Fun Facts About Ground Hog Day

It's groundhog day time. Is it Feb. 1 or 2? I'm not sure so I waited until today (the 3rd) to discuss this. First of all, how did they ever come up with such a weird tradition? Why 6 weeks more of bad weather? Up in the mountains it is usually a lot more! And down in Florida, it never was that bad. Anyway it is a fun touristy thing for Punxsutawney. AND it made a great theme for a movie!

I love the movie Ground Hog Day. Every ground hog day I think what a great time to watch the movie. I scan all the movie channels and guess what? No Ground Hog Day! Every year the same thing. So here we are at Micah's and they don't have TV but they do have Netflix they can download (upload?) onto their TV. I noticed in their queue they had it! Great, I thought, we can watch it here! Nope, Micah had something else he wanted to watch but we still haven't gotten around to it. (Inglorious Bastards, which I tried to watch with the grandsons at Christmas time but fell asleep because I couldn't read the subtitles on our old TV--they were too small and blurry and went by too fast). Maybe I'll try to watch it again on Micah's big screen. Anyway..... I still need to see Ground Hog Day. Maybe I should watch it this afternoon while Nattie is sleeping and Kim is doing her homework. Sounds like a plan! Here's some fun facts from The Christian Science Monitor:

Happy Groundhog Day!

Tuesday marks yet another dubious American holiday, complete with its own greeting cards. Like so many other holidays, Groundhog Day seems an unnecessary exercise in self-inflicted torture: We roust ourselves at the crack of dawn in the depths of winter so an overweight rodent from a peewee town in Pennsylvania can tell us we have to look forward to six more weeks of winter (Yes, Phil saw his shadow).

And then there’s the poor rodent itself – yanked from cozy hibernation to satisfy a whim (no wonder New York’s Staten Island Chuck bit Mayor Bloomberg’s finger last year).

Regardless, we’ll be celebrating Groundhog Day for many moons to come. So here’s some Groundhog Day trivia with which to impress your friends:

• Punxsutawney Phil is immortal. Well, practically. According to folklore, the furry oracle was born in 1887, making him 123 years old. The average groundhog lives less than 10 years, making Phil a statistical anomaly … or not Phil (remember when Daddy came home from the vet with Harry the hamster, only Harry looked different?). Fans of Punxsutawney Phil insist a magical “elixir of life” keep Phil looking youthful.

• Phil’s about as accurate as your average meteorologist. That is to say, not very. The US National Climatic Data Center estimates Phil’s forecast is correct only about 40 percent of the time. (Perhaps he could find a job at the Weather Channel.)

• Phil’s got competition. Watch out, Phil: prognostication is popular among the rodent set. New York’s got Staten Island Chuck, Ohio’s got Buckeye Chuck, and Georgia’s got good ol' General Beauregard Lee. There’s more. Wiarton Willie, Dunkirk Dave, Shubenacadie Sam, French Creek Freddie, Balzac Billy, the list goes on.

• Phil’s gone high-tech. He may hail from the 19th century, but Phil’s getting word out in a decidedly 21st century way: he’s texting. And YouTubing. Phil text messaged fans his forecast Tuesday morning (followers signed up in advance by texting ‘Groundhog’ to 247365), and he has his own YouTube channel. And like everyone else and their mother, he’s on Facebook.

• There’s no Groundhog Day in Alaska. For which we can thank Sarah Palin. There aren’t many groundhogs in Alaska, so then-Gov. Sarah Palin signed a bill last year officially designating February 2 as Marmot Day. The marmot can't forecast the weather, but he may be the only rodent that can see Russia from his burrow.

--

Meemo's Muffin Recipe

Today is a quiet day for Bob and I. Micah is at work, Alyssa is at school, and Kim and the girls are at Mother's Day Out at their church. I am doing our laundry and then I think I'll make some cinnamon rolls. I hope I can find some yeast...... I guess I'll put some chili in the crock pot and dinner will be ready whenever anyone gets here. Tuesdays are busy days for their family. There will be gymnastics after school and then swimming at the gym. I am doing those activities with Kim and the girls but I think Bob will choose to stay home. Maybe Natalie will stay with him--who knows!

Micah and Kim do not have TV at their house so Grampa is having a hard time not being able to see the news or his cowboy movies! It is going to be harder on Sunday with no Superbowl! And I will miss the Olympics, too. Maybe Bob will have to go to a Sports Bar to watch the Superbowl. Anyway, he has his computer and his Kindle to keep him busy. I think he is getting some of his news off the computer so he is not entirely out in Limbo!

