The way to love someone
is to lightly run your finger over that person's soul
until you find a crack,
and then gently pour your love into that crack.
~Keith Miller

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

THE family cookie recipe ... yes chocolate chip!


Heat oven to 350.
Everything goes in to one large mixing bowl.
  • 1 stick of sweet cream salted butter (at room temperature)
whip it with a big fork 'till fluffy
  • 1 Tablespoon (C uses less but that's not a typo) Authentic MEXICO VANILLA

whip it in to the butter
  • 1 cup of white sugar
  • 1/4 cup light brown sugar (packed!)
whip both in to butter till smooth
  • one egg (use the best eggs you can find)


cream the egg in to the butter sugar mixture

  • 1-1/2 cups of flour
  • 1 scant teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
put the flour on top of the sugary ingredients, then the soda and salt
"fork" the dry ingredients together
before combining all together by hand (with that same big fork)

  • 1 cup chocolate chips (or pieces) or combination or substitution of M&M's, toffee brittle, white morsels, peanut butter chips, whatever you prefer.
  • 1 cup of nuts - I love to use pecans, but salted macadamia nuts are great as are cashews!
combine all, spoon out cookies on to an ungreased cookie sheet and cook at 350 degrees for 15-17 minutes.  As soon as you can smell them they are probably done.  Cool and enjoy!
~makes 26 pretty big cookies~




Subtle variations to your cookie recipe can make the difference between a thin and crispy cookie versus a soft a chewy one.

Brown Sugar.  Use a high ratio of brown sugar to white sugar.  Instead of using one cup of white sugar, try 3/4 cups of brown sugar combined with 1/2 cups of white sugar.  What makes sugar brown?  It is molasses.  Molasses loves moisture (a chewy cookie's best friend).  

Shortening.  Use shortening over butter.  Shortening melts at a higher temperature than butter, giving the batter time to rise and retain moisture.   If you want to retain the butter flavor, use butter-flavored shortening.  Alternatively, you can split the difference (use half butter and half shortening).

Eggs Yolks.  Add an egg yolk to the recipe.  Egg whites dry out quickly when baked, causing you to lose needed the needed moisture for your chewy cookie .

Baking Powder.  Use baking powder over baking soda.  The cookie will spread less, since powder is more acidic than soda.  The thinner the cookie, the greater the moisture loss.

I like thin and crispy cookies.
Adding "extra" vanilla makes my batter slightly less dense.


Monday, August 29, 2016


There are moments 
when all anxiety and stated toil 
are becalmed 
in the infinite leisure and repose of nature. 
~Henry David Thoreau





Saturday, August 27, 2016

Notes on The Power of Less ~ Productive Minimalism

The Power of Less by Leo Babauta

1. If you want to work effectively, limit yourself to the essential.
2. If you want to concentrate on what is necessary, get your priorities in order.

  • what are my values and goals
  • what is important to me? What do I love?
  • What has the biggest influence on my life?
  • What things have the biggest influence in the long term?
  • What do I need? What do I desire?
  • refine towards what are my main goals?
  • Which of my obligations are essential?
  • How does where I am currently spending my time support my goals/desires?
  • Where do I need to focus my efforts to support my goals/desires? 
If you know your priorities, you can judge how important all your tasks, projects and other obligations are.

3. To support your priorities, you must make decisions and hold to them.
4. If you want to change your life you must change what you're doing - build new habits.

  • limit yourself to focusing on one habit at a time, consistency is the key to creating new habits.

5. Habits are developed slowly, and reinforced over time.
6. Focus on one success at a time, breaking goals down in to steps.

  • setting goals is easy: achieving them is difficult because we have limited energy, focus, and motivation.

7. Stay focused on the current step towards your goal.

  • start the day taking care of the most important tasks that support the goal you are currently working towards.
  • Don't time share on the task - do what you are doing.  That allows us to concentrate on the task which is like meditation, helping us to stay in the "now" and enjoy it.

8. Start every day with the three most important steps.

  • We don't do "projects" we do "tasks".  Concentrate on that task while you're doing it and limit the time given to that task to no more than 30 minutes at a time.  Small time commitments are easier to adhere to on a habitual basis. Tasks support projects, projects move us closer to our goals.

