The Three F's -Family, Food and Friends!

If you've followed my blog from way back when I first started blogging, you may remember that one of my favorite interests is family tree research. Two years ago this month, there were four geneologists from Sweden who came this area and showed off a really slick program by which -if you subscribe to it -one can access records of Swedish ancestors with a lot of speed and ease.

One lady in that group -Anneli Andersson, from Mellerud, Sweden -is the lady who helped me track my ancestry on my Grandpa Eld's side back to the early 1600's through church records which she copied and e-mailed me. That was almost ten years ago now and I met her for the first time when she visited this area with the three others two years ago. Last year, she and another lady came back to America and did a small workshop on Swedish family tree research over in Clearfield, PA and I got to see her again there.

Now, she is here again and this time, she has her fiance as well as her son with her and they will be visiting in this area for a whole week! They arrived Thursday, around noon, and are staying at the home of Janet Rydberg Larson -who was my typing teacher back in high school and who is also really into geneology as well as being pretty much the resident historian for the township where I live. So, I got to visit a little yesterday with Anneli, met her fiance and son and am really looking forward to being able to perhaps spend a little more time with her while she visits this region.

One thing in particular though that I am really hepped up about is a program that Anneli and a friend of hers in Sweden designed and received some type of grant money to put it into effect this coming school year. It is geared primarily towards students in the middle school range and is intended to teach the children about immigration -actually that should probably be emigration because they will be studying the people from Sweden who left their homeland many years ago and emigrated to America. And to do this in a way to help not just the Swedish children understand what problems existed that really forced so many of that nationality to come here primarily in the late 1800's, they also want to help the children learn about what the living and traveling conditions were for those people, what they encountered upon arrival here in New York, where they went from there and where they ended up settling and the type of work they found here too. But the big value of this program really is that it will help kids learn about other cultures and also, help the Swedish students to improve their communication skills in the English language.

To do this, Anneli wants to find a school -or perhaps a couple schools -in this country that had a fairly heavy concentration of Swedish immigrants, primarily coming here from the Dahlsland area in Sweden and this little area where I live is a prime example of that type of immigrants! Yep! That bill fits my great-grandparents and their family to a tee! So Janet Larson, her daughter-in-laws, Judi and Cathy and I are trying to find a way to convince our school district that this would be a very interesting and worthwhile program to give our students here a chance to learn about history, geography, world cultures, immigration -all those things -and also, to communicate via e-mail with the students in Sweden in this class and who knows, perhaps make some life-long friendship too in the process!

The week ahead is going to be very full, very busy for me, that much is for sure! Because my grandson, Alex, and Anneli's son Jonaton, are only a year apart in age and Alex is quite interested in perhaps participating in this program if possible, we had hoped the boys would be able to meet this weekend, but by the looks of things, that isn't going to come about as Alex has boy scout activities this weekend and the school district where he lives doesn't finish up until the middle of June so his dad won't permit him to miss a day of school so I can bring him up here to meet Jonaton during next week sometime.

Besides being engrossed much of this week in a new embroidery project I started -a 50x50 inch tablecloth which is simply a border around the entire cloth of strawberries, vines and leaves, as I mentioned in an earlier post yesterday, our Youth Ministry group is having a fund raiser today now -Saturday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. up at the grocery store parking lot in Kylertown. A car wash and a bake sale combined. The purpose of this fund raiser is to get needed money so that around 15 kids from our Youth Ministry group can go to Cincinnati, Ohio for a week where they will work in a setting kind of like Habitat for Humanity -helping primarily senior citizens by doing repairs or yard work around their homes there. A very worthy cause, that is for sure.

So today, I was one busy little beaver, baking the Swedish bread my family and I love -Swedish Limpa Rye bread. I made two batches of it -four loaves per batch and we polished off one of those loaves here tonight at supper! Kurtis and Maya both love the homemade bread and I cheated a bit and fixed a package of the Cheesy-noodles and tuna "helper" type mixes for supper -because I know they love that too so both kids had seconds on the casserole as well as downing a couple wedges of the bread too. Yeah, we all ate heartily tonight -for sure!


Here's a picture of the bread I baked today -all bagged up and ready to go up to the bake sale in the morning.