Well, no yeast so I guess I'll use up the half can of pumpkin and make some more muffins. There is some of Marianne's applebutter in the fridge so maybe I'll incorporate that into the recipe too. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

I made the muffins! I had to kind of make up a recipe because I couldn't find one to suit me so I will include it here. The muffins turned out to be moist and very tasty! The recipe makes 2 dozen big muffins or 1 dozen big and 2 dozen mini muffins (that's what I did and more than half of the mini ones are gone already!)

24 mini muffins with chocolate chips

So moist and tasty!

Ready to spread a little butter on it. Yummmmm!

Meemo's Apple Butter Pumpkin Muffins

4 Cups Flour

2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 tsp. Baking soda
1 Cup Butter or margarine
2 Cups Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Cup Pumpkin
1 Cup Apple Butter (or use Apple Sauce and add some pumpkin pie spice to it)
2 tsp. Vanilla
1 Cup Chocolate Chips, raisins or chopped nuts or a combination.

Mix Flour, cinnamon,and baking soda in a bowl. In a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy, add eggs, pumpkin, apple butter and vanilla and beat well about 2 minutes. Blend in flour mixture on low until just moistened. Stir in chips, nuts or raisins. Fill greased muffin tin cups about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Bake mini muffins 15 -20 minutes.
Makes 24 regular sized muffins.

Celebrating Micah's Birthday

Today is Micah's birthday. I decided to make him a birthday cake even though cake is not a favorite with him. I figured the rest of us could eat it and that it would be entertainment for Samara to help make it. I figure Micah can eat ice cream and admire our beautiful job. We made the Darn Good Chocolate Cake on Kathi's blog (countrychickengirl.blogspot.com) . It is in the oven now.

Out of the oven and ready to frost

We will make the frosting after Alyssa comes home, I think. We went out to Walmart to get a bundt cake pan and some frosting so we are all set.








The decorated cake with its decorators!









Kim got Micah a birthday present too. He needs it to get the Christmas lights down off the house! Samara thought we should get him some roses too. Nice thought, Sami!

I have been on a hummus kick lately. At home I bake corn tortillas in my toaster oven and make the hummus in my food processor. It is really hard to find tahini (sesame butter) but I finally found some over in Steamboat Springs at City Market (I figured the "beautiful people" and whole wheat and granola crowd would use it) I had to substitute peanut butter one time but it gave the hummus quite a peanutty flavor, so I won't do that again. Anyway..... Micah came home the other day with the already baked (fried?) corn tortillas used for tostadas and I had bought some good hummus at H.E.B. (a popular grocery store here in San Antonio). The store is kind of in an upscale neighborhood and has all kinds of really neat stuff in it that I never saw at the Supers store (Corkles Little Market for those of you who used to live in Walden) in Walden or even in Walmart in Fort Collins and Laramie. I have been enjoying my "hummus sandwiches" since I got here and today Samara wanted to try it and she really likes them too! I have a feeling she could make a pretty good vegetarian if she wanted to.

My "hummus sandwich" lunch makings

Tonight will NOT be a vegetarian night. Bob brought steaks from the cabin for this event. They are from Danny's cattle and are delicious.

Our T-bones waiting for the grill

I think Micah ordered mashed potatoes, too. I'm guessing he'll want some salad with the meal too. Cake and ice cream will round out the celebration. Maybe we'll watch a movie after the kids go to bed. That's it for our day.

We did a little celebrating yesterday, too. We went to eat out at Willy's (the best little ice house in Texas). Bob and Kim ordered steaks that looked delicious and Micah ordered pulled pork that looked pretty good, too. I ordered their special of the day which was boiled crawfish. They brought a whole huge platter full of them and they were really good once I figured out how to eat them! It was a whole pound of them which I couldn't begin to finish so we brought a bunch home. The kids call them spicy bugs and Natalie really likes them. They are too spicy for the other girls. We were so full that none of the adults could eat supper last night and the girls finished up their leftovers from our dining out.

A pound of crawfish!

A "spicy bug"












Samara eating mac and cheese

Alyssa chose a cheeseburger

Natalie has a hot dog and fries. Micah's pulled pork is in the foreground

It's still very chilly out--bone chilling in fact. A misty, moisty morning. A damp cold that goes into your bones! Maybe we should have gone to Florida first! Oh well, we have been having a good time inside playing games with the kids and computer games with the adults.

