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Three Cups of Tea
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time — Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding…
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Halibut with Carrot-Ginger Purée
A few weeks ago, Ted and I decided to take advantage of Maya’s girl scout meeting and go out for a nice dinner. We went to Lark Creek, which is kind of hit and miss. The atmosphere is nice, the service is pretty good, and the food is sometimes wonderful, sometimes a bit so-so. I was contemplating the pork chop, when the waiter brought the couple next to us their food. The husband had a yummy looking scallop dish, but the wife’s halibut was drool-worthy. I’m glad I saw it, because it wasn’t on the regular menu, and I’m not positive I would have ordered it just hearing about it.…
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The Help
KarenMEG recommended The Help over on her blog, so I thought I’d put it on hold at the library. I did, but then I found out I was number 258 in line for it, and decided that maybe I’d buy it myself. So the next time we were at the bookstore, I looked for it, but I couldn’t find it in the fiction area. I asked the helpful person behind the information desk, and he said they should have it, they had 5 copies an hour earlier, but it was downstairs on the ‘Best Sellers’ shelf. Down we went, where he scooped up the very last copy and handed it…
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Babies
(Photos from film website. Click to enlarge. They’re gorgeous.) Thomas Balmes is a French documentary filmmaker, and in Babies, he brings us a nature film about, well, babies. The only dialog is that between the members of the various families in the film, and most of it we can’t understand, either because it is in foreign languages, sans subtitles, or because the voices are low. Because the families surrounding the babies are not the point of this film, except perhaps in that they all love their babies dearly. No, the point of the film seems to be how similar babies around the world are, whether they are being raised in…
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Happy Mother’s Day
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Yesterday, I went to visit my Grandma and her sister, my Great Aunt Flo, partly for Mother’s Day, and partly because I miss them and haven’t seen them for awhile. We went to Marie Calendar’s, and they had strawberry pie ala’ mode for lunch, and we had a great time. When we were back at the house visiting, the talk wound around to my mom, which it usually does, and how adventuresome she was. And Grandma asked me how much, if anything, I remembered about the homestead we lived on, outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1970. I remember the dogs…there was…
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This World We Live In
For the first time ever I hoped there was no Baby Rachel. I don’t know what happened to Dad and Lisa, if the baby was ever born. It must be so hard now to have a baby. Lisa could have miscarried or had a stillborn baby. Horrible though that is, it might be for the better. I tiptoed out of the sunroom and through the kitchen to the bathroom. It smells of fish and bedpans and ocean breeze air freshener. I curled up on the cold tile floor, and I rocked back and forth, glad it made my body ache even more, like I deserved the punishment for what I’d…
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Beef – It’s what’s for dinner…and dinner…and breakfast…
(Picture found along with recipe, here) Yahoo recipes had this yummy looking fajita dish on their weekly meals plan the other day, and I decided to try it. What I didn’t really realize was just how much the recipe made. I knew there’d be leftovers, just not how much. So, the first night, I made the recipe as is. Shredded Beef, Bean, and Corn Fajitas Shredded Beef Ingredients: * 3 to 3-1/2 pound boneless beef chuck pot roast * 2 large onions, cut into thin wedges * 2 cloves garlic, minced * 1 14-oz can beef broth * 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce * 2 tsp. dry mustard * 1 tsp.…
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Happy Birthday Ted!
Happy Birthday today to my wonderful husband, Ted, who has actually started blogging again! Welcome back, to the same old place that you laughed about, hon. 😉 So yesterday was a lovely picnic lunch with friends and family at a local park, and today he’s crossing an item off of his lifetime, ‘to do’ list, and taking his bike over to the City, and riding it across the Golden Gate Bridge. He loves his bike, so this is the perfect way to spend a little ‘me time’. Ted is a wonderful man, a wonderful husband, and a wonderful father. I’m so very grateful that we found each other, and that…
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Mistaken Identity
My dear friend Cherry is having her baby today…as we speak, she’s going in to O.R. for her c-section, and I’m expecting a call and can hardly contain myself! Breath, J, breath. OK, but of course Cherry having her baby reminded me of when I had my baby, lo these many years ago. I wanted what any new mom wants right then…my mom. So we planned for my mom to fly from Juneau, Alaska (where she was living), to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (where we were living). At this sad point, I hadn’t seen my mom in about 3 years. A few weeks after Ted and I were married in ’93, my…
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Dear Mom
Dear Mom, First of all, Happy Birthday. You would have been 68 today, and probably would have gone to Stockton to celebrate with Grandma and Aunt Flo (whose birthday it is today as well, she’s 86). Maybe you’d have fried chicken and angel food cake, or maybe you’d go out somewhere. I would have come to see you at Kate’s house this weekend, and we would have celebrated somehow. Maybe with a pedicure for the changing weather. I think about you all of the time, though I don’t cry as much as I used to. Which is good, because Maya had a hard time with that, and would feel guilty…
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The Bride’s Farewell
“On the morning of August the twelfth, eighteen hundred and fifty something, on the day she was to be married, Pell Ridley crept up from her bed in the dark, kissed her sisters goodbye, fetched Jack in from the wind and rain on the heath, and told him they were leaving. Not that he was likely to offer any objections, being a horse.” Pell knows far more about horses than she does about men, or women, or the workings of the human heart. She understands horses, can look at a horse and see into its spirit, and know whether it will be a good worker, a good companion, a safe…
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Cottage Pie
This time of year is usually quite warm and sunny in our parts, but we experienced a few days of cool wet weather the other day, inspiring Ted to make an old favorite winter time dish of ours, Cottage Pie. The little index recipe card I have (much stained and well worn) says the recipe came from the April 1994 issue of Bon Appetit magazine. I found an online copy of the recipe, and it says to use ground beef, and beef broth. Back when I started making this recipe, Ted didn’t eat beef, so I substituted lamb stew meat and mushroom gravy, and since we really like it this…
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The Ultimate Urban Legend?
(picture found here) From Wikipedia: An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or, more accurately, a contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of apocryphal stories believed by their tellers to be true. As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story’s factuality or falsehood, but merely that it is in non-institutional circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it. For a hundred and fifty years, hearing the words, “Donner Party” has meant one thing. Cannibalism. I’m not sure when people learn about the Donner Party in other parts of the country, but if…
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Date Night
Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are a couple that truly love each other, but are a bit worn out by life. Especially the kids in life, followed by the jobs in life, then the daily chores in life…life is wearing them out. They still make some effort, though, going out for a weekly ‘date night’ at their local steak house, where they enjoy spending a bit of time together, and laughing at their made up scenarios of the other couples around the restaurant. These glimpses into their marriage show genuine affection, almost drowned by daily life. When they find out that their friends, who have sex…
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Wordless Wednesday