when DH and I got married, my Mum and Sister spent the morning placing wet cotton wool around the stems of 80 frangipanis, combined with a sprig of asparagus fern, then wrapping each one with a piece of foil, slipping a safety pin through them, misting them, then placing them in baskets, to be handed out at the church for everyone to wear.

I was married at the end of January, on an extremely hot day, and the fragrance that greeted me when I entered the church was absolutely divine!

Scatterday!

This week's Scatterday is brought to you by the Happy, Highbrow, Hot pink letter H, and the categories: Colour, Games, and Pointy Things.

Colour: Darling Hubby Helped me Hunt down these Harmonious Hues of blue. They are "High Flyer" and "Harbour Blue". I don't think they came from the Haynes range of paints, though. Pity!

Games: Of course, I Had to Haggle to get Him to Help. He Harangued me until I agreed to a Handicap while we played the games I had Hauled out of the Heap in the games cupboard. Anything for Harmony!

Here we Have a selection to while away the Hours.

Pointy Things: After a Humiliating loss, I decided to eat Humble pie, adjust my Halo, and Hail Him as the victor!

Besides, as the pointy Hands on the clock indicated, it was High time we Headed for bed.

The Hairtail fish, with it's pointy tail, pointy mouth and extremely pointy teeth, Had been Heated on the Hob, the Heavy Halberd Had been placed near the Hearth, and the Hexagram Had been Hung on its Hook!

An early Scatterday?

I was going to save this for Scatterday (the letter H, colour, games and pointy things) but it's too much fun not to share it now!

HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened in 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over Europe. There is lots of colour at Hema, and their people know how to play games and have fun. There's even some pointy things!

Take a look at Hema (HEMA's product page). You can't order anything, and it's in Dutch, but just wait a little while after the products show up and watch what happens.

This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer.

Wordless Wednesday

Tagged!

I have been tagged by the lovely Di!

Here are the rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you
2. Post THE RULES on your blog
3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog
4. Tag 7 people and link to them
5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged.


7 weird or random facts:

mmm, only 7? That should be easy!

1. I like peanut butter and vegemite together, on the same sandwich.

2. My first car was a yellow 1974 Leyland mini, called Hajoseven Tythree. I loved him and was very sad to have to switch to a bigger car when baby no 2 came along. DH kept him to drive to work. We had him for 20years, but he eventually rusted out so much, you could see the ground under your feet! RIP Haji (HAJ 073)

3. I am a procrastinator. I leave things until the last minute, when they become urgent. For instance, I should be getting December's bookwork up to date and doing my BAS, but I've been working on my journal quilts instead!

4. I over-commit myself to things. Why do I do that? It's really bad, when combined with #3.

5. Sometimes I have a macabre sense of humour. When my Granmother had a leg amputated, I bought her a Teddy Bear and amputated it's leg at the same spot and bandaged it just like hers. I must have inherited her sense of humour, because when I took it to the hospital and gave it to her, she laughed! She loved it, and showed all the nurses.

6. I love dragons. I have several dragon sculptures in my house (they are not ornaments!) and quite a few cement ones in my garden. I also have a real one living in my back yard. He has 2 friends who visit occasionally. When they do, the yard gets quite crowded and I can't do my washing! So we run out of clean clothes occasionally.

7. It is 2 years, since I did more than 10 minutes of ironing at any one time. I iron on a needs basis, but that is about to change. No, I'm not going to start ironing. The beautiful ironing fairy is going to pick it up and iron it for me.

Wow! That's 7 already!

Now I tag Dy, Pennie, Liz, Jane, Andrea, Infamous Gnomes, Kate

Scatterday 2

I have found the Scatterday Thieves, (as described in the post below) skulking in the shadows, but unfortunately, I cannot use my photos, as they have already used them on their blog! Saboteurs!

So, here are my second lot of snaps.

This weeks Scatterday is brought to you by the scarlet letter S, and the categories: Fruit, Things that make you itch, and Gold.

Fortunately, I was able to race over to my son's garden and get all 3 snaps in the one spot.

He has a lovely Golden Butternut Squash growing this season, as he has decided to become self-reliant for much of his produce. Squash is a fruit (definition: part of the plant that contains the seed), not a vegetable.

The tiny spikes on it's leaves make some people (including me) itchy when they brush against them.

The inside of the squash fruit is a beautiful gold colour, hence the name Golden Squash!

How was that for a fast Scatterday? Now I'm off to punish those scallywag gnomes!

Scatterday!

STOLEN!

