GATORADE GIRLS 2010

The creeping party that pedals it's way across the State of Iowa every July is called RAGBRAI, an acronym that's taken on a life of it's own and has attracted bikers young and old to the beautiful roadsides of our agricultural state for 38 years.

An estimated 10-15,000 riders move across the state from West to East during the week-long event, camping in small towns along the way and dining on sumptuous event favorites like pork chops on a stick, fresh corn on the cob and just-like-your-grandma-made chicken and noodle dinners at the local Methodist churches.

This year my friend Jill and I, fresh from nearly two years of study to earn our graduate degrees in May, decided to hit the road with a pop-up tent and a van full of Gatorade and cool stuff we thought bikers might like to buy. We sweat buckets in the July heat, sold bandana's and beer koozies and we kept our share of the pedaling buddies hydrated with ice cold Gatorade and the occasional motivating mixed shot of Cherry/Vanilla UV.


I could tell ya all about it, but it's easier to just look at the pics, in no special order ~ just a week of (sweaty) fun!

I

Arrived Alive at Fifty-Five

Here I am, still breathing and closer to a hundred years old than newborn. Yikes, in printed font I sound like a dinosaur....



Don't much care, gotta tell ya I am loving the "fifties". Yup, this year I'm fifty-five and can't remember a year I've had more fun. It just keeps getting better. So Happy Birthday to me and Happy Birthday to you, too ~ whenever it is ~ remember every day is a clean slate full of awesome possibilities. Some days will wiggle along in a fairly ordinary manner, others will explode on the screen of our life's radar like holiday fireworks. Enjoy them all!!!

I have a feeling this is going to be the BEST year ever.........

Sara's Birthday

Lots of catching up to do. But first, just a nice little pause for a moment with my Sara who just celebrated her birthday.



Happy birthday, little one.
Love you so.

Vestiges of Easter

What to do, what to do, WHAT TO DO WITH THOSE DELIGHTFULLY SOFT AND SQUISHY LEFTOVER PEEPS????

Yes, peeps make wonderful accessories for the fashion-conscious lady.

If shoulder pads ever come back and we have to pump up the shoulders of all our jackets, we've got the answer right there lingering in the box of last years Easter goodies.

How 'bout treating yourself to a post-holiday peepicure? Pedipeep??

Of course their soft and slightly gritty sugary coating means your
peep is the ultimate in luxurious face scrubbie.

Did someone say LEFTOVERS?
The ultimate epicurious partnership...
the classic Leftover Easter Ham and Peep sandwich.


Think green!
The bunnies will keep!
Chicks too!
Recycle your peep!

The most important thing to remember if you were going to Easter morning service at the Evangelical United Brethren Church on old Highway 17 was not to drink too much orange juice with breakfast because the preacher talked a long, long time before we got around to singing “He Lives” and going home and the bathroom was a 2-seater outhouse in the churchyard, down the front stairs, past the stained glass windows and next to the cemetery where your great Grandpa and Grandma were buried. Honeysuckle vines grew up the side of the outhouse in the summer and bees nested in the rafters right above the door. In the spring you were pretty much safe; it was too chilly, the bees weren’t buzzing yet. But you knew they were there from last year’s Bible school when Miss Carlson your Sunday School teacher warned all the children to “be real careful, just open and close the door slow, they’re not so much concerned about you as long as they know you’re just there to take care of business and not bother them.” Sunday school boys told us girls snakes lived in the floor of the outhouse and surely they probably did because every now and then one of them would sneak into the church basement and make all of us scream during a pot luck supper. I personally myself had seen a spider crawling up the back wall of the outhouse on more than one occasion. Clearly, for reasons beyond the obvious issue of fragrance and lack of toilet paper, it was a place you didn’t want to visit often and when you did, you wanted to make it a quick and stealthy slip in and out, unnoticed by anything that buzzed, slithered or crawled. I hear they have plumbing in the building now which is nice, especially for little kids who hate spiders and garter snakes, but I can’t imagine Easter is nearly as exciting.

