Easy as Pie

Happy Independence Day!

One of the happiest holidays in the United States of America is the Fourth of July, and it's one of my favorites because of its cheerful color scheme and because I hardly have to do anything! Unlike Christmas, I don't have to "shop till I drop," and it's one of the few holidays where the kids don't get candy! (Thank goodness!)

For Independence Day, I made a pretty cookie pizza with strawberries and blueberries. It was so cute, and tasty too! You can find the easy recipe at Pillsbury.com.

This Fourth of July, I finally got my husband to install a flag holder, and I was pleased to hang our Stars and Stripes out front.



We made pretty little cupcakes for all the kids we had over before we all drove to watch the nearest fireworks a couple of miles away.



We all had a wonderful time watching the airshow with old World War II-era warplanes; the fireworks in sparkling sprays of silver, blue and red; and the children playing on their scooters and running on the grass with glow-in-the-dark bracelets and necklaces, the boys brandishing little glowing swords.

This week, my teenage daughter learned how to make another American tradition: lattice-topped blueberry pie! It really was as easy as pie, and it was absolutely delicious! I'm so happy she's learning some great skills for the future! I mean, algebra and social studies are great, but you can't eat them!



For the filling, my daughter used this easy recipe at All Recipes.com. For the crust, she used this simple but scrumptious recipe handed down from my Granny Howard:

For one crust, sift together: 1 C flour and 1/2 tsp. salt. Then cut in 1/3 Cup Crisco. Stir this into a ball with 2-4 T. cold water. For a top and bottom crust, double the recipe.

Believe me when I say this pie just looks and tastes like summer. Yum!

I hope you are having a great summer too and enjoy the festive times of these long, warm evenings. Three cheers for the red, white and ... blueberry!

Spring and Summer Flowers

"Earth laughs in flowers."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882

What are your favorite things? Raindrops on roses? Whiskers on kittens?

Some of my favorite things are books, cool days, my children, chocolate chip cookies and ... flowers.

My all-time favorite season is spring because the earth wakes up from its dormant sleep, puts on a fresh coat of green and comes alive with splashes of color.

Here in Texas, the state plants millions of wildflower seeds along the highways that turn our roadsides into seas of blue, red and yellow in the spring.


Our most famous flower (above) is the state flower, the bluebonnet. In other parts of the country, they may just be called blue lupine, but here in Texas, they go by the common, folksy name of bluebonnets.



The bluebonnet is so popular in Texas that it graces license plates, postcards, T-shirts and trivets. Every spring, it is a Texas tradition to take family photos among the bluebonnets.

The top photo shows a gorgeous field of bluebonnets that we have right across the street in the park by our house. Every spring I have the kids pose for me as I take another picture in the modern Texas tradition. Every year, they look a little older!



These little white star flowers emerged this spring from tiny bulbs in my flowerbed. I love to walk outside when the weather warms in spring and find new and pleasant surprises every day!



These delicate yellow wildflowers bloom throughout fields in the spring. I think these were by my children's school.



This is a dandelion in my back yard. I used to pull dandelions, but now we have pet zebra finches, and they love to eat dandelion leaves. So we let the dandelions take over a patch in our back yard. And they put on pretty yellow flowers in the spring and intricate globes of white as they go to seed.



These wee blossoms grow in little patches in the park by our house. They look a little like teeny-tiny blue irises!

These lovely yellow irises are newcomers to my flowerbeds, transplanted from a friend's yard. Irises really are some of the easiest plants to transplant.



I love all types of flowers, both wild and cultivated. Their beauty always brightens my days.

I hope these photos have brightened yours!

Huge Snowstorm in Texas!

Last month we had an amazing weather event here in north Texas that's even rarer than a blue moon.

We had a huge snowstorm! Usually we get about an inch of snow once or twice a winter. This year, we got about a foot of snow at once! It snowed here for about 24 hours straight and set several new records in north Texas. It was the most snow on the ground at one time that most of us have ever seen around here. In fact, it was the most snow recorded in one 24-hour period in Dallas since the 1930s!

It first started snowing Thursday, Feb. 11. Then it snowed all night, and when we woke up Friday morning Feb. 12, it looked like a winter wonderland outside! With no wind, the snow fell silently all night and clung to every branch and twig. Our house looked like a picture postcard.



All the kids in the Metroplex got a snow day on Friday, and almost every kid in the neighborhood was out playing in the snow all day. Our kids all went to the little park near our house and made snowmen and snow angels, built snow forts, waged snowball fights and took turns sliding down the little hills on plastic saucers. I even got out our old cross-country skis from the garage, where they have sat unused to years, and we all skied around the neighborhood! It was the first time our kids had ever gotten up on skis.

After that snowstorm came the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. The kids were so entertained watching all the athletes skiing, sledding and snowboarding that now they want to move somewhere it snows every winter!

Valentine's Day Cookies

Did you have a nice Valentine's Day?

My daughter and I celebrated the holiday by making homemade sugar cookies using our best family recipe. Sugar cookies are fun to make because you can cut them out in almost any design. Cookie cutters are available these days to mark just about any occasion, and I admit I have dozens of cookie cutters stored by theme so I'm ready for just about anything!

Giving homemade cookies is a special, personal way to show you care about someone. They are much more thoughtful and tasty than storebought, and who doesn't like homemade cookies? And they're even better with frosting!

Why don't you try baking up a batch for those special people tonight?

