Sunshine....25º

The wonderful sunny days of January are almost over, no snow on the ground...Wonder what February has in store?

I have early grocery shopping this morning, then on to write people for our weekly gathering...Hope to walk with Pat after lunch, we only have a few days before she leaves for a month in Hawaii.

Big Read event on Wednesday night where Amy (acupuncturist and a partner in "we 3")  will give a lecture on Chinese medicine...Should be very interesting.

Chatted with Rusty in Viet Nam, he will be back in the states on Saturday...Herb and I spent a quiet day yesterday, he reading and me writing on my essay...It will be ready to go to Katey tomorrow.

What to fix for dinner...I had a variety of cheeses in the fridge that needed to be used...So started a white sauce, grated feta cheese flavored with tomato and basil, a small chunk of zippy jalepeno cheese and for color regular yellow cheddar...Started shell pasta in boiling water...We were soon eating Mac and Cheese, the ultimate comfort food, along with leftover chicken from our fridge and brussel sprouts (leftovers from Pat)....OWAV:)

White sauce with feta cheese

YUM

BS Essay...35º

I have my Beauty School essay almost finished to a point, for Katey's critique...Then she can give me advise on where I should work harder, develop into a full scene or cut...As I continue to write I continually have to think of the "rules" and work on my similes, metaphors and description...As a no-nonsense person I find it hard to add flowery phrases, just as when I'm reading someone else's book I find myself skipping over sentences like this to get right to the meat of the story...Different minds reading the same story, some read for the plot and some read for the writing...(that is my take anyway)...At least this writing experience keeps my mind active...Don't want those brain cells going dormant!

Yesterday we had the annual Sorority Bunco party with 16 women in attendance, a full 4 tables...Before getting down to the game we shared finger foods brought by our members...All of us added $5.00 to the pot, 1/2 went for cash prizes and 1/2 to the Wallowa County food bank...Soon the cacophony of women's voices filled the room, laughter, shouts of "BUNCO" and a few expletives were heard as the dice continued to roll...Talk about a mindless experience!!! Hugs to all.... OWAV:)

Cookies...25º

 We devoured the molasses cookies that I made last week and Herb was hinting that maybe I might want to make more cookies...So early Friday morning I started a double batch of cookies in my Bosch mixer (purchased when we made bread to sell at the Farmers Market and it works best with large quantities)...1 pound of room temperature butter sliced into pieces went in first, then 4 cups of sugar and a "splash" or 2 of molasses is added...This is creamed until light and fluffy, add 4 eggs, more beating, add soda, salt, vanilla and 1/2 of the flour and mix...Now because I want two kinds of cookies, I remove 1/2 of this mixture to another bowl for later...Then I add the rest of the flour & oatmeal, spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg) grated orange rind, raisins, craisins, and nuts...oatmeal/raisin are a favorite of Herbs...In the other bowl I add more flour, chocolate chips and stir by hand, I like these the best!..I quickly scoop out 4 dozen cookies, bake them and am ready to go to my movie (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman)...I leave two dozen with Herb, take two dozen with me and put the rest of the dough in the fridge to deal with later.

Now it is Saturday morning and I must do something with the cookie dough in the fridge...It is too hard to scoop but makes better cookies if you can form them from the cold dough...So I manage to "whack" off some portions of dough...Now I just stated in my blog a few days ago that my Mom didn't make cookies...I LIED...My mind is going back to the fifties and I remember Mom getting a recipe for icebox cookies, which she tried a couple of times...First you mixed the dough then made 2 inch rolls out of it, wrapped it in wax paper (plastic wrap not invented yet) and refrigerated it...Took the rolls out at your leisure, cut off rounds placed on cookie sheets and baked and you had sugar cookies..My Mom soon went back to making cinnamon rolls and pies, cookies just weren't her thing...Now back to my cookie dough...I was able to make 1 inch rolls out of this cookie dough and cut off 1 inch chunks, place them on a cookie sheet and into the oven...Now these cookies are not perfect rounds but who cares?..In short order I had the rest of the dough on cookie sheets and baked, just in time to have warm cookies and milk for our mid morning snack!..  OWAV:)

