viewer discretion advised

i WARNED you. i am doing a scientific study of mary kay cosmetics. this is a scientific photo of my face, totally unretouched by photographic magic (i couldn't retouch or do photographic magic if my life depended on it), taken in my own personal bathroom.

this is the standard "BEFORE" picture. i always thought those pictures were retouched to make them look worse. apparently not, since my scientific picture looks pretty, uh, raw.

in a month, (if i don't forget or get distracted by something more interesting) i will place my AFTER picture on this blog and you can be the judge of whether or not very high priced cosmetic products are worth the paper they're printed on. for that picture i plan to fix my hair (not that the pink do-rag isn't cute) and put on make-up.

by the way, i would never pay full price for mary kay cosmetics. got in on a half-price sale. half-price is still way pricey for me, but you see what i've got to work with here.

i wonder if it would work on reducing my waist..........

for maren and christalee

two people (that's TWO) told me on the same day that they miss my blog. it's a sign. i'm not going to go into what it is a sign of (my pathetic need for affirming words?)(or something else even more heinous?), but i will say that it worked.

i have blogged here about monarch butterflies, eggs and caterpillars, composting red worms, cats, dogs, chickens, ducks, and vacuum cleaners (well, the one about the vacuum cleaner was a lie), but i have a new passion for:

yes, our little pollinating, stinging friend, the honey bee. bees are our friends, right? didn't your first grade teacher tell you that? they're sweet and fuzzy. they make honey for us. they have the most complex social orders among living creatures, including humans. i'm surprised you don't know this.

tuesday night i had to interrupt my mountain trip to come home and hive bees. wednesday morning we picked up the bees in "packages," which are little flimsy wooden and screen boxes full of very ticked off bees. if you look up close (if you CAN look up close), you see thousands of little antennae, feet, and stingers sticking through the screen. you say, "WHAT was i thinking?"

then you bring them home (we got about 45,000 of them), open the top of the "package," and start dumping the bees into the hive. when you can't dump any more, you bang the package on something to get them to all fall down to the floor of the cage, and start dumping again. you thought they were ticked off before? i could actually hear them all humming "kill. KILL. KILL!" this is why you swath yourself in yards of canvas bee suit with a helmet on top, so they can't kill you. there was a little tag in my bee suit that said, (and this is really the truth) "these high-quality bee suits are sting-resistant but not sting-proof." NOW you tell us?

at the end of the bee hiving, i have to admit, there were no human casualties but about three or four dozen bee casualties. when i poured them in they all started climbing back out again, so i set the box on top quickly and squished all the ones who were making for freedom. i've got to get quicker with a bee brush.
and this is me practicing a new trick i'm teaching the bees. yes, i DO look younger. a shout-out to my new mary kay consultant, marie edmund.

want a sip? didn't think so.

pat yourself on the back if you voted yesterday. if you didn't, grandma will get you.

phone scam

okay, well, i picked up my phone today to check whether it was someone i wanted to talk to or not (don't you hate people who do that?)( well, don't you hate people whom you suspect don't want to talk to you?), and there on my caller ID it said, "PHONE SCAM." no, i'm not kidding.

i can envision the conversation at the telephone company when these crooks went in to obtain telephone service. yes, we'll have call waiting, and voice mail, etc. "what would you like it to say on caller ID when you are calling someone?" well, what do you think? hmmmm. something simple, i guess. "what type of business is it?" well, it's a phone scam. that's good, let's just put "phone scam" on, shall we? yeah, that would be good. "phone scam."

just in case you didn't know.....

before and after



i am 60, going on 70, i've grow up! just like a lump.
the floor makes me trip, i land on my hip,
i've fallen! i can't get up!

i am 60 going on 70, once i was sweet and young,
now wrinkles and sags and crow's feet and bags:
what once was tight's now sprung.

totally unprepared am i for my man to retire.
bear him at home all day? can i?
just light my funeral pyre.

i need someone younger and stronger
taking me to the loo,
he is 60 going on 70, who'll take care of who?

a-one more time:

oh, i have eight cats, i crochet hats,
it's what you're supposed to do,
when you're 60 going on 70,
watch out! it's coming for you!

ok, i'm back, don't talk about it

THE WONDERFUL DOCTOR OF OZ

"We're off to see the doctor, the wonderful doctor of oz.
We hear he is a freak about germs if ever a freak there was.
Wear gloves to the grocery, don't eat the dip,
Don't touch your face with a fingertip.
Why, oh, why, cuz Dr. Oz is scared, scared of the everyday things he does.
(and he wants to be sure we're scared too. so there.)
But all the women love him,
The wonderful doctor of oz.

p.s.

perfect southern biscuits

2C self-rise flour, martha white or white lily
(OR 2C plain flour with 1 T b.p. and 1 t salt)
6 T cold lard
3/4 - 1 C full-fat buttermilk

flour in bowl. add lard. mix the lard very quickly with your fingers until the mixture looks like coarse meal. your goal in working quickly is to leave behind small bits of lard, which will melt during baking and leave light "flakes." if you don't work quickly and with a light hand, you will melt the lard. add smaller amount of buttermilk and mix with hands, lightly. do NOT knead. handle the dough, all through, lightly, keeping those little bits of lard intact. if you need more buttermilk, add.

turn out onto a floured surface. shape lightly into a circle about 1 inch thick. cut with a floured biscuit cutter. a drinking glass of the size you want, with the rim floured, works, too. put cut biscuits on buttered sheet and bake in the middle of the oven at 500 for about ten minutes. if you're like me and your oven smokes at 500, 450 for 15 minutes works just as well.

biscuits should be lightly golden. if you wish, brush with butter when they're hot. cut open and spread with more butter. in fact, when the biscuits are gone, eat the butter plain! rub the butter all over your.......sorry, i got carried away. i do like butter.