Joining the Wellness Center

All of this workout equipment was new to us. I bet we are going to be sore tomorrow. We tried out a lot of things and the cross training (like cross country skiing but sitting down instead of standing) was the one that stretched our legs and worked out our arms.

Headlines in newspaper: Fitness Counts More than Fatness for Living Longer. I read this and decided that I will probably never be the thin person I would like to be but I can become more fit. Actually at my age, if I lost a lot of weight, I would have so many wrinkles. I'm not at the obese level - yet.

So last week Jim and I joined a 10-week program called Scale Back Alabama, http://www.scalebackalabama.com/ (it's all free). This is the first week. We attend classes every Monday at noon at Opp Mizelle Hospital. The classes are taught by the hospital dietician. We participated last year and I lost 10 pounds and have kept it off. Now I want to lose 10 more.

We brought earphones from our portable CD players and used them to plug into the TV monitors mounted on some of the machines.

But most important, we signed up for 3 months of fitness training and exercise at the hospital's wellness center and plan to work out 3 days a week for an hour. Today was our first day. We went early to be measured, and all the other things they do when you start out (body fat measurement, etc). Then we checked out the machines we would be using

. Neat place! The wellness center is in temporary quarters right now while the new center is being built, which will have a big heated swimming pool across one end of the new building.

When we work out on Friday, I will take some pictures of us on the machines and post here so you can see the action! We were happy that we weren't the only seniors working out - they all were our age or older, working out in the middle of the day. I guess younger people were all at work!

Trees, trees and more trees

Trees by Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Guess you know by now that I love trees. When we moved into our present home there was nothing but bermuda grass in the yard - not one tree! So in 2004 we started planting trees.


First we planted 4 Leyland cypress trees. One was not a good specimen and we bought it for only $3. We planted this tree at the back corner of the house, thinking someday it might provide a shade from the hot afternoon sun. Pictured here is the small tree and another photo as it looks today.

When we moved from the farm, I brought a potted plant and a small oak was coming up in it. I stuck it in the flower bed and didn't expect it to live. Four years later look at the size of it now!

In the summer of 2004, I bought 3 Natchez Crepe Myrtles and a friend gave me one. I planted them in the hard clay soil and it didn't rain all summer. They have grown so fast and I prune them at least once during the summer.

Our Texas Granddaughters

Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Allison (Ally) Gilmer are our oldest granddaughters. They live in Austin, TX. Lizzie goes to Univ. of TX and Ally attends North Texas Univ. in Denton, TX.


 There's 4 years difference in their ages. This year Lizzie will be 24 and in March, Allie will be 20.


Liz always loved this pink shirt with the face of a cat with big eyes. She once told me that she thought she was "part cat".

Christmas in Clemmons, NC

Liz and Ally  at our farm in AL

Sharing

Texas bluebonnets

Little Women

One of my favorite books when I was growing up was Little Women. Watching our 5 granddaughters grow up reminds me of the antics of the sisters in Little Women. We have 2 married sons. Bill has 3 girls and Ronnie has 2. Today I am posting pictures of Bill's 3 girls to show much they have grown in 11 years. The first photo of Katie, Nerissa, Bill and Caroline was made only one month after the death of the girls' mother, Barbara in November 1996. My sister Carolyn, who was living in Indianapolis, made the Christmas vests for them and spent a week with them in SC to help out. Then Bill and the girls came to Alabama to spend Christmas with us on the farm.

Easter

The next photo was taken at Easter a few years later when Nerissa was about 12, Katie 10, and Caroline 6.
Nerissa was wearing braces and wore her hair pulled back in a pony tail, and this was before she started wearing contacts.


Then last December I received this latest photo of Bill and the girls. They are now 18, 16, and 12. Nerissa is a freshman at Clemson Univ in SC, Katie is a Jr in high school and Caroline is in the 6th grade.

Bill took the girls to England for Christmas holidays to visit their mother's relatives. They had not been since 2000 so I'm sure the relatives were very surprised at how much they had grown in 8 years. Nerissa went alone one summer about 2 years ago.


As I get older (in my 70's now), time flies! And Christmas seems to come more often. I hardly get things put away when it's time to get them back out again. And I know that the girls will be grown before I know it.


