Mix 'er up

Although plastic mixing bowls are all very well in their place - I happen to like the heavier bowls that are ceramic, glass, Corning Ware, etc. I particularly like that I can bake casseroles in them. However, the drawback is that if they get dropped - they break.

Thanks to the fumbling fingers of my family (how's that for alliteration!), we were getting a bit low on mixing bowls, so I made that a birthday request. My daughter, Maleen, got me an enchanting set of three purple mixing bowls. She said they were pretty pricey, but she wanted to make sure I got the best.

For some reason, my digital camera tends to turn purples into blues, so you'll have to take my word for it that they are actually much more purple than they look in the picture. I use them constantly, although I haven't quite gotten up the nerve to use one of them in the oven yet. It's not that I don't think they could take the heat (ha, ha) - I just don't feel right about it yet. They're still too new.

Much to my surprise, when I went visiting teaching last month, my companion had a late birthday present for me - a set of six ceramic mixing bowls. You would think that would cost a fortune, but not in this case. The are the tiniest, cutest mixing bowls I have ever seen! She said that she couldn't resist getting them for me, and that they are handy when you want to measure out ingredients ahead of time, and then add them one by one. You can see their size compared to the one's that Maleen gave me.

Now the biggest problem I'm going to have is keeping my husband's hands off of them. He is always on the lookout for small little bowls to mix his noxious herbs and supplements in. And just for your information, one of these little bowls is exactly the right size to hold four egg yolks.

Fete Day and Falling

Because there is no official holiday in August, my enterprising daughter has created "Fete Day". Every year it has a different color, and you celebrate by wearing that color and giving gifts of that color. Last year it was blue, and we had a wonderful time celebrating with my brother and his family down in California.

This year, Fete day was scheduled for August 16th, and the color was purple. I had fully intended to try to celebrate this holiday, but unfortunately for my plans, my workplace scheduled an extremely exhausting week to overhaul our department. Between Monday and Friday I put in over 50 hours of work - so Fete day was pretty much ignored.

However, let us not forget the purple theme. In the middle of the week I tripped over my own feet while walking across a parking lot, and fell heavily on my left knee. Naturally, although there was a lot of pain involved, there was nothing to see for the first day or two. However, by Saturday, I can honestly say that I was 'wearing purple'. Well - purple, yellow, pale green, red, pink, etc.

I can honestly say that this is NOT how I planned to celebrate Fete Day, but life is full of little surprises. I am happy to report that although the knee still looks horrible, it is healing and not nearly as painful as it was. Heaven help me if next year the Fete Day color is black!

Legolas

My daughter insisted that I put my latest cross-stitch on my blog. For all of you Orlando Bloom and Lord of the Ring fans - may I suggest that you NOT try to do this cross-stitch. It took me three years and was the hardest thing I've ever cross-stitched. I have, however, had several people who have requested that I gift this picture to them. They are, I am afraid, doomed to disappointment. This is one cross-stitch that I will be keeping. My heirs can fight over it later!

Pictures!

I just finished spending a week in Utah visiting my daughter and my grandchildren - including the latest gem who is (as of today) a little over 2 weeks old. My daughter blogs regularly, so she showed me how to put pictures on my blog - something I have never been able to do before. So don't be surprised at all of the pictures I may start putting in my blogs. Let's start with this one.

The picture up above is my granddaughter - Daisy Grace Cazier. There was a lot of confusion over what her middle name was going to be - but she born on Tuesday, so Grace fits perfectly. Remember the old rhyme?
Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child is loving and giving
Saturday's child has to work for a living
But the child that's born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and bright and good and gay.
Of course, both I and both my daughters were born on Mondays - and our grandson was born on Tuesday (and a less graceful person I have yet to see!) My husband was (most appropriately) born on Wednesday.

The other picture shows how I am sure my daughter must have felt on occasion, before she had this latest baby. There is no doubt that babies are often a bit cramped, especially shortly before birth, and this one obviously needed to stretch a bit!

This has got to be one of the funniest pictures I have ever had emailed to me. My first thought was "Who would take a cat out on a rafting trip?" I have to wonder if this is a genuine picture, or something cleverly concocted with the graphic marvels we have available these days.

By the way, you'll notice that the cat is the only one NOT wearing a life jacket.

Hmmm - it seems that whenever I load a new picture, it goes to the top of my blog. I have tried the old cut-and-paste routine, but it doesn't seem to be working. Does this mean I have to plan my blogs in reverse if I'm putting pictures in?

Anyway, this is one of my favorite cross-stitches. It actually looks much better in person. It received an honorable mention when I entered it at the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup. With one exception, I think this is the one picture I would keep if I could only have one of my cross-stitches.

That's it for now. When I get around to putting my latest set of pictures on my hard drive, I can blog a few more pictures that I particularly like. And maybe I can figure out a way to put in pictures so I don't have to do plan my blogs in reverse!

