I Guess I Am Going Blind

Do you suffer from "squint-eye-tis"? You know, the disease where you blink a few times then narrow your eyes to see the teeny tiny text on the computer screen? So, is it just me or is the Internet shrinking to the normal human eye? When the words starts looking like black ants in neat little rows on my computer screen, I begin squinting every so granny-like to read the damn words. No offense meant toward grandparents, I hope to be one some day in the far, far future... BUT I think there is a conspiracy to use size 6 or 8 font or smaller everywhere on the fleeping Internet.

Well regardless, I have found and amazing and wonderful cure. If you are like me please read on... If you are occularly superior, please go somewhere else. And all of you Internet Einsteins out there, just take your big brain elsewhere. For the challenged like myself, I will let you in on this coveted secret so that you too do not have premature crows feet at the corner of your eyes. What is this magic you say? Not glasses, no, no, way too passe. Nope, it's not using the awkward tool bar with the magnifier, anyway that takes way too much time for an impatient bit** like myself! It is not Lasic eye surgery, that's much too expensive. This cure costs not a dime! Please send me no money or other forms of gratuity. Yes believe it, this technology is FREE.

Are you ready?: Two magic keys already at your fingertips will open the door to magnifying the pages of the Internet.

• First press the handy ctrl key on the lower left or lower right hand side of the keyboard. Holding that in conjunction with the (+) key makes every thing bigger on the screen. I dare ya. Try it now. You can do this several times to achieve the desired size text. Hurray!!!
  
• To shrink this back down again use the (-) key.

I love this. I use it every day. Sorry if I am a little late to the party, but I still had to celebrate this discovery. I wish they had a key like this for husbands, maybe on their fore head or somewhere else easily accessible, and especially the (-) key...hint, hint dearest over active spouse. (And, yes the hubbie reads this on his blackberry.) But anyhoo, now I can read everything in a font sized appropriately for a kindergärtner or a billboard, take your pick. Yes, I will be wearing glasses soon for reading. But they will be sexy glasses for sure.

Within the Winter's Darkness

Walking out to feed my horses in the winter always occurs in evening's darkness. The blackened sky is refreshing like a cold glass of strongly brewed ice tea and the brisk air makes me feel frisky. Since the mercury drops to the low 40's in the evenings, I sometimes pick up a little jog and wave my hands around to keep my wimpy hands warm. But my other babies need me and I have to take care of them too.

On moonless nights, I like the feeling of walking to the horses in almost total darkness. I have about 500 feet to cover between my house and the barn. During my brief walk, I get a few fleeting moments of stillness, no kids and no husband. In this blink of time, I can just breath in the simple night time air.

The neighbors houses, about 1,000 feet away, are sometimes lit up like a shopping mall at Christmas, albeit minus the blinking colored lights. They are pansies, afraid of the dark. I wish they could just turn off their floodlights for a few minutes and enjoy the night instead of blasting it with their light pollution. When their back porch beacons are not ruining my night, it is very dark, the kind of dark where you almost can't see in front of you. That is when I practice seeing with my peripheral vision. The sensors in your eyes that register color are different from the sensors that receive black and white. And if you look really closely using just the sides of your eyes you can see all kinds of things in the black and white spectrum. So, I never feel blindfolded when the night is at it's darkest of dark. My eyes like the challenge, and I know I always have my own "night vision" to fall back on.

When I get to the back of our property, the horses get put in their stalls and blanketed much to their objection. Gemma the youngster, a mammoth 4 year old Dutch warmblood, walks out to her paddock and avoids me for as long as she can. She will make several turns and swing her gigantic haunches at me; but after I corner her and grab her by the muzzle, she submits to the torture of being warm. Obviously, she is not fond of wearing her blanket. Since this is the first year she has worn it regularly, she must accept the fact its going on no matter what. Sharpie, my 12 year old Thoroughbred gelding, knows what is coming and stands still, even puts his head in the neck hole of the blanket, but then snakes his face at me with a snarling mouth. As if he would even think of really biting. Believe me, he knows better than to put his teeth on a human body part. I'm a bitch on wheels and all my horse experimented when they were younger and figured out that "resistance is futile." Sharpie's all show, and I know he would rather be naked too, but has to demonstrate he still has objections. The old timer, Alfie, a 23 year old Swedish warmblood gelding, walks out of his stall into his paddock and stands. No fussing about the blanket, just pragmatic acceptance of the inevitable.

