2008 June « Beckle Speckle’s Zany World

Tanks and science, way cool . . .

June 30, 2008 at 9:10 pm | In family | Leave a Comment

We started out Tuesday for the Tank Museum in Danville, VA with all 11 of us in 3 cars (two carseats in Aunt M’s car and one in mine). Bug, of course “had” to ride with Aunt M. The first room of the tank museum was fine, but the other 2 rooms got a bit repetitive – especially since this place was not air conditioned (late June + unairconditioned warehouse + toddlers + very little for said toddlers to touch/climb on = crankiness)…

If you are ‘into’ tanks and it was cooler, this would be a great place to visit. It was kind of expensive ($10/adult and $9.50 for older kids). Then we had lunch and some cool drinks and decided to try and hit the Science Museum in Danville as well. We got the address out of the phonebook and punched it into my new GPS system and away we went. This was an awesome use for the GPS, BTW.

The Science Discovery Center was way cool and I wish we had gone there first. It had ’stuffed’ animals (really),

a caboose you could walk through and a butterfly house into,

shells and rocks,

rocks that glowed under UV light,

rocks in white light….

same rocks in UV light…

and more we didn’t even get to see.

Back from Virginia with lots of pictures

June 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm | In baking, family | Leave a Comment

My family teases me that they don’t ever have to carry a camera as long as I’m around – I take a lot of pictures. I’m going to space this out a bit so I don’t have such a terribly long picture-filled post.

We arrived in Virginia about 10 hours after we started. The maps said 8, so I added 4 for Bug-travel time. So, we made great time at 10 hours! My other family had arrived the day before (Saturday). We visited and Bug played with her cousins for a bit and then went to bed. The first day in Virginia we went to Morris Orchard to pick blueberries. The orchard also had jams and jellies and was very child-friendly. I had never been to pick them and it was very easy to get Bug into it.

Bug took a liking to riding in Aunt M.’s car and was desperate all week to have a spot in that car.

The afternoon was spent playing outside and included a walk where all the small kids fell asleep in their strollers.

The evening ended with a water balloon fight and candy corn fangs all around.

M had a wonderful fresh blueberry recipe using a yellow cake mix that was WONDERFUL! I will post the recipe when I get a copy from her. It resembles this recipe called ‘dump cake’, but uses 2-4 cups of fresh blueberries instead of the pie filling.

Ingredients:

20 ounces crushed pineapple in juice — undrain
1 can cherry pie filling
1 package yellow cake mix
1 cup pecans — chopped
1/2 cup margarine

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Dump pineapple with juice into ungreased 9×13″ pan. Spread evenly. Dump in pie filling. Spread evenly. Sprinkle cake mix evenly over cherry layer. Sprinkle pecans over cake mix. Dot with margarine. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until set. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Growing

June 20, 2008 at 9:04 pm | In family, gardening, knitting, whining | Leave a Comment

The Bug and I will be taking off on Sunday to central Virginia to visit my sister’s family. We are driving and the maps/directions say we will have 8 hours in the car. Bug has always been a poor traveler, so I hope to make it in under 12 hours. Traveling these days makes me feel uncomfortable, sometimes even scared. Life just seems so fragile, while accidents seem so random and senseless. Nice and upbeat, no?

Anyway, we’ve been outside quite a bit lately and the weather today was incredibly nice (80s). So we played with sidewalk chalk that she loves. Her request this morning was Spongebob. I didn’t have time, so I drew one on the blacktop before picking her up this afternoon as a surprise.

Everything here is growing and the peaches have even turned color (not ripe yet, though).

The corn socks for DH are coming along – into the ribbing portion and then the after-thought heel. That is the only progress for now. Wish us luck on Sunday!

Making up for last year

June 17, 2008 at 8:41 pm | In baking, gardening | Leave a Comment

The blackberries are going gang-busters! Last year the late freeze left us with about 5-6 blackberries total. This year there are more on a single site than that. Look at this…

A couple have a hint of blush – so it won’t be long!

I bought some blackberries at the Nashville farmer’s market last Saturday and made a cobbler for MIL, who loves cobbler. This was an awesome recipe from ‘Country Baking’ (perhaps this book?) found at All about Food - the blackberry mixture is thick and stays separate from the dough which remains on the top. We used 1/2 splenda because FIL is diabetic. The recipe is below – I forgot to take a picture , but is was YUMMY!

