Yes. There were balloons to celebrate Bailey Sophia. Because they look cute in the hospital room and I knew her big sisters would wholly enjoy getting to play with them.
And of course there were tulips (coral-colored), because a bouquet of lovely spring flowers gladdens the mommy’s heart – after all her hard labor (so deserving).
But this time, I decided to make the new daddy a little something, too. Cigars! Yep, rolled ’em myself.
No, just kidding. I saw the idea on Pinterest for Father’s Day and personalized them for Rocky to distribute to visitors at the hospital.
By the way – did I mention we just had our 8th *grandbebe* born on April 5? Did I fail to tell you our exquisite and so-sweet little April-Angel is named **Bailey Sophia** and we are head-over-heels? Well, in case I forgot to mention it, here she is. This photo was when she was 10 hours old, fresh from her first bath. Please note the sparkle of angel-dust as it gently falls all around her…
Ok, I digress.
The cigars
So, where were we? I got the idea off Pinterest{click here}. and I personalized the free down-loadable cigar labels to fit our occasion. Oh, but wait – the cigars are not actual cigars – did I say that already? Ok – they are just those pretzel rods. I cut about 1/3 of them off (my husband and dog ate the un-useable 1/3) and dipped the 2/3 length part into chocolate candy melts (melted, of course). Cooled them, cut out the printed labels and used a tiny bit of tape on the back to hold them in place.
I was going to use an empty cigar box from Walgreens to place them in, but the smell of actual cigars would have infused the chocolate-covered pretzels. No bueno. So, I thought and I thought and I thought, and then by sheer accident, I happened across a little endcap display at Target with these plastic boxes for making “home made lunch-ables” and voila! Perfect.
How fortuitous, don’t you agree, that I had already cut them the exact-perfect length??? :)
Chocolate-covered Pretzel Cigars, enjoyed by young and old alike.
Dave hauled these in from the cassette graveyard-mausoleum, also known as the garage: two heavy-duty totes filled at least 2/3 the way up with old cassettes. Yes, cassettes!
Why do we have them, you wonder?
I have no answer. Except to say that when we moved to this house, we actually did still use some of them, along with our growing CD collection. Most of our “players” at that time played both CD and cassette – remember that? It was more than 10 years ago and honestly, we had already thinned it out when we moved – gotten rid of tons of soundtracks (from our church-performance singing days, haha) and many other cassettes. We felt we had organized to the bare essentials…apparently not, though.
As one by one, cassette players broke down or got sold in a former car or two and as we started buying CDs exclusively, Dave just put them in these totes “for later.”
The other day he hauled them in, hooked up an old stereo cassette player he found hiding in the garage rafters to the surround sound and told me to have fun.
I have the Bee Gees and multiple Kenny Rogers tapes, Deniece Williams, The Rocky Soundtracks (“Eye of the Tiger”), Michael Jackson, Elvis,1980s mixed tapes, 1970s mixed tapes, tons more performance soundtracks (everything from Sandi Patti to Brittany Spears and back, but mostly Christian or wedding-type), kid’s worship tapes and Sunday School songs, many Christian artists like Reba Rambo and Steven Curtis Chapman, Carmen (of course!) and lots of the old Hosannas! Integrity worship recordings from the 80s when they had that $4.99-each tape-of-the-month club deal. I was a charter member! :)
I have preaching tapes, oh boy, do I have preaching tapes. There are tapes of my dad, my brother Tim, my brother, Joe, Coach McCartney and other Promise Keeper types, James Ryle, James Robison, my husband, some sermon-of-the-month tapes including Jack Hayford’s (my all-time favorite) “Instructed in the Song of the Lord.”
There may even be tapes of me speaking. I know there are some of me singing with a Catholic group I was in (Parousia) back in the day. Dave was in the college group, Chara and before that here in Denver with The Gospel Lights and we have tape of them.
There are health and diet tapes, work-out tapes, Word of Faith tapes from the 1970s with people like Kenneth Hagin (Dave brought these to the marriage) and Marilyn Hickey before she was known around the world (kept them purely for the historical value). We have books on tape (Louis L’Amor and O. Henry, to name a couple). There are tapes that were taped over and crossed out so much I don’t know what is on them. There are “keepsake” tapes like the recording I did for Sacred Heart Academy (my first studio experience), “In the Sacred Heart of Jesus” and a whole bunch of cassettes of my children when they were young. Some I captured as they were babies, cooing and being sweet. Others were them, as they got older and loved to tape over EVERTHING to create radio shows and do interviews and just them being silly. I cannot wait to dig into those and listen!
