PI (or Poison Ivy)

Ooh it has been a while.  In my head--usually while I am behind the lawn mower--I have written books of posts.  The trouble is, most of them don't end up here.  The reason for that is energy.  For some reason, when I'm behind the mower, I can compose all sorts of interesting and witty (at least to me!) posts, but when I think about sitting down at the computer to write them out, most of the time I'm too tired!  Dis is vewy bad.  I wish I had a little doo-hickey thing that would fit in my ear and I could just talk my posts out while I did the mowing.  Then I would just have to transcribe and polish them here.  The trouble with that idea is that I don't think I would be able to hear myself talk over the noise of the mower on the recording.  Bummer.  IV microphone perhaps?  Hmmm.  Maybe I could invent that and then I'd be rich! lol  So anyway.  The bottom line is that there have been lots of posts, just none here. 

In other news, there seems to be a bumper crop of poison ivy this year.  I don't remember seeing so much last year.  Isn't it interesting how one year some kinds of plants thrive on the weather, while others don't do so well, but then the next year it's all switched up and other things grow like mad?  I've noticed the rose bushes here in NC are just crazy with blooms this year.  So beautiful.  It also seems to be a banner year for the ivy.  The poison kind that is.  Maybe there was as much last year and I just didn't notice it much because I hadn't yet felt the onslaught of its wrath.  Now though, since I have felt its fury---or itching---just a glimpse through the weeds makes my skin crawl.  Literally, it does.  Ever since I had my bout with PI a month or so ago, I have been plagued with this creepy crawly feeling all over.  It's better than it was, thank goodness, but very often I still get goose-bumps or just a crawly feeling out of nowhere.  Benadryl helps, but who wants to take benadryl every day?  Anyway, as I was saying, just the sight of PI in the woods/yard makes me get all tingly.  I want to destroy it all, but that would take a lot of work and imagine what I would look like if I tried.  No don't do that. It will give you nightmares! lol   Why is it that humans have to be the only living creature that is allergic to PI?  Very strange.  But I digress.  Again.  I'm trying to learn to ignore the stuff at the edge of the yard in the woods and just stay out of its way.  But I can't ignore the vines that are starting to grow up the trees in the yard.  I will not tolerate that!  Invade the woods all you want you sinister plant, but you will NOT invade my yard!  It's like it's testing me to see how far I will let it go, daring me to try to kill it so it can spread it urishiol poison all over me and drive me insane (ok, more insane! lol) with itching.  A couple weeks ago I bought a commercial poison specifically for PI and PO (poison oak), and started plotting my revenge.  But when I started reading the instructions it said not to use it within the drip line of trees.  Not around the trees??!!  Then pray tell what good is it?  Most of the PI and PO around here is within the drip line of trees!  The stuff out in the yard I can mow over!  Don't need the weed killer there!  duh!  Unless someone can tell me how to mow up the trees, that is where I need the weed killer.  So I was back to square one.  Next stop Google.  It's where I go to find out about pretty much everything these days.  Have you tried it?  It's a great place!  Don't know how to spell something?  Google it.  Just spell it how you think it sounds and Google will politely ask "Did you mean.....?" and there you have the correct spelling.  Need to know how to do something?  Google it.  And from out the clear blue sky Google will provide you with links to someone somewhere who knows how to do the very thing you are asking for.  Need a supplier for an organic boysonberry face mask?  Google it.  Voila!  Google will tell you where to find it, or find you someone who knows how to make it and has provided a tutorial---usually free of charge.  Have you Googled today?  =)  But there I go on a rabbit trail again.  Where was I?  Oh yes, I was Google-ing a homemade killer for PI that won't also kill trees.  I found several recipes, most of which use things you have in your kitchen and laundry room, like vinegar and salt and Dawn, etc.  So most of them didn't seem like they would kill trees---unless you poured gallons and gallons of the stuff into the ground around them.  Not my plan.  I just needed something to spray on the PI that would kill it.  Then I was talking to my mom and she had a recipe from a reputable garden expert that was made from vinegar, gin and baby soap.  I didn't have any gin, but figured alcohol is alcohol, right?  And no baby soap either, but I do have Dawn.  So off I went to Lowe's, bought a 2 gallon lawn sprayer, and mixed up my brew: vinegar, Dawn and rubbing alcohol.  Then I lugged the sprayer around the yard and sprayed pretty much every leaf of PI I could see.  I used all 2 gallons.  Yesterday afternoon I wandered over to the pines to take a look.  What do you think I saw.  Instead of the black and shriveled leaves of PI I was hoping to find, there it was, all green and perky and healthy as ever.  And I think I heard it laughing at me...... Grr.  So it's back to Google I will go and find another recipe and another until I find one that will kill this evil plant.  Laugh now you leaves of three!  Laugh while you can, because I WILL get you with something, even if I have to dress up in a hazardous waste suit and snip you off one by one.  lol  But not today.  Today I'll stay inside and pretend I don't see "it" growing up the trunk of the oak outside my window, take some more benadryl (this post is giving me goosebumps!), and Google.  =)  Cheers!

