Awful - Just AWFUL

EVIL

Family Growing

These two guys are growing up so fast! They are my Great Great Grandsons. I love their cleft chins! They're active and healthy little boys. 

This little guy arrived last week. I hear he is a big eater! (Great Grandson)

These beauties are Jersey Shore Beach babies already! (Great Grandaughters)

And of course the twin 2 year old boys are well and growing fast! (Great Grandsons)

Time moves on. These children live in my heart every day as do their parents and grandparents. I guess my job on earth was to propagate and my children did too! Seeing them grow and develop reminds me of my own six when they were young.

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Fresh Air Boys

Thank goodness they are oblivious to the global pandemic and their parents can take them for a walk up the road. Hopefully, in years to come they will learn about the difficult times in 2020. For now, comfort, security and pleasurable activities dominate their days. These boys are better off than many their age around the world and only the adults know of the dangers currently looming over all of their lives. Their innocence is precious. 

Photos by Chrissy

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Dough Clay Recipes

All four of my young great nieces and nephews, who live in Philadelphia,  made some dough clay Easter eggs recently. When I saw the photos I remembered making about 30 or more 4-H Leader Wildlife Retreat pins with names in the shape of owls. This was over 30 years ago but I remember them clearly. Since then I  have made bead necklaces and Christmas hanging decorations as well, using dough clay, but not for a long time.

I was inspired to find my recipe. Wouldn't you know that I did, BUT there were 4 DIFFERENT ones. Now I'm in a quandary. I don't remember which was easiest or didn't make a big mess! A little input from you, my readers might help. Listed below are the 4. Do YOU have a better "tested" one?

..............

Craft dough 1

2C Arm & Hammer baking soda (1 lb. pack)

1 C cornstarch

1 1/4 C cold water

Stir and cook over medium heat

Stir well until smooth

Turn out on a plate and cover with a damp cloth

Create something flat

After creating name tags or something similar, bake 15 minutes at 350°

..............

Craft Dough #2

3/4 C pickling salt

2 C flour

Pour salt into mixing bowl

Add 1 C  boiling water

Allow mixture to cool

Mix in flour. Knead until smooth.

Make item and bake 325° about 2 hrs, until light brown

Cool and paint

..............

Craft Dough #3

1 1/2 C flour

1/2 C salt

1/2 C water

1/4 C vegetable oil

Create item and bake

..............

Craft Dough #4

Best for beads

3/4 C flour

1/2 C salt

1/2 C cornstarch

Miix - gradually add warm water.

Stir water into mixture until it clumps

Knead until surface is smooth

Make beads

Pierce with toothpicks

Air dry

Leave toothpicks in and only remove when beads are hard and dry.

Decorate with paint, etc.

Good to use a craft sealant after painting

String on yarn or leather

..............

Red Ball

I'll tell you about the pulsating red ball the best that I can. It happened in the 60's. Background first. When we bought and moved into a two story Cape Cod style home in North Jersey, the upper floor had been made into an apartment and a very nice young couple with two or three (I forget) children lived there with their own private stairway, bathroom, kitchen sink, bedroom and living room. In the basement we both had our own washing machines and it worked out very well for a couple of years. They moved into a larger place after another child was born and we rented the apartment twice more to two more young couples, each with a child. We did just fine living in the downstairs area with a front room, a large room that held four beds, a small bedroom for us and a nice kitchen.

After our family grew from four children to six, and the apartment lease ran out, we decided to move the older children upstairs. In the upper front room was a double window and a TV that sat in front of it was enjoyed by them; we had our own TV in the large room downstairs which had been turned into a living room. I believe the year was 1968.

One summer night around dusk, there was screeching from upstairs. The children had seen something. This is how they described it: A BIG RED GLOWING BALL was in the sky just outside the window. Then it wasn't there anymore at all.  By the time we went up they were babbling about what they saw and very frightened. We saw nothing out there. In trying to calm them I got the idea to have them draw what they saw. I got some good sized paper and sent each to a separate corner of the room with a few crayons. Both of the younger children drew almost the same thing and both chose red crayons without prompting I might add. The older children didn't care to draw and continued to look out the window in case it returned. It didn't. The results of the drawing were shocking - to me at least! In further questioning all agreed that there was NO sound coming from the big red bright ball.

To me this was an authentic phenomenal and undocumented, unidentified event. It was abrupt and extraordinary, especially after the drawings were handed to me. I saved them for many years and eventually passed them on to the children who saw and created the images. They still remember the event but don't remember where their images are. Oh well, I shall draw replicas and try to show you my memory of the artwork. Pretend they are crayon drawings by 8 and 10 year old children. Remember they were glowing! Ever wonder if we are alone in this universe? I do.

The Mister did something soon after that they will always remember. We had a backyard pool. After all had quieted down, he got the long handled net skimmer tool and reached it up to the second floor window and waved it in front. Well, you can guess that we had scared kids again!

A Little Reminiscing

Looking back I don't know how I did it! Since reconstructing the 66 year old photo album (1953—1956) I have been brought back to the past. Just today, I remembered something sweet that one of the little children of mine did and so I looked to see them all again as they came into my life one by one.

And then there were two in 1957
1958 picture

 There were three in 1958

1959 picture

 There were four in 1960

And two more! One in 1967 and another in 1968

No details here, just a few old and not in very good shape photos.

Then There Were Six

I've posted some of these old ones before, but to complete the series, this will do it.

No more Mae West vests - two big brothers...

Six and The Mister

The Loft Crowd
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Then the six produced ten, then of the ten there came seven, then one of the seven produced one and the production will continue. Ok - I'm moving on....

