On the farm...

Although I love browsing through Treasuries on Etsy, I rarely make one. (I don't think I'm that good at it, and it seems to take me forever.) Here is my latest attempt at curating a collection - inspired by memories of the visits to my Grandparents farm.

Everything was always a bit more "special" when we were at Grandma & Grandpa's house - from buttered toast on the pastel colored melmac dishes, to grape juice in the pretty little juice glasses. Fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers in a creamy dill sauce. Chasing kittens around the yard, playing house in the little old outbuilding with mismatched china and whatnot. Stringing notes down through the floor vent from upstairs - down to the living room below. Climbing on the haystacks. Screaming when we found a spider, cricket or box elder bug - and Grandma coming to the rescue. She was such a pretty woman with dark hair, sparkling blue eyes - and she always smelled so good. (Even when she smoked her Salem Menthol cigarettes.) At lunchtime, we had to be especially quiet for the market reports on KeloLand - so grandpa could get "the dirt" on all things related to his cattle business.

What are some of your favorite summer/childhood memories?

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The Promise of New York ... smart ... irreverant ... just how I like 'em

This is a really great, grassroots film... "a film of the people, by the people, for the people". Irreverant. Smart. (doesn't get any better than that, eh?)

If you live near Newburg, New York - there will be a screening of the movie at the Downing Film Center on Oct 5th, with a Q&A session to follow with the film's director, Raul Barcelona.

My multi-talented cousin, Cassie (Cassandra Hohn), produced it. (...on a side note, the girl can sing like nobody's business! Multi-talented, she is!!)

From the mouths of babes ...

I've been trying to post more regularly, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to post anything today. It just didn't seem right, although I didn't want to ignore the day either. After reading one of my favorite blogs today and leaving a comment on her post about today's anniversary, I decided I needed to post.

Earlier this week, on my birthday to be exact, my 3rd grader said "This Friday is the anniversary of the day the planes hit the Twin Towers. Did you know that's why they call it 9/11 - because it happened on September 11th?" It was such innocence. He was just a baby when it happened, and it hadn't occurred to me that I would need to "connect the dots", so to speak, for him.

As I was watching MSNBC this morning, they were replaying the coverage from 8 years ago ... the raw pain of watching the tragedy unfolding was just so heartbreaking, all over again.

UPDATE 9/12: A thoughtful post over here by one of my favorite bloggers, Ava of Serendipitous Freelance Writer. She also links over to a captivating post by someone who was in the 2nd Tower when the 1st Tower collapsed.

Weekend Warrior ...

So this is part of what our family did this weekend ... watched the oldest son play high school football in the 19th annual President's Bowl. This is D as his name was read as part of the starting line up... pointing to the crowd before heading down the row/tunnel of his teammates. We are immensely proud of him and all of the hard work he has put in over the years.

My aunt had sent out the roundup-call via email -- so there were plenty of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends on hand to cheer him on. :) (I don't think any of them read this blog, but if they should happen to stumble upon this post, here's a big THANKS to all of you very special people!)

One of our dear friends, "Rem", who is nearly part of the family (thanks to my cousin Amy), sent a text prior to the game and asked that I forward it on to D. I swear, as goofy as this sounds, it nearly brought me to tears. (and I do not cry...) Rem is a soft spoken, bear of a man who played football on a collegiate level and ranks quite high on our son's scale of what a man should be. His opinions and advice are important to D, more so than anything I could ever say... and probably even his dad. Here's the text ... I think it's those last few lines that nearly got me:

"Please forward to D: D, play hard & fundamentally. Finish your blocks. Watch the ball all the way into your hands. Run your patterns perfectly. Fundamentals will help you win. I am very proud of you. I will be there tonight. Play hard every play."

The Three Amigos ... Aqua is the new Quatro

Aren't these little guys adorable?
I overheard them trying to count to ten in Spanish. It went something like this... "uno... dos... tres... aqua... cinco..."