God Bless America

I was able to get some great fireworks photos last night in Anthem while visiting with some of our church brethren. You can see the best shots here on my Flickr site. I used my tripod and my sweet little Nikon Coolpix S550 and took around 150 photos. I'm getting pretty good at timing taking the shot, I ended up with about 3 dozen black sky photos with tiny flicks of light. But around 60 photos came out quite impressive, even with my little point and shoot camera.

Pray for the future of our country. Some feel that the fireworks should be viewed as a distress signal. There's not really a whole lot we can do but pray and hope for the best.

Until next time.

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Happy Mother's Day 2009

It's been a beautiful Mother's Day. I woke up at 4:30 and went back to bed for a little while. I couldn't go back to sleep so I finally got up and headed out into the living room around 5:10. The sun was rising and it was dim in the house. I sat on the couch for a while and then I got the milk bucket to head out to milk. I stopped by my garden first where there were lots of squash blossoms, both male and female. I pollinated three or four female flowers. Usually I peel petal from the stamen and drop the petals into the garden, but today I decided to bring them in and try them cooked. I was so excited when I saw this little girl squash baby. Scallop squash!

Here's what the female blossom looks like on the inside:

Here you can see both the male and female squash blossoms. Notice the male flower is just a thin stem, no baby girl squash behind the blossom.

Here is what the male squash blossom looks like on the inside:

I brought the male flowers in to try them cooked. I left them in a bowl of water while I went back out and milked.

Here's my breakfast: two of our homegrown eggs, scrambled, with squash blossoms sauteed in butter. Oh, and fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice. The squash blossoms were different, but pretty good.

After breakfast I got ready for church. Kev and I went and I got to show-and-tell my new Zenni Optical glasses, seen in the photo below. Look for a post tomorrow about my Zenni glasses.

Kev and I got home from church around 1:30. While we were gone, dh went shopping for the ingredients for Kev to make cheese enchiladas for dinner, at my request. He's also making rice and beans and is going to serve them on a hot plate, just like at authentic Mexican restaurants.

Kev is also going to get a second hard drive and "ghost" my main computer so I'll have a backup and he's also agreed to help me clean out my Pathfinder during the next week. Thanks, Kev!

When I got home I went into the bedroom to change out of my church clothes, I found an envelope and this little box on my pillow.

Here's the beautiful card. There was a little handwritten note inside.

And here's what was in the little box. If you look back up at the picture of me wearing my glasses, you'll see I'm sporting my new ruby red earrings as well.


Here is my gift from ds1, a drawing with balloons and a heart with glitter:

Kev just announced the only things he wants for his birthday this year:

• Chef Hat
  
• Sony Double Battery for his new laptop
• He wants his Granny to take him out and buy him a new wallet because she bought him his very first wallet and he needs a new one.
  

I will try to remember to post a picture later of dinner. As promised, here is a photo of one of the plates... oooohhhhh... I knew I should have put half on another plate... delicious... mmmmmmmmmm....


I should create a label for "cheese enchiladas" I've only gone on and on about them on my blog something like five times already.

Until next time.

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Merry Christmas 2008!

This image is one of the first things I created on the computer - using Windows Paint. That was in 1997, before I learned about Adobe Photoshop. It's an animated gif, so be sure to click on it to see both a larger version, and the limited animation.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Until next time.

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Snow Flakes

My momma used to make Christmas cookies when I was growing up. She would make green Christmas trees, and red, green and white snowflakes, and others, using a MIRRO cooky press.

A couple of months ago I ordered a Mirro Cooky Press from eBay so I could make cookie press cookies for Christmas.

I wanted to make Christmas trees, but somehow, between the time the cookie press arrived and now, some of the plates were misplaced. I'm sure they will show up eventually. My momma says she always made the Caramel Cookies, but since she used those to make Christmas trees, I decided to try a different recipe.

Snow Flakes
Time 12-15 minutes
Temperature 350°F

1 cup shortening (I used butter)
3 ounce cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. grated orange rind
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1. Cream shortening, cream cheese and sugar well.
2. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla and grated orange rind.
3. Gradually blend in flour, salt and cinnamon which have been sifted together.
4. Fill MIRRO cookie press. Form cookies on ungreased MIRRO cookie sheets. Bake.
5. Remove at once to cooling racks.

