Joke

Someone sent this to me and as I am not feeling good this is my plog for tonight.

When I was ready to check out and pay for my groceries the cashier said, "Strip down, facing me." Making a mental note so I could complain to my local MP about this Security crap, I did just as she had instructed. After the shrieking and hysterical remarks finally subsided, I found out that she was referring to how I should position my credit card. None the less, I've been asked to shop elsewhere in the future. They need to make their instructions a little clearer for seniors.

Sunshine in a jar

Sunshine in a jar.

For my birthday I had a very unusual birthday present bought for me by Ben and Chrissy, my grandchildren. I have never seen one of these before, a twinkling mason jar that captures the sun and then at night shines out in the night. Just a lovely present Thank you so much.

Cooper, Cat of Character and Distinction

Cooper , 2 months after grooming

Cooper,  Cat of Character and Distinction

I first met Cooper the cat when I went to visit my son Russ and his wife Janice when they were living in Toronto about 1998. He was then about a year old , a beautiful long haired white cat with startling blue eyes,He was very lovable and playful, quite at home with the other cats in the house. He had one problem. He was totally deaf. That didn't matter to him. He didn't know and everyone else managed with signs and looks to figure out how to communicate with him. It worked fine.

Cooper watching TV

It was much later on that I saw Cooper again. Janice had now moved back to Dallas and had learned she had cancer. She asked me if I could do two things: Paint portraits of her 5 cats and if and when the time came and she passed on, take care of her cats. She really loved those cats and wanted to know they would be safe.

So after a little soul searching I agreed .I painted all the cats and agreed that even though I might not be able to have all the cats live with me, I would help get them new homes.

My painting of Cooper

Sadly all the treatments for cancer did not work, and in October 2011 Cooper came to live with me. Janice passed on at the end of that year.

He came in without any trepidation into a house of old female cats and immediately started showing them who was boss. Likewise with the dogs. For a cat who had never been around dogs he took no more notice of them than he did the cats as long as they kept away from his food. He was in a badly matted state and his lovely white fur was tangled and dirty. The groomer took one look and said ,” That can't be combed out he will have to be shaved down.”It took a whole day to do it and he came back home looking like a little lion cub with a ruff around his head and fluffy bits left around his feet . Quite cute but now he felt a lot better and could run and jump and was ready to join in family life.A much happier cat.

Sleeping in the sun

Our cats live inside and outside but mostly inside these days as they get older. They come and go as they like using the doggy door. Strangely enough Cooper after 15 months still hasn't figured out that door. He sits watching every other pet go through it but makes no attempt to follow.

He does loves to be outside. I take him out most days and let him wander around. He smells the plants , and munches on the grasses and stays in the garden. If he strays too far, I always yell at him , which has no effect because he is deaf. I always forget. It's an automatic thing you do I expect.

He makes his needs known by this very plaintive crying. If he wants a door opened , I hear  "meow, meow, meow" , until I get up to open it.

His favorite place is in my lap when I am watching television . He settles right down and is the best lap cat ever. He seems even more active now that when he first came to live with us which is really amazing for a cat who is close to 16 years old.

So please ,if you can and someone asks you to help with an old cat, remember they  too can have lots of love and life left.

Ahh, Fish & Chips

Red Robin Fish & Chips

Ahh, Fish & Chips

When Mike asked me what and where I'd like to go to eat Lunch on my birthday, I thought for a moment and said “Let's go get some fish & chips”. “Okay “he said ,” we'll go to Red Robin. They have great fish and chips.”

If you grew up in England , like we both did, you will know fish and chips was one of the meals that was considered both a luxury and a treat and also a way for working class people to eat an inexpensive but very tasty dish. There was a variety of fish to be had, Some fish you never hear of today like plaice and rock eel. Mostly today it's just called “fish”. At least at Red Robin they call it Arctic Cod.

