Yes, I feel sorry for some of the young LDS men on their first mission tour. You can usually tell the ones who came out of the Salt Lake area. They go through some serious culture shock in those two years. Mormonism is the fastest growing faith in Latin America, however, so more than white flour is beginning to be incorporated into the dough. I was a Mormon for many years, but chaffed under the rigid gender roles. My religious affiliation has always had more to do with the man in my life than any strong views of my own. For myself, I feel most spiritually connected under an open sky, than within the confines of a church or temple.
Nadine is determined to learn and remember the botanical names for her plants. She is a visual learner so she makes little cartoons to remind her of the plants name. The drawings are a sort of visual memory mnemonic. They are something like the password hints many websites ask you to set up in case you forget your password. Jim and I make a game of trying to figure out the identity of the plant by the drawing. After Jim describes the drawing I can usually puzzle it out, but I was at a loss as to what was planted under a cartoon of a red hippo mopping a gnarled old tree with a clock in the background. It turned out to be Standing Cypress (Ipomoposis rubra) When I asked what the clock was about she explained it was Big Ben to remind her that Ruby is a Cockney hippo so she drops her “h”s. Ipomopsis rubra. Well, they do say it doesn’t matter how absurd a memory mnemonic is. Of course, all this led back to our ongoing debate on the pronunciation of “herb.” I don’t pronounce the “h” which Nadi thinks is funny.
What part of TX were you in during the 80's, Vickie? k* .
Still Laughing For Joy #7
I am afraid I have sometimes turned wicked when the proselytizers knocked on my door. I'd tell them thank you for their time, but I am Buddist. Or Atheist. Depending on how irritated I was with the world that day. Now, I just don't answer the door. :p
Here is the new car. It is a bare-bones, no frills of any kind, car. But it is a 4-door sedan, with a CVT transmission, AC, tinted windows, and a radio/CD player. $15K including TTL. Going to need something over the seats. Black cloth that is already attracting anything light that is even just floating by on the air. Russell will be "hairing it up" going back and forth to vet so time to dig out tablecloths and such. :-)
I was in a little town called Overton. It was near Kilgore.That was where we settled after DH got out of the army. Stayed there 20 years. I love shopping in ETEX. Plus lots of relatives there.So go back fairly often. One DD stayed in Texas the other came to Arkansas.We're going to have a family reunion in a couple of weeks in Broken Bow Okla.It's about the halfway point for all of us.
Debra, If it has a CD player and a heater and AC, What more can you ask? LOL! Mine has cruise controll and i've never used it.I do like the warning system on mine.Low tires etc.
There was a time I liked what I bought to have all the bells and whistles, now I think it is just more things that can go wrong.
Seeing me take out her car seat blanket is one of the few things old Miss Tater-dog still gets excited about. I’ve never known any dog who likes car rides so much. Kay told me after having to spend 5 minutes in a hot parking lot brushing yellow dog hair off her navy skirt that I either had to stop taking Tate for rides or get Tate her own seat cover. Car rides are one of Tate’s joys in life so she has her own car seat cover. She has never liked riding in the bed of the truck or even the back seat, but she will sit in he front passenger seat and behave like a perfect lady. The only problem I have is when I need to go somewhere with both Miss Tate and Kay. Tate doesn’t like relinquishing HER seat to Kay. :-)
When I moved south, I quickly learned a windshield sun shade and a steering wheel cover that didn’t hold the heat were well worth their small price, especially when your car has a dark interior. Nadine jokes about the “parking lot art galleries” or the “high summer philosophers.” Windshield shades were once plain, utilitarian things in reflective silver-gray, now they come in all sorts of artsy designs or are used like giant bumper stickers.
. (Jim)
Have blooming things again.
Glad the heat and drought conditions are easing up. Did you lose much because of it? ~N~
Quite a bit. Mostly annuals and some fragile water-loving perennials new this year. Bearded Iris, Trailing Lantana, Provence Lavender, Dahlberg Daisy, Daylilies, and--get this--June Hosta did reasonably well. As did the Caryopteris and Mexican Feather Grass. Yard was mostly brown and dull, dusty green, but it was still alive. And much is springing back up with the cooler temperatures and short rains. Hope!
LANATANA!!!!!! Love 'em!
