Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Monday, April 13, 2015

Dutch Baby Pancakes and A Song

For some strange reason I feel having a doctor's appointment gives me a free ticket to eat anything I desire. An appointment coming up tomorrow morning. YUK!!!!!!!!!!!!! Do I need to say I am so over going to the doctor and testing, if not, I am shouting it to the heavens and beyond. 


Anways, made a Dutch Baby Pancake with fresh strawberries and blackberries, topped off with fresh whipped cream, the kind that comes in a bottle, (the best kind). 

photos by spbm

Also, I think I like taking photos of these things.
Here's my recipe for an individual serving:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Add the following in a bowl:
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup milk 
(skim, 2%, or whole will work. I use whatever I have on hand)
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla extract
Beat the above ingredients by hand with a wire whisk until smooth, pour into
a preheated small skillet with 1-2 tblsp. of melted butter, that has been melted in the skillet while preheating the skillet.

Top with whatever toppings you like. Sometimes I drizzle honey, lemon juice, and sprinkle with powder sugar. 

You can double the recipe for two, 
and for 3 - 4 servings, use:
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
half stick butter 
(you can actually get by with a little less butter)
1-2 teas. vanilla extract
1/4 teas. salt
follow the above instruction for the remainder of the recipe.
You can use a cake pan for this or a couple of cast iron skillets, be sure they are seasoned,
otherwise, your pancakes will stick.

And today, I have been obsessed with this song:



Sunday, February 22, 2015

Playing For Change Sunday

Some lovely and inspiring music for your Sunday.



Anything is possible.

Quantum physics has scientifically proven what the yogis, Buddhas, and Mystics have always taught, namely that the reality we perceive as being ‘out there’ in a fixed state is in fact an illusion. Instead what we are actually dealing with is a field of infinite possibilities which is in a constant state of flux. The reality we perceive is what our brain has come to assume is there. ~Author Unknown

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Don't...

This quote showed up on Pinterest earlier and it was one of those that reached out and smacked me, which I was needing. I try very hard not to post things that are depressing but sometimes, I feel like I am playing a game when I pretend that everything is OK when it's not. No matter how much meditation I do or how positive I try to stay, something will happen and it feels like a wave of fear has knocked me to the depths of the ocean of fear. 

                             photo by spbm

So here's a message to myself and to anyone else who might come along and need a little bit of encouragement.

DON'T LOSE YOURSELF IN YOUR FEAR!

Some beautiful music by The Piano Guys:
A Thousand Years



Saturday, November 10, 2012

...even in my dreams


Do you ever have days when you like living inside your own head? I don't have too many of them, but today was one of them. I liked the way I saw the world, people, and things; it felt good.
photo by spbm

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Some beautiful, calming music. I'm pretty sure I would like to hear this song all night long, even in my dreams.

Sunday, August 05, 2012

Living In The Moment


Photo by spbm

What I'm trying to do these days "Live In The Moment".
 
Some wonderful Rabindranath Tagore quotes.
When I read him, I feel like I could burst open...his words are so real...so moving... 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did today. 
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“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.”

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”


“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”


“If I can't make it through one door, I'll go through another door- or i'll make a door. Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.”

“We live in the world when we love it.”

“The smile that flickers on a baby’s lips when he sleeps- does anyone know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumor that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning.”

“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.”

“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”

“When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my lord of silence, with thy peace and rest.
When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, and come with the ceremony of a king.
When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy one, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder.”
 
 
“YOU are the big drop of dew under the lotus leaf,
I am the smaller one on its upper side,'
said the dewdrop to the lake.”

“Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.”


-Rabindranath Tagore

Thursday, April 12, 2012

World of Doubt



                                                                              Photo by SPBM

 
"That's the problem with seeing things. Nothing is clear. Feelings, ideas shape what's in front of you. Cézanne wanted the naked world, but the world is never naked. In my work, I want to create doubt." He stopped and smiled at me. "Because that's what we're sure of."

~Siri Hustvedt

I am so in LOVE with this music!
The video is beautiful and magical.



Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dreamy

WOW!!! Who knew Rita Wilson had such beautiful and dreamy voice!?
 Her voice sounds soooo smooth and creamy - like an angel.


I'd like to be here, listening to her dreamy CD.


Sunday, March 04, 2012

When the sky moves...

The sky was extrodinary today! I took these while in the car, going down the highway. (And no, I was NOT driving.) :)

Photo by SPBM

“I've always thought of wholeness and integration as necessary myths. We're gragmented beings who cement ourselves together, but there are always cracks. Living with the cracks is part of being, well, reasonably healthy.”
― Siri Hustvedt, The Sorrows of an American

Photo by SPBM

“The truth is that personality inevitably bleeds into all forms of our intellectual life. We all extrapolate from our own lives in order to understand the world.”
― Siri Hustvedt, The Shaking Woman, or A History of My Nerves
 
Photo by SPBM

“I remember thinking how easy it is to speak in clichés, to steal a line from pulp fiction and let it fall. We can only hover around the inexpressible with our words anyway, and there is comfort in saying what we have heard before.”
― Siri Hustvedt, The Blindfold

Photo by SPBM

“I've always thought of wholeness and integration as necessary myths. We're fragmented beings who cement ourselves together, but there are always cracks. Living with the cracks is part of being, well, reasonably healthy”
― Siri Hustvedt, The Sorrows of an American

If you are not familiar with Siri Hustvedt books, do yourself a favor and purchase one now. They're wonderful! She is as gifted as she is beautiful!

And, for another treat, enjoy this beautiful and melancholy music by her daughter.



