Category Archives: Just funny stuff

An Unplanned Visit to Sisters’ Harvest Faire

My friend Marci and I spent some time in beautiful Sisters, OR  last weekend.  The Harvest Faire was happening in the middle of town and we decided to take a stroll through.

I made some discoveries I want to tell you about.

Just A Little Charm sells beautiful and fun little copper items made from up-Cycled copper.    She even had some little tiny copper guitar pick charms  that Marci and I thought our older boys would love to use as a  zipper pull.    Go check her out.

The next thing to turn my head  was Dean Crouser’s incredible paintings.   He described a little of his process to us.   I am thoroughly in love with the colors and the details.

One of the funniest finds  was from Darwin Connections, from Wilkerson, WA.   It’s a sock monkey water bottle cozy!   It makes me laugh.

Since we were there later in the day on the second day of the Faire,  bargains were numerous!  I found this garden sign at Laurie Miller Designs’  booth.  Everything she had was exactly the sort of thing that I love.    (Click on her name and go visit her etsy shop)

It stands nice and tall.  And I have to call your attention to my fabulous new ironing board cover.  I got inspired by my friend Melissa over at Melissa Loves Color.

So, that’s one way I’ve been making my world more beautiful.

Tune in on Nov. 5th when I answer the question, “What would you tell your 20 year old self?”   hooo boy…  where does one begin?

 

 

 

Ch-Ch-Changes

Change is one of those realities of life that many of us are never ready for, no matter how often it creeps up and pounces.

Change of routine

Change of finanaces

Change of health

Change of school

Change of residence

Change of job…  Okay, I’m sure you get it.

Then there are the changes we long for but too often refuse to   let   make happen.

Change of attitude

Change of perspective

Change of heart

Change of health

Change of school

Change of residence

Change of job…

Sometimes I feel proficient at change.   I’ve done it enough!  Occasionally I even like it.

Generally, though, not so much.

My most recent changes have involved my kids growing up.  One is currently a gainfully employed adult still living in my home.  The other is a blossoming high school student who (like most 15 year olds) can forget that she doesn’t know everything.

As they get older…so do I.   And THAT is another of those changes that I’m having a love/hate thing with.

Then there’s menopause.   *que dramatic bass notes*

Menopause (aka The Change) illustrates the unfairness of this span of time we inhabit the earth.

If I were the master controller of the physical processes of a woman’s body as she ages I would decree menopause EASY and QUICK.  Nobody would endure 5-15 years of hot flashes, night sweats, muddle-brain and then up to a full year wondering if this most recent period was actually the last.

I would work it out so that a woman’s last period was obviously her last.   You know how obviously a pregnancy ends?   Yeah.   Something like that…but with no labor pains…and no baby  (just thought I should throw that in there, too).

The last period would be the signal for celebrations which would rival the grandest baby showers.  Younger women would dream of their last period with the same stupor that accompanies visions of their wedding.

Women living through the change would be respected and envied.

Menopause would be one of life’s greatest milestones.

Birds would sing brighter.  Butterflies would flit more flitter-ly.  All of nature would heave a collective sigh.

AND:   We’d get a reimbursement check for all of the money we spent replacing ruined undies!

 

 

 

 

Winter isn’t for chickens…bawkbawk

I missed my chance to get a great shot of their first reactions to six or seven inches of the white stuff. This was our first real snowfall this winter. We’d received a couple inches here and there but really NOTHING compared to a normal winter.

So, on this brisk morning, after shoveling a path across the deck (i think it’s important to note that this was all done in my jammies), I opened the coop door at a little after 7a.m.

and nothing happened.

Nobody scuttled down the ramp to the food bin.

Nobody was squawking about whose turn it was to go first out the door.

There was just silence.

Concerned that the four of them might be chicken-pops still clutching their roost bar, I crouched down to get a glimpse inside.

All four ladies were standing silent… just inside the coop door craning their necks to peer out.

The boldest of the lot is Lupin and I couldn’t even convince HER to come out.

To help you visualize what was happening, here’s a photo of their little doorway. Their coop door slides down to close for the night. When it is open it is up inside the coop.

The top of the run is covered with a tarp to keep the floor fairly dry.

