Big News

The next picture---yet to be taken---is that of Ginny behind the wheel of the car! She did indeed pass the test this morning to get her driver's permit. She drove on errands on the way home and did very well. We're going swimming at a friend's house soon and more driving to do for her. It's kind of nice to be chauffered! Thanks for the nice collage for her birthday, Serena. And it's good that Roberta has found her way back to posting on the blog!

the real Roberta

HELLO.....this is Roberta just checking in after a long silence.......great pictures of Ginny Crowson, is she really 15? Am I really 15 years older than when she was born? We have been "doctoring" today........first we thought Sid had shingles, then we found out it was bursitis that got infected in the elbow area. With new medicine he is feeling better already!

The really bad news is that Angela, the only full time worker at Chez Nous is moving to California. It's not going to be easy to replace her, someone that wants to do computer and food service and and and.

I am not going to write more now in case I can't seem to post this! Happy Weekend to one and all...............

Virginia Katelyn Crowson

KC the Allstar and wagon

The Allstar picture was taken at Wendy & Ken's house, while the wagon is in our back yard. Wagon will be better as he gets bigger and the weather gets cooler -- although between 5-7am it's quite comfortable.

KC and his Morgan grandparents

Here are a couple of pictures taken while KC was at our house this past weekend.

Roberta!!! Why haven't you posted lately?

Hello Roberta!

Christian the cook

To go along with our food topic, I thought I might mention that Chrisitian volunteered to fix dinner tonight: hot dogs (choice of chili, cheese, mustard, catsup, onions, relish for toppings), mandarin oranges and pineapple.

This picture is from THE VARSITY, a famous Atlanta/Athens GA. drive-in started in the 1920s that serves many many hot dogs.

Oldest sibling has highest IQ!?

If you've been watching/listening to the news lately you've heard about the study that says oldest child is smarter than his/her younger siblings - by an average of a few IQ points. The link to the NYT article is in the title to this blog entry or here.

What I'm eating for breakfast this morning

I'm making pancakes this morning, although with a number of changes. Changing the sour cream to low-fat sour cream, leaving out the sugar and butter altogether. I'm also halving the recipe. I figure I'll freeze probably half the result. Oh, and I'm leaving out the berries. I like the berries, but usually get more pleasure out of eating my berries just straight with nothing else. I don't think I currently have any oat bran - will have to get some next time I'm at Sprouts - so will have to substitute wheat bran

Leaving out the butter does make pancakes rather dry, but I often dunk them in my coffee-milk mix. The sugar I don't really miss.

The ingredients are:

1 1/2 C. whole wheat flour
1/4 C. wheat germ
1/2 C. oat bran
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
2 T. brown sugar

1 1/2 C. low-fat milk
1/2 C. sour cream
2 eggs
2 T. melted butter
1 C. blueberries

The link to the recipe is in the title of this post - click on the title if you are interested in recipe and a fair amount of chit-chat about the recipe. The recipe is in a good food blog, although the most current blog entry is about cooking and music and what she listens to when she cooks. I'm gonna be listening to NBC Saturday Today show, then probably switching to CNN news.

Edit added later:

These pancakes are very easy to make and very, very filling. I'm not sure they are worthy of making into a mix though. Maybe if I try them with the oat bran . . . I've finished off the pancake mix I had originally made for M&D. I like to use mixes, not really because of the time they save - although they do save a relatively negligible amount of time. I like them because it is then pretty easy to make small amounts, like two pancakes, and you aren't plagued with leftovers that never quite taste as good.

As far as Catherine's comments - pancakes only take about 5 minutes to mix and a few more minutes to cook - probably less time than it takes to get takeout at a fast food restaurant.

I did, for a brief time, listen to NPR on the Internet, but then they played too much music and my attention wandered away. I should try it again, especially since on Saturday they have some of my favorite shows - like Wait, Wait . . . umm something, something (not the actual title) and some other sorta word oriented programming. Plus Click-Clack - I think that is the name of the car repair guys.

lunch?

One of my favorite jokes that keeps circulating through email is about how skinny girls seem to enjoy saying "I forgot to eat".....no one in their right mind forgets to eat; you can forget to turn out a light or picking up clothes at the cleaners or many other things but people who forget to eat must be several fries short of a happy meal!!

