A Very old cemetery

4/30 The last day for the April photo a day challenges.  Something that makes me sad.  This historical cemetery is in the town where I have lived for over 30 years.  The cemetery was just a rumor for years until a developer purchased the tract of land where it sat and built houses around it.  I have driven past it many many times.  It took a photo challenge to get me to stop and try to visit.  It is a sad place, but it really made me sad to find it is pad locked with a tall chain link fence-barb wire across the top to - as a sign on the gate states "keep it protected and safe" from vandals.  Vandals.  That really really saddens me that there are people that think it is okay to desecrate our history and ancestors.

So, sadly, I read the historical marker through the fence and took photos from the outer boundaries.  Some of these people bear my maiden name with dates as far back as the 1800's.  At least the markers of where they rest are protected.

A bit difficult to read, taken through the fence several yards away.
Says: Bridges settlement, names for the W. A. Bridges family and reportedly the oldest in Denton County, began 1843 and was a center of activity of the Peters Colony.  This cemetery, on land granted to Bridges in 1850, dates to 1855.  Although illegible stones may be slightly older, site of the burials of the Bridges and ___family immigrant families..were document graves of family, children and Civil War Soldiers deeded to the county by _._). and Sallie Bridges in ____, the cemetery contains over one hundred sandstone and granite markers.  (blanks indicate words I couldn't see)

Black & White

Black & White.  Obvious choice was the salt & pepper, but I love the cup from Chipotle too.

Stocking up and shopping with a list

I'm not a big fan of cooking, but I like eating...so I cook.  My favorite chef is Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman.  She has a terrific pantry/freezer stock list I have turned into my occasional shopping list.  I say occasional, because I am also not a big fan of grocery shopping!  Any way.... I put her list (which I condensed without all her beautiful photography) on my phone notepad for easy use on my next grocery shopping trip.  Organization makes my life so much easier, I hope you find it helpful too.

PANTRY ITEMS 

adapted for my needs from Ree Drummond @ http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2012/01/stocking-up/

• Canned tomatoes: Crushed, whole, diced, tomato paste, RO*TEL
• Dried pastas
• Rice: long grain, brown
• Peanut butter
• Honey
• Various jellies: Strawberry, apricot, jalapeno
• Syrup
• Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
• Roasted red peppers
• Canned artichoke hearts
• Assorted olives, jalapenos, pepperoncinis etc.

Baking ingredients:

•  flour (all-purpose, whole wheat, self-rising),
•  sugar
•  brown sugar
• powdered sugar
• baking powder
• baking soda
• extracts
• Shortening
• vegetable oil
• Chocolate chips and other forms of baking chocolate
• Oatmeal
• Evaporated milk
• sweetened condensed milk
• Cornmeal
• Ketchup
• mustard
• barbecue sauce
• Mayonnaise
• Potatoes
• onions
• garlic
• Dried beans
• Stocks and broths. Chicken, beef, vegetable
• pesto and specialty relishes
• Kosher salt
• black pepper
• Worcestershire
• Tabasco
• olive oil
• different vinegars
• soy sauce

FREEZER

• Beef
• Chicken breasts, wings, legs, and thighs, Raw shrimp
• Sausage: breakfast sausage, Italian sausage, chorizo, etc.
• Bread: Crusty artisan loaves and/or sandwich breads
• Pizza dough:
• Frozen dinner rolls
• Pie crust
• Pecans/walnuts
• Frozen fruits: Peaches, berries, cherries, etc.

Tiny symbol of peace & hope

4/24/12 photo challenge:  Peace.  There are so many things that bring me peace I could literally post most of the pictures on my computer!  However, if I rolled all those things into one picture it is the one I drove several miles during my lunch break to take today.  Amid huge malls, numerous shopping centers, multitudes of apartment complexes and busy traffic; sits a tiny little symbol of Peace and Hope...this little chapel. 

It's simplicity is what draws me to it.

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

Peanut Butter Cookies

It's been a long time, but once upon a time I was a young girl.  (You can't see me, but I'm smiling about that!)  I wasn't into sports much, but very involved in 4-H.  I didn't particularly like raising and showing farm animals, but really enjoyed the home making activities. 