Tangled

Have you ever done something that makes you say to yourself  "Do I really want to tell anyone else about this?"  Yeah, well it happens to the best of us.  Just the other day I decided it was high time to get the water hoses out and hooked up.  I have a little garden planted, along with several pots, so watering is going to be necessary---and watering everything with a pitcher is a little much.  I have 2 hoses (they're orange BTW.  Has nothing to do with the story, just thought you might like to picture this event in living color).  So I drag my 2 hoses over to the outdoor spigot and dump them unceremoniously in a heap.  I mean, why would I think to keep them both neatly coiled until I got them hooked up?  That would be way too organized!  With 2 hoses there are 4 ends, right?  So from the midst of the heap I grab one end and connect it to the spigot, grab another and connect it to the sprayer.  This leaves 2 unconnected ends.  Connect those to each other, turn on the water,  and we're in business.  Time to stretch out the hose.....but there is a problem.  Because I am unorganized and did not keep the hoses coiled until the proper time, they are now a tangled mass.  Because I am who I am, I worked for a bit trying to untangle this mass of orange plastic.  Yes, I know, it would have been infinitely easier to keep things neat to begin with!  I didn't.  And yes, I know, it would have been, again, easier to just turn off the water, disconnect the 2 hoses, untangle, then reconnect.  But that's just not how I roll.  lol  After a few minutes of trying and re-trying to untangle this mess I realize that it is so twisted and knotted that the only thing to do is to disconnect, untangle, then reconnect.  Reminds me of how our lives and relationships go sometimes. lol  We keep tying ourselves in knots, trying desperately to work out the tangle, when what we need to do is disconnect for a bit (meaning, stop trying so hard), untangle (read Go to God for help!), then reconnect with the situations or people involved.  =)  Anyway. I finally realize that disconnecting is the only way I'm going to get this mass untangled, short of cutting the hose anyway! lol  But there is water pouring into the hose now and I knew that disconnecting meant there would be water everywhere unless I could kink it off somehow.  I know!!  You are all thinking, "Why not just go turn off the water first".  But that would be so easy! lol  I don't know why I'm like this, but I just didn't feel like walking over there and turning the water off first.  So I thought, "If I can just kink the hose before the connection..."  No, I don't know why!!!  That's just the way I am.  I would rather make myself work harder I guess! lol  Just then I happened to look down and say that the hose was already kinked, right where it needed to be.  All the better for me!  So I disconnect the 2 hoses........nothing happened.  No water, not even a drip.  Some of you know where this is going! lol  That was odd, because you know as well as I do that if a hose has been connected and filled, even if it is kinked off it is going to spew some water when you open the end!  So I start pulling hose, untangling it bit by bit.  Finally I came to the other end........Yep.  You guessed it.  I had connected one hose to the spigot and the other end of that same hose to the sprayer.......Need I say more?  Ok I will.  I had connected the second hose to itself........ Oy.  Dis is vewy bad.  lol  Somtimes I do believe my brain cells are Blonde in their composition!  =)   The good things to come from this unfortunate incident are that: 1. Maybe (I did say maybe) next time I will keep the hoses in order and make a point to connect them properly.  2. I didn't get wet when I opened the hose.  And 3. I got to amuse myself---and maybe you too---in the process! lol  So I propose a toast (my Saturday morning Starbucks in this case):  May you all have laughter (even at my expense), and untangled hoses (and lives!).  Cheers!