Yield: 6-7 dozen

These cookies were very delicate tasting and delicious. The first taste to register on your tongue was the light orange flavor and then the cinnamon. I'm glad I tried the recipe.

Until next time.
Thanks Ree, Pioneer Woman for Photoshop Actions Set #2 "Seventies" Action for the old-timey looking photos. The Snow Flakes recipe was scanned from the actual recipe book that came with the MIRRO cooky press.

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Thanksgiving Day 2008

Today was such a fantastic day. Dh, Kev and I all took dishes to prepare which made the cooking much easier.

I woke up at 6am to the sound of a downpour. It makes a very different sound than normal household noises, of course there is a similarity to rushing water, but also a pounding sound.

When I put the turkey on the grill around 10:30am, the sky looked very dark and foreboding to the north of us.

It rained after awhile and while Kev was washing dishes he spotted a fantastic shot outside the kitchen window - raindrops gathered on one of our Palo Verde trees. We both went out with our cameras to see what we could capture.

I managed to capture a very lovely Bokeh photo. I finally remembered to download Pioneer Woman's "actions". This one is SOOC - "straight out of camera".

This next one is the last photo, but photoshopped with Pioneer Woman's "action" PW's B&W. Is this not a lovely photo? One single raindrop. Wow, I love it.

Dh made his Sticky-D's World Famous All You Can Eat Chocolate Chunky Poopy Pie.

Here's the recipe:

Kev cut up vegetables for our veggie tray; I made my homemade Ranch style dip. Kev says I need to write the recipe down in case I die.


Today I used 1/2 cup Daisy Sour Cream and 1/2 cup homemade goat milk yogurt. Then I just added these items: parsley flakes, 2 crushed cloves of garlic, onion powder, pinch of paprika, black pepper, salt, pinch of garlic powder. Mix and serve with veggies.

Kev made Green Beans Almondine. Here's the beautiful fresh green beans cooking in a cast iron skillet.


Dh made the dressing he and Kev came up with a few years ago. Recipe to follow one day soon.

I kept my camera in my pocket most of the day - when we went out to milk around 1:00. There were some amazing clouds.

I made my traditional potato rolls. Kev was quite enthralled with the Parkerhouse rolls, although he didn't get one. He got one that peeled apart like a cinnamon roll. Usually I only make crescent-shaped rolls. I only used 1/4 whole wheat flour this time, with white unbleached King Arthur's Bread Flour for the rest. I didn't want to stop and grind more wheat berries. They are the best I've made in years. I think the bread flour helped a lot.

Here's a shot of the table with all the fixin's. The lovely snowman plates are courtesy of my amazing mother-in-law. She found a full set at a thrift store either 3 or 4 years ago, and I exclaimed how gorgeous they were and she wanted me to have them.

We had our Thanksgiving Dinner around 3:30pm. I went and laid down for a while - my feet are still bothering me. They are better, but standing on them for many hours still makes them hurt and my lower back has started to bother me, too, so I had to lay down for about twenty minutes. The food hadn't been put away and so I finally got up so I could get things put away and relax. Kev helped me, and we actually cleaned the kitchen! We are really lax about cleaning the dishes after dinner around here. I told the guys this morning the only rule was that each of us had to clean up after ourselves. Since we were all cooking something, and taking turns in the kitchen, it was pretty important to keep caught up on the dishes and cookware.

While I was washing the dishes, I remembered how my aunt used to take me and my siblings on a walk after Thanksgiving Dinner, and then I don't remember what led to this next, but I wanted to have a fire and sit out around it. Kev had been working on hymns, so I said maybe we could sit around a "campfire" and sing hymns. It's so quiet and dark out there, and voices travel for miles. It took a little bit to get the fire started, because it's been raining after all. Kev and I dug a shallow pit first, lining the dirt around the circle. Dh heard us talking outside and decided to come see what we were up to. We tried to get ds1 to join us, but he doesn't fancy being outside after dark, in the cold, where there might be werewolves, for heaven's sake!


