Today I learned a new 'do to add to the list.

When I had my Waybums, she was born with a full head of hair.

It was dark and soft and required little care.

I'd wash it, comb it, trim the bangs every once in a while. . . and it was good.

Well, except that one random and really bizarre hair-day.

We don't really know what happened there. She woke up this way.

I think the aliens that abducted her were doing electroshock experiments.

But all other days it's been wash and wear and cuteness.

And then three years later . . .

Another baby came to live with us. We didn't know how long she'd be here.

We just knew she was adorable and we wanted to take good care of her

while she was with us. And that included a crash course in AA Hair Care 101.

I bought books and did research online. And I was overwhelmed.

Thankfully her initial baby-fine hair was easy to care for. . .

And it just got cuter with every little tendril curl that started popping up.

I was a little nervous when I read one of my books on the subject that

"washing too frequently will dry hair, lead to breakage and cause hair to fall out."

I was especially concerned because she thought that barbecue sauce not only

worked well as facial toner, but was great for hair gel as well.

I told her that while it effectively glued the hair in place,

it seemed a little too stiff for her to use regularly.

With the help of special shampoo and hair lotion and tedious and gentle combing

we survived the toughest part of the baby months with her hair in tact.

And to our delight, we found out that she would be living with us for good.

We adopted her in November and she just had her second birthday on Sunday.

And now that I've accepted the position as permanent Mom/hairstylist

and now that her hair is finally long enough for me to play with it a little

I've really been wanting to learn new ways to do it. Variety is fun. 

So today I scoured the web looking at pictures of adorable little children for ideas.

And I came up with a style called The Four Rosettes.

Tonight was hair-washing night, so I started with freshly washed
and conditioned hair. I adore her curls. They are so spunky and beautiful.
Just like her. I love it loose and natural like this, but being a baby sometimes
having it up makes it easier to take care of it.

I always comb it with a wide-tooth comb after its been conditioned.
And I have a stack of books for her to read so that it's a fun experience.
She used to hate having her hair done until I figured this trick out.
Now, she'll bring me a stack of books and say, "Make so pretty?"

First I section the a little bit in front for her "bangs" because her little curls are so cute.
Then I section the parts and put the hair-ties in to make the two "puffs" on top.
And of course, you have to use the special rubber bands so they don't break the hair.
I also always cut the hair-ties instead of pulling them out. Less stress = happy hair.

You just wind the puff around your finger into a larger curl, and wind that into a rosette.

And then you repeat the process for the bottom two rosettes.

It didn't take very long to do, and it looks pretty cute.

It might look sweet with some little flower clips or barrettes, too.

And of course, she wanted to show off her new 'do.

She's kind of shy sometimes around the camera.
But she was actually asking me to take pictures tonight.
She kept grinning and asking, "Say cheeeeeese?"

Making a tidy pile of books for her bedtime stories.

And she was even hamming it up tonight.

Look at those smiley eyes.

While I was looking through hairstyles today, Waybums sat with me.
We got to a photo of a beautiful African woman with big, puffy natural hair.
Waybums was speechless, "Mother! It's so beautiful! Can Kodi have that hair?"

I love Waybums' straight and long and light brown hair.
And I love Koda's short and kinky dark black hair.
Waybums will probably want to curl hers someday. And that's fine.
And Koda will probably want to straighten hers someday. That's fine too.
There's nothing wrong with wanted to change the way you look.
Just as long as you're comfortable with who you are.

Both my girls are beautiful. And unique.
But I hope they understand that their truest beauty
comes from their character . . . .
. . . the mind under the hair, and the soul under the skin.

I'll keep you posted.

Today I learned to stop and eat the roses.

I love roses. They are just classic. They smell nice. They look beautiful. They remind me of summer. My oldest daughter's middle name is Rose. (We gave our little one a floral middle name, after we adopted her. We'll probably have a whole garden by the time we're done having kids.)

Anyway, this is usually what roses do in my house:

Sit there and look purdy. Purely decor.
Until today.

