The Turkey... A Remembrance - News Update

   I couldn't resist updating this post with the wild turkeys in our front yard (and a different font. Thank you for the education dear daughter. Hope Art School includes other stuff) and so close to Thanksgiving. Alas they are not for eating. (It'd be like inviting our neighbors over and when they arrive, announce they are the guests of honor. Even if I could catch one, which I can't as they are very fast and wild turkeys CAN fly if necessary. They just don't seem to like to. Too much like exercise I guess.)

I often find scraps of paper I've used to write down snippets of conversation I want to blog about. This is one example from Thanksgiving. (If you want something in a timely manner around here, I'm afraid you'll have to get yourself a timex) :p

~

   Husband: "Do we want a fresh turkey from Deimond Farm or from the grocery store?"

   Me: "I'd prefer the fresh turkey if we can afford it. Free range, grain fed turkeys are expensive, but worth it." 

   Husband: "Fed a macrobiotic diet, massaged daily by geishas and taken thru an in-depth grief councelling process before being gently snuffed as the moon rises and the fog sets in. And there are usually crickets chirping in the barnyard."

   Me: **silence**

   Husband: "I shouldn't mention that the turkeys are so calm that they spend the night on the block?"

   Me: "Only you could come up with PR like that!"

   Husband: "Fresh turkey it is then."

QOTD: "If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking." ~ George S. Patton

If Books Were Made Of Chocolate... Reconsidered

      Since I happened to be thinking about chocolate and books this morning as has often happened over the years and because since restarting my blog has been such a joy to me, I wanted to celebrate even though most of my readers have long moved on, which is as it should be, and most of the ones I used to read have stopped writing which saddens me. Blogs were meant to be enjoyed and inspiring and occasionally make you really think. (At least the blogs I read and the ones I write hopefully are) Having surgeries does have it's bright side in that I could read a lot or at least listen to audio books. Anyway, my husband has finally returned from a deployment and for some reason we have all been craving (a lot of) chocolate and books (five daughters, one man, time off? Nuff said), which might seem odd to those who don't know that since we can't get cable TV where we live, we have 29 bookcases. (yes, I counted) Our daughters are all older now but most are still in college and just getting started in life and so most of the books remain for the moment.

     Well, in one of life's many great glass half full moments I went looking for a chocolate book on Google thinking it would bring up chocolate cookbooks for a picture to spruce up this old post and polish it off as it were, and it did... but it also brought up a blog I have no idea how I could have missed all these years! (in a glass half empty moment, I don't have time to go back and read through posts, but I will) Two of my favorite topics. What's not to love? (As for the picture? It's a real cookbook with 50 easy chocolate recipes and since I've realized I do not have a chocolate cookbook in our home, we are lacking and must order for the holidays)

So DO go and visit Karen's Books and Chocolate Blog. I plan to.  (and to my sister in law Karen who is a bibliophile and chocolate lover, are you sure this isn't your blog and you've been holding out on me?)

~

     Oh how I wish I could remember who I had this conversation with, so I could attribute it.  I also wish I could tell you that I was the author of this delightful mental picture, but I must be honest... I remember having this conversation with someone else and had doodled down the notes, as I often do with most things, but failed to write a date or name (I really need to get better about this).  I'm not even sure I'm getting it all right, because it was a long time ago and the scrap of paper I had written it down upon, I had used as a book mark, so it's not very big.  Since I dreamed of it last night... I figure it must be a sign!  So here it is and if someone should recognize it, please do speak up.  It is not only a fabulous idea, but the wording is so vivid, it really should be claimed! 

Chocolate you could read would be practically perfect. As long as it was good chocolate, but poor writing. If you got a good book worthy of saving, you could never eat it - nor could you reread it on sunny days. Also, I'd have to get divorced, because I've never been able to convince my husband that a person's chocolate is sacred. It's deeply annoying when he scarfs an entire box of my Godivas, but if he started eating my books... I'd have to have him put down. (Be great if you could do that - take the husband to the vet, stroke his nose kindly, and tell all your friends that he'd got a bit old and flatulent, so you'd had him put to sleep. Obviously, being a feeling woman, I'd tell the children he'd gone to live with a nice family in the country.)

 Where was I?  Yes, product development. It's a good idea, but I think there's work to be done. You could write on the things that you always have, but never actually eat - like porridge oats, or French mustard - but - then again - I can only imagine worthy literature on oats. Things you feel you ought to have read, but don't want to. Paradise Lost. It would have to be a book more like chocolate digestives - perfect with a cup of coffee, and you find you've eaten the whole packet without meaning to. 

