Wordless Wednesday -- Seen in the Backyard

Recent Photos -- Como Park Conservatory -- Orchids

The Silent Killer - Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Camy Tang is having a contest -- you could win an iPod and a BASKET OF BOOKS!

Camy Tang's first book, Sushi for One, just came out. To celebrate (and to generate interest in the book) she is hostessing an awesome contest. The grand prize, first place winner, will receive an 8 GB iPod! Plus a lot of books (I didn't count them all ...)

For more information, and to enter, go here:
http://www.camytang.com/contest.html

You will need two things
- you'll need my email address to put in the contest entry form -- SuseADoodle at gmail.com. Please be sure to use that, okay?
- a Yahoo ID so you can join her Yahoo Group, Camy's Loft. And you will WANT to join her Yahoo group because every week she gives away books!

An author who whole-heartedly believes writers are readers too!

The contest runs till October 31, 2007.


The book sounds like a wonderful read. It is on my list of "GET THIS SOON!" Books and I've scheduled an afternoon to read it cover-to-cover. Want to know a little more about it? Check out:
http://christianfictionblogalliance.blogspot.com/2007/09/sushi-for-one-by-camy-tang.html
or
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310273986
or
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=273981&netp_id=479128&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW

Mute Monday -- "Sweet" -- Makes Sweet, Hmm?

FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE EVENT

Who doesn't like chocolate? There are very few people who don't. (They were probably given chocolate as a kid but were told it was calves' liver or something like that.)

Did you know that about half of the world's chocolate is produced with slave labor? For more information, visit http://www.stopthetraffik.org/

If you like to cook and would like to win a goodie bag of Traffik-Free Chocolate, stop over here: http://rkhooks.net/2007/09/03/stop-the-traffik-chocolate-event/

If you participate, stop back here.

In the comments section leave your name and the url to your blog post that you use to enter r k hooks' event, using Traffik-Free Chocolate.

I'll be posting this info about the event at each of my blogs. Feel free to leave your comment and link at each one. (One comment entry per blog please, though.) From all of the comments posted, there will be a random drawing and I'll send out a chocolate-related thank you to three winners.

DREAM ... Share your Talents, too!

You MUST check out this awesome video that Kay has posted at her blog, Loop de Loops:

http://loopdeloops.blogspot.com/2007/09/dreams-can-come-true.html

Go there NOW! I'll wait. Go, click on the video (after you pause her music -- Jimmy Durante -- well, pause him after you enjoy that ... personally, I love Jimmy's voice :-) but I'm a 60s kid who loved 40s music growing up ...)

DO NOT read anymore of this post until you've watched the video ...

















Okay, now I'll tell you that I heard about this on the radio. I listen to classic music radio in the car. Turned on the radio in the middle of a discussion about this.

There was a debate whether it is okay that a non-professional could sing opera so well and whether it was proper that he did so well in a "popular" venue like that. Opera snobs are upset. Music lovers, though, are ecstatic.

Never belittle YOUR dreams! They are a gift. Your talents are yours and are also a gift.

Live While you are Alive!

Create Your Life -- don't let it just happen to you.

Rejoice in each day's blank page to make your mark on.

WW (late addition) -- This one is for Rose :-)

Wordless Wednesday -- Landed and Posed for the Shot ...

A few others:

Wordless Wednesday ... "Billy"

for more info on WORDLESS WEDNESDAY, go to

http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

Monday Madness (001)

Here are some weather-related questions ... Thank you for playing and have an awesome week! =)

1. Where you live, what kind of weather (or weather-related tragedy) do you fear the most?

I live on top of a hill, and there are almost no trees of any size on our property. This is in the Upper Midwest. And being a flat-lander from the eat coast, I am not familiar with cloud formations or the weather patterns of this part of the country. So, the scariest weather is tornado or flat-line wind (tornadic-speed wind without the spin).

2. What kind of weather do you MOST enjoy?

Having said that, as long as I am inside, it is going north or south of us but is visible, and I am not out driving in it, I actually enjoy thunder storms. The lightening is amazing as it arcs across the expanse of sky and zaps the ground.

Otherwise, I also enjoy snow as long as I am not out in it or have to go out in it soon. The silence that seems to surround the falling of snow, or the muffling of sounds, is comfortable like a favorite old quilt to sleep under.

3. What kind of weather do you LEAST like to drive in?

Anything that makes it hard to see: rain, snow, sleet, or even the normal everyday weather of dusk!

4. What is the scariest weather-related experience you've had in your lifetime?

While I was a student at the University of Minnesota, I had to take classes during the summer to be able to graduate when I wanted to. So, I took a course in my major, studio ceramics, as a night class. It was during my first six months in Minnesota after moving from New Jersey. I'm used to fire sirens at noon as a daily system test because we still had volunteer fire companies that respond to the "fire whistles." Well, that night, July 1, the sirens went off around 8 PM -- meaning a tornado had been sighted within x-number of miles.

We were in the basement already so there was no where else to go. Then the rain started and well, we ended up with 8-10 inches of water on the floor of the studio (huge double room) where extension cords were under water. When the water first started coming in we ran around and unplugged all the cords we saw. Missed one. (The water would have been deeper but students up the ramp from us in the metal studio filled sandbags and blocked the doors to keep more water from running in.)

One very brave student waded over to the outlet and yanked out the cord.

There were reports of water geysering out of storm drains, cars in water up to their windows, cars floating away.

By the time I left the studio that night around 10:30, other than a puddle here and there, you wouldn't have known the storm had been so bad. There were some homes flooded by a flash flood in one of the Twin Cities' northern suburbs. And on July 3, the Twin Cities outer Metro area had FROST!

The guy I am now married to, lived along a street in residential St. Paul, where flat-line, during that storm, winds hit and took out most of the huge trees that had once lined the street a couple of blocks away. A huge limb landed on his car and crushed it.

5. Share a "weather picture" with us!

Mute Monday has a Theme and I didn't know it ...

HPIM0581, originally uploaded by Suse B.

The theme is "The City" and here's my idea of a crowded place to be -- as far away from the city as possible.

Mute Monday -- Rubber Stamped Greeting Card

0004, originally uploaded by Suse B.

Something To Ponder

I received this in an e-mail today and thought it was worth sharing:

(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000

(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000

(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.

Now think about this:

Guns:

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
(Yes, that's 80 million...)

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.

(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188

Statistics courtesy of the FBI

So, statistically, doctors are approximately

9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN,

BUT

ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.


Please alert your friends to this alarming threat

We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!

Out of concern for the public at large,

I have withheld the statistics on

lawyers

for fear the shock would cause people to panic

and seek medical attention!