Party Animals

Last night while watching the election results and comments regarding Scott Brown's amazing victory in Massachusetts and reading and commenting on some of my favorite blogs I realized there was a party going on in my own home....Ralphie has shown himself to be a real party animal! If he were a teenage boy he would be facing severe restrictions and consequences ( yes, my teenage boys were held accountable for their misbehavior because after all, we were -and still are- their parents first, and NOW we're their friends too) and since Ralphie is not a teenage human boy, but a pet, well, I can confine him to my craft room with all the necessities of life for a kitten. Above is a picture of Ralphie eying my Betta ON THE TABLE ! Oh no..here he is checking out my candle sticks. I left him in the dining room after taking this picture and removing him from the table. As I was reading and commenting on some of my favorite blogs I heard a CRASH!!!! Oh no, Ralphie had tipped over one of the candle sticks and was happily slapping a small votive candle all around the dining room. He did break the candlestick which I was able to super-glue back together, but I was upset about this. I have long contended cats have parties after we all go to bed and Ralphie has proven me right. Actually, all my cats have proven me right. "Every dog has his day, but the nights are reserved for cats." I have often told friends and family I would love to write a childrens' book about cats having parties after the lights are out and the family is sleeping, because I KNOW cats are having parties then. Just look at the evidence in the morning. Why, I have awakened to whole rolls of toilet paper unrolled and strewn throughout the house, the meringue topping licked clean off a lemon meringue pie baked and set aside just before I went to bed ( this happened more times than I can count and YES I did hide the pie, but the cat found it every time) my Wee Little Sheep destroyed, stuffed Teddy Bears looking as if they had a rough night on the town ( and indeed they did, WITH the cat) not to mention balls of hand-spun yarn unraveled and tangled around every furniture leg and the garbage tipped over and any food scraps eaten or scattered throughout the kitchen. These are just a few of the many bits of evidence of feline partying...I will not even repeat the true and grisly details of feline rodent & bird murders and the evidence of these deeds.One of my sisters-in-law had a cat door into her home for her cats. One night she and her husband were awakened to a loud thumping and clunking noise. Well, neighbor cats were in their home and playing with their own cats. The noise was made by a neighbor cat that had opened a cupboard and rolled a can of cat food out of the cupboard, off the counter and towards the cat door before stopped by my sister-in-law. See, their own cat had invited all the neighbor cats to the party! All I can say is that in spite of all the late night or early morning partying my cats do... ..I love them! "no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly." D. Erasmus This is NOT my motto, but my cats'. "Cats do not have to be shown how to have a good time, for they are unfailingly ingenious in that respect." James Mason

Time Flies As Swiftly As The Wind!

This weekend came and went so swiftly, as swiftly as the wind storm that blew into our area in the Monday a.m. as I was cleaning up while thinking about our special week end company. As I began to write a blog post the winds slammed the house, the lights flickered and the computer did that thing it does as the power comes and goes. So I shut down the computer and tried to distract myself from the sound of the winds. I finally did get to sleep after I plugged my ears and snuggled under the covers. I awoke to a home with no electric power and had to call my friendly neighborhood sheep shearer and cancel a shearing appointment for 2 rams.Above is a picture of a bird's nest I found in the huge branches that came down onto the roof of our sheep shed. Our youngest son, his wife, and one of our oldest son's daughters came to visit over the weekend. We were happy to host an Artistry product party here for Breezy and lunch was served along with a great and informative presentation. Above is Breezy, Judy, and daughter A.Joy listening to Breezy talk about the benefits of the products.

I got to cuddle little MN as I listened.

The granddaughters had fun playing dress-up. They were giggling as they showed us their finery. The 2 blue dresses were worn by my sisters in my wedding.

Later on that day we had home church in our home, then visited some more late into the evening with Daniel, Breezy, and our granddaughter who quickly fell asleep on my lap after we polished our fingernails together. She got striped nails!

Oldest Son's #3 daughter hugs Aunt Breezy....

...and Uncle Daniel. His birthday was Sunday and my husband made him a chocolate cheesecake a la Nigella Lawson. Do you know, he shared one piece with my husband, his Dad, and then took the rest of it home! Why, the cheesecake got boxed up before I could take a picture of it.I think he likes chocolate cheesecake. I also received a needle-felting kit in the mail so I can participate in the needle-felting challenge issued by Shannon Phifer of Kenleigh Acres ( click here to view her blog*) . Check out her blogs about her farm, and her studio. Don't you just love weekends, and all they bring?They come and go so very quickly....and time flies swiftly...like the wind. And then comes Monday...MY day of rest!

Thanks For The Memories Mrs. Okimura!

My Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook was a Christmas gift to me in 1972 from my parents. I had a hope chest to put it into until I married and left home. When I was growing up and during the first years of my marriage this was THE "go to" cookbook for me. It contained all the recipes and how to's I needed, even a chapter on table settings and etiquette for serving! This book contains so very many memories. Memories that start way back in Hale Kula Elementary School at Schofield Barracks , Hawaii where I attended 3 years of school. My favorite teacher of all my school years was Mrs. Okimura, my 4th grade teacher. Look at this page of my cookbook!(click on picture to enlarge and read recipe) It has the very first recipe I baked all by myself thanks to Mrs. Okimura. I don't remember the occasion, but our beautiful teacher ( yes, she really was the prettiest and nicest teacher in the school and all us kids wanted HER to be our teacher, I got to be in her class!) decided we needed coffee cake to serve to someone visiting, I think. So she allowed me and a few other students to mix up this coffee cake batter and pour it into pans to be baked in the school cafeteria. WOW! I was allowed to do this with little help, she thought I could, and I did! When I went home later that day I showed my Mom the recipe in our cookbook and Mom allowed me to bake this. I baked it many , many times over the course of my growing up years and when I received this cook book as a gift I immediately marked the recipe with the date and place I first made it. I have also baked this simple coffee cake more times than I can count during our children's growing up years. I would whip it up for surprise company, or a quick dessert . Now when I make it I add a dash of instant coffee crystals and almost triple the topping recipe, so much better...but still reliably good baked just as the book requires. Our granddaughter came over for her weekly reading lesson with me and I thought back to my good experiences in learning, what made and still makes me happy and I immediately remembered Mrs. Okimura. Well then, today MN and Grandma would start the lesson reading a cookbook recipe and baking it. And MN was delighted! Look at her smile. ( BTW, when she comes over she requires that BOTH of us go upstairs to my bathroom and put on our "whipstick", hence the lovely red lips)

MN cracked the egg, added the ingredients and mixed the batter up all by herself. Then poured this mix into the baking pan she had greased by herself.

The brown sugar & cinnamon topping is yummy!

Look, butter and sugar coated hands!

Better finish off the batter left in the bowl before washing up, can't waste this!

And before we move onto more of our reading lesson while we wait for the cake to bake she washes the dishes. MN thinks THIS is the best part of all, washing the dishes and cleaning up. Really. She then offered to help me clean my entire house, yes, really! I decided we needed to continue on with the reading lesson instead.

The cake was done just as Poppa came home from work so the three of us had cake and coffee or hot chocolate.

This is what MN thought of her cake! And I was thinking about Mrs. Okimura, and how she affected my life for the good all those years ago and how special people like her give the gift of memories that affect people for the better for all their years. Thank-you for the memories Mrs. Okimura, and I suspect our little MN will thank you too.

"Memories: The state of being remembered; a living continuously in the minds of men." Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary

Spot On Some of My Quilts

This is a quilt I made almost 2 decades ago. Obviously I did not finish it. I started it when we lived in Tacoma and worked on it every once in awhile after we moved out here to the country. During our years of building our home, home-schooling our children and all the family events in between I cut and pieced this little bit of a quilt top using used fabrics cut away from old clothes, scraps of fabric left over after other sewing projects, and some new fabrics bought in the sale bins of fabric stores I would frequent. I finally tacked it up on the wall in our spare bedroom, maybe I will finish the top , add batting and backing and quilt this one day. For now there are so many other things I would prefer to do, besides, I have a sister and friends who are very talented with quilting and love to add their quilts to my collection. "Quilters touch the past and the future." I won this quilt!Many of the women in our community made quilt blocks and after entering the blocks in the Lacamas Community Fair, they got together on their sewing day in the community hall to assemble two quilts using the collected quilt blocks that had been judged at the fair. The raffle tickets for the two quilts were drawn at the Lacamas Christmas Bazaar and I won first choice of the two quilts! "A bed without a quilt is like the sky without stars." ( click to enlarge and see the detail in the quilt blocks)) I chose this quilt because of the lambs and the bees. The theme of the fair, and the quilt itself, was "You have to bee here..." and fair type and honeybee squares fill the quilt, with the prize-ribbon fabric being the unifying fabric. "A quilt is a treasure which follows its' owner everywhere."

Don't you just love this happy quilt?"When life gives you scraps-make a quilt."

"Good friends are like quilts. They age with you, yet never lose their warmth." "May your sorrows be patched and your joys quilted."

Uncle Dinkel & Little 'T'

Little 'T' is all giggles and smiles as she is enjoying breakfast with her "Uncle Dinkel".

