May family rocks!!

So after looking at friends' blogs that are all nice and updated, I got a little worried that nobody will read my blog any more because I haven't updated it. But I have a good rationale: I was gone last week for the May family reunion in Utah! Rah!

Too bad I didn't take any pictures. Yeah-- a family reunion after FOURTEEN YEARS and I forgot to take pictures. Way to go. I kind of felt old this time, because most of my cousins' kids who were little at our last reunion (do the math-- that would be in 1992) are now in college and/or married with one or two kids of their own. A few people have really changed. I actually looked at one man and asked, "Who are you?" Turns out he's my cousin Christine's husband Dennis. Oops. Like I said, it's been a long, dry spell between reunions.

Highlights:
Steve Knuckles directing the whole May clan in campfire cheers and a special May family clap
Aunt Marian's slide show of Grandpa and Grandma May's lives, with almost every person across five generations represented
All the techie cousins-- plus a brother-in-law-- figuring out how to McGyver a connection between Aunt Marian's laptop and the projector so we could see the slide show
Cheesecake with blueberry topping at a campsite meal. Not that anyone I know dumped hers on the ground as soon as she got it . . . I hate when that happens!
Being introduced to roasted Starbursts-- thanks, Kathie!
Family skits
The ear wiggling contest. Cousin Steve is amazing at this! Grandpa May would be proud.
Paddleboats and an amazing workout of my quads-- who knew?
Imitating old family photo facial expressions
The deer who watched us prepare our lunch from just outside the camp pavilion
A late night game of Hearts. Um, when was "lights out" again?
A universal question: Why don't we do this more often?

Big John yells "Fore!"

I forgot to bring my camera on today's miniature golf adventure, so I borrowed a couple of images from the course web site. When I first moved here and was driving to Clarksburg for stake conference, we passed a big metal coal miner statue that was slowly rotating. "Wait, what's that?" I asked. I figured it was some kind of coal monument. Even better-- that's Big John, and he's the star attraction of Coal Country Miniature Golf. This image doesn't do him justice. He looks smallish from the highway, but he's HUGE!! Next time I'm definitely bringing my camera. So many photo opportunities!
The whole course is themed around coal mining. When you start each hole, there's a little placard that explains whatever piece of coal equipment is featured in the hole. Drills, fans, coal cars, pieces of the supports for walls (which, I learned from reading a placard, would sometimes collapse under the weight of the mine ceiling-- how very comforting). So kind of a combination of cheap entertainment and a bit of local history. Not that I golfed very well. My final score was 58. If I'd been at par, I should have had a score of 44. I stink at putting. I did better than my friend, though- her score was 67. Granted, she got a hole in one and I never did. And we both ricocheted off mining equipment a few times. No lost golf balls, though. That makes us pros, right?
There's also a little coal museum that's dedicated to mining disasters. There have been plenty in West Virginia, mostly right in this area. Yup, something to be uh, proud of? The best part of the museum for me was the Three Stooges golf poster on the outside wall. My brother had that exact same poster in his room as a teenager. Note to Karen: you want to hop on a plane right now after that bit of info, don't you? Get over here!

Yo Adrian!

Okay, so as you can see, I still haven't figured out how to put the pictures where I want them (and in the order I want them). Let's just pretend this is a Philadelphia collage. I took a little road trip last weekend (five hours in my little VW Beetle that gets GREAT mileage- yay!) to visit friends in Schwenksville. Don't you just want to live in a place with that kind of name?



So Schwenskville is a suburb of Philadelphia. I HAD to run the art museum steps and have a Rocky moment. That's the picture with the stairs. Just FYI, the stairs aren't all that long or steep, so it was a little anti-climactic, but I had a great view of downtown Philly from the top. I also went to see the Liberty Bell, but the line to go in was really long and I was hot and tired, so instead of going to see it I took a picture of Constitution Hall and then called my friend, who had dropped me off and then looped around, to pick me up. It took her half an hour. Remind me never to live in Philadelphia.



