Dine and Whine

Chris and I decided to go out for breakfast this morning. We chose a restaurant that is popular and we've been there before, but we probably won't go back very soon if ever.
When we walked through the door everything seemed to go into slow motion. The waitress brought water and the menu right away. She finally came to take our order. Chris ordered a biscuit and gravy and onion rings, I ordered eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and coffee. We waited and waited and waited some more and the food was finally set on our table. Chris's biscuit didn't have nearly enough gravy and my toast was missing so I waited and waited and Chris had to finally try to catch someone to let them know she had not received her ranch dressing and my toast. We continued to wait and wait until Chris saw a cook so she asked if the toast was ready yet and he said 'what toast'? Finally, the waitress comes to our table and says she didn't know I wanted toast. By now my eggs and bacon were cold. Well, it seems to save money we ordered from the build your own order. I was so ignorant I assumed toast would come with an order of Bacon, eggs and hashbrowns. Chris had to ask twice for Ranch dressing before it came. 
They didn't hesitate about taking our money. 

90th Birthday Bash

The most celebrated birthday I have ever had. Reaching 90 is something to celebrate. 

It was great fun to have all the family together There were some that couldn't attend because of illness. 

We still had a house full and running over. As you can see from the pictures. 

Food Foot and Fun

I'm waiting for the healing of my broken ankle. I'm waiting for warmer weather,  I'm waiting for payday. I'm waiting for thicker hair. I'm waiting for visitors.  I'm waiting for the cleaning services  to show up. I'm waiting for a winning lottery ticket to come my way. I never win even one dollar on those tickets, but my SIL and grand SIL bought one for me and it won 10 dollars.  
I am doing better on the foot. I was able to make a slice of bacon, hash browns and an egg and toast for breakfast plus a glass of OJ.
I have no plan for the dinner, but I have some frozen TV dinners and it will have to do.
I had a Marie Calendar Turkey pot pie one day and it was very good.
One day I put two pieces of chicken in the slow cooker with Barbeque sauce  and it was wonderful with a baked potato.
I just sit here and wait. I cannot get back into the crocheting activity. The desire to do it just eludes me. My hair is a disaster and I don't even care. I don't even care who runs for president. 

Shall we go dancing or skiing?

Our Tent Living

They were known as the Okies that live down by the river; a family of seven including the baby. They had sold out, packed up their belongings, and traveled from Oklahoma to the San Luis Valley in Colorado. They pitched a tent by the Rio Grande River among the tall evergreen trees and the roaring river sounds. Many families moved to California, and lived in migrant tent camps in 1935. They didn’t have any tent neighbors in Colorado, but there were a couple cabins nearby where families lived, their only neighbors. They also had access to an outdoor toilet.

They didn’t live very high on the hog, but didn’t go hungry. Fish was a great food source. Rainbow trout waiting to be caught, and all that was required was a rod and reel, and a hungry fisherman. They had fried fish and fried taters cooked over the camp fire. The drink of the day was Kool-Aid, red Kool-Aid, orange Kool-Aid, and purple Kool-Aid.  There was also an ice plant nearby where they could pick up all the free ice they needed for their Kool-Aid. Breakfast was fried eggs and more fried taters and store-bought bread.

A lettuce picking job was found, and the family parked the car at the end of the field. The ones old enough to work in the field picked up the heads of lettuce. The younger ones left to dillydally around the car and watch the baby. Happy Hour was when it was time to go home to the tent.

One day it rained and it rained a lot. Somewhat as it was in Noah’s day only they gathered in the tent instead of the ark to wait it out. 

Bath time was once a week whether they needed it or not. They had a galvanized tub which they carried around in the trailer with a few other necessities. The tub of water was heated on the campfire. Everyone took their turn in the tub in the same water. You do what you need to do.  There was some privacy provided with quilts draped over chairs around the tub. The chairs were from the trailer. 

The mom washed their clothes in the same tub, but with brand new water.

The clothes were draped over the same chairs, and anything else that was available.
One day the Dad said, “We need to find a house to live in before it gets cold, and get these children in school”.  He always called his kids, children because his children were children, and not goats.

This was the end of the tent living in 1935. 

Fourth Birthday Party

Chloe 4th Birthday Party

Chloe with her Mommie and Daddy

Aunt Emily and Shelby(Chloe's cousin)

Molly, Shelby and Emily  (Molly is Shelby's mother)

Shelby and Aunt Emily

Yvonne(Chloe's Grandma H), Molly, Cora and other guest

Leah and Chloe

Chloe, friend, cousins, and great grandma (me)

 

Molly, Leah and Shelby taken a few months ago.

