Many miles to go

Two things I am thankful for at the present.

Cars with:
1) DVD players and
2) CD players

Nine hundred miles of road travel loom ahead of us as we venture to our destination. Movies on DVD and books on CD will help to occupy some of the time tremendously.

I expect to return Saturday week. I look forward to catching up with you when I return.

A going away dinner

Alan leaves for college tomorrow, heading to a small private school in the eastern part of our state. Alan is quiet and reserved in a line of loquacious siblings. We shall miss his quiet presence.

He requested lasagna, salad, garlic bread and strawberry cobbler, topped with vanilla ice cream naturally. With good thoughts of him I prepared the requested meal, so happy to be doing something that speaks of love. Charlotte conveys her version of love quite well. Every once in a while she looks at him and with the emotional intensity that only a six year old can unabashedly state, "I will miss you Alan."
My mother's heartstrings are taut.

These photos are courtesy of Rose, taken on her new camera.

There is a silly addendum to this post, so keep looking....

Oh My!

It is obvious that we were still sitting around the dining room table while Rose, Charlotte and Mr. Putter were pursuing other things. Please excuse the loud talking in the background. And do know we run those dirty dishes through a hot wash cycle in the dishwasher! I thought you might get a kick out of a not so pretty, yet entertaining moment here in my home. Kids and dogs....you've gotta love them!

Girls' Bathroom Muse

Seeing: Bunnies here, bunnies there, bunnies on the wallpaper border edged around the ceiling on buttery yellow walls.

Hearing: Gallons of clear lukewarm water pouring from the chrome faucet. Particular sounds may trigger certain sensations or memories. When I hear bathroom faucets running, a calm settles into a level of my unconsciousness, creating soothing impressions of approaching bedtime, an end to a full day.

Smelling: Herbal Essence shampoo, "Pink coral flower with an infusion of nectarine". Not being a connoisseur of shampoo fragrances, I will gladly take their word that the sweet smells attacking my nostrils are what they state on the bottle.

Touching: A pale pink terrycloth towel, within arm's reach

Tasting: Mint toothpaste oozing from the tube. Yes, they have had training on how to close a toothpaste tube, I am thinking maybe a refresher course would be helpful.

Squeaky clean!

New Walking Sandals

I will be back with the five senses and another room tomorrow. If the truth was told I am entirely too lazy to go downstairs and get the camera to download my next set of pictures.



We will be leaving for Vermont exactly one week from today, a place I have never, in all my years, had the opportunity to visit. Those that have been there say I am in for a treat. I am thinking cooler weather, yet still probably warmer during the day. I needed a comfortable pair of sandals for walking. While I hate having cold feet, when it is warm and my feet are covered, I have an irresistible urge to undress......my feet that is! These sandals from Lands End, while not very "pretty", shall suit me well in the Green Mountain state.

I was waiting for my husband to make a short trip to the store and decided to shoot this photo. It appears I may have "something" about reflection pics lately.

Kitchen Muse

While reading a particular post a while back, here, my fancy was inspired with how she showed the five senses being enjoyed in her home that day. I thought it would be fun to do a similar thing within the different rooms of my house. Please fell free to follow along if you would like. Today it will be the kitchen:

Seeing
Chair seat cushions askew, letting you know it is far from perfect.


Empty little "jelly" jars with the tiniest traces of leftover juice left behind, on the table.


Hearing
The zebra finches twittering to one another, interposed with a sonorous melody to his "wife". I know why the caged birds sing......


Smelling
Sweet pickle spices and vinegar....tingling the insides of my nose!



Touching
Bronze faucets, hard and clean. I touch them many times over a course of a day.


Tasting
Cantaloupe, garden ripe and delicious, I believe this food should have a place at my table for every meal served at this time of year.

A very happy place.

To see and to capture

You would go too if you were invited. A salt treated pool for an afternoon of swimming in a lovely setting with good friends.

First of all, let me say I have way more camera than I need. To learn even a small degree of photography skills fascinates me, but presently I am definitely a student teaching herself. (Are there any teachers out there?) Today I took along my macro lens with the intentions of experimenting. Positioning myself at distances to take close up shots was the focus of today's lesson.

Rose has been working to save up money for her own digital camera. She made her decision on the one she wanted, and could afford, last Saturday. The number one factor for her was size, the smaller the better. But she has learned the capabilities of her camera rather nicely and I hope to see some good shots, then maybe I can expose her to using my camera.