9. Identify and isolate distractions that don't support your goal.

Friday, August 26, 2016

today I flew

 Today I woke up around 5 and the first thing I thought was ... Will the WX allow my flight today.

Airfield at Taylor
Right pattern - little bitty strip
this is where I would have flown with my brother
drove by here everyday between his home and Momma's.
Corn country ...

concentrating ...
I don't know where I got that very serious nose!
new home field



Thursday, August 25, 2016

Fact Folks vs "Feelings, nothing more than feelings... ."

afactheadinsand.jpg
"For the age 60 and above, the early Boomers and their parents, facts remain very important and feelings, while important, are thought not very reliable. Emotions are to be controlled and overcome, they are not to be a guide.
"For post-Boomers, especially those born after 1980 or so, feelings are predominant, and the younger of that group the more important feelings are. This is also the cohort that was raised in the thick of the self-esteem movement, being told they are special (you know, just like everyone else). They received praise and rewards just for showing up (participation trophies, anyone?).
"They are very, very heavily into social signaling by where they live and where they vacation and by what their children do. They absolutely dominate their kids, who typically have little choice in what activities they will do and when.
"The younger sets of this group, born after the early 90s, have also learned (having been actually taught) that the cult of victimhood is the most important status of all. They are on high alert for reasons to be offended and when they are, it is for slights, real or imagined, that mystify the 60 cohort.
"Victimhood demands recompense so there is no hope of forgiveness unless the offender crawls on his belly like a cold reptile to beg for it. But forgiveness is never unconditional. The hatchet may be buried, but the handle protrudes skyward so it can be easy to recover.
"It is very much and honor-shame dynamic where all interactions are zero-sum. Where they are on the totem pole if always of concern and they are acutely aware of who is above or below. And woe betide those whom they think are below.
"I think of it as the 'Veruca Salt' generation. They are demand oriented. Their magical thinking is that merely because they want something, it should be granted. They react strongly negatively to being asked for facts and logic to support their contention because in their minds, 'I feel very strongly about this so why are you asking for facts?' 



HT ~ "AMERICAN DIGEST Essays, News, Notes, and Quotes
 "There isn't time, 
so brief is life, 
for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. 
There is only time for loving, 
and but an instant, 
so to speak, for that." 

~Mark Twain

Light/ceiling fan


All of the following fixtures are available through LOWES.














Wednesday, August 24, 2016

fly!

 This pic just "popped up" today.  That's my C, aka Four here, and yes, she is a beauty.  I don't see her often so the beauty aspect jumped out at me too.  What I especially see though is joy.  She is enjoying that specific flight because I fly.  If I weren't a pilot she wouldn't have been in that air that day.

It's been rough for me getting back in to the air ... over here in Texas.  I used to wake up every morning with a first thought being "do I fly today".  Maybe that should be a question mark.  Anyway ... I never wake up thinking about that.  I went from that to waking up wondering if my brother would die today ... there were so many mornings like that that it erased the flying "wonder".
When I finished my CFI I just knew I would be able to teach my little brother how to fly.  That and rebuilding an old truck were things we talked about a lot before we found out he was sick.  All I had to do was get back over here to Texas and ... .
Being in the Texas air without the prospect of ever flying with him just ... hurts.  I grieve.  
I've been trying to figure out how to handle the places where "hurt" is for me.  I think I've been thinking about it wrong.  Less effectively than I could be.  I think I've been tending towards figuring out how to avoid "hurting" places rather than how to smooth them out, stretch them out, air them out so they don't hurt.  That is not my strategy with fabulous shoes!  With fabulous shoes I am willing to wear them a little while at a time, I'm willing to break them in, I'm willing to do the work.  I know that's a silly analogy, but ... it reminds me that I am willing to get past the "hurt" in some areas.

