Not that Big News, but something else Mildly Interesting

Hi all.

After a loooooooong hiatus from bloggering I've found myself in need of your good opinions. I know I can always trust my trusty readers to guide me in the paths of righteousness and sound marketing principles. (How are you, by the way, my dear readers? I have missed you, you know.)

So I'm starting a business.

It turns out I'm rather handy in kitchen, dontcha know, and without really meaning to, I've sort of started a private wee bakery in my house. It began with my Teutonic neighbor hiring me to bake birthday cakes for her sons because, while she enjoys baking, she doesn't really have the time and thinks I do a better job anyway. So she went around and told everyone else, and now I take orders from all my neighbors for cakes for their special occasions. (I also do a good line in pies, but those don't seem to appeal to the English palate as much, so even though I think my pies are a good deal more interesting than my cakes, no one really seems to want them, but that may change.)

And since I haven't been able to get a job in the god-forsaken county that is Cornwall, this cake-baking lark has become my only source of income. So go with what you know, right? Time to expand the bizness!

Step one: reach more clientelle through website.

Sounds simple enough. There are a million companies out there that allow idiots like me to build personal websites for a small fee and provide templates and tech support and all sorts of things for a small monthly fee. But here's the kicker: I want the URL of the website to be the name of the business, and all the names for the business I originally wanted have already been registered as URLs by other people.

SO! I have on the sidebar a selection of potential names, and I would like you to vote on the one you would find most appealing if you were hiring someone to bake a cake for your wedding or birthday or whatever.

Feel free to leave comments as to why you voted the way you did. I have my own thoughts on each of these, but I'm curious to see yours.

As for the rest of my life, here's the rundown of the past year:

Marriage is great
Cornwall is beautiful, but bankrupt. There are NO JOBS.
I still haven't finished my PhD.
Nor am I pregnant.
My last living grandparent died a few weeks ago, followed shortly by his wife, followed shortly by my penultimate surving great-uncle. It's going to be one of those winters, I can tell.
The slugs ate my whole garden except the sweetcorn.
Pirate and I both had pig flu and nearly died.
My parents came over to celebrate Christmas.

And that's about it, really. Now go to the sidebar and VOTE, bitches!

(Oh, and that first entry should be Cornucopia Cakes, as Dave very kindly pointed out. I can't correct it on the poll because blogger won't allow you to make changes after voting has begun. Very sporting of them and all that, but they clearly didn't anticipate my bad spelling.)

So wadda ya think? Is it me?

Too sick to blog

but so much to tell you! I got the Pirate's nasty head cold and I feel like shit. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be in better shape to relate to you all the crazy shit that happened over the weekend.

The follow-up to the Personality Test, however, you've been waiting paitiently for for a long time, so here's the decoder.

1. Favorite color: (supposedly) reflects how you view the world and your outlook on life

2. Favorite body of water: reveals how other people view you.

3. Favorite animal: how you see yourself.

Now go back and read all the previous comments and laugh at people.



Also my toilet is broken. Bah.

Personality Test

This is a personality test we used to give each other in school. It's wierdly revealing. Answers in the comments, please!

1. What is your favorite color, and WHY?

2. What is your favorite body of water, and WHY? (This can be anything, from a puddle to the Pacific, from the toilet bowl to the oceans of Titan. It can be real or fictional.)

3. What is your favorite animal, and WHY? (again, real (extinct or extant), or fictional/mythological.)

The most important element to these questions is the WHY.


I'm going to be gone for the weekend, and as soon as I get back I'm taking off for America, so it's going to be a while before I can get around to responding to these and tell you what your answers are meant to reveal about yourself. But that's ok, because the longer I'm gone the longer it'll be before we all laugh at you.

Ta, my darlings!

Christmas quiz

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

yes please. with cinamon and whipped cream. and mulled wine and hot apple cider.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?

Santa sub-contracts the work out to the elves known as 'mom' and 'dad.'

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?

Colored on tree, white on house. NOTHING BLIKNING. It's a holiday, not a f*&#ing carnival.

4.Do you hang mistletoe?

Usually, but no one ever seems to pay much attention to it.

5. When do you put your decorations up?

Usually around the 2nd sunday of Advent.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?

Hmm. That's a tie between the gallumbki (we're Polish. we eat cabbage rolls on Christmas. Deal with it), the kielbasa (again, we're Polish), the pierogi (are you noticing a pattern here?), the kapusta (ditto), the pumpkin bread (finally - something normal!), and all the other stuff.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child?

To be honest, Christmases are loads better now than they were when I was a kid. Mostly this is because my grandparents are dead and therefore not here to spend the entire holiday argueing with each other and informing the rest of us of our rampant inadequacy.

I do remember the year that my family got our first VCR. It was a gift from the family to the family because that single purchase blew my parents' entire Christmas budget. (Times were tight back then.) The only other thing under the tree was the complete Star Wars trilogy on VHS. We hooked up the VCR and spent Christmas Day glued to the TV watching all three Star Wars movies and eating candy from our stockings. Best Christmas ever. We had so much fun (for the first time ever) that we declared it a tradition and have done it every year since. Other families play games and spend "quality time" together. We eat junk food and argue over whether Han Solo or Luke Skywalker is cuter. I love my family so much.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?

Honestly, I never really believed in Santa. I always thought it was a bit of a stretch, so I wasn't surprised when one year, I think I was about 7, I saw some toys in my parents' closet before Christmas, and they wound up under the tree on Christmas morning with 'From Santa' tags. One year my older brother told me there was no Santa, and my mom was furious, but I didn't care because I already knew.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?

Actually, we open all of the ones from mere mortals on Christmas Eve. The only gifts we open on Christmas day are the ones from Santa. (And yes, my brother and I still get gifts from Santa. Until we have our own kids we are still the babies in the family, so we still get the Santa pressies.)

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?

With colored lights, strings of popcorn and cranberries, and all the rediculous, miscelaneous ornaments my brother and i made as kids. It's totally haphazard and it always looks great.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?

Love it love it love it love it love it. But that's because I'm the one in the family who still likes to play in it: skiing, sledding, anatomically correct snow-couples doing rude things, snow angels, forts, fights, driving like a maniac (in empty parking lots), etc. oh, yeah.

12. Can you ice skate?

Reasonably well. I'm out of practice, though. It's been a while since the ponds around my parents' house were solid enough for skating on the rare occasions I've been home.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?

My cat, Noelle, the Christmas kitty. May she rest in peace.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?

Relaxing. I work like a dog the rest of the year, and the Christmas holiday is the only real vacation I get.

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?

Hmm. That would either be pumpkin pie, gingerbread, Christmas cookies, cheesecake thingys, buckeyes, or hummers.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

That's a tie between question 7 and the Advent Concert at my old church. On the first Sunday of Advent my choir hosts a concert and carol sing-a-long for the whole city. It's the biggest church in town (giant romanesque thing that seats about 2000 people) with a huge organ and great acoustics. We invite about a dozen choirs, who each sing 2 non-traditional songs. Between each choirs performance the whole audience joins in singing the well-known carols, and at the end all the choirs come on stage and sing the 'Hallelujia Chorus' from Handel's Messiah together. With the organ and the brass accompaniement it's absolutely spectacular.

17. What tops your tree?

A star. Usually something glitzy and tacky that my dad has picked up from the local Rite Aid.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?

Giving. Definately giving. I don't remember half the stuff I've got over the years, but I usually make all my gifts and I can tell you everything I've given to each of my family members since I was about 12.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?

See this post from last year.

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yummy?

Meh. They're ok if you stick them in a glass of hot chocolate and let them melt, but otherwise they don't do a whole lot for me.