It's a Parade! San Antonio Style

Click on the picture to make it bigger and hit the back button to return to the blog.

This morning we went downtown with the kids to see the stockshow and rodeo parade. In San Antonio they drive longhorn cattle down Houston Street to the Alamo. We lined up with hundreds of others about 2-3 blocks from the Alamo. It was cold (38 degrees) and a bit breezy which made it quite chilly. I was glad I had left my gloves in my pockets. Alyssa was cold in her sweatshirt jacket so she and Grampa waited for the parade to start in a spot of sunshine. (the tall buildings blocked the sun from where we stood to see the parade).

Waiting for the parade in a sunny spot

Finally we heard a band and a Samba group came by dancing

Then we waited about 10-15 more minutes before the cowboys came on their horses and finally the longhorns! I was thinking it would be this large herd like you read about in western novels but it was only about 20 steers but they were big and their horns were huge!

Here come the Longhorns!

Grampa thought they were at least 12 - 15 years old in order for the horns to be that big. After the cows came the Vacaros on horseback doing roping tricks with their lariets.

Swinging his lariet!

There were Buffalo Soldiers in their Union uniforms,

Some of the Buffalo Soldiers

a ladies horse drill team, an Indian man and woman dressed in buckskins,

Beautiful buckskins!

a pack horse loaded up and headed for the stock show,

That horse is loaded down!

and several horse drawn wagons.

Heading out to the Stock Show in San
Antonio

The parade ended with the street sweeper to clean up after the cows and horses!

Micah found a spot they missed and we had to do a major clean up at the car!

When they took down the barricades we walked down a block to the Riverwalk and walked along it for a short distance to the Alamo.

Along the Riverwalk with Grampa's Sami and Susie!

Headed for the waterfalls along the Riverwalk

We went over to it and walked around the gardens and looked at the historical plaques and canons(a big hit with the girls!).

At the Alamo

The girls liked the flags in the gardens

Then we headed for the car. Grampa was tired of walking! Apparently so was Nattie since she fell asleep almost as soon as we got into the car. A fun time was had by all and the longhorns were really very impressive.

Little Nat Goes Shopping

It's a rainy, blustery day here today. Grampa and I are baby sitting with Natalie while Kim and Samara are at Mother's Day Out. Natalie usually goes too but she is recovering from ear infections in both ears so we stayed home with her. We ended up taking her shopping because there was still money on the $100 gift card at Target and we had forgotten to buy underwear for the Haitian orphans. Natalie and I went into the store and I am so out of practice taking care of little ones that I had given her a fruit rollup for a snack on the way to the store and as I took her out of the car I realized she was sticky from head to toe and her whole face had a kinda green shade to it. (not from sickness but from candy dye!) We spent quite a bit of time getting cleaned up in the store bathroom and finally went to get the biggest packages of underwear we could find. Then I realized I didn't know how to translate dress sizes to underwear sizes for kids. My mind is really slipping I guess since I did have 4 children of my own to buy clothes for! We finally asked for help and got the right sizes I hope! Then I decided they probably needed boys underwear too so I hunted around for big packages of them too.

As we were headed for the checkout Natalie and I went by a Valentine Day special on little skirts with shorts attached. Just what Kim and I had looked for yesterday and didn't find at a reasonable price. These were $4 each so I found the right sizes and the least "valentiney" looking ones that were not white. And got those so then we had to pick out matching tops. Very cute outfits if I do say so myself. Of course we went quite a bit over the $8 we had left over but we did get a bunch of stuff to send down for the children!

Our next stop was the church to drop off the clothes and then on to the grocery store. By this time it had quit raining but was still windy. It also was time for us to be getting back home and feeding Nattie lunch and a nap. Grampa and Little Nat had a few rounds in the grocery store over sitting down in the cart and throwing shoes and blankie out of the cart. Grampa finally put the shoe she threw out in his pocket and the blankie on the bottom shelf of the cart. Nattie was happy so no big deal. About 4 people had to tell me she was missing a shoe as we left for the car! Now we are home and a very overtired Natalie finally is asleep. I think Grampa is too! She is wearing him out but he needs the exercise so it is good for him! In about 1/2 hour we are going to take Alyssa to her gymnastics (if Natalie is not awake I think I will just go and Grampa can stay here with her.) Kim and Mara are going to help pack up the stuff for the airplane trip to Haiti.

