Cool off with these!

Forget about the salt and the lime...these are all about the lemons - plentiful right now, cheap and perfect for cold drinks on hot days! Enjoy.

Rated R Lemonades..

Thyme and Lime Lemonade- 3 cups lemonade to start. Mash up thyme with lime juice, add to lemonade and chill for an hour. Add 3/4 cup vodka, serve over ice, and garnish with thyme. Serves four friends...if you don't have any - then get some.

Hibiscus and Mint Lemonade - 2.5 cups lemonade. Steep 4 bags hibiscus tea and 2 cups fresh mint (easy to grow, and great ground cover btw), mash the mint, let cool. Discard teabags and mint. Combine tea and lemonade. Serve over ice and garnish with fresh mint leaves.** G Rated lemonade.

Spicy Cayenne Shandy - 1 cup lemonade, combine 2 tablespoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper on a small plate. Moisten the rims of 4 glasses and dip in the salt mix. In a pitcher, mix 2 12oz bottles lager beer and lemonade. Serve over ice. Sounds interesting! Someone should try it out because I haven't had time yet.

RHONY - Whackadoos!

just a little reminder that too many cocktails and pills (besides other things..) can lead to some not so nice "girlfriend" conversations. Witness Andy Cohen trying to referee during one of the Real Housewives Reunion shows of late. I don't watch these anymore since we don't have Bravo, but enjoy seeing the short clips that Gawker and sister site Jezebel provide. Here's your Tuesday night dose of CRAZY>

link below

http://jezebel.com/5824799/kelly-bensimon-is-insulted-by-other-womens-vaginas

Reasoning with a 4 year old is like bargaining with a squash. No deal

the Gig.

I am happy to announce that I have returned to something I love to do (and getting paid for it) - being a freelance editor for a unique company and it's website blogs. I will tell you more about it at a later date. The topics cover everything from food trends, travel, global issues and most importantly - the global food crisis.

I am also moving into a new phase of life soon by working full time (editing done during my free night hours). The full time career has many possibilities, and I am super excited. It's been interesting to be a stay at home mom for almost 4 years, but I have found it...well let's just say sitting around playing full time day care can be very very mundane for my curious mind. My sons have been very lucky, I realize, to have me to attend to all of the first milestones and their father is of course usually here. But I am happy to help "pitch in" and get back to being a true partner for our household. We have goals and one of them is to travel more (i mean really travel, not just go to concerts or local camping). Who knows, if we work like the thrifty little squirrels we've become the past few years...we may end up cutting all ties, getting the rv, and head OUT - sans couches, sans tv, sans lawnmower. Hello Maine Iv'e missed you, hello Boston Musuem of Art - been a while, Hello Denver, Utah, Texas, New Orleans, ATL and NYC- been a while! And yes find some new places to see!

Sounds great! Hope you guys are doing well. these dark rainy afternoon give me really bad headaches - i hope it would break already, rain buckets and clear up so I can smile without hurting my eyebrows.

Just look at the following link and tell me those don't look delicious!!

I haven't tried these yet but heard about them through several friends. Although located in NYC, she does ship in the US. They are mini-cupcakes and are priced reasonably well for such a unique item. Would be a great addition to a wedding/baby or "I'm single and without child and Fabulous" shower (women need more those).

I am a big fan of great ad pop art, and love this website just for all the colorful little goodies framed in extreme closeup. Enjoy!

http://bakedbymelissa.com/#/flavorsandsizes/

How Finland became an education leader

Interesting post from Salon.com about education in Finland. We could use a different model right about now. My children are not that old yet, but I hear a lot of parents rail against the large amount of testing their kids do every year. I'd rather my children learn real life skills they will use : economical education (how to save, avoid debt, be smart with money), business models, several languages, creative arts, musicality (helps with memory and creative thought processes), physical education (yoga, running, some competitive sports is just fine with me), how to behave in social situations, respecting our elderly, compassion and empathy (emotional education including anger management), and required volunteering hours in order to graduate.

Have a wonderful day!

Link below:

How Finland became an education leader

Whatever you do, do NOT go outside right in Westcoast FL after 9 pm. It's a jungle out there. HOT, steamy, in general not nice. We have been doing to yard work on our back lot, moving mulch, making room for a grassy area, and there is nothing but beetles, skeeters, flies and wasps to be unearthed. We have seen a black snake slither across our porch, a rat snake out front, and several little field mice running around. We live in a normal suburb. If we lived out in the "country" like we both have talked about doing..these natural wonders would be expected and something to wonder at. Here, in a neighborhood, it's not so nice and cute. The 4 days of rain from last week awoke the beasts of the ground, and they are still hunting, getting as much as possible in case the next drought comes back.