Flying ... none of my kids wants to learn how to fly.  Some of them think it's great fun to be in a small airplane, but none of them really loves flying.  The rental fee on a plane is enough money for lots of fun elsewhere.  Just "staying current" is costly (much less staying or in my case, re-getting proficient).  I knew when I stopped flying to help Tommy that I might be saying adios to flying.  My husband wants me to feel free to spend the time and money it's going to require for me to get happy with my skills again.  I see it as a money pit.  And I feel guilty about that.  Flying is something that I think doesn't benefits my family.  Even if I instruct it is at best a break even proposition for me.

I also have that cataract that I've been putting off seeing to - how will a new lense "fly".  So ...

  1. I feel bad about not having the opportunity to fly with my brother and that reminds me that life can really suck in totally unexpected ways.
  2. I feel bad about how rusty my skills are and uncertain about how much it's going to cost to get back up to speed.
  3. I feel guilty about spending time and money on just "me".
  4. I don't like being "sucky" in the airplane and I especially don't like being "sucky" in the airplane with a stranger.  I never like feeling vulnerable.  Working with a stranger on something I used to be really good at but now I'm not feels kinda "icky".
  5. There are no guarantees that I will be physically fit enough to fly long enough in to the future for me to rationalized the expense of the investment. For what it's going to take I could buy a whole new really awesome kayak that everyone would enjoy.
  6. I don't have any flying buddies over here.  I'm not sure I want flying buddies. 
Then I accidentally see this picture today.  I should do the work and take the chance.  I should let myself love flying again.  I really should let myself.

I did schedule a Flight Review on Friday.  I interviewed the guy first.  I think he's gonna be just fine.  Vietnam era AirForce guy, kind of a weekend instructor pilot now I'd say.
I have my FIRC coming up and I'm thinking about going up to Dallas to tend to that rather than doing it from my living room comfy chair.  I'm really a shy person - it's not thrilling for me to "get out there".

Pictures of the air around here will be forth coming.

When I saw that picture this morning I thought ... I should keep those opportunities available to my people.  And, I should do that for myself too.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Providence








I know you see me, Im just like you
I know you see me, im just like you
Im just trying to make my way
I gotta feelin that you can relate
And dont talk much, shoot straight
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Maybe you been caught out once before
Maybe youre an angel disguised
Maybe you got room to spare
Maybe youre the one that dont just stare
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Glad to see you comin I got nothing to hide
Cos Im tryin to get to providence
not matter the cost
If I dont make it there
Ill....
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Maybe youve been caught out once before
Trying to get to Providence
I know what for
But Im out in the cold

Providence:




I really like the idea of "Providence".  And ... with the notion of P/providence, I wonder how many untold, unshared, stories are there out there, or even in here, which are not told because we don't "do" our stories alone.  We do our stories with other people.  We don't tell our version of the story because our story is not ours alone.  Like ... I fell the other day and I noted that but ... I fell all by myself.  I could write about that.  When I fall with someone else ... or when I fall and some one else catches me ... or when falling people splat on me ... I can't write about that because that's someone elses story too.  

It's too bad that stuff can't be shared, because I think it would help if we could really see each other.  And I think if we could see each other, if we really allowed ourselves to be seen, that we could see God more easily.  I'm thinking we could see ... maybe not God, but ... where He'd been recently.  What became better ... because of His care.  

I read something I wrote back several years ago (not a published note and really, I should destroy it because it's ... well, I wouldn't mind if my kids read it later, or guaranteed strangers read it now, but it's one of those things that people would look at you differently if they read it and I wouldn't like anyone seeing that deep into my "me", and that's what I'm talking about - too bad we can't really share our stories.  Too bad, because if we could we would be encouraged.  

My kid, V, and I have been hanging out alone these past several days while my husband is out doing consulting work.  I have been "chilling" in my chair listening to music and watching old TV on my laptop.  She has a few last few days before school starts back things to do.  She is letting me glue pre-printed Chemistry things on cards.  Front and back.  It's funny to me that my last kid has so many of my study idiosyncrasies.  I didn't tell her.  She just does it that way.  Makes perfect sense to me!  Because I am drinking (was) a martini while I cut and glue she is surreptitiously watching me, making certain that the word on front matches the formula on back.  Pretty amusing.

