Bees

I (and when I say "I" it wasn't really me) was swimming the other day and must have saved like 15 June bugs from an early death by drowning in the pool. I couldn't save them all so, I gave up. While I was swimming I was buzzed by a bee.

When he was dive bombing me, he got too close to the water and accidently landed. He was struggling to stay afloat so I tried to save him by getting him out. The darn fool came back and got sucked in again.

I kept trying to save him but the idiot kept coming back. Now if you keep trying to save the bee and he keeps coming back, what do you do? Like duh, you give up. I don't know how many times I tried to save him and he kept coming back. All right if you don't want to be saved then just float there. I give up!

Summertime Dreams

Trois couleurs: Film nature,
originally uploaded by Ezu.

Two young girls are walking into the tall green grass. It's the color of early summer. The heat and summer dryness hasn't turned it into the winter time hay.

They are trying to fill the hours of summer vacation. Summer vacation, the long days that slip away like the high tide of the ocean, leaving memories on the white sand of the beach. They seem to last forever but slide into the short days of autumn.

The young voices of girls float on the warm breeze. The sun is hot but the breeze feels cool. Slipping into the shoulder high grass the slender sharp blades brush against their legs.

Living in the country doesn't always give you a chance to socialize with your very best friend so, you have to fill your time by making up games and finding something to do. On this summer day we played house in the tall green grass.

We slid between the tall blades of grass hiding from the farm hands and our mother. We flattened a room in the middle of the field. It was the beginning of our house. Tunneling through the stalks we made a hallway to our bedrooms and kitchen. We were careful to make the hallways narrow in order to leave a roof of grass over our heads.

Lying on the moist, grassy floor of the bedroom we watched the snowy white clouds float across the blue sky, dreaming our dreams of the future. While lying there we heard the voice of our mother yelling for her missing kids. It's time to join the rest of the world but the hours spent in our green house will stay with me forever.

Deer

I live in a place that often has wildlife visiting from the nearby forest. I often go outside and scare the deer out of the yard or watch them cross the street. Today was unique.

We had a young doe dining on our grass in the backyard. I often complain about the damage they do to my lilies but today takes care of that complaint. The doe spent more than an hour taking a rest in our yard. She laid down and, as I type this, she is still relaxing and enjoying the sunlight. What a great way to spend the afternoon.

Sugar

Talking about Sugar, if you have read my profile you would know that I love cooking. Most of the time my favorite recipes are main dishes. I like sweets but they are not what floats my boat. I love trying new ways to cook chicken, beef, pork, and turkey. However, I do like my children to have healthy, after school snacks.

I thought long and hard about including recipes on my blog but I just could not resist sharing some of my favorite family recipes. With that said, I hope you will understand why I include a few of my tried and true recipes with the public at large.

I have to include mention of my favorite cooking web-site. Cooking Light is the best! It takes many old fashioned favorites that many people use and re-vamps them into heart healthy recipes. A good example would be Lasagna.

My best cookie recipe is Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies. The shelf life on these cookies are several weeks in length if you can keep your family from eating them all at once. My daughter eats them so fast that I've had to start making a double batch, otherwise I don't get any.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

1 Cup Margarine or Shortening (Shortening will make softer cookies)

3/4 Cups Packed Brown Sugar

1/4 Cup Granulated Sugar

1 3.5 Ounce Package of Instant Vanilla Pudding (generic pudding actually works better and you can use chocolate or butterscotch flavored pudding)

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla

2 1/4 cup Spooned, Unsifted Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1 12 Ounce Package of Chocolate Chips

1 Cup Chopped nuts

Cream together margarine/shortening, sugars, and instant pudding. Once the shortening, sugars and dry pudding is smooth and creamy, add the eggs and vanilla. Beat well until Fluffy. Measure and mix the flour and soda together in a seperate bowl and then gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts, drop from a teaspoon onto an ungreased baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven, cool for 2 minutes, remove cookies from the pan and cool the cookies thoroughly before placing in your favorite cookie jar.

