National Doughnut Day!

To celebrate National Doughnut Day I went to a very nice specialty doughnut shop in Mill Creek, Washington today called Frost. That is real bacon on the Maple Bar and it was really really good! The other donuts are a Butterfinger Crunch and a German Chocolate. I don’ t know how they taste yet because 1 doughnut is already over my sweet limit. I dropped off the other Maple Bacon Bar to my daughter at work.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with ugly black and grey boxes and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.

FFF ~ What’s Normal?

It’s Friday and time to consider the week gone by and highlight my favorite things. Please visit our gracious hostess Susanne at Living to Tell the Story to join in.

I’m beginning to wonder if life will ever be normal around here. What is normal? Maybe the word I’m looking for is routine. Other then Dear going to work Monday through Friday nothing is routine here yet. Seems like each week there is some major event that is different then the last weeks major event. Hmmm…maybe this is my new routine.

But onward and upward to my favorites.

1. Being done done done with our garage sale is definitely one of my favorites. Sighs with relief. I’ve enjoyed having cash in my wallet from the sale and paying for stuff with it instead of pulling out a card.

2. Enjoying time and food with loved ones on Memorial Day was good. The sun even broke through the clouds and Dear was able to barbecue on the deck!

3. In my yard…. Seeing my first ever Peony almost opening up. I really should plant more and if I don’t kill this one off I will. See that nutty duck on our barn/shop roof. He really keeps us entertained around here, too. And no Mr. and Mrs. Duck did not listen to me and they are still leaving squishy deposits on my deck!!

4. Yesterday was another dry day here in Western Washington so I stopped at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens and saw some pretty plants blooming. I really enjoy Dogwoods. That very round purple bloom caught my eye but I was too focused on photographing that I didn’t think to ask what the name of it is. Duh!

5. My last favorite this week is my new view from my computer desk. When we re-decorated our spare room the desk had to go up against this window so I now have this view instead of a view of the wall. I really like it. One of the nicest things about it is that birds come to visit this plant throughout the day and I’ve even had a hummingbird come late each afternoon for a visit. So far it’s been too quick for me to catch a photo. Yesterday I took the screen off the window and washed it inside and out so my view would be nicer. I only fell off the ladder once while washing the outside of the window. Tip: Do not put one of the ladder legs on top of a sink hole!!

So what has your week been like? Are things routine where you live or is life crazy?

The Fungus Among Me…

We had a short dry spell on Tuesday so I decided to mow the lawn because it had become quite unruly. I had my camera in my pocket when I spotted these in the lawn.

So like any good blogger I got down on my knees and took some photos.

They are such interesting looking growths.

FUNGI IN ART AND LITERATURE

From time to time, fungal hyphae penetrate the consciousness of artists. In the work of medieval Flemish painters, toadstools were often associated with Hell. Victorian illustrators in England took a more benign view, and developed a popular style that linked fairies and toadstools. Elements of this connection persist today. The colourful spotted cap of Fly Agaric, often associated with a gnome or sprite, remains a favourite with children’s illustrators, designers, advertisers, and the manufacturers of kitsch garden ornaments. The psychedelic sixties, of course, generated a mass of artwork that owes its origins to fungus-induced creativity.

Down the ages, from Shakespeare to J.K. Rowling, fungi have also sprouted regularly in literature. Shakespeare seems to have had fungus in mind when he penned The Tempest. Prospero observes that it is elves’ pastime to “make midnight mushrooms,” and one scholar has suggested that the fits of Caliban show that he was suffering from ergot poisoning. In recent times it’s no surprise to find fungal references at “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’ in the Harry Potter stories.

Writers often turn to fungi when searching for a metaphor for decay or rottenness. Examples abound and can be found in the works of many great poets and authors, including Spenser, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, D.H. Lawrence, and Emily Dickinson. Raymond Briggs’ cartoon creation, Fungus the Bogeyman, a celebration of much that children like to find revolting continues the tradition.

