End of the Week 1/24/25

 Good Friday Morning!

It's milder this morning - already up to 15!  I was thinking about C&M getting Iris out in this weather and really, they are smart.  And, Iris seems to love it.  Yesterday Colin texted Fletch a picture when they were out for a walk.  Mailing was bundled up in her puffer coat and had Iris strapped to her front - all bundled up of course.  They both had great grins on their faces.

I also remember eons ago - decades - when I was a little kid (single digits), we had a big snow and we built an igloo right outside our front door.  My parents got out sleeping bags and let us kids (my two older brothers and me) get in the igloo and be all cozy and warm.  We did not spend the entire night in the igloo, but it sure was a fun time.

Another memory is of my Mom gathering freshly fallen snow to make sugar on snow (maple syrup on snow).  Delicious!!

I did get some cookies baked in the past couple of days.  First up are oatmeal cookies with dried blueberries and pistachios in them.  Yummy!!

The next batch were chocolate chip with the addition of caramel chips.  Oh man!  I will make these again!!

Well, I can't get the picture to load, but they just look like chocolate chip cookies!  LOL. We will take some of both kinds over to Colin & Mailing tomorrow.  And, I did share some with Rob & Eva (neighbors).  I didn't see them or go in - Rob just tested positive for Covid.  He got on Paxlovid right away, so hopefully he will be feeling better soon.

My hope is to ease into the weekend nicely.  I want to get out to pick up wine to take over to C&M tomorrow, but otherwise I plan to stay in and read, knit and stitch.  Make your Friday a good one!

Yay for Friday!

 Good Morning My Friends,

How are you?  I hope your Thanksgiving was a restful and tasty one.  Mine sure was!  Fletch and I realized that yesterday was the very first Thanksgiving we have ever spent by ourselves!  And, we liked it!!  Yes, we missed Colin & Mailing for sure and it felt weird not to be with Mailing's family - I think we have celebrated Thanksgiving with them for maybe a decade now.  But it was so relaxed to not be on any particular schedule.  I took my time and made rolls in the morning.

Some of them were huge!  (Guess I didn't do such a great job of dividing the dough evenly.). I didn't much care for them (me who loves and lives for carbs - lol).  Next time I will try my Mom's recipe.

I was talking with one of my brothers on Wednesday night and we were wondering how our Mom ever pulled off the feast that she did each Thanksgiving.  There was always a BIG turkey and stuffing.  Homemade gravy.  Homemade cranberry relish.  Mashed and sweet potatoes.  Homemade rolls.  Always a salad of some sort and two to three veggie sides.  And, of course, several pies.  Growing up, our house was small and the kitchen was very small.  No counter space to work on and only one oven and four burners.  We did have a big electric roaster that she used for the turkey, but the rest of it must have been magic!!

Anyway, our meal was way, way, way pared down.  I cooked a turkey breast and made stuffing.  The rolls mentioned above and some gravy.  Two kinds of cranberry relish/chutney and some Brussels sprouts sautéed in butter and maple syrup with the addition of some walnuts and pomegranate ariels.  And, pumpkin pie for dessert.  It was tasty, and making just that made me exhausted!  LOL

I even brought out the "good" dishes and silver.  There are plenty of leftovers (I'll get my turkey sandwich today).  All in all, a lovely day.

Now it's back to normal life.  I have a load of wash going and another one to put in after.  The bathrooms desperately need to be cleaned.  Usually I avoid going out on Black Friday, but I will be running out to pick up a massage gift card for Mailing.  Her birthday is tomorrow and we plan to stop by to give her the gift card and some other gifts.

A nice surprise showed up in the mail on Wednesday.  My last shipment of 2024 Sock Squad yarn from The Farmer's Daughter arrived.

