I'm Off

No not in the head!! I am headed to the happiest place on earth for a few days. If you read my profile, you learned that I take my grandchildren for their seventh birthday. Sometimes one has to wait for another to be seven before they go. Today Elizabeth, Abby, their mommy Gina, and I are heading out. We will only drive as far as Portland Oregon tonight. Tomorrow we will do some serious driving so we can make it to San Francisco and stay with a friend for the night. Frizzy, we will call when we are close to your town so we can do Red Robbin...........yummmmm.

From San Francisco I am thinking about going down the coast highway so we can play along the beach. We cannot check into our Condo in L.A. until after 4PM so there is no real hurry to get there.

Julie, we will be calling you too for dinner at our place.

I hope the world does not fall to pieces while I am away and not able to give you my take on everything.

See you after the 10th, if I do not get access to a computer.

We Now Have A Total Gangster Government

I love her statement that we now have an Imperial President. Couldn't be more clear.

Good hat, bad hat

I knit this hat in two days max.

This one, same pattern took one month. Continued ripping and starting over. I do not think I like working with black yarn.

Darius does not care,

he likes both of them.

Sorry for the blur. Still getting used to the new camera.

Umm Papa, where was that song you were playing?

When I originally posted this, I forgot to say that this is Darius James #1419

Translated for my newer readers, that means he is our first childs' (Bryan) fourth child and our 19th grandchild. Thus 1419.

Could be the cartoon of the century

If it were not so sadly true

For my sewing friends

http://ikatbag.blogspot.com/

A blog I found while blog surfing. You will not be disappointed when you go there. This girl is a sewing geni to say the least. Go have some fun looking around.

From one of my friends.

5000 Years Ago
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up your shovel, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the promised land."
Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on
your asses, and light up a camel, this is the promised land."
Now Obama is going to steal your shovel, kick your asses, raise the
price of camels, and mortgage the promised land.
In God we trust.

I wish this were original to me

But since it's not, I will just share what was sent to me by my friend Ros.
Subject: FW: Joe Legal
Here is an example of why hiring illegal aliens is not economically productive for the State of California ...
You have 2 families...
"Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal".
Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California .
"Joe Legal" works in construction, has a Social Security Number, and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted....
"Jose Illegal" also works in construction,
has "NO" Social Security Number,
and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".
Joe Legal...$25.00 per hour x 40 hours $1000.00 per week,
$52,000 per year.
Now take 30% away for state and federal tax.
Joe Legal now has $31,231.00.
Jose Illegal...$15.00 per hour x 40 hours $600.00 per week,
$31,200.00 per year.
Jose Illegal pays no taxes.......
Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal pays Medical and Dental Insurance with limited coverage
$1000.00 per month $12,000.00 per year.
Joe Legal now has $19,231.00 20.
Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal makes too much money is not eligible for Food Stamps or welfare.
Joe Legal pays for food $1,000.00 per month $12,000.00 per year.
Joe Legal now has $ 7,231.00.
Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food Stamps and Welfare.
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.
Joe Legal pays rent $1,000.00 per month $12,000.00 per year.
Joe Legal is now in the hole minus (-) $4,769.00.
Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy.
Jose Illegal pays rent $500.00 per month (section 8 housing) $6,000.00 per year.
Jose Illegal still has $25,200.00.
Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work. Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family (and eat out!). Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same school.
Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose Illegal's children get a government sponsored breakfast & lunch, and they also qualify to be "bused to school" at tax payer expense.
Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program.
Joe Legal's children have to find a way to get to school and go home after school as, "latch-key kids" with no adult supervision.
Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire Services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.
Jose Illegal can send most of his money back home to build a new home for retirement, and have money to buy a new truck (and still have Medi-Cal benefits while living in a foreign country; until someone turns him in to authorities....if they ever find out!!)
Joe will be lucky if he has any money for retirement, a new vehicle, medical/dental benefits, or a place to live.
I have done the math, all you have to do is to look at it yourself.
Don't hire illegal aliens.....
Don't vote for any politician that supports illegal aliens.....
And most important of all, write your politicians and let them know how you feel
PS: You forgot, Jose illegal's wife claims "single, no head of Household" and collects additional benefits that Joe legal's wife cannot claim. No wonder our country is in trouble!! Think about it!
CAN A REVOLUTION BE FAR AWAY?
The government cannot give to anyone anything that it does not first take.....from someone else.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Battle Hymn Of The Republic

My friend Ros sent this to me via e-mail. It is to good to overlook. This is exactly what the Libs are trying to destroy.
Right down to making it illeagle for kids to sing a song like this at school.
Americans UNITE!!!!

Does any one know the answer?

Henya, my friend who writes on a blog titled

Chicken Stitches is celebrating her 100 post anniversary. Now I do not necessarily want you to go over and enter, because that will make my chances slim, and I really do want to win. But if you do go over tell her hi and that I sent you. I think you will really enjoy her blog. Henya immigrated here from Russia and loves to knit. In fact her prizes are homemade stitch markers. Yes, I did say prizes. She is going to award six prizes. Now is that generous or what? She does have a couple of requirements to be eligible to win, but I am sure they are easy enough for anyone to qualify as a contestant.
Get over there now, you hear!!

No Rants today.

Instead, I want to share this. I LOVE TASTE of HOME!!

It is my favorite cookbook collection.

Today I a made a salad on page 25 of the above edition.

It was made with fresh corn, green and red peppers, green onions, black beans, garlic and barley. The dressing was salsa, sour cream and lime juice.

