Evening All!Sorry I've been MIA, had a bad cold/flu thingy. Trying to overcome it!! Sounds like everyone has sent & received some really great boxes!Just checked the delivery confirmation # that Gladys sent me.My box will be here 2morrow!!!Now I'm trying to plan out how to open it without being mauled by the kids. LOL!!!They know I share!!Plus any box arriving in Dec just HAS to be for them. All my shopping is done & everything is wrapped! How is everyone else doing?We just got finished making a cheese ball.Tastes much better than the 2 for 5$ deals from Wallyworld! ~Christmas Cheese Ball~ 2 8-oz packages cream cheese, slightly softened 1 8-oz can crushed pineapple, well drained 2 Tablespoons finely chopped green onion 1/4 cup finely chopped green bell pepper 1 teaspoon seasoning salt 2 cups chopped pecans, divided Combine cream cheese, pineapple, green onion, bell pepper, seasoning salt, and 1 cup of pecans in a large bowl. Mix thoroughly. Cover and chill. When the cheese mixture is firm, form the entire mixture into a ball. Roll the ball in the remaining 1 cup of chopped pecans. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap until ready to serve. Serve with your favorite crackers. Due to me & HUBBY being sick the dishes & laundry are getting backed up. Now that I feel up to cleaning, the breaker to the well keeps popping.So NO water!(Thank God for Purell!) The rental company was supposed to send an electrician out today to fix it. It's after 9 don't think they are coming tonight!!They better be here EARLY in the A.M.!I will need water for my coffee fix & shower. later...April

jsmith: Salivate, salivate, salivate! That dessert pizza looks yummy! modthyrth: The Nutella pizza does sound wonderful. I'd read about a version with marshmallows, but not mascarpone. (Salivating again!) We're doing pizza tomorrow, weather permitting, so I'll have to try that as we DO have all the ingredients on hand. Can't wait to try it. About the lemon drop pizza, it's a direct steal from the Forno Bravo website. A company called the Pizza Gypsy made it for the first FB Expo last spring. Here's a link to the recipe, as well as a discussion about tweaks to the recipe. We've decided that we like it best when we cut off the rind before slicing the lemons. We tried taking off all but the barest minimum of the rind and pith, but that still left the lemon slices with a tough edge. Your idea of blanching might work well. If you try it, please let me know the result. Whatever approach you take, it's very, very tasty. BTW, we blithely ignore the "spread a thin layer of mascarpone," instruction and spread a thick layer!

I love the same colors you do, Ingrid and am a real fan of white and pale pink. I try to create a flow of color in my garden grouping colors together in sections with the white and pale pink and blue accents throughout. This year I planted tons of new iris and had a Purple bed and Blue bed nearish each other and another purple bed out farther with a bed of burgundys and a bed of mismash luminatas and odd greyish ones together to be moved later. I almost keeled over when the brightest yellow you can imagine popped up there (a free iris). I shall dig it and plant it next door at the vacation rental where I plant my too orange roses also. I have a pale yellow bed of other flowers and a pale yellow and purple section of roses. I plant white and cream and a few purple foxgloves about as well as white and blue campanula throughout. I am also scattering Sweet Williams around for summer color. I play on Pinterest with colors of plants on a board that is just for me to dabble with. I helps me combine other plants with rose color schemes. I try to like yellow so plant pale versions such as the magnolia Elizabeth, and pale yellow peonies along with cream near purples, like the iris. I do like some of the dark dark pink roses, the ones without a true red, that will blue with age and have those in a bed with white roses interspersed. My garden is young and sometimes I make impulse purchases that somehow find a place somewhere. I find if I don't love the color of a plant I kill it without meaning to do so and have killed many rudbeckias because though I love them at other people's houses, I can't get around to even liking them in my garden, I stick with Shasta daisies and echinacea in pinks for that shape. I like themes so have a black and white section of the garden, in back of the dark dark pink and white roses, along with a section for the Little Girl Series of magnolias from the 1950s with roses in pinks in between. I am collecting the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs roses from the Netherlands and am planning a little "Snow White" garden with lots of white other flowers with the roses. As I have a disease which causes fatigue and pain, I am planning more benches in shady nooks and after a friend showed me a picture of lie down benches in a forest in Scotland I am determined to have that also. I have a section of peonies along with some dwarf fruit trees and also have peonies interspersed with the roses, again mainly in whites and pale pinks but have some corals in another section of the garden and a few pale yellows. I am planting the native Pacific Dogwoods about as I love them so. I follow deer trails for my beds with some cut throughs I make. It sounds very grand, but it isn't yet, perhaps in 20 years!

It's understandable that Taos Pueblo requires a camera permit. There are hordes of people traipsing through this ancient home and ceremonial site on a daily basis, and the required permit is but one way for the Puebloans to try to exact some control over how visitors conduct themselves. You would truly be amazed at the audacious acts that entirely too many "guests" commit while visiting. Those who cherish the pueblo have a right to expect respect -- to not have photos taken of people and places where they have not given consent -- and this is one way to drive that point home. (One doesn't have to buy the permit in order to visit the pueblo, however.) Acoma Pueblo also requires a paid camera permit (most active pueblos do). I don't mind paying these fees one bit, considering that it has allowed me to experience cultural ways that are on the verge of extinction. There is so much beauty, mystery, and magic in these places IMO.