I'm taking pictures of her (because she is just so precious and I know she won't be studying here at home for many more years where do they go before she is away at college.  She took these of me sitting in my chair.  Tonight I asked her what she would think of the idea of me joining the Peace Corps or something like after her first year away. She said she thinks I should find some volunteer work right here where I live.  

My FIRC is coming up.  I'm still thinking about if I want to start flying all the time again.  I really don't know.  

I do feel pretty relaxed about everything.  Well, most of the time.  

(I put that martini in a bullet blender with a bunch of ice.  It's like a slushy. Don't judge.)

Providence








I know you see me, Im just like you
I know you see me, im just like you
Im just trying to make my way
I gotta feelin that you can relate
And dont talk much, shoot straight
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Maybe you been caught out once before
Maybe youre an angel disguised
Maybe you got room to spare
Maybe youre the one that dont just stare
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Glad to see you comin I got nothing to hide
Cos Im tryin to get to providence
not matter the cost
If I dont make it there
Ill....
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Cant you see me wavin Im flaggin a ride
Maybe youve been caught out once before
Trying to get to Providence
I know what for
But Im out in the cold

Providence:




I really like the idea of "Providence".  And ... with the notion of P/providence, I wonder how many untold, unshared, stories are there out there, or even in here, which are not told because we don't "do" our stories alone.  We do our stories with other people.  We don't tell our version of the story because our story is not ours alone.  Like ... I fell the other day and I noted that but ... I fell all by myself.  I could write about that.  When I fall with someone else ... or when I fall and some one else catches me ... or when falling people splat on me ... I can't write about that because that's someone elses story too.  

It's too bad that stuff can't be shared, because I think it would help if we could really see each other.  And I think if we could see each other, if we really allowed ourselves to be seen, that we could see God more easily.  I'm thinking we could see ... maybe not God, but ... where He'd been recently.  What became better ... because of His care.  

I read something I wrote back several years ago (not a published note and really, I should destroy it because it's ... well, I wouldn't mind if my kids read it later, or guaranteed strangers read it now, but it's one of those things that people would look at you differently if they read it and I wouldn't like anyone seeing that deep into my "me", and that's what I'm talking about - too bad we can't really share our stories.  Too bad, because if we could we would be encouraged.  

My kid, V, and I have been hanging out alone these past several days while my husband is out doing consulting work.  I have been "chilling" in my chair listening to music and watching old TV on my laptop.  She has a few last few days before school starts back things to do.  She is letting me glue pre-printed Chemistry things on cards.  Front and back.  It's funny to me that my last kid has so many of my study idiosyncrasies.  I didn't tell her.  She just does it that way.  Makes perfect sense to me!  Because I am drinking (was) a martini while I cut and glue she is surreptitiously watching me, making certain that the word on front matches the formula on back.  Pretty amusing.

I'm taking pictures of her (because she is just so precious and I know she won't be studying here at home for many more years where do they go before she is away at college.  She took these of me sitting in my chair.  Tonight I asked her what she would think of the idea of me joining the Peace Corps or something like after her first year away. She said she thinks I should find some volunteer work right here where I live.  

My FIRC is coming up.  I'm still thinking about if I want to start flying all the time again.  I really don't know.  

I do feel pretty relaxed about everything.  Well, most of the time.  

(I put that martini in a bullet blender with a bunch of ice.  It's like a slushy. Don't judge.)

Friday, August 19, 2016

Meeko

This story must begin with a confession - I am not a "cat person".

Cats have sharp claws, darting, and disconcertingly odd eyes.  Cats kill on instinct, or maybe pleasure, I'm not sure, but either way is disturbing.  Cats make alarming sounds, sometimes for no apparent reason, or, and frequently, slink around soundlessly on silent feet.  Cat's think leaving a small dead animal in your favorite outside chair is a nice thing to do.  Cats are a little creepy.

This cat ... Meme ... joins me in the kitchen first thing every morning.  I turn on the stove top and freshen up the water in the kettle while he circles around my legs.  Sometimes he purrs while he's doing that, sometimes he meows, softly, as not to wake up the household.  He eats the tiniest bit of the wet food I put down for him everyday while I wait for the water to boil then he calmly nibbles at the dry food which is kept out continuously. I ignore him while I press the coffee and fill my cup with steaming delicious hotness  and just the littlest bit of half and half.  I'm thinking about that first cup.  I'm still in my robe and I'm headed for "my chair" where I will sip coffee and get set for the day.  Sometimes I write out a list of things to do.  I'm supposed to be having quiet time, but lots of days I'm already racing ahead even before that first taste.

