I say I'm retired, so I must be retired. I haven't had a big paying project in years, so I might well say I'm retired. I kicked in my Social Security. That definitely feels g-r-e-a-t! I hope these new tires are durable and long lasting. They're guaranteed for life I'm told.  

Six more weeks and I am done with my movie reviews. The Missus Lady has asked me if I would be interested in doing book reviews for the next round of ABC Wednesday . I told her I would think about it. It sounds interesting but I'm not too keen on doing reviews for awhile. Maybe if she wanted Jane Austen, Action Doll, and me to collaborate on something, I might give an absolute purrrring yes. What do you think? My House in Umbria   (2003) Setting: Umbria, Italy Emily (played by Dame Maggie Smith) is a middle-aged British expatriate who lives in solitude in the countryside of central Italy. She's alone not so much as to write romance novels but more so because she has closed down her emotions due to horrible things that happened to her in the past. Emily only trusts her agent. One day everything in Emily's life changes. The train that she is on gets blown up by terrorists.  In the hospital, Emily finds herself drawn to the young girl from the U.S. that Emily met o

Once upon a time the Husband and the Mama each bought me a simple dehydrator for Christmas. The Mama let me choose my present from her, while the Husband said, "Surprise!" I'm spoiled rotten, I tell you. Yes, I returned one dehydrator. As for the kept dehydrator, I experimented with it once. The dehydrator was nothing more than five plastic trays sitting on top of a plastic base that has a heating element in it. Both the Mama and I agreed that it took a lot of hours to dry a handful of fruit. Not to say I had to interrupt whatever I was doing to rotate the trays every two hours. After that one time I cleaned the trays and put everything back into its box. On Sunday, I decided that I wanted to dry some persimmons so I brought out the dehydrator. Instructions stated that it would take at least 24 hours to dry the fruit, which I figure would be about five or six persimmons. I didn't like the idea of the flimsy-looking machine being on while we slept. Besides I w

Last Saturday, the Husband and I walked a bit along a slough. I'm not kidding about "a bit". We couldn't find access to a slough where I felt like we wouldn't be trapped by four-legged or two-legged creatures. When we saw what looked like someone's tent by the water, we took the other path which circled us back to the car. Because I now walk on knees without cartilage the bit of a walk was good enough. We even climbed up an incline that had me gasping for breath at the top. It wasn't until I was looking at my photo on the computer that I saw the duck and egret in the scene, which I didn't see because I was so focused on composing the shot with the palm trees in the distance. With the magic of Photoshop, I was rewarded with this wonderfulness. I'm hooking up with Our World Tuesday . It's been a while. Click here to check out the other participants from around the world.

Ever had spaghetti pizza? The other day I used leftover spaghetti, made with a friend's awesome marinara sauce, as the "sauce" for a pizza. The spaghetti had zucchini, red pepper, yellow onion,  two huge handfuls of spring salad mix, and brie. On top of the spaghetti went layers of red onion, pepperoni, green olives, pimento, and farmer cheese. The marinara sauce was homemade by friend Gloria who grinds her own mixture of dried herbs and spices. The sauce had a light and mellow taste. Subtle and sophisticated. Wowza wow wow! Gloria gave us two tubs of her sauce, one for the freezer.  There are so many possibilities for the second tub. I could use it as a base for a cioppino or make a pasta dish with Italian sausage, for example. Both the Husband and I agree that we could even slurp up the sauce straight as soup. Yummmmm. Thank you, Gloria!