100 Years of Cherry Trees

  

   I received my March issue of Better Homes and Gardens yesterday. My mother loves that magazine and I am frequently inspired by it.  The editors of this magazine, both the traditional and online versions, have one of the most useful and informative magazines around, as well as some of the most beautiful photographs.

  According to BH&G, this year marks the 100th anniversary of Japan's gift to the United States of America with 3,00 cherry trees. This sparked my curiosity and I did a little investigating.

  Washington D.C. celebrates the National Cherry Blossom Festival every year at the end of March with festivities that include dances, both modern and traditionally Japanese. At this time of year the country's capital is splendidly wardrobed in the many shades of pink and white blossoms that fall from these dainty trees. If you are planning a trip to Washington; this is a good time to see the capital at it's best. Last year's festival was held on March 28th.

                              

National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.

  The trees were presented in 1912 by Ozaki Yukio I learned the Japanese word for cherry blossom is Sakura, which is also a popular name in that culture for girls. The US, in return, gifted Japan with flowering dogwood a few years later. 

  The origin of cherry blossom viewing goes back to the Heian period (794-1192) when aristocrats of the Japanese imperial court held parties to enjoy the beauty of sakura.Okinawa has enjoyed an earlier bloom time than the rest of Japan, having a warmer climate that other parts of that country. In 2010, Okinawa officially started cherry blossom season in January! This is a full two months before the cherry trees start to bloom over here.

                                       

Cherry Blossom (Sakura) in Okinawa Japan 沖縄のさくら

  I have been a scrapbooker for many years now. Over ten years have passed since I started chronically all of our many experiences as a family in the pages of my scrapbooks. Quite a few times I have found scrapbook sites with free patterns to download online. Wouldn't you know it; I just happen to have a piecing pattern for... wait for it...CHERRIES! (You knew that was coming, didn't you?) Here it is:

 

  As you can see this paper piecing project was done by Lisa Storms and published as a downloadable pdf file from scrapbooks etc online. Check them out for more scrapbook and card making ideas.
  Now, before I go, I have to give you one more cherry project. This is my favorite dessert, made first (in our family) by my Auntie Debbie and loved by everyone who loves cherries. If you do not love cherries, have no fear as this cake can be made with any flavor pie filling. It is Dump Cake and if you have never tried it; you are in for a treat! I absolutely LOVE it!!

Dump Cake

1 box yellow cake mix, with butter
2 sticks of butter
1 large can cherry (or your favorite flavor) pie filling

Melt a stick of butter in a 8 x8 casserole dish. Pour pie filling in next. Add dry cake mix evenly on top. DO NOT STIR TOGETHER! Put small pats of butter all over top, using whole stick. Bake at 350* for 30 minutes.

I like to eat mine with some vanilla ice cream. But, then, I like vanilla ice cream with almost anything...except broccoli, I guess.



My family got together and printed all of our favorite recipes from the extended family into our own cookbook. It is one of my favorite cookbooks. I only have a few cookbooks and rarely cook, even then I seldom open a book or follow anything but recipes I know by heart. When I do use a cookbook, it will either be this one (our family book) or Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.

  

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!

 

Today is the 203rd birthday of Abraham Lincoln. So, this blog is about Honest Abe. No, don't worry, we won't be having a history lesson. Just some fun stuff to do and a quote or two.  First a little quote from the master orator. 

"Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."   ~ Abraham Lincoln

 



  The first thing I would like to share with you is a tutorial I found on Pinterest for making a pendant from - what else - a penny! You can use dog tags as a memorial for your pet or use other metal to make your own pendant, even other coins.

  click here for tutorial

  This was made by Cathe Holden and her blog is Just Something I Made.  Since I have started using Pinterest, I have found so many crafts that I want to do. I used to craft a lot, first cross-stitch, then scrapbooking but other projects, too.  Work and boredom have kept me from doing anything in a long time. Now that I have been bit by the crafting bug again, thanks to this new site, I think I will be spending more time (and money) at thrift stores and probably Hobby Lobby, too.

