Random thoughts

My fans (all three of you people who read my blog) have been admonishing me to publish something. I haven’t posted in a while, but not for lack of wanting to. I’ve just been extremely laz — err, busy.

So, while I wait for my mom’s tax return to finish printing, I’ll grace you with some of the fascinating things I have been doing, thinking or saying lately:

• After two weeks of working on it in spurts, I have finally finished Mom’s tax return. No, you cannot borrow money from her. Because she helped her children so much last year, there is nothing left to loan. Thanks, Mom. We owe you.
• I chopped off my fingernails the other day to get better at the little game on my new cell phone that I am obsessed with (the game, not the phone), and it didn’t make one bit of difference. Even with nails cut to the nub, I am still pitiful at batting a little ball with a paddle at a bunch of electronic bricks.
• I make up little songs, sometimes to amuse Bruce, sometimes to amuse myself. Frequently these little ditties are about the dogs. Almost all of them are about what I happen to be doing at the time I sing them. If Bruce isn’t amused, he doesn’t let me know it. He makes up random funny songs, too. We’re weird together.
• I would love to be in a musical. Like South Pacific, The Music Man, Oklahoma! or my favorite, Camelot. Or how about The Sound of Music II: Suzl, the Forgotten von Trapp? I would be great in that! Not that I can sing.
• Although Saturday night was an exception (I went to bed at 7:30), I have been staying up until nearly 10:30 lately! (I don’t think I’ve adjusted to daylight saving time yet.) Still, unless you’re my mother, my brother or my husband, or you’re bleeding from both eyes, don’t call me after 9 p.m., even on weekends. I will be mad at you.
• It’s spring! And I pulled weeds this weekend (both days). And when I got tired of pulling the little suckers, there were still a BUNCH of them left. Today after I got tired and decided not to pull any more weeds, two neighbor boys rode their bikes up to my driveway and asked me if I had any work for them. Now I’m $10 poorer, but my rose bed looks a lot better. They want to come and mow the lawn in a few days. I think I’ll let them. (Note to self: Restock the Popsicle stash.)
• I LOVE seeing kids take some initiative and get out and earn some money instead of sitting on their bee-hinds in front of the TV or a computer.
• The dogs finally got baths today. This hadn’t happened since (don’t tell anyone) November. Salsa didn’t like it, but she didn’t bite me once!
• My friend Lynn, whom I wrote about a few weeks ago (yikes, it’s been nearly three months!), is going to share the Basket-A-Month with me this year. Next weekend is the pickup. SPRING VEGETABLES! FARM-FRESH EGGS, HOMEMADE PASTA! SOURDOUGH BREAD! I’M YELLING BECAUSE I’M DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY!!!!! And Lynn said she’d bring me some of her asparagus and a couple of good recipes. Double happiness!
• Baseball season is almost upon us, and I’m thinking of Travelers and sunshine. And hot dogs, which absolutely must be consumed at baseball games, no matter what.
• I’m reading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which I started reading in college but never finished. My favorite journalism professor recommended it, although it was not required reading. I didn’t do a lot of extracurricular reading in college. I was too busy with the school newspaper and reading for classes. But I’m enjoying this book once again, and I’m determined to finish it this time.
• I have new flip-flops. They’re black. Well, they’re sort of brown now, because of the weed-pulling.
• I’m supposed to be making a blackberry-jam cake for my neighbor, who’s going to pay me for it, but she didn’t give me a deadline and I keep putting it off. It’s the pressure. She had one at a friend’s out of town, and it was to-die-for delicious, and I’ve had to Google to find a recipe that seems to approximate what she had. So, pressure. Which makes me procrastinate.
• More pressure: My church is doing a 25th-anniversary cookbook, and I’m supposed to provide a recipe for my “signature” dish, and I can’t decide whether to share my recipe for carrot cake, which I make money from, or be selfish and keep it to myself. My other cake recipe that gets rave reviews is from Paula Deen, and I want to make sure we won’t be violating any copyrights before I share it. It’s called White Chocolate Cake with Strawberry Filling. It’s lick-the-bottom-of-the-pan good. I don’t think I’ve shared photos of it that I took when I was making business cards year before last. So let’s end this on a happy foodnote:

Click the comment button to share some of your own random thoughts.

