Birthday and Visiting Teaching Companion...

My visiting teaching companione is a wonderful gal named Vickie.  She is cute, funny and very intelligent.  I like her a lot.  After we did our visiting teaching last week she took me to lunch at our favorite watering hole.  I went to the water closet to wash my hands and when I came back the little plate you see in the photo was in the middle of the table with a green snowball lunch cake and a pink squiggly candle in the center.  I had to make a wish, the birthday fairy must be asleep on the job cuz she ain't answered my wish yet, and blow out the candle.  She gave me a lovely card with a sweet message inside and a small photo album for my purse which I'm going to fill with recipes.  Please note the message on the birthday plate.  That was me!  Thanks Vickie, you're a plum.

Look What I Got . . .

My Canadian daughter made these for me.  I also have a bright blue one with bright yellow sunflowers on it. (that apron was in the laundry when I took these photos)  I wear an apron whenever I'm in the kitchen and love these bib aprons.  I have several aprons but these bibs are my favorite.  I also especially like the apron that ties at the sides and is reversible.  Cheyenne made me one of those several years ago, last year I finally had to do away with it as it was beyond looking presentable anymore.  

Hint to my Canadian daughter: no more flowers send me an apron instead. Thank you so much for these.

From My Son-In-Law...

I received this from Greg and thought it was worth sharing.  I wanted to add, life doesn't have an expiration date as the author states at the end of his story but mortality does.  Make good use of it, eternity is a long time.
Enjoy. . .  

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes...

  My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
  He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
  "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

  At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, bull----!" she said. "He hit a horse."

  "Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

  So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none.

  My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

  My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that.

  But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first.

  But, sure enough , my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

  It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car.

  Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.

  So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying more than once.

  For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

  Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.

  (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

  He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church.
She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.

  If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow."

  After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored."

  If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?"

  "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

  "No left turns," he said.

  "What?" I asked.

  "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

  As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn."

  "What?" I said again.

  "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer.  So we always make three rights."

  "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support.
  "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works."
  But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

  I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.

  "Loses count?" I asked.
  "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

  I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

  "No," he said " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day.  Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week."
  My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90.

  She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.

  They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
  He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

  One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

  A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer."

  "You're probably right," I said.

  "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated.

  "Because you're 102 years old," I said..

  "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

  That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.

  He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said:
  "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet"

  An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

  "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have."

  A short time later, he died.

  I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
  I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life,
  Or because he quit taking left turns. "

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.   
So love the people who treat you right.   Forget about the one's who don't.   Believe everything happens for a reason.   If you get a chance,take it & if it changes your life, let it. 
Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would 
most likely be worth it." 

ENJOY LIFE NOW - IT HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE!

A Longtime Friend...

This is my friend Dusty (aka Rogean).  Isn't she just a little doll face?  We look like Mutt and Jeff together. We met during the summer of 1965.  Her future husband Skip and my husband were childhood friends. We were at my in laws house where my hsb was working on a car when Skip drove up with this girl in the car.  After they were married we went around together along with several other couples for several years until I moved out west.  We would get together at each others homes, b-b-q, play with the kids and then put them to bed (in playpens we hauled all over creation) and then the adults (we were still kids ourselves) played cards and board games.

I had my first baby in April, Dusty had her only child in May.  The four of us had been playing cards and the guys went for pizza when her labor increased. I kept telling her to hang on until the guys got back, which thankfully they did.

 This is one of her toys...Is that bright or what?  In person you almost need sunglasses to look at it.  She loves it and anything else that is BRIGHT!!

 

I wish this photo did better justice to this mixer, it is brighter yet than the photo shows.

More Birthday. . .

 

I received these on my birthday.  Thank you so much Cheyenne, Keston and boys, I'm still enjoying these beauties.

I received this from Jan Ericka and Family.  Thank you so much, it's a nice addition to my collection of 

'chick flicks'

 I received these from my bosom buddy Lanette.  They are so pretty and hang very nicely from my scrawny earlobes. Lanette also got me a candle which smells like a flower garden.  Thanks sister.

 

This is what my hubby gave me... A trip home sometime in the spring. Whooopee, thanks honey!!

Lanette also took me to dinner which is our yearly tradition.

