OK so here is a wonderful recipe for everyone's grill.
Ingredients:
1 salmon cut lengthwise and de-boned
mayonnaise
butter
lemon
onion powder
lemon pepper
horseradish
salt
foil wrap
Place salmon on foil. Be sure foil will be large enough to cover the salmon leaving a cap above the salmon to allow for the meat to cook.
Add one to two tablespoons of horseradish to about a pint of mayo.
Coat salmon with mayonnaise mixture. You will have about 1/2 inch thick mixture on the salmon. Sprinkle on onion powder, lemon pepper, salt and garlic powder (light with the garlic). Then cut butter into tablespoons and place about 1/2 Cup or one cube butter on the fish. Take one whole lemon and squeeze juice over entire fish. Fold foil around the fish sealing the sides so that the juices do not escape the foil baking pack.
Salmon can be baked in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until done. It will take at least 30 minutes for the fish to bake but depending on size of fish it could take longer. Cook salmon until it flakes when cut into. I put fish in a cake pan or broiler pan when I cook it in the oven so if there is a leak then it won't spill all over the oven.
You can also cook the salmon on the BBQ. I cook it just like the oven but uncover the salmon for the last 15 minutes so it gets good and smoked.
Serve this with a wonderful Spinach salad with blueberries in it and a blueberry vinaigrette.
Add garlic bread and watermelon and you have a terrific meal. Granted this meal is not low-fat but salmon is very good for you and the other things in the meal can be made low fat to compensate.
I hope you enjoy this recipe and please let me know if you try it or if you have any questions. Talk with ya soon, R
Monday, June 27, 2005
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Politics or mudwrestling?
Let me begin this blog by stating I am a die hard liberal with some conservative threads still attached. I believe in a woman's right to choose for several reasons... 1st If we were to make abortions illegal it would not end promiscuity. This was proven when we attempted to make alcohol illegal, when we attempted to make drugs illegal, when we attempted to make abortions illegal. The very thing we try to control through legal channels only makes the problem worse and the cost more expensive. 2nd, by making abortion illegal we hearken back to the days of back alley abortions. This is not a threat it is a reality. It has hit every country (and I do mean EVERY country that has made abortions illegal). Girls who get pregnant are not "bad" girls they are just pregnant. 3rd (and this one is the most important one to my way of thinking) reproductive medicine is one of the leading advancements in women's medicine. It is one of the reasons that women's healthcare is finally improving and becoming as good as a man's healthcare. If we take that particular practice away from medicine I fear that women's health issues will once again take back stage to men's health issues and women's healthcare will slide down into
stagnation and poor medical care. This is a very HUGE concern.
Finally, I think it is time for men to bow out of this issue. They have not ever nor will they ever have the joy of experiencing, labor, PMS, menstrual cramps, bleeding from the nether regions, delivery. The simple truth is they cannot know all of the responsibilities, pain and joy experienced in pregnancy and until they are able to experience them they should have NO say in how the woman who experiences them might feel. As for the pro life women, it is not that I don't understand how you feel.. I was raised Catholic and I truly do understand. I am opposed to abortion for my own person but I will not presume to make that judgment on another woman. What they go through is their own choice. I will state that (going back to the first reason quoted) making abortion illegal is not the way to end the practice. The truth is it is not used nearly as prevalently as we once did (especially when it was illegal) and if we created a practice like what we are doing with cigarettes then eventually we would be able to make abortions so repugnant that women would choose other options. The only way to do this is through plain speaking, encouraging the use of virtuousness, encouraging the use of adoption to those who do become pregnant and offering incentives to women who do find themselves to be pregnant and unable to see how to have a child and support it and themselves. We need to become more active in forcing men to support their children instead of determining whether women should have the right to abort them. It is time for women to step up to the plate and take these responsibilities on. Force our lawmakers to make things more amenable to the plight of women who are poverty ridden and cannot support another child. We as a community need to help these people. We as a nation need to.
