Half Broke Horses

After years of scrimping and saving every penny she can, Lily Casey Smith decides she's going to do something for herself.  She signs up for flight lessons.  Her flight instructor, like my father's flight instructor, was named Gus.

And Gus knew a thing or two about feeling a gaggle of children.  His specialties were beans and the tastiest salad dressing you ever will try.  I promise.

Gus's Beans
1 lb hamburger
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, pressed
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
4 cans pinto beans
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder

Brown hamburger and drain fat, add to crock pot. 
Saute onion, add to crock pot.
drain beans, add to crock pot.
add remaining ingredients.
Cook on low 5-6 hours.

Gus's Salad Dressing
1 purple onion, chopped
2 cups sugar
3 cups vegetable oil
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp poppy seed
1 tsp dry mustard

Add all ingredients to blender or food processor, blend one minute.  Transfer to serving container.
After you've tried out Gus's specialties, you should check out Half-Broke Horses.
Half-Broke Horses is a family history written by Jeannette Walls. Walls started out trying to write the story of her mother, Rose Mary, but found she could not tell the story quite right unless she started with her mother's beginnings, Lily Casey Smith. Lily's story is one of poverty, hard times, and fierce determination. Her life's motto was this: when God closes a door he always opens a window. You just have to look for it.

As a young girl, Lily helped her father break horses on their Texas ranch. At 15 she struck out on her own with nothing but a few belongings and her horse. She rode 500 miles to a teaching job in Arizona. After several short stints as a teacher in rural towns, Lily finds that she will have to take on odd jobs to keep food on the table.  These included poker player, bootlegger, and horse racer. Lily gets married, has two children, and finds herself managing a considerably sized cattle ranch in Arizona.

While this book was written after The Glass Castle, I wish that I would have read it first. I found myself wondering how and why Rose Mary, with a teaching degree from college, chose the vagrant lifestyle she did. I think I would have had more sympathy for her in Jeannette's story if I had known more about her upbringing.

Veronika Decides to Die

For a time in my life I stood looking at the wind, I forgot to sow, I did not live joyfully, I did not even drink the wine offered me.  But one day, I judged myself ready, and I went back to work. 

~Paulo Coelho - Veronika Decides to Die

In this Coelho novel, Veronika, a young woman decides to commit suicide by overdosing on pills.  She has it all planned out down to the minute.    But then, she wakes up in the hospital ward of a mental hospital.  She learns that the pills have severely weakened her heart muscle and she has at most 5 days to live.  The novel chronicles those 5 days and how life looks so much different to Veronika now that she is sentenced to die instead of choosing it.

I Thought You'd Never Ask

cowboy_bob_2, a photo by zeke_woolsey on Flickr.

Mom, would you like a NOT-sticky kiss?

Been a while....

A happy afternoon

The cute little sock and sweater were made by a sweet lady named Mary.

I am working on a shawl for the prayer group at church.

It's so warm and soft that I'm afraid I will want to keep it for myself when I'm finished.

The Book Thief

"It's just a small story really, about, among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery...."

The Book thief, written by Markus Zusak and narrated by Death, is surprisingly long (550 pages) for just a small story.  Liesel Meminger, living in Nazi Germany, finds herself separated from her parents and brother.  Her foster father teaches her to read in the basement at night as a distraction from her night terrors.  She shares her new reading abilities and the stories she's learned with the Jew hidden in the basement along with the other Germans huddled around her in the bomb shelter.

Death:  "I wanted to tell the book thief many things.....I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.  I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. 
None of those things, however, came out of my mouth.
I said it to the book thief and I say it now to you.
I am haunted by humans."

I liked the fact that the book was narrated by Death.  He is an impartial outsider to the Nazis and the holocaust.  He passes no judgment on the situation and focuses on his job of taking the souls of the departed.  The detachment makes reading the sections about the Jews being marched through town to the concentration camps less emotional to read.  Although, one should expect parts of the book to be sad.  It is, afterall, a book wholly centered around the war. 

The tone reminded me of the HBO series Dead Like Me.  Still available on Netflix these days.  I recommend it!

Weekend window

Bob's idea of what a superhero with blue and green hair looks like.  Be afraid....

Mom, you have got to check this out.  Brody has a pirate bounce house set up in his backyard.

Bob, before the elbow to the nose in the bounce house...he was a bloody mess, spent hours and hours assembling Brody's legos for him.  He is his father's son.

My safety kid

Next time, can you not push me quite so high.  It's a little bit frightening up here.