I miss the cool weather. The mild air of fall, the breeze and hint of winter coming. The whisper of football weekends, nights in wondering at how cold it's going to get, and the chance to wear jeans and boots. Nashville gave us more than enough months of that. Looking for something a little more..in the middle.

Hope all of you are doing well tonight and have a great Sunday. Right now, after a full day of cruising through Clearwater to Clearwater Beach (haven't been there much lately) and the library to stock up on our weekly kids' movies, CD's and books, it was a very good day. We ended up at the mall, getting some items from sales and then after the whole family went home, I went to the gym the last hour it was open.

We wait with anticipation for fall. We go to our local Dunedin Causeway and Honeymoon Island often as normal, and have many good memories there. But now the time is here, the next few months are so hot that the water just doesn't cool one down enough. I have never lived near the Gulf where it is so placid. In PC the waves are usually kicking and the water is deep. Here, it is just as beautiful and lures you in with not many days of tidal swimming accidents. But this is the time...to find the movies, stay out of the heat, and bide our days until Fall arrives. Gator time, Ohio time (both in our house) and shorter evenings of fresh cool air flowing through the windows.

Hello and this is not the WSJ and Sex.

Just wanted to say hello to my old friends out there who stop by and read this blog. I appreciate your feedback, thoughts and giggles about it and hope it entertains you at times. I figure if you want the facts, read the Wall Street Journal, NY Times or even Facebook (there are a TON of experts on FB). A blog is just a ghost of diary and a shadow of a journal. I leave out huge parts of me and leave some room for you to fill in huge parts of you. Maybe leave room for relational thoughts and a moment to go "what?" or " I know exactly what she means". That's all. It's not here to educate and you do not need my expertise on - anything.

One a side note, my tutoring student and I had a church giggle tonight because the topic of sexual attitudes in the US was brought up between us. We discovered that we had the same viewpoint of the US. One kinky, fun, neurotic, exotic, experimental and sexual group of people who really are that way but are generally made to feel guilty due to our Quaker and Pilgrim roots. Sex on cable tv is either adultery or done before a big murder (after which Horatio comes to clean up the mess). What we meant is - how deeply neurotic we are and oppressed we are made to feel about feeling and being sexy beasts that we are. In northern European countries, children get a good talk about pregnancy prevention and similar topics and they educate their children on these things. As a general rule, we don't talk about sex but yet our kids see it all day on tv. Seriously check out cable or network tv sometime. And it's not "good sex" where people are laughing, hugging, enjoying themselves...it's usually some criminal or judgemental light put to the story line. There's not alot of "loving" sex (and I DO NOT mean just married people).

All I want to say to America is lighten up. Have fun, quit telling other people how to live, look at yourselves. If you're bitter, ask why. Have sex, have fun, be safe, read the WSJ sometime and stop being judgemental of others. I have gotten so sick of snobby people the past few years. It's like they popped up like weeds lately. The right to assume you know best for others is an idea that should have gone the way of the Pilgrim. It's time to work on ourselves, to be better, happier and then spread that feeling around. Not to be so arrogant and righteous as to be bitter at other's happiness. That is backwards. It doesn't work. I have seen people try to maintain a "friendly" appeal but their inner snob always come out, wafting out of their tight smile like smoke.

or maybe they just need a friend, for the night.

Yeats- reposted because I just noticed that previous poetry post didn't show up. Oops!

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Should kids be banned from restaurants?

I love Salon's column writers, not because I sometimes agree with them, but because they bring up interesting thinking points. I know kids can be annoying, but let's remember, at many of the very nice places we have dined at in the past during our travels, Phillip and I have seen adults act like totally out of control monkeys too.

It's all relative. Any person at any age can act childish. As a society we just notice the tots more because they scream, throw food at the floor, and whine while the adults dining have more subtle ways of showing their displeasure. passive aggressively arguing with their dinner partners, skipping a tip for a bad waiter, sending back food, asking for the manager, or making the waiter "run" in the duration of the meal. Not to mention the drinkers who don't realize their conversations aren't that funny, they aren't that smart, and they aren't important enough for everyone else to have to listen to.

that said....

In the end, I do think businesses should be able to decide what age customers it caters to. It is a form of discrimination, to a point....a logical point. If I want to go eat at a high-end place for romance and ambience, I should feel secure that some tot is going to ruin the mood. Now, if someone doesn't like this rule then they can vote with their money and go to a place where they can bring their children. It's free choice. I have worked at 4 restaurants (2 higher end and very busy), and watching people drag their kids to dinner when they should be in bed was never fun. It almost never worked out. Other patrons would have a ruined meal just because Mom and Dad were too lazy to get a sitter and make their kids meals at home. That said, I think businesses (again) should be allowed to make that choice. Child friendly to attract families, or child-free to assure patrons of a nice quiet dinner out. Hee hee "child-free".