Argenta farmers market

Don’t forget, locavores, Saturday is the grand opening of the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market in downtown North Little Rock (the 400 block of Main Street). The market has been open since May 3, but this weekend will have more hoopla, complete with a ribbon cutting, a live bluegrass band (no canned music for these fine folks), free beefalo burgers (free food — who could resist that?) and maybe even a few juicy, vine-ripened tomatoes. And all kinds of berries and other delicacies are expected. (If you didn’t see my article on Page 5A of today’s NLR Times, rush out and buy a copy now!)

Jody Hardin, Barbara Armstrong and the other farmers have been working hard to bring us fresh, locally grown, pesticide free, healthy produce and other items. One woman sells organic dog biscuits and a natural potion that stopped her dog’s itchies. It wasn’t in my budget the day I talked to her (and my dogs haven’t been scratching too much lately), so I haven’t bought any yet, but as soon as itchy season hits us, I’m all over that booth.

Do your part this weekend. Come out and say hey to your neighbors, support your local farmers and have a beefalo burger on the house (donations accepted, of course).

See ya there!

Random things I say to my dogs

In any given week, you might hear one or all of these things uttered at my house, either to or about the furchildren.

“Poop!” (After finding a deposit on the carpet, five minutes after they’ve been outside to potty. This is our most frequent exclamation.)

“Who peed in the office?”

“Time to rassle!”

“Pepper, move over.” (In the middle of the night.)

“Salsa, calm down!!”

“Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty, and I’ll give you a treat. … Pepper, please go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Please potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. Hurry up. It’s cold [or hot] out here. Go potty. Go potty. Go potty. … Good potty!”

“Don’t lick me on the mouth!”

“But we like the mailman!”

“Who turned over the trash can?”

“Poop!”

“Who peed on the bathroom rug?”

“Don’t snatch! Be gentle.” (To Pepper, who likes to snatch her treats out of your hand.)

“That’s not very ladylike.” (To Salsa, when she flops onto her back to ask for a belly rub.)

“Dry your feet.” (Salsa’s signal to stop and wait for me when she comes in from the rain. They do have a little training.)

“Don’t bite me.” (To Salsa, who always bites my right index finger after I dry her feet.)

“Who peed in the laundry room?”

“Salsa, down!” (When someone arrives.)

“Who peed in the guest bedroom?”

“Salsa, chillax!”

“Pepper, you’re tiny.”

“Salsa, you’re pretty.”

(Whispering to Bruce) “Where’s the camera?”

“Salsa, you’re going to put my eye out with your tail.”

“Don’t bite me! I’m gonna bite you!” (During a rasslin’ match.)

“You have bad breath.”

“Don’t lick the window!”

“You stink!”

“Who needs a bath?”

“Anybody hungry?” (Just to see their joy as they race to the kitchen.)

(To both) “I love you.”

Can’t wait to share

I cannot share with you the abundance of what Bruce and I experienced this morning — until next week.

You see, we went to the new farmers market in Argenta, but I was taking photos for The North Little Rock Times, because our reporter, Jeremy, had another assignment. He knew I was planning to be at the market anyway, so he asked me to take pics in his place.

Mayor Hays rang the opening bell, and, even though it was windy and quite chilly at 7 a.m., there was a good little crowd to christen the event.

It was wonderful, but I can’t tell you how wonderful for a few days, for two reasons: 1) Technically, any photos we publish in The Times will belong to my employer, so the ones I use for this blog will have to be ones we choose not to publish in the May 8 edition; and 2) Bruce says I have to do my homework first (my online accounting class, and I’m way behind). But I told him I at least have to write a paragraph! And, of course, I got carried away and have written much more than that.

