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We here at Just Being Me want to wish each and everyone of you in blogland a very Happy New Year!

May it be blessed with a richer relationship with Christ our Saviour and closer friendships with those here with us on earth.

Peace and Joy to each one of you,

~Anna

Snow

This has been the fall for snow. We have now made it into winter for a week or so, but the majority of our snow all came before winter even set in. Pretty amazing amounts. As we are wondering what to do if we get more and space is running out. God will set in motion his own plan that works really well, as always. He'll just melt it. Today has been sunny and warm, not really much melting yet but they say tomorrow things will change and we will see a diminishing of the snow as rain runs down on it. I guess next up, ice. We will see. I had to go down and uncover the street light censor as it had been buried in snow. I don't remember needing to do that before.

Here follows a few of our snow memories for this 2010 fall/winter season of snow.

November 21 the snow is new and exciting and Beatrice has new reindeer antlers she needs to try out so they load up a bag for Gregory to have with him as he rides in his sleigh. The new Rudolph the red nose reindeer and Santa are born. Our next good snowfall came in the afternoon before Thanksgiving and it was the perfect temp for taking an evening walk to Cub to get a few groceries. I love night time walks in a white snow covered land. They are so peaceful, sounds are more muted.

With more snow and bright sunshiny days where better to be than on our hill.

Then the big snow of December 11 came and we were buried. Traveling in it was horrible. Once we gave up and stayed home we went over to our neighbors and had a good evening of visiting over freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee and ginger cookies. What can be better than good friends and that!

When we were properly warmed and soothed reality had to be faced and we brought in wood and scooped the driveway. Here Henry and Travis bring in wood:

Life is hard when the snow is this thick and you have such short legs: It would be fun to have snowshoes for when the snow is like this. It is very dense and there is a bit of a crust. We can scoot across the top using our arms and sitting on the plastic sleds.

Some of the cousins coming into Grandpa and Grandma's after a refreshing sledding adventure on their new sledding hill. December 25.

Enjoying the snow,

~Anna

Tea-Infused Lentil Soup

I am not really sure why I ever tried this recipe but this very well may be one of the most requested, by my children, meals I make. Certainly it is possible that my eldest daughter requests it the most.

It came in an email newsletter I used to receive called KIWIscoop. I don't have any idea where it came from but it was mostly healthy recipes and fun quick tips for family fun and stuff to do so I would browse through it when it came to my box. It is really a simple and quick meal. Enjoy!

Tea-infused Lentil Soup

2 tea bags Jasmine tea

1 cup lentils (any type will do, it calls for red and I use what ever color those are in the picture above)

1/4 cup rice

2 large yellow onions (cut into thin strips) {I almost always use white onions but red, green, or yellow are all tasty here} [I use just one unless they are small then I will use two]

1 Tablespoon oil -olive is nice

1 1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon, or more cumin

1 vegetable, chicken or beef bouillon cube

1/3 cup parsley

5-6 cups water- divided

Fresh bread of some sort to serve on the side.

Directions:

1. Steep tea in 1-2 cups boiling water

2. Boil 3 cups water in a deep soup pot, add lentils and rice. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. {or 2.} In a frying pan saute onions in oil until golden and tender. Add cumin and salt and quickly fry them. { I do this in the pan before I boil the water and leave them in to cook some more with the lentils and rice}

Stir in bouillon and 2 cups more of water. Make sure bouillon is stirred in and dissolved. Return to a boil.

4. Just before serving stir in parsley and tea. Add meatballs if desired (I never do).

They say preparation time is 45 minutes and it will serve 4.

Please try this. It is such a good simple meal to enjoy. And when you are done you can enjoy a good game of chess, maybe if you have a playmate.

~Anna

I am linking this post to Tasty Tuesday's at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam

Fall Memories

Going back in our memories to October and our family trip to the Father/Son Retreat up at Flaming Pines Youth Camp. Don't be confused by the name father son, we weren't and took it as a family event and all of us went. Actually we girls had responsibilities there. The guys needed fed so we helped cook for them. While the guys spent most of their time learning about geo-caching, we spent most of the time baking and preparing meals. We all had a good time hanging out with old friends and making some new friends.

