BEST-OF-THE-BEST OUTSTANDING BROWNIES, SOCRATES WISDOM, HALLOWEEN ART
Greetings Wednesday and Daymakers –
Wear your brightest smile all day long!
Believe it or not – it’s the last Wednesday in the month of October 2024.
BOOM! October sure has flown by fast.
And tomorrow the little trick-or-treaters will be donning costumes and ring lots of door bells
seeking the gifts of sweet treats this one-and-only day of the year offers.
Ah, childhood memories. And childhood memories in the making.
PRESENTING WEDNESDAY READER
OCTOBER 30, 2024:
- BLUE RIBBON HALLOWEEN ART WORK
- LESLIE ELMAN’S POP QUIZ AND FASCINATING FACTS
I actually knew 2 outta 3 of the Pop Quiz Answers!
Now I know all 3.
- QUICK QUESTION
My all time favorite Halloween candy is/was/will forever be Milky Way!
Although, not a big sweet eater – if I pass by a bowl of the tiny little mix of candy bars —
I can’t resist grabbing a Milky Way. Maybe 2!
How about you?
- SOCRATES STORY ON GOSSIP
Is a for sure meaningful and powerful day-to-day life lesson regarding what Not To Say.
- OUTSTANDING BROWNIES
Are just that.
OUTSTANDING.
- TRACY BECKERMAN
Never fails with her slice-of-life real.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a DIY home hair failure?
I sure did.
Years and years ago.
My hair wasn’t a cantaloupe orange, geranium orange or sunset orange.
It was full on Ronald McDonald orange!
I will never, ever, ever try to be a DIY beauty operator.
Hat tip and hugs to the pros who know how to do it best!
- STACY’S WORLD
This Friday is another do-not-want-to-miss read!
Stacy’s kicking off the Holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas with her fabulous, innovative ideas.
Get ready to take notes!
Thanks, Stac!
- GRATITUDE ALL
For sliding by today + caring + sharing + engaging.
We feel the love and we love you back!
ENJOY THE READ!
WISHING YOU A BEAUTY-FILLED REST OF THE WEEK.
CATCH YA FRIDAY
SAME TIME
SAME PLACE
POP QUIZ
- WHICH TYPES OF CLOUDS ARE KNOWN AS “THUNDERHEADS”?
a) Altostratus
b) Cirrocumulus
c) Cumlonimbus
d) Stratocumulus - WHICH ANIMAL IS A TRICKSTER FIGURE IN APACHE, NAVAJO AND PAIUTE MYTHOLOGY?
a) Coyote
b) Duck
c) Snake
d) Toad - PAUL BUNYAN, THE GIANT LUMBERJACK FROM AMERICAN FOLKLORE, WAS ACCOMPANIED BY WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL NAMED BABE?
a) Black Bear
b) Blue Ox
c) Gray wolf
d) Red fox
QUICK QUESTION
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE GO-TO HALLOWEEN CANDY?
POP QUIZ ANSWERS
- Cumulonimbus clouds are known as “thunderheads.”
- The coyote is a trickster figure in Apache, Navajo and Paiute mythology.
- Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack from American folklore, was accompanied by Babe, the blue ox.
COPYRIGHT 2024 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
STORY ON GOSSIP
And the story goes …
In ancient Greece (469 -399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?”
“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied.
“Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”
“Triple filter?” replied the acquaintance.
“That’s right,” Socrates continued. “Before you talk to me about my student, let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”
“No,” the man said, “actually I heard about it and …”
“All right,” said Socrates. “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter. The filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?”
“No, on the contrary …” replied the man.
“So,” Socrates continued, “you want to tell me something bad about him even though you’re not certain that it’s true?”
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. “You may still pass the test because there is a third filter — the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?”
“No, not really …”
“Well,” concluded Socrates, if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?”
The man was defeated and ashamed.
This is just one of the examples Socrates was a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.
Wise man = teacher.
~ from my email collection library
this one circa 2014
INSOMNIA SHARPENS YOUR MATH SKILLS BECAUSE YOU SPEND ALL NIGHT CALCULATING HOW MUCH SLEEP YOU’LL GET IF YOU’RE ABLE TO FALL ASLEEP RIGHT NOW.
~anon~
SATISFACTION GUARANTEED:
BE GOOD-HEARTED
RIDDLE ME THIS
WHAT HAS ONE EYE BUT
CANNOT SEE?
BEST-OF-THE- BEST OUTSTANDING BROWNIES
Yeah, I know, there are a million great brownie recipes out there and even the brownie mix box on the market shelf are pretty good. However, THESE brownies from THIS recipe are absolutely outstanding + outrageously good all at the same time. And big plus — they’re simple and worth a little extra time to do the homemade thing.