We also went to see Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3-D. Fun movie, made even more fun with the glasses. And the hat? I found it at a vintage clothing store in a giant flea market. Supposedly it was a farmers market, but I didn't see much local produce. While we were in Philly we stopped at the Reading Farmers Market, which features in National Treasure 2 (which I haven't seen).

See what you all are missing out west? Come this direction!

Watch out Design Star!

As you can see, I still haven't mastered picture placement in my blog entries. I was trying for a "before and after" effect, but the "after" pictures got positioned first. Emily, come help me figure out how to do this properly for the next blog entry!

Anyhow, as you can see from the picture to the left (compared with the top left picture, lots has changed in my master bedroom. I didn't intend this to be my summer project, but it almost literally has been. This (to the left) is what my bedroom looked like in early May. The picture doesn't do the nasty old patio door justice because it's hidden behind the curtain sheers. You can get the green and white striped wallpaper effect, though, right?

Now the walls are stripe free! Hurray! I feel kind of like I'm at a beach resort when I walk in the room. I still stink at cutting in (hope whoever lives in this house next doesn't look too closely), but I can't wait to wake up tomorrow morning and feel bright and restful when I look at my walls rather than slightly motion sick. I'm also looking forward to not trekking out to the living room to find my dresser drawer (where it was temporarily residing during the painting). My room is back in commission!

Next project: sod removal so I can finally terrace the garden area for my back yard. Hope the humidity goes down before I start . . .

Hangin' out in the blueberry patch

I wanted to work in the word "holler" since it's such a West Virginia word, but I couldn't say I was in one since we were on flat ground the whole time. Here's the dialect lesson of the day for those readers who aren't from West Virginia: "holler"= "hollow" as in "Watch out when you come around the bend in the road in the winter because the holler gets lots more snow than the rest of town. We can't even get the truck up out to the road 'til it thaws." (Note: I was REALLY tempted to add something about coon hounds and burning a couch, but I restrained myself.)

Back to the story. Thursday afternoon, two friends and I drove somewhere out in Preston County (I wasn't driving, so I didn't pay attention to the turn-off, which probably wasn't labeled anyhow-- a lot of directions around here start with "Turn right where the coal tipple used to be ten years ago . . .") to pick blueberries. They cost $4 a pint at the farmers market. You can pick them yourself for $1.80 a pound. So, for a little over $7 and an hour in the sun talking with my friends, I came home with a gallon of blueberries. Yes!! The pictures are of my haul and the scene of the event.

By the way, can someone please explain to me how I put the pictures wherever I want in the post? Every time I bring in an image, it'll only go at the top of the post. How do I embed pictures wherever I want?

Actually, I didn't come straight home with the blueberries. My friends and I made cobbler and dinner (the cobbler was the real focus) and just had a lovely evening out on the gazebo watching Mousie the cat catch baby rabbits. Okay, she caught one. And my friend's husband stopped the cat and made her drop the poor lagomorph victim, which ran off and I'm sure is going to live a happy bunny life and share this cautionary experience with her numerous offspring. That one event, though, confirmed why my cats aren't allowed outside. They would catch rabbits and bring them in as gifts. On my bed. Or rather, on me. While I'm sleeping. No thanks. They can do that with their toys and satisfy their predatory instincts.

Anyone want blueberry something or other? I have five cups of blueberries in my freezer . . .

When the cat's away . . .

the mice will play-- in this case, when Mommy Cat (me) is out of the kitchen and food is left unattended, Alice and Brit think it's snack free-for-all time. Little known feline fact: Cats are omnivores. Serious omnivores. Forget all that carnivore stuff-- cats, or at least MY cats, eat whatever looks like it should be eaten.

So here's the scene: Last Saturday I bought goat cheese at the Farmers Market. It was a splurge, but I never can find decent cheese here, let alone goat cheese that reminds me of southern France. And hey, it's locally made (well, in Maryland-- that's kinda local)! So I bought it. I also went to the artisan bakery downtown (one bright spot in Morgantown's offerings) and bought a loaf of sourdough bread to eat with the cheese. I decided to have some for dinner tonight to go with my pasta. I put the cheese out on the counter to warm up a bit from being in the fridge. Then I left the room.