After Sunday morning services we had some free time once we had loaded up the van and cleaned out our cabin. So we went on an adventure. With a kind guide we went to the sand hill.

It looks steep and it is! And now we have sand in our shoes. Gregory found some tools to help him up the incline. It was pretty much straight up and down! The view from the top. Travis, summit-ing again, after giving Gregory a final boost up.

Coming down if you didn't want to run head first it was fun pretending you were walking on the moon! Your feet slid right through as you floated down. Beatrice's favorite way to help was holding Mr. Cody.

~Anna

The Way Things Have Been

It has been a rough week here in Lake Woebegone (where all the woman are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average).

The problems started last Thursday when Beatrice woke up my computer and it immediately got swamped by a think.pointe virus that was very resilient and she and I could do nothing with it. It was there and nothing we could do with the computer until Travis got up. He was unable to do anything about it before we left for our Thanksgiving dinner we couldn't shut the computer off, nothing. After working on it for a couple hours once we got home and still getting nowhere Travis had to leave for work. When he got home from work he was able to find the right information on his computer and then get mine working correctly again, but not for long.

Saturday we were awoken by Travis' mom calling to say that she thought Grandma E. was going to die. She didn't have any blood pressure and she seemed to be fading fast. In October she had a similar episode and she was just very dehydrated so I really kind of thought that was probably the case this time but it didn't end up being the case this time, at noon she called again. Grandma was gone. She was a sweet and kind lady. Mostly I only knew her as a very quiet person, not everyone remembers her so much that way but as a rather fun loving woman. Her grandkids remember fun times of sleeping over at her house and playing dress up in her clothes, others recall what a hard worker she was. What we all remember her the same way is her perfectly clean and immaculate house, the lawn was always that way, too. She is so much happier now I know, with her Rusty up in heaven.

Sunday at 12:17 am we heard Gregory in his bed whimper and cry out a little. When we heard him start to cough Travis said "he's going to throw up!" I flew out of bed, but I was too late. His bed was soaked, covered in unpleasantness I hope you never have to deal with. So I gave Gregory a bath, stripped his bed, remade it and made Gregory some tea and did laundry. I just got back to sleep when we heard noises again, this time I was better prepared but it was no more fun for Gregory. Clean that up, get back to sleep and do it all over again two more times. It was a rough night. Sunday everyone else felt good and Travis left for work. The older three of mine felt bad about missing church so I offered to take them if they were sure they were healthy. "Yes, they were," they declared. We made it home from delivering them and Gregory cleansed his stomach again, for the last time thankfully. We started another load of laundry and went to bed to nap until it was time to fetch our children home and I got a call, Beatrice had thrown up. So we got back up and rushed out the door to collect Bea and clean up her mess, but the mess was all taken care of when we got there, that is what good friends are for,I guess. Gregory, Bea and I took a good nap, as soon as Bea had her bath. Due to our health issues around here it was decided we better not take a ten hour drive south to mourn with the family. We were pretty sad about that.

Monday morning came and I aired this house out. It smelled rather sickly. Lucky it was a warm day.

Tuesday came and Travis tried to start my computer and the same virus showed up . He was able to get rid of it for awhile but it still is causing problems and regularly my problem free easy to use computer locks up. Wednesday afternoon came and it was declared the computer is a goner. I am in mourning again. There may a solution but at this time it is doubtful and unclear if any would work. I am typing this on a laptop that I am unused to and unsure of.

Now, we have had some wonderful times with great friends but I didn't feel like dwelling on those today, just thinking about a few of my troubles seemed more interesting. Sorry.

~Anna

Oh, I was wondering what do you think of the new addition of music on this blog? If you don't like it feel free to shut it off while you are reading:) Let me know what you think.

