Dinner at the Diner - a year later.

This is it. I have come full circle and returned to where the blogging began on February 1 of last year. It's been a fun year in which I relaxed my own rules regarding the timing of the photo for the five o'clock hour, yet I still completed the goal I originally set for myself: to make a blog entry every day for a year with a featured photo. And with this last entry, I have posted 365 entries for publication, taken 5,440 photos (according to the counter on my digital camera) and posted just a slim fraction of them. Along the way, I've been to North Carolina two times, Virginia a half dozen times, Maine once and across the river to Pennsylvania or New York another dozen or so times. I've recorded the view from the Homestead in spring, summer, winter and fall, enjoying each season in its turn. I gave up sweetener in my tea and completed a 5K. I've gotten reflective on occasion and sometimes captioned my photo with just a single sentence. I've shared favorite recipes (old and new) as well as diner experiences and am still learning the skill of taking photographs while preparing a recipe!
But mostly, it's been the people in my life that have made the blogging so much fun. First there are the people who share in my blog from miles and time zones away. Though I didn't get to visit with these people in person, our shared experience and/or remembering times together has been the next best thing to being there. Then there are those friends who have spent time with me in person (and by extension you through the blog-o-sphere). Cultivating friendships is probably the best past time I know, and I am of the solid (and very prejudiced) opinion that my garden of friends has some of the most beautiful blooms and vibrant beauty that can be had in a lifetime. Last but not least, I have a family willing to be photographed doing the mundane things of life interspersed with the fun things like shopping with my sister-in-law (and the rest of the girls in the family) or joining my niece and nephew for ice skating, snow tubing, swimming, gardening, cake decorating, and overnights here at the Homestead.


During the holidays I realized the demands of writing my proposal for my dissertation dictate I consider new parameters for future blogging. Thus, with this entry, I am completing my blog here on Blogger. Blogger has been a great forum for helping me to get my blogging feet wet and it fit my needs for this past year. I've enjoyed the experience and look forward to continuing it on a regular basis, but I can't keep up the daily pace. I also have a collection of photos and videos that I'd like to share in a slightly different format that I have access through my Mac book. Therefore, my future blogging will be still be called, "It's 5:00, she's somewhere" but it will be "Made on a Mac" and available by clicking here (or anywhere else you see Mac on this page). So, I invite you to bookmark it if you became a regular reader (but not an official blogger follower) and/or subscribe to it through the RSS feed (to get notices about when it has been updated). When you visit my "Made on a Mac" site, you should see some familiar things but formatted differently. I'll be sharing some posts from this past year in the new format, and there are already some new things I couldn't post here, like videos of the kids having winter fun. My contributions should be a little more streamlined and coherent as they are grouped according to various headings in the site's navigation bar. When you get a few minutes, I hope you visit and explore around a little bit. I hope to update it regularly about once (or maybe even twice) a week, still using photos to ground the thoughts and experiences I share through blogging.

And finally, from me and mine, to you and yours, thanks for being a part of this experience.

Look forward to seeing you soon!

Pete and Repeat came to church today

Bob and Ed are adamant that they didn't plan their coordinating wardrobes this morning - it just happened that way. Their wives and the rest of the congregation got a kick out of it too. What's really fun to know about these two guys is that once upon a time, in the dark ages, Ed was Bob's football coach in college and now all these years later, Lin, Bob's wife was appointed to be the minister here at Sergeanstville UMC where Ed and his wife, MaryBeth, worship. Both guys are headed to an alumni event at Trenton State College this afternoon which could make one suspect that gray argyle is a team uniform until the realization sets in that TSC colors are blue and gold. I just suppose it really is a case of great minds thinking alike!

It's Kansas Day!

I've probably been in the state of Kansas on three different days in my life. However, I have several wonderful friends; Angela, Ashlee, Jeana, Joy, Peninnah each a native Kansan and a great ambassador of their home state. Each year on January 29, Kansans celebrate the day they were admitted to the Union in 1861. (If you are doing the math, you realize that the US has been blessed with Kansas as a part of the country for 150 years now!) So, just how does Kansas celebrate their day? Well, I've heard there are special t-shirts and a commemorative stamp for today, but I don't have any plane tickets to make the celebrations, so I decided to share some of the goodness of the Sunflower State by making special treats from a recipe I found on the internet for the class I am adjunct teaching called Sunbutter Scothaceroos.

I liked that the recipe involved Sunflower Seed Butter, a food product that has become a favorite of mine in recent years. Without a doubt, I prefer it over peanut butter. The recipe also called for chocolate and I was able to incorporate my commitments to support fair trade chocolate growers who practice sustainable farming methods and therefore fits into the theme of Environmental Science which is the course I am teaching at Somerset. (Some time next month, I hope to blog more about fair trade farming and my commitments to specific chocolate products.)

