It's A New Day

Zoom. Zoom.

Miata soon to be discontinued, the call-out read, prompting me to do just what they hoped the words would...turn a few pages to read the full story inside. And like many teasers these days, it was only partially true. The cute little sporty car is being redesigned in a couple of years, a joint venture between Mazda and Fiat's Alpha Romero, so it's still going to exist...just not in the form we've come to know and love.

I had one, you know. A bright red convertible that could hardly be called practical but sure was a lot of fun. It was love at first sight when I saw the little roadster zipping around town in 1990, even if I didn't know what it was called or who made it. I don't usually get all that excited about cars...well, unless you count that Oldsmobile Toronado I obsessed over liked. My interest dwindled when I found out how much it was going to cost...too much for the state of our household budget in the 1970's. The Toronado slipped away; I wasn't going to let the Miata.

But getting one was a challege. They were new and so popular the dealers couldn't keep them in stock. Fortunately, the local Buick/Mazda dealer had one in his showroom and since we'd been buying cars and getting them serviced at that dealership for the thirteen years we'd lived in Pensacola, I felt sure we'd be treated right. Boy, was I wrong. I could look at the one on the floor but there would be no test drive and no deal. In fact, they were adding a surcharge on top of the MSRP. Hrmph! I walked out the door, vowing never to return...and I haven't.

Me and my Miata were not to be kept apart, however, and I soon ordered one from the dealer in Mobile...after a test drive and at a price without a surcharge. It came in while we were off on a trip so we made a detour on the way home to pick it up. Me, Wayne, our luggage and two sets of golf clubs (in smaller travel bags) filed that little Miata up for the hour-long ride home.

And while that size was a minus for travel, it was a plus for my day-to-day driving. It was the first car I could wash and not need a step-stool to scrub the roof. I felt right at home inside...cozy but not cramped. I didn't see that small size as a drawback at all. In fact, I managed to fit twelve flats of bedding plants inside once. As far as I was concerned, my Miata was just my size. And I loved that I could flip the latches and put the top down while stopped at a red light. From inside the car!

The article I read was actually a review of the 2013 model with plenty of comparisons to the 1990 model and reading it brought back a ton of memories about my little red Miata. The tight way it cornered. The rumble of the muffler when you downshifted. The feeling of the wind in your hair when you drove with the top down. Sigh...I loved that car. And if you're wondering where the photos of it are to accompany this story, well, there aren't any. Not a one. I wasn't a scrapbooker back then so it never crossed my mind that I'd ever want one.

I zipped around town in my little red sports car for three years before trading it in for a bigger model. It had its glory days but it was time, just like I suppose its time for the Miata brand to revamp itself. There was something special about the original though and it clearly made an impression on the reviewer...or perhaps he had owned one too. He concluded that driving the 2013 version gave a pleasant, car-loving sensation but not the goose bumps that came from the 1990 model. I'm not interested in another one but I was happy to be reminded of the excitement of the one I had too. Zoom. Zoom.

Sniff. Sniff.

Despite the fact that we live in the part of the country where football is king, I'm not a fan. Oh, I can tolerate a good college game now and then but I think it's mostly because of the tradition and school loyalties. Yes, I know...there are traditions and loyalties associated with the NFL too but they just don't draw me in. Super Bowl, therefore, holds no charm for me.

The commercials, however, do. Not enought to watch the game but I do enjoy the fact that there are so many new and different ones hitting the television screen all at once. And given the price of ad time during the game, those Madison Avenue gurus have to have their thinking caps on to come up with clever and creative ways to get their messages across. Everyone wants to be the commercial talked about around the water cooler on Monday morning.

Budweiser is getting the jump on the competition by releasing one of its ads early and in my book it's a winner. Of couse, when you pair a seven-day-old Clydesdale with a story of lasting friendship, it's hard to go wrong. It starts with "awww" and ends with a sniff...but you can judge for yourself.

 

Let's see who can top that one.

Culinary Escapades

No, I'm not turning this into a food blog but I am going to write about what we've eaten for the second day in a row. Yesterday's post was really more about the saints in my family tree than food anyway and this one is more about some recipes we've enjoyed the last two nights.

And the strange things that are finding their way into our grocery cart of late. I had to chuckle when I looked at the array on the conveyor belt last Saturday. Sundried tomato pesto. Thai chile paste. Fish sauce. Lemongrass. Rice Noodles. You could have looked in my pantry at any point in the last 45 years and never once would you have found those items but they're there now. Well...technically, some of them have moved to the refrigerator at this point but you get the idea. It wasn't that I set out to find recipes with odd (for us, anyway) ingredients; they just fell in my lap...literally.

Publix includes a new recipe in its weekly grocery ad then prepares it in the store, offering samples to shoppers interested in tasting it. And, of course, they have all the ingredients in a special display right next to the kiosk where they do the cooking so you can buy what you need to duplicate it at home. I didn't need to taste the Hearty Meatball Soup when it appeared in the ad to know we'd like it...and we did. I used ground turkey instead of ground beef, a regular substitution at our house, and the use of the sundried tomato pesto added a great flavor. If you make the soup, do yourself a favor and use Kitchen Basics stock; it's so much more flavorful. And throw a spoonful of that pesto in the broth too...just to kick it up a notch.

And we're batting a thousand in the new recipe department this week as the Stir-Fried Lemongrass Chicken I tried tonight was a big success. I held this one in my lap too since it came from January's issue of Cooking Light. It's been a long time since I subscribed to a food magazine but I certainly enjoyed my first issue and marked several recipes to try.

They had better lighting for their photograph so I'll borrow it to show you what a lovely dish it is. You'll just have to imagine the taste...or take my word for the fact that it was good. I used boneless chicken breast instead of thighs and they were fine. You'd never know it contained all those strange ingredients I'm not sure I'd ever eaten...at least that I was aware of.

This picture is a little blurry because the light was low (that happens when you're cooking outside after dark) but I wanted to show Wayne at work at his wok. It was really kind of a fluke when we bought this at Bass Pro Shop a couple of years ago but it's been a great investment. It gets so much hotter than a stove-top wok and with more control too. Well, at least my stove-top wok since I have an electric range. It takes a while to prep everything with all the chopping but once we're ready to cook, it goes quickly. I'm happy to be sous chef while he rocks the wok.

The grocery cart also contained lite coconut milk but that's for next week's recipe. Can I go three-for-three in the new recipe department? Stay tuned for more culinary escapades.

Feast Day

Saturday was Feast Day. Part of it was that our friends Tom and Durlene invited us to dinner at their home-away-from-home beach condo where they treated us to a delicious steak dinner. It wasn't just any steak; it was beef straight from Missouri complete with all the trimmings. Yum! Red meat is pretty rare at our house these days so having a plate full of it made for a feast indeed. The meal was punctuated by the laughter of good friends and the soft sounds of gentle waves drifting in the open door. It was bittersweet though; Tom and Durlene will be heading north in just a few days.

That wasn't the only facet to the day, however. It was January 26, the Feast Day for St. Balthild, my 45th great-grandmother. Well, under the Roman martyrology her Feast Day is January 26; originally it was January 30, the date of her death. St. Balthild is one of eight saints I've discovered in my tree...an unexpected but pleasant surprise. The others are St. Arnulf of Metz, St. Begga of Landen, St. Matilda of Ringelheim,  St. Clothilde of Burgundy, St. Itta of Metz, St. Dode of Pierre de Reims, and St. Gondolfus of Tongres. Sometimes the names are different than the Wikipedia entry since I've used those found in my genealogy sources.

It still fascinates me that so much is known about these people who lived so many years ago but thanks to a series of books by Alban Butler I know a good bit about them. I know, for instances, that Balthild was English and was carried to France and sold as a slave at a very young age. Erkenwald (otherwise known as Erchinoald) and Archimbald, mayor of the palace to King Clovis II. As she grew older, Clovis was so impressed with her prudence and virtue that he entrusted her with the care of his household. Butler says: "She was no ways puffed up, but seemed the more modest, more submissive to her fellow-slaves, and always ready to serve the meanest of them in the lowest offices." In no ways puffed up...I love that!

She went on to marry King Clovis and bear him three sons. The oldest was only five when Clovis died in 655 so Balthild ruled until he became of age. She restored monasteries, founded nunneries, erected hospitals and forbade the taking of Christians as slaves. Once her sons were in power, she took the veil and spent the rest of her life tending to the sick and devoting herself to prayer.

The stories of many of the others are equally interesting. Who would have thought my ancestors would be saints? Certainly not me. I see plenty of feasts in our future...but they can't all have red meat.

Saturday Night Bath, A Few Days Early

The robins have arrived! I've been hearing their funny little chirp for days but couldn't lay eyes on one of them until yesterday afternoon when there was a smattering of them in our backyard. By this afternoon there was a sizeable flock. And yes, my neighbor's grass is really that green. He overseeded with rye. It's pretty to look at but not worth having to mow all winter.

It didn't take them long to find the birdbath I'd filled with fresh water just for them. Ignore how grungy it looks; it hasn't had it's spring-time power washing yet. The birds didn't seem to care as they wasted no time getting down to the serious business of bathing.

You can, however, admire all the green behind the birdbath. The cardinal flower is up a good 6"-8" and the blooms on the blueberry bush can be seen just to the left of the birdbath. This corner of the yard must be more protected than other areas as our grass has plenty of green showing in it and you can see some purple flowers on the lantana that hid out on those frosty nights. I'm sure the birds were admiring all this color as they splashed and drank.

Not everyone, however, was a feathered friend. Well...feathered, yes, but some were less friendly than others. Whether it was a question of who was hogging the bathtub or someone splashed someone who didn't want to get wet I can't say but there were a few cross words among some of the bathers.

I had to get their attention and tell them to quit fighting with one another. 'Cause that's what mother's do, even when they aren't your own children.

And then everyone was happy again and back to splashing and cleaning up. I don't think I ever saw less than three or four robins in the birdbath the entire time I watched them. Judging by how long they all stayed in the water, I think they were glad to find it.

When we saw robins in Kansas, it was a sign of spring for the robins stayed all through the summer but that's not the case here. They'll be here for a few weeks and then move farther north. That's OK...I'll enjoy their chirps and funny little runs for as long as they are here. It definitely means spring is getting closer.

And as for that birdbath, the water won't last until Saturday night. I'll be back out there again tomorrow refilling it...and be glad to do it.

Sound Effects

We drove down to Navarre to meet our snowbird friends Tom and Durlene for lunch today. Our favorite Mexican restaurant has a location there so we knew the food would be almost as good as the company, and while the restaurant isn't right on the water. we clearly had glimpses of it getting there. Sunny skies, mild temperatures, good friends, a great meal at a location half-way between us...it had all the makings of a perfect day.

And before we could start home, we had to find a cache. It's not like we have to fit geocaching into every out-and-about trip we take but it does happen frequently. My favorite geocacher is pretty good, however, at picking one not far from our intended destination or route of travel as well as on a paved road. Momma's car don't go down no dirt roads.

This particular cache was in a new subdivision; so new, in fact, that the road wasn't on our navigation system. That wasn't a problem for the hand-held GPS system Wayne uses for caching and we only made one or two wrong turns before we found the right road, even if the navigation screen in the car thought we were driving cross-country. We parked at the end of a cul-de-sac and Wayne headed off into the trees to find the hidden container.

I was relaxing, thinking about nothing in particular when all of a sudden the windows in the car rattled. Ka-BOOM! What in the world? I looked over towards the house under construction on the other side of the cul-de-sac, half-expecting to see the roof trusses caved in or some other calamity but the guy who was working there just kept right on measuring and marking as if nothing had happened.

Ka-BOOM, ka-BOOM! There it went again, twice close together...followed by more loud blasts. Then I remembered. We were just yards away from the edge of Eglin Air Force Base. You couldn't really see it because of the pine trees and scrub oak but then that's all you see of it on both sides of the highway we drive to get to Navarre. It's one of the biggest air bases in the world, covering 724 square miles of land and 97,963 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico. And there's a reason it's so big...they fly drones and they drop bombs.

Yessiree, those loud noises I was hearing were bombs doing what bombs are supposed to do...explode. It wasn't like they were just next door to where we were parked but they were far closer than I've ever heard before. Sometimes at night when the wind is just right we can hear the sounds of bombing practice at our house but it's pretty faint then. It's had to travel a pretty good distance to get to us; this was much closer. In fact, I'm not sure I want to be much closer than that. I kept thinking about all the people who were or would be living in the houses on this new street and what would they think of living with that sound but many of them are probably military anyway. It's likely something you just get used to.

