Reading

Reading is and has always been my favorite past time.  There is an old tale in my family about my mom or dad opening the door to the bathroom once when I was small and finding me sitting on the toilet reading a huge atlas spread on my lap.  When asked, "Why the atlas?"  I replied I had run out of all other reading material.  I couldn't have been more than 7 at the time.  Funny though the story is, it is totally true, and a very good picture of my reading habits.  At dinnertime I would always get in trouble because I would hide a book under the edge of the table and read.  Or at least try to.  My reading habits brought me into conflict with librarians and teachers who were always telling me I was trying to read something too far above my interest level.  Luckily I had a wonderful mom who would always defend me, usually telling the bad librarian to back off because I had already read the book in question several times. 

My favorites growing up were the Little House on the Prairie series, The Bobbsey Twins, Honey Bunch and Norman, The Happy Hollisters, Nancy Drew, anything by Louisa May Alcott, Elsie Dinsmore, and all the usual childhood favorites.  It wasn't until I was an adult that I found and fell in love with the Anne of Green Gables series, the Shoe books (Dancing Shoes, etc.), and Jane Austen.  Another favorite recent series I've read several times are the Mitford books by Jan Karon. I like historical novels, any kind of book with a knitting theme, and all  mysteries.

I've always read a mixture of both children's and adult literature.  My favorites I read over and over, although most books are a one-time deal.  New favorites that I'm planning on rereading though are the Bryant and May series by Christopher Fowler, and the Thursday Next and Nursery Rhyme series by Jasper Fforde.  So fascinating and detailed you can't read them only once.  I loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy.  Excellent.  My latest good read was Casting Off by Nicole Dickson.  It was one of those read-it-all-night, can't put it down books.
 
When my daughter was young, I remember standing at the stove one evening making dinner.  I had a book in one hand and was stirring the gravy with the other. The TV was on, a talk show began, and the host started telling the audience about how to get your kids to read.  He said that if you were a parent who cooked dinner with a book in one hand, you would probably never have to worry about your kids developing the reading habit. At that point my daughter jumped up and said, "He's talking about you, Mom!" I guess they were right because my daughter definitely caught the reading habit.

~Jane

Please!!!

Yesterday I went over to my daughter's to babysit my little grandson until his dad got home.  On the way over I stopped at Starbucks, as I usually do, to buy my daughter and I each a coffee.  I walked in with my iced coffee and immediately the little guy wanted a drink.  He loves drinking through a straw.  Now on occasion I have let him have a drink, but only after I've finished my coffee and what's left in the cup is the melted ice.  But this was a full cup of iced latte so I told him he couldn't have any.  Immediately he started rubbing his chest doing sign language for "Please!" over and over again.  I felt so badly I couldn't give him a drink through my straw.  His next favorite thing is drinking from a regular water glass, so I got him a glass of water and held it for him to drink and at that point he forgot about my coffee.  But this grandma is still smiling at remembering how cute and how pathetic he looked signing "please." 

~Jane

P.S. One of my co-workers suggests my asking for a small cup and straw the next time I get iced drinks so he can have his own.  What a great idea!

My Figgy Cake

Earlier this month a wonderful co-worker made me a birthday cake.  Knowing that my mom passed away in February, she made me the kind of cake my mom would have, a white cake with lemon curd filling.  It was delicious and so nice of her to remember. 

Her birthday was on Tuesday and we were both out of the office, so I decided yesterday to go home and make her a birthday cake and bring it in.  I know she likes Spice Cake, so I found a recipe for a Spiced Figgy Cake on this website.  I've made some of their other cakes and decided it sounded good.

I stop by the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up the ingredients.  Buttermilk, powdered sugar, cream cheese, and fig preserves.  Fig preserves?  Whatever.  Look in the jam section and can't find fig preserves but see a fig chutney.  I'm thinking, it'll be a little chunkier but it might work, so I throw it into the cart, pay for my groceries, and head home.

