Seven random Things ....

Since I have not told much about myself lately,
I decided to pick up the meme I found at Lou's blog yesterday.
You know, where you are supposed to tell seven random things about yourself?
Okay, so here we go ...



1. I love to cook and my bookshelves at home are crammed with cookbooks.
I own hundreds of them, since I've been collecting them
over twenty five years now.
2. But I never really obey one single recipe.
I'm always changing things because it does not feel or sound right.
3. And when I do obey a recipe, it usually turns out wrong.
4. So over the years, I 've decided I better follow my own gut feeling,
but that does not keep me from buying new cookbooks.
Or magazines.


5. I would hate to have to kill things I want to eat
and I don't think I could ever kill anything with blood in it,
but I must have killed about half a dozen of lobsters in my life I think.
6. That sounds like a lot, but bear in mind that I'm fifty one by now.
So that would make one lobster every eight and a half years.
I'm sure lobsterhood can survive that, don't you think?
7. Okay. Maybe about a hundred little cray fish as well.
And one crab. He was still alive when I locked him in my freezer.

Am I a serial killer now?

Sepia Scenes Boats on the Canal

For this week's Sepia Scenes I used my Paint Shop Pro x12 again.
I played with the "old newspaper effect"
it's one of the tools in the artistic effects drawer.

I used some pictures I took along the canal where I live.





More Sepia Scenes can be found here.

Not so Wordless Wednesday

If you have an apple and I have an apple

and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple.

But if you have an idea and I have an idea

and we exchange these ideas,

then each of us will have two ideas.

George Bernard Shaw

See more Wordless Wednesday participants here.

Ruby Tuesday Fall Decoration

My Ruby for this week is a "how to".
How to make a lovely fall decoration with simple materials.


You need fresh leaves, pins and three different sizes of Oasis or Polystyrene balls.

It is very important the leaves are fresh. Fallen leaves might be too brittle.

Remove the stems and the hard parts, and pin the leaves on the foam balls.
You might have to make an incision in order to bend them to follow the shape of the ball.
Make sure you overlap each leaf with the next one well, you will not want to see the foam peeping through. Please bear in mind that while drying the leaves will shrink a little.





There ...
They look great on my coffee table, don't they?

See more Ruby Tuesday participants at Work of the poet.

Macro Monday Fall Leaves

Find more Macro Monday pictures at Lisa's Chaos.
Or join us, it's fun!

Weekly Winners Antwerp

I promised some more pictures of Antwerp, so here we go.

If you ever visit Antwerp, you're likely to visit the cathedral ...

the Market Place ...

or end up in one of those tourist trap restaurants if you want to eat.

But I would prefer to take you to this cute place in a quiet street.

I would show you different aspects of Antwerp ...
Or interesting exhibitions, like the Elephant Parade for instance.
The Elephant Parade will be held in London next year
and (most probably) in New York the year after that.

By now the elephants are no longer there.
They will be up for auction next Thursday.

But before they were taken away, I took some more pictures.

I am going to miss them, especially this one.
One of my favourites.
Anyone care to buy him for me?


Click to enlarge this one.
This is one of the houses at the corner of the Meir.

The entrance to the city's festive hall, now turned into a shopping mall.

This is a reflection of the angel I showed in my Skywatch Friday.

and another reflection ...


One of the first skyscrapers in Antwerp, the Boeretoren.



Click on the banner to visit Lotus and the other Weekly Winners participants.

Photo Hunt "Together"

This week's theme for Photo Hunt is "together".


I'm sharing a series of pictures today of two Cuban dancers dancing the salsa.
I could not choose only one.
I love the first one best I think,
but I really love the movement in the next three pictures.



Visit the other Photo Hunt players here.