Shameless Self Promotion...

C'mon, you know you've been dying to see some pictures of the shop... You can admit it.

I give you photos of First Friday - March 2011 at 'The Palette & The Page':

Hooray, a customer walks in:
Our sandwich board helps people find us because we're still lacking the funds for decent signage... But isn't is cute!

On this First Friday we featured a local winery by hosting a wine tasting. That's wine, in a box, I personally don't like wine but I'm told by the connoisseurs, Terrapin Winery makes a damn fine wine:
Guests mingle in the front area of the shop:
It really looks a lot better in real life, but yours truly creates the window displays:
Guests and Artists mingle in our Main Gallery room. On this night we were featuring the works of Painter Edwin Friend and Wood Turner Jim Dalton.

Unfortunately, I got busy before I was able to take pictures of our musicians, Joe Paulus on Guitar and Mike Wolfe on Violin.

Are we a class act or what?
Want to learn more? C'mon, you know you want to... Visit our website!

I am Ringo

When it comes to music groups the greatest of all time has to be 'The Beatles'*

January 4th, I started a business with 5 other women. We're all in this together, each bringing our strengths in order to build a phenomenal business. But I really gotta be honest here and say two of these women, Lynn & Patti are the real rock stars. In fact, Lynn & Patti are the John Lennon & Paul McCartney of the business.

Instead of rhyming lyrics, Lynn performs bookkeeping magic, handling ALL of the sales figures, making sure the artists get paid, the bills get paid and working desperately hard to keep us flush, or something close to it.


For all the work Lynn does with the money, Patti works an equal amount of magic by managing not only all of our printed business materials and our website and mail lists but also works as a liaison for all of our artists and potential artists.


As for me, I'm Ringo. I struggle to keep the beat.
And every once in a while I compose something like this:


And like my blog posts... Here's something COMPLETELY random...
Paul McCartney makes Mashed Potatoes:



*I'm not going to even entertain an argument on this topic because it's fact, an absolute fact!

Chicken Rolls Recipe (For Carrie)

From the Valentine Post, I give you...

Chicken Rolls (Prepare to dirty EVERY dish in your kitchen!)
1 4 count pkg. of boneless chicken breasts
1 container of whipped cream cheese w/ chives
2 pkgs. of crescent rolls
1 stick of melted butter/margarine
5 slices of bread (crumble in food processor)
1 can of cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup
1 c. milk

Boil chicken breasts until cooked through. Crumble bread in food processor. Cool chicken and finely chop in food processor. Salt and pepper chicken to taste and add cream cheese until well blended (I usually do this with a fork.) Melt margarine in a shallow dish in microwave. Separate crescent rolls and drop heaping tablespoons into the center of each. Fold crescents and seal around chicken mixture. Roll chicken roll in melted butter and then bread crumbs. Bake at 375 on sheet pan until golden brown (about 25-30 min.)

While the rolls bake, add soup to a small pan. Slowly stir in milk and heat through, making a thick gravy. Serve over chicken rolls.

And now you've dirtied every pot, pan and dish you own. However, if your kids don't mind helping in the kitchen and getting their hands messy they can help roll the rolls in the butter and bread crumbs. Unfortunately for me, my kids STILL get the willies over getting their hands dirty. So for me, chicken rolls have always been a solitary project.

Reach out and touch someone...

Today while I was grocery shopping, my cell phone rang. It was my little sister in California calling on her way to work. She does this every so often, just to chat and it's such a wonderful thing.

You see, Lil' Sis and I went for 15 yrs. without talking to one another. If you asked us why we would go so long without communication, I doubt either of us would have an adequate answer for that question. So I guess you could say it's beside the point. The real triumph is, we now relish phone conversations about everything from our family, our jobs and everything from home decorating to topics as mundane as what we cooked for dinner the other night. As Martha Stewart would say, "It's a Good thing!"

As I was driving home from the grocery store, I began to marvel at this technology which provides me the opportunity to stay in close contact with my sisters far away in California. For the price of my monthly cell phone bill, I can talk to them whenever and for as long as I wish. I remembered when this wasn't always the case, that the cost of a phone call could impact your phone bill to the point it could make a serious dent in your checkbook. So a lot of times connections, important connections, we're never made.