This cat is making himself part of my routine.

He's smaller, lots smaller than the other cat who I feed.  Shadow.  Shadow is really big.  He's the cat we have because I raised sweetheart children who won't walk away from helping set a wrong right.  I guess they are both rescue cats.  Shadow came to our house in a box with his two brothers and we bottle fed them, and heating blanketed them ... I began reading up on how to care for orphaned kitties ... and I guess despite my misgivings, aversions, I guess I started loving them.  I understood how it happened, but I was dismayed to be part of a three cat family.  Then ... one of them died suddenly in a accident at our home.  Gosh it was sad.  My little girl, V, was supposed to leave for camp the next day and we all decided that it would be best for her to carry on with her plans even in the face of that first grief.

At the end of that camp week, just prior to pulling in for the end of the week festivities that are always scheduled before luggage loading, this pinged in on my phone: "Mom, I need to talk to you before V sees you."  That's about what the text message said.  The one I received from "big sister" who was spending the summer at that camp as a camp counselor.  I had no idea what to think.

I was hurried into the camp directors office as soon as I arrived at the camp where "C" and a couple of other young women were crawling around on the floor.  Yeah, it looked weird.  "Okay, so a tiny kitten wandered up last night we don't have time to take it to the humane shelter before the next batch of campers gets here and we can't keep it because we can't have a stray animal here with the campers arriving can you take it with you because none of us have time to get away and I know its not a good time because V had a sad week up here about that kitten dying and she may think I'm trying to set up a replacement kitten but" big breathe, "I'm not.  It's just that I know you'll help... if we can find that little wild one"  she said resuming the search.  It  seemed to me that the only place they hadn't looked was under a bookshelf.  I got down and pressed my face against the floor peering into the dark.  Sure enough, something shiny, like maybe cat eyes ... I repositioned myself and stretched my hand towards the opening on the furniture.  "No Mom!  Stop!  He claws and bites like a little maniac! One of us will get him out!"  Charming.  Yeah, everything I especially dislike about cats.

They got him out.

He was a little tiny black thing with dull patchy fur, feral eyes, and a rusty colored gash across his mouth slicing through his nose up towards an ear.  His voice was raspy, faint, but heart wrenchingly desperate with fear. They wrapped him up in a hand towel.  I said okay.  I said I needed to find VeeVee and explain the situation to her first, but, okay, we'd get him to the shelter. When I came back for him after getting my daughter situated in the car for the ride home he was practically lifeless.  My first thought was he's not going to make it to the drop off and we'll have another dead kitten on our hands/hearts. I held him, took the towel off of him, he barely responded to that even though the girls warned me to be careful, he might get away again.  I thought his last bit of energy had already been spent.  I could feel every little bone in his rib cage as he rested in my palm. I ran a finger down his spine and felt his frail little legs.  Black cat hair fell away as I touched him.  Poor little thing.  I very gently wrapped him back up and headed outside praying he would make it to the shelter.  My kid held him in her lap for the ride home.  I had intended to take him to the nearest shelter, but she wanted to just take him to the one in our town (about three hours away).  Close to home he rebounded some, leaping from her lap and disappearing under the seat.  We decided to "fish" him out from our driveway rather than at the shelter - he wound up inside our home where he "disappeared" for another day or two.  Even though I hadn't seen him, I knew where he was hiding and I wanted to put a food bowl near by for him.  My husband said put it in the middle of the room, that he'd come out when he got hungry enough. And he did.  I decided that if the other two kittens would accept him without a ruckus we'd nurse him up before dropping him off at the shelter.

We wound up keeping him.

This is his fourth summer with us.

He really is V's cat.  Cat's seem to select a primary "person" and he very obviously adores her.