This week's Scatterday is supposed to be brought to you by the letter S, and the categories: Fruit, Things That Make You Itch, and Gold.

I had my snaps all ready to go, but some sneaky thief has stolen them! Sometime during the night, they have surreptitiously surmounted all safeguards, and either slipped off with them, or stashed them where I can't find them.

I will now have to slot in some time to seek some surrogate shots!

See you later!

Word verification voting

Time to vote a winner! I was going to put a vote meter on the side bar, but now that I want one, I can't find the link! :-)

So, check the comments for word verification entries on the February 8 post (and any posts after it, if you wish).

Choose your favourite, then vote for it in the comments section of this post.
You can make it anonymous, and you can vote for yourself, but please, only vote once.

Good luck everyone!

Baby books

It all started with this:

I bought some delightful fabric based around the theme "There was an Old Lady who swallowed a fly". I haven't made it into a quilt yet, but I also bought a cloth book panel, which I did make up.

I then decided that it would be fairly easy to make books for babies using any theme fabric.
This is part of my first book.
I cut 8 by 6" squares, all different, for the inside, then I cut 2 by 61/2" squares for the inside of the cover. The cover was one piece 61/2" by 13". (The cover is slightly bigger than the inside pages, so that the pages don't show when closed.)
I worked out the order of the pages, stitched them down the centre in pairs, fused wadding to 2 of the 4 pairs, leaving a 1/4" free for stitching, then stitched a wadded piece to a non wadded piece, back to back, leaving a gap to turn them right way. (stitch gap by hand)
I did the same with the cover pieces.
I then placed the 2 double pages inside the cover, aligning the centre seams, and zigzagged the centre of the book, starting and finishing about an inch in from the edge.
Very simple and a great way to use up leftovers. They make great baby pesents.
You could also make them without the wadding, for an old fashioned rag book.


cover:
an inside spread
centre spread

Wordless Wednesday

My "new" baby

Isn't she beautiful?

She's a Singer Featherweight 221k made in Scotland in 1951. I have wanted one ever since I heard about them and saw them online about 10 months ago. It means cutting down on fabric spending for a while, but she's worth it, I think!

She came complete with carry box, manual, several bobbins, lots of different feet and even a buttonhole attachment.

I haven't named her yet. Something, apparently, that you have to do.

*sigh* She's beautiful! and she's mine!

Musical Monday

I missed posting an album last week, so to make up for it, we have my entire collection of David Bowie albums on vinyl. This does not include my Bowie CDs or tapes.

As you can probably guess, I was a Bowie fan. Still am. I have a lot of admiration for his music, his lyrics, his theatrical styles and his art.

I wasn't what you'd call a hard core fan (i.e. I didn't dress and cut my hair in the latest Bowie character's style) like some did, but I bought everything I could get my hands on, including a few bootlegs. That wasn't easy in the Hunter, so I relied on a friend getting them from Sydney for me. Trouble was, she was even more into Bowie , so I only got what she didn't want.

Bowie's concerts were the absolute best! Such a showman. He was doing theatrical shows long before anyone else, and you always knew that his concert tours were well worth the money and the sitting all day outside the Showground so you could get right down the front (with your smuggled in camera - no digital cameras back then either) and be right there! Awesome!

Favourites? Mmmm, that's a hard one. I love Low, Heroes, Diamond Dogs and StationtoStation, best, I think, but there are individual tracks on various albums that I love, too.

My 26 year old daughter grew up hearing Bowie. In fact, we used to put Bowie on for her to go to sleep. None of that soft lullaby stuff for her! LOL

When both of our kids were old enough to sit and listen to stories, they loved listening to Bowie narrating Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, backed by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It's my favourite narration of Peter.

Scatterday!

This week's Scatterday is brought to you by the indignant, indigo, italic letter i!

The categories are: Australian, Yellow, and Things that you would find in the air.

I have 3 photos covering the 3 categories this week. Each has a slightly iffy category requirement.

First up is a map of Australia (in yellow) out of my Australian printed and published atlas.

Australia is an Island Continent, with the Indian Ocean off the western coast.

Being an island continent, and isolated for so long, we have many unique indigenous animals and indecidious trees.

One of our immediate neighbours is Irian Jayaa, which is part of the Islamic nation, Indonesia.

The atlas has an index, which lists places like Innaminka, Iluka, Inverell, Mt Isa, Isaac River, Innisfail and Inglewood.

The yellow indicator pin shows where I live.

It is being held in the air by a hand, just as it would be in infants school.

