Birds Entertaining the Dog

The picture speaks for itself.



Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

January - I think

Today it was in the 50's.  The wind was from the south.  I have a crocus in bloom, green grass, and my rhubarb keeps sending up new leaves.  A couple of times the leaves froze, but it stays warm enough for the plant to keep trying.

Almost a Great Aunt - Again

In only a few days, my nephew and his wife will have a second baby.  This one is a little boy.  Their first child is a little girl who looks quite a bit like I remember my baby sister when she was little.  That same baby sister is the grandmother of this new generation.

I remember when each one of my siblings came home from the hospital. 

When I was 2 1/2, my mother went to the hospital and I went next door to stay with my father's mother, Grandma Lena, on the farm.  I got to help feed the chickens and followed my uncle Marvin around in the cow barn.  To this day, the smell of a milk house or a dairy farm can take me right back to my earliest years.  After a couple of days, I got a letter in the mail addressed to ME.  The letter read something like this (I couldn't read it myself yet):  Dear Big Sister,  My mommy told me all about you.  She said we would have a good time playing together when I come home.  I saw my daddy peeking at me through the big window.  He looks nice.  I think I will like living in the family with you.  Love, John.

Needless to say, I was very excited to meet my baby brother.  When Mother walked in the door carrying her little blanket-wrapped bundle, she told me to sit on the couch.  I climbed up.  Once I was settled, Mother handed over my baby brother.  To this day, I remember exactly what that moment was like.  I was fascinated with this tiny toy that could move all by itself. 

From then on, I did everything I could to help take care of my new baby brother.  When he got a bath, Mother took the upper end and I helped wash the feet. (Mother gave me the splashy end.)  When he drank his bottle, I helped hold it until he was big enough to do it himself. 

I watched him sleep.  - I'm laughing. -  Do you know what it feels like to have someone stare at you when you are asleep?  It doesn't take long to wake up.  John had a cast on his foot for a few weeks until his foot straightened out.  He would bang his cast on the crib bars and I would pick up the spring at the underside of the bars on the side that lowered.  If you spun the spring just right, it would make this very cool musical sound as it twirled back down to the bottom of the metal bar.  Very musical duet.  Percussion and brass. Aluminum?  Steel?  Whatever.  It was great fun.  Mother at least always knew where we were and what we were doing.

I would climb on the clothes hamper to grab a clean diaper when John was being changed.  We laid the ladder from the bunk bed sideways to block off the door to the living room and played wild animals in the zoo.

I wish for every child a childhood like mine.  We were not rich in money or "stuff", but we had good parents, lots of love and the gift of imagination.  How can you top that?

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

Happy Birthday, Anne

Today is my sister's birthday.  We won't mention any numbers, but she's halfway between my baby sister and me.  Since Lori and I both hit decade marks, that means Anne is at the half decade.  As I mentioned - no decades will be specified. 

Anyway, happy birthday, Anne.  Next year is your every-fourth-year giant birthday parade which for some reason is always held in Washington, D.C.  I hope this quieter year is still spectacular.

Love, Kathi

It's January - I Think?

Either my town has been secretly transported to Louisiana - or a couple of months have fallen off of the calendar.  I have never seen a tornado in January.  What the heck!!

When I left the house at 8 this morning, the clouds were doing little swirly things.  When I walked out of the post office several minutes later, a portion of the sky was green.  And I am well aware of what that means.

I headed for the library which has a safe area in bad weather and once again thanked the Lord that the tree was no longer hanging over our house.  I spent the next 40 minutes in the hallway which is the safe spot I mentioned.  It rained sideways for quite a while, but the tornado passed south of town.

Tonight I watched the news and saw that there were four tornadoes that touched down in our area.  Semis were blown off the highway and a dumpster was blown onto the highway.  Of course, trees and power lines were taken down. 

It is still January, right?  Southern Indiana, right?  Stranger and stranger.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

How to Eat a Creme-filled Cupcake

Hostess's second brush with bankruptcy inspired me to pass on this little bit of wisdom(?) that I have spent years acquiring.  I purchased a box of Hostess cupcakes and set out a photographic display of the "correct" way to eat one of these treats.

Once upon a time, long ago but not so far away, Hostess cupcakes were moister and the icing was soft and flexible.  I assume that changed when the partially hydrogenated oils came out of every food on the shelf except peanut butter.  So the current finished product takes a little more patience and skill.  You might have to practice a couple of times to master the current way of getting it done.