There was a fish and chip shop just a few minutes up the road from where I lived. It only opened at lunch time and for a short while in the evenings. The queue( line-up} started outside the store for a good 10 minutes before opening time so often it would be one of the children's jobs to get in line early so as to get the best fish before it all sold out. You would clutch your two and sixpence (coins) tightly in your hand, and keep repeating the order- 2 pieces of cod and a sixpence worth of chips please .When you finally got inside the hot, steaming ,fat smelling, fishy shop you couldn't see over the counter . It was always too high, but you managed to hand over the money and repeat 2 pieces of cod and a sixpence worth of chips please .Then you would wait while it was being cooked. You could hear the fried fish crackling in the fat and also the sudden splash as the new potatoes went into the pan. If the fish lady liked you she would often give you some cracklings ( batter bits from the end of the fish) . That was a great treat.

Soon you were handed your order and you skipped home as fast as you could go, clutching the wonderful smelly newspaper- wrapped parcel ,anticipating the lovely taste of the golden fish and crackly batter and the delicious thick chips all smothered in malt vinegar and salt.

Occasionally . my British ladies group have a special feast and guess what we eat?

You are right! 

Fish and chips.

So it's no wonder one of my favorite meals is fish and chips and that is what I would choose to eat on my birthday is it?

75 years and still going...

My daughter in law Laura told me now you are ¾ of a century old and sometimes I actually feel it but today on my 75^th birthday I am feeling pretty good. I feel almost like I did when I was about 52. It's strange that even though the number of years go up and your body changes shape and form, inside your mind, you don't feel any different than you did at any other earlier time of your life.

My brother in law, Terry Challis, a very gifted artist and cartoonist, sent me this cartoon on one of my birthdays .I think it was when I ws 65 . he joked that he saw me as this old lady living in Texas and maybe I am like that. I thought it was very clever especially as he had never been to Texas.

I know I'm getting older because my hair is getting this silvery gray shade but it's kind of nice to be told, as I was recently” I really like the color of your hair this time” by a person who thought I'd had just had it colored. Now that made me feel like I was in my 40s again.

I know I'm getting older because I can't walk so far or so fast anymore but when I hear music from the 60s I feel 30 again.it's amazing how some tunes can make you feel young

And so does remembering old friends and things that have happened over the years.

All in all, my first 75 years has been pretty good and  I hope my next 1/4 of a century will be equally as good. I am very grateful to be able to remember all the people that have helped me reach this age.

This is what I wrote on this day last year on my other blog. Check it out if you want to.

http://sab-mind.blogspot.com/2011/01/rambling-on-my-birthday.html?spref=bl

Nothing much has changed so I'll use the same lines again.

So the sun is out,( not yet rather damp this morning) it’s a lovely day in Texas, I shall spend the rest of the day, pottering around, and then have a lovely dinner with my best friend, my husband  Mike at a favorite restaurant. We will talk and laugh and have a GOOD time. A great way to spend a birthday.

The Book of Lost Things

The Book Of Lost things by John Connolly 2006

This was a book I picked up at a book sale and what made me do so was the interesting title. I didn't really check it out fully and maybe I should have done so.

It is a very unusual work of fiction. A young boy David, in wartime England has an unhappy childhood. He finds a secret passage and it leads him into another world. This is not a children's book like The Chronicles of Narnia, as it gets increasingly horrific as it progresses. it reminds me of the TV series, “Once upon a time”.

It takes the common children's fairy stories, like Snow White and Red Riding hood and turns them into a tale the Brothers Grim would have relished. So why did I continue to read it?

Well it is so well written that despite the gruesome happenings it is very creative and interesting. For instance we have seven dwarfs who turn out to be communists and tell young David that they were the ones who tried to kill Snow White but they messed up and now have to live with her and she is just a terrible person. There are equally mixed up tales throughout the book with hints to the original fairy tales. You also want to find out whether this lost book is ever found and what it contains and whether it all ends happily ever after like all good fairy tales.

It's the only book I have ever seen with notes at the end of the book On Fairy tales ,Dark Towers and other such Matters . It also contains a interesting conversation with the author about the book.

Indeed a very different kind of fiction.