You're not made out of sugar, You won't melt

Time is 2:38 AM. The ping, ping, pong, the sound of something hitting metal outside my bedroom window, wakes me up from a deep sleep.

My first thought is, "what is that noise?" It's not even a real thought. It's more the sensation of fumbling around in the dark, trying to bring thoughts to the front of my brain. Then I realize that I've heard that sound before. It is the sound of raindrops hitting the air-conditioner. It finally dawns on me that it is raining outside.

Quickly, I bring myself back from the warm arms of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. Scattering the petals of opium off my head, I remember that I left the car windows open. Throwing on a shirt and shorts, I walk out of the bedroom and pick up the car keys. Unlocking the front door, I step onto the front porch to be greeted by a heavy downpour. It didn't sound like a heavy rain storm.

I run up the steps to the rain soaked street and opening the locks, get into the car. Inserting the keys into the ignition, I roll up the windows. I can see that the papers on the front seat are wet so I move them into the back seat so that they will dry by morning. Getting out of the car, I run back to the front door of our house.

I am soaking wet. The rain has wetted me through to the skin. Walking into the house, I speak to my husband. "At least I'm not made out of sugar, I won't melt." A little rain never hurt anyone. The wet rain makes me feel as if everything is washed clean inside and out. When you have the chance, take a walk in the rain. I'm sure you're not made out of sugar, You won't melt either.

Read, Read, Read, Reed?

Clarinet,
originally uploaded by FotoJunkie.

I was talking with Pojo this afternoon, concerning my expected trip to the library. I asked him if he had any books that needed to go back. He is in the middle of three different books and hasn't finished any of them yet.

Here's his response, "Read, Read, Read, that's all I do when I get home. What do you think I do when I get home at night? Go to bed?"

My Response, "Reed, isn't that something you find in a clarinet?"

Groan!!!!!!!

Girl Friend's Response, "You find them inside oboes, saxophones, and English horns."

Under The Tuscan Sun

Sunflower (3),
Pic. originally uploaded by smallchih.

If you have read my profile you would have seen that one of my favorite movies is 'Under The Tuscan Sun'. I'm always borrowing it from the library. One of these days I'm going to buy it. Anyway, it is based on a non-fiction book by Frances Mayes, titled "Under The Tuscan Sun", go figure. It is totally fantastic. If you haven't read it I would Highly recommend it. It creates fantastic visual pictures with her descriptions.

Opps....There Goes My Wallet

Yesterday, I was standing in line at the grocery store, when the man in front of me accidentally dropped his wallet. It seems to be typical of many people that they stuff everything into their wallet. This man was no exception. Don dropped a ton of credit cards, business cards, etc. all over the floor. He bent down to pick them up and dropped some more. He continued to pick them up and what do you know, dropped them again.

I was standing behind him and the longer I watched the more I smiled. I couldn't help myself because what was going through my mind was a similar incident. I dropped my stuff all over the place and the more I tried to pick my stuff up, the more I dropped.

Someone else might have gotten upset because he was holding up the line but all I could see was myself in a similar circumstance. When something like this happens a person feels embarrassed, hurried because they don't want to hold up the people in line, flustered because you can't find your credit card and you still have to pay for your purchase. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Cockatiels Are Noisy! A.KA. Politeness Rules

Our neighbor is interesting! A while back our neighbor bought bows and arrows for their children as an Easter gift. Hmm....a means of causing death during a life acknowledging holiday. That's just me thinking about the ironies of life.

Now these weren't just your ordinary young, child's play bow and arrow but a set up that can cause actual harm. The kids, since they had this new 'toy' to play with, went outside and started target practicing. They started target practicing at our "KEEP KIDS ALIVE DRIVE 25" yard sign that we had placed in our yard, close to the rear of our car. It wasn't something we had paid for so the damage done was not something that NEEDED to be paid for.

