Yummy Lunch

What to have for lunch?
Fresh tortillas ~ the kind you have to grill for 30 seconds. Check.
Fresh vegetables of a variety of kinds. Check.
Tasty Bite Madras Lentils from Costco. Check.
Rice and a pressure cooker. Check.

Caramelize a little onion ~ just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan. Just enough onion to make one layer in the oil. Turn on high and walk away for a while.
Add chopped pepper, chopped mushrooms, chopped tomato.
Stir for a while then add the Madras Lentils.
Place freshly heated tortilla on plate, add rice (which has taken 3 minutes in the pressure cooker), just a tad of light cheese and top with lentil mixture.

Oh Yum!!! Vegetarian so light. Of course we both followed it with a bit of fudge that daughter and son-in-law had graciously sent us after the bear ate what we had. I did discover that Dean's idea of "a little fudge" and mine are very different. That's ok. Lunch was delicious. And So Easy and Quick. I like that kind of cooking.

Our Own Optics Lab

The sun pops through the pines about 6:15. The other morning it shone through the screen door and onto the magnifying side of a double mirror next to the shower. The mirror was turned at just the right angle to reflect the sun back onto the big mirror over the sinks ~ and onto the bathroom door which was reflected in that mirror. Make sense? And here is our morning image for a few brief seconds the last several mornings. In one of them you can even see the pattern of the screen. Just delightful. 

Baking Cookies

Friend Gill was in town from Cardiff, Wales. She and I were talking about word differences ~ as in the difference between cookies and biscuits. Their biscuits are more like our hard crisp cookies. Our cookies are not like anything they have except for what they find now in Starbucks or Subway. As the conversation continued, I said something about imagine baking cookies and not tasting the cookie dough. Gill replied, "I have never made cookies." What???? Because of places like Starbucks and Subway, she has eaten cookies. She has made their biscuits. She had never made cookies. Trinity could Not imagine that ~ and with her 7-year-old wisdom, she decided she and her mom had to rectify that situation. So ~ she and Michelle taught Gill how to make cookies! Gill took the pictures and put them into this lovely collage. 

And yes - they sampled the dough. The process wore out Trinity and the sleeping girl is not faking. She is sound asleep recovering from cooking class. 

Unwanted Visitor

When Dean and Oso came up from the office tonight, this guy was in the house ~ actually back outside on the counter just outside the kitchen window through which he had entered. Dean was making noise on the inside. Oso had come around and was barking on the outside. After three "treeings" and a return to stare at Oso through the sliding door, the bear finally left.

He had opened the fridge and ate the hot dogs and Dean's not sure what else and took the bag of cheese to the bedroom. Remember what bears do in the woods? Well he did it once in the living room and twice in the bathroom. Dean has cleaned and cleaned and has most of it clean and aired out.

I am glad I left Oso at home this morning when the grands and I took Gill to the airport and came on to Carson for grandson's birthday dinner. I am officially spooked. I am getting out the pan and spoon I used last year and keeping them close. If Oso had been upstairs, it wouldn't have happened and . . . I don't want to deal with them at all. We will now make all the bear prevention preparations that we thought we didn't have to use any more because of having a male dog on the premises. Change of plans.

Happy Fathers' Day

Great picture of a great dad! I still miss him of course. He was a "giant" according to some people. To me he was Daddy ~ still is ~ and I would honor him today as well as all the younger men in our family who father our grandchildren with love and compassion and patience and care. Happy Fathers' Day!

Amazing View at Yosemite

We have just returned from three days in Yosemite and we have seen amazing view after amazing view: vistas, waterfalls far away and up close enough to stand in their mist, deer so close we could almost touch them. We have people watched too ~ it is the beginning of the summer season and the park was beginning to be crowded with families of all shapes and sizes. We also heard a wide variety of languages ~ it really is an international destination. And of all of these experiences, this is the one that impressed me the most:

See the little red oval? It surrounds a human being doing a three day climb up the side of that rock. When you do this, you take a little lantern and a net hammock that becomes your bed at night. People say they can see the lights scattered across the face of the rock later in the summer. We think this person was alone up there. If you can increase the size of the picture a bit, you can tell it really is a human. Truly amazing ~ brave, just a little stupid (but that's my opinion), talented and skillful. Blessings to all who climb or do other feats of physical prowess this summer.

You Can Learn a Lot ~

A friend posted a notice on FB (thank you, SE!) that on the 6th and 7th, the Common English Bible with Apocrypha would be free to Kindle, Nook, etc. Who could resist that offer? So I “bought” it. And started to read. Those amazing and so familiar words about creation felt so accessible ~ right on my computer screen. 

Some reflections on that:

~ we tend to forget there are two creation stories back to back

~ we tend to pass over all the begats and begots and yet, today with all the on line genealogy work, the oral tradition was incredible. They listed all those men without benefit of computer files. 

~ who were the giants and the heroes, their sons, who roamed the earth? I have heard it suggested they might have been aliens. We never talk about them. 

~ and then having nothing to do with scripture: I came to a footnote I was interested in. How do I access it? Well, this is Kindle and Apple and all very intuitive. And my intuition and some experience tells me to click on the footnote number. I do and voila! The footnote page. Read footnote. Now - how do I get back to my page which of course hasn’t been bookmarked. Click on footnote number again and there I was, chapter and verse and ready to continue reading. Just as delightful as the giants. 

The Next Generation

T gets the wrist snap.

Oops ~ tangled together, but not a problem

A is focused on this process

Grandpa is patient, teaches and A learns. "The next generation

of fishers," Grandpa says. 

New Bicycle

I really love the bike. I am doing well learning the gears. It was funny: the first time I rode it, I realized the bike I had been riding for 18 months is Stationary! The gears on my bike were set low so I really wobbled at first until I learned to shift so that I could take off without wobbling. When I read the manuel, it even used the word “wobble” - have your gears set so you can start without wobbling. :) 

I rode into the cul de sac this morning and shifted well coming up the hill although even using the proper gears, up hill was a little hard on the knee still. And the muscles are loosening and healing. Nevertheless, I only did the hill once. When my plans for the day changed suddenly, I thought about going to gym and decided against it. Having been three straight days and with power washing rugs tomorrow and the hill this morning, I decided some ice and some rest will be just the thing. 

My sons-in-law take good care of me. One of them was talking to my daughter about my bike when after a few thoughtful moments he asked, “Has your mom ever ridden a bike?” Daughter laughed and said, yes, I loved to ride. It was so sweet. And when we thought about it, he hasn’t been in the family long enough to have known my riding. I guess Dean might have bought me a bike out of the clear blue. As it is, Dean asked me about the new bike first and son-in-law made sure I really could ride it. Gratitude all around.