Easy Beef and Barley Soup/Stew

Today we had a soup that would be just right for one of those very cold , dreary winter days. That we were having a nice warm spell in Texas and the temperature was over 70 degrees , didn't deter us.It still tasted good.

Also as a change in cooking preparation this soup was made in a crockpot and allowed to cook for 4 hours before eating. This entailed Mike making all the preparations for it whilst still in his pjs before even eating breakfast. He is a very diligent cook and he wanted it to be done in time for lunch. It was very easy to prepare.

It was a mixture of bite-sized stewing beef, carrots, onions, celery, tomatoes, beef broth and pearl barley with seasoning which simmered away all morning making the kitchen smell really good.

I can see why it is called a soup/stew as it looks very thick when served out . The taste was just fine and it indeed was very aromatic.We ate it with nice crusty bread and it was very hearty meal.We both agreed we probably would like it a little less thick and would add more broth next time.

We had a red Barefoot Merlot with it, supposedly with the alluring flavors of chocolate and boysenberry, not that I actually could taste any , but it was a very nice smooth wine and certainly improved this soup day.

If you want to try this recipe just go online and look for it there are a great many to choose from. I am sure they are all basically the same.

Happy Birthday Mike

We are very lucky to have our Grandson Mike living close to us so we get to see him fairly often.January 23rd is his birthday and we wish him all  happiness on  his special day.

       
                         We always knew one of his great loves would be hockey.
                         And the other would be cars......

     
                        HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE and many,many more.
                        Love from Nanny & Grandad

Remembering washday

Remembering Monday Washday

I started out this morning thinking “What a pain”as I looked at the 2 huge basket loads of laundry .I dumped the white wash in the machine, put in the washing powder, adjusted the dials and off it went. An hour or so later the whites went into the dryer, and in another hour or so I had them out folded and ready to put back in place. Same thing with the darks. Meanwhile I sat watching the Presidential Inauguration on the TV.

It was only while I was putting the clothes away that I began to remember how my Mum had to do her laundry when I was growing up in England. She had first to boil the water in a big stone wash boiler , starting with cold water. A fire underneath the boiler had to be lit and kept going with coal. Once the water was boiling , the wash had to be stirred with a big wooden stick. The kitchen where this all took place, filled up with steam and a strange smell of washing soap and everyone got hot and sticky.

 After the laundry was considered clean, it had to be fished out with the stick, put in the sink of cold water and rinsed and wrung out by hand. Then it was taken out back to a shed where it was put through a mangle. This was the bit I loved . I would turn the handle to make the big wooden rollers go round but it was hard work and sometimes more than I could do.I was only about 5 or 6 at the time.

Then came the part where the washing was all hung out with clothes pegs on the line in the garden. This was another awkward task especially the sheets and large items as they often dragged on the floor and got dirty again and so had to go through the washing and rinsing process again. Now think about England and you know how rainy and damp it is. Sometimes the wash would take nearly all week to get dry .The wash would be taken in and out, drying on the lines in the shed and then on the outside line. And eventually all had to be ironed. Another long job. Just remembering it makes me tired.

We have come such a long way. In the 60s when I lived in Canada doing the laundry had progressed to a washer kept in the basement .This appliance had the luxury of hot water, an agitator and a small mangle on top. Still not easy to use but so much better. , We still had to carry the washing up the stairs each time and hang it outside on the garden wash line or string it around the basement in bad weather.And then there was the ironing,

So when I think of the luxury of today' washday I really shouldn't grumble at all but be really thankful for our lovely laundry machines and non iron fabrics.

But I do miss seeing the clothing hanging out in the sun on the washing line and didn't they always smell so good and fresh when you brought them in..

SMILE please

SMILE

I found this today and thought it was good to remember and to practice.

I wrote it out again as it's hard to read unless you have eagle eyes !!

“ A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those that receive without making poorer those that give. It lasts but for a moment but sometimes the memory of it lasts for ever.

None is so rich or mighty that he can get along without it.

A smile creates happiness in the home, fosters goodwill in business and is the countersign of friendship.

