We have to spell b-a-d words

Posted on January 31, 2008 by Donalyn

It’s not like we use a LOT of bad language around here. We cleaned up our act when Ellyn was around 3 or so and she called my brother Kurt a very bad name. [in Ellyn’s defense, Kurt was teasing her and the name she called him was fairly accurate, but that is neither here nor there] I will admit that since our girls have flown the nest, and we don’t have to set a good example on a daily basis, our standards may have slipped a bit. But now that Ellyn and Jason have spawned a little tape recorder, with another one coming up through the ranks, they are concerned about the utterances Mark might bring forth in a public setting, say in Sunday School. Therefore, we all have to be on guard about how we express ourselves these days.

I was a Sunday School teacher for a good many years and I have heard quite a few unexpected and shall we say, unusual things come out of kids’ mouths. While it was sometimes disconcerting, I was always a little relieved frankly, because I figured it distracted people from things like Ellyn pulling her dress up over her head while singing in children’s choir [she was 18 when she did this.][not really!][she was 4] or Lauren’s replies to some of Pastor Jim’s questions during the children’s sermon. [Pastor Jim, in an effort to help the kids appreciate their Mom’s efforts asks – “So what does your Mom do around your house?” Lauren: “She likes to take naps.” and just when I thought that would be the worst of it that day, her hand shot up so she could add: “and she likes to drink wine!”]

Not only did I teach Sunday School, I was the Sunday School Superintendent, and now people were picturing me swilling down wine, apparently in quantities vast enough that I required frequent naps. I expect they figured I probably just quietly slumped over from time to time. We are not necessarily a tee-totaling church, but imbibing to this extent might make some people question your relationship with Jesus, just a little.

Still, I understand Ellyn and Jason’s concerns, and we want to be allowed to spend time with our grandchildren [though with supervision of course, because of the wine-swilling thing], so we make every effort to comply. We aren’t just talking about your standard 4 letter b-a-d words here of course. We can’t say anyone is s-t-u-p-i-d, even if they are. You can’t tell anyone to stop acting like an a-s-s, even if they are totally behaving like one. Same deal for j-e-r-k, i-d-i-o-t and f-o-o-l. Not even while we are watching the news! Do you know how hard it is to watch the news in an election year when you can’t call anyone an i-d-i-o-t?

Trouble is, though I got straight 100s in spelling from the day I was born, some of us are a little more challenged in this particular skill. Jason told Ellyn to “stop being s-t-u-i-p” the other day. Larry has told me several times to “cut the c-a-r-p”. Not a problem since I don’t like fish. It does look as though Mark may have inherited my spelling ability though. And we are all going to have to switch to pig latin before he decides to demonstrate this valuable abilty to his Sunday School teacher.

Posted in family, grandchildren | 12 Comments

Slightly fewer words Wednesday

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Donalyn

Some shots from this past week.

This is next to the creek runs along the bottom of our land.

A storm blew this branch over into our field a couple years ago, so Lar had to go saw it off. I love the colors.

These are of the same Downy Woodpecker. I couldn’t choose, so here are both of them.

A snowy weed – Queen Anne’s Lace I think.

This is from a transmission – it is hanging on the side of the shop. When I asked Larry why it was there, he said “because”. Nice colors.

It is difficult to find anything that is not brown or grey or white this time of year. These are rose hips from the wild roses that grow everywhere here.

Got these up here finally – it is very windy today and I lost power twice while working on this entry. Guess I better go fill up some water jugs just in case.

Posted in photos, winter, Wordless Wednesday | 16 Comments

Tagged

Posted on January 29, 2008 by Donalyn

Jen tagged me this morning, so I better do it now or I will forget.
Here are the rules.
(1) Link to the person that tagged you.
(2) Post the rules on your blog.
(3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
(4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
(5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Here are six quirky things about me:
1. The color yellow makes me feel good. Orange makes me feel good too. Blue does not.
2. I can’t stand the sight of socks hanging off the ends of feet, the way little kids let them do. I was always telling the girls to pull up their socks. Sometimes Larry will sit around with his socks pulled half way off his feet and wait for me notice.
3. I am scared of heights. Even pictures taken from high places make my feet sweat and feel all squinchy.
4. The older I get, the spicier I like my food. Pretty soon, I will just squirt lighter fluid in my mouth and toss in a match.
5. I am amused by watching Larry eat spicy food. He likes it, but it makes his forehead sweat.
6. I am never still. I am always jogging a foot, or tapping my nails or fiddling around with something. Too bad I don’t turn this into something productive, like cleaning the refrigerator or getting on the elliptical.

