Wednesday, July 30, 2008




Whenever we watch movies now Elena likes to make a pillow pouch.
:)
It looks so cuddly to me.

Figs





We have fig trees in the yard.
I decided to cook them, however I can.
Fig preserves have never been my thing.
So, we made fig newtons. :)
I eat them off the tree, but my kids don't like them that way.
They both enjoyed eating the dough.
I enjoyed cutting them up, they are pretty.
Then we took some of the newtons to my daddy, who loves anything called dessert, and to Andy's grandmother, who planted the fig trees in the first place.
It was all very fun.
I can't decide if I like individual pictures posted or slideshows, so I am going to mix it up.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Things I saw at W*l`M$rT

Okay, so I had to go to the ole W*lM$rT today.
I had to have Kalmata Olives, and believe it or not, this was the only store that had them.
This is one of the super-monster versions that everyone in about a three county area uses....it is truly harrowing/daunting/sh**box...whatever bad word one might want to use to describe anything, could be used to describe this monstrosity of a store.
Here is what I saw--in the parking lot
**A young guy with his pants down so low that his ENTIRE a** was sticking out. Since his cheeks were completely uncovered by the jeans, he had to wear basketball shorts to serve the purpose that usually a single pair of pants could serve. So, I thought maybe the jeans are just another accesory, not even meant to be the pants???
He had on a belt too.
I also thought to myself--i remember baggy jeans being somewhat fashionable/very fashionable to some, BUT wasn't that a long a** time ago? Isn't it time for that to go out of style???
He just looked like an idiot.
**An entire fleet of tan suburbans. This can be seen anywhere in this town. It seems like over the past maybe five years or so (i am not up on the body styles of suburbans, as I have never liked them) everyone has to have one of those, and the absolute coolest color is TAN!!!! huh? WTF???
In the store:
**just going into this particular store--or any dept store really--makes me almost break out in hives. I hate them.--so I saw stars.
**Too much damn stuff!!
what I smelled:
lots of rubbery plasticy smell that made me feel sick--NO I am NOT Pregnant :)

Poor W*lM@rt--poor people who use it as their entertainment--going there to buy a bunch of useless sh** and spending their entire paychecks...yuck!



Can people really concentrate in that place?
DISCLAIMER: THIS POST IS NOT MEANT TO BE POLITICAL/UPPITY/ELITIST IF YOU HAPPEN TO LOVE THAT STORE ( I AM SICK OF TYPING WITH SYMBOLS), GREAT!! GO THERE. BUT, IT REALLY JUST --YUCK--DOES NOT AGREE WITH ME AND MY NERVES IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.
Andy knows this and at one point in college he refused to ever go to the one in Durham/Chapel Hill with me ever again b/c I get crazy and want to ram sh** with the cart.
Now I laugh.

:)

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Missy update

Well, Missy has left us.
The other day I was packing the car.
We were all playing outside.
We left Missy out to play under the apple tree.
(I thought she might like to eat one??? dig in the dirt??)
Well, when we remembered, about 30 minutes later, we all went out to look for her
and she was GONE.
Yikes...
But whatever.
The skull and crossbones was better camoflage than the pink shell with silver stars, so Missy was well-hidden.
:(

Elena did not even seem to care. I thought she was going to be devastated!

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Celebrations



This weekend Elena and I went back to Burlington--we just moved from there--to go to the baptism of Ramses. Ramses was born on the same day as Victor, and his mother and I are friends from work, Roxanna. And his grandmother, Abue, Kept my children since they were born.
It was soooo much fun.
Friday night we stayed with Shannon and Joel, and Carter. We ate supper with them, and got to see the house they are building. Beautiful. We got to swim in their pool too, which was a treat. :)
This morning we got up, got ready, and went to the C*tholic church for the Baptism. It was really fun/interesting (I am not C*tholic) so there were some things involved that we M*thod@sts dont do. For example, each family had a little shell for their child which was used to dip up the holy water. And we all got splashed with some holy water, which, I guess is pretty, lucky/holy etc. In our church the whole church does not get to get splashed/sprinkled etc.--just the person getting baptized. The priest and Elena and I were the only gwera gente in the church. Also interesting. :)
Elena and i left too early for the party --we had to get home, but we definitely got to check out what were going to miss, lots of food, pretty decorations, and time with friends. Elena loved playing with her buddies. Angela gave us some food--which we ate tonight for supper.--it was yummy meat--just like barbecue to me :)
Morgan, Roxanna made these suckers. They are out of chocolate, she bought molds in Mexico. I was impressed, vamos. Of course I could not even make a bow today at the party, so sh**.
:)
We miss our friends, but it was definitely nice to get away from so many cars on the hwy on the way home.
Another celebration I noticed today:
Out by the hwy near my house. Someone died. The hearse was parked out front, with RIP CL painted on it. There were black balloons on the mailbox. There was a pig cooker in the yard, and a huge party was going on. Did this person die? What a great celebration to have for them. Oh....wait, sometimes don't people do stuff like that when they turn 40? the black balloon thing....hmmm????
(people always say they dont want people to be too sad and mope about them dying, they would rather have a party, it appeared to me that these folks were really following the instructions! )

Okay enough rambling...lets see if the slideshow works.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Day off...


