Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

I have discovered that almost 3 year olds have an immense "scope of imagination" as Anne Shirley would have put it. Add to it the tendency to get so many look-alike things confused and you have fun stuff. For instance...these are "nests." They aren't really clear in the picture, but they are the whites of a boiled egg that I quartered for her lunch. She eats the yolk, but leaves the "nests." The following item is a "vacuum" which she seems to think is used to clean the shower. I caught her "vacuuming" the walls with it. (Please note; I do NOT let my child play with razors, she had it before I could think.) And this final montage is where imitative imagination comes into play. Here she has set up a scene from one of her favorite kids' stories. Can you guess...a mop, a throw rug, a one-armed teddy bear and a pair of shoes. It's Cinderella, of course. Silly that you couldn't think of it. The mop is Cinderella herse...

At the moment the snow is coming down in flurries, covering the porch and giving the mud a good whitewash. *sigh* Glad I went shopping when I did, yesterday. During the last snowfall I took Ellen out walking several times. As I was out doing chores I was arrested by our sets of snow prints all over the place. Her little tracks right beside mine. On this particular set the snow was pretty deep, for her anyway, and she insisted on holding my hand as we walked through it. It kind of gave me a pang to see these prints; a portrait of a little one holding on to her mama's hand to help her through the deep parts of life. Sometimes I get frustrated because she can be so clingy, so needy. But I looked at the snow prints and was struck by the thought that soon she won't need to hold my hand, soon her prints will match mine. Soon she won't want me to come outside with her, she'll want to make her own prints all by herself. It goes by all too fast, I know. Heaven help me, my oldest...

How does a week manage to get by me without a blog posted? I dunno. It's not like I don't have anything to blog about. I guess I must be wasting too much time on Facebook. Last week one of my best friends from high school found me on FB and we have been writing back and forth. We lost touch a year or so after we graduated and I was so happy to hear from her I nearly cried. It's kind of weird how we crossed paths. She spent 10 yrs w/ her hubby and kid in Las Vegas, and I spent 12 yrs in Portland OR. Now here I am out in MO and now she is in Vancouver WA working in Portland OR, in the justice system, same as I did. Kind of freaky. Anyway. On to cooking. One day last week I made this Thai Peanut stir fry recipe. I make it quite frequently, it's easy and good. But I used Italian meatballs in it instead of chicken. Then on Fri I wanted something quick to eat for lunch after I came home from shopping. So I heated up some of the leftovers of the stir-fry, wrapped...

The snow has melted and now we are knee deep in mud in some places. Literally. At the corral up the road where the dry cows reside I have to do some tricky stepping to keep from losing my boots. On one side of the feed bunks the mud and water came up to about an inch below the top of my boots. This doesn't bother me too much in and of itself, it's when the cow critters come charging in to get their feed that it gets kind of dicey. It's hard to move fast when you are knee-deep in mud. I have started closing the gate to keep them out until AFTER I have put out the feed. I told hubby that I need to take a pic of the mud and post IT instead of the snow pic as my main photo, but he says everyone knows what mud is like. What else has been going on in the past week? We got a little heifer calf yesterday. Hubby went and got it today. At church the teens and I are planning a Youth Night for them, on a Fri night in mid-February. They are so excited. We are going to have t...

Some of my fondest childhood memories involve baking/cooking in the kitchen with different family members. I guess it is the fun of taking raw ingredients, tossing them together, and creating something fun to enjoy together. (We'll skip the cleaning up memories for now.) I determined not to be the kind of parent who would tell her child not to come into the kitchen lest she make a mess or ruin something or for whatever reason parents refuse to play in the kitchen with their kids. Therefore Ellen and I whip up some fun things together. And look how much fun she has doing it! Here in the above pic we are "folding" bread dough. Her folding involves grabbing chunks and ripping them out of the dough. But at least she's enjoying it. And what pleasure would I be denying myself if I refused to let her experiment in the kitchen. Children can learn so much by measuring, mixing, pouring, stirring...whatever. And it is fun to see her wonder develop as she watches flour t...

