I'm Ready For The Beach

Found this adorable ring at the mall.  It is made from a real sea shell.  At first glance it looked pretty big a clunky.

Once I tried it on I had to have it!!  It's so unusual.  It's pretty pointy.  I'm thinking someone may get hurt.  I'm just hoping it's not me. :P

If you just have to have a really cool shell ring too... check out Island Jewelry and Apparel in the Roseville Galleria.

New Haircut

Just a few thoughts...a new hair cut and boy do I need to straighten up my craft room!

I got my haircut a few weeks ago and was left with something that looked like a mini mullet.  I'm not normally one to get upset over a haircut, because I'm very lucky my hair grows quickly.  This haircut though really got me down.  I'm sure the hair dresser, a friend of mine for 26 years, did exactly what I told her.  After I shampooed and styled it myself I just never could get it to look nice.  It got to where I didn't even want to look at my own reflection, because it would just make me groan.  I know my friend would totally recut it for free, but she's not close by.  I just never really found someone to cut my hair in my own town when I moved back.

My daughter on the other hand has someone she likes.  Toni is the mom of one of my daughter's soccer team mates.  Allison always enjoyed Toni's chirper attitude and when she started getting haircuts instead of letting her hair grow long she picked Toni.  Last week Allison informed me she was ready for a haircut and it made me think I should let Toni redo my doo!  I made an appointment for the both of us. 

Now I had never sat in the chair with Toni before.  So, of course I'm comparing her to my gal.  She took me back for a shampoo.  It was very quick minimal products used, but a good decent shampoo.  Then a scratchy thin towel like the ones I put in my rag drawer was wrapped around my head.  Still perfectly good towel, but not fluffy and soft.  Toni begins my hair cut.  She uses a razor during most of my cut.  Cutting and shaping my pitiful mullet into something adorable.  I felt a little like Edward Scissorhand's muse she worked so quickly around my head.  She applied some gel and next came the blow drying.  She just let it fly blowing hair all over my face.  Whipping into my eyes and into my mouth.  It was comical.  I spit, I sputtered, I suppressed a laugh.  My hair dresser seldom gets hair into my face and when she does she apologizes.  Once my hair was dry she took a flat iron and styled my hair into the cutest little bob.  I was SO happy to be rid of the mullet.  I was cute again.  At least in my own mind and that's what's important!

My daughter and I very happy with our new haircuts went to the register.  Something I forget between haircuts with Toni is how reasonable her cuts are. So, reasonable that I feel like I'm ripping her off paying so little.  My friend the hair dresser is reasonable too and to put it into perspective the friend charges nearly double what Toni does.  I asked Toni, "How much?"  She told me.  I said a little surprised, "For both of us?!"  She said, "Yes."  I gave her a big tip.  On the way out I thought she does and excellent job for that amount.  I think she may be my new hair dresser.

Return of the Fruit Leather

Can't help it we love it so much.  It's quite an involved project, but so worth the effort.  I do it once a year, so it doesn't seem like such a chore.  If you click on above link it will take you to last years post with all the directions on how I make fruit leather.  This year is not much different.  I did decide last year it was easier to remove all the wild Sierra yellow plum seeds before putting pulp in food mill was easier.  They are the size of cherries, so it took me about an hour.  I did find out pretty close to the time I was done a technique that worked well.  If I took about 2 or 3 plums and squeezed them tightly the pulp would squeeze out the cracks of my fingers and the seeds and skin would stay in my palm.  That worked great, but I was nearly done by the time I figured that out.  Anymore than 2 or 3 plums and the seeds would squeeze out too.  Next year I'm hoping to remember this technique. LOL

This year I had some leftover Rough and Ready sour cherry pulp from my 2 batches of jam.  I decided that I'd save it for making cherry fruit leathers.  After cooking it down for a while it was still too watery for leathers.  I decided that I'd mix some plum pulp with the cherry to thicken it up.  That worked out great.

This year we'll have 2 1/2 cherry/plum leathers and 4 1/2 plum leathers.  This will make 21 servings.  Last year I didn't think 18 servings was going to be enough, but they made it through the whole summer.  In fact one got pushed to the back of the fridge and my daughter found it the end of September.  She said it was dried out like chewy gummy candy and was still fantastic.

This is a peak into my Excalibur food dehydrator.  A dark door goes on the front to hold the heat in.  I've had it about 15 years.  It's still going strong.  Most of the year we make beef jerky, but summer it's fruit leathers.

