Day of what?

Certainly not a day of rest.
Sunday, that is.
Although I try, trust me, I try.

Take this morning, for example.
Ward Council at 10, which I had to leave early, at 10:30, to take a meeting with my activities committee.
Choir practice at 11 because we were singing today.
Sacrament Meeting , at 11:30, was 90 minutes today because it was Ward Conference, and it was lovely. Good speakers, good music, just what I was needing. The main message was, I think, that you can't coast along and expect to keep the fire of your testimony burning brightly. You have to be doing good things and be in the right places, or the fires dwindle. Which was a good reminder to me of why I drag myself out the door every Sunday, and several other times some weeks, to be in the right place.

While everyone else progressed to their other meetings, my committee and I were setting up for the Linger Longer that was to be held right after church. Setting tables, preparing food, nattering all the way. Then dealing with the hungry hordes, who were impressively well-behaved and had enormous appetites. Almost all the food was eaten, which is always a good sign, I think.

We arrived home, after clean-up, at about 4 o'clock.
Crikey, I don't work that hard during the week!
So I have been very lazy since then and have eaten three, yes three, slices of pear/ginger cake.
And taken a little stroll through the garden, admiring the grapevines and spots of colour.
Why, oh why, do I love grapevines so much?

A little Orton-ish, with a fade, to soothe the senses.

Nasturtiums, which are vibrant to the point of ridiculousness. 

The crepe myrtle, entering its heyday.

And this lovely heirloom rose, which was rescued from certain death by my friend Lori and is flourishing against the back fence.

Our England is a garden,
and such gardens are not made
by singing, "Oh, how beautiful!"
 and sitting in the shade.

          Rudyard Kipling, from "The Glory of the Garden."

Good intentions

Today, I was going to write a nice thoughtful essay on all the ramifications of the terrorism nine years ago. 

I even thought about posing the grandchildren in front of our neighbour's flag and taking a photo, which I would then add to the post as a nice visual aid.

Instead, I spent all morning shopping for a lunch for 200 people at church tomorrow.  

Shortly after I got home,  the little darlings arrived.

These photos were taken at about eight o'clock, after they were all washed and ready for bed.

Eating popsicles made of Jello, which helps them not to drip as they melt, and strawberries and bananas.

I can't buy them (Popsicles) any more. High fructose corn syrup rears its ugly head yet again! 

Kenzie said These taste like smoothies!

They had a busy afternoon.

Playing legos.

Eating.

Singing.

Eating.

Playing computer.

Eating.

Fighting.

Getting along.

Eating.

Going to the park with Papa while I loaded up the car and took all the food to the church.

And more eating.

Then, they watched Quest for Camelot and ate popcorn.

Natalie and Josh fell asleep during the movie and the older two just put themselves to bed.

Peace at last.

In between all this, I did laundry, dishes, fed everyone (constantly), pruned the grape vines, and made....

this.

Darn.

Just thinking about it made me go eat another piece.

This is a Pear and Ginger Upside-Down Cake.

Just the ticket for all those ripe pears you have sitting around.

Are you ready?

First, melt 1/3c brown sugar and about an ounce of butter in a small dish in the microwave.

Spread this over the bottom of a 9" round pan and cover it with 3 pears, peeled and sliced. 

I add some chopped crystallized ginger for a little excitement.

Cream 10 oz butter and 1 c brown sugar.

Beat in 3 eggs, 

then add 1 1/2 c flour,

2 tsp BP,

and 2-3 tsp ginger.

The ground variety.

This makes a delicious-looking batter, all golden brown and redolent of ginger.

Spread the batter onto the pears.

Slide it into the oven and bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, till the top springs back when you touch it.

Let it sit in the pan for 5 or 10 minutes and then invert onto a plate. Don't forget to scrape out all the bits that stick to the pan. And if you want to, you can even put them onto the cake instead of in your mouth.

But I wouldn't suggest it!

I got the original recipe from this blog, which I ran across on Next Blog one night when I was bored. The blog is written by three friends who live in New Zealand. They make a lot of traditional New Zealand recipes, so I thoroughly enjoy both reading it and making the recipes. Although I must say, they do make some pretty strange dinners. 

Go look at the original recipe and then you can feel free to thank me for simplifying it for you.

You're welcome.

Go here to read some thought-provoking, short essays on the events of  nine years ago.

In Defense of Food.

I love food. The problem is that most of the food I love is not particularly healthy, so I am on a constant quest to eat less and eat healthier.


In Defense of Food, An Eater's Manifesto, by author and journalist Michael Pollan, is eye-opening in many ways. Pollan seems to be fascinated with the topic of food and has written several books on it, along with others which dwell on our relationship with the natural world. Go here to read some pithy descriptions of his books. If you like what you read, check out the tab at the top of his website, "Today's Link". Fascinating stuff.

