Ghostsies and Goblins and Things that go bump in the night..

It's almost Halloween.

Haunted corn fields, river bottoms, houses and amusement parks, have been popping up for about a month. Providing places where you can pay some big buck's, to get the bageebers scared right outta ya!

Even Nick Jr. is getting in on the ghosties and goblins and things that go bump in the night.

Not wanting to be left out, I thought I'd jump on the band wagon.

I'm no ghost hunter, and have no desire to become such. If they want to find me, it's their choice. But let me tell you, I ain't dumb enough to go lookin for them.

For kicks n giggles and maybe scare myself a little, I tried to google "orbs" to see if they had a "how to" on them. 

Yeah, they didn't have anything that made sense to me. So I will leave it up to your discretion...

Here are three random pictures, from three undisclosed locations...

What do you think?

 May be googled pictures...then again, maybe not Bwwaaa ha ha!

I gotta confess. I'm interested in your thoughts and comments on this.

   Dust?   Rain?   Glare?   Ghosty orbs?

This time of year its just plain to hard to tell.

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese Proverb

You Can Do It!

I watched a vine climbing through the fence from the neighbor's yard, however I never took the time to actually go look at it.

The thing was right there.

 I could see it from the window or the patio and think to myself, I would go see what it is next time I'm out in the garden. I would go about my business, forgetting all about it.

Then one day I looked out the window and noticed the vine was turning a beautiful deep red color. It was time to grab my camera and make torturous walk, ten extra steps from our garden, to see what this thing was.

Concord grapes. Smaller than tiny.

How sad.

If only they could have gotten more water, they might have been big enough to do something with.

Being the deep thinker I have become. (A phenomena that has arisen in my life over the past 6 or 7 years-boggling my otherwise carefree brain).

Sad forgotten grape vine. What would I learn from it?

This morning I was near trounced by this, very deep, and somewhat profound thought.

The vine is like ideas and wishes I have periodically entertained in my life.

Huh?! Pretty deep don't you think?

I remember my free thinking, inner child has always been evident in who I am, so it isn't a real big stretch to remember some-such whims and fancies.

It hit me on the head, that lately it's only me, myself and I, really  holding me back from reaching for old dreams and dreaming new ones.

Whhhell now! Time to change that don't you think?

So I bought a digital camera, got loaded up on editing programs, and have been learning to do portraiture and art photography. Someone needs to be the next Cecil Beeton.

I can do that!

Someone needs to write the next book series to edge out Harry Potter  and Edward Cullin!

Join a writing club.

Maybe a Fred Astaire or Ginger Roger's-take a ballroom dancing class.

What I'm saying is this:

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanise proverb

Windows of Heaven

My mom used to sing me a bed time song about stars being the windows of heaven where angels peek through...

This week has been another one of those week's in which centuries instead of minutes happen. Some very hard parts of life seem to be colliding with each other to see which of them can squeeze my heart until it can't move...again.

But I have learned from past, terribly hard parts in my life.  Enough to know that although its hard for me to breath right now...if I regulate my heart beats to the sound of the kitchen clock, concentrate on breathing in and out, talk to Jesus, and look, sometimes really hard, for the beauty that can be found in each day...it will be there and I will see the windows of Heaven.

Some day's we have to, Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

My Bat Story

Let me tell you a story about the morning my big brother came to my rescue.

Solidifying his courage and bravery status, in  my young opinion.

 

                                                                     picture found on google search by blogs.inlandsocal.com
  

A bat had managed to creep down our old, no longer used chimney, and find its way through the old stove pipe until it was able to drape it's gross rubbery wing, none to gracefully over the corner of the brass plate camouflaging the marred wall. 
 
I was a little girl playing baby doll's on the front room couch, minding my own business, when I looked up and saw the ginormous mouse with wings, I could see it's beady little eye's plotting the aerial attack on me, struggling over the lip of the plate to fly freely around and scare the begeebers outta me!!!

Being the dainty little flower I was, I screamed at the top of my lungs and ran from the room with my baby doll covering my noggin.

Mom came to see what all the hub-bub was about and upon seeing the serenity destroying critter flapping back and forth across the room, darted to arouse the sleeping hero above floors...my big brother.

I remember him ambling sleepily down the stairs, fresh out of bed, looking around and asking what the noise was all about...He didn't see anything...until the vile creature dislodged itself from its resting spot on a curtain, to swoop and buzz him.

Walking calmly from the room, whilst I was doing the brave thing of hiding behind my mom's skirt and peeking out to scream at what, I thought, was appropriate times, he returned shortly with a glove on?!

Not two, ONE.

What the heck good would that do?!

He calmly walked over to the curtain where the thing thought it had hidden, reached up and grabbed it, quick as you please.

