Escape

We're off...

We're escaping

Lucifer's Lair

Satan's Storehouse

The Devil's Dining Room

The Fiery Infierno that is Phoenix.

Off to the cool breezes of San Diego.....

To cool our fevered brows

Along with the rest of the "Zonies" this time of year...

And EVERYONE will be there this year!

Except our new babies who are still "cooking"

Don't know if there will be internet.....

Catch y'all later!!!!

Random Food Musings

1. Broccoli is my caffeine.

I know, I know. I can see what look on your face. It was the same look my brother-in-law gave me when I told him the same thing and asked him what was in it that made me feel so good. For whatever reason, whenever I eat steamed broccoli, I have lots of energy. The other night for dinner, I included some steamed broccoli with the dinner (which nobody ate but me) and I had so much energy that evening to clean up the kitchen and get things done. I wondered why, then realized I had eaten broccoli for dinner. It has to be steamed broccoli.

2. The Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde nature of my kitchen.

The dichotomy of the food that is contained in my pantry. The corn dogs as opposed to whole grains. The frozen pizza as opposed to organic spinach. I am really in to eating healthfully and feeding my family that way, but let's be real. I have teenagers. They must be fed food that I would cringe at so that they remain happy at home. I admit though, at times they sneak off to Burger King behind my back. (don't think I don't know it kids!)

3. Doesn't it feel grand when you know what you are having for dinner in the morning??

Today it's pulled pork sandwiches in the crock pot. But I admit, there are many frenetic days when I have no idea what to feed everyone and I refuse to go to the nearest McDonalds. My go-to meal is....soft tacos. Brown the hamburger, open a bottle of canned pinto beans, arrange the fixin's and warm the corn tortillas. It's a done deal and everyone's happy-as long as I have taco sauce and cilantro.

So what's your random food musing today, and what's your go-to meal?

Flight Delays

You know that feeling you get when you've settled in your seat, turned off all portable electronic devices and are half listening to the flight attendant race through the message about thingies that fall down from the overhead compartments in case of an unexpected change in cabin pressure...and those yellow thingies that they claim will hold you up in case of a water evacuation?

You know, that feeling you get when you are poised at the end of the runway and the engines start revving up to lift you up to the friendly skies and your heart skips a beat?

Didn't happen.

So we're sitting and sitting and sitting, and I'm waiting for those engines to rev up and it seemed like it was taking too long.

Then the voice comes over the speakers, the one you can understand for once, the one that says, "Greetings from the flight deck, this is your captain speaking"..."mmphadffitadlmmphfra;daignakdk/,aej/.kathdyaedmtlkagndmant/.enh."

Except this time you can understand what he's saying and you groan inside.

Bad weather in Phoenix, 40 mph cross winds on the runways. We're turning back to the gate for at least a 1 hr delay.

Groan.

Except wait!

Let's make a little lemonade out of the lemons here people.

*We are STILL on the ground, NOT in a never-ending holding pattern over Phoenix.
*They are going to LET US OFF THE PLANE and provide us with tasty snacks like diet Pepsi and salted peanuts {ug-but it was a very nice thought-thankyouverymuch...}
*They let us use our portable electronic devices (aka cell phones) to call home and tell our loved ones we are late.

After a pleasant hour filled with chats with loved ones while watching the latest breaking news on Michael Jackson......

The announcement comes.

We're leaving! Hooray!

I'm dreading the flight home because turbulence makes me really nervous and I'm anticipating a lot-

But it turned out ok-it was managable-we were in a holding pattern over Phoenix for only 15 minutes.

And it only took 45 minutes to collect my luggage.......

I sink into my bed at 12:05 am, ahhhhhhhh.......zzzzzz....

To be awakened at 4:30 am with the tremendous crash of a violent thunderstorm outside my bedroom window.......

But hey people.....IT'S RAINING!

I Looked Out The Window and What Did I See?

The "Y" on the mountain looking back at me!

Greetings from the "Motherland," Provo, Utah. I'm here a few days to spend time with family, cool off a little (just a little-it's pretty hot-even for this desert girl) and relax. Catch y'all next week!

Garden Happenings

We seem to be growing a fine crop of these guys right now-and little else.

UgH!

Also known as grape leaf skeletonizers. They showed up last year and decimated all the

vegetation on my grapevines before I even realized what was happening.

So this year I was determined to stay ahead of the game.

Faithfully every morning I would go out and pick the affected leaves off the vine-with their little clusters of nasty caterpillars.

But then real life intervenes, early morning appointments, the heat and lack of time.

So today I zapped them with the bug killer.

It felt real good.

Swept Away by Il Divo

I had a date last night with TL. A nice dinner and off to the Il Divo concert.

A.ma.zing.

I was completely blown away by the power of their instruments.

Un.be.liev.a.ble

Their harmony and blending was incredible.