It wasn't long before Wayne returned to the car, cache found and logged. He admitted that the loud noises startled him at first too and he'd thought something had gone wrong at the construction sight until he heard more of the booms and realized they were bombs. This was one occasion when his geocaching came with sound effects.

A New Twist On The Practice Tee

I'm expecting a big crowd at yoga tomorrow. No...it has nothing to do with all those New Year's resolutions of people vowing to get fit and healthy. In fact, there don't seem to be as many of them at the gym as usual this year. Or maybe they're just coming earlier or later than when I'm there. Nope, those newbies trying to learn the downward dog will all be hoping to improve their golf game. Let me explain.

The Sunday edition of our local paper carried a story about Dave Penzone who's helping the City of Pensacola solve some pretty significant financial issues. Big story...front page, above the fold. But then, I guess if you can help the local government shring it's $116 million unfunded pension liability by millions and reduce the annual cost of paying for employee benefits, it's pretty newsworthy.

It was quite the read as ol' Dave's an interesting guy. After a career as a tax attorney practicing with a national firm in both Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, he retired in Pensacola to play golf and enjoy a more relaxed life style. And that game of golf brought him in contact with the new mayor which eventually lead to his role settling the City's pension woes.

So what does this have to do with yoga? Well, Dave's a certified yoga instructor too, just another of those things he got into on retirement. And while he was good before he got into yoga, he credits it with his having become a scratch golfer.

His theory is that yoga teaches "presence." When you dwell on the past, it creates anxiety; and when you look to the future, you have expectations, some of which will not come true. Yoga teaches you to be in charge of what's happening right now and, according to Penzone, when you get into that flow there's very little that can throw you off your game. Sounds like a pretty good philosophy for life as well as golf.

I have visions of all my golfing friends showing up at the gym with yoga mats rolled up under their arms. OK...maybe not, but perhaps they should. Maybe I'll suggest to our buddy Hiram, the golf pro, that he start offering yoga classes in the snack bar during the off hours. Otherwise, he might be seeing some downward dogs on the practice tee. And given the age and shape of many of the members, he might want to have the ambulance company on speed dial.

Gumbo Night

I'm a flat failure as a scrapbooker when it comes to gumbo night. I didn't mean to be. In fact, I made a point of having the camera all ready to go and putting it where I could reach it easily. The idea was to take lots of photos to document the fun of what's become an annual rite...good food with good friends.

And I started off on the right track by getting this shot:

Well, to be honest, I can't take credit for it. Durlene was the one who wanted a photo of the four of us...friends for 44 years. And obviously, I didn't take the photo since I'm in it. But I did hand the camera over to Bonnie with what must have been excellent instructions on using it since she captured such a good image. Given the long history between the Castors and the Arnalls, this picture is sure to be a treasure.

And I caught this photo of Tom, filled with delight at the idea of a bowl full of gumbo:

Tom loooves gumbo and he actually stood up from his chair and started clapping when we told him we'd be fixing gumbo again this year while he was here. All our friends appreciate the effort that goes into making gumbo but I think Tom takes the most delight in eating it.

After that the camera just sort of languished over in the corner. I was too busy living the memory to record it...and that's all right. There was laughter to share, good food to devour (everyone pitches in to bring the rest of the meal) and even a little gossip to hear. You can do that, you know, when the guys are off in the dining rom and it's us girls at the table in the breakfast room. Not to worry, no reputations were damaged in the process.

And as the night wound to a close, Durlene commented on what a great group of friends we have. It was easy to agree with her assessment...they're like family. That's why Friday night's gathering included Charlotte's brother who's here visiting from West Virginia and Carol's daughter who lives in the neighborhood. If they're family of our friends, they're family of ours too.

Best of all, it was a delight to watch how Tom and Durlene fit in with our friends. It was as if they lived here year round instead of coming once a year. I'd like to think that's because we seek out the same qualities in our friends, whether those friendships formed 44 years ago or 20 years ago, give or take a year or two.

Gumbo night 2013 is in the books. It was a hit but then it always is. It will go on in the lore of friendships, old and older still...even if there aren't many photos to document it.

Mmmmmmm!

Psst. Yes, you. Lean in close. No, really close...like nose-to-the-screen close. Now take a great big breath. Smell that aroma? No? Darn. Try as I might I just can't get that delicious smell to flow from my keyboard to your monitor. Those Food Network chefs wish for smell-evision; I'm wishing for blog-a-smell.

And what, you ask, are you supposed to be smelling? Spicy andouille sausage, juicy chicken, fresh-from-the-Gulf seafood, all mingled and married together in a flavorful broth. That's right...it's time for Wayne's world-famous gumbo. Well, at least it's famous in our friends' world anyway.

Friday night is gumbo night here at the homestead but since it's such a process to make gumbo, we do it a few days ahead. The shrimp stock came together yesterday and it always amazes me that you can get something so good from all the shrimp parts we'd normally throw away. Gumbo is all about layers of different flavors and shrimp stock is just one of them. And the broth made from the Thanksgiving turkey has made its escape from the freezer for another.

Today we started chopping and sauteing and roux-ing...all steps necessary to get the pile of raw ingredients into a pot of delicious gumbo. And as it went together, the house smelled better and better. In fact, as we were getting ready for dinner out with friends, I jokingly asked Wayne if we could just bow out and eat gumbo at home. He laughed then confessed he'd had the same thought. But we resisted and put the gumbo in the fridge to let those flavors marry even more. You know how it is with soup, it's better with a little age.

We figure we made better than three gallons of gumbo. Two pots full. It's clearly enough to share...if only I could figure out how to email it to you. In the meantime, keep sniffing...maybe that delicious aroma will work its way through the web yet.

They're All Confused

It was another day in the 70s here in beautiful Northwest Florida. Not that I'm complaining, I'll take 76 over 56 any day...and that's just what it's supposed to be come Thursday. I'm not so keen on the gray skies but I've learned that winter here means either warm and wet or cold and clear. I'll take warm, even if it does me I'm sweating at the end of my walk; at least I'm in a T-shirt.

One plus about the milder temperatures is it's nice to get out in the yard and take care of a few things. Some winter kill from a previous plunge of the thermometer is now in the barrel and a few weeds have joined it as well. There's something wrong about weeds growing in the winter but they clearly do...and I'm not motivated to do Round-Up in a coat.

But these warmer days have some of the plants in the yard a little confused. Standing in the kitchen I could see a splash of white down by the birdbath and sure enough, one of the blueberry bushes is full of blooms.

It's the earlier of the two bushes and it's eager for spring. Too eager, I'm afraid but my research says they'll tolerate temps down to 29 degrees or lower, depending on how far open the blooms are. I'd say these are pretty much open.

Much like me the Japanese magnolia is always hoping winter makes an early departure...it's raring to go. In fact, the blooms at the top of the tree are fully opened. It does this every year and inevitably gets its nose nipped when the warm weather gives way to more seasonal temperatures.

Even Hazel is showing a little color. No, I don't name all my plants but my aunt Hazel sent this azalea bush to my mother's funeral nineteen years ago and it's lived in my yard ever since. I think of her every time I see it so it frequently gets referred to as simply Hazel. She got a little straggly so I cut her back to the ground a couple of years ago and she's looking pretty good now. The real Hazel was a real go-getter so this eager-bloomer is following in her namesake's footsteps despite the fact that a chilly night tainted some of the blooms with a little brown.

About the only thing in the yard that isn't confused and i's blooming just like it's supposed to are the camellias...they're just reaching their prime. Cold temperatures? Bring it on...the camellia's thrive but they like the wet weather too so they welcome the warmth we've had these last five or six days too. These blossoms are probably 4" across and quite showy...a bit of a bright spot in winter's dull landscape. And the bushes are loaded so we'll see plenty more.

Personally, I'd like to hang on to these mild temperatures until spring arrives but I know that's not possible. We are, however, half way through January...just that much closer to when winter disappears and that, in itself, is something to be grateful for.

It's For The Birds

We got up at o'dark thirty Saturday morning to go birding. Well, we're really not birders but we'd made reservations to tour the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi at 8am and since it was a 2 hour drive plus the 15 minutes they asked us to arrive before the tour start, we had to be on the road before the sun was up. Our buddies Carol and Dr. Dale were game for the adventure with us so off we went.

We learned a lot in our time there. The Mississippi sandhill crane is highly endangered and the numbers were down to only 30-35 birds when the refuge was established in 1975. These cranes live in wet savanas, boggy grasslands dotted by pine trees...a perfect description of large parts of the Gulf Coast before development and commercial forestry changed the landscape. Thanks to the refuge and the efforts of dedicated biologists the population now totals 120.

The birds typically lay two eggs but only hatch one chick so naturalists keep close tabs on the birds and borrow one of the eggs to incubate and hatch in a separate facility. The young birds are tended to by individuals in an elaborate costumes to conceal their human-ness and when they reach the appropriate age, they're re-introduced to the wild.

With only 120 birds on a reserve of almost 20,000 acres they're a little hard to find but we managed to see five. Interestingly enough, four of them weren't in the refuge at all but in neighborhoods surrounding it. The birds don't know the boundaries; they're just going where there's food. The cranes mate for life so we saw two pairs and the single we saw was thought to be too young to me interested in the opposite sex.

I think we all expected we'd be taken to some observation deck where we could look out over a swampy expanse and see hundreds of cranes so it was a bit of a disappointment that we were required to stay in the van used to chauffeur us from one section of the refuge to another. Given that, Wayne did a pretty good job getting the photo above through the glass and from a considerable distance. Now that we know just how endangered these birds are, we understand why they want to keep humans as far away from them as possible. The birds were leery of the van as it was; I can imagine how they'd react to people moving around and talking.

After the ride through parts of the refuge was over, we walked a short trail that started at the visitor's center, enjoying some welcome sunshine and the warm temperatures. This photo gives you some idea of the terrain, including a little Spanish moss hanging from the trees. It wouldn't be Southern Mississippi without it.

We wrapped up our stay at the refuge in time for the short drive over to Newk's for lunch with Brad before starting for home. And when we got there, I took a nap. That bird-watching will wear you out. : )

A Day With Friends

Good friends are like stars. You don't always see them
but you know they are always there. Anon

We spent the day down the road in Destin with our good friends, Tom and Durlene. They've left the snow and cold weather in Missouri behind and are playing snowbirds for the month on the sugar-white sands of the Gulf Coast. And to make things even better, the sun finally decided it had better help the state live up to its billing as the Sunshine State and make an appearance after hiding behind gray clouds for the last week.

It always amazes me how we can go for months or even years without seeing each other and pick up the conversation as if we were all together yesterday. No awkward pauses, no struggling to find a subject matter...the words just tumble out. We moved seemlessly from the health of family members to the latest escapades of grandchildren to stories from the days when our own children were the ages of those same grandchildren. But then, what else would you expect from the four of us who've been friends for 44 years.

We ate a little seafood, wandered the aisles of some eclectic little shops and stood on the boardwalk watching surfers take advantage of the unusually boisterous waves...but mostly we just talked, catching up on what's gone on in our lives since we were last together. And laughing...lots of laughing.

I've read of studies on the effect of friendship on one's health and studies show good friends are good for your health. Not only do they offer neede companionship in a way family can't, they boost our happiness, lower our levels of stress and reduce cardiovascular and immune problems. I can't vouch for all of that but I do know my heart was full as I walked back to the car after a day with friends. And I did a little jig knowing we're going to be able to do it again in just a few days.

My weekend advice for you? Go spend some with with an old friend...it'll be good for both of you.

Go To Jail; Go Directly To Jail

If your mind immediately thought of Do Not Pass Go - Do Not Collect $200 when you read that title, you've played more than a game or two of Monopoly, the board game that's been around since the 1930s. I know I've spent my share of hours collecting rent on Marvin Gardens and St. Charles Place (Boardwalk was always to ritzy for me) or taking a ride on the Reading. There's still a version of the game on a shelf in the closet although the box is in such sad shape it's a wonder it's still holding together.

