Emptyknitster

Just a quick photo of the happy little mother to be! It's a girl!

John, a coworker of mine, brought his dog Harley to school. He'd been a stray that John and his wife took in. Harley turned out to be a great dog. He was so well behaved, great with the kids, but to me most importantly Harley had kind eyes and reminded me of my first dog, Bo. (Short for Little Bo Peep, I know very lame but what do you expect from a three year old?) My Mom and Dad took in Bo's mom, a collie that they soon found out was going to have puppies. They kept Lady long enough to produce eight very collie like pups and one Heinz 57 (Bo). Bo never had formal training but was the best protector ever.  At the time we lived on the Puget Sound and instead of a sidewalk we had a wooden boardwalk. The boardwalk was probably two blocks long, about three feet above the beach and made of wood. I learned to ride my tricycle on this boardwalk and every time I'd climb on the tricycle Bo would be right there ALWAYS on the side that had the three foot drop to the beach - to keep m...

It's been a rather productive rainy Memorial weekend.  The lentil soup is on the stove simmering and I've made some "Angel Biscuits" to go with it. Angel Biscuits 1package dry yeast 1/4 cup warm water 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar 2 3/4 cups floor 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup buttermilk Dissolve yeast in the warm water, set aside. Mix dry ingredients. Cut in shortening. Stir in buttermilk and yeast mixture. Blend thoroughly. The dough is ready to refrigerate or roll into biscuits. Turn dough onto floured surface and knead lightly for regular biscuits. Roll out and cut with biscuit cutter. Place on greased pan. Let dough rise slightly before baking at 375 degrees. Bake 12 minutes or until browned. If dough is cold let stand longer to rise. Dough will keep up to 5 days in a covered bowl in the refrigerator. I finished the Peasy sweater... I'm not a bit happy that it is too small! All that work and no one...

I had a little trouble getting home tonight....   A new stream had developed over Johnson Lane and the highway. I had to turn around, return to school, and take another route home. Even that new route wasn't pleasant but I made it! It has been raining for the last week and a half. Today we had a record setting amount of rain. Three and six hundredth inches in one day for this prairie is unheard of. Add that amount to what has been soaking the earth and we are way over normal for this time of year. The average rainfall in Eastern Montana is 1.92 inches for the month of May and we are now at 8.45. That's 6.53 above the norm. There's more rain predicted before the month is over!   It's so green it's beginning to look like Seattle and tonight's weather forecast is not promising any sun!

 Life isn't going to wait for us to get our acts together.   So get on living.   Enjoy what you have.   Love who you are with.   Hug and Kiss.   Laugh and chat.  Make ice cream and cookies. Be happy Well, this hit me like a ton of bricks! Thanks to nat*schofield for the wake up call! I HAD been doing a countdown to the end of school....10, 9, 8, 7, really it began about 25, 24, 23... Now, bring on the margaritas - oh, I mean ice cream and cookies!

We had a wonderful family move into our neighborhood years ago. Denise and I taught together and became fast friends.  Soon after she and her husband moved in, Keira was born and barely a year later Payton arrived. We love babies at our house , next door they had two and were a little overwhelmed. My gurls began beating a path next door and would grab either babe that was awake and bring her over for a visit. I am sure that my gurls are such good mommas today in part because they had "The Babies" next door to care for and love upon. I went to Keira's graduation party Friday night. It was also a farewell of sorts to Payton. She will be heading to Chile in two short months as an AFS student. There were unexpected tears as I saw these gals and realized how quickly time had slipped by. We hugged, reminisced, and took photos.... How great for our family, to have such wonderful neighbors that shared their treasures with us! Dirk, the girls dad, surprised me when he said, ...

  I love a rainy day and it’s been raining cats and dogs here, three inches last week and well on to adding 4inches this week. What a wonderful time to cuddle up with a good book. It is just a coincidence that at school we are reading a chapter in Beverly Cleary’s book Ramona Quimby, Age 8 entitled “Rainy Sunday” in reading.   I love Beverly Cleary books, perhaps partly because as a child I met Beverly Cleary at the West Seattle Public Library. My friend, Laurie Peterson, and I went with her mom and listened to Mrs. Cleary read an excerpt from her book and then I got her autograph. I had long forgotten the incident until recently when I was cleaning out a closet and I ran across my old childhood scrapbook. Looking though the scrapbook there wasn’t much of interest, an old newspaper article about a teenage neighbor that was crowned Miss West Seattle, a postcard from friend, that type of thing. But as I turned the page I saw in third grade handwriting; “signature ...