Where on Earth has the time gone?  I turned around and it's gone!  No excuse except sometimes life has too many doors opened all at once.  I have no idea if anyone will read this or if this blog thing even still works.  I have learned recently that I have way too many hobbies for one person to enjoy.  Hobbies are fun but they can eat up your time like you wouldn't believe!  But, I like the output from them if I could only get something done with them.  Okay - enough of the belly aching (that's twice today I've used that word).  It's time to press on and try my best to pop in here and put something down in writing.

It is currently 99F with a heat index of 104F.  UGHHHHH!  THIS is the very reason why cloudy grey days are my favorite kind of days.  We have too many of these hot days in Oklahoma. I've always said that I could go straight from July 5th to September 30th and not miss summer one bit - and I mean it.  I love the cooler summer days when you can walk outside and visit with your neighbors without melting into a puddle.  Pressing on...

The green beans are almost done producing.  I've given some away, eaten some and frozen some for other days.  We are now waiting for the tomatoes, okra, cucumbers and cantaloupe to take off and provide us with their fruits. Nothing like a BLT with a homegrown T.  Or a salad with fresh cucumbers and tomatoes.  The husband just added a 4th rain barrel today.  We just need the rain to fill it.  The other three are full and I'll be using their holdings tomorrow to water all the veggies.  Hopefully that will sustain them during this heat wave.

My brain is fried from the deskfun I worked on today.  

Love and Peace, Terri

 Hello In There!  Hello!    

    Just trying to get back into the swing of things.  Are blogs outdated?  I just had a writer's block for about four years.  Don't ask.  I have ideas and want to come back to the blog, but I'm not sure Blogger will allow me.  hmmmm  We'll give it a go here and see how it turns out.  Then press on from there.

Enjoy your Autumn week.

The Book

 

This is "The Book"

 

This is a book that my Mother kept in her pantry, rubber band included even though this is a new one. I remember looking through it once or twice as a kid.  She tucked in recipes cut out of the paper and it even has two cuttings of her hair from when she was 24 and 25; a very pretty reddish auburn color.

 

"The Book" has no spine, hence the rubber band.  It originally was a Warne's Calendar of Medical History, 1934-35.  My birthday was on a Wednesday in 1935. It has pictures of different medical facilities around the world as well as famous doctors from days gone by. So what made "The Book" so intriguing to me as a child?  I'm not sure. I remember seeing it in the pantry and wondering what was in it, but don't remember looking THROUGH it.   







I became it's new owner, keeper of the recipes, after my Mother passed. I've looked through it a couple of times since then.  But, recently I was wanting to look through it again and couldn't remember where I had stored it.  Then BAM I open a box and there it was.  I sat down with it one night and looked through it again.  With all the recipes that are written, mostly using a cartridge pen, in the book - I don't recall my Mother making many of them.  A few are there that gave light on to where the recipe came from.  Many were from family members (Aunt Rita, Joe's Mother (my Nonna) and my sisters), neighbors (Mrs. O, Mrs. C and Mrs. S), the Dinah Shore Show and an old classmate of mine (Susan B) .  I was quite surprised when I read a recipe for Onion Ring Batter, which I use a lot, actually originated from my oldest sister.  I have been passing it off as my Mom's all these years.  This is the recipe I pass on when they ask to give the bride a family recipe. I think I will type up these recipes on some Christmas paper and send them with a Christmas card to the family and friends respectively.

So I have a question for "The Book".  Where are the recipes that my Mother made that were special to us?  Where is the Lemon-Lime Jello Salad (shredded carrot and chopped celery - maybe even shredded cabbage)?  Where is nut roll recipe that she made at Easter and Christmas, mostly Christmas? 

By looking through "The Book" I've found that I have a characteristic of my Mother's.  She recorded the ingredients for the Spaghetti Sauce for Christmas 1974 and the cost  for each item. She listed the information for sauce made for Chris, Sept 12, 1977, Mother's Day 1976, Easter 1975, 1976, Christmas 1975 and "Ravioli filling & sauce for when Rita and Wadie come, June 16, 1975".  I learned what makes "The Trinity" - celery, onions, green peppers.  She kept a picture of the Bunny Cake that I made for many Easters.

