Mosaic Mom

“Knock. Knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange.”

“Orange who?”

“Orange you gonna tell the readers what happens when you eat 3 oranges as a snack right before bed?”

“No, this is a family blog.”

When I left the YMCA, the employees there warned me that I'd fail to keep my program going.

Wrong!

When I bought the treadmill and started using it at home, Aunt K warned that the machine would soon become a coat rack.

Wrong!

Once the thyroid problem got corrected, I've been a very religious exerciser. I may have started slow , like at 2mph, but yesterday I set a new record.

I walked 2 miles! Yay!

As a reward, I ordered myself a new exercise music cd.
Go me!

Last year I ordered Plant Daddy's Christmas gift from Amazon.com. They promised they'd ship within 2 days.

After they had my charge card number though, they sent word that they'd been delayed and would not ship on time.

After waiting 3 weeks, I ran out to Lowe's and found a similar item so I wouldn't be shut out for Christmas.

(Amazon got the order here on the very last shipping day possible before the world closed up for Christmas. I was stuck with 2 copies. I was not going to screw over Lowe's with a return after they had saved me from a shut out.)

I remembered how bad Amazon.com was last year and will never order from them again.


I went to Target.com yesterday to order a gift and guess what???
They are partnering with Amazon.com.

Too bad Target. You lose my once and future orders over that.

I started a new strawberry jar mosaic yesterday...but quickly gave up. It's 87 degrees outside. Is this November? Man, it's hot. Missed a record high by only one degree. Good for the cucumbers, bad for my sweat glands!

Eager Beaver and his wife won the prize on their sheep at the national show!
Hello sheep!

It’s Plant Daddy’s Birthday and we have a celebration planned.
(Thank goodness we saved up some calories from downsizing Thanksgiving dinner!)

We’re having a Surf and Turf menu:
Shrimp cocktail, Shrimp scampi, Tempura shrimp, T-bone steaks, citrus salad, garden salad, garlic bread, carrot cake and birthday cake.

No, we are not going to Lobster Rouge.
I am cooking all this.
Gotta dash to Publix now.

That fart-like aroma fouled my nose as cold, congealed, leftover Thanksgiving turkey suck-plopped from the Tupperware onto the cutting board. I poked at it, begging the chef-inside-my-head to transform this unappealing collage into a supper.

Casserole?
Soup?
Nothing seemed inspiring.

“Turkey Julienne!”

November 1961 had awakened from deep within my subconscious.

“Need help with the menu?” Mother asked, handing me a garnet carte du jour. Resting after Black Friday shopping, we sat in an elegant, big city restaurant at a table with a cream linen cloth. A chic, Jackie Kennedy admirer, Mother wore a burgundy suit with matching pillbox hat.

“I’m nine. I can pick supper by myself,” I huffed and shook the gold tasseled cord against the menu spine. Mother frowned as she dug into her purse for a pack of Tarrytons.

Opening the boards, I scanned the parchment inside. Unlike the mimeograph menu at the hometown Rexall lunch counter, this bill of fare was urban regal. This was no hamburger and Coke-a-cola joint.

Paragraphs were justified, top to bottom, left to right, between crisp margins. Each entrée description was three lines, no more, no less. They were written in cursive and I could barely read these letters flowing with flourish like art nouveau.

Then I spied the word: “Julienne”.

The capital “J” had more loop de loops than the top of St. Basil’s Cathedral. Invitations from Versailles surely paled against this seductive, delicious design. Whatever “Julienne” was, I had to eat the food with the gorgeous capital “J”.

Mother lit her cigarette, snuffed the match. “Have you decided?”

“Julienne,” I asserted.

“Choose your main course, dear, not a salad course,” she corrected.

“Julienne.” I said it clearly.

“It’s not a suitable dinner.” She exhaled blue smoke towards the amber chrysanthemum centerpiece.

“I want it,” I whined.

“You won’t like it,” Mother insisted, leaning forward to dab ashes into a crystal ashtray. “Do you even know what Turkey Julienne is?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“It’s strips of turkey breast…” she called my bluff, interrupted as a waiter poured ice water, “…on a bed of lettuce.”

“Please,” I begged, envisioning an emerald garden wherein I graduate from childish meals to luscious grown-up fare.

“No.” She stubbed her smoke out.

“Yes!” I mixed threats into my tone.

Tired of holiday ordeals, she conceded. I was joyous.

“Hurry, waiter. Bring elegant “Julienne”. I kicked my legs against the seat, sat up in the seat, sat back in the seat. Rearranged the forks. At last, here came my pretty “Julienne”.

“It’s a salad!” I bellowed with disappointment. This was not exotic. This was iceberg lettuce dressed up with a fancy name in elegant script. It was cold, wet, rabbit food.

