should we be amused or disgusted that "the maid" isn't doing her job

I was sitting in our sunniest room this afternoon, paying bills while the two youngest were flying about the room making joyful noises, not unlike the fledgling mocking birds which were just outside the window.  Chanel No 5 says, "Look, I'm catching dust specks on my tongue."

simple truth

not to mention the creepy music

What is it about an ice cream van slowly trolling the neighborhood that gives me the heebs? 

Not in your wildest dreams freaky ice cream man!

june: quite possibly my second favorite month of the year

It has been a long-standing tradition that each year for Fathers' Day, we go visit my dad's parents.  Despite the fact that my grandfather passed away last year, we still wanted to continue with the tradition.  The fact that my dad isn't here to say "Happy Fathers' Day" to stings a little less when I am surrounded by his parents and siblings.  Being in his childhood home, sitting on the cool and breezy screened-in front porch, where the air is laden with the sounds of so many bird songs, remembering the first man I ever loved, it's a slice of heaven. 

Most of the weekend's memories are inside my head, because I was too busy enjoying time with my kin folk to remember that I had a camera.

Sweet, aunt Jenny walked down with 4 and 5 to the blueberry bushes.

Don't you just love the yummy simplicity of corn flakes topped with blueberries?

#4 was amazed that all he had to do was to go shake the fig bush and all the ripe figs would fall off onto the ground.  My grandmother will probably be "amazed" when there are no figs for her to make into preserves.  I have never canned anything before (something for next year's resolution list perhaps?) but I did cut these up and boil them with water and sugar to make topping for ice cream.  If I am really inspired, I may try to make homemade fig newtons.  But, because King.loves.figs. so much they may not last long enough.

wordless wednesday

brilliant

Y'all know how much I love Mister Rogers.  This is brilliant!

expanding my creativity

One of my new year's resolutions was to learn to make jewelry.

I'm not sure if it really counts that I am basically stringing beads onto elastic jewelry cording, but I am going to count it as such anyway.  A year or so ago, I put an all call out to my Catholic friends to see if anyone had any medals lying around.  My incredibly beautiful, talented friend, Sue, sent me a Ziploc bag full! 

(Side note: Sue is one of the many people in my life who I would LOVE to spend more time with, because she is rich with wisdom and talent, not to mention she is an incredible, peaceful kind of mother.  But alas, since I don't get to spend time with her here on Earth, I am hoping I can sit beside her in Heaven.)

I love this piece.  The center piece, a cross, is not flashy or shiny, but simple and lightweight.  Also, the necklace is made up of 40 black beads.  In between each black bead, there is a small, shiny, silver tube.  It reminds me that so much of our lives we are in a struggle with evil, but if we keep centered on Christ, that we can make it to the bright and shiny days, even if they are short-lived. 

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Another of my resolutions was to learn how to paint with oils.  Seeing as though we are halfway into the year, and time isn't standing still for me, I bought gouache paints and have started teaching myself.  Gouache is not as involved as oils, which require turpentine, linseed oil, etc.  However, the problemo is that I don't really have a vision when I see an empty canvas. 

Give me a sewing machine and some inspiring fabric and I am off to the races, but this painting thing is a bit more of a stretch.  I guess 3D is more my speed... alas, I will not give up.  My first painting- still in progress- is of a vintage VW van.  Meh.. it's just ok.  I love the colors, and I do love the windshield wipers which look like eyes peering to the side, but the design is a bit rigid. 

Vintage VW van (in progress)

I'll keep working 'til I find that relaxed style of my own.

one of those 'wish you were here' moments

I love that my kids enjoy watching cooking shows on PBS on the weekend, especially today.

This morning we were out of milk, so I made the little kids a strawberry smoothie to go with a nice sized slice of slightly sweet zucchini bread that my sister-in-law made.  The smoothie reminded no 4 of a cooking show he had seen the day before, Sara's Cooking Show, in which they made a watermelon smoothie. 

"I'll have to find that recipe and make it for you one day," I said.  Then I asked him what were some of his other favorite chefs.

"Ooh, there is this one lady named Julia and she is good."

"Is she the one that sort of talks funny?" I asked him.

I just wish you could have heard him.  His impersonation of Julia Childs talking about the Chiffon Cake she and her guest, Mary Bergin, were making was HILARIOUS!

Out of the blue, he scrunched up his mouth really small and said, "Lovely... it has nice holes in it."  He sounded Just.Like.Her.


Here beginning at timestamp 7:40
Oh, and as a sidenote, doesn't that Chiffon Cake look "lovely"?

narrowing the scope of political correctness

my·op·ic

 /maɪˈɒpɪk, -ˈoʊpɪk/ Show Spelled[mahy-op-ik, -oh-pik]

adjective

1.  Ophthalmology . pertaining to or having myopia; nearsighted.

2. unable or unwilling to act prudently; shortsighted.

3. lacking tolerance or understanding; narrow-minded.

 

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So, here we were driving home from filling our WMD with lead-free gasoline when we see this enormous billboard with an anti-bullying message.... which made us then wonder, "When does the enforcement of a No Bullying campaign become a form of bullying itself?
Walking the fine lines of political correctness.  It's a tightrope kind of world out there.


Furthermore, I wonder if bullies honestly care that they aren't being "PC"?