Still here...

Just in case you were wondering, I'm still here!

At 4am yesterday morning I hugged and kissed one of our sons and his two older children (our grandchildren) goodbye as they journeyed back home again to B.C.


We spent a whole week hanging out together, that is the children and our younger two mostly with me, because our son came to work and work he did. With twelve gallons of paint, most are now empty and their contents rolled and brushed onto our walls.


There were several rooms' walls left incomplete when the deadlines fast approached before our move into this home last December, so a quick "wash" was all the painters could get onto our walls and some of the ceilings in those specific rooms.

With our son and daughter in law's baby number five on the way and due in December, their need for a new vehicle and our need to rid ourselves of ours sitting in our driveway (the one we had been experiencing a grand dilemna about - see HERE) created quite a lovely bartering idea, a benefit for all of us. He labored away by painting upwards to 14 hours most days, and we were able to gift them with a reliable larger vehicle to drive home for the family's usage. Grand trade if you ask me. Our walls and ceilings are d-o-n-e and our son is very pleased with his new family vehicle, our former eight passenger van.

The only problem was the drive he was about to journey consisted of a 42 hour timing according to Mapquest across Canada, a journey they are still traveling as I type this up. My wild beating mommy's heart worries too much I am told, but that is a very long, long road trip for two little children for sure, let alone anyone else.

Two of my Grandbabes

Meanwhile, boy did we have a great week here with lots of fun for the "littles" and this ole Nana (grandma). I have much to share with y'all including more nature posts with our snake skins found in our garage (maybe those snakes were after the wee mouse in there?) Tonight I am typing up a storm with many posts being created thus far and more do. I'll time them to appear on a regular basis over the coming week so as not to inundate you to bits.

Imaginations soared around here this past week aplenty!

Ahead, tomorrow we will be baking a cake to celebrate the feast of "The Exaltation of the Holy Cross" (you can read about it HERE), and will enjoy more of the same sunshine which has completely filled our days over the past two weeks. It's been hot enough for beach days, and yet the accompaniment of moist dew on the ground throughout the evenings to keep our grass seed sprouting. Gotta love it!

Have a lovely evening;
Renee

My Guitar Hero

Something NEW is lurking in this corner!

It was 1975 when I met my hubby. He was older than I, already into adulthood. Aside from working on a career path, he liked to play guitar - alot. When we met he owned many musical instruments and accompanying items. I'm told the following points of technicality are absolutes, so here's what he owned ;

• an Ovation 618 acoustic guitar
• a Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar
• a Fender Telecaster Hollow body electric guitar
• a Fender Stratacaster electric guitar
• a Gibson SG base guitar
• a Blonde Fender Tremalo amplifier
• a Marshal double stack speaker system with an acoustic main drive - with graphic equalizer (state of the art in those days, believe me)
• a reel to reel with scads of taped music to isolate and learn from
• multiple guitar and equipment casings with stands to protect his investments
• ...and a whole host of assorted and varied smaller necessities.
• Even a guitar pick collection, over a hundred were included in his collection.

He also had a whole host of guitar playing friends who shared the same musical passions as him. The goal was to play continuously when able, either alone or together - for hours and hours a day to perfect their talent on their individual instruments and then to practice their musical repertoire as a group in between.

"Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark, what discord follows!"

~ William Shakespeare

They were all part of a band making their way through cities while on tour playing to audiences everywhere. Money was involved, oh yes, they made GOOD money doing what they all loved to do. All hoped to become super successful by getting a break in life one day if they could only cutt just "one" 45rpm hit record, just one.


There was one problem with all this dedication to his work and guitar commitments when we became a couple and ended up serious over where our relationship was heading. Out of town work travel and road trips for playing music ... well.... it seemed exciting to my hubby when he was single, but eventually he noticed there was no time for "us", without conflicts occurring in his time schedule. When thoughts of marriage and having a family began to creep up in our conversations, he knew in his heart this lifestyle would have to change.



A few months before we married, my hubby made the decision to sell some of his equipment, (now considered to be collector's items) in exchange for a hefty sum he was able to slap down as a deposit on our first home, the one he shopped for, the one we moved into as newlyweds. We were so incredibly blessed for that great beginning all because of his musician's booty.

Alas though, just for the record, other guitars have passed through our home to keep him happily strumming. :-)



Fast forward to today, many years later...

Our son is headed off to higher learning in just a few days. During appointments with his counselor, he decided he would like to pursue a guitar class for a pleasure elective. After ten years of piano and music lessons, learning to make music on a guitar would seemingly be a swell change for him. There was one wee drawback to his decision. In order to be able to participate in the class he required his own guitar.

“The guitar is a wonderful instrument which is understood by few.”

- Franz Schubert

The big guitar purchase was made by his father, our guitar man, my personal and favorite guitar hero (blush and giggle). Our son wasn't present, not that he couldn't be, he just wasn't (LOL). As my hubby is fixated on guitar quality, he wanted input into the purchase of the instrument. Luckily the first shop we entered had a large selection of previously owned guitars, resting on stands, easy to grab for a trial strumming.