Dave was on the road on my birthday so he took me to dinner when he got home.  

I had a lot of birthday wishes which were well appreciated and loved.  Thank you friends.

A lovely birthday all-in-all.

I have decided that next year I will celebrate my birthday all week, something special every day.  Too much??

A Happy Chef. . .

LKT and I were out and about a couple of weeks ago and I found this for a mere $.50.  He is a 1950's Noma Happy Chef market reminder.  Isn't he cute?  He looks like he's had a little too much of what he's cooked, just like me.

 

This is the back side of Happy Chef

A Winter Morning Moon. . .

As I looked out my front door this morning I saw this . . .

 

Click to enlarge.  I wish I had a telephoto lens so you could see what I 'actually' saw. The time is on the photo.  She was a beauty!

Empty Nesters & a Shamrock Cake

 

Last night was  our Empty Nesters Family Home Evening group.  I made my casserole and went over and to my surprise Peggy came in with this birthday cake for moi!  Actually they're cupcakes and as you can see the other half of the shamrock pair is gone.  It was delicious! Peggy said there were no candles because the fire department couldn't put out that much fire.  She's a character! I took this photo when I got home as I had no camera with me.  I was so tickled they thought of me.

Our group consists of 2 senior missionaries (hsb & wife) , 2 Elders (male junior missionaries), and the  rest of us which usually consists of 5.  We are a happy group of about 9.

We have a potluck every Monday evening at 7, fellowship,  and at present we're working on Family History.  Our FH leader was under the weather last night so we had a history quiz supplemented by Hershey miniatures.  We did  pretty well, I'm uncertain if it was because we're really smart or we were really inspired by the chocolate.! 

I received this yesterday by post from my Canadian daughter for my birthday which is the 3rd.

My daughters and I love anything Jane Austen or English.  I have the original Cranford and was tickled to receive this one.  I had mentioned to Cheyenne only recently that the Return to Cranford was on our local PBS station, I had no idea it was even out and voila here it is.  The girls have sent me several movies over the years and I've watched them many times over and enjoyed them anew with each viewing.  Thank you!

Have you discovered Kieron Williamson yet?

He is a 7 yr old boy who lives in Holt, Norfolk, England
His pictures cost upwards of £900, there are 680 people on a waiting list to buy them, and his second exhibition sold out in 14 minutes.

I have always wanted to have musical and painting, as in art not walls, ability.  I got neither, although I can turn the radio up with the best of them and I've painted a hundred walls in my lifetime but this is really what I would like to be able to do. . .

 

  If you haven't heard of Kieron Williamson look him up and see what this little man has been given by Heavenly Father. 

Winter Wonderland. . .

Sunday 21 February we had another 8" of snow.  We had hoped the snow was over but alas it was not.  I took these photos on Monday the 22nd.  It was a cold-overcast skies-kind of a day but it was beautiful nonetheless.

This snow was wet and heavy so by mid morning on Monday, which was pretty windy, it began falling from trees.  On Tuesday we had very cold temps so what snow was  on the trees looked like diamonds when the sun hit the branches.   I love sparklies!!

I'm not much of a photographer, I don't know how to capture what I 'see' because I don't understand the mechanics of the camera. (I'm the least mechanical person I know) Anyway, I hope you enjoy these photos.

I think you can click to enlarge.  The 1st photo is deer on pond ice the 2nd is one of the deer in the brush.

Bookshelf . . .

I was looking at a blog the other day and spotted a bookshelf from shelfari.com. Whoa I thought, I would luv one of those sweet thangs so I clicked on the thingy and voila! my very own book shelf. Check it out at the bottom of the page.

I'd venture to say I've read hundreds of books in my lifetime.
One summer when I was a young girl I read every mystery in my age group from our neighborhood library, the next summer it was biography. I'd find me a hidey hole and read, read, read. I was a good reader and quick so I could consume a lot of books in a short time. I checked out books at the school library on a certain topic and read till I'd read every book in that category. Land a mighty, I had so much information in my brain it was about to burst and yep, I was nearly blind at the end of the summer, been wearing glasses ever since. Okay, I exaggerated a bit there about the glasses but you know what I mean.