Second up is a photo of an instrument panel in a small plane. This was taken up in the air during my DHs trial flight. That's him on the right, wearing a yellow imported shirt. On the left is his Australian Aviation Instructor.

Thirdly, we have another imported yellow shirt, which has been made for Australian Industrial wear. This is often in the air, hanging from the clothesline.

Word verification

I just love those letter combinations that we have to type in sometimes for verification of our comments. Some are ordinary, but some really crack me up.
I just had one on someone's blog comment box that inspired me to do a post.

The letters were exsey.

Now what is your first thought at that combo? Hmmm?

So, I thought I'd play a game. Leave a "comment" on this post using the letters that appear for your verification. Make a sentence/phrase out of them, as you do for car number plates. Type it in the comments box for us all to see, then next week, we'll vote for our favourite. (I'll post for that on Friday) You can have more than one go, if you want. The more the merrier!

There'll be a little giftie for the winner!

Wordless Wednesday

Scatterday!

I had been zapping around the place in my Datsun 240Z, listening to Ziggy Stardust on the ipod, when I decided I needed a coffee and a serving of homemade Zabaglione at the Zeus Café.

I sat down at my favourite table and placed my order, playing with my antique zircon ring as I waited.
In the corner, Zechariah, a tall handsome Zulu, was playing a zanzer. Sometimes he played a zither. His music was oddly relaxing. Much of it, he had picked up while living in Zanzibar.He could also play drums; doing magic things with his Zildjian cymbals.When he wasn't playing music, he would be sitting reading a Zane Grey novel.

I had just finished eating the zest garnish on my Zabaglione and was drinking my coffee, when in came Zoe, wearing her zany zebra stripe pants, black and red Zorro cape and a top the colour of pink zinc! Her hair was piled on her head a'la Zsa Zsa Gabor.






She zig zagged her way through the tables, and flopped down opposite me, tugging open the zipper on her bag, and ordering a Blackberry Zinger, as she did so.

She had the glow of a zealot about her, and I wondered what she was up to now.

Last month, she had researched Zoroastrianism and had even gone as far as planning a trip to India to visit the Parsees. The fact that her bank account had contained a big fat zero was the only thing that had stopped her, and she knew not to ask me for a loan, as I had zilch myself!

The month before that, she had been heavily into astrology and the zodiac. She had stayed up so late working out her charts, and staying up to view the zodiacal light just before sunrise that month, that by day she acted like a zombie.

I kept wishing she'd take up the art and practice of Zen Buddhism, so she'd calm down a little. I guess that was hoping for too much with someone like Zoe. She was like a zeppelin in a zephyr! Cruising along until the breeze (or in her case, the idea) died.
At least she hadn't decided to become a Zionist. Not yet, anyway.

"I've just been to the zoo!" she exclaimed. "I know what my real calling is now…I'm going to do zoology. I've been taking photos of the zamouse and the zho with my zoom lens, and they are the most amazing animals."

Just then, Zorba came out from the kitchen, carrying a plate of zwieback in one hand, and a serving of zucchini and egg slice in the other. He was wearing his usual zoot suit with his father's old zoster fitting snuggly around his waist. Zorba considered himself to be very cosmopolitan. He would constantly quote Zola to us, just to prove he was educated.




"Hello my little Zincala," he said to Zoe. "What are you up to now? You are like a little zebra-finch, flitting here and there and everywhere. None could keep you in a zenana, could they?"

By now, I had finished my coffee, and I still had a zillion things to do before I could go home and catch up on some zzzs.
As I reached into my bag for the money to pay my bill, my hand brushed the zills I used for belly dancing, reminding me that I had a class that afternoon.
Adding a handful of zacks to the total, as a tip, and plucking a bright red zinnia from the little vase on the table, I left them, still conversing about zoophilia.









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Zabaglione

Serves: 6

I N G R E D I E N T S

8 large egg yolks

1 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar

1/2 cup of dry Marsala (or Sherry)

I N S T R U C T I O N S

Place the egg yolks and the sugar in top of a double boiler and place on top of the bottom of the boiler. The water should be lightly boiling and the should not be touching the bottom of the top of the boiler. (You can also use a bowl over a large pot of boiling water. ) Use a wire whisk and whip the mixture until it is foamy. Then add the Marsala and continue to cook the mixture until it has doubled in volume Use an instant-read thermometer to insure the mixture has reached 140°F. Beat the mixture for additional minute or two.Serve the zabaglione immediately. This dish looks quite elegant served in long stemmed wine or parfait glasses.