 

Shelby

The party was at the park and it was a beautiful day except for the wind. It was so bad we couldn't have the candle blowing part. We had fun. The food was delicious, and the cake was lip-smacking scrumptious.

Falsified World

We live in a falsified world. It seems that everyone is trying to cheat someone. Go grocery shopping, and you will see that not only have the prices risen, the can or box look the same, but it’s smaller and has less ounces than their original version had.

Coffee cans have the side caved in so it will hold less. A toilet tissue roll is narrower. One time I bought tomatoes from a fruit stand, and there was a sign over the top that said “Local Tomatoes” when I got home I discovered one of the tomatoes had a little sticker that said California. This is Washington State. I suppose once he put them in the stand they were local.

Pepsi or Coke is on sale. You need to buy four or you pay regular price. The next sale they have the stipulation that you can only buy one at this sale price. It’s a game, and the coach is out to lunch.

Online shopping is very convenient, but once you order from a business they have your email address so they can send you all their ads with the deceiving promises.  Half price it says, but you have to buy two so you get one for free. Otherwise it is not half price. I only want one. Or Free Shipping, but when you look further you are required to buy seventy five dollar amount or the shipping is not free. Who do they think I am? Oprah!

Appliances formerly would last forty or fifty years, and now they last ten or twelve years if you’re lucky. My hot water heater had a six year warranty and went bonkers in seven years.

We think our Sport figures are just fabulous because they outdo everyone else. Then we find that they have been taking a secret drug of some kind to enhance their performance.

Or they weren’t really singing the National Anthem, they were lip syncing. Then we hear, “oh no they didn’t and oh yes they did for six months.”  A beautiful lady wins the Miss America contest, and then you hear, “She is not even American, she is from India.” Just shut up for once. Why should you care where she came from? She is American now or she could not have entered the contest. It turns out she was born in America.

This is all the stupid deceptive things I can think of right now. You can probably make a list as well.

Cheer up! the best is yet to come, and that is false advertising.

Celebrations

A more recent picture. 

Memorial day in the late 30’s and early 40’s was a day of real celebration. Anyway, it was if you lived in the country in Oklahoma. 
The country church we attended was located in the cemetery, called Bethel. I’m not sure which came first, the church or the cemetery.  The little brown shack was located behind the church. From there were the many graves, also by the side of the driveway. One side of the church was just a meadow, no graves were there at that time. There were a few cedar trees  along the driveway going into the church grounds. 
Preparing for memorial day started a day or so before, and it meant picking as many flowers as you had and putting them into buckets of water. Paper flowers made with crepe paper was another decoration that many created for the occasion. A gallon or two of lemonade and iced tea would be prepared and kept in a tub of ice. Ice came in blocks and if you wanted it crushed, you placed the block in a gunny sack and beat the heck out of it with whatever they used. I don't remember the details. 
It was an all day affair, because you met all the family members and neighbors. The kids ran around, and had a great time playing in the driveway. You were not allowed to run in the cemetery because stepping on a grave was a grave no-no. Adults milled around and visited all the graves of people they had known and much visiting and laughing and just catching up on each others lives. It would last most of the day and enjoyed by all. 
The church is no longer in the cemetery, and the part that was empty has now been filled. I have family buried there, my brothers, parents, grandparents, uncles. 
This is something I should have posted on Memorial day, but I’m always at least a day late. 
When I was a kid it was always referred to as Decoration day. Anyway, my mother called it that. She may have been the only one. 
My family started a family tradition several years ago. It was a family reunion that was celebrated in May. There were always strawberries galore, and somehow the special day was dubbed, Strawberry Day. I am not sure who named it, maybe someone in the family knows. It was one gigantic picnic in someone’s yard. The family grew larger and Strawberry Day grew larger. I think the day first started as a birthday party, because Dad and Ray (a son) shared the same birthday which was May 26th. Finally a grandson was born on Strawberry day. That made the day even more special.  There were other grand kids that came close to being born on the special day. When a baby was due in May, we all crossed our fingers, hoping it would be born on Strawberry day. The family has let Strawberry day slip away since our parents and a couple older siblings have passed away. It was nice while it lasted. I was only able to attend one Strawberry Day because I lived so far away. I think it was the last one they had. I remember it was so cold that day, we ended up in the house. It was at Gene and Glenda’s that year and the house was bulging at the seams. 

