Category Archives: ABC Wednesday

ABC Wednesday ~ M is for…

 M is for Mariachis, Mexican Food, and Margaritas.

Mariachi is a type of musical group, originally from Cocula, Jalisco, Mexico. Usually a mariachi consists of at least three violins, two trumpets, one Mexican guitar, one vihuela (a high-pitched, five-string guitar) and one guitarrón (a small-scaled acoustic bass). They dress in silver studded charro outfits with wide-brimmed hats. The original Mariachi were Mexican street musicians or buskers. Many mariachis are professional entertainers doing paid gigs in the mainstream entertainment industry. Professionals are normally skilled at more than one instrument, and they also sing.

 

Some of our Mexican Restaurants in Southern California have Mariachis strolling around the restaurant taking requests for songs to play and sing.

This Mariachi group played at my nephews wedding

I was born and raised in the East Los Angeles area of Southern California. The Mexican culture (these days if you are politically correct called “Hispanic” not “Mexican”) was all around me. We celebrated Mexican holidays at my elementary school, took field trips to Olvera Street in Los Angeles where the culture was further introduced to us. I have always enjoyed Mexican Food. There isn’t a Mexican restaurant in the Southern California area that calls itself Hispanic that I know of. They still all refer to themselves as Mexican restaurants.

 

Our favorite Mexican Restaurant in the Camarillo Area is El Tecolate. In Mexico El Tecolote means the Owl. Mexican Restaurants always serve chips and salsa at your table when you arrive. Sometimes we order guacamole to go with the chips too. Guacamole is a dip made with mashed avocados and other ingredients.

They have decorated the restaurant with many different types of owl “art”. This is just a fraction of the Owls you’ll see inside.

 

They serve your typical Mexican food here and other interesting dishes that are unique to this restaurant.

This is an open tamale

Carnitas (slow cooked pork) is another Mexican favorite. So yummy…

There are some Mexican restaurants that still hand make their tortillas. The restaurant where this Mexican lady is making tortillas is in Venice Beach, California (a district of Los Angeles).

 And last but not least I leave you with a Margarita which is a classic Mexican Tequila and lime drink! You can have the double, I’m fine with the single.

We prefer ours on the rocks. A lot of people like the blended variety that gives you a brain freeze on your first sip. Muchas Gracias for visiting my M post mi amigos y amigas.

For more ABC Wednesday visit Mrs. Nesbitt.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

ABC Wednesday ~ L is for …

L is for London

 

Dear and I love to travel to Great Britain and spend some time in London while we travel about the Isle. This is me in February of 2003 after we took a ride on the London Eye. You can see the “Eye” in the background.

This is a shot of one of the pods across from ours.

 

You really get a wonderful view of all of London.

For more ABC Wednesday Posts on the letter L head on over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

ABC Wednesday ~ K is for

 K is for Katie

 

K is for our Katie. Katherine on her birth certificate.

 

Our Katie has an amazing amount of knowledge stored in her brain and I will show you some photos that might explain where some of that knowledge comes from.

 

At a very young age if Katie went missing this is where you would find her.

 

She was most drawn to books with words, not picture books. We had a few old school reading books and these are the ones she’d pull off the shelf and carefully go through.

 

As you can see she did not have a shortage of toys but she always seemed to go for the books.

 

We didn’t realize how well she could read until a trip to Meadowdale Beach Park with our friends the Spiro’s. Jody was walking hand in hand with Katie when they came to the tunnel under the railroad tracks that took you to the beach side of the park. As they approached this tunnel with this sign Katie said quite clearly to  my friend Jody, “Caution Low Head Clearance”

 

We realized then that we had a little 4 year old who definitely knew how to read. Who knows how much she was reading without us knowing before this experience.

Well this is all about Katie so for my last photo to throw in another “K” word, here’s Katie in a Kilt that I bought in Scotland in 1973! It fit me once too 🙂

For more ABC Wednesday take a trip across the pond to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

ABC Wednesday ~ J is for…

Blogspot bloggers!! Please do all of us bloggers a favor and add the “Choose an Identity that lets you put in your name and url without a google account” feature to your comment page. It makes life easier for those of us who aren’t blogspot bloggers. Please, pretty please, with sugar on top!
~

J is for

~

Our Son Josh who has brought lots of Joy to our lives! Click here to see him suspended in the air in China!

 

Johnson Bros. Dishes that I love to collect here and there if I find them at a bargain price.

And for your dining pleasure a lovely Applesauce Rasberry Jello Salad that is perfect for Spring and Summer and you can click here for the recipe.

For more ABC Wednesday Posts travel over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.

I is for Iona ~

It’s time for ABC Wednesday and this week we are on the letter I.

Come with me to the Isle of Iona in the Hebrides.

We traveled from the town of Oban on the western coast of Scotland by ferry to the Island of Mull and then we boarded a bus to travel down the Island to take a small ferry to the small Isle of Iona.

This little Isle is rich in history and beauty.

History of Iona

St. Columba, an Irish scholar, soldier, priest, and founder of monasteries, got into a small war over the possession of an illegally copied Psalm book. Victorious but sickened by the bloodshed, Columba left Ireland, vowing never to return. According to legend, the first bit of land out of sight of his homeland was Iona. He stopped here in 563 and established the abbey.

Columba’s monastic community flourished, and Iona became the center of Celtic Christianity. Iona missionaries spread the gospel through Scotland and North England, while scholarly monks established Iona as a center of art and learning. The Book of Kells – perhaps the finest piece of art from “Dark Ages” Europe – was probably made on Iona in the eighth century. The island was so important that it was the legendary burial place for ancient Scottish and even Scandinavian kings (including Shakespeare’s Macbeth).

