Focused at Fifty

I was recently scrolling through pics of an new online friend seeing what he was up to. He seems like an OK normal guy and we have a bunch of mutual friends in Philly. I have never formally met him face to face. Our friendship is one of those which exists purely on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Tom, as I will call him, is a business man in the Philly area. He has a pretty successful professional career and seems to enjoy life. I figured I'd check out his profile as I do with alot of people who request my friendship on social media. As a blogger, I sometimes get a couple odd birds that come out of the woodwork. I've learned not to accept everyone but if people want to read my blog, usually I'll give them the benefit of the doubt if they seem pretty normal. I accepted Tom's request and looked at the pics he has posted. All of his pics were edited to be public. The first pic of him was the professional head shot from his firm which he used as his profile pic....

I meant to bake more in December and January but that didn't happen. Oh well. I think I focused more on taste-testing various craft beers, bourbons, and Scotch whiskies. 😊  So this recipe is a very easy peanut butter cookie recipe. It was one of the cookies that Mom made for the holidays. No flour, no baking powder, just THREE ingredients: an egg, peanut butter, and good ole sugar! I don't know why I hadn't tried this before. I took me all of 10 minutes to prep, 15 minutes at most in the oven, 5 minutes to cool down, and 10 seconds INTO MA BELLY! I used honey roasted creamy peanut butter and they came out SO GOOD. Ready for the Oven! 1-2-3 PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES by Abby Deeds Set oven to BAKE at 350'F 1. In bowl, stir together 1 cup of creamy peanut butter, 1 cup of white granulated sugar, and 1 egg. 2. Roll mixture into balls (about 1 Tbsp per cookie) 3. Roll balls in sugar if desired (YES PLEASE!) 4. Place on ungreased cookie sheet 5. Bake at...

Definition: Doppelgänger (from Wikipedia) Dante Gabriel Rossetti ,  How They Met Themselves , watercolor, 1864 From Wikipedia: "In fiction and folklore, a doppelganger (German origins) is a look-alike or double of a living person, sometimes portrayed as a paranormal phenomenon, and is usually seen as a harbinger of bad luck. In other traditions and stores, they recognize one's 'double-goer' as an evil twin. Doppelgaenger is a German word which also means double walker." They say we all have twins in this world. Some consider them doppelgangers, your evil twin creating havoc somewhere across the globe. That couldn't be true ... but could it?  Or maybe it's just a genetic coincidence. Could there be someone, who looks exactly like you, with similar mannerism, features, likes and dislikes? Could the world be just a world of various duplicates of 8 billion people? Either way, there are websites devoted to them. Usually the easiest ones to find ...

As a regular blogger, I am attached by way of email or username to many popular social media websites. I use most of them to promote my blog. Some I just connect to as an observer. My good friend from college, Sharon posted a question on her Facebook page asking how many did we participate in and I was shocked when mine added up to more than 10! In this day and age, if I want to develop an online presence and following, it is necessary to try and be involved promoting yourself through various social media websites. Some though, such as SoundCloud, I listen to for the music. I do most of my blog promotion on my Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. With everything seemingly online, all of my sites are just a click away. If someone likes my taste in music, maybe they will check out my blog or my tweets and vice versa. I tend to think of my overall online presence as rather vanilla though. I'll be the first to admit, I don't often ...

Possible New Year's Resolutions... Over the years resolutions have come to annoy me. People (including myself) write a list of things that they want to accomplish or complete in the following year. Some superficial (lose 25 pounds, buy that car), some pretty deep (be a better parent, child, etc). Some silly (eat less chocolate), some kinda serious (keep in touch with family).  I would diligently write my list, placing it in the interior cover of my yearly planner and then forget about it until the end of the year. I found that some resolutions I would do without even checking the list, like going through old clothes on a rainy day. Many would ultimately just be transferred over to the next year's list. The only ones I really kept were practicing a healthier lifestyle, working out, and petting the cats more. The others, like learn a new language, completing the yard work, learn to like children etc, seemed to not happen year after year. It occurred t...

For my little Christmas Eve Open House, I channeled Mom Abby and put out a traditional crudite' platter of veggies along with her recipe for a spiced up veggie curry dip. It kicked ass! Check out my Mom's recipe and subsequent blog post on that: Recipe: http://frazzledatforty.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-vegetable-dip-with-kick.html Italian-style Roasted Cauliflower Long story short: I cut up enough vegetables for an army but I barely invited a troop! LOL. What to do with all those veggies? There aren't enough vegetarians in the world. Now I knew I could do a stir fry with a bunch of them but I still had a ton of broccoli and a head of cauliflower larger than a butter ball turkey! SERIOUSLY. So I did some research online because I decided I wanted to try something different than just steaming the cauliflower. Now I'm health conscious but I had definitely eaten my fill of raw veggies. Somewhere through the last couple years I remembered seeing a recipe for roasted ca...

Me n' Bartender Mom (early 90s) For a period of time during the early 1990's, my Mom lived down in the Florida Keys with my stepdad Barry. She had divorced my Dad a couple of years prior. It was a difficult time for my family but thankfully, we all survived that period of emotional turmoil. Mom was attempting to find herself and it ultimately became an incredible time for her, a period of regrowth and discovery. As a family, we rebuilt our relationship stronger than ever. The same can be said with our relationship with my Dad as well. It was the first time I truly had an adult relationship with each of my parents, being able to receive advice from them and give it back (solicited or not, LOL). Mom and Barry lived at Barry's place in Tamarac Park, Key West, Florida. Specifically, they lived off of Mile Marker 10, down Boca Chica Road. If you know the Florida Keys, you know that places are often informally referred to as by what mile marker they are located at since ...