The End of the Semester

Its been a few weeks since i blogged. i guess i got busy with tax time , school work and other stuff. Now its the end of the semester and this will be my last assigned blog. I enjoyed writing the blogs; well some of the time, but i always enjoyed reading everyone else's blogs. I don't know if I will have time to continue blogging on my own, but I'll try. Good news ; I am getting a new puppy. We can pick him up on May 30Th, by than he will be old enough to leave his mother. I didn't say anything about Jake (that was our 13 year old Golden Retriever ) dieing, because it was just to painful at first. Especially since it was just a few weeks after the cat (tiger) past. It will be nice having a new face around the farm and since I'm not taking classes this summer I'll have time to get the new pup trained. His name is Duke. We always name our dogs after my favorite cowboy , John Wayne.See you all in the Fall, hope you have a great summer.

Spring

I have not blogged for a few weeks because I've been busy and i couldn't think of anything interesting to blog about . All I can say is thank God it's spring, that means summer is on it's way. What a nice spring its been so far. We really have not seen a real spring , like the one we are having , for about ten years. Usually our spring concisest of bad weather that's more like winter until one day in late May you go outside and its 75 degrees. The next day its summer. It's time to clean out the flower beds and get ready to mulch them. I would like to till the vegetable garden , but it's still to wet to do that so I guess I'll have to wait. Soon it will be time to plant annual flowers and my personal favorites canna lilies. It is nice to just get out of the house and not freeze. All you gardeners enjoy this beatiful Spring.

The Bucket List

When I was in High School I did not like reading. There was always so many other thing to do. Sometime later in life, I cant remember exactly when, I fell in love with books. There's nothing better than that me time I get to spent snuggled up with a good book. Like ever love affair my passion for reading heats up and than cools. College has reignited the fire for literature, the irony is that college is also the thing that is keeping me from my love of reading . Well that's not exactly true because I read a lot , just not always what i want to read. Some how i don't seem to get the same joy out of reading Fundamental Accounting Principals as I would a good novel. Since I don't have any free time to read I've decided to start a list of all the books I would like to read before I kick the bucket. The list is getting long already, i started with all the classic like Huckleberry Finn, Little Women, The Grapes of Wrath, ect. Since I've already read most of the classics i think they are going to have to move to the bottom of the list. So if any one has read a book they really loved let me know the title I'd love to ad it to my bucket list. I hope I live a long time I'am going to need it if i think I've any chance of getting to the end of the list.

An Unsavory Subject

I tried to think of something else to blog about this week but I couldn't find an other subject , so i guess I will just have to write about this unsavory one. When I married and bought a house, 15 years ago, the first thing we did was get a cat. The next year we got a golden retriever, years later a stray kitten showed up and joined us. This past Tuesday the oldest cat ,Tiger pasted away, he was over 15 years old . His health had been getting worse and worse ,my husband and I discussed having him put to sleep but neither of us could make that tough decision. Tiger didn't seem to be in any pain but it became more and more obvious that he was having major problems.I didn't realize till later in the week, after he died , how much the whole ordeal had been affecting me.The subject of death came up again this weekend with our assignment on challenged books. In fact the book we selected was banned because it was a children's book that dealt in part with the subject of death. It got me to thinking that for a culture that thinks it's so enlightened we still don't deal very well with this subject. We drape it in rituals and taboo and hide it from our children and our self's. I think this makes it twice as hard to deal with when the time comes and the time always comes. Every thing that's born owes a death, maybe it's not an end but a beginning, anyway I'd like to think so. I know one thing this spring when it's time to work in the garden again I will miss my gardening companion , Tiger.

Dominos and the Emperor's New Clothing

Tuesday my husband brought home a Domino's pizza. I always though their pizza wasn't that great but for mass produced pizza it was pretty good and it's cheap. Recently Domino's has been running commercial saying how they hear there customers complaints and they are going to address them by improving the product . They are going to make the crust better and add 40% more herbs to the sauce. That's great I thought, till I tasted the new product. Not only did it not taste better but, I thought thy may have substituted even cheaper ingredients. Now I am no expert but I know what I like. That got me to thinking why would Domino's say they were going to make their pizza better when in fact it's not. It's kind of like the fairy story of the Emperor's New Clothing. You remember the story the one where one person told the guy he was wearing the finest clothing. Everyone went along with it and the dude was running around in his underwear. It's the same premise ; tell people you are going to give them something better and whether you do or not 50% of them will think their getting something better.

Something To Do When It Snows

I moved into the neighborhood about 15 years ago. It didn't take long for me to meet the rowdy neighbors. Since we live in the country, it's sometimes hard to find things to do. Especially so when it snows. The satellite TV doesn't always work and the Internet connection can be spotty. So you have to get creative. Over the years we have developed some interesting traditions.One of these is called the wine walk. What is a wine walk? Well , whenever it snow the neighbor's get together and take a walk. Everybody brings their favorite bottle of wine along. I guess this only works if you live somewhere were there isn't much traffic. We are fortunate, were we live there is no traffic and the scenery is beautiful especially when it snows. Last night about eight PM. we took the traditional wine walk along the Conewago creek. A hoot owl was calling from somewhere in the woods . Even though there aren't any street lights in our area the reflection from the snow gave off a soft glow . Giving the landscape a cereal look it was truly magical. Sometimes you forget beauty and nature is just outside your front door.

How Do You Teach Yourself To Just Say No?

As usual this weekend I had more things to do than I had time . Besides being A full time student I have A small cake business called Camela's Classic Cakes. I Try to limit myself to just one order per weekend. This may seem like an insignificant thing. But the cakes I make are just like the ones you see on the TV shows . Yes really , just like Ace of cakes or Cake Boss. The reality is they don't show you on the TV shows all the prep work one of the other employees did . All you see is the decorators creating a beautiful work of art. Well there's just me and making cakes is extremely time and labor intensive. But I digress , the topic is how do you teach yourself to just say no? So I had a baby shower cake order for this weekend and as it turns out it was also one of my best friends fortieth birthday. Even though, no one ask me to make her a cake I couldn't stop myself. Some how I found myself compelled to call the woman in charge of the party and volunteer to make the birthday cake. A four tier cake that looks like a stack of presents. Some where into the third day of working 12 hours per day on these cakes I came to the realisation that I am getting too old for this $#%*. This isn't the first time I have gotten myself in over my head and it probably wont be the last . And it's not that I wouldn't do anything for my friends or family. I don't regret making my friend happy. She was completely surprised and loved the cake. It's important to acknowledge that friends are valued and loved especially at the mile stones of their lives. I think that I have come to one of those mile stones , the one were you have to acknowledge your physical limitations . I'm in my mid forties and let me tell you getting old ain't for sissies. So how do you go about training yourself to just say no? Any one with any ideas please respond. Anyway I pulled a muscle in my back rolling out the fondant icing. So I managed to stay at the birthday party just long enough to help serve the cake.