Even Cooper enjoyed it!
SOUTHWEST BARLEY SALAD
3 cups reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth.
3/4 cup uncooked medium pearl barley
1 cup fresh or frozen corn. I cut corn from two fresh ears of corn.
1 cup canned black beans, rinsed and drained
3/4 cup chopped sweet red pepper
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 cup salsa
3 tablespoons reduced fat sour cream
2 tablespoons lime juice

In a saucepan, bring broth to a boil. Stir in barley. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 40-45 minutes or until tender. Drain and cool. In a large bowl, combine the corn, beans, peppers, onions, cilantro and garlic. Stir in barley. Just before serving combine salsa, sour cream and lime juice; add to barley mixture. Serve warm or cold.
Yield 6 servings.

I served this with french bread buttered and topped with Herbs de Provence, then toasted under the broiler.
Very tasty and filling.

Just a little reminder

And the Winner Is!!

Using the random generator and assigning numbers to each of you determined by the criteria set by this contest, I came up with number 28 which belongs to Aussie Therese!!!!!!!
Yeah Therese!! Send me your address, and I will have your lovely valuable prize in the mail post haste.
Thanks to all who entered and all of the new peeps. I hope you will continue to peep because I like to give things away and you never know when the bug will hit again.

Duh???

You have the right to remain silent, anything you do or say will be used against you in a court of law.

Wonder if Daniel Pearl was afforded the same rights.
IT IS WAR YOU MORONS!!!

I have friends who send me things that they think I may wish to publish on my blog. This is one of them.

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter. Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail. That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on water boarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley , Virginia to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda. "Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed. So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers... President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cosying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America 's enemies. Here, they realised, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

Now I ask you, why does Europe see it and we are so blind to what is happening to our beautiful country and our freedom?

Let me introduce the newest blogger

in our blog family. My daughter Karyn.
Ok, now ya'll go over there and welcome her with bunches of bloggy lovin.

Obama Loves Me

To good to pass up.

Tonights Sunset

They uploaded backwards, but I think you can still get the beauty of it.

I do not want to redo it.

Blogiversary Give Away

This is my prize for my blogiversary give away. I think it would make a wonderful beach bag, diaper bag, purse, even a knitting bag, what ever whom ever needs it for.
It is an Amy Butler Pattern. I showed it a few posts ago when I had just cut it out. The fabrics used are Moda prints. Not counting my time in dollar figures, the cost of making this bag was in the $50.00 range. Fabrics were $10.00 per yard, interfacing and batting, thread probably $12.00, pattern $12.95.
So you all know the rules but I will post them in case there are readers out there who have never participated in this type of give away.
1: Leave me some commet love.
2: Blog about my give away on your blog.
3. Follow me. I will give you credit if you already follow.
4. If someone leaves a comment telling me they came from your blog you will have one more entry.
5. I will draw the (lucky) winner on June 10, so that gives you three days to enter.
I hope this is fun for everyone.

By the way, the chair is not part of the prize:)

Yesterday Stan and I

Went for a drive across the mountains to a little village nestled at the foot of the Cascade Mountains on the Eastern side. This time instead of walking around the village, we went down to a park along the Wenatchee River.
As we were walking I heard Stan say deer. Now I knew he was not addressing me

cause that isn't one of his terms. I looked up to see this. She was walking towards us. Our being on the path did not deter her at all.

We had our grandson Jonah with us. As we stopped, I told Jonah not to move at all. I do not think this little four year old even twitched a muscle as she came closer to us.

At about ten feet from us, she veered of into the weeds beside the path.

Once off the path, she stopped to watch us as we continued on our walk.

We also saw a beaver in the river, but it was not as accomodating as the deer so we did not get any pictures of it.

Sent to me by my good friend Barb

Thanks Barb, will use the others too.

A Primo MeMe

From Henya at Chicken Stitches. Henya is one of my knitting friends who lives in Brooklyn but immigrated here from Russia. Not only is she a great knitter, but she also writes about her life in Russia (Occasionally). I really enjoy reading her and I am sure many of you would also.
So this meme says I have to talk about seven of my personality traits and then pass it on. You know how hard it is to talk about oneself, but I will try.

1. I am overly sensitive and easily hurt, especially when it is family.
2. I am very giving, sometimes not able to say no because I think it will upset someone. Seems it usually does.
3. I am trying to convince my self that at 63 years of age what the@#!$% does it matter how big my butt is.
4. I believe in equality and justice for everyone. With one caveat: Be in my country legally before you ask for my equality.
5. I hate being lied to and am not a liar.
6. I am willing to go to the end of the earth for a cause, especially if I feel I have been directed to do so by HIM.
7. I can hardly wait for the next election season and we can have our Country back. Hmmmmm is that a personality trait?
Now I have to pass this on to others that I enjoy. I always have a hard time with this, so if you see your name under my daily read, it is passed on to you.

June 7 is the Anniversary

of my first post. I joined this "club" at the behest of my daughters, Kris, Tricia and Gina. I really did not think I had anything to say that would interest anyone at all, but never the less, I began posting. In the past year, I have made some wonderful friends. You have all touched my heart in ways you will never know. Your prayers when things have been difficult for me or my family. Your encouragement when it was most needed and your open honesty and friendship are all things I cherish.
In honor of my first blogiversary, I will be having a give away. I hope you will like it well enough to participate. Be sure to return on the seventh to see what my prize will be and to have the opportunity to win.
I hope you return before then, but if not I will certainly see you on the seventh.
My love and thanks to each and every one of you,
Gramma

I asked

Tricia to pimp my blog, cause I am not very computer savey. This is what she came up with. I wanted something bright and cheery.
Thanks Tricia! Good job.

Most of you know my

"Love Story"

So say happy 63rd birthday to my (most of the time)best friend and Love of my life.

Sorry for the bad picture, but they are some that were taken for a flyer he put out and they had to be head shots.

Happy Birthday Stan, you ARE the LOVE of my LIFE .