Me and my honey. If you click on the image to see a bigger version, you will see two bright lights in the background. Dh said it was the space station Jupiter and Venus (CORRECTION: I couldn't really remember what he said last night, and could have sworn he said it was the space station, so asked him this morning if he'd said that and he exclaimed that he'd told me Jupiter and Venus. I remember I was taking pictures or something, so I wasn't listening). The Milky Way is also very visible out here. When we first moved out, we promised ourselves we'd get into stargazing since we can see so many billions of stars out here in the country. It used to be pitch black at night when we first moved out, but a lot more people have moved out that have installed their own personal street light. Oh, and dh just informed me that Pluto is no longer a planet.


Our handsome son, Kev, and Echo, his guitar.

We sat outside for about an hour singing hymns. Kev taped it, I've asked him if he'll cut me out one bit of our singing. We sounded okay, it's the first time we've sang together and taped ourselves. Like I said earlier, voices travel long distances in our area... we often hear people having parties with music from miles away. We wondered if anyone could hear us "hymning".

Until next time.

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Happy 4th of July, America!

Happy Fourth of July! Our wonderful country is celebrating 232 years of freedom from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

I was invited by one of my good friends to come to her 4th of July pool party. I made three kinds of goat cheese (vinegar cheese made into basil/green onion, jalapeno/garlic and plain), a fruit bowl with honeydew melon, cantaloupe and green grapes, and dh made a dozen cupcakes which we decorated with cranraisins and dried blueberries.

I talked with ds1 about going to a pool party and going to see fireworks and he said he would go with me as dh and ds2 didn't want to.

But then I started feeling like crap - my nose was running and I kept sneezing and sneezing. Also I'd slept wrong and my neck had a crick in it. The CEO of our company rarely gets sick but this past week he kept sneezing as he was walking down the hallways. As the days went by he developed a cough so I thought great, I must be getting what he had. I was pretty sure my friend's elderly grandma would be in attendance, and maybe her young nieces and nephews, not to mention her young son, so I didn't want to get everyone else sick if I was contagious.

I laid down to take a nap around noon and just felt crappy. I was tired but my nose was clogged so it was hard to get to sleep. I took extra Vitamin C, echinachea/goldenseal, and some aspirin for my neck.

I hate making these decisions. Am I getting sick or not? Should I go? If I go and I'm getting sick, I'll get sick for sure. If it's just allergies I'll be okay. But what if it's a cold? I'm going to wear myself and I'll be sick for days. I believe if you feel like you have a cold coming on, and you take it easy, get rest and take Vitamin C and echinachea your body can actually fight off the infection. But if you just keep pushing yourself, then you will get sicker for sure.

My friend has been inviting me over for holiday parties for the last eight months and I've never been able to go to even one. I managed to attend her wedding! LOL. I was REALLY looking forward to swimming, too. And seeing fireworks for once in I don't know how many years. The fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays. I don't think I've gotten to go and see them for at least five years.

Finally around 4pm I decided to text my friend and let her know I wasn't coming, and apologized. It's not like she'll be upset really, I just had tried to go this time, tried really hard. She said I didn't have to bring anything, but I can't go to a party without bringing some goodies. And I know she and her family and friends would appreciate the goat cheese. It really turned out delicious. The milk has been tasting really good lately. Well, I just realized that is because Miss L is back on the milking line. She's always had the best tasting milk.

I finally hauled myself out of bed around 5pm and I'm not sneezing any longer. I really wanted to try getting some photos of fireworks this year with my new camera, so I asked dh if he would take me out. It will be the first time we've seen fireworks as a remarried couple.

The photo above is one I took a few weeks ago while attending a conference in town - I didn't have a tripod with me, that is why it is blurry. I guess they were doing test fireworks. I love fireworks.

Until next time.

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My New Camera - Nikon S550

My Mother's Day birthday present this year was my very own digital camera. I've been using the digital cameras that belong to my employer for the last eight years.

Kev helped me choose one - he has a Nikon S10 and loves it. We looked on Costco together and right away he thought I should get the Nikon S550. It was $229 with a 2GB card free. There was another camera that I thought would work just as well for $150 but in the end the purple S550 won me over.

Especially when it went on sale for $199 with the free 2GB card! I ordered it on the 23rd and it arrived on the 28th.

I went outside today and took a few pictures, just experimenting with it.

On Pioneer Woman's Photography blog one of her guest bloggers told us about Bokeh. I had never heard of it, but decided to see if I could capture some similar photos. These first two came out pretty good. You can click on them to see a larger image.

Bokeh with the camera shooting in sepia.

