Quote from Archduchess Margaret of Austria

"Trust in those who offer you service and in the end you will soon find yourself in the ranks of those who have been deceived."

I came across the above quote on Sherrilyn Kenyon's Twitter. It connected with me. So off to the internet to find out it's origins. Google told me it's in

The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: 'the Most Happy'
By Eric William Ives
Edition: 2, illustrated
Published by Blackwell Publishing, 2004
ISBN 0631234799, 9780631234791
458 pages

The quote is written by The Archduchess Margaret (Margaretha) of Austria (10 January 1480 – 1 December 1530) who was a Habsburg princess, the daughter of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy.

Here's the original:

"Trust in those who offer you service,
And in the end, my maidens,
You will soon find yourself in the ranks of those
Who have been deceived."

Women in Art

Beautiful compilation by Philip Scott Johnson (eggman913 on YouTube).

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art

Music: Bach's Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed by Yo-Yo Ma

Nominated as Most Creative Video, 2007 YouTube Awards

To see the individual art -- artist and painting -- in this compilation, visit 500 Years of Women in Western Art.

Thanks, Carolann, for sharing this with me.

Wicked

Yes, I finally saw Wicked on February 10, 2009, at the Gershwin Theatre in New York City. I love musicals and this was one that I've always wanted to see. The problem is that Broadway has become very expensive entertainment for 2 hours -- tickets are over $110 -- because I will only sit in Orchestra and maybe Front Mezzanine.

My sister and I did try about four years ago for the lottery they hold before daily to get ticket for $26.25. We did not win.

My company is a member of an organization that gets us discount. They had discounted tickets to Wicked on and off, but it was never a time I would be in town. The stars aligned -- had $64 tickets and I was going to be working from home. Treated my sister and for SIL as an early birthday gift. I thought SIL would say no as she had seen it already. Nope, she wanted to go again.

Our seats were in the Orchestra, Right Side, Row S, Seats 2, 4 & 6. They were GREAT seats. As the curtain came down for the final time, I looked at my sis and SIL and said "I'm definitely seeing this again if the discount tickets pop up again." My sis said she's coming, too. SIL said the same. Me and my sis said she could not come until we catch up to her count *LOL*.

I've loaded some pics I took. Check them out here: Wicked. Yes, a union member friend has told me I should not have taken some of the ones I took. I was a very bad girl. I could not help myself. The phone was in my hand. As you can see, they are crappy.

If you want to check out the show, go to the official site here.

The Cast I saw: Elphaba - Nicole Parker; Glinda - Alli Mauzey; Madame Morrible - Jayne Houdyshell; The Wizard - PJ Benjamin; Fiyero - Aaron Tveit; Boq - Alex Brightman; Nessarose - Brynn O'Malley; Doctor Dillamond - Timothy Britten Parker.

Next show 'cause I got discount promotion: Cirque du Soleil's Kooza on April 24.

Where has the blank line between paragraphs gone?

I'm getting turned off from reading some people's blogs.

A big turnoff for me is a big blob of text that does not use paragraphs.

If you do use paragraphs and decide to left justify your paragraphs, put a blank line between the paragraphs -- hit the carriage return (or your Enter key) twice instead of once. Otherwise, you just have a big blob of text which equates to bypass, go to next blog.

Here's an alternative if you're too lazy to hit the carriage return twice, indent your paragraph -- hit the tab key or the spacebar consistent number of times -- to show that you are starting a new one. Of course, it most likely would not like you doing that as HTML gets rid of extra spaces or does not understand what a tab is.

Starting a new train of thought...new paragraph. New paragraph, hit the Enter Key twice.

Easy peasy. Keep your readership.