I also had some homemade pepper slaw that my friend Janet Larson got for me from the folks at her church as yesterday morning, she had been there helping them make this special slaw in preparation for a big fund raising dinner they are having there Saturday evening too. So, I had a feast of a big, big helping of that pepper slaw along with some fresh, Swedish Rye bread tonight too! Love that stuff.

But boy, you know what happens when one gets to eating way too much of the good foods like that too, don't 'cha? And if I keep eating good stuff like that the way I did tonight, I most certainly am going to be in dire need of some extra-special weight loss supplement, for sure, aren't I?

Oh and to top it all off, tonight, Mandy baked up some kind of chocolate chip cookies to take up to the bake sale on Saturday too! However, I didn't sample any of her baked goods as I figured I had stuffed myself well enough with the bread, tuna casserole and pepper slaw already! For once, I was able to exercise a little bit of will power anyway.

Anneli would like me to think of some "sights" in this area that I think might be interesting for her and her family to see while they are here and of course, don't you just know it but now, much as I love this area and think it is really nice, pretty and all that, I have gone pretty much braindead in trying to think of some places where they can visit that I can direct them to while they are here! I'm going to have to give that a bit more thought, for sure though.

She had learned already about a place over in the county to the east of us -Centre County -and there is a great tourist attraction there called Penn's Cave. This cave is visited by boat! Yeah, you get in a boat and it goes underground and you get to view all the attractions then inside the cave from that angle. And believe it or not, I have never been there! Lived here all my life and have never seen it! She decided they are going to go there next Thursday which means I can't go with them though as Mandy and I have to make a trip to Pittsburgh that day since I have a check-up scheduled with my great (also wonderful eye candy) surgeon there at UPMC, Dr. Hughes!

But, since my grandson isn't going to be allowed to miss a day of school and go with them too, I'm also trying to find another child in Jonaton's age range, preferably a boy, who would be interested in visitng Penn's Cave and keeping company for the day with a lad from Sweden who does speak some English but is not fully bi-lingual. If I were a child in that age range and this opportunity were presented to me, I would be so happy and excited to go there, to meet someone from another country -the whole nine yards. But thus far, the only boy from our church I've found in that age range is unable to go that day either as that poor kid has already been scheduled to see a foot doctor and have an ingrown toenail removed! Boy, I betcha he's wishing he could somehow weasel out of that appointment, don't 'cha think?

My son will be home sometime Saturday night too -until early Tuesday morning when he goes back out on the road so I'll be trying to figure out what I can cook and invite him and his girlfriend and her daughter down then for supper on at least one of the days he will be home. Gotta try to get some good family time in with him too, ya know.

So, wish me luck as I try to get the documentation Anneli has about this program she wants to hook up here with our school -and if that can't be done, then our Pastor has said our Youth Ministry can do the program as part of their outreach stuff. So one way or another, kids from our region are going to have what I think is really a fantastic opportunity to learn a lot about ancestry stuff plus gain some friendships on an international level through this program too. Oh, and an added bonus is that Anneli is also hoping to work things so that a year or two from now, she will return and bring some of the students participating in this program in Sweden here to meet the kids they will have been communicating with too!

I think that Saturday evening I am going to cheat on the cooking though, make things really easy for myself and talk Mandy into getting the kids alicked up a bit and we'll go and enjoy the roast beef dinner that will be served up at Janet's church across from our school. That way I can have a lot more of the delicious pepper slaw too then!

Yep! That sure does sound like a darned good game plan to me -no cooking, but good food, and a chance to visit with some darned good friends too over the meal.

Does all of this make your mouth water?

It sure does that to mine -already!

Now, I best get to bed so I can get up bright and early (that's the only drawback to the day for me -the getting up early) and take the bread and cookies up to the kids at the bake sale. I suppose I should break down and let them wash up the little old jeep of mine too while I am there -give them a chance to earn a couple more bucks too that way, huh?

So if you're anywhere in this area today -Saturday, May 30th -stop up at the parking lot by the Market Place store in Kylertown, get some good home-baked goodies and a car wash and support a really great cause in doing that!

Peace.