Does "The Book" hold any secrets?  I think it has opened more questions than giving answers. But, I did find one strange entry on the back cover of the book.  It has an address for Carlo C..... in San Francisco, CA.  What I need to find out is if Carlo was a brother to my Nonno or another family member.  Ancestry.com here I come.

"The Book" is literally falling apart almost as soon as air hits it. I'm glad I'm the new keeper of "The Book".  I will have to try making the White Fruit Cake, Prince of Wales Cake or even the Lemon Coconut Cream Cake. I never had any of these cakes and wonder why they are in "The Book".  Oh wait a minute - it just dawned on me that I have "A Shoebox" full of recipes I've cut out and have never tried.  ha  And so it continues........


Love and Peace   

As I was saying......

Whoa! Life got busy with the holidays and getting organized for the new year - 2016.  I'm not completely there yet, okay I'm not even half way there; okay - at least I've started.  Still have some rooms to go through and projects to finish up.  All in good time.  But, then again there's no time like the present.  Do you think we really ever get "there"?  You know - the closets have been cleaned out, Goodwill has all your "stuff" - never "junk" because we don't keep "junk".  But, do we really ever get "there"? "There" being where we know where everything is because it has a place or the kids now have it and you don't really care what they do with it.  What about the "catch all" room who's  going to clean it out?

Winter is the perfect time for doing such a chore.  You're shut in the house and the cold keeps everyone else from going outside and knocking on your door. It always feels so good to decorate the house for the holidays. It even feels better after they're over and you stand back and take a nice long look at the sparkling clean rooms.  A sigh of relief passes and you feel that life can get back to normal again.  Except when that nagging sciatica shows up to hang around for over a week congratulating you on all the hard work you did. Nothing that a really good massage can't take care of.

A good reason comes to mind about getting "there". Death. Attending a funeral for someone who is in your same age bracket makes one think about it all. Thoughts of family going through the "stuff" and cursing under their breaths about how much "stuff" there is to go through makes one cringe.  Some of us have already been on this end of it with our parents.  It felt so good to know that Mother kept my school papers or my favorite poncho. But, now what happens to it other than sitting in a box somewhere. Leaving our "stuff" for someone else who doesn't have the emotional attachments to discard it isn't what we want. But, sometimes making that final discard decision isn't what we want either.

There is a separation of family now. The kids have different thoughts about "stuff". They don't really care if it belonged to your grandmother/father because they didn't know them.  They don't have the emotional attachments to our "stuff" that we do.  Antique stores are FULL of  this "stuff".  They would be a gold mind if the kids would go retro and shop there.  Most "stuff" has more than one purposeful use than its' original selling point.  Making curtains out of tablecloths for the dinning room gets lots of compliments.  Using old dresser scarves for knitting  project bags or a toddler's diddie-bag is very useful. Lots of things have more than one purpose and its fun sharing with others and seeing their reactions about what it was or how you made it work for you.

Death makes us think of other things as well.  Have we taken care of the "stuff" rattling around in our heads?  Do we need to get "there" with someone?  Do we need to say "I Love You" more often? Do we need to leave instructions on what to do with our "stuff" after we're gone?  There are some things that are just too good to go to the thrift store or the charity shop.  People are too kind to ask about the yarn stash or the stamp collection for fear of being too insensitive to the family's emotions.

Yup, now is the time to get "there" and do  something with all this "stuff".  hmmm, okay - tomorrow is the time to get "there" and .......

Ciao!  

A different post in mind

It was on my mind to write about something I hadn't noticed before during the Autumn days. I wanted to write about how it took us about the whole month of October for Fall to arrive here. We had some nice warm days and then some hot days.  Mother Nature has cooled things down for us this weekend and gave us some much needed rain.  Thank you!  But, what I noticed the most this Fall is how the birds are singing and how they make it "sound" more like Spring than Fall. The robins and mocking birds are placing their call out in the Autumn airs morning, noon and night.  That's what I wanted to write about with a cute rendition of "Mocking Bird" Say have you heard..... 

