Some Sharing

First, of the bragging variety:

For some reason, we are always getting our pictures in magazines and newspapers. We are just doing our own thing, following our regular routines, and there just happens to be a photographer around. When the Consort is running with both girls in the jogging stroller by the canal, *snap!* When Impera and her preschool class are learning about science, her face happens to be in the cross-hairs when the newspaper photographer goes *snap!*. I can't list all the times here, because lo, they have been legion.

Just after the girls had found the local fencing club, a regional magazine happened to be doing a multi-page article on fencing in the Upper Valley. They aren't mentioned in the text, but,

*snap!*


and again,

*snap!*


Then, last weekend, a local newspaper photographer wandered by my sister-in-law's farm during the girls' riding lesson. And what should we see in Sunday's paper?

*snap!*
Trixie, on Murray

Second, of the linking variety:

Since you're still here after that unabashed boasting, here are some sites I've been meaning to share:

Chocolate beer cake at Smitten Kitchen. I followed the recipe (i.e., went out and bought some Guinness just for the occasion), and it is indeed true that this is a superscrumptiously moist chocolate cake. The day it was baked, it had a wheaty flavor to it (clearly from the Guinness). The next day, it had a definite yeasty, beery taste. If you are intrigued, may I suggest you bake it and eat it all on the same day? Get some friends over and make a party of it.

The World Sunlight Map. I spend more time than one would expect here. The satellite pictures make it seem more real than anything else I've seen, and I pop over from time to time to see the current swirls of clouds, the bright light blue of shallow ocean off the west coast of Africa or the east coast of South America, and the brilliant white strip of the Nile at night. Our planet is truly amazing, and even if the desertification and electric output is a human blight on the land, it can look beautiful.

That's it. Sharing over.