Category Archives: Family

A New Pet — Sort Of

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I’ve been heartbroken since I had to say good-bye to Olive, my daughter’s cat, who I adopted after she left for college. Olive was a highlight of my quiet life in Arizona. Since we said good-bye to her in November, I’ve noticed a Bird Buddy who is wiggling into my heart.

No, I’m not getting another cat or dog. My son has asthma and allergies. I wasn’t getting rid of Olive because our son seemed okay in our new house — until his last visit. I guess a few years’ worth of cat dander added up. I won’t subject him to a new cat or dog. If I did, he’d probably skip visiting us altogether.

So here’s my new pet. Like I said, sort of. He waits for me every morning to fill the feeder. He’s first to rush in for his fill of seeds. Then I hear him sing and flit around the yard for a few hours. He comes back at the end of the day. We spend time looking at each other. I find myself imitating his tilt of the head and he tilts back at me.

My husband asked what I was going to name him. I chose Ollie but my husband thinks it’s too close to Olive. Which was the point, I might add. His idea was Kramer due to the Cardinal’s hair do. I might settle on Cosmo, which was Kramer’s first name in Seinfeld. Or, I’ll stick to Ollie. Time will tell.

We used to have a Cardinal couple who frequented the bird feeder. The females are not as colorful is how you tell them apart. This Cardinal is alone all the time. I don’t know if he was part of the couple who used to stop by. Cardinals mate for life, so I sure hope he didn’t lose his wife.

Cardinals have a beautiful song and I always know when my new sort of pet is near.

Here’s a video from my Bird Buddy AI feeder:

What do you think of the choices of names for my new bird buddy?

What frequent visitors do you have from nature to enhance your lives?

Comfort Food

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With the cold weather the past two weeks, I have been indulging in comfort foods. Food that my mom taught me how to cook. Namely, oxtail soup last week and this week I made clam chowder.

After going through my recipes with a friend over the phone, I decided to check out how my great-grandmother’s recipes were different from mine.

This is the title page of the soup book. You can see my great-grandmother’s signature at the top of the page. This copy was a Christmas present to a relative or friend.

My great-grandmother, Ella Leighton Upton Owen, published a series of miniature cookbooks from 1898 to the early 1900s. I find it interesting that she went by her married name, “Mrs. Dewitt C. Owen” rather than her name — Ella Owen.

This soup book was the seventh in her series. I don’t know why she called them “Ripley Series of Cookbooks.” My great-grandfather, Dewitt Owen was a newspaper man in Dixon, Illinois. Eventually, they moved west to Washington state where he continued the trade. Great-grandmother Ella used her husband’s printing press to create her cookbooks. She had to set the type by hand! Can you imagine?

My mom told me that they hauled the printing press by covered wagon across our country. Don’t think the dates match up for that.

The cookbooks were sold throughout the country to women’s church auxiliary groups. At times, Ella supported the family with her ingenious little books.

I wrote more about her books HERE with excerpts from her “Sick Room Necessities” booklet. Two years ago, I wrote a post about comfort foods and shared snippets of the Soup book. You can read it HERE. When I wrote this post yesterday, I thought it was a brand new subject. You can imagine how I felt when I discovered I wrote the same title and subject matter two years ago! But no worries, I have more information in this post, than the one two years ago!

The recipe above is similar to my oxtail soup that I learned from my mom. But I quit dredging the oxtails in flour, because I like a clear broth. I also don’t use cayenne, wine or Worcestershire sauce. I skip the turnip cut in “fancy shapes” and I don’t “par-boil” the veggies. I do use lots of garlic and a bay leaf.

Another secret, is to refrigerate the soup overnight. The next day, I get rid of the fat that solidifies on top of the soup.

For clam chowder, I use canned clams. I cut bacon into small bits with my kitchen scissors (no fat salt pork — whatever that is) and fry it up. Then I add onions, celery and garlic to the bacon. I boil cubed potatoes in a separate pot. After the onions are clear, I stir in Wondra Flour and cook it in the bacon mixture. Add milk, let it thicken, then add clams and potatoes with the potato water. Delish and very comforting in our cold weather.

