More "likes and dislikes"...

Didn't get to my computer yesterday so thought up some more of my likes and dislikes. I'll start with the seasons. My very favorite season is Spring! Seems like God put it before the heat of Summer and the cold of Winter so that one could really be ready for it!!!Seems like Spring kind of "sprung" on us this year! My daffodils were budding and grew into the beautiful and noble flowers that they are! Last year I had a lot of the white kind, (Narcissus) and I had those around Christmas time this year and they still had a few blooms when the daffodils started and then the hyacinths! The odor is simply overwhelming! In fact, if I am around them too long I get a headache! But they really did themselves well this year even if all I had was pink. When I planted the bulbs several years ago, I had two or three shades of pink from dark to pale and of course the white ones! But over the years they have all reverted back to pink! But to see them blooming and one of my azaleas really outdid itself this year! My roses all have buds and my Easter lilies are starting to really get tall! My big wine-barrel planter is really outdoing itself with the gladiolas coming up and the little plants that I planted aroung them are starting to fill up the barrel! Is it any wonder I like Spring!!! One of the bad thing about Spring though is the winds. We had a saying years ago, "March winds bring April showers which bring May flowers"! The wind and my "Arthur" don't get along!!! I've got a built-in thermometer that tells me when the weather is going to change! And this past Winter and into this Spring I really feel the pain! Summer heat and I don't get along too well but the Fall isn't bad and as long as I don't have to be out in the weather, I don't mind Winter! I hate foggy weather when it can't make up it's mind to come down to the ground (Tule Fog) or whether it's just going to hang up there covering the sun and making me feel "blue" or despondant! A cold,crisp winter day isn't bad when one can see the sun but it is too cold to be out in it! I also like a rainy day! To hear rain patter on a roof, ooh, what a lullaby!!!! I'm talking about a gentle rain, not a hurricane or tornado or something! I don't like thunder and lightning but I can get drawn into watching the lightning from a window or door!! Not a very smart thing to do!!!! I was in a tornado one time when Tom and Dottie lived in the Chicago area and I never want to go through that again! One minute it was so warm and I was sitting in the house watching the weather channel when Tom came in and asked me to come out and sit in the yard with the family! Dottie was watching the sky and there was a few flashes of lightning, etc and the clouds looked kind of pale green! Dottie told me she didn't like the looks of that, when all of a sudden a wind came up and it didn't just "blow". It was like a twisting wind and Tom told the kids and me to get in the house and he started to put the chairs, etc. away! We went to the basement, and we could hear the wind and the thunder, and see the flashes of lightning, and we sat huddled, when all of a sudden there was almost a big "bang-slam" and then the wind died down and Tom said, "well, that's it! We can go upstairs now!" Boy, there was branches all over the yard from a tree they had and of course everything was soaking wet. We heard later that the crash we heard was from a tree a few blocks away that had taken a hit!!! But other times when Dick and Jane lived in Cleveland the thunder and lightning storms they had there were terrible. Janie called me one afternoon and told me that there was a bad storm heading toward the house. I told her that it had been there and a lightning bolt had hit their bird feeder, (it was quite tall like a lightning rod) and I sat there and saw this big flash of lightning hit that and go down into the ground!!!! Another time in the night she came into my room and I was standing at the window watching, flash after flash of lightning, (hardly time for the thunder!) She said, "Mom, get away from that window!!" No thanks! I'll take the weather out here!!! It does get hot in the Summer and cold in the Winter but I don't think I could take the weather back East for long!!! So on this Spring day, the wind has calmed down a bit and I think I'll go and see if I can open the door for awhile!!! And I grew up in Wahington and Idaho! where we did have four seasons but I was much, much younger then and so could take it!!!

All? about me!!!!

