how many of you could there be?

ok, so.....i have fielded more questions about our family name in the past few weeks than i have done in the past 28 years.....mostly over my eldest's ride for reading.....which has been covered in both the lex and d-ville papers.....and the typical conversation goes something like this...' i saw the article about your boy in the paper (name one of two), and i figured he was your son, because how many of you (plural of the family name) could there be?......for the record, there are five of us......which in epidemiological expression is beyond the definition of an outbreak but less than an epidemic.......alas, there is the distinct possibility that the name will die out for lack of interest......but that potential end is not for lack of effort on my part......

in the cool of the morning.....

ok, so....a truly refreshing stroll out to get the paper at 6:30 am.......should have taken my coffee back outside to read the paper.....ah well......maybe tomorrow

clean slate

ok, so......my section of the hard-drive may have been wiped clean by a program called RegCure that somehow installed itself and proceeded to clear out my registry......oh my.....i seem to have no documents, no pictures, and no music .....whereas there does appear to be data in the folders of remaining family members.....hmmm......to be honest, i have not been especially upset about this reality when it occurred to me that the photo sets on the hard-drive have been uploaded to Flickr, that my school documents like exams, study guides, etc are on my jump-drive as are family christmas letters, and that i do have a load of favorite tunes on my ipod shuffle/my palm pilot...and my playlists had mostly been burned to cd's.......and music is replaceable.....so what was there that is now lost?......hmmm......i had taken the time to download the first few years of this blog....happily i also copied those word documents to my palm pilot.....and if need be i could download them again......we had someone come out to look at the pc yesterday, with no success other than the identification of the culprit.....i appear to have lost nothing priceless.....or unique......though i have great plans for backing up future documents/photos/music......so as to not find myself in this position again....

let he or she who is without sin cast the first stone....

ok, so this is a cautionary tale...to all of those who might feel compelled to protest too much the sins of this man......remember back to bill clinton's troubles?........the apologetic fellow pictured here was frontline with the stones....even called/voted for clinton's resignation because of his sins to his family......must seem like a longtime ago this this poor fellow now....by the way...fox news mis-identified him as a democrat for several hours.....seems they have done the same thing for all the recent republican blunders....i suppose the first sin/stone throwing adage goes for fox news as well....

following the blog....

ok, so i am following this riding for reading blog on google reader......

return of the (semi) native

ok, so.....there was a time when i wished on a regular basis that some interesting/active/progressive family would move out from town to our little lake neighborhood so that my children would have playmates.....that family never did show up until our daughter came along....and while these children are not the exact age.....they do have enough in common to give our child someone to hang out with.......now that i have another child back at home i have been wishing for some interesting/active/progressive young people known to my child to move back to the area...or if they are already living here to come out of the woodwork......and over the weekend my prayers were answered......an interesting/active/progressive native has returned, and for this i am grateful......

conserving resources....

ok, so this from jezebel......Duct tape prom dresses have been all the rage for a while now, but Aimee Kick of Missouri decided to step it up a bit and create an entire prom dress out of coffee filters. The results: gorgeous!

facebook

ok, so.....between facebook games like lexulous and scrabble and wordtwist.....and basic facebook meanderings.....i have really slacked off on my blogging......just saying....

Bloom's Day

ok, so today is Bloom's Day....THE day to remember Leopold Bloom as he wandered through Dublin on June 16, 1904, as written by James Joyce in Ulysses.......folks congregate from all over the world on this day in London to follow the convoluted route taken by Bloom in the 24 hours of the novel......the NYTimes had a nice op-ed piece about the book today.....written by a woman who had the chance to read the book cover-to-cover while she was hospitalized for a bone infection.....she felt she knew her long-gone irish grandfather as she read about Bloom's full and very detailed day......I admit to requiring a great deal of support when i read this tome.....downloaded audio lectures, weekly discussions with Joyce scholars....to help me to understand just what i was reading.....ah well......must get on with my day....which is unlikely to be as complicated as Bloom's......

relief

ok, so......many mothers worry about many things....this mother of three worries about threefold things....including the cross country touring bike held hostage over the weekend in a fedex warehouse in portland, oregon.....thankfully....the bike has been liberated...and the rider is on track to dip his wheel in the pacific tuesday morning before heading east.....amen, amen, and amen......

a bike in limbo

ok, so....my eldest child was to begin his cross-country bike trip yesterday.....the glitch came when his riding partner showed up at the fedex location to pick up the bike he shipped out to oregon.....seems the location rejected the box because it was bigger than this location is sanctioned to accept......a detail that the fedex here at home did not know up front.....and so on this first business day of the week our boy must somehow convince the folks at the warehouse where it was sent to release it to its owner rather than ...gasp....return it to ky......gentle readers......please put positive thoughts toward the emancipation of the bike......

an anniversary freudian quotation....

ok, so today is our 28th anniversary.....and as usual we are either working, getting things ready for band festival guests...or both.....and since i got my chores done early i am enjoying a few minutes on the deck with a glass of wine and a good book.....1000 Places to See Before You Die.... by Patricia Schultz.....and atop the page that begins the Paris section is this quote from Sigmund Freud....."if one of us dies", the husband told his wife, "I shall move to Paris".......enough said.....

a day off.....

ok, so.....i took off monday and tuesday, and have taken off this day as well...to enjoy some down time with my clan while they are still at home.....no special plans other than to just be at home....i am tempted to stay in my jammies til noon at least......isn't that what days off are for?

ok, so i also made this vegan banana bread, while the oven was hot....