Spoiler Alert - On Saturday I plan to learn how to make Turkish Delight. You know, the "sweetie" that Edmond betrayed his siblings for in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. When I was a little kid and read the book, I always wondered what it tasted like. So I plan to make it this weekend to appease my curiosity. One of the ingredients is rose water. I looked around quite a bit for rose water locally, and did not find it. Normally that sort of thing would have left me shrugging that maybe I'd find it someday and then be able to make it. But now that I am challenging myself to learn new things, I was just excited to have another new thing to learn. What is rose water? How do you make it? Off to learn, I went!

What is Rose Water?

Basically, it's water that's been infused with the smell and flavor of rose petals. Rose water is probably one of the oldest perfumes in the world. It's not like the heavy rosy perfumes or soaps that you're probably thinking of. It's much more delicate. Romans used roses in their baths and noticed the astringent qualities, and those are the purposes it's most known for here in the U.S. - as as a body mist or as a facial astringent.

However, rose water has also been a staple for cuisine in the Middle East for a very long time, in savory dishes such as mutton or sweet - as in Turkish delight or marzipan. When we lived in Japan I remember seeing rose petals and dandelion leaves in a salad at a fancy restaurant. And I've found an English recipe for rice pudding that uses rose water. But flowers just aren't really found in food here in The States like they are in other places of the world.

How Do I Make Rose Water?

There are different methods for different purposes. The method I chose was for culinary rose water, and the first task is finding suitable roses. If you are eyeballing your drooping Valentine's bouquet I suggest you forget that route. Most roses in such bouquets have floral preservatives and probably pesticides and wouldn't be suitable for eating. The best place to look would be your own rose bushes since you know what has and hasn't been used on them. But since it's winter here now, you can contact your local florist and ask them if they could get some organic roses. They have more contacts than you might. Unless you are a florist. Hello to all you florists out there! (Especially Jean!) I was able to score two roses locally that were pesticide-free. You can also ask about getting misfit roses with missing petals or broken stems for a discounted price.

My Wonky Rose

Step #1 - Remove the petals from the stem

The easiest way to do this is cup the rose in your hand at the base and pull them down to a right angle. It takes a lot less time than the loves-me/loves-me-not way of doing it. You will need to put the petals in a colander and rinse them in cool water. I did that after I measured:

You need one firmly-packed cup of petals (about two roses).

And two cups of distilled water.

Put your petals in a bowl.

Put your two cups of water on to boil.

You can go ahead and snack on a petal while you're waiting, if you want.
I'd suggest taking off the white part of the petal first, as it's somewhat bitter.

Waybums is a regular aphid.

Pour the boiling water over the petals and let it steep until the water is cool.

The petals will turn a different color as their pigment transfers to the rose water.

Ours turned almost purplish-pink.

Now, pour through a strainer.

You can squeeze the petals over the strainer for extra essence.

Now, funnel your rose water into a sterilized container.

I used this one because I like recycling and it seemed an appropriate match:

It will need to be refrigerated to stay fresh,

or you can freeze it into 1 tsp. cubes if you need it to last longer.

If you want, you can also use this culinary rose water as a body mist.
You could even use it as an air freshener.
Just put it in a spray bottle and spritz away.
Just remember to refrigerate it,
or to add 1 tbs. of rubbing alcohol as a preservative
if it's not going to be used for food.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

NOW, what to do with those blanched rose petals?

I hated the idea of throwing them out. During my research into rose water I found a scone recipe with shredded rose petals in it. But when I searched for it again, I couldn't find it for the life of me.

So, I just made one up!

Rose Petal Scones with

"Roseberry Razz" Icing

You know how when you cut onions your hands smell funny afterward?

Oh, the delight of dicing rose petals! :)

I'm the type that likes a recipe to follow, but since I'm eating flowers today and moldy cheese yesterday, I decided I might as well live a little on the wild side. I looked at about a dozen scone recipes so I could get the basic format and then I pieced together bits from each that I liked. Here's what I came up with:

5 cups flour (all-purpose)

2 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

Two sticks of unsalted butter,

(still cold and it helps to cut them up a bit)

3/4 cups sugar

1 1/3 cup milk

1 cup shredded rose petals

2 tsp. almond extract
2 tsp. rose water
(You could add fresh raspberries or 1 tbs. of raspberry jelly if you like, too.)