Now it seems one of those cute little tokens that became our alter ego in the game is about to be given the Go To Jail card...permanently. That's right, Hasbro is retiring either the race car, top hat, iron, thimble, battleship, Scottie dog, wheelbarrow or shoe. Heck, I'm not sure I even remembered there was a battleship token in the game; perhaps ours was lost early on. At any rate, one of these little silver icons is about to go to the great Monopoly board in the sky...or wherever game pieces of yesteryear go when they're no longer considered fresh and relevant to today's players.

My pick in the game was always the top hat unless someone beat me to it. There's research, you know, to determine the profile of the person who chooses each token. The hat tied for second with the Scottie dog in popularity and those who chose it tended to be introverted, strategic and considered the odds of return before investing in a property. Now I know why I chose the top hat...I fit that description. 

Here's a quick run-down on the other pieces: Car: (most popular) Outgoing, adaptable and usually male. Scottie dog: Loyal, mild risk takers, usually female. Shoe: Generous but easily riled, long memories when crossed, more females than males. Battleship: Cutthroat, rely on math to make decisions, aggressive. Thimble: Practical, creative, usually female. Iron: "Pluggers" who hang in to the end, handle adversity well, evenly played by men and women. Wheelbarrow: (least popular) Tough competitors, imagine the wheelbarrow filled with money, usually male.

The good news is you have a say-so in which of these tokens sticks around for a while. Hasbro launched it's "Save Your Token" campaign on the Monopoly Facebook page on Wednesday. Just like a reality show, the one with the lowest number of votes goes home...and doesn't collect $200 on the way.

And while you're there, you can vote for the replacement too. Personally I like the robot or the ring but the guitar is fun too. I wonder what those will say about the people who choose them. And if you're a die-hard Monopoly fan, you'll want to be watching for the limited-edition "Golden Token" edition of the game that arrives in Target stores in mid-February. It will be the last edition to have all of the classic tokens and the only set to have all five of the potential replacements. Now there's a collector's item for sure.

I can't help but wonder given prices now versus 1935 when the game was introduced if you still only get $200 when you pass Go.

Gotta Love Him

Every time we drive over to Biloxi to hang out with our oldest, we pass the signs for the Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge. And, without fail, one of us will say to the other we should do that one day. Then we promptly forget.

Well, except for the last time. I've got to give Wayne the credit as he's the one who remembered and looked up the information. And, as we expected, the best time to visit is during the winter months because in addition to the three Southern species that are there year round, there are three migratory species who've come for a short stay. So we put this on our agenda for January.

Tuesdays are golf days for Wayne and his buddies so when he was passed through the golf shop this morning, he stopped to talk to Hiram, the golf professional who also happens to be a great friend and regular eat-out companion. Want to go see the Sandhill Cranes? he asked.

Hiram's response? What rock band is that? And he was totally serious. Needless to say, that's been the source of more than one chuckle, both at the comment itself and then at the idea of people doing flapping their elbows in some crane-like dance to this fictitious musical group. Gotta love him.

The Lost Days

Somehow the last two days have disappeared. David Copperfield would be pleased; me...not so much.

Yesterday started like a very normal Thursday with me up earlier than I like to be to make my yoga class. Although I never like getting out of bed no matter what time it is, I was actually looking forward to the chance to move and stretch again. We haven't had class since before Christmas. I threw my gear in the trunk of the car, hopped behind the wheel and pressed the start button.

The all you-know-what broke loose.

The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree with every icon on it glowing red, yellow, green and white. And every bell, beeper and buzzer was singing its alarm. As if that wasn't enough, the left headlight had turned into a strobe and the right one was beaming like usual. I swear, if I didn't know better I'd have thought I had just won some huge jackpot in a Las Vegas casino. The one sound I didn't hear was the car starting; it was the only part of the car that was silent.

I tried again with the same result before heading back inside to corral my better half. Things were no different when he tried starting the car with his key so he played taxi in Old Blue to deliver me to my yoga class. And when he returned to get me two hours later he was driving the car. He'd had to use the jumper cables to start it but it really didn't act like a battery problem. The only settings we lost was the memory on the driver's seat. Apparently, Bebe just momentarily lost her mind because she's been just fine since but we spent a good bit of time yesterday morning checking to be sure. And, of course, we had to get the book out to figure out how to reset the seat.

On top of that we spent the afternoon entertaining a Dish repairman. On a lark we upgraded our satellite service since we could get more features for essentially the same amount of money and yesterday was the install. That meant I had to take down the work table in my room. It's one thing for me to waltz around it but I wasn't going to ask some burly guy to do the same. Good thing I did, too, as he had to run new wires to the outlets, meaning he had to pull out the piano to get to the outlet in my room. That meant more things to move and, of course, the need to clean behind it before he put it back.

The moving wasn't over though. I now have equipment attached to the television in my room which I didn't have before. And that meant it needed a shelf in my bookcase on which to live. A shelf which up to this point housed scrapbook supplies. See where I'm going with this? It was easy to empty those supplies out yesterday; it was much harder to find some place new for them to live today. Zap...there went the morning. Throw in a walk and some errands in town this afternoon and the day was gone.

I have high hopes of getting life back on track tomorrow. I just have to hope these episodes of disappearing days don't continue.

Entertaining Eating

A slick and pretty copy of Cooking Light arrived on my doorstep yesterday. That's exciting news because I had allowed almost all of my magazine subscriptions to expire as they all seemed to lose their usefulness and become clutter. But a combination of lots of My Coke Rewards points and nothing to spend them on plus with a subscription offer made it seem like the giving magazines another try was the right thing to do. I love the convenience of the Internet but there's still something appealing about turning pages with your hand.

And I sat right down to devour it. You know me...I'm always game for a new recipe and the fact that these are light (well, light-er might be a more accurate description for many of them) is a real plus, especially after the calorie-fest that is the holidays. I immediately marked a couple to try but even if I hadn't, reading cookbooks/cooking magazines qualifies as entertainment in my book.

My newest stop on the daily lap around the Internet involves cooking too. It was suggested to me by by my bunkmate. I think he knew I'd be interested in the idea behind it and the travel aspect to it but you never know, he'd probably be game to try some of the recipes there too. It's Global Table Adventure.

Blogger Sasha Martin set out on the ultimate food adventure, a culinary pilgrimage to each of the 195 countries in the world, one week at a time. I'm late arriving at the table as she's in Saudi Arabia now (she's doing them alphabetically) but I got a little lost on my first visit looking back at where she's been and what she's made. Each week she provides readers not only with recipes for food representative of the featured country but also with some information about the culture and the customs. It's not a week's worth of foreign eating, just a meal, but she provides a week's worth of blog content, including techniques and critiques of the chosen recipes.

Talk about dedication; it reminds me a little of Julie & Julia where Julie set out to cook her way through Julia Child's cookbook, only with a wordly/Internet twist. Oh, I should mention that Martin as a toddler who's enjoying the same menu and she's doing it from our country's heartland...Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not exactly a gourmet center of world cuisine...except in her kitchen. I love the idea that part of her motivation was she was tired of cooking the same things over and over again, something we can all relate to. It's interesting to read what people in other parts of the world eat and how much it is like (or unlike) what we regularly find on our plates.

Finally, I think I'm going to find recipe inspiration in one of the most unlikely places...a scrapbooking message board. Well, technically it's the non-scrapbooking side of it but still. They talk about everything but scrapbooking on the Two Peas NSBR message board, including dieting. And since healthy eating is a favorite subject with the new year, someone volunteered to start a weekly thread devoted entirely to vegetables. Rather than vegetables in general, however, it will be a different vegetable every week. Anyone can contribute a recipe so the idea is everyone should end up with some new ways to fix old favorites or maybe learn to like something they hadn't before. Carrots are the featured vegetable for the first week so if you want some new recipes that would make Bugs Bunny smile, check it out here. There's no registering required and no one will know (or care) if you're a scrapbooker or not. And if you want to come back for beets next week, use this link for the index to that board.

There's no way around it, we gotta eat. That doesn't mean it can't be entertaining...well, at least the reading about it anyway. Bon appetit!

By The Numbers - The Idea

In a perfect world, I'd have a tidy little album photographed and ready to illustrate this idea and that was certainly the intent. After all, it's not like I came up with it yesterday. But the holidays turned out to be more hectic than usual and when they were over and I got down to business on it, I was hit with a nasty stomach virus or food illness or something. Whatever it was, I lost three full days of productive time.

So under the theory of turning lemons into lemonade, I'll share the idea and a little of my process and then add another post as soon as the album is done. This could be interesting as I'm known to stray far from my original plan in constructing layouts; we'll see if the original design holds up in this mini album.

Needless to say, I never jumped on the Project Life bandwagon. (For the non scrapbookers: A year-long scrapbooking album in which photos, stories and pretty papers are included in pocket-style page protectors a week at a time.) I love the idea and perhaps if we were still raising children, I'd give it a go but I already have more scrapbooking projects than I can complete.

I am, however, a big proponent of documenting the everyday, even if on some levels that everyday seems forgettable. A "by the numbers" project seemed like the perfect way to keep track of some of those details of ordinary life without the every-week commitment.

So at the beginning of 2012 I made a list of various aspects of our lives it might be fun/interesting to track and set up a Word document as a home for that information. For 52 weeks I made note of things like how many loads of laundry I did, how many times we went out to eat and how many states we visited. They aren't monumental parts of our lives but taken together they tell a story different from any represented by the photos we took otherwise.

And the results are surprising and sometimes shocking. I walked a total of 1,280 miles during the year. That's like walking all the way to El Paso, Texas, or New York City. We ate out 162 times. I'm rationalizing that by the three trips to Kansas, one of which included an excursion to Colorado too. And we shopped at Walmart 81 times. Wayne swears that's in error; it seems like we're there all the time.

I came up with about 20 categories to track throughout the year, some of which I ended up combining at the end. And my plan is to turn this into a mini album.

I ran out of daylight before I got the photo taken so the quality isn't the best but you can see the start of my process here. I choose a kraft cardstock for the base because it should work well with all the different colors in the photos. The background sheets have all been cut to size and the photos printed.

When I plan an entire album like this, I like to lay all the pages out together at one time rather than doing one at a time. I can see all the colors in the photos, pick papers to mix and match throughout the album to make it more cohesive and, most of all, to give me the most flexibility. Sometimes a brilliant idea comes along part way through a project and it's a whole lot easier to implement it when nothing is glued down.

And here's the basic page design, at least as it stands now. I'm such a visual person that I always start my pages with something like this although not usually this detailed. Don't let those colors or patterns fool you; they aren't likely to show up in the finished pages. They're all grabbed from the scrap basket because they were the right shape to create the visual.

I do these "mock-ups" because I want to see how the photos are going to fit together. At least that's the rationale on layouts, and it holds true here because I'm using photos in each of those four main quadrants over the course of the album but just one per page. Pretty paper will fill the rest. At least, that's the plan right now...until a different creative whim strikes. The pictures are, however, printed so I don't anticipate a big change there.

A mini album appealed to me for this project but you could easily convert it to a page layout. Or make it the closing page in your Project Life album.

The categories I chose to track are unique to our lives but here they are: Miles driven, states visited, days/miles walked, geocaches found, text messages, new restaurants tried, meals out, salmon at home, rounds of golf, yoga, loads of laundry, trips to Walmart, blog posts, haircuts, photos taken, movies/festivals/events, lottery numbers and sudoku/crossword puzzles.

Your life might include books read instead of yoga or hours spent on your favorite website instead of sudoku/crossword puzzles. Just pick a selection of activities in which you engage and start tallying their frequency. Or simply pick one and make a single layout about it when 2013's numbers are in. There are no rules; it's all for fun. And since only a few days of the year have slipped away, you should be able to catch them up quickly.

I'll share the pages as soon as they're together. I won't be counting the number of hours that may take though. :)

Just A Thought

I have a scrapbook project to share soon (I hope)...perhaps the idea first and the actual pages first. Just in case you think it might be something you'd like to do, run out and make a note of the odometer on your car at the beginning of the year. It will all make sense later.

Don't you just love teases that make little sense?

One Word 2013

Here we are again. 2013 has laid down the welcome mat and we've no choice but to walk through the door, still glancing over our shoulder and wondering where 2012 went.

