Craving

A week in yearbooks - 10th grade

add-a-bead necklaces were really popular

tennis team!

Spanish club, La Tertulia

Jane Hill, a sweet friend who currently lives in Louisiana and has horses

The Spanish club got to go to the French Quarter for their big field trip. This was because the French Quarter had a couple of huge fires that roared through it in the late 1700's, leaving much of the buildings in ruin. The Spanish rebuilt the Quarter, so what you see when you go there is Spanish architecture. I remember having to explain this to people in the French club at school, because they didn't know why we'd be going there on our field trip. Their big excursion was a trip to the Sacré Coeur in New Orleans - ha ha, boring! I seem to recall the French club were inclined to think they were slightly more dignified than the Spanish club.

Sophomore year was a lot of fun. Going to high school was a fresh start, but being a freshman was so intimidating! The seniors were allowed to make fun of us of course. Wow, they had boyfriends and they could work the sock-hops and mingled at the pep rallies like nobody's business. Getting to 10th grade meant that you built up a little more confidence and basically, you weren't the freshmen anymore. I liked my psychology and english classes, and I liked getting my driver's license!

Back then, you could have your license when you were 15. My mom still made me ride the bus to school or catch a ride with somebody else. A couple of girls got a brand new bimmer and VW rabbit convertibles as their birthday gifts that year (a lot of oil money in the south). As a result, some high-schooly 'what really matters' lessons from Mom.

Mom would let me drive by myself to get her something at the grocery store however, and I loved that freedom and singing along to the radio - songs like True, Wrapped Around Your Finger & Missing You.

This was also the year that I got my braces off and kissed a boy named David Buras. He called one day and romantically told me that the song Hello reminded him of me. The next time I heard it on the radio I thought, that's such a sad song! Melt with You, now THAT was a romantic song!

Apple pies

we each peeled 27 apples, which Mom got from a friend's tree

just stirred with cinnamon & sugar

ready for the oven

50 minutes later & the whole house smelled great

sent home with a People mag and an extra pie for freezing -
hot damn!

Boy am I fortunate. Last weekend I learned how to bake banana bread and this weekend my Mom taught me how to bake apple pies. Someday, when I learn how to make a good gumbo, I'll be a rock star.

Mom had never before baked pies with anyone else at the same time, and we both had a lot of fun.

I thought that making crust was going to be so hard, but it wasn't! Peeling the apples was fun, too. While our first ones were baking, we each made a second one. That one goes in the freezer and when company comes, all we have to do is put it in the oven.

I stopped off at the store for some vanilla ice cream and Jay just loved it. He sure is lucky!

Apple Pie Recipe ala Betty Crocker

¾ c. sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

6-7 c. apples

1 1/3 tbs. butter cut in sm. pieces.

Mix well. Add 'dots' of butter on top of filled pie.

...and crust recipe here, the way my grandma made hers.

PG-13

Jamie: (showering) "Jay, can you get me a washcloth"?

Jay: "OK...(hands it to her). See, aren't you glad we're married, because now I can hand you washcloths"?

Jamie: (giggles)

A healthy weekend

Shari at the end of our hike

Brunch at Alice's Restaurant

Baking banana bread with Clare and Rayleen

Now that a new weekend is nearly upon us, I am hoping it can be as healthy as last weekend. And by healthy, I don't mean I ate lots of salad. I got out deep in the woods of Woodside and I finally learned how to make banana bread.
Saturday found Jay and I along for an adventure with Shari and Chad, to do a 2-hr hike at Djerassi. Art and the woods, a beautiful combination. It was raining and the air felt so good and smelled so delicious. I ate it up like a Pac-Man along the trail.

The mission of the Djerassi Resident Artists Program is to support and enhance the creativity of artists by providing uninterrupted time for work, reflection, and collegial interaction in a setting of great natural beauty, and to preserve the land on which the Program is situated.

We ended our morning with comfort food at Alice's Restaurant, a wonderful little place named after the Arlo Guthrie tune.

On Sunday morning I made my way to the home of a master baker. Clare taught me her favorite banana bread recipe...after we chatted over a proper cup of English tea, of course. Now I'm a real woman. Thanks Clare.

May you all have a healthy weekend, whatever that means for your soul.

Happy Friday!

May you feel joy today!

