Of Summer's heat and little girl lost now found~~~~

Hello Darklings,

Well we are finally being blasted by the first really hot day of the year,  I just came back from walking Belladonna and Wiener Dog,  Got up at 6 a.m. Showered, Dressed, slathered Neutrogena Sun Block at 110 level on my face and neck, got my hat and parasol and we were out to door by 7.

A good long walk allowing them to check out the fresh early morning smells and picking up their deposits,  Doyle and I will walk them again at 7:30 tonight when all is cooled down, of course they have the garden as well to check on things.

I had the handyman put up the window screens two weeks ago, and I had the antique screen front door re-screened.   On the back porch door I do have a regular screen door but the dogs like that magic mesh panels they can go in and out when they want,  and my handy man is replacing the cloth mesh that screens the back porch.

Yes it looks like Summer is trying to come to our location,  allergies are flaring,  people wearing skimpy clothing,  watering either very early morning or late evening (late evening best),  and yesterday I could smell the scent of Bar-Be-Que wafting in the air.  

Last night Doyle and I had fun going to the local Vintage Fashion Fair, "an evening in Paris"  it was fun and I found a few things to add to my wardrobe,  there was one velvet evening dress that was just beautiful and it had  a matching hat and purse to go with it, so much to look at so much to choose.  When one is at one of these events one can go just wild and I need to avoid impulse buying. 

But on the way home we stopped by my brother's house to see how Coralline is doing, and got some sad news,  it seems because Coralline could not do some of the projects for several classes because of her broken ankle the school admin is recommending that Coralline repeat her year come next fall,  they don't want to fail her as this was an unfortunate event but these projects are required.  Coralline was a bit upset but said that talking over with her English teacher it means that next Fall she can also work on the school paper as well as extra credit which would be very helpful.   Her parents said that the Principal was not being harsh, just wanting for Coralline to have the best educational advantage.

Privately her mother told me that she  felt it would be good for Coralline to gain more confidence and maturity by holding her back, in a way I could agree, sometimes I feel that we push children out of school far too fast when they may not be ready for some things. Sis feels the same way, too much pressure on children is not a good thing, she's been seeing too much of the after effects from such tactics.

Christopher is already focusing on college and may major in electronic engineering at San Jose U. so they are looking forward to that.     So we celebrated the mixed news with homemade ice cream sundae's.

Sometime ago I wrote about a child's coffin being found under the floor of a basement in a house in San Francisco,  it seems where the homes that were built the land originally was an Odd Fellows cemetery, the mystery was "who was the little 3 year old child" who laid beautifully preserved in her glass topped coffin.

After a lot of research and DNA  her name is Edith Howard Cook who died on Oct 13, 1876 at the age of 3.   And there is a surviving close relative who lives near by, a many times great nephew who had been putting together his family history but that Edith was a missing part.   She is now interred in a Colma cemetery with a headstone with her name on it, no longer lost but now found.

Because of the heat and sun, I'm going to be researching articles about how to keep one's goth skin as pale as possible, some folks like to do a natural "bleaching" or exfoliating but I want to look more into it,  Sun Block of course at it's highest level, wide brim hats, parasols of course, but more is involved so stay tuned.

Later Darklings  

Of putting up fruit, County Fairs and Maleficent~~~~

Hello Darklings,

I am taking a break right now and so is Sis, we have been up since "Oh my God its Early in the A.M."

Why you ask?  Well today and tomorrow Sis and I are putting up  and have put up plum jam, apricot halves, and cherries,  the cherries have a tendency to blanch but the flavor is good.  Today the apricots, tomorrow the plums, it is an all day affair, but worth it in the end, at least I have next week off.

Well my Boss said  I needed to take some time off so I won't go over my hours since I'm working half time now, which is fine, more time for ME time.  And financially I'm in good shape to be doing it.

But the sweet smell of the apricots is just heady, and now we're finishing off the cherries, we still have some apricots left but Sis is going to make them into a cobbler, she's taking some time off as well. 

I love doing things that are old-fashioned, we even have an old style apple peeler and corer which will be put into use come fall, apple sauce and apple slices.

Doyle wisely stayed out of the way but he's offered to print out the labels for us, item and date put up. And to go into our pantry, although we do go to the Farmer's Market and get home made goodies there as well, there is a sort of satisfaction of doing our own.

Now there is a lady whose Loganberry bushes are ripening, more jam to come.

Tonight of course dinner from our favorite Chinese restaurant, perfect!