And with the new year comes the chance for a new word. Resolutions, while well-intentioned, are just opportunities for disappointment when we break or abandon them...at least that's my theory so I'm a big fan of the One Little Word concept. For some it can be resolution-like and they choose a word that applies to something specific they want to change or address in their lives but for me it's more like a personal motto for the year. It's a broader concept...a touchstone to refocus and re-center my efforts to be the best me I can be.

Previous years' words have included choose joy, listen, rejoice, complete, now and last year's word lean forward. Yes, it's clear I have difficulty limiting myself to just one word but I'm always amazed as I look back at the end of the year at just how powerful the year's word (or words, in some cases) has been and how many areas of my life it affected.

I loved lean forward...the concept that you would live each day on purpose, catch the best bits it had to offer and build those days, choice by choice. Did I live up to all that potential? Probably not as well as I could have but that's not the point. One Word is an not all or nothing idea; it's an opportunity to learn and grow and then do it again the next year with a new word. And that, I think, I did do.

This year's word choose me weeks ago, perhaps the earliest point of any year. But when it came to me, I knew it was the perfect fit. The word?

In its simplest form breathe is a word I hear repeatedly in my twice-a-week yoga class where form dictates that you inhale in certain phases of a pose and exhale in others. The idea behind that is to allow the muscles targeted by the pose get the most benefit out of the movement. And we're encouraged to focus on our breathing as we stretch too, in part to take our minds off the momentary twinge of pushing our bodies past where they're comfortable but also to relax so we're no longer as uncomfortable.

Perhaps all that New Age music playing softly in the background in yoga class has affected my thinking but I see a metaphor to life in breathe's role in yoga. Let me explain.

Breathe in. I want to inhale the happy times, warm laughter and fleeting seconds of unexpected joy. I should be present in those moments, soak them in and remember them when they are but a wisp of a memory.

Breathe out. Life is full of things I cannot control; I want to let them go. Stress and worry serve no positive purpose and I am better putting my energies into solutions for things over which I have some power.

Breathe in. My world always seems to be spinning faster than I'd like. A deep breath will slow it down, momentarily at least, so that I can appreciate all that surrounds me.

Breathe out. And when that world is moving too fast, that same deep breath will bring things back into focus, allowing me to see what's really most important or needs most to be done.

Breathe in. My life is filled with good people...people I love and enjoy. I need to remember that there is a difference between looking and seeing, between hearing and listening. If the love of family and friends is the currency of life, I am a wealthy woman and I need to be vigilant in being grateful for it.

Breathe out. I believe hardship can be an opportunity instead of an obstacle. Some of the most lasting lessons I've learned came about that way. Over the course of our marriage we've often stopped and asked, "Will this matter in six month? A year? Five years." Just breathe goes a long way towards clearing my head, settling my nerves and focusing my efforts on solving the dilemma at hand.

Breathe in. I need to inhale and take that leap of faith more often...accepting challenges and being willing to stretch myself. To open the door to chance. After all, forever is sitting just on the other side.

Breathe out. It might be with a sigh instead of a breath but I want to be mindful of letting go of discouragement and disappointment when they come, for they surely will. It's OK to grieve them momentarily and then move on. The cost of carrying regret is too high and my world holds too many positives to dwell on the negatives.

Breathe in. Life is Good.

Breathe...I can't wait to see where you and I will go in 2013.

The Art of Exercise

There isn't much artful about my walk around the neighbor. Well, those few occasions several years ago when we took the GPS with us to map out four-mile routes produced some interesting abstract designs, I suppose, when viewed in the tracking window but even those couldn't be called artful. And the treadmill? The only shape that route would produce would be a dot or maybe a very short dash.

Artist Simon Beck has a different take on his exercise, however. Wearing snowshoes, he plods through the snow accumulated on frozen lakes in Savoie, France, to produce things of beauty, like this:

Amazing, huh? His snowshoe prints look like stitching on a quilt made of snow. You'd never find me doing this. First of all, I'd be chilled to the bone long before ever reaching the end of the design and secondly, I couldn't produce all those perfect circles so evenly spaced.

Beck works 5-9 hours per day to produce these works of snow art, each about the size of three soccer fields. And, of course, how long they last or even if he can complete them at all is totally dependent on the weather. It would be my luck to be mostly done with one of these masterpieces and a blizzard would blow through, erasing all my hard work but apparently he just starts a new one.

They're a means of exercise for Beck who has problems with his feet and can no longer run. Trekking through level snow is the ideal method for him to get his exercise. And, of course, to produce something totally interesting and unique. You can see more of his amazing designs here.

I'm sure those of you in the North with snow on the ground will be inspired by this unique art form. Feel free to send me pictures of your snow quilts you produce with your exercise routing. :)

Holding History In My Hands

Our buddy, Dr. Dale, is a man of many interests, one of which is all things Civil War. He knows the stories, has visited the battlefields and even owned guns, photographs and other memorabilia from the War. He's done a little family history research in the hopes of finding an ancestor who served in the War as he loves that era but so far his search has turned up empty.

As with many collectors, things have their seasons. He had quite the collection of Civil War era guns at one time but he's pretty much out of the business now. And he recently decided he was ready to sell two antique photos so some other collector could hold and treasure them for a while. When he encountered difficulty getting good pictures of them for his listing, he called on us. It was a job Wayne was happy to turn over to me and my DSLR with the macro lens.

The two items are photos of Union soldiers mounted in small cases held together with the tiniest hooks and eyes you've ever seen. The whole case is only about 3" high and perhaps .5" thick. If I learned my lesson right from Dr. Dale when I returned them, this one is an ambrotype where the photography image is produced on a glass plate. In fact, they're referred to as 1/9th plates as apparently the photographer was able to get nine images on one glass plate then cut them apart, thus making the small size.

I was amazed at all the detail in the small metal frame that holds the photograph. In addition to the phrase "The Union now and forever," there's a drum, sword, cannon and cannon balls. The embossing on those items is quite subtle but the decorative edge at the sides is far more pronounced.

This one required more work to get an acceptable image. This photo is a tintype so it was much darker to begin with and probably more faded as well. I could actually use the scanner on it then manipulate it in Photoshop to bring out as much of the photo as possible. And while this frame is embossed as well, the design is just decorative...nothing scenic about it.

For each of the two cases, I did front, back and standing views then the one detail view on the frame with words.

It was cool to be able to do this...hold history in my hands. It's no secret that I have a thing for old photographs anyway but to stare into eyes looking back at me from roughly 150 years ago is amazing. The cases and photographs are in remarkable condition given their age. And like too many of the really old photos we have, I longed to know who these men were and what their stories were. That, of course, isn't going to happen but I still enjoyed the chance to see them and learn about the process behind them. And, of course, to do a favor for a friend. It made for an interesting twist on an otherwise ho-hum day.

A Very Merry Un-Christmas

Christmas 2012 is in the books. And in the boxes too. We spent today taking down the tree and packing all the decorations away for another 11.3 months. And, of course, cleaning up the mess that accompanies that. If the Mad Hatter celebrated every day that wasn't his birthday as his un-birthday, then we'll celebrate today as un-Christmas, fitting since we un-Christmas-ed the house.

Here are a few of our  Christmas memories:

Santa arrived at our house a little early, leaving a new television that needed to be connected. It was a task that took a village...one reading the handbook that came with the television, on checking for additional information online via the smartphone and one recalling what was done in the last television install. All those brains got it done though and we now have pretty, colorful images on our screen.

Having a teenager makes for a mellow Christmas morning. Gone are the days of getting up at the crack of dawn to open presents; Kayla's much more interested in sleep. She's learned the presents will still be there.

My silly Saints fan decided the metal ornament we got for him to hang from his balcony would make a great keychain. It's a cinch he wouldn't misplace his keys but I'm not sure how he'll get them in his pocket.

The little company in Sandy Hook, CT, was so great about replacing the sunglasses with the wrong monogram and Kayla was thrilled with them. She's rocking the movie star look.

Christmas means ham at our house and true to tradition, Brad sneaks in for a sample as soon as the carving starts. This was a record-setting year in that everything was done and ready to serve at 12 noon. That's always the goal but seldom the reality.

And it wouldn't be a holiday without some family group photos. I'm going to enjoy scrapbooking these photos...our clothing all matched!

These two are more of a challenge. There's always plenty of giggling and horsing around whenever I try to take their pictures.

Eventually, however, they settle down and reward me with a great photo.

Yes, Christmas may be just a memory...but what a happy one it is.

Merry Christmas!

May you be surrounded by those you love...if not in person, then in your hearts.

From our house to yours, Merry Christmas!

Crafting Smiles

I had a hard time with Christmas cards this year. At one point I gave serious consideration to not sending any...I was that far behind in every phase of holiday preparations. But I knew I would regret it as there are people on the Christmas list we only communicate with once a year.

Then, on a whim, I decided to make my own. It probably makes no sense in anyone else's mind but my own how if I don't have time to send cards, I'd have time to make them but I was motivated. Even though I don't consider myself a card-maker, I've done handmade Christmas cards before...but not often. Those were stamped, hand-colored and embellished; I didn't have time for that this year. If I was going to make cards, they were going to have to be simple. And if I could use my new cutter, that would be a bonus.

Here's the whole herd of little reindeer cards I ended up creating. They were such fun to make. In fact, I smiled the whole time I was doing them, and seeing them in the photo makes me smile again. And given that, I placed this message inside: May your Christmas be filled with things that make you smile.

They went together pretty quickly. There are two similar files in the Silhouette store but I chose the one on the circle simply because I liked the second design that went with it. Then I created the tag shape by drawing a rectangle and welding a circle to the top of it. Copy and overlap that, weld them together and you've got a card. I even added a perforated line in the middle to make folding quick and easy.

I printed a draft of the message then used removable adhesive to glue the card to the draft and ran it back through the printer again because I was cutting my cards from 12x12 paper but had I been working with 8.5x11, I think I could have used the print and cut feature. I just haven't played around with that and didn't figure this was the time to start.

So the cards went from a chore to crafting fun, made all the better because I had everything on hand to do them instead of swimming in the tide of Christmas shoppers one more time. The quirky little faces on the reindeer made me smile as I put them in the envelopes and I hope they had the same on those who pulled them out.

Sugar High

Chocolate peanut butter chip cookies cooling in the late afternoon sunshine.

It was baking day at the ol' homestead today. I know, I know...not many people start their holiday baking on December 22 and I suppose technically, I didn't either. I made cinnamon almonds yesterday and while they were done in the crockpot, I'm counting that as baking too.

There was a time when the Christmas cookies were made much earlier in December. Of course, my main cookie-eaters were teens or younger and still living at home then too. Now the teen cookie monster is a granddaughter who, along with her dad and mom, won't be in town until Christmas Eve. I'm not sure who's the biggest cookie-fan, Kayla or Brad, but there will be plenty of fresh sweets ready and waiting. And when they leave a few days later, they'll take the majority of them with them.

This year's selection isn't much different from previous years: Chocolate chip, chocolate peanut butter chip, gingersnaps and cranberry-white chocolate-oatmeal. Those are family favorites so they repeat year after year. And I always have to try one new one, just in case we find something different that would make it's way onto the family-favorite list. This year it was Lemondoodles...a Snickerdoodle-like cookie only with lemon. It's pretty good; we'll see how popular it is with the rest of the clan.

And how have I managed to make cookies all these years without a cookie scoop? The answer is I didn't know what I was missing. I bought one this year and now I'm in love. It sure made getting the dough onto the cookie sheet faster and easier...and much cleaner than using a spoon too. Cool little tool.

I wasn't alone in the kitchen today...my roomie volunteered to help. We took turns measuring and mixing, putting cookie sheets in the oven and transferring cookies onto the cooling racks. And, of course, we sampled a few along the way. What kind of cooks would we be if we didn't taste our food? Needless to say, we approved of our work. We finished up about 8pm this evening but it would have been much later if I hadn't had a second set of hands helping.

The air in the house is filled with the sugary scent of baked goods and I hope it hangs around. I'm going to need it tomorrow to fuel a kitchen clean-up. One look at the sink and the floors and you'd know...it was baking day at the ol' homestead today.

Clairvoyant Me

It was gym day around the homestead...well, for me anyway. I could easily have made a case for staying snuggled down under the covers this morning but this is the last day for classes before the Christmas break so I forced myself to crawl out.

