I am cooking a capon, it smells like Christmas and Thanksgiving here. Too bad you can't all smell it. It's driving me to drool. Nearly, I wouldn't actually do something so ill mannered and uncouth. Not while anyone was watching.

Someone posted a picture of chocolate cheesecake to my StumbleUpon blog. They picked an Oreo cookie type so I was kind of spared the chocolate envy feeling. I'm not a fan of Oreo cookies. But, I do love a certain combination of vanilla, chocolate and caramel.

These trilliums came up on EBay last year. I would have loved them. I even thought about making a bid. Reality checked in though and I just kept the photo of them instead. Someday I will find them when I can spend money on getting them.

I have a few of the posey/posie bowls now. Some from old Aunts and some from abandoned houses, etc. They are one of my favourite things.

Have you ever seen something which was the epitome of romance? Something so perfectly special like an English tea with ladies wearing fancy summer gowns and drinking out of bone china cups with elegant rose patterns. Something you could treasure all your life, perfectly preserving forever that one romantic moment when it all came together... I'm thinking of china posy bowls.

I inherited the first one from my Aunt Sally, my Dad's Mother's sister. It's a pale green urn shaped bowl with three pastel coloured roses in it. Two petals are nicked but I've treasured it for over 20 years. The next one came from an old lady's house. Her son had retired her to a nursing home and was looking to make a buck. I brought home another bowl of flowers, slightly nicked too. I have a third but I forget where it came from.

Anyway, if you turn over my flowers you see 'Royal Adderley' and then a flower graphic and then 'floral bone china'. The roses and flowers are beautiful, carefully made to look real, detailed. Each has it's own nicks, before I ever got them. But I love them. I think they are the most romantic thing I own. Flowers that will live forever, as long as you continue to dust them and wash them every few years. No watering required and they will never wilt. They are my perfect romantic treasures.

Bone china needs to be washed now and then. Just fill the sink with warm soapy water and let them soak awhile. The water will help them from becoming dried out and prevent cracking and chipping. Nothing will completely prevent chipping but it does help. Store them where they won't be knocked around. Full sun will bleach them over time. If you have to move, pack them individually and carefully and send them to me.

I thought I would find a website for Royal Adderley, no luck. Don't even try typing in bone china during a search. You will be swamped with sugar bowls, tea sets and other such things. I tried figurines and had a bit more luck, still not what I was looking for. On Ebay they seem to call them china posy bowls. I found quite a few and have saved the photos of each. Most of all I was surprised at how cheap they are offered for. I expected they would cost a mint, but they are all around the $10 range. I'm not keen on ordering bone china to be shipped in the mail, but it does give me hope for the next flea market, antique shop or garage sale. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure!

Most of this post was originally written by me and posted to: Kitschy-Kitschy-Coo - Floral Posey Bone China Bowls.

We tend to think of things we want right now, or in the near future. Yesterday I was watering the garden (watering in the compost really) and I began thinking about what I want 10,000 years from now.

Besides the fact that I would like to be immortal and actually see the world in 10,000 years, I would like to see seeds from the plants I'm tending now. Imagine seeing the new seedlings growing from their great-great-great-grandparents, which you watered 10,000 years ago. I like to think that I made a difference, however slight. Maybe I will never have fame and fortune, but there will be trees here which I helped grow.

At least, there should be. If not for that band of rogue aliens which come to Earth in 8462 and torch the whole place, for no reason. Just some freak road rage incident.

The National Vacant Properties Campaign is seeking to make vacant properties reclamation a national priority. To achieve this, we are focusing on four goals:

BUILD A NATIONAL NETWORK TO SUPPORT A NATIONAL MOVEMENT We plan to cultivate leaders and develop a national network of experts, practitioners and consultants with extensive experience and interest in reclamation efforts. We will recruit a diverse array of leaders, from environmental advocates to real estate professionals.

GIVE COMMUNITIES THE TOOLS THEY NEED Practitioners are searching for new strategies, policies, and tools that can help them prevent, manage, and rehabilitate vacant properties. The Campaign will focus on disseminating cutting-edge research, identifying and analyzing policy innovations and best practices, presenting model legislation, and informing people about the latest policy developments in the field.

MAKE THE CASE FOR RECLAMATION EFFORTS Effective communications are essential for transforming ideas into action. We will collect compelling evidence, develop persuasive messages for our spokespeople, determine the best ways to influence top decision makers, and elevate the visibility of the issue for the general public.

PROVIDE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND TRAINING Many communities lack the capacity or expertise to deal with their vacant properties by themselves. The Campaign will provide several forms of expert assistance to help a wide range of communities jump start their vacant property efforts.

Does this mean they would sponsor someone to fix up an abandoned house? I wonder if you could buy an abandoned home through them, fix it up with training on how to do so (from them) and then have a new home for yourself? This could be a cheap way of getting your own home.

Borrowing a computer is always interesting. You gain new respect for your own computer and chances are you find new things you'd like to migrate along to your own set up. On this computer I like that the MS text file opens in a different font. Mine is always FixedSys which is perfectly fine for making ASCII art, but not much else. It's a very thick font. This computer uses a much nicer font, plain but nice.

My desk is a lot neater, which isn't saying a lot since my desk is not about to win any tidy awards.

I hope to be back at my own computer today, sometime. I should be getting paid something for the babysitting yesterday, not sure what though. I had asked for more than just gas money this time. Really that only seems fair. I didn't want to come down to Newmarket again, right after leaving the day before.

My brother is coming over for breakfast this morning. I'm not sure who is cooking. I loaded the dishwasher. Tidying up someone's house is tricky. You never know where things are supposed to go and when you guess at it peopel get frustrated. As if you should just KNOW. I'm not sure how I should just know. I just should. ESP would make life simpler. That or a lobotomy and then if they even asked me to do anything, I wouldn't care what they thought or felt about how I did it. I do wonder if I'm the only one who thinks being part of a large family should require a lobotomy. Maybe it's much different if you aren't already the 'black sheep'. I've never done anything bad, just all wrong.

I am looking forward to the drive back to Alliston. Driving is nice. Tailgaiters aside. I'd like a bumper sticker that says "If you can read this, back off". Or something along those lines. Most people seem to drive like a herd of cattle, nose to butt. I love a lot of space in front and behind me. I like to see where I'm going and have lots of room to suddenly change my mind and head in another direction, stop for coffee or investigate whatever the road signs offer. Lots of things. Driving gives people a freedom yet they want to make it constricted. I don't get it.

Just like I don't get people being nasty. How does that ever really work out? Everyone likes to be treated fairly and respectfully and politely yet they so often seem to think it only needs to be directed at them, not from them. I get annoyed with nasty people. I've learned to be polite and respectful while not giving them what they want. Being nasty and rude should never gain you anything. I'm sure they will all suffer for it later. I don't believe in heaven or hell but I'm sure there is something out to get them, eventually. No doubt it will be very nasty.