I had a wonder birthday surprise this weekend! My daughter and my grandkids decided to come for a short visit to help me celebrate my birthday! Their school activities have kept them close to home this fall, but luckily, many of those activities were finishing up and they had time to come visit us!
I had not had an actual birthday cake for the last several years, since I had to restrict eggs and dairy. But I could have coconut milk ice cream and thanks to frozen cakes from Sara Lee I was able to pick up an assortment to satisfy everyone.
This was my compromise to putting 76 candles on the cake. Best I could do!
My 15 yr old grandson texted me before they came asking if I would help him make some lip balm…apparently he uses a lot of it because he plays trumpet in the high school marching band he really needs it between performances.
In addition, would Grandma help him and is sister make some soap too! Now this was starting to sound like a fun birthday activity!
So last night we had cake and ice cream.
Say cheese!
This morning after breakfast we got busy. Ben chose the recipe for lip balm that had cocoa butter in it. With the addition of Peppermint essential oil, he felt like he was having a peppermint patty candy bar!
Here is the recipe:
When finished, he had 11 tubes of lip balm. He’ll be able to put one in every pocket! I was ready to help him label them and he said to not bother…he usually just peels off labels! So, I guess one good whiff will remind him these are the peppermint lip balms.
The we started in on the soap. Ben wanted clear glycerin soap and swirled in purple soap tint with a stick. Not my cup of tea…but he loved them!
Kind of looked like a science experiment in the making!
My granddaughter wanted a different mold with orange scent and light orange color.
I think I’ll use this mold another time. They turned out very nice.
While they were waiting for the soap to set up. Ben had to play the pump organ and Anna took a break after shopping at Trader Joe’s with her mother.
This pump organ was built in 1900. Bert’s mother got it around 1960 and Bert rebuilt the inside (he was 14). My grandson (age 15) really enjoys playing it.Anna just got braces (age 10) so her smile was nice and shiny!
They had to be on the road by 3 p.m. today, so I was glad we were able to get all these projects done today. It was a great birthday for Grandma! Quiet, low key and fun! The hugs were the best! Enjoy!
I noticed the other day as I walked through Cracker Barrel many reminders that Holiday Season is almost upon us! While the ornaments and decorations are always lovely, this year I noticed a large book being offered as a place to have our older relatives jot down memories and stories about their lives. The pages in the book offered writing prompts to help folks focus their stories like…What was it like for you as a child in such a big family? or What were your favorite school subjects?
Here are some sample books from Amazon:
Trying to capture the events of a long life are difficult, but with writing prompts like these, many stories can be captured for posterity. If relatives are nearby, younger relatives could offer to do the writing by listening or recording and transcribing the stories.
Books like these are a great idea for relatives who live farther away, but sometimes all we have are little snippets of memories that come up when we’re eating Thanksgiving dinner together.
These memories and stories can really enhance a simple Family Tree Diagram.
I described how to make a simple Family Tree for young children in a previous post last year (see https://marykisner.com/building-a-simple-family-tree/). I’m now suggesting that adding some of these stories will help younger family members understand interesting details of their lives.
I feel fortunate that both my father (Paul Bixby) and my grandfather (John Bixby) were prolific writers and left behind a pretty complete accounting of their growing up years. I’d like to share two stories that could certainly tell my grandchildren a lot about their great grandfathers that they will never meet or met when they were very young and don’t remember them.
Story of the Early Years from Grandpa John
John Bixby (shown top right) 1882-1982.
“I was born on a farm in Aurora Township, Minnesota, December 26, 1882. Eventually I had 3 brothers and 2 sisters: Jacob, Lottie, Abraham, Isaac and Gertrude. The winter of 1882-1883 was a severe one with deep snow and blocked roads. That is the reason I arrived one day late for Christmas!
The first 6 years of my life are pretty much a blank as I remember them now, but I must have grown at a tremendous rate for before I was eight years old, I was raking hay with old Nellie (our work horse) and the new self-dump rake. That fall I was plowing with four big horses and the 2-wheel sulky plow.
The years from 1888 to 1893 were spent in school and helping where I could on my father’s 240-acre farm. The school year back then was a 5 or 6 month term mostly during the winter. My father taught two of those winter terms, the first when I was six. During that winter we learned how to read a bit, count, add and subtract and write our names. When father taught, he would rise at 4:30, do a lot of farm chores, eat a hurried breakfast, pile us kids into the wagon or sleigh, pick up several more kids on the way, put his team in a nearby farmer’s barn and be ready to ring the bell at nine.”