As I move around the barn I will often catch fleeting glimpses of my cats who follow me on the nighttime rounds. These emissaries of the night scurry through the aisle way, scamper up the hay stacks or creep into my tack room: sniffing, listening, hunting. "Get em boys," I encourage the cats as they prowl around for rodents. I don't think winter gives them much luck but they still must make their presence known. Two of three "Boys" I can see with my night vision, but little lithe Lucky is pure black with a few white hairs on his chest. If he comes with me I never see him frolicking. He is truly invisible in the night, it's almost like he is one with the air...

After the neigh-neighs, are snugly tucked in their blankets, I walk out from the protection of the barn. Then I can look at the sky spread infinitely above me and observe the stars sparkling from the heavens. At this time of night, low on the horizon I see the constellation Orion rising over the oak covered hill which juts dome-like into the sky, east of my house. Before I knew it's name, I alway thought Orion looked like a hand with the middle finger extended, flipping off some celestial God. I think I was in my early teens when I dubbed it "the finger." I promised my son Wyatt that we would get a star chart so we can correctly identify the night sky. I think I can make him an admirer of the night and stars too.

The last few nights I have been lucky enough to see several shooting stars streak across our sky. Meteors arriving from galaxies I will never see... One of the spectacular ones left a long trail and terminated in a burst of blues and greens against the blackness of the universe. I put a wish on it, but then thought: Why do I need to wish on a star? I think I must already have those things that I actually need.



And here are my two riding horses:
Gemma


and Sharpie

Christmas Books for Kids

With Christmas galloping at us like a stampeding herd of Mustangs, I was thinking about the kinds of gifts that I value the most. For me, books are a present that parents and children can enjoy together many times over, and they don't carry with them extra packaging or break in a few weeks. Giving a gift of a book to a friend's child, nieces or nephews, grandchildren or contributing to your own family bookcase is a great way to be generous during the holiday.

I was looking at our book collection and pulled out the stories that I think provide wonderful animal interpreters, gorgeous pictures and fabulous writing. These are the stories I never tire of reading to my kids; and they, not so surprisingly, like to hear them perennially. The following books feature wild animals and the environment, each highlighting our natural world and our relationship to it in some special way.

Some of these books have already been recognized for their achievements and some are not as well known, but maybe these suggestions will help with your holiday shopping this year. Most of these books are appropriate for ages 3 to 7. Or if you have younger children who will sit still long enough, they will like them too. I even think some older kids maybe up to 10 would enjoy reading them alone as well.

These are my favorites in no particular order.

Stranger in the Woods, by Sams II and Stoick, tells the tale of a mysterious snowman who appears in the forest. All the animals of the neighborhood come to visit the stranger who has special treats to eat. I like to make up voices for each of the animals, a deep voice for the stag deer, a high voice for the chickadee, and a unsure voice for the fawn. The children who maintain the snowman appear in the end revealing the answer to the mystery.

This book is also published in Canada which promotes the economy of North America.

Johny Appleseed, a poem by Lindbergh and illustrated by Jakobsen, is a version of John Chapman's life told with rhyming verse and through unusually stylized drawings. When I read this story I play a game with my kids after reciting the stanza. I ask them to find something new on each page, kind of like Where's Waldo. The exacting details in the drawings always gives us something new to do an "I spy" with. This story gives an American history lesson without being to overwhelming for youngsters.