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman...17º

Another movie in the Big Read program...Pat, Janie and I decide to watch it in the comfort of home instead of an evening venue with cold temperatures and hard chairs...I make popcorn...Pat and Janie work at getting the DVD playing in the living room...A lavish Sunday dinner with Dad and 3 lovely daughters starts the movie with the Dad (master chef) soon rushing off to help at a banquet...Trying to keep up with the sub-titles and figure out the plot, we must remain glued to the screen, as the love life of each girl unfolds and they deal with an old fashioned, aging father, not easy to do...Then the DVD starts skipping and we lose the sound so Pat a master at cleaning DVD's removes the dvd and cleans it with windex...Yeah, it is going again and we continue watching to the end, but we all have different ideas about what really happened!.. Soooo after we dine on clam chowder, salad and cookies, Pat and I end up at the chocolate shop drinking mocha's with Amy where she reports on her latest job interview (part time job) and we send the dvd home with her and instructions that on next Tuesday at the "Write People" she will explain this movie "Eat, Drink, Man, Women" to US.

While we were watching movies and drinking mochas, the Sled dog races http://www.eaglecapextreme.com/ here in Wallowa County are in full swing...Rusty's friend Bino Fowler is running his dogs this year in the 200 after winning the 100 last year...I happen to see Bino's girlfriend at the chocolate shop and visit with her as she kills time waiting for Bino to finish the race...Good luck Bino......OWAV:)))

Booked...17º

Sailing, sailing...Booked our tickets from Lewiston to Seattle in July where we board the Norwegian Pearl for the inside passage to Alaska...I remember booking tickets my first time for a trip...It almost gave me apoplexy I was so nervous and even today I have Herb sitting next to me with a calendar in his hand making sure I have the dates, times etc. correct...Just got the confirmation letter, looks like all is well now "IF" the boat sails, the plane gets in the air, we make it to Lewiston...ON and On and on...Enough for today...  OWAV:)

One More Trip....36º

Our last "flying" trip was 2 years ago when we spent 3 weeks on the lovely Island of Kaui...While there we visited Waimea Canyon, a chocolate farm, rum distillery, coffee bean plantation, went on a sunset sail but mostly we spent time on the condo balcony with a view of the ocean, we walked trails near the ocean and swam in the sparkling pool at the resort...Every night the roar of the ocean lulled us to sleep.

I will wrap up my ramblings about trips and sunshine with Arizona...Herb and I started going to the Phoenix area about 7 years ago seeking warmer weather and a chance to watch some "Spring Training" baseball games...Along with the ballgames we've also taken in several musical presentations, visited botanical gardens, ghost towns, a renaissance fair, space and airplane museums, and taken train rides, all while enjoying the desert landscape of the surrounding area...A weeks stay one year found us in the red rock country of Sedona where we visited art galleries and an "Out of Africa Wildlife Park".

Strange that this series of blogs started out because I was trying to reclaim my roll top desk...You will be pleased to know that the desk is now sorted, plane tickets, reservations, receipts for motel, meals, fuel, etcetera have all been shredded or recycled...Someone said "Oh you are going to make scrapbooks", "NOOOOO, said I, the "condensed" memories are on paper and in photo's for us to look back at and reminisce, when we become too old to travel.... Hugs to all...  OWAV:)

Roll Top Desk

More Trips...43º

By 2006 Herb and I are "seasoned" travelers...We know about passports, etickets, customs, airport security, navigating airports, sprinting through airports to make connections and waiting...Always waiting...Since 9-11-2001 the lines in airports snake for what seems like miles...We have adjusted to make the waiting easier...Comfortable clothing and slip-on shoes are worn...We pack light, taking only a carry on, heeding the mantra "All you really need in the

Xcaret

tropics is a bikini, a smile and a cover up"...They furnish white sand beaches and sparkling swimming pools...Remember you are there to relax...With this in mind I booked etickets for our party of five...Dennis, Nancy and Pam would join Herb and I for this years trip to Cancun...We motored to Portland, spent the night, then caught an early flight out of PDX...Landed in Cancun early afternoon, taxied to the Royal Resorts where for the next 7 days we had a lovely ocean view condo including kitchen and a choice of 6 swimming pools...City buses were a block away and a myriad of tours available...Herb and I have been on most of the tours so leave it up to our guests to choose their entertainment for the week...We again spend a day at Xcaret, Nancy swims with dolphins and we tour Isla Mujeres by golf cart..Other days are spent poolside, where we soak up the rays in hopes that some of the warm follows us home...We celebrate Dennis's birthday at a Mexican restaurant, enjoy a production as the waiter makes a Mexican coffee complete with flame...By weeks end we are 5 weary travelers as we wing our way back to the mountains of Wallowa County...OWAV:)

Boating to Isla Mujeres