At about 12 years old  I labored most of a morning making peanut butter cookies to show.  They were soft and perfectly uniform in size and design, however, when it came time to take them from our country kitchen to the county court house show room, I picked up the platter too quickly and all the cookies slid off - onto the floor.  I was crushed and may have slumped into a teary eyed  defeated heap on the floor.  My sweet and ever kind mother calmly salvaged about 6 or 8 cookies then drove me to the 5 & 10 cent store.  She purchased a small, clear, star shaped plate for the cookies which we delivered to the 4-H show just before the deadline.  I received a 1st place blue ribbon for those "salvaged off the floor" cookies.  I wish I still had that plate, but I do still have the recipe for prize winning peanut butter cookies that I think originally came from Better Homes & Gardens.

Blue Ribbon Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup real butter, softened at room temperature
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1/2 teaspoon really good quality vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar to sprinkle on top

1. Preheat the oven to (350 F)
2. Beat the butters, sugars, baking powder & soda together. 
3. Add the egg & vanilla. 
4. Add the flour. The dough will be soft and fluffy.
5. Shape the dough into 1" balls.  Place them about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Dip fork tines in sugar and gently apply pressure to the dough ball to flatten out to about 1/2 thick.  I like one set of tine marks, but you can make a crosshatch pattern too.  Put a pinch of sugar on top of each cookie.
6. Bake  at 350 F. 9-12  minutes.  The tops will be very light in color-not brown.
7. Cool on a wire rack.  If you and your family don't eat them all right away, store them in a cookie jar. Makes about 2 1/2 dozen.

I just finished making a batch.  It smells really good in my house.  I'm seriously considering adding a drizzle of chocolate to my cookie...

Collecting

I like to collect stuff like a lot of people.  My taste and need to keep the collections come and go but there are a few things I hold on to...just because.  I sometimes forget about the thing(s) I didn't let go of when suddenly... there it is... bringing back a pleasant memory.  This morning I was thinking about what to use for the "bottle" challenge for photography when the little sand filled bottle my sweet daughter brought me from her Florida beach vacation came to mind.  She bought a tiny bottle and collected the sugary white sand herself.  I've never been to Florida, but I totally get it when she talks about the sand and it's beauty.

I photographed the bottle in front of a rock I collected from the Family Farm several years ago.  The rock sat beside the rutted dirt road down to the pecan tree orchard. Each trip down that hill I admired it.  After my grandmother passed away and then my uncle who had stayed on there passed away... and on a very nostalgic day... I stopped my car and looked at that rock for a long time.  I got out of my car, picked it up and brought it to my garden where it sits and reminds me of that place and the people associated with it.

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

We draw

My grands have always been artistic, the Little Grand is particularly interested and quite good at drawing.

Little Grand and I like to make our own story books.  Sometimes outrageous made up stories and sometimes well known stories or songs.  We have one that we've kept and read almost every time she comes over "Itsy Bitsy Spider" that I put on the April photo a day page.  Baby Grand likes it too and makes the little hand signs while we read/sing out loud. Sometimes we use D-rings to put together birthday cards or Christmas cards then make up a story to write on the backs of the card pages.  This is really a fun exercise in imaginative play. 
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5705646083086270939#editor/target=page;pageID=8976597277102307822

18 Angry Birds

Big Girl grand turned 18 this week.  She loves Angry Birds game and so do I!  I made 18 Angry Bird cupcakes for her.  Her mom & I set them up on plates & cups to look similar to the game and placed a cool sling shot I found in the toy department.  She was pleased!

PS. There are two new #photoadayApril entries.

Sunset on the Farm

I know many of you out there feel very proud and grateful for your families.  Me too.  I cannot believe how fortunate I am that the Lord gave such a beautiful life and such a big loving family to me.  Particularly today I am focused on my dad's family.  He was the second of 11 children.  When there are that many children in a family, there are a lot of grandchildren and great grandchildren... Well, you get the idea.  We're a big group.  You should see the Christmas tree and piles of packages that keep us from all being in the room at the same time!