Anyway, speaking of happy meals, we try NOT to eat at McDonalds...the kids have outgrown it and the stuff we really like is "black-listed" with our new lifestyle of eating! We do eat at Brian's sandwich shop (the guy from NJ who loves to talk) a good bit and now that I've replaced mayo with oil/vinegar and either baked chips or pretzels, it's not too bad a meal. With summer, it very popular here to have a tomato or vidalia onion sandwich since they are so fresh and good. I have some tomatoes, basil, parsley, cilantro and peppermint growing in little pots by the garage and looking forward to using them as they ripen!

The newest "thing" I have seen in the last few months is the tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil salad---whoever thought that would be a "SALAD"???!!!

Food

I certainly have no trouble with this theme! I've been eating cereal most mornings for quite awhile although I go in cycles. Can't say I'm as creative as Serena....favorites right now are Berry Burst Cheerios or Life with Chocolate Oat Clusters. About once a week I try to make grits (yes, with sausage, which is what the kids prefer) or biscuits---it's hard to beat the Pillsbury frozen ones and we save the GM "boxtops for education". I'll save additional meals for another day....

What I'm eating for breakfast

I propose a theme of FOOD!

I'm getting ready to go on a bicycle ride. When I get back I'm going to have my usual (4-5 mornings a week) breakfast - 1 cup of oats (dry), dash of cinnamon, 1 fake sugar, bit of salt, and 1/2 cup of applesauace. On top of all I pour a combination of 1/4 cup of soy milk, 1/4 cup of 1% milk and 1/2 cup tea or coffee.

Clinton County Barns

Somewhat interesting page of Clinton County barn photographs is here. There are more interesting barn photographs from other Ohio counties here.

Ikea cartoon

Maybe when Catherine and Gerry are in Ohio they can take Mother and Dad to the new IKEA in West Chester so that Mother can pick up a few things.


Anyway, I thought this was a cute cartoon.

Feedblitz

I've added a widget that allows one to get the blog by way of email. No, you can't post via email. Well, not using Feedblitz. I hope that this will make it easier for those who aren't very techie to "see" the blog more regularly.

I THINK it also allows one to get comments on email feed. If one subscribes by RSS one doesn't see the comments, so that would be a possibly useful feature.

KC almost 6 months old

Here's a couple pictures we took this morning after KC's overnight visit at our house. He liked the wagon! And note the CocaCola onesie (shirt) courtesy of the Crowsons.

Fontana Dam
Fontana Dam itself is an engineering marvel. When completed in November 1944 to produce electricity for the war effort, the 480-foot-high dam became the highest in the Eastern United States and the fourth highest in the nation. The story of its origin is effectively portrayed at the Fontana Dam Visitor Center (Open May to November, 9 am – 7 pm, daily).
Because Fontana is a man-made lake (or reservoir), lake levels are controlled by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Each September, TVA begins its annual draw-down, which lowers lake levels to allow for winter snows and spring rains. Sometimes in the winter you can even see remnants of home foundations from towns that were flooded when the lake was constructed.
For more information, visit TVA's Fontana web page.

old 8mm movies

Been thinking recently about the old family movies in 8mm (?) and wondering if the folks still have all of them? Would be nice to get them digitized on DVD and then copies for the whole family! My favorite frame---which should be it's own menu item---is the one of RUK licking each finger on her birthday after cutting chocolate/chocolate cake. Did she do a re-enactment this year?

Gerry

We'll be thinking of Gerry tomorrow (Friday) when he goes in for surgery. Let us know if we can do anything . . .

By the way, in case anybody wants to see what is involved in the surgery, check out here. Now that Mary Virginia has informed me that she has a stronger stomach, perhaps we should embed a video . . . or still photographs?

Catherine reports: Gerry is doing quite well. We stopped for lunch at Persian Garden on our way home -- still hope to go there with the group but now maybe with not quite so much urgency! We were home by 12:30 and although a bit tired Gerry says he "had a great lunch".

Another one of Roberta's early jobs

She also used to catch frogs out at Fallsville and then sell them to the science teachers for lab.



And, she also sold pots and pans door-to-door in San Diego for a while.

As Mrs. Harner used to tell me, "Roberta could sell umbrellas in the desert."

Donny's photo album

Mary Virginia -

You have done a nice job on Donny's photo album - now your blonde-haired children don't look quite so "foreign".

Delivery Bike

Here's a link to an article about this cargo bike being used in Africa. Roberta, you could have had a gigantic egg route with a bike like this! Wonder how the bike balances?

Please

DO not encourage Sid to buy a Cam/Com Camera......or whatever name it goes by! I do want one and all to know that I continue to check out the blog but just tonight figured out again how to post, though still not sure how to post a picture! HELP......SERENA!