“I told you it was a salad,” said Mother, slicing her lovely veal chop aswirl in steaming Béchamel with mushrooms. My mouth and eyes watered.

“Eat your Julienne, “ she commanded. She never shared in restaurants.

Appetite gone, I sulked while Mother finished her meal. I vowed never to be fooled by “Julienne” again.

“Julienne, indeed!” I admonished my November 1961 memory. Grinning, I lathered hot, barbeque sauce atop the turkey on my bun. I’d composed a warm and happy feast from little scraps.

Little Mind Escape went off to eat with friends this holiday, so Plant Daddy and I are winging it solo for the holiday feast.
We decided to have Cornish Hen instead!
Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Was it a hurricane?

All the shoppers at Publix were in a panic.
It was crowded. Eight check out lanes were jammed!
Hustle! Hustle!

Oh no. It was just the pre-Thanksgiving market run.
I was there because I’d forgotten the celery. Nargh!

So I’m standing in the back of the store, eyeing the Entenmanns’s fruitcake, which I totally love. I am trying to calculate how much time I’ll have to spend on the treadmill if I eat one (one cake, not one slice! Duh!) Anyway…

A lady comes up the aisle wearing a peach and turquoise and purple nylon jog suit.
My first thought is…”She looks dated. That’s so ‘80’s!”

My second thought is…”I own that outfit, too. Do I look dated in it?”

Duh! (Again).
I came home and tossed it into the dumpster.

I tried to make a mosaic address sign to put out by the front gate when the UPS man is expected and needs to find my house and deliver my Christmas gifts!!

The project went wrong from the start. And despite two re-starts...that is I scraped all the tesserae off and re set the pattern...anyway I couldn't get it right.
I put it in the dumpster this afternoon. Grrr.

Plant Daddy and I set the mosaic Christmas tree up yesterday. Yay! Looks nice.

The meter reader has been here...nargh! You can just hear that meter a spinnin' with the pool pump running.But at least we're saving on A/C at the moment.

Then Plant Daddy's birthday present got delivered! Yabba Dabba Do! Photos soon.

My friend Jane made another quilt. I love it!

There's a neme going round.
The question is "What's your Motto?"
That's an easy one for me!

It's "Keep on Truckin'"
and here's Mr. Natural

Food Diary

As of today, I have kept a food and exercise diary for one month!

I started the project in order to avoid isothiocyanates…a food group that aggravates my thyroid function… In simple terms: eat a peach, energy levels drop into the pits…

This food diary has turned up some interesting data, and identified room for improvement.

1.Restaurants.
I have not had a meal out in 30 days! Think of all the salt and preservatives I haven’t eaten! And all the money I’ve saved!

2. Exercise.
I have exercised 17 out of 30 days. I started at 20 minutes, 1 mile and am now up to 28 minutes, 1.4 miles.

3. Porky Pig.
For supper, Plant Daddy and I have had 3 turkey meals, 3 Italian sausage meals, 6 chicken meals, 5 fish dinners, 7 pork dinners, 1 soup, 1 vegetarian and 4 spaghetti/pizza.
I think I will up the chicken, lose some pork.

4.Tootsie Rolls.
The diary process forced me to quit eating tootsie rolls. I used to nibble on them after dinner, but once I was writing, I didn’t want to count, and time stamp them, so I quit.

I’m still not losing weight; thyroid numbers are still not stable, but at least I have some new goals to focus on that keeping a journal identified.

PS. Just got an email from the berries high school. They need mastic. Will run some over asap.

Mosaic Mom is to Xbox 360 as
Videogamers are to gardening.

Purple People Eater Mosaic Sculpture

You saw it here first folks!

(Am I certifiable now?!)
It was a one eyed one horned Flying Purple People Eater

Free stuff I've gotten from Agriculture over the years

Giant Zucchini from Vic Nettle’s Vegetable gardening class
“These plots need to be cleaned out. Harvest those fruits and pull the plants”
(I fed the neighbors for weeks)

Roses from Sam McFadden’s Research Greenhouse.
“The stem length has been measured; we don’t need them anymore.”
(I took armloads to Shands Hospital and gave them away)

Victoria ferns from a Gainesville grocery store.
“They’re dead. You take ‘em”
(I regrew them and sold the crop at a craft festival)

Crates of apples at the University of Georgia Research station
“We need volunteers to count and weigh. After that you keep a bushel”
(I ate golden delicious apples all winter that year)

Peaches from the plant pathology department at U of Ga
“Aren’t these treated?”
“Wash ‘em and they’re good to go.”
(I made peach jelly)

Wooden pallets from the Ralston Purina Mushroom Farm
“If people don’t take them, we burn them.”
(Plant Daddy and I built our original greenhouse benches from this salvaged wood)

Agriculture really is my/your life support system!