The American Patriot's Almanac

This is a review of the book The American Patriot's Almanac. This book is a treasure trove of cool facts about our wonderful country. Sometimes significant, some times rather insignificant, but always interesting. For example November 6th tells us about the first football game between Rutgers and the College of New Jersey. Besides a short article about something that happened on that day in our history there is 4-5 more quick facts at the bottom of each page. Between the months are other special bits of info, between September and October there are a whole host of patriotic songs and the way they came into being, when they were popular and the words for that song. This book is written in an easy to read but detailed style making it enjoyable for most ages to read and listen too. I think this will be a wonderful addition to our schooling for learning our United States History. Tying it into the day something happened gives it added interest. This is also a beautifully bound book, lovely to have sitting out for casual reading in a sitting room.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255

The Doctor is In

Our family took most of the months of October and November to be sick. We weren't flat on our back much of that time we just weren't well. Maybe if we could have just stopped for a week we could have kicked our problems quicker than we did, needless to say we ended up feeling rough for forever. In that time we got to use a lot of my home remedies for curing all sorts of troubles. In case you were curious what to use vinegar and salt for, read on.Although we haven't had a broken leg in our house for some time I thought I would post this picture for old time sake.

Before I begin I need to tell you I am not a Doctor, I only dreamed of being one when I was young. So this is info I have gleaned from experience and hope it might help you as well. It might not, it could just be wishful thinking on our part that it helps.

1. Margaret had an awful earache for a day or so and she began running a fever with it. She was putting hot packs on her ear to soothe it and then I added a few drops of tea tree oil for good measure before she went to sleep that night. Her ear was all better in the morning!

I wish I would have known to do that when my boys had all of their ear infections as young toddlers.

2. If your throat is sore and scratchy dissolve some salt in warm water and gargle often through out the day.

3. We were at the beach and in the sun a bit to long for some of our fair skins. We did try to sun screen ourselves but clearly, not enough. Travis was burnt on his back and chest, oh, he was very red. He actually isn't my best advertisement for this cure but, I think I didn't douse him enough. It always works for me. The remedy for sunburn is VINEGAR. Spread it on with a cotton ball and the burning will go away, it will soon turn to a tan. Keep applying it as you need to for pain control.

4. If you are so nauseated nothing will stay down drink some plain old black tea. It settles your stomach right down. You can add a little sugar if you don't like it on its own. That is all Gregory had for 24 hours or so. At least he wasn't dry heaving his insides out.

5. Sometimes there is so much pressure in my sinuses I just give up and eat a garlic clove and an orange or some other high vitamin C fruit. Then I drink a quart or two of water and I feel so much better. No one wants to be close to me but that is okay, the pain is away! Once in awhile I have to do it another time in about 1/2 hour. It is all good for you so go ahead, try it. 6. Try praying, it works!

7. Beatrice's hair went crazy from to much salt water, or something and was terrible. It was dry and even if you got it all brushed out, she moved and the snarls were right back in there. After weeks of trying to condition it good in her bath and not washing it very often to try to renew her natural oils I gave up and got out the mayonnaise. I slathered it all over her head and she smelled like potato salad for the rest of the evening but the next day after her bath she had slightly greasy hair! and a week or so later she has nice hair, not frizzy, not greasy.

8. I should have paid attention to the warning signals my body was sending me but I didn't and I had a big old UTI. I was in Pain. So, I went to the kitchen and drank myself a couple ounces of vinegar. Then I ate a garlic clove and gallons of water this time. I kept drinking and taking a couple of tablespoons regularly of vinegar. The next morning I felt so much better it was truly amazing, I wasn't running a fever and I could do my job much more comfortably. I continued to take vinegar by the tablespoon for a few days to make sure everything washed out. I have heard if you have a tendency to have kidney or UTI problems you should take a tablespoon every day for maintenance. We also ate dill pickles for a more fun way of getting that vinegar in.

9. Nothing is better for a sore, achy body than a hot shower.

10. Remember to heal your body needs lot of sleep and plenty of fresh fruits and veggies to give it all the vitamins it needs to make those new and healthy cells.

To a more healthy winter!

~Anna

Armistice Day

Happy Veterans Day to you all! Thank you, thank you to all who have served in keeping me free!! I do truly appreciate what you have given up for me.

A little history for you. This day began as a holiday at the end of the Great War. A cease fire was called at 11 am on the 11the day of the 11th month of 1918. It was a great and sudden silence that was the end to four years of horrific fighting all over Europe.