 
One more project for you. It is originally made from a one dollar bill but change it to a five and viola! You will have Abe Lincoln's birthday and Valentine's combined into one craft. This was downloaded from Dover samples. They are a book company that offers an email update with samples from the books and CD's  that they sell. I had originally downloaded most of what I have for future use in scrapbook pages. It just goes to show, you never know what you might need things for.
  Check out some of the blogs I am following listed to the left here. They will have many crafts and recipes for Valentine's Day and more. As soon as I start doing crafts that I have been hoarding on Pinterest; I will post them on here, so stay tuned!

Black History Month.

In honor of Black History Month, I would like to share these quotes that my friend Lucy Embrey shared with me.

http://watermelontree.tumblr.com//

Sunshiney Daffodils

"The Earth smiles in flowers"

  If you live anywhere near my little hometown of Walnut, Mississippi, you are definitely loving the weather right now. When there are reports of record amounts of snowfall in other parts of the country, I feel very sorry for the people suffering through several feet of snow and ice.
  Having said that, I am almost guilty about enjoying our springlike weather. The sunshine, the moderate temperatures, and the flowers! The daffodils have gotten a head start this year. They are really bursting on the scene with all their sunshiney color. I am jealous of my neighbors whose daffodils have started blooming in clusters around their yard. Mine never bloom first, although I do have one small flower in the backyard (where nobody can see it and I had even overlooked the poor thing.)
  I passed an old abandoned property Monday afternoon, on the way to my physical therapist's appointment, that had so many daffodils that I felt overcome with the need to stop and take pictures. I am a dedicated amateur photographer, whose main subject is natural scenery. The people at my physical therapist's must have thought I was just plain crazy when I came in there Monday with a daffodil. I gave it to the receptionist and had her smell it because it was so sweet. Most daffodils, in my opinion, have a slightly unpleasant smell. However, I find some, mostly the smaller versions, that smell so good, you would want to eat them. (Well, maybe not literally.)
  Yesterday, on the way home from an appointment in Memphis, my husband, Alan and I did something that is our regular hobby when we have the time. We wander around the back roads, looking for what interests us. With him, it is travel trailers, vintage campers, old cars and trucks. With me it is anything that would make a good picture. I got a few pictures of some thrift that was growing in the big old city of Walnut near the post office and he saw several campers but nothing outstanding.
   I did see an old house that had clusters of daffodils growing around it. Now, I have my favorite vase sitting next to the couch with a handful of daffodils, where I can easily see it,bringing me a little sunshine inside.
  Where ever you live, I hope you are having a good day with lots of sunshine...and flowers. Even if they are the artificial kind and the only sunshine comes from the people around you...that counts, too.

Thrift at home near Walnut Post Office

Some Things Are In The Genes

  Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved to make crafts. Maybe this was a gift passed down in my genes from my Grandmother Tormaschy. (I know the name is a mouth full, it's Hungarian.) Her main outlet for crafting seems to sewing. She made items to sell at the hospital gift store where she lived in Yakima, Washington. My mother still has a few things she made, like a stuffed purple chicken that sat in a basket and a felt fish that was filled with bird seed and used for a pincushion.
  Myself, I am not so good at sewing. In fact, I took Home Ec in high school (It was called Culinary Arts when my son took it at HIS high school and no longer offered the sewing instructions). Half the year, we learned all about the joy of cooking and at the end of the course made a meal that the whole class choked down, er... enjoyed.
  The second half of the year, we chose a pattern and by the end of the class, we were supposed to be able to sew it. The pattern had to have certain elements that showed off our prowess at the basics, like buttons, zippers, set in pockets, etc. I chose a little jumper that had a collar and elastic waist and pockets. It turned out just fine, except I must have had a growth spurt during the year.  We measured for the pattern at the beginning of the year in class so the teacher knew we had the correct measurements. But, when I went to put on the jumper, I couldn't fit into it! So, needless to say, I never wore it. 
   One of my many sisters, Eileen, sews quilt tops and she is amazing at it. She seems to be able to whip them up in no time. Lacking the proper machine to do the quilting, she has a friend who quilts the top and back together for her. She has done a quilt for everyone in the family, and when you are talking about as large a family as ours, that's a lot! I love the colors in mine. In one year she did one for each of the "kids" in our family. That's about sixteen! Like I said amazing!

