Since I’m a gift basket designer, it makes sense that I’ve been spending a fair amount of time recently, thinking about the kind of gifts that others might want for Valentine’s Day this year. That also brought back a few memories of past Valentine’s Days, so I figured I’d share some of my thoughts and memories — for what it’s worth!
The holidays are over and so, thankfully, is my annual inventory at the hobby shop! This year will be a year of profound change for me and my family as I’ll be closing the retail shop and moving the gift basket portion of my business to our home. Annual inventories should be much easier for me from here on.
This recipe was originally printed in our local newspaper many, many years back. (It was long enough ago that we had two newspapers a day, the Worcester Telegram in the morning and the Worcester Evening Gazette later in the day. Later on, only one paper was printed daily, called the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. Exactly which paper printed this recipe? I’m afraid I haven’t a clue!)
At any rate, this is a personal favorite. It’s a nice buttery rolled out sugar cookie. If you like, you can use cookie cutters to make holiday shapes instead of cutting the dough into diamond shapes by following the recipe directions.
So, you’ve decided to take the plunge and put your products or services up on the Web. Perhaps you’ve used one of those quickie website builders offered by various hosting companies. You sit back and wait for those customers to come flocking in, and you wait, and wait some more . . . Chances are your website is not well optimized and the problem is that nobody even knows that your site exists.
If you’ve read some of my blog posts or visited my websites, you probably have already gathered that I live and work in New England. Normally, Autumn is my absolute favorite time of the year as it’s not too hot, not too cold, and the turning foliage adds a treat for the senses. I even love how the outdoors smells in the Fall!
This Autumn, however, Ma Nature treated us to a spectacular “Special Event” that many of us would rather have missed. Our early Nor’easter weighed down all that lovely foliage with heavy, wet snow until many of the trees either lost branches or even uprooted themselves.
Several comments have been left on this blog stating that I should be adding more pictures, possibly videos, etc. In response to that, I have decided to post a few pictures of some of my gift baskets and other items that I make. (On the other hand, some people have left comments complaining about the “music” on this site. To you people, I have only one response — get your ears checked!! There are no audio files on this blog.)
I’ve been meaning to post another recipe for some time now, so here’s one that I took from the cookbook included with my pressure cooker. This has become my standard “company recipe” because just about everyone who tries it likes it and it’s fairly quick and easy.
Anyone who has studied human psychology at all should be familiar with the question of how much of our behavior and character traits is determined by genetics and how much is learned during early childhood.
Recently it occurred to me that it’s quite possible that the way my thinking patterns developed might have had a lot to do with the fact that I was extremely near-sighted from birth. When I started the fourth grade, a teacher realized that I just could not read anything on the blackboard unless I was right up close. From that point on I have worn either glasses or contact lenses, but prior to that, there was no way for me to know that everyone didn’t see the world in a very blurry fashion!
A few comments made on a forum that I frequent made me think of something that happened a long time ago when I was only in my early twenties.
You may or may not know that I am a gift basket professional. You can see some examples of my work at my Greenbriar Gift Basket website.