I HAVE A BLEED!

Son1 was a sensitive child.

He was very careful and deliberate, not a risk taker.

(It might possibly have been a result of something I did to him in his earlier days, but that’s another post!)

Anyway……

The result of his prudence was that he didn’t get hurt very often (thank goodness!)

But when he did, the sight of his own blood drove him into hysterics!

The most microscopic drop of blood and he came screaming into the house crying “IT’S A BLEED!”

And it didn’t matter HOW much blood there was, the resulting panic was the same, whether for a scratch or a gory wound!

To this day husband and I still say “It’s a bleed!” when we cut ourselves.

After all, family traditions are important!

Patience

I’m impatient. 

I think that everything I do should come out a masterpiece the first time. 

I am totally disappointed when it doesn’t.

Is this the dirty little secret that ‘professional’ artists don’t tell us? They don’t get it right the first (or second, or third….) time either?

Maybe we should shout it from the rooftops. 

Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so inadequate. 

Maybe it would help our kids know that nobody gets it right the first time.

Edison failed miserably for most of his early life. 

He failed with the light bulb thousands of times before he got it right.

The difference is he kept going.

Most people don’t.

So here’s to perseverance (with a big dollop of humor.)

Heads down people and let’s keep going!

What? Con’t

And the fun continues……

A commercial for mattresses: The announcer says ‘lumpy mattress’

I hear: ‘monkey mattress!'

 

Hahahahahahaha

 

Monkey mattresses!

Is that mattresses in the shape of monkeys? Or monkeys jumping on mattresses…..?

 Commercial says: ‘other pans sell for…..’

 I hear: 'underpants sell for……..'

 Bwhahahahahahahaha!

Arby's commercial says: 'It's good mood food'

I hear: 'It's good nude food!'

?                                        

Okay, all together now

............. "What?"

The Estrogen Has Left the Building

(Is it hot in here, or is it just me?)

I love a good turn of a phrase!

 Here’s one I found in the book I am currently reading, “Die for You” by Lisa Unger.

It describes me perfectly!

“She had lost her estrogenic glow!”

Hahahahahaha!

Perfect!

Random Rants

When did the word ‘function’ become obsolete?

Did I miss the memo?

 When did it become passé?

It is now functionality????!!!

Seriously?

Function, yes; functional, yes; functioned, functioning, functions, functionless, functionally, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.

 But functionality?

Really?

Who are we trying to impress?

(For some reason this particular linguistic pretension DRIVES ME NUTS! LOL)

Evolution of a Cat

Fluffy

aka:

Fluffernutter

Floogie

Fluffenator

Flugmeister

Fluff

Kitty

Damn cat

No wonder she’s confused! 

Relationship Advice 101

My mother was very wise.

She gave me some sage advice about love.

Here’s what she told me:

You have to love a person for who they are, not who you think you can make them into.

Having said that she added this analogy.

It’s like getting a dog. You love the dog. It’s sweet and cuddly and kind and gentle. But it’s a dog. You can’t make it into a person. Whatever you try and do it’s still going to be a dog.

BUT, you can train it. Hopefully, over time it will become a dog who doesn’t chew your slippers or mess on the carpet.

But the bottom line is, it’s never going to be anything other than a dog and you simply have to love it for its dogness.

Don’t you just love analogies? 

Whole Lotta Bakin' Going On

Husband is the baker in the family.

I guess that’s been established already. Lol

He made his famous cornbread last night. 

I’m in heaven!

He said I could share the recipe with you. 

2 tbs butter

¾ cup flour

1 cup sugar

1 tbs baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 ¼ cup yellow cornmeal

1 cup milk

2 eggs

2 tbs butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425°. 

Warm a 9 inch cast-iron skillet over moderate heat.

Add 2 tablespoons of butter to skillet and heat.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, sift the flour with the sugar, baking powder and salt.

Stir in the cornmeal. 

Add the milk and eggs and stir lightly. 

Add the melted butter and stir just until blended. 

Scrape the batter into the hot skillet, the butter in the skillet should bubble. 

Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake the cornbread for about 18-20 minutes, or until the center springs back when gently pressed. 

Turn the cornbread out onto a rack to cool.

Best served with a tall glass of cold milk! YUM!

Enjoy! 

Remember Etch-A-Sketch?

I had an etch-a-sketch. My brother broke it.

We were at Gettysburg (my father, being a history major in college, dragged us to every historical site on the eastern seaboard for our vacations!)

I was minding my own business (and not taunting my brother for a change) and he dropped a lead bullet on the screen .

My parents had bought him a box of lead bullets at the gift shop as an educational toy! (Oh, the good old days! LOL)

I was upset, at first. But then it was kind of cool because we got to look inside and see how it worked.

