Holiday Traditions

Two of my Peeps photos got blogged here.

Tonight, a traditional Pasover dinner was made and consumed: Matzoh Brei.

Babo and Wage wanted to try matzoh brei, so I taught them how to make it. Then we feasted!

Recipe: break matzoh (not egg matzoh!) into a colander or strainer. Pour boiling water over it. Fry matzoh til it's golden or crispy, pour in beaten eggs (I made this with 2 eggs and one square of matzoh), and stir. You can make it fully scrambled or omelette-like. Due to my stopping to take pics, this came out mostly omelette-like, though I prefer more of a scrambled concoction. Season with pepper.

Feeling: sad that I have to go back to work tomorrow. I've enjoyed my time being my own.
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: holidays

Happy Holidays!

Pepperidge Farm is ready for spring!


Happy Passover and Happy Easter, Everyone!

The Passover Peeps

Feeling: content
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: holidays

Six Years

That's how long I've been blogging. I started Cyber Chocolate over on AOL, back when AOL had its J-Land. They called their blogs "journals" and they were still relatively new when I decided to try them out. They were so limiting in design and what you could post, but they were easy to set up and use. So in early March 2004, I set up a few AOL journals. And I Googled subjects I was interested + "blogs" and found many fun blogs to read. Which led me to try some other blogging services that looked interesting, because their blogs were much cooler looking than AOL's.


And not knowing what to do on the other blogging sites, I set up shadow blogs for a couple of my AOL journals, including Cyber Chocolate. I dropped most of them after a few months, but one I kept. The one on blogspot.com.

Oh, Blogspot was difficult to use back then. I couldn't make heads or tales of the templates and had no clue how to customize them. I was just learning basic html codes to use in AOL journal posts. But Google had bought Pyra Labs, creators of Blogspot and I liked Google and figured I'd let things sit for a bit and I ended up being very glad I did. Even if I'd been contemplating dropping the Blogspot Cyber Chocolate by June 2004. After all, I really wasn't using it. Then, Blogspot got the promised redesign and everything changed.

Gone were the banner ads on top. Blogger was a nice, streamlined site with some new, easily customized templates, even if the options were limited. If you knew some html and css, at least enough to maniuplate the existing code, you could do a lot. By then, I knew enough to fiddle and tweak. Blogger became my new playground.

I was loyal to AOL. I kept Cyber Chocolate there as my main blog. But whenever I wanted to post some quiz results that used javascript, not allowed by AOL, I posted it here. By August, I was using this and my other Blogger blogs fairly heavily, double posting nearly everything.

I don't recall when this blog, once called Cyber Chocolate, Jr, became just Cyber Chocolate and the AOL version became the junior edition. And over time, I grew tired of double posting and let it die, finally deleting it, though I don't recall when. By the time AOL got out of the journal business a couple of years ago, I no longer cared. J-Land was a good place for a newbie to start, but Blogger is so easy now, it's just as good for a new blogger. And the Template Designer in draft.blogger.com makes it easier and more customizable than ever.

Six years for this blog in one form or another. It's been quite a ride and I'm still having fun, so here's to the next six years, and all of you who have been reading along the way.


Feeling: accomplished
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: blogging

Circles

You Are Trustworthy

Of all the types, you are the most responsible and loyal. You take your duties seriously. You thrive when you are able to do something practical and productive. You hate to waste your time. Some people say that you are a bit neurotic or cautious, but you believe it's better to be safe than sorry. You do your best to live a engaging and important life. You want what you do to matter.

The Scribble Circle Test

Blogthings: Take a Quiz. Annoy Your Friends.

That sounds reasonably accurate. A more interesting test would be for us to draw our own circles.

Feeling:  Mellow
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: quizzes

Comfort Food

Comfort food isn't just chocolate. And much as I love pizza and hamburgers, I don't consider them comforting. Just yummy. But good macaroni and cheese is definitely in the "comfort food" category. This is a build-your-own dish I had for dinner Friday night at Sarita's in the East Village here in NYC. They have 4 sizes: Nosh, Major Munch, Mongo, and Partay. I had a Major Munch and the ingredients I chose were cheddar and mozzarella for the cheeses and chicken, bacon, and broccoli for the fillings. Yum!

Hubby and I saw America last night. They were wonderful, as always. The opening act, Barnaby Bye, was pretty good, even if I couldn't make out the lyrics (I'm pretty sure they were singing something.)

Feeling:
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: Comfort Food

Ha!

You Are Outrageous and Optimistic

You are the type of person who lives life to the fullest. You believe in going big or going home. You aren't shy about what you want, and you aren't afraid to get it either. You really go for it! You have a bold personality, and you tend to be attracted to anything or anyone who is over the top. You are open minded, and you have eclectic taste. You truly can appreciate all the flavors of the world.