Banana Bread
Submitted by Isa
prep time: 15 minutes | cooking time: 1 hour | makes 12 slices
A simple, no frills banana bread. Perfect for, um, eating.

Equipment:
8 x 4 bread pan

Ingredients
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup margarine, at room temp
3 very ripe bananas, mashed well
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup vanilla soy milk, mixed with 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray a 8x4 bread pan with non stick cooking spray, or lightly coat with margarine.

Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

Cream together the margarine and sugars. Add bananas, soy milk and vanilla.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Mix well. Pour batter into pan. Bake for an hour to an hour 10 minutes.

vegan cupcakes

ok, so this is my first attempt at vegan baked goods

INGREDIENTS

* 1 cup soy milk
* 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1/3 cup canola oil
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, chocolate extract, or more vanilla extract
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 1/3 cup cocoa powder, Dutch-processed or regular
* 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* Vegan Fluffy Buttercream Frosting

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl, and set aside for a few minutes to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract, and other extract, if using, to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients and beat until no large lumps remain (a few tiny lumps are OK).
3. Pour into liners, filling 3/4 of the way. Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Fluffy Frosting:
INGREDIENTS

* 1/2 cup nonhydrogenated shortening
* 1/2 cup nonhydrogenated margarine, we use Earth Balance
* 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted if clumpy
* 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1/4 cup plain soy milk or soy creamer

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Beat the shortening and margarine together until well combined and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat for about 3 more minutes.
2. Add the vanilla and soy milk, and beat for another 5 to 7 minutes until fluff

uneven hedges

ok, so....our family of five ate out on the side deck this evening.....and i was humiliated...because the euonymous hedge that flourishes against the back of the garage had been poorly trimmed.....i had trimmed it poorly....this afternoon.....gentle readers.....hedges look much better up close than they do from the deck ....i was NOT moved to get up from the table and take up the shearers....which means that my shame took a back seat to the comfort of a lovely evening with good company......but tomorrow i will get the clippers back out and even out the selvages.....

dreams in 3-d......

ok, so.....i slept relatively soundly last evening.....and as it is afternoon and i can still recall bits and pieces of my dreams...i consider this a good sign .....can recall climbing the steep dark wood steps to the inside-upstairs in my late sister-in-law marilynn's house.....and rather than the 'hired man's room'...there was a spacious apartment...with a dining room that featured a large japanese-style flower arrangement on the table...and this flower arrangement was so brilliant to behold that i put on 3-d glasses to better enjoy the effect.....or is that affect?.......what the dream was missing...i see clearly as an afterthought to unconscious musings....was a hummingbird with its wings thrashing in slo-mo......

the clothesline....

ok, so....i started into the collected family laundry this morning after i helped with the beef festival race.....and i decided that the clothes really needed to dry outside in the lovely summer sunshine...but to set up the clothesline i had to trim the overgrown euonymous hedge that hides the concrete foundations of the house.....and there was such a chopped up mess of greenery in my wake that i had to rake up the trimmings and haul them in small loads to the compost....and then i had to dust off the clothesline that winters over in miss lulu's cabin....and then...only then...could i hang up the first laundry of the season......whew......i hung up the second load as well...but the third i tossed into the dryer because the line was full...and my urge to be green had passed......wonder how much it will cost me to pay one of my offspring to bring in those clothes that are still hanging out to dry......

minature lavender soaps

ok, so...in my dreams there was a large gathering at my house, and a mother of a school-aged child came to me quite upset because i had lavender soaps in my bathroom, and they smelled so good that her son ate one, and she was scolded me for having such tempting little soaps....i recall clearly walking into the bathroom and picking up one of the little soaps (flower-shaped) and smelling it....and the soap only smelled of soap and not of lavender.....andi recall turning to the mother and telling her that it was not my fault that her child ate a lavender-colored soap that didn't even smell of lavender.....

check order

ok, so....i am down to less than 5 checks, and i was moved yesterday to order them on-line while i was thinking about it- before i actually ran out.....and i ordered the same palin green checks as usual.....nothing fancy or iconic or silly......and at some point in my dreams last night i recieved the checks in the mail....only the checks i recieved were pink instead of green, and they were warm- like they has just come off the copier.....this dream was a curious progression in my dream life...the memory of something warm in a dream as opposed to a smell or a color sequence or a sound......if my checks do come in pink rather than green i will laugh out loud.....

the murder

ok, so...the first 30 minutes of worktime this morning was devoted, by necessity, to the discussion of the friday afternoon murder of an area physician's wife, possibly by her own physician husband, on their wedding anniversary on what may or may have not been their pontoon on lake herrington, just around a few bends from where i live....a few more details than previously reported in the media...that the spouse did do cpr on his wife...i found this detail comforting...as the press report made it sound like he just sat there with her tied up to the boat until the ambulance arrived.....very troubling.....almost as troubling as the knowledge that 2 of the witnesses to the 'crime' were prisoners fishing behind the prison......what is up with that?......how many prisoners are fishing behind the prison on any given day? are they traveling about in boats up side creeks....like the one i live on?......a one-time act of anger (murder) is one thing...but prisoners regularly at large in my neighborhood is another.....