Should kids be banned from restaurants?

one of my favorite poems.

I have many books of poetry, the first one I bought over two decades ago, and many others were given as gifts. Since then,I have bought a dozen annual anthologies of modern poets. I love those, and admire many poets who have emerged in the 1990's through now. However, Yeats tugs at my romantic heartstrings, and although some of his poems seem sentimental to some cynics, many of his works are, at their heart, very dire, very straightforward, and very compatico with any modern reader.

I invite you to read one of his works printed below, and also buy a book of his poems to keep at home. I have one that I got long ago in a bookstore in Panama City Fl decades ago. I have many other volumes now, of great poets. I enjoy sharing what I love, and poetry is always there, under the surface of the silly stuff I write about. My husband knows that I am returning to my roots when I am reading my poetry or old literature books.

Reading stuff on the internet is not the same as having a pile of good books to read. The physicality of holding a book (any book, even I delve into a good Jonathan Kellerman or Patricia Cornwell novel every month along with some great literature) and turning pages and reading type is not the same as looking at a monitor. It's about the experience of reading a poem the way it was meant to be read, especially ones before the advent of the internet. I have published this before but it bears repeating:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.

"Rapt": An icy-cool French kidnapping thriller

I love a good comedy especially one with snappy, right on, modern and even raunchy humor is ok if it makes sense....but I also love a well written drama/mystery/thriller like my old stand- by "Casablanca". My husband is also a film buff when it comes to watching these great foreign features and we even have certain directors we recognize who do outstanding work. I have always liked that about him (my husband). He's subtle, and he just sits and listens to people try to put on their airs, and he has a good chuckle about it later, and has great conversations with old and new friends, depending how un-snobby and pretencious that person may be (most of you who read this know exactly what I mean). I admire that and think it's cool how many wonderful foreign movies we have watched in the last ten years or so. This looks like a great new one.....see link below. We are both always game for some new film to stir our souls. It takes alot for a pair like us, we have seen alot, traveled alot and know a ton of different people. But a good film? We always look forward to those...Cannot wait to see this one!

"Rapt": An icy-cool French kidnapping thriller

mint juleps and Nancy Grace

I know alot of people who are in the public eye (from a t.v. show or news column, etc) really do try to actually bring attention to issues in our country. I also believe at one time, Nancy Grace was a pretty normal (for a lawyer) woman who got sick and tired of the large amounts of crimes against children and women in our country. She decided to do something about it. She got a show, and has slowly driven her crazy train towards the shallow end of the ocean.

I really did used to catch her on CNN and would be slightly amused, sometimes wary, and even sometimes touched by the amount of emotion she would show about the victims of horrific crimes. But then, I realized, just like someone watching Law and Order SVU reruns on a Sunday cable marathon, that the original intent of her message is lost in the close ups of gore, fantasy, unnecessary graphics, overindulgent talking heads, and silly interviews that do seem scripted.

It would be nice if someone would create a show (in her stead) that would lay out crimes so that a sane person could follow without feeling completely visual and mentally assaulted afterwards.

As someone who has always had an interest in court cases, crimes and enjoyed the law classes I took, I have empathy with those who felt emotional about this horrific Casey Anthony case. As time went on, like a bad soap opera, the original missing person crime turned into a messy daytime drama. It was ugly.

Maybe Nancy Grace will retire now to a 3 story on stilts over in Hilton Head and make organic soaps for her friends in between massages from a flown-in Swedish blonde hunk who even paints her toes Atlanta Red for her. They could watch the waves, gossip, play rummy, drink mint juleps and we'd never hear from her again.

That will never happen.

see link below for some general American wackiness. Don't let it upset you, it's just another helmet headed media nutjob who gets a whole hour to spew stuff. (thanks, whoever let this one out of Belview).

http://jezebel.com/5818628/the-best-of-nancy-graces-batshit-casey-anthony-coverage

Lilac Wine covered by Jeff Buckley

If would like a beautiful few moments of life..then just listen to this. I hear someone is trying to make a movie about this wonderful musician which always makes me nervous. Biographies are risky and someone this talented and young deserves a great actor, especially given he died so young.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yo3M2Z0tD0

Curious George vs. Casey Anthony

Today at 2 I was browsing through my FB account when I got top secret messages from some friends who knew I was interested in the Casey Anthony case. And NOT interested as in Nancy Grace, stand in line for hours to get inside courtroom and watch 24 news networks kind of interested. more of a ...ok so I have had to hear about this story for 3 years now so what's going on with it kind of interested. So the verdict is in. Not guilty. Alot of us are outraged. Knee jerk reactions and gut feelings pervade the airways and we get angry that this mean looking, dark haired mother witch has probably gotten away with murdering her daughter or disposing of her body after an accidental death.