A Memory of Tough Love from Grandpa Paul
Paul Bixby (1913-2012)
“When I was about eight years old I had a calf named Daisy. I had begged Dad to let the new-born Guernsey be mine, and promised to take care of it through the summer until a fall sale would bring dollars to buy my new shoes for school. She was too small to drink from the cattle tank so she was staked out in lush grass near the house. She depended on me for water. Mother had made it very clear that if I were to claim ownership, responsibility for chores also would be mine. Dad had agreed. All was good fun for a while but as the summer weeks passed, other interests lured me. More than once Mother had reminded me to carry water to Daisy.
One morning Mother, Dad and my baby sister Ruth were headed to town and I wanted to go too. It was always fun to go to town with its big grocery store and the Post Office. But going to town meant the chores had to be finished. Daisy couldn’t be left without fresh water.
That morning there had been a note of annoyance in Mom’s call about water. I dallied a bit with the new ‘invention’ I was working on in the shop and in what I thought was plenty of time I dropped my tools and started for the pump with my pail. However, that was when I realized I was too late to finish the chore and still go to town. They left without me!
I was crushed and cried like a baby. I filled the tub properly and sat under a tree to mope and slowly began wondering what Dad might say or do when he returned. When they finally returned, two-year-old Ruthie ran to meet me; Mom said Aunt Clara wondered where I was; Dad glanced at the water in Daisy’s tub and said nothing. Lesson learned…chores before fun!”
Capture Those Shared Stories and Memories
I think one of the most common things to happen when extended families gather over the holidays are the shared stories and memories. Take advantage by encouraging older folks to share these stories with the younger ones. They will never forget those special times. Please enjoy your loved ones throughout the holiday season!
Autumn weather is fully entrenched around here now. Parts of northern Pennsylvania had a dusting of snow this morning; here at our house we’ve had temperatures in the low 30’s so far, but not a really hard freeze yet. The changes in scenery are subtle, but as an example, our Japanese dogwood trees a few weeks ago still had green leaves while the seed pods were a beautiful bright orange.
Now, while the seed pods still look orange, they are getting soft. The leaves are now starting to turn color too.The row of trees all along the front of our property are lovely.
I had designed and painted this quilt block (below) on wood in late August for the front door. It feels like it’s time to put up the quilt block from fabric that I had made a year ago for the late fall season.
When I took a walk around the garden today, I was totally surprised that the lavender is still blooming! I may have to grab my shears and snag a few stems!
The carrots that we left in the garden are still doing well. The tops are still green and the carrots should be OK until after Thanksgiving right there in the ground. They actually keep better in the ground than in the refrigerator.
Just a few carrots left in this row. We’ll dig them up next.These carrots were an experiment. They were planted around mid-August and we weren’t sure they would do well. We’ll harvest them last.The echinacea have gone to seed and will drop them over the winter. Next year’s patch should be spectacular!The Butternut trees are losing more leaves every day.The Red Bud trees keep their leaves the longest.The neighbors down our street have these beautiful bushes. Glorious color every year!And our wood pile is ready for cold weather. While our house has electric heat, nothing beats the warmth of wood heat from our stove in the basement. It keeps the floors warm!
So that’s what is happening around our house. Happy Autumn from our house to yours!
I was really in the mood for something different for breakfast today. We haven’t had cereal around for a long time but today I wanted to put my frozen blueberries on a bowl of granola. Soooo…guess it’s time to make some!
I found a pretty simple recipe online and gathered ingredients. The original recipe calls this “Healthy Granola” but I decided to call it Honey Nut Granola. The link to the original is here: https://cookieandkate.com/healthy-granola-recipe/
Here are the ingredients:
And here is the recipe:
Making Granola
Step 1: I prepped a 9″ x 13″ cake pan with parchment paper and preheated the oven to 350 degrees.
Step 2: I measured out the dry ingredients and put them into a large bowl. (I did chop the nuts into smaller pieces.)
Pecans and WalnutsDry Ingredients: Rolled Oats, chopped nuts, salt and ground cinnamon.
Step 3: Mixed up the wet ingredients in a small bowl before adding them to the dry ingredients: coconut oil, maple syrup and honey (I used 1/4 cup each), and vanilla extract.
Step 4: Mixed up the granola to lightly coat “every oat and nut.”
Step 5: Poured the granola mixture into the prepared pan. I used a spatula to press the granola into the corners.
Step 6: Baked granola in 350-degree oven for about 24 minutes. (I stirred it halfway and pressed it back down in the pan with the spatula).
Steps 7 & 8: Remove the pan from the oven and let it sit to cool completely (at least 45 minutes).