But I had to tell you two things about my experience: 1) The Chudy Farms people got me to like honey. That’s huge! My dislike of honey goes back to some childhood memories of being force fed the stuff when I had the croup. But the Chudy Farms people offered me a sample of their honey on a biscuit, and I became an instant fan. 2) There’s a New Clean Plate Club started by nutritionist Penny Rudder that you’re going to love! I hope to write a sidebar for The Times about that, but I definitely will be talking to her in the next couple of days to get more details, whether it’s for the paper or the blog (I hope to do both).

Can’t wait to tell you more — and share more pics — next weekend.

Oh, and in the photo above is of Bruce (you know him) and D.J., former NLR Times reporter who’s about to start writing for an NLR blog in a couple of weeks.

Off to do my homework …

Week of Color: The Explosion

Disclaimer: With the text wrap around the photos, some of the text appears to describe the wrong photos. It will wrap differently in different browser windows, so I can’t control how it displays for you. Please keep that in mind as you read. I hope you can identify which flowers are which all on your own!

I am a gal who likes color — bright color, as I mentioned on Day Yellow (speaking of which, I found another yellow photo, so scroll down to the Yellow post or click here. It’s from a “wedding” cake I made last year – really a 40th-anniversary cake modeled on the couple’s 1967 wedding cake).

Brown, pale yellow, light green and all that is nice, but I take after my mom in my love of bright colors, jewel tones in particular. Most of my flowers — annual or perennial — end up being bright reds, purples or pinks.

I’ll share some of them with you here. Let’s start with RED!

Three or four years ago, I decided to start growing roses. I carefully researched and bought five bushes, all different colors. The roses themselves are pretty easy to grow, but I am still pulling up grass in the beds, as I hate putting chemicals in the ground. But all the weed pulling is worth it, because it helps me enjoy these, the firstfruits …

The next one is a hydrangea that’s in my back yard. I have always loved hydrangeas. They’re so unusual, so beautiful and so versatile. I love that you can control the color by changing the soil’s pH.

This one came from a funeral arrangement after my uncle died nearly six years ago. We had hydrangeas in the front yard of the house I grew up in (in Batesville), but after my dad died, my mother moved. It was difficult for me to see her give up the house where my dad had spent hours and hours making the landscaping beautiful, so I was going to get a cutting from the house before she sold it. Well, in the chaos of the move, I forgot about, but the new owners said I could get a cutting. However, by the time I actually made it back up to Batesville to get a piece of the bush, they had dug up the hydrangeas! How could they? (I wanted to cry.) So when my dad’s brother died and my aunt offered me a plant after the funeral, I chose the hydrangea. The picture is from an experiment I was trying with my photo software. (I think. Or it could have been that the picture just turned out that way. I can’t really remember! Either way, I like the hazy look of this photo.)

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The next one is from one of the three Rose of Sharon bushes from my mother-in-law’s garden when his parents lived in Virginia. Bruce used to take his son, Courtney, to visit Courtney’s grandparents every summer. Sometimes I went, and sometimes I stayed home. One of the years I stayed home, Bruce brought me three beautiful Rose of Sharon bushes from his mom. One of the bushes has purple blooms, but i can’t seem to find those pictures. Enjoy this pink one.

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For something a little closer to purple, enjoy this clematis from my front yard.

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And this “purple coneflower,” which is actually less purple than the ones above and below it!

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I potted this purple flower on my front porch a couple of years ago. I can’t remember its name. Anyone?

I took the next two pictures pictures in Morro Bay, Calif., in 2006. I think this one is a lily.

And this is a jade plant. I loved the spider web!

I have two favorite flowers. My favorite simple, innocent flower is the daisy — just the plain white with yellow center. My favorite exotic flower is the bird of paradise, and I was so excited to stumble across this one at California Baptist University when I was there for a Crown retreat in 2006.

The last picture is not of flowers but contains a bounty of color. When we were able to participate in the River Market’s Basket a Month program, we got this (and more) last summer. Doesn’t it make your mouth water?

I think I’ve had more fun with this post than any other. Thank you, Jerusalem, for your fantastic idea of a Week of Color. Along with being challenged to find ways to illustrate my color likes and dislikes, I have enjoyed all the creative ideas from you and your friends!