Oh but some…yikes, might have been better never found. There is this one of Dave and I singing at the church in Kokomo and ya know – it was the day of Sandi Patti trilling all the way to an octave and half above high C. I was a low-voiced girl, better suited to Karen Carpenter’s range, or Anne Murray, or even Amy Grant. Oh, but Sandi was all the rage so I had to do it, didn’t I? Oh-horrible, painful, awful to listen to. Ugh!
What the heck will I do with all of these cassette tapes?
Oh my. Well, I will get rid of many-many-many of them. But I will also make sure that the ones I find with music I cannot live without is still available on iTunes. If not, I will digitize them. And of course, I will digitize all of the ones with my kids and other keepsake-types (a recording of my sister in her college touring group, let’s say). I will digitize anything with my father’s voice and powerful words, of course. I will sort and decide…sort and decide…at some point I will probably get overwhelmed and want to throw it all away all at once. But instead, will place what stays for the time being back in the cassette-casket for another day.
But I do have some special plans for a lot of those old performance soundtracks (what we would now call “karaoke”). Oh yes!
Before getting rid of them, I am calling the family together and we are going to hook up the sound system and sing! Oh yes we are. Do not try to argue with me about this, kiddos. I found “Testify!” Hahhahaha. Early 90s…everytime we visited a different church, it was always requested for the Rhoades family to come up and sing. :p Can you imagine? Dave and Jeanie (big, red, sparkly hair – to signify the “anointing,” I have to laugh at myself) and 5 little ones, ages 5-12 or 13 singing loudly:
I wanna testify, I wanna testify
What the Lord has done for me – He set my spirit free
He has made me whole, put joy down in my soul
I-I-I-I-I——–wanna testify! Testify!!!
Omygoodness. Yes, that is one of the things I will be doing with these historical relics, these compact little pieces of my history.
With so many hundreds of cassettes surrounding me, you’d probably be surprised to know there are some I remember that are gone, lost, and I can never replace. These shown are only a fraction of all that Dave and I owned over our lifetimes (I got my first cassette recorder for Christmas when I was 14, for goodness’ sake) and only recently, I had been collecting cassette images for a new little thing for this very blog (yet to be unveiled). The time is right to remember.
Do you know why these two things go together?
We used to listen to cassettes. We did. Remember?…
I watched old black and white reruns of the Mickey Mouse Club starring Annette in the early-early-early 1960s (when I still took naps). Later I loved those silly beach movies. Of course, I did.
Sears Portrait Studios have been closed down for good
Call me crazy, but I like this family portrait (January 1985), even though it was the old-fashioned, perfectly lined up pose. The lady behind the camera was holding a squeaky toy to keep everyone’s attention. My mom had made the kid’s outfits and bought me the blouse to match. We had our Sear’s Portrait Studio appointment and we kept it, by golly, even though it meant going out in a major blizzard – which ended up totally working to our advantage.
This is a bad photo of the picture I snapped a few minutes ago. But the squeaky toy lady actually got all of us looking at once, with pleasant faces – in several shots, actually! Tara was 5 1/2, Stephanie was 2 1/2, Tredessa was 1 1/2 and Rocky was 3 1/2 months (HEY! Don’t judge me. Haha). Dave and I were 25. In case anyone was wondering.
No one else was there that day. No screaming children nor frazzled moms – just our happy family. The photographer took her time and lots of photos and we hung out at Markland Mall in Kokomo like it was our own playground. All dressed up and having fun on a blizzard day.
Stormie never liked this shoot, though, when she’d come across the pictures in photo albums or saw the shot above which used to hang framed on a wall. Because she was not in it. So she painted this {below} as a joke one year for Father’s Day and inserted herself , decked out in red and black, into the picture. She is funny.
I plan to dress the grandbebes in the little outfits my mom made soon and see if we can’t get a sweet pic of them???
Roger Ebert died last week.
I still miss Siskel and Ebert. I was a faithful follower back in the day. I started out by thinking Roger was really arrogant and off-putting, but then I realized he was just so smart and sure and right, absolutely right.
It wasn’t actually a brought-to-you-by-Sesame-Street-esque article (a little more risque), but having a name that starts with a “J,” I was glad to get some play!
Even though “J” is the fourth-least-frequently-used letter of the alphabet (only Z, Q and X are used less) and less than 1% of words in the English language begin with “J,” J-names are not really all that uncommon. You probably know people with most of these names:
Jacqueline, Jaycee, Jeanie, Joan Jadyn, Jane, Jackie, Jasmine, Julie, June, Janet, Jeanette, Janell, Janice, Jana, Jamie, Joan, Jazzy, Jae, Jeena, Jennifer, Jenny, Jade, Jessica, Jewel, Jezebel, Joanna, Joelly, Jocelyn, Joleen, Joy, Juanita, Judy, Jovan, Jill, or for boys there are Jake or Jacob, Jackson, Jason, Jeff, John, Jesus, Jarrett, Jeremy, Jedi (I know a few), Joey, JoeJoe, Jerry, Justice, Joshua, Justin, Julian, and ETC!
