Happy Birthday Lorrie!

Happy birthday!

Other people born this day:
Kaley Cuoco - 1985 - John Ritter's TV daughter on sitcom "8 Simple Rules"

Elisha Cuthbert - 1982 - Played the daughter of agent Jack Bauer on TV's "24"

Clay Aiken - 1978 - "American Idol 2" finalist adored by eager Claymates

Ben Stiller - 1965 - "Meet the Parents" star, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara's son

Bo Jackson - 1962 - Athlete played two pro sports--football and baseball

Billy Idol - 1955 - British punk rocker hit #1 with "Mony Mony" (1987)

Shuggie Otis - 1953 - Blues guitarist son of "Hand Jive" singer Johnny Otis

Mandy Patinkin - 1952 - Actor on stage ("Evita") and screen ("Chicago Hope")

David Mamet - 1947 - Playwright/director of "The Postman Always Rings Twice"

Abbie Hoffman - 1936 - Chicago Seven radical upset 1968 Democrat convention

G. Gordon Liddy - 1930 - Watergate conspirator became a radio talk show gadfly

Dick Clark - 1929 - Host of "American Bandstand" and New Year's Eve shows

Robert Guillaume - 1927 - Emmy-winning actor on "Benson" and "Sports Night"

Richard Crenna - 1926 - Popular actor from "Our Miss Brooks" to "The Real McCoys"

Shirley Chisholm - 1924 - First black U.S. congresswoman ran for president, 1972

Efrem Zimbalist Jr - 1923 - Best known as Inspector Lewis Erskine on TV's "The F.B.I."

Gordon Parks - 1912 - African-American photographer directed "Shaft" (1971)

Winston Churchill - 1874 - British prime minister inspired courage in World War II

Mark Twain - 1835 - American icon wrote "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"

Jonathan Swift - 1667 - Irish author of satirical adventure "Gulliver's Travels"

How I spent my Thanksgiving vacation by Paul

I was fortunate enough this year to spend Thanksgiving with my family in Florida. I flew down on Tuesday and Tori and I had dinner at Raglan Road™ Irish Pub and then hung out at Jellyrolls. Wednesday we made Thanksgiving dinner for the family and celebrated my dad's 60th birthday. Thursday we spent the day at Epcot in Walt Disney World. All in all, a lot of fun.

This was my second time at Epcot. This time I did go on Spaceship Earth. It definitely had some 'Small World' qualities about it. My favorite was the World Showcase, specifically Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

More pictures of my trip are available here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This picture was taken in 2002 by Del Merritt while on a golf trip. We were playing Peninsula State Park Golf Course when this picture was taken.

My first post at Sugar Savvy

My first post is up over at Sugar Savvy.




Peppermint Bark

I don't think this officially makes me a writer...

I enjoy doing my blog Cookies, Et Cetera. Coming up with ideas for posts and then actually making them is a lot of fun. They say that when you do something you love it shows. I don't know who 'they' are but the sentiment is correct. Somebody did notice. The good people over at the Well Fed Network noticed and offered me a chance to be a contributor on two of their sites: Just Baking and Sugar Savvy. The Well Fed Network is a collection of fifteen food and wine orientated sites dedicated to bringing you high quality articles and ideas you can use.

I will let the sites describe themselves:
Just Baking - Fresh from the oven, we’ll be talking about cookies, cakes and breads, and we won’t stop there.
Sugar Savvy - Fabulous content on chocolate, the latest candy bars, gum flavors and much more in the world of sweets.

So come on by, check them out. I should have my first posts up in a short while. I've added links to those sites Links section on the right side of your screen (umm, Del, your other right. There you go.)

New post at Cookies, Et Cetera about our Halloween project

Lots and lots of cupcakes. Lots.