Zella, Zack and Zodiac by renound author Bill Peet tells a "tail" of an odd partnership between bird and fowl with a great "kicker" in the end. I could not help the puns here. This is a beautiful example of pay it forward where kids can learn though the eyes of animals. The dialogue between the zebra and the baby ostrich is fabulous and told in Peet's characteristic rhyming stanza's. Since I have horses and admire birds, I can't help but love this book!

The copy of this story that I have is also printed in America, so buying it helps our country's economy. In fact many of Peet's books are manufactured in the USA! So check inside to see the country of origin.

Way out in the Desert, by Marsh and Ward, illustrated by Spengler, is a counting book featuring hidden numbers within spectacularly colored drawings of desert animals and their habitat. The verse is in rhyme and can be sung to "Over in the Meadow," and the musical accompaniment is provided in the back of the story. I kind of chant this one to the kids and at the end of each page they look for the numbers hidden in the picture. Featuring plant and animal species which are native to the southwestern desert habitat, this book shows kids new animals they may not have seen before.

And Egg is Quiet, written by Aston and illustrated by Long, provides textbook-like natural history information in a story format which kids can understand. With brilliant drawings that accurately depict wildlife, kids are pulled into the "data." Dozens of eggs are drawn showing the multitude of colors, sizes and shapes that can occur in the avian, reptile, insect and even the shark world. How eggs camouflage, grow, and finally produce their surprise is shown though the delicate drawings and text. The front page displays eggs with the name of each species which laid it, while the back page shows all the adult forms corresponding with the eggs. I flip back and forth between these two pages so the kids can see before and after... Sometimes I think I like this book slightly more than my children.

Story Time for Little Porcupine written by Slate and illustrated by Rogers, is a collection of "Why" stories as told by Little Porcupine and Papa Porcupine. How the rays of the sun were made, how the sunset came to be, and why there are stars in the night sky are described though the dialog between father and son. The drawings are quaint and charming and the "Why" stories craftily conceived. This story is also one of my personal favorites because of its creativity and it's encouragement to think outside the box.

Little Tom Turkey written by Bloxam and illustrated by Sollers, is another rhyming tale explaining the growth of a wild turkey from egg to maturity showing feeding, flying, escaping predators, wintering, and finally adulthood. The repeating attempt of little tom to strut is cute to observe. We have read this book about every other day for the past month since it was Thanksgiving. The illustrations in this story are stand outs since Solliers uses a combination of smooth art and detailed turkey drawings.

The Two Little Gardeners written by Brown and Hurd, illustrated by Elliot is a Special Mention book. While this book does not focus on animals in the wild it provides a beautiful step by step tour to growing garden vegetables. The words are simple but elegant in choice and I have read it so many times I know much of the verse by heart. The story describes the gardening activities of a boy and a girl as they transform a dirt plot into a vegetable heaven. The artwork is awesome and detailed. Each step of the gardening process is shown. We read this one a lot in the spring time before we plant our garden.

Since it is a classic Golden Book it is not so expensive, but the value in the story makes it a superior addition to a library and the version I have is printed in the USA.

I think these books give my kids appreciation for animals and nature. Maybe though learning to love these things the next generation of children will strive even harder to save them. Maybe you can give another kid a chance to love them at Christmas time too!!!

It's not just about chickens, ground squirrels, nutty kids and meditating hippies at our house; we read a lot! Have you a favorite animal and environment story to share? Add your story in the comments and we can make this list a little longer. I am always looking for new books that I have not found yet. Thanks!!!

Reality Check

Yesterday was fun and thank you all who looked at my e-card and made a comment. I was almost blinded by the number of sites I visited and impressed with the pure number of lady bloggers out there.

Now it is back to reality and this comic seems rather appropriate for some strange reason. Even fantasy land has problems. I think I could say all these things about my husband and it would fit in at some time or another. The expression on the dog in the bottom left hand corner is priceless.


Now I can get back to my somewhat normal schedule of about two blogs a week...sigh.

