wordy wednesday...august appreciation {august 31, 2022}

In June I decided that my end of month post would be to look back and be grateful for the good things that happened during the month. This is my 3rd EOM post and it just happens to fall on Wordy Wednesday.

* The neck pin in my Kitchen Aid mixer fell out and thanks to persistence and YouTube videos, I fixed it all by myself!

* T and I celebrated our 42nd wedding anniversary!

* Dinner and a show...wonderful dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Meadowlark, and then on to see Jesus Christ Superstar. 

* Little grandson and his dad come to visit for a weekend.

* A trip to Dayton for a dentist appointment (no return visits needed), watch the river fountains go off over the Great Miami River, view the Tree of Life Memorial dedicated to the Oregon District shooting victims, and finding a street penny downtown.

* Two weekends in a row that the little grandson visits!

* Dayton Dragons game with my brother and sister-in-law.

* Hikes at Quarry Trails MetroPark.

* Taking a backroads drive through rural Ohio to Findlay. 

* Used my FuelPerks ($1.30/gallon) points to fill up my car. Spent a total of $39.52 for 16.7 gallons of gas!

* Seeing a rolling cloud formation and doing some research to find out what it was all about.

* Grandpuppy Clark staying with us for a week

* Going to the concrete cornfield on Frantz Road.

* A stroll through Goodale Park

* My niece gave birth to her 3rd son on the 17th.

* Little grandson turned 2 months on the 18th. I love this photo...the big toothless smile makes my heart smile. "Sweet Child O' Mine" was my son's and my Mother/Son dance at his wedding almost four years ago. Love, love, LOVE this sweet grandchild o' mine.

* My daughter's end of the month birthday

* My mother-in-law died on August 12, 2022, from complications due to dementia and living a long life just short 99 years of age. Her Memorial Mass of Christian Burial, our final farewell to her, was at the old St. Michael’s church in downtown Findlay. She loved that church. Whenever she talked about St. Michael’s, she always found a way to mention that all three of her children were married there. Surrounding her altar were vases and each filled with a dozen red roses. That love story story goes back to 1943. Her then fiance left for his WWII service in the South Pacific on January 22, 1943, and he made arrangements with the local florist to deliver a dozen red roses to the love of his life on the 22nd of every month until he returned home. I'll bet you he greeted her with dozens of red roses when she passed through the heavenly gates!

birthday girl! {august 30, 2022}

 Happiest of birthdays to my third child/second daughter!

“Daughters are like flowers that fill the world with beauty.” ~ Unknown

Much love to...

💚 the little girl who used to cling to my leg but now exudes confidence and gets so much respect and attention in the business world.

💚 the animal loving child who so wanted a puppy and who cried when I told her we weren't getting a dog because she was going to be a big sister.

💚 the determined and tenacious high school student who did not fall behind in her studies during a tough health event.

💚 the small in stature young woman who adopted the biggest and sweetest dog from the rescue organization. 

💚 the one with the most infectious giggle and can get everyone laughing in no time.

💚 the woman who planned a wedding during the pandemic and re-planned the wedding when COVID restrictions were lifted.

💚 my girl who inherited my "adventurous" sense of direction. (Thank heavens for GPS!)

💚 daughter, sister, new wife, first time aunt...thank you for the love and blessings you bring to the fam.

💚 HAPPY "BIRFDAY" TO YOU!

urban cornfield {august 29, 2022}

Hello! Lend me your ear and let me a-maize you with a corny history lesson...There is more than a kernel of truth to this.

In Dublin, OH, a former corn field now sprouts 109 people-sized ears of concrete corn in a large oddball art display. This very weird sight along the road is a salute to Sam Frantz, an inventor of hybrid corns and former owner of this land.

Frantz farmed this site from 1935 to 1963, using it as as a study field for tasty mutant strains. Frantz was "well known for his development of hybrid corn seeds," and worked with Ohio State University on hybridization projects. (He obviously was crazy about corn. Does that make him a cornivore?) He donated this land, now named Sam and Eulalia Frantz Park, after its farming days were over.

The Dublin Arts Council brought in artist Malcolm Cochran to create the environment of corn. He completed this new field in 1994. A row of old Osage Orange Trees anchors the west side of the park, where you'll find signs explaining hybridization and describing the project. Three different molds were used to create the concrete ears of corn. The variety Cochran used is a "double-cross hybrid called "Corn Belt Dent Corn.”

The Arts Council wanted to remind residents of the area's long-gone agricultural heritage but the Field of Corn instantly became a shuckin' joke -- giant inedible food -- paid for with tax dollars, and surrounded by a sprawl of corporate offices, bland businesses and suburban neighborhoods.

walk between rainfalls {august 28, 2022}

 “Some people walk in the rain; others just get wet.” — Roger Miller

Raindrops refresh and improve the beauty of everything they fall on.

The sight of raindrops on the leaves is truly mesmerizing.

"Around us, life bursts with miracles, a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops." Nhat Hnah

"Life is a raindrop." ~ Marcus Sakey

roll clouds {august 27, 2022}

I enjoy keeping my eye on the sky. Last weekend as T and I drove south and east from Findlay to Columbus, it was obvious that we were driving into rain. The clouds darkened and the color was that ominous, heavy gray. We looked over the fields of rural Ohio and saw the rain falling in the distance. And then, looking out my passenger side window, I saw it: a long cloud rolling toward us.

