The night is passing

"Count no day lost in which you waited your turn,
took only your share and
sought advantage over no one."
-Robert Brault

I'll post the tea treats tomorrow.
I'm living here amoung the boxes,
and I think
I have located the correct one.
I look forward to posting them.


Tu Tranquilo,

Miss Roxie

And so the proper pot of tea

For Athena in the minivan ~

The proper way to make Tea –

Fill the kettle with cold water and bring it to a boil. Use the cold water because it has more oxygen and it makes a better brew.

While the kettle is heating, run hot water through your teapot to heat it. Once your teapot is heated, pour that water out, and place in the pot your loose tea or your tea bags. When you use loose tea, it’s always suggested that you add one more teaspoon for the pot.

Once the water has boiled, and some authorities suggest allowing the to water to boil for one minute to dispense with the proper amount of oxygen (really, I think it’s a mute point, but I’m sure someone might disagree on this), pour the water into the teapot, put the lid on the teapot, and allow the tea to brew for 3 to 5 minutes.

Don’t pay regards to the color of the tea. This can be very deceptive and leave you with a weak brew should you choose to regard the color over the proper timing.

When the brew is ready, remove your tea bags by placing them in a spoon and wrapping the strings around the spoon so as to squeeze out all the excess of the lovely tea.

For just a cup, you follow the same rules, heating your cup before you pour the water for your tea.

I also have tips for serving the tea and some delightful recipes for Tea Snacks.

Tea Quotes:

There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea. ~Bernard-Paul Heroux


If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.
~Gladstone, 1865

Tea should be taken in solitude.
~C.S. Lewis


If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty.
~Japanese Proverb


Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things. ~Saki

Flying lower than the radar

Man I hate when this happens. It's one of those days, I just can't get going. It's not an energy thing, it's a mind thing. This state of limbo is like a scrabble game, trying to pull letters up to spell a word. You can see them all there, you keep moving them around, and you know you must have something, the letters are good letters! - but you wish you had the blank ..

I should listen to some music. What I would like to do is go walk on the beach for a few days - or be like Forrest Gump and just start running, but my ankle is no good and I'd probably fall down after a quarter mile ... Rambling ~ It's a fidgety day. I think I want a cookie.

So I baked some cookies and they turned out badly. Trying new or different ingredients doesn't make Mr. B happy, he's always saying, "Please! Do not mess around with the chocolate chip cookies!"

So I settled for some yogurt and bran cereal with blueberries. Blueberries are good with just about anything. Bran cereal is for old people like me so they can have a healthier constitution even with a bum ankle.

A few people came to see the house this past week, no takers, someone is coming tomorrow night. Things gotta be right soon. My husband and I just finalized the selling of his business, so on July 1st, he doesn't own it any more.

I am very proud of my husband for building a business after being dumped out of another one ~ it was a sad deal the way it was handed over to him, but he made the best of it and built it up with a fine reputation. So that part's done, all's right there, now just the selling of the house part. Really need to get that done.

But she'll be right, mate. I'm ready to turn and face the change. Time will turn it the right way. Faith in the unseen.

We're hanging in ....

Hope you're having a good day.

Tu Tranquilo,

~Miss Roxie

Abigail Adams

"If you complain of neglect of education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With regard to the education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my depth, destitute and deficient in every part of education. I most sincerely wish ... that our new Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning and virtue. If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have learned women."

Abigail Adams (1744-1818). U.S. matriarch; wife and mother of United States President. [In a letter to her husband John Adams, who was away at war. She was reacting to his letter of August 3, in which he lamented his 'countrymen's' lack of 'art and address' and 'knowledge of the world.'] Letter (August 14, 1776).

The Family Tree

The Family Tree
by Carole Cadwalladr

If anyone is interested, I wrote my rickety review here.

If you are not interested, have a really nice day. May there be blessings reigned upon you. May you do a kindness to another because a kindness done out of no other reason than kindness, multiplies and circles back to you.

The beginning of a better world begins with you.

Tu tranquilo,

~~Miss Roxie

Father's Day

The fifth largest card selling holiday. I'm not sure the top four - Maybe Birthdays, Christmas, Mothers Day and Easter? I don't know.