It brings rest to the weary, cheer to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad and is natures best antidote for trouble.

Yet is cannot be bought, begged, borrowed or stolen.'' for it is something that is of no value to anyone until it is given away.

Some people are too tired to give you a smile. Give them one of yours as none need a smile so much as he who has no more to give.

Author unknown.

Pug ignores Whimsey

If any of you remember back to last October and read my other blog, Mind Ramblings  I introduced you to Truly Whimsey .Well here he is again. He pops up when I have a vacuum in my brain I think.

Just in case you are wondering who True Whimsey is ( or TW) for short... he is this little figment of my imagination that helps write blogs, paint,  think creatively and figure out all kinds of  stuff. I bet you have a similar creature living in your head too.

Anyhow today he tried to introduce himself to Pug and Pug being the cat she is , didn't want to know anything about him even though he tried really hard

Cooper being quite the gentleman was much more talkative. He also thinks Pug is weird at times.

Many thanks for all the comments and emails sent to me commenting on my last plog about Pug the cat. I really appreciate hearing your thoughts. It helps me keep going on my daily quest of plogging!! I know many of you that read them but have trouble using the comment area so just send an email to notmhs@gmail.com.

And this is Pug....

And this is Pug...

We have always had pets at our house, In fact I really can't imagine our house without them. At the present time we have 5 cats and 2 dogs. Most now are elderly. All have very different personalities and all are very much loved.

Pug , not a dog, but a cute little brown and white cat , was given this name as she has a wide face and big eyes and a very definite, obstinate character in fact just like a pug dog. We acquired her after she had been rescued from a bad domestic situation and taken into foster care. Although she was young , probably under a year and very tiny she had already had one litter of kittens and was in bad shape. In foster care she became healthy once again. She was quickly vetted , spayed and given all her shorts , tested and deemed ready for adoption to a new home. That went well but in a few weeks we began getting calls from the adopter, “This cat is pulling out all her fur. What shall we do.? '

A visit to the vet,tests , different treatments , a variety of food and medicines and a lot of dollars later, she was still pulling out her hair and no one could figure out why. So back she came into foster care where she was passed around to each foster home where she would look okay again for a short while only to start the hair pulling again. A hard decision was made to put her to sleep. She was considered unadoptable.

I couldn't stand that. I said “No.Let's give her a chance.Bring her to my house and we will let her do her thing, live inside or outside and eat whatever and just lets see how it goes. I'll adopt her.” ( I really didn't need another cat but that's how it goes.)

Well strangely enough we did just that .She came and went as she liked and lived mostly outside, was not very sociable, kept to herself and surprising enough flourished. Her coat grew back thick and lush and in the 15 years or so we have had her she has been just fine. I guess it was some kind of stress related disorder.

She turned out to be a most interesting cat. She loves water. We only have to turn the sprinklers on and there will be Pug sitting under the sprinkler head soaked to the skin. She is a very tiny cat probably weighing about 6 lbs now and people often think she is a kitten. She is close to 16 now and grows thinner by the day. Not that she doesn't eat . She does. She loves all kinds of food but eats only a very small amount at a time. She sits and watches every mouthful I eat at lunch and will beg for food.It hasn't changed her activity level. She still jumps and runs about and that's maybe why everyone thinks she is a kitten.

She has always been pretty feisty. Small as she is , she rules the house and will even go for Bud the large shepherd especially if she thinks he is getting food instead of her. None of the other cats mess with her. They wouldn't dare !

Add Pug and Mocha ( Bud at the back)

These days she spends a lot of time sleeping with Mocha her special doggy friend.

She is a great cat.I am so glad she wasn't put to sleep. She has given us lots of pleasure and we will miss her when she eventually goes. Hopefully not for a long time yet.

"Cutting for Stone" a great read

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (2009)

Labels for this book could be mixed nationality twins, India, Aden, Ethiopia, Mission nuns, American surgeons, love, devotion, surgery, civil war, teenage curiosity, skillful education. Emperor Haille Selaisse, American medical schools, Addis Adiba, Eritrea, Boston hospital medical school organ transplantation , etc etc. So many they would be difficult to list.