Some of the fabulous advantages include big celebrations for everything, lots of hand me downs and in our case-a family farm that has seen eight generations enjoy its bounty.  This Easter we met for our annual egg hunt in the usual wooded spot on the "Family Farm".  We refer to it as that because with so many heirs and all with such strong ties to the place, it remains undivided since my grandfather took his portion to farm.   It was a lovely day with lots of laughing and story telling and finally kids racing through the woods finding eggs and treasures.  The day wound down close to sunset and one last look down the hill gave me one more moment to ponder on the gift of family.  I miss the many who aren't there anymore and relish the fact my children and grandchildren and even one great grand child, get to share some of it with me. That sunset is the one I posted on the photo a day April challenge
http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

10 things to do if you're stuck in traffic

I don't like traffic or commuting.  I don't really know anyone who does!  Shortly after I posted my photo a day-April "Something I don't like", a FB friend posted she was stopped in traffic for 30 minutes, why do I drive 24 miles to work and back every day?  I quickly responded, "because you don't have wings". 

Then I thought, what can you do to battle the traffic blues that's not offensive or embarrasing if you realize you know that person in the next car?

 10 things to do if you're not moving forward - or backward for that matter!

1. Put it in park and turn off the motor
2. Call in to work to let them know you're going to be late
3. Savor your morning coffee
4. Check your lipstick, wipe it off your teeth while you're at it
5. Exercise the muscles in your face (look away from that person you think might know you)
6. Tap out Morris code messages on the steering wheel
7. Snap pictures (of yourself, the car behind you, beside you, in front of you, the sky, inside your car...) you can always use these to prove to your boss you really were stuck!
8. Clean out your purse
9. Pick up the trash in your car
10. Crank up the radio, roll down the windows and sing as loud as you can (everybody else probably have their windows UP, radios cranked up, and can't hear you)
11. Count your blessings, you could be the person causing the whole mess

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

A simple daisy

I love flowers.  Lots of flowers.  At the nursery strolling through rows of colorful blooms with the little grand, I stopped at a simple yellow daisy plant.  The memories flooded back as I told her about my wedding 42 years ago where the bridesmaids carried natural bouquets of yellow daisies just like these.

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

Moon Flower

Yesterday morning I gazed out the kitchen window to enjoy a little solitude from the garden.  How excited I felt to see the Moon Flower had bloomed!  I expect to see several blooms in the morning and am anxiously waiting.  They are 6" creamy whitish blooms that in my dreams I think I could fill with cool liquid and share with night fairies.

To see the first bloom, click http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

Snowman play

Last winter my 4 yr old grand was here during a light snow.  The snow wasn't the good snowman making kind, but we managed to make a few little fellows grouped together on the patio table.  She thought they looked like they were waiting for birds to come have a picnic.  So I gave her some plates and plastic utensils to set the bird picnic up.  She put a handful of birdseed on the plates and we delighted together as birds came to eat.  Later as we sat in my home office she asked for another snowman on the window sill.  So we opened the window and made a little fellow that fell against the window as we closed it.  She played most of the afternoon setting up different scenes on the window sill.  My favorite was the little battery operated candle that gave the appearance he was tying to get warm through the window pane.  That's the one I posted on 4/10 Cold- photo a day. Here are a couple of others from that day.

I have bird friends and we'd like to come in to warm up?

We put out a bird feast, just waiting for the party to start!

Would you like to play?

Awe, you're cute!

Breakfast serenade

I really enjoy spring in Texas.  I took time to have breakfast on the patio this morning and listen to a Mockingbird sing.  The mockingbird is the Texas state bird, a simple looking gray bird with distinctive white tips on the wings and tail, but it's song is a lovely mimic of other bird songs strung together in medley. I drifted away in thought sipping coffee and eating a cheese toast while he sang accompanied by the water fountain and the occasional chirps of house wrens and cooing of dove.  Too soon I snapped back to the present when my carpool pulled up in front and I left that serenity for another busy day at work.

This water feature was put together by my hubs

using an antique water pump and plastic replica wine barrell.