With it held firmly in the palm of his gloved hand, he walked calmly out the front door, with me tagging along at his heel's every step of the way, and released it with a gentle toss toward the rising sun...

He turned and said, "It was just lost, and afraid, now it will find it's mommy and not come back". And went back to bed for a while.

He was so brave and unruffled!

Now, year's later it is not a tiny lost bat, that is once again allowing me to see his strength, composure and compassion, but instead, Percival, the stage 3-4 glioblastoma, that has chosen to live in his brain.
And as he said: "We can't choose the stuff that happens to us, but we can choose how to react to it".


Once again solidifying his courage and bravery status in my not so young perspective.

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

A Masquerade Ball

When witches go riding,

and black cats are seen,

the moon laughs and whispers,

‘tis near Halloween.

~Author Unknown

Kids of all ages are getting ready for Halloween. Some with an air of festivity, some with an air of dread...I fall some place in between.

Busy Momma has been working for almost 6 months on their costumes for her cousin's Masquerade Ball  being held tonight...

Reminiscent of the scene from Phantom of the Opera, with costumes being worked on for a year to 6 moths prior.

My sister even ordered her masq from Italy, with the long held secret dream of attending just such a ball!

Preparations have all been made, the massive Union Station is being decorated, entertainment has been approved by the city...the anticipation is building for this possibly once in a life time opportunity!

May a magical and memorable evening be had by all!!!

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

the Hay Maze

Around our neck of the woods around Halloween you see all sorts of "haunted" stuff show up. Haunted houses, Haunted Hollows, Haunted amusement parks....

A few years ago a new fad came into being and that is the "corn maze" Farmer's will plot out a maze course and plant the corn field to have the trails left unplanted...often they will have other things like a hot cocoa stand that has hot dogs and a place to warm your hands. Some times there will be a slide propped up on a few of the big stacked bails of hay or straw...a calf feeder filled with straw and candy to try to find. Sometimes they will have a big wagon loaded with pumpkins you can buy if you want.

I don't like to get scared.

Its a fact.

I can't bring myself to pay someone to scare the scream out of me.

Its just how I am.

But I can, and do, like going to the little "hay maze" a local fruit stand puts up at no charge for the little kids.

We found it last year and Tiny Dancer has remember it all year.

It was set up last week and we were so there!

We met some cousins last week and had a good ol time...

Climbing the hill of straw and tipping over in it...

This year they added a kiddy size slide and made the maze a lot longer and with more choices to take.

The best part is still, all the racing and chasing each other around and around...

So while the weather holds and the skis don't open up soaking the straw and making it to slippery to run on, we will be going down for some regular entertainment, fresh fruits and vegetables...and a piece of trick or treat candy they offer the little ones.

It's nice to live in this neck of the woods.

Thank you to the fruit stand that offers a rollicking good time to the knee high crowd!!!

Smile and remember;

We're all fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

Mmm Cake

So, I have this recipe for cake that is really good-when I tell you the name you will wrinkle up your nose and say "Icky!" and stop reading...But wait!!! It's not that kind of cake!

It's name is "Spoiled Fruitcake" not the fruit cake that weighs a ton and people save it from year to year to give away for white elephant gifts...

This cake is made from fruit, or fruit juice.

When you bottle peaches you will notice that half of the bottle seems to become juice, and we usually end up dumping in down the sink, but wait!!

Make a cake with it instead!! 

I always try to get a picture of things I happen to bake, before, they get cut into...but it's yet to happen, so here is what my last spoiled fruitcake looked like;

I used juice I saved from 2 quarts of peaches to equal 1 quart of juice for this one...my favorite, is to use pears and smoosh em up, and let Tiny Dancer drink the juice, because she likes it.

This is good to bake in a bread loaf pan or regular cake pan. It freezes well. Wrap it in tin foil and it is a great Christmas gift idea!

This recipe will make 1- 9x13 cake pan OR 7 small bread loaf pans OR 2- large bread loaf pans...

Spoiled Fruitcake
In a small bowl;
1 quart fruit smashed with a fork  OR 1 quart juice (any kind)
4 tsp Soda
Let stand for a few minutes.
*****************************************************

4C. Flour                         2 C. Sugar                1 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Ground Cloves        4 tsp. Cinnamon        2 tsp. Nutmeg

Mix to combine then add:
1 C. Oil  and the fruit mixture from the smaller bowl.

At this point you can add all, part or none of the following:
1 C. Chocolate chips
2C. Raisins
1 C. chopped nuts

Mix then place in greased pan(s) of your choice.
Bake at 325 degree's      for 45 minutes to 1 hour (Until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry)

Eat it warm or cold, with or without frosting or a glaze...always good with ice cream!