You can certainly tell that some people have forsaken their fitness routine already as attendance at the gym was pretty sparse today. There were only two of us and the instructor in the PiYo (Pilates-Yoga) class this morning but that doesn't mean she took it easy on us. In fact, she'd promised us a "Christmas present" which turned out to be a workout done to a James Taylor Christmas CD. He's pretty mellow so it was a nice change. You haven't lived, however, until you've done squats to a jazzy and somewhat slower paced Jingle Bells or hamstring stretches to Auld Lang Syne.

There was only one other person in the entire fitness area besides me while I did my miles on the treadmill too. I enjoyed that; it will be the exact opposite when New Year's resolutions kick in in a few days.

My treadmill time has evolved into a real workout. The distance and speed have stayed the same over the last eight months or so but I'm upping the elevation and increasing the time spent at the higher elevations. It's good to have challenges and then to appreciate how much easier it is to do that workout at the end of the month than it was when I boosted it up at the beginning of the month.

When I started the hardest stretch in the workout this morning, I was feeling the need for a little extra *something* to keep me going. I know what I need! I said to myself. I need to hear Bogota By Bus. It's one of the songs on my little Shuffle that streams musical energy through my ears to my legs. Yes, the jazzy flamenco strains of Jesse Cook's Bogota By Bus were just what I needed to hear.

And poof...just like that, the song started to play. I'm telling you, I just about slid off the back of the treadmill. I don't have clairvoyant powers...well, I didn't until this morning anyway. It was kinda cool, I have to admit, but a little unsettling too. But I was so glad to hear the pulsing beat and feel the rhythmic beat that I got over it. I had a new sense of energy. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I hit the replay button when it was over so I could listen to it again, something I never do. And while I would have liked a few more songs like it to keep me motivated for the duration of that tought 1.25 miles, I wasn't About to test my clairvoyant powers again.

So if you need a little push to get you through what's left on your Christmas to-do list, I bring you Bogota By Bus. James Taylor Christmas music it's not but it will get you going. Makes me want to get my San Antonio accordion out and play. : )

 

What Day Is It Anyway?

I'm a creature of habit...I'll admit it. Certain things get done on certain days. Some might say that's boring but I like it that way. It fits well with the left side of my brain. Besides, spontaneity is overrated.

So I'm struggling a little at this time of year when routine goes out the window. There's all those extra holiday chores to squeeze into the mix and, frankly, they've not fit in so well. Those habits I'm so used to have taken a hit.

For instance, I did Monday's housecleaning on Tuesday. I'm planning on doing Saturday's grocery shopping on Friday. Monday's ironing got done on Wednesday and next Tuesday's presents will hopefully be wrapped on Thursday. See? The routine is in chaos.

I'm looking at the bright side of it though. If the world ends on Friday as some predict, I won't need to know what day it is anyway.

It's A Small World After All

Kayla is big into monograms right now. I'm not sure what sparked this recent love affair with her initials but her Birthday/Christmas list contained half a dozen different things featuring monograms. We got her a vinyl monogram for the back window of her new car for her birthday, and I ordered a couple of other items off the list for Christmas gifts.

The first one arrived Saturday, a pair of tortoise shell sunglasses with a gold monogram on one earpiece. I'm safe writing that; she's a busy teenager and only reads the blog when someone in the family points out the fact that there are pictures of her here. The sunglasses looked nice when I pulled them out of the soft drawstring bag they came in. They'll look nice on her, I thought.

Then I noticed...the initials were wrong. Oh, no, I lamented...I was so careful placing my order and proofed them two, maybe three times. How could I have missed that? So I went back to the order confirmation and sure enough, I'd put in the right letters. I checked the shipping notice and it was right too. But there on the glasses was clearly the wrong letter.

We'd joked at her birthday about how that monogram would change when she got married. She was not amused; apparently she'd never given much thought to not having the same monogram forever. Unless, of course, she married someone whose last name began with the same letters as hers...or she kept her name or never married. Perhaps the letter on the glasses wasn't in error at all but the Universe's way of telling us what her new monogram would become some day. Creepy thought there.

But I wanted the monogram that is hers today so I set out to find the contact information for the company with whom I'd placed the order. And, I'll admit, I was a little frustrated that I was having to deal with this at such a late date, especially since all the paperwork was correct. The holidays have enough hassle as it is.

I stopped in my tracks, however, when I picked up the shipping box and read the return address: Sandy Hook, CT. And suddenly my problem seemed insignificant. Sometimes the world is smaller than you can ever imagine.

We're Easily Entertained

We usually dine out with friends on Friday night. It's a long-standing tradition...a chance to relax, catch up with events of the last week and generally enjoy one another's company. But occasionally there are Friday nights where the gang is all headed in different directions and group dining falls by the wayside. That's OK...we'll just have more to talk about next week.

Our plans originally were to just stay in and eat here. Boring, I know, but there were plenty of choices in the fridge. But before I started to fix anything, Wayne appeared at the doorway to my scrapbook room and announced he was taking me to my favorite Mexican restaurant. How could I refuse! And, he added, he had another stop or two in Pensacola in mind for afterwards. I was intrigued.

The fish tacos as Cactus Flower were particularly delicious tonight, maybe because my taste buds had been prepared for leftovers. And afterwards we headed for The Fresh Market, a new grocery store that just opened Wednesday in Pensacola. You have to understand...we don't have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's anywhere close so when a specialty grocery store comes to town, it's pretty much a tourist attraction.

It.Is.Beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen such pretty produce. Pomegranates the size of grapefruits; itty, bitty baby zucchini and tropical fruits that are only seen on television screens here, not grocery store shelves. I had no idea brussel sprouts grew on a stock but they had them there in that form as well as already cut off. Of course, since brussel sprouts are one of the few vegetables I don't care for, I'd probably never stopped to think about how they grew.

To call the pre-cooked/pre-made area a deli is to do it an injustice as it looked like fine restaurant food ready to go home with you. And every aisle was filled with interesting items and unfamiliar brands. There wasn't just vanilla extract; there were a dozen varieties and forms of vanilla, and it was like that for so many things. Good thing we were full from dinner as we saw so many delicious-looking things we'd like to try someday. We ended up bringing home some spinach and feta stuffed chicken breast, the prettiest fresh green beans and a cranberry-orange muffin for breakfast in the morning.

The market won't be a regular stop on our weekly pantry-stocking trip but I do think we'll use it for just what it claims to be: a specialty place for hard-to-find or higher-quality items. Options are always nice. Besides, just walking around looking at what they have to offer was fun. It just proves we're easily entertained.

How To Get Your Husband To Love Your Expensive New Scrapbooking Tool

So I have this fancy new cutting machine, a Silhouette Cameo. The best analogy for it is that it's like a printer only it cuts instead of appling ink to the page. And like a printer, it wasn't cheap. Well...maybe that's not such a good analogy as far as the price is concerned because there are plenty of cheap printers now but you get the idea. It's a whole lot more than buying pretty paper and glue.

From the get-go my reaction has been WOW! Look at this! That's so cool! Excitement, to say the least. Hubby's reaction, on the other hand, has been much more subdued. That's nice, honey. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. He was interested to see how it did it's thing...a process he described as something that would make Rube Goldberg happy...but beyond that, he was pretty nonchalant.

That's all changed now that I've used my heretofore under-appreciated new tool for his benefit.

In honor of 12-12-12 the area geocachers were having a flash mob demonstration this evening and he needed a sign to hold up. Since the theme was about how geocaching is fun, Wayne decided to combine some common symbols and phrase for what is sure to provoke interest among the non-caching world. The giant "G" with the crosshairs stands for Geocachers and the heart is, of course, love, making the phrase read Geocachers Love Lifting Skirts.

For the uninitiated, this has nothing to do with women's clothing although I'm sure those into the hobby love it that non-cachers immediately think that. It refers instead to caches hidden under the bottom cover of lamp posts, i.e. the skirt. I know...who'd ever think those pieces are loose and lift up but when you see it, you realize that's how they get to the bolts that fasten the pole to the support base. It's not a very big area but the caches hidden there are usually in film canisters or other small containers. Go to any Walmart or other large parking lot and the chances are high that there's a LPC (lamp post cache) under one of the skirts there.

Constructing the graphic wasn't hard. A box for the base, a rounded rectangle with the bottom cut off for the skirt, a rectangle with ovals at the top and bottom merged together for the cache, one of the Travelcon font people modified a bit for the cacher and an image of a lamp post I found on the Internet and converted in Photoshop to a .png file to trace and cut. It was pretty fun actually.

Wayne was impressed. And not that he ever begrudged the money I spent on the Cameo anyway but now he's a fan too. Off he went to his flash mob demonstration, sign in hand.

They had about 40 or so people randomly appear from all different directions at 6:06 pm in the Gulf Power parking lot in Crestview, and for twelve minutes they walked around waiving their signs. Since the location was right on the main highway in Crestview, I asked him if anyone stopped for a closer look at what they were doing. He said they didn't but lots of the passing cars honked and waved. We tried capturing a photo from the geocaching website showing the group but the image was just a thumbnail and with a low resolution I couldn't enlarge it enough to share here.  By all accounts, a good time was had by all.

And his sign? It won the first place prize.

He came home with this special trackable coin made for today's event. It's about 2" across and the ringed design just inside the edge is recessed.

And the center design on the reverse side is embossed. It's so pretty I wanted to share both sides. He now has coins for 10-10-10, 11-11-11 and 12-12-12.

So here's my advice to all you new Cameo owners out there...or those that are hoping to find one under the Christmas tree. Find a way to use it in something that will benefit your husband and he'll love your expensive new machine as much as you do. It clearly worked for me.

Last Chance

By the time anyone but me reads this it will be 12-12-12, your last chance in what is likely to be your lifetime to do something memorable on a day when all three of the numbers in the date are the same. If it's anything like the last eleven such dates, we'll see a lot of weddings and a lot of people playing the lottery. I suppose some could argue that getting married is a gamble in itself but that's not the purpose of this post.

Numerologists speculate it's going to be a lucky day, one good for making a big purchase or starting a new business. I'll be sure to mention that to Wayne since I'm not sure he's bought my Christmas present yet. Be lucky...go big. Just don't wear black while you do it because those same numerologists claim wearing black negates that good luck.

When you stop to think about it, twelve is a pretty significant number. Jesus had twelve apostles. There are twelve signs on the Zodiac. There are twelve steps to recovery in Alcoholic Anonymous. There are twelve members on a jury. Yes, I know...not always, but I'm making a point here. And how can we forget the Twelve days of Christmas? So three twelves has got to be pretty powerful...right?

So get out there and do something memorable on this last day with repetitive twelves. It's 88 years before it happens again and then it's the lowly number one. And if the Mayans are correct, it's the last time ever. How's that for motivation!

Around Here

Around here there's some scrapbooking of old pictures going on. Well, there was on Friday night anyway. When Wayne headed off to a high school football game with the guys, I packed up my stuff and went the opposite direction to the scrapbook store across town. It was fun to catch up with some of the gals who were crop regulars when we had our store. It felt like old times sharing stories and laughs; I need to do it again. Who knows when this layout will get finished, given the busy time of year, but it's off to a good start.

Around here the usual Monday clean-up was tossed aside and I made a mess instead. That mess was, however, progress as the tree is up and fully decorated. I love all my Christmas stuff and the memories of people and places that surface as I put them out and enjoy them but it doesn't take long before all that extra stuff begins to feel like clutter. I'd go crazy if I decorated right after Thanksgiving so Kayla's birthday is like the green light for getting the ornaments down. Now if I can plow through the rest of the boxes tomorrow, I can cross that job off the holiday list.

Around here we're two-for-two in the new recipes tried and enjoyed category this week. Last night's fare was P. F. Chang's Lettuce Wraps which was much better looking than the poor lighting from the overhead light makes them look. We both loved them and I see them being a regular part of our dinner rotation from now on. I used this recipe but based on the comments I increased the hoisin sauce and soy sauce...yum-o! Tonight we had this recipe for Santa Fe Chicken from the crock pot. We did it in a tortilla burrito-style rather than over rice and it was both tasty and easy. Again, it helps to read the comments as the beans need to be drained and after many complained about too much liquid, I cut the chicken stock in half. It was just right but I kept a close eye on it in case I needed to add more.

Around here cold weather is returning. I haven't been among those complaining about 75-degree days; who needs cold weather to make it feel like Christmas, I say. If I could figure out a way to hold onto those warmer temperatures, I would but since I can't, I guess I'll be breaking out the sweatshirts again.