When I was 10 yrs. old my mother moved to Chicago with my Step-Dad and Step-Sisters. I moved back in with my dad, step-mother and little brother and sister. Over the course of the 6 yrs. my mother lived back East, I saw her twice. Once when I went to visit for the summer and once when she came out to California and took me shopping and out to dinner. Communication during those 6 yrs. was severely limited. She wrote letters every one in a while and I wrote even less. She would call me on my birthday and maybe Christmas, but I can't really remember. Milestones which were important to a young girl going through Jr. High and High School went by without regard. I'm not complaining, just explaining... It just 'Is, what it Is.' Or, in this case, 'Was, what it was.'

So here's what got me wondering... How different might life have been if I'd grown up in the era of cell phones? I wonder if the accessibility would have made us closer. My relationship with my mother has always been strained and it may be in part to our lack of communication over the years. On the other hand, I'm curious if to know if teens today, faced with a similar situation, might find the convenience of a cell-phone relationship with a far-away parent less of a connection and more of an intrusion... Not that it makes a difference but it just got me pondering.

Valentine

Note: I hate calling it V-day because it sounds like a disease.

So yesterday was Valentine's Day and I thought to myself, "Here I sit just perusing Facebook and bopping around on the web, why not post something on the long forgotten blog?" So here I am.... Posting, that is.

Valentine's day for our family is mostly understated. There's never a BIG romantic dinner out, sometimes roses but not always, usually a card from that guy I sleep with every night and Chicken Rolls.

Chicken Rolls? Yes, Chicken Rolls, the most time consuming, dirty dish inducing, recipe in my repertoire, which of course makes it the family favorite. So, I show my undying affection for those I love each and every Valentine's Day by slaving away in the kitchen. I should add it's also the one day out of the entire year in which I set the table with crystal, china and linens. 'Cause it's nice to be classy at least one day out of the year.

Now I wouldn't say my family has come to expect their favorite meal and all it's fanciness and you know why? Because every single year I manage to convince them it's just not happening because I have any number of other things on my plate (on my plate! see how I did that?) And every year they look at me with a mild expression which scarcely manages to hide their disappointment and say, "That's okay Mom, I (we) understand." It's always a joy to witness the fist pumps when they realize I've come through, despite the scheduling conflicts.

But you know something... This whole fancy dinner thing is getting SO much harder to pull off now that we're each running in a different direction. With a soon to be 18 and 21 yr. old in the house and me with an ever changing schedule at the shop, it's a wonder I can manage a 'Family Dinner' at least one day out of the week, which has always been a huge priority until recently.

I have to say that last night lacked the luster our Valentine's Dinners normally hold as 'Computer Boy' had to work until 9:00. So there were only the three of us and a wrapped up plate in the fridge, which tends to lose a little bit of it's flavor when it's reheated in the microwave and the only one at the table at 9:30pm is your mom watching you eat. Kudos to the boy for not complaining.

Maybe next year when he's away at college we'll go out for one of those fancy restaurant meals and I can forgo the Chicken Roll kitchen massacre. Oh wait, that's right, we won't have any money for things like that when he's in college... Hellloooooo, Chicken Rolls.

Dusting off the cobwebs

Well hellloooo there! *crickets chirping*

I know, it's been like a zillion years since I last posted but hey, it's not like I was going for some sort of bloggers medal or anything, it's just that there's this thing called 'TIME' which seems to be a rather hot commodity in this household these days... 'Cause I mean to tell ya, there's all kinds of crazy *&%# that's gone done since I last posted.

Let's see, where to start..... For one, I became a business owner, that's right, ME! Can you EVEN believe it? Because I sure can't! To be completely honest I must tell you I'm not the sole owner of the business. In fact, I'm in business with 5 of the most beautiful, amazingly bright and talented women on the planet! (yes, I know there are more of you but hey, your not my business partners so you'll just have to deal with second best.)

So here's the story... On January 3rd we went down to Baltimore and filed for a LLC under the new name of that artists co-op I once told you about. And yes, believe it or not, it's still afloat!... Who knew? So yes, I'm pleased to announce:

The Palette & The Page, LLC

You can check out our snazzy website and read all about it here: The Palette & The Page
We're also on Facebook!

