Looking Out My Window

I am sitting inside the RV with the sun shining and wondering if my other home, Dragonheart is okay.  It seems that Mathew is sitting over Guatemala and drenching them.  I am sure that the 4+ inches of rain won't leak in any where. LOL!  A boat always leaks.  Everyone tells me she is okay so....

This actually a moth

Here's looking at you

Looking outside this morning I saw that the hummingbirds were out.  Coffee and camera in hand I got ready to get some shots.  I hope you enjoy them.

Waiting his turn

This tastes good

Me next

Coming in for a taste

What a great way to spend the morning.  It sure beats worrying.

Who Am I...and Where Did I Come From???

Yesterday was spent with my Mom and Dad.  We were working on our Genealogy.  I know you thought this was going to be "The Sex Talk".  Too late for that one.

In 2006 Mom bought the discs for Family Tree Maker.  Ancestry.com is the culprit.  We bought her a laptop and started filling out what we knew off the tops of our heads.  Dad provided some comedy when we asked him his grandmother's name.  "Grandma" was the reply.  No we wanted her birth name, which we were pretty sure was not Grandma.  After some digging and not much help from Dad we found her given name.

My Great-grandma, Adaline

We quickly found that we had hit a brick wall.  We had collectively emptied our brains of any family that we knew.  Mom thought that she had some information that someone had given her sometime in the past.  Who knew if it was even us.  We didn't even know how to check at that time.  So the paper went back into a folder in a cabinet and set there.

I will admit that living on a sailboat in Guatemala did not lend itself to helping mom much with her search.  Life happened and we all just let things sit.  Sure I thought about it and wondered if we would start up again, but then my plate was pretty full so nothing happened.

Well things have changed.  Mom got the new 2011 edition on Family Tree Maker with all the additions and bells and whistles.  Let the adventure begin.

We commandeered the kitchen table, set up her laptop, and printer.  Folders came out and we set down for some serious looking.  It was hard to start up after our vacation, but we persevered.  We watched tutorials.  Some of them several times.  We set aside time to watch the Webinar that evening hosted by Ancestry.com.  Don't we sound like we know what we are doing?

Well THANK YOU for the updates to the program.  We found a mother load!  People share their trees now and you can get hints.  We need hints badly.  We are such neophytes at this.  We aren't even sure how to get organized.  We print out everything.

That leaf means a hint

  We had dad making folders, bringing us paper, buying an external hard drive.  At one point we talked about a whiteboard and posting the working tree on the wall.

We laughed, we cried, we hooted and hollered.  We began to say names like a mantra...Ethelbert, son of William and Mary.  Ethelbert married Mary Jane and their children are.....

That paper that has been in a cabinet for years...turns out we are related.  It has opened a lot of doors for us.  We have barely scratched the surface.  We have, however, started.

Real Food

 

Vegetables and Fruit.....

I like most vegetables.  Except for peas, lima beans, and okra (unless it is fried).  My kids like vegetables.  I really for the life of me can not remember a time when I used trickery to get a kid to eat a vegetable or a fruit.  I love fresh fruit.

It is a texture thing

Fry it and I will eat it

Apparently tricking your children, husband or acquaintances to eat vegetables has become a multi-million dollar business.  Watching TV commercials proves that out daily.

I once sat all night with peas in my mouth

V8 – fusion or Splash are fruit flavored vegetable juices, one way to get everyone to drink his or her daily requirement.  You can have Fusion or Splash and never touch are real fruit or vegetable.  But watch out as you drink a counter will appear over your head keeping track of your vegetable intake.

Mott’s Medley juices will do the same thing.  As Marcia Cross (actress from Desperate Housewives) the paid promoter will tell you.  “Sometimes you just can’t get your kids to eat their fruits and vegetables like they should.  It takes a little magic to get them to eat right.  Enter Mott’s Medley Juice, just the magic you need to get those kids to drink their daily requirement.

Mom and Dad may not be listening to all this commercial crap, but I bet the kids are listening.  The message that they are hearing is that REAL fruits and vegetables are BAD things.

When I started this blog I thought I was the only one concerned.  Thank God I am not!  There are plenty of mom’s wondering if all our kids are picky eaters.

I understand for some people it is a “texture thing”…trust me, that is me and peas and lima beans.  Oh, and slimy okra in soup or gumbo.

May-be we do a poor job of introducing fruit and vegetables to our babies?  May-be we are poor role models for our children.  If we aren’t eating fruit and vegetables then how can we expect them to eat healthy food?

 Most agree that Madison Ave. has hit on marketing to young children to get Moms and Dads to buy replacements for real food.

I agree with Cynthia on Daily Cyn. (This is not me or is it Cynthia)  Peel an orange, cut up a carrot, hand them an apple, share a bunch of grapes, or make a salad with them.  Kids involved in cooking tend to eat healthier.