Thursday, March 01, 2012

Beautiful Girl with A Beautiful Voice

I just have to brag a little...This is my niece, Colby. She has a voice that matches her soul, pure. And, she is beautiful. Dang, some people just get it all, she most definitely did.






Saturday, February 25, 2012

Yesterday



Snow we got last week, gone by noon the next day. There was something about the street that night…and for a few seconds, it felt as if I stopped the car, opened the door, and stepped out, I could travel to another world, a past world. Time had stopped…and I didn’t want to take that next breath, cause you know when you do...the spell is broken.

“The past is a foreign country;
 they do things differently there.”
Leslie Poles Hartley





Friday, February 24, 2012

Friday Night Music - The Civil Wars

I LOVE everything about this couple - their voices, their looks, the chemistry between them. They sound and look like poetry in motion. I'll marry this guy in my next life. I'm sure of it! LOL Heck, I may even be her in my next life. :)

Enjoy








 
“I think music is what language once aspired to be. Music allows us to face God on our own terms because it reaches beyond life.” 
 
--Simon Van Booy
 

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Most of the time...

Does anyone understand their own fragility? I doubt it. People never know what thing it is that will break the thread that holds them together. There are things that unravel us little by little, without our knowing the exact breaking point.

Most of the time, it is not the big thing that breaks us - it's the little thing.

My little Marelli

“We who choose to surround ourselves

with lives even more temporary than our

own, live within a fragile circle;

easily and often breached.

Unable to accept its awful gaps,

we would still live no other way.

We cherish memory as the only

certain immortality, never fully

understanding the necessary plan.”

― Irving Townsend

 
“There's no fear in a shallow heart

because the shallow heart is faint and don't fall apart,

But feeling hearts that truly care

are fragile to the flow of air.”

― Q-tip


“Now the thought of forever makes me tired. Frightened. Sad. What is forever worth? When love is so fragile and even one human life so long?” ~Stacey Jay

Some beautiful music...


Friday, October 21, 2011

Where I'd like to be today...

...and tomorrow...and all future days. I have been blessed and fortunate enough to have spent some time in Italy. While living in Europe, Italy was a monthly visit for 10 years. If I ever get back there, I'll not be getting on a plane to come back.


                                   


Yesterday evening I spent an little time on the sofa with a cozy afghan, a cup of hot chai tea, memories, and a picture book of Tuscany. Pure bliss.

Enjoy this beautiful song by Mary Chapin Carpenter.




Sunday, August 28, 2011

Fragments of Summer

I went out yesterday to capture what is left of summer's magnificent beauty.


"When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)

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If only I could write like Elizabeth Gilbert... I am sure life would throw smoother stones my way. :) I could read her books over and over and over. Probably because I can relate to her in so many ways and that, draws me to her writing. Eat, Pray, Love is a real gem for me, so full of yummy nuggets. I can't believe I do not own the movie. Gosh, I am going to have to remedy this problem and purchase it. It is the perfect movie for a lonely Friday or Saturday night.

Now if only I had the money to travel the world to find myself. :)

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So hooked on Matt's music right now.



Friday, August 26, 2011

Dream Catcher

Too many of my nights are filled with bad dreams - probably because I go to bed so worried about things and my mind is always trying to figure how to work things out. After reading up on dream catchers, I decided to make one for myself. I absolutely love it. I do have to get it hung where is swings freely for the bad dreams to pass through. Since hanging it, I haven’t had a bad dream and I’ve been sleeping better. My first one, I used things I had around the house, going to have to purchase a few things, and, I want to find some willow branches. I like things made from nature, the more natural things are the better. I made one last night for my wonderful friend Susan. I think after I perfect a couple of things in making them that I may start selling them.
Dream Catcher

My first dream catcher

The Legend of the DreamCatcher

Long ago when the word was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder's willow hoop which had feathers,horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web.

He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life; how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. "But", Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are many forces; some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But, if you listen to the bad forces, they'll steer you in the wrong direction and may hurt you. So these forces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of Nature." While the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web.

When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the elder the web and said, "The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center. Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions. If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole." The elder passed on his vision to the people and now many Indian people hang a dream catcher above their bed to sift their dreams and visions. The good is captured in the web of life and carried with the people, but the evil in their dreams drops through the hole in the center of the web and is no longer a part of their lives. It's said that the dream catcher holds the destiny of the future.

Made this one for my wonderful friend Susan.

Yes...I am obsessed with these dream catchers...and the history of them.

 May everyone be safe this weekend!

And...a little music for this wonderful Friday.

Friday, August 19, 2011

{Music and Art Friday} The Civil Wars - Poison & Wine

I just love this duo - I love watching them as much as I enjoy listening to them, so much chemistry between the two of them.

Some beautiful music...



and, some beautiful art...

Beyond the Horizon by Steve Hanks

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. - Robert Frost

Friday, June 24, 2011

just because


Just because...:)

Found this frame in the dumpster. I'm going to make a visual board using it.

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“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
                                                                         ~Buddha

“The mind is everything. What you think you become.” ~Buddha
                                                                      

I'm so into this music right now - soothing, relaxing, and so very beautiful.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Sunday quote and a song

Photo: Sixpence & A Blue mOOn

"Everybody has strange things that mean things to them. ~ Ernest Hemingway
                                                                                 


                                         
        Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Colors of GREEN...with a song

Rain has been falling for a couple of days; GREEN is really popping. I couldn't resist taking the camera out yesterday and capturing some of this magical color. Being surrounded by concrete/brick buildings, parking lots and stores, I delight in what little bit of nature forces it way to my front and back door. (However, even living in the city, I seem to have a lot of wildlife coming to my 'tiny' backyard.) :)


While listing some new items to my Etsy Shop today, I was listening to Adele. I hope YOU enjoy this beautiful song.