Recipe Review

So I made some more "new food" over the weekend.  =) 

One recipe I tried was a recipe called Quick and Easy Pizza Crust.  I have had such a hard time finding a good recipe for pizza crust that bakes all the way through.  I really despise settling down for a piece of fresh, hot, homemade pizza only to find that the dough directly under the toppings is gooey.  Blech!!  I keep trying recipes and so many times I'm disappointed---even when I bake the dough partially before adding the toppings.  (I added that because I knew some of you were going to suggest it. Been there, done that, didn't work. See? I saved you the work of typing that message to me! lol)  Anyway.  So in my meanderings around Allrecipes.com---which I do quite frequently---don't know why I even bother to own a cookbook---I found this "Quick and Easy" recipe for pizza crust.  It was good!  Chewy and not soggy.  Yay!  I actually enjoyed my homemade pizza!  It was even still ok today.  A little dry, but that is so much better than soggy--IMHO.  So this one is going in the file to be tried again.  You can find the recipe here. 

The second recipe I tried was a WINNER!  Wow.  It was called Too Much Chocolate Cake.  Yum. Yum. Yum!!  Again, chocolate cakes sometimes disappoint me because you have to search hard for the chocolate flavor.  Not in this one!  And so easy!  It's a cake mix and dry pudding base with a few other ingredients added.  Easy.  Moist.  Dense. Chocolatey.  Delicious.  What more could you ask for in a cake?  This one is Definitely going in my recipe box!  I took it to work today and when I left this afternoon there was still maybe a third of the cake left.  Sooo that cake plate just kind of jumped into my hand and came home with me....  I don't usually do that, but this cake is that good!  Just the amount of chocolate the Doctor ordered.  Today.  =)  You can find that recipe here

Happy Eating!

Things My Mom Taught Me

I was doing dishes earlier and was reminded of how my mom taught me to wash a sharp knife with the sharp edge away from you so you didn't accidentally cut through the dishcloth and into your hand.  It started me thinking about some of the other things Mom taught me.  What better day to think about this than Mother's Day?  =)  So here's a little list.  It is by NO means comprehensive or complete.  Mom has taught me more than I can put into words.  So it's just a little list.  =)

1. She taught me to make pie crust.  Good pie crust!  She is one of the best of the best at it.  Making pies is not hard now because she taught me that it isn't.

2.  She taught me that when "Christian" people do things that make you wonder, you hope that their hearts are better than their heads.

3.  She taught me to say Please and Thank You.

4.  She taught me that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.

5.  She taught me to crochet.

6.  She taught me to use common sense!

7.  She taught me that creative homemade things make wonderful gifts.

8.  She taught me to love the garden and growing things.

9.    She taught me how to use a candy thermometer. Once again, she made something that seems hard to be not so hard after all.

10.  She taught me to be responsible for myself and my actions.

11.  She taught me to clean up the house before Sunday--because Sunday is God's Day.  (Many late Saturday night vacuuming sessions come to mind!  We still laugh about how I hated those.)

12. She taught me that a true Christian woman walks the walk much more than she talks the talk.

As I said before, this is just a little list.  My Mama taught me---and still teaches me---so many things.  I am thankful for her every day.

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I Love you!

