photo week

I picked it up in college and after all these years, still love photography. It came in handy when my children came along, and now my granddaughters. Indulge me this week as I share a few recent favorites.

Playful, exuberant, impish Ari.



So Ashlyn ... she approaches her world with quiet seriousness.

(ok, this one's by my daughter Katie )




the nightmare for old people

Saturday Night Live has done it! HA HAHA! This is exactly how I feel when I go online or take the tiniest step into today's world of technology and electronics and cell phones and all the rest. At the moment, I'm trying to figure out what phone to get. So very C-O-N-F-U-S-I-N-G. Gaaahhhh! Check this out ....

(And no commenting on how "easy" all this is unless you're over 55!)

extra-ordinary

It's the 16th of March,

but you wouldn't know it.

Not in Ohio.

Crocus and snowdrops make their debut in late March, at best.

Daffodils wait until April.

My very favorite, the daffodils.

In full bloom on the 16th of March!

I buried these tiny ones in the beds last fall

and here they are.

All sunny and smiling.

Spring looks to have arrived,

but snow could easily make a late appearance.

For now, I enjoy the daffodils.

March madness

Good gracious, people get in a tizzy over basketball. I care nothing for basketball (or football if you must know) but I do have some March Madness. On my bracket:

~ When it's too cold to go out and too early to dig in the flower beds, I nearly go mad after the long winter. Of course, as I write, we have crocus AND daffodils in bloom now which is insanely early for Ohio. Yesterday it topped 70 degrees!
~ So, in late February I usually spend considerable time looking at flights to Florida. Then I talk myself out of it, saying, "spring's just around the corner." Even if it isn't.
~ The windows of our house are coated in winter's grit. I haven't done much serious cleaning since Christmas, either. So just, just, just as the days are warming up, it's time to clean house. That puts me over the edge.
~ Once our kids started college and some were still at home, their spring breaks NEVER coincided. That's maddening.
~ There's a winter's worth of dog poop in the back yard and guess who's nominated to scoop it?
~ New phone conundrum! I'm inching ever closer to a smart phone. I'm not sure I completely want to, but it's seeming inevitable. I think I read that eventually, the ONLY choice will be smart phones. Sigh. Madness.

I believe we midwesterners really, truly appreciate spring. Particularly after a long, snowy winter, there's nothing like throwing open windows and doors and letting the winter musties blow out. I wear shorts and flip-flops on the first day it hits 60, and if possible I drag my lawn chair to the end of our driveway and eat my lunch in the sun. We grill burgers for the first time in months: what a treat! It's intoxicating. Life is renewed and the clean slate of spring and summer stretches before us.

Enjoy your March!

nifty, thrifty: homemade iced coffee

It amazes me what some people must spend on life's little pleasures. As we've put four kids through college, I've become even more frugal than ever. Take chilled coffees, for instance. I used to sneak sips of my mother's iced coffee when I was a girl. She made hers from leftover morning coffee. Forty years later, you can drop what, $4 or so for a latte or iced capuccino or whatnot. If you bought 3 or 4 of those a week, that's a wad of cash.

So here's my thrifty recipe: homemade iced coffee. For fun, I saved a Panera cup from when Katie and I went there for lunch a few weeks ago. I wash and reuse it so it seems like I've gone to Panera for a fancy drink!

Barb's Iced Coffee

Fill a glass or cup half full with strong, cold coffee OR place a heaping teaspoon of instant coffee in the cup and about an inch of hot water. If you want it sweet, add sugar now and stir til dissolved. Add lots of ice (and some cold water if using instant coffee), almost to the top. Then fill with plenty of milk and/or half and half. Stir and enjoy. Put in your travel cup if you're leaving on errands. Especially good at your desk in the mid-afternoon!

How do you save money?

happy 100, girls!

A gaggle of Girl Scouts came to my door over the weekend, selling cookies, of course. Five little pairs of eyes opened wide when I flung open my door and said, "there you are! I've been waiting for you!" Poor things, they'd found a crazy lady.

The years of cases and cases of Girl Scout cookies in our house seemed interminable. My troop sold thousands. But four years ago I hung up my leader's hat and seldom do I see Girl Scouts at my door.

I babbled on with these little Daisy scouts, asking them their plans for the cookie earnings. Their leaders were friendly and helpful. And oh darn, I forgot to wish them a happy 100th birthday. That's today. One hundred years ago, March 12, 1912, Juliette Low formed the first troop in Savannah, Georgia.

I shared Girl Scouting with my mother, and then my daughter Katie and I followed suit. It was one of the few things I told her "we're going to do." And we stuck with it, along with the same group of girls which dwindled down as the years went on. We merged with another troop and I had the pleasure and hilarity of working with two co-leaders, Donna and Lisa.

Current Girl Scout literature will paint a lofty picture of what Girl Scouting aspires to be. But for me, it was simple things that couldn't be found in other girls' activities.

 It was going camping just after 9/11 and seeing girls roll down a hill under a blue September sky, forgetting the horror in the world.

It was hearing giggling girls who'd "adopted" a dog into their cabin on a camp-out.

And their leaders didn't mind a bit.

It was letting girls find a buddy for canoeing,

and being pleased when one girl agreed to be with the least popular girl.

It was imperfect flag ceremonies carried out by very proud girls.



It was cleaning the stinkiest latrines in Ohio, and laughing about it.

It was teaching a girl to chop potatoes and make her own dinner over a fire.

It was having time to make a friend, and be one.

It was growing closer to my daughter through the amazing adventures we shared.



And it was realizing that girls don't change much.

They want to have friends, have fun, and trust adults to listen to their dreams.

Happy birthday, and thank you, Girl Scouts.

It wasn't about badges or cookies.

It was about being together, laughing, loving and helping a group of girls to young womanhood.

one of my favorites ... our trip to Mexico, 2006.

this 'n that

Lots of odds and ends going on and finding it hard to settle down for regular posting. Sorry!

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About once a month or so we run to Columbus, the big city, for provisions

we can't get here in our town. We did that this morning, and got to see

Katie for about 30 minutes. She's on a retreat with friends. It's good to have access to the

city, but I still love our smaller town!

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Since Lily's still very much a newborn, she exhibits all those newborn traits such

as crying for no apparent reason. So now and then I go over

and do my baby whispering thing. I don't think (old) moms ever forget how

to hold and console a crying baby!

Check out this adorable post of Lily meeting her great-grandmother Elizabeth.

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Pretty soon we'll be heading south to spend some time with Ari, 2 and Ashlyn, 8 months.

Oh, and Dan and Jenny, too.

It will be a rambunctious good time, I'm certain of that!

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Yes, I did get some writing done this week.

No, not to my satisfaction.

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I'm still swimming at our new Y, about 3 times a week.

Slow and steady.

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Glory be, my tulips, daffodils and crocus are coming up.

And one crocus is in bloom!

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The forecast this week is spectacular.

Not exactly sit-at-my-desk weather.

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Hope you're making the most of your weekend!