Arlington West at Santa Monica Beach for Almost Wordless Wednesday

Arlington West is held each Sunday at Santa Monica Beach, California and is a project of Veterans for Peace.
We will never forget the sacrifice of our brothers and sisters in uniform and their families who miss them so.

PAX PAIX SHALOM PEACE

Hometown Girls Weekend - Recipe for Perfect Moments

Take three girlfriends visiting from my hometown.

Add two nights away, first to Santa Barbara, and then to Santa Monica.

Sprinkle liberal doses of laughter, good conversation, delicious food and wine, more doses of good wine, spectacular scenery and weather, and leisurely shopping.

Let chill for approxmately fifty hours resulting in one happy, contented, appreciative woman.

For more perfect moments recipes, please visit the chief cook and bottlewasher of this enterprise, Lori of Weebles Wobblog. Thank you very much.

Decision Making Rules for Almost Wordless Wednesday

Thank you for your visit and I wish you a Wondrous Wednesday.

If you want to get your MoVo On, I am the host today over at The Motivation Station! Thank you again.

Dear Loser Letters - Because Life is Too Short to Hold it All Inside

Dear Large Chain Art store employee,

Another lady and I waited for fifteen minutes in the framing department to pick up our completed artwork. Please believe me when I walk all the way back to the front of store to ask you to please page the framing department guy that HE's Not There. Or maybe, he's invisible and I'm a liar?

Signed, I Retrieved My Own Picture, Thank you very much.


Dear Furniture Sales Guy,

You might not remember us but we ordered our new couch and chair 12 weeks ago!!! I understand the fabric is backordered and hopefully is due in this week, and pray tell, how do I know? I've called the store, numerous, countless times. I guess your phones don't make Outgoing calls! Or maybe your other customers just don't care about their stuff like we do?

Signed, Never Giving you my Business Again


Dear Man who called about Buying the Used Minivan,

Thank you so much for your interest in buying our used car. You, however, are too Stupid to buy our car, as you did not LEAVE a return phone number.

Signed, A NonPyschic without Caller ID


Dear House,

A self cleaning oven is a step in the right direction, but what I am really looking for is a Self Cleaning House! C'mon, we have the technology to make babies sound like investment advisors and land an ATV on Mars, this is NOT TOO Much to Ask! Especially since my hometown girlfriends from Ohio are visiting us this weekend before I spend a girl's weekend away with them in Santa Barbara and Santa Monica. C'mon, pretty please? I'll get your carpets cleaned professionally...

Signed, Not to Be Confused with the Other Martha


Dear Kid Who Stole My son's bike,

I bet you were suprised and significantly humilated, (oh, sorry for using such big words), to have a petite, middle aged woman get all up in your face and take her son's bike BACK. That's right, yessirree, I thought so, darn right. Learn anything?
I just wanted to leave you with this parting thought courtesy of the boy whose bike you stole and is now returned to him, "It Must Suck to Be you."

Signed, It Sure Doesn't Suck to be Us!

Jewerly Giveaway Winner

Hello, I didn't forget my responsiblity of the Country Fair Jewelry Giveaway and our winner today is Wenn with comment#11.

I used a random number generator to be neutral like Switzerland because I really wanted all of you to win!

11

Random numbers generated Oct 12 2009 at 13:27:10 by www.psychicscience.org

Thank you so much for playing along, Martha

An Award Post in Which I share 7 Things about Moi

I blow at memes and awards and I am having a blog button made with a tornado symbol that reflects this. However, I do appreciate and I am always kindly touched by my dear fellow bloggers who think enough of the blog version of me to give me this Kreativ Award. (What's up w/the spelling btw? It's the one Grammar skill I am good at!)
I am so pleased to receive this Award from 2 bloggers, the Adorable and Correctly Spelled Creative Dawn of Lydia and Pugs and the Original Prep, Beth at Social Climbers.

The next task at hand is to share 7 things about me that won't bore you to death. Okay, this is the part that always tricks me up with this whole meme/award stuff, so much pressure!!! Okay, here you go and I hope you just drank a caffeinated beverage.

1.I am an upbeat, easygoing, and optimistic person despite my Ripley from Alien moment four days ago.

2.I have lived longer in Los Angeles than anywhere else including Ohio, N.J., and Florida.