A thick epic book by a first class writer and story teller. The tale holds you tight as you follow the life of Marion , a mixed Indian/American child who grows up on a different path to his twin brother Shiva but both become great medical men and struggle with finding and understanding their true father, Dr Thomas Stone a renown surgeon. ( that should give a hint to the title).

Starting in Ethiopia the tale winds through life in a Mission school .The twins gain their knowledge of surgery and healing through following their adoptive parents.  The boys separate at adolescence into different personality types. Follow that with a separatist war with Eritrea, and the fleeing of Marion to America .Here he goes to a medical school to learn to become a surgeon and becomes involved in the research of organ transplants. It sounds a bit dull but it isn't . it is so well told you want to know what happens to this young man and whether he will ever find his father and find out why he and his twin were discarded at birth,

After I had read this book I realized what a lot I didn't know about the world and history and geography and things that have happened in the past hundred years. That is the value of reading a well written novel . You learn things without realizing that you are doing so because you become engrossed in the story.

This was an excellent book.

Soup Day, Beef Noodle Soup

Soup Day Beef Noodles Soup

This soup is just what it says it is basically a beef soup with added noodles. What makes it interesting is the added veggies and spices. It has ginger ,garlic and cloves with a dash of soy sauce and of course the noodles are cooked in the broth and so get the flavor of the soup.The veggies are varied but the colors of the spinach and carrots add to the interesting look.

Mike had added egg noodles rather than the plain noodles and they were tasty.

It is a somewhat delicate light soup with a thin broth but I felt the flavors had not sufficiently matured. This might be a better soup either cooked for longer or eaten on the second day. Mike gave it an 8 and I gave it a 7; Our friends Ros and Agnes who came to visit with us seemed to enjoy it although Agnes says she does prefer thicker type soups. My only preference is to have a smooth soup either thick or thin.

We started out with wheat bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar always a pleasure Then we had our soup, with much discussion on the various ingredients. 

Then to finish we tried my experimental cookies which I had baked this morning, sweet potato and pecan cookies. You can see the recipe here.http://southernfood.about.com/od/sweetpotatodess/r/bl91112a.htm

They were, shall we say ,“interesting' neither sweet or spicy but edible and finished off the meal just fine.

Another very pleasant soup day enjoyed with friends.

The Egg Basket

The Egg Basket

Original by Delaporte

Once a month I try to do a challenge painting that appears at http://paintanddrawtogether.blogspot.com

This month the painting again challenged the artists to do a painting in the style of the old Masters. This painting”The Egg Basket “ was by French painter Henri-Horace-Ronald Delaporte (1724/1725 - 1793). 

A beautiful still life which looks so simple.

My version

Actually it was not so simple to paint. The basket with all the intricacies of the wicker work was a real challenge. And the eggs to make them look like eggs and not round blobs had me repainting over a couple of times. I can also see that I should have made the whole thing a lot darker.

Still this is the finished example. These are fun to do and also fun to see the other finished paintings to see how others completed the challenge . They are so varied but all great to see.

If you are a painter you might want to join and give it a go !!

Snow sprinkles? No. DippNdots

Snow sprinkles? No. DippNdots

After a very cold night here in Texas I went outside and found the ground covered in something I had never seen before. Could it be snow? No .Didn't look like it, didn't feel like it either Could it be tiny hail pellets? No didn't look like it and certainly didn't feel like it.

I decided it was snow sprinkles. Teeny, tiny ,shiny, white pellets scattered all over the place- It looked so pretty I took some pictures. They looked just like the sprinkles you find on cup cakes and ice cream. That should have given me a clue.

By the gate was a mystery. You may not be able to see it clearly in the photo but just outside in a single path across my driveway was a straight row of these sprinkles as if someone had thrown them in a long line or was making a path. Now how did that happen?Why wasn't it all over the driveway? No sign of any melting either.

