Love and Kisses for your Birthday

Granddaughter. Every year you grow in wisdom, grace and add to your dreams. Grandpa and I will be thinking of you and remembering the birthdays we got to spend with you. You will always be our little ray of sunshine and the memories we have bring lots of smiles. Grandmother

Special Birthday Wishes!

It's your birthday! Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday dear daughter! You haven't changed much...still into shoes and dressing up! Have a wonderful day full of hugs and kisses. Love, Mom

Flowery Wings

Pirouettes and twirls,
Blooms beckon.

Sip of nectar,
Dainty and delicate.

A flutter iridescent,
Delights of summer.
Mom

Is it hot enough?

The 90+ weather is here! The refreshing picture on the front page of the paper this morning was of 3 children enjoying sno-cones at the fairgrounds. Along with this picture was an article on the cost of admission, rides and treats. While the fair here has reasonable admission prices, I was surprised to read about the cost of treats. Water was $2.00, sno-cones $1.50, funnel cake $6.00, bottle of beer $4.00 and fries with the works $7.00. An all day pass for rides was $25.00. When I was growing up the fair was an important outing. Companies and stores around town gave out admission tickets so it didn't cost anything to get in. A big cotton candy was 15 cents, we got 12 rides for $1.00 and the best of all was a big cup of fresh squeezed lemonade for 10 cents. We started saving our allowance in the month of June and looked for extra jobs to earn money. By the time August rolled around we might have $2.50 or $3.00. Fair time in Montana is a great memory and we didn't know what a bargin it was. Grandmother

One Fish, Two Fish

I just returned from a flyfishing trip. We fished the Florita (Florida) River and had good luck. The information all said that the only public access required bushwhacking to get to the river, but it wasn't as bad as some places I have been. A pretty mountain river but seems no one ever fishes it as we couldn't find any information about it in any of the fly shops. Some big fish are there if you are willing to hike for them.

We also fished the Animas, a big river but I did catch the first fish out of our group and it was 17 inches. The biggest fish I have ever caught...that is until we fished the Piedra and I got a fish that was around 18 inches. It was a battle. The fish jumped out of the water three times doing cartwheels and somersaults. I was worn out and the fish was worn out but we both recovered. I didn't catch a lot of fish but the ones I did catch were the largest I have ever gotten.

The scenery was spectacular and the rivers were sparkling and clear. What more could one ask for? Mom

If it isn't hot enough

in the house from the temperature outside, I just made it hotter. With all the ceiling fans whirling I started the summer canning session. At the Farmer's Market they had apricots for sale. After finding the biggest ones for a price that was affordable, I purchased a lug of them. Today I got them ready to process. After making a sweet simple syrup, I washed them and filled quart jars to the brim with apricots and poured in the syrup. The jars were plunged into the water bath and boiled for 45 minutes. Apricots are easy to prepare just wash them thoroughly in cool water, slit and remove the seed and stuff in the jars. Now I have just raised the temperature in the kitchen at least 10 degrees from all the boiling water. The finished product shines in the sunshine full of orange jewels just begging to be eaten. The first batch of fruit is ready to be stored until this winter. Grandmother

Here it is

July 19th and I have no ripe tomatoes. According to the literature I should have had ripe tomatoes by the 10th of July. Right now I have a lot of green tomatoes on the vines but they don't look like they will be ripe soon. They are the greenest green and I am watching for that first touch of pink signaling they are ripening. I bought Early Girls and three of the plants look like they are but one plant has several little pear like tomatoes coming on. They look interesting but I don't remember buying them. That's what I like about gardening you never know what the plant will grow up to be. I have a lot of zucchini squash. We pick them when they are finger size and eat them with a cheese dip. Boy are they good! We embellish our table with other veggies from the Farmer's Market. This is the best time of the year for eating!!! Grandmother

Sheer Craziness!

By now you all should have heard the story about the 13-year-old girl who was stripped searched for "drugs"/prescription Ibuprofen. It resulted from another girl telling school officials that the girl in question had "drugs".

I am absolutely horrified to read that school officials are strip searching students as part of their "zero tolerance" policies. This just gives me the creeps. If I had children in school, I would certainly use this opportunity to tell them that if any school official orders them to remove their clothes, they should refuse and insist on their parent(s) being called to come to the school and to do it loudly.

Since when have schools moved beyond educating to humiliating police tactics? I was asking myself this and I started googling information on the story. I ran across a story stating that in September of 2006 the house passed a bill allowing schools to do strip searches or risk losing federal funds. What the?!*
I tried to see if I could pull up more stories and determine what happened in the Senate. I can only assume that the Senate had members with more intelligence and common sense and that the bill failed, however, I couldn't find anything about this being the case so I am not sure what happened to the bill.

Does anyone else see the monumental issues with having a policy like this? In the first place as in the Arizona case it was a matter of one girl lying about another and no substantive facts. Secondly what in the world warrants a strip search for drugs? It seems like there are a lot of other options available for determining if a student is in possession of drugs in a school. Thirdly what damage does this inflict emotionally on the student who had to undergo this chilling experience and how does she assimilate back in with the rest of her peers at the school after such an event? We all know the mentality of kids in middle school!!!

This whole thing is just so wrong is oh so many ways! Mom

Flushed Away

Well, I have a pretty funny story. On Tuesday, I got up a little later than usual and as a result got to work a little later than usual. I was frazzled because I had a few things that I needed to do before a 9:30 a.m. meeting. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and quickly ran off to the bathroom just before the meeting.

