Ridge to River 2007

'Sister's Superstars' made their first appearance at the Jr Ridge to River last Saturday.
They overcame spinouts in the kayaking, loose training wheels in the biking and the 'slide of doom'...I mean 'rockslide'.Part climbing wall part FTL Drive this scream machine was hardly even given a second thought as the Superstars crossed the finish line in 25th place overall but 1st in guts and spirit.
Nobody got hurt. Nobody cried. Everybody had fun and they all got ice cream at the end.
We can't wait for next year.

Empty Bowls

Spent the weekend glazing about 120 ceramic bowls for my kids' school Empty Bowls Soup Project. Every year all the kids (Pre-5th, about 150) work on this project starting in the fall with making soup kits to sell. The money from the soup kits goes to buying unglazed ceramic bowls and supplies. The kids then paint the bowls and sell them at our annual Empty Bowls Soup Supper in April with all those proceeds going to our churches food bank.
With just a 'little bit' of grown-up help they decorate, serve and clean up on the night of the supper. It's really cool to see the kids work so hard on this project.
The soup is donated by local restaurants and is delicious. There is usually a wide variety and you can eat as much as you want! I love soup, in the winter I make it a couple times a week. The rolls they serve are pretty yummy too.
Glazing the bowls took a lot of time and a lot of counter space but it was worth it. I can't wait to see them after they are fired. I have a kiln in the basement that needs to be put together and it's a good thing I can't do anything with it right now or I'd be firing these bowls myself along with some of the vintage greenware (naked lady ashtrays, tiki masks etc..) that I've been hording, the last thing I need is to start another project right now so I'm glad the weather is getting nicer so I can distract myself with some yard work or something.
Yay Spring!

Gigi pictures

Gigi likes to take pictures......lots of pictures. Pictures of the dog.
Pictures of her friend.
Pictures of her brother.......lots of pictures of her brother.
She's pretty good too.
Better than her mom.

Here birdy birdy birdy..........

During her visit over Christmas break my mom kept her hands busy making popcorn garland for me. I had heard from a few people that it was kind of a pain in the butt but we wanted to try it so a couple of months before I had begun saving all the leftover popcorn in a big paper bag, it got really stale. We're talking chewing gum popcorn stale. Well the staleness made it so easy to string! We tied small pretzels on the ends for anchors. They looked so cute on the Christmas tree, very homey and traditional.
When I took the tree down the day after Christmas....what too soon?!?.... my feeling is Christmas is over, get on with the new year already...anyway, when I took it down we strung the garland on a tree in our backyard. The winter birds loved it.
I have a big metal tray that fits perfect in the top branches, I usually load it up with stale bread in the spring and summer but in the winter it gets full of snow so I usually don't bother with it. This was a fun way to give the birdies a little treat. Recycle, reuse, renew.
It's torture for the dog, because it's cold and she's such a baby she doesn't want to go outside to chase them, she might get a chill.
I love how the popcorn looks with the birdhouse in this picture.
Looking out today at the rain and all the yards that are muddy and brown.........I miss the snow.

Happy ...early... Valentines Day!

It's a good old world,
This world of ours,
With its sunset skies,
And its summer showers;
Its flowers to bloom,
Its birds to sing,
Its wintry gloom,
Its buds of spring;
Its goals to win,
Its work to do,
Its love,
Its hope,
Its dreams,
and......YOU!
...........................................................Maurine Hathaway

ME.......by Jacob
Crazy, silly, sleepy and funny.
Brother of Gigi.
Loves pie, chocolate mousse and video games.
Fears Alien vs Predator the movie and black widow spiders.
I want to fly when I grow up.

Veggie Lasagna

Lots of lovely veggies! This is one of my favorites even though lasagna is kind of one of those foods that can be really bad for you, a big stack of cheese, pasta and meat, usually pork sausage, can't be good. I like to make this version with no meat, half the usual amount of cheese and tons of veggies. Assembled and half-baked the day before give the flavors a chance to 'kick' and my food planning ....urge, habit, fetish, hobby.... yeah that's it, my hobby is satisfied. So after about 20 years I think I'm getting pretty good at this cooking thing.

