Not quite Christmas in July...

So, my family, although we're all in the same state, is spread out, and it's awkward to drive through the traffic or over the passes to get together for Christmas- so, we don't really "celebrate" together like many other families do - in fact we kind of have a laissez faire attitude about Christmas presents - sort of a "you'll get them when you get them" approach. 

My sisters got their 2014 Christmas presents from me in May...well, I was only 5 months late...

Last week, I got a call from my youngest sister - she sort of goes by the philosophy of you'll get yours when I get mine.  And since she got her's last month , I've been anticipating  her call -

"I sent your Christmas package today - it's coming to your office - I hope that's OK?"

"I've included some "Hand-me-up" clothes" she said.  (And these two cool reusable shopping totes) 

Oh, good - I love her "hand-me-ups" - she has fairly good taste in clothes...

The first item in the box was a small muslin covered pillow - "hmmm, I thought - this is "weird" " - but then I dug down a little deeper, and found this really cute pillow cover  - Kitty and, velvet - what else could you ask for...

A decorated mug & coaster set - bigger than it looks - probably holds almost two cups -

Just perfect for the hot lemon tea that I can make with the dehydrated lemons that Trish sent me...

I love dragonflies -

This scarf is almost 4' square - so it is really more of a shawl - Old Navy - who'd a thought???

And, of course, the perfect stocking stuffer items - stickers, a box of Peeps and these cute elastic hair bands........

All in all, a pretty good Christmas box, don't ya think? 

Happy Valentine's Day!

photo copyright Rachel Vos*

And there's nothing better than walking in the rain with your sister!






*Thanks Rachel for letting me use the picture of the girls :-)  

Word Games...

 

My sister & I discuss "words" a lot (she is a self professed "word geek") - we'll talk about misused words, maybe misspelled  - what ever.  I thought of her when I saw this funny on Pinterest.  I love the Thesaurus that is built into MS Word, don't you? 

And I'm lovin' Pinterest - In fact the little sign that says "Pinterest is just electronic hoarding" fits me to a tea.  Ha ha ha.....

Making Pumpkin bread pudding for dessert tonight.  Hope it turns out tasty - I'll keep you posted. 

Have a good day! 

Happy Birthday to my Baby Sister

NNT circa 1956

Well, saying Happy Birthday to my "Baby Sister" on my blog is kind of pointless, I guess, because she doesn't READ my blog - (to quote JarJar Binks "how rude"), and, even though we don't always see eye to eye, (what sisters do...) I still wish her a happy big 6-0 - 



PS - Stay tuned on Friday for big exciting noos from the kittehs! 



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Wishing my Sister Wisten a Very HAPPY Birthday!

This big bouquet of flowers is a "virtual" birthday bouquet for my oldest sister.

I won't tell you how old she is, but here is a hint - she was ten years old when I was born.

















This picture was taken at my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. My sisters and I were the youngest of their eight grandchildren. (one sister was on the other side of the "eight" and I'm not skilled enough to photoshop her into this picture)

She was about 15 in this picture -














And because we both have January Birthdays, here is a big bouquet of summer flowers!












Here she is in her thirties - I wanted her granddaughters to see how pretty their Grandmom was when she was younger (not that she isn't pretty now - ooh, ooh, I'm stepping in it...)














And because she loves Hawaii - some plumeria -










So, to my dear sister, with love, I hope you have the happiest of birthdays! And Many, Many more! (and your present and card will be there sometime in the middle of the week)

And you know what they say - Hogs and quiches!

A Meme from Miss Peach

My friend Miss Peach has a very fun Meme on her blog today - Here is how to play:

Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures. Go to the 6th Folder and then pick the 6th Picture. Post it on your blog and tell the story that goes with the picture.

Here's my picture - from January 2008. My pictures arrange numerically (I guess) - so all the January (01/dd/yy) pictures are first, followed by the 02/dd/yy, etc.

After my dismal "scratchy scarf" failure with my older sister, my younger sister said she would really like a granny square scarf, but it COULDN'T BE SCRATCHY! - and by the way, could it include black, purple and red - so I went to the local craft store & put together these wonderful bright neon colors in a nice soft cotton yarn (this is actually one of the pictures that I took where the colors are all close to original - that dark spot in the back is the black) and crocheted and crocheted and crocheted on Granny Squares - & made a very nice colorful scarf for her.

I actually asked her last Sunday if she had worn it yet and she informed me that it had only been cold enough one day - she had worn it, but that it was a "little long". Well, I had made it judging by my height, which is 5'9" or so and NNT is only about 5'3" - so, mayyybbbeee, it might have been a little long?

She did, however, allow as how she could probably wrap it around her neck a couple of times and it would then be "not so long" it sounds like it was, after all, acceptable.

