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Wordless Wednesday – Morning Walk at Heather Farm
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Wordless Wednesday
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Dad’s Memorial
My Dad’s memorial was last weekend. It was difficult. But it was very nice as well. It was a lovely service and very well attended. I think there were maybe 300 people there, which showed how many people’s lives he touched. There were people there from the alternative newspapers that he started way back when, from his time managing (and more recently as a board member) an alternative, non profit radio station, from his many years working in grant writing, from mentoring others to writing books, to teaching classes. People from Meals on Wheels, where he volunteered as a delivery person for over 20 years. People from my step-mom’s life…
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Dad’s Obituary
Michael Wells passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday July 5, 2017 while hiking in the Dolomites in Italy on a long anticipated trip with his wife, Julie Lawrence, who was the love of his life. He lived his life true to his moral compass, leading with compassion and by example. In addition to being a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, he was a grant writer, social activist, consultant, journalist, professor, and business owner. He was a thoughtful, quiet man motivated by his strong beliefs to do the right thing, not seeking public recognition for his actions. Yet, because of his dedication to and deep involvement with many organizations and causes, he…
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Heartbroken
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you. Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust. A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew, A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost. The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,- They are gone. They are gone to feed…
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Cooking for One
Later this month, Ted and Maya will be in the UK, with a brief trip to Paris, visiting Ted’s extended family. His mom and brother are going as well, and aside from the time in Paris, they will be staying with family. I elected to stay home and hold down the fort, take care of the dog, etc. I would like to go to Europe sometime in the not-too-distant future, but I think I’d prefer it to be just the three of us, though I do adore my MIL and BIL. I hope they have a fabulous time. I was thinking about it, and I realized that I don’t think…
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My Stupid Shoulder
Back in early April, I was home alone, and bringing a newly laundered tablecloth downstairs. I was holding it just so, so that it blocked my line of sight in just the right way that I tripped over Mulder’s bed. He has a thick bed, and my foot caught on it in such a way that I could not pull my knees up and catch myself. Instead, I fell flat on my face, while my arm went above my head. I fell hard. I was bruised and sore. After a few days, the bruising and most of the pain went away. But my shoulder continued to hurt, badly enough that…
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Blueberry Pancakes
(Gorgeous photo and recipe found here) It’s ridiculous how long I’ve been gone, I know. When you’re in the blogging rythem, and you blog often, everything seems like good blogging material. When you’re not, nothing seems like it would be interesting to your readers, so you don’t bother. Don’t bother often enough, and the next thing you know, it’s been over 10 weeks since your last post. Ugh. So I decided that I would just find something in my brain, and bring it here. So what you get is yet another recipe. I’ll try to come up with something NOT recipe related soon. Ted’s schedule varies a lot, which means…
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Birthday Cake
Maya requested carrot cake for her birthday party. She loves carrot cake and chocolate cake about equally. Last month was her Uncle Steve’s birthday, and as Steve had chocolate cake, she wanted carrot. I thought about buying one at the bakery, but decided the best way to go was going to be homemade, because there is THE family carrot cake recipe. This is what we call “Mother Thomas’s Carrot Cake”, because it is the carrot cake made by Ted’s Grandmother Thomas. It’s from a cookbook, which I believe was part of a woman’s auxiliary, and that’s all I know. My ‘chili relleno’ recipe is from the same cookbook. I was…
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Birthday Wine
Back in December of 1997, I worked at a company that had our department holiday party on the Napa Valley Wine Train. I was in HR at the time, and there were 4 or 5 of us, I think, not a big crowd. The Napa Valley Wine Train is a passenger train that goes up Napa Valley for maybe an hour, and then comes back. It stops at one winery on the route, and serves pretty nice food and wine along the way. The train cars are decorated in an old fashioned way, like I imagine they might have been in the old west. You depart from a train depot…
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Women’s March
As the Women’s March came nearer, I felt more sure that I wanted to participate. But which one? We live in a small city (bigger than a town! Pop around 60k) in a very densely populated area, and there were two fairly large ones just a short BART (our local transit) ride away. So, Oakland or San Francisco? Both would be great. I still hadn’t decided, when Ted’s mom called and asked if we wanted to go to the one right here in our town. OK, I’m in. Easier than getting on BART even, and a shorter walk (Ted’s mom had hip surgery this summer, and I have arthritis that…
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Catching Up
It’s been a busy time, since last I stopped by here. The entire month of December is gone, and we’re a week into a New Year. So what’s going on? I went to Portland for a long weekend in early December. It was my step-mom’s 70th birthday, and I went up to help her celebrate. Ted didn’t come with me, mostly because of his cat allergies, which means he can’t come inside (or at least not for long) most of the houses for our family. That can work fine in summer, we sleep at a hotel or house sit for neighbors, and we eat dinner in my parents’ back yard.…
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Grandma Ward
This is my much loved Grandma Ward, with her first husband, Roland, back in 1941. Grandma was born in Southern California but moved to the Central Valley near Modesto when she was a young girl. She remembered riding the bus with the high school kids when she was in Kindergarten, because her parents didn’t want her taking the bus the other Kindergarteners took, as it was on the Highway and they didn’t think that was safe. So she rode with the big kids. The step to get on the bus was too high for her to reach, so a high schooler would lift her up. Kindergarten was 1/2 day, and…
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Bitter
These were supposed to be our victory cookies, based on a recipe from the 1992 Presidential election, when Hillary Clinton made a comment on the Today show that she supposed she could have stayed home and baked cookies, but instead she continued her law career. She was slammed, with the assumption being that she held contempt for stay-at-home moms, that she thought their life was simply baking cookies and drinking tea. She quickly fell in line, doing the politically expedient thing and entering a cookie recipe in the Family Circle baking contest, a First Lady challange that survives to this day. I decided it would be symbolic of how far we’ve…
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Presidential Cereal
I had a dream last night (or was it a vision?) of a cereal box with Trump’s picture on it. I know, what a horrid idea. I told Ted, and he went and found this picture, likely in order to torture me. I mentioned it on Facebook, (which is where Ted put the picture), and my FB and prior bloggy friend V-Grrrl said that her nephew (founder of Air B&B) had presidential cereals back in 2008. So I did a search for Presidential Cereals, and found these. The Obama Os and Cap’n McCain’s are VGrrrl’s nephew’s. Good thing these aren’t around all the time. I for one do not want…