My hubby passed by many quickly citing trashy quality without much value, BUT, alas at the end of the line he noticed a GK manufactured-E125 (tobacco sunburst cutaway body for easy high neck access....he's dictating this, can you tell?) that was at least a few hundred dollars below new list value, and was in excellent shape albeit preowned. After inspecting the body, the tone and the neck action, he declared it mighty fine and announced all we needed now was a case (and picks as that collection has been long gone with children losing them everywhere). Trusting in his expertise, it was a good buy.


I've been quite happy to sit back and absorb being witness to many hands strumming on the strings since our purchase of the guitar. The sudden surge of interest in this instrument has actually been quite something thus far. Um, maybe their dad can teach the rest of them to play? Yes, what a GRAND idea! After all, he's been steadily strumming on the thing since we arrived home too you know.

"Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, save perhaps two."

~ Fredric Chopin

Of one thing I am sure; our home will definitely be filled with music during our retirement golden years. There's just no doubt about it in my mind because one thing my hubby never sold was his reel to reel collection of music we've been lugging around for 33 years now, a music collection worthy of transferring over to CDs someday. Anyone know of a system worth using to perform this monumental task with?

Farmer's Market Booty - Corn!

Don't you just love this time of year? Not only has the dreadful humidity drifted off this past week and the temperatures still lovely and hot for any summer's day, one begins to recognize autumn is nearly right around the corner. You know what that means, right?

Farmer's Markets!

This week I was able to load up on three types of corn; "Peaches and Cream, Incredible and Miracle". I had never heard of the last two types of corn, normally used to my purchases being "Jubilee" and/or "Peaches and Cream". I had no idea there were so many variations of sweet corn, all growing according to type of yellow, white, and red, and even edible multicolor varieties.


Depending on where you live, there are many factors for which type of corn to grown in your area. A few include; soil, light, and climate. Throw in a few summer monsoon storms, a couple of tornadoes and your corn crop should provide tasty treats for the multitudes.


We have plenty of farmers' markets locally, and the random vegetable and/or fruit booty awaiting visiting customers never leaves one feeling hampered by poor selections.


I'm so in love with my own idea of "harvesting" from our farmers' booties to provide a wide variety of nutrition for my family over the winter time. So, we've been working hard - washing, cleaning, blanching, chopping, grating, peeling, stuffing containers.... anything to do with filling up my freezer and canning jars for the winter's cache of fresh food bounties.

Back and forth she went, one pot full after
the other ready for blanching for five minutes
or so before chopping up for freezing.

Corn is a controversial food for nutritional fare given fad diets avoiding it, its an allergy issue for some but did you know how rich in antioxidants this veggie is?

Cook it too much, you'll lose all of its Vitamin C, though in return cooking "sweet" corn releases not only increased levels of ferulic acid, but it also retains its antioxidant activity. Oh, and if I may be so bold as to blow out the fact we support "local" who are prone to using mostly heirloom/organic corn seed rather than resort to buying from engineered corn seed productions. (ah-hem).... (sorry to others out there for stating this as I prefer the old fashioned good stuff instead).

Blanche, and cut. Yeah baby, we are going to really enjoy this harvest booty come snowy cold wintry days.

Several of these bowls were filled up, one after the other, the corn bagged and placed into the freezer for later.


Hmmmmm, wow did my kitchen SMELL GOOD!


The best part of the kitchen load; knowing all of this fresh food is right at my fingertips, ready to use, a blessing.

Farmers' Markets?

Oh yeah! Right up until the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I was told today, the second weekend in October. Weekly I will continue to visit, support local and lovingly prepare our winter's booty at home for my family. It is so exciting to see all the fruits of our efforts in the freezer, pantry and canning jar storage room. And oh, oh, oh, I feel a lovely batch of creamy corn soup coming soon to our family's dinner table with a fresh loaf of Rye from the local baker at the next farmer's market. Yep, bakers are there too, gotta love it!

Just a tip; The hardest part of food preparations for winter is avoiding the temptation to eat it while working, like my young son who requested "just one cob mom" because "it smelled so good".

Finger licking good!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Camper with thumbs up!

All the family dentist visits are now complete!

(NOT) Wordless Wednesday - :-)

Scaffolding is up, workers await their duties.

First though - Delays this week due to massive wasp nest, dealt with this morning.

Even though it's a stat holiday on Monday, rock walls around upper windows on both sides of the house are coming down.

Some of the rock facing may be reused, all of the mortar must be replaced.

"Defective" was the buzz word.

I'm just thankful none of them fell and hit anyone below since we've lived here.

.............................................

and....

on another front...

We've really enjoyed our new deck and the ability to get outside through the back door this summer. That is, until the back door delaminated and wouldn't open anymore. Apparently there was an issue with it before we moved in and they thought it was repaired right.

The result is the builder's tradesmen couldn't open it either, the delamination wreaking havoc on the entire inner door area and eventually it began ripping off the wood base of the door (and door brush which tore off completely, not seen in the photo below obviously).


The door is in need of.... replacement. Not an easy task when one realizes there are actually two doors here on one larger door frame. The builder and his guys will attempt a reglue of the door first, but are having a tough time finding a temporary door to fit the frame of this area.


Guarantee given; When winter comes, all of the outdoor work will be complete....at least that is my prayer today.

Meanwhile, the sun is out and it's still summer, so off we go to get some of it on our faces. Have a great day everyone!