Time passes, things change. One of my second-cousins once-removed or some such familial linkage my grandmother explained, left that little church a nice pile of money a while back. It was a small fortune he had accumulated over a lifetime of hard work and farming. The spruced the old church up a bit; enclosed the old concrete steps with a entrance, refurbished the massive stained glass windows and I'm sure the inside of the place got some long and well-deserved TLC, in part as a result of his generosity, but also because simple farm and small-town folks loved the place over generations and just refused to let it die. I keep telling myself I've got to get back there for a visit one of these days if only for the sake of "remember when".

My parents were married in that little church, the home church of my family for many many years. I stood on the small platform with my Sunday school class, back to the audience and refused to sing during the annual Vacation Bible School program because my 6-year old self was mad I had to leave my brand new swing set, dress up and go to church to perform on a perfectly lovely summer day. I learned to make fancy little folded creations out of my grandmother's lace hankies in the rickety old wood pews, her way of entertaining me during long sermons she knew were slightly tedious to a little kid. Over the years I remember the same people sitting in the same pews every Sunday, like they staked their claim when the place was built and everyone just understood the system. The offering plates were wood and posted on the back wall, every Sunday, was Last Sundays Attendance (usually around 30 people or so...) and Last Sundays Offering (why I remember seeing $23.15 posted there, I can't tell you but I do, clear as if it were yesterday.)

Outside the door and a short walk across the grass is the church cemetery. Lots of familiar names there. And just down a few rows.....the legendary spot little kids used to approach with caution, wanting badly to believe that if you are very quiet and make it clear you're just opening the door to take care of business and not disturb them, the bees will leave you alone.

'Tis the Season

For a visit from the Easter Chicken!!!



This morning when I arrived at work I found this sweet little box of soft, pastelly eggs waiting for me on my desk. A "cube neighbor" had arrived just before me and I was sure she'd brought the gift.

"Courtney! Do you have chickens in your yard??"

She looked at me like I was a little wacko.
Ok. It wasn't Courtney...........but she reminded me Amy and her kids have chickens.
Of course!!! Amy confirmed it, fresh little Easter eggs straight from her hen house and aren't they just the CUTEST things you've ever seen!!!!

Thanks Amy!!!!

Almost done..........

Graduating on May 8, Mama's crawlin' out from under her rock....



..and coming out of her shell!!

Today's the day I took my final stand against winter. I took down the Christmas cards from the back of my front door. It snowed last night, it's melted off the driveway and walks already; it's warm. The first official day of spring is upon us after a long, harsh winter.



I'm not complaining. I love the snow, whether it's raging against my windshield carried by a strong wind or, like in this little video clip I made standing next to the woods a month or so ago, falling soft and silent.



Bring on the tulips.

Fun Weekend

Fun to break up this long winter with a weekend visit to the coast.
Saw the ocean as I flew in but that really wasn't the point of the visit.
My granddaughter just turned six and I flew out to give her some hugs!

Favorite project of the weekend: throwing around some flour in Mom's kitchen!


Thanks Mom, for being so cool about the big mess!!!




Sneaking a few licks and tastes along the way.........

And hanging out playing Barbie cut-outs all afternoon when we were done.
"Grandma, 'tend you were the girl in the blue dress and 'tend I was the one in the pink and you said I looked pretty and you wanted to go to the mall."

These days paper dolls are magnetic dolls and we 'tended off and on all weekend....going to the mall, wearing princess outfits, talking about getting our hair done and going to the beach . Her Barbies have a 3-story dream house. With an elevator. Prettttttty cool.

We played with all her toys.
She has a couple of those battery-powered hamster things that everyone was nuts about at Christmas. They were kind of neat.



But nothing is neater than just hanging out with my favorite 6-year old in the whole world, chatting about life in general and making memories.

Winter Keeps Stringing us Along....

My friend Janell and I decided we needed to find a way to while away the lingering winter hours, as long as it appears winter is going to last....well....forever.
We ain't bucklin' to no weather blues, not on your life. We decided we needed a project and we both wanted to learn to knit.