Step 9: I broke the granola into big pieces with my hands and put it all into a large bowl.
Step 10: I stirred in 2/3 cup of golden raisins and let it cool some more.
Cooled granola and golden raisins.
Step 11: I dumped the granola into a gallon ZipLock bag and put it in the freezer.
This recipe is supposed to make 16 – 1/2 cup servings. We’ll see!
Tomorrow’s granola breakfast should be delicious with a helping of frozen blueberries on top! Try it yourself! Enjoy!
This may be the year we will want to focus on handmade gifts for the holidays. Of course, the latest gadget, tool or toy is always fun to receive, but with supply chains disrupted or delayed you may be forced to consider other kinds of gifts.
Giving a gift you created yourself is sometimes the most meaningful. Many of the posts I’ve written about over the last two years have been inspired by friends and family who have expressed an interest or need for something I can make. Now I can see that others might enjoy receiving handmade items also.
In this post, I’d like to remind you of some of the projects that you or your children or grandchildren could make that would be a special gift for someone. Think about what those folks might need…or appreciate…from a hot or cold neck wrap, novelty soaps for the guest bathroom or a unique gift bag or box to hold a special gift. Most of the projects I’ve chosen here are simple enough for a young person to make (or help make). It helps to make the season special to focus on the recipient of the gift and what they might like to receive.
So why am I talking about this in October? Handmade gifts take time…time to round up the materials and time to gather kids or grandkids around to create together. In this post I will focus on just three mediums: paper, soap and fabric. I’ll save clay projects, skin care items and baked goods for another post.
As a reminder, you can always see and download the whole list of posts I’ve written over the last two years by going to the Welcome page and clicking the link at the bottom of the page. You can download the list to your computer and explore it at your leisure. The most recent 10 posts are always listed on the Welcome page.
Paper Gift Bags
Small gift bags made from recycled calendar pages is a handy way to use some of those extra calendars that come in the mail.
By December I can usually count on 5 to 8 calendars arriving for the next year…often with lovely photographs of scenery, animals and inspirational messages.
Once I’ve decided which calendars I will display on my refrigerator and use on my desk, I take the rest and choose the pictures I like. I cut the calendar apart and discard the front and back. The pictures fit in a file folder so can make a gift bag when I need one.
Paper Boxes
Another project using paper starts with heavier paper or card stock.
The very tiny boxes could also have a string or thread attached at one corner and be a unique tree ornament. They can be made from Origami paper, sold at art and craft stores.
Guest Soaps
Everyone seems to be interested in washing their hands frequently and tiny handmade soaps can be a unique addition to any guest bathroom.
Choosing Melt & Pour Soap bases makes these gift soaps very easy…you literally melt chunks of soap and pour it into molds. When cool, they can be popped out and used! There are so many silicon molds available on Amazon and at arts and crafts stores. A basic shape like hearts can be used for many occasions…but the dog bones are fun too!
Most of the projects I make with fabric begin with scraps I already have. If you like to sew, these projects are pretty simple and might really provide comfort to folks on your gift list.
Hot or Cold Pillows or Wraps
How often have you quickly needed a cold compress and have struggled to get ice cubes to stay secure in a washcloth…or pulled a bag of frozen peas out of the freezer to apply to a bruise?
Making a pillow for a headache or a neck wrap that could be used hot or cold requires an appropriate stuffing that can handle being microwaved or frozen. I’ve found whole flax seeds to be the perfect stuffing.
If you really love certain scents, dried flower buds like lavender can be added, but for frequent use, I’d recommend a drop or two of lavender essential oil instead.
Here are some projects that can be used hot or cold.
As you can see, any of these projects can be customized to be appropriate for the season…winter pictures on gift bags, clever mold shapes for soaps, or holiday fabrics for the season. With a few extra supplies around you can make a special gift for any occasion! Enjoy!
A cold snap in our area always entices me to make soup and homemade bread! Bert had purchased a large ham with the bone the other day and after cooking and taking off the meat, I boiled the bone and trimmings along with other vegetable scraps to make Ham soup stock. While it was boiling away, I whipped up my whole wheat bread.
Not exactly appetizing yet…but the stock will make great soups!
I wrote about this bread recipe last May, using all whole wheat that I ground myself (https://marykisner.com/from-wheat-berries-to-bread/). This time, I used up some of the flour I had ground before. I store it in the freezer to keep it fresh.
Here is the recipe again:
This time I wanted to analyze the recipe to see if it was as nutritious as I thought it was. I used the chart tool that you may have read about a week or two ago (https://marykisner.com/analyzing-a-recipe/).