Clouds come in very unique shapes and sizes. After doing some research (google rolling clouds), I found out that this cloud is a roll cloud and it falls under the umbrella term of arcus clouds. Arcus cloud is the umbrella term used for low-lying accessory clouds that spread out horizontally, usually from the boundary of a more extensive storm system like a thunderstorm. These cloud formations have a visually striking appearance. 

Arcus clouds are divided into two main categories: Shelf Clouds and Roll Clouds. As a result, arcus clouds are either wedge-shaped or in the shape of a horizontal tube-shaped column. They pose no direct danger in the form of precipitation or strong winds, but in many cases, act as a precursor for approaching thunderstorms and severe weather. The shelf cloud is the best-known arcus cloud formation. The roll cloud is the shelf cloud’s less famous cousin.

The appearance of roll clouds is a relatively rare occurrence. A roll cloud is a rare type of arcus cloud characterized by its round tube-shaped formation, which forms at very low altitudes and appears to rotate on its horizontal axis. It acts as a single wave known as a soliton and develops completely independent from other clouds. Although not physically attached to a parent cloud, a roll cloud still forms at the leading edge or gust front of a storm system. We drove through off and on buckets of rain coming down along with poor visibility.

To top everything off, the fuel indicator dinged. 50 miles to an empty tank and here we are in the middle of nowhere. Even though we weren’t that far from civilization, it was just one more stressor. But you know that old saying, "After the rain comes the rainbow..."

Voila! 

monster cookies {august 26, 2022}

My kids are getting together for a long weekend at a lake in northern Indiana and they asked for Monster Cookies. Always glad to oblige a cookie request!

Monster Cookies. Why are they called Monster Cookies?

There doesn't seem to be clear consensus on how Monster Cookies got their name.  An early account of the cookies from 1971 indicates they got their name from the shear amount of stuff loaded into them, and there is a lot of stuff: 9 cups of oats, 24 ounces of peanut butter, 6 eggs, lots of M&Ms and chocolate chips, plus more. Some think it's because they look like monsters with their bumpy texture and variety of colors, yet others thinks it's because of the monstrous size of the cookies themselves.

They’re the monster of the cookie world -- a mash-up of parts of different cookie recipes. Part oatmeal cookie, part peanut butter cookie, and part chocolate chip.

You can make them big (monstrous size), you can make them small (monstrous quantity). Regardless, cookie monsters of all ages will love them. 

88 cookies (minus a few from taste testing) 

roygbiv walk {august 25, 2022}

On a recent walk at Quarry Trails MetroPark, I couldn't help but notice the flowers. Pops of color here and there with no rhyme or reason. Pretty soon the camera came out and I stopped and clicked, stopped and clicked, taking pics of so many different flowers, mostly yellow flowers.  I needed a focus and that became ROYGBIV. Try to find each color of the rainbow. 

“Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” – Henry David Thoreau

"I love walking because it clears your mind, enriches the soul, takes away stress, and opens up your eyes to a whole new world .” ~ Claudette Dudley

wordy wednesday...roget's thesaurus {august 24, 2022}

Though nearly everyone is familiar with the Roget’s Thesaurus, few people know anything about Peter Mark Roget, the eminent 19th century physician, physiology expert, mathematician, inventor, writer, editor and chess whiz—and what motivated him to write his immortal book.

People tend to think of a thesaurus as a collection of synonyms and antonyms, but Roget’s is essentially a reverse dictionary. With a dictionary, the user looks up a word to find its meaning. With Roget’s, the user starts with an idea and then keeps flipping through the book until he finds the word that best expresses it. The organization of the book reflects the unique intelligence of the polymath that created it.

Obsessed with words ever since he began studying Latin as a schoolboy, Roget completed a first draft of the Thesaurus (the Latin word for “treasure” or “treasury”) in 1805, when he was just 26. Then working as a physician in Manchester, Roget managed to crank out this string of word lists in less than a year.

It wasn't until his retirement from science in 1848 at the age of 69, that Roget took on the challenge of finishing the Thesaurus. The still spry Roget worked nonstop for nearly four years to prepare the book for publication. He would continue to tinker with his masterpiece until his death at the age of ninety in 1869, having watched over the publication of some 28 editions.

"A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire load. Witnesses were stunned, startled, aghast, taken aback, stupefied, confused, shocked, rattles, paralyzed, dazed, bewildered, mixed up, surprised, awed, dumbfounded, nonplussed, flabbergasted, astounded, amazed, confounded, astonished, overwhelmed, horrified, numbed, speechless, and perplexed." ~ Al Lampkin

peanut brittle {august 23, 2022}

The other night as I was looking through a cookbook, my mother-in-law's recipe for peanut brittle fell out from the pages. Don't know how it got tucked in there but all at once there it was on the table in front of me.

I'm not a huge peanut brittle fan but Mom's is good. I will add it to my Christmas baking this year. My mom made peanut brittle but her recipe is different from my mother-in-law's. The one thing i remember my mom telling me is when you make peanut brittle or other hard candy, make sure to make it on a day when it isn't raining. The humidity causes the candy to be more chewy instead of crunchy.

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