foodie day

Aromas can really activate things. Right now I am smelling fennel , onions, carrots, garlic roasting slowly with pork for my supper. Easy enough to do and so good. Only drawback is smelling the aroma as it cooks as my appetite build with each passing moment.Fennel ( anise in some markets) is underused around this area in my mind. Yep, it has a licorice taste when raw but it is soft ends and becomes nutty when cooked. Like parsnips in it s all in the preparations.

Endive is not used much either but sliced into a salad ( and you can do this with fennel also) or cooked with ham and cheese it is a real wow factor. Roses, nasturtiums and geraniums can all be used in salads, and squash blossoms can be stuffed or deep fried. At first these unusual for a midwestern USA palate were a bit odd, but cooking shows and reading got to me and I tried them. Amazing what we can learn when we let go of old in the rut ideas and venture out of our comfort zone.

Foods are such a memory spur. Molasses cookies in the often will bring my grandmother into the room. I can see her mixing them in her Ohio kitchen and the blue roaster she stored them in as if they were here with me. roast beef and Yorkshire pudding( bit as mom called it) brings my mother back to me in all her spitfire glory. Such memories tied with food---Warm out of the oven home made bread with butter and sugar melting on it( Grandma James), tea and custard( grandma Shubert), old black witch quick bread( my girls growing up). Every time I pull out a family recipe the memories of the cooks before me join me as I cook and enrich the product with their remembered love.

Another spur in the aroma class comes from the males in my life. Old Spice and my Dad is there with his huge protective cloak around me. Pipe tobacco brings back Grandpa Shubert though his shade is fleeting as he died when I was very young, but Uncle Jim Lynn joins him and lends his quiet self to the memories.Pine tar (now that is odd but true) brings back my Aunt Anna Mae who used that shampoo occasionally and it is more a male scent than a female one.

For me at least aromas make the memory vault open easily. Music, words, places they work too but aromas are the strongest of all of these spurs. Which ones work for you?

local highlights and thoughts.

Tuesday and it has bee a run around day. Early coffee, Mass, back to knit a bit, dogs to groomer, groceries, lunch and waiting for dogs get dogs. Now I am at sit mode but I was a good girl and did get a walk in and doubled my distance. Think I will be walking in the A street park tomorrow in AM, will knit with morning group ,and then get meds and fox summer film tickets.

Fox theater's film series are a great boon to my well being. $40.00 for the films and that is for two people with free popcorn. This summer films range from Frozen to August osage county. The theater is a renovated to period elegance and the audience is polite enough to not use phones during the film. This is my third set of season tickets and I enjoy the fact that I can invite a pal to join me for less than a drink costs at a regular theater. I guess though I am a movie buff I do not need to see a film the first time it is shown and 9.OO for a ticket and popcorn for 8.OO is excessive as I can see it later on television or in the elegance of the Fox. Hutchinson citizens if you have not been there, you must go. One of the best deals in town.

Hutch Recreation is another gem in the city's crown. Activities abound there from a coffee and pie club for seniors to sports for all ages and populations. Crafts and trips it is all there fro a small fee. It opens doors so people of all ages can meet, mix and mingle. Give it a try or if you are señor there are similar events at Delos V. Smith.

Another favorite is about to enter our lives for its limited run again---The farmer's market Saturday morns and Wednesdays after lunch fresh garden produce and interesting products are there to walk through. Home grown tomatoes are a gift from mother nature. home baked bread and pies tempt the palate. So put it on your to do list until it ends in October.

Sometimes people overlook local and head off toothed places. It is a case of a Prophet is not known in his own home syndrome. If it is local, it must be mundane and therefore uninteresting. People bemoan our mall but if you ask where they shopped when it was here, the answer is often Wichita or Maize. If the stores do not have customers they cannot make expenses no matter how low or how high the rents are. Having only lived in Hutchinson during the mall's declining years, I can not say for sure that lack of local customers helped it die but having seen this in other towns of similar size I would suspect it was a good part of the problem. Enough said as I might be stepping on toes.

Let me say I do my best to shop locally. big box stores and chains do not attract me unless it is the only place I can get what I need. Mom and Pop ,local business people put their money back into the town. It does not go to a larger office miles away. Oh yes chains pay local people but as little as possible and expect loyalty from their employees to purchase things there not away from the store which pays them. let me ask you to consider buying from a local business, you may a bit more but they will know your name and they will make errors right with a lot less fuss. Support them.

Well ,as Arnie and MacArthur, would say I am back. It has not been a outstandingly productive day but I can live with that. I did do a small walk and used an app to log it. when it gets long enough to make pals wince i shall post it.Lol but that may be a long while. Garbage got carried out, things sorted, bathed and dressed( which puts me ahead of yesterday) and I am about to do a grocery list for tomorrow an i n less than 3 hours I am off to begin actively trying oust Brownback from office. Nothing violent mind you but I am going to work for the Davis-Docking ticket until the last vote is counted.

Oh yes, I also edited apiece of writing I did on Grandma James' blue roaster and cookie recipes.Now I am thinking about one that uses old black witch cake as the focal point and how my girls loved that recipe and the book series it came from.
Hope to use them in the memoir I am seriously working on called for a working title TABLE TALES. Do you readers dear recall family tales that kept being retold whenever the family gathered and ate a meal? Do they linger in your memory and do you recall how they differed when a different storyteller told them? Or were you from one of those stiff upper lip families where tales were never the focus of a gathering? My parents represented both sides of the scale but I still have a heritage of tales to share so my family can know their history both happy and sad.

Texting. twitter and such have their place but they do not have space to give the emotional content, the love, the laughter . etc that happened around a family table after the dishes were cleared. They are not meant too, but for the life of me the posting of such gems as "I am up" and " drinking coffee at______" is a bit unnecessary to me though they do keep fans of the form in touch. So this memoir is to allow my family to have the tales and since they are a family of readers , I imagine some of them will read it.

Enough on that subject. I have begun my summer to do list. Tuesday and Thursday early coffee at Brewed Awakewning, then Mass, a bit of knitting and home to write. Wednesday knitting in pm at brewed Awakening, cleaning and writing in the AM. Friday- sunday whatever whenever. Tuesday nights after the 3 of June I will be teaching Comp 102 for HCC. tomorrow is Tuesday so I shall be out and about adding groceries and dog grooming to the list.

A good start to summer.

Monday, here I am. I am drinking coffee ( French press) and trying to decide the order of my day. there are things to be done and I need a plan. Vacation gives me to many hours to get things done. I am better when there is a set schedule, and even better when part of the schedule is job related. Retirement scares me because of this.

So this summer , I want to walk, TO WRITE, to strip away clutter and to just relax. I need a schedule and then make it happen. this means ignoring Winston's blatant love me pleas. His head on my thigh as I type is distracting but after awhile he will lay down with a disgusted sigh. Zoe and Boba just lay down and wait. Even dogs have personality traits!!

This is brief but I may be back; going to get the habits started.

It is a cool,grey early Sunday morning after a late night storm. My cup of French press coffee sits beside the computer and Winston is bedeviling a cheap plastic food dish He is protesting my writing and not playing but today is no play date. The older two dogs are looking at him aghast content with being walked and fed. Maturity does have its merits.

Mass should be attended but unless I go later, I will have to make up for it during the week. The motivation to get dressed is lacking in my psyche today though I can not really explain why. So I shall work in some quiet prayer and reflection and do the church and pew attendance during the week. To be truthful the smaller less formal daily masses are more spiritually rewarding for me. Also I am contemplating taking on an hour of contemplation in the chapel each day if there are any openings--- even just one day a week during the summer when I can do it easily would be good.

My plans for this summer are simple-- to deep clean and get rid of the things I do not use, to write, to read, to write, to knit and to write. Some days are semi -set such as I plan to go to Wed. AM knitting, Tuesday and Thursday AM mass, teach Tuesday evenings during June and July and go to South Dakota in late June to work with Linda Hasselstrom on my writing at Windbreak House, and perhaps vacation in Colorado with one of my girls in August before retuning to the classroom for one more year. Nothing is set in stone except the writing with Linda.

Oh yes, I hope to work in a walk every day starting tomorrow. I need the exercise but like mass today it will depend a lot on my spirit when I get up. By spirit I mean get up and go which some days like today is really in grandma gear and revving up to do is more difficult--especially in heat. Might have to sleep in pjs that can serve as walking gear. Just kidding.

So readers I am going to some different writing as I enjoy my coffee( my keruig died and will not be replaced) and work on some writing to get ready for Windbreak House. Stay well and enjoy your life.

Necessities implies that one must have them in his/ her life. Of course , the basic physical needs have to be met but what else makes life bearable?

For me, relationships with others is high on the list. The number is not the important thing for me in this area. It is the depth and commitment that count. Some of these for date from high school days and are still viable though we live miles apart and our lifestyles differ; others were formed during various stops on my career path. Some are newer but still make my life better. I do not need to be in their presence daily but touching base and being there during a crisis is important. It is the being there that makes the difference between the depth of the friendship.

Next on the list is the ability to read. Without books my life would be barren. They allow me to travel , to taste cultures not in my physical sphere, to laugh and to cry with the people they are writing about. They enrich my life. Yes, I must have books in my life.

Next is writing. Now this one is in flux. I have always identified myself as a teacher despite working as a newspaper reporter for three different papers and selling Avon. Now writing is beginning to trump teaching as an identification term . Perhaps because I am actively writing more and more and my teaching identity is nearing its end.

As the song says” these are my favorite things”; these are my necessities for a rich life.

a small rant

Interesting day today. It was a flex day so I stayed home did grades, got labs and 3 month check done. So am felling good that it was not wasted. Have a half day work day tomorrow and a week of professional development before summer truly begins.

Had an email from a student basically asking for a grade raise and it was one of two or three. In all cases these are students who were absent and did not get all the work made up, who did not pay attention in class or seek extra help and often turned in assignments half done.How does one say yes in these circumstances? I said no so got one email back that was rather negative but considering the source, it was expected.

Have I ever raised a grade a point or two? Yes when the student truly struggled , kept trying and really sought help not just answers. I have even frozen grades when a student was absent at the end of a semester due to a real illness. However last minute requests for extra credit on the last day of school do not create a need for me to give you something when you did not do your share in class. Ok readers this is harsh but as a teacher, i will reward a struggler who never gives up doing the daily work over an extra credit wanna be who did not carry the load in the first place. Enough.

Having ranted I wonder if I should post this? It may anger some of my readers but hopefully not many. I really fear for these students if they do not get it together after school. No employer is going to keep them on if the work is not done or not done well. In a job you cannot or I hope you cannot use someone else's work to copy as your own.

So I will post this. If it gets under you skin, I am sorry.