You Have This Week Only, Get Your Name In Now!

So far we have a few contestants for naming my homemade Granola! If you click on this link you can still put in a name for the granola yourself and win not only a lovely award made by Swallow, but also a sample of my granola. So hurry up and get your suggestions in because you only have till the 19th. Winner will be posted on October 1st!

Oh yes, I had better give you that link there is also a link with the pic on the right hand of this page it's the award you'll win), it's here at A Contest? Oh yes, a contest!

What Starts With "F" And Ends With "K"?

A first-grade teacher, Ms. Brooks, was having trouble with one of her students. The teacher asked, "Harry, what's your problem?"

Harry answered, "I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should be in the 3rd grade too!"

Ms. Brooks had had enough. She took Harry to the principal's office.

While Harry waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Brooks he would give the boy a test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st grade and behave. She agreed.

Harry was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to take the test.

Principal: "What is 3 x 3?"
Harry: "9".

Principal: "What is 6 x 6?"
Harry: "36".

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should know.

The principal looks at Ms. Brooks and tells her, "I think Harry can go to the 3rd grade."

Ms. Brooks says to the principal, "Let me ask him some questions."

The principal and Harry both agreed.

Ms. Brooks asks, "What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?"
Harry, after a moment: "Legs."

Ms. Brooks: "What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?"
The principal wondered, why would she ask such a question!
Harry replied: "Pockets."

Ms. Brooks: "What does a dog do that a man steps into?"
Harry: "Pants"

Ms. Brooks: What's starts with a C, ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and contains thin, whitish liquid?
Harry: "Coconut."

The principal sat forward with his mouth hanging open.

Ms. Brooks: "What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?"

The principal's eyes opened really wide and before he could stop the answer.

Harry: "Bubble gum"

Ms. Brooks: "What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down 
and a dog does on three legs?"
Harry: "Shake hands."

The principal was trembling.
Ms. Brooks: "What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of heat and excitement?"
Harry: "Firetruck"

The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, "Put Harry in the fifth-grade, I got the last seven questions wrong......"

Two Pairs Make 4 Pears? Or Is It 2 Pears Makes 4?

Silv and I were cruising through some recipe's and found one we would really like to try. Unfortunately I can't find it at the moment! Doesn't really matter for the purpose of this post considering that I am not writing about the recipe but rather about the ensuing conversation.

You see the main ingredients were Brie cheese (one of my fav's) and the ever so lovely fruit, the Pear!

Now Silv seems to have a problem with the name of this fruit as it's not a pair of anything. When you have just the one it's a 'single' (or so he claims). He also asked me, "Skye, if you have 2 Pears does that really mean you have 4? Really, "says he,"everyone knows that when you have 2 pairs of anything you have 4 of any 1 thing! And therefore 2 Pears should be 4 singles!"

And on he went about how Pears were so thoroughly mis-named. You truly haven't heard someone talk about a topic of any sort until you've heard Silv or someone much like him, go into a long disertation on the topic. That is exactly what he did here. I really wish that I had recorded him so that I could transcribe it for you now, but as it is, I've forgotten 90% of what he had said. 

A Pear?

Or is that 2 Pears?

A Contest? Oh Yes, A Contest!

Oh my, here I am sitting with a nice glass of wine eating a fresh french baguette and writing a post. Somehow there is something wrong with this picture, but oh my my my this tastes delicious!

Any-who’s-it on with the post! I have a need, a great need, that I hope you, my readers, can fulfill. Well ok, at least one of you at any rate :D

My need you ask? It’s simple, I need a name for my granola. My plan is to start making granola next year and sell it at the local farmer’s market along with at a few others perhaps. BUT I need a name for it and I can’t come up with one. That’s where you, my readers, come in. You see, I’m going to hold a bit of a contest. The person who comes up with the best name for my granola gets this award along with the prestige of knowing that they came up with the best name. Maybe if I feel so generous I’ll even throw in a present of some of said granola.