Andy has taken the children to his mama's house to swim.
So I am playing.
In a minute I am going to pick apples and plant two vines.
BUT in a moment of peace, I decided to make another p*kN*k
project.
It is fun. :)

Favorite spots & mas




Here are pictures of two of my favorite spots in Washington, right now anyway. Since we have moved home I have seen some new spots, re-liked old spots.
This sign is painted on the side of a building here. It is an advertisement. I have been told that Wine of Card*i was sort of like a PMS tonic, a cure-all for women.
Of course the picture is at the top, b/c that is where they always end up. :)
The other spot is someone's residence. This person has the cutest little terrace and I love it. I want to go up there and sit and have some wine. :)

****Missy Update****
Missy escaped her cage one night and fell off the kitchen counter. Poor thing.
Well, her shell cracked. Then on Sunday when I was napping I heard her get dropped, (she was about to pinch someone I guess). This was the end of the pink shell. She was completely exposed --her little vulnerable body--yikes!. So, on Monday, she decided to take up residence in her bad a** skull and cross bones shell. Which really suits her well.
Andy watched her change shells. First she checked out the new shell, and then she spent about 10 minutes moving.
Elena was soooo excited. She said, "Now Missy is a wobster, mama!"

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Here's an even better one



This is an even better example of sevillana music.

I love this woman's voice.
The rhythm of their clap, is sevillana

The accent when they speak, is from sevilla.

:)!!!
Hola Isabel, y David y Maria! :)
Besos.

Here's how to make tinto del verano...summer wine.

Get some red wine.
Add any clear refreshing soda, in seville it would be Fanta Limon.
Add ice.
Or in the US add seven up, or tonic water, and lemon juice and ice.

This is probably where the idea for wine coolers came from, but they make me sick, as they are malt liquour.

Have fun!! :)

una mas...



Okay.
Andy and I have been having some beers.
Buzzzz... alert.
:)
I love this song.
You might not understand the words.
Well. Unless you understand Spanish you dont.
BUT. I love this group it is called Siempre Asi.
I love this song, and another one they do/perform.

I will post that one too.
Please listen.
This is beautiful music, to me. I do realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

hold on...the other one....



I love music in Spanish. It makes me practice. It makes me think.(Although I do admit that the stuff that sounds like German Carnival music..no me toca tanto--i do not like that stuff so much.)

Enjoy... :)

Sunday




Sooooo....
Here is a re-cap of the weekend.
On Friday we went to Music in the Streets.
This was really fun.
We took our children, went out to eat--see pic of Elena.
We walked around on Main St. and listened to music. I was just about to comment to Andy that even though we grew up here, I still feel comfortably anonomous, and then we went out into the street, and that all changed. :)
We saw several of the ladies who taught Andy in school, and we saw lots of our friends from growing up who have also chosen to move home.
It was fun. Just before Victor threw a Victor fit about my having licked his ice cream cone so that it would not drip, we left. Victor will stay with Grandma the next time we go to Music in the Streets. :)
Our tomatoes have decided that they are happy. We are happy about their happiness, and hopefully soon we will be eating yummy purple tomatoes. (Thank you Mr. M**han.)
Andy took that picture at night, can you see the baby tomato?
Yay!
Today, we went to church. Ahhh...I do not want to get into religion here. But, we were surprised to arrive at and find a POLITICAL DISCUSSION!!!
I do not agree with politics and church. Of course I got my say. But we did not even get out of Sunday school without seeing someone shake a Bible around and to wierd antics in response to my having said, "Well, I am going to teach my children tolerance."
Yikes.
Yes. I will go back. With several tid bits of text high lighted in the Bible about Jesus talking about love, and peace, and turning the other cheek.
This is hard.
When I grew up in the Church I was always taught that we did not discuss politics in our church. Well, apparently this has changed.
It was disheartening. I do intend to talk to my aunts, cousins, and my former work friend whose husband is a b*shop. I just have questions. Morgan, you grew up in the same church....is ya'll's church like this?
Now, the sermon was not. It was a classic. I love the other parts of church. The ritual. The apostles creed. Hymns. ---not people teaching hate and intolerance.

