USAir

I got an email this week from Travelocity: "The airline has recently made a change to your flight schedule/flight numbers...Please review this information carefully..."
I'm glad I did. Turns out USAirways re-scheduled Sam and me to fly out of Boston, arriving at Washington Reagan Airport at 9:36 a.m. and fly out of Reagan at 8:45 a.m. Yup, leave 51 minutes before we arrive. Hmmmm.
Happily, the Travelocity agent was able to talk USAirways into putting us on different flights to arrive in St. Croix at the same time. We just need to leave Boston 2 hours earlier, no big deal.

New wall double wall oven

About 10 years ago the clock/timer broke. About 6 years ago the thermostat broke, so that the 250 degree setting was about 450 degrees. And this week, our new double oven arrived!












Here's the last meal of the old oven - delicious ham and onion quiche.

And...drum roll please.....
Here's the new double wall oven!
10 days ago three of these traversed our backyard. Too scrawny to roast in our new oven...

Raspberry tarts revisited

I can't resist commenting on my own blog: isn't my background pink color just perfect with the raspberries on the tarts?

Without a Map

So, the book group, where my raspberry tarts got rave reviews, discussed a memoir by Meredith Hall. Here's my informal review.

Without A Map, a memoir by Meredith Hall, is a wrenching account of her lifelong struggle to make sense of a life shattered after she becomes pregnant at age 16 in 1965. She is shunned by her parents, and never even sees the baby she must give up for adoption. It is beautifully written. As with every memoir I've ever read, excepting Ruth Hazen's and George Hazen's exemplary works, I wonder how much of the story is changed for literary effect. I don't doubt the main events of her life, but, for example, did she really wander so purposelessly through Turkey and the Middle East? I imagine her survival skills were keener than she lets on, or her life's story might have been decades shorter and not made it to press. Also, there are big gaps in the story, especially, between that aimless trek and her marriage and births of her second and third child. And, as is common in the memoir genre, her villains aren't given rebuttal time. But the main themes of her story, rejection, a search for meaning in life, and redemption are wonderfully woven into a compelling story.

Raspberry tarts

I wowed (wowwed?) them at book group last night with my fresh-hand-picked raspberries in photogenic tarts. Recipe thanks to Cami's mom -basically cream cheese and sugar and real whipped cream - what's not to like? Photos thanks to Cami and her cool camera. She can tell you what a bargain it was, and how much fun she has with the 3 inch high tripod from her Dad It's a real foodie's camera.

Eggplant and raspberries

I'm practicing my photo insertion skills. Here's a picture of my little raspberry patch:

Here's a dear little eggplant: :

And the fall colors of a blueberry bush:

Elantras in the backyard

Our driveway has become a new and used Hyundai Elantra car lot:

Jim's 2003 grey car was sold on eBay last week. He painstakingly listed all the repairs it needs and the fact that it probably wouldn't pass state inspection without major bodywork,since the front end was bashed last December. The buyer lives in New Jersey.
My 2004 blue car is doing well.

Jim's new 2008 black car has a standard transmission, which is hard to come by. But he REALLY likes driving with a shift. In the spirit of my old people page a day calendar of a few years ago (i.e."Why not have reclinable furniture?"):

"Why not automatic transmission?" It's nice to not have to think about what gear I'm in, and I get 37 mpg highway.

Jim wrote a nostalgic family letter listing all the cars we're owned and some family history around each one, starting with our dear Chevy Nova, including our purple tailgate Voyager "Dolphin" and now in our Hyundai phase. To date we've owned four Hyundais.

Raspberries for Cal

Ed. note: I'm blogging again. Today I'll try 2 enclosure links. I didn't think to bring my camera along, so I'll try to enclose Cami's website, which has some adorable kids and even a long shot of me in the taragon a.k.a. light, bright green. I don't particularly like the color, but it was on clearance last year and it's a very warm fleece. That's very important when you keep an old Victorian house at 60 degrees from Oct 19 to Apr 19. That's exactly 6 months of heating, ending on actual Patriots' Day (not the "Monday holiday" version of the Massachusetts' and Maine state holiday).
In case my hyperlink doesn't work:
Cami's website:
http://thefamilyjonesbloggers.blogspot.com/
Winchester's raspberry farm link:
http://sustainablewinchester.org/raspberryfarm.html


So, our garden raspberries are diminishing, though we haven't had a killing frost yet. My friend Emily told me about a Winchester town-owned raspberry field:
It's huge! My friends Cami and children Bryn and Calvin and I went raspberry picking this morning. Calvin reenacted "Blueberries for Sal" with an exactitude of a serious student of Robert McCloskey or an above average 2 year old. He even tried more than once to pick from Cami's bucket.
I picked 3 pints of raspberries!

Here's the recipe from Cami's mom that I'm going to use them in:

Raspberry Pie

For enough to put in 1 pie shell or 8-9" square pan:

1 graham cracker crust (crumbs of 1 pkg. graham crackers, smashed. Add to that 2 tbsp. fake or real butter and 2 tbsp. sugar. Pat into pan).

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. corn starch

Boil the above and stir until thick. While hot, add 2 tbsp. raspberry jello. Stir well.

Cool completely.