What are your favorite comfort foods?

The Toboggan Ride Was Fun

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I wrote this post January 3, 2018. I was in Salt Lake City with my husband and friends. It was my daughter’s senior year of college. I realized I hadn’t skied once in one of the most spectacular areas to ski i the United States. So off I went, skiing five days in a row…

Flashback to January 2018:

IMG_9961A perfect day at Alta, Utah.

All my excitement of the New Year came to a crash on the slopes when I made one turn and lost my balance. I went skidding down the mountain spinning on my back and side—but only after feeling a rather awful snap in my left knee.

I stood after a friendly stranger helped me up and I thought I was okay. I skied a hundred yards more and “yikes!” The pain in my knee was sharp, intense and I collapsed. After a third try with the same result, I told my ski companion that I needed help down the mountain. I crossed my poles and we waited until a ski instructor stopped and called for the ski patrol to come get me.

Long story, short…actually, it’s a short story because it was only the first turn of my third run on a perfectly beautiful, sunny day in Alta. I was lifted into a toboggan with my left leg in a splint and wrapped like a burrito as ski patrol Chris, skied me to a snowmobile patrol, who took me the rest of the way to the clinic. I held onto a little flap of tarp over my head because ski patrol Chris said it would keep the snow kicked up by the snowmobile from hitting my face on the way off the mountain.

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My view from the Ski Patrol toboggan.

The nurse, doctor and receptionist were really kind. They empathize with their patients whose vacation has been ruined. In my case, I’m not worried about the torn ACL ruining my skiing days. I’m worried about the rest of this week taking care of my daughter’s house and puppy. (I’m in Salt Lake City, Utah to housesit and puppysit for my daughter, who is with her Utah swim team in Florida for their Christmas training trip. I thought I’d take advantage of her proximity to gorgeous ski resorts and ski for the first time in a decade.)

I have a lot going on and I don’t have time for this. In addition to taking care of the pup, there’s a swim meet I was going to compete in early February. Also, I’m traveling back to Salt Lake for my daughter’s senior day and final dual meet. Plus her final PAC 12 swim meet in Seattle. My cousin is coming to visit. My high school friend plans to stay with me. Yikes again. How do I have surgery and participate in all the momentous occasions ahead? What will I do to keep my sanity without my daily walks and swims?

I think a lot will depend on my attitude and outlook. After a good cry that hasn’t happened yet, I’ll pull myself together and face life every hour the way it’s put before me. I remember after my big accident in college, when I was crossing a street and hit by a pick-up truck going 35 miles per hour, it hit me to appreciate the little blessings in life. Don’t take anything for granted. And live life the best you can.IMG_9968

Another view of the ski slopes at Alta — before my fall.

Back to the present day:

Looking back on that vacation, we did have our son and his future wife with us for a few days. We skied before my accident and that was a highlight. I also tried cross country skiing for the first time with a friend.

It was a long slow process to find normal again after that accident. My orthopedic surgeon recommended putting off surgery for several months, until I got to experience some of my daughter’s milestone’s like her last meet on senior day, taking her and teammates out afterwards and going to PAC 12 Championships. We planned the surgery around my events, so I would have time to recover. Prior to surgery, I wore a brace (and after surgery, too) for months.

I did physical therapy before surgery to strengthen my muscles before the big day. I wasn’t ready for how much my life would slow down after surgery. But I learned to appreciate the small steps I made.

Have you ridden down the slopes in a toboggan?

How have you handled it when life set you back with the unexpected?

What was your attitude like?

Merry Christmas!

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To get into the Christmas spirit this year, I downloaded a religious app on my phone. On my walks I listen to a Bible in a Year podcast and an Advent Challenge.

In the Advent Challenge, some of the days end with a prayer which is more like a meditation.
It’s called the Litany of Let Love.

Have a wonderful holiday this week and enjoy the Litany of Let Love:

Mulies Munching

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My wild kingdom life continues. Two mule deers munched on jojoba plants in our backyard outside our fence last week for a few hours. There wasn’t much left of one jojoba when they were done.