Dear Pete and Jeanne,

I really miss you!  I went out to their grave site to see if their head stone was there.  My first thought was they had to have gotten the years wrong of their death.  I just doesn't seem like they've been gone for 2 years.  It feels like five.  They were dear dear people and I feel so blessed to have gotten as many years as I did with them.

When we moved to Orangevale first one to greet us was Pete.  He basically said, "Hi I'm Pete and I'm 80 years old and my wife is 70."  My first thought was we're not going to get much time with them, so we better cherish every moment.  Believe it or not we got 16 years with them. 

I remember Pete inviting us over to meet Jeanne.  She asked, "Are you newlyweds?"  I said, "Oh no we've been married for 3 years."  Pete laughed and said, "We've been married for 43 years."  My husband laughed and said, "I guess we are newlyweds."  We lived directly across the street from Pete and Jeanne with their loving eyes upon us.  Never intrusive.  They watched us start our family and got to know our kids into their teens.  When Jeanne's eyes got bad my daughter would go across the street and read to Jeanne.  When they wanted to paint their house they called me over to help them pick out colors.  Pete said, "Well, I figure you're really the one that has to look at it."  Sometime I think I'll never meet nicer people.  But having met Pete and Jeanne lets me know there are a lot of nice people out there.

My Crabby Dad Can Be Hilarious

My dad is a crab apple.  He complains and lectures pretty much all the time.  Usually when one says "all the time" they exaggerate, but I'm not.  We've learned over the years to tune him out or leave the room.  The real tricky one is to sneakily pawn him off on someone else while he's talking without his knowledge.  All the while the person he is now lecturing is staring daggers at you as you happily leave the room.

We were together on Father's Day.  My brother and I cooked a delicious meal as we usually do.  The meal started off with a big salad.  My mom and dad's favorite start to a meal.  Usually with freshly made Ranch dressing .  The kind made with buttermilk is the dressing of choice except for my husband who doesn't like it.  As we sat down I brought a Caesar dressing to the table for my husband.  My mom asks my husband if he'd like to try some balsamic vinegar on his salad.  Being nice and not really caring as long as it's not ranch he says yes.  My dad says the balsamic vinaigrette is in the fridge and he'd like to have it too.  My husband brings the vinaigrette to the table.  My dad takes it and my mom says no she'd really like the balsamic vinegar she just bought about 2 weeks ago.  She says it's just lovely on a salad.  Now my dad chimes in no she wants the balsamic vinaigrette.  My dad goes on crabbing how she never uses balsamic vinegar she uses balsamic vinaigrette.  My mom is adamant that she wants balsamic vinegar and my husband finds a bottle and brings it to the table.

My dad is still belly aching how my mom doesn't know what she's talking about and as usual we're tuning him out.  As he continues with his salad dressing tirade he opens his Coca Cola and begins to pour it on his salad swirling around in circles as one would with salad dressing.  He now has balsamic vinaigrette and Coke on his salad.  On about the 3rd swirl he realizes he's pouring his drink on his salad and laughs.  We all chuckle.  My mom makes a comment under her breath about how would he know what she wants on her salad since he thinks Coca Cola is a salad dressing.

He sheepishly tries a bite of his salad and announces that it's actually quite tasty.  That the sweetness of the Coke blends well with the tartness of the balsamic vinaigrette.  I can see we're not going to let him live this one down for a while.  Since my daughter and I just had another chuckle about it tonight 2 days later.

My mom and husband enjoyed their salads with straight up balsamic vinegar.  And yes she knew what she was talking about.

Calling Dr. Pepper?

This is Pepper, Pepper Baby, Dr. Pepper, Pucker, Pick a Pepper... just a few names he was called this weekend as we got to know him.  My mom has a great sense of humor about it all.  Pepper is his rightful name.  He's 8 weeks old and a miniature poodle.

He was quite shy at first.  To be expected.  He'd only been in my parent's home about 4 days when a horde of family descended upon him.  My dad said last week when I called about "Father's Day" plans, "You all aren't coming up to see me are you?"  Of course we were and oh by the way to see your new pup too.