I thought that I would write to some of you who read my blog and let you know my "likes and dislikes"!!! I really don't know where to start except to say that I really, really like babies! All sizes, colors dispositions and all. They are all so precious, just coming from God!!! Even those who didn't turn out so well are precious! I was watching a program about the "Missionaries of the Poor" yesterday and the babies on that program were so precious and eager to learn, even though they probably will never learn any more than to smile, eat, etc. Some of my other likes I like, pretty much everybody. Some better than others but that's where my human nature comes in. And.... sometimes I get to know them and really find myself liking them more and more!!!! Lets get on to something else! Colors! I like blue, pink, red, green, white, and black becauseit goes so well with white!!! I was told by my Mother that she had me Consecrated to the Blessed Virgin when I was born and for two years I only wore blue and white!!! Maybe thats why I like blue so much. It has to be a light color, in any case, I'm not too fond of Navy blue! Pink and red came through my loving my favorite flowers, roses!! And the fact that I was a towhead or to put it nicely, a "platinum" blond as a child and into High school. I had no idea that everyone was envious of me! I could do nothing with my hair, it was a straight as a string without a perm!!! But the colors I mentioned liking went well with my hair! My hair started to turn kind of light brown and then it seemed that someone told me that I would look good in yellow, orange brown, etc. I just couldn't see it!!! and never did anything about wearing those colors! Food!!!! My favorite meat was and still is beef!!! Nothing better than a good beef steak cooked med., med. rare or just until the blood was warm enough to eat the meat!!! After that I like chicken, or any kind of fowl, then comes pork and then lamb!!! In the spring of the year, I love a meal made with leg of lamb!!! Not an old sheep but lamb! With that I like the usual potatoes, fixed any way and I can eat loads of them!!! Growing up on the farm I pretty much like vegetables but the few that I really can't stand are okra, eggplant, lima beans, etc. Some beans are O.K. and some I could care less if I ever had them! I love tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and pretty much all the rest of the veggies! A lot of it depends on how it's cooked! My favorite fruits are peaches, strawberries, watermelon, some grapes, (not concords! Too slippery!) But I like apples, oranges, (just wished they liked me more!) grapefruit,( I can't eat that anymore because of my medication!) I "sort of" like bananas, pineapple, and one or two of the more exotic fruits!! I like peanuts, walnuts, (black and English) almonds,etc and I do like hazlenuts, brazil nuts, etc. I like raisins, dates, dried prunes, etc. I am a "Chocoholic" and could eat a pound of good candy in about three days!!! I'm not much of a coffee drinker, one cup a day, in the morning! And I have to have a little sweetener in it and milk or cream, just enough to make it not quite so black!!! I could stand a glass of wine with my dinner but I can't say that I am a drinker!!! One drink and I'm on the table dancing!!! And the headaches the next day! Not worth it!!! Incidently, I don't drink that one glass of wine either! I used to love to cook, before and during my marriage and then after Cappy died, I had to cook and then too, my Mother lived with me for a few years and so I cooked for her and when my brother Bob lived near us, we made an arrangement that we divided up the food bill and I would do the cooking! He then too care of my car, made sure I had enough gas and oil, and watched out for flats, etc. It was a perfect arrangement for us! Then as I got older, I just couldn't cook anymore and he was itll and moved away, so now if I can get away with a sandwich, that suits me fine!!! Wow! I've got to get out of here and get to doing something else!!! More about me later!!!!!

Reminders..

Yesterday I couldn't get Barbara, my sister out of my mind! I said a few prayers for the dead, etc. and then it finally came to me!!!Yesterday was her birthday!!! Was this her keeping me on "my toes" or on my knees,so to speak! I did, then, really get busy and pray for her! The things that went through my mind about her and my other sisters and brothers, and some of the crazy and not so crazy things that we did!!! Genevieve, being next in line to age was almost my constant companion when we were little! We made mud pies together and they were beauties! We then "tried" to feed them to our brothers. Some of the older ones were smart but I remember Gerry and how we fed him mud pies! He would sit there and chew away at them!!! They were so pretty! We would decorate them with flowers or vegetables and I guess that "sort of" took away the taste of the mud! I wouldn't know because nobody ever fed me one!!! When Teresa came along she was like a little doll! Blond, blue-eyed and she always had such an even temper!!! And she was quite the tomboy too! She was born after Mother had two boys after Genevieve and so she grew up climbing trees, etc. just like her brothers! She loved riding the horses, and loved all the animals on the farm who were her special friends! She loved all the cats, dogs, and whatever else that we had around!! Then two more boys and then Barbara was born! Barbara was sort of a go-getter! She made her place known in the family!!! She was somewhat spoiled and to us older girls she got away with murder! She always said she hated to dust because that was always "her job" when we were all home! We would have gladly let her do the dishes or clean the house with Mother!!! I told her that not too long before her death! My sisters were all "unique" in their ways. Genevieve was always "the lady", and her friends were all reserved, etc. Teresa was a "happy-go-lucky" type of person and made me, anyway, like to be around her! Barbara carried her "independent" air about her until her death but was always there for me!! All my sisters were there to help me in some of my more difficult moments!!! Maybe that's why I have "outlived" them! And I really have a "lost" feeling, not knowing who to turn to for those "special" moments!!! I miss you all but I think I miss Barbara most, because I am not physically able to do things for myself! But God and His Mother are there for me most of all, and I do have, as my family will tell you, a lot of good friends!!! God Bless them all!!!