Chicken pie

Chicken and veggie pie I made a couple of weeks ago. I had forgotten that I took a picture of it. I do that all the time, I either get so caught up in the cooking and the serving that I completely forget to grab my camera and snap a few or I take a ton of the same thing and never use them. I get distracted......damn you real life.
Anyway I like to use a springform pan when I make any kind of pie. You can make them nice and thick and if you let them cool enough slicing and serving is as easy as .....mmmmpie.

gigi

"Gramma Pete.......if you wanna race you hafta go FAST!"

Mail call

So I did my Christmas cards the day after Thanksgiving...call it 'Holiday euphoria' or whatever but they were signed and safely in their addressed envelopes by November 25. Yay for me! So early, so productive, so on track for a stress-free holiday. But this is me we are talking about. 'Queen of Procrastination', 'Duchess of don't do it know' 'Mistress of the multiple incomplete projects'....heh that's my fave.
I have yet to even buy the stamps to mail them, oh yeah...they sit in a neat little bundle right next to my computer so it's not like I lost them or can't find the time to go to the many different places that I already go to that sells stamps and it's not like I don't drive by 5 or 6 pretty blue mailboxes every single day. The mailman comes to my house personally for Christmas sake! Pathetic, I know. I think it's because I think greeting cards are one of the biggest rackets that we buy into. $3 to tell a 5yr old happy birthday....I think the kid would rather you spend $2 on Pla-doh and $1 on a dilley bar from DQ. At least Christmas cards are cheap and if it really bugged me I could make my own but the paper arts are just not my thing. I know I know paper correspondence is a dying art and it's important to keep in touch with people you don't see all the time...you know the people who you can't remember the last time you saw or talked to but every year you send them a card....and they send one back. Cycle complete. Relationship intact. I should probably even do one of those sooo popular family newsletter type cards that let everyone know what you been up to...2 so far this year....but that's why I have a blog and if you don't already know what were doing then I probably don't want you to know. So there!
I think I'm grumpy today, might need a cookie or some bacon.

"Mom...

....how do people get old if they don't have any kids?"

Tree Bed

When I was about 11 or 12 my mom helped me build a fort in the middle of a huge lilac bush in my Gramma's front yard. It was sooo cool, tiny but super cool. It had a wood floor and just enough room for this old wicker butterfly chair and that's it. Totally surrounded by branches and leaves it was the perfect place to hide out, read or just watch the neighborhood.....ah yes a voyeur even at that tender age. I'll bet I spent most of that summer vacation in that bush. The part I remember most is just watching the birds in the branches. Come to think of it my favorite kid summer memory includes green leaves, the smell of late lilacs, sunshine(a'course) my first Stephen King novel and watching the birds build nests.
This bed reminds me of that so it deserves a hearty...
I WANT THAT!

Rainbow

I love being able to look out this window.......something new every day.

Naptime....

......sorry didn't mean to wake you.

We have been super-productive the past few weeks and are feeling pretty proud of ourselves thank you very much.
Ben just put in a complete sprinkler system that is pretty impressive. I don't know if it's the really cool rotating fountain sprinkler heads or the thought of having lush green grass without having to drag that damn sprinkler all over the yard ...yay. I took a few of pictures but none of them really showed the scope of the destruction at the time. It was awesome. The trenches are filled now but the yard is still pretty muddy in places and it will be a miracle if any grass grows before the snow flies but it will be worth it in the spring.
So I thought one huge project wasn't enough how about two. A week before Ben was going to start the on sprinklers I decided I was going to paint our bedroom...yep a simple paint job. Give the room a little freshening up before winter. Well gosh it is the only room in the house we haven't painted yet! Two weeks later and my 'paint job' has include the removal of a wall, hanging sheetrock and of course all the lovely mudding and sanding that goes along with that...cough. I ripped out the 40yr old carpet and 70yr old linoleum...I think it was linoleum. I'm sure whatever it was it was chock full of Asbestos. Sheetrock dust, lead paint, Asbestos and I stepped on a nice big pointy nail. I'm amazed I survived.
Our house was built in 1926 so everytime I tear into a wall or rip up flooring I'm always kind of half-way expecting to find treasure. I did find something this time, not treasure exactly but pretty cool none the less. A beautiful wood floor with not a mark on it, you can see where the former owners (we are only the third owners) did some remodeling, I think they expanded the crawlspace and added the windows. Great idea. Then they put a wall up and made the area into a walk-in closet with the windows in it...? Who knows maybe the closet was supposed to be little office. Anyway the wall is no more. Me, my trusty hammer and my favorite pink Chuck Taylors made quick work of tearing that baby down. "Tear down this wall" ...hah. The floor wasn't stained in that part and was on the fence on if I wanted to completely strip, sand and restain the entire floor or give it all 'a good shelacking'. I decided on a little of both...a couple coats of new stain and three coats of poly somethiny-somethin. Nice and shiny. It doesn't match perfectly but I really like how the little imperfections and scuffs are deeper and richer looking now. So much more interesting ...and shiny. Being able to open all the windows now is awesome, our room would get so stuffy and stale before.
I love my new bedroom. Now I'm thinking that the old bedroom furniture is looking a little rough, I really want to finish the basement and I think J-bot's bedroom could use some freshening up........maybe a little 'paint job'.
Maybe not. I think my husband is is still recovering from that last major project combo platter so I may have to wait until spring before I do anything else major to the house. That works out for the best with the holidays coming and the weather getting cruddy. Time to be inside and crafty.