Around here life is good.

Wheels

Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted to be behind the wheel every time she came to Grandma's house...so much so that she would grab her Grandpa's hand and tug him toward the garage where there were wheels that seemed much more her size. Of course, being the push-over that Grandpa was for this little girl, she didn't have to tug very hard to get him to take her to the garage. She would climb in and out of the golf cart, twisting on the wheel, then look at Grandpa with those big, brown eyes and say "Go?" And, of course, go they did...her on his lap, loving the feel of wind in her hair.

Early on those rides became part of a family tradition, an exclusive breakfast club shared by just the two of them. Off they'd go to the cafe in the golf clubhouse for pancakes each morning the little girl was visiting. At first she sat on Grandpa's lap and helped him steer but as she grew, he moved to the side and left her behind the wheel.

She loved driving. Puddles on the cart path from rain or the irrigation? No problem...she'd plow through them at full speed, laughing at the big spray of water she'd made in the process. And when Grandpa let her get off the cart path, nothing was better than going up and down all the "lumps" that defined the edge of the fairway and challenged golfers. They weren't a challenge for her; she had the pedal to the medal.

The little girl turned 18 the other day...a how-can-this-be-true moment for her grandma and grandpa, but it is. And this less-than-spectacular photo doesn't do the glowing expression on her face justice but since I forgot the camera, this cellphone snapshot will have to do. The source of her grin is that she's standing in front of her new wheels. The little silver car wasn't intended as a birthday present; they've been looking for a good used car for her for several months now and found this one just a few days before the big birthday. It's the perfect starter car for a teen and should make life in that home a little less hectic.

We were there Saturday to celebrate with her and, in keeping with tradition, take her to dinner. Well...technically, she took us in her new little car but it was Grandpa's treat. We didn't drive through puddles at full speed or aim for every "lump" in the road but the look on her face was just the same. The girl loves her wheels...especially when they are really her wheels. Kayla has a car and she couldn't be more thrilled.

2013 Color of the Year

Kermit, my favorite frog, is probably a very happy fellow right now. His life just got a little easier since Pantone announced Emerald as it's Color of the Year for 2013. We're all going to be wearing green now.

I'm always fascinated at the whole Color-of-the-Year thing. Apparently they study trends on the runways and red carpet as well as send out inquiries to interior designers and manufacturers of textiles and other home goods to see what colors are in the pipeline or gaining popularity and then in what surely must be a dark, smoky room, they come up with their prediction. It's a self-fulling prophecy from there as Pantone carries a lot of clout in the color world. If they say it's the Color of the Year, those who didn't already have it in their design future are likely to add it.

Emerald, huh. I don't think there's a single article of clothing in my closet that comes close to it and that's not likely to change...although I wouldn't turn down a nice emerald ring if someone offered me one. What green I do own leans more to the lime side of the hue and that's been the more popular shade for the last decade. Emerald, however, hasn't garnered much attention since the 1980's. Retro, it seems, is in.

It is, however, the most abundant color in nature, and tThe human eye sees more green than any other color. It's the color of growth, luck and riches and it's thought to be powerful and energizing as well as healing. That's a lot for one color to live up to. Then again, with all that's going on in the world, we can use a little emerald as long as it isn't at the end of a yellow brick road.

So if you're still looking for a special dress for a Christmas party or to wear on New Year's Eve, think green. You'll be on the cutting edge of color trends. Me? I'll leave the color to redheads and frogs.

Bulking Up My Brain

I'm on Month 11 of my gym membership now and unlike many who join, I've stuck with it. If I'm in town, I'm at yoga two mornings a week. I'd go more if they offered it but since they don't, I'm settling for that. Even though the poses aren't as foreign to me now, the workout is still a challenge. And when class is over, I do my daily miles on the treadmill. Yes, sir...my Tuesday-Thursday routine is pretty well set.

Well, that was the case until the week of Thanksgiving when we didn't have yoga because the instructor was gone. Some of my fellow yoga-mates convinced me I should join them for the class that meets after yoga...Muscle Max. You'll like it, they said. It'll be good for you. Note to self: Never trust yoga-mates again.

Good for me was questionable the day after when I could barely move but they were right...I did like it even if I stunk at it. The instructor joked that I couldn't make a decision about the class after attending only one and I had to come back. So I did. And when the schedule came out for December, I signed up to continue the class. I still stink at it but I'm getting better. At least I think I am although I still am stiff and sore the day after. Must mean I'm working muscles that aren't getting used otherwise...right?

Maybe that's why I was so interested in an article in USA Today last week. It was about how excited researchers were about a new study showing that people who burn off the most energy have healthier, younger brains than adults who do less. It seems that not only are greater caloric expenditures better for your waistline, they also relate to larger gray matter volume, including the hippocampus, and apparently the hippocampus is the first area that's affected in Alzheimer's disease since it deals with short-term memory.

Scientists speculate that physical activities such a walking, dancing, bicycling and even raking may maximize the effectiveness of the brain even if started later in life. And some participants who had shown signs of mild cognitive impairment improved after raising their level of physical activity. Doing puzzles and learning something new may do things for other areas of the brain and stave off Alzheimers but this research focused on activities that improved cerebral blood flow which, in turn, strengthen neuronal connections.

Though the study shows a link between activity and brain health, scientists aren't ready to say activity preserves brain matter. It could be that people with bigger brains are just more physically active.

I'm not taking any chances. If you're looking for me on Tuesdays, you'll find me in yoga class...or strength training...or on the treadmill. I'm busy bulking up my biceps and maybe my brain too.

Calendars...Three Ways. And They're Free!

Every thirty days or so when I flip the calendar over to a new page, I shake my head and think, Wow! Another month is gone already! It's the first of the month, then I turn around and it's the end of the month. Anyone who thinks retirement would be boring and time must move like molasses should think again.

And then there are no new pages; the calendar is at it's end. How can we be looking 2013 right in the eye when I've just gotten used to writing 2012? I haven't figured out a way to slow down time so I might as well embrace the fact that I'm going to need a new calendar.

And that's why I was so happy to see this post on Write.Click.Scrapbook. Free digital files so you can make your own calendar, and they're really cute too. My favorite is one with the months in 3x4 format. They were designed with Project Life in mind but since I don't do that, I see other possibilities. They'd be a great addition to a scrapbook page or they could be resized for a desk calendar. Just open them in your photo editing software, set the crop for 3x4 and crop the months one at a time. You can resize the individual months to whatever size you want. I see a project for my Bind-It-All in my future.

But the little sizes are the only ones available. There's a download for a CD case calendar and another one for a full-page calendar you can drop photos into. Looks like a great gift for a grandmother or proud aunt.

The good thing about these files besides the fact that they're free? There's no time limit on when you can get them. But don't wait too long to get them...2013 will be here before you know it.

It Really Works!

I'm not big into single-function kitchen gadgets...which explains why I was improvising a week ago with a grill pan and a skillet for a weight since I can't see buying a panini press. But I was intrigued last week when I saw the pomegranate deseeder gadget on display next to the fresh pomegranates. They're in season now, you know, and there's just something fascinating about this odd-looking fruit with its juice-filled seeds. In addition to the delicious sweet/tart taste, they're really good for you too.

But...and this is a big one...they're a pain to peel. The seeds are good but I'm not sure they're worth all that effort. And that's why I was intrigued by the deseeder. Fast-forward to this week and I went beyond intrigued to putting one in my cart. It helped that a) I found a recipe I wanted to try and b) it only cost $3.99. The recipe was only so-so but the deseeder worked like a charm. And since the recipe only used a small amount of pomegranate, I have plenty left over to snack on.

You start by cutting the pomegranate in half, then scoring around the edge five or six times. We're after all those little seeds called arils. They're a lot like miniature grapes so you can't just pick them out or they'll pop. And the juice is the best part.

Then you turn the half upside down on the deseeder. This was the crown end which I cut off to make the next step easier. Wayne likened the deseeder to an upside down dog dish with the bottom cut out but it serves its purpose.

Then you whack away. The instructions say to use a spoon but I found the ice cream scoop to be the perfect tool. It was just a little sturdier. The rind splays out with only a few hits and the seed drop through to the surface below. I probably didn't need a paper towel over the first half but there was enough juice on the board to take the extra step. My efforts to contain the mess weren't too successful so you might consider doing this step in the sink.

This picture is poorly focused, I know, but I wanted to show how the seeds all dropped through. There are still some bits of the white pulp with it but essentially they're loose so you can just pick them out and toss them. When I finished, I had a nice-sized bowl of these tasty little gems...plus the ones Wayne and I popped in our mouths as we were doing this.

I can't vouch for the fact that we deseeded our pomegranate in 60 seconds but it was pretty darn quick, especially when compared to the ways I've tried before. And for less than $4 it's a handy tool I'm happy to have, even if it won't last forever. It's always nice when something you think is too good to be true (and cheap to boot) turns out to really work.

Have A Coke And A Smile

Alas, Lady Luck smiled on someone else in last night's Powerball drawing. We were close...okay, not really; we had a grand total of only one of the six drawn numbers across the five tickets we bought. A pitiful showing but it was still fun to imagine all we could have done with such a huge sum of money.

My brother Jerry was hoping we would be winners too. In true big-brotherly fashion, he was thinking of me and not himself as all he wished for was that I'd treat him to a Pepsi with my winnings. Heck, that's a request I can grant even though our ship is still out to sea. My treat next time, Jerry...OK?

Until then, we'll share a virtual soft drink together...you'll just have to overlook the fact that it's a Coke. Best part is it comes with a smile.

 

Feeling Lucky?

If there's such a thing as Powerball Mania, I guess we're part of it. I can't remember the last time we bought lottery tickets, but a jackpot of $500 million is just too tempting to resist. After all, you can't win if you don't play.

Given our luck in the past, all of which has been bad, I'm not spending any of it yet but still it's fun to dream of the places we'd go see, the things we'd do to the house and the people we could help. And we're not greedy...we'll share. So if you're feeling lucky and are holding a ticket too, there's plenty to split up among us with a prize that size.

We have a standing joke around here about how our ship can't come in because we don't have a dock. Maybe this little slip of paper is a dock in disguise. And if not, we'll have had a little fun dreaming about what might have been.

 

I Put The Lime In The Coconut

Monday's done. The shack now shines again, the laundry basket is empty and, thanks to Wayne and John Deere, the yard is mowed/free of leaves. The only question that remains at the end of the day is who will take home the coveted mirror ball trophy? That's Dancing with the Stars, for those who don't follow the show. We'll know tomorrow night.

One more accomplishment for the day...the Thanksgiving leftovers have all but disappeared. They've been good and while we've enjoyed a replay of the holiday meal itself, I've also tried to re-imagine them so they seem fresh and new.

The turkey sandwiches turned into Turkey-Cranberry Paninis which were so good. Some good whole-grain bread smeared with leftover cranberry jell and topped with turkey and cheese (Swiss for Wayne, cream cheese for me) and then grilled. I don't have a panini pan but I improvised with a grill pan and a skillet for the weight on top and it worked just fine. As I said, so good.

Soup was in the leftover plan too but it went in an unexpected direction while we were standing in the grocery aisle. I was intending to buy a box of chicken or turkey stock since I failed to save any out before putting the gumbo-making supply in the freezer but the Thai Coconut Curry Culinary Broth caught my eye. Who knows why...it's not like I've ever eaten much Thai food but it sounded interesting. And when I picked the box up, it had a recipe on it for a vegetable noodle soup to which you could add cooked chicken or, in our case, turkey. Let's try that! my ever-more-adventurous-eating husband suggested...so we did.

It went together in no time, although when I make it again (and I definitely will), I'll cook it a little longer than the recipe calls for so the vegetables can get a little more tender. And I totally think you could play around with the vegetables or add more of them for a heartier soup. It was, however, really good. No....really, really good. The curry wasn't overpowering at all but the flavors had a nice zing.

Healthy vegetables, broth with a little zip and the smoothness of coconut milk with a squeeze of lime. Yep...I put the lime in the coconut and we ate it all up!

