Lilies of the field

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.""Therefore, do not be anxious for tomorrow,for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble!"

Rivetting Euro Cup Final

I guess that game just couldn't keep Andrew awake! We have been keeping up with the Euro Cup Series for the past month. Of course cheering for Italy when they played. They didn't do all that great. They lost their first game, but made it to the semifinals. Last week they played Spain in the semifinal. It was tied the whole game and had to be decided by penalty kicks. Argh, we hate that!!! Italy lost. :( So yesterday Spain played Germany. This family was NOT for Germany, but neither were they interested enough in the game to stay awake!!! Spain won, 1-0.

Lo Fatto!!!!

I DID IT!!! I can't believe this. I've been working at making decent pizza for years. Well, tonight I decided to put the pizza on my Scottish girdle(aka griddle). I heated it in the oven for a little while, since I got the idea when the oven was almost ready. I put it on the very bottom of an oven set at 525 degrees. I baked this for 6 minutes. It has crushed tomatoes, turkey pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, shredded zucchini, and black Greek olives. Oh, my goodness. I felt like I just went across to Italy!

Visiting Bloem belles..and Al

The Bloems stopped by for a 3 hour visit on their way from Montana to St. Louis. It was a LOVELY visit. The sun was hot and delicious, the pool was cool and refreshing. It was a blast to have lots of girls laughing, splashing and flipping mats! Al got into the action by helping to blow up the inner tube and throwing the pool toys. It's nice to be on major east/west, north/south highways. Yes, you counted right, seven girls from 18 down to 6! Belle ragazze!!!

Today's storm update

Seems we've had one every day. We did have a gorgeous day, more in another blog. But this front went through about 5pm this afternoon. Right after I took this photo, the winds began blowing, they say, around 80mph! It was crazy for about a half hour, every thing that could move blew. Small branches flew past the windows. If I could get this to upload video, I took a one minute video of the wind and rain. WILD!!! Now, only 45 minutes later, the sun looks like it's going to shine! I LOVE the excitement of Midwest summers!!! *smile* Funny thing is, I put all the inflatable pool stuff underneath the umbrella lying down on the pool deck. It's all still there!

More Rain?!!!

It's nearly 1 pm and this is what it looks like outside. More pools of water in the soybean field, more rain POURING out of the sky. I just heard on the radio that parts of our county got 2 inches so far this morning with more rain expected later today. So much for relaxing on my new floating chair on the pool.....

Progress continues..

The nearly 10,000 pounds of rock, gravel and wall stones were delivered yesterday right after that thunderstorm. Poor guy, it was pouring rain and he was out there with his remote control swinging the pallets off the truck bed on to the driveway. If I can get a video to upload, I'd show you how he did it! Last night Den hauled two stones at a time each weighing 69 pounds in the wheelbarrow. There were 43 of those and 24 caps. Now we have the 2800 pounds each of gravel and limestone to haul back today. We're hoping Andrew is going to show up to help! Will is working until 10pm every night!

Rock cakes

Mmmmm, they look sort of like rock cakes. The texture is sort of like rock cakes, but they are the crispy,chewy oatmeal cookies that are my maternal grandmother's recipe. (Since she's Swedish, I should just call her Mormor, mother's mother.) But rock cakes, oh, yum!, are what we ate in Scotland. I probably ate them at several places, but I remember eating them particularly at two places, Tricia's and Janie's. I've NEVER made them myself, and I should get someone's recipe so I can. Why did I never do that?

It's pouring rain, yes, again. A good day to be baking. (Yikes, the lightning just made my computer bleep!) The rest of the week is supposed to be HOT. So I made chocolate chips for Andrew to take home with him when he comes over, and I made the oatmeal for me. I decided I am going to let myself eat one cookie a day. If I say "none" then I can't stand the craving, but if I say one at 3:30 or so, then I can deal with it and not overindulge! They are yummy, though!

Clouds

All in a day's work

Summer seems to be the time to either do the projects that we can't do or put off all winter, or else the time to make some up. I'm wondering WHAT we're getting ourselves into with our latest project.We had to cut down the willow tree that was in the back corner of our lot. It was huge, gave a lot of shade, but had a lot of dead branches. I'm sure we would have lost much of it this spring anyway with all the bad storms we've had. We're trying to level this spot, build a two foot retaining wall and landscape it. We want to be able to sit around the firepit, so we needed enough level space for that. Our soil is clay, clay clay, so when it's wet it's heavy and when it's dry it's rock hard. Den works hard at this! The stone, all 10,000 pounds of it, gets delivered on Wednesday. We dug up a lilac that we had behind the back fence and planted it in that back corner. Actually, it was several bushes, so we divided it into two bushes. Hopefully, they will survive. I'm always sad to see my plants die, especially big ones. It rained last night and is supposed to continue off and on until Saturday, so at least they won't dry out!

The other project is one it seems we need to do every year, and that's painting the pool deck. I also bought new cusions for the recliner and "swing". The latter we bought in Italy in 1994. Guess it was time for a switch! Pool's open every day! Come on over!!! Pretty private back here, too.

