Coffee and LOLCats

Lord help us, it's true. I like coffee, but if I drink too much I just can't shut up. And I speak twice as fast as usual.


more animals

I don't remember asking for a white Christmas

But, a white Christmas is what we got anyway. These pictures were taken last Friday and it's snowed more since.

Just picture the spring bulbs waiting under all of this.


The snow is definitely higher than this now.


There were some pretty big drifts. This is how high the snow drifted up against the front door.


Here's something you see very little of in a Michigan winter - the sun.


You might have to click on this and choose All Sizes to see it. The snow was all sparkly and I'm using this as the background on my computer desktop.


And this year Bucky is getting her Christmas wish. Well, at least the one for rum cake. It's the first time since my mom died that I made one. And I'm taking half of it over to her.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Fourth Annual Blog Cookie Exchange Ripoff

Update at bottom. With earrings!

It's a ripoff because I didn't find the time to put together anything new this year. But, of course, I have to participate. If our lovely hostess can pull it together, then so can I.

My main Christmas recipe, that was my mother's favorite is rum cake.
Rum Cake

1 box yellow cake mix
1 small instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rum

Combine and beat 10 minutes on medium speed. Grease and flour tube pan. Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees F. Cool slightly, remove from the pan.

Sauce

1 stick butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Bring to boil. Boil 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add 2 ounces of rum. Poke holes in top of cake with fork. Spoon sauce over cake while warm.

Here's the cake.


The last two years our neighbors had this display. They're not doing it this year.


This one looks like a study in Pointalism.


And, of course, a tree.


I bought some new holiday earrings from Silpada. Here they are.

Flowers!

You know I can't pass up a botanical garden, especially if it's Smithsonian. Ichabod loves plants as much as I do so of course we visited. Here's the entire set of pictures. I'm going to have trouble deciding which ones to post here. I want to show them all, of course.

They had a traveling exhibition of globes. The theme was ecology.

This one had to do with proper roofing materials.


This one was just made of all kinds of stuff. If you click on it you can check out the larger version and the things are easier to see.


I liked this one, too.


And now I'll try to load too many flower pictures here.




This one's kinda hard to make out. It's easier to see in the large size.


This was out of focus, but I like the flower too much to delete it.












They had these metal ones, too. They were cool, but weird.




And, of course, an orchid.

Museums

The Smithsonian museums are really cool. I didn't realize there were so many and that admission was free. The whole set for this post is here.

This was the original building


The first one we went to was the Natural History Museum


Petrified wood


Critters ready to pounce


I couldn't get a picture of the Hope diamond, but I thought this was more impressive. It must have been about four feet tall


This is copper from Michigan. It seems like it was at least five feet wide.


My sister thinks this one should eat a sandwich


This was the Native American museum. They had no square walls, no corners anywhere.







We also went to the Air and Space museum and the Botanical Gardens but I've been too lame to get my pictures out on Flickr.