You might find me missing for a while.
Have to buy a new laptop.
Open to suggestions.
Thanks!
Category: ‘Tis the Season
Where Is Your Favorite Vacation?
I live about an hour from the loveliest little spot for a vacation. Seriously, it has EVERYTHING!
Let me count the ways:
- Antiquing. Lots of antique stores for your viewing/shopping pleasure. One huge mall and many small near-museums with absolutely everything. Seriously, I almost hate to share this part of it. I want it all for myself…
- Horse racing. If you’re into that. I’m not.
- Art. Galleries galore, including such well-knowns as Kinkade and Chihuly, and several with geological finds that have been made into art, such as geodes. It’s been judged the fourth art-friendliest city in the nation.
- Riverboat ride with dinner and live music.
- Al fresco dining in a below ground restaurant–always cool by dinnertime.
- Real museums, including a Tussaud wax museum.
- Amazing architecture. Totally astonishing architecture, at every turn.
- Breath-taking vistas
- Impeccable groundskeeping
- History, history, history–built with government moneys, yes, by your great-grandfather’s hands to keep your great-grandmother alive, before we paid people to do nothing.
- Food. Oh my. And prices that make you want to live there. One whole restaurant devoted to the breakfast of your dreams. On fun place decorated all over with pennies glued to the walls. Another, gourmet and pristine, a sanctuary for its guests and for its workers, who are legal immigrants, escaped from Romania, who wait on you perfectly and cheerily, with charming accents.
- Hotels. We’re talking, here, of totally expensive, but enchantingly historic, insanely beautiful, antique hotels…
- And–tada–fountains. Fountains full of water so hot, you can use it to make your tea; so pure, it’s piped to the public straight from the ground, to drink. Famously healing hot waters…
And now you know where it is: Hot Springs, Arkansas.
So impressive, the first time I went there, I was five, and even then, I knew I had to go there someday when I could see the whole thing.
Been there so many times, and haven’t seen it all, yet. Talking about it (to my history-loving heart) is never overdone.
For more photos, view here.
For more about Hot Springs, view here, and here.
So…Where is YOUR favorite staycation?
STORMS for Friday!
Meteor Storm, That Is!
The prediction of a possible 15-20 meteors every minute for late Friday night, May 23, and early Saturday morning, May 24, excites everyone who’s ever stayed up to watch the night sky. DO let it inspire you to stay up, for the first time, if you never have before.
To find the storm in the night sky, just look at Polaris, the North Star, which you may find by tracing a line straight “up” from the front two stars of the Big Dipper–the two stars that form the front of the dipper. Or just face north and look up. You won’t be able to miss it.
Scientists predict the best time to be at the hour that is midnight in California or 4 a.m. in New York. Do your own math, there.
The fact that most excites me is the prediction of many fireballs and bolides. Check out this Website for cool graphics and information about those.
Won’t you join us!
For ideas on how best to make this happen, try this routine:
- Select, in advance, an unlit place to view this glorious sight. An open field away from civilization would be good. Your own house, with a couple of street lights blaring, not so good.
- Explain the plan to your children before you put them to bed. Go over a few pieces of child-appropriate science on the topic and answer questions. A globe might help. Don’t let them be scared; let your excitement sparkle as you explain the beauty and awesomeness of the event.
- Put them to bed in outdoor-friendly clothing, just this once.
- SET YOUR ALARM for 1/2 hour early. It takes awhile to get everything all around. Why miss a single event?
- Rise on time, fix plenty of hot cocoa, or whatever warm drink you’d like them to have. Gather flashlights, sweaters, blankets, lawn chairs, bug spray, etc. and load into car if you have to drive to an unlit place.
- Wake the children and bumble them outdoors or into the car. Set up your night-sky-watching station and begin the fun. It should be every bit as much fun as watching a fireworks display on July 4, but not as convenient an hour.
- Be sure to explain to your children that most of the world will not get to view this because it will be daylight everywhere else when it arrives.
Have a wonderful time! I cannot wait!
Not another dead child…
At just after 7:00 a.m., at Jonathan Law school, a 16-year-old Connecticut honor student was stabbed to death (no guns in Conn.) because she did the honorable thing:
She told a boy who asked her out, “no”. She did not want to go out with him.
