Work Views - First Sgt.'s Hat

I was using a desk in the office, unusually for me as I am typically in the field.  Doesn't that expression sound like I'm plowing the north 40 or something? What I mean is that I work away from the office most of the time. 

I came back from lunch and saw this hat on the desk.  Thinking that someone had left it behind, I turned it over to see if his or her name was inside.

Instead I saw this 2014 funeral bulletin for a fallen trooper secured in the hat's dome.  I teared up.

First Sgt. came back for his hat and saw me looking at the inside.  "First Sgt.," I said.  "That is so beautiful."

He is tall and lanky with a Virginia twang to his voice.

First Sgt. carefully secured his hat on his head, giving it a slight tilt with a thumb and index finger to the brim. He said in a matter-of- fact tone,  "Yep, I carry Tommy wherever I go."

Valor     Service     Pride

What I've Been Reading

I read voraciously, almost to a fault.  My mother is a great reader.  I even remember the first word I learned to read.  It was the word "look" and my mother had made the O's "looking" eyes, so I got it right away.  I think I was 3.

As a kid, I would snitch Victoria Holt novels before my mother was even finished with them!  I would be content for hours reading such classics as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Little Women, and The Witch of Blackbird Pond. My most exciting Christmas gifts each year were always the big stack of hardcover books. My sister is also a great reader, but her daughter, my Piper girl, beats all of us hollow!

Here's my Mom on the beach at Cancun last week reading.  Pretty nice legs for nearly 80.

And here she is off the beach...the birthday girl.

Over the last little while, I've been reading:

1. Mosaic - Diane Armstrong

A moving and extremely well-written nonfiction book which reads like a novel.  Diane writes about the 5 generations of her Jewish family, before and after World War II, up to present times.  She tells an amazing tale of survival and a sorrowful tale of those who did not survive.  I downloaded it on Kindle.  
Mosaic by Diane Armstrong

2.  Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym

Laurie Colwin, sadly departed from cancer before her time,was an author I dearly loved.  (Home Cooking and More Home Cooking). She referred to this writer as the "incomparable" Barbara Pym. I found this book at Goodwill yesterday.  Barbara is extremely skilled in painting pictures of personal idiosyncrasies.  Autumn Quartet describes the lives for four British office workers of a certain age.  I find a great metaphor this story as we learn how suspicion, inward thinking, and selfishness ultimately hurt the person who holds these acidic emotions more than anyone else. The book also paints a compelling picture of older folks who have lived through World War II clashing with the Swinging Seventies.  Quartet In Autumn - Barbara Pym

3. Eleanor and Hick - Susan Quin

This was a very well-researched and well-written book about the relationship between our most memorable First Lady and the pioneering newspaper reporter Lorena Hickok. Their relationship has become somewhat controversial after the release letters the two shared. The reader may draw her own conclusions.  I like to read anything about the Roosevelt family. 
Eleanor and Hick - Susan Quin

4. Under Magnolia - Frances Mayes

This book is a recent publication from the bestselling writer of "Under the Tuscan Sun."  I enjoy memoirs and Under Magnolia didn't disappoint.  I was sad to learn of her religious views, but I enjoyed her look back at her Southern beginnings in a very dysfunctional family.
Under Magnolia - Frances Mayes

5.  Our Chemical Hearts  - Krystal Sutherland

Piper mentioned that she was just starting this book and she talked it up so intelligently that I downloaded it on Kindle.  The narrator is 17 years old and I don't usually like young adult books. I've gotten engrossed in this one, not only for its own merits, but also because it draws me closer to Piper's way of thinking. 
 Our Chemical Hearts - Krystal Sutherland

If you read one of these, please comment and let me know how you enjoy them!  I do not receive any consideration for these links, just wanted to make it easy for readers to find them.  I share out of pure love for reading.

Five Frugal Things

Kristen, over at Frugal Girl and some other bloggers, run an occasional feature called "Five Frugal Things."

The Frugal Girl

Here are my five frugal things:

1.  I save $2.50 per shirt because I launder and press my husband's shirts vs. taking them to the dry cleaners.  The price is based on the lowest price around here.  I save some more when I use an old spray bottle filled with water instead of spray starch, which I rarely use.