The Story of My Life

The story of my life. Lose fat, gain fat, lose fat, gain fat. Today I was looking for something and  ran across this  little tablet. The first entry says Diet Diary  6/26/73. I would have been 45 and fat.
It starts out like this:
6/26/73
Weighed 168 this morning. A lot of fat for 5 foot 4 ½ inches. (2012 The Osteoporosis now has me down to 5 ft 3)
Wore my cow dress to work today. It has a sloppy hem and a cigarette burn. Nothing would look good anyway so it doesn’t matter. Besides it’s the only thing I have that still fits. I hate that dress. When I reach my goal I’m going to burn it and scatter the ashes over the Cascade mountains. I weighed 175 in February so I have already lost 7 pounds. I saw a lady the other day that said she hardly knew me because I had gained so much weight.  I cannot stand her. PERIOD.
6/27/73
Still weighed the same, I visited a TOP meeting tonight. The meeting didn’t impress me. A lot of really fat ladies. Not one of them looked as though they were anywhere near their goal. I will join at the next meeting, maybe it will help. I’m drinking a diet grape pop. You need a pretty good imagination to believe that stuff is good. Lack of exercise makes Fanny’s fanny get fatter. Makes mine fatter too. I’m not counting calories, I just count the bites.
6/29/73
Karen made a wacky cake tonight and everybody is sitting right in front of my eyes eating the cake. I will not be tempted. I will not, I will not, I will not. Next year I won’t even remember that cake. I wouldn’t remember it in the morning, but it will still be setting there on the counter. Tomorrow is Saturday and the weekends are terrible. At work I am busy and forget food. Why can’t I lose more? Would anyone notice if a cow lost 4 lbs. One thing for sure if I ever got lost in the wilderness, I would be able to live on my fat for a while.
7/6/73
Today was a real hassle at work. Short of help and everybody in the county applied for credit. Now I gained a lb. Must have been that extra teaspoon of mashed potatoes I ate.
I was buying shoes in a shoe store and the clerk said their panty hose were on sale and then added that they carry Queen size. It was a man clerk, a woman would never say such a thing. Well, for his information I am still squeezing into the regular size. They may not be comfortable, but they are not Queen size. (Now I jump forward to 2012, they no longer use that “queen size” label on anything. They use X’s and the more X’es the bigger.  They are called Women’s size. Some are labeled 16W, 18W etc. I asked my friend, Alice, what the W stands for and she said, “wide”.  Makes sense to me. )

This is the story of my life.  The diary goes on and on, but it is just more of the same. Gain fat, lose fat, gain fat, lose fat.

Magical Phone

My brother, Hollis lives in another city. We talk on the phone now and then. Sunday night he called and apologized for not answering my call. He said they didn’t get to the phone before I hung up. I told him I had not called. He said, “Yes, you did, the phone rang and your number was on the caller ID.”  I said, “Well, I beg you'alls pardon, but I did not call you or anyone. I haven’t been on the phone all day.”   He said, “How did your number get on my caller ID?”  I said, “ I don’t know, but I guess whoever is behind this thinks we need to talk to each other, so lets talk.”  Then I told him how I accidentally called our brother, Ray a few weeks ago.  So we talked about Ray for awhile, and then we got on the subject of our father, and we both had good things to say about him.  I don’t remember what else we talked about and when I hung up I remembered something I forgot to tell him, so I called back. He was in the shower by then so I talked to Dar, my sister-in-law, for another 30 minutes.  
 Conclusion of the story is that I have a magical phone and it calls people that I need to talk to. Who needs a secretary? 

I learned something new this weekend that I bet you have not heard of. Do you peel a banana from the stem down and sometimes you can’t break the stem over so you need a knife.  Well, turn the banana over and squeeze the end of it a little and break the skin and peel it from that end. Probably everybody already knows about that, but I never get out of the box. I was still doing it like my mama taught me when I was 3 years old. 

This is Hollis and Dar 

This is my brother, Ray.  

This is Hollis as a freckled faced kid.
He always had a beaming smile 

Our Dad
(now deceased)

Trees and Groceries

There comes a time when you have nothing left to eat, and you go to the store. I thought Sunday morning would be a perfect time to go to Walmart. I was sure it would be nice and quiet over there. I assumed I was the only person that doesn't go to church, well evidently I am not the only one that doesn’t attend church on Sunday Morning.  Everybody and their uncle attend Walmart on Sunday morning. It was a testing of the nerves to weave in and around people trying to find what I wanted. Some folks block a whole aisle so they can have a chitchat conference with their next door neighbor. Those are not my favorite people. When you've spent your last nerve and try to leave it gets even more challenging.  I try to choose the aisle with the least people. I have over twenty items and I need to use one of the slow ones. It doesn't matter which one I choose, the pause button always get pressed. So you stand in the paused line so long, you get acquainted with the folks behind you and the ones in front of you. Finally I get through the line and come home. When I pull into my driveway, wow ! there had been a disaster.
My next door neighbor had the tree in their front yard split and a huge limb fell onto the front of their house. It must have happened last night and I didn’t notice when I backed out of my driveway to leave. The part that hit their house was the smaller branches so maybe it didn’t do any damage or not much anyway.  I just now talked to a neighbor’s and she said the wind blew really hard last night and it rained. I slept through that event.  That is one of the reasons I had a huge blue spruce taken out of my yard a few years ago. The trimming guys said if you do not keep the small branches trimmed out of the top of those spruce trees and you get hard winds, the wind can’t blow trough the tree it will easily blow one of those spruce trees over. Not only that, but the grass can’t grow under it very well and it shed a ton of needles that need to be raked out every year. 
This is how my exciting day has gone so far. 