Let’s get excited about real food.  Last but not least, can we please turn off the  TV?

Purpose and Passion

I need purpose.  I don’t play well with others unless I have a sense of purpose in my overall life.  If Cindy is unhappy with Cindy…well she ain’t happy with nobody else.

So I am on a quest,  a quest for purpose.  You would think as a daughter, sister, aunt, mother, grandmother, wife, nurse, and counselor that I would be filled with purpose.  Well something is missing.  I can’t tell you what “it” is that is missing, but I know it.

I figure as long as I am on a quest I should have a good time on the journey.  This journey will take some twists and turns.  They may not make sense, but I am sure that they will be important.

Lately, partly because I have really great FREE unlimited WIFI I have been surfing the web.  Right now it is recipes.  I find myself drooling and salivating and talking to myself about ingredients. 

I have fallen in love with Ree Drummond of The Pioneer Woman website.  I truly don’t know how she does it all.  Blog, home school, photographs, conventions, keep house.  I know how she does it.  She is a woman.  She multi-tasks.  She took a passion a purpose and made it work for her.  I am sure she is making money at all this.  In fact, I know she is because I bought her cookbook on Amazon.

Fortunately for me we currently are in Tucson where my parents live.  Michael is now well enough to visit so we set out yesterday with grocery bags full, recipes in hand and took a step on the quest.

Last night was a dinner of Provolone-Apricot-Stuffed Chicken. The recipe was courtesy of the Rachel Ray magazine.  One rule of thumb for me is…if there are pictures of the food, then I am more likely to cook it.

Rachel, Ree and all the contributors for all the food sites have great photos.  So I also packed my camera when I went to cook.  Now if only I would have taken a meat mallet.   Never fear, being a cruiser has taught me that you can make do.  And make do I did.  My dad lent me my grandfather’s hammer to pound that chicken.  Worked great.

Dessert was a recipe from The Tasty Kitchen website.  Apple Dumplings.  The different ingredient in this recipe was a can of Mountain Dew.  Yes, Mountain Dew.  OMG they were to die for…

 

Now for the best part of the entire dinner, drum roll please – The Clean-Up Crew!

Books, Books and Banned Books

While visiting with my parents the other day they shared an article about Banned Book Week, Sept. 25-Oct 2.  The article was written by Betsy Towner.  Betsy got me to thinking about books. 

Books have always been some of my best friends.  I received the gift of book lover from my Mom.  She always has at least a couple of books going.  She instilled in me the love of a good book and the rules for taking care of books. 

1. Always use a bookmark
2. Never lay a book down open- it will break it's spine
3. Please don't dog-ear a page
4. Keep the cover on to protect it
5. Don't write in it

I am sure there were more rules and I know that I must have broken most of them.  But, back to Banned Book Week.  It is not what you think.  The week is to celebrate our right to read what we want.  Who are we to judge another's taste?   As I read through Ms. Towner's list I realized that I had read all but three of the banned books.  This is her list:

Too Political

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
2. All Quiet on the Western Front -  Erich Maria Remarque
3. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemmingway
4. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemmingway
6. Animal Farm - George Orwell
7. 1984 - George Orwell
8. Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
9. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
10. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse - Peter Matthiessen

Too Much Sex

1. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
2. Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
3. Ulysses - James Joyce
4. The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemmingway
5. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
6. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller
7. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
8. Peyton Place - Grace Metallous
9. Rabbit, Run - John Updike
10. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
11. Jaws - Peter Benchley
12. Forever - Judy Blume
13. The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
14. Beloved - Toni Morrion
15. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Julia Alvarez

Irreligious

1. On the Origin of the Species - Charles Darwin
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy - J.R.R. Tolkin
3. The Last Temptation of Christ - Nikos Kazantzakis
4. Bless Me, Ultima - Rudolfo Anaya
5. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

Socially Offensive

1. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Benjamin Franklin
2. The Scarlet Letter - Nathanial Hawthorne
3. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
4. As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner
5. Brave New Worlds - Aldous Huxley
6. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
7. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
9. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
10. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
11. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
12. James and the Giant Peach - Roald Dahl
13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
15. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
16. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote
17. Cujo - Stephen King
18. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
19. Ordinary People - Judith Guest
20. A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

Personally I was shocked by all of the above titles.  Some were required reading in High School and some in College.  I want you to know that I plan on reading the three that I haven't as soon as possible.

 If you love books then please:
Visit your library, download a book, read a book, share a book, read a book to someone who can't read, have a child read a book to you.
And please help the American Library Association celebrate, "Banned Book Week".

You can learn more at: American Library Association

I Hear You Knocking...

Earl, the hurricane is moving in the Atlantic Basin in his "cone of uncertainty".

