Look What's Cooking!

At our house, most of the time, 6:00 PM means I'm in the kitchen cooking supper. For some unknown reason, some of my kids think it should be called dinner, which I can't figure out since it has been dinner and supper around here ever since they stopped saying 'first eat' and 'second eat'.  Breakfast was breakfast.  About the time they wanted to eat lunch and dinner, I wished we still had first and second eat. 

Most of the time, I also have it decided in the morning what I'm fixing for supper.  Tonight it was leftover Sour Cream Enchilada Casserole.  But, after Lynette and I found out that Jim was going to be late coming home she asked for 'that zucchni stuff that is all mixed up with egg and things'.  I absolutely adore that stuff and Jim likes it too, so I like to make it.  I could eat it every week, but I didn't think any of the kids liked it.  Since Lynette asked for it, I made it. 

Anything to encourage zucchini eating around here is a good thing.

I don't have a recipe for this stuff, I don't even have a name for it.  Lynette suggested Zucchini Mush, but that isn't a very good name.  Perhaps Zucchini Mix would be better.

So...This is how you make it.

Slice zucchini thinly, like 1/8", and fry in a cast iron skillet with a little olive oil.  I usually put a very little water in and cover it to soften it more quickly.  It should brown a little. When it starts to come apart when stirred, it is finished.

Then I add cut up cooked bacon or ham, egg and cheese.

Add a little salt and stir in.

Add the cheese and stir up until eggs are cooked and cheese is melted.

All ready to serve.

And ready to eat.

It's All About the Photos

My dear faithful and loyal blog readers,

Just let me once see something new on here and I want to try it for myself.  I have really enjoyed the big photographs that other fellow bloggers have been displaying and I wanted them too.  Thanks to the blogging friend who is never too busy to give me tips, shared this one.  And it makes me wonder why I couldn't find it before.

That I never looked might have something to do with it.

Zane is almost 18 months old.  He learned a new word yesterday, "Charlie", that's everybody's dog but mine, and a new one at Antioch "water".  Of course if helps if he's looking at the object he's asking for, because no one else except us, who are getting well trained in the art of 'babyese' again.  Aren't we clever? 

We need to be.

Trying to keep one step ahead of this critter is something else again.  Especially since he can open the refrigerator door and the van door.  In the fridge, he is usually looking for the milk, but yesterday he opened one of the drawers and found the mini carrots.  He wanted one, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why.  He doesn't want to EAT them.  After I found several on the floor, and he was leaving it open, because it wouldn't shut with the drawer open, we had a little discipline session. It is troubling that he can also open the van door, and he wants to be in there to vroom, vroom, knows he should turn the key although he can't yet.  So, even though he can't open the door to the garage and he can't turn the key, and even if he could, he can't push on the brake and put it in gear at the same time and there's no telling when he will. So, it is a much better plan for us to start early on the habit of not leaving our keys in the van anymore.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

For those of you who see Zane regularly inside and outside this blog have perhaps noticed his hair getting longer and longer, or rather curlier and curlier, week by week, month by month.  It WAS cute.  Curls are cute on any baby, girl or boy.  Jim has been after Lorene to cut his hair but she was a hold out until Antioch, when from the back he looked just like another little girl, just his size. 

So, we went from this...

                                                                                                                                         major bedhead...

To this.

I think he looks so nice this way, older for sure, but now we can see his cute little head.

He was having such a fun time playing with Lynette's blanket, that I almost missed the opportunity to get a good photo of him.

What a sweetie!!

Father's Day

On this day we honor fathers, the fathers of our children, and our friends that are fathers. Without fathers we wouldn't be here, we wouldn't be who we are.


We wouldn't be here without our mothers either, but that is a different holiday.


I suppose we should be thankful for our kids, too, since without them these men in our lives wouldn't be fathers either.

How nice to be able to celebrate Father's Day and the myriad of June birthdays among our friends, with our friends and shared food.

And how nice for said friends to have a battery operated John Deere tractor so I could get a nice Father's Day photo of Grandfather and Grandson, doing the things they love: riding on things that move, teaching about tractors and John Deere, and being together. That Zaney boy of ours loves his grandpa, and loves to be outside with him. And if this sounds like a Grandfather's day tribute, so be it. They were Fathers first.





On a lighter note, as I was bloghopping through friends favorite blogs I found a saying that went like this--


Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots. ~as printed in The Hoosier Farmer



I'm thankful I have Jim.




Even if he does step on my carpet in his dirty boots.

100th Post

Dear Blog Readers,

This is my hundreth post. I can't believe it. It didn't take very long to get here. Sometimes I go a little overboard in posting several posts a week, but I just enjoy sharing my photos and writing so much. I enjoy looking at my little live feed thingy, and seeing people from all over watching my blog. I wish I knew who some of you people are.