A week in yearbooks - 5th grade

This is the year we moved from Michigan to Louisiana in the middle of 5th grade. My friend mailed my yearbook page to me. I remember being very innocent then. Our school in Michigan had just gotten computers and I was just beginning to learn how to use them. Moving to Louisiana was like night and day. Everyone called me a yankee and thought it was funny that I said "you guys" instead of "y'all". I caught on eventually. On my first day of school in Louisiana, my teacher asked me a simple yes or no question to which I responded, "Yes". With a stern voice she said to me, "Yes what"? Surprised and all eyes on me, I said "Yes" once more. She explained, "You say, 'yes m'am' or 'no m'am', do you understand"? "Yes, m'am". My english teacher, Mrs. Moore, told our class that "musk and sweat don't mix, so please boys and girls, don't wear perfume, wear deodorant". She also told us that our school had been desegregated only 10 years earlier. The kids at this school seemed a lot meaner and rowdier and bigger than the school I had come from. "Reunited" by Peaches & Herb was a popular song, and I remember a cute boy and girl in my class broke up and got back together and this was their theme song. This year was the first time in my life a couple of people called me a snob, and it was because I had just moved away from a place I loved for 4 years where my 3 best girlfriends lived across the street, and I was shy. I adapted but I feel I wasn't quite as innocent anymore. Maybe that happens at age 10 and 11 anyway. It wasn't like I started smoking cigarettes but something shifted, where I had to toughen up a bit. I guess these things simply assist you in playing that old game called Life.

The grass is greener but just as hard to mow...

The John Butler Trio

This young man is from Australia, as you'll hear in his voice. He has a wonderful song that seeped into my heart and soul today. The drummer's necklace - Isn't that similar to the special necklace the little girl wore in Whale Rider? The one that she dove into the water to find, and her grandfather gave it to her once he finally conceded she was the chosen one...

Better Than

All you want is
What you can’t have
And if you just look around man
You see you got magic
So just sit back relax
Enjoy it while you still have it
Don’t look back on life man and only see tragic

Because you could be better than that
Don't let it get the better of you
What could be better than now
Life’s not about what’s better than
You can be better than that
Don't let it get the better of you
What could be better than now
Life’s not about what’s better

All the time while you’re looking away
There are things you can do man
There’s things you can say
To the the ones you’re with
With whom you’re spending your day
Get your gaze off tomorrow
And let come what may

All I know is sometimes things can be hard
But you should know by now
They come and they go
So why, oh why
Do I look to the other side
'Cos I know the grass is greener but
Just as hard to mow

Life’s not about what’s better than.

A week in yearbooks - 8th grade

Madisonville Jr. High. 8th grade. I dug through my box of notes to find this:

Jamie,
My darling little flower bud! You know what I LOVE YOU!
Well aren't you proud of me, I wrote you a letter? Well how have you been?
Guess what I just got 25 cents from a rub check, aren't you happy for me?
Guess what else, you just sat down from reading your "part".
Goodie Goo Good my darling!
Mr. Pulling is pointing to his map.
We're going to have fun tonite. I hope me and David don't get in another fight.
Well I better give you this short little note.
Bye!
Your Best Friend,
Chanda Pennington

P.S. I didn't draw that picture in my math notebook. I was just kidding you.

A week in yearbooks - 6th grade

Madisonville Jr. High. 6th grade. Second year of living in Louisiana. Had crushes on Grant Howard and Brooke Lagarde. Chanda Pennington was my best friend. Sometimes enemies with Ida Wager and Gina Gitz. David Windom bought me candy at the Piggly Wiggly after school. Shane Olson was sweet on me and couldn't celebrate birthdays due to his religion. Michelle Nicholas and Trina Collins were spitfires. I rode the bus with Tommy Roe, Caren Parrish, Grant & Brooke. Scott Short was very well spoken and had a patch of white in his hair. Eugene Wager stuck a No. 2 pencil in my arm and the tip of the lead is still there and visible. Ida Wager was the first girl I knew to go to 2nd base. Caren Parrish was the first person to have shown me a Playboy magazine. Dexter Talley and Grant Howard went through a phase where they stole candy from the Piggly Wiggly and stuffed them in their tube socks. Imogene Davenport's father used to show up to her basketball games drunk, yelling and stepping over the line of the court. Later that year, Brooke Lagarde got mad at me and used Imogene as his bully. He had her break my glass-tubed roller-ball peppermint lipgloss. I tripped him in the cafeteria for revenge.

A strangely beautiful glow

This morning's sun is casting a strangely beautiful glow. Something looks different about it. Has anyone else noticed?

Good morning, long weekend morning