HEART, ART, LAUGHS AND INSPIRATION

Presenting August 9 Wednesday Reader:

Yes, I’ve witnessed multiple something(s) miraculous. How about you?

I totally love Tips for a Beautiful Life. Truth, for sure. I’m gonna strive to do every one — each day. Just can’t be that hard. Mind Set.

Leslie Elman’s Fascinating Facts is always … Fascinating. Brown paper bags …

Truly try the Mud Pie recipe. It’s a summertime treat.

Riddle Me This Answer is wonderful! I won’t forget that one — ever.

Tracy Beckerman is such a fun writer! Slice of Life I can totally identify with.

So thankful for your time sliding by and giving us a read and commenting and sharing. So incredibly valuable.

Be safe. See ya Friday!

POP QUIZ

LEXIKO WAS THE ORIGINAL NAME OF WHAT BOARD GAME, INVENTED BY ALFRED MOSHER BUTTS IN THE 1930s?
a) Diplomacy
b) The Game of Life
c) Scrabble
d) Stratego
CURIOSITY ROVER TOUCHED DOWN ON MARS AT A LANDING SITE NAMED FOR WHOM?
a) Neil Armstrong
b) Ray Bradbury
c) Nicolas Copernicus
d) John F. Kennedy
WHY IS THE BROWN PAPER USED TO MAKE GROCERY BAGS CALLED KRAFT PAPER?
a) From the city where it was developed
b) From the German word for strength
c) From the name of its inventor
d) Kraft is an acronym

QUICK QUESTION

HAVE YOU EVER WITNESSED SOMETHING MIRACULOUS?

POP QUIZ ANSWERS

Lexiko was the original name of Scrabble.
Curiosity Rover touched down on Mars at Bradbury Landing, named for Ray Bradbury, author of “The Martian Chronicles.”
Rugged Kraft paper gets its name from the German word for strength.

~ Leslie Elman is the author of “Weird But True: 200 Astounding Outrageous and Totally Off the Wall Facts.”
COPYRIGHT 2023 LESLIE ELMAN
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

TIPS FOR A BEAUTIFUL LIFE

Take a 30 minute walk every day and while you walk — smile
Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes every day
When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement … “My purpose is to _____ today.”
Live with 3 E’s: Energy, Enthusism, Empathy AND the 3 F‘s: Faith, Family, Friends
Try to make 3 people smile today
Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away.
Life isn’t fair — but it’s still good.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. No one else does.
What other people think of you is none of your business.
Time heals almost everything. Give time — time.
No matter how you feel — get up, get dressed and show up.
Do the right thing.
Each night before you go to sleep — complete the following statements: Today I accomplished ___. Today I am thankful for ____.

THERE ARE PEOPLE IN YOUR LIFE WHOM YOU INSPIRE BY BEING YOU

(( Starve the landfills. Recycle. ))

RIDDLE ME THIS

WHAT IS THE LONGEST WORD IN THE DICTIONARY?

MUD PIE

Rich, delicious and worth every calorie. I got this recipe a bazillion years ago at a place I worked in Livingston, Montana called Melody’s Supper Club. Customers were wild about it. Me, too.

CRUST:

3 TBSP semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/3 cup butter, chilled, cut in slices
1 TBSP water
1 tsp vanilla extract

MIX TOGETHER:

Flour, sugar salt in a bowl. Cut in butter with 2 knives. Stir in remaining ingredients and work together with your hands.
Push crust into a 9″ pie pan (flour your fingers if necessary to keep it from sticking to this process)

BAKE:

350* for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool completely.

FILLING:

1/2 gallon of rich chocolate ice cream (choose your favorite)
1 TBSP instant coffee (like Kava … Nescafe …)

ALLOW ICE CREAM TO SIT OUT ON COUNTER UNTIL SOFT

Stir in instant coffee granules

Carefully dump ice cream/coffee greatness into prepared crust

FREEZE UNTIL ICE CREAM IS HARD AGAIN

TOPPING:

2 cups heavy whipping cream, super cold
3 TBSP instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 TBSP unsweetened cocoa

IN A CHILLED MIXING BOWL:

Using an electric hand mixer, beat heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until stiff. Add instant coffee, cocoa and vanilla and beat until all are well combined.

Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve pie outta the freezer.

CUT PIE IN SLICES AND PUT ON INDIVIDUAL PLATES

Scoop a generous dollop of whipped topping on each slice of pie.

NOW:

Squirt a squiggle of Hershey’s syrup (find the artist in you) over each pie slice and serve.

YUMMY

~Hippie Cowboy recipe box

RIDDLE ANSWER

SMILES, BECAUSE THERE IS A MILE BETWEEN EACH ‘S’.