Awe.inspiring

And the Spaniard wasn't half bad either.
Except open necked shirts half-way down the chest doesn't really do it for me.

Memorable.night

At Least Something Likes 110 degrees plus!

Four pounds plus of basil. Happily growing. I've got enough to dry for a year's supply for me and my family and half the neighborhood...

Pesto anyone?

My Mom Told Me To Blog This

My husband has told me stories of silly mistakes missionaries make when learning the Spanish language. Like when his greenie companion asked for "fried buses" instead of "fried shrimp."

"Camiones fritos" instead of "Camarones fritos."

Gee-I think-I'll never make any dumb mistakes like that.

Ha...

That's like saying, my kid will never have a snotty nose, or...my kid will never make obnoxious noises during a quiet moment in Sacrament meeting, or...my kid will never run naked into the street...or....

But I digress.

So, the other day I was in a meeting and speaking of ordering some items for the branch. The verb for "to order" is..

Ordenar

Except that there is a similar word that means..

To milk a cow.

The only difference is this little thingie:

It's that little "enye" thingie.

So if you say "ordenyar" instead of ordenar...well.... you get this:

Which causes a vast amount of amusement with the Hispanic crowd.

Yes, I said this.

And remember the little breakfast we had on the 4th? Well, I happened to find out about one minute before Sacrament meeting started that we were hosting that little breakfast, just prior to the announcement. I was fine with this except the person making the announcement told everyone to bring their things to swim in our pool.

Except he used the word:

Banar.

Now in my world, that word means-to bathe.

So I'm sitting in the meeting with my mouth popped open and my eyeballs wide thinking "what???"

Apparently this word is also used for swimming.

In my world, the word that I learned in school for swimming is:

Nadar.

I happened to mention this little error to my branch president. He cracked up and said, "What did you think, Sister, we were going to get naked in your pool?"

I think they did it on purpose to disturb me.

Good Reads

I think the heat has fried my brain because I have no thoughts to blog these days. I'm totally uninspired. Yesterday it was 115 with no relief in sight.


With the heat and the amount of traveling I've done this past few weeks, my activity of choice is reading. I recently finished three books, all by the same author, the first is one of my all-time favs!

"These is my Words" by Nancy Turner. I read this years ago and have always LOVED this book. I didn't realize that there was a sequel until my sister-in-law handed me a stack of books to read before heading out on a trip."Sarah's Quilt" is the next in the series and I was actually near the end of it and reading while waiting for my car to get serviced. A random lady said, "that's a really good book." I agreed and she said, "there's another one after it." REALLY? So I headed off to Borders, and read it on the latest trip.I have loved following the life of Sarah Agnes Prine, a tough lady living in the Territory of Arizona 100 years ago. I'm wondering if there'll be another???

Nancy Turner lives in Tucson, AZ and she expressed my thoughts exactly about living in AZ in the summer. "When the temperature gets over 100, I slow down like a lizard on a rock."

My sentiments exactly Nancy.

A Few Housekeeping Items:

Let me set the record straight.

I hate mopping floors.

It hurts my back.

I have never met a mop I liked.

Swisher, Switzer, whatever that thing is called...only lasts 2 minutes on my tile.

And that Shark steam thing....pffft....don't waste your money on that.

I'm really spoiled and I used to have someone who would come in and mop my floors every week.

But not anymore.

I do get someone twice a month to do the dirty deed-for which I am eternally grateful.But there are those times in-between that it must be done.

Like when you've had three or four toddlers running through the house.

So I'm trying to figure out how come I let TL talk me into 5 miles of tile in my house. (you can't see it in the photo but it goes allll the waayyyy down the halll....)

Second.....remember this?My sagging undermount sink?

So TL calls my nice contractor who redid our house five years ago for a recommendation for someone to fix it. Let me say first that he is a really, really nice man and he did a fabulous job on our house. It's just that I don't like some of his subs.

Because when I call the sub, a woman answers saying, "This is ______'s cell phone."

I nicely explain the problem, wondering if I can make an appointment for him to come and fix the problem.

"Well, I'll take your name and number and we'll call you back when we're in the neighborhood."

Yeah, right. Three days later and no call.

I thought these were hard economic times.

So I'm going to be devishly happy when they finally call and I announce to them that I have found someone else to fix the problem.

Hmphhh...

He's Going To.....

Opening the letter-we're all breathless....

Here's a hint........

Got it yet??????

Telling his public....

It's Anchorage Alaska!!!!!!

We are beside ourselves with excitement for him......

Except I don't think they sell heavy winter coats in Arizona. Quite a contrast!

P.S. His departure date is September 23rd.

IT'S HERE!!!

I think I am going to have a heart attack!!!!

I'll post again after 6 pm MST........

So What's on the Madwoman's Mind Today?

