Summer Poem

I was looking for quotes to put on our RS calendar today and I came across this poem:

Bed In Summer Poem

In winter I get up at night,
And dress by yellow candle light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day,

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown up people's feet
Still going past me in the street,

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I had to laugh because I totally remember this feeling when I was a kid. Going to bed when it was still light was so unfair! Of course, as a parent I had no problem with that rule... But I'm pretty sure the J didn't care for it... heh heh.

Blister

I wear these boots to both the museums I work for and generally they're pretty great. But last week I went home from Rock Ledge with a huge blister on my heel. Ouch! I had to wear the boots again the next day because I was filling in at Molly so I was pretty desperate for some relief.

I found these...:

...at the store and they're great! I put one on and honestly cannot even tell that I have a blister! Not kidding - there's no sign of it. Well, I can still see if of course, but I can't feel a thing. I've decided these are a great thing to keep on hand because you never know when you might need them.

So, if you ever have a blister you should try these BandAid Advanced Healing Blister pads! You'll be happy you did.

The House I'm Going to Buy

Last night while I was waiting up for the J to get home I was rifling through a pile of magazines. The idea of course being to toss the old ones but clearly it also means that I have to take one last glance in them - you know, to make sure I haven't missed anything of importance. And I had! There was a section of historic houses that are for sale, generally for low prices, and one of them was just so adorable I had to go online and look at it in greater detail. It was featured at www.oldhouses.com and I just had a lovely time meandering through that site.

Then I found my house. Well, actually I found 9 or 10 houses that I could absolutely love. And really, I didn't really have time to look at every house on the site so there could be more... BUT this one just stuck with me. It's in New Jersey. I've never considered living there but I'll consider it now.

Here's the house (built in 1731):

In this living room (disregard the laser lemon paint - not sure what's up with that) notice the fireplace. I swoon over such fireplaces. In kitchens they were even bigger, called walk-in fireplaces, and I really love that kind. The kitchen in this house has one but you can't see it well enough from the picture.

This room may possibly be my favorite:

Oh, if walls could talk! I love it!! The site says that this is very near the Delaware where Washington made his escape in 1776 and the men marched right in front of the house. I would stand out front every day and envision that march in my mind. Seriously - it just makes me happy. Now, granted, you'd have to do the research yourself and make sure it's true but I can live on the idea of it for now.

It also sits on 8.4 acres. That would be fun. I love the idea of feeling a little isolated but still being relatively close to civilization.

Sadly, I'm short $1.45 Million for the purchase price. (This is not the house my adventure started with in the magazine and it's not in the 'generally low prices' category either.)

I wonder if they just want me to live there and take care of it? It's about an hour from Philly so I could go to school there (roughly the same commute time as going downtown from here) and I'd be in my history heaven.

If you want to see the rest of the pictures of my house you can see them here. :)

It's All About the Gold, Baby!

Last weekend I went to a singles conference. Yes, I know - you're shocked. Me too. I'm trying to be supportive in my role on the singles committee... Anyway, on Friday night they did a personality test. Normally I don't put a lot of stock in those so I went in thinking I'd just have fun with it. It turned out pretty fun and pretty interesting.

After evaluating a series of statements, yada, yada, we were grouped into color groups (gold, blue, green, orange) according to our scores. I was "gold" and I now understand that I really am gold. And there are other crazy people like me! Seriously. Don't let that scare you though.

We sat in our groups and were given a poster board and told to make a poster that will explain our personalities to the group. The yellow (gold) poster board we were given was torn on the bottom two corners. My first, immediate thought was "ok, we need to either cut that edge off or make the other corners match." hahaha! Then almost everyone at the table said the same thing! hahaha! That was when I knew I belonged and everything would be alright. We started making a list - all in nice rows and columns - with words that explain us like "dependable," "organized," etc. There were some impostors in our group who drew pictures on our chart - sooo not gold - they should have been in the blue group. The blues are all about artsy creativity, lovey dovey kinds of things. Blue was actually a close second for me which is why I was ok about the pictures (although it would have been nice if they were centered a little better...) and not freaking out like some of the gold who were clearly 100% gold.

The oranges are the party/risk takers/need lots of attention people. They were arguing over who would get to get up and present their poster yet. The rest of the groups were arguing about who had to get up and present their poster. You think I'm a little crazy? You should think about those oranges you know - they really are crazy. heh heh.

Greens are the scientific type and they too makes lists but they must have bullet points. They say what they think because that's how it is and why dance around it?

It was so interesting learning about all of this. I realized that while I'm so very gold, it's because of the strong blue in me that I can live with my messy desk. See, I'm not so anal as you thought.

