Friday Favorites

 

Kim over at Life As Kim has a great post on What to Buy for the Dad who doesn't want a Gift.  I struggled for years with finding gifts for my Dad and now Vic is my new gift-giving problem.  I really have to watch for his signs of interest and this year, I've hit right on it.  He was looking over my shoulder at Facebook some time ago and saw these noodles.  If we're in the grocery store, he'll ask about them, but he can never remember the name and I act vague, like I can't remember either.  This Father's Day, I'm getting this Momofuku Noodle Starter Pack.

Coming on Saturday nights in June - Hallmark's Passport to Love.  There's nothing better than Hallmark and Christmas unless it's Hallmark and destinations.

A new find at World Market - Kent Crisps, delicious!

Don't forget!

Mark your calendars for the first Thursday in June and join in with Share Your Shelf for all things books.

Share Your Shelf hosted by

Joanne at Slices of Life

Marilyn at Memphis Bridges

Jennifer at Overflowing with Thankfulness

Tanya at The Other Side of the Road

Have a great weekend! 

Monthly Musings - May 2024

 

It's the last Thursday of the month, where did May go?  Time for Getting Ready for Summer/Memorial Day with Monthly Musings.

1.  What are you looking forward to this summer?  Vic starts his terminal leave (using up his leave on the books before his retirement) and he's just waiting to hear about a start date for his new job so whatever time he has off, we'll no doubt being doing some home DIY.  The hallway needs to be detextured and painted and we need barn doors for the closets in the office and the guest room.  We need to find a Rover for Malone so we can take off for a weekend.

2.  Favorite summer traditions.  We don't really have any summer traditions.  The Lavender Festival is in July, and I'd like to go to that again as Vic has never been.  I'm not a fan of hot weather so beach or lake outings are not really our thing.  That being said, we are surrounded by mountains so we might take a trip or two to do some exploring.

My last trip to the Lavender Festival (2015 with my Ladies of Leisure group just before I went back to work)

3.  Favorite summer recipe?  Please share.  I make a big bowl of pasta salad which is good with whatever comes off the grill.  It's just rotini pasta - the tricolor is festive - cubes of salami and provolone (I ask the deli counter to give me a thick slice and then I cube it), black olives, chopped red onion, and some sort of Italian dressing.  We've been enjoying the Olive Garden Italian that you can buy in the grocery store.

4.  Summer vacation plans.  None other than a weekend away probably to Mount St. Helens.

5.  Cole slaw or potato salad?  Recipe to share?  We enjoy both.  I use Mum's recipes from memory.  Cole slaw is just cabbage and mayo, I use the bagged coleslaw mix which has some red cabbage as well as green.  Potato salad is potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped celery, onion, and mayo.

6.  Favorite ice cream or frozen treat.  I love strawberry and Neapolitan ice creams and these Italian lemon ice cups.

7.  Favorite summer beverage?  Starbucks Strawberry Acai Lemonade.

8.  Beach, lake, or mountains?  Mountains, see #2.

9.  Best ways to beat the heat in summer?  Air conditioning!  When we were first moving to Washington in 2014, everyone said we didn't need air conditioning.  Wrong!   Global warming is real folks and we've had some scorching temperatures since we've been here.  There have been a couple of instances in the shipyard where I worked when work was curtailed, and they sent us all home because it was so hot.  Air conditioning was one of the must-haves when we bought our house.

10.  Favorite sunscreen.  We use Melaleuca, The Wellness Company, for toiletries and cleaning products so I use their SPF 50 Sport Sunscreen.  I'm a redhead and that means I go from white to lobster red and back to white if I'm not really careful.

Wishing you all a wonderful summer!

Wednesday Hodgepodge - Volume 553

 

1.  Growing up, at what age did you think you'd become an adult?  At what age did you actually become an adult?

I suppose 18 years old.  You can vote, drink alcohol (in the UK where we lived at the time), do other things that I can't think of right now.  I got married at 18 so I guess I actually became an adult then although in hindsight, I was divorced by the time I was 21 so maybe 21 or older should be when I actually became an adult.

2.  What's a favorite item you've bought this year?

We finally found chairs for the morning room that we both liked.