Lent....

Was thinking this morning, Lent is half over!!! And what have I done that is so significant to do Penance for my sins!!! A few "measley" (my word!) things that I kind of half-heartedly do daily!!! I remember when I was a kid, Mother always made a "big" thing out of Lent, (which it should be!) and so we would do a few things like giving up candy, ( we didn't get that much anyway!), and try to be nicer to our brothers and sisters, etc. Oh yes, a few extra prayers would help too! But when I got away from the farm and into town then I tried to go to daily Mass and Communion and make the Stations of the Cross, not daily but at least once a week, and of course I began to stay away from the candy and sweets! We, all of us children, put our candy in a box till after Holy Saturday!! You can imagine what it tasted like then! But we felt that we had really done something good for Lent! I think that this year is the first year that I haven't given up chocolates! I've got a two pound box of See's chocolates still wrapped up and every day it keeps coaxing me to have just one!!!! But I am keeping from it because I know if I open THAT box, it won't be just one!!!! I, when I could, went to daily Mass here but since I don't drive and it's pretty hard to even go once a week,( I can't kneel!) But I do say my Stations of the Cross at home and an extra Rosary, and this month prayers in honor of St, Joseph!!! I do miss the daily Stations that I made too, when I was able to go to Mass!! Funny how fast time flies, isn't it? Is it just because I am so old that it just seems to be flying by, or is that the way it seems to everybody???? I was so looking forward to my Birthday and now am looking forward to a couple of weddings in the Fall! And then Christmas will be here again!!! Easter will be just a "flick" in time, and the other Holidays and events!!!! I told Alicia the other day, I hope I'll be able to make her wedding some time in the Spring!!!! Am I assuming too much or will God take care of me so I can do all these things that sound so exciting??????Only He knows!!!

The importance of family....

Family! What a wonderful thing! I was able to go to Mass last night with Steve, Marilyn, Alicia, Lorenzo, and Lily!!!! I felt so grateful to have a whole pew for us! The little one was really good and my heart just soared when I could hear her little voice making a few sounds, etc. Here was my family!!! Or at least a part of it! Nothing like a month ago! A month???? Only that long??? We went out to dinner afterwards where Alicia showed off her new "ring" and stated that they would be married early next year! She wants to be married at the little Catholic Church up at White Pines and of course that has to be when the weather will be gorgeous! And hopefully Lorenzo will be part of our Church family! I can hardly wait for that!!! Lily just laid there in her stroller and smiled at anyone and everyone and soon she was off to sleep! It wasn't a noisy place and like babies do, or what they are supposed to do is sleep when they get tired!!! They are so lucky in that she sleeps all night once she is in her bed! My heart felt so full with the family, (all but Sarah, and she doesn't get to come home every weekend!) all there and at Mass and afterwards, what an evening!! Then Marilyn and Steve brought me some pictures so that I can send them to some of the folks that couldn't make my party and have no computers to bring up the pictures on!!! I sat here for the longest time after I got home and just kept looking at them all and I guess they had taken more pictures than John and Janie, etc. I know that Wendy was running around taking some "candid" shots too. I lived with my family all over again. Got to bed after 12:00 midnight and then was so keyed up, thought I would never get to sleep! It wasn't anything I ate and we ate early enough but I was just so HAPPY!!!!

