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".