Believe it or not..

Believe it or not I was a published writer at one time. I was young, had no children and alot of time on my hands at the old farm were we resided.

I decided to take a home course in writing. I would not say it was waste of time. No venture into the educational realm is wasted. But I don't think my style of writing changed much. I continued as I had for years and wrote when I felt the mood hit me. And I sold stories.

Granted it was nothing that would bring me the pulitizer prize but I am pleased to say my husband was proud of those short stories and kept some of the ones I had all but forgotten about writing.

I felt as though I have been paid twice for those stories. Why?

First, I was paid when the pay check that came in the mail, by no means big but still a payment for something I loved doing. The second time was when I realized that my husband was proud of what I had done and saved them all these years.

Guess which 'payment' means the most to me. *s*

Trip to emlenton

Hubby and I decided to go for a drive today. It is one of those things we often do when there is little else to occupy our time. We don't always know exactly where we are heading but today we went the quaint little town of Emlenton. Pa.

The first thing I noticed as we drove thru the town were some of the lovely old homes there. Not I did not have my camera with me but I did find some interesting sights and houses on line. It is not just one old victorian home but the town seems to be filled with homes of the former oil barrons who once lived in the town. The two images above were the homes of eban Crawford and his brother. They were two oil barrons from the bygone era. I love Victorian style homes and my dream was to buy one and fix it up but hubby would not go for it.

The lovely church is in Foxburg Pa which is near emlenton. It is a lovely structure. James Peacock Sims had attended secondary school and college with William Logan Fox (1851-80), whose early death was memorialized along with that of his father in this church in northwestern Pennsylvania. The drawing was entrusted to Eyre, Sims's twenty-two-year-old draftsman. The design was directly modeled on one of the rare churches to strongly reflect the Queen Anne revival, Richard Norman Shaw's Church of St. Michael and All Angels in Bedford Park, outside London. A plate of its design was published in an English journal, Building News, on 17 January 1879, and even the format on Eyre's sheet closely echoed that plate of elevations and sections.

I have not been in the inside but they say it is gorgeous.

We always say we are going to go in but we have never stopped. Maybe we will some day.

comfort foods

The dictionary says....

The term comfort food refers to any food or drink to which one habitually turns for temporary respite, security, or special reward. The reasons that something becomes a comfort food are diverse but include the food's familiarity, simplicity, and/or pleasant associations. Small children often seem to latch on to a specific food or drink (in a way similar to a security blanket) and will repeatedly request it in high stress situations. Adults, however, are certainly not exempt.

How many of us often find ourselves drifting back in time and thinking of the the comfort foods our parents or grandparents used to make us feel safe and loved when we were kids. My foster mom was a great one for cookies and milk. After a long day at school she would be waiting to hear how our day went with a glass of cold milk and home made cookies. Yes they were homemade. No store bought cookies for her kids. LOL

At night she would often let us settle back with a cup of weak tea and a slice of toast before going to bed.

That is what made me think of comfort foods. I was standing out in the kitchen, stirring this tea when I had a flashback of me sitting at her kitchen table waiting on her to bring me me tea and toast. And I find myself often able to fall asleep quicker on the nights I have this tea then I do on the nights I do not have it. There was very little soda in Mom;s house but lots of tea. One of my favorites is green tea with honey in it. Very good, indeed.

Another thing was her homemade chicken and dumplings. No matter how hard I try, I cannot make it as good as she does but it was one of those things I would settle back and enjoy on a cold winter's eve.

Then there was her apple pie. She used it when drunks would stop in and sobber up while she read the bible to them and served them pie and tea or coffee..Did she run a restaurant? No. She was just well known for giving men a dose of religion as she helped them sober up after a night out on the town. She liked to give comfort and talk to people about God. She had always wanted to be a missionary but things did not work out that way she she spent her time doing little things like this.

She was quite a lady. *s* And served wonderful comfort food with her words of wisdom.

Yes, I am a christian....

I don't get loud and boastful about but I will not shy away when someone ask me if I am a christian. Yes, I am. I am a Baptist also but that is not important to me. I feel that you can go to any church, or no church at all and still be a christian. You can worship God in the privacy of your home or in the fields. Buildings mean little to God. It is what is in your heart.

I attend chruch because I like the feeling of fellowship there but my mother in law is a solitary person and does not like crowds so she sits at her kitchen table each day and reads her bible and quietly goes about her life, living what I and many others feel is a christian life. She never utters a nasty word about anyone and refuses to exchange tasty bits of gossip about anyone. She does what she can for her family and friends.

Yet I have known many who claim to be christian then shout profanities and tell all those who disagree with them they are going to hell. I shake my head and wonder where they got the idea they could behave themselves in that manner and still make it thru the pearly gates.

They get angry at me because I don't pass judgement on anyone. Oh, I am not perfect so I may have a bad thought about certain people or mutter a word I shouldn't but I try not to do such things. My foster mom once told me, 'you may be the only bible some people read so watch yourself'.

I have friends who are athiest and I love them dearly. We understand and respect each to much to try and force our views on each other. I talk to them and say a pray for them but I still consider them my friends.

Computer illiterate here...

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I know more about computers today then I did ten years abo but there are still some basics I do not know. I have a windows xp home edition here. I have had no problems with it but my outlook express does not seem to want to work right as some ddl files are missing. I was hoping my registry mechanic could fix it as I have been searching the net for days trying to figure out how but could not come up with anything. I can't seem to reinstall it without buying windows ep home edition discs again since my daughter borrowed all seven and only returned about four. One of those has the outlook express on. Anyone got any ideas as to how I can fix this? I will go back to searching, hoping I can find the answer....

The simpler things....

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I have not been on for the last few days and one of the reasons is my daughter was home and she, my husband, and I, spent the evenings doing simple things like reading, talking and putting a large puzzle together. It is a puzzle with a blue jay on it and a blue backgound with some snow at the bottom. As I sat out there putting the pieces in and laughing I thought of how much I miss those times when our family did these things. The time before the computer and the television invaded our lives and seemed to take every moment over.

I thought of the hours on end we spent playing uno or Rummy with my in laws. My fil has been dead almost twenty years and I am so glad for all the wonderful evenings we spent with him and the rest of the family laughing and playing card games. The kids loved them too.

We would sit out on the porch and talk in the summer. Watch people walk by and wave to the neighbors while the kids played in the yard. The best times I had with my mom were when we sat on the porch and talked for hours about.....everything.

You see we did those things because we had no money to go out and do so many of the things people spend money to do. I thought we were poor. It was not until last night that I realized we were very rich. Very rich, indeed.

Happy New Year

The celebration of the New yearr is the oldest of all holidays. It was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. In the years around 2000 BC, the Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first visible cresent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring).
The beginning of spring is a logical time to start a New Year.ar. After all, it is the season of rebirth, of planting new crops, and of blossoming. January 1, on the other hand, has no astronomical nor agricultural significance. It is purely arbitrary.

The use of an image of a baby with a New Years banner as a symbolic representation of the new year was brought to early America by the Germans. They had used the effigy since the fourteenth century.

What about traditions? I do not make resolutions but many do. One that I do keep is having sauerkraut and mashed potatoes on New Years day. My family has done that and I am not sure why. "A friend of mine follows the dutch tradition and gave me a dried up donut to keep in my cupboard all year so I would have good luck. Not sure how well that worked....Like some cultures the dutch believe that certain food that circular will bring good luck. So they use the donut.

Some believe they have to sing Auld Lang Syne which means, long ago, at the stroke of midnight.
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