The almond extract is kind of my signature ingredient. I LoVe almond extract. I put it in everything from hot cocoa to chocolate chip cookies. My husband thinks it has a very strong flavor and the second he walked in the door tonight he said something like,

"Went a little wild with the almond extract, did we?"

It was the one thing I remember seeing in the original rose scones recipe that I can't find. But, if you prefer you can use vanilla or raspberry or whatever flavoring you think would be good. I have to say it's pretty good with the almond extract, though. Adding it made sense to me since rose water and almond paste are co-ingredients in marzipan.

You mix together the flour, baking powder and salt and then cut in the butter with a pastry blender. (Or a fork. I'm just excited to have a pastry blender and enjoy getting to use it when the occasion comes up.) Then add the sugar, rose petals, milk, almond (or whatever) extract. Stir them a bit until it starts to form a dough. (If it's still crumbly add a little bit more milk until it's just starting to be doughy, but not sticky.) Turn out the dough on a floured surface and knead it a dozen times or so. There are two schools on scone-shapes. There are round, biscuit-like scones and there are wedges. I made wedges. If you want to make circles, just roll them out and use a biscuit cutter or upside down cup and cut them like biscuits. If you want to make wedges, divide the dough into four equal parts and make them into circles like so:

Now, put them on an ungreased cookie sheet and slice them like you would a pizza.

You can even use a pizza cutter, if you like.

Leave the slices together if you like moist edges,
or separate them a bit if you want them crispy.

Bake them at 425F for about 12-15 minutes until they are golden brown on the top.

For the "Roseberry Razz" Icing
(which my husband named)

4 1/4 cups powdered sugar

3 tbs. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

3-4 tbs. rose water

1 tbs. raspberry jelly (seedless)

Blend together until smooth and then spoon over scones.
(This is kind of an estimate since I didn't measure as I made it...)

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

And wrapped inside a lovely scone -  it is a tasty treat!

Ok, so I'll keep my day job. :)

This blog is really helping me to see things in new ways, to think outside my little "known" box and branch out into new places of creativity and resourcefulness. Man, I'm having fun. And thank you, readers for tagging along with me as I go...

~~~~~~~~~~~

PS - I did learn how to make paper cranes today. Although, Waybums thought it was a flying dinosaur. I thought it looked sort of like a crane. Maybe one that had been gnawed on by an origami predator...

I've just learned this is a skill I'm going to have to practice.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'll Keep You Posted!

Today I learned more than I ever wanted to know about HTML.

Welcome to our new and improved blog layout! YaY! :)

I'm going to jump right in because I am easily impressed with this little learning tidbit, and I'm sure there's someone else out there in the World Wide Web who hasn't figured it out yet either... I know how to do the accented " é " now! You simply hold down the "Alt" key and type 130 on your number pad (not above the letters - the ones over to the side...) and when you let go of the "Alt" button your little é pops up! Tah-Dah!  é  
*Sigh*  :) It's the little things.

Alrighty, then. So, the most time-consuming thing I learned today was my crash course on Blogging 101. I’ve only been doing this for a few weeks now and I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of interest this little project has generated. I am getting five times the number of visits I had in the first week. (Wait. Is that right? Carry the one…add the seven…and…um… It looks like I need to pencil in a lesson on “basic math on only a couple hours of sleep.” :)

At any rate, I never dreamed I’d be up to triple-digits per day by now. Although, I noticed that my BlogSpot odometer seems to be stuck at 140. It’s been stuck there for about a week now. I keep tapping it, but the thing doesn’t budge. Ah, well. My other counter is working just fine, and if people are posting messages they’ve obviously been here. Unless they are ninjas. Hmm…

Well, anyway, upon seeing the amount of traffic the site is getting I decided it was time to take it up a notch and get my blog some fancier duds. So today I tackled templates and layouts and screen ratios. Even learned a little Photoshop pointers in there. And the dreaded HTML. Which, by the way is hard to is a hard process to translate for my readers...

This is the code for italic:

Add Your Words In Here

See the problem?

I suppose I could put spaces in between everything.

But I'll leave HTML Lessons to the experts.

And when I learned all I could about formatting my website and how to make it three columns and where to just get an easy template that I could download (Thank you Deluxe Templates!) and I couldn't get any further, I called in . . . My Reinforcement.

Super Hubby to the Rescue!

Handsome. Intelligent. Government-trained. Makes the world's best pancakes. My Hubby tried out for The Geek Squad and was turned down because he was overqualified. I knew he was the one I needed for this job. Only he and his Computer Fu could untangle me from the treacherous clutches of the evil and sinister Hypertext that held my remaining brain cells captive.

"Help!" I cried. (Well . . . texted.) "I found a new template but I can't figure this thing out!"

"Aha! I see your problem here! It's not compatible. You'd need Google Chrome for this template and so would all your trusty readers! You must find a different template that will free you from such glitches!"

"Thank you Super Hubby!"

Hehe.

Alright, so it went a little more like this...

