Too Darn Hot Part 2

Look over to the right and you will see the heading LABELS. Look below LABELS to find the word ARIZONA (1). Click on ARIZONA (1) to see what I wrote in August of 2007 when it was this hot in Virginia. Then ask yourself what colors of the rainbow do you think of when it is HOT, HOT, HOT! I think of shades of red, orange and bright yellow like these flowers here.

On another note let me add that I will learn this coming Monday how to give glucose shots in case Jack has another very low blood sugar that renders him unable to give himself a shot. Oh, what fun! When our little life threatening event was over Sunday morning Alan, Leah, and I all agreed that Jack should have had a piece of that chocolate cake at the Saturday evening party. Then he wouldn't have had low blood sugar. But he may have had very high blood sugar.
Diabetes is a 24 hour tightrope balancing act between food intake and amount of body activity expended. The unknowns on the tightrope are what cause the falls. Unknowns like when the body is using up extra energy fighting disease or heat or cold or stress. The stress of being outside in 95 degree very humid weather was the culprit on Saturday.

Dance Song For Grandma In July

TOO DARN HOT

from the show "Kiss Me Kate" (1948)

(Cole Porter)

BIANCA (GRANDMA)

It's too darn hot

It's too darn hot

I'd like to sup with my baby tonight

and play the pup with my baby tonight

I'd like to sup with my baby tonight

and play the pup with my baby tonight

but I ain't up to my baby tonight

cause it's too darn hot

it's too darn hot

it's too darn hot

Learning The White Sock Stomp

Grandma showed me the dance moves and I watched and imitated her. I got my feet going and my hands moving and I threw a white sock to add some interest to the dance. Grandma said I could grow up and become another John Travolta. Who is John Travolta? The dance king I know is that tall and handsome Jason Taylor from Dancing With The Stars who just signed to play for the Washington Redskins. I wonder if he will wear jersey #99 if he wins the dance playoff with the Redskin player who wears #99 currently. I'm betting on Jason Taylor in that particular danceoff.
NEWS UPDATE FROM BABY JACK:
JASON TAYLOR DECIDED TO GET A NEW NUMBER. WATCH FOR #55 THIS FALL.

A Big Big Thank You

I want to extend a big, big thank you to the folks at 911, the rescue squad from Gainesville and my next door neighbors, Alan and Leah, who helped me in the wee hours of Sunday morning when I discovered that Jack had slipped into a diabetic coma. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I will spare you all the details but simply state that the injection of glucose that the rescue team gave him brought him around and by mid morning he was returning to normal. Of course, I wasn't. That was when I realized how serious this was and went from an adrenalin rushed woman to an adrenalin zapped dishrag. But as the line goes, all is well that ends well and we are both back to our perky selves once more so we went over and played with our grandson, Baby Jack. I took some photos of him doing a little stomp dance. I will post them tomorrow.

Another Weekend Another Party

Another weekend brought another party to our neighborhood. This one was for Dave and Kris. Dave has just retired and these golf enthusiasts are leaving our local golf club and moving to the land of many golf courses: the greater Myrtle Beach metro area in South Carolina. By the way I guess Myrtle Beach is also the putt-putt golf capitol of the world. The party was in Dickie's beautiful backyard and all the neighbors brought yummy food to share. That one table that you see loaded down was just the appetizer table.

The beautiful lilies were from Dickie's gardens. Dickie is the strawberry blond in the top photo. She is a great hostess! Everyone had lots of fond memories to share of when they met Kris and Dave. And everyone wanted to celebrate the good news that Kris and Dave's house in our neighborhood sold in just one day inspite of the housing market being in the toilet. Invited to the party were our brand new neighbors two doors down from Kris and Dave who are Donna and Jim who just moved into the community in May. So farewell to Chris and Dave and welcome to Donna and Jim who are a retired military family.

