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5 Things I’m Thankful For…

right this minute.

1) Roadside assistance…don’t ask. I’ll just say there was a lot of smoke and green fluid everywhere…sigh…

2) Eggnog Milkshakes. Around here you can only get them at holiday time. Yum! Just thinking of them gets me feeling all Christmasy. A good eggnog shake makes sitting in a dead car, waiting to be rescued almost…pleasant.

3) Our sweet babies Lily and Beckham. They are nearly 10 months old now and we can’t remember life before they came.

4) My brown slippers. I wear them all the time. I even went to the store in them once, by accident. They are just so comfortable. It’s easy to be happy when your feet are warm.

5) The low clouds around the mountains. It reminds me of the movie Brigadoon. It is so beautiful here. Every time I look out our front window I’m grateful to be right where I am.

 

 

What 5 things are you grateful for right this minute?

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Veteran’s Day

~ Veterans Day, which used to be known as Armistice Day is a national holiday that falls on November 11, and is set aside as a day to honor combat veterans who fought and died for their country.”

I’ve never known much about this particular holiday because it doesn’t seem like people pay much attention to it. There are flags on many of the houses and and businesses in town-but since the kids aren’t out of school–even that doesn’t normally get my attention. It’s always just been one of those random holidays that I mixed up with the other ones– Memorial Day, Labor Day, Veteran’s Day.

So after some guilt induced research on the subject I learned that Veteran’s Day marks the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I. Ok, fine…well done…the ending of a terrible war. But here’s the part that surprised me.

In 1938, Congress passed a bill that each November 11 “shall be dedicated to the cause of world peace and …hereafter celebrated and known as Armistice Day.

I love the phrase, ‘dedicated to the cause of world peace.’  So, I looked up World Peace and came up with tons of sources. There were hundreds of  World Peace sites, World Peace photos, and even a World Peace cookie recipe.  I especially enjoyed the  World Peace quotes:

 

“The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man or one party or one nation. It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world.”

— Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945)

“Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.”

— The XIVth Dalai Lama

But even those great words from good people left me feeling very hushed and small on a loud, angry planet. I want to help–I do. So we recycle, and conserve energy, and carpool, grow a garden, and try to compose, and make hats for struggling babies, and filter our water, and hand make whatever we can…I could go on and on.

But world peace? That’s a big one.

Then I found a few other words that shrunk the world back to a smaller, more manageable size for me. One that helps me feel strong and settled and able to make a difference again. This one:

“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

This, we can all do…

…and change the world.

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10 Tips For a Not-So-Typical Disaster…

38IP328-Hurricane Ike

A few years ago, my daughter and I found ourselves on a downhill road in a car with no brakes. Another driver recognized that we were in big trouble and pulled in front of us and was willing to let our car nudge into his to stop us before we crashed. How did he know to do that?

As we waited for a tow truck, he casually said, “You know, I read about ‘How to stop a runaway car’ in the Worst Case Scenario book…just yesterday.”

Today’s post is kinda like that. A bit of info that you hope you will never need, but will appreciate if you ever do.

My daughter Jillian has a friend that just recently moved to Galveston, Texas.  September 13, literally days after arriving and settling into her new basement apartment–the Galveston Storm “Ike” hit their area. She like hundreds of others, lost everything.

Three weeks later, another friend blogged about the ordeal and offered some valuable insight to anyone in an emergency situation like this. Here are some of her thoughts…

Monday October 7, 2008

There are still people without power. I can’t even imagine.

What was I glad I had in my 72 hour kit? What did I wish I had?

* I wished I had a method of cooking food. Maybe a camping stove or BBQ grill.

* Ready to eat foods. For example: nutrigrain bars, granola bars, cans of slim fast or V8, prepacked albacore that is ready to eat, canned fruit/veggies, protein bars, crackers. Cans of soup you could stand to eat cold.

* Comfort food. Some Oreos, a bag of chocolate chips or fruit snacks.

* Two weeks worth of all medicine you are taking. Most stores are out of EVERYTHING.

* I would have given my right arm for a battery operated fan. Just a little one. It was just so hot.

* Ice- Fill a couple of 2 liter bottles with water and put them in the freezer. Ice was a hot commodity.

*Photos and documents? Pay to have them digitized. Paper wouldn’t survive this.

*I packed formula, diapers, wipes and clothes for the baby. I forgot bottles.

*Bathroom stuff

*Car charger for your cell phone.

Be careful. Be prudent. Be wise. Be safe.

Just my two cents–for what it’s worth.

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Twilight Movie Ticket Contest…

This is the last week of our Twilight Opening Night Movie Ticket Contest. The next contest we do will have a shorter name…I swear. Anyway, we’ve had a great response to our soup, stew, and chili recipe entries, but now–we’re going to make it even easier for you to enter to win a night out with the vegetarian vampires. You can still send in a recipe, or link to this site to receive an entry, but here’s another–simple way.

This week, all you have to do is comment to this post and your name will be entered in the contest. Now, I ask you–how much easier can it get?

Remember–this is the last week to enter and the winner will be chosen this Friday, November 14, at 5:00pm. So comment, link or send in soup…recipe, not soup…and you could WIN!!

Do it, do it, do it…

See you there!

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Slippers For The Family Feet…

Every year–usually at Christmastime, a few dozen family feet need rewarming with new slippers. I had the kids dig their current sets out from the under the various beds to see if they needed repair, a good scrubbing, or retirement. Only Jillian’s were wounded enough for the mending basket and it wasn’t critical. So, first-it’s Daney boy’s turn for a brand new pair, because before he left, we discovered that one of his slippers was missing. Eaten by dragons, no doubt.

Making new ones is the least I can do for the cause of a cute, cold, boy–who is far, far away. We were told not even to buy a coat for him in America because we don’t have anything warm enough here in the States to help in 30 below weather. Yikes. I picture him strolling the snowy streets of Lithuania wearing a moose hide overcoat and beaver boots. I really hope not. As much as I want him to be warm and well, I tend to frown on all that real fur stuff.

So anyway, the slipper I make is a jimmied version of an old baby bootie pattern I purchased about a billion years ago from Annie’s Attic. It looked so comfortable and most importantly–actually stayed on their feet–that as my babies grew I just made the pattern…ahhh … bigger. Much, much bigger in Rhen’s case. I’ll put the directions on paper someday–if anyone else wants it.

Now, I’m halfway through with a nice cozy pair made from Peaches & Creme 100% cotton (in Shaded Brown) and a ball of “repurposed” wool (yarn that used to be something else, before it became a ball of yarn–in this case, a sweater), in dark chocolate. The idea is to make them soft and warm and sturdy enough to survive a trip to the mailbox…

…and of course to save the life of an innocent beaver.