The full skein is pretty dark, and I wasn't thrilled with it.  But then I read the name of the color way and now I am smitten!  The color way is "Mother Magpie" and I love those birds (I wish we had them here in Eastern PA).  There is a lot of variation in the skein - some lighter shades (almost bluish) and pale grey.  I think it will knit up very nicely.  The green mini skein is very pretty.  I've enjoyed having the monthly shipments of yarn even though I have not kept up with using it all.  Definitely a fun retirement gift to myself.  But, I'm ready for a year off (at least).  LOL

Time for me to check the laundry in the washer and re-fill my coffee cup.  Wishing you all a restful and enjoyable weekend! 

Bookmarks and a Late Start

 Hello All,

I'm getting a bit of a late start with blogs and email today.  It has been a busy work morning so far.  But, the good news is that I am taking tomorrow off!  My two conference calls were cancelled and we have friends coming for the weekend, so I can use the day to do some last minute cleaning and baking (basil-lime shortbread!!  YUM).  My friend Leslie (the amazing person I have known since I was 12) will arrive Saturday with her daughter Jaimie and granddaughter Emory.  They do a road trip each summer, driving from North Carolina to Rhode Island and always stop here.  I cannot wait to see them!!  But first, some blogging.

The other day, Kym showed a bunch of her bookmarks in a post and I thought what a neat idea.  I have TONS of bookmarks.  Often I end up using a scrap of paper or an index card...sometimes a paperclip or a piece of yarn...or a pretty note card or postcard that someone sent.  But, I thought I would share some of my bookmarks with you.  So here goes.  First up:

The two on the right came to me when I ordered the Goodhart Sampler books from Needleprint years ago.  They fold in the middle and have magnets on the underside so that when folded over a page they stay put.  The pink one on the bottom right was a gift (handmade!!) from Kim in Oregon and the cute fox reading past his/her bedtime Kym sent to me after one of the first "Read With Us" books.  Next to that is the beginning of a friendship bracelet that Colin made in camp one year.  The copper one was etched by my friend Carol (she even etched Vera at the bottom).  I forget where the other one came from, but I love Oriental art and the fabric is silk.  Lovely!  Next up:

On the left we have a beautifully stitched bookmark from Dee and the Hardanger one to the right is one that I made.  Under that we have a scrap of paper with a short grocery list in my Dad's printing (fruit, O.J., veg., bird seed).  That's in one of the poetry books on the bottom shelf of my nightstand.  To the right is a laminated one with pictures from Israel.  In the late 60's my Dad was giving a paper at a conference in Israel and my Mom tagged along for a little trip (fun facts:  they flew on El Al and were basically strip-searched before boarding...it was the late 60's!  Also, at the time flying from JFK to Tel Aviv was the longest non-stop flight!).  To the right of that is a bookmark from Colin when he was in Kindergarten.  The little mice are made from his thumbprint.  The last one on the right is a Danish design that I stitched for my Mom (her Dad was from Denmark).

One of my favorites given to me by my Dad (it says "The best man for the job is often a woman").

My Mom used to use flowers or pretty leaves to mark pages in either poetry books or cookbooks.

There are also cookbooks that were my Mom's that have pieces of paper towel marking pages, or coupons, etc.  It's fun to come across them when paging through the books.

Fletch and I usually use book darts for the books that we read together after dinner.  These are nice because it's so easy to mark exactly where you are.

I forgot to photograph some.  Leslie gave me a set of magnetic ones that fold over your page.  One side has a cat and the other an arrow pointing to your place.  And, in my nightstand drawer I keep a Bible from when I was a kid.  I found a bookmark in it listing all the books of the Bible - must have been something given to me in Sunday School.  And, there are many others in books around the house.  I don't like turning down page corners (or writing in books or underlining), so I'm forever and ever using bookmarks - sometimes multiple ones in the same book!

How about you? What do you use as a bookmark?

Weekending

 

Good Morning!

How was your weekend?  Mine was nice…a bit quieter than usual due to the eye – wasn’t driving (until Sunday) and vision was still not the best, but steadily improving each day.  Much of my weekend was spent in contemplation.  Thinking about my Mom mainly.  And mothers in general. 