In today's world, but especially as Americans, we tend to live and eat by the latest findings of the scientific community. I seem to have a bit of an instinct for such things, because I never did buy into the "eggs and butter are evil" fad, nor did I ever think the Atkins diet could be a healthy way to eat. Maybe because I never fully adopted margarine as a good fat, the trans fat issue resonated with me the very first time I read about it. As Pollan illustrates many times over, science's dictates are more often proven to be wrong, as the decades go by, as they are validated.

We are also heavily influenced by labels, reading about sodium levels and fat and protein contents and all those lovely additives such as antioxidants and vitamins. With all of the science that goes into our food supply, Americans should be healthier and fitter than ever, and yet we are not. Quite the opposite.
Pollan maintains that we and the food we eat need defending from scientists on one side and food marketers on the other. They may be well-meaning, but they are prone to error. With the help of the government they have constructed an ideology of nutritionism that has convinced us of three pernicious myths:
1. What matters most is not the food but the nutrients.
2. Because nutrients are invisible and incomprehensible to everyone but scientists, we need expert help in deciding what to eat.
3. The purpose of eating is to promote a narrow concept of physical health.

Here are some things I have absorbed from the book:
There is no one right way to eat. Almost any indiginous culture's way of eating produces a healthy population, from Eskimos to Aborigines. It's when they adopt the "Western diet" that they run into trouble.
Eating should be pleasurable. It is sensual and promotes community .
It's not just about the separate nutrients that make up food, it's about the food itself. Broccoli is good for us, not just because of the anti-oxidants, but because of all the other complex chemical interactions in that green stalk of goodness. You can't add anti-oxidants to frosted flakes and expect them to do the same thing as broccoli.
We should patronize small farms and co-ops for the diversity and nutritive values of their food crops.
Our bodies have not evolved to handle the sugar in high-fructose corn syrup and we should avoid it like the plague.
If a packaged food at the supermarket contains more than five ingredients, don't buy it. Food shouldn't need added vitamins.
We need to get back to whole foods and eschew processed food.

Here are Pollan's rules of what to eat, in a nutshell:
Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
You are what what you eat eats too.
If you have the space, buy a freezer.
Eat like an omnivore.
Eat well-grown food from healthy soil.
Eat wild foods when you can.
Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
Eat more like the French, or the Italians, or the Japanese, or the Indians, or the Greeks.
Regard non-traditional foods with skepticism.
Don't look for the magic bullet in the traditional diet.

Reading this book has validated a lot of my concerns about the way we eat.
It has also changed my shopping habits.
Now, if I can just learn to eat less!
In Defense of Food is easy to read and packed with good information and a steady dose of humour. I hope this little review has piqued your interest enough that you will take the time to read it.

Now, go and eat some real food.

And let's enjoy it, while we're at it!

Three good things

I have a day off today, so you may be inundated with new posts. I'll try to space them out, but sometimes my impetuousness gets the better of me. And I need to keep reminding myself that I also need to take care of some long procrastinated tasks today.

Way back in the beginning of my blogging career, like a whole year ago, one of my friends commented that she liked my blog, but the political stuff, not so much. Wanting to not offend (because I do try to not be like a brick) I toned down my political comments.
Well, you know what?
That particular friend quit reading me anyway.
And.
I don't care any more.
It's time for all of us to stand up and be counted.

So here, for your edification, is a link to an awesome new website. The link will take you to an introductory article that I think is good to read before anything else
Rightnetwork.com.
It's all about what is good in America today.

Second good thing, I wanted to remind you about FreeRice, the website that donates rice to hungry people as you increase your vocabulary. They have just upgraded and revamped their operation and it's worth a few minutes of your time.
Every day.
Their banner to the right has quit working and I'm trying to find out why. It may be a victim of the upgrade.
(Edit: It's working again, hooray!)

And third good thing, just because I can.
Because it's my blog!

Edwin, holding baby Elsie.

Me not holding baby Elsie.

Me not holding baby Elsie.

Ditto.

Ditto.

Get it?

Nine more days.

Not that I'm counting or anything.

It's a Picnik kind of a day

I have long been a fan of the picnic, in all of its incarnations.
Some of my fondest memories from childhood are the delicious lunches my Mum would pack for an outing to the Avon River or sometimes to eat between church meetings, as we had to drive about 30 miles to church. Ham and butter on white bread, potato chips, maybe an apple or an orange. Somehow, being outdoors and away from home made everything taste even better than usual.

The Teddy Bear's Picnic is another childhood memory. I would hear it on the radio once in a while, just often enough to memorize the words of the chorus, but never the verses.
Today's the day the teddy bears have their piiiiic-nic!

Then there is the Cadbury Picnic bar, a particular favourite of Jeff's. Packed with wafers and milk chocolate and caramel and rice crisps and nuts, it is a serendipitous concoction.

Every time my sister or my Mum wants to make Jeff happy (which isn't very often, teehee!) they send him wads of Picnic bars. And the rest of us mooch from him.

I have discovered a new breed of Picnik and it is awesome!
Picasa has incorporated a link to Picnik in its editing programme and I am becoming quite fond of it. Registration is free, although you can sign up for their Premium version for even more options.