Of Weather, Kids and Even Memes

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm bloody well tired of this winter! The below zero temps between Thursday and yesterday wreaked a good bit of havoc all over the place.

Here, well yesterday morning was pretty much filled up for my son-in-law as he was busy trying to thaw out my Jeep and Mandy's Jetta. While he was trying to do that, a friend of ours who lives over in the back-side of town called, wanting Bill to come by his place to get his car started and then, the next-door neighbor's son asked Bill to see if he could get his car started too. The only one Bill couldn't help was the neighbor's kid as his car wouldn't even turn over.

Mid-way through the afternoon, Maya earned a slot on her mother's "Not-so-good" List by getting into the medicine cabinet and finding a slim bottle there that probably looked to her to be either lip gloss or fingernail polish but in actuality, it really is a little bottle of automotive paint in the exact shade of the hood of my jeep -a nice red shade! That shade then appeared on the edging of the changing table (which by the way is a nice light wood) and a blog of the paint also made its way to land in a big splat on the vanity and a few splotches in the vanity sink too! No, Mandy was not the least bit impressed by this latest artistic display of Maya's! Neither was Grammy for that matter.

That little bottle of paint is now on the very top shelf in the cellar way -which I can hardly reach so I don't think Miss Maya will be able to get to it and get it down for a long, long time now!

My son got home last night around 5 p.m. to a house where the furnace had run out of fuel sometime this week while he was on the road. Lovely, huh? He's just darned lucky he doesn't have hot water heat where the radiators could freeze up and burst on him! He and the son-in-law worked on thawing things out this afternoon and the only problems he ended up having were that the meter thingy had frozen and was leaking so they had to take that apart, weld it and then, put it back together. Then he also discovered there is a problem with the cold water faucet in his bathroom sink so he;ll have to go to the hardware store tomorrow and get a new faucet and fixtures for that I guess. Again, as I said above, he's just darned lucky more pipes didn't freeze and break on him!

Last night, for supper, we took the really easy route -sausage patties and pancakes! But, the fact it was an easy fix wasn't my only reason in making that but also, because I knew both kids would "sit up, shut up and eat" without anyone having to say word one to either one of them to do that! I had buttered one pancake, cut it up and given it to Kurtis and was in the kitchen by the griddle overseeing a couple more pancakes and happened to glance up at the kids. Kurtis was sitting in his chair at the table, with a big old butter knife in hand. I thought I had the butter knife well away from his plate but apparently it was close enough for him to grab and he used it then to nail himself another pancake! There he sat, knife in one hand, pancake in the other and gobbling away at the center of the pancake. It was half finished by the time I got to him and removed the knife from his little hand! Yep, as I said -I knew both kids would eat the pancakes with no coaxing necessary!

Today, I made a meatloaf (half ground beef and half ground venison), flattened it out and sprinkled shredded cheeses -mozzarella and cheddar -on it and then rolled it up -like a jelly roll to bake it -along with a big bowl of home-made scalloped potatoes with slivered onions in it. Broccoli and applesauce rounded out the main menu and for dessert,

While the potatoes were cooking and I was reading blogs here, I heard Bill talking to Maya out in the kitchen, asking her what she was doing. Seems she decided -after watching me peel the potatoes for the scalloped potatoes, that she wanted to help Grammy cook today as she had found the potato peeler and was trying her level best to peel some potatoes! Bill said she had one pared down to about the size of a french fry, but hey, at least she's watching, apparently learning how its done too! Wonder how soon I can turn the kitchen duties over to her now?

I fixed "Tandy Cake" - a recipe I got from Empress Bee's blog post the other day. Ya'll know Empress Bee and how she does love her cake, don't ''cha? Well, let me tell you this -little Kurtis definitely appreciated Bee's Tandy Cake too -very much so, he did, as evidenced in these pictures Mandy and I took of him as he sat, with a hunk of cake in each hand, shoving it in his little mouth and chocolate and peanut butter smeared all over his sweet little face.


After he finished the cake, he then struck this fancy pose -foot up on the table to give a little "down home" look I guess as he proceeded to try to lick any remaining chocolate and/or peanut butter from his fingers, hands, probably from his arms too, for that matter.
In this shot, I think by the look on his face, he was kind of trying to send a signal that we should supply him with another hunk of that cake. Not tonight, baby -but for sure, you can have a piece tomorrow!