I love to read history, mystery and biography (not necessarily in that order), cereal boxes, toilet paper wrappers, tin cans, blogs, cookery books, encyclopedias' dictionaries, billboards, medicine bottles, road maps/info, magazines, bathroom walls, newspapers, bumper stickers, graffiti and the mayonnaise jar. If it slows down in front of me I'll read it.

I've started my bookshelf and already have several shelves and those are books I've read in just the past 3-4 years. I'm on a first name basis with the ladies of our library, my card is held together with tape and glue and I have my own parking space close to the door. Just kidding on the parking space but as much as I'm there I should have one. Hmm, I may take that up with the head librarian.

Where did I get this passion for reading, my parents, especially my dad. (Dad read the newspaper cover to cover save the ads, unless he was looking for something everyday until he died) He read to me every day before I started school, consequently, I could read several story books before I entered kindergarten. If I didn't remember a word Dad would help me to phonetically sound it out. I think that is why I'm a good speller as well. Now if I could just master a worthwhile sentence I'd be in chocolate heaven.

I still have many books to add to my shelves but it will take some time.
Check back once in a while and see if there's something you might like to indulge your reading urge with.

Have a good evening wherever in the world you are, and good reading to ya.

Cleaning In The Dark Ages. . .

WARNING: This is a long ramble so grab a snack and your favorite beverage.

In my other blog Nanc's Good Food (see links on my sideboard) my Canadian daughter made a comment about us spring cleaning when they were young. I thought I would share some cleaning thoughts from my childhood which is way back in the dark ages.

I'll start by describing my childhood home. Front room (living room), dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms, basement, attic, summer porch and water closet, high ceilings, tall woodwork and bulls eye squares topped off each door and window, workable transoms over the front and kitchen doors, a monster of a coal furnace and push button light switches. There was one electric plug in all the rooms except the kitchen which had three. The house originally had gas lighting, a hand pump in the kitchen and cistern for water, oh and last but not least an outhouse. Dad remodeled this little beauty in the late 50' through the 70's there was a rounded double archway between the front room and dining room. I wish he had left it alone. (All though I did like the 'full' bathroom and the addition.

Spring cleaning with Mom was an adventure to be reckoned with. The first thing done was to empty a room then walls and ceiling were washed. I left out a step FIRST Mom put an old pillow case over the dust mop and the walls were dusted down. (saved trips to the kitchen for fresh water and since we had to heat the water for a number of years it was steps saved) Next was the chandelier/light fixtures, windows including the transom with it's hardware and the front door was wiped down inside and out.
The walls and floor were cleaned with Spic & Span, the windows with vinegar water and newspaper or rags. I preferred the paper, because rags had to be washed. This would entail taking off the winter windows, cleaning them and storing them away. Previous to this Dad would have brought out the summer screens, hosed, washed, and rinsed them down and left them in the sun to dry. Pray tell why we had to wash the screens again was always a mystery to me because we had to wash them before they were stored(the winter windows as well). Is there a winter/summer window fairy who checks them out?

This was the procedure for each room.

When I was a girl we had a 'carpet' that was about 8-10" short of reaching the woodwork. Under the carpet was a wool pad, under that 5" tongue and groove boards. The rim of the floor was painted yellow ochre.
The carpet was black wool with beautiful vining cabbage roses with beautiful green leaves. Before Mom had a vacuum the carpet/pad were taken outside and beat to remove dust and debris. During the week she used a non-electric (I think it was a Bissell) carpet sweeter. It had a brush underneath and after using you pulled back a small lever and emptied the pan. Voila, no vacuum bags. After a few years a salesman came to the door and Dad bought Mom a brand-new-state-of-the-art Electrolux Tube vacuum with attachments. Mom was in a cleaning frenzy for days after that.

The floor edge would be dusted with the handy dandy Fuller Brush dust mop (which I still have) once the carpet was up, then scrubbed along with the woodwork. The woodwork was tall and fancy. The grate for the cool air duct had to be hosed and dried in the sun. While that was happening the inside of the duct had to be whisk broomed (pre-vacuum) and wiped out.