But, tragedy struck our OSU fans today when a young lady, intoxicated, ran her car through some homecoming parade watchers and killed three and injured so many more.  Can you imagine enjoying your nice cloudy cool Fall Saturday watching a college homecoming parade and then out of nowhere this happens.  It not only ruined the lives of all those injured and dead, but a young person 25 years old who had her whole life ahead of her and in a flash it is all gone for all of them.  I can't understand this horrible tragedy and I am somber because of it.

I say a prayer for guidance and protection every time I get behind the wheel of my car. Not just for me but for everyone I meet on the road.  Prayers for all those involved in this accident and their families. 


Ciao!

Anyways......

 

I have written in my blog a thousand times over in my head.  Several thoughts come to mind and I just don't get there.  Today I watched  Dr. Oz (my boyfriend) and he's talking about a Blueprint for Balance.  I should listen closely to this one.  I'm such a procrastinator  and that's why I haven't written on my blog. But, I have been encouraged and inspired to get busy with it.  I love the flow of creation and I hope to work on it more. 

Are you a hoarder? Aren't we all to one degree or another?  I have saved so many things for my boys from their childhood that it's nuts.  I have storage bins full of pictures, books, trophies....  My Mother did it for all of us (YES ALL NINE OF US!) and I love having some of my childhood things with me as they bring back fond memories.  When we moved I told my husband that we had to buy a new house first before I could move because there was no way that I could stage our old house. After we moved I had someone picking up "stuff" for about eight weeks.  I had to sort through so many boxes and things.  Then after I retired I started going through the house again and cleaned out closets and boxes again.  I try to do this at least once a year. It's amazing how much "stuff" we accumulate. I am still sorting through boxes. A discussion at Knitting made we ask myself, "Do I really need to keep those Tom Clancy, Dan Brown,  etc... books?  I probably won't read them again and even if they are the First Edition - it's not like they will be rare collector's items.  So, I packed them up and gave them to the local library for their Book Sale collection.

I have a nice problem of doing things called hobbies - knitting, quilting, reading, gardening etc.. All these hobbies have "stuff" that goes with them.  There's the old say, "She who dies with the most (fill in the blank) WINS!" I'm actually trying to use what I have and stop buying any more yarn, material, books.....  Willpower is not my strong point so this is going to be a challenge.

 

I try to organize my "stuff" but I've learned that almost everything has more than one use.  I try to think of what else I could use something for before determining its fate.  I also went through a stage of not being in the mood to buy something just because it's cute. I have a lot of things in my home that have been passed down through the family which I love and is very important to me.  I also have collections of things and I am now looking at them and wondering why do I have them and how important are they to me. Not sure what their fate will be.  Maybe I'll hang on to them for a while longer and decide later.

 

Now something I learned that is very important to pass on is to check with your children to see if they want what you have saved for them. I might not follow this idea - but I do bring some things out for them to see if they want them and they might pass on it or they might take it - like something really cool like the Hamilton Beach Malt maker from their Grandmother's grill.  I've talked with others on this matter and we've determined that this generation doesn't care about some of those old things.  They didn't know the person it belonged to and therefore they don't have the same personal connection that we have with the item.  However, I did see a lot of young families shopping at the antique malls. I think they are mostly looking for the shabby chic items which is simply something old and painted either red, white or turquoise.  I think of the antique stores as being the graveyard for all the old things we remember from our childhood but don't have any use for them in our life today.

I'm going to be working through my "things" to downsize more and more. The theme song from Frozen comes to mind, "Let it Gooooooo...."   I have several storage bins of Halloween/Fall decorations and we seem to buy more cool things each year.  I really need to do this with my Christmas bins as well. You can't even imagine....

 

Keeping in mind what a real hoarder is I don't fit that bill.  You can sit on my couch, walk through a room, the guest room is always clean and ready and I'll just shut the door to the one room that gets to be a "catch-all" most of the time. So one room out of five isn't bad.

 

Ciao!

My blog to express my love of Gubbio, Italy, family, knitting, gardening, reading, friendships, etc....CIAO GUBBIO

Wow!  Times they are a changing!  I turn my back on Blogger for two years and BAM! they delete my blog. Well, the old style anyways.  Looks like I'll be starting all over again.  It's a big learning curve for sure, but I drudge through it. Pressing on.....

Ciao!