~~~~~~

Hubby:

"Alright, Sweetie. Now you gotta click on that link there. No. The other one. Yeah. That one. Did you click it? Hmm. It's not going there. Try clicking it again."

Me:

"Yeesh! I'm clicking it already. Give me a minute."

Hubby:

"You know, you can make the images bigger if you..."

Me:

-groan- "I KnoW that already! What am I, in kindergarten?"

Hubby:

"I was just trying to be helpful. . . in case you didn't know about that."

Me:

"Oh. Well, I already knew that."

Hubby:

"Well, I'm just used to giving specific information when I'm going through the process."

Me:

"Well, I already know that."

Of course five seconds later he mentioned another thing that I already knew how to do and again I was quick to assert my knowledge on that laughably microscopic corner of his stomping grounds.

~~~~~~

So here's what I realized that I learned today.

My husband is one of the most patient people I have ever met, and that is one secret to his success in providing such good tech support. When we lived in Japan our conversations with family would often turn to tech support problems. My husband spent hours guiding his mom through the process of accessing her e-mail account or helping my dad trouble-shoot a  problem on his computer. He would patiently guide them through every step of the process, even if it were obvious to him what needed to be done because it was in that order of things he usually found the problem. It was often some step that was missed or little thing that would have been overlooked if he had not been so meticulous.

It's a fairly obvious lesson - without order, there's disorder.

Tonight I learned to appreciate the simple fact that patience and order go hand in hand.

Thanks, Super Hubby.

It's a lesson we probably all need from time to time.

Touché!

---------------------------------------------------------------

I have been brain-storming about new lesson ideas and I have quite a few collected.

I asked Waybums what she wanted to learn about and she said...

"Well, mother. I'd like to learn about chickens."

So if there are any chickens out there willing to give lessons,

you'll have to keep me posted...

Today I learned how to start a furnace fire, and tips on longevity from a raccoon.

It's been a day full of busy activity. While I've been learning all these fascinating things, I've also been working on a month-long lesson on how to organize and simplify my house. (Which I'll share when I've finished that lesson.) We have moved four times in six years including a cross-country move and an international move, and I'm tired of living out of boxes. There's a glorious, spacious bedroom upstairs that has been moonlighting as a storage area, and it's time to get settled and get to use the space. I've been doing a lot of sorting and purging and regrouping.

So, today, when I wasn't playing with the kids and attending to their many cabin-feverish requirements, I was working on the house and trying to think of something interesting to learn.  I came up with a couple of ideas that will work well for later, but nothing that really worked for today. My husband is a chaperone for our church's youth retreat and so I decided to have supper at my grandpa's house with my mom and hang out with my parents for awhile. When I got there, my mom suggested that I could learn about Grampa's wood-burning furnace. I thought that was intriguing and so I went out to the car to get my camera and stumbled upon another lesson.

Grampa's dog Drake (AKA "Get-Down-Dog") sat on the swing, looking like some kind of furry sentry, watching for mountain lions or something and so I snapped a picture of him.

Just as I was about to go into the house I heard a startling and unfamiliar sound coming from near the barn. Whoah! What IS that? If you don't mind spoilers - it sounded like this.

Drake went rushing off to the source of the noise and I followed him...at a distance. I might be curious but I'm not ready to sign up for rabies shots. I couldn't see anything, but there was a lot of noise. Drake was lecturing the critters for trespassing, "Grrr-snarl-ruff!" And they were trash-talking him, "Chareeka-chatta-grruhchuk." And then Drake just stood there barking.

Silly raccoon.

I learned a couple of lessons from this incident.

1. 
   
   Petty bickering amongst yourselves can lead to much greater confrontations from elsewhere.