My article on The Royal Wedding Theme Garden is today. It's secretly a whine about my father. It starts "When I was little, my father didn't tell me I was his princess. He told me that when I grew up, I would marry Prince Charles." Well, he did. I think it was an excuse to get us to use better table manners but still, if you're 11 and your father tells you something, you tend to believe him, right? So even though MY father thought Prince Charles was too old for me, Lady Di's father must not have felt the same way because she was exactly my age!
Anyway, this morning Dad called and said "when I moved back East, it was so my children could visit me, whine whine whine." And I felt like saying a.you moved east because none of your so-called friends wanted to visit you post-stroke, b.if you were a little nicer to me, I might come visit you more often, and c.your nursing home is 45 minutes away without traffic, and there's usually traffic (had he picked something closer to me and where we all live, it would be easier for all of us). I have 2 brothers. The latest zinger from my father (before this morning): he has very curly hair, but it was usually short when I was a kid so I didn't realize how curly it was. I used to have curlier hair than he did, and my 17 y.o. daughter has curlier hair than I did. So last week or earlier this week, on the phone, he says "I've always been attracted to women with straight hair, like your mother, and Pam (my former step-mother)." And all those girlfriends, my mind fills in. I guess that's why you never liked me much, my mind says, or why I never liked me much.
My mom, without a perm, has bone-straight hair. She didn't know what to do with a little girl with wavy/frizzy/curly hair, and there were no "products" back then. She kept taking me to the hairdresser and having them cut it short or ear length, which looked awful on me, was a frizz-factory. I would brush my hair before school and when i got to school (with a lot of straight-haired kids) would get teased. "Didn't you brush your hair this morning?" Of course I did.
OK, end of True Hair Confessions by Carrie Lamont.
Your article reminded me of something, Carrie. You should send your GD, the one who thinks princesses must be blond, a picture of Princess Margarette. It is Queen Margarette now, soverign of Denmark. The first woman to rule Denmark since the 1300's. She is actually a little older than I am, but I'm sure there are pictures online of her as a young princess with a crown adorning her head of dark curls. The example of a real life princess might be just the thing...minus Margarette's chain-smoking habit, of course. Being a real-life queen is evidently a very stressful job.
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/royalwatch/features/article_1547983.php/In-Pictures-Queen-Margrethe-s-70th-Birthday
I want to add the 'Royal Pomp' chrysanthemum to our mum collection this year. Or, at least, check it out to see if it is really fragrant. k* .
What do father's know! You have gorgeous hair, Carrie! My hair is thick and tends to frizz out. My Da's was solf, dark and wavy. When i was a little girl and he took me to the beauty shopto have it thinned. He would grin and make some comment to the lady behind the counter like< "Can one of you ladies do something with this kid's rat's nest to make it more manageable." Yeah, father's can definately be rough on egos. ~Nadine~ .
Yeah! Esecially if he drops you off at your maternal grandmothers and disappears till you hunt him up 15 years later. Then you find out he did the same thing to your half-brother.
Both you girls have beautiful hair.
My hair was straight and grandmother saw to it i had a permanent every 6 months. Thats one thing from my youth I've kept up.
Ouch! Well, at least, learning he did the same thing to your brother must have helped you see it as his flaw and not to internalize it and think you had something to do with his actions. Is this the half-brother you finally met a few years ago?
My hair wouldn't take a perm. they were much harsher on hair way back when than they are now. For me, it was either braids or Dippety-Do and sleeping in curlers and praying the day wasn't humid so the curl would last all day. Not surprisingly, I usually opted for the braid. I wanted curly hair more than anything when I was young. k*
Yes,He lives in Houston. I did'nt know about him untill a couple years ago. His mother was brutelly murdered when he was about 3 or 4. It was a reporter that called me and told me about him. She wanted to do a story on his mother and the man that killed her. She wanted to know how my mother had died. (A botched surgery)
Wow, Vicki, that's a story and a half - yours, I mean!
Fathers (Jim excepted) can really decimate a little girl's ego. I saw it happen with my two little girls and their father, and it happened with me and my sister and my father. And there's only so much a mother can do to alleviate a little or big girl's negative feelings about herself. And what is it with women/girls and their hair? I include myself in this one!
That must have been more than a little spooky, Vickie.