I took my basic grapes photo and played around with it to give you an idea of the possibilities. Bear in mind that each of these is only an example of the editing preference. There is an infinite number of ways to execute each one of these to create your own magnum opus. All of these edits are under the Create tab.

First, the original photo, with just the contrast adjusted.
Pleasant, but a little boring.

Orton-ish gives it a lovely depth and sense of light and shadow.

Vignette.

HDR-ish.

I cannot remember how I did this.
It has an Invert on it, but combined with something else.
Whatever.
I like it.

Waterfall with fade.

Duo-tone.

Pixelate.

Posterize.

Hsl filter

Ripple blocks.

Smudge.

Kinda like looking through privacy glass.

Pencil sketch.

Hypnotic.

1960's with Doodle.

This is lame, but I can see cool possibilities.

Focal zoom.

There is so much more, but my wrist screams at me if I spend too much time on the laptop, so you will have to try it out for yourself. I can see some real art work coming out of this programme, can't you?

Have fun.

It is so easy to lose yourself in the Wonderful World of Picnik.

Evil grin.

Rockin' photo books

I know that several of you have already seen my photo book on facebook, but other of my readers are allergic to facebook or never check their news, so here is a link if you want to look at it. You can click on the pages to zoom in, then click again to get back to the original view. I have such fond memories of our Australia trip and I wanted to preserve them in hard copy.
Picaboo had a freebie last month, so this 22-page, hardcover, full colour book only cost me $13, including shipping.
I spent about seven hours on it, but now that I am familiar with the software I think the next one will be much quicker. Here's one of the pages, the only one without text, as it happens.

Some of you are excellent photographers and I wonder if you have made books using Picaboo or other websites. I would love to hear about your experiences. And if you haven't made one yet, give it a try.

If you want to start small, I made a softcover book for Mum to take home with her at Hotprints. They offer four free books a month, you only have to pay $2.99 shipping per book, which is probably less than you would pay for the prints. I was very happy with the quality of the book. Some of my photos were a bit pixellated, but I would upload at a higher resolution next time. Hotprints also has less editing options, but it is fine for a simple photo album.

And now, I think, to bed.

The brain doctor

But first, weirdest search engine reader of the week: "nostalgic older women in full cut panties".
Really?
I hope they found out that I am just not that woman!

My first introduction to Dr. Oliver Sacks was when I saw the movie "Awakenings", although I didn't know it at the time. A few years later I took a Psych class while working on my music therapy degree and his name popped up. I read Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and I was hooked. Dr. Sacks is a rare combination of scientist and physician (neurologist) who can also write a riveting book that is   composed entirely of case histories. He has been referred to as "the poet laureate of medicine" and given an award, by Rockefeller University, which recognizes the scientist as poet.

I am slowly working my way through his entire body of work and am constantly impressed by his powers of observation as well as his empathy. Dr. Sacks has seen some extraordinary cases of neurological dysfunction and his accounts of his patients are gripping and empathetically written. You never get the impression that these are just case studies, but that they are people in whom he is deeply interested.

He has become one of my heroes, even though he describes himself as an old Jewish atheist.

When I heard that Dr. Sacks was coming to Portland to lecture on his new book, Musicophilia, I knew I had to be there. I bought two tickets, one for me and one for my trusty sidekick. The one who goes along with all my adventures. You know who he is! And even though I was on crutches and in pain from my broken leg at the time, we went to the lecture.

Upon arriving home, I was inspired to write to Dr. Sacks. I described one of my elderly music therapy clients and told him of all of the wonderful ways in which she had responded to musical interventions. How she had no short or long-term memory to speak of, yet she remembered me from one week to the next. That she also remembered how to play short, familiar songs that I taught her on a little xylophone. I told him how happily she responded to me, even though she was quite deaf and unresponsive to social overtures from other people, and how the caregivers marveled at how alive she became during our sessions. I asked Dr. Sacks if he would consider writing a book devoted entirely to music therapy anecdotes. And I told him about the sad state of funding for music therapy in Oregon.

I had heard that Dr. Sacks responds to every letter he receives, but I didn't quite believe it.

Then, a few weeks later, this came in my mail.

His writing is difficult to decipher, so here is a transcription:

Dear Ms Osborne

Thank you for writing. I was most interested – and moved – by your description of the power(s) of music therapy with your elderly lady with dementia (I would like to quote from your letter sometime!); but upset – and surprised – when I heard that Oregon has “pretty much ruled out” any funding for MT.

A third of my book (Musicophilia) is in fact devoted to stories of MT in relation to various conditions (Parkinson’s, Tourette’s, aphasia, Alzheimer’s etc.), trying to define its powers and limitations, and their neural basis.

I hope this part of the book will help “legitimate” the real potentials of MT – and maybe help to reverse unfortunate and ill-considered decisions, like Oregon’s withdrawing of the funding it needs.

Again, thanks for writing

With kind regards

Oliver Sacks

If you want to try one his books, I recommend starting with The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. It is interesting and amusing and you will think thoughts you have never thought before.