The Durham Bulls

Today was a field trip day!  We went to see a Durham Bulls game at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in Durham, NC.  It was pretty fun.  It was the first time I’d been to a Durham Bulls game.  It was actually the first time I had been to any kind of large baseball game.  The Durham Bulls are a minor league team. 


Trying to figure out how to get to the stadium from the parking deck.


Walking out of the Crowe Building, there were some very pretty places to sit and relax and/or have something to eat.


We had a very sunny day for the game!  I did remember my sunscreen and visor this time.  :)


Princess of the Universe waiting at the gate.


Once inside, I was impressed with the cleanliness and all the food and attractions to choose from.


The pitch!


Durham is full of landmarks to remind us of the long history of tobacco farming in and around Durham.


There’s Jackie Robinson Drive just adjacent to the DBAP main entrance.

I am not a huge sports fan, so this is not something I would do all the time, but it was nice to stand for the national anthem, it was fun to hear all the standard baseballs songs and chants over the loud speakers, and it was fun to just sit and eat and visit with friends while watching the game.

Lynn

A Boy’s Best Friend…

A boy’s best friend is his mother

and there’s no spancel stronger than her apron string.

Irish Proverb

Just a sweet thought this evening,

Lynn

There’s Nowhere To Hide!!

Not even behind a very large can of pork and beans!!


(Do you think they’ll know it’s me?)

Where’s a housewife to go to hide sometimes?  I can’t hide in any of my closets.  They are all packed full!  Under the beds?  It’s the same way!

Actually, I’ve just been hiding away for a few minutes in the May/June issue of Homeschool Enrichment.  It was a sample issue I received in the mail.  Hmmm, wonder what a subscription costs?  Wonder how I got on their mailing list?  It had several articles that I want to read in full.  A good magazine or book is a great place for a housewife to hide for a bit.  :)

Speaking of hiding away, I sometimes would like to run away from cooking.  I mean…well, uh, I enjoy making my menu plans and sticking to that, but the man of the house has made a change (or two) to my menu plan this week.  If you’ll remember, he killed a turkey awhile back.  He wants turkey chilli tonight with some of the dark turkey meat that’s in the freezer.  Okay.  He also wants to use the white turkey meat before the week is out.  Okay.  Also, in light of not being able to get my salmon fillets, guess Friday night will change too.  I had already scratched the tabouli.  :)

Sunday, 4/27/08:  Breakfast:  pancakes, bacon, eggs (save several pieces of bacon for Monday’s baked beans)
Lunch:  Taco soup (crockpot) — This was great, by the way!
Supper:  Taco salads using fresh salad, tortilla chips and leftover taco soup.

Monday, 4/28/08:  BBQ ribs (crockpot), baked beans (crockpot), fresh salad
Tuesday, 4/29/08:  Salmon croquettes, tabouli (apparently no one in my town carries bulgar wheat), macaroni and cheese, baked beans Turkey chilli, crackers, grated cheese, sour cream, side salad
Wednesday, 4/30/08:  Salmon croquettes, macaroni and cheese, steamed broccoli
Wednesday, 4/30/08 Thursday, 5/1/08: Two loaves of Bread machine herb + cheese bread, chicken and vegetable soup with egg noodles
Thursday, 5/1/08 Friday, 5/2/08:  Pinto beans (crockpot), cornbread, wild rice, fresh salad, London broil (crockpot) and gravy turkey pot pie, carrot cake
Friday, 5/2/08 — (always feels like a date night with hubby):  Marinated salmon fillets (they were out — not sure what I’ll do yet), wild rice, fresh salad, carrot cake
Saturday, 5/3/08:  Left-overs

I am flexible.  I am flexible.  I am flexible…

Actually, I should be thrilled that I can push a couple of meals forward and have some things to use for later.  I’m okay.  Really.

Lynn :)

April Flowers

I put together a little graphic collage of some of the flowers that I enjoyed in my garden in April…

Also, I had promised here to post a picture of my cranesbill if it ever came out again.  I thought last year’s drought might have killed it.  Well, it’s out and blooming!