I am tagging:
Kelly, My sister [she says no one ever visits her – now we can all go find out some stuff about her. tell her I said hi ;)], Paige Jennifer, Ness, Flea, and my firstest blogging bud ever Penni.

Posted in me | 14 Comments

Pumpkin Raisin Cake

Posted on January 29, 2008 by Donalyn

This is just flat out delicious. I have been making it for years, but it has evolved quite a bit. It evolved into “Squash Cake” on Saturday when I last made it because I still have a whole lot of squash to use up before Larry starts growing more. Squash, pumpkin – doesn’t matter, it’s good either way. You could use leftover sweet potatoes probably. [hey! that sounds good!] It is an easy, quick cake because you don’t need to mix some stuff in one bowl or sift and mix up some stuff in another bowl – just throw it all in together, beat it with the mixer a bit and you are all set. That way you can save your energy for a couple of ingredients that really make this cake something special – but we will get to that in a minute.

2/3 cup of raisins
1/4 cup boiling water
1 tablesoopn molasses
Put all of that in a small bowl and allow to sit for about 30 minutes before you start the cake. You want the raisins to get nice and soft. You can also add a couple tablespoons of bourbon in there which definitely improves things quite a lot.

In a large mixing bowl measure:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg [fresh grated if possible – it is not that expensive and pre-ground nutmeg loses it’s flavor about 10 minutes after they seal up the bottle]
1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger. [this sounds like a lot of trouble maybe, but really it is not. You can get fresh ginger in just about any grocery store. You just peel it and grate it with whatever grater you own. A microplane is nice to have, but your regular grater will work very nicely. It is so good you will not believe you didn’t get some a long time ago.]
OR
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon grated lemon or orange peel
Stir all of that together a bit and then add:
1 & 1/2 cups pureed pumpkin [or squash] [or sweet potatoes maybe if you want to keep on evolving]
2 eggs
1/2 cup dark molasses
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup sour milk [or regular milk with a teaspoon of vinegar mixed in] [or buttermilk] [or sour buttermilk which is what I used because it had been in the fridge a little longer than I realized]

Beat with a mixer at medium speed until it is all nice and smooth. You can put the raisins in before you beat it all together, but they get a little abused that way – it is just as easy to beat everything else together first and then stir in the raisins and their liquid with a wooden spoon. Either way, dump it all into a greased 9×13 pan and spread it out evenly. Bake at 350 for about 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when you poke it. Cool completely. You can eat it plain because it is moist and yummy just like this, or you can frost it with

Cream Cheese Frosting
6 ounces softened cream cheese
3 tablespoons butter
about 3/4 lb of 10x or confectionary sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
enough milk to make spreadable.
Beat the cream cheese and butter on medium speed until well mixed and fluffy. Add the vanilla, salt and the sugar, 1 cup at a time and beat until combined. Add about 2 tablespoons of milk to start and beat more – if it isn’t spreadable, add more milk a teaspoon at a time until it is how you like it. It softens a bit as it sits, so you want to tend toward a firmer consistency that you would with other frostings.

Spread the frosting over the cake right in the pan – I topped the one in the picture with some toasted walnuts. Because of the cream cheesing in the frosting, you want to store this in the fridge. It is actually better the next day, but you won’t want to wait that long before diving in.

Posted in recipes | 5 Comments

The real me in 31 easy questions

Posted on January 28, 2008 by Donalyn

I filched this from Flea, who filched it from someone else. Go ahead & put it on your blog too – leave a comment to let us know and we will all come and find out about the real you.

1. If your doctor told you TODAY that you were pregnant, what would you say?
That he must be smoking crack.

2. When was the last time you flew in a plane?
I have never flown in a plane. Or in anything else either.

3. What did the last text message you sent say?
“wow!”

4. What features do you find most attractive in the opposite sex?
A great and abiding admiration for me.

5. What is a goal you would like to accomplish in the near future?
To figure out everything about my new camera, so that I can quit taking pictures that look like I accidentally hit the button while I was taking off the lens cap.

6. Shoe size?
10, but I think it may have to go up 1/2 a size soon. Aren’t your feet always growing? Or is that your nose? My nose doesn’t wear anything though, thank heaven, so I don’t have to get bigger ones.