I have a problem every year picking out a card for my dad. I always go with a character from Peanuts. You just can't go wrong with Snoopy.

Snoopy doesn't talk. But says everything. I believe the secrets of the universe are held captive in Snoopy's doghouse.

Snoopy is a Beagle. Beagle's are independent thinkers. They can be stubborn and can learn how to manipulate you. A Beagle would take over the complacent Charlie Brown. Perfect.

And by the way, I just found this out recently, Snoopy's birthday is August 28th - according to the comic strip, Charlie Brown brought him a birthday cake that day - my anniversary is August 28th ... Perfect.

An Irish Blessing

Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad.
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad.

Always remember to forget
The friends that proved untrue.
But never forget to remember
Those that have stuck by you.

Always remember to forget
The troubles that passed away.
But never forget to remember
The blessings that come each day.

Truth, stories, and old laundry tales

What is true and untrue?

I read stories about people collecting money from their wash machine and taking vacations to ~ oh say ~ Hawaii. I have been collecting money from my wash machine since January 1 this year ~ and I have $37.82. I don't think that will even get me to Miami. It's about $67.00 on a bus to get to West Palm Beach.

I have 27 socks; I just counted, with no mates. (They are my husband's work socks. they will graduate to Rags now. An honor truly.)

I have 8 Tupper wares with no tops. I have 22 tops with no bottoms!! I just put them in a bag and put them in the closet and will wait to see if the bottoms return.

None of my silverware matches any more and I don't know where all this silverware in the drawer has come from. When I met my husband, in 1981, I had one single set of silverware that matched.

I counted my drinking glasses. I have no complete sets of anything really ... The only sets of *four* I have are some three ounce juice glasses my sister in law bought me when I said I was looking for a small glass and couldn't find one. She sent me a box of twenty.

That was a couple of months ago and forget it ... I can find seven. I have heard no broken glass ... so, what did they do? Run away with the socks I suppose.

My very nicest sheets are the ones that the elastic is too loose on. The old Walmart standbys are still hanging on. However, I have no matches. This is not a big deal, but I am downsizing so ...ummmm, decisions, decisions - which ones to keep?

Oh well, I'll continue on "with my maps and my faith in the distance, moving farther on" …*

*(Farther On by Jackson Browne)

Living with the decisions of others

In this post I mentioned my great nephew's experience in viewing a rated R horror film at a children's birthday party. A party for a 10 year old.

His nightmares didn't end. And he hears voices. My sister promised him she would take him to the doctor. She did.

The diagnosis is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and counseling has been suggested.

The pediatrician said that movie (Nightmare on Elms Street) is horrible and could give any child nightmares for the rest of their lives. My sister told him that other children had viewed the film and not reacted this way. The doctor said all children are different, but he wouldn't guarantee that they weren't affected by it in some way.

My sister will be seeing the careless parents at a wedding soon. She plans on telling them what has happened.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
-Anonymous

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
-Albert Einstein

Flashback ~ Madam B and the Wild Bunnies

Tis the season of Wild Bunny Rescue
Posted by roxie on Mar-12-03 at 10:57 PM

So the year is about the first quarter gone. Do you remember what your New Year's Resolutions were?

I don't know about any of you, but life has a way of hijacking me into constant movement of activity, and I forget about long-term plans. I really have to refresh my memory from time to time about what is really important. I get caught up in the never-ending list of daily dues as my so-called life keeps jumping up and down in front of me demanding my attention. Ever so demanding schedules and deadlines that aren't often forgiving.

I was caught today in the headlights of a child's view on things. It pinned me still.

For the last two days, one of our cats has brought home three baby bunnies. There was so much activity involved with this. Finding a box to keep them safe in, making a bed in the box, while in the meantime they peed on everything creating more laundry, going on line for information about what to feed them and how to care for them as the first two were found around 9 at night and I didn't want to run off to the Animal Hospital till morning.

Oh and by the way, going on line to search for the bunny info ... my husband said to my daughter, enter "wild bunnies" ... I said, 'no wait! Don't enter wild bunnies. Better try wild rabbit care (Who knows what she would come up with entering 'wild bunnies!' and I didn't want to know.)