Ode To The Youngest

This picture of Honey and I was taken sometime in September 1985.

I was about nine months pregnant and 25 years old.

I was young, and my hair was long, and no gray in it yet...

*sigh*

We were expecting our third baby,

due date : October 31st

No way was I going to have a baby on Halloween!

Back when water was almost new, we didn't have ultrasounds

so you never knew who was coming until they got there.

With two handsome boy's, and knowing this was our last baby. I was so sure we were having a girl, that I refused to pick out boy names...nagged into picking just one, it was Fairfax.

Honey wanted to name a girl Tabitha, if she was born on Halloween.

Why not Samantha, Or Endora?!?! (just breath) He wondered about Chantilly...

The night I went into labor, I about got left at home...

Honey loaded the boys in the car with their overnight bags,

climbed in and started honking the horn.

Meanwhile, I, was stuck in the house trying to get my shoes on!

Every time I would bend over I'd have another contraction!

Finally, I slipped them on, smooching down the backs, slipped a sweater on that was to small to fit around my middle, and waddled out the door, to see Honey starting to back out of the driveway with the passenger door open?! Calling, from his open window for me to "hurry up!"

I started laughing and that didn't help matters much.

So true to form, we didn't wait until the due date to meet our youngest child...our earliest arrival...our tiniest baby...

Our baby, who came home from the hospital with strep throat and ear infection at 24 hours old, loaded  down with antibiotic's, a few extra receiving blankets, with orders to "keep her warm"...

I named her after my oldest and dearest friend...

The boy's will swear to you she is the spoiled one.

This morning I was reminiscing, as parents tend to do when their children reach "milestone" birth dates...

She is turning 25!!

I remember when she had such lofty goals of becoming a "Highland cow (he-lee-an coo) farmer" OR a pencil maker, who would wear a yellow jumpsuit and a pink pill hat, tilted, just right...

*sigh*

She has an amazing sense of humor, a prankster from the get-go,

She is loving and compassionate, friendly, strong, smart, people are drawn to her, she is just a smidge sarcastic...and lots of other stuff.

She still hates doing dishes and comes to my house to make her cookies...she can sew better than I ever could, spin a yarn that will have you laughing for day's,  and she can draw most anything...

She once told me, "Mom, I'm the barnacle on the ship of your life".

I'm sure glad of that!

I was the mom.

Now she is the mom.

One day, she will look at a picture of herself, then realize that her daughter, is the same age she was when...

Happy Birthday!!!

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

Daydreaming

Daydreaming is just like night dreaming.

Only it's not night.

And you're not asleep.

And you're not dreaming.

From Junie B. Jones.

Over the Summer I read a few blogs and book titles that all boiled down to this one thing;

"If I could do anything. Knowing I could not fail.

What would I do?"

And you know...

I've given it a fair amount of thought...

Rolled things around in my head at length...

Thought about daydreams I've entertained over the years

and have come up with a few pretty solid ideas.

Dreams I didn't know I could do...

Dreams I have wanted to do...

My dream?

Is to be the next

Cecil Beaton

I have often thought of the man at the beginning and end of the movie Pretty Woman who says...

"Every body's gotta have a dream...

Whats your dream?!"

Cecil Beton Images:

http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&rlz=1D2GGLD_enUS355US355&tbs=isch%3A1&sa=1&q=cecil+beaton+images&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

Yogurt-you CAN make it !!

I would like to thank a good friend of mine, Coleen, for sharing with us how you make vanilla yogurt at home! I like store bought yogurt, but I L-O-V-E homemade!!

If you like yogurt-you will love homemade yogurt!!!


Ingredients for Vanilla Yogurt

7 ½ cups milk
2/3 cups nonfat dry milk
¾ cups sugar
1 pkg. unflavored Knox gelatin
1 cup Dannon plain yogurt
4 Tbsp. Vanilla flavoring




In heavy pan, combine milk and nonfat dry milk and sugar. Use wire whisk to stir in powdered milk.

Sprinkle Knox gelatin over milk mixture and let stand for five minutes to soften gelatin. Whisk again to stir gelatin into milk.

Heat to boiling point and remove from heat.

Let mixture cool to 120º.

Add cup of yogurt and vanilla.

Whisk again to get all the lumps out of the yogurt.

Place in a clean two-quart jar. Place lid tightly on jar and set jar in hot water bath. (I use my crock pot on the “Keep Warm” setting filled with hot water.) Do not let the temperature get higher than 120º. Leave for 6 to 8 hours for the culture to mature.

Move to the refrigerator immediately.

The yogurt will thicken when cooled.