If you don't have Facebook, here's the latest pic I posted of Ellen over there. I try not to double post, but sometimes I do. Making this snowman made a couple of lightbulbs go off in my brain. For I dunno how many years I have watched the classic show; "Frosty the Snowman" and never questioned it. But now I realize: what a load of hooey. A group of kids could not make that size of a snowman in such a short time. A chunk of ice that big weighs I dunno how much. I have to puff and strain to lift a 50 lb salt block. That middle ball there in the snowman seemed to outweigh a saltblock by about 300 lbs. Well, maybe I exaggerate, but it was HEAVY!! At any rate, the snowman kit was obviously NOT made for snowmen this size; the scarf barely goes around his neck. Also, the stupid pipe needed to have a cross piece put in it to keep it from turning upside down. Keep that in mind if you decide you make your own snowman kit. It looks dorky like this, but Ellen doesn...

I received the following email in my junk folder yesterday. I am going to try to co-operate and fulfill my obligations so I can get my inheritance. When I do get it I will be happy to share with you. Just email me your SSN#, bank account number and any other incriminating evidence that might help you to get into trouble too. Secondly, if you are one of those "non-officials" I am dealing with...woe be unto you if you hinder my inheritance. Thanks. From Zenith Bank ATM Section RE:YOUR PAYMENT NOTIFICATION From:Mr Victor Oleka Remittance Manager Zenith Bank Of Nigeria. Dear Beneficiary, This is to officially inform you that we have verified your contract inheritance file presently on my desk, and I found out that you have not received your payment due to your lack of co-operation and not fulfilling the obligations giving to you in respect to your contract inheritance payment. Secondly, you are hereby advice to stop dealing with some non-officials in the bank as this is ...

December 31, 2009 was a blue moon; you know, the second full moon in one month. I don't keep very good track of these things, but this time I noticed. It took me a few days past it to decide what to do that I only do once in a blue moon, but I finally did it. Yesterday, using a recipe I got off the C's blog; Random Thoughts and Musings from the Island, I made cupcakes. I don't think I have made cupcakes since I was in high school, and even then I don't remember. But this recipe was worth trying, and is so good I think I might make them before the next blue moon rolls around. They are pretty simple; use a regular chocolate cake mix recipe, fill cups halfway full, then put a dollop of this cream cheese/chocolate chip mixture on top. Yum. Very, very bad if you are determined to lose weight in the new year. There are about 21 of them left in the fridge, each calling my name in their little cupcake voices. They are making quite the chorus along with the ice cream in ...

That's a local saying when it's snowing hard. Snowing like cats a'fightin'. You can look out and see the fur flying. Ellen had never been outside while it was actually snowing. She was enchanted. She had to have a bucket of it to carry around. It was in the mid-20s but we took a bit of a walk before coming back in for a nap. The snow is still too dry to be able to make a snowman, it is really powdery. So far we have somewhere between 3 and 4 inches, I would suspect.

Per Ellen's pronunciation this is what we had for supper tonight. Actually I wanted to tell the tale about this particular dish. It's just something to blog about. Ellen wasn't supposed to be in this pic, but she inserted herself pretty handily into it, and since she is so cute I went ahead and took it. (Although it took about 3 shots to get a good one, she covers her mouth or her eyes when in front of a camera lately.) A couple weeks ago I found a recipe for something called "French Dip Lasagna" which sounded really good; you use a carton of French Dip as a couple of the layers in it. I mentally made notes of the ingredients and got them, but then Christmas happened and I had to clean up the kitchen counter. Which meant I misplaced the magazine with the recipe. *sigh* But I figured I'd just grab a different lasagna recipe and sort of follow it. Well, that was a good idea until I began assembling the ingredients. I had the meat sauce prepared and was working o...