3.I dislike shopping. Please, do not confuse this with not appreciating or enjoying nice, new things. I just rarely want to be involved in the Procurement process. I have to be in the mood to shop. Whether in groceries or clothing, I like to buy in bulk.

4.Having grown up in the Art and Antiques business, it still amazes me how much I learned and assimilated from being surrounded by it my whole life. Same thing with music, and for these gifts, I am eternally grateful to my dear Parents who I am blessed to still have with me and well.

5.Aging doesn't bother me. (My creaky knees bother me on cold mornings hiking, but aging, no.) I learned very young when my brother died at 24 y/o, aging is a gift. I take care of myself and I feel beautiful at 48 y/o. I made a decision not to worry too much about stuff outside my control, and this is waaaay outside my control. Stuff I can control, like a healthy diet, exercise, sunblock, well, that's what I put my energy into and it's paying off for me. Plus, living in Los Angeles, the land of the plastic fantastic faces, I appreciate Real faces of all ages, including my own.

6.For the first time, I met a blog friend IRL! My family met Jason of The Jason Show and his beautiful family at our local Church Festival a few weeks ago, and we had a great time. He is as delightful in person as he is online and it was so sweet to see our boys together. Thank You, Jason and Giancarlo.

7.I am also looking forward to meeting another dear blog friend, Mrs.Spit and her husband, Mr.Spit when our families will meet up in Las Vegas in a couple of months.

Whew, 7 hopefully not too boring facts about me.
Now to pass on the award to some other bloggers and I am just pulling alphabetical names for some more victims, I mean Awardees!

An Eagles View - Tell the Head Eagle, Martha says Hello! She will insist on it actually.

A Suburban Stay At Home Mom - Ruth is a scrapbooker and mini book maker par excellence!

Beauty Be Good - Randi is good, actually She's Great, funny, warm, and wise about all things beautiful, just like her.

It Must Be A Full Moon - A Howl to Michele Renee, no matter what phase of the moon.

Life At the Gables- Liz is Ruth's sister and also wonderful needle artisan and sweet like her sis.

Mrs.Spock who is a Wife, Mom, Nurse, and kind.

Momma Val is funny and kind, but not a nurse. She's a LEOW, in other words, a cop's wife.

(FYI, for everyone, this is a DIY Award Zone, bask in the love and appreciation of this Award, and then do with it what you will, post it, pass it on, or just please enjoy it!)

Thank you so much for sharing in this blog Award Fest and regardless of whether I tagged you or not, please let me know something cool about you And/Or a favorite blogger we should all visit! My best to you, Martha

Pink Bras for A Cause

Last Sunday, I went to a Soroptimist Bras for a Cause Breast Cancer charity luncheon. A friend and I went to support another dear friend who is active in this organization and a 7 year survivor of the disease. (Disclaimer: This is my one and only annual charity luncheon, I am not a lady who "lunches" but this particular charity is near and dear to my heart. Actually, breasts are near all of our hearts!) This is a fun affair with a delightful silent auction, delicious food, spectacular scenery, and enjoyable company. Plus, it does give me the rare opportunity to dress up which I often think I have forgotten how to do!

The signature silent auction items are the Bras decorated to reflect the Overall theme for the event which this year was "Sisterhood of the Traveling Bra", featuring bras from around the globe.

Here is the Geisha Bra from Japan.
This feather embellished bra represents Venice, Italy.
This bra is Gay Paree, the City of Love.
And here is France herself, complete with The Eiffel Tower on her shoulder.
A much more local entry, let's give a shout out to my favorite park, Placerita Canyon in North Los Angeles.
And to finish our tour of the pink bras at this luncheon, what would be more perfect than a slice of Pink Bra Cake?
Please check your breasts or have your partner do it! You fellas too! (Men can get breast cancer.)

Thank you to the gracious host of Pink Saturday, Beverly who requests that we bloggers mingle and link up to a newly found blogger each week and I would like to introduce the mouth watering inducing blogger, Mimi from Our Family Attic. Her food photographs cause an immediate Pavlovian response, amazing.

As a special thank you to my bloggy friends, I am having a Giveaway of your choice of a handcrafted pair of earrings or bracelet made by yours truly. Please enter if you would like a chance to win.

Thank you so much for your visit, Martha