Tomorrow I will post photos of our other two granddaughters, Elizabeth (Liz) and Allison (Ally) who live in Texas. They are both in college and it just seems like yesterday they were babies, and then later coming to spend time with us in the summers. We don't get to spend as much time with them as we would like, but when we do it is "quality time" and we keep in touch with email and cell phones. Nobody writes letters anymore. I have saved many of their drawings, letters, and cards from past years.

Pe-cans or Pe-cons?

In this part of the country we say pe-cons. In GA they call them pe-cans. I prefer pe-cons.


Today we took a 5-gallon can of pecans to the farmers coop bldg. to have them cracked with a mechanical pecan cracker. What a great invention!! It's a far improvement from when we used to use a brick or hammer to crack them. Not only that, but they almost come out as two halves instead of broken pieces. Our neighbor let me pick up some pecans in their yard since we don't have a pecan tree of our own.

My parents and grandparents always had pecan trees in their yard and when we were young, it was a dreaded chore to have to pick up pecans every winter. And picking them up wasn't nearly as bad as having to pick them out. My mouth would break out from eating too many pecans.


We would keep some to eat and then bag the other pecans and take them to town and sell them and use the money to buy Christmas presents.


I guess that next to peanuts, pecans are my favorite nut. I love using them when baking cookies or making candies. But most of all, I like to sprinkle salt and spices on them and roast them in the oven. My mother made divinity candy and put pecans in it as well as chocolate fudge. And those delicious pecan pies were a favorite at holiday time.


During WWII my mother would make a cloth bag like a pillow case and fill it with pecans to send to her sister in Washington, DC. She would sew across the open edge of the bag and then write Aunt Faye's name and address on the bag. Then we would take these to the post office and mail them to my aunt who was so excited to get Alabama pecans. Then my mother did the same thing for me when I lived away from Alabama. Now I am carrying on that tradition and I package pecans and peanuts to give to family members at Christmas. Anybody can go to the grocery store and buy packaged pecans and peanuts but they are very expensive and sometimes are not fresh. They just aren't the same as those we gather, crack and shell ourselves.
There's a big problem with pecan trees if you use them for shade trees. They have those fuzzy green blooms in the spring that look like worms that fall on the ground and are a mess. Then about the time the pecans start to fall on the ground, a ton of leaves start falling also. You have to keep the leaves swept up so you can see the nuts on the ground. It's a good thing that I like pecans or I'd never go to all that trouble!

Favorite Recipes of Mine

Someday - I will put my time-worn, many handwritten recipes in a cookbook. I have many of them in my computer already and when I need one, I go to my computer, click on "Recipes" and look down the alphabetized list until I find the one I want. But not all of my favorites have been typed and saved in my computer. But I will also keep those old, hand written recipes in a special place. Some are scribbled on the back of envelopes, note paper, and whatever was available to write on. Today I was looking for a recipe from a friend from Albany, GA. It was for " Chicken Spectular" and a great casserole. I had surgery on my knee while living in Albany and Mrs. Emily Buce cooked this great casserole and brought it to us for dinner one night.

Another favorite recipe I plan to make this week is called Sausage Bread. My Aunt Mattie Lena gave me this recipe several years ago and it became a favorite right away. She was visiting us in NC and made this delicious recipe for Jim when I was away on a trip. He asked her to teach me how to make it. She was the best cook around. I think Jim probably gained 10 lbs. the week she came to stay with him and James.

I came across another recipe today that was from a friend in Texas (who died at a young age). Today her husband was buried in Paris, Texas. What memories that recipe brought back as I looked at her handwriting.
Yes, I will type my recipes and print them out but I will not discard all the handwritten copies, so that I can take them out of the box and hold them and remember where they came from.

A few years ago I encouraged the ladies at New Ebenezer Baptist Church near Elba, AL to write down recipes and I typed them and we made a cookbook for family members. This is my favorite cookbook and I use it often.
They didn't want to sell these as a fund raising project; they just wanted to make the cookbook to leave behind. Some of those ladies are no longer with us but we have their recipes to remember them by. I contributed my Mama Wilson's lane cake, my aunt's sausage bread, and many others - including some of my own. I am not a true southern cook - I have never mastered the art of making biscuits and making divinity candy. Nor do I fry foods very often or make cakes. I'm a salad maker and deli meat person. I love to use my food processor to chop, shred, slice, etc. Speeds up preparation time for me. The kitchen is not my favorite place to be. I'm an "ourdoors" person.