Pictures on Picasa

Did you know that all the pictures we upload to blogger are stored in a Picasa Web Album? I just saw that note and went to it. There they are! All the photos from the very first blogs on. It's so cool, just like a photo trip of my life since I started blogging! Fun!

Uploading video

OK, I've been working on this for awhile. Any hints from the rest of you who do this on how to get videos to upload on to the blog? Not that what I have to upload is all that amazing, but I thought it would be fun.
I started out and it was taking FOREVER, like 10 minutes, so I canceled it and thought I'd read how to do it and start again. Well, I was doing it all right, but the next two times I tried I got an error message from Blogger. Do you think it's blogger or is it me?

The Empty Nest

"Officially" our nest was empty since last Friday. Sounds like it isn't going to be empty for too long, though. Will is going to be working out of Council Bluffs after this week. It doesn't feel like an empty nest until a week day comes along. Andrew was always in and out on weekends, sometimes just spending the night with a friend on the spur of the minute. (You can do that when you're a big kid!) But Monday evening arrived and no one came home from work but Den. I have to say, we really enjoyed our evening! We ate dinner out by the pool then worked on our landscape project until dark, which is about 9:45 these days! Andrew did show up while we were eating dinner, though. I can't remember what he was looking for, but he was in and out in a flash. He wanted College World Series tickets and couldn't find them at the grocery store where they usually sell them. The base had some, so he just stopped by to pick up the booklet. Boy, is his life easy!

I FINALLY got to paint the pool deck today. With rain and more rain I haven't been able to get it dried out enough to paint. I'll have to finish it tomorrow, so hopefully the weather will hold! I bought the paint guessing at the matching color while at Menards. I guessed a little brighter than actual, so we really need to wear sunglasses when out there now!

Yesterday was so gorgeous! And today too. We have sun, 70's and no wind!!! I sat out by the gurgling "pond" for two hours yesterday afternoon.

Den and I have been wracking our brains for ideas to landscape our backyard. When we cut down the willow, it left a gaping hole. We also want a spot for a firepit. With such a sloping yard, it is a bit challenging to fit a firepit AND places to sit without tipping into the fire! We're thinking maybe boulders or stumps at this point. We're going to plant lilacs along the neighbor's fence to add some privacy eventually, then put down mostly rocks since where the willow was is all roots. It's an ongoing project! We had such a lovely evening yesterday, I never wanted to go into the house. Then the moon was so bright I could've camped out in my backyard. However, we have mosquitoes now.... Not hard to believe, is it? There are fireflies, though, too!!!

Pomp and Circumstance 30 years on

Thirty years ago today I graduated from college! I'll have to scan a photo to put in here. I loved college. "Pomp and Circumstance" was one of the saddest songs ever because the sound always made me think of saying good bye to friends. Of course we thought it was funny to sing the words, "I want to get married, I want to have kids. I'm tired of dorm life, I want a home of my own!" Try that with that first line!

We have a reunion in September; I think I'll go. Meet up with the other "empty-nesters" and see what every one else is up to these days. One of my friends has a lovely grandson who can be seen at "The Gentino Family". Check him out. You'll want to pinch his cheeks!

Slow train comin'

That's what they say a tornado sounds like, a train. We had a tornado here in the big O. last night. The siren woke me up about 2:20. Pitch black, wind blowing. The wind had been blowing a gale all day, so that wasn't any different. It wasn't raining yet, then the front hit the house WHAM! and we couldn't see anything out the window. Will and I walked around the living room in the pitch dark wondering what to do. The TV had nothing on but the streaming info line saying there was a tornado warning here and three surrounding counties. But one had NO idea where it was, how far away, if it was headed our way. Nothing. Will gave up and went back to bed; Den never got up. I sat in the closet under the stairs and listened to the sirens go off again. About 25 minutes later Andrew called and said his friend's dad had just called and said the tornado hit the Target across the street from them. We talked for awhile since he was sitting in his basement and I in the closet. It's a little more comforting in a storm to have company! He said it was really loud when it hit over there. They wouldn't have heard a siren going off if there had been one, but the storm hit before any warning sirens went off. (He lives west of us.) Then I went upstairs, and the TV was on with the good ol' comforting weatherman telling us that the storm was over Iowa, so I could go back to bed. By this time it was after 3. It took me quite awhile to unwind and get back to sleep.

Andrew was going to have Sunday dinner with us, so when he didn't show up and didn't answer his cell phone, I figured he hadn't gone to church and was around helping the neighbors clean up. Sure enough, he showed up about 2:30. He and his friend had gotten a chain saw and they went around the neighborhood sawing up fallen branches. He had a few fall in his backyard, too. We just were over there, and there are piles of branches piled along the street. (Darn, I forgot the camera!) We stopped and picked up a load of logs for the fire pit later! *smile* Andrew was pretty tired. He said they didn't get to bed until 5. They went out last night to get the chain saw at W's dad's, and then looked around to see if anyone needed help last night. He said everyone was out at 3:30am all over the neighborhood looking around. They got to know the "old ladies" who live across the street and on either side. Those ladies are going to be happy for two strong handsome boys in the neighborhood! Andrew said he and W. are having a wiener roast tonight! (They had dry wood in the garage.) I told him to tell his friends to bring a rake. They could have all those leaves in the backyard cleaned up in no time!