This Week's Menu...

This is for you Adrienne. And it's a one time deal. haha!

Being the planner that I am (look for a future post about gold personalities) I try to plan a menu every week. I'm totally lost if I don't and we have things like "You Pick It, You Fix It" nights 4 out of 5 nights and chicken nuggets (or some comparable gourmet offering) the other night. Saturday is always a "You Pick It, You Fix It" night so I guess that would make 5 nights out of 6. Sundays, well that's a whole different story so they don't count in my week of planning. You can see that clearly it's better for everyone if I plan a menu!

Usually in the summer I'm really into cooking and I try new recipes constantly. And I make breakfast frequently. This summer that hasn't really set in yet. Maybe it's all the rain? Yeah, maybe not.

There are only a few new recipes on my menu this week. No, that's not so many - I'm kind of weird about that. You could say that trying new recipes is kind of a hobby for me. I checked a few cookbooks out from the library today - hoping to kick start something great - so we'll see what happens.

Generally The J gets after me if I don't make a good breakfast when I'm out of school but since he doesn't join the land of the living until after 11 or 12 these days breakfasts have fallen by the wayside. I kind of miss them but I'm not really going to cook a big (or even slightly involved) breakfast just for me.

So, here's my menu for this week:

Monday:

Adobe Chicken Wraps (recipe here)

Veggies on the Grill

Salsa and chips

Tuesday: (always breakfast for dinner night - hey Adrienne, don't I owe you a breakfast dinner still?)

Baked Cinnamon French Toast

Wednesday:

Sticky Fingers Ribs

I have decided sides for this one yet...

Oh, and I can't find the ribs in the freezer. There's a chance that someone, who shall remain aMOMynous, gave them to my brother. That's only slightly annoying, right? But I'm moving on...

Thursday:

Stromboli

Zesty broccoli

Friday:

Steak Hi-Hat (crockpot)

Noodles

That's probably as far as I'll get on Friday

I'm also known, mostly in the summer, to just change the menu rather frequently as I find new recipes to try. So who knows, we may not be having all of this after all. ;)

Day One at Rock Ledge

I started my "internship" at Rock Ledge Ranch living history museum yesterday. First off may I ask why there seems to be only one adult chaperone per 20 children on field trips? They (mostly the kids) don't get that whole "don't touch" rule and the one chaperone has a hard time enforcing it. And sometimes they don't even bother. Sigh.

We made butter yesterday. (We're portraying life in the 1880s remember.) That's really a big process and a good work out! Last night my shoulder was getting sore and I couldn't think of why until I realized it's my right shoulder and since I'm right handed I mostly did the churning with my right arm. And since it was my first day the other interpreters took people on tours and I did a lot (but not all) of the churning. It's still sore today. I hope that doesn't last long.

I was sitting on the porch pressing the butter (just one of the steps in the butter making process) and it was raining. I was sitting right outside the kitchen door and there was a fire crackling in the stove in the kitchen, it was quiet and no one was around and it was so peaceful. I just loved it! A short time later the peacock found the tree by the porch and climbed into it and kept - I don't know, what is it peacocks do? scream? - screaming because he didn't like the rain. Poor General Palmer! It wasn't quite as peaceful then but still enjoyable.

When I was about to leave the Lead interpreter came up the house and said there was a tornado watch in Castle Rock and funnels had been spotted. She wanted to warn me since I have to drive through Castle Rock to get home. I'm no tornado chaser so I decided I'd stay a little longer until the watch expired. So I continued to mold the butter...

All in all it was a good day at the ranch. I'm sure to learn some interesting skills this summer that I'll never use in my real life but it'll be fun anyway.

Just Thinking

I just finished reading a Holocaust memoir that really just made me think. A Polish family hid 18 Jews in a bunker under their house for 18 months. With Nazis often living in the house. It was absolutely a miracle that they survived there's no question about that. Reading the story made me wonder what I would do in such a situation.

I'm always glad when I read Holocaust memoir type books that I've never had to deal with such a time. And every time I read one I wonder if I'd be brave enough to hide or help a family in such a scary time. Or would I feel like I have my own family to take care of and I couldn't put them in danger in order to save someone else?

My other thought was how would I handle having to hide like that? Their situation in the bunker was almost as bad as the concentration camps (*almost*) with lice, sores, little food, poor sanitation, boards and a little straw to sleep on, no air circulation, etc. Could I do it? Would I be willing to put up with that and hope for a better day?

These are some of the questions that come up for me. I don't know what the answers are and frankly I hope I never do have to know the answers! But it does make me wonder.