Carrie, I’ve always wondered the same thing about women and their hair. I did like Kay’s hair long, but you would have thought I had threatened to leave her if she cut it the way other women responded when she had it cut this last time. There were comments like, “Oh my god, -what does Jim think of it?” Uh-h-h, I think it is her hair and she can do with it as she pleases. When I was stationed at Tyndall and Kay and I first re-connected, she had this radical cut. The back of her skull was shaved up to her ears, but the hair on top fell to about chin length. I love the lady, not the lady’s hair. I would have to be very adaptable to have stayed with her if I’d loved the hair. In the last 15-years, it has been everything from shaved off completely to falling below her waist. It has been many shades of blond, several shades of red and two shades of brunet. Straight, wavy and tightly curled. I’ve got to say though, I’m glad she settled for it straight and it’s natural color this time around and a cut that is youthful and a little sassy, but not radical. You could probably write a book the size of “War and Peace” filled with psycho-social commentary on women and their hair, Carrie. And, unlike “War and Peace”, people would actually read it without being forced to. lol. (Jim)
Hah! I just spent 15 min. on Facebook looking at all my different haircuts because I think I need a trim before we leave. There are a lot of different versions of "short back and sides" I can do with not much hair - which do I want?
When I travel It has to be wash and wear. I loved the cut you had in the picture you posted.
Whether I travel or not, it has to be wash and wear!!! Which picture? (And thanks!)
I think it was on the last thread we had before this one.
We got some rain tonight.Hurrah!!
I bought some hamburger meat and am undecided if I want spegetti and tomato sauce or soup.
Vickie
I love soups when the weather starts cooling off. Potato is one of my favorites. The last time Nadi made it and she put in a little sauteed hamburger meat. It was good. k*
...but Yogi, the carbohydrates.
Not to worry, Boo-Boo. The batteries in Ranger Nadi's scales are missing. No weigh-in this week k*
The pecan and walnut trees aren't the only places you can find nuts around here. :-)
Is that where the batteries,Igot in the mail came from? !! Is ranger Nadi being a dictator? LOL I have missed you guys.
I am on the computer all by myself. I feel very brave.Tho i miss my Webtv. Noone will let me have it back.
Am still cleaning everything I can get my hands on. It is amazing how many what-nots I have and planning on getting more.
DD and I went to get groceries tonight. Left at 2:00 and just got back. I'll get a $50 raise in SSI January. I need it.
Vickie
This message was edited Oct 19, 2011 9:46 PM
Hi, Vicki. :-)
If I got any batteries, they were lost in all the ones we recycle, so I would never know the difference...or be able to tell anyone.
I just can’t seem to find the right kind of battery as a replacement either. I'm so upset. ;-)
Vickie, Kay had to re-discover computers after being away from them for 15 years. That is when I discovered she can cuss in 6 languages. I don’t have to gag her now when she is on the computer and people are around. Hang in there.
We have to give Nadine credit. Both Kay and I are losing on our individualized diets. Individualizing our meals isn’t something we would take the time to do left to our own devices. The South Beach diet is what two different doctors recommended to me and I do well on it. On the other hand, Kay didn’t really lose any weight and felt terrible when we were both trying South Beach. The doctor said it is because Kay comes from sub-Arctic stock and goes into “famine mode” very easily when calories are limited. Restricting calories automatically slows her metabolism. It doesn’t seem fair she gets to eat more fatty foods than I do and still loses weight, but I can’t argue with the results. However, she is more restricted than I am on WHAT she can eat. She gets virtually no bread or anything made with wheat flour. So, she does get the peanut butter I’m denied, but she has to eat it on celery. Ha! (Jim)
I don’t think there have to be ancestors from the sub-arctic regions to run into the “famine mode” problem when trying to lose weight. Having a stable amount of food throughout the year is a modern phenomenon. A good indicator that it will be a dieting problem would be if you suffer from seasonal effective disorder (S.A.D.) or even really bad winter blahs. (If I understand everything right, that is part of the same misguided survival mechanism that has outlived its usefulness.) . When your body doesn’t receive the amount of calories it is accustomed to, it tries to slow down the need for fuel in order to get through the “famine”, and historically that was a long, cold winter. I do suppose the more brutal the winters your ancestors had to survive, the more likely you would be to have that survival mechanism built in and the more sensitive the trigger would be. It might also explain why those New Year’s resolution diets so often fail. Our bodies probably rebel at having calories restricted in the middle of winter. I know the thinnest I’ve ever been was when I had a high school coach that seriously made us work-out during P.E. She definitely did her part in the battle against teen obesity! I wasn’t dieting at all. Exercise is the key for me.