While the bread was baking (and the soup stock was boiling) I pulled out a blank chart and started by listing the ingredients in the recipe. I looked up each ingredient in my little book or online.
Here is the finished chart:
The hardest part was deciding how many slices there were in a loaf…sometimes we’ll cut it thicker!
So, it looks like each slice of bread will be about 146 calories, 25.6 gm of carbohydrates and 5.5 gm of protein. It was a good reminder that it compares well with commercial bread, tastes better and has no extra preservatives or chemicals. I keep the loaf we are using in the refrigerator and freeze the extra. And of course, commercial bread from the store doesn’t make the whole house smell so good on a cold day!
Give this recipe a try! Your whole house will smell great!
The changing of the seasons is one obvious aspect of life in central Pennsylvania. Where you live there might be different signs of the seasons or they may be more or less obvious. Mother Nature seems to prepare us in the northeast, by providing a display of color, like the maple trees…
…and the seedpods on our Japanese Dogwood trees.
I call these our “Halloween Trees” because the seed pods look like pumpkins!One year, I tried to save them to decorate in the house, but they turned brown quite quickly. Oh well.
As a crafter, I am reminded of the impending change of the seasons by the ads for craft items. Beginning in August the craft and fabric stores have sales of the materials used to make various decorator items. Here are some examples:
Why not make new decorations for your front porch!Baskets are a way to give a thoughtful gift that may not require any “crafting” skills.It takes time to pull some of these projects together!How about clever ways to decorate gifts! Start collecting appropriate items now.Unique ornaments are always a big hit but they take time to make!Even kids can help make clay ornaments.
And of course, there are signs in my kitchen today that let me know it will soon be soup season, so I’m cooking up a big pot of ham stock. I may have to go get a roasting chicken or two so chicken soup can be on the menu in the winter! (See how to make chicken stock at https://marykisner.com/making-chicken-stock/)
Online, using pumpkin in recipes is popular for autumn weather. Here are two I’ll be working on:
It also helps me get in the mood for fall weather to wake up to 39 degrees a few mornings in a row! After the heat of this summer, it’s really refreshing…for a while. Winter weather isn’t far behind. We really appreciate Spring when it gets here.
The changing of the seasons, no matter how it manifests in your area is a good time to renew your surroundings…whether it’s outside or inside your home. Enjoy!
Have you ever wondered how many calories or carbs are in a favorite recipe? It’s pretty easy if you bought that cake or package of dinner rolls at the store. But what if you make it yourself? There are no labels on your own homemade goodies. Sometimes a recipe is posted on-line and will include the various nutritional numbers, but not always.
Sunday I was motivated to make a big batch of my favorite muffins…Blueberry Banana Walnut Muffins. This is a Vegan recipe…meaning no dairy or egg involved. I had tweaked the recipe over the years so while the original may have had nutritional information now I had no idea about those values.
Recently, I found out that I’m no longer so sensitive to egg protein and wondered if adding one egg to the recipe would boost its protein level or make no difference. I figured adding one egg to a recipe making 12 muffins would also be safer for me as I tried to introduce even a small amount of egg protein to my diet.
While I was mixing and baking, I wondered if I could figure out the nutritional content of a single muffin, specifically calories, carbohydrates and protein.
It is so much easier to buy a packaged item and look at the Nutrition box on the package. I’ve been reading the information on the back of almost every package I buy, since I’ve been careful to avoid all dairy and egg products. I’m sure you’ve read them too. For example:
This information is required by law now and is very helpful if you or your family members have allergies to certain foods.
However, in my house, most everything I make is from scratch so the nutrition labels only refer to an individual ingredient, like flour or sugar. Some items have no labels:
So, I spent Monday creating a chart to include the items I wanted to know about in my muffins…like calories, carbs and protein. I could have added fiber, fat or sodium if I had wanted to track those nutrients.
The two items below were essential to make this chart…a general book listing most foods and their nutrition content…and a calculator. I also used this website: https://calorieking.com/us/en/.
I printed out the revised recipe with the addition of one egg. Of course, adding the egg meant it was no longer a Vegan recipe. If I find the egg bothers me, I know the recipe is just fine without it.
I first started scribbling on sheet of paper and finally decided to make a Table in Microsoft Word (shown below).
The first section of 4 columns is for the standard measure of the ingredient; the next 4 columns is the amount in my recipe. Once the numbers are added up (shown at the bottom of the columns, I divided each number by 12 and got the final amount for each muffin.
First, I listed the separate ingredients in the first column. Then I looked up each one to find the basic measure (like 1 cup) and recorded the three values: calories, carbs and protein.
