Scorching the World

For a couple of years Trina has talked about getting a sofa bed or chair bed for Ravenna to use. She has sort of looked here and there, but not found the "perfect" one at the "perfect" price. The last time I was out visiting, Trina mentioned again that she would really like to find a sofa bed or chair bed. I agreed it would be nice. Then this week I was at Costco, and just happened to go glance at the furniture. I didn't have Trina in mind, but there was this nice leather chair with ottoman. I looked at it, and realized it said it was a chair bed! You could actually make it out into a bed! I got so excited I decided to take a picture. When I saw the label with the name of the chair, I was beside myself!!! The chair is actually called "RAVENNA"~!!!!! Course the price is a bit high, but who could possibly think this chair wasn't meant for Trina's firstborn!!!!

One thing I really loved to do when my children were babies was sew for them. I love making cute little dresses or shirts or vests. I've also enjoyed doing that for my grandchildren, but now I'm starting booties and diapers and blankets. The fabrics are so much more fun now! Alissa got me started. She is trying to buy cloth diapers at some kind of discount price because the ones she likes cost somewhere around $18 each! That just killed me, so she showed me some she bought. I told her I could surely make them for less, even if they weren't as fancy. I don't know how interested she actually is in my diapers, but I've sure had fun making them. The other thing is booties. When my kids were little, I used to make TV booties. I haven't been able to find a pattern for them, but Tami found me a pattern for a cute bootie that is reversable. It is so fun to make. I made Alissa's baby a few pair, and then came back and kept sewing. I decided to do some for Oscar and ...

All the years that our grapevines have been producing a plethora of grapes, we have eaten as many as we possibly can for the couple of months that they are on. We also give grapes to our neighbors, our kids, and strangers we see at the gas station. But I've always wanted to make grape juice so the flavor can last a little longer. I've researched a bit, and talked to a lot of people, but haven't wanted to buy expensive equipment without knowing how the flavor would be after canning the juice. Anyway, I finally found a recipe that is so simple, I decided to try it. I just can't wait to open one and drink it!

I'm glad I'm finally at the age where I don't have to take the blame for everything. I've found that when you get old, and you do something really stupid, people just look at you understandingly and think to themselves, "She can't help it. She's old." So they don't hate me or blame me for idiocy. They still love me and increase their feelings of sympathy towards me. How nice. The other day I was with a friend of mine, giving a bunch of girls rides home. I divided them up by where they live, and then said, "I'll take this group because it is on my way home." By the way she looked at me, I knew I should know very well where she lived, but it just wouldn't come to me. Later I remembered that she lives about 3 blocks from me, and has for about 5 years. She is one of my best friends. I have lots of times when my brain just won't connect things but today was one of the worse. Its really sad that I can't say it is the worse. I fo...

I have decided, in my years of aging and accumulation of wisdom that every time a company creates a commercial for television or radio, it should automatically be entered into a reality program. Maybe I should create it myself and make millions of dollars. After the commercials are entered in the reality program, people from all over the world can go to that program to watch the commercial and then they get to call in or email and rate the commercial on: 1. Does this commercial make you want to run out and buy the product? 2. Does this commercial make you happy? Do you like the Geiko Gecko better than the guy saying it will be like the accident never happened? 3. Does this commercial make you want to break your diet? Or does this commercial make you want to order their diet? If you watch one right after the other, do you order the special diet foods and then eat everything else that was advertized? 4. Does this commercial make you want to join in singing the little tune? 5. Does this c...

Tanya came over this morning after their Stake pioneer day celebration. It was an outdoor in the park kind of thing with lots of things to do, but they left fairly early because it was already too hot to be outside. Then they came here and Tanya worked on sewing a quilt to go with Cai's spiffy room makeover. While Tanya sewed, I managed to can 4 quarts of peaches. I don't remember it being so labor intensive. It said to have the bottles clean and hot, and the lids in simmering water. Also to have the pan they will process in half full of water which is simmering. Also to have the syrup that goes in the bottles on the stove kept hot. Also to have a pot to blanch the peaches in, with hot boiling water. Tanya claimed I was heating up the house with all my hot boiling water. Anyway, I would blanch some peaches, then peal them, then put them in a bottle (which cooled while I put peaches in them), then pour some hot syrup in them, then put on the lid and ring and put it in the pan to...