For Me It's a Wee Too Early for X-Mas but What the Hay SITS Ladies!!

Never being one to back out of a Christmas Card challenge:

Ella's Christmas Revenge

Here's to babies butts busting out presents for the family.
May your tree remain standing and the ornaments not be used as missiles.
May your Christmas meal be free from a food fight and taste good too.
May you be primed and ready for the season of giving hiding the presents from the kids.

But if you could not tell, I really do wish everyone a Merry Holiday Season!


Also I want to appreciate the efforts of the following Blogs:

Nanny Goat in Panties-Like she needs to be told she does good...
Pooba-Another Amazon woman like myself.
Yaya Stuff- I really wish her dream comes true! AND
Finding Yourself Despite Yourself-Since her pictures and accompanying text are always, always fun to look at.

and of course The Secret is in The Sauce.

P.S. If I win the Target Gift Card I can buy extra things for Christmas this year. May the Gods of random drawings look kindly upon me.

Monday, Monday.

So I was folding my husband's laundry just before 8 am this morning and I heard a rather loud metallic bashing sound from the kitchen. I peeked around the corner from my room to look down the hall way, from where I can see the kitchen. There were Wyatt and cousin Adam, sitting on the floor near the utensil drawer, each holding a spatula in their hot little hands. Wyatt had a black Rubbermaid spatula and Adam possessed a metal variety. Each boy was happily smacking the flat part of the spatula on the floor with a look of glee in his eye.

"Hey, keep it down," I bellowed. There was a momentary pause in the festivities while they both looked up at me. "What are you guys doing?" I questioned.

"We're makin' noise, Mom" Wyatt offers up, stating the obvious with a smile.

"Yes, I am aware of that," I respond with no little annoyance. At that point Wyatt spread his hand down flat on the floor and started whacking on it with the spatula. "Don't hurt your hand, Wyatt. And especially you Adam, since you have the metal one." They continued on unphased by my warning. "Well, good luck with that." My last sage words of advice were obviously falling on deaf ears. I then returned to my room to finish the chores.

Lovely Ella was sitting at the foot of my bed. She had in her hands a bamboo sushi roller laid out lengthwise between her legs. Additionally, she was handling a small rubber super ball about one and a half inches in diameter. It's swirling red and blue lines were popping out against the main white background of the ball in the dim light in my room. Ella was mumbling to herself in concentration as she attempted to wrap the ball in the sushi roller.

"Whatever makes you happy little lady," was the only sensible thing I could say to her. I watched her trying to put her project together for a few minutes then knelt down and helped her. Her happy smile at holding the now tube-shaped sushi roller with the ball inside was what every mom wants to see. Then Ella spent some time looking through the tube at the ball, sort of like a telescope. Ah, our simple life.

If you can't tell already, the contents of my utensil draw are free game to the kids. Since my house just squeaks in at a whopping 800 square feet I let the kids have liberties that I would not likely condone had we a larger abode. But accepting the situation as it is, I am amenable to most activities so long as they don't destroy furniture, cabinets, carpets, or children's body parts.

After moving from the exciting and rewarding task of folding hubbies clothes, I took a moment to log onto the Internet and sign in on the roll call at The Secret in The Sauce, which to the initiated is recognized by the initials SITS. As I was waiting for the page to load, I was gazing at the leopard print wall paper with pink piping and something startling dawned on me.


The apron I picked for my Secret Santa (sister-in-law Suzi) to gift me is the spot on duplicate in pattern and trim as the SITS site!!!.

What does this mean?? Is is purely coincidence or is this some subliminal signal that I have been abducted by SITS? When I was on the apron site Thanksgiving day, the pattern just "lept" out at me and I immediately knew I wanted it. It was not too froofy or silly girly for my personality. Mostly it looked fun and to be honest, slightly out of character for me. Maybe it represents a little challenge to get out side my normal parameters or it's a reflection of the new freedom I feel with this Blog journey. Regardless, me thinks this selection was not just a strange twist of fate and it reveals the normal changing that everyone should do.