So now I have said my say... I have much more to say and when I am tired enough and angry enough I usually do tend to say what I believe and frequently it gets me into a lot of trouble. Such is life.. Without dialogue and the sharing of ideas and compromise we don't get very far... We just stay ignorant and we never learn. Our current president needs to learn this. Our current government needs to learn this. We elected these bozos into office and they are not making decisions that benefit the average person. The decisions made are benefiting big business.. Are you better off from their administration? How? Are our schools? Is our health care? Is Your social security safer? What about our swimming holes are they safer? Cleaner? Do you find yourself feeling safer or are you out there with the rest of us and find yourself feeling more frightened and vulnerable? What has our current government done for us? Walmart is receiving a lot of flack right now. They pay so poorly, they hire clothing factories overseas that are paying their employees so poorly they cannot survive on their income and they live in squalor. Our government condones this.. They actually attribute to it by creating an environment that says big business is God. Big business can do anything it chooses as long as it is paying the government's bills but what I want to know is if big business is paying their way and doing it so well then why does the average Joe continue to have to pay taxes as well? The trickle down theory goes in reverse as well.... If I shop and do business at big businesses like Walmart, electrical companies, telecoms, and banks then I am paying my dues to them and they should in turn pay their dues to the government. Right? Not only are we working for them but we continue to provide a percentage of our wages back to them for their services. If they are providing the majority of the income to the government and our income to the government is so insignificant as to make us meaningless in governmental decisions then why do we continue to pay for that insignificance? Before you start yelling and getting angry at me for this silly rant... Let me state right here that I pay taxes every year, I vote at all elections, and I do stand up and say what I believe in where I can. I am a responsible citizen who is pissed off by our current government. I am not talking Democrats or Republicans because in truth one is just as bad as the other. Our president and his cabinet I particularly loathe and when someone says they support him my response is typically, are you wealthy? And when they respond no I typically ask them if they have children who are in the military? Usually the answer is no and then I have to ask them why? What has our current government done for you? What has he done for our country? There are no good answers for this one.. NONE.
Well, this post has gone on far to long. It is time for me to go to work. I will not talk politics next time, I promise. I will have a great salmon recipe for those of you who are getting ready to grill. Till later. R
stagnation and poor medical care. This is a very HUGE concern.
Finally, I think it is time for men to bow out of this issue. They have not ever nor will they ever have the joy of experiencing, labor, PMS, menstrual cramps, bleeding from the nether regions, delivery. The simple truth is they cannot know all of the responsibilities, pain and joy experienced in pregnancy and until they are able to experience them they should have NO say in how the woman who experiences them might feel. As for the pro life women, it is not that I don't understand how you feel.. I was raised Catholic and I truly do understand. I am opposed to abortion for my own person but I will not presume to make that judgment on another woman. What they go through is their own choice. I will state that (going back to the first reason quoted) making abortion illegal is not the way to end the practice. The truth is it is not used nearly as prevalently as we once did (especially when it was illegal) and if we created a practice like what we are doing with cigarettes then eventually we would be able to make abortions so repugnant that women would choose other options. The only way to do this is through plain speaking, encouraging the use of virtuousness, encouraging the use of adoption to those who do become pregnant and offering incentives to women who do find themselves to be pregnant and unable to see how to have a child and support it and themselves. We need to become more active in forcing men to support their children instead of determining whether women should have the right to abort them. It is time for women to step up to the plate and take these responsibilities on. Force our lawmakers to make things more amenable to the plight of women who are poverty ridden and cannot support another child. We as a community need to help these people. We as a nation need to.
So now I have said my say... I have much more to say and when I am tired enough and angry enough I usually do tend to say what I believe and frequently it gets me into a lot of trouble. Such is life.. Without dialogue and the sharing of ideas and compromise we don't get very far... We just stay ignorant and we never learn. Our current president needs to learn this. Our current government needs to learn this. We elected these bozos into office and they are not making decisions that benefit the average person. The decisions made are benefiting big business.. Are you better off from their administration? How? Are our schools? Is our health care? Is Your social security safer? What about our swimming holes are they safer? Cleaner? Do you find yourself feeling safer or are you out there with the rest of us and find yourself feeling more frightened and vulnerable? What has our current government done for us? Walmart is receiving a lot of flack right now. They pay so poorly, they hire clothing factories overseas that are paying their employees so poorly they cannot survive on their income and they live in squalor. Our government condones this.. They actually attribute to it by creating an environment that says big business is God. Big business can do anything it chooses as long as it is paying the government's bills but what I want to know is if big business is paying their way and doing it so well then why does the average Joe continue to have to pay taxes as well? The trickle down theory goes in reverse as well.... If I shop and do business at big businesses like Walmart, electrical companies, telecoms, and banks then I am paying my dues to them and they should in turn pay their dues to the government. Right? Not only are we working for them but we continue to provide a percentage of our wages back to them for their services. If they are providing the majority of the income to the government and our income to the government is so insignificant as to make us meaningless in governmental decisions then why do we continue to pay for that insignificance? Before you start yelling and getting angry at me for this silly rant... Let me state right here that I pay taxes every year, I vote at all elections, and I do stand up and say what I believe in where I can. I am a responsible citizen who is pissed off by our current government. I am not talking Democrats or Republicans because in truth one is just as bad as the other. Our president and his cabinet I particularly loathe and when someone says they support him my response is typically, are you wealthy? And when they respond no I typically ask them if they have children who are in the military? Usually the answer is no and then I have to ask them why? What has our current government done for you? What has he done for our country? There are no good answers for this one.. NONE.
Well, this post has gone on far to long. It is time for me to go to work. I will not talk politics next time, I promise. I will have a great salmon recipe for those of you who are getting ready to grill. Till later. R
Friday, June 24, 2005
A summertime story
Ok so it has been a couple of days since I posted and I figure it is time for a story. By the way I apologize for not posting in the last week but it has been an outrageous week as far as events going but I can't post on those events yet so here's the story.....