Bring 1 C corn syrup and 1 C sugar to just a boil. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 C sunflower butter till smooth and then add 6 C rice crispy treats. Press the mixture into a greased 9x11 pan and let cool.

Empty the bag of butterscotch morsels into a microwave proof bowl.

I melt mine in 1 minute intervals on 80%

Stir it till smooth

I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder

And suspected that it was a little thick to spread evenly, so I hedged bets and added a little bit of Crisco and heated it again, this time for 20 seconds on 80%.

Good call

It spread very nicely on the rice crispy surface

If I could make this a scratch and sniff photo, you'd be running to the store for your ingredients!

I let them sit on the counter overnight and got up this morning to cut and wrap them in wax paper for class this afternoon. I made one fatal error: instead of cutting them into 24 bars in the pan, I cut 18! My class has 20 enrolled students and I know one person will be missing today due to a funeral. Either two students will earn gold stars for sharing or I'll find out I have a diabetic who will pass on the snack I've prepared or I'll have another student who won't be able to make class for some reason or another and things will work out perfectly! Regardless, I managed to cut off a sliver and sample - I think I better leave now for class and buy a couple gallons of milk!

It's been years since I played that game on the playgroud

But wasn't it called "Red light, Green light" and not "White light, Green light"?OK, I am guessing it is safe now!

We are dug out!

A fair bit of snow fell on The Homestead overnight.

Dad had the sidewalks scraped down to the surface at sunset yesterday and there was just a little more than 12" on them this morning. It was enough to make Jake wonder where he should go.

Any decent winterscape shots meant even the snowshoes needed to be dug out.

And it was well worth the effort

I did get a few more bird shots this morning, but they needed to wait for feed to be scattered.

Waiting for the sun to come up over the horizon

Just enough cloud cover for a dream like quality to everything

Jake really wanted his morning ride and was put out that he had to wait till this afternoon before the truck left the driveway.

About 1 PM we are dug out.

It helps to plan strategy with the neighbor up the hill. John just got a snow blower this year. They used to have a plow service but I think he's always been envious of Dad's snow blower.

A few times up and down the long lane and the driveway is open for business. He really loves this stuff - day or night! I am glad he has the snow blower and is more mobile this year. I know the snow blower helps stabilize him as he walks but when your dad has had 3 knee and 2 hip surgeries (and still has an original hip) there is a tendency to be concerned.
The road was plowed by the time we got to the end of the driveBut there wasn't a car in sight.
Dad is a big believer in keeping the snow from your drive out of the road.
Opening up the end of the driveway

By late morning, he had made it out to the place where he feeds the deer each afternoon.

Which is where he experienced his first mishap of the day - and ran out of gas.

Messing up the walkway I scraped down so carefully on the way to the shed.Which is where he experienced his 2nd mishap of the day with the snow blower. Let's just say it is a good thing he was done snow blowing and I am glad he had his hands on the snow blower when it happened. So, let's move along because there really is nothing else to see here and go look at the pretty birds that showed up earlier in the soft morning light.

A female cardinal

A male cardinal

Yesterday, I tried and tried to get pictures of the near half dozen cardinals in the backyard and instead found blue birds hamming for the camera. Today, blue jays got skittish and flew off as soon as I slid out the door, but the cardinals were around these are the best of the pictures I could get standing as still as a post on the porch without getting frozen myself.

I am snow very happy!

I absolutely love the snow! Love it! And I know this puts me in radically thin company this time of year. About 10 minutes after the first snowflake showed up in late November, people started complaining about the snow and wishing winter away. Granted, some friends of mine here in NJ were a little more even minded and enjoyed the post-Christmas blizzard since it didn't disrupt school or too many travel plans. Here in the Northeast, we take snow with a grain of salt - we know it is going to happen - so we have salt trucks and snow plows ready for the onslaught. But as the weekly snow storms this January have dumped on average 4-8" (depending upon where you live in NJ) many people I know have grown down-right snow weary and winter fatigued. My friend Tracey has even put Old Man Winter on notice and she plans to drop him like a hot potato and throw him over for Hot Mr. Summer - but with no luck. Because - cue the music for a bass solo -

you know Ol' Man Winter,
That old man winter,
He let's it snow in winter,
But not in the summer,
He just keeps snowing,
He just keeps snowing along!