Madeline Jalongo Falciglia Aronson (how’s that for a name?) passed away on July 6^th.  She was my 2^nd Mom.  My friend Leslie’s birth mom.  When Leslie and I became friends at the age of 12 (just about 56 years ago!!), Madeline became my second Mom.  She always had a pot of coffee on the stove and made the best home made pizza, lobstah rolls, chowder, squash & eggs.  When we were older, there was always wine to share.  When we were bad she would chase us around the house wielding a wooden spoon!  She taught me how to crochet (my Mom – birth mom – taught me how to knit).  She was 91 when she passed.  Leslie’s Dad (my 2^nd Dad) passed away a number of years ago.  So now I feel like a double orphan!

Also, on June 1^st, Jean Beyerle passed away.  Jean was a very close friend of my Mom’s.  She was 96 when she passed.  She and her family went to the same church we went to when I was growing up.  Jean was the organist and played a mean piano.  She and my Mom became close friends in the mid-60’s.  They did SO MUCH together – played tennis, hiked, traveled (they would often go to Sanibel Island in February to beach comb and look for gators…my Dad was not much of a beach person and Jean’s husband was a teacher and didn’t take vacation in February).  They would drive up to Vermont and stay with my Aunt or with Jennie – my Mom’s friend with whom she bicycled from Vermont to California.  At Christmas they would bake cookies together, and Christmas Eve, Jean always came over to play carols on our piano.  She made the BEST apple dumplings.

I spent so many afternoons drinking coffee and playing Scrabble with them.  Or going for walks, or out to lunch…occasionally shopping, but that was not a favorite pastime for either of them.

Those two also knew the BEST places to pick wild strawberries, blackberries, etc.

My Mom is on the right in the plaid shirt and Jean is on the left – look at those wild berries!!!  This picture is most likely from the mid-70's.

 Last week in the mail I received an envelope from one of Jean’s daughters with pages from one of Jean’s journals where she listed out the many, many things she and my Mom did together and the beauty they found in the world – whether it was a stunning sunset, or bears at their campsite in Maine, shells at the beach in Sanibel, etc.  They were amazed and delighted by Nature.

Jean’s Celebration of Life was this past Saturday.  I did not attend (was still not driving).  In addition, the service was held at the church I grew up attending and I am not fond of the church or – particularly – the current minister (also why my Dad requested that his Memorial Service be held elsewhere).

The mail also brought the 2^nd issue of The Shetland Journal.  A feast for the eyes:

I’ve been able to stitch some which surprised me with the eye surgery, and I’ve read some.  I finally picked up some knitting on Sunday and it felt good to get back to that, though it was a little hard to focus and see the stitches on the needles.  Still without an oven, Fletch grilled burgers on Saturday.  I made both potato salad and a broccoli salad to go with the burgers.  YUM!!

I’m sorry to say that Fletch found yet another deer tick on his leg.  That makes 3 this summer…and 3 doses of the antibiotics.  YIKES!!!  That guy is a tick magnet!  But he spends a bunch of time in the garden and I’m sure that is where he is picking them up.  He is vigilant (thank God) about checking himself…but still…

Speaking of the garden…we have eggplants forming:

These plants are in a cast iron pot on our patio. 

We have a trumpet vine growing up a tree in our backyard.  In fact, the tree is actually dead and Fletch says the trumpet vine is what is holding it up!!  Anyway, I have never seen trumpet flowers like this – on the end of a long, long stalk:

I always see clusters of them at the top of the tree and on the sides.  These particular blooms are lower down.  A hummingbird comes to the flowers occasionally, but it is more interested in our Rose of Sharon which is covered with white blooms.

This afternoon I go back to the dermatologist for another biopsy on the tip of my nose (some years ago I lost just about half my nose to skin cancer…I’m hoping to not lose more of it!!).  And tomorrow is another follow up with my eye surgeon.  This summer is just filled with FUN - LOL

Meanwhile, I’ve got some conference calls today – I think the BIG TOP SECRET news from work is being released today…more to follow.

Have a great week!!