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Stephenie Meyer |
It’s not really my favorite, I’m more of a Lemon girl… But I may have changed my own mind. I made these yesterday evening and cut (probably too soon) this morning. I love the thck chunky bars, the little buds or organic lavender scattered on top and the smell…. Lavender, peppermint and a touch of lemon. If you know Ben you know how smart he is. Right? Wrong.  Notice all the boots? And one pair of unshod feet. Not our Ben – Nadja tells us that this was his usual footwear even in Frozen German Winters. Cutting down your the Christmas tree is one of our favorite family traditions. We usually don’t get the tree until just before the big day, makes it more special. Plus that’s when the kids all come home. A couple years ago our favorite tree farm closed down. We had been going to Gooney Creek in Browntown, VA for more than 20 years. Sad to see it go. We discovered a new place about 4 years ago – Snickers Gap Tree Farm, it’s a beautiful drive right through the heart of Hunt Country to get there. Love it! Everyone in NoVa should get there tree there. But not when we’re there. We like to have it all to ourselves!  Nadja, Ben Sarah, Travis, Kristin & Kevin  Kristin & Tab  Nadja & Kristin  Ben and The Tree  My gang  Now he's cold. Christmas Trees are the Best! Did you know there’s this great program run by the Human Society of the United States? It’s called Coats for Cubs.
What a great way to get rid of that old fur hiding in your closet! My dearest, sweet and only daughter wrote a little blurb in her blog about our adventure into DC to donate a fox coat I won through Mary Kay about 20 years ago. It’s been hiding in attics all that time, nice to know it’s being put to good use.  Sarah Belle at the HSUS  Coats piled up to be processed  [/caption]
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! We love Pumpkin Custard. It’s like a pie, but no crust. Just bake it in a casserole dish. 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. I know that most of you read on occasion, but NEVER EVER POST. I forgive you. I hope you enjoy it. 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. The pink and the green are handmade transparent. The blue is clear MP I did for comparison. The blue is MUCH clearer, but the pink and green aren’t too shabby! Green – Lime, Vetiver & Patchouli EO Pretty neat, huh? |
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Copyright © 2009 Deda Notions - All Rights Reserved |
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