Amaryllis Belladonna

I don't recall if I posted on this topic earlier, but I don't think I did. While I was down at my parents' house this past August, I noticed some lone flowers around the edges of their property. I asked my brother, Daryl, who does most of the yard keeping, what they were, and he replied that they were naked ladies, and he would share some bulbs with me before I left. These were curious flowers and I wanted to find out more about them, but I was hesitant to enter "naked ladies" on the computer, for fear I would be inundated by another kind of naked lady.

The mystery was solved when we went to the bookstore, and I looked up Naked Ladies in the Sunset Western Gardening book--and the flower is called amaryllis belladonna. The bulbs shoot up long skinny leaves, which die away, and then later the solitary, leafless, stunning flower emerges.

The reason I bring all this up now is that my bulbs are sending up skinny leaves (which Daryl said it would), and I believe they were tickled by some abundant rain we had weeks ago. Is this timing good for them? Is this really a place where they will survive?? If you know, let me know, please. And if not, stay tuned.

Fall All Around

Lots has been going on around here this fall. Tim just arrived from Alaska and is staying for a week or two before heading to Cambodia, via the west coast of the U.S. He is enjoy nephew Kyson very much! He asked, "Mom, was I like that? So ACTIVE?" "No. Nobody was like that!"

I took a rustic breads class with my friend, Gayle, and have made a few loaves of my own at home. Allan said, "These are just like the rosetti I had in Italy!" I can't imagine a higher compliment. Plus that it gets eaten. With Silas and Justin, and now Tim, it really does get eaten, even the experiments. The other day Justin asked if a recent batch was good, and I said, "It was an experiment. It didn't turn out like I had hoped. It's edible, but not great." From the other room Tim said, "Welcome to my childhood!" It's true--but not everything I did was sub-par. Just some things. Or just some things the first time. And that batch of bread is gone, all eaten up--so, for an experiment, it was good enough to eat!

Our neighbor's maple tree, just 2 doors down, does this (I will add the photo later), and then our tree goes crazy. Ours has more yellow. They're so pretty!

Visiting Visitor

A couple weeks ago my sister-in-law Kathleen called and needed a caregiver for her 8-year-old son Evan for the work week she would be in Olympia. Evan is having Fall Break from school and is staying here until Friday. How great is that? He is just the age of the girls I interact with in my calling at church now, and he's totally fun. In fact, Allan and I have always hoped to have more time with him and create a better relationship with him. Well, guess what? This is our chance.

I have been taking him on my usual outings, and he's helpful and fitting right in. Tuesday he helped me with my volunteer food-delivery gig, and today he came to the community garden and helped me trim back some plants and bring some hopeful herbs back to my house for planting. He was cold today, though, and looked about ready for a blizzard by the time we left the car for good. Tomorrow we are planning a trip on the ferry and to the Science Center, the touristy stuff. Hopefully it will be a bit nicer out for our trip. But if not, it will be a Northwest Experience.

Evan asked if we could get Papa John's breadsticks, so of course we had to make some of Lorraine's breadsticks instead. Everyone in the house was grateful Evan wanted breadsticks. After dinner I had to make a second batch (recipe here), because the absentee family members (Justin and Cecilie) didn't get any. It's a good thing Evan was a sport about rolling out those little things. 

What would you do with an 8-year-old on hand?

One Hundred Things Revisited

While in Russia I was impressed with how simply Zach and Julie were living. It may be that they made a conscious choice, or it could be because they're young and don't have much junk. Either way, when I came home I saw that we, again, or as always, simply have too much stuff.

"One Hundred Things" is a challenge to, in the next couple weeks, get rid of --you guessed it-- 100 things. My challenge along with that is to not buy anything, either.

There's a list of my things on the right of this post, and I am up to 26 things already. [It's neither to brag nor disgust you, it's simply to account for the 100 things.] Let's see how fast this 100 Things thing can be done!

Do you find your life cluttered with stuff? If so, how do you manage it? If not, what makes or helps you not accumulate? 

Books I've Read Lately

I saw this book in the bookstore on Bainbridge Island and thought the cover was so funny! A donut with a fuse.... I requested it from the library and it came pretty quick. Does that mean others aren't that interested in a book about self-control? I'm not sure.

One thing that was intriguing to me was that it said that children don't learn self-control in our modern American lifestyle, with electronics as babysitters and every hour scheduled with lessons, sports, and clubs. The author stated that back in the olden days, like when I was a child, kids learned self-control through free play.

 This was a quick little fictional account of two women, mother and daughter. The mom was from Japan, and married an American serviceman and moved to the US. The daughter, after the mother begged practically from her deathbed, went with her own young daughter to Japan to reconcile with the family the mother left behind.

I found the book charming and difficult to put down. It took just a day and a half to read!

This was about how much food is wasted in our country. Do you have a kid who has worked in fast food? Or any part of the food industry? They will know what the author is talking about. In a way it's disturbing to think about people being hungry in our communities, country, and world, when so much perfectly edible food becomes garbage. Restaurants, school lunch programs, harvesting practices, marketing and other food arenas are all addressed in this interesting work.

This made me more aware of what I can do to not waste so much in my own home, and which food-waste issues may be most important to me.

What have you been reading lately?

Monday at the Outdoor Market

Part of an outdoor market in Moscow. They sold all sorts of things. Notice the plumbing and hardware booth at the end of this row.

 I wanted the experience of an outdoor market, so Monday Allan and I headed out on the Metro to this one. There were lots of booths, not just food ones (these were just the most interesting). Clothing, luggage, hats and umbrellas, cheap plastic toys, used books, bras, you name it, it could pretty much be found here. The merchants, especially in the produce booths, were vocal as we walked by, asking us to buy stuff. Many knew some English, and one woman charmed us into buying fruit from her by trying out her German on us.

Rainy day at the market. The word on the blue building is TOILET. I wouldn't use that one....

Inside a little shop at this same market.Lots of cheese!

Allan purchased a hat. The saleswoman knew some English, and the more we tried on hats, the more comfortable she became using her English. We went away and came back, and she pointed at Allan and said, "Ah, 58!!" This was his size, which she had remembered. She was studying English, and knew her numbers for sure.

Toilets

It's somewhat annoying to have to pay to use these kinds....

We are home from Moscow now, but there are some aspects of our trip that will always be unforgettable. One of these is TOILETS. As unappealing as this may be in a blog posting, I can't have reported completely on our trip without reporting on them.

This photo doesn't quite capture the whole picture, but it is enough, I think. At the zoo, the train station, and other locations, mainly the pay units on the street (which, blessedly, I didn't have to use) they have these types of toilets. They are simply a paved hole in the ground, and involve some gymnastics for us women to use effectively. They wouldn't be so bad, except that it seems as if 1,000 years of urine remain in the paving around the actual hole, and even with windows wide open it's horrible-smelling . There is a flush, so in theory it shouldn't be awful, but it pretty much is.

There were wonderful ones in the expensive train, complete with seat covers (yes, it had a SEAT), and pretty good ones in the cheaper train. And, of course, Zach and Julie's home had 3 bathrooms with standard Western toilets. It was a bit of a chore planning our sight-seeing around how bad the bathrooms might be.

Here is what I learned. The older the place, the more primitive the toilets. Newer museums and churches had modern and clean and FREE bathrooms, and were a pleasure to use (after paying the entry fee). The street toilets are worse than our porta-potties here in the States, and I avoided them at all costs.

Just one reason it's so good to be home.