Turning another page….

I

still do Easter baskets for my 16 and 22 year old children.

I probably will until they have children of their own.
This morning the girlchild came downstairs and with the usual
enthusiasm, enjoyed the contents of her basket.
Three hours later, when the manchild awoke, he sauntered past the
kitchen table which held the baskets…
and proceeded out the door to go get the tractor.
Not even a glance toward the basket.
I said  “YO!!… you didn’t even go through your basket yet!”
He said… well he shrugged and said…
“oh… yeah. I’ll check it out later”.
*sigh*

Times… they are a changing.
We’ve got family coming for dinner tonight…
Frasier is doing just fine.. getting along well with our other dogs and people.

These glasses were brought back from the Cape by a friend…
when filled with white wine, the hue is beautiful.

However you celebrate today, I hope you feel renewed in the promise of Spring, as I do.
Bailey is telling me I can just kiss her *ss with that renewal crap.
I’m the one who brought the new guy home, after all.
Ah well. You can please some of the people some of the time…


Home

My cousin left for  Afg*anist*n  last night…
“back to the Sandbox”  as he would say.
Three children  and a woman who loves him
will anxiously await his safe return..
six months from now.
A friend’s daughter  is there already..
occasional messages on Facebook
let her know she’s OK
after the most recent bombing of their compound.
I can’t image the anquish.  
Things appear to be escalating…
and I’m still in disbelief…
ALL this..can be avoided.
it’s ALL created by human anger, greed, ignorance, self rightousness.
I could go on and on, but I won’t.
Instead I’ll pray for all the troops safe return,
for an end to the madness that some of the people of this world
are churning out…
and I’ll appreciate every minute I spend in the comforts of
HOME.   Because we don’t all have the luxury
and many are standing tall over there so that we do.

Normal, uneventful, ordinary

   I had a conversation with another mom today that brought powerful emotions bubbling to the surface.  There was a time when those emotions were strong enough to bring me to my knees and make me beg for Mercy… from anywhere I could get it.   This mom and her family are in the middle of a long road to recovery for their son, who suffered a serious brain injury.  It’s a road I’ve traveled, and so we commiserated and fretted together, spoke of the horrors and the baby steps toward sanity once “the chances of survival” improved.  Weeks of this.   Months.  Uncertainty throughout.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Time will tell, is all they can give you.   
   There are many of you who know this agony either through illness, accident, loss of a loved one,  mental illness, addiction, abuse, whatever the formula…. you know what I mean when I say there is a time when you LONG for a normal day.  An uneventful, ordinary, nothing special kind of day.  There is a time when you think that this will never be possible again.
   But life marches on.  Things resolve, or they don’t.   There becomes a new normal… and if you’re really lucky, time eventually heals most wounds.  That’s what I had to say to this scared mom today.  Because it’s true, although SO hard to see when you’re adrift in the middle of  that shit storm.  
I hung up the phone…
took a deep breath and remembered……
and then I let it go….
and stuck my hands in the dirt.  
How I am loving
this awesome, wonderful,
normal, uneventful, ordinary day.

Green

 My birthday is the 18th…
Dad is italian, mom is proud of her Irish heritage.
A frequent remark by my father… “we missed having a leprechaun by minutes!”

Personally, I’m proud of my mixed heritage.
There is much flavor in both  🙂

My favorite Irish quote…

“May those who love us, love us;

and those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts;

and if He doesn’t turn their hearts,

 may He turn their ankles so we’ll know them by their limping.”

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract

6 to 8 drops green food color

1 egg

1 cup creme de menthe baking chips

1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks
**You can also use the original Nestle’s Tollhouse recipe instead of the sugar cookie mix, which I do,
add the food coloring and  creme de menthe baking chips.

 

Directions



1.Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.


2.Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.


3.Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

Pic/recipe courtesy Party Cafe

 Colcannon Potato Recipe
Ingredients 3 pounds potatoes, scrubbed

2 sticks butter

1 1/4 cups hot milk

Freshly ground black pepper

1 head cabbage, cored and finely shredded

1 (1-pound) piece ham or Irish bacon, cooked the day before

4 scallions, finely chopped

Chopped parsley leaves, for garnish


Steam the potatoes in their skins for 30 minutes. Peel them using a knife and fork. Chop with a knife before mashing. Mash thoroughly to remove all the lumps. Add 1 stick of butter in pieces. Gradually add hot milk, stirring all the time. Season with a few grinds of black pepper.