In 1954 it was changed to Veterans Day so we could remember all who have served our country to keep it, and so many other countries of the world free.

Our family remembered this day, this year, by, writing letters to some of the veterans in our life and thanking them. A rousing time of singing and playing the trumpet, recorder, piano and harmonica to a whole host of songs that remind us of different wars and other patriotic tunes. We may think of more to do this afternoon, we shall see.

Battleship HSS NC

The next place of interest that we went is to the Battleship NC in Wilmington, NC.

This ship remains floating in a harbor there. We watched a short film about the life of the ship and then we got to tour it. One impressive fact about the battleship NC is that it was in almost all of the pivotal water battles during World War II yet only lost 10 men in fighting. During one battle it had a 30 foot whole blasted in its side yet it never left formation and continued on with the plan.Some of the crew on this tour. Here the boys are inside of a giant anti aircraft device. I was above a gyroscope to see them. There are a lot of gyroscopes on a ship of this sort. The quantity of kitchens in this place was amazing until you thought about feeding 2000 men three times a day. Then it seemed reasonable. There was a bread kitchen and several other specific types. This one had quite a number of huge pots like the one Heidi is in. I guess it was the soup kitchen. In one there was two machines for peeling potatoes. The guys sometimes got carried away with the fun of running it and the potatoes came out pretty miniature, I guess. We went up and down, and around and around this place until we had seen just about every part of it and we were plum tuckered out. This is where the captain worked. It had a gyroscope here too. And a steering wheel, and lots of windows. The captain had a bedroom near here in the event the seas were stormy or there were other navigational dilemas and then he also had a space below deck when the seas were calm. There was a laundry, a P.O., store, soda fountain, movies were played at times in one of the cafeterias but Harrison thought the guns were the coolest part.

~Anna

Huntington Beach State Park AND Atalaya

This was probably my favorite of the tours we took. It really was a neat place with a neat story. We also had a very enthused tour guide at Atalaya to tell the story of its inhabitants.

As we came into the state park we crossed a salt marsh area and both times we crossed it we got to see an alligator or two moseying around. We started with a picnic in a very mosquito infested area. Other than the bugs in the shade it was very nice. Then we took a walk out into the marsh on a board walk to see if we could see some wild life. We saw quite a few birds but no alligators. When we got done with our walk we hurried over for the 2pm tour of Atalaya. While we waited for the tour guide to arrive we read about the people whose home we were about to tour. Archer and Anna Huntington. They were both artist. His was words and hers were sculptures. Archer was the son of Collis Huntington a very ambitious man. Collis started his financial rise by getting tools and the things men would need into California for the gold rush days, then he got into railroads, then coal mining and shipyards. Always quite successful. Archer's mom, Arabella, was quite a creative lady and didn't trust him to anyone else to raise so she home schooled him. They did a lot of traveling to learn about what they were studying. Archer learned quite a few languages this way and this is what influenced the style of this home. They used Atalaya as a get away and a retreat for Anna's somewhat fragile health. It was very much in the middle of nowhere with a view of the ocean. To get there from their home in Connecticut they would use a modified camper to sleep in along the way and haul their menagerie of animal companions. A family of monkeys, always quite number of dogs, a horse and sometimes a bear and a few birds. Anna was really into a certain breed of dogs she introduced to the U.S. from England, they are a huge rangy type that I can't think of the name right now. They had a 100 or so at their home in the north. Some of the animals happened to be with them because they were models for Anna's sculptures.

When they started work on this place Archer wanted it to look like some of the Moorish homes he saw when he was growing up. He didn't use an architect to design this place instead he tried to tell some of the local workers he had hired what he wanted. Then he left them for the winter to go run the shipyard. When he returned he didn't like the way it was looking so he had them tear it down and they started again, one of the main things they were doing wrong was cleaning the joints between the bricks. He wanted a straight but sloppy look. This was during the depression, they didn't have any work so they stuck at it and tried again. Archer and Anna were the biggest employers in this part of SC during the depression. This is the Atalaya, the watchtower. It is in the center of a large courtyard with a hallway running most of the way through it. On three sides of the courtyard are the family rooms and the servants rooms. At the end you are looking are the stables, garage and other service buildings. One of them being a building just for the shelling and cleaning of seafood. They really enjoyed that and had someone hired just to keep them stocked with seafood. All around the courtyard while Anna was there she kept large pots with flowers growing in them, between each of the palm trees.