The best known-and perhaps most inspired-literary mushroom of all is the one nibbled by Alice in her Adventures in Wonderland. Eating from one side of the mushroom makes her grow larger, eating from the other side makes her shrink. It’s possible that author Lewis Carroll knew of the properties of Fly Agaric. One effect of this hallucinogenic fungus is to make objects appear larger or smaller in the user’s eye.

ht: The source of this information can be found here.

Tablescape Thursday ~ Memorial Day

It’s time again to set the table! Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch to join in the fun. My tables lately have been “real”. What I mean by that is that there was an actual meal and people sitting down at them. I haven’t had time to play with tables much but I’ve had a few good occasions to enjoy having family over for a meal. We had a gathering for Memorial Day and this is what I came up with.

I used 3 different patterns of blue and white dishes with red chargers and napkins and star napkin holders.

It’s hard to tell but the lemon pound cake was made in a star shaped bundt pan, too. Stars were the major theme.

George and Martha adorned our table even though Memorial Day came about long after their time.

My basket is a star shaped one, too.

Besides praying for all those who are alive and serving our country in the military before our meal this day we chose to memorialize Dear’s father Rex who served in World War II in New Guinea.

My dear husband even made red and blue drinks to go with the theme.

Some of my decorations will stay around for June and all the way to July 4th since we have Flag Day and then our Independence Day celebrations! Blessings…

Yard Art On Thursday…

This week I have some rather tame yard art for you. Do you recognize this Willow?

Please visit Mary at Work of the Poet to see more.

Where Do You Keep It All?

Time for fellow Bloggers to link up at The Tablescaper and show the world where you keep your stuff. All my storage is a work in progress right now. I’m tweaking here and there and shuffling stuff around to be more organized.

I’m working on getting all my candles and candle holders together. My tablecloths are out of control and I need more hanging space for them.

My tiered servers are too tall for a shelf so they sit on the floor of this closet. One each of my different tea cups are finally all in the same place. The extras I have of some of these patterns are down in the basement on my latest storage space!

We just bought this unit from Ikea and set it up in our basement. This room is gutted right now and needs to be worked on but I’m so happy to have all my plates in one spot so I can see what I have. I like this arrangement because I don’t have to dig into the back of a lower kitchen cupboard to get at all my plates. My everyday dishes are still in my kitchen.

Now to my actual kitchen storage…

Everyday dishes, Italian Countryside by Mikasa, that I bought at Macy’s for a super price. Soup bowls and cereal bowls and tea mugs and dessert dishes that were all purchased at Goodwill or other Thrift stores..

Water goblets and Cocktail glasses. I really enjoy different styles and shapes of glasses.

My large platters and some cutting boards.

The cupboard above the refrigerator. My sets of champagne flutes in their boxes for special occasions. My pitchers, vases, fondues, punch bowl, cookie cutters, etc.

Oh dear more glasses. These are the everyday kind and then some fun sets way on top. I think I could give water to 200 people easy in all different shapes and sizes of glasses!!

I really love my stainless drawers.

And right under my everyday stainless is another drawer with dividers for my serving pieces and extra stainless.

My Le Creuset and my bake-ware. Maybe I should just insert here that I was a Home Economics Major so these are just the tools of my trade.

My baking, measuring, and other stuff drawer.

More specialty equiptment and my large stock pots.

More bakeware. This is where the cake pans, bundt pans, muffin pans, pop over pans and mixing bowls, etc. are.

Springform pans, tart pans, pie pans.

Believe it or not there is more stuff and more cupboards but this post is getting way too long!! Before you click away here is a photo of my kitchen with all the cupboard doors shut!

Is It Tuesday Already?

Monday Holidays always throw me for a loop.

We had a great Memorial Day and we pulled out all the red, white and blue we could find. Dear even made some red and blue drinks.

Dear’s father served in New Guinea during World War II. He was front and center at our Memorial Day observance.

There were 7 of us around the table enjoying our barbecued steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and salad. We had a lemon pound cake with strawberries and blueberries for dessert along with Nazook that my sister Lana had baked.

After nonstop rain and clouds for several days running we finally had a sun break in the afternoon the girls headed out to the deck to see if they could get their daily requirement of Vitamin D!!