First the prestory....
Dan and I and our two boys lived in San Diego for a little over seven years. We lived in North Park for those of you who are familiar with San Diego and for those who have visited San Diego we lived about two miles from the new Naval hospital and Balboa Park.
Dan got out of the Navy and got a job in Ohio and we decided to try and sell our home in San Diego before joining Dan in Ohio. So the kids and I stayed in our home in San Diego. I never worried to much because we had a really good dog and our neighbor who was a border patrol man had a really big gun! Anyway, one day I was out working in our front yard and this man comes up the street, stops on the opposite side of the street, walks across the street up my driveway and heads toward my front door. When I asked him if I could help him he responds, "I bet you have a lot of stuff you want to sell if you are selling your house..." I said no I didn't and that if I did I would have a yard sale.. The man was adamant about my having things in my home that I wanted to sell and all the time he is heading for my front door. I finally got really pissed and I told him "NO I dont and get away from my house." He hit the front door about the same time my big dog hit the front door and the neighbor who heard all this went in his house and got his gun and met him too.. So the guy takes off running gets in his car and leaves. I called the cops told them what had happened and well there was nothing else to do. Anyway, the next day the neighbor brings over the paper and on the front page was an artist's rendition of this rapist that had been raping women apartment managers in LA. He was supposedly headed south to San Diego and the police were issuing warnings to be on the look out for him. It was the same guy that had tried to get into my house... Anyway, I am a small town girl. I grew up in a town of 210 people. I learned a lot in San Diego especially the value of a good dog..
Well, when we finally moved to Ohio it was in the winter and we had to wait for a few months until we got a house to rent. When we did the house was in Morrow County. The entire population of the county was 10000 and we were in the country just outside it's county seat. We lived in a very old house that was over 100 years old. We were in the house for about a week when these two men came up to the house in a plain white car. Both men got out of the car and came to the front door and Myrtle (our dog) greeted them at the screen with hackles raised, teeth bared and a tail that flared out to the size of a large cat. I being sensitized to San Diego life made sure the door was locked and talked to them through the locked screen door making sure they could see Myrtle the entire time. These guys came to our house to because supposedly they had gotten a report stating that we had a horse in our septic tank. Uh Huh... I knew these guys were after something and .. "I don't have a horse..." "ma'am we need to see your septic tank. We have a report you have a horse in your septic tank.." "Ok what do you really want?" "ma'am we are from the county health department and we are responding to a report that you have a horse in your septic tank..." "Uh Huh...You don't understand we don't have a horse.." "But ma'am we still need to see your septic tank to see if you have a horse in it..." "Uh huh.. Don't you think that if there were a horse in my septic tank that I would know about it?" "Yes ma'am but we still have to check.." By this time I figured I had either lost my mind or they had lost theirs.. So I told them to go find the septic tank.. They asked me where it was... "I don't know where it is.. I just moved in last week. Just listen for the horse. You should be able to find it."
so the two men slumped off to find the septic tank. Turns out all they had to do was follow their nose. It seems that the previous owners did have a horse and it did indeed fall into the septic tank several years prior to us moving in. When it did fall into the tank it died and the previous tenants drug the horse out behind the barn and buried it. The owner not wanting to replace the cement lid for the septic tank took pieces of marble from the bathroom floor he was replacing and laid them over the top of the septic tank. He was fined and had to redo the drain field and the two men from the county health department never came back to see me..... The ending of the story goes like this. The landlord called to find out about what happened with the county board of health and when I told him he got very quiet. He later got a letter and a huge fine but what really set him off was that someone had reported the incident at all. This was "rural" folks. The house we lived on was on a small portion of an entire 450 acre spread. It had been sold off that spread by the family that lived just up the street from us. Their son decided he wanted the house back along with the 32 acres and he reported the landlord to try and force the landlord to sell his house rather than have to pay the fine. When the landlord informed me of this I flippantly said "well just tell them that some crazy people from California were buying it and they are going to build a local Disney Land." I said this as a joke and never thought anything more of it until I was shopping at the local grocery store. This woman comes up to me and says "aren't you the lady from California?" I responded that Dan and I had just moved from California yes.. She looked at me and with a very straight and serious face said, "Well when is Disney Land going to be finished?" When you live in small town USA never open your mouth unless it is to say, Hi, Bye or How are ya doing?
First the prestory....
Dan and I and our two boys lived in San Diego for a little over seven years. We lived in North Park for those of you who are familiar with San Diego and for those who have visited San Diego we lived about two miles from the new Naval hospital and Balboa Park.
