Take Care With Your Life

I've spent a good part of yesterday afternoon and today getting ready for a 5-day camping trip. Mostly I've been baking. I made banana & zucchini bread yesterday along with a loaf of rye bread (which will be gone before today is over).  I placed the sweet breads in the freezer and will take them out in the morning just before we head out.  I also baked corn bread muffins and a big batch of Thai fried rice.  I bought a watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, apples and a couple of cans of beans along with some whole wheat tortillas to make burritos with. I cooked some extra chicken to put on the burritos or mix with the beans. We'll be drinking water instead of soda this year.  

The reason for the title of this post is that it's a saying my husband pulls out of his hat every once in a while. It has been going through my mind as I have been cooking today.  I could have gone to the store and bought bags of chips, hot dogs, and stuff for s'mores. If we had kids with us, that might have made more sense. But, we're not kids anymore and just because we're going out of town doesn't mean we should ditch our desire to eat better.  Although, a couple of times today I've thought about it.

We'll be meeting up with some awesome old friends and the most important thing we have in our camping arsenal is the coffee pot.  Whoever gets up first makes the coffee and it is totally proper camping etiquette to offer coffee to other early morning risers who may only have just their coffee cup with them.  We will certainly have enough sweet bread to share for a day or two.

We always have a big get together around the camp fire on Friday and Saturday night. Usually someone has a huge plate with cookies on it. I should get some made so I can contribute. The trouble is if I make them too soon, they'll never make it to Friday, much less Saturday.

Take care with your life.  It sounds kind of spiritual, doesn't it? This weekend is a spiritual getaway for me. Just writing this blog post is helping me adjust my attitude about the whole thing.  Take care with my life.  Whew.  I need it.

love, susan

 

I'm a Dog Magnet

Meet "Mya". She lives down the street from us. Her person is on vacation. I met Mya  for the first time early this morning as she was standing out in the street barking. I called her and she came right to me. The number on her tag came up as a South Dakota number and her owner said he's on vacation and she must have jumped the fence. He said he'd call his pet sitter and find out what the heck is going on. When he called back, he said he couldn't reach the sitter so I offered to let Mya stay the day with us since she is having such a good time and "Missy" adores her.

I don't care if her owner ever comes back. She belongs here where the fence is too tall to jump and she has a playmate.

I love, love, LOVE border collies! This is the second border collie I've found roaming the streets. Before I started this blog, I wrote a "note" on FB about a border collie we found roaming the streets one night downtown while we were at a concert. It was a weird reunion with his peeps as he had been stolen from them two years previous to us finding him. Border collies don't sit still very well.  I don't imagine Mya will be with us longer than today but if her owner never came back, she'd be mine.  I'll leave you with a few pics I shot this morning.

Don't you just love dogs?


love, susan

C'est la vie

Cat naps are not just for cats anymore.

There is a saying I'm terribly fond of ... "Make plans but don't plan the outcome."

The last couple of days have not been what I would have planned but the outcome has been great.

We got up Friday morning and decided to take a motorcycle ride. We headed north and  rode through Yakima, heading towards Rimrock. I absolutely hate the road just this side of Yakima as it has little dips in the road that you can't see with your eyes but my tires pick up it up and I feel like my bike is wobbling. It's a dreadful feeling for me so once we got past Yakima we decided to take a different route home. We drove up towards Chinook Pass, which my husband tells me is at something like 4,000 feet.  I nearly froze to death before we decided to turn around and come home. On the trip home, we drove through Moxee, which has a 4-mile stretch of road under construction and far too many signs that say "MOTORCYCLISTS: USE EXTREME CAUTION" due to the chip sealing they are doing. There was a bit of gravel on the road which can be just like walking on marbles when you're on a motorcycle. I only took one photo while on that 235 mile bike trip. Although it was beautiful at our destination, my fingers were too frozen to hit the camera shudder.

Gene ... catching grasshoppers!

When got off our bikes to stretch, we discovered hundreds of grasshoppers in the dry patches along the highway. Gene caught one for me but I couldn't photograph it fast enough.  

So ... here comes the unplanned part. We had talked about going for another ride on Saturday morning but while Gene was down in the basement, he heard water spraying behind our downstairs shower stall. Long story short, the problem was with the kitchen faucet and it totally changed our plans in an instant. Gene spent all day putting in a new faucet and when he went to turn it on, it wasn't letting much water out. Seems with old pipes, some of the sediment breaks loose and gets caught in the new plumbing going into the faucet.  Blah, blah, blah. He ended up taking the faucet completely out this morning, we ran it back to Home Depot for a refund and he got a different kind of faucet (less beautiful but more functional) and all is well now.  (Note: Home Depot rocks. They did not give us a moment's grief for returning the faucet.)