Sorry to get all serious!! :)

later....

Thursday, July 17, 2008

bullets



*Elena finished swim lessons today.
She was so excited to show off for us--the parents got to stay today.

*That is Victor's sweet little footprint. Tip: If you leave sidewalk chalk out in the rain, it is way more fun to draw with.

*Andy hooked up the antenna outside. The tv is now clear. So, tonight I was watching one of those gossip shows. I have been wondering forever--why in the hell are the *sm*nds on those shows all the time? Who are they? When were the ever popular? I never care about anything about them--what they are doing, their children, their shows...why are they on there all the time????

*I also watched Ugly B*^^y. That show is soooo campy, but I love it. shhhh....

*That footprint picture might show up again as a fancy picnik thing.

*You can tell by Elena's picture that she is not the daredevil child. :) She learned a lot, but she still needs a hand when jumping into the pool.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

No cell phone/ No cable

So, Andy and I are trying to trim the budget/not have stuff we don't need.

We are not getting cell phones here b/c we don't think we need them.
We are not going to have cable.
So far.

Now, we both love TV. We have an antenna, so we can watch some stuff--it is fuzzy, but I don't care about fuzz, as long as the fuzz is not jumping around.
I love cell phones--I just think they are cute to be honest.

BUT, that is at least 120.00 a month we can save.

Every other day or so one of us will say, "hmmm...I am thinking we should just get cable.."
or, "you know we might need a cell phone just for emergencies."

I am not anti-cable by any means. I LOVE TV.
(One of my current pet peaves, by the way, is when people say they do not watch cable, or let their children watch cable, but they let them only watch movies. WTH? This idea just seems so silly to me. A tv trance is a tv trance. So a D*$n#y movie is fine, but not Max and Ruby??? or Clifford???)
We tried to get dish b/c we already had the dvr with all of Elena's max and ruby shows on it. BUT they could not find a signal.
Now Andy has been spending a lot of time watching H*l* on the internet to get his Colbert/Jon Stewart fix, oh and family guy.

We will see how this goes....

Monday, July 14, 2008

Visitors



This weekend our friends Shannon and Joel came to see us, and their little girl Carter. We had a really good time! :)
We cooked yummy food:

Stuffed Egg Plant
Crusted Zucchini
Soft Shell Crabs
Grilled fish, and shrimp
y a little sevillana salad that I make
with cucumbers and tomato and bell pepper

We drank tinto del verano and lots of beer.
We played in the river and fished.
Elena caught and reeled in her first fish (I did not have the camera
with me) with her B*rbIe fishing rod.
She also spent lots of time jumping off the pier :) yay!

Now, Andy and I just have to figure out-- boat or no boat?
Every time we have company, we want one.
BUT do we want to pay for one?...not really. We like free stuff,
or really cheap stuff.

The picture I posted is of a soft shell crab.
You fry and eat the whole crab. When you get them in fancy restaurants
they don't clean out the yellow gunk-some people love it.
But my mama has always totally cleaned the gunk out by tearing off the soft shell--which is what I do.
It is yummy!!!! :)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

bunk beds

Elena got a bunk bed.
It squeeks terribly.
We are having company tomorrow night.
Hers is the guest room.

What to do!!???
We took the mattress off.
We let the children, Elena, Victor, and Lily, (my niece)
jump on each piece individually so that we might
discover which piece is making the incessant squeeking.

While they jumped we played this song from a great CD
by the Ethiopians, which is currently lost to us.
It was one of our favorites. :(
Let me see if I can put the link up here....
hmmm..



I did it!!
We love this whole CD.
well, we loved it.
Seeing Victor dance to this/jump off the bed/smile while he dances...mmmm there is nothing like it in the world!!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Yay Elena!

Elena took her first swimming lesson today. We will go seven more times. I was really not sure if she was going to go in without me...
She was really nervous.
I have been telling her about it some all along just so she would not get freaked out by us pulling up to a pool and having me say, "alright mama's going to leave now" That would be terrible. But then you don't want to talk a subject to death, and worry the H*** out of someone over nothing, for example,a shot at the dr. When we got there she seemed apprehensive, but she stayed!!!
At the pool where we go to swimming lessons the parents are not allowed to stay, but we can watch through holes in the top of the concrete wall!!!
I never thought I would ever in my life stare through a hole in a concrete wall that hard. I felt like I was in a place in France.
But no. I was watching my little sweet thing in there just swimming and swimming.
Then, evidence of Elena's never having been in any kind of formal instruction appeared, when the time to slide down the water slide came, she was completely oblivious to the line. She just went right over to the ladder to climb up, and one of the instructors gently informed her of the line.
I was so proud, and so was she. We went directly to the mini mart to get her a juice and a sucker.
She told me the moves they taught her today.
the sandwich (something to do with the hands)
and the TURKEY VULTURE!! I saw this one through the fence. That name is a hoot to me.
The rest of the slide show shows pictures of us making pizza.
Once again inspired by animal vegetable miracle.
Elena goes out and gets the basil and the chives for me.
Victor loves to put on the cheese and poke the pizza.