Dan got out of the Navy and got a job in Ohio and we decided to try and sell our home in San Diego before joining Dan in Ohio. So the kids and I stayed in our home in San Diego. I never worried to much because we had a really good dog and our neighbor who was a border patrol man had a really big gun! Anyway, one day I was out working in our front yard and this man comes up the street, stops on the opposite side of the street, walks across the street up my driveway and heads toward my front door. When I asked him if I could help him he responds, "I bet you have a lot of stuff you want to sell if you are selling your house..." I said no I didn't and that if I did I would have a yard sale.. The man was adamant about my having things in my home that I wanted to sell and all the time he is heading for my front door. I finally got really pissed and I told him "NO I dont and get away from my house." He hit the front door about the same time my big dog hit the front door and the neighbor who heard all this went in his house and got his gun and met him too.. So the guy takes off running gets in his car and leaves. I called the cops told them what had happened and well there was nothing else to do. Anyway, the next day the neighbor brings over the paper and on the front page was an artist's rendition of this rapist that had been raping women apartment managers in LA. He was supposedly headed south to San Diego and the police were issuing warnings to be on the look out for him. It was the same guy that had tried to get into my house... Anyway, I am a small town girl. I grew up in a town of 210 people. I learned a lot in San Diego especially the value of a good dog..
Well, when we finally moved to Ohio it was in the winter and we had to wait for a few months until we got a house to rent. When we did the house was in Morrow County. The entire population of the county was 10000 and we were in the country just outside it's county seat. We lived in a very old house that was over 100 years old. We were in the house for about a week when these two men came up to the house in a plain white car. Both men got out of the car and came to the front door and Myrtle (our dog) greeted them at the screen with hackles raised, teeth bared and a tail that flared out to the size of a large cat. I being sensitized to San Diego life made sure the door was locked and talked to them through the locked screen door making sure they could see Myrtle the entire time. These guys came to our house to because supposedly they had gotten a report stating that we had a horse in our septic tank. Uh Huh... I knew these guys were after something and .. "I don't have a horse..." "ma'am we need to see your septic tank. We have a report you have a horse in your septic tank.." "Ok what do you really want?" "ma'am we are from the county health department and we are responding to a report that you have a horse in your septic tank..." "Uh Huh...You don't understand we don't have a horse.." "But ma'am we still need to see your septic tank to see if you have a horse in it..." "Uh huh.. Don't you think that if there were a horse in my septic tank that I would know about it?" "Yes ma'am but we still have to check.." By this time I figured I had either lost my mind or they had lost theirs.. So I told them to go find the septic tank.. They asked me where it was... "I don't know where it is.. I just moved in last week. Just listen for the horse. You should be able to find it."
so the two men slumped off to find the septic tank. Turns out all they had to do was follow their nose. It seems that the previous owners did have a horse and it did indeed fall into the septic tank several years prior to us moving in. When it did fall into the tank it died and the previous tenants drug the horse out behind the barn and buried it. The owner not wanting to replace the cement lid for the septic tank took pieces of marble from the bathroom floor he was replacing and laid them over the top of the septic tank. He was fined and had to redo the drain field and the two men from the county health department never came back to see me..... The ending of the story goes like this. The landlord called to find out about what happened with the county board of health and when I told him he got very quiet. He later got a letter and a huge fine but what really set him off was that someone had reported the incident at all. This was "rural" folks. The house we lived on was on a small portion of an entire 450 acre spread. It had been sold off that spread by the family that lived just up the street from us. Their son decided he wanted the house back along with the 32 acres and he reported the landlord to try and force the landlord to sell his house rather than have to pay the fine. When the landlord informed me of this I flippantly said "well just tell them that some crazy people from California were buying it and they are going to build a local Disney Land." I said this as a joke and never thought anything more of it until I was shopping at the local grocery store. This woman comes up to me and says "aren't you the lady from California?" I responded that Dan and I had just moved from California yes.. She looked at me and with a very straight and serious face said, "Well when is Disney Land going to be finished?" When you live in small town USA never open your mouth unless it is to say, Hi, Bye or How are ya doing?
Monday, June 20, 2005
Website?
So for those of you that have tuned into my latest messages on e-mail and are curious enough to want to find out why my website looks totally different now... here goes...
About a week ago I decided to put two more pictures on my site...Just two mind you not 10 or twenty... Just two. I went to my site where my website is parked and went to the photo page where my pictures would be put and I plopped them on the page. Well, my website takes the photo page automatically and makes a thumbnail page from the photos and it decided that the pictures were just fine the way they were so it made the thumbnails of the two pictures the actual sized pictures. Needless to say this screwed up my entire thumbnail page... So I deleted the images thinking I could start all over from scratch and not screw up the thumbnail page. NOOOOOO the website decided that "Oh you want thumbnails of those two pictures so it incorporated the two thumbnails but then must have really liked the way the page looked with actual sized pics because it randomly chose every 4th or 5th image that was thumbnail sized on the page and made them full sized. Then it took the thumbnails and put them on the page that had the actual pictures on it. So I attempted to reverse this damage by undoing my action and it swapped the images back and took another random sample of picks and reversed them. After two days of fiddling with this beepity beep beep website I finally decided I would start from scratch.
