I used to teach a graduate education class in which we looked into learning theories and the ways in which the mind works and remembers. One of the videos we looked at in that class addressed the issue of aging and memory. The visuals still play vividly in my mind: an old man and his wife go on a picnic in a place that looks like Huntington Gardens, near Los Angeles. They sit down at a picnic table and she cuts up some kind of fruit that they've never tasted before. He tastes it and comments favorably.
The video narrator says research shows that our minds stay sharper when we're learning something new every day, preferably
experiencing something new. Go to a new place, they said, or taste a new fruit, or do an unusual activity. Vary your schedule.
Although my brain isn't aged (yet), I enjoy putting that concept to work where and when I can. Summer provides an educator the opportunity to get more serious about trying new things. So today, for the first time ever, I made freezer jam.
The event of my freezer jamming foray is all the more impressive when you consider that I have little natural talent for being a kitchen goddess. I make a mighty good rice and curry meal, and a few other basic dishes I've picked up here and there. But my repertoire is limited and the few favorites get repeated, especially because they taste good (need I mention open face tomato sandwiches?)
The first time I remember freezer jam, although I'd probably had it before, was eating it on toast in my Auntie Susie's kitchen in Maryland. She makes the most
delicious apricot freezer jam, and I always said I'd learn how to do it. Since she lives on the other side of the country, she's too far away for me to wheedle a precious jar of it out of her now and then. Auntie said it's easy to make freezer jam, and wouldn't you know it? She was right! They now have a kind of fruit pectin that you don't even have to cook!
As these pictures demonstrate, I like my jam chunky. Maybe a little too chunky; we'll see. For now we will call this first adventure in freezer jamming a solid success. The flavor is lacking nothing. The texture looks good. My freezer jams were even attractive enough for Moca (the feline formerly known as anorexic) to drop by and sniff about.
Now the most delicious thought is this: What shall be my foray into the novel and unknown for tomorrow?
When my sister-in-law, Anne, isn't delivering babies or doing surgery, she's tending the wonderful garden surrounding her home on the west side of the Cascade mountains. It's been rather rainy since we arrived, but that's exactly what makes it so beautiful and green here, and the flowers lush and brilliant. Here are are the happy faces of some flowers I met while walking around the yard yesterday. Enjoy!
We're at a family reunion near Snohomish, Washington this weekend. I was chatting with husband, Stepdaughter #1 and Son-in-law when I noticed her toenails. Cool!
A little more than seven years ago, Husband was preparing to marry me. The teachers at the school where he's a principal thought he needed some marriage advice, so they rallied the students to write advice for their principal.
Be as good as you are when I am in the principals office with you. Make your honeymoon a fun won. Make it Long, and good. Make it a big wedding. Take the day off when she sick.
I appreciate you being my principal. I hope your marrage is full of surprizes and happiness. Make sure there is cake. Maybe you can rent a lemmo.
A lot of Americans, I'll bet, dream about pioneering. It's in the stories of our history, in the values we try to pass on to our children, in our national lifeblood. "Be the first" might be a strong contender for national motto, not meaning that we need to get in line before others. It's just that we're just an inventive bunch of people with lots of ideas and curiosity and creativity. Other nations might make it better once we've dreamed up the idea, or they might make it more cheaply, but Americans continue to do a lot of initial dreaming. And pushing into the unknown.
I used to teach a graduate education class in which we looked into learning theories and the ways in which the mind works and remembers. One of the videos we looked at in that class addressed the issue of aging and memory. The visuals still play vividly in my mind: an old man and his wife go on a picnic in a place that looks like Huntington Gardens, near Los Angeles. They sit down at a picnic table and she cuts up some kind of fruit that they've never tasted before. He tastes it and comments favorably.
Although my brain isn't aged (yet), I enjoy putting that concept to work where and when I can. Summer provides an educator the opportunity to get more serious about trying new things. So today, for the first time ever, I made freezer jam.
Now the most delicious thought is this: What shall be my foray into the novel and unknown for tomorrow?
...the first tomato of the summer from my garden!
Seven years ago today. It seems like yesterday, and it seems like a lifetime or two ago. We're older, greyer, heavier, more battle-scarred from work, have traveled the U.S., Europe and Asia together, and have added sons-in-law and grandkids to the family ... all in seven years.
It was seven years ago, that night that we went to see the fireworks in the Napa Valley. We would be getting married in four days, and pretty much everything was in place. There would still be the trip to the registry in Napa, and from there to San Francisco for the rest of the day so we and the kids could savor sundaes at Ghirardelli Square. And there would still be time for going to church, an afternoon walk in the woods, a picnic rehearsal supper, and the wedding rehearsal itself. Family was descending from all directions, and the air was singing with anticipation.