My 4-H Club experiences (1944-1949)

Yesterday I was watching an old movie about kids going to a camp and it brought back so many memories of 4-H camp the summer after I was in the 7th grade. More about my camping experience below. I remember all the fun and learning opportunities of 4-H when we attended monthly meetings at school. We elected officers who had to preside at the meetings. At each meeting there were planned programs and led by students. I remember how we learned to make cottage cheese and I thought it was awful. I had never eaten cottage cheese and wanted no part of that! Another time 2 friends and I shaved left over bars of soap over a period of time and put the shavings in a jar. Then when it was our time to do a demonstration on how to clean a rug, we poured hot water in the soap jar, and made suds; then cleaned one of Miss Jean's beautiful wool rugs. We kept record books of things we did at home and I could never remember to write things down.

In the spring we always went to the county 4-H rally. One year all the clubs from schools in the county gathered at Elba football field for our rally. It was so exciting. There were a lot of relays, ball games, etc. Then we ate our lunch (I think we all brought our own lunch) and then lined up to march downtown to the Elba theater to see the new movie, "Song of the South". I don't think I ever saw a movie that I enjoyed as much as that one. It was in color and the music was beautiful. I loved the Uncle Remus (see photo) tales and mother gave me an Uncle Remus book for Christmas the next year. There were other rallies but this one I remember the best. I remember skipping all the way back to the school bus after the movie.  Check out this great movie, over 60 years old, at http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/index.html

The summer after I finished 7th grade, a group of my friends from Curtis school and I decided to go to 4-H camp at Lake Tholocco (now a part of Ft Rucker) for 3 days in July. We were given a list of things to bring to camp and I laugh everything I think about this. We slept in an old empty house with some Army cots set up throughout the house. Our meals were cooked outdoors under the big trees and we ate outside. The boys stayed in tents outside. We all lived on farms so we were given a list of food to bring with us: Example - 6 ears of corn, 6 eggs, flour, cornmeal, etc. etc. And a sack of peas or butterbeans. The campers furnished all the food for damp. Don't know about the meat but probably some of the boys furnished that by killing chickens, etc. The highlight of camp was evening vespers after an afternoon swimming in a large pool, and cooling off from the heat, then eating dinner and then going to the large room by the pool and singing songs as we watch the sun set. This was my first camping trip and I really didn't want to go again; too hot, too many insects, not enough sleep, etc.


When I was in the 8th grade, we had lessons on sewing and were encouraged to make a garment. My grandmother Wilson had been teaching me to sew and she said she would help me with this project. I'm the world's greatest procrastinator and put off making my dress until almost time to turn in my project. My Mama Wilson helped me cut out my dress but I didn't have enough fabric in the chicken feed sack fabric so she showed me how to lengthen the skirt with solid fabric inserts. I sewed the dress on a treadle machine (no electric machines back then). Making buttonholes by hand was the hardest part, but I did it. We washed the dress and it rained the day before the contest so I had to dry the dress in front of the fireplace fire. I waited and waited for it to dry so I could starch it and iron it to wear the next day. I wish I had a picture of that dress. I took it on a hanger to school the next day and we attended the competition at the court house in Elba. My face fell when the lst place winner, an older 4-H member from another school walked out in her 2 piece suit, made of beautiful fabric and she had on high heels and makeup. I was not intimidated at all. I was so proud of my dress. Later I learned from the girl's friends that her mother actually made the dress and she went to Montgomery to buy the fabric and it was very expensive. So in my heart I was the winner. I had learned to sew!


The next summer I was selected to be a delegate at the state 4-H camp at Auburn University,  and after that trip I knew I wanted to go to college, and I wanted to go to Auburn. It was a whole new world for me to be on a college campus.


Footnote: I did not go to Auburn but went to Troy State instead, for 1 year, and then got married. Several years later I graduated from East Texas State University (now Texas A&M at Commerce) and got my degree in Home Economics in 1976 when I was 42 years old.