Last night at 9:00 PM I decided to finally start on the new format. I worked on it until 5:00 AM this morning. But it does look wonderful and except for two small technical pieces of advice from my hubby I can honestly say it is done totally by myself!!! Not bad for a girl who does not speak computerese....
So I have had 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. It is my hope that the website looks good and is not just a figment of my imagination. At this point I am kinda scared of going to sleep and finding out that I dreamed I did this and my website is still the old one that is "fubar'd" (an old Navy term.. think language like a sailor). Well I am going to go get some dinner then it is early to bed for me. Take care everyone and I will talk with ya tomorrow. R
About a week ago I decided to put two more pictures on my site...Just two mind you not 10 or twenty... Just two. I went to my site where my website is parked and went to the photo page where my pictures would be put and I plopped them on the page. Well, my website takes the photo page automatically and makes a thumbnail page from the photos and it decided that the pictures were just fine the way they were so it made the thumbnails of the two pictures the actual sized pictures. Needless to say this screwed up my entire thumbnail page... So I deleted the images thinking I could start all over from scratch and not screw up the thumbnail page. NOOOOOO the website decided that "Oh you want thumbnails of those two pictures so it incorporated the two thumbnails but then must have really liked the way the page looked with actual sized pics because it randomly chose every 4th or 5th image that was thumbnail sized on the page and made them full sized. Then it took the thumbnails and put them on the page that had the actual pictures on it. So I attempted to reverse this damage by undoing my action and it swapped the images back and took another random sample of picks and reversed them. After two days of fiddling with this beepity beep beep website I finally decided I would start from scratch.
Last night at 9:00 PM I decided to finally start on the new format. I worked on it until 5:00 AM this morning. But it does look wonderful and except for two small technical pieces of advice from my hubby I can honestly say it is done totally by myself!!! Not bad for a girl who does not speak computerese....
So I have had 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. It is my hope that the website looks good and is not just a figment of my imagination. At this point I am kinda scared of going to sleep and finding out that I dreamed I did this and my website is still the old one that is "fubar'd" (an old Navy term.. think language like a sailor). Well I am going to go get some dinner then it is early to bed for me. Take care everyone and I will talk with ya tomorrow. R
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Here's one more to dad
So it is still not father's Day and I figured I would add another post only this one is for my husband. The father of our two boys. Dan and I met in high school. We started dating my junior year. He was a senior then. We dated for four years before we finally got married. We eloped and when our first year anniversary came we told everyone we were married. So here's a story about my husband.....
Dan went off to the Navy in 1977. He went through bootcamp came home and we got officially engaged and had plans to marry in a Catholic church in June when he would be done with "A" school. He was studying to become a tradevman. They worked on flight simulators. Dan says its the next best thing to Disneyland. Anyway, while he was in Memphis at "A" school both he and I went through a lot of changes. I was pushed into calling off the wedding by my parents and his and he kept writing me about girls he was meeting and I had met a young man who was going to be a dentist and he interested me (a little, sorta, well not really but maybe....) So when Dan came back from Memphis I was seriously considering calling off our relationship entirely. Dan persuaded me to wait until we took a few days by ourselves and went camping. This is something I highly recommend for every couple. Take three days and four nights and go camping with no TV and no one else to keep you entertained. Don't take books or radios or fishing rods (unless you both like to fish) and go with the very barest provisions. I highly recommend this.