Here is a cupcake:

Step 1: Invert the cupcake and peel off the bottom removing as little of the creme as possible.

Eat the bottom part.

Next - and this is the trickiest part - carefully separate the cake from the icing keeping the icing in one piece if possible.

Turn the piece of cake upside down and replace it on the bottom of the icing (squiggle facing downwards) so the creme is nearest the icing.

Pick away at the cake until all that you have left is the icing and the creme filling.

Flexible icing used to make a "soft taco" out of this step of the procedure. Now we'll just have to do it like a "hard-shell taco".  Fold the icing in half along the squiggle line.  It will break, but what can you do?

Take a bit off each end of the icing leaving the creme for the last bite.

And that's the proper way to eat a creme-filled cupcake.
Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

My Other Blog

I haven't been successful at getting all of my stories published - and I've written a lot!  I admit that they aren't all gems, but some of them are more worthy than others.

Several times I participated in National Novel Writing Month - or NaNoWriMo - putting 50,000 words into Word during November.  Two of those times, I wrote stories that I was really pleased with.  One was a young adult book called Marc's Rebellion and the other is about a young woman called Time Walker.  Chapter by chapter, I am posting these two stories on my other blog http://kathisbooks.blogspot.com/.  I'm up to chapter 11 of Marc's Rebellion (should be on chapter 12, but I missed posting it yesterday.)

I thought I would check the statistics for that blog to see if anyone was reading my story or if this was only serving the purpose of taking up more space.  To my amazement, I found that someone in Russia is following my story!  I'm sorry that they were disappointed yesterday when I forgot to post a chapter.  I'll try to be more faithful from now on.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi 

In Memory of the Tree

I thought it was only fitting that the majestic tree which was home to hundreds of birds in its lifetime should play a continuing part in caring for the winged creatures.  I turned the stump into a birdfeeding station. 

The local squirrel has also found it, delighting the dogs no end.  They get to bark at the squirrel from no more than ten feet away.  The stump is right outside of our living room window.  It's tough to get pictures of the birds because they fly away when I move to the window with a camera.  I'll do the best I can.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

Under the Weather

I saw the news reports from New Hampshire this morning talking about the primary results.  The reporter was in Manchester in the middle of JANUARY, and there was no snow on the ground.  Perhaps we in southern Indiana will have more snow than New Hampshire as of tomorrow evening.

Is this where I say, "THAT'S RIDICULOUS!!!"?

In a couple of days, this will be how it will be:

Abby will sniff the area where Buddy rolled in the snow.

And Buddy will be off exploring smells in the snow

The biggest difference will be that there will be more snow than this by Friday afternoon.

As a side note, I am also under the weather.  I faithfully got my flu shot this year, and had flu symptoms for ten days and am on my second round of the cold that's going around.  I'm more than done with  the germs this year.  I would love it if the weather would freeze solid and stay that way for a couple of months.  Maybe some of this would die off if the weather didn't bounce around all the time.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

Not from Here

When we lived in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, for three years, there was a local election for city council, I believe.  One of the men running for the office was Jim Fadden.  He was born and raised in a town twelve miles north of where we lived, but had moved to town and owned a couple of wildly successful businesses.  He also cooked up award-winning maple syrup every spring. Unbelievable stuff!  Jim was totally invested in the town, but during the election, you could hear the local folk saying, "He's not from here."

I could have understood if they said that about me (and they did) since I was not only "not from here", I was a flatlander living in the White Mountains.  In those parts, "flatlander" is not a compliment.  What I didn't understand was that a mere twelve miles separated him from the locals.  His hometown was just as mountainous, just as much of a tourist area (maybe even a little more famous for the man-of-the-mountain face and the home of Robert Frost for a time.)

It occurred to me that for Christians, no matter how closely we live or work with non-Christians, if we live out our beliefs, they will always idenitfy us as "not from here".  While they mean it as a diss, we should take it as a compliment.  It proves we are doing what we are called to do - being the salt and light in this world.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi

Relieved

Today the wind gusts hit up to 50 miles an hour.  For the first time of many, I'm sure, I am happy that the split tree isn't hanging over our heads.

Thanks for visiting with me.

Kathi