Boil the cabbage in unsalted water until it turns a darker color. Add 2 tablespoons butter to tenderize it. Cover with lid for 2 minutes. Drain thoroughly before returning it to the pan. Chop into small pieces.



Put the ham in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes until tender. Drain. Remove any fat and chop into small pieces.



Add cabbage, scallions, and ham to mashed potatoes, stirring them in gently.


Serve in individual soup plates. Make an indentation on the top by swirling a wooden spoon. Put 1 tablespoon of butter into each indentation. Sprinkle with parsley.

Pic/recipe courtesy ifood.tv 

I just love this little guy.
I have no idea if he’s irish, but he’s surely green.
Happy St. Pattys day!
Have a wonderful weekend,
and may the luck o’ the Irish be with ya.

Every now and then…

 …..I talk him into taking a half hour away from work…
(in the middle of the DAY??? … )
turning off the cell phone..
(…not turning it off!  but not answering either. )
good enough…
and taking some time to just breathe it all in.
What are we here for…
why are we working so hard….
if we can’t give ourselves permission for that.
68 degrees today, sunny all day long…

I’ll take it 🙂


Weekend Snapshots

 Out for a drive on a breezy afternoon  ….
Old Lyme

Home overlooking cove ..
turkey vultures overhead. 

This is their view. 
Can you imagine?
Saybrook Light and Osprey nests. 

back at the ranch… Wall work continues….

Fruit trees budding…

Still chilly, blankets back on…

A new roost for the chickens…

Dinner at a favorite place with dear friends…
this was a brush mill many moons ago.
The gears remain in the ceiling.


 It was water powered back in the day!

There is a new King Betta to keep Ruby company.

..and Hey, it’s time to put those jelly beans out, if you haven’t already.

Spring is in the air, folks, and I’m loving every minute of it.


The Wonder Years

   This afternoon my daughter and I traveled across the Connecticut River to visit a tack shop.  As we drove through Moodus, we passed the old 4-H Camp that I attended with my cousins when I was 13 and 14 years old.  It looks exactly the same.   I was immediately drawn back in time… a weird  but wonderful feeling.   

   All those years ago I was a suburban girl living with my family on Staten Island and I cherished my summertime visits with my Connecticut country cousins and their horses.  Two summers in a row we went to camp, bringing their trusty appaloosa horse, “Apple” with me.  Those weeks are among the best of my teen years, I remember them like it was yesterday and to this day I’m grateful for the experience.

Not much has changed there in … 32 years.
Holy crow. 
32 years ago. 
32. 
Some of those memories…
Singing Johnny Appleseed at the morning breakfast call…
Those weaved potholders…
making tiled hot plates…
Archery..
twizzlers and caramel creams at the camp store…
BUG JUICE! (koolaid)
Reflections night..
(the entire camp sits around a big fireand sings camp songs…)
the crushes…
and the anquish of saying goodbye at the weeks end.

 I’m in the middle of the bunch.. the girl with the very dark hair and a tube top being pulled by the boy I had a crush on.. Billy Rule.    He was a smart*ss.      About the tube top…. I had not much of anything to put IN it… but they were all the rage back then.  (Hey, it was 1979 or so… you remember, don’t you. I bet you even had a few).  

The camp handed out news letters every friday… and that week, after the thursday night dance… the front page header was… “INVASION OF THE TUBE TOP TWIRPS”.   Um… that would be us.

    

  
   

He thinks it’s funny

  The manchild was giggling when I came in from the barn last night all soggy from the rain. He and grown daughter were talking about WHEN THEY MOVE OUT.  They saw me coming down the hill from the barn and I guess I looked forlorn.    I wasn’t, just so ya know. It was raining and muddy and I dumped a water bucket down my leg by mistake.   Do you know how wet jeans and a boot full of water feel when it’s 38 degrees out at dusk and your teeth are already chattering from the raw damp misery that swirls around you and the damn chickens won’t get in their coop without issues? 

  So anyway.. they weren’t laughing about that.   No.. they were wondering what good ole MOM is going to do once they do move out.  My dear son said to me… “Mom.. you oughta start thinking about getting a hobby or open a store again or something… you know… to fill the time you use right now to do all that stuff for us.   I’m probably going to have to come home from college now and then just to give you something to do.”     I love him, I do.