More about "the man in my life"!

One of the things that I failed to mention in yesterdays blog is Cappy's likes and dislikes! Not too many dislikes! When we were first married he had a lot of trouble with his stomache. He said that he had been told that he had stomache ulcers and began to tell me what he could eat and what he couldn't. Seems he had been to a Dr. sometime in his teens who had given him a bunch of tests and found that milk was one thing he could not drink. He said that it felt like the minute it hit his stomache it would feel like it was boiling and made him very sick! Well, I don't like milk and never did so that posed no problem. He could eat things such as gravy or creamed vegetables where the milk was boiled. I never thought much about his ulcers and so I just cooked like I always had at home. Potatoes, gravy, a cooked vegetable and sliced tomatoes, or cole slaw, or lettuce salad, etc. He didn't seem to get any "attacks" of stomache ulcers. But one time after we were married he did get a terrible attack and they were bleeding ulcers. He would during one of these attacks just stay away from food and when he got to feeling better, fix up for himself a big Mexican dinner! And hot as it was, it never bothered him!!! He loved the Mexican food and started to show me how to fix it! I had never ever come close to Mexican food unless it was a big pot of Chili con Carne, made with just good old red beans and then tomatoes, chili pepper, (canned), onion a bit of garlic salt or powder, etc. It was a pretty good dish when I had it in the cold Northwest where I lived as a girl. One ate this concoction with soda crackers on a cold wintry night! Well, after tasting Cappy's Mexican food including Chili, and most of the time without the carne, (meat) I was hooked for life! My Mother and Father got so they liked it too and in fact, Cappy started doing most of the cooking on weekends when we had company!I don't know how he made it taste so special but everyone who has ever tasted his tacos, Cnili Colorado, green chili, tamales, and other Mexican dishes, and the rice and beans that went with them swear that he had a "secret" ingredient that he put in them when no one was looking!!! I think the ingredient was love of Mexican food and his love of cooking!!! I have tried all my life since his death to make things taste like he did but....! When a couple of my kids were married, we put on a feast of home-made tamales for them for their rehearsal dinner and at their request!!! I learned how to make tamales and it was a job doing them from scratch but we bought all our ingredients from a Mexican store, even the "masa" that was the cornmeal filling! Of course, Cappy "doctored" it up so it was pliable, etc. He made a wonderful dish with chicken. He boiled up the chicken and then made the sauce which included, chocolate, cloves, etc. I could positively eat that all night!!! The Mexican name escapes me at the moment! (One of those senior moments!)He had a ball doing the cooking. He was a wonder at the backyard Barbeque too. His barbecued chicken was famous too. As you can see, I was pretty spoiled with him doing so much of the cooking, even though I was told by more than one in the family that I was a "Great" cook! My potato salad always went over big although I never ate a bite of it, but Cappy tested it out and could et tons of it!!! So all my kids grew up loving Mexican food except Steve and he told me one day after he was married, "I wish I had tried Dad's cooking! Everybody tells me I don't know what I missed!" Yes, Steve, you would have loved it as much as the rest of the family!!! Goodnight!

Family...