This is what I've noticed about him - He's "happy" or content, content is a better word, I don't know if cats do "happy".  He exudes gratitude.  Shadow believes he is entitled.  Meeko (aka MeMe) is just thankful.  He has quirks that must be scars left by his "before us" memories.  He is afraid to be held near a door.  Like ... he tenses up if I'm holding him and I open a door to outside.  He likes all of us a lot, but he hides if there is a guest in the house.  He tends to prefer being outside at night, but he is always waiting at a door to come in in the morning.  Shadow is less reliable.  He is an excellent hunter, fearlessly running straight up a tree for a better vantage point.  Shadow isn't a motivated hunter.  He's more of a sunbather.  Meek is a cuddler, with a eye towards who is sitting down for awhile so he can join them,  Shadow will let you scratch him if he feels like it.

Meeko waits for me to sit down with my coffee and then he walks right up to my chair and stops, he waits, as though asking, before he leaps up to the space beside me that I've made for him.  He's still.  Purring, he leans in to my hand if I pet him, otherwise he is just there, content, purring.

He had a bad start.  He remembers things I know nothing about.  He's an overcomer.  He is thankful.  I don't think he frets about the future, or even plans his day.  I think he's just glad in the moment.  Seems that way.  I like the lessons he shares in our home.

Shadow
off by himself
(in my bed which I don't like and he knows it)
looking like I'm disturbing him ... .
 

Thursday, August 11, 2016

apparently random things from my notes

Prisma - from a photo

~0~

The French writer, Saint-Exupery, in his book, The Little Prince, catches the beauty of friendship in the form of a fable. 

The Little Prince meets the Little Fox. They sit down but keep distance carefully. The Little Fox suggests that they be friends. The boy answers, “We are different; I am afraid, you are afraid…”  The fox answers, “You look at me askance, very slowly, and we be very quiet. Then after a long time you come next to me and talk to me, very softly, and then we are friends…”


~0~0~0~


St. Paul in one of his epistles says that we must make haste to live because time is deceptive. We live all the days of our life as though we were writing hastily, carelessly, a draft of life that one day we will copy in fair hand. It is as though we are just preparing to build, collecting all that will later be organized into beauty, harmony, and meaning…. But years pass and we never do it.

This is not only because death comes, but because  at every period of life we become unable to do what the previous period would have allowed us to do. It is not in our mature years that we can achieve a beautiful and meaningful youth, as it is not in old age that we can reveal to God and to the world what we might have been in our years of maturity. 

There is a time for all things, but once the time has gone, these things can no longer be done.

Victor Hugo said that there is fire in the eyes of the young, but there should be light in the eyes of the old. The time of the glowing fire passes, the time of light reaches us, but when the time of being a light has come, we can no longer do those things that can be done only in the days of our flaming. 
Time is deceptive. 
When we are told that we must remember death, it is not in order to give us a fear of life; it is in order to make us live with all the intensity that we could possibly have if we were aware that every moment is the only moment we possess…. 

And so the remembrance of death seems to be the only power that makes life ultimately intense.
–Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, From Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World
ht Gladsome Lights
~0~0~0~0~0~




in·tense
inˈtens/
adjective
  1. 1
    of extreme force, degree, or strength.
    "the job demands intense concentration"
    synonyms:extremegreatacutefierceseverehighMore
  2. 2
    having or showing strong feelings or opinions; extremely earnest or serious.
    "an intense young woman, passionate about her art"

yeah, I'm not intense. 

I saw the Bloom excerpt last August and saved it in my notes so that I could look at it often during the past year, also to share it here - today. To me the Bloom quote is an encouragement to live in the present.  To be current with one's life. That's one of the things I like about flying small planes, it's why I don't prefer to use autopilot.  In a small plane you always have things to do, minor adjustments to tweek, things to monitor ... right now stuff going on.  And you can make it ... lovely. 

This might be the best year ever, one day at a time ... a bunch of lovely biglittle days.

~0~0~0~

Lamentations 3:22-23(ESV)

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;[a]
    his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
            great is your faithfulness. 

(How marvelous to catch  the first  light of a new day.) 

~0~ 

The future is something which everyone reaches at a rate of sixty minutes per hour, whatever he does, whoever he is." ~ C.S. Lewis
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