Found a Peanut!

As we left from the final performance of the play we "found a peanut" on the floor of the landing in one stairwell.  I couldn't help myself. . .I started singing and made my dad join in with me.  Just one of those crazy moments that had to happen.  My dad taught us that song years ago so getting to break into song on a random night when we literally "found a peanut" was just priceless.

Now for those of you who don't know the song. . .go right here. But I warn you, it will be stuck in your head for the rest of the day!

Spice cake and music

On this day eleven years ago, my Nana died.  She was something else. 

She was a cleaning freak.  A child of the Depression, she was frugal like you have never seen--washed and reused aluminum foil, ziploc bags and even bread bags.

She was an excellent cook--could turn simple ground beef into an absolute comfort food meal with gravy and mashed potatoes.  But what I remember the most is the spice cake she made one night when we stayed over.  The aroma of that cake throughout the house. . .just not something I could easily forget.  It was delightful.

She was also a fantastic musician.  She began playing string bass as a small child in their family band.  There she was, a small lil girl carrying a big string bass from their house over to her uncle's house.  Hilarious.  As she got older she learned to play piano and then organ.  I was always fascinated by her organ.  Most people just don't have an organ in the house, do they?

Nana played a lot of great songs.  One that stands out is "Hold That Tiger."  Nana didn't have a band to play back up for her but this reminds me of the fun she had playing it.

Tiger Rag aka Hold That Tiger

Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White

I've been swamped this week.  Getting ready to take a group of kids to a convention. . .and just trying to take care of my brood of kids at home.

While working last night this one came on. . .I always liked the song just fine.  But I remember this song as an ice skating song.  I have searched high and low for a video of it but since I can't remember who performed to it, well, it's pretty hard to find.  My sister really liked this routine though. . . .probably a reason I wanted to find it so badly. I suppose the song would make most people think of spring but since it was a winter olympics skating routine, it fits with the current cold temps around here.

Have a great Friday!

Enjoy, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White

The Trolley Song

Oh how I loved this movie and this song when I was a little girl.  The guy that teaches next door to me played a brass arrangement of this song the other day after school.  It's been stuck in my head, in the most delightful way since then.

I doubt many people my age are familiar with this song. . .but for me, the words just flowed right along with the song the day he played it.

Love me some Judy Garland!

The Trolley Song

The Greatest. . . .

My boys need a little extra push tonight so I'm making up for lost time and posting now. . .

I love this one from Kenny Rogers about a little boy practicing baseball in his backyard :-)

The Greatest

The lights are much brighter there. . .

Petula Clark. 

This one was one of my parents' songs.  I guess they heard it when they were dating.

Somehow it always reminded me of the Mary Tyler Moore show which doesn't add up because they were different decades.

Anyway, it's a great song worth sharing with you for this Saturday!

Petula Clark singing Downtown

Some Guys Have All the Luck

Oh how I loved this song back in the day.  The girls and I had some fun listening to it the other day. . . .reminds me of my sister and baseball games and a good life as a kid.

Mrs. HaWiggins. . . . .

Oh my goodness this one popped up as a suggested video for me and it's so worth a few minutes to get your day off to a good start (or maybe it's your evening. . .)

Carol Burnett was a staple of Saturday nights in our house.

Sadly, DVDs of complete seasons aren't available.  So we just celebrate what we can find here and there.

This one is a great one. . .Mr. Tudball and his secretary Mrs. Wiggins.  However, when Mr Tudball says her name, it sounds more like Mrs. HaWiggins.

Enjoy the next 12 minutes of  good old comedy.

Mr. Tudball and Mrs. Wiggins

Twelve years have passed and still, sadness

I plainly remember the man next door calling me to the hallway and telling me to turn on the news. . .that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center Towers.  I was teaching a group of really fantastic seniors.

I did as I was told and then watched in absolute horror.  My students were stunned.  There were no answers for what we were seeing.