The Birthday Cake Test

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

Well, some of it's true. I do try to have an open-mind and my taste is very eclectic. But all that bold stuff? Not so much.

Spent most of last night -- after a yummy dinner out with a friend at a mac and cheese place -- redoing my Farmville farm on Facebook. I feel as if I'd plowed those fields and moved those trees for real. ;)

Feeling:
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: quizzes

A Day with Chocolate

M&Ms. Pepperidge Farm Pirouettes. A Double Chocolate Milano cookie. Yup, that kind of day. Maybe it was that kind of day because it was gorgeous out and I was stuck at work. But with DST starting, it was still light out when I got home, which is very nice. Spring? I'm ready for you! :)

Feeling:Tired
~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: chocolate

I Think it's Done

It was a lot of work trying to get the sizing right for all the pics and then for the header, but I really like it. All are my photos. All the food in the pics were very yummy. I love being able to eat my photo props. I hope everyone likes how the blog looks now. It should now be easy to tweak. I got a lot of stuff in the sidebar and footer cleaned up. All of it, I think, actually. The Weather Pixie is awol, but that's their server that's the problem, not me/Blogger, so I'm leaving the broken link there in hopes they can come back. I did take a lot of stuff out, but the sidebar is still long. I'd hate to make this a 3-column blog. I didn't like how that looked when I tried it.

I can't believe I spent most of the day on this project, but given the nasty, rainy day, it's just as well. I sure wasn't going out to take photos as I'd wanted. Still need to clean up around the apartment, though. Ah well, something for another day. ;)

Feeling: tired

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: templates

Getting There

I still need to redo the header, and I'm still fiddling with the sidebar. I want to get back some of the buttons and fun graphics, but I've deleted the fan page area which had too many buttons to bother with.

I'm also undecided about the mood graphics for the posts. Previously, it was easy to just swap out part of the file name as all the graphics were the same URL with just the name of the mood different. But if I store them in Picasa, along with the other graphics for the blog, the URLs won't have that much in common, and I'll be forced to replace the URL each time. That's not worth it. So, now I have to decide if I'll leave even the text for my mood. I kinda like it, but it loses a lot without the graphics.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to see how this little graphic worked in the post. Maybe someday I'll figure out how to get it back in the post title field, but that's for another day.
Feeling: accomplished

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: templates

Things Might Get a Bit Messy Here

I'd been wanting to freshen things up around here, and Draft Blogger's new Template Designer is my excuse. This will be a work in progress for a few days, probably, maybe less if I can get a new header done quickly. I have so many chocolicious photos to choose from and I may keep one or two from the current header. I lost a lot of little graphics when I lost my webhost, and I may never add them all back in. And some customizations to the html of my template will get lost as soon as I throw the switch on a new template once I post this. I might try to get some of those back in at some point, or I might take the lazy easy way out and work within the template options. Fiddling with templates has been a way for me to learn some html and css, but it takes more time than I have right now.

Anyway, I hope everyone who visits likes the results when I've got the thing finished.

Feeling:

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: template

Lust Object

I think I need this alien abduction lamp. (Found on the Hoosier Journal of Inanity)

Spotted more Mister Softee trucks (click at your own risk; the annoying Mister Softee music will automatically play). If the weather stays nice (rain's coming in for the next few days, so maybe next week), there will be a chocolate shake for lunch in my future to celebrate.

Feeling: tired

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: links

Harbinger of Spring

Most places, it's the first robin. Here in NYC, it's the return of the Mr. Softee trucks.

Feeling: pleased

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: spring

Saturday Night Links

I really need to start coming up with better titles. Anyway, linkies are back!

Anyway, this post and the subsequent discussion in the comments is priceless, and typical for Making Light.

By way of The Presurfer: See if you can identify these people/objects in famous paintings. Also, movie scenes recreated with toys. To which, I'll add a couple of mine, done for a themed flickr group a while back. The idea was to recreate movie scenes using rubber ducks.

Goldfinger (Duckfinger) and The Birds (The Ducks).

Feeling: mellow

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: links

I Offer a Cookie

This was a very yummy, small black and white cookie. It fit in the palm of my hand. I ate three of them, each yummier than the one before.

I offer this picture to make up for my lack of blogging. I've been busy. Annual physical was last week; all is well, even if I do feel meh. It's also Paul Taylor Dance Company time of year, so I'm attending performances each weekend. My main culture of the year.

Feeling: okay

~~~o0o~~~
Technorati Tags: chocolate