Earl is a big boy that currently is a Cat 4.  All this is on the heels of the 5th Anniversary of hurricane Katrina.  What I find fascinating is the news reports that, "People aren't boarding up their houses or moving to higher ground.  Of course it has been a long time since a major hurricane has passed over the BVI's."

May-be the problem is me.  I may not remember the last time a hurricane passed over the BVI's, but I think based on what I have seen I would have; prepared my home, secured food and supplies, and if possible gotten my butt out of the "cone of uncertainty".  Human beings are incredible.  We have short-term memory issues and some of us think that we are invincible.

As I was watching the reports commemorating Hurricane Katrina and listening to reporters I was struck again at our ability to think..."it won't happen to me".  People standing on the roofs of their homes with signs that read, Help Us, Save Us.  Didn't we ask them to evacuate?  Didn't they stay?

Remember, hurricanes like wibbles wobble.  One wobble and now it is heading right for you.  If you are in the "cone of uncertainty"  get ready, have a plan, be able to execute your plan.  I don't want to see any of my friends on the East Coast standing on their roofs with signs that read: Help Me, Save Me.


Be careful out there it is a crazy world.

These Things I Know

These things I know….

Sex and lust are for young people.  Love is forever.  Love is NOT trains crashing in midair.  Love is NOT birds singing. 

Love IS when you get up for the umpteenth time and wipe up the bathroom floor after your husband’s catheter has leaked blood and urine more times that you can remember or count.

Love is wiping said husband’s back and giving him a back rub because he has been in bed for too long.

Love is walking together, be it hand-in-hand or with you beside a walker, quad cane, or wheelchair.

Love is when you sit in the OR waiting room and wait for someone, anyone to tell you that, yes it is taking longer than expected, but the doctor will be out soon to talk to you.

Love is accepting the reality that an erection is NOT the most important thing in a marriage.  Companionship will last a lot longer.  A sunset or sunrise will last a lot longer.  Sharing a good book will last longer.  Almost anything that you can thing of will last longer than an erection!

Love is lying in bed with your Mother and trying not to cry about your Dad, who may not make it through the night.  Love is telling your siblings that it will be okay, even when you aren’t sure, but they need you to be strong.

Family is talking about nothing and everything at the same time.  Family is quiet when you want to scream,  “I can’t handle this!”  And then a hug that lets you know you are not alone and yes, you can handle this and so much more.

Family is, “Call me as soon as you hear something.  Once we know something we can make a plan.”

Family is looking at black and white photos with your parents and asking, “Who is that?  How are we related?  Tell me a story about them.”

Family is knowing that even though you haven’t talked in weeks or months, that they are in your corner.

Family remembers; the first Christmas, the first camping trip, the first time you got up on water skis, the time you were told that Santa lives in your heart, when you came out of the closet, when you cried because you disappointed them, and they forgave you before you asked.  Family remembers all the firsts and celebrates them.

Family is learning that you have the coolest brother-in-law.  That he would do anything for you.  And that could include a day at the Spa.

Family is a free massage from a professional and no charge.

Family is rotating to the blow-up bed at the lake when all you desperately want a good night sleep, but it is your turn… so suck it up.

Friendship is sacred and rare.  It is the call that says I need you, but please ask no questions.  It is acceptance of your warts and the flashes of brilliance that others may miss.

Friendship is taking an hour out of their day to speak Spanish or just listen to you vent when speaking Spanish is the last thing on your mind.

Friendship is an invitation to a lunch of homemade burgers, salad, cold beer or wine and a view of the river that leaves you wanting more.

Friendship is the people that will take your cat for an indeterminate time and make sure that it is loved and cared for while you are doing other things.

 

Friendship is the quiet touch and, “We’ll be thinking of you.”

A good book can and will take you away from whatever is tearing at your heart.  It is a friend that asks nothing of you and yet gives you more than you wished for…

Love is holding a baby for the first time and counting fingers and toes and thanking God that they are all there.

Love is your husband holding you while you identify the body of your child and together you stand and give witness to the life that could have been.

Hope comes in many forms.  The unconditional love of your parents.  The knowledge that your siblings will stand next to you and never doubt you.  Hope is the baby or grandbaby that you hold in your arms and dream about the future.  The quiet knowledge that no matter how bad you mess things up it can still turn out all right.

Love is learning to trust a child again after they have broken your trust.  It takes small steps.  It is a dance, it breaks your heart, and yet it can restore your faith in humankind.

Life is not what you think it will be, but it is more than you could ever imagine.  It is full of things that take your breath away and things that make you take an extra breath.

And this I know…I am what I am because of all of you.  To all of you who have believed in me, all of you that have questioned me and made me look deeper into myself.  To all of you that have held me up when I thought I couldn’t take another step, to all of you that gave me hope when I felt my most hopeless.  To all of you who loved me, even when I was my most unlovable.  To all of you that told me I could do, whatever, it was that I was sure I couldn’t.  Thank you.