The curtains would have been taken down the day before, washed then taken to the attic and put on the curtain stretcher (they were lace) to dry. The curtain stretchers were kind of like quilt frames and had tiny nails to hook the curtains on to insure they didn't shrink. When dry they would be ironed to within an inch of their life and the last thing to be put back in place. They did look pretty with the shade drawn to half mast with the cord hanging down with the little ring at the bottom.

All the doilies would have been washed and starched the day before, after drying all night on the line they would be sprinkled down, wrapped in waxed paper and put in the fridge until ready to be ironed. I loved to watch my mom iron she was a perfectionist when it came to clothes and items being ironed. Remind me some time to tell you about Mom's ironing and my first bras. It's a hoot.

Next came the bedrooms! Dad always carried out the bed springs because they were heavy. These were first brushed and then hosed and set to dry. The bed frames, head and foot boards and casters were cleaned. The floors in the bedrooms had pretty linoleum on them and were easy to mop. Does anyone remember old fashion linoleum with the beautiful patterns? They looked like paintings to me. I love that stuff, I wish they would bring it back. All the furniture was wiped down and then oiled as it was all wood. (real wood)I can still smell the lemon oil.

We didn't have a full bathroom until I was almost a teenager. The toilet was in a converted closet with a window with hoople glass. Don't try to look up hoople glass because it doesn't exist, it's a Nanc word. You know the kind of glass I mean, it's hoopy looking. The water closet also had pretty linoleum flooring and a small rag rug.
This was tight quarters to have to wash walls and ceiling but it had to be done.

Okay, so this has taken a weekend and there's still the kitchen, summer porch, basement and attic but my snack is gone and I have chores to finish so will finish this later.

Just wanted to mention before we started all this work Mom gave us a good hot breakfast, lunch and a hot supper. We didn't have Hardee's or Macdonald's to run out and grab a bite. My Mom was amazing.

Just one question does anyone spring clean today?

Have a lovely day wherever in the world you are.

Have-I-Done-Any-Good-in-the-World-Today?

Have-I-Done-Any-Good-in-the-World-Today?

This is the message on the front page of lds.org today, I want to share it with you.
I love our prophet Thomas S. Monson, he is truly a man of God and our times.

Have a lovely day wherever in the world you are.

To View: click on the black and white 'have I done any good in the world today'.

Snow again. . .

We had mist in the night and snow sometime in the early morning. I just swept the front steps off and it's icy underneath the snow. The sky is a flat silvery gray color with no hint of sun present.

Some sunshine will be coming this way late this afternoon or early evening. SweetMan will be in off the road for a few days. He has a doctors appt. on Monday for blood work. Yippee, maybe some bathroom work will get done. I'm so hoping it will be completed by spring. (That's what I said last spring wasn't it?)

Last Sunday the new Education Counselor was called for Relief Society. She is by profession a teacher working on her Masters to become a principal. Sister S will be out of town this Sunday so I am teaching in her place. I should be working on that right now instead of blogging but . . .

It's a quiet day here in the Heartland. Ever notice how snow quiets things down? I love it but it makes me kind of antsy. I'm having a difficult time concentrating this morning. Ever get that way?

Anyway heading over to Nanc's Good Food to post a recipe.

Have a lovely day wherever in the world you are.

The Last Day of January 2010

Yesterday was Sunday (I'm writing this on Monday) and that means Missionary Correlation Meeting and then Branch Correlation Meeting beginning at 8:15.
Sacrament meeting begins at 10 and the last meeting of the day is over at 1.

Our Stake President was visiting yesterday and doing recommend interviews, of which I was one. It was so nice for him to be here because that is one less trip to the big city for the members of our branch.

After our last meeting we had a potluck attended by many and all were well fed. Then came the big event of the day. . . two convert baptisms! It is always a tremendous thrill to witness a convert baptism and see them rise up out of the water clean and pure. It helps those of us who have been baptized for many years to relive that moment in our lives. After our new sister's confirmation I had the honor of welcoming her into Relief Society. She is going to be a wonderful asset to our organization. I'm anxious to serve with her.

All in all it was a busy day filled with the spirit, I absolutely loved it. It's good to serve the Lord and our mortal brothers and sisters. What better thing could we do with our time?

Have a lovely day wherever in the world you are.