Well, today's winter storm was something of a 'surprise!' here in NJ. Even though we've been hearing about it for close on for a week or so, weather models over the weekend predicted a wintry mess of rain and sleet. Presently it is doing that outside right now. Yesterday, nearly every weather model out there forecast that the precip would be light this morning and pick up its intensity this afternoon. And that just didn't happen. It started snowing before dawn and the morning rush hour was awful. Plows and spreaders were scrambling because they trusted the weather prognosticators. But as my brother says to his summer lifeguarding staff wondering about thunderstorms headed for the pool he manages, "You can't predict the future, only rely on the past to guide your guesses". But no one guessed that there would be 4" of snow on the ground by 8:30 this morning. So I don't blame Tracey or a former pastor of mine who is ready to take a snow shovel to the person he finds out has been praying for snow. I do try and keep a low profile about how much I enjoy this kind of weather by not constantly advertising how much I enjoy weather like this - and Mike, I promise, it really wasn't me saying those prayers!Some snow haters might think I like the snow so much because I don't have to deal with the hardships or downside of a winter storm. But I've had my share of terrifying and life changing moments in snow storms. Once my car was nearly totaled in a single vehicle car accident during the Blizzard of '96 (and I remain forever grateful to my cousin Steve for rescuing me and my car!) I also experienced a memorable 8 hours driving my car with frozen windshield fluid through Kentucky and West Virginia in a steady snow. The whole drive, my friend Kulli, an international student from Estonia, calmly read a book in the passenger seat next to me would occasionally look up and say "It really isn't bad yet, is it?" to which I would reply "It'll be your turn to clean the windshield at the next rest stop" where we would both get out, grab handfuls of the cleanest slush we could find and wash the front windshield of the sand, salt and grit thrown up from the tractor trailers crawling alongside us on the interstate. And I have the tragic memory seared into my brain forever of seeing my neighbor on Second Street in Dunellen fallen over in the middle of the sidewalk with a shovel in his hand and then helping to keep his new widow warm and dry in the open garage door while the police waited on the coroner's office office to show up. Even after all these years, my brother can tell by the sound of the phone that I've called to tell him to be very careful for all the snow clean-up he does for his house, his mother-in-law's and our aunt.

Maybe it is because I respect the snow and the potential harm it holds that allows me to love it as much as I do. In several ways, snow is kind of like the ocean: a terrible force able to snuff out life without a moment's notice and yet a tranquil entity that invites you to drink it in and contemplate its vast peaceful beauty. Life slows down in a snowstorm. I think of it as Mother Nature's way of telling us to take a break from the routine of life. So many of us schedule vacations for the summer, but Old Man Winter gets to decide for us that it is time to take stock, hunker down, snuggle up for a bit and ride out the storm. Of course, it is hectic and puts us on edge as we race to the grocery store to stock up on milk, bread and eggs. There's no doubt in my mind that there are more of us (me included) buying these stapes to have them 'just in cases' than those who are of thinking about making French toast as a delightful way to enjoy the storm. There's also a mess to clean up but as we (please be careful and safe out there!) shovel clear our walkways and driveways, there's a new fresh blanket covering the earth, protecting it from winter's harshest furies and renewing the ground for spring.

I've said before on this blog that I love each of the four seasons in their own turn. And as true as that is, I freely admit to have a very soft spot for Old Man Winter having lived in the South for many years and not experiencing my annual dose of snow. One of my favorite Bible verses (and I've blogged about it here ) is Ecclesiastes 3:1, "To everything there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven" and this morning, my reading of Proverbs 26:1 added a timely twist on Ecclesiastes; "Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool". That speaks to me today, reminding me there's a rhythm to life and the seasons we pass through. Each season does something special in its turn. My parents raised two kids to enjoy winter sports as much as summer swimming and I see my brother instilling that in my niece and nephew. As much as each season threatens peril there is good to be had as well - an opportunity to let go and let God work within us in this season now so we will be ready for the next as it comes in its own turn. Because if there is one thing we do know; one day ol' man winter won't be snowing, he'll just be rolling along.

Because this fence line looks so good in the snow,
I couldn't limit myself to just one picture.

I Love my Mac!

I am a very happy Apple customer! I love the MacBook I saved for and purchased this summer on a student discount. I find all sorts of used for the free iPod that came with the student discount too - even though I haven't downloaded more than 3 apps (and yes, for those of you wondering, I have even used my iPod as a flashlight a time or two!). Also, I get every pennies worth of knowledge and help during my 'one to one' sessions with an Apple teacher nearly each week. This morning, my instructor was Anthony, one of the half dozen guys who get to answer my questions, show me neat features and sometimes gently remind me of things I forgot. Each one of the guys I regularly work with is wonderful and have helped make the Apple experience all that much better. Today Anthony helped me work out a bunch of kinks I accidentally created on the new blog I plan to launch soon through MobileMe, Apple's web service, which is another product I absolutely love. There's nothing wrong with this blog site at all - but I am loving some of the flexibility I get use to layout photos and movies and stuff that it might be time for a change. Don't worry, I'll let you know when it happens - till then, stay tuned!