See the little purple blooms?

More later about who knows what?  :)

Lynn

The Healthy Homeschool May 2008 Newsletter

Just wanted to report that The Healthy Homeschool’s May 2008 Newsletter has been published!

Enjoy!

Lynn

Office Window View

I’m currently in love with my new office.  :)

I’m blissfully happy with the thoughts of transcribing in here three days of each week, and I’m trying to train my mind already with thoughts of staying in my chair and making perfect each medical document and just enjoying that sitting time as a thinking and meditation time. 

I think I can, I think I can…

From my office window, I can see the Queen Elizabeth rose in its glory.  This particular type of rose is, unfortunately, not known for repeat or profuse blooming, but I am trying to get everything I can from it!  It’s doing quite nicely so far, I think. 

I have a list of things to do today:

  • School lessons with Joe
  • Get all the week’s lessons typed into Edu-Track and print out
  • Publish May newsletter for The Healthy Homeschool
  • Put Baked Beans on and cut up salad (ribs are already cooking!)
  • Wipe down all three bathrooms (deep clean two of them) — see my cleaning schedule
  • Clean and declutter the master bedroom
  • Put all items for donation into the back of the van
  • A bit of desk work including some work on the check book
  • A quick trip to the grocery store (does it ever end?)

That’s all.  But that’s enough!!! 

Office Window Thoughts 

~A rose at my window. 
~A window in my house. 
~A house to live in. 
~A life to live. 
~Gratitude…

Lynn  :)

Louis Pasteur Quote

Buy at Art.com
Louis Pasteur
Buy From Art.com

~~

“When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments:  tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.”  Louis Pasteur

Menu Planning

I mentioned a few days ago that I had planned out our menus for last week.  Here’s what we had:

Tuesday 4/22:  Homemade pizza, fresh salad
Wednesday, 4/23:  Chicken and dumplings, fresh salad
Thursday, 4/24:  Lasagne and fresh salad
Friday, 4/25:  Roast (London broil) and gravy, small red potatoes, broccoli, fresh salad
Saturday, 4/26:  Left over roast, macaroni and cheese, green beans (didn’t need), fresh salad

There’s so much food in the fridge for today, I don’t even have to make the mac and cheese today!  It has been so very nice to have meals totally planned in advance and have all the ingredients on hand!  It has helped everyone’s attitude.  Having supper ready at a certain time has helped the children not graze so much; having a hot meal ready when hubby comes home has helped him feel appreciated; and not having to wonder what in the world am I going to cook??? has helped me enjoy my days much more!

So you know what I did this morning?  I pulled out all my cookbooks and recipes and cooking magazines, put them on the table to help me plan a week of menus, and then back on the shelf they went — only more organized than they were before.

Here’s what’s on the menu:

Sunday, 4/27/08:  Breakfast:  pancakes, bacon, eggs (save several pieces of bacon for Monday’s baked beans)
Lunch:  Taco soup (crockpot)
Supper:  Taco salads using fresh salad, tortilla chips and leftover taco soup.

Monday, 4/28/08:  BBQ ribs (crockpot), baked beans (crockpot), fresh salad
Tuesday, 4/29/08:  Salmon croquettes, tabouli (apparently no one in my town carries bulgar wheat), macaroni and cheese, baked beans
Wednesday, 4/30/08:  Bread machine herb + cheese bread, chicken and vegetable soup with egg noodles
Thursday, 5/1/08:  Pinto beans (crockpot), cornbread, fresh salad, London broil (crockpot) and gravy
Friday, 5/2/08 — (always feels like a date night with hubby):  Marinated salmon fillets (they were out — not sure what I’ll do yet), wild rice, fresh salad, carrot cake
Saturday, 5/3/08:  Left-overs

I have put together in one place the recipes I’ll need for the upcoming week and I put together my grocery list while I was making my menu plans.

