Shrubs and Salsa Online

Do you know about Etsy.com?  If not, you’re really missing out of some of the coolest handmade stuff around.  It’s like the world’s biggest handmade online mall.  You will  find jewelry, clothing, knitted items, crocheted items, vintage items and even digital items, like photographs and patterns.

As you probably guessed, I also have a shop on Etsy and you can find it here: http://sherricrochets.etsy.com

Don’t forget my main store, at http://SherriCrochets.com and check out the blog, too, at http://sherricrochets.com/blog .  You may be surprised at some of the stuff I come up with.

Later,
Sherri

We finally got to go on vacation to see David, Jen and MAX!  Woo hoo!  We had a great time, but it was too short and we had it filled with (probably) too much stuff.

We flew out on Saturday afternoon, arriving around bed time.  By the time we got our rental car and drove to Hanover, to John and Pat’s house, it was too late to do much more than say hello and jump in bed.

Pat had decided to do Thanksgiving at her house on Sunday, and many, many friends and family were invited over.  Dave and Jen were the first to arrive with little Max, who is much bigger and cuter and way more fun to play with than he was last time I saw him!

He warmed up to all of us pretty quick and it wasn’t long before he climbed up in my lap and let me give him hugs.  Pat served a delicious dinner and we had a great time catching up with many of Wes’ relatives.

Max needed some outside time in the late afternoon, so I took him outside and he ran around Pat’s community for a while, then he discovered the fallen leaves in the yard! Before you knew it, Camden and Jake and Jayden were also out there jumping in the leaves.

Monday, we had decided to drive up to State College, PA, so Wes could show the boys and I around his old stomping grounds, Penn State.  John and Pat came along, and we had to visit all his old favorite restaurants, including Berkey’s Ice Cream Parlor.  We got our pic taken with the Nittany Lion and the statue of Joe Paterno, Penn State’s long standing football coach.

On Tuesday, we toured Penn’s Cave; an underground, water filled cavern!  It was a cold, dreary, drizzly day, but the cave was so neat.  At the far end of the cave, it emerges out onto a small lake.  While out on the lake, we got to see a Bald Eagle!  We drove home that day, and got to have dinner with Dave and Jen.

Wednesday, we drove to Annapolis so we could tour the Naval Academy (Camden hopes to go there someday).  Another dreary, drizzly day, but we had a great walking tour and saw the campus and the dorms.  Got to have a great lunch at a tavern there, and got some Navy souveniers.  On the way home we stopped at Maryland Homebrew, Wes’ old stomping grounds and saw Christiane.  Then we stopped at Dave and Jen’s again and had dinner with them.

Thursday we were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at Jen’s parents, Ken and Jocelyn’s house.  Got to spend all day with Max, who, it turns out, is not always a happy go lucky child.  LOL.  Got good cuddle time with him, though, when he crawled up in my lap and fell asleep.  That was pretty awesome!

We spent all day Friday with Dave and Jen and Max at their apartment.  Dave took the boys for a short ride on his new motorcycle.  They were thrilled to be so special to ride Dave’s motorcycle!  LOL.

Friday afternoon we had to fly home.  We were thrilled to be able to see everyone, but sad it was so short.  We are hoping to get a nice long visit early next summer though.

I’ve messed around with the pictures for over a half hour and can not get it to do what I want.  All pictures are on our my  Facebook account WITH captions and facing in the right direction.  The link is to the right, friend me.  I am on Facebook everyday, and post pics and updates much more often than I do here, so check it out!

Well, the boys are back in school!  Woot!! So far both boys are doing great and having no troubles.

Camden needs to be at the bus stop to catch the bus to high school at 6:21 AM.  Luckily he’s an early riser and always wakes up around 5 AM.  It’ll make high school all that much easier for him.  On the other hand, he’s in band.  They will be practicing every  T, W and Th until 6 PM and when there are night games he’ll be out past 11 PM.  So that will wear him out.  I’m sure he’ll get used to it eventually.

Jake started middle school and is excited about several of his classes.  Among the tops, for him, is science.  Why?  Because they are sitting on yoga / exercise balls this year, instead of regular chairs.  Maybe he’ll strengthen his core muscles this year.    Other exciting stuff involves him starting band this year.  He’s playing a trumpet / cornet.  They finally get to start playing their instruments this week and he’s looking forward to it. But not to carrying his instrument to school and back every day. 

I’m getting used to working at PetSmart.  It’s not as horrible as I had imagined it would be.  Ok, so it’s not horrible at all.  Everyone is really nice, even the customers, and the kids like to hear about all the dogs I meet each day.   The best part about working is the paycheck, which allowed us to book a vacation to go see Dave, Jen and Max this fall!  Can’t wait!!!  The bad part is that I think I’m allergic to everything in that store…  Keeping my fingers crossed that my Claritin continues to work well!

Wes is great and is still working. Looks like things may be starting to pick back up in the housing market.  Woot!

That’s about all for now.

Later,
Sherri

Taken from my journal:

I figure someday, someone will wonder what I was doing on September 11, the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon and the plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

I’m writing this exactly six months later and I pretty much remember everything that happened that day.  Will I ever forget that day?  Don’t people still talk about what they were doing when JFK  was shot?

I remember I got the kids up and we were getting ready for school.  We were still not quite used to having to be at the bus stop at 8:30 am to get Camden off to first grade, and had our usual struggles to get there on time.  But we did, and after the bus came, I drove Jake up to KinderCare in Eldersburg. 