HERE’S HOW WE MAKE THEM:
INGREDIENTS
- 1 pound (4 sticks butter)
- 1 pound + 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
- 6 ounces bitter chocolate, cut in cubes
- 6 extra-large eggs
- 3 TBSP instant coffee granules (think Kava)
- 2 TBSP pure vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 TBSP baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 cups chopped walnuts or pecans
NOW
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Butter and flour a 12 x 18 x 1-inch baking sheet
Melt together the butter – (( cut the butter sticks in cubes or slices )) + 1 pound of chocolate chips and the bitter chocolate in a medium bowl over a larger pot of simmering water.
Ya know, the double boiler method. Like this — ** see here ** —
Take off the heat when chocolate and butter are all gooey melty.
Remove bowl of chocolate/butter from the simmering water pot.
Allow to cool slightly.
IN A SEPARATE LARGE BOWL
Stir (do not beat) together eggs, coffee granules, vanilla and sugar.
Mix in the warm chocolate mixture into the eggs, etc … and allow to cool to room temperature.
IN A MEDIUM BOWL
Sift together 1 cup of flour, baking powder and salt.
Add the cooled chocolate/egg mixture.
IN A SMALL BOWL
Toss the walnuts or pecans and 12 ounces of chocolate chips with 1/4 cup of flour.
(( PRO TIP – Flouring the chips and nuts keep them from sinking to the bottom ))
Add floured chips and nuts to the chocolate batter.
NOTE
It’s super important to allow the batter to cool well before adding the additional chocolate chips and nuts, or the chips will melt and ruin the Outrageous Outstanding brownies.
Patience, Grasshoppers!
Stir until all are well combined.
GENTLY POUR BATTER
Chocolate goodness into the prepared 12 x 18 x 1 inch baking sheet.
BAKE
For 20 minutes in preheated 350 degree oven.
After 20 minutes – with oven mitts on – rap the baking sheet against the oven shelf to force the air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough.
CONTINUE BAKING
For an additional 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
CAREFUL not to overbake!
REMOVE FROM OVEN
And place on stove top or countertop and allow to cool thoroughly.
REFRIGERATE
Cut into 20 large delicious squares.
HAVE BAKED BROWNIE SQUARES AVAILABLE
All week long for family.
And/ Or gift to friends and neighbors!
Simply wrap squares individually in plastic wrap or 2 or 3 squares in zipper plastic bags.
And, yep, you can freeze them for next week or the week after!
~ Hippie Cowboy recipe box
RIDDLE ANSWER
A NEEDLE.
LOST IN SUBURBIA
ORANGE IS THE NEW PURPLE
BY TRACY BECKERMAN
When I decided to color my hair, it was not because I suddenly had a desire to be a blonde bombshell or a foxy redhead. As a fifty-something-year-old, I would need more than a bottle of hair dye to transform into a bombshell or a fox. I suspect it would have taken full-body liposuction and a stupendously gifted fairy godmother. Fortunately, all I really wanted to do was cover the gray that was waging a war with the brunette follicles on my head.
While most of my friends had the good sense to go to a salon to color their hair, I thought I could efficiently handle the problem myself. I figured using one of those “washes out in 28 shampoos” colors at home was a way better plan because:
a) It was a lot cheaper.
b) If I screwed up the color, I only had to live with it for a month.
That said, one does not necessarily want to live with pumpkin-colored hair for a month.
Who knew “warm” was actually a euphemism for “orange”?
Although my impulse was to immediately go get a darker color and repeat the process, good sense intervened when I realized there was a chance that two dye jobs in a row could leave me with an even worse result: no hair at all.
So, I called the Hair Color Emergency Hotline.
“I’m calling to report a hair color emergency,” I announced.
“What’s the nature of your problem?” asked the hair color EMT on the other end.
“My hair is orange.” I reported.
“Is it brown or blonde with orange highlights, or full-on orange? he asked.
“Full-on orange,” I responded morosely.
“Is it cantaloupe orange, geranium orange or sunset orange?” he asked.
“Is there a distinction?” I asked impatiently.
“Well, yes,” he insisted. “Cantaloupe orange is a true, iridescent orange. Geranium orange has yellow highlights mixed in, and sunset orange has red undertones.”
“Cantaloupe orange,” I finally said, assessing my iridescent color in the mirror.
“Got it. That is a Code 242 Shocking Orange Hair Color Emergency!” he said.
“OK, well, I need a hair color intervention,” I replied. “I want to be medium brown, not cantaloupe orange.”
“No problem,” he assured me. “You need to go purchase the Ash Brown hair color, mix it with one-third shampoo, and reapply to your hair.”