Luckily, in our country, we are not supposed to convict someone due to feelings, knee jerk reactions and gut instincts. The prosecution never had enough evidence to link Casey directly to murder or even accidental death of her daughter. There was a TON of circumstancial evidence, all clearly showing a slippery slope of how her daughter may have died. Computer searches, weird after child goes missing tattoos, not telling anyone her daughter was missing, strange sudden recallings of incestial family ties. More of it popped up - body parts, duct tape residue, and the infamous smell of death. Unfortunately too much time had passed and alot of physical evidence was lost forever in the woods.

However, in the end we have to relent and listen to the arrogant bloated roosters that are Casey's attorneys that are on tv right now, Right? No, you can join me in my quest for sanity and flip to public television , where due to our wonderful free antennae service, my kids can watch Curious George and eat a snack. They can unknowingly enjoy a Mom who decided to turn off the trial, and watch the little monkey make, yet again, another mess. If the real life grown ups are going to act like pre-civilized creatures (the media and lawyers), I'd rather watch a cute one whose owner wears a yellow hat.

amusing article posted below- thanks Jezebel!

I am surrounded by our two main chiefs right now so this is a quick one. One has been in hot water for most of the afternoon so if they both can behave then a nice cold popsicle should mellow everyone out. Hope you are having a fun July 4. This one is the first in a while when we don't have big plans and it's kindof nice. I still have options open to take the kids to (things besides the later night fireworks like some open air festivals and parades) so we'll see. We already cut and pasted some flags and recited the Constitution by heart. Just kidding about the last part.

Have a good one and keep it on the road.

http://jezebel.com/5806750/how-to-be-a-vegetarian-at-a-barbecue

HELLO PEOPLE

Hope you are having a great July 4th weekend. I can tell the grasshoppers of FL are hoppin when I hear nothing but edgers, lawnmowers and blowers right now. It also means our first dry day in 5. Where to begin.

1. Our son went into the ER again this week. It sucked bad, for us and mostly for him. All wired up and stapled down while they tried to find the cause of his high fever which in turn caused him to have along seizure, during which I had a panic attack in the ambulance with him.

2. The above ordeal was not something we take lightly. Nick is fine now, but the past few nights I sleep with one ear open, not that it would help. I think about what he heard while in seizure, if he felt my hands on his head and chest, if he heard me whispering to him the whole way.

3. Now we are having to tackle some ignored yard work. We have made a vow to NEVER again buy a house, and furthermore when we do move again (and we will) to have a low maintenance yard. This one is great, but we just do too much out in the community and for entertainment to really need to have a large front and back yard someone has to constantly work on. I love plants, but in our smaller yards I was able to procure herbs and flowers all the same.

4. On that note, we are not going to buy another home for a while. We are way too mobile to have to deal with any plumbing, roofing or other issues. We have been lucky with this wonderful home so far, but now that our kids are growing fast, we'd rather spend our extra expenses on all the things we have put off for tow years- camping, traveling, fishing more, and visiting far away friends and family.

5. We are moving back to the panhandle within 6-8 months. We love it here and have made alot of great memories the past three years, including the birth of a son, lots of great parties in Brandon and here, U2 concert, Big Lebowski Fest, Crickateers friends and fun, and people we have met in downtown and Safety Harbor. Since last Thanksgiving, when we had a rather soulful visit to PCola and panhandle, we realized as we left that it was our basecamp and that our home here was more like a longterm vacation home. Things shouldn't feel that way. Plus, we like the panhandle locations because they are closer to New Orleans and ATL for future events or even moves. Old friends, old/ new friends we left behind and a ton of people I know are migrating back to the North (panhandle) after being gone decades. There are more reasons but we can discuss those in the future.

6. I do not understand why these people are in the news: the Kardashians, Ashton Kutcher, Angelina Jolie, the Teen Moms of MTV, Jersey Shore crew, and Gwyneth Paltrow (what an unfortunate name).

Most of these people are passing in their 15 minutes, but some fall under the category of celebrities who think that because they are in LA that they are experts on world issues such as poverty, etc. Most do not have college education, some do. Most live lives in a vacuum of managers, nannies, and photographers. Most have agents who donate their money to charities. Most are not good actors but still get decent roles. Most cannot carry a tune but people (family connections) still insert them onto music show duets and we are cringing for them. Egos are a great way to never feel scrutinized, and that must be a great feeling.

Jersey Shore- I've never seen it because we don't have MTV but the amount of internet cover stories they get is astounding. I wish them no harm but would like one weekend without getting on my beloved pc and seeing any of these silly people.

That's all for now- outdoors again to continue some yard work and then drive down to the beach for a stroll or snack.