Blogs and War

So I sat down at the computer earlier--like 2 hours ago!--to write a blog post.  But then I started looking around for books written by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans...........2 hours later, here I am---with about 50 new books added to my Amazon wishlist! lol  If you've known me for any length of time you know that soldiers--especially the veterans of our current war--have a huge place in my heart.  I've read their blogs, with posts written while their hands were still hot from the last patrol.  That is the best way to read war stories--and I use that word "story" not because there is anything glamorous or "bedtime-like" about them, but because I can't think of a better word.  Maybe I should use the word "account", but that sounds sterile and boring---and their "stories" are anything but.  Those blog posts are the best war narratives---unfiltered, raw, heartwrending, and REAL.  To be able to read a story written by a soldier right after it happened to him/her gives you the truest picture of war you will ever read.  The books are good too, but they are stories written after the fact---maybe a long time after the fact--and that changes things.  Not intentionally, mind you, but time changes memories and wording.  I'd rather read their blogs.  Back when Iraq was in the heat of things I read a lot of blogs.  There were more then.  There aren't as many now.  Maybe because the war is long or because of too many OPSEC regulations.  I'm not sure.  It's not because things are not still hot and hard.  They are still hot--and hard--in places in Afghanistan.  The news just doesn't tell you anymore.  The main-stream media has moved on to more "interesting" stories.  The War "over there" is old news to them.  But once in a while a little news from soldiers will trickle out and you know it's still hot there.  But there seems to be little blogging about it.  Maybe it's because they are just tired.  10 years of deployment after deployment; 10 years of 18 hour days, patrols, danger, and adrenaline; 10 years of missing--and losing their families.  It makes me tired just to think about it.  I can only imagine how they feel.  Whatever the reasons, the current "milblogs" are few.  It's too bad.  I miss them.  I don't mean that I wish for soldiers to be in hot combat just so they can blog about it!  I mean that I know they are still in combat and I wish I could read their stories.  All of them.  The good, the bad, and the ugly---and I know that most of their stories are made up of those last two.  I still want to read them.  I wish I had saved all of the stories I read all those years ago.  I have a few that I saved, but I wish I had saved every single post. Some of their blogs are gone--pulled off the internet for one reason or another.  I hope the authors saved those posts.  I know for some they hold bitter memories, but they are a part of our history and should be saved and cherished and re-read.  I wish I had saved them all so I could go back and read them again.  Their stories, raw and uncut, changed me.  They gave me heroes in my generation, men and women of honor and courage and bravery in my own time.  It's a completely different perspective to have heroes of your own age and time, compared to having heroes from previous generations.  And I will always call them heroes, even in the midst of the ugly stories.  I think sometimes they are afraid to tell their ugliest stories because even soldiers have an idea of what a "hero" should be, and the ugliest stories don't seem to fit.  But I think that the ugliest stories should be told right along with the good and the bad, because they are what makes the "hero" human.  Those stories take the hero off the pedestal and put him in Real Life, and we find out that our "heroes" are just humans who have the strength to do the ugly.  I once told a Marine that I wished I could climb inside his head and read all his stories.  He replied "It's dark in there, CJ."  Dark or not, I still wish I could read all their stories.  Every.Single.One.  Over and over again. To remind myself of what they have gone through--and still go through, and what they relive every.single.day. They come home, but they don't really ever come completely home again. Part of themselves is left on the battlefield---wherever it was, and part of the battlefield goes with them--wherever.they.go.  I do not want to forget: who they are, and what they pay to keep us free.  I think of those previous bloggers and wish I knew where they were, if they were doing ok, if they have friends who care for them.  So many of our soldiers come home to no one.  They may have had family and friends when they left, but when they come home?  Sometimes the family is gone and so are the friends--or they will leave when the nightmares and flashbacks start to get bad.  They come home to what is supposed to be "the real world" and find that they just don't fit anymore.  They drink, do drugs, drive 125mph on their Harley, all kinds of things to try to forget or to try to make the world make sense again.  Sometimes all they can come up with is suicide.  The growing number of vets--especially Iraq/Afghanistan vets--who are turning to suicide is like a knife in the gut for me.  How I wish I could stop them, could show them that somehow there WILL be life after war, could remind them that they will Always, Always be Heroes of the best kind.  I wish I could make a safe harbor for them, where all their stories could be told, complete and uncut.  Because they--and their stories--are part of Our Story, and we can't afford to lose them.