Slowly the importance of Iona ebbed. Vikings massacred 68 monks in 806. Fearing more raids, the monks evacuated most of Iona’s treasures (including the Book of Kells, which is now in Dublin) to Ireland. Much later, with the Reformation, the abbey was abandoned, and most of its finely carved crosses were destroyed. In the 17th century, locals used the abbey only as a handy quarry for other building projects.

Iona’s population peaked at about 500 in the 1830’s. In the 1840’s a potato famine hit. In the 1850’s a third of the islanders emigrated to Canada and Australia. By 1900 the population was down to 210, and today it’s only around 100.

But in our generation a new religious community has given the abbey new life. The Iona community is an ecumenical gathering of men and women who seek new ways of living the Gospel in today’s world, with focus on worship, peace, and justice issues, and reconciliation.

The island is car free. While the present  abbey, nunnery, and graveyard go back to the 13th century, much of what you see today was rebuilt in the 19th century.

ht: history and other information taken from Rick Steves’ Great Britain

For more ABC Wednesday go see Mrs. Nesbitt.

 

ABC Wednesday ~ H is for…

 H is for Hiking

 

We went on a Hike early Saturday morning. We drove west to Pacific Coast Highway and South to Pt. Mugu State Park. We started at the Sycamore Canyon Campground and made sure to read the warning signs. We spotted Poison Oak at the very beginning of the hike. The only animals we saw were rabbits, lizards and birds.

 

We decided to take the scenic trail for our hike and we were rewarded with some beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and of the mountains of the Santa Monica coastal range.

 

We also were happy to spot many wildflowers.

 

To see the names of some of these blooms you can click here.

We are hoping to do this great hike again soon.

For more ABC Wednesday click on over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.

ABC Wednesday ~ G is for…

 

G is for Gulls that we see in abundance on our Saturday walks at the beach in Ventura, California.

G is also for Anne of Green Gables that I just read for the first time. What a delightful book. I had seen productions of the series on Television. Here is a quote from the book.

“Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But she had, as I have told you, the glimmerings of a sense of humor – which is simply another name for a sense of the fitness of things; and it suddenly occurred to her that that simple little prayer, sacred to white-robed childhood lisping at motherly knees, was entirely unsuited to this freckled witch of a girl who knew and cared nothing about God’s love, since she had never had it translated to her through the medium of human love.

“You’re old enough to pray for yourself, Anne,” she said finally. “Just thank God for your blessings and ask Him humbly for the things you want.”

“Well, I’ll do my best,” promised Anne, burying her face in Marilla’s lap. “Gracious heavenly Father – that’s the way the ministers say it in church, so I suppose it’s all right in a private prayer, isn’t it?” she interjected, lifting her head for a moment.

Gracious heavenly Father, I thank Thee for the White Way of Delight and the Lake of Shining Waters and Bonny and the Snow Queen. I’m really extremely grateful for them. And that’s all the blessings I can think of just now to thank Thee for. As for the things I want, they’re so numerous that it would take a great deal of time to name them all, so I will only mention the two most important. Please let me stay at Green Gables; and please let me be good-looking when I grow up. I remain,

Yours respectfully,
Anne Shirley.

“There, did I do it all right?” she asked eagerly, getting up. “I could have made it much more flowery if I’d had a little more time to think it over.”

Now after all that you deserve one of these that begin with the letter G!

 

Make mine a Guinness Please…

For more ABC Wednesday click on over to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.

ABC Wednesday ~ F is for…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

F is for Farmers Market where we shopped this last Saturday.

 

The Farmers Market in Old Town Camarillo, California

 

F is for fruit. We have fields of strawberries in our town and strawberry stands where we can buy them all during the week fresh from the fields when they are in season.

 

F is for flowers the more unusual and flamboyant

 

and some more fragrant flowers

We bought purple cauliflower, artichokes, brussel sprouts, and limes. (Nothing starting with F) but all very fresh and flavorful. The artichokes were wonderful. My husband likes to have his with mayonnaise and I love mine with Ranch Dressing. Yum! I made a cauliflower soup that was blended with onion and garlic. (strange to eat purple soup). It was very good.

 

This is a strawberry field near my home. This made me want to sing “Strawberry Fields Forever”

 

This is a strawberry stand in my town that sells fresh berries from the adjoining field. So luscious, sweet and juicy!

For more ABC Wednesday photos go visit Mrs. Nesbitt all the way in the UK!

ABC Wednesday ~ E is for…

E is for…

This is a sitting room in a Model Home in our neighborhood. I was tempted to nab the pillow with my initial on it but I controlled myself and resisted my Evil side…

 Ellen b. and one of our favorite Saturday walks at Emma Wood State Beach in Ventura, California.

 

E is for the Ebb of the tide

 

E is for Edinburgh

Dear and Ellen B. in Edinburgh

 

the elephant house in Edinburgh

 

An Epitaph for J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife in Oxford, England.

For more ABC Wednesday photos head over to Mrs. Nesbitt.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

ABC Wednesday ~ D is for…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

My first ABC Wednesday and the letter is D today.

So many choices, I think I’ll share daffodils, dogwood and doors.

 

This photo was taken in England in April 2004.

 

This Dogwood tree is in a garden on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, Washington, just uphill from Kerry Park. The photo was taken in July of 2007.

 

The photos in this collage were taken in Oxford~England, York, Edinburgh ~ Scotland, South Kensington and the bottom middle one if taken at Ste Michelle Winery in Woodinville, Washington.

To view more ABC Wednesday participants click here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.