Better be - tieing off all the ends of those Granny Squares is an extreme pain in the backside - now I know why I don't make more things with Granny Squares. In fact, I really like a nice verigated yarn - the colors change - you don't have to do a darn thing, and you don't have hundreds of little ends to tie in.

Miss Peach invited all of her readers to play along and so do I. Tell us the story of your "sixth in the sixth" !!

Three Beautiful Things Tuesday

It's Three Beautiful Thing Tuesday! How fast the weeks go - it seems like it was just TBT/LAST Tuesday!


* Getting this picture of my dad as a young man in the mail from my sister. Surprisingly, none of us can remember ever seeing it before. He was a handsome guy. (smile)





* Finding the yarn that I think my younger sister will like for the scarf she wants me to crochet for her - the green is actually a lot more "lime" and the orange is more "orange" - but this one really showed the purple, so there you go. . I'm trying something new - a "crydon square". Each square will be different combinations of all the colors, edged and connected with the black. It is Red Heart's "soft" yarn - I know, but I couldn't find the exact colors I wanted in the other brands. And it is very soft.


* Since I'm talking about my sisters, (of which I have three, get it, Three Beautiful...), I'll take this opportunity to again say Happy Birthday to my "oldest" sister. She is really a wonderful person and works harder than anyone I know. I got her Pearl Django's new album Modern Times and she said she's really enjoying it.


And since I'm talking about family, I'll remember my mom, who, had she not died 30 years ago, would have been 88 today. Happy Birthday, Mom.

A Visit to The Berry Farm

My oldest sister Wisten & her husband, Glenn, have a berry farm and plant nursery in southwest Washington.

Glenn's mom & dad moved to their farm in 1933. He helped them plant the original blueberry field beside their house in fall 1944/winter 1945; Can you believe that this field is still in production? Including the original field, they now have 25 acres in blueberries.

The season, over-all, extends from 4th July to mid Sept. A max-day's harvest might be 15,000 - 20,000 pounds! They used to harvest it all by "hand" pickers - people from all over the area would come to work for them in the summers, they actually ran a bus from the outlying area to bring pickers to the fields.

Including me - Well, I didn't ride the bus, I got to stay with Wisten & Glenn. It was terribly exciting for a young girl from a wheat farm - my first year must have been when I was about 12 or 13, because Chris (also known as Parker's daddy ) hadn't been born yet.

At that time, they still had a field of raspberries for commercial picking. But my tenure as a berry picker was pretty short - my row of raspberries ripened so fast behind me (ok, so I was pretttttyyy slooooowwwww) that the beginning of the row was ready to pick again before I finished the other end. (I'm sure you get the picture...) So Wisten found "other things" for me to do that summer - I helped around the house, etc. But, I continued to work summers for my sister through out high school and college - by that time, I helped take care of the boys and helped out in the retail shed.

Now days, due to state labor laws kids under the age of 12 are not allowed to pick and, in my opinion, (and this is purely editorial) the general lazyness of the American public (picking berries is hard, hot dusty work - you can make it pay if you work hard, but most people don't want to do that kind of work any more), they have begun to harvest most of their berries by machine, - that's what this contraption on the right is.













They center the row on the machine and the fingers shake the berries off into these tubs.




They actually have been using machines to harvest berries since the late '60's - working on the "belt" was one thing that I wasn't too bad at - how much trouble can you get into standing in one place picking green berries out of blue ones?

At that time the berries processed by machine were for the packing house - mostly frozen, I think -


Now, even their fresh market berries are processed by machine, then packed into the plastic "clam shell" packages that you see in the grocery store. They have "fresh market" business partner in the Seattle area and they sell a lot to customers off the farm. They had customers who would "make a day of it", driving over White's Pass from Yakima to pick up 15 or 20 pounds (or more) of berries - One of the most fun things for me was remembering these customers from year to year - (my true start in customer service!)


It was way too short a visit - less than an hour, because we had to head home - about a 4 hour drive - but "I have been thinking" (which the Shepherd says is a very dangerous thing) ever since that it would be fun to do a blog with JUST blueberry things on it - recipes - what ever I find (and there is a LOT about blueberries to be found) - so TA DA - Announcing my new fledgling blog!! Something Borrowed, Something Blueberry -
The "borrowed" part is that most of the recipes that I will post will be be from other sources - notated, of course - but I'd like to make it a really fun resource for anyone interested in blueberries - the "wonder" fruit - the newest thing I've read is that they help keep you from getting alzheimers disease -

So there you go - hope you enjoyed this brief visit to the farm and into my past - have a great weekend!

Blueberries - more later

Although these beautiful berries are from our bushes, last weekend we visited my sister & b-i-l in Mossyrock on their blueberry farm. I have a great story and more pictures for you, but no time to write it out tonight - so this is just a little teaser -

I'm also giving great thought to doing a blog of all blueberry recipes for her - I thought it sounded like fun! There are certainly some tasty recipes out there. We'll see how my time goes.