When Life Hands You Cucumbers

When Life Hands You Cucumbers

Posted on by Mama

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We all know what to do when life hands us lemons, but what’s one to do when a friend hands you cucumbers? Hint, it’s not make cucumberade.

Our good friend and surrogate family member, Ruby, commented last week that she and her husband, Howard, were going to make pickles from their current cucumber harvest. My response (silly me) was to say that I had always wanted to make pickles but never had enough cucumbers to make a go of it
So Thursday afternoon when the phone rang, I shouldn’t have been surprised when it was Ruby on the other end offering up some left-over cukes. I accepted the offer and picked up the veggies Thursday evening — all 13 plus pounds of excess.

Since this was our first voyage into pickle making, we had to search for a few recipes and finally chose a dill spears recipe and one for hamburger dill slices. The spears recipe was just a shot in the dark, but I chose the hamburger dill recipe because it was one of the only I could find that didn’t require a long ice water bath (I mean, we were in the mood to make pickles).

The process was pretty easy, like canning most things, but unfortunately we have to wait at least two weeks for a taste test.  If they actually taste like pickles, I’ll share the recipes at a later date; if not, we won’t speak of this again.

Come On Four

Come On Four

Posted on by Mama

hatebubbleWell there you have it. Just two months shy of my son’s fourth birthday and I just received my first, “Mommy, I hate you.” I received the lashing because I put milk on his requested cereal instead of letting him eat it dry. What was I thinking? Of course, I’m sure it was actually do to the fact that it was past nap time, we ran around all morning, I didn’t let him see every last dead animal at Cabela’s, or I just didn’t look at him properly (that’s a whole other issue).

All I can say is come on four years. That’s a magical day, right?? Surely all the tantrums, all the attitude and all the whining will just suddenly disappear on his birthday. At two, my husband and I were patting ourselves on the back thinking we had this parent thing down, but then came three. . . If four doesn’t see an attitude adjustment, I’m afraid Parents’ Day Out might become Respite Week Out or I’ll suddenly be taking applications for a nanny (and no, honey, she won’t be cute or perky).

My Blue Jay Getaway

My Blue Jay Getaway

Posted on by Mama

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 I’m finally back from the Hollow (pronounced holler) after a week away with my family. When I say “away,” that’s exactly what I mean — very little cell service, a land line that doesn’t dial out, no Internet and only three channels on the TV. But of course, who needs all those things when you have dozens of aunts, uncles, cousins. . . and you can drive 20 minutes to town to “borrow” WiFi from Daylight Donuts or Mustang Sally’s.

I didn’t do much “borrowing” during the week, because we managed to fill our days (and nights) with shopping, playing, swimming, visiting, Scrabbling and of course eating. I took my running shoes on the trip, but only managed to squeeze in one run while I was there. I quickly gave up on fitness and decided to see how many tasty things I could stuff into my belly in five days flat.

I could fill your ears with so many wonderful stories of my vacay in Blue Jay Hollow this year; but instead I decided to fill your eyes with sights of the quaint place that is simply called by most of us, “Nannie’s.” After my grandmother, Nannie, passed away, my Mom bought the place and it is still where we all gather for Thanksgivings, Easters, weekend retreats and summer vacations. It may be small on space but it’s big on love and wonderful memories.

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