I do have a new toy here with a new card program! We have been on the go, with two special programs the last two days, both of which included a free hot dog~~~~ tomorrow the program is at 8:30 (am!) so am thinking no hot dog! We will plan to do breakfast at Coco's instead. This morning I made some of my famous pancakes, they were burnt on the outside, and not cooked in the middle, still not sure how that happened!

Sid is putting ice cream in front of me so more later....now that I know how to post again!

Knightingales Spring Revue

Just got done editing these on picasa (thanks to Serena for putting us on to this great program!). Knightingales is the community girls choir Ginny sings in---their Spring program was 5/19 and they practice each Monday during the school year for 90 minutes.

Screen shot . . . sort of

Yet another webcam photo . . . it is rather fun to play with, but as far as practical applications . . . I'm not so sure. I'm using the webcam this week-end so that I can teach the real owner next week how to use it. She got it "free" with her new computer system - which I installed for her earlier this week.

I've also filmed a little video of myself just to see how it is done . . . which is even odder than just the snapping of the webcam photo.

The webcam I'm using normally retails for about $50 on the Dell site - generally somewhat cheaper elsewhere, especially used or refurbished. Although since I still don't really see any real point to having one, at least not for me at this point.

Webcam

Am playing/working with a webcam this week-end. Rather odd, but sorta fun

New Vienna Methodist Church

Here's another try with at least the New Vienna church picture. Don't know why the pictures aren't showing up in the other post. I reloaded them but didn't seem to change anything.

Clinton County - historical postcard views

I don't own this postcard but found it on a website of penny postcards which Roberta sent me the link to a couple weeks ago. Click here to access the site and see other counties or states. Here are the other four cards from that site:

M. E. Church, New Vienna

Court House, Wilmington

Irwin Auger Bit Works, Wilmington

Friends Church, Wilmington.
I do have several copies of the NV church!

Will you live to age 100?

Chance You'll Live to 100: 96%

100 is looking like a sure thing for you. So don't screw it up! In fact, you may live even longer than that. You're healthy, and you have good genes. Unless there's a robot uprising, you'll probably live a very long time.

Will You Live to 100?

Here's an extremely simple test to gage your chances!

Picasa feed

Cookbook

I've opened a new album in the Uible web albums.

Happy Birthday, Roberta!

Here's a picture taken at Roberta's surprise party last weekend. Hope your month long celebration is still going well, Roberta! Happy Day! Happy Year!

1776

Of Catherine's recommendations, I was able to get "1776" at the library yesterday but had to request the others through interlibrary loan or a hold on one as it was checked out. Needless to say, the resources of the GPL must be much greater than the small DPL! Anyone else have suggestions? Did Sid get any audio books at the Surprise Library last week for his iPod? Ginny and Christian sure have gotten LOTS and LOTS of good use out of their iPods and take them everywhere with them. Christian even goes to sleep with his on at night! Happy Mother's Day to all, especially Luscious....

Childrens & Teen Books

Hope that third time's the charm with this post as twice I have saved it to draft when I didn't get it all done -- only to find that all that had saved was the title of the post. Hidden content lurking on the internet....oh my! So here's the post for the young readers in the family. Christian and Andrew would probably like Whales on Stilts where an army of evil whales is intent on taking over the world. Incantation would be better suited to Ginny or Kate, being about the Spanish Inquisition, which shows that religion persecution was as bad then as during the Holocaust.

I'm in an online fantasy book discussion where we read and post about a different fantasy book every month. I've found several new fantasy series that I'm now trying to catch up with the books I haven't read in those series: Keys to the Kingdom by Australian author, Garth Nix; and the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.

Current Reads

I've only read the introduction but always thought Condi Rice an intriguing and obviously unique person. It wasn't until after I read Karen Hughes' book, who mentions Condi frequently, that I became interested in Condi's background and her very amazing credentials.

Also have been enjoying a new fiction series that's an easy read called "Homeland Heroes" about 2 women who fought in Desert Storm together...just waiting for #4 to be published.

Fiction for Fun

This is the Dolley Madison novel that I read after reading her biography which I mentioned in the non-fiction book post. She and Hillary may have much in common as Dolley was definitely a political wife in an era when that wasn't nearly as common.






Other fiction books I have enjoyed recently include books by Carl Hiaasen -- who tells a great enviromentally friendly story usually favoring the underdog and is also the author of two childrens books: Hoot which was recently made into a movie and Flush.