Dieter's Psalm

I found this Dieter’s Psalm, and I revamped it a little to fit my assessment of the situation.  

DIETER'S PSALM

Strict is my diet. I must not want.

It maketh me to lie down at night hungry.

It leadeth me past the candy aisle. 

It trieth my willpower.

It leadeth me in the path of starvation

for my fattened hippy state. 

Yea, though I walk through the aisles

of the pastry department, I will

buy no sweetrolls for they will

fatten thee.

The cakes and the pies, they tempt me.

Carb’s begat carb’s, ye must do without.

Tis the unpardonable sin, thou shalt not let in.

Before me is a table set with green beans 

and lettuce, and spinach for dessert. 

Filleth thy stomach with liquids,

The day's quota runneth oer.

 surely calorie and weight charts will

follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the fear of scales forever.

                         AMEN

Imitation Tomatoes

I was doing a Google search to find out how they grow those God-Awful tomatoes we find in our grocery stores. I found this blog and there is also a CNN video in the article that is eye opening as well. Most of the comments at the end of the article have the same feelings I have about them.  I don’t live in Florida, but I’m sure most grocery stores buy them. We have local tomatoes in tomato season that are very good, but most of the grocery stores still sell the imitation tomatoes. Maybe the produce sellers they buy from have some control over it. 


Imitation Tomatoes

A Dream of Good Food

Take the yolk of ten eggs and beat them up well

Than take a cup full of cocoa, and chocolate as well.

Mix them together and stir them up well

Of butter, a quart, like a pure golden stream

Add two cups of sugar, and a pint of rich cream.

Such are the things of which prisoner’s dream.

A bowl full of peaches so ripe and round.

Mix in some berries—perhaps just a pound.

Pile up the lot, the whole of the mound,

Chop them and crush them, so luscious and sweet.

Without them no effort would be quite complete,

With good things our mixture will soon be replete.

Nuts must be added, nuts of all kind,

Anything else that happens to mind:

So all of the good things we’re able to find,

Anything else that happens to mind;

So all of the good things we’re able to find

Walnuts and Cashew, Pecan and Brazil

With tidbits like this our basin we fill,

Just mention a one, it’s grist for our mill. 

Before and After

This little Drive-In is called Miner's. This was opening day in 1948.
It is now famous in Washington state. 

Still In the same location.  It was passed on to younger family members.
They now have seating inside and outside. It is always crowded.
It's a great place to eat if you ever come to Yakima, WA. 

Basic Cream Pie

I have this cookbook from the olden days, and it has this wonderful cream pie recipe in it. I have used it so much the page fell out of the book. So for you that are not on a diet, I took a picture of it for you. It’s a basic cream pie recipe and you add whatever you want it to be. I usually make the chocolate Pie.  I have never made a peanut butter pie, but here is the recipe.

Oreo Cookies

Woman can’t live by Oreo’s alone, but I am trying to prove that theory is just wrong.
This woman went to the doctor’s office today to get a shot of Vitamin B12. After that visit I turned West to visit the Wal-Mart to pick up some heavy double duty Vitamin D. (prescription type). It seems that when the body wears out it takes a lot of artificial help to keep it chugging along. On top of that I have this bummed out knee and all the limp parking places were taken so I had to walk five miles (seemed like) to get inside. I picked up some groceries while there and as I was about to check out, I noticed a big gigantic stack of Family Size Oreo’s right in the front of the store. You couldn’t miss them if you were half blind. I also noticed them when I came into the store. It’s about an hour past lunchtime and my brain went into idle mode and my gut took over. My knee is killing me by now, but I must have some Oreo’s and I am not going to hobble down to that cookie aisle to find a smaller package. I purchased the Family Size box and the cookies and me came home. Since I am on a diet I decided to skip lunch and just eat a couple Oreo’s. I deserve a treat after that ordeal.  A couple cookies turned into a half tube. But I didn’t eat any lunch. So tonight I made a very diet type dinner and for dessert I thought I would eat just a couple Oreo’s. Well the other half tube is almost gone. They just vanished into thin air. It’s the Wal-Mart’s fault. I feel like suing them for parking those cookies right in plain sight that way.