2. 
   
   If you are going to stir up a ruckus, you better have a good retreat available.
3. 
   
   The raccoon that runs has a better chance than the one who climbs a slippery metal pole in winter.

I tried to distract Drake, but he was pretty worked up. I suppose he understood the raccoon cussing better than I did. The masked bandit kept slipping and then climbing up and slipping and climbing up and finally fell from the pole and was snarling before he hit the ground. He got chewed out and chewed on, and to his credit he solicited more than a few yelps from the ol' dog. Drake came away and I didn't know if the racoon escaped or if he was dispatched. But I know enough not to go into a dark barn where there might be an injured animal. He's probably in the haymount, nursing his wounds, thinking that he's not going to argue so loudly around this farm again.

So, I went inside with my camera and commenced my lesson on Grampa's woodburning furnace. Before the lesson I knew two things. The first was that Furnace + Baking x Cooking = Hotter than the Sun. There have been a few years when I made the mistake of wearing a sweater to holiday festivities and wondered if the doctors would chuckle and call the press if they got a heat-stroke patient in mid-December during sub-zero temperatures. The second thing I knew is that I can tell if something's been at Grampa's house by its faint campfire meets echoes of homemade bread smell.

Here's what I learned tonight:

You need fuel for the fire. Obviously.

Here Grampa takes the Waybums into the firewood room so he can show her how they get the wood down there. All my life I knew that the room used to be a "cistern" but I never knew what a cistern was until I looked it up tonight. I always thought it was a kind of septic tank. LoL! Not quite. When I learned that a cistern is a kind of water reservoir, the references my grandma had made to using it suddenly made more sense. That's just one of the many back-burner things I'd never got around to really learning about. I thought I knew what it meant and so I never thought to ask. I know it probably seems dorky to someone who knows the meaning of the word. But we all have things that we think we understand but don't have it quite right. Just clarifying the meaning of one word suddenly helped shift a dozen stories my grandmother told me into focus. The most distinctive memory I have of this room was during a tornado when I was a kid. My brother, sister, grandma, mom and I were all crammed in there. I remember it felt like an adventure.

The furnace has two doors.

The larger door on top an the smaller one underneath.

The top is where the firewood goes...

And the lower door is where the ash is collected.

I realize this picture is sideways, but I kind of get a kick out of all of you turning your heads to the side to look at it, so I think I'll keep it that way. :) Sometimes it's more interesting to look at something from a different perspective.

After Grampa's demonstation I decided to do a little research on this furnace.

The furnace is a Longwood dual fuel furnace that can burn either oil or wood, and the name "Longwood" comes from the fact that it can burn logs up to five feet long. The founders of the company that manufactured it actually started out as earth-movers working with their Caterpillars, hauling mud around when people built houses or needed a pond somewhere - that sort of thing. Well, when this gentleman built his own house he didn't really like electric furnaces and so he designed and built a custom wood-burning furnace for his house. The neighbors liked it and wanted one for their own - word of mouth spread and they went from moving dirt to manufacturing furnaces. I love stories of such versatile people who stumble into success by accident, but had the good sense to run with it.

It was a good learning day. A little bit Wild American. A little bit This Old House.

Most of all, I just learned how much fun it is to see Grampa teaching the kids about things. He's such a stand-out fellow. Guys nowadays don't even have enough gumption to change out of their jammer pants before they go to the store for a gallon of milk, and my 80-something Gramps uses a cane to go up and down the stairs and make a fire twice a day. They just don't make 'em like they used to...