:)
Okay enough for the mommy stuff today.
Let's see if the slide show will work.....

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Garden



Let me see if this works, then I will write about it. I just wrote about it, and then the slideshow did not work correctly.
A ver...

Okay,
Now. These are pictures of our tomato plants, our apple tree, and the bird bath with the Lantana that I planted.
Grandma Eva planted the apple tree and the fig trees.
We planted chives and basil and peppers and tomatoes. The tomatoes are supposed to be Cherokee purple tomatoes. BUT, they are not so happy here. The flowers keep falling off the plants. :( The plants look happy enough, but they do not want to give us tomatoes. WE are checking into this. Andy is tired of me obsessing about it. hee hee. If you are ever at a farmer's market and they have these kind of tomatoes buy them, and buy a lot. They are great!
A good book to read, Animal Vegetable Miracle. I read this book and it made me want to have a big ole garden, like the one we had when I was little.
Next year I think we will be able to. This year we were moving and stuff.
Yummy!

Missy




When we were at the beach a couple weeks ago Elena got a hermit crab.


I have been noticing over the past few years that hermit crabs have become really decorated and ornate--the ones they sell for pets anyway. When I was little they were in natural shells. Now, they are in shells with Super Hero symbols or glitter stars. They are painted with spots in non-neutral shades for sure. It is a bit disturbing. I remember picking out the hermit crab I had. It was in a tiny conch shell. I picked the smallest one in the cage, and the conch shell was my favorite.


Here is the one Elena picked--Well it's at the top up there. :)

She wanted a pink one--and pink is what she got.

It would have been nice to say, "Elena, shells don't come in that color with glitter stars on them." But no. B/c someone decided that Hermit Crab shells should be painted.


When Missy changes shells she will have the skull and crossbones shell. That is the only big shell they had in the bin. Which means she will go from being an ultra-feminine crab, to a boyish Pirate flag crab. HA!!!


Saturday, July 5, 2008

July 4th
















We had a great July 3rd & 4th. Our friends Chet and Jennifer came to see us.





Elena rode in their convertible.





We saw fireworks downtown.





We ate at my in-law's house.





We had homemade icecream at my Mama and Daddy's.





Here are some pictures.





Still not in the slideshow.
I have no idea how all these spaces got in here????
We also walked downtown, b/c Chet and Jennifer have never been here before. We got paletas de mamey at the panaderia that is right downtown in a cute building. We looked for shark teeth in the piles of gravel at the Estuarium on the waterfront. Of course, the paletas and sharks' teeth were my favorites for my children, and the adults too, I guess.
Now, I am going to take some okra I got at the farmer's market over to my mama's and see if she will fry it for me. Yummy.





Thursday, July 3, 2008

Our house

Here is our house in Washington. I was trying to make a slide show, so there would be pics of the inside etc. We are having fun living here so far.
Andy is working from his office on the back porch--sort of a sun porch. They used to call it a "back den" or something.
Our house is old, so it has no outlets in the bathroom. :) cute. It was built in the 50's. We love it! Old houses are the ones that endear themselves to me, so it is lucky to be able to live in one, especially one that also has sentimental value.
Once I figure out a slideshow--I will put one up here.

Pic*s*

I am not too sure about Picasa.
I was about to run this on the computer,
and I read what it does.
It says that Picasa instantly recognizes all your fotos
and does managing stuff with them?????
Ughhh...What if I don't want it to?
Can you just use it to pick certain fotos
to make little slide shows?
I dont' like for a program to "instantly recognize"
or "instantly manage" or any of that.
It creeps me out. :)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008


Here is a post with a picture!

Here are Victor and Elena
eating supper at my Mama's house this afternoon


:)

pictures

Let's see if I can figure out how to put pictures on here.
Morgan, I am going to need your help.
:)

starting again

I am going to try to get into blogging again.
I enjoy looking at other peoples' blogs, so I am going to do one.
Let's see if I can stay interested in actually posting.
:)

Spot on!

Spot is our family's chihuahua.  He is what we call, "an evil dictator/stuffed animal come to life".  Sometimes, after he has ...