My New Addiction

Hello, friends! Sorry I haven't been writing anything for awhile. My cousin sent me an invitation to this great new site. It has become my new addiction. (Like I needed anything else to keep me away from my housework!) It's called...

 

 ...and it is super.

It lets you add pictures that you find on the internet or from your computer. Like....

...the adorably cute...

 ...the inspiring and motivating...

...and, my favorite, the wickedly amusing!

You can also add fashions, products you can't live without, foods you drool over,books you read (or would like to) and a whole slew of other things. So, just click the button on the top of my page and check out my boards. If you would like an invitation (which is the only way to get started on Pinterest) let me know and I'll send you one. Thanks to my cousin, Kristy, for getting me started. I am loving me some Pinterest!!

Grandma Hazel

  I have had a lot of time on my hands lately due to a problem with my neck. I have been off work since November. While that sounds awful (and sometimes it is), it has given me a lot of time to think and appreciate my job and paycheck more. Ha ha!
  Seriously, though, I have spent a lot of time "covering the couch" as we call it around here. Or, at least, what I call it sometimes. That has mostly been while sleeping or watching terrible daytime television. I DID NOT miss any of these programs whilst working, I can truly say. Especially since we are out in the boonies and on a tight budget so we do not have cable, satellite or anything other than the good old fashioned antenna. Jerry Springer was never more sleazy. Neither can I say that I have much faith in our nation's morals when you have so many women looking for their "baby's daddy" on Maury Povich.
  I haven't watched soap operas since my twenties and do not intend to get back on that band wagon after all these years. My grandmother was an avid soap opera fan. She arranged her daily activities so she would never miss her "stories" as she called them. Although I loved my grandmother's spirit (and her chocolate gravy!), I did not share her love of day time television.
  Grandma Hazel loved Bob Barker and "The Price Is Right". She loved a lot of game shows. I can see her now, sitting in her rocker, chewing on a toothpick and chuckling the way she did that always made me love being around her. She was a red head who would stick up for what she believed in and some say that she stuck her nose in where she shouldn't have. I only know that she gave me good advice, was there when I had both my children (I stayed with her while I was pregnant with my youngest son, Brandon, so my husband could work and not worry). She was saucy but never what I would call mean spirited.
  She had a way of saying that a girl or woman was "right pretty in the face" which meant, usually, that the poor  female in question was usually overweight but otherwise pretty.
  My grandmother had a car accident, which was completely her fault. She had a habit of crossing a busy intersection near her home without looking, assuming the other drivers would get out of her way "because she was old" as she told me once. Even though I had told her that people couldn't tell how old she was in a car, she continued to drive that way especially across this one intersection.
  The accident left her in a coma. After the coma, Grandma Hazel recovered but was never the same. She couldn't take care of herself and, sometimes, didn't know who or where she was.
  When she went in the nursing home, I was determined to go see her regularly. I wanted, also, to bring my boys to see her. She loved Jonathan and Brandon as much as any of her large brood of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. And there were lots to love!
  At first we went every weekend. My grandmother and I spent most of the time crying. My sons asked us both why we were crying. Grandma said "Because we are just so happy". I am not sure why she was crying as she and I didn't discuss it . As for me, it was breaking my heart to see my spunky grandma in such a pitiful condition. There was more than once that I had thought she would have preferred to have died in that accident.
  Maybe it was cowardice on my part or just an unwillingness to face the truth, but I soon stopped going to see my grandma. My boys were too young to ask many questions and soon forgot about our weekly visits but I never let them forget her.
  I only saw her a few more times at relatives' houses when they took her from the nursing home for family get togethers. I never knew what to say and was always consumed with guilt for neglecting to visit her. All I could do was sit close and hold her hand, which looked so small and frail in mine. I hope now that she knew of the love that I could not express in those moments.
  Hazel Inez Sullivan Horn passed away in 2006. I know, because of my faith, that she is alive and with my grandfather and all her friends and family and surrounded by the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope to see her one day and maybe we can share rocking chairs and talk about Bob Barker and her "stories". I am just glad she was a part of my story.