A White Christmas

"In the meadow we can build a snowman, then pretend that he is Parson Brown."
-- Felix Bernard,

"Winter Wonderland," 1934

No, that's not Parson Brown above. He's actually not even snow. (He's plastic.) But he is surrounded by real snow. It snowed here Christmas Eve!

After all those years of yearning for a white Christmas, we finally got one here in north Texas. In fact, it was the first white Christmas here since 1926! We awoke Christmas morning to a beautiful white wonderland as pretty as a picture postcard.

The snow covered the flowerbeds like fluffy white down.



It even covered the rabbits on the front porch. They think you won't see them if they hold perfectly still.



After opening their presents Christmas morning, the boys had some wild fun throwing snowballs and sliding down our little hill.

But sooner or later, cold noses and frosty fingers mean it's time to come inside.



Would anyone like some hot chocolate?

Visions of Fall

"Autumn"


Autumn in felted slipper shuffles on,
Muted yet fiery ...
... in the garden
Maples are garish, and surprising leaves
Make sudden fires with sudden crests of flame
Where the sun hits them

-- Vita Sackville-West, 1892-1962

The above excerpt of poetry by Vita Sackville-West is practically the only positive quotation I could find about autumn. I was quite surprised, because I love fall, and it is positively a reason for joy here in Texas, where it is not unheard of to have 100 days of 100+ temperatures in the summer. (Believe me, I've lived through it!)

Most of the classic writers, however, have lived in old England, New England and other places where winters are bleak and summers are actually pleasant. Most of the classic poets write rhapsodies about temperate summer days and describe autumn as a melancholy time of decline and getting older.

But I say fall is getting a bad rap! Although spring is definitely my favorite season, fall is right there behind it. If you don't live up north, summer is a period of dreadful heat, and we here in Dallas are always thrilled and relieved when we feel that first touch of cool air in the autumn. So there need to be more poems about the wonders of fall!

After the long, hot days of summer, autumn is a breath of fresh air.



I love the way the days cool down and you feel that frosty nip in the air for the first time in the fall. I love the old back-to-school fashions of thick tights and red plaid skirts. I love how the leaves decorate the yard with gorgeous colors of brown, red, yellow and orange. I don't even want to rake them up because they look so pretty. I wish my camera could better capture the way the sun shines through the leaves and dapples the grass with golden rays of light.

We were lucky this year to enjoy a lovely, prolonged season of beautiful autumn weather, perfect for playing outside and going birding. In fact, we saw many birds we haven't noticed in years past: yellow-rumped warblers, ruby-crowned kinglets, dark-eyed juncos. We think many of them were stopping by this year to enjoy our beautiful fall weather instead of just flying through on their fall migrations. Sometimes it just goes straight from summer heat to winter cold here in Texas, but we had a real autumn this year, and it was wonderful.

Then we woke up Dec. 2, and it was snowing!



The snow didn't last very long, and it didn't stick around. In fact, it melted in a couple of hours. But it was so pretty while it lasted. Thanks to a very early and very cold storm front, we were treated to a little bit of white.

Even our green chairs got a dusting of snow.



The kids were disappointed that school wasn't canceled.

But here in Texas, you just never know what the weather will bring you. In fact, there's a saying here that if you don't like the current weather, just wait 10 minutes and it will be something else. It's actually fairly common to have temperature swings of 30 to 40 degrees in one day, or even 15 degrees in a matter of minutes if an arctic front comes our way!



I found my "Autumn" quote in the above book "Forest's Robe" by Penhaligon and edited by Sheila Pickles. Penhaligon made several such gorgeous gatherings of poetry and prose in themes such as love, the four seasons, Christmas, weddings, etc. They include beautiful color artwork inside and are even scented with lovely perfumes from Penhaligon's line! After 17 years, my copy still smells pretty!

Unfortunately, winter is just around the corner, and we have already had a string of below-freezing nights that have killed my lush, green summer plants. But yesterday I noticed a little narcissus already blooming in my flowerbed! Poor, confused little baby daffodil.

It's not even officially winter yet, but I guess spring -- my favorite season -- is coming soon!

Giving Thanks

Did you have a nice Thanksgiving? We did. Here is a photo of my plate piled with food. It looked so pretty before I dug into it.

This year we stayed home and hosted my husband's parents. They helped make some of the food, and it all turned out really yummy. We had all the traditional fare: roasted turkey with giblet gravy, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, stuffing with more gravy, rolls with butter, and black olives.

And of course we had to end with homemade pumpkin pies! They are the best. I make them with my granny's pie crust recipe and Libby's pumpkin recipe for the filling.




The weather here on Thanksgiving was beautiful, as it usually is on Thanksgiving in Texas. It was mild and just perfect for playing outside. Another Texas Thanksgiving tradition is watching the Dallas Cowboys play on TV. I am not into football and don't mind working in the kitchen on Thanksgiving.

In fact, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It only takes one day of work, the food is great, and then you have delicious leftovers for several days! Cooking a turkey is a lot of effort, so it's not something we do every day. But once a year, it's fun to pull out all the stops and make a grand, old-fashioned meal. (OK, I know the pilgrims didn't really have canned french-fried potatoes and cream of mushroom soup to make their casseroles, but the thought is there.)

And one more thing about Thanksgiving: It reminds us all to remember the people we hold most dear ... our loved ones and our friends.

So thanks to all of you for reading my blog, and don't forget to say "thank you" to all those who are kind to us every day ... your child's teachers, your mail carrier, the school crossing guard, your relatives, your neighbors, your Scout leaders, your friends and all those others who make life a wonderful gift.

Thank you.