Therein lies the problem. Food items cannot be left unsupervised in my kitchen, even when the cats are sleeping upstairs. They have some kind of internal alarm that says, "Attention all felines! Unattended food on the counter! Go investigate!" It's not like the cheese was out of its wrapper. It was sealed in a plastic baggie! Sneaky, quiet kitties tore into the baggie and ate a big hunk out of the cheese while I answered e-mails, oblivious to the cheese carnage two rooms over.

I hope the cats don't throw up plastic and goat cheese later tonight. Note to Jen West, whom I have teased about her Lab puppy who eats absolutely everything: I have now received my just desserts for teasing you about Scooby eating an entire box of chocolates, including the box and candy wrappers. And the head off your daughter's Polly Pockets doll. And the covering on the soccer ball.

Other items my cats have eaten when I was otherwise occupied: raw mushrooms, cooked broccoli, cold pizza (again, torn through a plastic baggie-- but they didn't throw up, so I'm hopeful about tonight's incident), anything they can haul out of the garbage under the sink (which is why I have a child lock on it now), and the streusel topping off muffins I was taking to seminary on a Monday morning. Note to any of my former seminary students who may be reading this blog: I didn't feed you the muffins the cats sampled, I promise! At least, I don't think I did . . . that was five years ago. If I did, you didn't catch any noxious disease from cat saliva, right?

I promise my cats won't taste test food I serve you for dinner . . .

The Little Caboose that Could

Once upon a time, in the kingdom of Monongalia County, there was a half marathon. It started 13 point whatever miles up the Decker's Creek Rail Trail in the next county north. (When I say "up," I mean up-- there's a 4% grade down from Preston county to Monongalia county.) The trail was very beautiful, winding through trees, mountain ridges, and past the river/creek, so when Sheila decided to run this race, it seemed like a good idea. She'd done a full marathon, so a half marathon wouldn't be so hard, would it?

So Sheila trained. And trained. And trained some more. She even practiced running on the actual course-- something she did NOT do when she ran the Top of Utah marathon in 2005. June arrived and she thought she was ready.

Sheila forgot about the heat factor. June 1st was a little rainy and overcast. June 2nd was a little rainy. June 3-5 were still comfortable. June 6th the heatwave hit. The race started at 9 AM on June 7th. Sheila hates running in heat, but it was too late to back out now. So she started.

Look at all the runners-- all but one-- pass Sheila on the trail during the first mile. Good thing Judy promised to meet Sheila after the race (she finished an hour earlier than Sheila did). The only runner in sight after mile two was Maurice, age 70 something. He dropped out because of the heat after mile 3. Sheila thought he was very wise, but she kept going.

Three hours later, everyone else had finished. Sheila finally passed the mile 10 water stop. Sheila had been walking a lot, a combination of heat and her left hip saying, "Okay, we're done now!" But only three miles to go. She could walk it. Sheila's friends who had come to watch and cheer her on had already gone home, figuring she passed in the crowd of other runners and that they had missed her.

The EMT guys in their ATV kept rumbling up to make sure Sheila wasn't dehydrated. Sheila waved them off. "I'm fine, just slow!" How could the last few miles, the part Sheila trained most on, seem so much longer? The nice people at Southern States (selling farm equipment) had trained a sprayer shower hose over the trail for runners to cool down. A nice owner at the trailer park near the final mile had set out a hose and said, "Help yourself to water." Judy and her husband walked back up the trail to make sure Sheila was still coming. They walked back across the finish line with her.

No winner in her age group, no sirree. But guess what? There was a caboose award! Yes!! Sheila got her first prize EVER in a race, and she got it for coming in dead last. After drinking more water, eating some pizza, and a few days of not being able to move up and down stairs, Sheila decided any race over 10K is too long for her. That decision made, she will now live happily ever after.