femina mosaic

Saturday, April 05, 2003

 
Today in ethics class we had a discussion about the war. Feelings on all sides of the issue ran high. It reminded me however, that I wanted to link in a wonderful site my friend Sharon created Waiting For Daddy the first time I read it I cried. The young man in class today who said that anyone who didn't support this war was unpatriotic and should leave this country, should look to history for some understanding of the "cost" of war. Being patriotic and loving your country and not agreeing with the president's decisions are not mutually exclusive ideals.
freezengirl 1:15 AM

 
This is my friend Machelles project for one of our classes. Machelle's Pickled Peppers It was her first web project and I thought it was very well done. I am going to try making her hot peppers this summer.
freezengirl 1:07 AM

 
I decided to be kind to myself and not commute back up north for the weekend. What luxery, a weekend to do nothing but catch up on homework and putter around the house. I am thumbing my nose at the awful weather.

Tonight I moved some of my seedlings out of the warming trays and started some more seeds. I haven't any tables or anything to set them on so I put some scraps of carpeting down on the floor in the dining room (which is empty) and placed the flats on the floor. I have wonderful southern and eastern exposure coming in so it should be good temporarily.

Tonight I planted some heirloom tomatoes. They are indeterminate varieties, Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter. They will take a little extra care since we have a shorter growing season then they need but they are so delicious they are worth the effort. I also started some leeks and some Martha Washington asparagus. We do not have the garden dug up yet but it will get done ASAP! I am also going to buy some garden stakes and rabbit fencing this weekend. The deer and the rabbits are a serious problem for gardeners around here. I don't mind sharing a bit with the wildlife but we have to have some left for us!

I need to take some cuttings off of my rose bushes from the other house before it is sold. I also want to get some small divisions of various perennials also. I have already made some future trade agreements with some of the gardeners I have sniffed out at the school. I also visited a well recommended nursery (family owned) near my home and had a delightful gab session with the owner. I mentioned that I had seen the advertisement for the garden club meeting for Thursday night and was thinking of going. He said they would be thrilled to get some "new, younger" blood in the group. He said the club was down to less then a dozen members, and most of them were getting quite elderly. It was the same with my other garden group. At one point it was down to about seven members, four of them to frail to garden any longer. They were still just as valued however, for their accumulated wisdom and experiance.

So many organizations are facing the problem of their members and volunteers not being "replenished" by younger members. The seniors are finding that there is fewer people all of the time to pass their skills onto. I know that I would like to do more then I do but I am not able to.
















freezengirl 12:54 AM

Thursday, April 03, 2003

 
I was a very lucky women today. I was just heading home from work this afternoon with the weather deteriorating quickly into a late winter storm, when I smelled burning rubber. I couldn't tell if it was my car until I heard something in the engine compartment give way and then this horrible grinding sound. I was trying to calculate where the nearest garage was that I might have a chance of getting to. I pulled into the Wall Mart store about two blocks away but there shop was just for changing tires and stuff like that. This nice young fellow though came out in the nasty weather to see what he could do and discovered what the problem was. He helped me get the car started again though and pointed me over to a place across the street that could help. If he hadn't helped me I would have had to call a tow truck and no way could I afford that on top of car repairs. The other shop was able to get me right in though and get it fixed within a couple of hours. And best of all it only cost $150.00, so I was able to juggle things around and get it taken care of. I settled into an uncomfortable chair (you ever know a mechanics shop to have anything but?) and was wondering how I was going to fill the time. I did leave for a bit though. When I came back there was this small wiry black guy with dreadlocks, a rainbow colored crochet tam and the thickest heaviest carribian accent I think I have ever heard. He was talking a mile a minute and he was talking with his whole body. Apparently he was well known in the shop cause the b.s. and the laughter was moving faster then the sleet outside the door. Here I was upset about my car and missing out on my plans for the evening and instead of being miserable and grumpy about it, I was having a good time. I don't think I have stopped grinning all night.







freezengirl 11:51 PM

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

 
My husband was here with me last night in this house. It was so lovely just to see each other. It is funny how for just a few moments it is easy to forget everything and it is just the way it always has been with the two of us. How can you explain to a newly wed that though the passion will change over time, the tender regard becomes sweeter with time?

I love to watch older married couples. It would be fun to do a series of black and white photo's of them and try to capture the non-verbal communication that they seem to have. My grandparents were married for well over fifty years and though I never saw them be openly affectionate with each other, not once did I doubt that they were deeply in love. The air between them shimmered with it.
freezengirl 10:50 PM

 
This is Renee, trying to post but showing up under Faith's name?
Anonymous 8:23 AM

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

 
I was trying to remember the name of this film An American Quilt for the last couple of days. Mosaics, quilts, weaving all of these "activities" have been on my mind lately. The "fabric" of our lives as we experiance it from a female perspective is what I am trying to explore. Amidst all the other stuff I am trying to juggle and "make fit" somehow is the aggravation of an erratic memory!

This movie was not particularily good, though it had some wonderful actors in it. I remember when I was watching it though being impressed with the writers exploration of the relationships between the women. I didn't know until tonight that it is actually based on a novel, so that will go on my list of things to look up.

There are a couple of scenes in this movie that struck a chord with me, probably why I still remembered the film at all. One scene is in the kichen where one of the characters has a wall of mosaic work created from everytime she was mad at her hubby she would break something. It was quite funny.

Mosaic as a saving grace. What are yours?









freezengirl 8:41 PM

 
I thought this was very funny. I was telling a young women I work with about my Femina Mosaic blog and asking what she thought she would be interested in reading about. That got us off on a hysterical conversation about her favorite way of thawing a turkey (by way of discussing what to do with baby plants when you have to remove them temporarily from the house) any way, her cooking (or about to be cooking) tip is this: place the frozen turkey in the trunk of your car, that way it won't take up room on the counter, and in our Northern climate it will thaw slowly. I wondered if she had been in Northern Minnesota long, that turkey might not thaw till April or May! Thawing a turkey in the trunk of your car seems as reasonable as my pasta cooking tip is silly. Someone told me that if you are cooking spaggetti and want to know if it is cooked enough, you should pull out a strand and throw it at the refridgerator door. If it sticks it is perfectly cooked, if it doesn't it isn't cooked long enough. How could I resist a tip like that? The best part though is that it works!
freezengirl 8:06 PM