**Kinda annoyed that the post options thingie isn't working-therefore, I can't make a batch of posts at one sitting.

**Had a special time in Utah at my uncle's funeral visiting with cousins. No pictures to share because dumb me left my camera sitting on my sister's kitchen table in SLC. {sigh}

**It's HOT. Just plain HOT. Realizing that this is my time of year to hibernate, stay inside and work on projects. Except there is no way I'm drinking hot chocolate or toasting chestnuts by the fireside. Oh wait-maybe I could roast the chestnuts by placing them outside my back door.......

**The sorry state of my garden. We seem to be growing an abundance of bugs, weeds and lots of leaves, but no produce. I'm thinkin' I may bag the whole thing for awhile-add some nutrients to the soil and wait until it cools off.

This morning's harvest. Jalapenos anyone?

**Wondering who is going to fix my undermount sink that seems to be coming detached from the granite.

**We are the party house. The branch sitting in the shade of the garden on the 4th. My kids and grandkids cooling off in the pool on the 4th.

It was already really hot at 8:00 am.

**Taking bits of fabric and making them into baby quilts for Jessica. I'm setting a deadline of Aug. 8th-her shower date. Wish me luck.

**Waiting for the arrival of the mission call-coming this week.

**That is all.

Happy 4th

Happy Fourth of July!
I'm grateful to all those who came before me and sacrificed so that I could have the life of freedom I enjoy.

Interestingly, we are entertaining our Hispanic friends this morning with a breakfast brunch and swim. They came to this country for freedom and peace and the opportunity for a future for themselves and their children. They are hardworking, lovely people.

I do not judge their status.

I just hope and pray that some kind of solution can be agreed upon so that they can live without fear and prejudice.

Because I think that's what our Founding Fathers had in mind.

Stephen Lane Wood

Today would have been his birthday.
Except that yesterday he decided that the other side was a better place to be.
A mere 24 hours shy of his 85th birthday.
He is my mother's older brother.
And I seem to be taking his passing a little hard.
I don't understand completely why.
I know he has been reunited with his beloved wife.
I know that he is free from the burden of his failing body.
He probably has had a joyous reunion with so many of the people whose temple work he completed.

But it's still hard.
He has been interwoven firmly into the fabric of my life.
And now a piece of that fabric has been torn.
He was just always there.
A leisurely stroll down the street from my mom's house.
On the hilly "tree" streets of Provo, Utah.

I don't feel that I was particularly close to him.
Except that he was just always there.
Every year when we made the annual trek to Utah, the "mother land."
As a girl growing up.

He was instrumental in my parent's meeting.
He was a world famous expert on bark beetles.
If your line of work happens to be bark beetles.
But that was an important work to many throughout the world.

I had gotten closer to him in the last ten years.
As he gave me some family history "assignments."
And awakened within me a passion for family history work.
He was the cheerleader when I found some tidbit of information.
And gave counsel when I was stuck, referring to his copious geneology notes
Written in a tiny scrawled hand in numerous notebooks.

Maybe I'm sad because his generation is passing on.
And the realization has hit that the torch is being passed to my generation.
I hope I can live up to it.

Please excuse me from blogging for a few days.
While I mourn in my own way.
And spend time with my family in Utah.
Learning what I need to know to keep the torch burning for the next generation.

Safe or Out?

I told my mom yesterday that I felt like I was sliding into home plate, but I wasn't sure if I was safe or out.

Things have been just a tad crazy busy this last week, thus my lack of posting, plus I think the posting options thingie on Blogger is acting weird too.

So...

Let's start out today with my latest and greatest in the garden world. One word.

hot.

Remember last winter when I was telling people in the frozen north to look forward to the day when they were growing all things green and I would be complaining and crying because I live in the devil's own home?

it's here.

When you wake up at 5:30 am to get some work done in the garden and it's already 90 degrees, well, that sorta takes the motivation factor right out the door. My poor plants have been really feeling the heat-especially since I was gone for half of last week.

Poor yellow squash...Tomatoes are taking a beating.Potatoes just laying over and dying...(but that means it's time to harvest-I guess)The space where the corn used to live, it's now hanging out in the mulch pile.Poor, pathetic green beans. May you rest in peace. I enjoyed your fruits for awhile.

but...

There is a little life left in the ol' garden patch....

Freshly sprouted pumpkin. I'm anticipating some sweet mini pumpkins by Halloween for the grandkids.Potato harvest. Just over 5 lbs. Not great. But edible. I've decided that it's best to grow potatoes here in the fall.Corn harvest. At least I produced some ears of corn. They may fit into the palm of my hand, but at least it worked.

My yellow pear tomatoes are keepin' on keepin' on, producing delicious yellow tomatoes every day.

And my poundage total for the month of June:

55.8 pounds!

My poundage count for the year (at least since I've been keeping track the first of March)is:

110.14 pounds!

Safe or out?

Ok, I guess I'm safe.