I woke up to laughter and came downstairs to find two of my favorite people laughing together as they ate their morning cereal. My youngest son was eating breakfast with my youngest granddaughter, his niece. He was on this side of the mountains shoeing a few horses and visiting special friends, and he brought Little 'T' to visit and spend some time with us as Little 'T' does not yet attend school and can be away for a few days. ( Thank-you oldest son for letting her visit us!)

Of course our son brought one of his very best friends along, Taz. Taz was in our youngest son and his wife's wedding too, he wore a bow-tie for the special occasion.Taz is getting on in years and has saved our son's life at least once, and protected our son from harm at other times, good dog Taz!

This is our son's rig and shoeing trailer hooked up and ready for the long drive back home.....

Inside his trailer are all the necessities for his horse-shoeing, an anvil....

.....his forge,

Just look at how efficient and organized his shoeing trailer is ~ truly a very well organized shop on wheels. But, what is that way in the back of this manly shop equipped to shoe horses? Click on to enlarge and view the bin of pink, purple and turquoise, the only "horsey" thing in this bundle is the My Little Pony backpack on the top of the heap...the traveling necessities of a tiny little girl who has captured his heart.

Little 'T', with her Uncle "Dinkel" and Taz!

Maggie / Ralphie

Remember the kitten I wrote about a short while ago? I took her to the vets' last week for her shots and to schedule an appointment for spaying. I finally decided on a name, Maggie. A name denoting her magpie coloring. Her name suited her very well I thought. As she lolled around the vets' arms, purred through her shots and the exam the vet declared , " I think your cat needs a new name..she is a HE. Boy did I feel dumb. I never checked for the sex of my new kitten...doesn't matter much though, he will cost thirty dollars less to neuter than if he were a she and all I had to do was decide on a more suitable name. We have company this week! Our youngest son has crossed over the mountains to shoe a lot of horses in our area and he brought our oldest son's youngest daughter Little 'T' along with him. We get to have our youngest son and one of our granddaughters for a few days...joy! Here Little 'T' and another granddaughter , MN, hold my new kitten. This little guy is purr-fect for a home with grandchildren, other cats, dogs, and various joyous gatherings of people, animals, and all the noise and commotion they bring.

Just look at him. Would you put up with this if you had sharp claws and teeth?

We invited my husband's parents over for lunch with us, Little 'T' , and the new kitten. My husband's father loves cats, a LOT! He very much appreciated the kitten, and both of my husband's parents love spending time with Little 'T' I decided on a name that fit, I think. RALPHIE ! He just seems like a Ralph kind of cat...laid back, easy going. Plus, he entered our home around Christmas and one of our favorite Christmas movies is CHRISTMAS STORY which is told through the eyes of a boy named Ralphie..."you'll shoot your eye out..."

Oh Ralphie, I hope you continue to be so long-suffering, and I love you already!

Just A Wayfaring Stranger ....

What would you do if you knew you were going to die very soon? If you could not change your circumstances financially, but realistically given the limitations life has granted you here and now....what would you do? One of my Uncles died last week. I remember him playing with me when I was a little girl. He was fun, and kind. My sisters and I were told after he died, but he knew last July he was dying. I have an aunt who was moved to a care facility thinking she would recover and go home, and last week I found out she will NOT be going back to her home because her health has so deteriorated she cannot care for herself. She will live in a care facility until she dies....I also found out last month a dear friend of ours is in very, very poor health and I remember him as one of the strongest most able people you would know, a real John Wayne of a man and that does include cowboy hats , horses, the range,all that the American ideal of a man would include. Two other friends, one very dear, have had some seriously bad news regarding their health....and I guess I and my friends and much of our family are at that age when this is more common. Actually, I am finding I am in that group the younger members of the family consider " past middle age", I am resisting saying OLD , or older. This has led me to the question again....what would you do if you knew you were dying?( Really though, we are all dying, we just like to fool ourselves into thinking it will come much later in life, when we're ready.) "Before the mountains were born, or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God. Thou dost turn man back into dust, and say, "return, O children of men. For a thousand years in Thy sight are like yesterday when it passes by..." Psalm 90: 2-4 God is eternal and so is the soul of mankind. God has a place for us when our flesh is dead and turned to dust. "whoever believes may in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:15, 16 We are finite beings, God is infinite. Earth , no matter how well we treat it, is NOT eternal, nor is it our Mother, Father, or eternal home...God is our Creator, Father, Mother, our All~our bodies, no matter how well we treat them, are finite. They will wear out and die. Our finite bodies will eventually turn to dust.If we as Christians ( those proclaiming to know Jesus as personal Savior) die, we will go to our real HOME; to a place where He has provided for His own. Here on this earth we are only wayfaring strangers...so I ask again, What would YOU wayfaring strangers do if you knew you were dying soon?