It’s going to take me a while to catch up with all of you. First I have to get used to it being Tuesday already and being behind a day…

I’m going to link this to Ruby Tuesday…since it’s Tuesday already. Thanks to Mary at Work of the Poet for our Ruby fun…

The Rains Came Down…

…and the puddles came up!

What a miserable day for a garage sale. Thankfully we live in the Northwest and weather does not deter people from heading to garage sales. People here are used to doing anything in the rain. Dear created a amazing tarp canopy for us so we were able to put some tables out on our trusty blue tarps for the sale. I’m sad I didn’t get a photo of the creation for you (bad blogger!!) We had made space inside the shop for the rest of the stuff and for a nice shelter for the workers from the rain and cold. Friends of ours came to contribute to the sale. Their young daughters wanted to raise money to buy Bibles for people without them. So sweet! We had a good steady stream of people with only a couple lulls. We didn’t sell anything over $5.00 but still made $173.50.

The Rolo yummies in the collage were a great treat for us workers and I found the recipe at Sandy’s Reluctant Entertainer blog. So easy to make. One of the garage sale shoppers looked at me sheepishly and asked if she could have one. She had been staring at them for a good long time.

The highlight of the day was when our son and DIL Laura came with the ingredients to make us all dinner! What thoughtful kids I have. Josh had the two young girls that helped with our garage sale in there helping him make biscuits and corn muffins for the dinner. They really enjoyed their baking lesson from Josh! Josh and Laura are good friends with this family and even flew all the way to China a few years ago to visit them when they were living there. This picture is of them all at the Great Wall. You can see how much younger the girls were in this photo.

I’ll be adding my link to Mary’s Little Red House for Mosaic Monday and to Smiling Sally’s for Blue Monday. Hope you are all having a nice relaxing weekend. Now that the garage sale is over I’m doing some relaxing and recuperating…

Stretch Out Your Hand ~ Hymn

Stretch Out Your Hand

Stretch out Your hand
And heal this nation
Stretch out Your hand
And bring restoration
Let Your mercy overflow us
Like a never failing stream
By the blood of Jesus cleanse us
O Lord it’s You we seek
Cause Your face to shine upon us again

Breathe On Us

O Lord hear, O Lord forgive us.
We have lost the awe of You.
Have mercy, have mercy.

O Lord, cleanse
Our hearts which are divided.
Stir the faith that we once knew
We’re thirsty, we’re thirsty.

O Lord restore
The church that bears Your name.
O Spirit send
A revival to this nation.

Breathe on us again,
Breathe on us again.

Memorial Day Tribute ~ Home on the Range ~ Dickenson

Memorial Day Greetings to you. God bless our Troops and Veterans!

For Memorial Day weekend I’m posting this quote from Home On the Range ~ A Century On The High Plains by James R. Dickenson.

Home on the Range chronicles the epic drama of the settling and development of the High Plains, as viewed through the saga of journalist James Dickenson’s family and the wheat-farming community of McDonald, Kansas.

He speaks of Dear’s mother, my MIL Verna who’s father and brothers served in civilian and military duties in World War II. Verna was a school teacher in a one room schoolhouse in Kansas before she married Rex (Dear’s father), who also served in World War II.

“The father of my fifth-grade teacher, Verna Moline, a pretty young woman whom I adored, was a civilian construction worker on Midway Island at the time. His family obviously had many anxious moments about him until the naval battle of Midway, a turning point in the war in the Pacific, ended the threat that Midway would suffer Wake Island’s fate of invasion and occupation by the Japanese. He returned safely shortly thereafter. On days when the news was particularly dire, we kids would crowd around her desk before class to ask anxiously about him and voice our sympathies – probably seeking reassurance ourselves in those dark early days of defeat at the hands of the Japanese. However, as my mother, who was teaching English in the high school at the time, finally pointed out, our constant solicitude was something Miss Moline probably could have done without, although she was too gracious to show it.”

Remember our troops and pray. If you know someone who served our country give them a hug and a thank you. Blessings on this Memorial Day Weekend!

http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/dichom.html

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage