B is for Blue Apron

B is for Blue Apron and 

Belated Thankful Sunday

Recently, I had a post titled Wally's Blue Apron Experience. It was a post about the Blue Apron meal service that my son, Wally, had received as a gift. However when Lili at Creative Savv saw the title, she thought it was about an actual blue apron that Wally had. You know the kind. One usually made of cloth worn over your clothes to protect them from getting dirty. 

Well, today's post is actually about a blue apron. It's one my mother made for me when I was a little girl. I'm not sure how little but little enough that I was not yet in school. It was gathered with big pockets and tied around my waist. I wore it when I helped my mother.

My favorite thing to do while wearing my apron was to make pies with her. I had my own little pie pan and I made a little pie while she made a big one. Hers was usually an apple pie and mine was usually a tart with a cinnamon and sugar filling. During this time, she taught me how to make pie crust using Crisco and ice water and how to make it turn out nice and flaky every time.

I also wore the apron when I helped to hang out clothes. My father put up a little clothesline just my height and the washcloths were my responsibility. The big pockets of my blue apron held the clothes pins and my mother taught me how to shake the cloths out and hang the corners together.

Recently, we found that little blue apron while we were cleaning out the house that my parents lived in for over 55 years. As with many other things we have found, the blue apron brought back good memories and some ponderings. How did my mother do it? How did she have time to do those things with just me. She had three other kids to worry about and a husband who worked long hours. I know that it would have been a lot faster to do these tasks by herself. But instead, she did them with me and made me feel important.

So for the time I spent in my little blue apron with my mother, I am thankful.

A is for Almost

A is for Almost. 

I'm Almost ready for the A-Z Challege. Almost.

I've been involved in a whirlwind of cleaning out my parents' house getting it ready to sell. Lots of memories, box packing, and dust. Which means A is Also for Allergies!


Back soon. (Mmm... Maybe if I'm still crunched for time B may be for Back Soon.)

This and That

I have been posting just once a week for a while now. Oh, occasionally I throw an extra one in to mix it up a little, but not often. However, that average is going to get a boost soon because it's almost time for the April A to Z challenge! For those of you who might not know, the  A to Z Challenge challenges you to post every day in April except Sundays (26 days) using each letter of the alphabet as a general guideline for your posts.

I have done this for a few years now and find it both challenging and rewarding. Challenging because 26 posts in one month are a LOT for me and I am usually scrambling to come up with one for each day. Rewarding because I actually accomplish it and come up with some of my more interesting posts while trying to scrape something together.

There are other things going on in my life that take priority over this, so I'm not quite so coordinated as some who have themes and already completed posts. However, I'm going to give it a go. Join me April 1st for A. Oh, by the way, I have changed the format for my comments from embedded to a pop up window on the advice of the A to Z people. They say that allows more people to comment that way. I'm going to try it for a while, but so far, I don't like it as well as the old format.

And speaking of other things, here's some of what is going on these days.

--We are making progress with my parents house and actually have an offer on it. Now the desperate attempt to clean out everything before closing. I'll be going across the mountains for a few days soon to work on it with one of my sisters. And that also means that I'll be gone for the first couple of days of the A to Z challenge maybe without internet. We'll see what happens.

--Ward has been having eye problems that should sort themselves out in time, but in the meantime, he can't drive so I'm the only driver. Did I mention that I don't like to drive? But you gotta do what you gotta do.

--We're having warmer days interspersed with the cold ones and spring is beginning. Most things are only budding, but enough things are blooming to start the allergy miseries. I had a few days of sneezing, etc. that I thought were allergies which turned out to be a cold. I think I'm going to give a cold the reward for the least serious illness that causes the most misery. But it's better now.

--And on a few of those warm days, we've gotten some spring yard clean up done. It's nice to be outside again in the dirt, but not so nice to look around and see all that needs to be done. Maybe I should start doing Second Looks again. Those really helped me to not focus on all that needed to be done and just appreciate what nature had to share.

Laundry is calling.

Until next time...

Thankful Sunday, March 24, 2019

I am thankful for a 
new computer mouse.

For months, I struggled with the mouse for my computer. Sometimes it seemed to register two clicks when I only meant one. I was deleting emails that I didn't mean to. Editing was confusing. I thought it was all me and that some how I had developed a heavy finger. I tried to have a lighter touch with mixed results. However, the same thing was happening to Ward and it wasn't just me. After trying a few things that didn't work to fix the mouse, we got a new one.

And it's wonderful. When I do one click, I get the response for one click. When I do a double click, I the get the response for a double click. The new mouse has made life a whole lot less frustrating and for that I am thankful.

Thankful Sunday, March 17, 2019

I am thankful that we're all different.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Today is a celebration of our Irish heritage. According to DNA analysis, Ward and I are both 20% Irish.  I look the part with red hair and freckles, but Ward doesn't with black hair and olive skin.  That's what is so interesting about genetics and our varied backgrounds. You're never sure what the almost infinite combination of genes is going to come up with. When I was younger and would lament to my mother I wanted be like one of my older sisters, my mother would always say how boring the world would be if we were all alike. She was right. So for the uniqueness of each and every person, I am thankful.

Now to add a little more about St. Patrick's day, I'm running an updated version of a post from three years ago.

  St. Patrick's Day This and That

Irish dancers in St. Patrick's Day Parade, Washington, D. C.

I usually don't do a lot to observe St. Patrick's Day except wear green--a habit that started in elementary school days to avoid being pinched. If you didn't wear green, you were fair game. I wondered how that crazy tradition got started and found out that, most likely, it was started by Irish immigrants in this country a couple hundred years ago. Supposedly, wearing green made you invisible to mischievous leprechauns who would pinch you if they could see you. A pinch from someone reminded you to be aware that a leprechaun could sneak up on you at any time.

However, it wasn't until last year that I learned about wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day. Apparently, you wear green if you are Catholic and orange if you are Protestant. A friend, whose mother is Irish, said that she was always insistent that they wear orange instead of green on St. Patrick's Day. I think that detail was lost on most of us in this country or at least me.

Shamrocks (white clover)

I learned another new thing this St. Patrick's Day--what a shamrock is. Sarah, my special buddy, gave me a shamrock plant for St. Patrick's Day. It was in a green pot from a store and labeled as a shamrock. However, it looked just like white clover to me and was not at all like my image of a shamrock. But I was surprised when I looked into it. While there is disagreement among the Irish about which variety of clover is a shamrock, it is a clover plant. Yellow clover is what most agreed on with white clover coming in second. I have a white clover plant. I'm not sure if I'm going to let it join the rest of the clover in my yard or bring it inside. I may make it a house plant.

St. Paddy's day in New Orleans ( Photo source)

And while I usually don't do a lot on St. Patrick's Day (not green beer drinker or corned beef eater), I have been to a few parades. This was especially a big event when we lived in New Orleans. The fun part about a St. Patrick's Day parade was they threw vegetables from the floats to make an Irish stew. That means that along with the beads, they threw cabbages, carrots, potatoes and onions. We usually took them home and did just that--made a stew.

We've been to one parade here and while it was enjoyable, it didn't quite live up to the vegetable throwing in New Orleans.

So as I go and figure out what green thing I'm going to wear today, I hope you have a Happy St. Patrick's Day however big or small you chose to celebrate it.