Pre-pandemic Neighborhood Christmas Decorations--Yea, 2019

Why 2019 Christmas decorations? Partly because I had pix that I didn't get around to organizing. Another reason is my mental contrasting what I've seen this year to what I'd taken pix of last year. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Kool-Aided Cake Mix Cookies Combo Batch

Around winter holiday season, chocolate-covered cherries tend to float into my consciousness. Another chocolate and cherry concoction has also been staring at me recently when I open the freezer: ice cream with cherries and chocolate chips. The basic cooky recipe uses cake mix, eggs, and oil. For flavor and color enhancements, I added a package of Cherry Kool-Aid and 10 drops of red food coloring. Another cooky variation is a chocolatey covered one. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

2020 Buckity October and November

I'd spotted loads of bucks in October and November this year. I'd created several short YouTube videos of them and included links to them. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

2020 Halloween Meandering

Halloween decorations. I was surprised at numerous views that I collected from a few days before through a few days after Halloween, ... Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies

 

These cookies are actually Plan B use of remaining unadorned mint chocolate cookies from "Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies". I had run out of melted chocolate after having coated only about one-third of my 40 cookies. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies

My journey started out as intent to make chocolate-covered mint-flavored chocolate cookies. Such examples are Girl Scout Thin MInts, Hill Country Fare Fudge Mint Cookies, and Fudge Mint Cookies (Back to Nature brand). This cooky recipe uses cake mix, eggs, oil, mint extract, and chocolate chips. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies

These cookies have the chippy looks of mint chocolate chip ice cream, and avoiding overdosing the mint extract and food coloring.  Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips

My mind percolated about making cookies that would integrate yellow cake mix, mini chocolate chips, mint extract, and blue food coloring. The info emphasizes mint oils and extracts, and research on how much additives. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts

I recently tried some chocolate-covered mint chocolate cookies, Fudge Mint Cookies (Back to Nature brand), recommended by a friend. Mmmm. Got me to thinking about similar minty chocolate cookies and sweets. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Gopher Plant AKA SilverSpurge AKA Euphorbia Rigida

The plant had mystified me when I first spotted it in May 2019. Since then, I'd taken a few videos and stills of it, and a couple from a different site. Earlier this year, I stumbled across a YouTube video that included a snippet and ID (Euphorbia rigida) of the suspect plant. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Pie D'oh to Plan B Cookies, Sweet-Tweaked

Initially, I started out with a rolled, refrigerated pie crust, which I had intended to use in my MayDay lemon meringue pie. The box had info about letting the dough warm up a few minutes to room temperature before unrolling it onto a pie pan. Or could microwave for a few seconds. I mistakenly microwaved the dough too long, which rendered it unrollable. D'oh! The dough became Plan B cookies, sweet-tweaked. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

I recently made a two-layer cake using yellow cake mix and added Black Cherry Kool-Aid powder. The flavoring contained one teaspoon of powder. I used half in one cup of my batter for marbling effect, and the other half in 18 ounces of spreadable frosting. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Pretty Tall Sotols, Part 1

Love that YouTube suggested the thumbnail with bees and yellowy, clustered cheeto-shaped blooms.



How tall are sotols? They're distinctly tall. Ones that I've seen tend to be at least as tall as street lights. And they're pretty, especially with flower/flowery stalks/spikes! Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Pretty Tall Sotols, Part 2

"Pretty Tall Sotols, Part 1" emphasizes mostly the plants' physical characteristics. (Video: "Pretty Tall Sotols") This article includes secondary info: sotol as alcohol and resemblance to yucca. ... Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Assessing My MayDay 2020 Lemon Meringue Pie

The lemon meringue pie I made Friday 5/1 (May Day) is a followup to the pies I made in March ("Assessing My Mid-March 2020 Lemon Meringue Pie" (article, video) and December ("Assessing My Christmas 2019 Lemon Meringue Pie" (article, video). Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Deer Mama 2 B's

Best wishes to all the mamas and mamas-to-be! (This upcoming celebration day inspired me to create and publish this article and video. ) recorded some deer 4/21. I noticed one doe that I was able to keep in view looked belly-rounded. Spotted and recorded some snippets of does 5/7. Re-viewing the 4/21 clip helped with visual comparisons of pregnant/unpregnant does. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

DIY T-shirt Face Masks--No-sew and Single-seam Sew

As YouTube has loads of DIY face mask (aka face covering) videos, my video might be more for those of you who have only one or two masks, maybe as gifts. Maybe you want to ensure a fuller supply, simply, and by using items in your home. Consider that self-masking because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic might be necessary for awhile. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Lemon Juice Aid 2, Cost Convenience Concentration

Previously in "Lemon Juice Aid 1, Let There Be Cake!", I wrote about the cake that I used lemon juice in yellow cake mix and vanilla frosting. This article addresses four lemon-flavor types—fresh-lemon juice, bottled lemon juice, lemon extract, and Kool-Aid. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Lemon Juice Aid 1, Let There Be Cake!

Make a lemon cake by adding lemon juice to non-lemon flavor cake mixture and vanilla frosting. … I've tended to buy "classic" yellow cake (good color, uncomplicated add-in ingredients), especially when they've gone on sale for 88¢ each. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Assessing My Mid-March 2020 Lemon Meringue Pie

The lemon meringue pie I prepared Sunday 3/15 (Ides of March Day) is a followup to my pie I wrote about in "Assessing My Christmas 2019 Lemon Meringue Pie". I'd considered making it 3/14 (Pi Day), but maybe a bit too late for adequate cooling before serving. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Really Quick Mixed-flavor Pudding

Like creamy dessert without ice-cream chilliness? How about something convenient to make with few ingredients and implements? Pudding! Yes, you can buy pre-made stuff, but you can customize for flavors and milks (fat-level content, lactose/lactose-free). Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Buck Bookended at 2019 End

At the end of 2019 (December, to be more specific), I shot three bucks. Two were within minutes of each other on the 9th, and the final one on the 29th. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Looking Back for All-time Blogging

I started blogging in fall 2009. The table shows how number of articles and word count vary from then till the end of 2019. Read the entire article and comment there, please.

Looking Back for 2019 Blogging

As part of looking back on 2019, I also cast a backward look toward my entire blogging experience. The table shows stats for 2019 for each of the 24 articles (twice a month)—word count, topic, and graphics type. Read the entire article and comment there, please.