I still haven't decided on what to have for dinner but I'll figure something out. The cake is going to wait until Micah's birthday in a few days so that's not on today's list after all. Well, I'm going to get the kitchen cleaned up now if I have time. No pictures yet but soon.....

Relief for Haitian Orphans

We had quite a busy day today. Kim has become very involved with the groups who are trying to bring Haitian orphans to the US. A friend from her church called this morning to let her know that someone from their church was flying his own plane down to Haiti Friday and they needed to take down medicines and clothing for the orphans. Kim volunteered to call pharmacies, Walmart, Target, etc. to see if they could donate Amoxycillin (sp?) and cold remedies, tents, sleeping bags, etc., etc. While she spent all day calling and being frustrated ( short notice does not work well for large corporations), Samara and I cleaned bathrooms and vacuumed. Kim did get Target to donate $100 gift card, so we went there to get as much as we could with the money. It was really heart warming to see how the people working in the store were willing to help us. The pharmacist gave us names of several drug manufacturers to call to see if they would donate the Amoxycillan since they needed prescriptions in order to distribute drugs at Target. She also spent a lot of time helping us select the right cold remedies at the most reasonable prices. The store manager apologized for not being able to help us more on such short notice and encouraged us to send him a list of what all was needed so he could distribute it to more Target stores in the area. We went over to Old Navy and got a couple outfits for some children who showed up at the place where the orphans were staying in Haiti with nothing, not even clothes!

On the way home, we heard from a pharmacist Kim had left a message at. He said he only needed a Dr. to come to pick up the Amoxycillin. It turns out that the man who owns the plane and is flying down is a Dr. so he can pick up the penicillin (sp?). The pharmacist gave names and phone numbers of several other pharmacists who he thought would donate drugs too.

We got home about 5 PM and Kim had to go to class at 6. We had dinner in the crock
pot and Grampa was doing the baby sitting. We were all pooped and emotionally drained by this evening! The man who is flying down to Haiti made a video and it is on youtube. Here it is below:

Driving Through Texas

We finally are here in San Antonio! We have been driving for two days and most of the miles were in the state of Texas. We spent a lot of time in Colorado but that was because we had to drive down Cameron Pass with no snow tires on icy roads and then drive through Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs. Anyway... We have spent some time driving in Texas over the past few years and I am so impressed with how the scenery changes as we are driving. I am one that loves to look out the windows and "get into" my surroundings. I also love driving through towns and cities and viewing the types of buildings and wondering how it would be to live there.

Up around Dalhart last night we could smell smoke for miles and miles. It smelled like burnt hay or some kind of grass. It was very irritating to my breathing and even my eyes. I wondered how people could stand to live around there if this was something they had to put up with every year at this time. It was dark and we could not see any fires burning. I am left wondering what was going on!

When we got to Amarillo we planned to stay there overnight. We got on a wrong turn off and wandered around town for quite a while. We saw some different parts of town and finally drove through the downtown area without finding any place to stay that interested us. We had about decided to go on toward Lubbock when we found a satisfactory place to stay.

The next day we drove through miles and miles of cotton fields. Bob was very impressed with this farm country. It was flat as a pancake! We saw no oil wells in this part of Texas! Then we were in an area of scrubby trees and pretty desolate looking land. It was not quite as flat and not many houses or farms. Then came farm land again and ranches with cattle and sheep and lots of oil wells! Finally we were in the hill country. It is beautiful and the towns are picturesque with lovely old homes, antique shops, and museums. San Antonio is right on the edge of the hill country.

We have driven between Dallas and San Antonio and it is a whole different landscape. There are two towns I really liked. One is Glen Rose, which a man I dubbed Mr. Texas Chamber of Commerce, recommended to us on our cruise and the other is Hico a very small town not far from Glen Rose. They are my kind of towns in a very pretty part of Texas. I could live in either one of those towns.

We have taken the southern route from San Antonio to Houston and then east to the border. Again with a changing landscape. The Houston/Galvaston area was still quite devastated by hurricane IKE when we drove though last year. One of the most interesting things I learned was that the last milepost before we left Texas was 875 (or maybe even a few more miles! My memory is not as good as it used to be.) I hope to get some pictures from around here to post later. That's it for tonight, I'm too tired to make much sense!