This was an attempt at Bokeh, but there isn't much in the background to blur.

I was really amazed at how clear these came out, as I was using macro mode and the wind kept blowing the pieces of grass back and forth.

I am excited to learn more about this camera.

Until next time.

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May Your Mother's Day Be Bright

Mine sure will.

We haven't jumped on board the mercury containing, expensive lightbulbs and when we saw these on sale for $0.23 a package, we decided to stock up. 70 boxes of 4 comes to 280 bulbs, at a cost of $16.10.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there.

Until next time.

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Guest Post - Christmas Memories from Raye

Hi, I’m RawMilkStar’s little sis, Raye. Although I have few memories of Christmas over the years, here’s what I can recall. Sis, maybe you can fill in the blanks? Maybe you can let me know if these are real or just imagined.

One Christmas we all got sweaters. They were those long knitted ones with belts. I don’t think I really liked mine.

I have a vague memory of those sweaters. They were store bought... I do not remember at all who gave them to us though. I have a vague memory that they were all the rage at that time.

Every Christmas Dad sent a card with money—I think, which made me miss him. One year he left his driver’s license on our lawn to let our mother know he had dropped by to see us. Were we gone? Why didn’t he just knock on the door? Was that Christmas? I don’t know.

I don't think it was Christmas, but it could have been. We lived at the white house (at the YMCA), so I would say it was probably in 1973... do you remember how our stepbrother Sol used to get up really early in the morning on the weekends? He used to get in a lot of trouble for doing that. Anyway, he actually saw our father drop his driver's license. If I remember correctly, our mother found the driver's license, but Sol had been afraid to say anything because he knew he would get into trouble if anyone knew he was up early in the morning. Finally, I'm sure due to interrogation methods being employed, he admitted he had seen a man and woman on a motorcycle, which ended up being our father and his new wife. When I went up to Oregon to visit with our father in 1980, his wife told me that the cards had been her doing. If not for her, he would not have done it. That doesn't sound too far off base, knowing that most men aren't the ones to send cards, and buy gifts in a typical family.

Remember that Christmas Boogie got us the old fashion roller skates? You know the ones that strap on to your tennis shoes? It was so much fun to skate! Although I don’t remember learning how to skate, I do recall falling down a lot.

I have no idea what you mean by the Christmas Boogie. I remember the skates and I was horrible at skating. I think it was because I was older. I fell a lot, and never had any fun skating. I was envious of the rest of you, skating around the basketball court, around and around and around. I remember one of you would take a broom (while on skates) and sweep off all the little stones that would cause someone to fall. You guys would race really fast around that basketball court, zooming past me, and laughing at me, because I'd be barely creeping along slowly. I just could never get it.

It seems that almost every year we received handmade crocheted slippers from our Grandmother. They were mostly uncomfortable and hurt my feet, until she discovered linings for them.

I do recall that the yarn hurt our feet. They were neat slippers though, always very colorful and pretty. Very simple pattern. Just one large square long enough to fit the foot diagonally, then the corners were drawn up and tied together. Then a square for the toe, and a square for the heel. And a big, fluffy pom-pom on the toe square!

When the younger siblings still believed in Santa Claus, I remember drawing hoof prints along with sled tracks in the dirt to provide evidence Santa was real. That was fun!

Before Mom married The Evil Stepfather and it was just the four of us, Mom and I used to ring jingle bells and eat the cookies and drink the milk. I don't remember ever believing in Santa Claus.

Another year I remember getting a free tree on Christmas Eve. Were we really that socially economically disadvantaged? Did that really happen?

We were extremely poor. Mom was a stay at home mother and The Evil Stepfather worked three jobs just to support us and was fond of shrieking quite often "you STILL don't love me!" I actually don't remember getting a free Christmas tree, but I do remember being the "poor family" chosen by the church at least once, and almost certainly more than once, as our mother was aghast and embarrassed at being chosen "again" on the one occasion I do remember. I remember there were bags and bags of groceries and lots of wrapped presents. I don't recall the actual day, just the bags and boxes.

I think the best Christmas I ever had was the year we traveled to the San Joaquin Valley to see the step-grandparents? That year, I remember all of us (there were four of us at that time) getting the same shoes, and clothes. There were so many trees and leaves there. My favorite part was playing in the leaves. I still love those old trees today.