These two lovebirds were perched on the windowsill overlooking the pool. My eye caught their whimsy and beauty. If only I could make my camera do the same thing. It is so easy to see your mistakes in the photos when you come home and download them onto the computer.

But you have, on a positive note, caught an entry of the views my eyes beheld and attempted to capture on this marvelous summer afternoon.

A time of swimming in a non-chlorinated pool, drinking ice cold water smudged with beads of condensation, and snapping picture after picture of a very beautiful world.

Saturday Pleasures

Saturdays have all kind of pleasures in store. One need not look very far.

A phone call from a rural friend Friday afternoon declaring free tomato giveaways. A morning of revisiting the process of canning tomatoes. I can't stop staring at their beauty; canned tomatoes in jars cooling on my kitchen counters while waiting for the pantry shelf. How much I will enjoy pulling them out this winter for soups, chilies, and spaghetti sauces.

What do these three items have in common? A trip to the store led to the purchase to all three, without any prior pursuit. Several years ago I borrowed the book by Susan Wise Bauer, The Well- Educated Mind, from the library. There it was on the book table grabbing my attention once again. I thought how my son would appreciate this book, so it was bought for a Christmas gift. He will like it. A traditional 8x8 brownie pan, in all my 31 years of housekeeping, has never been a part of my kitchen supplies, until now. It's about time I think. And the mug, for my morning coffee, of course. Somehow the thoughts of a woman who eats brownies and drinks coffee while reading how to improve her mind seems pleasurable.

And cucumbers soaking in a lime bath. A friend's gracious father shared several pounds of cucumbers with me from his garden's bounty. They will be sweet and crisp pickles, just right for my potato salads and egg salad sandwiches.

daisies, computers and August

I am back!

And the well-known children's ditty, "She loves me, she loves me not" reverberates like echos off a canyon, with a slight alteration of......"I love it, I love it not." What else but my computer! We have this on again and off again relationship. But my son's good friend, whom I have watch grow up into a, now married, young man, is the definite man of the hour(s) . He has come to my rescue on many of an occasion. He is attempting to teach me how to handle these crises on my own, I must admit here I am helplessly inept. Thank you ____ and here's a little pocket change. We play a game. He initially refuses the money, but takes it with just a nudge of insistence.. Today, I heard he called my son and said, "Your mother paid me, let's go to lunch.... on me."



August......I love it, I love it not.

The extremely hot, humid weather, we refer to them as dog days; while this definitely conjures up imaginative mind pictures, it is, in fact, too good a word. This is the sort of weather that even an eight o'clock a.m. walk will leave you dripping wet! The cicada songs ring throughout the day, haunting almost. Expectations of new things to come tingling, just under the skin, yet we are holding onto every single moment.

We are not wanting to give up these happy, carefree days of summer.

Higgledly-Piggledly Bedroom

".....She had ended by desperately tackling the worst job of all, which was to put her bedroom in order.
This room, in spite of Mother's random efforts, had an obstinate habit of never being as neat and pretty-looking as she wished it to be. On the contrary it was always getting into a comfortable, higgledy-piggledly state"'.

Life With Father

Clarence Day

What appropriate words for describing the usual condition of my bedroom......"a comfortable, higgledy-piggledly state". And Saturday morning I found myself tackling the job of straightening and cleaning this room of my house, however unsuspectingly. Sometimes I find that might be the best way for me to handle such chores, matter of factly, caught unawares, and the chore becomes a driving force that can't be hampered come what may. Now as I breeze into my bedroom, order and neatness soothe me, and I am wondering why I allow it to get into that condition of dumping-grounds central in the first place.

I have read all manner of excerpts on how a bedroom may be a reflection of one's married life and the bedroom should be viewed as a haven, a restful abode, for a husband and wife. So while I believe that can be a desired goal to attain to, still I will maintain that the bottom line for me is the deep sighs of contentment I experience, on an entirely different plane, when the room is orderly and everything appears to be in its rightful place.

But I still very much like the delightful verbiage of "a higgledly-piggledy" state, so from this day forward I shall find special comfort to attribute to messiness, when my bedroom undoubtedly resorts back to its many layers of books and magazines, piles of ironing and standing ironing board, sewing and knitting supplies, sewing machine, etc., that have collected on the floor, dresser, chair or nightstands of my bedroom.

By the way, it appears my computer is in a state of its own.......woebegone. I plan to call my computer friend tomorrow because he has a way to help me through these woes. I am using Alan's laptop to make this post, one that I had hoped to do yesterday, and for that reason I do not have pictures to download of my neat and pretty-looking bedroom.