  *  Exported from  MasterCook  *

                            Blackberry Cobbler

Recipe By     : COUNTRY BAKING
Serving Size  : 8    Preparation Time :0:00
Categories    :
  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
--------  ------------  --------------------------------
   4      cups          fresh blackberries or raspberries
   1      cup           sugar
   1      Tablespoon    cornstarch
     1/2  teaspoon      lemon juice
   1      cup           all-purpose flour
   2      teaspoons     baking powder
     1/2  teaspoon      salt
     1/2  cup           milk
     1/4  cup           butter or margarine -- melted
   1                    egg

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Spread blackberries in ungreased 2
qt casserole. Reserve 1 teaspoon of the sugar. Mix remaining
sugar, the cornstarch and lemon juice.
 Drizzle cornstarch mixture over blackberries; stir gently.
 Mix flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl.
 Stir in milk, margarine and egg.
 Spread batter evenly over blackberries, sealing edge.
 Sprinkle with reserved sugar
 Bake 30-35 minutes or until topping is golden brown

. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Happy Father’s Day

June 15, 2008 at 9:08 pm | In family | Leave a Comment

DH ran in another race (NPT 8K in Nashville) on Saturday. While the Bug loves Clifford and Curious George, she was not even going to get close enough to touch them. So Dad posed with them instead. Bug and I walked around the Farmer’s market and the Amphitheater while the race was going on.

Then we headed to Paducah to visit the grandparents for Father’s Day. Bug certainly loves her ‘pappaw’ and wants to spend every waking moment with him while we are there. Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and grand-dads out there.

Chugging along

June 11, 2008 at 9:09 pm | In knitting | Leave a Comment

The crafting has been chugging right along with knitting, crochet, and sewing. Only progress, no FO (except for Bug’s simple dress).

Knitting – the green lattice wrap

Crochet – stained glass scarf

Sewing – skirts a la Home Grown (nearly done with 1 and cut the fabric for another) – sewed my first buttonhole on my cranky old sewing machine!

and a dress that practically made itself. The fabric comes on the bolt with the elastic part already done. Just sew it up the back and add ribbons for ties.

Today we saw the first lightning bugs of the season!!!!

What do we do in June????

June 9, 2008 at 9:49 pm | In Baby, family | Leave a Comment

Fly a kite…

Walk the dog…

Take babies to “school” for circle time…

Check on peaches… and weed the garden…

check on blackberries… and weed the garden…

listen to music and eat sno-cones…

chill in the hammock

meet Mr. Poppin’ Fresh at the Doughboy challege (DH ran, not me, yet…)

Other things – diagnosed with eczema, ran 30 minutes straight on the treadmill (5mph) today for the first time since before Bug, bought some fabric to make some wrap skirts (or harem pants), continuing to slog along on the scarves and socks. Bug’s behavior is getting much better, at least for now since I am following McKenzie’s guidelines. I think I will buy my sister this book, too, since she said Z is beginning to behave like Bug.

Parenting woes and a Wind-ing day

June 5, 2008 at 9:06 pm | In Baby, family, whining | Leave a Comment

Not much progress on crafting fronts because I’ve been pouring myself into reading a parenting book. Bug’s behavior had been getting the best of me. After a particularly trying evening, a friend mentioned the word ‘boundary’ to me and it got me thinking about them. As an older mom of an only child who nursed for nearly a year, I had gotten used to being completely at the beck and call of a certain little demanding girl. Combine that with a husband who essentially works 2 full time jobs and likes his peace and quiet, and you get me… He is much better at setting limits with her and ‘taking’ the crying. I know that he is and was right, but I just couldn’t fathom it until now. Well, now is the time for change. I have no skills in this area from my childhood (very compliant child easily disciplined by fear and guilt). I’ve looked around at different books on parenting ’strong-willed’ children and found this one by McKenzie. He makes a lot of sense and I’m trying to follow this. It seems to be working, but I’m having a difficult time trying to anticipate trouble spots and come up with consequences on the spur of the moment. Most of all, the book has given me back some control over my life, instead of dreading going out alone with her (which happens a lot).

I’d post some pictures of Bug and her flying a kite this morning (Look Mama, it is wind-ing outside so let’s fly the kite!) , but wordpress is balking at adding pictures at the moment.

Happy Thursday!