While he was cussing and twisting the wrenches, I did a little badly needed weeding in the herb garden, mowed the lawn, read a little of my book, took a nap in the sun, called my dad, and took Missy for a walk. When he was done with the plumbing job, I made him a big breakfast and hugged him severely for the awesome job he did in my kitchen.

We're leaving sometime early next week for an annual camping trip with great friends in Oregon. Last year at this same time, we were all set to go camping and a week before the trip, Gene ended up in the hospital in an emergency situation and after much testing received a stent in his main right artery.  He was bummed we didn't get to make the camping trip ... I was grateful he was still alive!  No matter if something breaks or plans get waylaid, things can always be worse.

Life is good. I think we needed an unplanned slow-down. 

love, susan

P.S. Isn't my cat just the funniest looking creature you've ever seen? He always sleeps with his arm over his head like that. Just cracks me up!

Cockle Shells ... Really?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells, and cockle shells,

And pretty maids all in a row.

This morning, I was reading the Wikipedia description of the above old English nursery rhyme. If you go the website, you'll find there is a bit of a twist on this little poem.  (See Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary.)

So I stepped outside this morning to see what the temperature was like and spotted this bright yellow flower blooming in the herb garden. I have absolutely no idea what it is but I love the fact that they keep growing and blooming despite my lack of interest in gardening.  The herb garden is very interesting because it has different stages of growth. I noticed there is a big dead spot right in the middle of the garden now and the cause was quickly determined to be a sprinkler head that needs to be raised up. Too late for those poor herbs this year but it'll get fixed and provide plenty of hydration for next year's growing.

This year I planted a roma tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy. It's going like crazy and we'll be having some fresh salsa probably in another couple of weeks. This may all sound very boring to anyone reading but for me it's a huge thrill when I see the tomatoes forming since I have such a black thumb.

My petunias are looking a little dreadful but we had 97 degrees yesterday and it promises to be just as warm today. They can only take so much heat before they start to droop. 

We're heading out to do some camping early next week and will be gone for a week. I'm thinking of asking my neighbor if she'll shoot some water on my tomatoes and flowers while we're gone. I hate asking but they won't make it if they don't get water daily.

How's your garden growing? 

love, susan

 

What Would Pooh Do?

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." 

                                    ~Winnie the Pooh~

I have been in a Winnie the Pooh kind of mood lately. I guess it's because I see there is a new Pooh movie coming to the theater on July 15th. I haven't been to an animated film at the cinema for a very long time but this movie may be one I'll go see. I love Pooh and I'm not ashamed to admit it. 

I love the above quote, although it's a hard one to live by sometimes. At the very high risk of being called lazy (mostly by the voice in my head), I have a hard time just doing nothing at times. It's a curse, I'm sure. I think Pooh is on to something.  Sometimes sitting still and doing nothing can be valuable.  I just haven't perfected it very well ... just yet.

I talked with my daughter-in-law on the phone yesterday for 41 minutes. What a treat!! She's off for the summer, just like me, and she said it took her a while to figure out what to do with her endless hours of time. She reads a lot and I told her I like to read too but for some reason can't seem to sit still long enough to get a book read. She said she makes herself read at least one chapter before bed. I can't read at night ... it puts me to sleep. Once I sit or lay down, it's over for me. So yesterday I decided to try reading just one chapter after I did a little yard work. It was a huge reward for me. It was so much fun that after I did that, I putz around the house some more and ended up reading another chapter. It was sort of like putting my toe in the water of nothingness. It wasn't bad.

 

As I sit here at the computer writing this, I have a to-do list nagging me. Oh, bother.

love, susan   

 

Glancing at the Map

I was reading one of my favorite blog My Healthy Eating Challenge posts today and I decided to copy her idea for my post today.  I have lived in five states plus visited quite a few but not all fifty.  I decided to try to just think of a few words that best describe my experience of those states I've lived in or visited.  If you are reading this, I invite you to copy this idea and let me know where I can read your post!