So, having said all that, this really isn't a blog just for other people it is a blog for me. I enjoy the comments of others, and following other blogs just to see what people are doing. Real life is interesting, just the ordinary things that make up real life.

So, just for fun, I'm going to show a little ordinary life from several years ago.

This photo is the earliest of me I found in my quick search. I have plenty of pictures of me when I was a baby, after all, I was a first child. My sister is just a month old. In the trailer, on the brown couch, that we had so much fun with in every house we lived in, until we wore the poor thing out, and then we STILL used it until we got another brown couch after my grandma had a stroke.

I wonder where the watch came from?




This next we are still in the trailer, my sister is 14 mo old so I'm almost 3 1/2.

I like this picture, it shows the station wagon we had until 1973, our fenced in yard so kiddos couldn't get out, Mom's love of flowers, Dad's love of Iowa State? University? I don't know which one these little t-shirt and short outfits represents.

I see I've started already running around barefoot, which I did until I was grown up, and even then preferred running around barefoot except when I went to town or the garden. Now I can hardly stand to be without shoes. Shows what growing up can do. I assume my sister couldn't get her's off. Likely double tied, mom knew all the tricks. But, then, she was different than me, and sometimes, if I did something, or liked something, she didn't. That's sisters for you.

The other thing I know is that my sister is still in diapers. The cloth ones, when there wasn't any choice with rubber pants.

You can tell by the shape!!




I liked this next one, even though our neighbor friend is only half there. We look rather like "deer in the headlights", and we wore our dresses shorter then. Mom said "you girls looked like 'little girls', that way." This is the house we moved to in March of 1969 and where my folks live to this day. They hadn't decorated yet, the drapes are tan instead of green and you can get a glimpse of the beautiful wood floors they covered with 'hi/lo' green carpet. What WAS that stuff called? This was the '70's you know, and I don't think there was any other color BUT green. People didn't DO wood floors in those days, they raised up their kids on carpet, which was warmer.

I love this picture because we're still cute there, and I remember that footstool, we wore it out, and that pillow too, that is in the magazine rack. I wonder WHY it is in the magazine rack. But, a lot of things were out of place in our house. The hazards of having four children grow up in it, I suppose.

I'm assuming mom made these dresses, she made about everything we wore. Knee high socks were the norm for many years. They've only come back in the last three or so years. The high light of 'before school shopping' was going to the JC Penney's store downtown and buying new ones. At least that's the only thing I remember, Mom made all our dresses.
I'm 6 here, so Kristen is 4.




I don't remember the chair, however.

Now that this milestone is out of the way I can go on to bigger and better things. I'm glad you're coming along for the journey.

Beautiful Blue

I have tried several times to get delphiniums to grow, and when we redid this part of the flower garden last year I planted a couple and WOW! I've got a beautiful show this year. I really want this photo to be larger on this blog but I don't know how to do it. The few things I've tried, haven't worked.




















The day I took these pictures, we were having company and I thought you all would like to see how we entertain our company.




They get to feed the cows.

The Laundry Monster

We had a seriously funny (oxymoron?) incident happen today. I was expecting a friend to come out this afternoon about 2, so about noon when I finally decided I should do something instead of sit on my fanny crocheting all day, I looked around to see what needed to be done so she could walk in the door.

My heart sank. It wasn't horrible, stuff just covered a larger area than usual, and I didn't feel like picking up. So, I did my usual, went into the bathroom to start there (the smallest room.) Unfortunately, saw my bed wasn't made so I went to do that first.

I ALWAYS make my bed as soon as I get out of it, but Lynette was in it this morning and if it isn't done within 10 minutes of my getting up, it doesn't get done until I walk in there again, which is usually time to go to bed, and my nicely made bed, ready to crawl into didn't happen.

WAAAH!

But, it got made today, the dishwasher loaded and started, surfaces wiped, newspapers and toys picked up, and ta da!

The company couldn't come.

So, I started folding the clothes in the basket the last thing.

I was folding, and folding and making little piles, and not paying one bit of attention to what was going on around me, when it slowly seeped into my unconsciousness that things were disappearing off my piles.

And Zane was running around.

He'd run in, grab a small item, disappear out of the living room and come back laughing hysterically.

I began to get suspicious and called to Lynette sitting at the computer, where she could see into the hall, what he was doing. So, SHE, obviously paying no attention to Zane either, was astonished to see he was putting...

MY CLEAN CLOTHES DOWN THE LAUNDRY CHUTE!!!!!!!!

So, I chased him down and tried to put him to work putting dirty clothes down, but that didn't work nearly as well, as small, well, more personal items of clothing .

The scene of the crime.