Obviously someone else had noted this strange weather phenomenon as Grandson Mike facebooked ( is that a verb???) It's raining dipNdots so now I know what the sprinkles SHOULD be called,

Check out dipNdots here.//www.dippindots.com/products.html

Just maybe they put down the pathway of dippindots as an advertisement just knowing I was going to write this plog. Could be!!

Spring is peaking through

Spring is peaking through

After a little warm up we are back in the cold weather in Texas.We had plentiful rains just last week and a warm up until it reached 72 degrees on Friday . We managed to have a lunch time drink on the patio in the sun. Then just like always does in Texas, a cold North  wind blew in and we are down to cold during the day and back to freezing at night. Supposed to get to 19 degrees tonight. Brrr....

So it was a great surprise that when I was doing my walk this morning , all wrapped up in coat and scarf and hat and mittens and walking briskly along to”Highway to Heaven” I glanced down and saw Spring peaking through. I smiled.

The bulbs are peaking through.

The Return of the Christmas Puppy

The return of the Christmas puppy

As many of my friends and family know I have volunteered at my local humane society for years and years. We all love our pets and can't understand how a pup can be dumped, brought back to a shelter, or “run away”. Over the years I have noticed that in January the shelters get an added increase in puppies and “Found notices “start appearing all over the place. I have suspected that a lot of these pets were those cute little Christmas pets, both pups and kittens ,that now that the novelty of the cute pet has worn off, the kids don't play with them anymore, and everyone is back to work, it is easier for some people to just give up on their Christmas pet.

 Please spread the word to think hard before you get a pet at anytime during the year.It is like having a new baby in the house and will be with you a long time so make really sure you are ready for the responsibility.

Amy ,3month old chihuhua

Amy is a little pup that showed up at our local shelter so frightened and scared. She probably is only about 3 months old and so far no one is looking for her.

I wonder if she too was a Christmas pup?

Email me if you want more information.

BTW if anyone is thinking about adopting a new pet please check out your local shelters, many are so full that a lot of pets will of necessity , be put to sleep.

Save a life if you can.

A Helpful Little Man

When I was sorting out my desk drawers the other day I couldn't but help see Little Man who sits on my desk. I had bought him a while back to help when I was drawing or painting . That hadn't happened . What had happened was he had become the colllector of all the odd cords and computer stuff hanging around my desk and what a mess he was in. Poor thing.

So out came the twist ties and within minutes he was Tidy man again.

He works so well with help.

I might just have to get him a companion soon.

By the way, I am experimenting with collage using different Apps, This one i used was Picmonkey. 

Happy Birthday Russ

Happy Birthday Russ

For anyone that views this, the baby is Russ but he was almost 3 months old when this was taken and he was still pretty small. He weighed only 5lbs when he was born and took a while to catch up on his weight. I think this was at his Christening.

The 2^nd photo is the one on his second birthday and he got what he desperately wanted, a super new red, glossy ,pedal car. He drove it like it was a Ferrari and hasn't stopped driving that way since. Surprising enough all he could think about was cars even at that early age.

Keep on driving Russ.

We love you

Mum & Dad

Soup day, Celery, Mushroom and Garlic Soup

Celery, mushroom and garlic soup( as per recipe book

Cold day, raining, gloomy. Definitely a soup day. So Mike set to and made this soup with items we had in the fridge and cupboard, It looked okay in the book , had ingredients that we like so what happened? It turned out to be a very lack-luster soup.

For a start it didn't have a good appearance, all important to me. It was more brown-gray looking than in the book. It was watery and as the recipe says, “textured”. I would call it more “bitty” . There was a good taste of celery in it and also the mushrooms were apparent as well but not in a good way. Mike did say he didn't care for it either but he did manage to finish his bowl .I just couldn't. Didn't care for it all all. Mike gave it a 7 but I would only give this a mark of 3.

Just as well we had nice fresh rolls and butter to eat as well and a lovely bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay to drink with our meal. Just a delightful fresh wine with an intriguing light yellow hue. I read the label maybe it just does come from “rich tropical fruits with a creamy finish” .On this dreary day nice to picture them anyhow.