While cooling, do the following:
Mix 1/2 pkg. cream cheese with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 2 tbsp. milk. After that is completely mixed you could add 1 cup cool whip (sugar free or light is fine).l

Put this mixture in the bottom of the pie shell.

When your jello mixture is cool, add 2-4 cups raspberries to it and stir lightly just to mix but not to beat up the fruit! Pour this mixture on top of the cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate for two hours or for as long as children will allow. Serve with whipped cream or cool whip.

Enjoy!

You have a friend in Pennsylvania

So, I never liked the PA license plate slogan: "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania." As a purist, I preferred the older and nobler "Keystone State." Also, it seemed a lame quote from Sweet Baby James, who has a link to Belmont next town over from us. But I need to amend my opinion. I used a stairmaster for an hour at the motel. Then I went for a cool down walk into a Shamokin Dam neighborhood just west of the Econolodge. Every single driver waved unsolicited, even the man who passed me going the same direction as me. Wow!
Today is sunnier, so Dad and I went back to Norry to retake some pictures and find "Bill's Grocery" where Mom, Dad, Steve and Timothy first lived after moving from the Island (the island between Sunbury and Northumberland in the Susquehanna River.
Last night we went to Tedd's Landing (misspelt in my last blog, apologies) BBQ, up near the top of Blue Hill. We could see crew shells, 2 person, 4 person and 8 person in the water. Must be Bucknell students from Lewisburg. I remember going to Bucknell to see a science fair when I was around 8 years old.
Well, I'll let you know how Dad's big speech went!

I'm at an Econolodge in Shamokin Dam, PA, typing on the common computer here. I read all my recent emails and got one from my son who just moved to Edgewater, a neighborhood in Chicago, Ill. I just read the Edgewater Wiki article (but don't quiz me on all the streets and neighborhoods. Next time I visit, I'd like to go to a Swedish resturant and try lutefisk, featured sometime on Prarie Home Companion. I think the Swedes also make a berry syrup (can't remember which berry) that I've had on pancakes.
It was rainy today, but Dad and I drove by "Saint Monicas," once St. Michael's, In Sunbury, PA, where I went to school from K-4, and 679 King St. The concrete step in the front of the house has shrunk tremendously from my childhood days when I'd sit there to put my roller skates on.
We also saw the Joseph Priestly House (quiz points to anyone who knows his place in history), which I'd never visited,Priestley's grave, and up and down the streets of Norry (a.k.a. Northumberland, Penna. Then we drove to Danville and my birth hospital, Geisinger. The East Entrance, which was around in 1956, still houses the birth center. I suppose it was called a maternity ward back then.
The old Cherokee Merck Plant in Danville is now owned by Cherokee Pharmaceuticals. We drove into the visitor's parking (there's a guard house and fence, so we couldn't see the building Dad worked in) and took a few pictures. On our way out, I noticed a SUV following us. Once we got comfortably back in Danville proper, it turned around - it was a CP security car. Gee, I've never been suspected of espionage!
Looking forward to Dad's special day tomorrow. He is a charter member of the Susquehanna Chapter of the American Chemical Society and will speak at a reception at the Priestley house. Tonight we're going to check out Ted's Landing for supper. We had lunch at the Pine Barn Inn just down the hill from Geisinger. Dad remembers when Mrs. Bush owned it. It really was a livery and horse barn. A doc at Geisinger in the early 1900s stabled his horse there, or so the menu stated.
When I figure out how to post pix, I'll post them here.

Raspberries in September

This will be lame, but at least I'm blogging. I've been sharing my garden with Cami this summer. It's a great help to have a gardening buddy. Today we picked raspberries, again. I've never had such a harvest! Goes to show what happens when I actually work in the garden at least an hour a week.
I'm inspired by my niece Michelle's gardening on the Left Coast. She has canned pounds and pounds of fruit and had bumper crops.
My poor tomatoes look like skeletons with a little green on top and a few pale tomatoes on each one. The gardening center says they have fungal infections due to the huge amount of rain and cool weather we have had. The zucchini and pumpkin are similarly infected.
We'd only harvested a few eggplant, but today there are 10 growing! An embarassment of riches.
I just tried to add a photo. It didn't work. I'll try again next time.

Navigating instead of sewing

Okay, I've used up a lot of time trying to figure out how to publish a comment on said Carl's blog. But I perservered!

Day Two: Four Months later

Well, my double goals of blogging frequently and reading scriptures everyday needs a boost. I'm inspired by my older brother Carl, who just started a blog on his summer vacation from teaching middle school science in New Jersey.
On the docket for today: hemming R'els wedding dress. This is the second wedding dress I've made. The first was for my sister Maggie, 21 years ago, when I was expecting my fourth child, third son. He came, as expected. And the dress was a smashing success, including a lace-ladened train. Now my sixth and youngest is a senior in high school. R'els dress is much simpler, but a challenge since I haven't done serious sewing for quite a few years. I won't describe it or show a picture to make sure it's a surprise for Manuel, her intended.

I'm officially a blogger

Carrie spurred me to action. I tried blogging before, but it didn't catch on with me. I think I have a pretty boring life, but then, nobody has to read this.

My big news of the day is that inspired by Zach Rodgers, I studied the restored gospel for 45 minutes today and have a goal to do this each day this week. 1 Nephi 19.