2.  I wash zip locks and use them reuse them .  I rinse and run them through the dishwasher. They dry on a multiple skirt hanger in the laundry room.  I haven't purchased any zip locks for over a year and a half.  Not only is this frugal, but it helps the environment.

3.  Instead of using plastic wrap, foil, or bags, I try to use glass containers which do not add to landfills.  This can difficult to do when packing lunches, but again, it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

4.  I pack my husband's lunches and dinners (when he teaches at night).  If he ate out instead, this would amount to a total of over $40 per week or $160 per month. I base the cost on an average of $5 per meal, which is low.  I can provide a meal much more cheaply than that.

5.  The cost of cable television in our area is ridiculous.  We have no other options but to use Cox Cable or have no cable at all.  We chose no cable at all about 2 months ago.  We are thrilled that we did so.  This decision saves over $100 per month.  We have digital antennae now, a one-time $25 purchase.  We can get about 20 channels this way, including ION, MeTV, the three networks, and PBS.

Netflix and Hulu give us access to wonderful programming at a low cost. Bruce and I watch the local news and the national morning TV shows and then turn the television off. The exception is during weather concerns, such as today as we await hurricane news.

Rather than vege through programming we are not especially interested in just because it is on, we watch programming we love (60 Minutes, Law and Order SVU, the new NBC drama "Timeless") and then keep the television off.  I listen to the radio via the computer  We find other things to do, in my case sewing and in Bruce's puttering around fixing and improving things, such as repairing a well-loved vintage necklace for me.

I do not want to stand before God and have Him show me many wasted, mindless hours watching television and be reminded that while basic needs of the poor went unmet, I chose to spend over $1,200 per year on television and wasted time that I could have redeemed for good. Ephesians 5:16.

Most evenings these days, we listen to classical music on XM via computer and read.  Both of us find it very cozy to have our showers and then relax reading in bed with a certain angelic dog in between us.

The other night, GASP, we didn't even watch the vice presidential debate.

I asked Bruce what his thoughts were about cutting the electronic leash of cable and he told me that he feels more peaceful.  I agree.

Not Eating Out in Portsmouth, Virginia

"Not Eating Out in New York" is a blog I truly love,written by a young woman with a background in Taiwanese cooking.  She has been publishing this thoughtful blog for 10 years.  

Not Eating Out in New York

Listed in the blog are numerous reasons for "not eating out" ranging from saving money to cooking with friends to controlling what you ingest to the ability to eat fresher, more natural, and more local foods.  She spent an entire year at the beginning of the blog by never eating out even once.  I strive to emulate her by "not eating out in Portsmouth, VA."

Two weeks ago, I made a commitment to eating cleaner.  I started by ending my 42-year-old love affair with diet soda.  Six months ago, I got serious about recycling, deciding that I didn't want to leave all this garbage for my nieces' generation.  I was appalled by how much soda I was consuming and how many cans were left behind.

Researching "aspartame," (the sweetener in diet soda) which was originally invented to be a rat poison, I was appalled at all the damage that ingesting it does.  Aspartame is considered so harmful that it cannot be sold or added to food in Europe.  I am noticing a marked difference in how I feel, including more mental clarity, as well as not being hungry all the time.  

I've also gotten serious about ending fast food at lunch, Sometimes it is tricky to have home-cooked food in the middle of a work day, but not impossible.  I heated leftover roasted vegetables in red pepper sauce in which I poached a fresh egg from a chicken who lives a block away on Chesapeake Avenue.  I shredded a tiny amount of leftover cheese on it and enjoying eggy perfection.

Do you think you don't have the time to eat healthier?  You do.  Tonight's menu was prepared at oh dark thirty this morning.  I put lean pork chops in the crock pot with caraway seeds and two sliced up apples, along with sauerkraut.  It cooked on "low" all day.  

I shucked corn and quickly boiled it for two minutes with two bay leaves.  Finally, I broke off the tough ends of asparagus and par-boiled them in a scant amount of water for another two minutes. When I got home, all I had to do was reheat the vegetables.  Total initial prep time was under 7 minutes.  We all have 7 minutes.