Then I recorded the amount used in my recipe and computed the three values in the second set of 4 columns. I finally tallied the totals at the bottom and divided by 12 (muffins).
Now I could say a single muffin would provide about 204 calories, 27.2 gm of carbs and 3.2 gm of protein. Adding the egg to the recipe increased the protein a little, but I could easily leave it out if this tiny bit of egg protein bothered me.
Note: This method isn’t perfect. I can’t guarantee that every muffin has the same number of blueberries, but it’s good enough for me!
At the end, I made my table into a Template by deleting all my notes about the muffins and saved it as a PDF. I will use it when I want to know the nutritional value of any other recipes I make. If you would like a PDF of this chart send me an email at marykisner@comcast.net, or you might be able to capture it right out of this post.
You can make a table yourself like this in Word and include the categories you are interested in. I probably should find someone who knows how to set up an Excel spreadsheet Template that would let me type right into the form and add up the numbers automatically! Wouldn’t that be nice! As it is, I’m happy using a pencil or pen for now. Enjoy!
This first Saturday of fall the sun is shining, but we woke up to 42 degrees! The forecast was for sunny with a high of just 65 degrees. I wanted to try sun tea, even if it took all day. I really don’t care for hot beverages but I needed the boost of green tea. So I found some at the grocery store that had added pomegranate to it for flavor. I’m sure there are many brands and flavors, but this is what I bought:
I had a 2-quart jar and filled it with cold filtered water. I pulled out 7 teabags and cut off the strings.
I put the jar on our patio table in the sun and crossed my fingers. By late this afternoon, I had green tea ready to be chilled and poured over ice!
I probably should have used a 1-quart jar!
Seemed to work just fine! I’ve done this before for Bert’s favorite tea, but never in cool weather. It seems like a good hot summer weather thing to do, but this way works too! Enjoy!
My Aunt Janice is 92 this year and she’s the only one of my dad’s four sisters that are still with us. My dad was the oldest and she was the youngest so I guess I can say she’s the last of that generation of Bixby’s.
Mary and Janice in 2016
She still lives in Minnesota and it’s been too long since I’ve seen her in person. Since my dad passed in 2012 it’s been difficult for her to come to Pennsylvania. We drove out to visit in 2016.
Amazingly, after my mother passed in 1988 Janice would call me on my mother’s birthday to tell me she had been thinking about her. We would have a brief visit on the phone. I thought she and my mother were close and that’s why she remembered her. Haha…it was because it was her birthday also! Of course!
I was thinking of her a few weeks on my mother’s birthday, but we didn’t manage to connect on the phone. I know it is difficult for us to connect with our busy schedules and the internet/email is not a natural way for her to communicate. So, I decided to surprise her with a handwritten letter!
It has been so long since I hand wrote a long letter to anyone. I pulled this book off my shelf that I’ve had for years to get some inspiration.
This book, The Handcrafted Letter by Diane Maurer-Mathison (2001) is a beautiful book. It is still in print and I reach for it often. It covers all kinds of written material, from letters to thank you cards and special holidays. It is full of illustrations about special papers and unique additions to gift cards. Here is the Table of Contents to show you the many topics covered.
The author is a native of Central Pennsylvania. I first saw her work using handmade paper items at local art shows. She’s a truly inspirational artist!
I really just wanted to write a letter, but I haven’t invested in “stationery” for a very long time. I did not have time or expertise to make my own paper! I decided to use a few sheets of paper that I had bought years ago that could so through my printer. It had pictures of embedded dried flowers that looked sort of handmade.
At this point, I could have typed the letter and printed it on this paper…but where’s the challenge in that! At least she will be able to read the cursive writing. I have to be careful when writing notes to my youngest grandchild because she isn’t comfortable reading or writing in cursive yet.
Luckily the flowers were subtle so I didn’t feel like I had to write around the pictures.
So began my letter writing exercise! It has been a VERY long time since I wrote four pages in cursive. I had forgotten how comfortable I’ve become typing and editing right on the computer…not a pencil in sight! Thirty years ago I wrote my whole Thesis out with a pencil and then typed it into the computer. I could only think and organize my thoughts with pencil and paper. Look how far I’ve come!
By the third page, I had to slow my thinking down so I could avoid skipping words and making spelling mistakes. I can’t write as fast as I can think! I kept wishing for a “backspace” button to fix the mistakes. My hand certainly had a few cramps after this marathon writing exercise! At least I know she will be able to re-read the letter as needed and I feel better about staying touch.
Do you have a special friend or relative who would love to receive a hand written note or letter from you? Break out those old skills, just for practice! You might make someone’s day! Enjoy!