Anyway, Dan and I got Dan's father's camper and headed for a camping site on the ST. Joe River. He was sure it would be full since it was just after July 4th. The site was empty. Not another person in site. I learned a lot about my ruture husband that trip. He had a great sense of humor, he was not into nature as in a nature child. (nudism was not his bag) and he preferred me to not be a nature child either. The water from the river was wonderful and I had forgotten my suit. I love skinny dipping (in private) and Dan loved hanging out on the shore with a towel extended trying to get me to cover up and not show my bod to anyone else. Nevermind that there was no one else... He was just modest. We spent a lot of time walking and talking and we spent time falling in love all over again. Someone once told me that you dont always stay in love.. there will be times in every relationship where you fall out of love and then fall back in love but the trick is to never fall out of "like" . I have liked my husband for a very long time now. He is still my best friend. He knows secrets about me that no one else does and he has never betrayed my trust. He is truly a wonderful guy. There really is no end to this story. Dan and I came back from camping and decided we would get married after I got my "AA" degree. We waited one more year for that and then when I started moving toward getting our wedding planned my parents objected again and I decided I would move in with Dan instead. We got married a month later. I guess the funny thing about our first anniversary was that I had decided I still wanted a church wedding. The Catholics did not think a civil marriage was legit so I sent a letter to a priest in Spokane explaining our situation and that I wanted the civil marriage to be a secret so our parents would think we got married on our formal wedding. Dan's mother disliked the idea of him marrying a Catholic and I had explained her hesitancy toward our marriage as well. (In short I was going to Hell and I was taking her son with me!!) So the priest in an effort to establish familial peace decided he should talk with my mother in law about our future marriage. Not being able to share what I had shared with him, he made a cold call to my mother in law without my knowledge or consent. I guess everything went fine but about a week later we get this call from my mother in law. "Dan, I just had the strangest visit and you will never guess who with... A priest.... Yes, he just called me out of the blue and suggested we should talk so he could explain the principles of the catholic church. Isn't that strange? He was very nice and we had a very nice talk but I haven't any clue as to why he felt he needed to talk to me.. It was just very weird. No I didn't know him at all.... Isn't that strange? Well, it is the Catholic Church and they do operate from a different world....." So we called off the formal wedding and on our wedding anniversary we told our families we had been married for a year. It was an awful anniversary! Actually our anniversaries were all awful until Dan and I reached our 10th anniversary. Then they began improving and by our 20th we had it down. We have been married for 25 years now. On our anniversary I will tell you about spending your first anniversary telling your family you have been married for a year.... Not pretty!!! Very Bad!!! Talk with ya soon....R
Dan went off to the Navy in 1977. He went through bootcamp came home and we got officially engaged and had plans to marry in a Catholic church in June when he would be done with "A" school. He was studying to become a tradevman. They worked on flight simulators. Dan says its the next best thing to Disneyland. Anyway, while he was in Memphis at "A" school both he and I went through a lot of changes. I was pushed into calling off the wedding by my parents and his and he kept writing me about girls he was meeting and I had met a young man who was going to be a dentist and he interested me (a little, sorta, well not really but maybe....) So when Dan came back from Memphis I was seriously considering calling off our relationship entirely. Dan persuaded me to wait until we took a few days by ourselves and went camping. This is something I highly recommend for every couple. Take three days and four nights and go camping with no TV and no one else to keep you entertained. Don't take books or radios or fishing rods (unless you both like to fish) and go with the very barest provisions. I highly recommend this.
Anyway, Dan and I got Dan's father's camper and headed for a camping site on the ST. Joe River. He was sure it would be full since it was just after July 4th. The site was empty. Not another person in site. I learned a lot about my ruture husband that trip. He had a great sense of humor, he was not into nature as in a nature child. (nudism was not his bag) and he preferred me to not be a nature child either. The water from the river was wonderful and I had forgotten my suit. I love skinny dipping (in private) and Dan loved hanging out on the shore with a towel extended trying to get me to cover up and not show my bod to anyone else. Nevermind that there was no one else... He was just modest. We spent a lot of time walking and talking and we spent time falling in love all over again. Someone once told me that you dont always stay in love.. there will be times in every relationship where you fall out of love and then fall back in love but the trick is to never fall out of "like" . I have liked my husband for a very long time now. He is still my best friend. He knows secrets about me that no one else does and he has never betrayed my trust. He is truly a wonderful guy. There really is no end to this story. Dan and I came back from camping and decided we would get married after I got my "AA" degree. We waited one more year for that and then when I started moving toward getting our wedding planned my parents objected again and I decided I would move in with Dan instead. We got married a month later. I guess the funny thing about our first anniversary was that I had decided I still wanted a church wedding. The Catholics did not think a civil marriage was legit so I sent a letter to a priest in Spokane explaining our situation and that I wanted the civil marriage to be a secret so our parents would think we got married on our formal wedding. Dan's mother disliked the idea of him marrying a Catholic and I had explained her hesitancy toward our marriage as well. (In short I was going to Hell and I was taking her son with me!!) So the priest in an effort to establish familial peace decided he should talk with my mother in law about our future marriage. Not being able to share what I had shared with him, he made a cold call to my mother in law without my knowledge or consent. I guess everything went fine but about a week later we get this call from my mother in law. "Dan, I just had the strangest visit and you will never guess who with... A priest.... Yes, he just called me out of the blue and suggested we should talk so he could explain the principles of the catholic church. Isn't that strange? He was very nice and we had a very nice talk but I haven't any clue as to why he felt he needed to talk to me.. It was just very weird. No I didn't know him at all.... Isn't that strange? Well, it is the Catholic Church and they do operate from a different world....." So we called off the formal wedding and on our wedding anniversary we told our families we had been married for a year. It was an awful anniversary! Actually our anniversaries were all awful until Dan and I reached our 10th anniversary. Then they began improving and by our 20th we had it down. We have been married for 25 years now. On our anniversary I will tell you about spending your first anniversary telling your family you have been married for a year.... Not pretty!!! Very Bad!!! Talk with ya soon....R
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
A tribute to my dad
So here we are half way through the week. It has been somewhat delightful for our area. The days have been cool and sunny and in the evening the rain came. It says it is supposed to do this for the next week. It has been hard this week settling down to working again. I have to admit I have not even looked at my beads since I got home. I haven't opened the door to my studio and I haven't done much in the way of house work. That is about to end. I have a library that is a real disaster and needs more shelves and a large desk that my husband and I can both share. I have a bathroom to finish. I have a lot of work to do for my business such as building up the inventory and arranging storage space in the garage for my things. Then there is all those items in the garage that need painted and well the garage itself needs painted and well the list just goes on and on....