It is so interesting to see how we are affected by the circumstances of our lives. Personally, this one and only vacation that we took was one of the worst memories I have, and probably why I have no desire to travel or go on vacations. The only car we had at that time was a Chevy Vega. A tiny car to cram two adults and four children into. I remember meeting The Evil Stepfather's parents, and his sister who was mentally disabled. She frightened me. Aunt Nancy was her name, as I recall.

I think one year we all got Sesame Street hand puppets that year. Mine was Oscar the Grouch, my favorite puppet on the show.

Yes, I remember those. The hand puppets were given to us, IIRC by Dougi - Mrs. So and So's middle son. He picked each puppet out to reflect our personalities. You were often grumpy, and were often teased and called "Oscar the Grouch". Dee Elle, being slightly chubby was often accused of eating too much, and was given Cookie Monster. I don't recall the rationale for giving me Grover, and Sol was given Bert.

Another year we went to the snow. Did we? I don’t know. I remember Jon threw a snowball and hit me in the head. It felt like a rock was in it. I don’t think I’ve liked going to the snow since.

I am not sure if I can grab onto a memory of going to the snow.

Finally, I recall getting lotion, socks, and underwear pretty much every Christmas. One year Mom made us each a towel with our name embroidered on it.

I don't really remember the underwear and socks, but that makes sense. What a practical way to spend a limited amount of money on one's children. I do remember the towels.

We were all assigned colors early on... my color was red, Dee Elle's was yellow, Sol's was blue and yours was green. We had glasses that matched those colors - the only glasses we probably ever drank from, our towels matched that color scheme, IIRC, and our bedding.

Well, that is all for now. I’m sure there are many more Christmas memories in my mind that will remain locked and hidden there for some undetermined amount of time. Hopefully, when they do emerge, they are positive and happy, like I wish them to be.

Thank you, dear sister. I hope this helps clear up some things for you. The photos are from my childhood collection (not many). I am pretty sure the first picture was Christmas at the white house. There is a small Christmas tree on the bookshelf to the left and a Christmas decoration on the wall behind us, I think. It was probably 1973.

Until next time.

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Our Christmas Dinner

The grilled turkey, alas I overcooked it again. It's kind of easy to lose track of the time when the bird is outdoors around the side of the house. The wind was blowing very hard today, with gusts up to 20 miles per hour. My flame went out once and I couldn't get the temperature to regulate. Finally I dragged the grill over to the east side of our home which created a wind block.
Yes, that's green gravy. Ahem. Interesting what you can eat when you put your mind to it. Ds2 made the gravy and was hoping to darken it with black food coloring... it turned greenish-gray instead. I cooked four yams and turned them into the yam and marshmallow dish I remembered from Mrs. So and So's. I don't think I'll try it again. I really prefer my yams baked with butter and a sprinkle of salt.
And last but not least, Pioneer Woman's Scrumptious Apple Pie. I didn't use her pie crust recipe, as it called for freezing it overnight. It was a delicious pie, although I'm not sure whether it was worth the extra calories. Seriously, I do feel that way about some foods, sometimes.
Until next time.

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Snowman Collection - New Members 2007

Two new additions from my boss, and from two coworkers.

This is from our CEO. It's a snow globe and a music box. It plays "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". It is a Hallmark, "Family is the Heart of Christmas" is the theme.

This is an ornament which plugs right into the string of lights. This one is also from my boss.

Next year I'll need to build a second story... or heck maybe just not work on my desk at all. ;-)

Until next time.

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Secret Santa 2007

Every year the company for which I work has a gift exchange. This year my Secret Santa (thank you, FC!) got me a pair of snowman socks, and one of those way cool digital keychain photo albums.

I was so danged tired yesterday, and thank God, ds2 took the initiative to throw hay and milk last night. That gave me 45 more minutes to do other things last night. One thing I did was load the keychain album's drivers to my laptop and started charging it. That takes three hours. I also worked on getting the family Christmas cards addressed and ready for mailing. I was in bed by 8pm but couldn't sleep past 3am this morning, so I took the opportunity to gather up 60 photos for the keychain album. I loaded them on the way to work, using the laptop while dh drove. This is a really neat little tech toy! Grandparents all over will be thrilled to receive one of these things with pictures already loaded of the grandchildren.

Until next time.

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