Alaska: cold but beautiful ~ I miss the clean air ~ lived there a good share of my life
California: I was born there ~ it's groovy, not like anyplace else, expensive
Washington: green and gorgeous ~ home to me now
Arizona:  lived there ~ sunny desert ~ I love the food there
Oregon: lived there ~ rainy & earth friendly ~ best strawberries and blackberries
Idaho: beautiful ~ who doesn't love potatoes?
Nevada: vast and dry ~ I love driving across the great basin
Utah: is my very favorite state!
Montana: lonely and beautiful ... big trees
Wyoming: boring ~ I hope I never have to drive through it again
Colorado: rugged
New Mexico: warm
Kansas: boring ~ corn fields as far as you can see ~ people are extra friendly there
Oklahoma: big storms
Texas: huge and kind of geographically boring
Missouri: humid ~ they have wonderful history there ~ loved visiting the Amish community
Ohio: I have no opinion on Ohio
West Virginia: friendly people ~ it is much more beautiful than I thought it would be
Kentucky: horses, green pastures
Tennessee: hot and humid
Louisiana: bugs, lots of bugs


Where have you been? What's your favorite state?


love, susan


 

Horsing Around

Meet Rosemary. She's a good friend of ours. She trains horses.  And people.

Yesterday we went for a short ride on our motorcycles. Leaving a little later in the day than normal, we found it to be a bit warm with our leathers on so we rode out to Rosemary's place in Finley aka fondly known as "Fintucky", to sit under a shade tree and watch her in action. It is horse heaven out there. 

Rosemary was busy in the ring helping one of her Sheriff's Posse friends, pictured here, train a young horse who will be riding in the 4th of July parade tomorrow. This horse has never rode in the parade. It was fascinating to watch the process.

See that yellow bag she is towing behind her? It's an empty dog food bag. It makes a little noise while it's being dragged and, of course, the horse thinks it's strange. The point is to get the horse to ignore the bag and keep riding with confidence. Also, the rider needs to feel confident that his horse will not rear up and run as that just won't work on parade day.

I watched as they went round and round the ring and there was a moment when the horse simply just dropped it's head and paid little attention to the bag.  Ah ... that's what they were shooting for.  Beautiful. I love that moment when you see an animal "get it". I've seen it many times with my dog.

There were lots of horses at Rosemary's yesterday. And, she has a donkey along with the coolest cattle dog named "Ontos". I don't know much about horses, but they all seem happy to be at her place and Rosemary seems happiest when she's on a horse.

Did you ever wonder what someone looks like who has a job they are happy at? You'd need to look no further than a horse trainer, me thinks.  Rosemary loves what she does. And, it shows.

While I was watching the training, Gene got to visit with Carl.  Carl had a notebook with photos of years and years of horse memories. He took Gene through the pictures and talked about the horses he had owned and rode. Carl is in his late 70's, might even be 80, and still rides. He's a tough old cowboy!

It was a great way to spend an afternoon.  Hope you enjoy the photos! The next time I'm at the parade, I will have a better appreciation for the horses and their riders.

"Ontos" the working dog!

Gene and Carl ~ talking about horses.

I already forgot this donkey's name. Isn't he so cute?

"Shenzi" all decked out and ready for the 4th of July.

What a fun day in Finley!

love, susan

 

You Should Thai It

Yesterday, Gene and I drove into Kennewick to try lunch at Hoang's Saigon Restaurant which is located on W. Columbia Drive. We usually buy our noodles and other staples for stir fry at the Asian store connected to this restaurant. It's been almost 3 years since we moved here and just never made the time to go there for lunch.  We will definitely be going back. While the owners have not wasted money and energy on the atmosphere, one should never ever judge a book by its cover. Authentic. Great. Food.

We killed two birds with one stone in our trip. I have been wanting to venture into some new Thai dishes at home but didn't have the right ingredients. The book pictured here was bought at our favorite Thai place and the owner has made the recipes really easy to follow.  I think. I'll get back to you on that.  

I'm making Pad Thai tonight. I'm not venturing into Tofu just yet, however, I do love Tofu when it's made right ~ fried, that is.

I also bought some dark rye flour today as I'm hoping to try my hand at a loaf of homemade rye bread.  I've never made it before but it's one of Gene's favorite things in the whole world.  If it all works out, I'll be posting photos and recipes to my other blog, What's Cooking.

Do you have a recipe you've been saving and wanting to try? 

love, susan

Queen of Take-Back (Rant!)