QOTD: "There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line." ~ by Oscar Levant (1906-1972) American Actor, Pianist and Composer.

Originally published Nov 2011 and I never did remember who I had been talking to, but such a lovely thought deserves another go around.

It's Autumn in New England

   I love autumn in New England. Truly, I do. Autumn here is beautifully full of crisp air.  It is the time for pumpkins to carve, the turning of the leaves from a deep velvet green to a beautiful fireworks display of amazing color, delicious apple picking, the fun of watching the fat rabbits in our thicket, the majestic Canadian Geese flying north overhead to their home, the beginning of a break from the bears... Yes. You read that correctly. Bears.  
   

   If you've ever read anything of my old posts you will know I live in the middle of Nowhere.  No. Actually, that is not quite correct.  Nowhere has cable, internet and cell phone service.  We do not get most of that and what we do get is intermittent and expensive satellite that we cannot afford.  So to be more accurate, Nowhere is bigger than here with better amenities, but I digress. I do that a lot when I get a little unsettled.  It's snowing you see, not that I have a problem with snow most of the time but the last time we had snow this early in the year, bad things happened. Very bad things.  And I have just been assured the view outside our windows is not an illusion or mirage.  

Last time a tree fell down in the middle of the road not far from our house while my husband and one of our daughters were coming home and parts of the tree went threw the windshield and acting on instinct... well, sorry. (nobody was seriously injured)

  And I feel I must stress here that we do not, in fact, acquire or ask or pay anyone else to acquire what our family apparently uses as a unit of measure when we buy a new car. (I still wonder how many families there are that have thought processes similar to ours)

    I now patiently await the arrival of my husband who is driving home in the same kind of heavy wet snow showers. Him I trust with everything... unless there is a zombie invasion. Then I will have to call them as I see them. (That tale has already been told)

QOTD: "Life is about choices. Give up or get up." ~ One Girl Say @JaneSandero on Twitter

The Short Story in Which I Almost Dip My Toe Into the Waters of Impoliteness

We've all had frustrating days.  Days when the procurement of medicinal chocolate has been unsuccessful. (Women will get this and if a man has any brain cells that fire and know at least a little about the necessary care and feeding of said women, will also understand these kinds of days.)  

Now I have had a LOT of time since I last blogged with any regularity to save up all sorts of tidbits and usually I try to stay away from anything truly negative, but when you've had a trying day... sometimes it just won't be contained. (Kinda like oatmeal, but that's a tale for another day) So here is the Lemon Stand couple on just such a day when none of the planets aligned and the stress of being apart for more than a few months hits us at a weak moment. (Lest anyone should ever get the feeling that our family is always about shining rainbows).

Husband: It's been a day.

Me: Are you okay?

Husband: Yeah. Occasionally jumping down someone's throat is therapeutic. It's refreshing to be an A*#^$@.  And your day?

Me: I haven't had the opportunity to be an A*#^$@ lately.  Some people have all the luck. :(

QOTD: "The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum." Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) The Dance Of Life

Life and Lemons in General

Life has a way of prioritizing what's important in life and for quite a while now I have been writing my stories in notebooks to save for a rainy day.  More and more, according to friends and family, I needed to start sharing my kind of lemonade recipes again.  Apparently they miss our bizarre family antics and a few of my recipes.
   Now that my husband's latest deployment is over, I am dusting off my notebooks and scattered notes.  I can't post every day and it will take me a while to catch up with all my favorite blogs, but I will have plenty of time during physical therapy. (There was a reason I was not called Grace)  But that is a story for another post.
   It is not New Years yet but I was never patient enough to wait for anything and that hasn't changed, but the rest of my life has. So I am not wasting another minute of a chance to start my next adventure. (Or in some cases misadventure... No one lets me forget the infamous air conditioner flight that happened this time of year. In fact, after that I was not allowed to even touch an air conditioner again. Spoil sports. It's not like lightening will strike twice, right?)
   So here's to a new year started a little early. Lots of mayhem, humor and a few more solemn posts to start spilling forth. Happy New Year!

QOTD: "When life gives you lemons, occasionally one can break out the Tequilla recipe, otherwise a potato canon is quite easily adapted to a lemon launcher." ~ Lemon Stand