Anyway, the Yahoo-news article was a little bold, but suggested “J” might be the sexiest of all letters and I am just saying – maybe that is true. I make my “J”s a lot like this one, especially if I am feeling particularly swirly!
Also known as – Coltivata Da Orto or Rouquette Arugula, or “Rocket Salad.” Can you name the *movie line?
Arugula – it’s a vegi-table.
I planted some seeds in trays on Thursday (for transplanting into the garden anytime after April 12, and yesterday morning, walking past the assortment in bright morning light, some tiny little specs caught my eye…could it be? Breath-held-hope…YES! Arrugula! It has sprouted, this cruciferous vitamin-and-nutrient-packed wonder, beating all the other seeds I sowed. *sniff So emotional. :)
Happy, however, to see the cabbage, kale and lettuce giving pursuit now. I have seedlings. Lots and lots of seedlings!
The growing season
The Denver Metro area is 5b on a growing-zone map, which means we only have about 132 frost-free days to grow a great garden. Our final frost date in the spring is listed on various websites between April 30 (wishful thinking) and May 13 or 16. I just use Mother’s Day as the general rule.
For any frost-sensitive plantings (tomatoes!), just wait until after Mother’s Day to plant them. I don’t care if it was 142-degrees on April 27th – don’t do it. Don’t fall for it. Just wait until Mother’s Day! Trust me on this, people.
You have to expect First Frost in the fall right at the autumnal equinox, aka “first day of fall.”
Do NOT fight me on this!
Now, ’tis true, you can grow lots of things before final frost in May and certainly after first frost in September (around the 3rd week). They just can’t be the best of the summer tenders (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, etc).
I have had beautiful pots of pansies and a wonderful harvest of tomatoes right up to Thanksgiving some years. My petunias, which start to look tired and fried in the heat of August perk right up and bloom profusely in October each year. But watch those frost dates and don’t be hasty!
Overall, put your finger on Mother’s Day and plan backwards for gardening this year!
We are 5 weeks ahead of final frost today. Here is what you can plant:
Seeds indoors: Broccoli, parsley, cabbage, onions, eggplant, and cabbage can still be seeded indoors if you start right now, otherwise it will be too hot for them by the time they are big enough to transplant (but you could still buy seedlings). You can also start planting eggplant, lettuce, Swiss chard and peppers indoors right now. The lettuce and chard could be transplanted to the garden in early May, whereas the eggplant and peppers would be ready to sink into the soil in late May.
Seeds outdoors: Peas and spinach are good to go being planted outdoors this week.
Established seedlings into the garden: You could pick up some broccoli, cabbage or parsley at a garden center and plant them outdoors right now, too. They can handle some frost or even a {blasted} snowfall.
Today, however, my heart belongs to arugula. <3
*Movie reference: “Arugula. It’s a vegi-table.” Steve Martin as Vincent “Vinnie” Antonelli in My Blue Heaven(1990), a fun family flick!
Dave is having a bunch of people over for an ‘ask the author” for Road Rage tonight. He is so humbled and appreciative to have people who want to talk about it and get questions answered! I cannot attend since I haven’t read it yet, but I have heard great things about it from many people.
Plus I have made out with the author. Numerous times. But I won’t kiss and tell.
The day he got the first copy delivered in December
I was excitedly telling my mom my seedlings had popped up overnight, that they were growing like crazy. “Of course,” my mom was saying, “anything you plant grows, honey.”
“But come and look,” I was waving her over to a table full of trays and each was filled with healthy green seedlings of all sorts, beans, and lettuce and cabbage and peppers and tomatoes. I looked at them and was in awe, in love. “But mom,” I was explaining, “I just planted these yesterday!”
And I knew my garden was going to be lush and verdant and full and fruitful. I knew the garden was going to be so good this year.
Yes, I really dreamed that this morning. I went to check on the seeds I planted** 2 days ago – just in case. Nothing. Yet. No germinations to report at this point (of course), but it was a good dream anyway.
However…
Just yesterday, moments ago, really, Dave and I had these five children. And they have grown up and started having their own and the world is filled with these fruit-bearing, green, whole and holy human beings {our children and theirs}. There are so many of them and the number grows.
