"She is too fond of books

        and it has turned her brain."

                               Louisa May Alcott

To Have Chili With Beans or Not

We have a conundrum around here that I am sure has frustrated and astounded many families like mine.  And we are just not sure what to do about it.  There is not an equal vote.

DH and I don't like beans in our chili.  Savannah likes beans and few if any tomatoes.

I have been fixing chili with ground beef and lots of chunks of tomato for years.  Savannah has picked around the tomatoes and just eaten juice and meat.

The last time I fixed chili, I added a can of chili beans just for my girl and found myself very disappointed in my own dinner.  I ended up spooning my beans over to Savannah.

What should I do? Should I fix it the way I want to? Should I have a can of beans on the side that have not been simmered into the chili on the side for my daughter? That can't taste that good!

We love chili in the winter! I almost fixed it for tonight. When DH called I asked him if he would like chili tonight.  He said, "Absolutely not."  I was hurt, thinking the beans had put him off last time and he forever didn't want my chili anymore.  I asked, "Why not?"  He said, "Because I just had Krystal chili for lunch today."   Oh...okay, his life was saved.

Any suggestions for dinner?

Go Away Static!

Winter. I love the snowflakes, hot bowls of soup, fires in the fireplace, sweaters, tights, scarf, smoke coming out of the chimney and the flannel sheets. But... I do not like the static electricity!

The blankets are shocking me in the night with little flashes of lightning.  My hair is standing up on end and my skirt is walking up my tights.

Yes, I do use bounce.  I didn't use conditioner today to try to calm my hair down.  Nothing works! I am a walking conductor!

It Started With Camping

My love for travel began when my parents started taking us camping.  When I was born, until I was two and Leslie five or so, we had a Volkswagen pop-up camper.  We had that until Leslie got into her falling off the bed and breaking her arm/collar bone stage.

Then we got a Starcraft camper.  It was one of those crank first, then pull out the sides camper.  We went all over in that thing and even joined a camper club.  That's when there are places decided upon by the club to go together. Leslie and I had so much fun playing with other kids, searching for garnets in mountain creeks, and inhaling so much of the outdoors that we went to sleep with the crackling pops and murmurings of listening to the adults talk around the bonfire. 

Until we went to the Low country of South Carolina.  Mom and Dad were up in the middle of the night using duct tape to tape up all the cracks in the pop-up because of mosquitoes!  I slept through most of it, but it had a lasting effect on mom and dad.  The starcraft was sold and we moved up to the Coachman.

The summer I went into the 6th grade and Les was in 9th, Mom and Dad planned a 3 week trip around the United States.  We still talk about what we saw and did on that trip!  Believe me, a lot can happen when you are cooped up with family for 3 weeks!  

My most traumatizing memory was when we were camping in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming.  All we had heard and the only signs I remember reading were:  "Do not feed the bears!"  That can surely scare an eleven year old!

In the camper, everyone had their place to sleep.  Mom and Dad on the Queen bed over the cab and Leslie got the bunk in the back, so that left me with the sofas that made out into a bed. Surrounded on three sides by windows!   Well, I can tell you that I did not sleep a wink the entire time in Yellowstone!  I knew that I would be the first to be gobbled up when that bear came through one of those windows! I couldn't get Les to sleep with me any in that campground!

Swimming in hot springs, seeing the St. Louis arch, visiting Washington D.C., watching bats fly out of Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico and seeing the Grand Canyon are a few of the sights I saw in that camper. 

Book Group List for 2009

My book group chose some really interesting books for this year.  More non-fiction, memoirs/autobiography's than ever before.

The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle

Madonna's of Leningrad by Debra Dean

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver

Some Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

My Lobotomy by Howard Dully

Disney World Christmas 2008