My brother and my daughter really put on a full court press to getting Pepper to come out of his shell.  My brother buttered a piece of bread got on the floor and shared it with him.  Found out Pepper loves butter.  He also went and patted on some of my dad's cologne thinking if he smelled like my dad Pepper would feel more comfortable.  Amazingly he did.  My daughter went and dotted on a little bit of Grandpa's cologne too.  Pepper had not been eating his kibble since he got there.  My daughter took a tiniest bit of butter and put on his kibble and he ate a meal's worth.

Here is Winston and Pepper together.  Our 2 new additions to the family.  Winston is slightly bigger than Pepper, but the 2 were great buds.  They loved to play with each other.  As with most children play would start out fun then they would try to one up each other.  When things would get rough and they'd have to be separated.  Pepper had 3 brothers, so he's use to rough play.  Winston is 20 weeks old and with maturity he had a few tricks up his sleeve.  It was so hilarious to watch them play we felt like we should have been charged admission.

Everyone looks so stoic in this picture.  If it were black and white it would look very similar to one of those late 1800's photos.  The mission of this photo was to get Pepper and Little Star in a photo together.  The humans just needed to hold still until we could get both dogs looking in the same direction.  I find it amazing that little bit of fluff will be as big as Little Star by years end.

We kept Little Star and Pepper a part most of the weekend as Mom thought Pepper was too small to be rolled by a bigger bossy dog.  I totally understood.  It could happen.  Little Star really gets a long with other dogs unless they dart, snap or try to assert their dominance on her.  Then she has no problem telling them what for.  We're going to wait until Pepper is big enough to get a "what for."

Meet Winston

This is Winston.  He's a Poodle/Pomeranian mix.  He's my brother and SIL new puppy.  He's just adorable.  They lost their dog Albert last October to old age.  We knew a new pup was coming along as soon as their trip to Hong Kong was over, which was in February.

The one thing we all can't quite get over is Winston's resemblance to Albert.  Normally, that wouldn't be something to be concerned about except that Albert was... errr... what's the right word... hmmm.... psycho.  I guess that's the right word.  He bit me 3 times over the years and even I wouldn't say he was mean or vicious.  As long and you didn't touch him he would not bite you.  Crabby... is that the right word?  He was pretty much crabby from a very early age.  When my brother would tell us stories like how Albert had severed his left nostril we would just laugh.  Then we made jokes about it.  Like "don't smile until it's completely heeled."  Inferring his nostril would snap up like a window shade.  As the years wore on it just wasn't funny anymore.  He bit my brother and his wife so many times they lost count.  Of course Albert lived to be nearly 19.

(We love to mess with his hair, don't think he particularly likes it though.)

So, we were all trained to avoid a small whitish brown dog and in walks Winston.  We all need retraining.  Only problem is Winston has some mental issues too.  He's 4 months old and my brother knew he wasn't treated well at the home he was at.  Not that he was physically hurt in any way, but that he was chased around and shoved into a kennel a lot.  That's the theory.  Winston has bonded to my brother and wife.  He really wants nothing to do with anyone else.  He's also very territorial for such a young thing.  He doesn't know how to greet another dog nor does he want to.

My dog's first encounter was going to be on a leash as she is quite bossy, BUT with the excitement and lateness of us arriving at the cabin that didn't happen.  In walked my dog thinking the cabin was dogless when a white furry things lunges at her.  I'm only guessing, but I think my dog thought a cat or squirrel was in the house.  Winston got something he wasn't ready for and that was a full on chase by something 3 times his size.   I caught Little Star on the stairs as Winston headed up and then decided he didn't want to go up to no man's land.  Little Star just wanted to sniff him and find out what he was.  Little Star literally scared the poop out of him.  My brother scooped Winston up and 2 little pellets shot out of him.

My dad was convince Little Star was trying to eat Winston, but my brother and I knew different.  We knew with both dogs on a leash they would get use to each other and they did.  Quite quickly too.  Once my Little Star knew there was a dog in the house she settled right down.  Once she learned Winston wanted nothing to do with her she remembered to stay away.  See she was trained to stay away from Albert too.  No new training there.

We have high hopes for Winston though.  He's cute, once you can get hold of him he's cuddly and he doesn't bite!  My brother and his wife are committed to making him a good citizen.  They have already had their first puppy class.  They are working hard at socializing him.  He's so adorable we're glad he's found a safe haven with us.

PS. My parents are getting a new poodle puppy this Wednesday.  After their heart break in January when they lost their beloved Twinkle to liver cancer they decided it was lonely without the companionship of a dog.