Vickie, ‘Smart Computing’ is one of the more useful computer magazines out there. It’s not all sales pitch and it goes into the nuts-and-bolts of computer use. If you stick this out, I bet Santa would give you a subscription for Christmas. If you can master the beast, there are little ways you can use it to supplement your income.
I took over a hundred pics while at the Agricultural Heritage Festival and Botanical Garden. I didn’t get the pictures MK wanted of the sugar cane processing. I was hanging out with the bees while they were processing the sugar cane. I got there just in time to watch the boiling down process and get a bottle of warm cane syrup. That bought me pardon until next year.
They had some outrageous “scarecrows” at the Dothan Area Botanical Gardens and some beautiful roses still in bloom. ~Nadine. Kitchen Queen and Diet Dictator
Thanks Nadene for the encouragement. I will try again after Christmas. Right now I have too many irons in the fire.
Bet that was cool watching syrup being made.
I'll be glad to get my cleaning finished up so i can play with my
Christmas crafts.I am a definate hoader with craft things.
I built a fire outside tonight but the wood was too damp and I got tired of working to keep it going.
It's a small world.
Nadine--next time your at the Botanical Gardens visit the culinary herbs section--I have no idea what it looks like now but I originally built all of it and had 88 different herbs and spices growing.
Vort, I'm impressed. Now I know where to come for herbal advice.
Now! If you tell me Chocolate Basil is a figment of someones imagination. I'll hang my head and cry and let it go to a natural death. Think I'll google it one more time tho.
You lived around here once, Vort? That would explain a lot. ;-) I’ll take some pictures of the herb gardens, I think there are two, next time I go. I can post some and you can see if anything still looks familiar. I want to make another trip soon specifically to do a grand tour of the Dothan Area Botanical Gardens. I just dropped by on my way home from the Agricultural Heritage Festival at Landmark Park this last time. The master gardeners were having a plant sale at the Botanical Gardens. I didn’t intend to wander the gardens at all, but the scarecrows, late season roses and veggie garden lured me into spending time there. I stopped to smell the roses and never did get around to buying any plants. :-)
The CanDo Container Garden has turned into an herb garden so I was happy to meet a local herb grower and a beekeeper who shared her list of the best bee plants for this area. That is the coolest thing about going to places and events where gardeners congregate. ~N~
Photo: From the DABG Herb Area, Basil I think.
Sansai-that is the old herb garden---"mine" is up the hill from there with the pergola--near the greenhouses.
Watch out for Squatch up there :)
You'll find him eating the chocolate basil. kb
Now the herb gardens at DABG are going to be to CB hunters, what Area 51 is to UFOlogist. No basil will go unsniffed to check for a tell-tale chocolate aroma.
Here is a source of affordable garden labor I hadn't considered before. Zombie gardeners. (Jim)
Zombie gardeners? What have you-all been up to while I was gone? PS I'm back!
When the cat is away, the mice will play. There hasn't been anyone to keep us in line so we've been up to all sorts of mischief. How was Spain? (Jim).
Spsin was magnifico! (Is that Spanish?)
Sounds spanish!! Glad you're back Carrie.
I was wondering---What would Squatch have on his Christmas want list? What is he dressing up as Halloween? Miss bear has a canary costume.
This message was edited Oct 27, 2011 10:55 PM
Seem to have lost my ability to spell. (SPAIN, of course, not Spsin.) Actually, it's that my computer died a tragic death the day before we left, and I'm using my husband's, which does not like FF so well, so I'm being forced to do manual typo checks. I can tell it's time to change my contacts when the reading glasses don't help!
Spanish lantana (a lot like ours...)
Oh-h-h, I like the colors on that lantana. I haven’t encountered that combination before. The butterflies like lantana so much, I want to add some different kinds to our landscape.
Vickie, I think I saw mjsponies ole Dodge Ram in Halloween costume. Covert operations probably. Keeping an eye out for Squatch. BTW, do you happen to know what ammunition works best on zombies?
Don’t worry Vort, Vickie and I won’t let anyone turn you into a zombie to work in their herb garden. “Friends don’t let friends go zombie.” ~N~