I used to think that only tree huggers and extremists stressed out about food.  However, I understand now that we are losing our connection to food, to the growth around us, and to our families as we constantly eat out or bring home fast food. When we do, we often consume substandard food, preserved with chemicals, grown thousands of miles away, and then laced with fat, sugar, or salt (or all three) to make the food more palatable.

My roasted vegetables and poached egg from a chicken who lives in an adorable red chicken house down the street ground me a lot more effectively than chicken nuggets. Just sayin'.

On Fresh Eggs, Good Neighbors, and a Silly Dog, Indeed

I was awakened this morning by one of Lulu's little friends who wanted her to come out to play. Surely you must think Lulu is a child.  Well, she is, but Lulu is classified by society as a D-O-G, please don't mention this to her as it will tamper with her self esteem.  Lulu is convinced she is a person and even sleeps with her own pillow.  In our bed.

Lulu's friend is Spunky, the guy across the backyard, a hoodling hound of unknown provenance who knows to go toward our bedroom window and holler if we're not in the kitchen when he arrives.

Spunky is often joined by Roscoe, his cartoon-character cautious younger brother, a purebred Boston Terrier so careful that it took him two years to come to the back door.  Amusingly, when he was still unsettled about us, he would bark when we went out back, as if we were trespassers on his turf.  Go figure...

Her other friend is mighty Merlin, a German Shepard, and the dignified older gentleman next door. She will bring Merlin into the house.  Lulu can open the back door.  Merlin is extremely well behaved.  Lulu doesn't let Spunky in.  He's an indoor terrorist.

While Lulu and Spunky got out with Milk-Bones (I should buy stock in Milk-Bones), I had some fantastic double-chocolate infused coffee bought on the cheap at El Lotto Grande (Big Lots) as my buddy Alex of Living the Small Life would say.  Fancy flavored coffee is one of our guilty pleasures, so when we find it marked down, we buy 10 or 11 bags and store the extra in the deep freeze.

I digress a lot.

See those eggs above?  They came from my friend Nancy's chickens and all of them live a block and a half away.  I made a delicious egg sandwich with a beefsteak tomato sliced on top.

Here's my homage to chickens and eggs in  my kitchen.  I picked up this little coop for taking chickens to market in Los Angeles of all places.

There's nothing like fresh eggs.  Bruce knows this having grown up on a farm, but I've just learned their delights from Nancy's chickens.  The yolks are bigger and are almost orange.  Her chickens, depending on their individual breed lay eggs in pale tan, brown, and a blue-green shade that's quite striking.  

Their taste is just, well, "eggier" than store bought.   If I was saying that in Spanish I would call them "huevisimo."  If I was very smart as well as extremely pretentious, I would call her hens' eggs the Platonic ideal of eggs.

One of the things I've learned along the years is to delight in small things, for the small things are more frequent than the big ones. 

Blessing abound all around me; beautiful zinnias planted by the Olde Towne Civic League, a hot cup of double-chocolate coffee in my Starbucks mug with the New York City skyline and a yellow taxi, a silly dog standing on two legs at the back door, homemade chicken salad shared with a friend, and a neighbor who provides fresh eggs and tomatoes better than money can buy.

And the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.  That's a big blessing and not one of the small things.

Tom Selleck Has Always Been There for Me

Whenever I feel stressed out, I will end up having a dream that I've taken a quick trip to Hawaii.  There's always the sense that I shouldn't be there, like I have someone else's key to an unused hotel room or I only have a few days to stay because I am supposed to be somewhere else.  

Last night, I was supposed to be guiding a very famous retired general around, but decided to leave him chatting at a cocktail party while I went out to have a swim.

In this recurring dream, I always arrive at Waikiki Beach at night and walk on the white sugar sand beaches in front of various waterfront hotels.  Whatever else I do, I always swim and walk on the beach at night.

In dreamland, I go back to my old job near the Aloha Tower and hear folks "talk story" (visit and have long conversations) as I go by.

One morning when I worked in downtown Honolulu, I actually thought that I was having a dream, but it was real. My office was in a very tall building called the Amfac Center. My boss wasn't the most pleasant person. My husband had recently left for a six-month deployment.  I could have been moping. 

The building was so big that it had its own mini-post office where we all picked up the mail.  I exited the elevator and noticed electrical cabling all over the floor.  I thought that a contractor was working on the building.  I turned and saw THIS leaning against a planter:

Seriously.  Dressed almost identically to the pic.

I thought I was having an hallucination for just minute and stood there.

"Hi, I hope we're not in your way."

"Oh no Sir, not at all.  I just wasn't expecting this."

"We're on a break, did you need to get the mail?"

"Yes, I'll go do that. " And I stood there for another minute and got the mail.  I think my mouth was hanging open.  

The producers used a conference room on an upper floor to film when Magnum was supposed to go to see someone in the Navy.  I wondered later why they didn't send out a notice to everyone and then realized that there would be fans mobbing the Amfac Building.

So, peeps, Tom Selleck is an extremely nice man.  I feel even better about him now that he is the New York City Police Commissioner.

Happy Fall Ya'all

Yes, I know I am rushing things, but I love Autumn!  I cannot comprehend as I see God's creation around me, when I watch His artist's brush paint nature in colors of bronze, gold, red, maize, yellow, and orange -- how could anyone fail to believe that a loving Creator fashioned such splendor for us to enjoy?  

The notion that this all came about when the "whole universe was in a hot, dense state" (as is sung in the beginning of each "Big Bang Theory" episode) and matter sort of bumped into itself?  Well, believing this takes more faith than I have.  

Sunday, in our continuing meandering drive adventures, we happened upon Weldon, NC along the Roanoke River.  Weldon was a stop on the Underground Railroad and also has a Confederate Cemetery and a 7-mile hiking trial.  

Thank God for my continued healing as I was able to walk for about a half mile. We'll come back when I'm further along in getting well and the temperature drops a littlle more. Last month, I had to grocery shop in a motorized cart because I couldn't stand or walk long enough unaided.  I know I was inspired Saturday to continue on to see this:

If you look closely, you can see that the tree area in the middle left of this photo are just starting to turn.

I decorate as soon as possible for Autumn, so I can fully enjoy it until Thanksgiving weekend.  This year, I had a little supervisor, as you can see.  

You can see our beautiful neighborhood center, the former Shea Terrace Elementary School, in the door's reflection.  A beautiful white-trimmed brick school, built in 1920 on land donated by my home's builder (John Shea), the old building is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Sun Trust bank owns this property, which is currently an elderly apartment building.  

Did you know that city planners and architects have found that neighborhoods with strong centers and strong boundaries flourish? That's why many neighbors advocated to save the school from scheduled demolition.  The school was our strong center. 

The Civic League also supported the creation of a linear park on a block fronting the neighborhood which previously had substandard, absentee-landlord houses.

As the seasons change, I celebrate by creating a new mantel vignette. I challenge myself to use found objects, natural things like braes or pine cones, thrift store finds, or raid the attic, rather than buying new. Anyone can just go out and buy things.  

It takes an aspiring Proverbs 31 woman to make treasures, search every box at the yard sale, or arrange vases or pitchers differently. I feel the most inspired when I set up a new vignette without buying anything. I can't draw, so this is my form of artistic expression. 

Saving money, building traditions, and respecting God's beautiful creation by reusing or recycling is what inspires me these days. The world doesn't need need any more junk in landfills.

Ahhhh....the anticipation of these late summer days waiting for the season to turn.  Tomorrow's weather report calls for temperatures in he '70's.  Bliss.  It was cool in the backyard as I let the dog out first thing. When Lulu came back in, I felt her cold ears as we snuggled on the couch. I haven't felt cold ears since last April! During my Starbucks meeting this morning, the smell of Pumpkin Spice lattes surrounded me in Autumn goodness. A few leaves have started to turn. I can go back to having my morning coffee on the front porch.  
Bliss, people.  Pure bliss.