Wednesday Reader September 21 | Well Dressed Trout

LOST IN SUBURBIA

GOOD TO THE LAST DROP
BY TRACY BECKERMAN

As the only one in my family who drinks coffee, I often found myself making a whole pot of coffee in the morning and throwing most of it out. Since I prefer not to wast money on anything except shoes, I finally decided to wise up and get one of those one-cup coffee makers.

I thought it would be fairly easy to find a replacement, but when I looked online, the options were dizzying. In the time since I had last purchased a coffee maker, the world had exploded with various types of coffee makers, from the ones that simply brewed a fine cup of coffee to ones that could make a double soy latte, serve you a fresh-backed chocolate croissant, wipe your mouth for you and then pick up the dry cleaning when you were done.

Although I had planned to get something simple, I was ultimately seduced by one of those sleek machines with, unfortunately, an equally sleek price. This coffee maker was the cream of the crop. This was an uber-coffee maker. This was one of those espresso-pod coffee makers that looked like it had been designed by an Italian race car company. It gleamed. It purred. And it brewed for 0 to 60 in less than a minute. All I had to do was fill the well with water, pop in a pod, and voila … a lovely cup of cafe awaits.

Really, how much easier could it be?

I bid my 10-cup coffee maker a fond farewell and stuck it up in the top of the closet with the panini press, the yogurt maker, the spiralizer and and all the other things I had bought or were gifted to me that I never used but didn’t want to throw away on the off chance that 10 people would suddenly visit me who all wanted coffee with a panini, spiralized zucchini and a cup of yogurt on the side.

It could happen.

The morning after my new coffee maker arrived, I carefully read the directions, cleaned out the machine, and got down to business. I popped in my pod, filled up the water and started up the machine. I turned my back for a moment to check my email and then, when I heard the whooshing sound stop, I turned back to retrieve my coffee.

But there was no coffee. I stood for a minute wondering if I had actually made the coffee or just thought I did. Maybe after setting it up I’d gotten distracted and never hit the start button? It made no sense. It smelled like coffee. It felt like there was coffee in the vicinity. I knew I’d heard the whooshing sound. But alas, there was no coffee.

While I stood there like an idiot trying to figure out what the heck happened, I noticed something drip off the edge of the counter. Then a steady stream of something poured off the counter. It finally dawned on me that the stuff pouring off the counter was my coffee and I had, in fact, made the coffee …

I just never put the cup under the machine to catch it.

~ Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble.”
COPYRIGHT 2023 CREATORS

Fascinating Stuff

FASCINATING STUFF

During the Viking Lander missions to Mars in the 1970s, NASA began using the time increment “sol” as the equivalent of a Martian “day,” because a day on Mars lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35.244 seconds — about 3 percent longer than a day on Earth. Timekeeping for a NASA mission to Mars typically begins at Sol 0 when a spacecraft touches down on Martian soil. Curiosity Rover has been rolling around the Red Planet since 10:32 p.m. PDT on August 5, 2012, more than 3,850 sols ago.
In 1871, Margaret E. Knight was denied a patent on her design for a machine to produce flat-bottomed paper bags because Charles Annan filed one nearly identical to hers. That was no coincidence. Knight had shown Annan her design, never expecting that he’d try to patent it as his own. Able to prove he’d filched her work, she sued Annon and won. Her “Improvement in paper-bag machines” — U.S. Patent 116,842 — was the first to make the stand-up paper bags with the uniquely folded bottoms we know today.
The academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa — the oldest Greek-letter society in the United States — was founded at the college of William and Mary in Virginia in 1776. Organized to encourage free intellectual discussion about all subjects, it began as a secret society complete with initiation rites and secret handshakes despite having a charter membership of just five students.
The Dickin Medal is awarded to animals for gallantry in service. Named for Maria Dickin, founder of the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals — now known simply as PDSA — in the United Kingdom, the medal was awarded the first time in 1943 to White Vision, Winkie and Tyke, three carrier pigeons that delivered messages enabling the rescues of downed RAF crewmen. Recipient of the Dickin Medal include 32 pigeons, 38 dogs, 4 horses and 1 cat named Simon, who served aboard the HMS Amethyst in the 1940s.
The earliest publication of a recipe for squishing toasted marshmallow and chocolate between graham crackers to make s’mores came from the Girl Scouts of the United States of America. Their recipe for “Some More” appeared in a 1927 guide called “Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts.” Among that book’s other campfire recipes was “Ring Tum Diddy,” a melange of bacon, tomatoes, corn and American cheese over toast.