So enough of the list lets see if I have a story for today.... Ok so it is almost Father's day so I will tell a story in memory of my father. My father was a major prankster. He loved jokes and would spend days and days contriving them. He also was a school teacher. He taught high school science and yearbook. He loved teaching as well as jokes and could take as well as give. But anyway, One Halloween my school created a mischief night. This night was when you would end up with your house being toilet papered, windows being soaped, and we always ended up with an outhouse being dumped at the end of our driveway! For a fundraiser for FHA we sold insurance and if you bought the insurance and your house was tp'd or soaped or whatever, the FHA would come to your house the next day and clean up all of the "mischief" that they made. My father secretly bought the insurance from the FHA advisor so the kids would not know he had purchased some and for weeks when he was approached about the insurance dad would smirk at the kids and say that the dogs and his guns were insurance enough against any "mischief". Well, Halloween came and sure enough so did the mischief makers. The first batch to show up were a group of guys. They soaped all the windows except the living room where we were watching TV. Then they tp'd the trees and strung toilet paper everywhere. They were pretty proud that they used 10 rolls on the house and that dad didn't catch them. Thing was, dad watched them the whole time and when they finished he was standing by the door of their car. They laughed about how much mischief they did then dad invited them in for doughnuts and punch. He had posted the insurance on the inside of the front door at about face level. After the boys had their snacks they turned to leave and the insurance paper was right there. They each turned a little white, dad laughed and told them he would see them in the morning. The boys weren't laughing quite so much when they left. A little later that night the girls decided to visit. They were a little more devious. I must explain that my father also trained field trial dogs and we had a kennel with about 10 dogs in it off the back of our garage. I was out feeding them that night with our two house dogs (blue healer, and dingo mix) when I hear laughter out in the wheat fields. I ran in and told dad and he grabbed the blank pistol and ran out in the back yard. You have to understand that it was pitch black outside that night. The moon was almost non-existent and the girls were trying to crawl through the plowed fields with out a flashlight. Dad steps out on to the back lawn and starts yelling to the dogs (who were in the house so they would not attack) to go get those girls then he starts shooting off the blank pistol. Of course the dogs in the kennel started barking like mad and the girls not knowing any different thought my dad had grabbed a gun and the dogs was going after them through the field. In truth he was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up. Well, those girls ran back to their car. One of them was a little slow and she got locked out of the car. We picked her up in the pickup when we chased the other car down the road about 5 miles. She finally pulled over into a driveway of a friend of ours. It took dad and the girl we picked up almost 5 minutes to get the girl who was driving to open the door. When she did dad invited them to come down for doughnuts and punch. They were really white when they got to the house. Dad had terrified them so badly that I don't think the one girl drove again for a full month!! They did laugh really hard when they saw the insurance policy and dad showed them what mischief had been played on us by the boys. The next day the boys came and cleaned the mischief up and the house looked as good as new. Our school never did mischief night again. But for that one year it was both a huge fundraising success and a terrifying experience for a few of the participants who ended up out-pranked by the best prankster of all. R
So enough of the list lets see if I have a story for today.... Ok so it is almost Father's day so I will tell a story in memory of my father. My father was a major prankster. He loved jokes and would spend days and days contriving them. He also was a school teacher. He taught high school science and yearbook. He loved teaching as well as jokes and could take as well as give. But anyway, One Halloween my school created a mischief night. This night was when you would end up with your house being toilet papered, windows being soaped, and we always ended up with an outhouse being dumped at the end of our driveway! For a fundraiser for FHA we sold insurance and if you bought the insurance and your house was tp'd or soaped or whatever, the FHA would come to your house the next day and clean up all of the "mischief" that they made. My father secretly bought the insurance from the FHA advisor so the kids would not know he had purchased some and for weeks when he was approached about the insurance dad would smirk at the kids and say that the dogs and his guns were insurance enough against any "mischief". Well, Halloween came and sure enough so did the mischief makers. The first batch to show up were a group of guys. They soaped all the windows except the living room where we were watching TV. Then they tp'd the trees and strung toilet paper everywhere. They were pretty proud that they used 10 rolls on the house and that dad didn't catch them. Thing was, dad watched them the whole time and when they finished he was standing by the door of their car. They laughed about how much mischief they did then dad invited them in for doughnuts and punch. He had posted the insurance on the inside of the front door at about face level. After the boys had their snacks they turned to leave and the insurance paper was right there. They each turned a little white, dad laughed and told them he would see them in the morning. The boys weren't laughing quite so much when they left. A little later that night the