Ranting today. This cooler has been used maybe 3 times since we bought it last year.  I couldn't believe it when I saw how the plastic clasp cracked and is hanging by a thread. I will be making a call to the sporting goods store where I bought it to see how they will  remedy this situation.  Lately, I have had a pretty good run of luck in returning faulty items for a full refund.  If the store doesn't replace it or refund my money, I will be writing a nice letter to Igloo corporate headquarters.  I am the queen of take-back.

While this may seem trivial and silly to some, I'm here to say that second-rate stuff is unacceptable to me. I think we paid $54.00 for this cooler although I'm pretty sure I don't have the receipt. I turned it over this morning, thinking it would say "Made in China". Believe me when I say my jaw dropped when I discovered it was made in the USA.  Houston, Texas to be exact.

While camping Monday night, Gene's daughter was ranting about a battery-type lantern (Coleman) she bought 3 years ago. She bought one for her dad for Father's day this year but warned him that he'll need to plug it in about once a month to keep the battery charged, even if he is not using it. She found this out the hard way. She hadn't used her lantern all winter, for obvious reasons,  and she plugged it in to charge it since we would be camping and it wouldn't take a charge. She called the company and the nice lady on the phone told her that Coleman just assumes everyone knows that you should plug it in periodically to help it keep its charge.  Really???? It doesn't say that in the manual.  Who keeps charging their camping lantern year round? She paid $30 for it and it came with a 5-year warranty. 

I suspect most people don't take the time to complain about such things.  I'm not one of those people.  I hate crappy stuff. I hate throwing my money away. To me, it's like taking a handful of money and just throwing it in the garbage can.

I may have written this already but I recently returned the camera Gene gave me for my birthday in May. I had taken about 400 pictures and I wasn't happy with the photo quality. The store gladly refunded all my money except for a $30 restocking fee.  I wrote a nice letter to the corporate office in Illinois and about 5 days later I got a phone call from the local store and they bent over backwards to refund the restocking fee. I was impressed by that.

Look ... here's the bottom line. If we continue to accept crappy stuff, that's what we'll keep getting. When I worked for J.C. Penney about 30+ years ago, in training we learned that the company lost only about 3% in shrinkage (returns). They told us to always happily refund the customer's money, for whatever reason. They knew that if a customer was unhappy, that customer would tell as least five people about their experience.  What company needs that kind of reputation these days? That lesson has stayed with me.

Have you had a similar situation?  

love, susan

Another Week Older

A camping Haiku

Three hours today

Driving, talking, hiking

Some more ghost stories.

We're headed out for an overnight camping adventure to take our grandson home. We're going to meet his mom more than half-way at a camp ground where we'll all go hiking and spend the night. It is a 3-hour drive to get there.

We always have such a grand time together. I was thinking last night that it sure takes a lot of time to get ready for camping. I don't know why. But it sure is worth it. I usually grumble about it but I'm always so happy when we finally get there and after the tent is pitched and I've got my camping chair strategically placed, I sit there and just feel so happy to be sitting in the trees.

Last night, I baked a double batch of cookies and some zucchini bread. I cut up some fruit and made a mental list of what I need to put in the cooler. Probably a big mistake to not have written some things down. I was too tired to think about it.

This morning, I'm rested and really looking forward to seeing the kids we saw just a week ago. We're all a week older.  I think about that a lot.  Every day is precious.

Gotta go and get breakfast started.  love, susan

Terms and Conditions

This page left blank intentionally. 

My dad was a union worker before he retired. My husband is a retired union worker. I don't remember the first time I ever heard the term "I'm going to take some R & R" but for a long time I really didn't know what it meant, although I knew they weren't talking about whiskey.  Why would you announce you were "taking whiskey"? You'd just take drink it.  Have you ever heard terms you didn't get?

The first time I saw a stack of papers that I had to copy as a legal secretary, I found the above term "This page left blank intentionally" to be the funniest damn thing I'd ever seen.  It is self-explanatory but still .... really?  It seems those attorney types are always looking for the missing piece of paper that might have made the difference in a case. One would not want to assume a blank page was originally another important page that got stuck to yet another page in the copy process.  I know .... it's enough to make a secretary insane.

I have a friend who one time pointed out to me that there are instructions on the bottom of candles.  Really?  I had to look.  There really are instructions. Wow.

I'm afraid my page is a little blank today ... it's been kind of a long week and I didn't take many photos. So, forgive me while I take a little R&R (and I don't mean the whiskey kind), and leave this page practically blank.

love, susan

R&R = Rest and relaxation