While I was encouraging him to put my selection of clothes down the chute he picked up Lynette's jacket from her basket that is supposed to be downstairs and stuffed it down.

Grampa's t-shirt, ready to go.

I just hope I remember what was clean down there because I didn't go get it right away.

Partly because I was lazy, and partly because the papers came and I had to deliver them, and partly because my friend came, after all.

Cats and Babies Don't Mix

We've always been very lucky that our cats are tolerant of small humans. We've had cats on this place since Lynette was 1 and Jim is probably wishing we'd never started in the cat business. He doesn't like the smell and cats tend to multiply rapidly and without warning.

Nevertheless, the kids have enjoyed the myriad batches of kittens born in our garage and have loved them and played with them and mourned their disappearance and passing.

We decided a few years ago to put a limit on the number of cats we would support and decided NO MORE KITTENS WILL BE BORN ON THIS PLACE.

( I got tired of running over kittens with the van.)

Obviously the kids took that to mean that if they found kittens elsewhere we would take them in. Unfortunately to their father's dismay it did....

some of the time.

Our neighbors who like to keep cats in their horse barn are a great source of fresh kittens. At least I think that is where they come from. The arrive in our barn tame and ready to capture the ever so susceptible heart of Lynette who loves kittens and would keep all of them in her room if she was let.

This current kitten, who is now sharing the barn and food of Barn Kitty #1, was first carried to the house with her sister and the plaintive request to keep one in the house.


NO!

Please?


NO!!


PLEEEEESE!


NO!!!!!!

So, Lynette carried them up to the house several days while Jim was at work, but being gone a few days, that isn't happening anymore.

But, Zane loves that kitty, which Lynette named "hot tamale", molly for short, (we name most of our cats after food). And Jim loves Zane even more since Zane's favorite thing to do with this cat, is pick it up and throw it out the door.

Poor Kitty.

I am teaching Zane to be nice to it, though.

A special thanks to a very dear friend who took the sister kitty off our hands.

This Time Last Year 7

June 2009

I don't seem to have any pictures from June of last year except this little series I took one afternoon when the sun shines in the window and I found out years ago this is a great place to take nice photos.

Zane is 5 months old here. He's sitting well and playing with toys. These are very nice pictures to remember since he hardly ever sits at all and is more likely to throw his toys and bite us instead of sitting nicely for us to admire and take pictures of.

Sweet Baby Face.

My Sister Turns 44 Today

Today is my sister's birthday. I would like to think that she would see this picture and see what a cute little fat creature she was.

I was thinking about her today, since I haven't seen her in years so I went looking in the old photos my Aunt Barb has been sending me and this one is the first one I came across. She is 9 months old here.

We lived in a trailer house then, as you can tell by looking at the walls.

I almost hesitate in telling what I remember about things way back then, since they aren't going to always match other people's memories. That is such a funny thing about remembering. An event is remembered differently from everyone else's point of view. Age, circumstance, significance, all make certain parts seem important, and some pieces may not be remembered at all.


We lived in the trailer house a couple of years. Until after my sister was born obviously. Of course, my dad will probably read this and give me more details. He is detail oriented, and he was older than I was then, so he remembers more things.

You can see what the folks entertained us with....is that newspaper in the box? And that rocking chair is still around. I think they bought that when I was born.

And that pillow on the couch, very '60's. It was a good pillow to punch if I remember correctly. I wonder how long it lasted.

My Dad

My dad is a special man, he has done a lot of things in his life, and...

He is a saver.

This time he saved some very special things, so that future generations can enjoy them.

This is the newspaper article.




I like this color photo of Dad better.



Here is the complete text of the article.

Yearbooks dating back to 1925 returned to WPPS

Past graduates of West Point Public Schools may be happy to know that some of the school's history has been returned to the school -- and just in time for the school's alumni banquet weekend.

Tom Black, a former English, History and Social Studies Teacher at West Point HS this week returned a stack of yearbooks that he found in the attic of the former West Point Elementary School in 1974, when items were being moved to the then new high school bu idling, now 36 years old.

There are 27 yearbooks in all, dating from 1925 through 1961. Not all years in -between are part of the collection, however.

Black said he kept the books after finding them because they were in delicate shape. At the time, annuals at the high school were placed on the selves, and he was concerned they might be damaged.

The older annuals now are available on reserve checkout, so are more protected. He returned them this week to the school's media director, Jeaneen Kindschuh.

In the oldest yearbook, 1925, there were 35 seniors, 24 juniors, 32 sophomores and 42 freshmen. The football team posted a 7-1 record in 1924-1925, and the basketball team went 19-1, winning District 2.

Also of interest: there were two cheerleaders, on boy and one girl.

Black owns 34 years books, from 1963-1996, the years he taught at West Point High School.

West Point News
May 26.2010