The Younger Me

When I was a little girl I remember being loved, happy, comfortable and trusted.  I grew up in the country, the oldest of 4.  There are lots of memories with my siblings.  My bother just younger than me was and still is the adventurer and creator of things to do (or get into!)

He is younger but much wiser than me.  I'd never have discovered the little pond with giant sand rocks to carve our names into or the culvert we could walk through to get to the other side of a busy truck traveled highway or walked down the sandy path of a dry creek bed on the other side of that highway and certainly would not have figured out to slide off a low shed roof, tag baby pigs then scramble up a rickety fence before the momma sow could get us!

Several years later there came a sister.  She became my best friend and still is to this day.  When I take too much comfort in keeping to myself, she brings me out.  If she or I are feeling blue, it only takes a call and the sound of our voices to change blue to bright and sunny.

The baby brother is eleven years younger.  When I got my immunizations to start college, he got his to start 1st grade.  That always makes me laugh.  Well, not that much, we were the last year of kids that had to get a small pox vaccine.  While I ran fever and grew a little blister from it, his didn't do anything and he spent his time jumping on the bed!

I think I must have been a little shy, but talkative to those that know me.  One of my Dad's relatives likes to re-tell a story about me every time I see him.  According to him, he had a flat tire while visiting us.  He was becoming agitated in the summer heat that he could not loosen the lug nuts on the tire.  He struggled vainly for quite some time until I (age about 3 or 4, who had been sitting quietly observing) said in a matter of fact voice, "why don't you turn it the other way?"  It worked.

I still like to observe and problem solve.

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html

When your shoes don't fit

As I've gotten older, I find it is harder and harder with each birthday to wear those sexy cute little shoes that fill the closet with each visit to the mall.  Never fear... a perfect purse is there when the shoes no longer fit.

It depressed me for a while, but finally I came to terms with weak knees and and falling arches.  My teenage grand daughter introduced me to purses as accessories.  She wears flip flops...but I can't do those in between the toe shoes any better than high heals.  I have found plenty of cute flats to go with my colorful purse collection.  Look out purse isle...here I come again!

PS. Check out the sunshine yellow purse I pulled out for Easter Sunday on my April Photo of the Day page (tab up top)

Shadow Poem

Shadow 

Peter Pan

Space without light

Eclipse on the moon

Respite from the summer heat

Sundial marks of time

Play of light

inner self

Shadow

Written for today's photo challenge. jeannie

white shadows

Gardening with loved ones



72 degrees and clear blue skies.  The storms that racked the North Texas area earlier this week are gone and have left the garden growing in happiness from the rain.  There's a heavenly odor coming from the roses where I sat and removed the undesirable weeds.  I stopped and enjoyed them and reminisced about the special mother's day my husband and children gave me a rose garden.  The vining native Texas rose almost covers the entire side fence with thumb nail size deep red blossoms.  This plant is one I acquired from a native garden in Wichita Falls while my mother had knee replacement surgery.  Mother loves roses too.

Hubs just finished mowing the grass and it too left a pleasant smell.

I cut a big bouquet of iris's; the bulk of which are transplanted from my Grandmother Rose's garden.  She's been gone a long time but each spring I see her in the iris garden.  Mixed in with the iris are day lillies getting ready to bloom that my Aunt Wynell gave me from her garden.  She too is gone, but she also visits me amongst these blooms.

The moon flower isn't blooming yet, but it grew at least a foot this week.  The giant white bell shaped blooms usually appear on a mid summer's night!  They remind me of fairies and nymphs I dreamed about as a girl dancing about underneath them.  This plant plus the rosemary made their place in my garden from my cousin's home close to Austin, Texas.

I'm a little saddened at the prospect of leaving my garden that has slowly developed into a lovely place full of memories but am excited about the prospects ahead of me when we relocate closer to our youngest grandchildren.  They can help me build a new garden full of new memories. And...yes, I will take some of these plants with me.

Tiny memories

My grandmother, who I called Maw Maw, was an amazing woman.  For one thing she raised my mother to be a very kind caring person that I deeply respect.  But one of the most amazing things about her is how she prepared for the end of her life.  Several short years before she left this world she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  At that time she was living in a small country house still taking care of one of my Aunts that was mentally challenged.  Her daughter was youthful minded and sweet as could be but had little experience with the world.  So, in the wisdom of my grandmother's years, she moved herself and my aunt to a care facility to get her used to being in a less protected environment. 