Mr. Fred, my husband, saw the whole thing and became irate. He yelled at the kids to begin with. A few moments later, he saw the father in the backyard and spoke to him. He asked the father to get his kids to stop using the sign as a target. The father's response was, "what, they are not doing anything wrong" Hmmm...(me again thinking aloud) arrows going through a sign, next to a road with the possibility of traffic getting hit, possibly hitting our car with the arrows, vandalising a sign, yeah they weren't doing anything wrong. This totally tripped Mr. Fred's trigger because all the things I just thought about were what was going through his mind. Remember, he tried to speak to the father before he went the final step; he called the police. A policeman arrived and spoke to the father about the use of arrows in town. Ohhh..I forgot to mention, we live in a residential neighborhood in a town of approximately 48,000 people. It's not like we lived in the country.

You may be thinking what does this have to do with Cockatiels? Well, it was a demonstration point of the relationship between our neighbor and my husband. Things haven't gotten any better. The neighbor is still rude and inconsiderate. Mr. Fred is still holding a grudge and is rude right back. The neighbor mows the lawn and weed eats right outside our bedroom window at 8 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, when I was working a 1:00 AM shift the night before. The bird screeches out of their kitchen window waking everyone up at 7:00 AM on a daily basis, etc.

Recently, the neighbor's bird, Holly, got away from them and flew into the trees right above our bedroom. How do we know about that? Mr. Fred had just gone to bed and was woken up by repetitive screeches that sounded right over his head.

Mr. Fred looked out of the bedroom window and saw the neighbor's 16+ year old son climbing our tree that has branches directly over the roof. Let's face it Mr. Fred was upset!

Many people don't know that if a child climbs a tree and then falls out of the tree, injuring themselves, it is the responsibility of the homeowner, even if the homeowner knew nothing about it. That's what went through Mr. Fred's head. The tree gets narrow the closer it gets to the roof and Mr. Fred was picturing the young man falling off the tree. Let's face it, he was also upset that his sleep was interrupted.

Mr. Fred goes outside onto the porch and yells at the kid to get out of the tree, explaining why he can't climb the tree. That's when he found out about the bird being in the branches of the tree above the roof. The neighbor tells us that "He didn't know his bird could fly. He has never done it before." They have had this bird for more than 2 years. I don't have a parrot or a bird but I KNOW that birds fly.

Mr. Fred goes back in the house. I follow Mr. Fred inside. I'm feeling concerned on behalf of the bird, embarrassed by Mr. Fred's behavior, in-comprehension/disbelief of the neighbor's statement and behavior, understanding of Mr. Fred's concern & behavior. A basic jumble of conflicting emotions. Mostly what I'm thinking about is putting myself in the neighbor's position and having a loved pet stuck in the tree. It has happened before, however, I'm polite and don't go climbing the neighbor's tree without permission.

20 minutes later a policeman knocks on the door. The neighbor had called the police to arbitrate. When I spoke with the policeman I explained that the kid had climbed the tree without permission. After confirming it with Mr. Fred, I didn't mind if they brought their ladder over and climbed our roof in order to reach the bird as long as there was an understanding that if someone fell we would not be held responsible. I also wanted to supervise. So, I went outside, and watched/helped them retrieve their bird from the tree branch above our roof.

Moral of the story? Think about your neighbor, be polite, ask before you trespass on your neighbor's property, don't use a bow and arrow in a residential area, clip your bird's wings before you let him/her outside! Finally, don't be rude! The world would be a better place if we were more polite and considerate of our neighbors.

Iris

The Iris were blooming in May but now they are beginning to look withered and dry. They are beginning to conserve their resources for the coming up winter. This year the Iris did not do very well. It has been about 4 years since they were planted and now they need a lift, literally. I lifted them up and moved them to new spots in the yard. Hopefully, if everything goes well, they will bloom like crazy next spring. I'm looking forward to it because my mother-in-law gave me some new colors to plant.

While I was at it, I lifted, separated and replanted the Siberian Iris that I had growing in the garden. It went from one large clump to 4 smaller ones. It needed a face lift.