Who are you kidding?

I recently read The Distant Land of My Father. The father in the book is at first a man consumed by his life, his business, and his dreams and often living in a sort of fantasy world where he does not or cannot see what is happening until it all comes crashing down around him. How easy is it to be unaware when things are about to get bad, potentially really bad? In my good little life I hope that I am not completely missing something. There are certainly areas where I could do better and I am working on that. It takes some real honesty to lay bare your life in careful introspection. I am working on that as well. Sometimes the easiest person to fool is yourself, especially when you don't want to hear the truth.

Wordful Wednesday - Inner Beauty

When I think of this I am reminded of a conversation I had with my older brother when we were both in our early 20's. He said that some girls got better looking as you got to know them better and for others the opposite occured. I think that speaks to their inner beauty (or lack of it) that came out as he got to know them better and see it.



I was watching a progam on PBS about love and men and women. They did a study that demonstrated that married partners in good relationships perceived their partners as closer to the ideal beauty than they really were. The opposite was true if the relationship was not going well. They were "seeing" what they felt. Have you ever looked at a couple and wondered, "What does she/he see in him/her?" There is so much more than what you see on the surface or what you get on a first impression. Inner beauty is in the eye of the beholder as well.




I was given some good advice as a teenager to seek beauty in all things. You can usually find something beautiful about a person if you are willing to look and, more importantly, listen. I think that inner beauty is the goodness and quiet confidence that makes a person more attractive.

What are others saying on wordful Wednesday?

GrandDad and his Sweetie

not Elinor?

And here I thought I was Elinor Dashwood.

Your result for The Jane Austen heroine Test...

Fanny Price

62% romance, 44% sauciness, 49% etiquette, 74% intelligence

Still waters run deep. You've got plenty of intelligence and more heart than you get credit for. But you never say a word when insulted, and this reticence sometimes allows others to assume you're a pushover. You're also a bit shy in mixed company, which leads those who don't know you well to accuse you of snobbery. They couldn't be more wrong! You just never seem to know what to say. Of course, the meek shall inherit the earth...eventually. But do you really want to wait that long for redemption?

Ideal matches: Edmund Bertram, Edward Ferrars, Captain Benwick, Colonel Brandon

Guaranteed heartbreak: Frank Churchill, John Thorpe

Not worthy of your affections: Henry Crawford, John Willoughby

Take The Jane Austen heroine Test at HelloQuizzy

Peaches

I love good flavorful sweet fresh peaches. A truly good peach is probably my favorite food. August is peach season at home. Around here it is ending. My brother-in-law told me about a farmer with an orchard of Sun Crest and Elberta peaches. The Sun Crest have a short shelf life and because of that are not particularly good for the typical grocery store food chain, however the flavor is spectacular. He wanted to save the farm and continue growing the Sun Crest peaches but thought his Sun Crests might be part of an era that had passed. (He wrote a book about a year on his farm. The book reminds me of Oranges by John McPhee.) In a move of marketing genious he now adopts his trees out each season. People apply for and pay for the opportunity to travel to his farm and harvest the peaches themselves. Part of the application is an essay. I think I could write a pretty good essay. I grew up in a smallish town that has an annual peach holiday, complete with parade, pre-parade road race that finishes with the runners running up the parade route to be cheered on by the parade goers, Peach Queen contest, dutch oven cobbler contest, and car show.

One summer I worked in one of the fruit stands along the highway south of town. I had been slow getting a summer job, so Dad talked to the neighbor who hired me to sell peaches. I learned a lot from Gene, the sister from California who came in to help during the harvest. I listened and then did what she did. One of the rules what that everyone that came in got a taste. I worked hard and had a lot of fun that summer. I loved the way Lola, probably about 80 years old, supervised and held court wearing big cluster earrings and leaning against the candy cases near the cash register as people came by to visit.

I had no idea there were so many different varieties. A new variety came on every few days and lasted a week or two. Tasting all of those peaches side by side I really got to taste the differences between the varieties. Some are definitely better than others, though all are really good. One of my least favorite was the Early Elberta, though this was a definite favorite of the older peach canning crowd. It isn't as good as others fresh, but it is great for canning because of its color and texture. You can always add sugar.

My brother in law and his friends adopted not one, but two, trees. He and his family and friends went to pick and came home with 50 boxes of peaches. His share was probably half a bushel or so, 6 boxes. They made all sorts of peach drinks and talked of peach chutney, peach jam, and canned peaches. They are seriuos foodies over there and are in awe of some of the things I just grew up doing and learned from my Mom and Grandmothers. The only problem was that they had never canned peaches before. So I suddenly became the peach canning expert even though I hadn't done it since leaving home. Mom is the expert with a lot of experience. One year she canned nearly 400 quarts of peaches so that there was enough for a quart a day for the whole year. We weren't that ambitious. I brought my canning kettle and bottle lifter and we did 12 quarts and felt fine about it. It was fun and rather nostalgic.

Our summer

Jungling

We had a little problem with Buddy Boy "jungling" from places where is just wasn't a good idea, like the rod in his closet and the curtain rod in his room. So we got a chin up bar, now a jungling bar, to put in his doorway. I think it solved the problem, so far at least. Watch out Tarzan.

Trains and planes

This weekend we went up to the aviation museum where they were hosting the European Train Enthusiasts model train show. Buddy boy and Dad had a good time. So did I. I loved the detailed models of the cities and mountains. There was even a country circus complete with Ferris wheel and animals. As part of the aviation museum there was even a real Boeing 747 nose that you could go into. It had the first class cabin and the cockpit. That was pretty cool.

She's mobile

She's rocking and rolling. It is a lot of fun to watch. She isn't crawling yet, but can scoot backward quite well. She makes a great dust mop. She can get where she wants to be, which is usually tearing apart Buddy boy's trains and towers.

more finger paint fun

Once again the finger paint goes way beyond the fingers.