*sigh*

  But you know… it’s not like there isn’t a grain of truth in that little speech there… I have plenty of hobbies and chores and little jobs here and there, thank you very much… but perhaps it’s time to start thinking about what I might be able to do next.  NEXT.     Although I kinda like the job I have now.  I haven’t asked to give it up. It’s just inevitable that it’s going to change some.

  It’s been raining/snowing/sleeting here at This Old House for two days now…some would say downright dreary.  I happen to be enjoying it because we are all here under the same roof, waiting out the rain together, meandering through uneventful,  unhurried evenings.   I’ll soak up every drop of that.

He’d make a really cool cowboy, don’t ya think?

He also told me not to DARE put this pic on the blog.
uh-huh.

I’ll be cleaning tack tonight… it was GREEN when I pulled it out of the tack closet
to ride the other day. That’s how damp this winter has been.
As for the birthday boy  – I failed at summoning the  Italian fiat commercial model
for my husband’s leap year birthday….but I’m not totally heartless.
 He got his Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue among other gifts.

 

Days spent together…
you never know how many you’ve got..
so enjoy every one. 
Rain related… One of my favorite sayings….
Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass….
it’s about learning how to get out there and dance in the rain.

Isn’t that just the truth.  

I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours – Part 2

   I showed you my refrigerator the other day, and I spoke of making some changes to my diet for better health.  I also admitted there has been plenty of junk food consumption over the years…we are equal opportunity eaters, if you will.  Slowly I am making changes to my diet and that of my family so that we are eating less processed foods, more whole foods, swapping poor diet choices for healthier alternatives.  Doing this post was not meant to critique what we all have in our refrigerators. It was a fun way to look at our perks and quirks in the fridge.

 I  did not say, we don’t eat any junk ever.  I am not a fanatic.  I am a realist.  I have a teenager and a young adult living in this house and a husband who loves his meat and potatoes, butter, bread, condiments,  etc.  We are not all going to convert to whole-organic-pure food only.  This is a process, steps taken toward better living, better health.

Last night I read a comment from Anonymous.  Why is it  that whenever someone wants to critique, they cloak themselves under Anonymous?  It’s not really a question, I already know the answer.

 Dear Anonymous… I appreciate your comment, actually…  it’s useful information.  Being a critic without putting your name to it, though… is off-putting.   Just saying.

Anonymous said… “Your food choices are bewildering. On the one hand there is organic whole milk, eggs, clementines, and raw probiotics but that’s as far as the real food goes. Then you have chocolate milk, processed juice, cream cheese (which is not real), rolls of some kind under-pressure, and condiments with sugar/salt galore. Your body must be so confused and inflamed. BTW that earth balance isn’t real food either, better to use real butter sparingly. Sorry for the critique but you opened up your frig, brave woman. “

That being said…. I thank you all for participating.  I love this post, you have all braved  exposing what is definitely a personal item in our homes.  I love hearing that you have a two pepsi a day habit, even tho you are a thin, health conscious runner!  And that I see just as many condiments in your fridges as I do mine.  One of you has a frig dedicated to sausage making from various meats and you relish it! (literally!) …. and I like hearing what you are doing to fuel your body with healthy stuff too.  It gives me ideas, and it makes us all realize how much more alike we are than our differences.  Commeradery, there it is.

  This is life, this is us, thanks for sharing.
Since our daughter’s competition was last week, she can eat ‘normally’ for the next two weeks before going back to her training diet. In the fridge, we have a strange blending of our food, her training diet and not-training diet food … so we have everything from milk and coffee creamer, to beer and a couple of half bottles of wine, containers of home-cooked dog food and fresh salsa, lunchmeat, homemade soup, three dozen-and-a-half cartons of eggs (training food), and way more condiments than we use. This is an eye-opening exercise, and I plan to clean out the fridge and get it more organized as soon as I have another cup of coffee.  – Connie
 Me:  (Glad to see I’m not the only one with more than two mustards on the shelf  – I had four. Why? I have no idea.)  
Mary’s Refrigerator