After supper though, he gave us one heck of a fright. Bill was working upstairs -spackling on the wall where he and Mandy had changed the doorway to their bedroom and Kurtis was at the foot of the stairs, chattering away at his Dad. I heard him moving around a bit and called to him to get away from the steps and at the same time, his Dad turned around to warn him to get away, and even more specific, to not try climbing up the steps but those little feet can really move quickly when he wants them to and he was by that time, half-way up the stairs when he then lost his footing and came tumbling down in a crash landing at the foot of the steps. I ran to the steps and picked him up just as Bill reached there. Poor little guy! Aside from the fact that I'm sure it was a bit of a painful roll down the stairs, he had also scared the living daylights out of himself too. Screamed bloody-blue murder, he did! Mandy did a once over on him, checking for anything obvious that he may have injured in his fall but found nothing except that we figure he must have bumped his mouth against his teeth as his mouth was bleeding a tiny bit -just enough injury there most likely to upset him a bit more ya know.

And that's what I've been dealing with here over the past two days. Now, on to the other thing I mentioned in the title to this post -Memes!

Normally, I don't do memes. I enjoy reading them when others do them, but the majority of them -particularly those where you are to mention 50 things about yourself that are weird or exciting or whatever and those, I hate. I also tend to ignore them too if someone tags me with one of those cause they immediately tend to make my brain freeze up completely and at my age, I can't deal with any more braindeadness than is already in full bloom, ya know.

However, a Blogger Buddy of mine posted one yesterday and tagged me for it and this one I think I can handle.

Here's the instructions, per Morgan at her place -All I' Have to Say --
All you have to do is list six things that make you happy and then tag three other bloggers. Now that is my kind of meme!

So, here's my six things:

1. Having my three kids -Carrie, Clate and Mandy!
2. Having my grandkids -Alex, Maya and Kurtis.
3. Having my daughter Mandy, her husband, Bill and the two younger grandkids living here with me.
4. Being able to watch Maya and Kurtis as they each are learning so much, so quickly now, and seeming to be responding very nicely thanks to all the therapists they both have had helping them, and the teachers Maya has who work with her at the school she attends. For anyone reading this who isn't aware of this, both these two little grandkids of mine are autistic and to me, they are also just plain, pure and simple, Amazing and Awesome too!
5. Chino - the somewhat simple-minded cat we have! Sweet, cuddly, loveable and also about a silly as any cat can possibly be!
6. Friends -in person, bloggers, old ones, new ones!

And considering what I'm doing most of the time when I'm not playing on the computer, reading blogs, posting here, I have to add a 7th thing that makes me happy -embroidery, or crafts -knitting, sewing, crochet -along with reading, which I haven't really done much of the latter due to the blog stuff and the embroidery!

Now -to take 3 other bloggers huh?

Ok -here goes:

Linda at These Are the Days
Tee at The Diva's Random Thoughts
Jocelyn at O Mighty Crisis
and anyone else who wants to share six things that make them happy too!

Oh -before I forget -remember the issues I was grumping about the other day with respect to my wacky sleep patterns? Well blogger buddy Suldog commented that perhaps I should try melatonin. This is really funny because you see, we have melatonin here and give it to both the kids -religiously, every night to help them to calm down, fall asleep and hopefully for Kurtis, to help him sleep through the night so as not to upset what ever sleep pattern old Grammy might be in every night. Yep -have it here, handy -in the kitchen -and I never even thought of taking it myself! There's a whole lot of braindead space going on in my pea brain, as you can readily see! So last night, I tried it and managed -thanks to the melatonin -to get over 5 1;2 hours of uninterrupted sleep in -felt fairly decent when I woke up this morning except for the fact I was stiff and sore as all get out but hey, that's all part of getting old and much, much grayer, isnt it"

And one more thing -the "Tandy Cake" as recommended by Empress Bee -just bake a yellow cake, slather a layer of peanut butter on top of the cooled cake and then, top that with a batch of chocolate icing! Yep! Pretty doggone good stuff it is! Thanks, Bee, from me -and also, from Kurtis too!