Wearing a Spot of Green for St. Patrick’s Day

I wore some green today in honour of St. Patrick’s Day on Saturday. I'm not Irish, but this holiday is celebrated here in Canada, so I’ve always worn green around this time of year.While I love the colour I don't have much green clothing, so I went with some accessories instead.I love this purse that was a "no-reason-except-I-thought-you'd-like-it" gift from my sister last summer. She was right, I do like it and gladly wore it out today. The printed vintage scarf was a gift from Nick's sister.

Much Love Monday : A Sign and Pictures of Pigeons

Hello! Thanks for dropping over. Today I'm hooking up with the other lovely bloggers who participate in 'Much Love Mondays' over at Anna's blog.

Eddie Outside!

It's been a couple of weeks since I've posted some photos of our cat Eddie, and he's thinking maybe you miss him! Ha :)Here he is playing outdoors today. He's very happy about this early spring weather, as he really does not like snow. He gets mad at us when there is snow on the ground, as though we had something to do with it being out there. In the winter we go so far as to shovel a pathway on the deck for him. A bit spoiled, yes.

Food Friday : Cranberry Pistachio Cookies

"Briiing, briiing" ...That's your telephone ringing. It's your [insert unexpected guest here] calling to say they'll be over in 15 minutes! You've just finished cleaning the house and everything looks great (right?!), but alas, there's no time to whip over to the bakery to grab a treat to serve. Wait ... you remember the roll of cookie dough you have in your freezer. By the time your company arrives at your door, you can be pulling a freshly baked batch of delicious cookies from your oven. Oh joy, oh bliss. You really are as great as people think you are!

That's because you had the dough for these cookies tucked away in the freezer, and all you had to do was preheat your oven to 375 degrees F, slice the roll of dough into 1/4 inch (or so) pieces. Arrange them on a parchment-paper lined (or ungreased) cookie sheet and pop them in the oven.

For today's batch, I made them in my toaster-oven, therefore avoiding the cost of heating up the big oven. We didn't actually have any company coming over, but I did have a hungry guy ready to taste-test them immediately after they came out of the oven. Verdict : "mmm, very good. I'll have another, thanks."

I've been making these for years, using a yellowed clipping from the newspaper. Aside from passing this recipe on to you, it was high time I transferred it to the computer, so I can retire that stained and torn old piece of paper!

By the way, before I made these I didn't realize you could buy pistachios without their shells with no salt but I found them in a shop that sells nuts and seeds for baking/cooking. But if you can't find them, any nut can be substituted. In fact the cranberries can also be replaced with any dried fruit. I've made them with almonds and dried cherries and they were great.

Game Playing : Skyrim

Nick and I are not big television watchers. We don't have cable and I'm not exactly sure who Snookie is, except that I know how she wears her hair. There are some series that I've loved, namely Madmen and The L Word, but I watched those on Netflix after they had run on television.

However, that's not to say that our television isn't turned on for at least a couple of hours pretty well every day. That is due to our love of games. Currently we are both playing one called Skyrim on Xbox. You might remember from a previous post here, where I mentioned buying this game for Nick for Christmas. At the time of that post, I was playing L.A. Noir. I finished that one in early February and then took a game break for a few weeks. At the beginning of March, I began Skyrim, and what I can say about it is "Damn you, Skyrim!". I don't say that because it's a bad game. No, I say it because it's too good! I've spent every moment of my leisure time playing it lately, and have the urge to go play it again now!

This is a completely open-format game, so no two players would ever play it the same way. For example, in the shot of the river, I could go right and travel along the bank, and perhaps come upon a bear or a cave to explore. Or I could go into the water and go fishing, saving my catch to eat later when I need the energy. It is this wide-open format, to choose exactly what you want to do at any given time, that makes it so much fun. The quests seem to be endless and the ones I've done so far have been interesting.

For the record, I'm not addicted though, as I can stop, and do stop playing these games for long stretches of time. But the gist of this post is that they are really very fun. And research indicates that they are terrific for your brain, developing co-ordination, memory, strategy and logic, so I see it as exercise. Additionally they are very inexpensive entertainment, as more than one person can play them and after you're done, you can usually find a game store that will buy them back and resell them secondhand, or you can trade with a friend.

Here are some stills from Skyrim I took this morning. The character pictured is my friend and helper, J'Zargo. I've chosen him for now because he's a cool cat =↑..↑=