These next shots were taken after much melting had occurred but there’s still enough white stuff left to cause three of the four to be reluctant about venturing out of the run.

Annabelle seemed to telepathically communicate - "NOPE"

Nugget and Lupin are the two that are the most intrepid. They’re the least able (genetically speaking) to handle the cold and they’re the two who seem the most at home in the snow. They are also the two that will literally fly across the yarn at the merest glimpse of me.

I have taken to calling them my fan club. They love me. awwwwww

Yes. They're pecking ice.


These two were actually eating ice. Eating. Gobbling it up. I warned them about brain freeze. Typically – I was ignored.

I’ll never be in the Foodie Hall of Fame

My good friend Susan over at Wild Life in the Woods is most definitely a fine foodie. She’s been the source of many a wonderful recipe that my entire family has enjoyed.

Then there’s me…

I do stuff like this:

There isn't much demand for molten peaches and blueberries.

Yep.

I put the pie in the oven. Set the timer. And then LEFT for two and a half hours!

I ran errands and dropped my daughter off at a friends house and after two hours was sixteen miles away when I remembered the pie and almost drove off the road trying to pull over and call my next door neighbor to go in and make sure my kitchen wasn’t ablaze.

Sadly, there's no good side to show you.

My oddest Christmas Gift

I did not have an idyllic childhood. There were moments that were pure and sweet and others that were filled with raw gut-wrenching pain. I’m not suggesting that my childhood was uniquely bad, though. It was just not exactly stable. I don’t like mentioning it. It’s done. Nothing can change those years. My sweet Mother reads my blog and I know she wrestles with her own pain over how those years unfolded – so I don’t want to add fresh hurt for her either.

I’m not telling you any of this so that you’ll feel sorry for me or lash out with nasty comments about the choices my parents did/didn’t make. Stuff happens. Regrets remain. ’nuff said. I tell you these things simply because I needed to lay that out that backstory to give you some idea what must have been happening in my heart and mind as I faced this particularly memorable Christmas in the 1970′s.

During my early teens my Father remarried. While he continued to live and work rather far away from his new family, my brother and I spent a while living with neither of our parents and fending for ourselves (emotionally) while living under our Step-Mother’s roof. I choose to believe that she did care about my brother and I but with four kids of her own (two older than us and two younger) she had her hands full already.

Like any 13 year old girl, I was looking forward to Christmas. The only item on my wish list: curling iron. Nothing else. Just a curling iron. I was finally going to have that Farrah Fawcett hair!

It was about a week before Christmas, 1975, I had just turned 13 a few days earlier. A package arrived for my brother and I. It was from our Grandparents (Nanny and PawPaw). I pulled the individually wrapped gifts from the box placed them under the tree with the few other gifts that were there.

I shook the box that had my name on it. It was an odd rattling. Probably not a curling iron. *sigh* But I was good with that. My step mom had been told what I wanted and I felt pretty sure she’d come through.

Christmas morning arrives. I have my meager little pile next to me and I begin unwrapping one of two boxes that are most closely curling-iron-shaped. I decide to open Nanny and PawPaw’s first. Peeling back the wrapping I’m greeted by the face of Twiggy. Hmmm. “I wonder what this means. Perhaps they used a Twiggy box to confuse me. Very clever.”

Inside the box I find… a used set of steak knives. Oh yeah. I was confused alright!

At first I was as disappointed as any 13yo who had no interest in steak knives OR Twiggy. Within minutes I was giggling and then laughing over the ridiculousness of the situation. I’m not sure when I began to approach major disappointment this way. It’s one of the few things about myself that I wouldn’t change. The worse the situation the funnier I find it. The trivialities of an average day don’t have anywhere NEAR the same effect. Those have a way of producing a raging lunatic…or perhaps it’s these damnable menopause hormones (they get blamed for everything right now).

ANYWAY – back to Christmas. I did get the curling iron, some strawberry perfume, lip gloss, a flannel plaid shirt (yeah – that one was odd, too but doesn’t even come close to the steak knives) and a couple of Grateful Dead cassette tapes. So – while not a terrible Christmas it was definitely memorable.

What was your oddest Christmas gift?

Editing to add: I recently learned of this contest over at Hooked and Happy so I’m adding this post.