Bunnies

Cutest bunnies ever! Fun times at the Waterville Fair.... stinky but fun.
And now the sad news. On Sept.1 our close friends lost their beautiful 17 yr old daughter so suddenly I still don't have the words to describe the affect that it has had on our happy little clique. So I won't....describe it that is. I will just say that she was an amazing young woman and she is deeply loved and missed by all of us.
So I will make them a quilt 'cuz that's what I know how to do!
I hope to use as much of her clothing as possible and make it big enough that the whole family will be able to cuddle up. It depends on how much raw material I end up with but I'm thinking from experience that I will probably be able to make multiple blankets out of the same fabrics. We'll see.
With the bunnies out broadening their minds and my craft room in amazing 'is this MY craft room?' order, I am chomping at the bit to finish projects and get started on CHRISTMAS. I had a great time last year with the things I made and my Christmas spirit was easily found so I'm hoping for a repeat this year. My soap and tamale friend Wendy or as my girl calls her 'Winny' and I are going to be making soap again after a couple of years of uh....being dirty heh...along with hopefuly some body oils. I might even make some more candles and I found a pattern for the cutest little scrubby ducks....and then there is the food that I want to make this year.
Man I gotta get started!
But first I have to go clean the patio!

Camp cooking.

Chicken, corn and garlic bread on the campfire last Memorial Day camp trip. Delicious....or maybe it was the view.

Bronco

Big blue bronco
You brought us so far
Sad to say goodbye

We finally sold our old 89 Ford Bronco yesterday. I didn't think I would be so sad, I couldn't even watch it drive away. Cried like a baby I did. Lots of memories tied up in that pile of metal.
We bought it in '93 in Florida while my husband was still in the Navy. We drove it all the way across the whole country after he got out. I think it's bulk probably saved our lives when we got stuck in a tornado while crossing Illinois. Many many camping trips and probably a little too much late night 4wheelin'. Pop the top, blast the stereo and it was a cruising machine in the summertime or stick it in 4wd and it would chew through any snow bank in the wintertime.
Ah well... it was getting old and of course my memories will be sweet because I didn't have to drive it the past couple years. I kind of feel like it's the end of something... I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's time to be more serious...I mean the years are just flying by. I've done alot but there is still so much more. Maybe it's time to truly grow up.
GAH....I hope not.

Cherries!

Rainiers and Bings.
One of the best things about living in central Washington is the awesome climate. Now I'm not talkin' Western Washington with all the Seattle rain and gloom, I'm talking sunshine and blue skies for about 300 days out of the year. Snow in the winter, flowers in the spring, hot hot sun in the summer and leaves in the fall..you know the drill. Well the result of such great weather is tons of fresh fruits and vegetables. My garden is exploding with life and fruit seems to drop out of the sky..it's like it grows on trees or something. These cherries represent the last of a massive amount that were given to me by a neighbor, we have eaten our fill and I don't want them to go to waste so I made a delicious pie filling and stuck it in the freezer for future tasty treats.

B-day breakfast.

California Eggs Benedict. It may not be pretty and it took a little longer to make than I would have liked but it sure was delicious! Tomato, avocado, ham and two things I've never made before in my life.. poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. I will probably make this again after I get one of those egg poacher thingys..and I work off the 5000 calories.
Not so much posting lately. Lots of distractions. Oooo look a pretty bird.