You’ll notice my planner open.  This week I designed a daily 2-page schedule “spreadsheet” to keep track of the things that are important to me each day.  For this first week, the planner spreadsheet is just hand-written, but next week I plan to type it up so I can print them for my planner.  I want this week to tweak it, so no point in typing it up just yet!

One thing I did before planning my menus is to pull up on line the weekly sales for our two local grocery stores.  That helped me choose the meats to cook.

Now I’m off to the local grocery stores (and to do my monthly Sam’s trip), and I’ve got my perfectly prepared grocery list in hand!

In The Garden This Week:


Queen Elizabeth closer to being in full bloom


Queen Elizabeth bud close up


Star of Bethlehem is blooming


Wildginger (Asarum) — A beautiful shade plant


The beautiful flower of wildginger (Asarum)


A baby praying mantis


The Lady Banks rose is blooming

Orson Welles said, “A third of the food we eat keeps us alive.  The other two-thirds keeps the doctors alive.” 

I think it’s a good choice to shop fresh and prepare meals from scratch.  :)

It’s also cheaper!

Have a Happy Weekend!

Lynn

Rose Buds Turn into Roses

I started out this morning doing a bit of cleaning around the house and then I headed outside to clean up the front porch and do some early morning garden (little garden :) ) chores.  

All the house plants have been brought outside to spend the spring and summer.  The peace lily got a good watering.   It’ll stay on the porch, out of the hot sun.

I scooped debris out of the goldfish pond, threw a few goldfish pellets and flakes in and sat down to watch the fish and sip on my green tea.   You might be able to see a few fish just under the water.  They are very slow to make themselves easy prey with all the cats in the neighborhood.  The do eventually come up to eat.  You may also note the two dark leave-looking things on the right side at the top of the water.  Lily pads coming to the top, finally.

I ended up at my garden table for a short time of thinking and reading.  So many garden happenings called to me.  I had to make myself stay put and read.  A pair of cardinals were in a tree behind me.  I turned around with my camera and thought to zoom in on the pretty female.  The male was on the ground “talking to her” while she was perched in a tree.  Between the time I focused the camera and the time that I hit the button, she decided to fly and I got it!  I didn’t know it until I loaded the pictures on the computer.  It’s pretty neat.  She’s diving down to her mate.  I suppose I took the same sort of nosedive when I met hubby.  :)

I spent some time just looking at everything that’s opening up.  What were just buds a couple of days ago are now full flowers.  Here’s the wild rose, that I called “red.”  It does look red from a distance, but in this picture it looks really hot pink!

You can certainly see some black spot setting in, common in this NC humidity! 

The Queen Elizabeth is still unaffected and looks so beautiful surrounding my porch.


Queen Elizabeth

The little Morden Blush rose is a very sweet light pink and also unaffected by the black spot.  In defense of the wild rose, these other two roses do get way more fresh air and space around them.


Morden Blush

Walking down the little path, I had to take another picture of the cottage pinks.  They have really jumped out in the last couple of days.  They make the entire garden smell good.

Fluffy and I watched in interest this morning as hundreds of termites emerged from the ground and danced in a cloud over the garden.

  

You can see them here all over the mulch before flying off.  (Please don’t eat my house.)

I have so many other pictures, but I don’t want to overwhelm you!  My sister sent me some pictures today for which I am very thankful!  What fun to sit with the children and watch the slideshow!

There was one of my mom and me on a walk on Christmas Day 2007.  Doesn’t seem that long ago…

There’s also one of a very important call I took the day we were at Hill Ridge Farms.

Some calls you just gotta take.

Lynn :)

Victoria-Inspired Hair

I was looking through an old Victoria magazine today and found a hairstyle that inspired me.   I tried my own version of it. 

I took a strand of hair on each side, right at the part on top but about 1-1/2 inches from the front.  I twisted/rolled each piece back on each side and attached them together at the back of my head with a clip.  On the clip I had placed a large flower pin.

I then pulled all the hair back, as if to put in a ponytail and twisted it into a smooth bun around the hair clasp.  I then pinned it into place with bobby pins.

Just thought my long hair friends might enjoy it.

Lynn