In her preparations, she labeled and gave away most all her earthly possessions.  She gave me her treadle sewing machine (which she was still using) and my grandfather's razor strap with the straight razor he used.  The sewing machine had been painted in an ugly 1970's avocado green and sat in my garage gathering dust for the last 25 or so years.

This past fall I began a renovating and redecorating project preparing our house for the market.  The guest bedroom was first.  There are new wood floors, new crown molding and antique (ish) furnishings.  My hubs helped me pull out the old treadle machine for the room.  After attempting unsuccessfully to strip the ugly green off, I settled on repainting it an antique white, which I love.  But really, the best part of this project was finding the treasures and tiny memories left as they were from my grandmother.  A handful of buttons she salvaged from my grandfathers worn out shirts, two thimbles I've seen her use while piecing quilts, her scissors, several spools of thread, an old screwdriver she must have used to keep the machine in good repair, extra machine parts, some lace and several other things.  I love those little memory things and am grateful to have discovered them.  Like I said, she was an amazing woman and I miss her.

I posted a photo in today's photo challenge.  You can see it on the April photo tab up top.

PS.  Thanks for stopping by and reading my post.  Feel free to leave me a message of a tiny memory you'd like to share.

 

People make me happy

There are many people in my life that make me happy.  To even try to list them would be a task I doubt I could complete! Many of my biggest joys comes from family.  In today's photo challenge (tab at the top of the page) I was to photograph someone who makes me happy.  I perused through some photographs on my camera and spent a very enjoyable morning remembering and laughing at moments captured on film.  That's when it hit me - I can't choose one person that makes me happy - only a little happy collage would work.  I hope you will take a peek at some of my happy moments with the people closest to me.

Blue/white/and red tongue was at an annual family July 4th fish fry. One of my cousins placed cupcakes everywhere you can imagine that inspired a cupcake photo challenge.  This one shows 2 of 3 cupcakes.  Guess what happened to the third one... 

Cotton candy blue tongue was at a high school football game.  My daughter loves-I mean loves! cotton candy.  It gives her a sugar high in which she usually shares the color of her tongue to everyone who will look her way! 

Uncle Sam is just funny.

Mustache girls at a family birthday party got a photo shop make over that I really like.  These two girls make me happy all the time.

Crossing bridges at a park was a special day I still cherish.

Giant snow angel after the 2010 Texas Christmas blizzard that left several of my family stranded at his house for a couple of days following a long 8 hour traffic nightmare turned into a snow party.

Party down at my mom's 80th birthday with my sibling/best friends, and cammo dudes at a family Halloween party.  Oh, did I mention, we like to party too?  There are many more people who make me happy and some fun stories to go with them.  Perhaps I'll share some in the future.

Colour me 5

How to have a Colour party!

When you get great people together with great ideas, you get a great party!  This party was in honor of my "almost" 5 gran turning full fledged 5 years old.  The theme was COLOUR! AND LOTS OF IT.  There were rainbow streamers, colorful fairy wings, cherry red lady bug appetizers, watermelon hedgehog, bright drawings, rainbow cupcake pinata, ginger ale over rainbow ice, bright colour butterfly craft and rainbow cake.  Kudoos to Pinterest inspirations.

rainbow cowgirl & fairy

crafting foam board butterflies

Everybody loves a lady bug picnic.  These not only look good, but taste good too!
Pinterest inspired: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Ladybug-Appetizers

Cute little hedgehog
inspired by: http://blogs.babble.com/family-kitchen/2010/06/23/watermelon-hedgehog/

 

Ginger ale over Cool aide ice in mason jars by Colleen
inspired: http://cutestfood.com/page/36/

 

and a Rainbow Cake by Suzie!
inspired:  http://www.whisk-kid.com/2009/08/say-it-with-cake.html



photo a day April

http://forwhatitsworth-jeannie.blogspot.com/p/photoadayapril.html
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