Thai Vegetable Noodle Soup

1 cup chopped onion
1 cup broccoli florets
1/2 cup diced carrots
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (to taste)
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 cup vermicelli or thin spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces
1 carton (32 oz) College Inn Thai Coconut Curry Culinary Broth
1 Tbsp. fresh lime juice
1 cup light coconut milk
1 cup diced cooked chicken, optional
Green onions, cilantro and lime wedges for garnish

1. Cook onion, broccoli, carrots, ginger, curry and red pepper flakes in oil in large saucepan for 3 minutes. Add noodles, broth and lime juice.

2. Bring to boil; reduce heat. Simmer 7 minutes or until noodles are tender. Stir in coconut milk; heat through. Garnish with cilantro and green onions and serve with lime wedges, if desired.

History Come To Life

I've spent the last two afternoons doing family history. It's nice to have two passions (scrapbooking and family history) to switch back and forth between, even if they both require a considerable investment of time. One works the left side of the brain while the other exercises the right...I'm balanced that way.

Remember when I discovered the connection to Charlemagne? That's where I'm working now, tracking lords and earls in old, old England but I have to walk away now and then. It's not that I get bored...far from it; my head gets to spinning. I'm back in the 1100's and earlier now, before people had last names. Sometimes they used where they lived, i.e. Roger de Clare was Roger, who became the 5th Earl of Clare in 1152 and lived in Clare Castle. That would be fine if Roger's male ancestors were all named de Clare since they were also Earls of Clare and lived in the same castle but it doesn't work that way. Roger was the son of Richard FitzGibert who was the son of Gilbert FitzRichard who was the son of Richard FitzGilbert who was the son of Count Gilbert. Apparently "Fitz" was shorthand for "son of" when combined with the father's name. All I know is after a while my brain is Fitz-fried.

But their lives are sooo interesting...like reading history books but having a personal connection to the people in those events. Roger de Clare's son Richard (yes, they kept using the same names over and over, further adding to the confusion!) played a leading role in negotiating the Magna Carta and was one of the twenty-five barons who signed it. The Magna Carta, for heaven's sake! Richard would be my 26th great-grand uncle, according to my Family Tree Maker software. And Roger, my 27th great grandfather, was no slouch either. Besides signing as a witness on various treaties and charters entered into by Kings Stephen and Henry II, he challenged Thomas Beckett when Beckett demanded homage as Archbishop of Canterbury. That lead to the Constitutions of Clarendon on which Roger de Clare was a signor. Living history, I tell you.

Then there's Geoffrey FitzPiers who signed on the charter where John surrendered England to Pope Innocent III in 1213. And William Brewer, one of the justiciars who ran England while Richard I (a/k/a Richard the Lionheart) went off to the Crusades. When Richard was captured on his return, Brewer was among the group who went to Germany in 1193 to negotiate the ransom for his release. How about Gilbert FitzRichard who was in the hunting party in New Forest on August 2, 1100, when William II was killed by an errant arrow. Or, if you believe in conspiracies, perhaps it wasn't so errant after all. Some have speculated that Gilbert, while not the actual archer, may have played a role in doing in the king.

Maybe the best find of late is Walter Giffard, my 31st great grandfather. Walter is one of only fifteen proven companions of William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, part of the Norman Invasion. Walter was a key advisor to William and supplied him with 30 ships for his invasion. And if Walter was really William's cousin, I'm going to be able to place William the Conqueror in my family tree too.

The Magna Carta. William the Conqueror. The Norman Invasion. There are plenty of cobwebs in that part of the old brain that learned about those things years ago so I've been brushing up on my English history along the way. And while the links I've included are to Wikipedia entries, the sources I'm relying on are much more dependable and widely accepted. Wikipedia just makes an easy reference for family who might want to know more about these ancestors.

I still have lots of names to go through on this trek to Charlemagne. The lives of these people are pretty well documented due to their royal lineage and that's made those I've discovered so much more fascinating than just names and dates. We'll just have to see who turns up next.

Meet Deuce

This is Deuce, the newest member of the family. He actually belongs to Brad so I guess that makes him our grand-doggy but whatever you call him, he's the sweetest thing on four feet.

And perhaps the most timid, too. He's a rescue dog, having been removed from his original owners after too many years of abuse and neglect. Of course, one day of those circumstances would be too much. I just don't understand how someone can be cruel to an animal but you hear of it all too frequently. And while the first part of his life was unpleasant, Brad is working to make the rest of it a better place. That boy does love his dogs and always has.

Deuce spent his early years tied to a tree, an important fact to know when I tell you the story about one of the first outings Brad and Deuce enjoyed together. Brad took him to a park not far from his home and let Deuce off the leash for the first time in their new-found friendship. Deuce took off like a shot, running as hard and as far as he could. And just when he was no bigger than a speck in the distance, he stopped...then turned around and ran just as hard straight back to Brad where he collapsed at his feet for a few minutes before repeating the feat. Brad said he got chills seeing the unabashed joy the dog was feeling being allowed to run like that. It's a regular ritual between them now.

But Deuce did only a limited amount of running when he came to visit on Thanksgiving and that was when Brad had him out in our yard. The rest of the time he stayed quietly in his bed Brad had placed on the back porch. He watched as we finished up the cooking and kept an eye on Brad as he dozed in front of the football game but he never left the bed even though he was unrestrained. The unfamiliar is still too scary for timid Mr. Deuce. Now and then curiousity got the better of him and he would gingerly step his front feet out of the bed, nose to the ground and stretching as far as he could to take in new scents but those back feet stayed within the safety of the bed.

Those scars of days gone by are slowly healing. You can see in the way he reacts and plays with Brad that he's beginning to trust again, and while he's cautious when we approach because he hasn't been around us a lot, he no longer shrinks away in fear. A few good scratches behind the ear go a long way. I hope those unpleasant days continue to shrink from his memory, replaced by thoughts of people who treat him with love and kindness.

Charlie Brown was right...happiness is a warm puppy. And even a quiet dog with a gentle soul named Deuce.

Talking Turkey

Thanksgiving is but a memory now. Well, unless you count all the leftovers, that is. You won't hear me complaining about them; I had Thanksgiving Dinner Part II for dinner this evening and it tasted just as good as the first go-round. Maybe better since all the cooking was already done.

This year's bird was not only tasty but pretty too. I might have showed him off a little better if he were on some fancy platter instead of a trusty old cookie sheet but he eventually made it to the platter, just in pieces. He was moist and tender and really good. We always buy a big one so there's plenty to send home with the family. Everyone loves leftovers.

Kayla spent her pre-dinner time studying the ads and plotting her Black Friday shopping strategy. She had plans to hit a few stores at midnight, go to her aunt's to sleep for a few hours, then line up again for different stores when they opened at 6am. Better her than me; I stayed far away from the malls.

Here's the cook's helper, a job he performed admirably both Wednesday and Thursday. I did everything from grinding cranberries to making the final grocery run. And, of course, he carved the turkey.

I usually get a picture of Brad stealing a bite of the turkey as it's being carved but I wasn't quick enough this year. It's a part of the holiday tradition in our house to sample the turkey as it's being carved and I'm pretty sure we all did our part to uphold it this year. I just had to settle for a photo of him filling his plate.

And naps and football are a part of that tradition too. It's the turkey, you know. I had to laugh when I walked through the living room and saw these two crashed in pretty much the same position. Like father, like daughter. And grandfather too not long after this photo was taken. Kayla and I did find some time, however, to play around with my Cameo machine and cut some designs for her Smash Book.

And when all the leftovers were boxed and bagged, the roaster did its job extracting every bit of flavor from the turkey carcass. There'll be gumbo come January and the turkey broth will be it's base. My mouth is watering just thinking about it, despite how much good food I consumed.

Days like this are filled with so many things that trigger memories of holidays gone by. One that stood out in my mind this year as I set the table with Grandmother Arnall's crystal and used her recipe for the cranberry jell was of my sister-in-law Marsha and I doing dishes after a big holiday meals. Wayne's grandmother did most of the cooking with help from Wayne's mom so Marsha and I got in on the clean-up. We were young then with little kids; now we're not-so-young and we're cooking for our grandkids.

The years have a way of disappearing but I hope we're making those same kind of special memories for them to fondly remember. That's what traditions are all about.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The pies are baked and a bundt-cake-shaped pumpkin gingerbread too. And it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the two cranberry salads waiting in the fridge for their traditional spot on the table. The turkey is spending the night in a savory brine so he'll be juicy and delicious. Everything that can be done ahead of time is completed and we're down to the final countdown before we eat more than we should but love every bite.

The heirloom crystal will sparkle on our table just like it has for years on the tables of Wayne's mom and grandmother but I doubt anyone will make it sing quite like this:

 

Blessing to each and every one of you.

Harvest Time

I suppose most people who've been to Florida probably lump the whole state into what they saw in Orlando or Miami. We here in the Panhandle like to think of ourselves as "the other Florida." Our high-rises are pine trees, not condos, and we're just as embarrassed as the rest of the nation that some parts of our state can't figure out how to run a proper election. Some have referred to us as the Redneck Riveria but really we're just more like the Old South. For this transplant that is, by and large, a good thing.

And the Old South in November means fields filled with cotton ready to be harvested. From a distance the stems of the plant all but disappear in the puffs of white and it almost looks like a snow bank. Or maybe a cloud. I guess the fact that no one grew cotton in Kansas makes it fascinating to me but there's clearly a beauty about it.

Wayne took these pictures with the little camera on our way to get the corn and dried fruit last Friday but we could have taken ones just like them at the field right outside our subdivision. Well, he could have a week or so ago...it's already picked now. Judging by how big the cotton balls were this year, it must have been a good crop.

They pick it with this giant machine that goes down the rows stripping the balls from the plant and sending it to that big basket-area behind the cab. It's really noisy but then I suppose most farm equipment is. On Friday, however, this machine was standing silent. The farmer was sitting in his truck hoping for sunshine to dry things out enough he could pick.

And when he can pick and has the hopper on the picker full, he off-loads it to that compactor you see in the photo above. There's probably a more technical name for it than compactor but that's what it does...compress the cotton down into giant "bricks" that are lined up on the edge of the field.

I'd guess they're 6' tall or so and probably 12-15' long. Talk about a big bale of cotton! Eventually they load them up on a big truck and haul them off to the cotton gin where the seed gets separated from the cotton fibers. The shoulders of the road look like snowdrifts as you get closer to where the cotton gin is from all the cotton that escaped in transit.

We've been harvesting here at our house too. These are the little peppers Wayne's been picking all summer and spreading out to dry. They're not Wild Dynamos but a close substitute. Dr. Dale starts a variety of peppers from seed every spring and usually gifts a couple to us. Wayne had these bagged up to return the favor by sharing them with him after they ground them up.

And the branches of my lemon tree are sagging under the weight of the ripening fruit so I picked most of it today.

We counted 40 lemons in the basket and there are still almost a dozen left on the tree. It was the best year yet for my little tree. Maybe I can convince everyone we should have lemon pie for Thanksgiving instead of pumpkin...but I doubt it.

I can understand why the pilgrims had a feast at this time of the year. There's a lot to be thankful for.

Curses! Foiled Again.

It's Saturday and that can only mean one thing: Time for us to "rollback" to the big box on the highway. It was chaotic last Saturday morning and I was determined not to endure a repeat performance; I was going early.

The parking lot was impressively empty when we pulled in at 8:30am, a good two hours earlier than our normal arrival time. I use the word "empty" loosely...that just means we had our choice of parking places near the store instead of having to hike across the lot or luck into a close spot when someone pulled out ahead of us. Yes, this going early thing was going to pay off.

Armed with a longer-than-usual list for the holiday meal ahead, we breezed through the store. There were people shopping, for sure, but you could actually get down the aisles, a foreign concept last week. People seemed focused on getting what they needed instead of standing in front of the shelves with a glassy-eyed stare. Saturdays in Walmart will do that to you...but not this Saturday, at least not at this hour. Losing a little sleep and skipping some of the normal morning routine was a small price to pay for these wide-open aisles. I was patting myself on the back at that point. Even emply spaces on the shelves where items I needed used to be wasn't enough to dampen my glee.

With the buggy filled we headed for the check-out stands. Then we waited....and waited....and waited some more. There were only four cashiers working the non-express lanes on the grocery end, and while we could have walked on down to the non-grocery end, there weren't many more there. And every cashier at both ends had a long line. You can imagine how fast they moved since everyone was buying groceries for Thanksgiving dinner. I figure we waited ten minutes or more, and it would have been longer if more people hadn't come to open up additional registers.