This small room was at the very end of the house facing the ocean. When they were there you could see the ocean but it has grown up with a lot of trees and brush blocking that view now.

Here is something I had never learned about before. During world war II the homes and businesses along this coast and the Gulf of Mexico had to black out their windows for their safety. There were many German U-boats patrolling these waters and blowing many ships out of them. So many interesting things were mentioned on this tour. I have now just read a book talking about this more in detail, very interesting. Looking out from the lookout above the family room towards the sea. I love brick work in homes, and although this place was certainly in a bit of disrepair you could still envision a lovely place to live here. And now it is time to leave Huntington Beach State Park, someday I would enjoy getting to browse around here again.

~Anna

Airborne and Special Operations

Here in NC right next to Fort Bragg we went to the Museum of Airborne and Special Operations. Without these brave guys we wouldn't have made it through many of the wars we were involved in. This place had a ton of things to look at. We could have learned so much if we had had more time and patience. I only read a smattering of the info boards there was so much detail. The displays were very well designed and fun to see. Did you know the army used these gliders to deliver men and jeeps and whatever other supplies they needed. They dragged them behind a big airplane and then let them quietly float on in to where the supplies were needed. Later when the opportunity arose they gathered them back up by dropping a line down as they slowly flew by and pulled them up into the sky and returned them to the ship. There were helicopters, an airplane and Parachuters overhead as we walked through the years of war scenes. Did you know that some of the hardest obstacles they didn't expect were the hedgerows? They were growing there for hundreds of years of sturdy bushes that didn't want to be crushed by tanks and provided the opposing forces with great protection at all of the corners. Did you know in Vietnam they wore this type of sole so the natives thought they were natives? I am so thankful for people who are willing to give their time and lives to protecting me and my freedoms. Oh, the many blessings I have been given, just by being born here and now!

~Anna

Our family covered 4000 miles this month in our van. We got to see a multitude of wonderful things in God's amazing world. I am so thankful we live here in a country where we have the freedom to travel as we wish and see so much. I just pray our country can remain great! The trip ended up being quite educational. We took several historic type tours and then life in general is very much a learning process.

I am going to blog about our field trips along the way here in the next few days, I hope. I had hoped to start sooner, but while I was absent blogger changed some picture up loading processes that I couldn't seem to figure out so, this morning I finally took the time to go in and change some settings and now I upload pictures the way I did when I first got this blog. At least pictures are going up.

~Anna

Touring a Hog Farm

Well, we went to visit Grammy and Grampy and while we were sitting around talking about all the neighbors and what had been going on in the area since we were last back to visit. Grammy mentioned a descendant of the people who had originally lived on this farm, in the old farm house, had called and wanted to come out to see what was still here. Turns out, all of the house is left, they just built hog barns around it. The house has been used as storage. It was like a bee in Margaret's bonnet, she really wanted to see this old house. So when it was about time for us to leave, Grampy took us up there in his truck and we had a tour. It has been the home of raccoons it looked like for sometime. After we felt our way around in there for awhile. We checked out the rest of the place. We saw the farrowing house and how it worked. We saw where the piglets grew into pigs, where they got their first shots and surgeries. Here, Grampy is standing on the pit where everything in the yard drained or was scraped and then when it was full they transferred its contents into the honey wagon and hauled it over the fields. Liquid gold. Or something like that.

We hadn't intended on taking this tour, but it sure was fun spending the time with Travis and Grampy in a place that held a lot of memories for them.

Remembering An Evening's Walk

We started with a picnic

 Eating lots of pop corn

 And drinking lots of water.

Then we wandered over hill and vale,

Up ancient stairs of crumbling concrete.

By prehistoric rhinoceroses, which we all took a turn at conquering! 

~Anna, remembering the evening of August the 27th, 2010.