Yellow

Today’s color is yellow. I have to admit, it’s not one of my favorite colors — unless it’s BRIGHT, like these mums. Although my laundry-room story will seem to contradict that…

My laundry room is bright yellow, although my plan was to paint it “butter yellow.” Bruce had decided to surprise me by painting it while I was in California for a wedding. Because of a mix-up at the paint store or a miscommunication on my part (or maybe just Bruce’s not knowing what I meant by “butter yellow”), it ended up being more what I would call canary yellow. But laundry rooms should be bright, right? So it has remained “canary yellow” for nearly eight years.

Sorry there’s no picture of the laundry room. You just get the mums today. (On White day, I linked to a similar picture.)

Tomorrow’s color is brown, quite possibly my least favorite color, although there are some wonderful browns out there nowadays. Still, it might be a challenge to come up with pictures to illustrate what I like about brown.

Added 03/08/08: I found this picture on the last day in the Week of Color, so I just had to add it. It’s a rose from a 40th-anniversary cake I made last year, modeled on the couple’s wedding cake.

Going green

Today is green day in Jerusalem’s Week of Color.

The pictures I chose for today are a little more meaningful than the previous ones. The first is of cookies for my church’s Christmas Interrupted celebration year before last. I didn’t make the cookies — I think my friend Alicia did — but they depict two aspects of the holiday for me. Christmas cookies always mean fun, and Alicia made them just a little whimsical with the green candies (or is that icing?). But the star shape also makes me think of the star in the East, the one that guided the wise men to worship our Savior.

The next picture, also from 2006, is of a park in Kerman, Calif., where my brother, J.T., played Little League baseball. My parents, my best friend and I spent many hours on those bleachers, cracking open bag after bag of sunflower seeds and dropping the shells down below us while we watched my brother and our neighbor boys play the sport I will always love.

In June 2006, when I had a business trip to California, I talked my mom into going with me. We met up with some old friends, and they drove us around our little hometown, which isn’t so little anymore. I took pictures of the first house I remember living in (on E Street); our church (First Southern Baptist Church and its mission, Primera Iglesia Bautista); the elementary school my brother and I attended (Kerman-Floyd); and Kerckhoff Park …

It’s not easy being green

It seems Jerusalem got sidetracked by the little snowfall we had overnight, so she has postponed her green post until Wednesday. I had just spent a few minutes picking out my green pics when I saw her note, so I am ahead of the game — a rare thing nowadays. I’m too tired to write about what my green pictures mean to me, anyway. So I will take a day off with Jerusalem and go green on Wednesday.

Blue day, blue dog

Again, I let it get close to bedtime before remembering the Week of Color. (To be fair, I haven’t been home from work that long.)

Today’s color is blue.

After Salsa and Pepper frolicked on the bed for a while, Pepper suddenly scurried under her bed, where she usually sleeps (yes, in the winter, she sleeps under her bed). The bed is blue (you’ll have to take my word for it), and our cheap, dog-proof, ugly comforter has lots of blue in it, so I grabbed the camera. Weird dog to the rescue again!

White

It’s almost bedtime, and I nearly forgot about Jerusalem’s Week of Color challenge to celebrate spring. Isn’t a Week of Color a great idea?

Because I work mainly with the left side of my brain, my job is not — no matter how hard I wish it could be — to work with artsy things. So I try, when I can, to provide an “alternative perspective” (some might call it “comic relief”).

When I got to thinking about “white,” I thought I was going to fail the Day 2 assignment (Day 1 was pink, but I didn’t refer to it — my photo yesterday just happened to contain pink). Then, as often happens this time of night, I thought about my favorite bedtime treat: Old-Fashioned Low-Fat Frozen Yogurt. So here is my entry in the White category:

Then I looked at Whitney’s pink picks and remembered that I had some white pics in my previous posts: this and this.

So I’m not such a loser after all!

Mission accomplished. Now, pardon me while I go eat my frozen yogurt while it’s still frozen.