I had a good plan and it was working to a "T" right up until the end. Who would have dreamed Walmart would have a skeleton crew to take money at 9am on the Saturday before Thanksgiving? Certainly not me. While I would have rather my smooth-sailing shopping trip had continued right to the end, the important thing is that it's done. Well...for the moment anyway. No doubt I've forgotten this or will run out of that before the meal's on the table. There's sure to be at least one last-minute run to the store before we sit down to eat on Thursday. Maybe there will be more cashiers on duty then.

A Fruity, Corny, Nutty Day

It's the weekend for the annual dried fruit and nut sale up at Steve's Farm in Walnut Hill, a farming community about 45 minutes from here. It's always a pleasant drive up there through tidy Mennonite farms and woodlands filled with tall pines. And today's trip was just that too, despite the gray skies overhead and chilly winds from the north. It's probably because we were enjoying sharing time with Carol and Dr. Dale now that they're back among us. It's hard to have a bad time with such good friends.

None of the fruit or nuts available this weekend are grown locally. They bring in a semi loaded with the tasty offerings in giant boxes then divide it up into smaller bags to sell over the weekend. The dried fruit is always so soft and flavorful and the nuts fresh and crisp it's hard to resist. And since they have samples of everything out for tasting, we usually don't...resist, that is. There's plenty of variety but we tend to stick to the same things: Apricots for Wayne, dark chocolate covered cranberries for me, and regular cranberries for both of us. Yummo!

Just because it's mid-November doesn't mean there isn't locally-grown produce available at the farm. I can't tell you how many people I saw carrying out big wrapped bundles of turnip greens. I can eat them but it wouldn't be high on my list of favorite foods. It's a Southern thing. Needless to say, none of those came home with us.

But what we did come home with was a gunny sack full of fresh corn. Well...technically it wasn't full. That's because Steve (or Steve's man in charge) was carrying out the last two full sacks for a paying customer as we were walking in. He went to check how much more he had left and managed to fill a sack about two-thirds full of freshly-picked ears, the tail end of his second planting for the season. Maybe we should be glad those full sacks were already gone because he sold us the mostly-full one for only $5. Yep, that's right...$5. How could we go wrong?

The ears aren't quite as big as what we normally get in June and there are rows of kernels missing on some of them but overall ours looked pretty good when we shucked it and readied it for the freezer. We divided the sack up between three households which worked out to about 20 ears each. The bags of dried fruit we got are there in the background, too.

Fresh corn is on my weekend menu...an unexpected bonus given the time of year. And we can look forward to tastes-like-fresh yellow goodness in the coming months. It was a good day.

The How-Much-Can-I-Learn-In-One-Layout Layout

So...I have this fancy new digital cutting machine living in my craft room now. For the non-scrapbookers, it's sort of like a printer but instead of a print head moving back and forth distributing drops of ink in precise patterns on the page, it has a blade that moves back and forth and cuts the precise pattern out of the paper. It's pretty darn cool but with any such device, there is a learning curve.

That's where the online class came in. A little instruction, a few digital cutting files to play around with, a whole lot of inspiration. I see it as the push off the edge of the pool but if I'm really going to learn to swim, I've just got to get in there and do it. What better way to do it than to put together a layout and see how many different features of the software I could play with in the process.

One of the cutting files...a hand-drawn arrow with the word "awesome" attached to it...really caught my eye so it became the starting point. And what part of my un-scrapped memory-keeping life could be summed up with the word awesome? How about Africa.

Every layout I could make from our trip to Africa should probably have "awesome" somewhere on the page but I picked photos from the Safari Spa, our home for our first night of this amazing adventure. You should know that in getting there we'd flown to Miami, flown all night to Amsterdam (with little or no sleep), dropped off the bags at the hotel to go sightseeing on foot for the day, had a group dinner and more sightseeing that evening, were up at 5:30am for an early flight, flew all day to Kilimanjaro Airport arriving after dark, then drove 45 minutes to the spa/hotel. With all that plus the time change, you'd think we'd be exhausted but we were just too excited to be tired.

The Spa is a working rose farm, exporting cut flowers to the major markets in Europe. And it has a rather famous polo field on the grounds plus stables to board the horses ridden in those games. Those things we didn't see until the next morning. But more importantly to us, one of the six little bungalows located there was our home for the night. It was magical. The ceiling and furniture was so beautiful and unique, and there were bouquets of fresh roses in multiple places through this miniature house. But the bed...the bed was the best. Surrounded by the white haze of mosquito netting, we felt like we were part of a scene from Out of Africa when we sat down on it. It really drove home the fact that we were the farthest away from home either of us had ever been. It's hard to believe that's been almost ten years ago as that sense of giddy excitement and wonder seems as real re-living that memory now as if it all happened yesterday. It was, in a word, awesome.

So here's the layout that I put together:

Supplies:
Cardstock: Bazill Basics Paper
Patterned Paper: Basic Grey, Black Market Paper Society, Bo Bunny Press, Scrapworks, SEI
Pen: Staedler
Ink: ColorBox, Clearsnap
Fonts: Illuminati, Zurich BT

Journaling:

We didn’t see much of the Safari Spa on arrival as it was late, and after a light supper, we were off to our bungalow, one of six located at this working rose farm. We were exhausted (it was 2am at that point) but also giddy with excitement. There were three bouquets of fragrant roses in our room and we felt like we were part of the set for Out of Africa. Up early the next morning, we had a chance to see the beauty of Mt. Meru and the stables for the Nduruma Polo Grounds before heading off for a new adventure...our first game drive.       January 25/26, 2003

There are some real oldies in that supply list. And you know what? Essentially everything on that page is just paper...some pretty printed paper and some pretty cut paper.

And in the process, here's some of the things I learned:

   1. Ungrouped the awesome arrow design from the love heart then cut the arrow from the original awesome word, flipped it to face the other way, and reconnected it.
   2. Used the same arrow but cut sections from it with the knife tool to create separate smaller arrows. (Just resizing made them too skinny.)
   3. Used a globe font to construct a border (in Photoshop) then opened it as a .png in Studio to trace and cut.
   4. Copied a .jpeg graphic of Africa from the Internet, converted it to a .png to trace and cut.
   5. Used a .dxf file Wayne created in Inkscape to cut the star marking the location of Tanzania on the map of Africa.
   6. Used weld to create the cursive "hello" from a font. Cut it from both patterned paper and cardstock and layered them for a shadow effect.
   7. Cut "tanzania" three times and glued the multiples together to add depth (looks like chipboard).    8. Used the drawing tool to create two overlapping and offset squares then the intersect command to make the little arrow points in the title. Used the replicate command to get the desired number quickly.
   9. Scanned an oversized parenthesis accent from my stash, converted it to a .png to trace, then welded it to a square drawn in Studio to cut the decorative edge on the pieces of green patterned paper.

It was plenty of trial and error but I learn that way. And by reading the manual. I finally gave up trying to work with the .pdf and just printed the whole thing out. It's all new to me and I know to many of you as well (waving to Pat, Linda J, and Linda A). If you want a more detailed explanation, let me know and I'll be happy to provide it. I'm happy to share what I've learned although I'm certainly not qualified to be giving tutorials.

And speaking of sharing, here's the .png file of the globe border if anyone would like it.

Download Globe Border

It's rather intricate but I had no problem cutting it. Then again, I have a brand new blade. Just unzip the file and open it in Studio, then select the border and trace it (the little butterfly icon). Move the black globe border to the side (or delete) and you should be left with the red cut outline.

The globe came from Illuminati, a free font you can find here. You could do something similar (or actually a whole lot of things) with map-fonts of the individual states you can find here. You just type the applicable key in your Studio software and a map of whatever state you wanted shows up all ready to cut.

I can already tell that my Cameo and I are going to be best friends. I've been intrigued by cutting machines since they first hit the scrapbooking market several years ago but there was always a drawback, usually that you were limited by the cartridges you bought. The Cameo feels limitless. I can make objects any size I want and cut them out of whatever I want. Better yet, I can use my Photoshop skills (such as they are) to design what I want...or spend a modest sum to buy the ones I can't create. And I can already see I'm going to want to upgrade to the Designer's Edition of the Cameo software.

I have a lot more to learn. Sounds like a good reason for more scrapbooking, right?

9,362 To Go

My computer desk has a new look about it these days. After a few days of playing around with my Cameo (layout coming soon, I hope), I decided this sweet little machine needed a permanent home instead of me moving it around every time I wanted to use it. And my brief experience tells me I'm going to be using it A LOT. The choices of where it can land are limited since the machine needs to be connected to one of the USB ports on my computer so the shelf above my monitor made the most sense.

For the past ten years or so that shelf has been home to a variety of things I reach for most frequently. Things like the little notebook where I sketch layouts and jot down other scrapbook ideas, file folders that house print-outs of things I need to refer to or want to remember, a magazine holder that was filled with my very favorite idea books, and a couple of reference books I reach for over and over.

Like this one. The photo doesn't show the corners very well but they're frayed and worn thin...I've had it forever. The copyright inside says 1965 but my married name is written inside. Still, I doubt it was much after 1968 when I bought it. For those unfamiliar with it, it's sort of a dictionary without the definitions...a quick reference for spelling and word hyphenation for anyone who does a lot of writing. Much easier than pulling out a big ol' dictionary. Mine was printed by the Gregg Division of McGraw-Hill. Gregg...as in the shorthand people. Now there's a lost art; I wonder if they even teach shorthand anymore.

I happened to see the newer version of my old standby on the shelf in the book store a week or two ago when we were wandering the aisle there. It's not called 20,000+ Words and boasts that it contains over 27,000 words. As a nation we're either becoming worse spellers or wordier, I'm not sure which.

Over those 40+ years that I've had this book I figure I must have looked up close to 11,000 of those 20,000 words, some of them more than once. You know how it is...some words are a perpetual stumbling block and then sometimes a word is spelled right but just looks wrong on the page, or in my case now, on the screen. More times than I could ever count it's been 20,000 Words to the rescue.

Fortunately, there was about 8" of space left on the end of my shelf after my Cameo was in place. It's not enough room for files or idea books but I've fit in my sketch book, a small book on color harmony and my old friend 20,000 Words between two small bookends into that space. At this point in my life, I think I'd be lost without having it within arm's reach. Besides, I've still got more than 9,000 words to go.

Just An Observation

Saturday = Walmart day here in Arnall-land. It's not my favorite part of the week but I haven't figured out how to escape it.

I have a love-hate relationship with the big box. Not many weeks go by without me muttering I hate Walmart at least once per shopping round. Each week it seems some product I buy regularly has disappeared from their shelves. They're masters at analyzing their sales data and eliminating from their inventory those items that didn't perform up to snuff. Apparently, we're not the stereotypical Walmart family because we keep buying things that get purged from their shelves. But I love my money too much to pay $.50 or $1 a more for the exact same product somewhere else so I keep going back. And if I have to go, so does Wayne. It's a family form of punishment, I guess.

Like most Walmarts, ours is busy on a Saturday morning and it seems we're almost always approaching the door at the same time as one or more other customers. We tend to park more toward the end of the building (as opposed to directly in front) so we enter by one of the doors you have to manually open rather than the ones which sense your approach and open automatically. And in keeping with the good manners instilled in us in our youth, we're often holding that door for someone else to enter or exit.

That was the case this morning. I walked in; Wayne held the door and waited for the woman a few steps behind us to make her entrance. And she did, walking right past him through the open door without so much as a nod, a smile or any other acknowledgement of his courtesy.

I wish I could say this was a rare occurrence but sadly it's not. Have we become so busy or self-entitled we've forgotten how to say thank you? Obviously, holding the door isn't a big deal in the grand scheme in life and maybe that's why some people think acknowledging it isn't necessary. I would not be one of those people; heck, I thank the wait staff for everything from refilling my water glass to clearing the dirty dishes out from in front of me. Perhaps I'm going overboard but I have no intentions of curtailing my gratitude for even the smallest kindnesses...even if it is their job.

My displeasure at the woman was short-lived, however. We'd barely gotten into the foyer when the Walmart greeter practically tackled Wayne, demanding to know if he was a veteran. Walmart, it seems, was serving free coffee and Krispy Kreme donuts (yum!) to all veterans in honor of Veterans Day. A way to say thank you for their service. And just like that I hated Walmart a little less today.