Pixabella

A biscuit for any occasion.

Ingredients
7 oz butter
Vanilla essence
3 oz castor sugar
9 oz plain flour
5 tablespoons of arrowroot/corn flour

Method
Cream butter, vanilla and castor sugar.
Fold in plain flour and arrowroot.
Press into a tray and prick with a fork, then cut into fingers.
Bake in a slow oven at 150 degrees for 45-60 mins.

My fiance and I have been together for several years now and we're starting to think it might be time to consider setting a wedding date, and of course you know what that means, I get to start buying wedding magazines, checking out dresses,and lets not forget the most important detail, the >wedding rings.

Family and friends shouldn't get too excited yet because really a date hasn't been set, just give us a little bit of time to work out how we want it all to pan out. We do after all want our wedding to be as perfect as we can.

And since you're all so far away, check out these wedding rings and let me know which ones you like. You'll notice this jeweler has a range of styles and colors for both men and women. We have decided we want our wedding rings to look similar so being able to select one style and have both sizes made up is great.

They also do custom designed rings so I might be able to send them a photo of my engagement ring and see if they can design a wedding band to match it. Oh, before I forget, Tracy says I should get them to engrave his ring with "Property of Ceejay" on the inside, except I'm sure I'll never get him down the aisle if I do, why do men have to be so difficult?, LOL.

The picture you see above is the design I think I like the most right now, but I guarantee it'll be a different design tomorrow, they are all so beautiful. Help, come on girls, email me!

Pixabella04 originally started life as a concept in Inkscape and was turned into a free HTML template, then got ported to Serendipity by Yellowled, and now I'm pleased to present the first version of the Wordpress theme ported by Carl.

Pixabella04 has become one of the more popular templates over at Open Designs so I'm sure it will be well received by the Wordpress community as well, and I hope it might even be selected as one of the themes on Wordpress.com where bloggers can get a free theme, but we'll see.

The Wordpress version of Pixabella04 is fully widgetized and has an options screen to let blog owners choose if they want green, blue, and the new red colorset. I produced red because a friend wanted to use this theme on her blog but I'll write more about that when her blog is launched. Hope you enjoy the theme.

Guess what my other half got for his birthday, no idea, I'll give you a clue; It's pink and takes photos.

Now you might wonder why I got him a pink Canon camera, well for one thing we both really like Canon cameras, it's a brand new model so has all the bells and whistles, and well, I like pink. I know it isn't a very manly color but oh well, this is the 21st century and it makes the perfect accessory when I borrow it, grin!

I also got him a nice red Lowepro case that clips to his belt for carrying around his new camera, which of course makes him feel very important, it's funny, you should see how many times he pats his waist to make sure the camera is still there, he's all proud as punch having it, but his you know whats shrink to the size of peas when he takes it out to use it, aw, my poor lovable man.

This is a surefire technique any woman can use the next time something stops working, the Pixabella patented random button pushing approach.

Here's how it works. The next time your TV goes nutty, or your computer freezes and starts flicking between programs, just randomly press buttons. It doesn't matter which ones, or how hard, or even how fast you press them, although my belief is that randomly pressing buttons like a crazed woman gets extra points for effort.

The result is that any minor problem you had with the TV or computers will now become a massive problem that requires fixing, and of course who else to fix the problem but the other half. He hates it when I do this, his faces goes all red, he starts to tremble and splutter, then lets rip with this really amusing angry outburst about not doing the "clickety-clickety-clickety" thing and how I shouldn't come running to him when 'THAT THING' needs to be fixed or reprogrammed.

But I just smile and say sorry, and he fixes it, which has the really handy side effect of fixing the original minor problem as well, yay!

So ladies, if any of you want to get something fixed around the house or at the office, just "clickety-clickety-clickety" like a possessed woman then call a man, hah, it keeps them busy anyway and let's face it, anything we can do to get them off the couch and getting a little exercise is good for them. See ya.

For a few years now I've been patiently waiting for a follow-up album from Sarah Brightman, after Harem I've become totally addicted to her sweet voice, I think Harem gets played at least every couple of weeks.

Between Sarah and Andrea Bocelli they've introduced me to opera, a musical style I never expected to enjoy listening to. As a child I used to run screaming from the room anytime opera was played, maybe age is mellowing me, or maybe you just have to be older to appreciate opera in a world filled with pop music.

So picture my surprise when I saw Symphony being advertised, well I just had to get it. This album takes off where Harem began with some really up-beat almost pop-like songs but the orchestral work is amazing.

And imagine my delight when I saw she's recorded another duet with Bocelli, my two favorite singers on one track again, and it is a beautiful track with some fantastic melodies.

I love the rock style songs she's picked for this album, they showcase a different Sarah, she seems more complex with this album, not so sterotyped. A couple of the tracks seem a little bit thrown together, but overall this album has been well worth waiting for so I'm glad I managed to pick up a copy.