Goodbye!

It's gone. I sold my little car in 1 DAY on Craigslist. From my short real estate "career" I know that means I sold it a little too cheap. It was a good car with a lot of happy memories. It made me feel young to get in and crank up the radio and roll down the windows (with a crank handle). I love our crossover, SUV, or "the vehicle" as we call it, whatever it is, for hauling all the kids around, but this little car was mine, bought with a lot of help from my "boyfriend" -- now my husband on a very hot day in 2005. A couple of nice people were fighting over it, but a nineteen-year-old named Tiffany got the car. She said she was going to give it a name and a wax job. I think it has a good home.

something special on the side of the road

Jaime and Sean pulled up last evening and took something out of the car trunk. A little car stroller just like Jonah used to have! But this one is pink instead of red! Perfect. So Mia and I went for a long walk around the golf course. Then we cleaned out the compartment in the front and put in a toy tiger which she pushed all around the yard. She refused to take off her little sweater (with a hood in back) even though it was getting much warmer. Finally she insisted on her nap on the couch before she even had her lunch. You can see her little purple vinyl glove by her side. Happy find on the side of the road. I wish whoever left this little stroller at the curb could know how much joy it brought today and many days to come. When I get access to a scanner, I will upload some pictures of all the fun Jonah and Jill had with the old one.

the sleepy bowl

sleepy bowl

This bowl was a gift to my daughter from her stepmother, Joyce. She has a talent for finding all kinds of quirky gifts from a variety of catalogs. I believe she also gave Jonah his beloved and well-worn dinosaur quilt. I will have to get a picture of that. Anyway, there were four bowls but this is the only one left. I use it to give chicken noodle soup to Jill when she is sick and I often use it for Mia's breakfast or lunch. It is so cute to hear Mia say, "Wake up, bowl. Time to get up!" She also loves the little hearts.

What to bake when there is NOTHING in the pantry

Blackbottom (chocolate and cream cheese) cupcakes

I wanted to bake something and I was out of everything -- even milk! The only "exotic" ingredient I had was an almost full brick of cream cheese. That and a magazine article with a really enticing picture made me think of blackbottom cupcakes. I searched through my cookbooks. Then I got on the internet. I found a lot of recipes - many of which called for a teaspoon of vinegar in the chocolate layer. (Didn't have that either!) I finally found this recipe which called for common ingredients and not many of them. I will definately make these again. Not only were they easy, they were moist and delicious. The recipe made 12 cupcakes but I did run a little short of the cream cheese mixture, so instead of making two layers as the recipe suggested, I used less cream cheese on some cakes and swirled it a little with a kitchen knife. Both versions were good. Even with this recipe I didn't have vanilla or chocolate chips, but it was still good. P.S. If you are really low on ingredients, the chocolate part alone was very good and it didn't need milk, egg or butter!

I found this recipe on www.everydaycook.com.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Ingredients
1/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

Filling
1 8-ounce package of cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 8-ounce package of chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, vanilla, oil and water until smooth.

In a smaller bowl, combine softened cream cheese, sugar and egg until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips.

Line a 12 cupcake pan with paper liners (or butter cupcake pans). Pour equal amounts of chocolate mixture in each cup. Top with cream cheese mixture. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Angie

Grandma Collier and Angie Kuehn Collier Oakley

Cory and both his sisters

Shari, Jill, Dawn, Angie, Cory, Mia, and Jaime

Jill - in oil painting style

Jaime and Mia

Mia, Jaime and Cory

"Artistic" view of the beach

Dawn, Angie and Donnie - the street sign says Woody Wagon Way

Jill on porch

Donnie and Rocky

Dream beach house

Cory and Angie - at last

I realized something was missing from my blog. Angie. Cory's long lost sister from Arkansas. Angie is my first husband's daughter and she was only 2 years old when we got married. Life and circumstances intervened and the picture above is Cory and Angie together for the first time since he was a baby. We visited Angie and her family last year at Seacrest Beach near Pensacola. It was beautiful as you can see. Since then there have been many, many text messages and visits to Missouri to meet relatives and to Arkansas. It has been wonderful. Angie and Cory's grandma, Goldia Collier, just died at 95 and Angie and Cory and Jill got to spend some time with her just a month before. Life is strange but this story had a happy ending.

Rick's 60th Birthday video

I apologize for the poor video. Still playing with the Flip camera. I didn't mention Joyce, Darlene and Karin. I post this anyway for posterity. We were all inside because it was 95 degrees outside! Can't wait for Fall weather! Jaime was very sick so she couldn't come over and grill steak and shrimp as planned. We had Publix fried chicken and I made potato salad, cole slaw, deviled eggs, baked beans, corn on the cob, and rum cake. We also baked an apple pie for Joyce and Karin. Had to run out and buy a fan because the ceiling fan on the porch has died. Got a little stressed out trying to peel the eggs. The peels would not come off those darn things! Oh, well, it was fun and I loved having my friends and family around. It was Stephanie's birthday, too, but she was at work. She and Cory went out to Carrabas later and her mother came over on Sunday. We were also celebrating Cory's birthday on the 14th. Jill was visiting Courtney.

Hyde Park Art Show

I went to the Hyde Park Art Festival alone on Saturday. Jaime and I used to come here. It was only a shadow of it's former self with MANY shops, restaurants, the movie theater all closed. The show itself was only on one street where it used to sprawl for blocks. There were still some remembered landmarks there, however, and the parking garage was easy, close and FREE!

There was a lot of amazing art work such as the first photograph above. The pictures were three dimensional. Very cool. Unlike anything I had seen before. Also there was a stall which had huge paintings that weren't paintings at all but very detailed stitch embroidery. Amazing. There were many, many very beautiful and labor intensive artisits' works displayed, but there was nothing like what I am thinking about doing and, understandably, the artwork cost much more than I would think about charging.

My idea is to come up with something affordable that I myself could not resist. (Affordable - $20-$30 range for a poster-sized print?) This simple little technique of  "oil painting" appeals to me so much. By blurring the image it seems to convey more feeling and make the image more anonymous and timeless at the same time. It makes even simple scenes much more interesting and meaningful somehow. --- Also, it reminds me in a bizarre way of my near-sighted vision before lasik which was incredibly frustrating, but which also "softened" reality sometimes.

Click on the photos above to enlarge and see the "oil painted" detail.