To shut me up and stop the fight that ensued my parents promised to buy me another one.

Funny, I don’t remember getting a new one!

Another ‘Plein Air’

Before you go getting all “Way to go!” I did this sitting in a completely empty parking lot, in my car! Not quite as brave as it sounds! LOL

There are tons of these free real estate magazine ‘dispensers’ all over the city. 

All lined up like little advertising soldiers.

Elements, con't

This whole 'Elements' theme seems to have stuck in my head as 'lines'. 

I'm seeing the element of line everywhere I look!

Keep Out!

Right here, right now

All I ever wanted from this whole ‘drawing’ thing was to be able to sketch something recognizable.

To put pen to paper and have someone say, “Yes, that’s a flower" (or whatever.)

I don’t care if the proportion isn’t right. It doesn’t matter if the shape is slightly wonky or if the highlighting isn’t quite spot on.

I’m not looking to be the next BIG ARTIST. 

This whole journey has been for me. And although I know I have much further to go, I’m happy where I am, right now, right here.

(I hope I can remember this the next time Miss Muse takes a vacation and the inner critic is having a field day! LOL)

Speaking of Entertaining the Neighborhood…

Husband is an accomplished boater, having lived on the water and had boats all his life.

One day he got the brilliant idea that I needed a boat of my own.

So he bought a small aluminum boat with a 9HP outboard motor.

And gave it to me.

[Blink]

Then he had to teach me how to drive it.

He showed me how to ‘choke’ it, how to start it with the pull ‘thingie’, and that when you want to go right you turn the handle left…….?????? And vice versa.

And how to put it into neutral to slowly and smoothly slide up to the dock.

Ah, the docking.

 Now here’s where I really excelled!    

You see, boats don’t have brakes.

And as I slammed time and time again into our dock, the neighbors came out to see what all the commotion was about (I think the uproarious laughter also brought many of them out to watch!)

I spent all that afternoon trying to learn to dock that stupid dingy!

I’d like to say I finally mastered it.

But I’d be lying! 

What I Did Today……..

I chased a hawk out of my yard with a pool skimmer!

(I’ll give you a moment for the visual to sink in.)

Crazed woman chasing wildlife with pool skimmer

We have a humongous Arborvitae tree that the birds use as an apartment house/nursery.  There must be chicks in the nest.

I noticed a lot of commotion and squawking from the Jay’s. 

Then I saw the hawk swoop down.

I don’t know what possessed me to intervene. 

But the poor Jay’s were beside themselves trying to keep the hawk out of the tree, and before I knew what I was doing I grabbed the first thing I could think of and went running!

(I can only imagine what the German vacationers swimming in the pool across the canal must have thought as they saw this crazy American woman running around her yard swinging a pool skimmer and yelling at a hawk!)

Free entertainment!

Bwhahahahahahaha!

Some days it works and some days, not so much!

LOL 

I still like it though!

For some reason I’m really drawn (no pun intended, for once!) to sketching this shape.

And I’ve been playing around with turquoise. I think it might be my new favorite color.  

What?

I think I’m losing my hearing.

And I find it hilariously funny!

Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not playing down the seriousness of deafness in any way, shape, or form. But in my particular case, my loss of hearing is making for some very funny situations!

Like talking to husband. Or should I say listening to husband.

He’s been saying some very odd things lately. They don’t really make a lot of sense, but, he’s a man so I didn’t think too much of that.

What alerted me to the fact that I might be developing a problem is the way he looks at me as we chat.

Like I have two heads!

And we say ‘what?’ to each other.

A lot.

I say ‘what?’ because he mumbles and I don’t hear him.

He says ‘what?’ because my replies don’t make sense to the context of his conversation.

The proverbial fly on the wall must be convulsing with laughter!

If It Doesn’t Involve Yeast, I Can Do It

I like to bake.

(And as long as it doesn’t involve yeast I’m pretty good at it. LOL)

I wanted to do a tutorial on the best Chocolate Biscotti recipe I’ve ever found, but of course, as soon as I start measuring and mixing, I forget to take the pictures!

So I guess I’ll just share the recipe and pictures of the finished product!

(Too bad they haven’t invented ‘smell-a-blog’, ‘cuz the house smells yummy!)

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Preheat oven to 350°F, rack in the middle position

1 ½ cups melted butter (3 sticks)

1 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)

2 ½ cups brown sugar

5 large eggs beaten (Just whip them up in a glass with a fork)

4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup slivered almonds

6 cups flour (not sifted)

Melt butter and mix in the cocoa. Add the brown sugar. Let cool slightly, and then stir in the beaten eggs. Add the soda, salt, vanilla, and slivered almonds. Stir until well blended. Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.