This was the cutest moment. He went to all the trouble of lowering the seat on this old-school exercise bicycle so Waybums could reach the pedals. She's barely there, but Grampa told her he'd help her try it again once she grew some more leg. :)

Off to sleep perchance to dream.

I'll keep you posted.

Today I learned about finding confidence and the art of flowers.

I think flowers are delightful. They’re bright and cheery. They smell beautiful. And in our culture they are a symbol of one person expressing something nice to another. What’s not to like about that? And today I was able to see the art of floral design first-hand.


The place of my study was Floral Designs by Jean, a quaint small-town flower shop owned by my best friend’s mom. Before her flower shop, she’d worked two factory jobs and was laid off from both. When she had the opportunity to go back to school for training, she took floral design and business classes. She explained that there were classes that covered specific aspects of floral design – bouquets, weddings, funerals, corsages, etc. that she had to learn before she could get her certification.


The most interesting thing I learned was that there is a LoT of prep work that goes into the flowers before they are all purdy and ready for us to buy. They arrive at the flower shop in a box, from exotic places like Columbia and California. It’s somewhat amazing to think that somewhere in the world there are sprawling fields of flowers that are destined to grace our wintry domain. As soon as she receives the flowers, she sets to work to condition them. She puts a special flower preservative with the water in the floral buckets and sets them to soak. (It’s the same type of stuff you get in those little square packets that come with your bouquets.) She explained that sometimes flowers will come in tightly closed, and in those instances she puts them in warm water. So, take note, if you receive flowers that have shy blossoms, putting them in warm water will help them bloom.


The next step she takes is stripping the flower stems of their leaves. She explained that only the stems should be under water. Leaves that are under the water line will start to decay and breed bacteria that will shorten the life of your blooms and discolor the water. And usually make it smell funky. This was sort of an “Aha!” moment for me because my fresh garden flowers usually had that problem, and now I know why.

With the roses, she said it’s good for the flowers to keep their leaves, above the water line. The thorns, however, had to go. Those things are wicked! It’s not just for your sake, either. Can you imagine reaching your hand into a bucket of rose fangs all day? Yeouch!

When I usually get a bunch of roses, I run water over them as I cut their stems. But at the shop, she cuts the flowers in a bowl of water. Snip- snip-snip. What a handy idea! You save on water, time and moola on your water bill. She lets the flowers sit to condition awhile at room temperature before putting them in her cooler.

I watched her assemble a pretty springy bouquet…

…fix up some standard Valentine’s Day bouquets for the cooler…

…prepare a plant for someone in the hospital…

…and turn a broken-off rosebud…

…into something really lovely.

I learned a lot about flowers today. (I also realized that it’s nice to have grown-up conversation over salmon spread and crackers.) It was great to see someone who is skilled in their trade at work. A couple of weeks back I helped take down the Christmas decorations at our church, and I was tasked with arranging some silk flowers in the entry. I'd jab a few flowers here and poke a few fillers there, but I was never really sure about what I was doing. So I took notice today when Jean was assembling the flowers and fillers. She'd narrow her eyes, spin the bouquet around and poke what needed to be poked where it needed to be poked. After 18 years of assembling bouquets, she knows what they're supposed to look like. She has a vision in her mind of what it's supposed to be and then she just follows that vision. Now there's a thought worth exploring.

Confidence and vision go hand in hand. If you know where you're going, you can take surer steps to get there.

What a great day of learning. And fun! So, for taking the time to teach me today’s lesson, Jean at Floral Designs should get a blue ribbon…

…I’m sure there’s a dozen shades of blue in there. :)