Anyway, so for two days in a row I have had to drive over to the Animal Hospital, which is the drop off for the St. Francis Wildlife Refuge, and it's _not_ right around the corner. And there's so much to do, and gas prices are high and whine and blah, blah, blah going on in my mind ...

And I heave a great sigh just before we got out of the car to drop off the third bunny ~ and my daughter says, "I hope we find another one today".

And I am like, "Huh? We have been here twice. Why would you hope we find another one?"

To which she replied, "But I love this! This is so much fun!" And she spends 5 minutes telling me of the joy that comes with finding wild bunnies. And she brought me back from my pit of overwhelment to a place where I could smile and not feel bad about all the things waiting on the edges. They will still be there tomorrow.

Tonight she went out to follow the cat to see if she could find the burrow he has been snatching those bunnies from. She didn't find it. But she surely did enjoy the looking.

Tu Tranquilo,

Miss Roxie

2001 ~ a day that December

Between the life that we expected and the way things have always been...

I am not sure what I expected.

And I am still trying to figure out what I have got going on in my brain, that causes me to create these situations I do. But it seems to be, that's the way it's always been. I just never noticed it early on. I mean, I am painting my house, 14 days before Christmas! What kind of insanity is that?! And, I swear, my house keeps getting bigger!

The reason I know I am stressed --oh, did I mention I was stressed just a tad? --- is that, I just cut my hair this morning. I am a (retired) hairdresser. And I cut my hair at times when it really doesn't need cutting, and I have realized, through the years, that this (power) works as some kind of therapy for me. My husband comes home,.. looks at the sink, says "you cut you hair again"... with the little knowing smile (fear)...

next, will be finding the milk in the pantry and the eggs in the cupboard with the mops and the beans or, forgetting to put the coffee carafe on the hot plate part of the coffee maker and wondering, 'just_what_is that brown line coming down the counter?' -- which I did yesterday. Very confusing site, that. It never reached the floor, just kept traveling along the counter towards me. Eerie. Like a Stephen King movie.

I didn't expect living la vida loca in the ebb and flow of my daily comings and goings. But, here I am. Painting my house a color that I am not crazy about 2 weeks before Christmas! Ha!

Last night I had a moment. I was painting away and made a star, accidently, on the wall. I got carried away with making things - I was using a roller - and felt peaceful at the moment and into what I was (or thought I was) creating there, and didn't realize that I was tilting the paint tray. Towards me. I was covered with globs of paint running down my left sleeve. I didn't want to yell out, didn't warm to alarm anyone -- it's only paint on my favorite knockaround old sweater -- so I laughed out loud.

In my house that always works to get attention because everyone is always saying, 'what is so funny?' Not that I laugh at my family all the time, but certain things strike me as funny, that maybe they don't think are so funny... So, when I began to laugh hysterically, I heard the cries of 'what is so funny?' (you have to say this with a tad bit of annoyance to appreciate it)...but someone came to help me.

Now. I was in a corner. Stuck. Behind a computer desk and another desk that had been pulled out about, oh say, 3 feet. There was no place to put the paint tray or roller down. (I said I was 'painting'; I never said I was a 'painter who might know what they are doing')

Well, once paint is on a roll, it doesn't stop, even when you straighten the tray. Does life get like that? We start a way of living and it just keeps rolling? And then by the time we are mature enough, or enlightened enough, to look at it...we are just *there* -- not 'getting our act together' anymore, but instead, 'this is our act' --in Scene XXXXXLMIV - enter assorted relatives at holiday crunch time... etc?

Oh well. In the hard light of an angry sun, no one 'mentions' what was said or done, I suppose, if we are just tender...tender to ourselves through the mess-ups we make, tender to the people who help us make the mess-ups and the ones who help us through the mess-ups, tender to the people who don't even know they are making us crazy enough to throw paint or cut our hair off, then I suppose we can say, All is Well.

I hear a paint brush calling. It will have to wait until I get back from the Chiropractor. (Actually, I think the paint brush said a bad word.)

That's all for now.