This is mostly for our kids so you know what is going on. Two weeks ago on Saturday, Tom was building and moving some stuff , and without knowing it, he strained his back really bad. Sunday his back was a little sore and each day after it hurt quite a bit more. By Wednesday he could hardly walk and when the pain grabbed, he would fall gasping to his knees. It takes his breath away. He finally was able to get an appointment with the chiropractor on Friday, who said his back was out of alignment, so he adjusted it and told him to apply cold compresses and take motrin 3 times a day. He said if it began to hurt again to come back in on Monday. He felt much better on Saturday, but on Sunday it was a little worse, and Monday it was quite bad again. On Tuesday day he was almost cripple again. He could hardly walk, and he could only talk in a whisper because it hurt to try to speak louder, but he had to go to a meeting in Livermore, so with all that pain he drove there, sat all day and dro...

The last time she came, my visiting teacher brought me some homemade gorditas. Where she comes from, gorditas are thick tortillas with cinnamon and sugar. They were really yummy! So I asked her for the recipe, and figured I should try it. How hard can it be, right? The recipe calls for 2 lbs of whole wheat flour. I'm not sure how many cups 2 lbs are, so I took my container of flour to the scale in the bathroom and weighed it. 5 lbs. So I just needed to use half of it. It also said to add warm water, but didn't say how much. I knew it was supposed to be sticky (her word was gummy), so I tried to make it that way. hmmmm But I decided to make it healthier so I added a little over of a cup of almond flour and the same amount of ground flax seed, and about the same of wheat germ. This was gonna be good! And healthy! My biggest problem came when I was supposed to put in cinnamon. I looked and looked and finally found it and put in 3 t. But as I was putting it back into the cabinet, ...

I've been anxiously waiting for harvest season so I could do some canning this year. I haven't canned for MANY years, but it is silly to buy things from the store that I have here - fresh and cheap or free and bottle myself, so inspired by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I decided to become a canner again. I took on pickles first because they are the first we have harvested. Except for plums which there weren't enough of to can. Anyway, I got a plethora of cucumbers and got ready to can. Oh no, I don't have the spices that you need. So the next day I went to Fresno and bought all the spices and pickling salt and even remembered to get the lids for the bottles. cost - about $10 Now I'm ready and get everything out. Oh no, I can't find any jars. I was sure I had saved a couple of boxes of bottles for canning. So I go back to Fresno the next day and buy jars. My cucumbers aren't getting any fresher. Now I'm ready. cost - about $14 Oh no. another problem. I fou...

We just ended a really fun weekend starting on Thursday. Tom had Friday off for the 4th of July, so Thurs. we went to Oakland and celebrated Spencer's birthday. We got to T&P's just in time for the food and presents. After the kids ate and watched Spencer open presents, they ran to play and we adults got to sit and chat. It was such beautiful weather, that Tom and I were freezing to death. We're not used to beautiful weather that cools off at night, and haven't been able to convince ourselves while sitting in 105 degrees to pack a sweater and warm socks when we head to the Bay Area. Later we went to T&P's to sleep, but didn't manage to do that until after 1am. It's too much fun just talking to go to sleep. Fri am Tom got up before everybody else and went to play tennis. After he got back and we had breakfast, we assessed what needed done in the garage. The plan was to build shelves. It must have taken a long time to do this, cause the next thing I r...

It is so strange that no matter how fat I get, I still get hungry. It seems like the more you weigh, the less you should want food. After all, how much food can a body really use? But even if eat so much that I gain 5 lbs in 1 day, I still get hungry the next day. I've tried not eating, and that's just not very much fun. I mean really, only very, very skinny people should be hungry. And they should be hungry until they aren't skinny any more. And fat people should not feel hunger until they aren't fat any more. Wouldn't that be a better, more logical way to do things?