Thursday, April 29, 2010

David Corstange Smith Art Show at Cort Gallery for Three Rivers 1st Saturday Art Tour


This Saturday May 1st is art tour time!  Check out local artists, musicians, great food, and Three Rivers a beautiful atmosphere.    Check out their website for updates and specials.  www.1stsaturdaytr.com/

One of the Artist, is David Corstange Smith, has painted for 50 years, and sculpted for 20. He has studied art restoration, illustration and fine art in London, but is mostly self-taught. He paints under the name Corstange Smith, proudly carrying the name of his father and grandfather before him.  

A STORYTELLER by heart, David's work consists of prospectors, mermaids, Native Americans, women, patriotic scenes, and love stories.
"I AM a hopeless romantic," says David. "When I share my paintings, I share my love, my life."

Showing at the Cort Gallery for 1st Saturday.
His work has shown in Carson City, Fallen, Las Vegas, Kalamazoo, Santa Monica, Venice, Visalia, and internationally in London England.  He has also restored the John Barrymore collection in the mid 60's.  He has studied art restoration, illustration,  and fine art in London privately, but is mostly self taught.  Upon  he has shown at COS, Main Street Gallery, and most recently at Easelheads.  


Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Fix the Roof Bake Sale!

I love this... what ingenuity.   Have a problem?  Use your talents to solve it!

I think its great that she is doing it, more importantly she did it in style with a giant banner!  It is on the corner of Chinowth and Whitendale this Saturday, and I encourage everyone to go.  Go and support a member of our community who is taking control of her problem.  I am excited to buy a a sugary treat and meet her.  As it turns out one of my friends know her, and says she is a neat lady.

So this Saturday go check it out!

Monday, April 19, 2010

First Time Home buyers credit... JOKE! and Nightmare!

RANT TIME!!!  sorry guys I have to or go crazy-er!

We filed a 1040x for the home buyers credit in October of last year.  So you would think that surely by now we would have it.  But no, not yet.  With no apparent sign of it coming in the future.  Always I am told, its right around the corner, 6 weeks from this date, then 6 weeks from this new date.  It almost seems like everytime they send a letter it adds 6 weeks.

Well I say... STOP SENDING ME LETTERS!  By following directions giving everything plus extra of what they want, enough to have my identity stolen 12 times, I still have to wait.  The problem is to many scammers in the system, which doesn't surprise me cause one of the mortgage companies we looked at didn't want to do a VA loan, and suggested that many of her clients find a house, make an offer, apply for the credit, and then use it for the down payment so they can buy it.

I am just tired of the hoopla... let me tell you this.  If I could go back in time, I would seriously reconsider this credit.  At the very least I think the IRS should be honest about this whole thing and tell us it will take nearly a year so don't call us, because it is not going to happen before then.


*sigh*

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Food: Tongue Scraping Bad!

Have you ever ate something so bad that you wanted to scrape your tongue and scour your mouth with bleach.  Well, I did.  Now I love to try new places, so when I had to go to Fresno for lab work, and didn't eat all morning I was starving.  Now my standards are lower when I haven't eaten for a while, so I am afraid.

We were driving down blackstone when dad and I  saw this very old looking restaurant called BJ's Country Kitchen, their sign highlighted biscuits and gravy so we pulled in to try it.  The parking lot was empty, and though that should have been a warning sign, I ignored it.  My new phone has internet, so I looked it up, and all the reviews gave great ratings, 30 people and more gave it 4-5 stars out of 5.  So I figured it was a diamond in the rough.

When I walked in I was immediately met with this weird smell, kinda like dead skin meets must.... (no fluff here folks this was the real smell)  Now you would have thought that I would have run away, but no, I was sucked into this vortex, because hunger takes over and depletes my brain cells.  The place matched the outside very old and weirdly decorated, with ugly green vinyl seats.  Oddly there were people there, but I soon realized they were employees and family members hanging out... not eating!  (I should have been really scared)   *note the falling down tile, another sign from God, that I ignored.

The waitress, who was super nice, seated us.  We got coffee, which was good!  Fast forward too food.  After all the forces of good trying to prevent me from certain death, I decided to... no, not leave, but order something "safe" like an ortega burger, surely thank can't screw up meat and cheese!  Instead of fries I thought I would try their potato salad, the waitress told me it was homemade (are we sensing the pattern of my inadvertent suicide)

When I got my food, which was not slow, but I expected that since their were no customers but us.  It looked all right, so I dug in.  I opened the burger and notice there was no mayo or mustard like the menu said, when I asked she walked off presumedly to get me a little bowl of mayo, instead she brought back packets..... PACKETS, because they only use packets!  The potato salad had an odd flavor and smell to it, I told myself they used too much vinegar and that it was not spoiled from sitting out too long, after all it was already in my body.

I started eating the hamburger and well you guessed it, yuck!  It is meat and cheese and they managed to ruin it.... I mean I eat liver for pete's sake and I still thought this was gross!  I also discovered a little gift with my burger, which for me was particularly awesome...

Now through this all the waitress, was very nice, so for that reason I did leave a tip, not a great one though, I think she should have warned me or something.  At this point I wanted to get out, which meant if I had to pay for this that was okay, I did not want to take any extra time.  The back of the check there was a comment section and so I filled it out, cause obviously they had no idea.

I wasn't going to say anything but the cashier did ask me, so I quickly let her know about my experience there... ironically she only seemed upset about the bread bag tie that came with my burger, and not anything else.

So this was my experience at BJ's, my only thought is that there must be another one in Fresno that everyone is talking about because I did not share their views on the place.

So good luck and good eating!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Easter Cakes I made!

Okay so I wanted to make something clever for easter... We were going over to my sisters house for easter... kindof easter hoping yesterday.   I decided to make a cake, but I jumped on the internet to find a clever easter cake to make.   I found a betty crocker recipe that was, I think, was better looking than the other flat bunny cakes out there.

I did make a couple of tiny design changes but for the most part used there design for my first time around with this recipe.  When I made the cakes I did not level them.  After they cooled and I cut them in half I made sure that I cut it in such a way that the back end was wider when I put the two pieces together.  This made it look more dimensional.   I did use icing to stick it all together, I almost used strawberry filling... but when I talked with my husband I realized that visually I didn't want to have a bunny massacre for easter

I cut the nose jelly bean in half length wise and shaped into a triangle... the jelly bean I had were too big for the eyes, and I am told my bunnies looked evil.  I wasn't sure if everyone liked coconut so instead I used the flat side of a table knife and patted the bunny after it was frosted, pulling the knife straight up.  This made great looking fur.   Also I thought the tail was too gi-normous so I ate one layer and centered the other.


This was a fun recipe, very easy to make.  I would recommend it for everyone.

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