~~ Special Thanks to Jackson Browne for the Song Tender is the Night ---

Exercise your Brain

You need your brain. I think we all know that without further research.

However, did you know that there is research available on the fact that your brain needs your body to exercise to help it build and fire it's (very important) neurons correctly? And you say, well sure, that makes sense.

Well listen to what Arthur Kramer, a PHD professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Illinois says

~~"We examined brain structure before and after fitness training and we found increases of brain volume in a number of areas." ~~

and you might say, "and so?"

And so, if this is true, why has funding for physical activity been taken out of schools? Why is not the funding for physical education important, if it has to do with the good functioning level of our brains? Someone is being very dumb and not reading the research.

So here’s how it’s dealt out – fact is fact. Your brain needs your body to work out! -- Do anything -- move around quickly and fastly, roller blade, play volleyball, play softball, just move!

Parents, it all falls on you. If we can’t change the legislation of funding for our schools, then we have to get our kids out there to move. And homeschool parents, you are responsible for the same thing. Our kids have to move, also.

Move America!! Move away from the TV and video games!! You’re your brain that’s at stake here. And consequently, what affects one person in the world is going to somehow, someway, affect us all.

Getting your heart rate up can increase blood flow to the brain which is a good thing. This will help with an improvement in memory and overall brain function, so say the studies. The studies also say for this to happen, all you need is 30 minutes of something as little as walking 30 minutes a day.

No one is asking anyone to run a marathon. Just remember the old motto, Move it or Lose it – and now, guess what folks, that includes Your Brain!

An Onion Tart

...is not a sassy little girl who smells like feet. An Onion Tart is pretty and can be served to company. I surprised myself with this delightful thing!

I found the recipe in one of Madam B's Vegetarian Cook Books. She avoided this one, because really, young people just aren't favored to onions ~ but Mr. B loves onions. And the other night, while out at dinner, someone else commented how much they love onions, and Mr. B's sister loves onions, so I gave this a try.

And a big thumbs up! It's pretty and it's tasty and onions are good for you. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients for the filling~

2 TBS butter or olive oil
2 onions sliced thin
1/2 tsp fresh or dried thyme
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream or yogurt
2 tsps poppy seeds
1/4 tsp mace or nutmeg
salt and pepper

Ingredients for the pastry~

1 cup flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 TBS cold butter
4 TBS Milk

The tart is a perfect size for a pie plate. It serves 6. Here's what you do to make it.

(I did the filling part because Madam B just can't handle onions yet. Her eyes just won't take it! We've tried all the old wives tale remedies I know; I'm sure one day she'll just build a tolerance....Madam B did the pastry part, so, of course, it was pretty and perfect)
anyway...

Step One ~ Heat the butter or oil in a frying pan and add your thinly sliced onions and cook over a low heat about 10 to 12 minutes until soft and golden looking. Add the thyme and some salt and pepper to taste, set them aside and let them cool while you do the rest.

Preheat the oven to 425. Depending on how fast your oven heats will depend on when you turn your oven on!

Step Two -- Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Using a pastry blender (which we don't have yet, can you imagine!) or two knives, cut the butter into the ingredients until the mixture resembles crumbs. Then add the milk and stir lightly with a wooden spoon to make a dough.

Step Three -- Turn out the dough on a floured surface and knead lightly.

Step Four -- Pat the dough into an 8 inch round pan of some kind. (It calls for a deep one, but I think a pie plate will do.) Press the dough evenly and then pour the onion mixture on top.

Step Five -- Beat together the egg and the sour cream or yogurt. (I used the dough bowl so I didn't have to dirty another bowl). Spread that evenly over the onions. (Vegetarians like things 'even' apparently.)

Sprinkle with your poppy seeds and mace (I didn't use mace) or nutmeg. (I have no idea what mace is, never used it before, so good luck with that should you choose it.)

Bake the Tart for 30 - 35 minutes until the egg topping is puffed and golden.

Step Six -- Let the tart cool for about 10 minutes. Slip a knife between the tart and the pan/plate/thingie to loosen, then, unmold onto a plate and serve. (I am not so formal and served it up in the original plate I baked it in.)

But it was tasty!!