We spent Saturday with a lovely group of knitting enthusiasts. Their promise (and challenge) was to send us home with a knitted washcloth created by our own hands.
Sounds easy enough, doesn't it??? Ohhhhhhh you non-knitters, trust me, this is no easy task. You can lead a girl to needles and a ball of yarn but it doesn't mean she'll spontaneously know how to knit. Ohhhh man, I am here to tell you it's not as easy as it looks.

The fun part is buying needles and choosing yarn. The colors inspired us with all kinds of ideas for knitted projects. Visions of sweaters and caps and blankets danced in our heads.

Now we learn.
Not bad for a beginner, although it's a bit of a twisted start.

All the while eyeing a finished project,
knowing by the end of the day we should be looking at something
sort of like this. It's a knitted washcloth.

Pretty colors, Deb......but the skilled knitter can tell you something isn't quite right here.

I don't care. It's pretty and I made it.

I shall call it "BOOKMARK".

Janell, a much younger student than myself and infinitely clearer of mind,
picks up on the stitches very quickly. Clearly she is going to be a knitting prodigy with blue-ribbon sweaters hanging at the State Fair later this summer.

See what I mean? Her knitting is uniform and lovely.
Even her little book-marky thing is straight and sensible.

Like a perfectly appointed half-a-doily that will sit beneath a fine and beautiful plant.

Despite an absence of natural knitting ability I intend to persevere and will be practicing on this washcloth/coaster as long as it takes. Straighter lines and looser knit is my goal.

I shall call it "Barbie Blanket" so someday my little granddaughter can say to her little girl, "Oh, that's really old. Your Grandma Debbie made that for me when I was your age." At the rate I am presently knitting, I best get busy or I'll be giving it to her for her high school graduation.

Snow Courtesy: Knowing the Local Rules

I got in enough trouble driving the streets of Philadelphia in past years, I don't even try anymore. After spending a fortune on parking violation fines, it's cheaper to just take cabs around the city.

The City of Brotherly Love had about 2 feet of snow on the ground last week when I was scheduled to fly in. The snow and high winds delayed our flights a bit but the runways and tarmac were nice and clean by the time we touched down. Notsomuch Center City where the old walk-ups and commerical buildings are tucked into the city blocks like crayons into a 16-pack crayola box ~ it's a tight fit with bumper to bumper on-street parking in the neighorhoods and no where to push all that snow. When the ploughs come down car-lined streets to clear them they pile snow up against the cars which are already buried, creating a icy mountain range that line the sidewalks.

To say it would take hours to dig out one car from the range after that big of a storm is no exagerration. It takes hours and hours of back-breaking shoveling. Shoveling is hard work in my part of the country too but we've got lots of space for the piles of snow. So it was interesting to learn about a local courtesy that is recognized in Philadelphia, one that is important enough that the mayor was on the 11PM news Friday night, reminding everyone while it's not law..............



IF you spend hours digging your car out from the snow where you park on the street in the neighborhood where you live, the space you cleared belongs to you. When you are finished shoveling you pull your car into the street, grab whatever is handy and place it in the cleared parking spot to save it. I saw kitchen chairs, a ladder and a lawn chair "holding" parking spaces this weekend.




Due to the record-breaking amount of snow they're receiving in Philly and the level of frustration that is building in folks as they deal with it, the mayor wanted to remind everyone to play nice. It's not a law, but it's a commonly recognized and honored courtesy the city expects residents to respect: you if shovel a space, it's yours. (I'd add....if your neighbor shovels out your space, you owe him a pan of lasagne per month for life or carnal favors on demand, whichever he prefers. Remember, that's over 2 feet of snow, folks. A plate of cookies isn't gonna cut it this time.)

Good system. I like it.
When I flew out on Thursday of last week, I forgot to put my ice scraper and broom back in the trunk of my car when I loaded up my suitcases. After 5 days of snow and ice on the top level of the airport parking ramp this past week, I had to dig out my car with an empty cassette tape box, a rolled-up Lands End catalog and a frozen bottle of my favorite Berry-flavored Propel. I surely coulda used a good neighbor with a broom this morning.