He’s my new bff. Everytime I see him he asks what kind of soap or lotion I made today. Then I give him a bar to give to his wife, daughter and granddaughter. But that’s not why he’s my best bud. He’s my favorite person because he brought me this!
He really loves me. And I love Le Creuset. And Williams Sonoma.
A couple few months ago, Sgt. Bunny dediced to head to Germany for a few days to visit the sweet Nadja. He flew into BWI with a 5 hour layover. Being the ever devoted mom, I scampered off to pick him up and have lunch. Yumo BBQ and we still had time to kill, so Grandma Buds! We pointed ourselves in the right direction, and with a minimum of wrong turns made it to the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. And Grandma’s house.
Grandma had presents!
She’s always deciding to ‘go through stuff’, she does, but she just gets more… Anyway, she found a box with a few REAL FAMILY TREASURES, Great Great Great Grandmother Holcombe’s cake plate! It’s around 200 years old, and in perfect condition. I knew of the plate, seen it over the years. Always handled with a hushed reverence, promised that someday it would be mine. Now it is! Beautifully resting on the buffet in my dining room.
Mom, aka Grandma Bud, also had a dusty old box out in the sunroom. She off handedly asked if I wanted any of this ’stuff’. Duh, my Great Grandmother Freed’s prayer lamp! OMG, it’s a beautiful brass and green glass hanging lamp. Meant for a candle, seems G-Grandpa had wired it for an electric light bulb. I took it home, removed all the old wiring and cleaned it up. It’s covered with etchings, ankhs, 6 pointed stars, snakes, eyes, and Kabbalic writing. It’s so ‘me’. It’s hanging in the same dining room, swagged with my chakra glass and the chimes the kids have given me. Makes me smile everytime I see it.
Pretty cool, huh?
Oh, and Ben made it safe to Germany, had a good visit. When he was ready to return he left me a cryptic message about picking him up at Andrews AFB and driving him to BWI. During rush hour. And making it in 45 minutes.
It’s Pumpkin Time!
Sundown comes earlier, the air is crisper, the kitty girls are getting furrier.
Fall is FINALLY here.
We love Pumpkin Custard. It’s like a pie, but no crust. Just bake it in a casserole dish.
Skip the whipped cream, and voila! There you have it - an easy VEGETABLE side dish even picky kids will eat.
You can always just use canned Pumpkin Pie Filling, but the little tiny bit of extra effort making it from scratch is so worth it!
(Well, scratch using canned pumpkin! Feel free to use fresh, just peel and boil down)
Give this a try - I promise it will be your new favorite.
Deda’s Pumpkin Custard
Butter a 2 qt casserole dish, preheat oven to 350.
Melt the butter add the sugar, honey and syrup. Using a wire wisk mix in the milk and the canned pumpkin.
Measure in all the spices, including salt and vanilla.
In a separate bowl crack the eggs and beat with a whisk. Stir the eggs into the pumpkin mixing well about 2 minutes.
Pour into a buttered casserole dish and bake for about 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.
Let the custard sit for about 10 - 15 minutes before serving.
Ok, and if you want - go ahead and add the whipped cream.
*A sprinkle of Walnuts across the top about 1/2 way through baking is so yummy.
I can’t wait for dinner!
Dear Sweet Kevin had a Birthday in August. For his birthday he got 2 things, 1st an 1890 WA Cole Banjo and 2nd a rocker swing. I swear, I married him because he was young (and cause I loved him). But he was YOUNG - way younger than me. Now, 20 years later, I think we are both old….er.
Sunday evening we sat outside under the trees, like we do everyday, sharing a pot of peppermint tea, talking and watching the world pass by. The first day of fall. Just the slightest bit of ‘not hot’ in the air. So, good consumers that we are, we ran off to buy a fire pit!
Yeah, now we are toasty warm swingers!
Now the girls and I can sit out and relax.
And be serenaded…
My dear Dad, Mr. Republican, sent me this. I find it great food for thought.
I dare say that I am neither Republican, nor Democrat. I am firmly Independent.
The Democrat Party has become the Lawyers’ Party. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are lawyers. Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama are lawyers. John Edwards, the other former Democrat candidate for president, is a lawyer, and so is his wife, Elizabeth. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at the Democrat Party in Congress: the Majority Leader in each house is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were not lawyers, but businessmen. The leaders of the Republican Revolution were not lawyers. Newt Gingrich was a history professor; Tom Delay was an exterminator; and, Dick Armey was an economist.. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer, not a lawyer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon.
Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976. The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers’ Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers’ Party, grow.
Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.
This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.
Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become ‘adverse parties’ of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.
Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked.. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning to do to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.
We cannot expect the Lawyers’ Party to provide real change, real reform, or real hope in America. Most Americans know that a republic in which every major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges is not what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannot fight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. Most Americans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore declining moral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.
Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.
Noted: I have some very fine Lawyers in my family. Personally I think Aunt Bunch is the smartest person in the whole wide world. She would make a great president.
Somehow I got lucky. I have a big ole family. I love you all. I miss you all.
We don’t get to see each other often enough.
I know that most of you read on occasion, but NEVER EVER POST. I forgive you.
Now forgive me… these are some of my favorite pics of Sarah. Most of them are modeling shots, the ones Aunties and Grandmas don’t get to see. I pulled them from various websites, tossed in a few of my own shots and presto! A Sarah montage!
In a few days I’m going to do Ben, then Travis.
Then I just may raid the photo albums and do all of you!
I hope you enjoy it.
Now, lets see how long until Princess Sarah Belle gets all fluffy about her pictures being shown?
Sarah, you are my first baby, my only daughter and I am so imensly proud of you.
The world can see how beautiful you are.
I hope they can also see that you’re also brilliant and compassionate.
Incase you don’t know, Sarah is now the Editorial Director of SocialVibe
Every single one of my sibs better get busy and SIGN UP.
This includes Nieces and Nephews, too.
Peace, Deda
I love salt soap. It’s like calgon, and the beach, and a quite afternoon all alone.
Coconut and castor oil with dead sea salt on the bottom, coconut, castor oil with ethanol, and sugar on the top. Swirls floating around in the transparent top make it pretty.
Green - Lime, Vetiver & Patchouli EO
Pink - Mango Raspberry FO
Blue - Ocean Rain FO
Pretty neat, huh?
Saturday was so beautiful.
We did NOTHING. at all.
Except sit out side and drink margaritas and eat PBJ’s. I cracked open the last jar of bright red goodness, yummy Apple Cinnamon Jelly. Kevin and I make it for Christmas, last year I hid a few jars to tide us over. Now it’s time to make more.
So delish, all Apple-y and spicy - amazing on PBJ or just plain toast.
DeeDa’s Spicy Apple Jelly
Boil 8 cups of 100% Apple Juice with 2 packs of pectin (don’t use the liquid, its eww.)
While the Apple mix is boiling take a bag (12 oz or so?) of Cinnamon Imperials Candy and run them through the blender. Measure the pulverized candy into a bowl and add enough sugar to make 7 cups.
Add the sugar mix, stir constantly.
Bring to a full boil, 2 minutes.
Pour into sterilized jars, wipe rims, add lids and rings - tight!
Process for 5 minutes. (or directions for your altitude on Pectin box)
Remove and let cool, you should hear the pops in about 15 - 20 minutes.
Test your seals the next day. If a jar doesn’t seal correctly refrigerate it and use within a few weeks.
Sarah’s Birthday List.
I know, what else is there to say??
Last night I was getting ready to cook dinner. I looked up and this is what I saw. Now that’s only what you can see, there is more in the buffet and china cabinets. Some displayed in the dining room. My girls have Fiestaware Kitty bowls.
I love these dishes. They make me happy just to look at them, all clean and shiny, colorful and fun. When my sister comes to my house she likes to wash the dishes (shes a bit odd). She says it’s fun to wash them cause they are so pretty.
I would love to say that I collected them for years and years, but I didn’t. I’ve coveted them for some time, but never owned any, other than an odd bowl or gravy boat. Then a couple years ago the sweetest husband in the world, mine, mentioned that we could ’stop in and look around’ at the factory on the way back from my sisters house in Ohio. Homer Laughlin, maker of Fiestaware has their HUGE factory store in West Virginia, only 2 hours out of our way home!
We stopped. We shopped. I rode home 4 hours, car full, my feet on the dashboard, cradling a fabulous orange disk pitcher!
Thus the madness began. One week later the nice people at Macy’s sent me 8 more sets! My mom, stepwitch, sister and daughter have all kept me up to date and stocked with new colors! Thanks, Crystal and Sarah, the forest and sapphire are my favorites!
One more thing, Ben gave me the jumbo mug for Christmas one year when he couldn’t be home. It’s gorgeous - Chartreuse Green - and NOBODY but me was allowed to use it until Ben came home. He did. The mug is now for general use, but it’s still the one Kevin brings me my tea in.