3.  May 28th is National Hamburger Day...are you a fan?  If so, how do you like yours?  When was the last time you had a hamburger?  Besides the backyard grill, what's your favorite place to go for a burger?

Yes, I love hamburgers.  I take mine "not pink" which I guess is the best food-safe option and with mayo, lettuce, onion, and pickles.  I had a hamburger about a week ago when we went to a local eatery.  We have a couple of good spots in our area for hamburgers.

4.  How have your priorities changed over time?

Until I was 18, my priorities were me, myself, and I, having fun, no real responsibilities, setting my own agenda.  I worked but it was 9 to 5 and then my time was mine.  When I got married, my priorities switched to us since we were a couple then and I wasn't on my own agenda any longer.  Then I got divorced and was back to me with a little more responsible behavior.  I was single for about ten years and then I met Vic and we got married and had Sophia, so it was all about family at that point, my immediate family as well as my extended family as my parents were getting older.  My priorities changed over time depending on who was in my life.

5.  What's one thing on your June calendar you're really looking forward to?

The Medieval Fair is coming in June so we're looking forward to a day out with the lords, ladies, and knights of the realm.  We haven't been since 2015.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

I got my "xx days until we set sail" stickers in the mail today and put them in my planner.  Anyone else planning a cruise in 2024?

Memorial Day

 

Friday Favorites - The Time Capsule Part 3 of 3

   

Continuing on with Baby's Time Capsule.

Tin #3 holds a variety of items.

Story books and cassette tapes with lullabies

A T-shirt that looks like it's from Pre-K

A pair of pajamas Sophia made in her first sewing class (Rhode Island 2007)

Three union suits - she looked so adorable in these

Vic's uniform shirt from when he was a Second Class Petty Officer - the Navy discontinued them after too many remarks that they made the enlisted sailors look like inmates

A T-shirt from our Saipan Cable TV days - Google Translate says Mas Mauleg means It's Better

A Precious Moments Cross that used to hang in her nursery

Also in the tin is my wedding outfit (photo below) and my college graduation gown and honor cord

Here we are on our wedding day outside the Governor's office - I think this was the only long-sleeved shirt Vic owned and he didn't have a tie in his wardrobe - my wedding outfit was a white long top over a slim skirt - it's considerably less white now after having been in the tin for so long

Here is Vic wearing the blue shirt - this is the homecoming from the deployment where his ship circumnavigated South America in 1997

A family photo shoot after my graduation from the University of North Florida - Mum and Dad flew in from England and my sister Barbara from San Francisco - Vic was finishing up a Mediterranean deployment and flew in a few days later - Mum made the knitted owl graduate Sophia is holding and he came to her high school and college graduations

The time capsule also included this book which has a place for us to write in a profile of Vic and me, money and prices, entertainment, leisure and sports, design and fashion, trends and issues, and innovations and predictions - a couple of them are interesting:

More than half of Americans will work from their homes, communicating via computers

Most U.S. homes will be equipped with video phones

Our sports director at Saipan Cable TV kept a photocopy of the Winners page pinned above his desk and filled it in as time went by - the scribbling is courtesy of Sophia

Around the 'Net

 

It's really amazing what you can find on an Internet search.  This McDonald's menu is from 1967, the year we lived in San Jose, California while my dad was in Vietnam.  I'm not sure if I've included this story before or not, forgive me if it's a repeat.

July 4th was coming, and my friend Linda and I covered our garage door with paper.  I think it must have been butcher block paper or something similar to that.  We set to work coloring a giant American flag.  Just as we were finishing up, a small sports car, a convertible, pulled up the curb and a man hopped out (hopped as in jumped over the door).  He approached us, thanked us for our patriotism, and handed us each a voucher for a hamburger, French fries, and a milkshake at the local McDonald's.  Then he hopped back in the car and drove off.