Oh yes, how remiss of me! I overheard someone whispering “How are we supposed to come up with a name if we don’t know the ingredients?” Don’t deny it, I know I heard someone say it, I just can’t place the voice! heheheee

The ingredients tend to vary depending on what I can get a hold of in regards to dried fruits, but generally this is what I toss in:

Old fashioned rolled oats
Coconut
Almonds
Walnuts
Hazelnuts
Honey
Oil
Raisins 
Cranberries

These are the dried fruits I add extra when I can find them at a reasonable price:

Banana Chips
Pineapple
Papaya
Mango
Peaches
Apricots
Dates
Apples

And these nuts get tossed in when I want something a little different (either some or all, depends):

Sunflower seeds
Peanuts
Cashews
Pecans
Brazil nuts
Oh hell, anything I can find that looks tasty really…lol.

Now sometimes I take a part of the first part of the recipe and make a granola bar type of thing which I then proceed to break up into small bite size chunks. From there, I take just the nuts and dried fruits in a large abundance and add some M&M’s to make a nice salty but a still sweet trail mix kind of a snack food. I’m thinking of making that for selling as well. All in all, this granola recipe makes about a one month supply of breakfast cereal for the kid and me and costs roughly around $30 (Canadian) to make, not bad when you think about the health food benefits compared to the crap you buy in the store. The closest I can compare it to health and ingredient wise would be Quaker Harvest Crunch Cereal, but this has oh so much more in it and tastes much better besides! 

So, the more help I can get the better! Thanks to all who try to help me out with this, I’ll be leaving the competition open for at least 2 weeks and then I’ll probably end up taking as long to decide on which name I like the best, hopefully not that long though!

Ok, I just looked at the calendar, the competition itself will be kept open till September 19th and the winning entry will be posted on October 1st. I will do my utmost best to keep to that schedule, but chances are that if I find a name that I really love upon first sight, I’ll stick to that one but can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to hold my tongue for that week and a half, I've never been that good at keeping my own secrets. Other's secrets, yes, my own, not so much…lol.

I Love The English Language...

...truly I do, which is why I've studied it so faithfully. Now you may be asking, what is this all about? Well, I'll tell you. English has to be one of the most confusing languages, there are so many different things about the language such as same spellings with different pronunciations and meanings, and same pronunciations with different spellings and meanings, not to mention same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning. See what I mean, if not why don't you try this on for size?

He brought his bow to the bow of the ship and proceeded to bow to the captain. That was when he noticed the pine bough being swung at his head!

Then there is always the rule about "I" before "E" except after "C" and in words such as neighbor and weigh. What about words such as Rottweiler, or weird? There's no "c" in either of those words, nor is there the "gh" that is in neighbor and weigh.

Speaking of the "gh" causes another bit of confusion with it sometimes being silent and sometimes sounding like an "f". For example we've got words like enough, sounds like an "f”, BUT then there are words like neighbor and weigh (to use the same examples as before). Confusing, don't you think?

And if that's not confusing enough for you, here are a few more confusing examples:

Through
Though
Trough

All start with "t" all end in "ough" but not once is that combination pronounced the same.

What else is there about the English Language that we can find to be confusing?

How about this? There was a tear in my eye when I saw the tear in my dress!

Or this? I read a book that I was told was a really good read about the different shades of red.

Then there's this: Where did you wear that?

Or this: I hear there is a good restaurant around here.

This one is from Munchkin: He was vain about his veins popping out when he was working out, and also vain about what he thought of as his most superior looking weather vane.

Want some more confusion? I will not try to untie that knot going 100 naught’s!

Then there are the "f" sounds with the "ph" spelling such as photograph. Are you getting confused yet?

Here's a post that goes beyond spelling things phonetically, I hope you can all read it by the end. I have a question though, why isn't the word phonics and all it's compatriots spelled phonetically? If they were, they'd be spelled with the "f" instead of "ph" don't ya think?

And if you truly want to be confused by correctly spelled but improperly used words, check out this post Eye Halve a Spelling Chequer.

Here is some more phonetic fun for you to enjoy! Yes a couple of these posts are rather old, one is from my blog of the alter ego and another fairly recent. I just hope that you enjoy them all  :D

That's all I have for today, but just so you know, I had all this nonsense running through my head and just had to share it will all of you. Hope I didn't confuse you too much.