Michigan Tickets

Woo, hoo! I scored tickets to a Michigan game! My cousin is a huge fan of Michigan football, so they will be a present for her 18th birthday. She will be so excited!

Marketing Gimmick

ALL yogurt is probiotic! Do people actually believe this stuff??

Farmers' Market

***************************************I just love farmers’ markets. This weekend, I went to one that I don’t often visit. It’s under the overhang of this great old building with planked floors and a timbered roof. I only have a couple pics, since I never learned to get a decent picture under those backlit conditions.


Meals are so easy to prepare in summer, with all the roadside produce stands and markets. Right now, I’m hooked on roasted veggies. I spend a few hours on them each weekend and eat them all week. YUM!

Web Site

I’m having a web site built for participants to find and register for my class. Right now, it just leads to my web designer’s site, but it’s still my address!
I’ve helped with site content and layout at work, but only for sites that went into templates. This time, I get to choose everything, including color scheme. It has to be somewhat polished, since it will be linked from the State’s list of education providers.
It’s exciting to have my name (rather, the name of my LLC) in a URL. I can’t wait to see my own little spot on the net!

Swarm!

I found about 30 bees on the inside of a bedroom window a couple weeks ago! I killed them, taped up the window and started making some calls.
It turns out they were honey bees. I have always wanted to try beekeeping. First, they would be a perfect addition to the orchard I have always wanted. (Dreaming, again . . .) I would also be happy to produce and sell honey, since the honey trade is said to support Al Qaeda; I’d be happy to short them a couple pints a year. Alas, I am not prepared for another project at this time. Between work, taking classes, teaching classes, trips and keeping up on the houses and lawns, I don’t have time for bees.
So, I called a beekeeper. He came out, watched the entrance for a few minutes and determined it to be a “small” swarm, about 6,000 – 10,000 bees. Let me tell you, when they’re in your house, that number doesn’t sound small! To put it in perspective, though 15,000 – 18,000 bees only weigh around 3 pounds!
After determining what he needed, he came back with a bee vacuum, sucked up the bees, removed the combs, scraped out the wax and sealed up the hole. Surprisingly, it didn’t cost me a penny! It seems there’s a shortage of honey bees and keepers are happy to come and get them. It beats having them exterminated!

Going Back

This is a community swimming pool in a tiny farming village in northwestern Ohio. Pemberville is a great little town. It’s situated in some very fertile farmland, so the population is financially comfortable. There has always been an amazing amount of community spirit in Pemberville. Residents know each other and organize a lot of public events.
My mom’s aunt lived here and, for three summers, my sister and I stayed with her. The formal reason was that Sarge and I could swim at the pool across the street. I think that Mom’s aunt really wanted to help her niece, whose babysitting costs were higher when we were out of school. Mom says that she just “always liked having a bunch of kids around.”
Mom dropped us off on Sundays and picked us up Friday nights. Aunt Onie (Leona) was pretty laissez-faire about child rearing and just let us run. We only came home for meals, I think. There was a livestock barn in town for when the fair was held; we spent hours there, running through the stalls and climbing up to the vast hay mow. We played by the river and ran all around town, but most of our time was spent at the pool, since Onie lived right across the street.
I was 9, 10 and 11 when we were there – well beyond swimming lesson age, so we took lifesaving and synchronized lessons. I wasn’t even old enough for a lifeguard’s badge, but the synchronized lessons were amazing! There wasn’t one other kid in my school who had taken them, as far as I knew. At the end of the summer, the entire team (about 20) would put on a water ballet show for our parents. We were so excited about it!
What I remember of Pemberville is freedom. No school, no clocks, no clothes (we lived in bathing suits), no curfew, no pass to get in the pool (they knew us), and little adult authority. When I drive through town now, I still get a rush of that freedom.
I’ve wanted to go back to the pool for a couple years and I finally did it last week. What a wonderful little trip back in time! The pool is twice the size I remember, the guard towers are half the height I remember and I’d completely forgotten the snack bar and toddlers’ wading pool. There were about a dozen people there. Only three of us were adults and the other two were there with their kids. Lanes weren’t roped off for laps; this whole complex exists for the kids.
Now I see how special Pemberville is/was. How unusual for a town that tiny to have a community pool. To date, I have only met one other person who has taken synchronized swimming lessons and yet that little farming village was putting on a water ballet every year!
I bought a summer membership. I don’t know if I’ll make it back often; it’s nearly a 45 minute drive from home, in the opposite direction from my job. I don’t care; I’m happy to contribute to this kind of investment in a community.

Lions and Tigers and Bears - Oh My!

I’m completely intimidated by this State licensing development for my class. Right from the start, this project has led me into some new territory, but I feel way out of my league in this arena. The class was designed for a completely different audience!
Nonetheless, it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. I need to find a group, do a test class and get some feedback.
Then, just bite the bullet and work through the fear. YIKES!