~~~

A lot more lessons to come…
…I’ll keep you posted.

Today I learned to befriend power tools.

Power tools are the embodiment of things unknown to me. My Dad helped me tear out my deck last summer and I was impressed when I learned how to use a power screwdriver. My lack of excitement concerning power tools is because power tools are, well, powerful, and you’ve probably noticed by now that I tend to be accident-prone. I envision a perfect storm of pain and emergency care.

~~~~~~~~

For instance, you don’t see one of these on a shovel:

 My husband pointed out that the picture is fuzzy

but I think its message is abundantly clear.

The Catholic priest in my hometown had firsthand experience with such a snowblower injury. Oh dear. No pun intended. :/ The poor fellow lost fingers. So, yes, when I decided to learn how to use the snowblower it was with some apprehension. But I have a lot of confidence in my tutor – my husband, since he has both my best interest at heart, and practical knowledge of the equipment. So, I bundled up and got ready to learn how to use the snowblower.

Which I have named Matilda the Hun.

Doesn't it look like it should have "Binford" somewhere on there?

Haha! This made us laugh.
The last time it snowed (over five inches),
my husband couldn't find the key and had to shovel.
There was a back-up on the blower all along. :)

Pretty self-explanatory. They saw me coming.
Although I needed help with words like, "choke" and "throttle"
- which, by the way, sounds like a very violent situation to me.


I had to look around for the ignition, since most snowblowers
don't have theirs in the dashboard.


Bunny go fast. Turtle go slow. Me like.


You plug it in? Seriously?
We have an electric starter on our snowblower,
and when Jess handed me the power cord...
...well, you see the picture.


Pushing to start the engine.
I jumped about six inches when it started.
I think Matilda laughed at me.

The most important thing that I learned is that Matilda uses the big red part to eat snow, and anything else that gets in her path. Do not let Matilda eat anything except snow. No planters, no small animals, and especially not the back bumper of the car. Per my husband’s request.

Left handlebar is the snow-eating auger. Right handlebar makes it go. Shift into drive, hold auger, make it go. Stop making it go, stop auger, reposition snowblower to go around the corner. Oops. Missed a spot. Stop making it go, stop auger, shift into reverse, make it go – oops, forgot the auger. And don't forget to go straight! It’s a lot to remember.

~~~~~~~~

Oh yeah, and you should watch where the snow is blowing...

LoL. Just a tip.
There's a neat angle-director on the blower-vent thingie
that will keep the snow from redecorating the outside of your house.

Tah-Dah!

I accidentally shot some snow back onto the sidewalk before Matilda ran out of gas and keeled over. You know, looking at this picture, I think that the biggest thing I learned today was how much work it was. I was pretty tuckered out when I got done. (My husband even moved the cars out of the driveway so I could get the full experience. Thanks, Sweetie. I saw you laughing crazy out loud as you pulled the car out, by the way, Ornery. I have a new appreciation for all the times you've moved snow for us... :)

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When I was done, I was covered in sweat and my muscles ached. Husband dear said that I was trying to do all the work, that the snowblower is supposed to do the work. He pointed out that I was leaving snow behind because I was pushing it as it was supposed to be driving itself. And then, thinking back to my near-burning experience last night because I pushed down too hard on the tip and worked it loose...instead of letting the burner do the work. I guess I do that a lot. I take on more work than I need to in order to make something work. Even in the job that I just lost. I put a lot of work into that job, poured a lot of myself and my time and my life into that job. So I guess the most helpful thing I realized today is that it will either work or it won't, but pushing something harder than it's supposed to go will wear you out. Like any of the other goofs on this blog, I’ve know that mistakes are fine as long as you learn from them.

(And as long as you don’t end up at the ER…or let Matilda gnaw on the fender of the van.)

Ooh - And since this blog has just made my whole week fun and adventurous, I'll throw in a freebie that I learned on accident - How to make a layered beverage!

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I had some leftovers from my Shirley Temple lesson and so I poured half a glass of extra pulp orange juice, filled the top half with ginger ale and put in a splash of grenadine and had this "happy little accident" as the late great Bob Ross would call it.

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I don't know yet what I'll be learning tomorrow...

...but I'll keep you posted.