Journals and Sketchbooks

We've been spending a lot of time getting ready for our vacation which is coming up in a few weeks. We are headed to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to spend a week with my parents and all my siblings - all seven of them, in the same house. I have to admit this has me a bit anxious. But I've been trying to up the anticipation levels and dampen the anxiety levels since I think most of my fears are unfounded.

In planning what we are going to bring with us, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Baby, who herself occupies the least amount of space, is going to be using most of the available storage space for all of her stuff. It's a good thing it's summer time and we're going to the beach so my clothes can fit in a shopping bag. I don't think we could fit it all otherwise.

Two necessities for me though, whenever I travel, are my journal and sketchbook. I have a whole little kit packed into a small messenger bag. Every night I record the days happenings in my travel journal. This becomes a great memento of the trip and also a nice read when I'm longing to get away and can't. There's always something I forget and reading about it brings me right back to that far away place. I also bring a sketchbook and watercolors, colored pencil watercolors, and if I can swing it, my pastels. We'll see if the pastels make it this year (they don't fit in the messenger bag) as I may have to give them up in lieu of my kite and geocaching equipment. I don't know how much time or opportunity I will have to sketch anyway. In the past it was just my husband and I, so I could sketch whenever I wanted to. This time there will be seven young children along. But I'm sure I'll be able to do some sketching, and who knows, maybe I'll be able to encourage some of the older children to take up these travel habits of mine.

Here are some excerpts from previous trips.

July 2, 2001 Chincoteague, VA

"Finally John caught an eel after many crabs kept stealing his squid. The eel went back. Thought we would try some live bait but that proved no better than the squid."

September 26, 2003 Minnesota

"All day we were in and out of the rain. We saw several rainbows along the way, the first in Minnesota. The landscapes in Minnesota were just amazing. There were lakes everywhere in this Land of Lakes. And where there weren't lakes, there were fields - of corn, wheat, and even sunflowers."

May 27, 2004 Misty Fjords National Monument, Alaska

"There is a misty rain scattered throughout the area and we go in and out of it. This is typical. We go past some moss covered, steep cliffs ~ this area is utilized by birds as a rookery where they lay their eggs on the ledges. Amazingly they don't roll off. We see several sea birds hanging out here."

And here are some of my sketches.

Devils Tower, Wyoming September 30, 2003

Cape Lookout, North Carolina September 10, 2006

Raspberry and Honeysuckle Memories

We have raspberry canes behind our house. These just grow wild, but we never seemed to pick any before the birds got to them. This year some raspberry canes started growing over by the gardens and were loaded with berries. So, as they started to ripen, I would pick them everyday. Each day would yield a handful of berries, which I would collect and we would have in yogurt or over cereal. Whatever was left over went in the refrigerator to save up for making something big. Finally I had enough saved and I made raspberry muffins. They were delicious. The recipe I used is at the end of this post.

Our honeysuckle is in bloom right now and always a-buzzing with bees. It smells just like summertime to me.

Picking raspberries and smelling honeysuckle triggered some childhood memories for me. I grew up on a dairy farm in eastern Pennsylvania with my seven brothers and sisters. Once we were into summer vacation we would spend the days rambling about the fields and in the woods. When the raspberries were ready for picking we would go trekking through the fields to the berry bushes which grew along the edges and where the fields couldn't be cultivated. It was great fun and we would be gone for hours, picking and eating berries.

Sometimes we would walk over to my Grandparents house, which we called The Farm because it was the main part of the dairy farm. It was 1 1/2 miles from our house. These were just country roads and they didn't have very much traffic at all. The honeysuckle grew wild all along them and we would stop and pick the flowers and pull the bottom off and get a sweet drop of nectar from each flower, to drop on our tongue.

I hadn't thought about those days for years. It's funny how doing something or a smell or a song can really take you back through the years. The brain is an amazing thing, how it stores memories and how they are triggered back to our consciousness.

Well, so much for my walk down memory lane. Here is the recipe I used for the Raspberry Muffins. It worked out well because I had just over a cup of berries.

Raspberry Cream Muffins
from allrecipes.com
Submitted by Stephanie Moon

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup fresh raspberries
14 Tablespoons sugar, divided
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup half-and-half cream
1 cup finely chopped vanilla or white chips
2 Tablespoons brown sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1. In a small bowl, toss raspberries with 1/4 cup of sugar; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and 1/2 cup sugar. Beat in the egg and extracts. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with cream. Stir in chips and reserved raspberries.

2. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Combine brown sugar and remaining sugar; sprinkle over batter. Bake at 375 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm.

Here's a picture of how mine turned out. I didn't put the sugar/brown sugar on top. I didn't want them to be too sweet. And I only used 1/2 cup of white chocolate chopped up in them because that's all I had.