I was distressed after throwing away a perfectly good pair of shorts on Friday. Sigh.
Then life got worse…I got my charge card bill.

I was a good girl except where I went to Lowe’s and bought a new rug for the living room. Nargh!

Mind you, I have not had a new rug since 1984, but $200 on my charge bill for an 8 by 12 burgundy colored area rug…well, I can’t take the stress.

I do feel good about the coupons I clipped today. I got $9.50 towards the Thanksgiving feast and…here’s the best…Five FREE cans of cat food. Gosh, I hope Zeus will eat Mighty Dog…Hmmm…

We have lots of green beans and cucumbers from the garden. I wish the bell peppers would develop. Also there are 3 or 4 pineapples very close to ready and we harvested the first persimmon yesterday. The citrus is coming on nicely too.

That’s why I went into Agriculture…so I can eat cheap!

Little Mind Escape graduated from The Berries High School almost 7 years ago.

She got out of high school with a diploma, and she collected enough credits for TWO VoTech Certificates.

One VoTech certificate was for Office Business Systems…in case she ever wants to be a secretary.

The other was in Culinary Arts…in case she ever wants to work as a cook at Sonny’s Big Boy Bar-B-Que Restaurant.

While she was studying Culinary Arts, I took a bunch of students to a Restaurant Convention in Orlando. There I discovered a unique product for kitchen managers.

This product dated your food.
It was stickers with dates printed on them and reminded you how long your product had been in the fridge. What a great idea!

I immediately began to use a magic marker to label my food. After all, do YOU know when you opened that jar of Miracle Whip? Probably not.

This way after a month, I throw the Ranch Dressing/Spaghetti sauce/jalapeno peppers out.

I decided today that I need to start writing the date of purchase on my clothes.

For example, look at these green shorts. I have had them at least 12 years.
I think I could get another year or two out of them before the crotch dissolves…

Okay, Okay…you see why I need to go to a date recording system.

I slipped on a shirt this morning that is…well, old.
I like this shirt because it is long sleeved and warm and it is blue. It makes my eyes look deep. But…
I have had it minimum ten years…and it was a hand me down from my sister before that.

The fit is bad. It has stretched so much that I could take it in at least 4 inches…on each side. The sleeves are pilled and there’s a tear at the collar. Yet, somehow it would be wasteful to toss it.

I think today I will finally throw these shorts away.
Maybe in the spring, I’ll toss the shirt….

This afternoon I go over to the Berries High School to get the kidlets started on their mosaic sculptures...aka Mosaic Flying Saucers.

I got first section grouting on the Purple People Eater last night, but it is too chilly to work out in the studio this morning. I'll wait till weekend!

I just tried to place an order for a shower curtain with IKEA. It was bad.

I have a catalog. So I went to the website and entered the item number. That didn't work.

I went to the help desk at the web site. That didn't work.

I looked for the 800 number...couldn't find it at the website but found it in the catalog.

Called them up.

Got a SEX LINE! Yikes!

End of IKEA. Will be tossing catalog in the dumpster,

Since I spent my weekend creating a mosaic rocket, I had to spend yesterday catching up on laundry. Nargh!

Today I'll be out in the garden, harvesting the first fall crop of green beans and lettuce.

Fly Me to the Moon

Once upon a time…like 10 or 12 years ago or maybe longer because I lose track of time…Mosaic Mom and Plant Daddy went out for a walk. By the side of the highway, they discovered a tank.

“Let’s keep it,” said Plant Daddy. “I can use it for welding.”

So they hauled it in. It was enormously heavy.
But Plant Daddy never used it for welding. It sat around for years and years.

“Let’s put it back on the street, “ said Mom.

“It’s too heavy, “ said Daddy.

“What can we do? We must clean up the shop,” sighed Mom.

“Say, Mom, make it into a mosaic rocket to put in the garden with the other mosaic space ships!” suggested Plant Daddy.

“What a great idea!” exclaimed Mosaic Mom.

And so they did…

Today I will be consumed by gluing, gluing, and more gluing. If all goes well, I can have the Purple People Eater ready to grout tomorrow.

I've had a lot of problems with the Mastik not sticking. It's only a year and a half old...DUH...may have to buy a new tub.

It's finally cool in the studio, so I can play all day. Yay!

I went to Lowe's yesterday. There was a line at the check out peopled by snowbirds buying Hibiscus.

In this growing zone Hibiscus should be planted in March, not November. But what the hey, make a profit where you can.

What was really sad was that there were no vegetable start plants. These birds could not have started a fall garden even if they were a mind to do so. That's sad.

I am going to clean up my studio today. Nargh!