7. Been to Mexico?
I have been to Mexico though I don’t have a very clear memory of most of the trip. My parents read this blog, so we won’t go into details.

8. When is the last time you had a massage?
A real massage, it has been years. A good backrub – in December when Lauren was home. She is the best back rubber ever.

9. What was the last TV show you watched?
The news. We watched “3:10 to Yuma” last night. It was good and I don’t want to give too much away except to say the general stores in the west certainly must have done a brisk business selling shovels.

10. What are your plans for the weekend?
It’s only Monday so I am not sure, but I am sure I will be able to find a way to totally waste it somehow.

11. If your significant other asked you to marry them TODAY what would you say?
Yes of course. And I think he would ask, though he might insist on a pre-nup this time, outlining a few key areas on which we do not see eye to eye.

12. What is in the back seat of your car right now?
1.One of those cooler thingies from Sam’s Club for putting cold food in.
2. An ice scraper of epic proportions, because you need one of those here. It has a telescoping handle so that you can reach the whole top of the van plus a broom and two kinds of scrapey parts.
3. A drop cloth sort of thing that is supposed to go under plants and other gardening stuff so as not to get the rug dirty. I usually remember it right after I have everything already loaded in there.
4. A dog leash.
5. I am certain there will be some junk of Larry’s in there because his truck is in the shop and he is using the van. He always leaves something behind when he drives my car. The floor of his truck has junk piled level with the seat.
6. There was a green pepper back there that had rolled out of a grocery bag, which I fortunately found before the temperature outside rose enough for it to thaw out – that would not have been good.

13. What were you doing at 8 am this morning?
It is only 7:40 right now, but at 8 I will probably be drinking coffee and reading email.

14. If you could marry any celebrity today who would it be?
Larry won’t even let me date, never mind marry someone. If I could get away with it without him knowing, it would an extremely elderly, obscenely rich celebrity with no family, one foot in the grave and very poor balance.

15. Have you ever been to a strip club?
Maybe that time I was in Mexico, but I can’t remember for sure.

16. What is the best ice cream flavor?
Chocolate. Even chocolate Tastee-Freeze is good.

17. What is the last sporting event you watched?
We watched some of a couple different football games recently. The only sports I watch very much would be Mets baseball. We will watch the Superbowl, but mostly as an excuse to eat stuff I really should not be eating.

18. Ever go camping?
Yes, but not for a long time.

19. Last phone call?
My friend YR who comments here from time to time. We solved all the world’s problems, so the rest of you can take it easy for the week.

20. Are you allergic to anything?
I am officially allergic to aspirin and penicillin. I am also allergic to hay that needs to be unloaded [Greeeeeeeeeeeeeeen Acres is the plaaaaace for meeeeeee] and a lot of other plants like huge fields of sweet corn that need picking. I actually am allergic to those things, though there are those who are extremely suspicious of the convenience of my being allergic to things I hate to do. I call it very lucky.

21. What is one thing you have learned about life recently?
That an alarming number of people do Google searches for old women in underwear. It scares me.

22. What do you do at work?
I talk to people and then write about the conversations. And I get paid for it – sweeeeeeeeet!

23. What is your mom’s name?
Bobbie Jean. I don’t think she is very fond of it but I think it is cute. She was born in Alabama. Her older sister was named Jimmie Mae, also a lovely southern name. Both names are far better choices than Candy Barr, the name of a girl who lived on the same street as we did growing up.

24. Ever cried for no reason?
I almost never cry. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time I cried about anything.

25. Can you do the Crank Dat dance?
You start and I will join in.

26. What is your favorite color to wear?
Green is my favorite color of anything.

27. What is the longest plane ride you have ever been on?
They have all been of exactly the same length.

28. What is the longest road trip you have ever taken?
The longest recently was down to South Carolina in 2002 for Lauren’s graduation from Boot Camp, with a stop in North Carolina to get Ellyn and Jason. We also drove to the beach in North Carolina so we could stand in a real, actual hurricane, just like those guys on the weather channel. I was picking sand out of places I didn’t even know I had for days afterward.
The longest trip ever was hitchhiking to California in 1974.

29. What are your turn-offs?
Cleaning the refrigerator.

30. What was your last alcoholic beverage?
A glass of wine.

31. What are you craving right now?
It is too early in the day for me to be craving anything. I want coffee and I have some, so I am good.

Posted in me | 25 Comments