This has been a very busy week for me, I was only working a few hours just a few days, then next week off, just busy, first fruit picking,  we had bags and bags of fruit and we used the re-useable bags we get from the grocery stores, and then the bags will have to be washed later, they are sticky with fruit juice, using the ladders, getting leaves and dust on us, gave us sneezing fits, blowing off the lady-bugs, and shrieking at spiders, good thing we wore long sleeves and garden gloves, and then the long slow hot showers afterward, and Doyle and Brian (they helped)  grabbing pizza for us, it was their choice.

Then the next evening girls night out with Sis, Coralline, Monica and myself, we went to see "Maleficent".  And then went to dinner afterwards.  Angelina Jolie was perfect for the lead character, but as a re-work of the old tale I liked it, not only with the basic story but also with the several areas of sub-text within it. 

Coralline was asking us questions like why did Stephan do such a horrible thing, why couldn't the fairies and humans get along, why was iron so painful?   Yes all the sub-texts,  I feel that all Mother's should take their daughters to see this movie, it does address although in a fairy-tale way about some truths in life.... But its also not the family you're born into but the family that loves you. 

Coralline wished there was a book version of this, when she and Sis went ahead of us into Fenton's Ice Cream parlor where we stopped for dessert, I whispered to Monica that I had bought the book version already, she was relieved, because she had already bought one of the doll sets, the one with both Maleficent and her helper. 

Coralline is learning, she is still a child in many ways, she seems to reject the adopted sophistication of her peers, but she's not backwards, she is on their intelligence level with them and in some ways maybe advanced.  And she seems to have her own style of sophistication, she just rejects their version of it.

One time I asked her if she wanted to act more like her school mates and she said "Why? They just get into trouble, and I like having fun, some of them are getting creepy talking about boys and having babies."   I asked her Mother about that and she told me that she was surprised to hear from Coralline that Coralline thinks those classmates who are too into boys are going to make bad mistakes. 

I asked  Monica if she thought there was any boy Coralline liked and was told that the neighbor Boy who is studying reptiles and wants to be a zoologistm she likes a lot,  they get together either at her house or the boys' parents house from time to time to study or watch movies, just like she does with her friend Marisa, but now Marisa is in high school, but they still get together with us and we play board games and watch horror movies with Doyle and I. 

So she is in transition, someday I will miss the child version of her when she grows up, but who knows what will develop.

But that did not stop us from going to the County Fair, it was just Doyle, myself, Monica and Coralline,  Brother and the boys wanted to watch the Soccer games so we went.

 We took in the livestock large and small, cows and goats, and we saw a 6 hitch team of Clydesdales, not from the Beer Company but from a rock quarry company that use to do the same type of delivery of their product, we saw free performances, the 4 H exhibits, all the huckster stuff they try to sell you but we did buy the Fair Fudge to take home.

And if they can deep-fry it they will, deep-fry Oreo's, pickles, pine-apple upside down cake deep fried,  and there were the standby's like corn dogs, frozen bananas, Funnel Cakes, Big Bad Bubba's Bar-Bee-Que Ribs, Turkey legs, enough food stuff to get sick on.  If you want to find and try weird foods just go to the County or State Fair---Jeff Foxworthy could do a routine on the Food alone not just meeting your weird relatives.

But we did stock up with goodies from the Watkins booth,  I love the Watkins products, if we run out I order more, and poor Doyle he walked a lot with us, its a good thing we took a folding wheeled shopping basket to hold our purchases.  

Then in the evening Doyle took our things to the car, (we got privileged parking) came back and joined us so we took in the Carnival, the merry go round, the Ferris Wheel, and some of the easier rides for us, although Coralline wanted to go on one I think called the Zipper, brave Doyle went with her and came down looking a little green, fortunately there was a nearby men's room, and he looked a little better when he came out.

I did warn him to not try the deep fried pickle.

But all things do come to an end and home we went, with Monica and Coralline stayed over night with us,  tomorrow they will go back to the county fair with my brother and the Boys, they want to see the shows and exhibits that are only open on the weekends,  like the Farm tools and the Blacksmith shop and some motor cycle stunt stuff.  I warned Monica to keep the boys away from the deep-fried food, especially if they go on the carnival rides.

And now the jars are cool and we can put on the labels and put them into the pantry while Doyle goes to get dinner.  Sis is beaming with what has been accomplished and I have to agree, it reminds me of those summers from long ago, at least every other day we were putting up something, Mom could even do vegetables, and it would last all fall, spring and even part of Summer when we did it all again,  picking the tomatoes, the string beans, carrots, and other summer time veggies,  I think keeping them in glass jars may have been healthier, but now it's either frozen or fresh, and we have to do our meal planning ahead of time with what we have on hand and with what we need to purchase.

But for tonight it's Chinese and tomorrow KFC, oh well sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

Later Darklings