Not related to rabbits

Obadiah's birth in March kicked of what has been a record year for population increase in our little family. Some might say our family is no longer little. Others have said we have never been little. Between our own four children, Steve and I now currently have seven grandchildren.

That does not seem possible. 

Obi was born to Michelle and William March 8

Andrew was born to Amanda and Todd May 18

Jackson was born to Luke and Katie June 17

And look how hard Daddy Luke worked for him!  Jax is such a cute little one -- almost too pretty to be a boy. I can't wait to see him and cuddle.

Multi-what?

When I make gravy, I stand over it like a hovering mother-in-law. I melt the butter and stir in and dissolve the bouillon, then I slowly add the corn starch and whisk. If I don't stir quickly with my little wire whip (or Teflon whip), the whole thing gets lumpy.  The most important part of the process comes next; letting the stuff simmer on a low (almost undetectable) heat until it's thickened to my liking.

That's what multi-tasking is all about for me. Most people think of multi-tasking as managing several tasks all at the same time, all efficiently. But that's not really accurate. Multi-tasking often requires being able to pay attention to more than one thing, but it also often means (for me at least) starting a task, digging in to it deep enough to get a good handle on its details, then setting it on my back mental burner for a few minutes, or an hour, or sometimes even a day.

For example, I find myself researching something on the web. I have a hard time making a decision about it, so I leave that window open and move on to something else. Sometimes I check my email, pay my bills, or even start another research topic. My original topic sits there, open in my browser, waiting for me to come back to it. If I close it, I'll forget about it, so I leave it open. Sometimes I walk away, thinking about it off an on while I feed the goats and play with Rosie. After dinner I come back, look at it again, then suddenly a decision occurs to me. I am now ready to finish the original task much more efficiently.

Of course, the down side to that sort of multi-tasking is the possibility of that back-burner item to become sorted from my "simmer" shelf on to my "procrastination" shelf. That's something I have to be very careful of.  That's when I need to stop trying to do so many things at once.

In other words, if I leave the gravy simmering too long, it's going to scorch and spoil. Then I"ll have to start all over again. Then my "simmer" method hasn't really saved me any time or effort at all. I really despise burnt gravy.

Let's ride bikes!

Rosie now rides a 3-wheeler -- she learned to pedal and can go pretty fast. She still hasn't figured out how to turn yet, so when she gets to the end of something, she gets off the bike and turns it around, then gets back on, but that's a start.

"Let's ride bikes!" she announces and points to my spot, nearly every time I go out with her.  She likes me to get on the exercise bike while she's riding her tricycle. We have a simple exerciser sitting on the back porch just for this purpose, hoping its accessibility would motivate us.

I don't mind Rosie's orders. It's good for me to get off my duff and move around some. And with that type of bike riding it's much easier to keep my eye on Rosie.

What's that lump?

Yesterday I was out watering the flowers and pulling weeds. Rosie was watching me, and saw me bend over my flower pot.

"What's that lump?" she asked.

"A mushroom," I told her, digging it out. "And it doesn't belong in my flower pot."

Last year Michelle let Rosie pick a mushroom and carry it around. That freaked me out a little bit. I let Michelle know that mushrooms are poisonous.

Not all of mushrooms are poisonous, of course, but I don't know the difference and I didn't want out little toddler demonstrating which ones aren't. 

I have a friend in Indiana who loves to go mushroom hunting. Weird hobby, but we've all got our quirks.

When I told my friend how many different kinds of mushrooms grow, here she got all excited and had me sending her pictures of some I had found. I didn't really care much if any of them are edible, the kind in the store suit me well enough and don't make me sick.

This pretty fungus was huge, larger than my hand, and had two more fellows like it growing nearby. But, no longer. My flowerpot is now fungus free, at least until the next time it rains a lot.

Feathered friend

Rosie's turkey came by for a visit today. He's a wild turkey, and not a neighbor's pet. But he comes right up to the house.

He's been by every day for the past couple of weeks.
Last summer a lone turkey started hanging around in our yard. We'd like to think it's the same one. We tend to get attached to our animals.

He's probably here because we haven't cut our lawn in a while and have lots of bugs.

Rosie gets excited when the turkey is out there. Today she said he was fat. That was just because he was fluffing his feathers.

Hopefully he'll stay on our property and not wander off to our neighbor's. I hear them out nearly every day taking "target practice" and it would be sad to have him be the target. I hope he's not as stupid as most turkeys. 

But I suppose that isn't likely.

Driving isn't so important

Ray Bradbury

I like having a car. I don't like being stranded. I don't even like driving a car I think might break down and get me stranded. Just the idea of that makes my mouth go dry.

I really like knowing without doubt that I can go where ever I mean to get, in the quickest way possible. That's why I learned to drive in the first place. But some people never learn to drive and that just amazes me.

My grandmother never drove. My aunt Ruby never had a license.  If they wanted to go to work, or the store, or to get their hair done, they had to wait till their spouses were around to take them. Weird.

But there are other, famous people that never drove. Here's a few of them. I find this fascinating, especially because, a lot of these people are trend-setters, go-getters, people with a life; busy professionals. Of all people, I would think they'd want to use as much modern technology as possible.  Like, maybe a car, instead of a bike.

Ray Bradbury never drove. He took us to futuristic cities and times, even to Mars, yet he never got a drivers license.

Woodrow Wilson, our past President. He just liked being driven around.  But what did he do after his presidency? hire a driver?

Mae West, an old time actress in Hollywood. She said she'd like to buy people a car now and then and let them drive her around.

Frank Phillips (who?). The founder of Phillips Petroleum. Wait, they make the fuel we run our cars on, and he doesn't drive?

Albert Einstein.  Genius? I guess even smart people can be a little stupid.

Salad eater

Alora is the funniest toddler.  She asked her mom the other day if she could have some salad. Amanda made a big bowl of it for herself, then some for Alora.

Alora ate hers, then asked for more. So Amanda shared.

When Amanda got her plate back there wasn't a bit of lettuce on it anywhere.

Such a big salad eater.

When I tell her she's so big she says, "Alora big" and shakes her head.

"Is Alora a big girl?"  I ask her.  "No, Alora small." she says, and then she nods. I'm supposed to interpret the body language along with the words. I love that girl.

Laguna wedding

Steve and I spent Sunday afternoon walking along the beach. We happened on this scene.  Look closely, it belongs on a magazine cover.

Can you believe?

SoCal prices

Wedding in Moorpark