So, right about the time I should be getting ready for bed, I start mixing up the cake.  Everything is going well until the time to add the fig preserves and then I start having doubts.  I read the label:

Fig Raisen Chutney - Ingredients:  Pears, Fig Paste with Fig Concentrate, Water, Onions, Brown Sugar, Cider Vinegar, Raisins, Sugar, Candied Ginger, Dried Plums, Balsamic Vinegar, Canola Oil, Ginger, Salt, and Curry Powder.

Onions???  Curry powder???  Decide the chutney isn't going to work in my cake but pick up some other ideas about raisins and plums.  Surely I have raisins and plums.  I usually have lots of extra stuff in the pantry but no raisins, no plums.  Ah, dates.  Open dates and decide little bugs have infiltrated and toss dates into garbage.  I finish the cake minus any fruit additions.  After all, she did say Spice Cake was her favorite and the recipe did make a nice spice cake.  It tastes delicious frosted with cream cheese frosting and she and my other co-workers laugh at my Figgy Cake story.  Some day, after I locate fig preserves, I will attempt the Spiced Figgy Cake again.

~Jane

Putting Things Up

One of the highlights of summer for my daughter and I is canning.  Some years we have gardens and put up the produce.  Some years we settle for buying it already picked from the markets.  In June, we made jar after jar of strawberry jam because strawberry jam is everyone's favorite.  The rest of the summer we will make smaller batches of whatever fruit we can get our hands on.  Yesterday we made raspberry jam. I found a bunch of small canning jars at my mom's and we had fun using them. Later this summer we'll make marionberry and blackberry jams also.

 
 

Blog Hop

I am joining up with a couple blog hops today. This blog is brand new, so please keep checking back. Thank you!

Estate Sale

My brothers, husband and I spent the last three days preparing for and holding an estate sale of some of my mom's things.  The weather was perfect, nice and sunny, and my brother did a good job of making a shade from a tarp, that covered almost all of the tables.  Despite the sun shade, I am totally dehydrated from the last three days...I've downed about 5 large glasses of water since coming home and still feel dry.  We did really well and got rid of a lot of stuff.  There is still a lot of stuff to go.

Most of the people who came were really nice.  One lady was totally obnoxious.  She kept dickering me down and trying to cheat on the agreed amount of the sale.  I should have just picked everything up and said, thanks but no thanks, but was so tired by then that I didn't.  One lady talked me out of case of buttons for way too cheap of a price.  But there is so much left I guess it really doesn't matter in the long run.

My mom left boxes and boxes of linens and fabrics.  It was amazing to see the ladies spend hours going through them, box by box.  I have a whole list of names to call for the next sale.  I think I'll do a little preview sale for the fabric ladies! 

Some of my high school friends were meeting for lunch on Saturday but I couldn't attend, so they came to see me and stayed and buyed and encouraged.  It was so much fun seeing them.  I am such a social introvert that I sometimes pass up opportunities to get together with people.  The eight of us reacquainted with each other on Facebook.  Such fun!  I can see now that I need to start staying in touch with people.  I'm missing too much. 

Life Unraveled

My mother passed away this spring after a seven-month battle with colon cancer.  Spending hours in hospital waiting rooms gave me lots of time to think about her life and my life and where it's at.  Don't get me wrong - I've had it pretty good up to this point.  I had good parents and a nice childhood.  I have a wonderful husband, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.  I love my job.  I have friends.  But there are aspects of my life that just kind of happened and I've been wondering why I tolerate them.  I've decided that some of my life hasn't been lived very intentionally.  I've been content to go with the flow.

I love to knit.  I like to knit almost as much as I like to read.  I've been knitting long enough that I can knit almost anything I want to if I give it a little thought.  Recently I had the thought that life can be a lot like knitting.  Some times I jump into a project without a lot of thought.  I see a pattern I want to try or a neat yarn and there you go.  Sometimes I plan and plan, matching yarn to beads and buttons, comparing colors, and swatching to make sure everything is perfect.  Once in a while, despite my best intentions, a project just doesn't work out.  The size is wrong or the yarn is splitty or I didn't buy enough.  At that point, I start unraveling and begin again.

Lately I've been seeing there are some areas of my life that I want to start changing.  Like with my knitting, I'm going to start unraveling some of the less-than-perfect areas in my life and start remaking myself - one stitch at a time.