Grandpa's Ford

Tonight I read this blog post about Annie's grandpa's truck and was reminded of my own grandpa's white 1967 Ford.

The bench seat had more springs than - well - this and had been reupholstered with something very scratchy (although I'm sure it was the most durable stuff available).

It took FOREVER to roll down the windows. I'm sure I rode in the truck during colder weather, but in my mind the windows are open and those seats are scratching the back of my bare legs.

The sound of the engine as it revved toward the next gear still has a soothing effect. The clutch was tight, so gear grinding was a fairly standard event. But even that sound doesn't startle me out of pacificity.

At the bottom of the gear shift column was something that resembled a stack of pancakes. Similar to this - except all the pancakes were the same size.

My OCD tendencies were in full force even then. I would stick each finger into a fold of that shift boot. Never mind that my fingers could get pinched during gear changes and that Grandpa would get upset that my hand was where he had no reason to expect it.

You know how Bella loves her 53 Chevy? Well I'd be the same way if I had Grandpa's 67 Ford.

What did your grandpa drive?

Operating Hours

G just asked me why McDonalds is open 24 hours. According to him,

The only people there at night are tired Las Vegas people who can't even shower!

Staci in Blunderland

Do you ever do something that makes you wonder if it's really you doing it? I had two of those today.

First off was an incredible book club lunch. Every single person in my book club made it today, and it was fantastic! Food = delicious. Conversation = divine. Basking in the wisdom and friendship of incredible women = phenomenal. I felt humbly blessed as I pulled out of the driveway. Uplifted. Grateful for good neighbors.
I followed this delightful lunch with a trip to the library - all by myself! I even sat on a couch, kicked my feet up on an ottoman, and perused American Patchwork & Quilting - discovered a new machine quilting design that I'm going to have to try this weekend!

I picked up my reusable green library bag and walked right out the door. This set off the alarms, and one of the nice libarians asked if I'd forgotten to check something out. I looked down into my bag and replied,

"Yep - everything!"

The librarians must have got a kick out of that. They were still laughing about it when I successfully maneuvered the sensors on the way to my car.

to·ma·to

Pronunciation: \tə-ˈmā-(ˌ)tō; chiefly British, eNewEng, neVirginia, and sometimes elsewhere in cultivated speech -ˈmä-; chiefly Northern -ˈma-\

Have you ever really craved something? I'm not talking about that trellis & rose purse that was in the Tai Pan Trading ad. Nor am I talking strange pregnancy cravings (although I suspect this is similar to what's been going on). I'm talking about waking up at 4:00 am and immediately thinking - "Ooh - that sounds delicious!"

My craving the past couple of weeks has been tomatoes. No amount of spaghetti sauce, soup, or sandwich fixings has appeased. Jon took me to Chili's last week for date night. The only thing I wanted was chips & salsa (I didn't even have the queso!) and a house salad with extra tomato. Over the weekend, we ate very well with all of the Easter and Hill family "Scone Sunday" events, but I still wanted tomatoes.

I picked up some grape tomatoes for salad and ended up eating a bunch of them as a mid morning snack yesterday. I also made a batch of salsa (~ 6 cups) on Sunday morning and have eaten more than half of it already.

I had my girl part check up last week, and found out that I was extremely low on one particular mineral. Based on my craving, can you guess what it is?

Potassium

I knew bananas were good sources of potassium, but I wasn't craving bananas (except the kind that come in an Arctic Circle banana cream pie milkshake - that is some seriously yumminess) - unless they come in red, have seeds, and you can eat the skins.

I haven't been able to grow tomatoes the past few years because we haven't had a dedicated garden spot that we can keep the dogs out of. I tried patio tomatoes, and Hilo dug them out. Sometimes I really dislike that animal. This year I'm thinking about one of those TopsyTurvy things - if I can just figure out where to hang it.

Frustrated with Frances

A friend of mine (OK - more of an acquaintance. She married a guy who was once a very good friend, so I adopted her - I don't know that she knows that... I got to sit next to her at my 20 year high school reunion, but she texted her next door neighbor most of the night... Doesn't bode well for our friendship, eh?) posted her March 2010 books today. One of them was A Bargain for Frances.

Can I just tell you that Frances is one of the most frustrating characters to make my acquaintance?!

When I was in 1st grade - can you see me? How about the kid to my left - that's Bart Cloward. I don't remember why, but I did not like Bart. I think you can tell that from my body language - see how I'm trying to lean away from him? Wouldn't you be so mad if your kid was the one turned around in the front row?! - we had a reading contest. We had caterpillars that were pinned to the cork strip at the top-of-the-chalk-board level all the way around the room. We got to lick & stick a star for each book that we read. Mrs. Brady said that whoever read the most books would win a prize.

Did you hear that?! A P-R-I-Z-E!!!!

At this point you know (if you know me very well at all - or did at the time this story happened) that there was never a doubt in my mind who was going to read the most books in my class. I'm fairly certain that I had a 4-5 caterpillar chain just to hold all of my lick & sticks.

So the day came when the winner was announced. Of course it was me, but this is where my story went horribly wrong.

When Mrs. Brady said there would be a prize, I knew that I would be the lucky recipient of an Easy Bake Oven. (Don't ask, that's just how my mind worked.)  I eventually went to the front of the room after I'm sure I harassed poor Mrs. Brady until she could stand it no longer. I was anticipating the weight of that box being placed in my arms. I remember walking over to the reading area with her - upset that more of the class wasn't paying attention. She flipped a flimsy paper back into my hands.

That's right folks

Certainly not an Easy Bake. And certainly not a book that I have ever read.