To use the restroom in our building, you need keys, which I had nice and handy. I went in, did my thing and the toilet automatically flushed. I grabbed my keys and before I knew what was happening they went tumbling from my hands into the rushing waters of the toilet. Then of course I'm down on the bathroom floor on my hands and knees at eye level with the toilet looking disbelievingly into the abyss because my keys are not there. I could not believe that the force of the water was enough to flush two heavy keys down to the sewers of Chicago. So after my humiliating realization that I just flushed my keys away, I had to promptly report it to my office manager who could not stop laughing over my foolishness. Needless to say he handed me new keys with the wise words, "Don't flush these." Oh me. Daughter.

A few cents here

and a few cents there. I figure that I earn 15 to 25 cents per week by using my "green bags." I read in the paper that Telluride and Aspen are trying competition between the two towns to see which town can inspire their citizens to abolish plastic bags. The town of Telluride estimates 25,000 fewer plastic bags have been used since they began the no-plastic program on Memorial Day. One bank has offered a $100 savings bond to be drawn for persons using the "green bags", the grocery stores have joined on the band wagon to offer $50 gift certificates for the drawing. Filmmaker Suzan Boling is working on a documentary about the pollution of plastic polymer and the campaign of not using plastic bags. This is good news now if we can get more people involved and stop filling up our landfill with them. Think "Green." Grandmother

Seriously??!!

I was just looking at a sale flyer from a local store and it was advertising all of the things that college students need in their dorm rooms. Things like hampers that coil and compress, storage units on wheels for under the bed, lights with cool shades, chairs that only people with no spine can sit on and so on. I started reflecting on when I headed off to college. My freshman year my folks drove me to the college. I sat in the back seat of a mid-size car and in the trunk were all of my clothes, my electric typewriter, my bedding and school supplies like notebooks, pencils, etc. Everything fit in the trunk and it took all of about 3 trips to unload the car and get the stuff into my dorm room. Since I was only about 3 hours from home my parents took off and headed back.

Contrast that with my daughter's freshman trip to college. We drove 12 hours to get to her university with a minivan that was loaded from the front seats to the rear from top to bottom with clothes, more clothes, shoes, more shoes, computer, small table, assorted dish ware, pillows for head and for decorating the bed, t.v., lamps for the desk and floor, pictures....did I mention clothes and shoes? It was so packed that the bottom bumper only had a clearance of 2 inches. I think you get the picture. It took us most of the day to unload the van and haul her stuff down two flights of stairs to her dorm room.

You would think that with laptop computers and iphones and ipods that the trip to college now would fit into one cardboard box, but yet kids are towing U-Hauls behind their cars loaded now with all of their life possessions. What happened to getting back to the simple things in life and cutting down on all of the junk we have. Yeah, I know kids need those laptops, iphones, ipods, designer jeans, etc. etc. because now it's all about image and it's darn tough to make friends and text them if you don't have all of the gear and look good at the same time and parents sure don't want their babies to be on the outside looking in! Sigh! Mom

Mounting Medical Costs

The more my husband talks about retirement, the more I begin to hyperventilate. Not just because he will be crashing my peace and quiet, but because of the threat of looming medical costs. We haven't worked with employers who will continue health insurance after retirement so the cost will be coming directly out of our retirement account. And it is a mounting cost as we are still a long ways from Medicare.

Currently my scary, heart-stopping reading isn't "Who Dunnit Books" but the real-life tales of individuals who have retired and are facing mountains of bills from hospital and medical treatments. Not only have costs escalated substantially, but the out-of-pocket money payments have also climbed. It's enough to give anyone nightmares.

This leaves me pondering options when my husband does decide to retire...look for a job with health benefits, run for Congress, find a job with the federal government or enlist. After all isn't the slogan "Uncle Sam Wants You" applicable to everyone, baby boomers included. Hmmm, now that would be enough to motivate our elected leaders to move more quickly in making decisions on the health care crisis...me in the military. Now that's scary! Mom

Bedazzling 4th of July

This is 4th of July, a spectacular climbing rose. It blooms on and on throughout the summer with showy explosions of color. When all of the fireworks have died away and are only a glimmer of memory, the 4th of July rose will continue to dazzle and collect exclamations of admiration. Here's hoping your 4th of July is one that will last and last through the days of summer. Cheers! Mom

Happy Birthday USA

Fourth of July!!!! It is hot and sunny here today. We have our flag out and it is just sitting there in the sun. Still looking at it I am thinking how lucky I am to live in the USA amid the high gas prices, rising inflation and Medicare cut backs. This day was always celebrated in our family. On the ranch it was a day for fried chicken, potato salad and birthday cake. My Dad's birthday was also on the fourth. Sometimes we had home made ice cream and I remember the salty sweet tastes when they lifted the beater and the ice cream dripped on the ice. It was a time for sparklers, fire crackers and rockets in the evening. We oohed and aahed when the rockets flew up in the air. Now days most fireworks are banned for safety reasons and fire hazards but we didn't think about the dangers. Sometimes our fingers got burned from the sparklers as we chased around the yard. There are the fireworks displays with spectacular results at the city park or by the river but I miss being chased by my brothers with sparklers and my Mother yelling to be careful. Grandmother