Alphabet Tag

This looked like fun - so I thought I'd try it too

A - Attached or single? - Been attached for 33 years now & loving it

B - Best friend? - My husband

C - Cake or pie? - I have always been a pie person, but as I have gotten older, I find I enjoy cake more

D - Day of Choice? - Monday, my only full day off

E - Essential Item? - CPAP Machine - can't sleep well without it

F - Favorite Color? - BLUE

G - Gummy Bears or Worms? - Neither!

H - Hometown? - Santa Barbara, California

I - Indulgences? - Chocolate! In any form.

J - January or July? - January is my daughter's birthday, July my brother's birthday. How can I choose?

K - Kids? - 2 daughters and 1 adopted son (actually our grandson)

L - Life is incomplete without? - Sleep, good books, cross-stitching, my family

M - Marriage Date? - April 12, 1975

N - Number of Siblings? - 1 brother. That's it.

O - Oranges or Apples? - Apples, as long as they're Granny Smith

P - Phobias or fears? - Ants (long story)

Q - Quotes? - I could fill an entire book with these, but I'll go with one of my father's favorites - "It was as conspicuous as a tarantula on an angel food cake".

R - Reason to Smile? - my daughter is having a baby soon!

S - Season? - Christmas!

T - Tag 5 people? - I absolutely HATE getting those emails that ask you to forward them on to 7500 people within 10 seconds or you'll have bad luck for the rest of your life, so I wouldn't tag anybody.

U - Unknown Fact? - As a teenager I babysat for a couple who were such good friends with President Richard Nixon that he attended their wedding. (I actually saw the wedding pictures)

V - Very Favorite Store? - Just one? See's.

X - X-ray or Ultrasound? - At my age, X-rays usually mean something less life-threatening than Ultrasounds.

Y - Your favorite food? - Chocolate (see Indulgences above)

Z - Zodiac? - Gemini

Age beats out youth again!

Yesterday when we went to church we parked a long, long way from the front door - as usual. Another Ward was in session, so the parking lot was pretty full and we were late - as usual.

When the services were over and we started back for the car, our 11-year old grandson made a big deal out of 'who was going to reach the car first'. He even dumped his sack of stuff on me so that he would have more freedom of movement to beat everybody else to the car.

I happened to take a different route, and Tim didn't consider me much of a threat anyway. He spent all his time taunting my husband and running just a little way ahead of him and then turning back to gloat. He didn't even notice me approaching the car from a different direction.

When I was just a few yards away, Tim suddenly noticed my position and with a howl of dismay came charging towards the car. Although I am not built for running (in any sense of the word!) I broke into a determined shuffle. Just before he reached the car, I swung his bag of stuff so that it touched the car, giving me the 'official' win. He was totally chagrined, and Bill just about fell all over himself he was laughing so hard.

This victory reminds me of the story of the two rival actresses, one getting on in years, and the other still young and sure of herself and her beauty. They both approached a doorway at the same time, and the younger one stepped back to allow the older one to go first, saying with a voice dripping in saccharine sympathy "Age before beauty". The older actress swept magnificently through the door, remarking in a well-bred voice "Pearls before swine".

Isn't victory sweet?

Dynamo Day

Let's face it - I am basically a lazy person with a lot of good intentions. When I'm at work I make these long lists of all the things I need to do when I get home - and then when I actually GET home, I flop in front of the computer and play mindless games until I toddle off to bed. Every one in a while I will do a token item on my list just to appease my conscious.

This morning I came home more tired than usual. I had taken my older daughter to a doctor's appointment yesterday and it had lasted almost 4 hours - so I got to bed very, very late yesterday. Then somebody called in sick last night (at work), so I had to work extra hard to get everything done. Needless to say, as I walked into the house I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to do anything on my chore list.

But much to my surprise, this was one of my 'dynamo days'. I have them every once in a while, where I suddenly find myself doing all kinds of things that I am supposed to be doing. I sprang into action and this is what I accomplished.

Our huge commercial-sized freezer needed defrosting, which mean rearranging everything in the refrigerator freezers to make room for extra food. Fortunately we are right at the end of our six-month food cycle with Celebrity foods, so the freezer wasn't as full as usual. Still, it took considerable ingenuity to juggle everything around, and things that don't have to stay frozen (like cookies, flour, etc.) are out of the freezer for a while.

Bill has been bugging me to make some vegetables so he can heat them up for dinners, and with so little freezer space, it seemed a good time to use some of those frozen veggies. So I cooked up a big pot of baby lima beans, and a big pot of peas and carrots, and a big pot of green beans with onion and bacon.

I emptied the dishwasher (which is technically Timmy's job, but he rarely gets around to it), and refilled the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes - including the ones I had just used to cook all the vegetables in. We have a cleaning lady come in once every four weeks, and I don't like to waste her valuable (and expensive!) time on dishes. I'd rather she mopped out the defrosting freezer.

I am a visiting teaching supervisor, so I made the rest of the calls I had to do to finish off my report and then shipped it off (via email) to the head honcho.

In and around all of this, I fixed breakfast for Timmy and drove him to school; typed up the list for the cleaning lady and wrote out her check (I'm asleep when she comes and leaves); and read my younger daughter's blog (wonderful!), commented on it, and then was inspired to write a blog of my own for the day.

I think I'll go take a nap - a really long one.