“Is that it?” I asked, relieved that my stint as a jack-lantern was about to come to a close.
“Oh, and don’t leave it on for more than 15 minutes,” he added as I was hanging up.
I ran back to the drugstore to get the antidote hair color, but by the time I got home, I had forgotten the hair color EMT’S parting words of caution. Believing that longer would be better; I left the hair color on for half an hour. I took it as a good sign that the gel on my hair was really dark. Given the options, I decided I would rather blend in with the night than glow in the dark.
But when I rinsed it out, it wasn’t brown or black.
It was purple.
Shaking my blueberry-hued head in disbelief, I picked up the phone.
“Is it eggplant purple, concord grape or lilac?” asked the hair color EMT.
“Eggplant purple,” I said definitively.
“Hmmm,” he drawled. “Good luck with that one.”
~ Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble.
COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM
Fascinating Stuff
- Somewhere between clouds and rain, there’s virga: rain that falls from clouds but evaporates before it reaches the Earth’s surface. You can see it in the sky as wispy strands extending from the bottom of a cloud. And if you were tracking the weather with radar, it would register as rain. But because virga typically occurs in deserts and in other areas with dry conditions, the precipitation evaporates before you can feel it.
- Is the White House haunted? Lots of people think so, especially staff and visitors who claim to have spotted spirits roaming the rooms. Most famous is Abraham Lincoln, whose spirit is said to occupy the Lincoln Bedroom. (Where else?) Lincoln also visits the Yellow Oval Room, where he might bump into Thomas Jefferson’s ghost. Andrew Jackson naps in the Queens’ Bedroom. John Tyler spends time in the Blue Room. And William Henry Harrison, who died in the White Hose, haunts the attic.
- In Guatemala, the annual Day of the Dead (Dia de los Difuntos) observance includes visiting cemeteries to bring flowers and tend the graves of loved ones. But it also involves something truly unique and beautiful: barriletes gigantes — enormous kites. The tradition of flying kites to honor the dead derives from Mayan customs. And these are no ordinary kites! Made from brightly colored tissue paper pieced in complex, artistic patterns, they can measure 50 feet across.
- When geologists talk about hoodoos, they’re referring to giant rock formations weathered into bizarre and magnificent shapes by the forces of nature. Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park is famous for them — limestone pillars ranging from 5 to 150 feet tall that have been eroded by thousands of years of rain and frost. The process is never-ending, which means that the formations you see today, such as Thor’s Hammer and Chessmen, will look different to park visitors 100 years from now.
- While men were serving in the military during World War II, the timber industry in the U.K. would have collapsed if not for the thousands of women, mostly in their teens and 20s, who headed to the forests to fell trees. The lumber they processed was vital for construction and repair of buildings and railways and for making telegraph poles, shipping crates, and gun stocks. Officially, they were called the Women’s Timber Corps, but they were more affectionately known not as lumberjacks, but as “lumberjills.”
~ COPYRIGHT 2024 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
Love the artwork! Beckermans story about haircolor is something I think most women have attempted at least once in their life.
Hi Stacy!
You’re absolutely correct – at least from my personal experience – most of us girls have done the DIY hair color thing once and hard lesson learned that once was enough!
Ha! and Ugh!
Appreciate ya.
Have a wonderful fall-time rest of the week!
Thanks for sliding by today + sharing.
MEANINGFUL.
👍🏻❤️
Thanks J for thumbs up and heart love.
GRATITUDE
I always wondered what cloud whispies were called. Now I know!
My fave Halloween candy was Snickers Bars. All the nougat of Milky Way plus caramel. Yum !
Fantabulous art work, every one!!!
Even though I don’t have a sweet tooth I may have to try those sensational sounding brownies.
And the promise of Stacy on Friday- WOW!
Hi Carol –
Snickers would be #2 choice!
So delighted you enjoyed the read and artwork. Halloween artwork is tucked away until next year.
Sure was fun and cool to view for a month’s time!
Thanks, friend for your time and wonderful comments.
MATTERS
My all time favorite halloween candy would be SNICKERS! Hooray, HOORAY!
Now, a compliment and a round of applause to Daymaker creator, Cheryl.
I’m amazed at your opening statement each time I read Daymaker’s greeting.
I invite readers to go back and reread the opening statement Cheryl made today.
In my eyes it’s “GIFTED.”
Short, sweet, and mighty “feel good” touch to my heart.
Another vote for Snickers! Yay. You and Carol both called out Snickers.
Thank you, Marty for your sweet compliment.
I’m so happy you enjoy the opening statements along with the content of Daymaker’s episodes.
HAPPINESS