After dropping him off at “preschool” I went happily on my way to yoga class in Columbia.  I remember I was on Marriottsville Road heading south, almost to the Route 70 on ramp when I first heard about it.  I would have been a little after 9:00 am.  The news person came on the radio with the report.  She said that a second plane had crashed into the second WTC building and it was now considered a terrorist attack. 

I was stunned.  My heart started beating fast and it was hard to breath!  How could someone launch a terrorist attack on American soil?  My head spun as I continued to drive to my yoga class.  I was sure the two towers would collapse.  How could they not when two planes had crashed into them?

I got to The Yoga Center parking lot around 9:30 am.  I sat in the car listening to a Washington, DC radio station.  They were getting reports that a plane may have crashed into the Pentagon!  This was getting close to home.  Very scary stuff.  As it was time to go inside they had confirmations that a third plane had indeed hit the Pentagon.  I knew I had to go inside if only so I could dedicate the energies of my practice to the victims and their families.

In class, we all huddled around and talked about how scary the morning’s happenings were and how we were feeling about it.

I have to say, Kathy Donnelly did a fabulous job of getting us through a grounding practice and relieving some of our anxieties.  But as we were doing our ending relaxing meditations, I had the horrible thought that David could be called to war if things escalated and we retaliated!  That brought me to tears.  She ended the class with a group hug. 

(A few weeks later, one of the girls in class admitted she had no idea what was going on that day and didn’t understand at the time what all the fuss was about.  Poor thing.)

I drove home in a hurry, listening to the news for further updates.  I heard that a plane had crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, and it was thought to have been headed for another, unknown site and may have been foiled by passengers.  I also heard that they were closing schools in the area since we were so close to DC. 

I stopped by home to see if Dave had gotten home or if I needed to pick him up.  He was there watching the news.  I grabbed him and we hugged, I was crying.  We discussed what was going on.  He was the one who told me the two towers had indeed fallen, just a short time before I got home.  We watched a short bit of the news on TV, then he went with me to get Camden at school.

There were already quite a few parents at the school, getting their own and neighbors kids.  When I picked up Jake at KinderCare, the teachers explained that one child had come in to school after having heard about the crashes on TV and had told the children what had happened.  But the teachers had given the children a basic, matter-of-fact account of the happenings (almost exactly what I ended up telling them later) and they had seemed happy with that.  Ah, the bliss of the four-year old!

I told the kids on the way home, that all the parents were worried and scared today cause some bad men had stolen some airplanes and made them crash into two different buildings.  That made lots of people die and it was scary, but that WE were safe and sound at home and they shouldn’t worry.  Camden seemed a bit concerned, but Jake was fine.

Wes came home for a short period of time to make sure we were all safe (he couldn’t get through on the cell phone — lines were tied up), but then had to return to work to restore order and normalcy!  The rest of the day was spent watching news reports in my room, and try to make life normal for the kids.  School resumed as normal the next day.

Over the next few weeks, I tried not to listen to news accounts on the radio or watch extensive amounts of TV coverage in front of the boys.  I didn’t think their young minds needed to be crowded with the images and horror of it all.   But I still kept them updated when something big happened, and they saw some pictures of “ground zero”, so they knew what was going on.

It was awesome to see how the country came together at this time.  Stores with changeable signs all had a patriotic saying, “God Bless America” or “Pray for the victims families” or “Proud to be American”.  Everyone was flying flags right off the bat.  It was so inspiring.  This was the first time in my life that I wanted to fly an American flag, and I was ashamed that I didn’t own one.  They flew off the store shelves, too, and were hard to find.   I did find a car flag within the week.  I found a big one to hang in my bedroom window within a few weeks. 

Even three months later, at Christmas time, flags were still part of the decorations.  And red, white and blue Christmas lights were the norm, it seemed.  It was so cool and touching to see such extended shows of patriotism.

I made this for dinner the other night and everyone raved about it.  Cooking the salmon in the foil packet on the grill is brilliant.  The salmon was infused with the flavors and didn’t taste at all fishy!  It’s my new favorite way to cook fish.  I couldn’t find my Splenda brown sugar so I used regular brown sugar.

Chile Garlic BBQ Salmon

1 1/2 pound salmon; cleaned
2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoon chile sauce
1 1/2 teaspoon ginger root, fresh; chopped
1/2 clove garlic; chopped
1/2  lime; juiced
1/2  lime; zested
1 1/2 teaspoon splenda, brown sugar
1 1/2 small onion, green; chopped

Prepare outdoor grill for high heat. Trim the tail and fins off of the salmon. Make several shallow cuts across the salmon’s skin. Place salmon on 3 large, slightly overlapping sheets of aluminum foil. In a bowl, stir together soy sauce, chile sauce, ginger, and garlic. Mix in lime juice, lime zest, and brown sugar. Spoon sauce over the salmon. Fold the foil over the salmon, and crimp the edges to seal. If using hot coals, move them to one side of the grill. Place the fish on the side of the grill that does not have coals directly underneath it, and close the lid. If using a gas grill, place the fish on one side, and turn off the flames directly underneath it; close the lid. Or use your oven for the same effect.  Cook for 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove to a serving platter, and pour any juices that may have collected in the foil
over the top of the fish. Sprinkle with green onions.

Yield: 3 servings

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