It sounds like you all had good Valentine's Days. I'm so glad you did! Karen, you are such a kind and fun person. You're a joy to us all. My V-day was good, too. We had a lovely room at the hotel on the top floor overlooking the river. It had snowed in the night and looked magical out there. DH & DD headed off to ski early. I was slow getting ready, giving all my meds time to work. DH had diagnosed my bronchitis the night before. Thank goodness he'd brought along antibiotics! Anyhoo, I spent a couple hours wandering through the fun shops along Durango's beautiful Main Street, had lunch (lobster bisque and a glass of chardonnay) at the little Parisian bistro and headed back to the hotel for a much-needed nap. That evening we had dinner at Arianos. I hear the food was great, but my meds caused everything to taste a bit off. Still, it was good to celebrate it with my sweet DH & DD. Lynn

Posted by teresa_mn "I have one question......were the shrimp dead or alive when you cooked them? " Indeed a very good question. I will go off-topic in my own thread. A lot of confusion regarding seafood dead or alive, when the answer is very clear; It depends. 1. Most seafood is processed dead and is generally considered "fresh". 2. Lobsters, crabs, etc. deteriorate quickly once they die if they are not processed immediately and properly. If you can't tell by looking and examining, don't take a chance. Even there are "Lemon Laws", but if you don't know cars, don't buy used cars. 3. Live lobsters and crabs are what I mostly buy. I take chances once in a while in some stores because I know Chinese seafood stores have a huge turnover in what they sell. Everything is very fresh and I am not too bad in judging freshness. 4. To a great extend live lobsters and crabs are very much just an aesthetic requirement. If people are more acceptable as with frozen lobster tails, frozen king crab legs, frozen stone crab claws, etc. the costs of lobsters and crabs will be drastically lower because the maintenance and transportation of live seafood is extremely expensive. There is also the consideration that agricultural chemicals are used in keeping live lobsters in tanks. 5. Shrimps! It is very bad that the general public now has very low standards. Most of the shrimps, scallops you buy today in stores are chemically treated to look and taste "fresh". I only buy those shrimps which are flash frozen in 5-lb bricks. 6. There is a big big difference in taste and texture between live shrimps and the freshest frozen shrimps. I often go to a Chinese restaurant where they have live shrimps in a tank and order live shrimps. They are so good that the only way they serve them is just plain steaming. No other seasoning in cooking preparations whatsoever. dcarch

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. I don't care for the overly sentimental cards and it's hard to enjoy roses or other flowers if you know they've jacked the price up. We didn't even celebrate it when we were newlyweds. But...my DH's car died and after calculating the cost of repair combined with the 150,000 miles on it we opted to buy a new car. So yesterday we decided to take a nice drive into the country and made reservations at a great little pub, restaurant and brewery. It was thoroughly enjoyable and neither of us mentioned the 'Valentine' word.

Stephenei: What got me hooked was a section on home made cards in a Feb issue of either MM or CK magazine. And I REALLY got hooked! Card making has replaced (for the time being) scraping. As for ideas, I got some from the aforementioned magazine, some from looking at cards in card shops, and some from my own imagination. ItÂs amazing what creative creatures we can be when doing something we enjoy! One idea for an Easter card came from a quote I found onlineÂÂGive hugs, if you carrot at all! My sonÂs best friend calls me ÂAunt Carront, so I made a little card out of lime green card stock. I made three little carrots out of orange and brown card stock and cut thin strips of dark green card stock for grass. I attached the grass and the carrots to the front of the card with pop dots (for the 3D effect) and outlined the edges of the front of the card with thin strips of orange card stock. I made one large carrot for the inside to hold the latter part of the quote. It turned out to be a cute card and the idea came after seeing the quote. Other ideas come from looking through my materials and Âplaying with them,Âi.e., seeing what goes together. IÂve never scanned anything for use on the computer, but if you like, IÂd be happy to try and scan and post-to-you some of the cards I made to help you get started with ideas. I know what itÂs like to feel like...where do the ideas come from?! And once you get started, believe me, thereÂs no stopping!!!!!!! Also, some others have posted about tea-bag/paper folding which I have tried yet. As Sally said, when your scraping and stamping, the ideas just seem to flow. p.s. there are also books on card making and paper projects. My husband gave me one for a present and one was referenced in the magazine that I have been looking for but have yet to find. Hope this helps. karen