Spray two cookies sheets with nonstick cooking spray. Divide the dough into five parts, forming each part into a free-form loaf, 1 inch high, 7 to 8 inches long, and 3 to 4 inches wide. Place 2 loaves on one cookie sheet and 3 loaves on the other. Bake the loaves at 350° F for 35 minutes.

Cool the loaves on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes, but DON’T TURN OFF THE OVEN. Transfer the loaves to a wire rack and cool for another 5 minutes. Slice them (just like bread) into ¾ inch-thick pieces with a sharp knife. (The end pieces don’t need more baking---save them to dunk into your coffee while the rest are baking.)

Place the slices on their cut sides on the greased cookie sheets. Bake the slices for an additional 5 minutes, flip the over to expose the other cut side, and bake them for an additional 10 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to complete cooling.

These are great dunking cookies.

Yield: Approximately 4 dozen, depending on cookie size.

**I got this recipe from a mystery novel I once read but I don’t remember the author’s name so I can’t give the correct credit.

Instant Karma

At one time in my childhood we lived across the street from a golf course.

We kids used to collect the wayward golf balls the golfers lost, clean them up and sell them back to them for 25¢ apiece.

For the most part the golfers were very nice to us, but occasionally you’d get a curmudgeon.

One time we were negotiating with a foursome and one ‘gentleman’ voiced his displeasure at having to ‘buy back his own golf balls.’

We pointed out that we were the ones who searched them out and cleaned them up after they had abandoned them. 

It didn’t seem to alter his irritation. 

So much so that he grabbed the ball out of my hand and started to walk away without paying.

To my great surprise one of the other men in the foursome grabbed the ball out of HIS hand and threw it into the field of tall grass that flanked the course and said: 

“okay, it’s YOUR ball, YOU go find it!”

It’s not often in life you get to see instant Karma!

Allow Me To Rant!

I just received THE AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY in the mail today.

 Now, I’m all for the Census, which I dutifully filled out last year.

The Census asked simple questions pertaining to how many people reside in my home which is strictly for representation in Washington. I get it. And I’m all for a complete and accurate count.

Then I get this survey and I wonder why, after just filling out the Census last year. I open it and start to read…..

The more I read the angrier I’m getting.

This survey goes BEYOND what I consider things my government needs to know about me.

It starts out innocuous enough. The usual who, how many, what ages.

 But then it stars to get, um, weird.

It wants to know how many bathrooms I have in my house!? (Information you could easily obtain elsewhere, but why do they need to know this?)

It asks my income. Wait, I think they know that already! I file my tax returns every year.

Who I work for, how much is my income, how many hours per week I work, where my work is located.

 What language do I speak in my home (Swahili, FYI). Do I have health coverage, if so with whom.

What is my education level…Does anyone in my home suffer from MENTAL ILLNESS!?

They want to know what time I LEAVE FOR WORK EVERYDAY!

Now, I’ve never been one to fight the government, but I think I’m going to have to dig my heels in here.

They threaten fines and jail time for not complying with this survey.

(So I might not be blogging for a while! LOL)

The more I think about this the more annoyed I get.

How much money do they spend on this? I think it would have been better spent to hire some of our MANY unemployed in this country to cull the information from the numerous data banks the government already has on us!

Maybe even hire IT people to program NEW data banks to cross reference this information.

And don’t think for a minute they don’t already have this information!

They’ve just become so ineffective they can’t FIND it!

So, if you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know why.

I’ll be sitting in some cell somewhere because I refused to tell my  FREE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT (whom I elect and pay) what time I leave for work!   (LOL?)

Meet ‘Specs’

I’ve had this little guy in my head for a while now. Just fooling around, trying out different things. I think he needs to ‘percolate’ for a while. Not sure where this is going, or what’s in store for him.

Specs, age 1

I don't like this one. Looks too much like that drinking bird that dunks it's beak into a glass of water. LOL (Although I see possibilities for a great caption with this one!)

adolescent Specs 

Specs new glasses

One Wish

As a kid I always wondered what I would wish for if I ever came across the elusive genie in a bottle. I struggled for years to come up with the perfect wish.

Now I know EXACTLY what I would wish for.

I want one more day with my parents.

I want them at a time when they were both still healthy. When my father was at the peak of his career, and my mother was most content.

I want to be a kid, still living in their home, but I want my mind as it is now, with the realization that I won’t have them forever.

 I want to laugh again at my father’s stupid puns. I want to feel my mother’s unconditional love and enjoy her cooking. I even want my annoying (at the time) older brother to be there.

I want, for just one more day, that feeling of total contentment, of belonging and security. Of knowing absolutely for sure they ‘got my back’.

Watercolor Bliss Lesson 5

Putting it all together.