I'm not sure I'd ever been to McDonald's before this point.  I was 7 years old and had lived in Germany, Boston, Norway, San Francisco, and Chico, California.  My Dad was a junior enlisted soldier, Mum was a housewife, and we lived modestly.  Fast food just wasn't a thing in our lives then.  So, Mum and Linda's Mum took us down to McDonald's and we enjoyed every bite of our hamburger and French fries and loved the milkshake.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - Volume 552

 

1.  What are you currently juggling in your life?

Appointments for me and for Vic.  I still have a few appointments left for my work injury (right knee) and Vic has about a dozen appointments with the VA.  When you retire from the Navy (or other military, I'm sure), your medical record is reviewed (in Vic's case, 30 years of records) and independent evaluations are set up to determine to what extent your medical conditions are related to your military service.  It's a long process, often requiring a drive of some distance, to various doctors and medical facilities.  If an appointment is over on the Seattle side, I usually go with him (I'm the navigator, lol).

2.  How often do you buy new clothes?  What was the last piece of clothing your purchased?

Rarely these days.  I seem to have a working wardrobe (for a retired person) that works.  I think the last time I bought something was a pair of Wit and Wisdom jeans from Nordstrom.  I love the brand, bootcut.

3.  What food festival would you most like to attend?  If you need help here are links to some of the bigger and more popular food events around the world - 

Ten Food Festivals Worth Traveling To Find

2024 Best Food And Drink Festivals And Events In The US

20 Popular Food Festivals Around The World In 2024 For Your Unconditional Love Of Food

This one is on our radar - 

Port Angeles Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival
October

We've missed it every year we've been in Washington for one reason or another.  This year is our year!

4.  May is the 5th month of the year.  Tell us something you remember about your 5th grade year.

I was at SHAPE American Elementary School in Mons, Belgium for 5th grade.

My teacher was Miss Fowlkes who looked scary but was really a sweetheart.  My best friends were Myra (second row, second from left), Anita (second row, second from right), and Jennifer (front row center in green turtleneck) and I had a crush on Gordon (top row, third from left).

5.  What are your favorite five words right now?

Patisserie, organization, declutter, travel, and cozy.

Insert your own random thought here.

Who knew that you could add pasta to something in the CrockPot?  I must have missed that memo.  I made a pasta sauce the other day, simmering it on low all day.  About 30 minutes before dinner, I turned it on high, added uncooked penne, and hey presto, that's all it took to cook the penne and have the whole dish ready to serve.  Has anyone ever tried it with another type of pasta?

If this is Tuesday, it must be England #167

 

Today would have been my sister Barbara and brother-in-law Paul's 23rd wedding anniversary.  I saw would have been because my sister died suddenly in 2022.  She was in remission from breast cancer, but the chemotherapy had weakened her heart, and she had a heart attack.  They had a destination wedding in Scotland with a small group of their friends and a few family members, 33 people in total.  It was a fun-filled weekend at Duns Castle in the Scottish Borders with croquet, golf, clay pigeon shooting, archery, a rehearsal dinner at a local inn, and a beautiful wedding at Edrom Parish Church complete with bagpiper.  I don't think I've shared photos of the weekend before so here are a few.

Duns Castle, with the massive Norman Keep or Pele Tower, supposedly dates from 1320 and has eleven bedrooms. The castle and most of the structures on the property are designated as a scheduled ancient monument.  The property also has numerous outbuildings that can provide lodging for additional guests.  There is a publicly accessible park and two man-made lakes, the Hen Poo and the smaller Mill Dam, that form the Duns Castle nature reserve.

My family headed off for a walk around the estate (Pamela, Mum, Dad, and Barbara with Sophia in front)

Admiring the swans on the lake

Croquet on the lawn - the weather was absolutely glorious for the three days we were there

Mum (in red jacket) trying her hand at archery - she was legally blind at this point; the instructor was so kind to guide her

My brother-in-law (fifth from the left), his father (far left) and assorted friends who looked magnificent

Dad, Sophia and Mum waiting for the car to take them to the church

Mum's got the royal wave going there!

Dad and Mum at the church; they were always holding hands

Paul and Barbara back at the castle after the wedding

The wedding cake - Barbara said it was whimsical, it looks like something out of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party!  After my parents picked Sophia and me up at the airport, we picked up the cake and carried it to Scotland in three boxes where the castle staff put it together

Flower girl Sophia, she was 7 years old and the only child at the wedding.  Mum bought her an art box of supplies and she could be found at various places with one of her new aunties or uncles coloring along with her - Barbara and Paul's friends were just amazing with her

It was an amazing weekend, a memory that will last forever!