Do we wonder why? Did she know he was bad news? Did she not feel safe? Did she know his reputation?
Did she not even date? My daughter would have said, “no” because she was too young to date…
“The greatest concern we have is for students who are hurting will keep it inside,” Feser said. “We want them to know we are here for them.”
State Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, said she has spoken with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and he said the state is ready to provide whatever services it can.
Police were still on the scene investigating Friday afternoon. Mello said they expect the school to be open for classes Monday.
Really. Their main concern is that the kids won’t talk about their pain after a state-enforced exposure to murder.
Really. the governor is ready to do whatever. Right.
And school will continue, business-as-usual, as in murder-is-the-usual-and-we’ve-already-had-too-many-snow-days-so-please-get-over-it-this-weekend is the usual, in collective schools.
My heart is breaking and it’s not even my daughter, my child, my district, my state, or even my problem. It’s just a sweet little girl-woman murdered by a . . .
Meanwhile, local to me, law enforcement workers recently announced that in light of school violence leading to death, first-aid kits will be provided for every classroom.
Right.
Oh, also, instructions will be provided to every staff, as to how to apply band-aids and antiseptic ointment.
Right.
PEOPLE! Please, please, please homeschool.
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Photo credit: A Call to Repeal ‘Citizens United’ (Photo credit: CT Senate Democrats)
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What Do We Get? Rosemary!
When we are at home,we can do all sorts of things we always wished we could.
I often use my home time to tend, grow, and spread my herbal landscaping plants. A wonderful feeling rises up within me when I stir the earth, something like being in Eden, in my imagination.
Of all the herbs I tend, of all the herbs I have ever tended, rosemary is one of the easiest. You can find seed for it, but starting rosemary from seed is really rather difficult for the novice grower.
I like to begin with a scion. (Pronounced: sigh un, by those who sell cars or write dictionaries, or sky un, by plant people.) A scion is merely a small branch broken off. With the rosemary plant, the best way is to find a woody (not new or green) sprig and break it off backward, causing a bit of bark, called a heel, to peel along with it.
Actually, to be sure of success, perhaps more like six scions would be better. But if you do not already have a rosemary bush, you can have really good success also, by buying a packet of fresh sprigs often available at a grocery. If they look limp, wait for a fresh delivery to buy them. These will be clipped, and not have the heel, but I’ve gotten them to grow, before, using this method.
Strip the leaves (needles) from the lower half of the sprigs and insert them all, stripped end down, into a pot of good soil. Dampen well with warm water and enclose the entire pot and all the contents in a clear plastic bag and tie shut, creating a little greenhouse. Place in a temperate area with good light, but not direct sun, and then wait.
After about 3 weeks, check to see if roots are forming. If so, you may set the plant(s) out where you want them to grow, permanently. That must be a sunny place; on the east or south side of a building is good. If the scions have not developed roots by six weeks, probably they will also be showing some signs of decay and will need to be tossed out. Too bad, but hey, try, try again!
Once you have a rosemary plant up and growing, do not worry about it much. If the weather is really hot and dry it will need irrigation. Otherwise, remember that these plants grow wild from Europe to Australia, so yours will likely be a tough one.
Mine has withstood lots of cold and lots of drought, just fine, not to mention kitties playing tag in the lower branches. So fun to cuddle them all perfumed!
Something about owning a rosemary bush makes a person feel like experimenting with Italian cooking, too, so you’ll be glad tomorrow is another at-home day!
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Hooray! My post with a brand new rosemary recipe on it just appeared at Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Taste Arkansas blogsite! Run on over there and see what I’ve been inventing to DO with all these branches! Thanks!
Hippie Tricks for Kicking a Cold
…At the first sign I might be getting the cold, I assembled my immune dream team. Within 48 hours of the first appearance of symptoms, and within 24 hours of beginning my treatment, all symptoms were completely gone.
So begins my friend with her great advice for this contagious weather. Read it in good health!
Global Warming! Coming soon to a kitchen near you!
Nothing warms a home like something baking.
It’s cold outside where you live.
Everyone should get busy!
Doesn’t matter if it’s a delicious batch of sour dough bread:
Doesn’t matter if it’s a few jars of wonderful canned bread:
Doesn’t matter if it’s a wonderful, lo-carb cookie recipe!
We all need to warm up our Monday!
Home's Cool! 