Botticelli Blue

The skies after two days and nights of storms. Lovely blue. "Simpsons" could be written in clouds! Like this:See how lovely the blue sky is in this Botticelli painting? Soft color in the sky and more vivid blue in their clothes. Rich. I'm thankful for color!

What's in a name?

"A rose by any other name is still a rose."

However, there is a NAME far above any other NAME. It would be a good word study, but this is just from today's reading.

Acts 4: 7, "And when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, 'By what power or by what name did you do this?' "

10 let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead...
14 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved

Then the leaders thought that this was getting out of control so they said..
17 .....let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. (18) So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.

And then in the Psalm I read today: Psalm 124:8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made the heaven and the earth.

One of the greatest verses on the name: Philippians 2:9,10 "Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth"

Good thoughts to begin my day.

Life after 60, $60 that is

Hey, I just drive a regular mini-van, not some giant SUV or van! So why did it cost me over sixty bucks to fill my tank?? Granted, it got lower than usual. The "ticker" on the gas pump look like a conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius, $61 for 16 gallons! If I'd had my camera, I would've taken a picture. And if I still had kids at home or in college I could say like Dan in "Dan in Real Life", "There goes your college education....!" Something else will have to go, hmm, the new laptop, new car....not anything I want, of course!

And a weather post

One can't live in the Midwest and not talk about the weather. It's either subzero, Arctic freeze and blizzard in the winter or torrential rain monsoon in the spring or blazing hot desert in the summer. Autumn is about the most temperate season, although we can get one of the above then, too.


Rain and wind are the themes right now. Here's the "crick". The little one in the foreground is barely a trickle normally. Today is still
stormy, and more big ones are expected tonight. We were sitting
in the back of the house last night and didn't realize that the rain was pounding in the north windows. I say "pounding" because it was huge rain drops being blasted in the front windows. It was a lake on the floor by the dining room table, and the back bedroom.... Good thing Andrew isn't sleeping there anymore. Every thing cleaned up nicely, though, once we closed the windows!

History before our eyes

No matter what your political views are, we saw history being made on Tuesday evening as the first African American won the nomination for the Democratic party ticket. It would be great if Martin Luther King would have lived to see this day.





I started taking photos after dinner while the count rapidly declined. We were all watching the numbers come in. This one is around 7pm










This is the first photo after South Dakota counts started coming in. I had to get the "Breaking News" headline.



This last photo isn't very good, I don't know what caused the black line. I had it in several. Probably the angle of the screen to the camera. I had to get this headline.

I feel, in a way, this is like watching the first man walk on the moon. And because we didn't have TV growing up, I never saw that.


To go along with the story, Will went to the Sarpy County Democratic Convention last evening (while the tornado warning sirens blared). He really enjoyed it. Said there were about 77 people there, mostly older. One couple he talked to said they had been coming to these since the 60's!!! What changes they had seen. He said he told them, "Bet you saw a lot of empty rooms!" That got a good laugh. One guy was a 25 year old running for some county office. Will is going to be a delegate to the state convention in Fremont the end of June! Cool! The Democratic Party is so small in Nebraska, probably everyone knows everyone!!!

Say Goodbye to Rosemary

Looks like it's all over for this poor rosemary. I first bought her (and her sister) eight years ago. They have thrived over the years. I divided and repotted them after two or three years, then repotted a couple more times. I put them in these pots two years ago. They thrived into lovely Italian mountainside-like bushes. But, alas, during this winter they began the decline. I put them in front of different windows, and it could be that they didn't get enough sunlight there. Or they are just rootbound. The "deader" one has less soil in the pot. I didn't add new soil last year, and I probably should have. It's old anyway. I guess it was time.

The sister plant isn't doing too badly, though. Only one part of it has died and the new growth looks good. I probably should do something with the soil this year, but the plant is big and heavy and it will take a lot of work to pull it out, shake off old soil and add new stuff. We'll see. I switched to fiberglass pots. Terracotta was WAY too heavy!

So I've bought a "baby" rosemary. Actually this is two plants that I put together. It's a trailing one, however, so it won't look the same. But isn't it lovely, fresh and green. Yummy roast potatoes coming up!

Bella!

This was one of the best movies I have ever seen. The link is from a 700 Club interview in which he says almost the exact thing he says on a Today Show interview, so he's not just talking to a certain crowd. It begins with the trailer of the movie. Here's another interview on YouTube, in case you didn't click on all the YouTube videos of him once you saw that first one!!!!! Notice all the interviewers are women, and they can hardly control themselves for giggling at the beginning. Guess I'd do the same!

Two people within a week raved about this independent film. One was the girl who cuts my hair here in Omaha, and the other was our former chaplain from Italy who lives in Wisconsin, so they were in no way related. I figured I'd put it in our Netflix queue. And we're glad we did.

It's a very moving story. It makes you think, feel, and want to be a better person after watching it. Check out the links and you'll want to go out and rent it yourself. I think I'll go buy it!