I was fascinated and managed to stand a few yards away — on my side of the fence. At one point the buck jumped and it looked like he’d run away. But instead, he froze and the pair didn’t seem to think I was a threat. The buck had small antlers that were narrow. You can barely make them out in the photos.

I took the photo above with my Nikon. I had trouble with the camera, because the mulies would be partially behind shrubs and the with camera on auto, focused on the plant life, leaving the mule deers blurry. This was the only decent photo I got.

Here are a few more photos and a video from my iphone:

Here are the mulies munching on jojoba. There’s a good view of the buck’s antlers.

I sat myself down on a bench opposite the deer and watched feeling the peace of nature. What a blessing during Advent to experience this beauty.

The Gift of Christmas
Poet: Catherine Pulsifer

Family and friends gathered near,
Laughter and love so warm, sincere.
May the joy of Christmas Day,
Guide your heart in every way.

Remember those who face the cold,
Whose stories often go untold.
Extend a hand, share what you can,
For love unites the hearts of man.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Games People Play

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I’m thrilled when cardinals come to visit. I took this photo with my camera through the window.

I’m getting ready for Christmas and was thinking about the games we used to play when I was a kid. Our family was big on games and I found them mostly boring. When I was young, I went along and played. When I hit my teens, I no longer wanted to and said no thanks.

We played board games like Monopoly, Life and Clue. My brother and I played a military strategy game called Stratego.

My parents were into cards. They hosted Pinochle and Bridge nights. I’ll never forget the card table that would come out of the closet, legs unfolded and stood in the center of our small living room in our first house.

We played Gin Rummy, Knock Rummy, Demon and Poker as a family. When we moved to our new home in the countryside, the game table, a round one that was permanent, was placed next to a window seat in the corner of the living room with huge windows. I soon realized that I could peak at people’s cards in the reflection of the windows at night.

With my kids and DIL coming for Christmas, I’d like to play a few games. I’ve got Catch Phrase, the electronic hand held game where two teams try to guess phrases through clues and gestures. It’s very much like Charades, but the electronic device gives players a choice of categories and then the word or phrase. The kids played Catch Phrase for hours at swim meets.

I also bought a few decks of cards. My daughter and I like to play Demon which is a fast-paced double solitaire type of fun.

Our family played Poker when the kids were still living at home. Our favorite game was Texas Hold’em. Before kids, my husband and I played two board games — Pente and Trivial Pursuit. Those are tucked away in the closet and may need to be dusted off. My son said he’s not sure our Trivial Suit cards from the 1980s or 1990s will be fair. I say why not?

Do you enjoy playing games with family and friends? What games did you play growing up? What games do you play now?

The cardinal visited my AI bird feeder, Bird Buddy, after I took my own photos.

A few of my favorite things

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My all time favorite cheese.

A few years ago we were visiting our kids in the Berkeley area. The weather was perfect and we went on a quest to see redwoods.

We walked through the woods in the Redwood Regional Park in Oakland with our kids and future daughter-in-law. We sat down on a bench and enjoyed a treat our son prepared for us. Brillat Savarin cheese, blackberries and crusty bread. It’s the first time I had tasted that cheese. If you have not tried it, it’s mild but the creamiest. I found this description online:

It is a triple cream soft-ripened cheese that is luscious, creamy and faintly sour.

We did find a few redwoods and it was such a peaceful place to be outdoors in a forest with the people I love.

After our hike, we went to Rockridge in Oakland to a cafe and window shopped. What a beautiful day with family.

Once at home, I searched for the cheese. I went to five different grocery stores and none had Brillat, including the expensive, fancy schmancy one. Years later, I was picking up vitamins I normally order on Amazon at Whole Foods. (For some reason, Amazon directed me to pick up my vitamins myself.) Wouldn’t you know it? I spotted Brillat Savarin!

What are a few of my favorite things? Spending time outdoors. Spending time with family. My favorite cheese that brings back those memories. Olive. And yes, “The Sound of Music.”

What are a few of your favorite things?