Tissue Paper Flowers

Many years ago the nuns at Russia Local School taught us how to make these tissue paper flowers for decorative purposes. That's what these white hollyhocks in my garden remind of today. By the way Russia Local School may have been the only school or one of the few in the U.S.A. that had nuns and priests teaching in the public schools. When I attended it there were around 360 students in grades one thru twelve with no kindergarten.

Today At 5:30 P.M.

Over 100 Virginia National Guardsmen will be arriving at West Point High School in West Point, Virginia (not too far from Williamsburg) at 5:30 P.M. today. They are flying in from Fort McCoy in Wisconsin where they arrived on July 16 for demobilization exercises after leaving Iraq and flying out from Kuwait. Unfortunately four members of this 237'th Engineer Company who were activated last June will not be present. One died at Fort McCoy of bacterial meningitis and three died from injuries sustained in Iraq. Luckily our daughter's beau, Bryan, will be arriving at West Point and our daughter Jeanine will be driving down to greet him.

The Crepe Myrtles Are In Bloom Now

In late July the crepe myrtles are in full bloom in the garden. They bloom for about three weeks and then if I cut them back I can get a second bloom for early fall. Have a safe and happy weekend everybody.

How Did This Happen?

How did this happen? Some of the blossoms on my white Madonna lilies that stand five feet tall are no longer pure white blossoms but the same shade of pink as some Asiatic lilies I planted next to them in this bed. Did the bees do some cross pollinating? I know I sure didn't do any. Years ago I had something similar happen with two kinds of hosta plants that were side by side. The white blooming hostas turned lilac and remained so. I wonder if this is what will happen now to all my white Madonna lilies. Anybody got a clue?

My Daughter Is Blogging On New Site

http://jennandterry.blogspot.com/
Our daughter, Jennifer, is blogging now on a new site. If you click on this you can see our Baby Jack on his real birth day. And if you scroll down a bit you can find photos of her kitchen makeover. Jack and I spent one week painting the oak cupboards white. The rest she had professionally installed. We all felt like we were on one of those HGTV makeover shows. But luckily we all got along better than some on those shows.

VA Guard Is Back From Iraq!

The Virginia Guard is back from Iraq and now at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin for debriefing exercises. Hopefully they will all be back in Virginia within a week. Yeeeeeeeeeeh! They went to Iraq last September to be a part of Bush's surge. God bless them all.

My Book Club Buddies

Left side: empty chair, Maura, D.J., Lucille, Haelie, and Carol. Right side: yours truly, Connie, Cindy, Pat, Bev and Teresa. The empty chair belongs to Dickie who took the photo with D.J.'s camera.

What Is This?

Grandma's Brag Book

In My Opinion

In my opinion this cake was disappointing. (See last Friday's blog.) With 9 candy bars in the cake batter I was expecting an outstanding taste. But no, it was not an extraordinary taste. How would I describe it? To me it tasted like a box mix cake of German chocolate---especially with the texture and with the coconut. You could get the same taste for a lost less money and effort with a box of German chocolate cake mix and frosting.

And the frosting was not to my liking at all. Why? Because that bag of cut up marshmallows that you spread on the hot cake just removed from the oven made it very very difficult to cut this cake into serving pieces. It was like the melted marshmallows turned to rubber and you were cutting thru a rubber tire! Not easy. And it didn't add to the flavor of the cake---more like eating rubber! And in my opinion the separate layer of two cups of coconut was not the way to go either. That just made the top layer of icing very hard to spread. It would have been easier to put the coconut in the icing which would have made it more or less a German chocolate cake. Well, live and learn.

Now all the ladies did enjoy reading this book selection. Everyone described it as a really fun read. And there were some good recipes in the novel. I made for the meeting Pia's Crabbies and they were really good. And the recipe for Christmas Bourbon Balls was greaaaaaaaaaaaaat! You bit in and the bourbon flavor started out mild but kept building as you ate the ball. And by the time you finished you thought: wow! I just had a bourbon on the rocks!

Baby Jack Celebrated The Big #1