When There Were Only Four

 Me and my chicken-eaters at Grandma's house. 1962

The children didn't need bathing suits and didn't even mind the Mae West Vests, either! It was a visit to the lake in 1964 when Uncle Paul was building the first dock.

Our oldest daughter was waiting for the cabin to be built. She's standing in the back right corner which is my current bedroom.

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Wow!

I always said "Music is my heartbeat." This group is exciting to me. My music teacher from 5th through 9th grade inspired me and all of his students worshipped him. This is because of the music and instruments he taught us to listen to and to play. He was bold and commanding and soft and gentle at the same time. The only instruments I successfully played was the trumpet and the French horn, playing both in band and orchestra. Good teachers can really bring kids good memories and appreciation of all kinds of music. I also played some piano, but hated my lessons because the teacher who came to my home just didn't have it. She was pushy and mechanical in her methods. (And she hit my hand with her stick!)

lunkerville/video

Home Free Part 1

My young life was one of exploration and freedom. Can you remember some of the things you did when you were between the age of 9 and 13?  I was free as a breeze during those years. As I look back, many kids today are so overprotected, over scheduled, over structured and tied up with things that are very different from my young years that I often think that they are deprived of just being a kid. My generation turned out just fine as did the one before. 

I’m a very critical person and keep most of this kind of thought to myself, but also feel a need to share my childhood activeness and life before I reached the full fieriness of  adolescence. (I’m also opinionated.) I really think that kids today are all caught up in the electronic age and don’t know how to play.

First, cleanliness wasn’t a social issue with my group. Attire wasn’t considered to be of interest to any of us. Sizes, shapes, religions, races didn’t matter either. Wealth and financial assets had no impact on relationships. We were JUST FRIENDS. There were five boys in one family, 9 in another. There were 4 girls in the family of 13. Three were my age. The family down the street had 3 girls, only one was my age. Most of my memories are what we did during times when there was no school, all seasons. 

We traded and collected single playing cards with assorted backs. They were often dog-eared and worn. We collected and traded comic books. Condition didn’t matter then. They made good reading. We rang doorbells and ran away. We had bike races and roller skated on the sidewalks. We walked on home-made stilts, taking off from the third step on the front porch. We "camped" out in backyards in tents made from old blankets clothes-pinned to the clothesline and held down with rocks.  We went ice skating and sledding no matter how cold it was. Finding a pollywog pond and bringing home a jarful to watch them develop into little frogs was done to see how many would survive. It was an aggressive competition and something to boast about. We gathered worms as bait to go fishing. All of us! We picked huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries - all growing wild. We hiked through the woods and fields, venturing far from home.  

Playing in the street was accepted because we were entertaining ourselves and that was commendable. If a tossed ball went into someone’s yard, we just ran and retrieved it. Hide and seek was a free for all. There were NO fences between the houses. Some games we played on the sidewalks, such as marbles, hopscotch, tops. Others were played in the street; skip rope, red light-green light, Johnny drilled a hole, stick ball, kick the can, capture the flag, red rover, hot potato, statues, simon says. 

When it rained during summer we stomped in the puddles, popped the tar bubbles, GOT WET! Fully dressed! We played  in the grass, spraying each other with the old green rubber hose that was always ready for our use. 

When the firehouse whistle blew at noon we scattered to homes for lunch. When it blew in the evening at 5PM the playtime was over until after supper. Then out we went again until darkness. After dark, lightning bugs were caught in our jars with holes punched in the lids, and we played flashlight tag. 

More to come...

Pretty

 L to R: Mia Magnolia, Geraldine Camelia, Caitlyn Peony, Aly Hibiscus. 2nd row L to R: Xander Prickly, Caitlyn Clematis, Mia Peony, Johnny Cactus. 3rd row L: Clara Rose.
My Pretty Flower Garden

Click on image to view larger and smell the pretty flowers.

Flower?

Xander Prickly

Bloomin' Children

My garden is growing and flourishing.

"Mia Magnolia"

"Mia Pretty Peony"

Arty "Clara Rose"

"Caitlin" (Granddaughter)

Arty "Caitlyn Clematis"

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Flower Child

I used to do this all the time when my first Mac came with a simple photo program. I took flower pictures from another site and put children's faces in the middle of the blossom. That was ten years ago! I didn't have a clue about resolution so they are very fuzzy because they're small, BUT!

I have just found a free web program that will let me do these again. It is difficult for me to learn so I try, try, and try again. I started completely over about a dozen times and I think maybe I've got it somewhat now! Yea! Success is reward enough. 

So, here is my first flower child of 2015.

"Aly Hibiscus"

"Oldies" from 10 years ago

Granddaughter

Granddaughter

Grandaughter

Grandson

Great Nephew

 Friend's Grandson

Friend's Granddaughter (Now 10 years old, new picture in the works.)

By the way, the temperature this morning at 7:30am was -14°!

Busy

Today I baked the very large smoked ham then, after lunch, I cut it up into slices for sandwiches and dinners. I cut up chunks for food processor work to make ham salad. I have a large pan of scraps and bones for broth. It took me two hours! I have put some in the freezer.  For dinner there is a corn casserole baking and we will have a piece of _ _ _ to go with it. Guess what!

Thank goodness my old electric knife is still sharp and has a LONG cord! It is important. Yes, my old hand mixer has a long cord as well. I have only one place to plug in these appliances for use and would not be able to get by without those long cords. 

After all that I played with photos of children who are adorable to begin with, but I changed them a bit. 

Title: DON'T CRY

Title: JOHN

 Title: JOHN-E

 Title: FOXI

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