Family, so important, and so needed! This week I had a lot of time to think about my family, especially after the spectacular 90th birthday party that they, my family, gave me!!! And since I already told you about my family growing up and my Mother and Father, (who by the way died on the Feast of St. Joseph in 1970!) So I thought I would tell you about my husband and the father of my 5 biological children who came into my life with two children, Lester Bert III,twelve years old and Florence Rose 7 years old. Her Mother died in giving birth to her and so her Grandmother Farnsworth raised her as her own child! Cappy and I took Lester Bert to live with us until he was about 17 when he went into the Air Force. Cappy, whose real name was Afton Leroy Farnsworth, (he used to say he only kew two girls and a river that were named Afton!)was a very gentle man. Oh he could cuss with the best of them but it was almost a part of his speech!! He didn't mean a thing about it and in fact. I don't think he even realized that he was swearing, or "cussing"! He got along with everybody and everybody liked him. He was bald when I met him and he told me (and his Mother told me) that he had started going bald very young! He had been a "sickly" youngster and so had stomache ulcers and was kind of held back from doing chores like his older brother had to do. Rake up leaves, chop wood and bring it into the house, etc. Hence the name "Cappy" as most people knew him. He got the name when he was a small child and his Mother had asked him to bring in some wood. There was a lot of little Mexican kids around the sawmill in Mexico where they lived at the time and so one of the Mexican workers at the mill saw Cappy line up the kids and actually had them bringing in the wood! The Mexican man laughed and told Cappy's father that Cappy was a real "El Capitan", Captain, and the name stuck!!! I think I knew his real name when he put it on our Marriage license! He loved every one of his kids so much! Lester Bert was at first a problem, because I had taken "his" place in his father's life!!! No amount of trying to show him that I really cared about him worked, but then in later years we became friends. when he began to have children and he had a couple of stepchildren!! Florence Rose was like a stranger to her Father because he was off working someplace and even if Lester B. could be with him, she couldn't and so that posed a problem. I tried one time to have her come and live with us and all she did was cry all night and day for her "mamma" I told Cappy, it just wasn't fair to her to take her away from what she considered home. She, also in later years, has become close. She was at my party with a couple of her children and grandchildren! Good to see her. She has been having a lot of medical problems. After four years of marriage, Cappy and I started to have our biological children. Robert Earl, Richard Allen, William Leroy, Stephen Gerard and Thomas Clarence. Or, Bob, Dick, Bill, Steve, and Tom. I had one girl, a nine mo. stillborn girl, Dorothy Anne whe was born 11 mos. after Steve. Cappy was a good Father, patient and hard-working but if he got riled, (which was once in a blue moon!) the boys knew it!! I was always, in his eyes, his bride, and he treated me such! Flowers, or candy, or jewelry, etc. I can't remember him ever leaving me or coming home again that he he didn't take me in his arms and give me a "special" kiss and a hug!!Every baby was greeted with a bouquet of American Beauty Roses! I lost him to Emphesemia and other complications in July of 1970 after 29 yesrs of marriage. There never was and never will be anyone else for me!!!!God Bless you Honey!!!

Weather....

This is about the third week of really, not all that great, weather! It could be worse! We really need a lot of water here in the Valley and so far we haven't had too much! I'm not complaining God!!!!! And in thinking over my life, I have been in pretty worse "stuff" When growing up, up in Washington State near Pullman, we really had a combination of weather. The Springs were beautiful and all the wild flowers started blooming and the birds were singing, the creeks were gurgling, and it was as perfect as it could be here on earth! Then the hot summers came, nothing to have over 100 degrees for weeks at a time and it was so sultry because of the Snake River not that far from us!!! And as I've said before, no electricity for fans or for refrigerators, etc. But despite that we, as children, thought nothing of walking the two miles to the store for an ice cream cone! (We had eaten it before we left the store and then had to walk the two miles back in the heat!) Then we had our August "dog-days", (as we called them!) the evenings started to cool down but the days were hotter than in July it seemed! Then just about when you got cooled off in the fall, winter came and yes, we had a lot of snow!!!It was about the same in Idaho but the snow was a little worse because we were more North! Snow time in Couer d' Alene was really good except for the walk to school when you couldn't even see the cars on the other side of the snowbank where snow-plows had really piled it up but there, we also had beautiful Springs and Falls and the Summers were fantastic with the Lake and all! When we moved to California, we had thought we were coming to "Sunny California" where the sun shone Summer and Winter. Boy, did we ever get a surprise the first Fall we were here and it didn't get any better! I told you about the snow piling up so high on our wedding night that we couldn't even get to the cabin we had rented! So I guess in every life "a little rain must fall"! We have, here in California, run the "gamut" so to speak, in the different areas we have lived in! From really bad heat, to fog, (not my favorite weather!) to wind, to snow and it seems like it anyway, never-ending rain!!!!! The worst part about all this rain is that when it starts to warm up we may have to suffer FOG again before the winds blow and the drying heat of Summer!!! Have a good one!!