After we learned of the crashes outside of New York City, one of the boys grabbed a globe and predicted which city would be hit next. 

The bell rang for them to move to their next class.  My next group of kids was mostly senior guys.  We all gasped as we watched the towers come down.

Stunning.

Now, even after all the years I find it difficult to watch the stories from that day.  The emotions are still too raw.  My oldest has very vague memories of that entire week--she called them the grey days because that's all we saw on TV for 5 days straight. . .the grey remnants of an entire way of life lost on that day.

We haven't forgotten.  Life has gone on but nothing like it was before that terrible morning.

We remember.  We cry.  We pray.

Bread and Gravy

Now those are a couple of my favorite things.  As I kid I preferred that store bought stuff they called bread.  I prefer more grown up breads now.

And gravy?  Surefire way to make nearly any meal 1000 times better.

When I was a little girl my grandparents often joined us for Sunday dinner.  Nana played organ for a church downtown so we'd drive down and leave a note on their car inviting them to dinner.  We didn't always get a chance to talk to them.  We just left a note and waited dinner until they could get there.

My papa loved bread and gravy as much as I did.  My mom made some amazing tomato soup gravy.  sounds icky but it wasn't.  Whatever meat she was cooking (usually a swiss steak) would go in the pressure cooker with a can of Campbell's tomato soup and a can of water.  When the meat was done, she used that tomato soup/water/juice from the meat as the base for the gravy--just add the four/water mixture and whip into gravy.

My paper would start the meal with meat, potatoes, vegetables and gravy.  Toward the end of the meal he'd look up and say, "Looks like I have a problem.  Can I get some bread to sop up the gravy?"  And from there the (potentially endless) cycle began.  He needed bread for the gravy but then dry bread wasn't as good as bread with gravy so pour a little more gravy in the plate and then oops, not enough bread so repeat cycle.

Those were the days.

For those of you more interested in the gravy recipe, it went roughly like this:
1 can tomato soup
1 can of water
cook with meat (pressure cooker, crock pot or dutch oven)

Remove the meat to a platter.  Keep the soup/water/juice in the pan over low heat.  

In a measuring cup mix 1-2 Tablespoons of flour and 1/2-3/4 cup of water.  Mix thoroughly so you do not have lumps.  Add this mixture to the soup/water/meat juice, stirring constantly so lumps do not form.  Stirring with a wire whisk helps keep the gravy smooth.  It will take a few minutes for the gravy to thicken.

Folsom Prison

I may have mentioned a time or two that I went through a Johnny Cash phase.  I pulled out all the old Johnny Cash I could find and listened to it all like it was something new again.

I have a lot of "favorites."

But I always go back to Folsom Prison Blues as my favorite.  Something about how he starts off with "ello, I'm Johnny Cash"

So here you go. . .The entire album At Folsom Prison

One more "first day of school"

Today the oldest has her first day of classes.  We wouldn't want her to feel left out since the other two had their theme songs featured.

There is no rhyme or reason to her theme song except she is a Disney kid and she loved The Little Mermaid.

So here we go!

Kiss the Girl

These "theme" songs were the last song we listened to each day on the way to kindergarten (or longer).  We chose a song they liked or one that had some meaning and set the tone for heading off to school.  It became a sweet little idea for each of the kids to have their own song.

Off to the chaos of the first day!

Two Songs for Today!

Well, back to the grind.  For the oldest members of our household it feels a bit like this:

Sam Cooke--Chain Gang

But for the youngest members of our household it's all about this:

Phil Collins--On My Way
*theme song for #2 when she started kindergarten

And this:

Jack Johnson--We're Going to Be Friends
*theme song for #3 when she started kindergarten

Wish us luck as a new school year starts!