girls decided to visit. They were a little more devious. I must explain that my father also trained field trial dogs and we had a kennel with about 10 dogs in it off the back of our garage. I was out feeding them that night with our two house dogs (blue healer, and dingo mix) when I hear laughter out in the wheat fields. I ran in and told dad and he grabbed the blank pistol and ran out in the back yard. You have to understand that it was pitch black outside that night. The moon was almost non-existent and the girls were trying to crawl through the plowed fields with out a flashlight. Dad steps out on to the back lawn and starts yelling to the dogs (who were in the house so they would not attack) to go get those girls then he starts shooting off the blank pistol. Of course the dogs in the kennel started barking like mad and the girls not knowing any different thought my dad had grabbed a gun and the dogs was going after them through the field. In truth he was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up. Well, those girls ran back to their car. One of them was a little slow and she got locked out of the car. We picked her up in the pickup when we chased the other car down the road about 5 miles. She finally pulled over into a driveway of a friend of ours. It took dad and the girl we picked up almost 5 minutes to get the girl who was driving to open the door. When she did dad invited them to come down for doughnuts and punch. They were really white when they got to the house. Dad had terrified them so badly that I don't think the one girl drove again for a full month!! They did laugh really hard when they saw the insurance policy and dad showed them what mischief had been played on us by the boys. The next day the boys came and cleaned the mischief up and the house looked as good as new. Our school never did mischief night again. But for that one year it was both a huge fundraising success and a terrifying experience for a few of the participants who ended up out-pranked by the best prankster of all. R
Saturday, June 11, 2005
A Vacation, A Graduation, and a Few Days of Swimming
OK, so who in their right minds goes to Spokane WA and Richland WA for a vacation? Who said I was in my right mind? If you ask my friends most of them would have to tell you that it has been many years since Rene was in her right mind! The truth is we had a niece graduate in Spokane, Dan's family still lives there and we have some dear friends who still reside there. So that is that. Actually, the graduation was a lot of fun. There were 100 kids and the ceremony was one hour long. YEAH!!! It was very nice. Then we had a picnic afterwards and took a drive up to where my husband and I used to live when we were teens. It was great! The weather was terrific and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The next day we visited with dad and then later got to see a very dear friend, Richard. We went to the Art fest in Spokane on the second day of the show when it was pouring down rain and I met some very nice people who had some ideas for me on selling my things, especially my beadwork.
Then Dan had to go back to work...In Richland. I tailed along. We got into our hotel and the first night about 10 P.M. the toilet seat broke. One side broke about half way down the seat. Ever try to pee when balancing a broken seat on the rim of the toilet? Plus it kept pinching me... Not pretty! When we called the front desk they stated someone would be down in the morning to put on a new seat. I had to ask the maid at 12 P.M. the next day if she could please get someone to replace the seat. The third day the iron had a short and caught on fire! I don't even have things like this occur at our home!!! So we got our stay free and another stay free until we find the service to be excellent. We kinda decided we would not be going back though. Although their swimming pool was wonderful and the spa was terrific.
I got a lot of beadwork done for a lamp I am making and I am really excited about how it is going to look. It was a very restful vacation that I truly needed! Now it is time to hop back into the fray of things and get some more things ready to sell. I also need to work on my garage (it needs painted) and I need to get a few more items ready to sell at the next flea market (next weekend). Well it seems it is time to go clean house right now and Dan will be home so we can go get a fish tank. Something we desperately need. Our tank is kind of getting old really not great right now. I will write again soon. Till then..... R
Then Dan had to go back to work...In Richland. I tailed along. We got into our hotel and the first night about 10 P.M. the toilet seat broke. One side broke about half way down the seat. Ever try to pee when balancing a broken seat on the rim of the toilet? Plus it kept pinching me... Not pretty! When we called the front desk they stated someone would be down in the morning to put on a new seat. I had to ask the maid at 12 P.M. the next day if she could please get someone to replace the seat. The third day the iron had a short and caught on fire! I don't even have things like this occur at our home!!! So we got our stay free and another stay free until we find the service to be excellent. We kinda decided we would not be going back though. Although their swimming pool was wonderful and the spa was terrific.
I got a lot of beadwork done for a lamp I am making and I am really excited about how it is going to look. It was a very restful vacation that I truly needed! Now it is time to hop back into the fray of things and get some more things ready to sell. I also need to work on my garage (it needs painted) and I need to get a few more items ready to sell at the next flea market (next weekend). Well it seems it is time to go clean house right now and Dan will be home so we can go get a fish tank. Something we desperately need. Our tank is kind of getting old really not great right now. I will write again soon. Till then..... R
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