Have I been influenced by the SITS site or is this just strange luck? And then, how are you going to get out of character for next year?

Late Breaking News. The SITS ladies are giving away a 200 dollar gift card tomorrow!

The Aftermath

Welcome to the Post Game Wrap Up Show. Now that all the turkey has digested I will provide some play by play details of the gala. My apologizes in advance: This is a long one...

The day of gorging on turkey began as usual with my alarm clock children waking us around 6 am. I soon realized however that my husband was like a flea on crack. His drug being sleep, too much of it makes him jitter like a moth on a hot light bulb. At breakfast Thanksgiving morning while gobbling his eggs, he sidled up to me on our dining bench. His body was quivering and shaking with excitement and he resembled a Labrador retriever or other such shivery dog with the kind of tail that whacks you so hard it gives you a bruise.

He says,"Honey, I just want to be close to you,"as his leg vibrated uncontrollably against the outside of my thy.

Realizing this was the first test to my new found inner calm, I remained passive. The reality was that in my head I was screaming, "Aggghhhh!" Kind of like Peppermint Patty in a rage. But no yelling at the husband on Thanksgiving. I promised my self I would remain peaceful-like today. After all, I could not let the good thoughts from the meditative hippie be in vain, right?

"It's party time." Mike's statement went unanswered due to my slow, deep breathing which was controlling my urge to throttle him or at least throw a hard hockey style elbow.

My carefully metered reply was, "Can you tone it down just a little today? Like maybe get down to about 100 decibels or so?"

Mike's giddy smile followed, accompanied by some goofy faces. My request was of no use. He remained a gigantic puppy with floppy ears and no facial hair. A little drool and the picture would be complete. At this point I am making Note to self No. 1: Stay clear of hyper active husband today. I would just have to keep my distance where possible.

Next The Food:

I attempted to tackle a complexity of cuisine never before seen from my kitchen at Thanksgiving, with a level of difficulty at about 7. With my play book straight out of Sunset Magazine I made a game plan to launch me to culinary victory. My assignments for our fabulous feast were: stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce and the rolls. Suzi tackled the bird, sautéed mushrooms, green beans, hoerderves (holy crap I spelled it right on the first try), and Mother-in-law Darlene made the desserts and gravy. Yes, it was a real team effort here.

My Dish No. 1: Overnight Soft Herb Rolls. First, I must say Thank You to Sunset magazine. Because of your inspirational photography, I decided to go extra fancy this year with home made bread rolls that require about 15 minutes of kneading. However, editors of Sunset please note: The directions should say: "Knead dough until carpel tunnel syndrome flairs and your wrists are searing." Since I made two batches of 12 rolls, I now know why the European baking goddesses have shoulders like linebackers and baseball mitts for hands.

My Dish No. 2: Meyer Lemon Cranberry Sauce. Directions say use one 12 oz bag of cranberries and add two Meyer lemons. I was in trouble at the onset since the store only had plain lemons. Am I allowed to make such substitution? What happens if you don't have Meyers? Well I have lived to tell the tale: nothing happens. I made the sauce with regular old lemons and amazingly the sky did not fall from the heavens.

My Dish No. 3: Artichoke Parmesan Sourdough Stuffing. This extra special stuffing was chosen due to the King men's love of artichokes and the wifes love for mushrooms. I figured everyone gets something they like out of it even though my father-in-law, Greg, says, "Eatin' mushrooms is like chewin' on a rubber tire." But we were not competing in NASCAR now were we. What could possibly go wrong here?

