It will never ever cease to amaze me at how some people figure they can just go to a blog — any blog, pick a posting — any posting, and figure they can leave a completely spammed out comment trying to either sell their wares, or up their page rank with Google or whatever by doing this.  I swear I just had a notice to moderate a comment made to a past posting that was nothing but a bunch of links — 30 of them to be exact!!  Needless to say I didn’t approve this spamy comment, which isn’t a bloody comment at all!  Crap!  They didn’t even say hi or nothing, just a whack of links, and none of them had anything remotely to do with the posting they were attempting to link through.  Give your head a shake people!  If you have something to say, by all means lets hear your voice, but if all you want to do is spam my blog with your countless links, then don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  My guard dog eats spammers for breakfast!

I’ve just been checking one of my favorite sites to go check out new recipes.  Ever heard of TasteSpotting?  It’s a constantly changing site with nice big pictures of food.  When you see something that intrigues you, click on the picture and you’ll be whisked away to another site where you may find the recipe for that food, or perhaps a blog post about it, as in it could be a picture of food someone took while dining out at a restaurant or whatever and they’ll talk about it.  I find it really interesting, and it always has me drooling!  Like just a bit ago I clicked on this one picture of a Paris Brest, which is a traditional French cake.  Wow it looks so decadently scrumptious!  Anyway, when I clicked on that link, I was directed to the blog “La Cerise” written by a lady named Astrid.  Not only does she give the recipe and instructions, complete with pictures, but she also tells the readers her story of making this cake, and a little history on the actual cake itself.  And if you check out her sidebar, you’ll see it’s loaded with all sorts of other recipes to satisfy both your sweet and savory tastes, along with numerous bread recipes that make me crave a nice bowl of hearty home made soup and a big ‘ol hunk of bread!

Scrolling a little further down the list at TasteSpotting and HELLO — Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies!!  Recipe and instructions are posted on a fun lady named Dee’s blog titled Choos & Chews.  Now the funny thing is, I’m not really a big fan of shortbread.  I made some a couple years ago that had chopped maraschino cherries throughout them, making the shortbread pink, and then I dipped them halfway into melted white chocolate and sprinkled them with red, pink, and white nonpareils.  They were not only pretty to look at, but quite tasty too.  Anyway, after seeing this scrumptious looking shortbread of Dee’s, I have decided they are a must for my Christmas baking this year!  I may even share with the girls at work… maybe!

Did you know that there are only 44 days until Christmas?   That should be just enough time to make up for all the naughty things you may have done this past year.  But think now, do you know what is considered naughty, and what isn’t?   Of anyone we’ve asked, nobody really seems to have an answer, so we have to ask Santa to please… define naughty!

naugh·ty: (nô’te) pronunciation adj., -ti·er, -ti·est. 1. Behaving disobediently or mischievously: a naughty child. 2. Indecent; improper: a naughty wink. 3. Archaic. Wicked; immoral.

Hmm, we’re still a little confused here.  Looking at that definition it seems like naughty can be quite fun, actually.  So we made up this innocent little design for our Funky Olive Shop and it’s kind of wicked looking in it’s own festive way for the holidays with the Santa hat.  It also appears to be turning out to be quite the hit for Christmas this year, being one of our best sellers for the past week or so, especially in this long sleeved dark shirt version.

Today I went to Toronto with a couple of friends to the annual Women’s Show.  We go every year and have a great time trying new foods, drinks, and lotions and potions, not to mention gathering up our freebies that are given out at several of the booths.  There are always some good deals to be had as well, and this year we all managed to spend a little more money than we usually do, but we got some good stuff!  All three of us bought a Shiatsu Massage Pillow.  After walking and lugging our bags of goodies around for a few hours we sat on these chairs with these little wonder pillows and all of us were in heaven!  That was an easy sale times 3 for that vendor!  My friends bought theirs for themselves, but I bought mine for Mr. Funky for Christmas, so I’ll have to wait awhile before I get to try it out again.  We were also really happy when we came upon a Norwex booth, and even happier that they had stock to sell!  I wanted to pick up some more facecloths and these awesome silver scrubbies and another duster pad for my mop, and they had all of those things there, plus I picked up some new dishcloths they had too!  Again, that vendor must have loved the 3 of us walking up to their booth and squealing like kids in a toy store, screeching “I’ll take this, and this, and that too!”  Between the 3 of us, we dropped over $300 there!  K. and I talked P. into investing in a mop package and some facecloths.  She had never used any of their products before, but knowing we both swear by them, she wasn’t too hard to convince her to dig out the credit card!  Then my ultimate purchase of the day!  I bought myself a new toy!  Yep, another machine for sewing.  It’s not an actual sewing machine, but rather a  Janome FM-725 Needle Felting Machine.  I can’t wait to play around with this baby and create some über cool textiles!  Here’s a picture of my newest machine, which makes it number 4 in my collection!

 D-I-V-O-R-C-E 

Looks like the state of California has some irreconcilable differences with its resident gays, and after only 5 months of wedded bliss, they are now banning gay marriages.  It was just May of this year, that this west coast state passed a bill to allow marriage of same sex partners.  Ellen DeGeneres was one of the more well known residents that was ecstatic of that news back in May and recently married her same sex partner, Portia de Rossi in August, this past summer.  She’s one of many from Hollywood, along with the likes of Brad Pitt, Bridget Fonda, and even state Governor Arnold Swartzenager that have donated largely to fight the amendment of Proposition 8, and of course she would, as these gals marriage may now be in jeopardy with the state.

Ahh, time to sit after dinner and enjoy my mmmouthwatering French truffles.  I bought the two box deal the other day, which equals to almost 4 1/2 pounds or about 200 truffles, so I have to make sure I limit myself to just 2 or 3 a day, or they’ll all end up on my hips real fast!  They’re so scrumptious though!  I’ll never forget how I used to turn my nose up at them whenever my friend Tania would bring them to work for us, telling us how a bit (and she would stress “bit”) of dark chocolate every day was good for us.  I used to think dark chocolate was just bitter and nasty tasting, but I finally gave in to her nagging at me to try these Truffettes truffles, and once I did, she started stressing on that word “bit” again!  I only ever buy them at this time of year though, so it’s like my little chocolate kiss each day to the nearing of the end of the year!

I get my truffles at Costco, but I see they have a sale on them at Amazon too… 2 boxes for under $22.00
Of course, if you wanted to buy more and give them away for Christmas gifts, that are surely going to make someone’s tastebuds love you, you can get even better deals on 4 boxes, 6 boxes, 8 boxes or even 10 boxes!  Wow!  Ten boxes!  That’s a lot of truffles!