Vanilla Yogurt
7 ½ cups milk
2/3 cups nonfat dry milk
¾ cups sugar
1 pkg. unflavored Knox gelatin
1 cup Dannon plain yogurt
4 Tbsp. Vanilla flavoring


In heavy pan, combine mild and nonfat dry milk and sugar. Use wire whisk to stir in powdered milk.

Sprinkle Knox gelatin over milk mixture and let stand for five minutes to soften gelatin. Whisk again to stir gelatin into milk. Heat to boiling point and remove from heat. Let mixture cool to 120º.


Add cup of yogurt and vanilla. Whisk again to get all the lumps out of the yogurt. Place in a clean two-quart jar. Place lid tightly on jar and set jar in hot water bath. (I use my crock pot on the “Keep Warm” setting filled with hot water.) Do not let the temperature get higher than 120º. Leave for 6 to 8 hours for the culture to mature. Move to the refrigerator immediately. The yogurt will thicken when cooled.

What a healthy breakfast, snack or after school treat...For a variety, this yogurt can be made without the vanilla to make it a plain flavor- to change up plain yogurt, you can add a spoonful of homemade jam, fresh fruit, or sprinkle with granola,

or add it all and enjoy!

Pictures and recipe provided by Coleen-Thank you!!

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese Proverb

October's Princess

She only stood at the window for about half the day...

Damp cloth in hand to help with the job.

Leaning on the foot stool and flipping the 4 pages of window stickers...with her chin in her hand as she carefully ended up choosing each and every one...

One at a time.

Ta-Dahhh!!!

We dance, we sing,

high five and knuckle bump.

This is how it looked...

The first time.

She has only to stand at the window,

to set her little hands to decorating,

to make you feel the joy that can be found in life.

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance. 

Japanese Proverb

Almost Ready

Yesterday was a little on the hot side. Went to bed and left the windows all open.
Woke up this morning to Fall in full blow, complete with  rain storms.

I wish I could make up my mind as fast as the weather changed!

We have been getting ready for it though, by mowing the lawn, weeding the garden's and gathering some of the flower seeds for next Spring. Getting the sprinklers ready to be shut off.

Winterizing the camper, making sure the hoses are in good enough shape to keep one more year, and getting them ready to tuck away. Taking down the humming bird feeders, because they have been gone for a while now.

Moving the push mower back and bring the snow blower closer to the front of the garage. Cleaning out the basement window wells.

I think the part that tells me Honey is serious about getting things ready to put to bed for the Winter, is when he tucks his dutch oven's  in the out of the way, safe from the salt and water spot, he keeps reserved for them.

He uses the big one, that was his Dad's, the most.

He makes sure they are all cleaned and seasoned and leaves a paper towel in each one to help protect form moisture inside.

He doesn't like to have to reclaim them from rust if he can help it.

So, let the leaves change, the winds blow, and the rain's come until they change to snow...because we are almost ready, and if it stays warm a little longer? We are ok with that too.

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese Proverb

It's raining today...

It's raining today. And I'm sad.

I'm not sad because it's raining.

I like the rain.

I'm sad because I don't know how to help.

I don't know what to do.

It isn't the first time I have been sad like this.

and unfortunately,

I know it wont be the last time.

But it is this time.

Please excuse me, while I try to Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb

Adding To Favorites

I have things that are my favorites.

They tend to not change very often.

Maybe it's because I'm a creature of habit, I don't know.

One of the beautiful things about favorites is that you have to try new thing's to see if they make it to your...

List O Fav-O-rites.

I always thought blue was my favorite color,

and maybe it was...

But Red?

Red has been upgraded to a new favorite color.

and Pinks are good too.

Lemonade in the Summer?

But of course!

A tall cold iced tea every now and again?

You betcha!

While out and about with Honey's brother,

Las Vegas Man,

I was introduced to a couple of new favorites...

When you go some place,

where the low temperature is what your used to being the high?

Lets just say, I was parched 99% of the time,

and dehydration mingled with hot flashes were taking their tole...

That's when I bought that amazing Limon Lem drink from Mariana's!

Later, that raspberry iced tea, in the great place down on Fremont!

Could very well be what kept me going!!

A favorite in the past has been to keep my feet as close to the ground as possible, That still seems to be the thing to do. However, I would not have known that had I not trudged boldly into the elevator that took us to the top of the Stratosphere.

Yes. Elevators remain high on the list of a ride of terror for me.

Could not have paid me enough to go out on any 1 of the 3 rides that graced the top of the building! 

The view, was nothing short of amazing.

Adding new things to my list of favorites is sure a lot of fun!

Smile and remember;

We're fool's whether we dance or not. So we might as well dance.

Japanese proverb