P.S. Sally, look how nice your plates are !! Thank You.

Spring Cleaning Starts....

Spring Cleaning Starts

Yes I know it isn't Spring yet but my daffodil bulbs are coming up through the soil. We are getting drenching rains so it's time to start. I say that because my pace and enthusiasm for this yearly event wanes more quickly than a snowman melts in hot weather. Anyhow with rain pouring down what else can I do?

So I start small. Find a drawer. Take everything out. Throw accumulated junk out. Tidy the rest up. Done. One done At least 50 more to go....

The Cranberry Bomb Episode

It started out with a way to use up some cranberry sauce that I had over from a batch we made for Christmas. It was a great sauce having some brandy and other festive ingredients added to it. We had made far too much and had frozen the rest.

“I know what I'll do “,I said , “I'll make cranberry sweet bread”. I looked up the recipe , found all the ingredients ,and tools I would need. Half way through I remembered the cranberry sauce would need to be melted as it was still somewhat frozen . So I put it in the moderately warm oven and let it melt out while I mixed the butter and eggs and flour etc. until it was a nice crumbly mixture.

I opened the door of the oven and saw the cranberries had melted sufficiently and reached for the bowl. That's when it happened.

Splatt! bang! the bowl slipped from my fingers and crashed to the floor splattering cranberry and juice all over the cupboards, floor. oven just like a small bomb.

Now you know cranberry is one of those foods like beets and blackberries that stain on contact so I didn't give myself anytime to think. I rushed into action with masses of wet paper towels and Fantastic to wipe up as much as I could as fast as I could. I made an adequate job of it and even managed to save half the cranberry sauce so the sweet bread was saved.

Finally I continued with the recipe , not really liking the funny pink color that the bread mix looked before I put it in the oven and wondering just how it would turn out.

All this happened while Mike was out in the workshop so I thought it best not to mention it. No big deal. It wasn't until we were sitting down for lunch he said.” Whatever happened , did you cut yourself ,you have blood all over your face”.

Yes, the cranberry bomb had splattered me and when I looked up I realized the ceiling had got a direct hit as well.

The trouble was the cranberry bread wasn't very tasty either. 

I don't think I'll make it again.

The Last Child

I find time every week to read at least one book. It is one of the treasures of life that you have ,if you can read because the amount of varied material out there is endless. I thank my great Aunt Ada for introducing me to libraries when I first started to read. I just couldn't believe at that time when money and books were so scarce that they would let me choose 3 books to take home to read. Bliss!

Maybe that's why I became a teacher who spent a lot of the time teaching young children to read. Nothing can be more wonderful than seeing a small child after you have taught the basics of reading and practiced for a while, suddenly to see in their eyes that they too can read just like their mom and dad. It is a great gift for both teacher and child.

Anyhow, the book I was reading this week was a mystery/detective novel called “ The Last Child” by John Hart.( 2009) It tells the story of a young boy whose twin sister goes missing and the lengths he goes to discover what happened to her. But it is so much more than a simple story. The plot weaves in and out and you never guess the conclusion until the last page. Very readable .-a book you can't put down. Just the kind I like.

A Super Gift

Gift certificates and gift cards seem to be very popular presents for Christmas. Nearly everyone you talk with seems to have been given at least one or two. Well I had a very special one given to me by Mike. Here it is as presented to me at our family gift exchange.

Whatever could it be I thought as I was told it was at home waiting in the workshop as it was too big to carry inside. Well here it is .

I couldn't have been more delighted to see that Mike had bought me a new ( lightweight) garden cart .It even has a tip mechanism so I can get all the stuff out that I load in. How useful this will be. Often I want to carry all kinds of tools, mulch etc around in our large yard and this will do the trick so much better than my wheelbarrow.

Thank you Mike it worked very well today when I was out planting and mulching my new spring seeds. A little early maybe but the early bird catches the worm.

P.S .Am I the only one who has trouble keeping a loaded wheelbarrow balanced and steady?