Just yesterday {wasn’t it?} Dave and I were in the hospital and he was keeping me relaxed, talking me through contractions, telling me I could do it and we were laughing and crying at the miracle of the moment. Was’t it just yesterday?
No. It couldn’t have been because yesterday, it was Rocky, our full-grown man-child, and his wife, our Jovanie, who were in the birthing room so peacefully and joyfully and exuberantly welcoming their third daughter into the world.
The sights, the sounds, the eternal rhythm of giving life, of transcendent birth…I can see them like they were yesterday for me. And they were. And I have planted seeds and they are popping up, strong, healthy and leafy green. The garden is going to be so good this year.
Our 8th grandbebe, *Bailey Sophia*
She was a little late (as her poor mommy will attest), but so worth the wait! Sandy-brown hair (less than her sisters, but so pretty, nonetheless). 8 pounds, 12 ounces, 21″ long. She is just. so. sweet.
She already has an amazing story. There will be more pictures and posts about Bailey Sophia, you may be sure!
Just after her bath
**Already planted Bibb, Little Gem, Ruby Red and Gourmet Lettuce Blend, Chinese Cabbage, Broccoli Raab, Arrugula, and Kale, glorious kale! :)
We had the kiddos over for the traditional Easter Ham Dinner on Sunday. And we didn’t have any eggs to hide.
Now, all of them had attended Easter Egg Hunts Saturday and earlier Sunday and had collected more eggs than any of them needed. We sorta thought their parents would bring the ones they had for hiding and hunting and they sort of thought we would have some…and well, poor bebes.
We had just bought a spring stash of big, colorful bouncy balls to see them through the warm days of spring and summer ’13. Resourceful little boogers that they are, Gemma and Averi devised an Easter Ball Hunt for the other kids. They tucked the giant spheres here and there among bare-branched shrubs and then called to everyone “Come and find them.” How cute.
Back to this ham thing…
Isn’t it weird and odd that we Christians chose ham (aka pork, aka pig), to eat for the Resurrection Celebration feast? I mean, true, we were set free from that dietary tradition long held by law-keepers when the New Covenant kicked in, but it doesn’t mean we should just throw caution to the wind, does it? It seems sort of bold, like saying, “Hey – we don’t have to follow Jewish tradtion anymore, because Jesus (a Jew, btw), has set us free from that. So keep your deliciously-spiced-and-herbed slow-roasted lamb! We choose pig.”
I just don’t know. This may be a case of our liberties being lawful but not necessarily expedient.
Oooohhhh…Who put their peep-stick back in the bunch?
It was Rocky, of course. He made fun of me for asking that strange question so incredulously.
He is risen. Risen indeed!
The Traditional Candy Bar crosses…in miniature
The Ladies Willing Worker Band at the Kokomo Church of God taught me to use full-size Three Muskateers Bars for making and selling candy crosses at Easter. I made them for years. But who really ever even eats Three Muskateers? Anyway – I got the “snack size” and they make these very tiny versions. It is hard to tell, but they are on 4 x 6″ photo paper for a serving tray. That is how tiny they are.
I made 8 of everything just in case Baby Girl Rhoades came in time. :(
Being the amazing Nonna/Nonni I am, yes, there was candy, but mostly fun little toys (clothes for Kai) and salty snacks to counteract all the sweetness of the day. Stuffed animals, peel off nails and colorful hair and Guini got her whoopie cushion (she is so silly) and they all got their crosses, for heaven’s sake!
Lined up and waiting for seven sweet grandbebes on Easter. Gavin (9.8); Hunter (8.5); Guinivere (7.75); Gemma May (5.83); Averi-J (5); Amelie Belle (3 on the dot) and Baby Kai (12 weeks).
Easter is THE day and I got to spend it with THE people I love so much! How did you celebrate this year? What are your traditions?
We got raindrops instead of snow for a spring shower. This is a wonderful development, n’est-ce pas?
Bad news: severe water restrictions already in place.
All the news channels reported last night. They are trying to make it impossible to even garden (which could save me from pesticides and hormones that kill in my food and grocery-store prices). Ugh! Send the rain, Lord.
Denver Water, Colorado’s largest municipal water supplier, imposed mandatory usage restrictions including designated watering days due to a lack of snow in the mountains and “serious” Stage 2 drought conditions.
Good news: from Isaiah 44.3-4 NLT:
For I will pour out water to quench your thirst
and to irrigate your parched fields.
And I will pour out my Spirit on your descendants,
and my blessing on your children.
They will thrive like watered grass,
like willows on a riverbank.
More good news: I am baking polka dots today. A.K.A. Cake Pops. :)