First instructions were to "brown the vegetables in a 12 inch pan." This would have been nice if all the produce would have fit in a 12 inch frying pan. Dear Sunset, please edit recipe to say,"brown vegetables in horse trough sized container." Then about the so called "browning." All the cooking vegetables made a lovely brown broth at the bottom of the pan. So now I was making soup. I figured I had to remove the broth...a task for which I was not prepared. How to get the broth out without dumping the vat of veggies was illusive. Spooning it out was not working so well. Then the power play kicked in and I found my kids hot pink colored easy dose dropper. You know those sucky bulb things you use to medicate your kids with Tylenol and Ibuprofen. So there I am suctioning one teaspoon of vegetable broth at a time with a fuchsia colored baby baster. Lovely. I must have made Martha proud at that point.

While the mirepoix was cooking, Mike came in to investigate. Then the hysterics broke out. The bellow explodes, "You're cooking onions....." According to my husband onions are toxic vegetables who's only purpose is to inflict agonizing blindness on people like him. Note to self No. 2: Cook onions to get Mike out of house.

With my brief window of opportunity I showed Mike the large quantities of ingredients and explained my cooking pot and bowl size problems. He surmized, "You could have just halved the recipe." How can I argue with logic... But that being said my last note to Sunset Magazine is: The recipe should be revised to say, "use small satellite dish to mix vegetables, bread cubes, artichokes and cheese."

Lastly, the stuffing recipe from Satin calls for a final ingredient. Mix in one one solitary scrambled egg. At this point I thinking... huh?? WTF!! Then a whinny brings me back from the abyss. I have forgotten to feed my horses their lunch. Big oops. Then worse I remember they still have their blankets on. Oh crap. The poor horses are out in the barn sweating under their blankets since it warmed up to like 65 degrees. Sorry horses, I am coming.

Things get a little fuzzy about here. The arrival of the relief pitcher containing beerritas occurred somewhere after this. Suzi to the half time rescue. Coincidentally, that brought us up to naps for the kids. Except as I am half snookered as well I have to lay down for a few minutes too. Note to self No. 3: Drinking on an empty stomach is stupid and for amateurs.

After my recovery period in time out, I was blessed by my baby Ella reentering the game but looking a bit injured. She came walking out from her room holding her butt. "What is it?" I asked.

"Owie, owie, pocket, owie pocket owie..." she babbled. I reached down to check her back pocket and extracted a two inch long yellow brontosaurus from her buttt. OK who did this to her? And she slept on it too. Poor baby.




And then finally, My Dish No. 4. Instant mashed potatoes with cheese and bacon. Picture a lady cooking bacon with white bed sheet wrapped around her midriff to protect her good crappy cords. This is me. At this point, necessity being the mother of invention, Suzi and I conspired to get each other designer aprons in the hour before dinner was ready. After all, we should be looking matronly hot when cooking slaving for the family. Jessie Steele Hostess aprons are quite flattering and hip. Suzi chose to receive this little number from her Secret Santa, aka me.


And mommy Julia chose the following subtle leopard print apron with pink trim to be delivered by her Secret Santa, aka Suzi:



The MEAL itself went off nicely with all the dishes being eaten by the majority of our family. Since the eating part usually spans no longer than 20 minutes at best, there was not much to report. However, the topping of the evening was the statement by brother-in-law, Jeff, who said at the very end of the meal, "I really don't like Thanksgiving food. The food is just not what I want to eat."

And my somewhat prompt and aggressive reply was, "Why don't we just cancel Thanksgiving then."

Then there was a stunned silence for the next few seconds in the dinning room. A few people looked at Jeff and then looked to me. Tension was mounting greater with every second that ticked away. I really do know how to shut down the conversation at a family gathering. It's a special talent that I have acquired over the years especially when interacting with my brother-in-law. But it was not to last too long.

The backtracking Jeff came back with, "Well, I would rather have lobster or ribs or something..." and at that point I just walked away.

Since no one complained we were eating "swamp grass" or said "this food is full of weeds" Suzi and I deemed it a successful Thanksgiving meal. Dessert was somewhere in the distant horizon but I was too full to look for it. At this point in the evening, I was not even thinking about what to do for next year. We have 364 more days to worry about that anyhow.