Our new motto is “eat fresh, eat local, eat better, eat less and live longer.” We been trying to shop the local farmers markets whenever possible. We’ve just about eliminated butter and white flour from our diets by opting for olive oil and wheat products as better choices. We are also watching sugar intake. For example, did you know that 10 grams of sugar, which seemed low is actually equal to 2+ teaspoons of sugar? That’s high when you consider the American Heart Association recommends that women have no more than 6 teaspoons a day, for men it’s 9 teaspoons – and I don’t believe those numbers consider diabetics. So it’s making us read our labels – closely!  We’ve recently decided to try to eliminate as many canned goods as possible too by opting for glass, mainly because of the cancer causing seepage from the linings of the cans. Thus, this summer I’ll be a “canning queen,” especially when it comes to tomatoes & peaches!

We have our vices too!! LOL!!!
It usually involves a sweet treat at night or sometimes a glass of wine (for me) LOL!!!
That’s how we’re rolling in 2012!!!

Deb’s Refrigerator –
Me: Deb! we love Maries dressing and A-1 Steak sauce too!  
Sorry, Anonymous.  
Patti’s refrigerator –  Okay, you begged and pleaded, here my 1950ish refrigerator with 50 pounds of venison/pork sausage which will be turned into beautiful smoked sausage. It will be stuffed into casings on Wednesday and smoked for about 8 to 9 hours.  Wish you were here to taste it!!!
Me:  Patti – we’ll all be over on Thursday around 4, ok?
Lisa’s refrigerator –
 Disclaimer: I did not clean or organize my fridge in any way. What you see is….real. Eek!

I eat pretty much whatever I want, but when possible I buy light versions (sour cream, cream cheese, milk). I try to limit the amount of processed foods we use, but I won’t lie – we do use them. You’ll note that the veggie drawer has celery, carrots, grapes and broccoli which are all staples in our house. A large assortment of cheeses in the cheese/meat drawer. We only buy organic milk (it’s the only food I’m a real stickler about for organic). The eggs are actually all from our hens – they have started laying again so we have a surplus! In fact, the big bowl you see on the top shelf is full of hard boiled eggs, which we eat as snacks a lot. The boys love them. You’ll see lots of tupperwares in our fridge at all times, because I cook full dinners. One of the tupperwares is full of barbecue chicken – from one of our chickens that I cooked last week. The other is full of homemade mac and cheese. And Pierce’s lunch is prepped and in his lunch box to the left (behind which are some of our home canned pickles and salsa). And to the bottom right – our grass fed organic beef cow arrived yesterday – we got 56 pounds! So I’m defrosting the first batch and toying with the idea of a casserole involving tomatoes, beef, cheese, green peppers and corn chips crumbled on top. The blue pitcher in the back just has ice cold water.
We also have a Soda Stream and make some of our own sodas – lately I’ve been liking their green tea.
You may also note my vice…..Diet Pepsi/Diet Coke. I can’t quite break the habit of 2 a day. Nobody’s perfect! Especially not me!
 

Me:  Lisa, I like you even more now that I know of your diet soda habit.
and oooh, how I’d love that casserole recipe!
 

 
 
 
 
 

Jeanne’s refrigerator…
Me: LOVE THE COKE, JEANNE!   My favorite!!  Reminds me of my grandmother’s house many years ago, and is great for a yucky tummy.
 
 

Ok, so what I’ve noticed….  We all seem to try to balance the good with the mediocre food stuff with the evil. I see lots of fruits and veggies, we all have condiment issues, I’d say we’re all doing a decent job with the balancing act.  Are we fanatics? Hell no.  Is that necessary?  Everything in moderation sounds reasonable.  We each have individual needs, deficiencies, health concerns and goals.  Our refrigerators reflect that, don’t ya think?  
 

Thank you for getting naked here at This Old House.
  I always appreciate the effort 🙂

Over-exposed?

Oh, come on now…
…have I really only inspired ONE of you to send me a
fridge pic?
I was kinda hoping to see the messy ones,
the empty ones,
the anal ones,
whatever ya got!
I guess it really IS sorta like being naked  🙂

If you’re a health nut and have some tips, share them.
If you want to make some changes, tell us about them.
If you’re already making dietary changes, big or small,
let us know about them by including them with your pic.

Let’s inspire each other here….I think it’s important.

 

I’m giving you one more day here…
someone.. anyone!… won’t you join my one other brave soul?