Category — Random

You have only 8 hours left at a chance to win this great prize!

Eighteen of you are already in the running.

Amy G.
Amy K.
Amy S.
Betsy
Bonnie
Deirdre
Gwen
Jamie
Jeff
Maggie
Marissa
Maureen
Ruth
Sharon
Sheila
Sydney
Tram
Vicki

Ladies and gentlemen, your names are already printed out and put in the stockpot, ready for the chance to be drawn out, later this evening, by an unsuspecting cashier at Trader Joe’s.

In other news, I hosted our Neighborhood Bunco last night. This was the first time in the fifteen years that we’ve lived here that I hosted.

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Peggy and I are back from California. Summer travel is pretty much finished for me.

After living in hotel rooms for three of the last four weeks, I would like to share with you my top three hotel room must-haves:

1. Free WiFi. In the room. Not someplace “in the lobby.”

2. A well-lit bathroom, preferably furnished with a lighted magnifying make-up mirror.

3. A minimum of two pillows per person, preferably with an extra one or two.

Obviously, I’m not counting clean and comfortable rooms and courteous and helpful staff as must-haves, those are “you better have that, or I’m not staying here.”

As for my travel tip, it involves your bottles of liquids. I’m sure we all put our liquids in zip-lock bags to prevent them from leaking on our clothes, luggage, and other valuables. Mine still often oozed a bit and leaked in the zip-lock bag.

No more!

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There is one thing I look forward to each summer more than anything else.

Rainier Cherries!!

“The Rainier cherry was developed in 1952 at Washington State University by Harold Fogle, and named after Mount Rainier.

Rainiers are sweet cherries with a thin skin and thick creamy-yellow flesh. The cherries are very sensitive to temperature, wind, and rain. About 1/3 of a Rainier cherry orchard’s crop is eaten by birds.”

Lucky devils!

“Rainiers are considered a premium type of cherry, and sell for $5 per pound or more in the States and as much as a dollar each in Japan!

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Some of my favorite people in the world came by for a visit today!

I love this Father’s Day photo of Stephen, Tram, Zak, and Zoey!

Tram and her parents, Papa and Mama Mai, were out running errands and stopped by with the adorable Zoey…

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I shall share with you my June Sweet Salvage finds, from what I think is the most charming all the way to my favorite!

A 1953 high school dance card. Look at the adorable little pencil that is still attached!

It reads, “North Phoenix High School, Girls’ League Blue, And Silver Ball, Saturday, November 14, 1953”

There is no indication of the name of the young lady who was holding this card, but it is obvious that Ronnie Spaulding was her beau. They danced together 8 of the 11 dances she danced. She was “too tired” to dance the sixth dance, titled the “Prize Waltz” so she sat that one out. And it looks as though she and Ronnie may have ducked out before the “extra” dances at the bottom of the card. Poor Jack Brown, Bill Carroll, and Barry Baker never had a chance!

A nifty faux bois (from the French for false wood) souvenir mug from Yellowstone Park.

Sweet embroidered tea towels.

I absolutely adore the applique “French maid cookbook” towel too!

Unique dinner and salad plates.  And now for my favorite and most unusual find…

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One last post, a pictorial actually, about Kansas and our trip last weekend for my dad’s Otter Family Reunion.

Then tomorrow, I’ll give you info on a recipe to NOT make. I bet you can hardly wait…

Check out the price to ride this awesome vintage kiddie ride mechanical and coin-operated horse. One Cent! Just like it advertises on the base of the ride. One penny. Love It!

Grain silos every which way you look.

Old family photos, a family reunion classic.

Huge bails of hay… my sister is nearly six feet tall, these were big. I have a video of her climbing up on there too, but we’ll keep that in the family.

“Amber waves of grain.” America the Beautiful!

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I realize that tornado warnings are nothing new for many people, but for two girls from Arizona… it made for a very long and eventful night.

As I began to tell you yesterday, late Saturday night, after the family reunion, we received an alert on our cell phones at about 9:30.

Sloane and I were in our hotel room, watching a movie when the alert came through. Neither of us had been anywhere close to a tornado before and we weren’t sure what we were supposed to do or where we were supposed to go to “Take shelter now.”

I called down to the front desk to ask the manager, who we had already become friendly with. He was somewhat amused, especially since he hadn’t heard of any warnings yet. He then advised that if we needed to really find shelter we would hear the sirens. We shouldn’t worry if there was only one siren, that meant there was a fire. Two sirens meant there was a fire in town, but if we heard eight sirens, then that was for a tornado.

Um…OK, eight sirens, and then what? Where do we go if we hear eight sirens?

If there are eight sirens, we are to come down to the lobby and the safest place is by the soda machine. The soda machine?!?

I said, “You’re lying! The soda machine? That can’t be the safest place, the damn thing might fall on you!”

He laughed and said, just come down to the lobby if you hear the sirens.

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When I first wrote about our trip to a family reunion in Kansas, I said, “It is being held in New Almelo, Kansas – population 622.”

I guess that was the population of the town and the surrounding area “back in the day” when there was a church, cemetery, post office, grocery store, gas station, and such. I had found that population number on the web.

Now there is only the church, the cemetery, and about a dozen homes and a population of…

… wait for it…

… a grand total of…

… about 22!

That’s right, between 22 and “maybe 25” permanent residents and approximately 10 more “weekend residents” from Denver, CO.

The reunion was held in the church hall.

Given that my Dad was one of the attendees, we were among the first to arrive at the nearly empty hall at about 9:30 AM on Saturday morning.

By 11:30 or so, the place was hopping! And the food…

There was enough food to feed a small army.

Smoked meats of every type and flavor.

More salads and sides than I could count.

And the desserts, don’t get me started on the tables upon tables of desserts! The food was all delicious and the company was delightful.

Although some of the most exciting moments of the trip occurred AFTER the reunion. Remember, we were in Kansas after all.

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I awoke at 3:30 yesterday. Picked up Sloane at 4:15, then picked up Dad at 4:30. Arrived at airport by 5:00 and took off for Las Vegas at 6:00. Did I mention this was AM, not PM!

We arrived in Wichita at 12:25 in the afternoon and rented a car, then drove for four hours until we reached Norton, KS. We checked into our hotel, then jumped back in the car and drove another 30 minutes to New Almelo.

Not exactly the most exciting day of my life. The best part – is we get to do the reverse tomorrow!

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I received an email yesterday from a woman who lives in Alpharetta, GA.

Caroline was thanking me for my “Glossary of Cooking Terms” which can be found under The Basic Kitchen tab, over there on the left side of the page.

She waxed poetic about how educational and informative she found it and that she loved my daily posts as well and how her morning hasn’t truly begun until she has seen my most recent post. It was very sweet and it is the sort of thing that motivates me to keep doing what I do. The fun part is how she came to find my site. It was sent to her by the management office of her apartment complex.

I’ve noticed, for the last 4 months or so, that several different apartment management companies have been linking to my “Glossary” page in their communications to residents. The links have been posted on resident community online newsletters in more than a dozen states, including AL, AR, CA, CO, FL, GA, KY, KS, MD, MO, NC, OK, PA, SC, NC, TN, TX and VA.

The best part of getting the links is reading how the various newsletters from around the country entice their residents to check out my glossary:

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