The Long and Winding Road, indeed Mr. McCartney! The trip that I've been on with this endeavor since Nov. 2009, has been anything but smooth but now it feels as though everything is beginning to fall into place, mostly due to those AMAZING women I mentioned earlier.

In other news, since the last time I blogged, 'Computer Boy' became gainfully employed by that big red & white office supply company so many of us know and love. 'Computer Boy' is, of course, a 'Tech Support' and let's just say he provides the 'EASY' for the customers. Things seem to be going well with the job and all but after only a few weeks there he came home and announced he had NO plans of working for 'the big red office supply store his whole life'... He was DEFINITELY going to college!

Which leads me to my next bit of news... It's a bit premature because there's still some hoops which need to be jumped through but 'Computer Boy' is hoping to get accepted to a school on the other side of the earth... Uh, I mean country! It just SEEMS like it's on the other side of the earth. 'Computer Boy' is in LOVE with a school in Redmond, Washington which he and I went to visit back in November... And I have to tell you, with all of his computing experience, I can't think of a better school for him. In fact, it's highly doubtful there's any place on the planet he'd be happier. So he's gotten the SAT's under his belt and now he's working with a tutor on Pre-Calc in order to prep for the CLEP test he'll need to take before too long. Oh, and there's also the matter of a couple of essays he needs to write... But I'm not supposed to mention that because I'm like his mom, ya know, and I'm not supposed to be telling him what to do and when to do it, ya know... Because he's like, old enough to make these decisions on his own... But if it were me, and I desperately wanted to get into the school of my dreams... I'd TOTALLY have those essays in by now.... I'm just sayin'.

'Nature Girl' continues to rock the photography world. Her Smug Mug website continues to grow and the big news is she'll be featured for the month of June and the Syracuse Library in Syracuse, New York. If your interested, here's the link to her Smug Mug site and if you like her work and have some time, Please leave her a comment... Things like that make her head swell to biblical proportions and contribute to her drive to be the BEST!

Oh, and I guess I should mention my husband... He's working REALLY hard because after all, we've got the cost of a college education looming ahead.

So there you have it! WHAT?... That wasn't enough for you?.... Sheesh!

Rush Hour!

There wasn't much to do on Friday after we attended the Admissions Interview and checked out apartments for THE SCHOOL. So I looked to Computer Boy and he said, "I know, let's go to Krispy Kreme!" (Seriously, the boy is a Krispy Kreme addict, especially since they closed the chain in our part of the country.)

I thought sure, why not, don't have anything else to do but sit in out hotel room. So Computer Boy plugged in the coordinates to our GPS and away we.... SAT... In traffic... Bumper to Bumper... On our way to DOWNTOWN SEATTLE AT 5:00 in the evening! But that's cool, it's not like we had anyplace we had to be. It's just that trying to navigate rush hour traffic with a GPS that tells you to stay right and at the next block informs you to turn left, which in fact is 3 lanes over... Well, let's just say it can be a bit daunting.

And just to add insult to injury, as we got closer to our destination, the GPS would update us by saying, ".5 miles to Krispy Kreme Doe-NOTS on left."

My reply, "Listen bitch, DON'T judge!"

That Trip...

So you know that trip Computer Boy and I took to Redmond, Washington?

It was FRIGGIN' AWESOME!!!

But I'm not going to say any more about that until he meets his prerequisites and gets accepted. He didn't even want me to buy him a school t-shirt for fear it might jinx it.

But here's my favorite line from the weekend:

Setting - Open House weekend, after listening to a school adviser talk to a room of roughly 80 people at which time I raised my hand and asked a few questions.

Me: I hope I didn't embarrass you at all by asking questions.

Computer Boy: No, not really.

Me: That's good because I really wouldn't want to embarrass you.

Computer Boy: Thanks, I know it's hard for you.

Funny But Oh SO True...

Late at night 'Computer Boy' scours the inner-nets for stuff to amuse me.

The link is pure comedic gold, mostly because there's great humor in simple truth.

Enjoy!
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/printers