Lullabies and Country Songs

There are plenty of great songs that could be soothing lullabies.  I used to fall asleep to Travis Tritt's Drift off to Dream

But for one of my little girls, it was the Oak Ridge Boys who provided the best soothing music.  Her absolute go-to calm her down song was this one:

My mother hates country music.  For a while she was our main babysitter for this little girl and, well, my daughter always has known just what she wants and could be inconsolable when she didn't get it, especially as an infant.  I told my mom it's an easy fix.  Just turn on this song.  She couldn't believe it.  My best friend and I even did an experiment in the car once when my little baby girl was crying.  We plopped the CD in and immediately the crying stopped.  Popped the CD out and the crying started.  CD in--no crying.  CD out--crying (screaming).  So we decided it was better to just leave the CD in. . .on repeat, just to be safe.

That's the Way Love Goes. . . .

There are a couple of songs by this name.  This one happens to be my favorite.  Merle Haggard singing a classic. 

Happy Saturday!

That's the Way Love Goes

Beaches and Happiness

People who live near the beach just don't seem to get it.  They cannot understand why some of us drive so far and so long just to spend a week in the sun.  (Funny how they can take it for granted that they have a beach right next to them but cannot understand why it's a luxury to the rest of us.)

For the first several days at the beach we visited the one across the street from our condo.  It was a short walk to a very crowded beach.  Even in the evening the beach looked like this:

I realize that's not really crowded but imagine that same stretch of beach with rows of beach chairs (available for rent for just $40-50 per chair for a day) then a row or two of tents behind it and really, not much more than 5 feet between you and your neighbors.  Gosh, people were so loud that you could hardly even hear the ocean.

That is why I felt like I was in heaven when we reached a decision to go to the state park beach for our last day.  This is what greeted us during the busiest time on the beach, at 11 am:

And this is the beach at 2 pm when the crowd had cleared out:

We had the roar of the ocean.  We had a breeze (I swear it was much cooler at this beach simply because we didn't have a gazillion people around us!).  We had a relaxing long day at the beach.  Precisely what we drove all those miles to achieve.  And we had Twinkies.  Yup, good stuff.

Shark!!!!

I was stretched out on the beach trying to decide if I should just give in and take a nap or try to read for a while.  Suddenly one of my kids came out of the water and passed all the chairs/umbrellas to announce "Shark Mommy!!  Shark!"

And sure enough, there was a shark!  Everyone got out of the water and gawked at it like it was the most amazing thing ever. 

OK, so it probably was pretty amazing.  We've been to that beach a few times over the last ten years and we had never seen a shark. 

We all just stood there watching as it swam along the coast.  There were a couple of guys on paddleboards, smacking the paddle on the water to try to steer the shark back away from the beach.  I am a terrible judge of distance but I can say I was well out of the water and I could easily see the shark as he/she swam by.  Someone said it was around eight feet long but I have no idea if that person knew what he was talking about or not.

When my family went over to get sno-cones, they asked the girl that was working the stand if sharks have been a common thing this year.  She said they were not; she thought there had been one at the start of summer but this was the first since then.

Sooo, my kids got a nice cool little memory out of their trip to the beach.  They actually got to see a shark swim right past them.


Sorry, no pics.  The zoom on my camera isn't that fabulous and seriously, do you think I wanted to look that much like a tourist? 

Mellow tune today. . .Go Away LIttle Girl

This one comes from Steve Lawrence.  It wasn't necessarily my favorite song when I was little but it was part of the collection of music I listened to the most when I was little.  Poignant song.  And so classically 1960s. . . 

.

Blast from the Past!

Used to love this one when I was in high school. . .one of those songs my sister and I listened to over and over and over--on a tape which meant we had to rewind it over and over and over.

Hold Me Now--The Thompson Twins

Trailer for sale or rent

Rooms to let fifty cents

No phone no pool no pets.

I ain't got no cigarettes
Ah but two hours of pushin' broom buys an
Eight by twelve four bit room
I'm a man of means by no means. . .
King of the road!

Good Ol' Roger Miller. 

Another blast from the past. . .the fabulous music I inherited from my parents.  Music that told a story that you could create as you listened.

Perfect Saturday music.

Enjoy!

King of the Road