Last year at the end of gardening season I took the remains of my garden (old tomato plants, weeds, seeded out lettuce and spinach, etc.) to the composting site.  I was so surprised to find in the compost pile a bunch of beautiful tomato plants that still had green tomatoes on them.  I snarfed those puppies faster than you could imagine.

I brought my treasure home and made my wonderful fried green tomatoes and they were so delicious.

I make my batter with some corn meal, a little flour, salt and pepper.  I dry them off first to get rid of any excess liquid.  I dredge them in plain flour first to keep the batter on and then dip them in the corn meal mixture.  Then I warm up some bacon grease and fry them golden.

Add a little cut up fruit and I have the most heavenly breakfast.

Thanks to whoever left those lovely tomatoes on the vine last season.  I hope to get more this coming fall.

I have read that Jews and Muslims have nine hundred names for God.  It seems that one small word is not enough.  I am guilty of calling my loved ones by more than one name.

First born daughter – Adrienne

Addi, Addibeth, Addi the Baddy, Adley, Ageretum, the Bear (I made up a song for this name and we still sing it every once in a while), Princess, Sally Sunshine (I called her this while pregnant) Poop Butt (which I wrote a ditty and sang it to her when I changed her diaper)

Second born daughter – Jessica

Nathan (she was supposed to be a boy), Ca, Jessa, Jessaleigh, Baby Applesauce (Addi called her this while I was pregnant), Punkin, Punkin Head, Chunk Jess, CJ, Clunkhead, anything but Jessie

My dog – Jessie

Jessie dot calm, Jestie McFerbish, Jesticulata, Boogernose, Puppy

The Hubster – Rick

Richie, the hubster, Ferb

My mother – Belle

Uncle Charley (I watched My Three Sons and was pissed that I didn’t have an Uncle Charley), Mother

Myself – Wilma

Wimla, Woehema, Wilmarea, Asshole, Ferb

So I don’t have nine hundred names but I think I did a pretty good job of making up more names for my beloveds.

This is a photo of my beloved Jessie dog.  This was at Christmas and we have a Faerber family tradition (the girls hate it) that I give everyone one of dad's old underwear elastics. Hey, I washed them!   I know it's stupid but it is a tradition.  We generally have rubber band fights with them.  Go make up your own tradition.

Food cravings are not new to me.  I love to eat and I eat quite well.  I cook, the hubster cooks, and when the girls were here, they cooked too.  When we were young and childless, the hubster and I would go out to eat almost every night.  If I ate something that I liked I tried to learn to cook it.

My repertoire includes chicken cacciatore (than you Aunt Lura), lasagna, Mu Shu Pork, Chicken Cordon Bleu, Chicken Kiev, and so many other things too numerous to mention.  The hubster also has his specialties.  His beef stroganoff is to die for.  Anything he grills is magic but his piece de resistance is his fish tacos.

I almost gagged the first time I heard of fish tacos.  Then I wound up in Arizona at Filiberto’s and my friend encouraged me to try one.  I do believe I had a second one.  They were not what I had expected.  I guess I thought ground fish meat with lettuce and cheese with salsa. 

Fish tacos are not that.  They are a lovely piece of fish deep fried crispy with delicious tartar sauce made of sour cream, mayonnaise, and seasoned with cilantro and jalapeno, served on a tortilla with raw cabbage.  Add a little tomato salsa and you have heaven on earth.

We watched someone on the food network make fish tacos and the hubster decided he could do this.  We concocted all the ingredients, got the old wok out and began making fish tacos.  The secret of the taco was that when you grill your tortilla sprinkle it generously with cumin.  The smell alone brings tears to the eye.

We have this spice cabinet from Hell in our house.  I grow my own herbs and have them everywhere and use them all the time.  I have so many spices that I have to house them in two cupboards, one pantry and one LARGE spice rack.

It is when I open the spice cabinet from Hell that I need a fish taco.  The smell of cumin is overwhelming.  My mouth is watering just thinking of it.

Fish tacos are a lot of preparation work.  And the person making them gives them away so he can make another one.  That is so you get them hot and fresh.  The hubster is the last one to sit down and enjoy.  We don’t make them often and I haven’t found any place in the area that makes fish tacos like the hubster makes them.

I may just have to announce to him that I MUST have a fish taco.

I have got a terrible case of beach fever.  I want to be on the beach so badly that I hurt.  I have had a back and neck ache for days and it is all because I want to be on the beach.  I may just have to drive across the lake today and put my feet in the sand.

The first time I ever experienced the beach was when my brother was in the Air Force in North Carolina and my family drove down to visit him.  We had never been to the ocean and decided it was a good time to do such.  I will never forget when we rounded the top of a hill at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  The ocean was before us and it was eternal.  You could see it entirely in your vision.  I fell in love.

We played on the beach like little children.  Even my father was nuts over the ocean and the beach.  My mother didn’t swim and so she sat in the cabana watching us and taking some pictures.  (Yes, she cut off our heads!)

I think my next beach experience came when the hubster got his hand hurt in a punch press accident a couple of years after we were married.  We decided he needed to recover by the beach.  He and I and five other friends headed off to Daytona Beach, Florida.  We had one heck of a time.  The hubster couldn’t resist the water and got his bandage all wet.  We ended up at a hospital getting it rewrapped.

After the girls were born and old enough to enjoy it we used to take Spring Break and drive to Florida for our vacations.  We usually did the Gulf Coast thing.  I was so happy to share my ocean and beach with my daughters.

For our twentieth wedding anniversary the hubster took me to Jamaica, which is one place I had always wanted to visit.  The beach there took my soul.  I’d like my ashes scattered on a beach in Jamaica.  But Sugar Creek Preserve will have to do.

I’ve been to beaches many places in Jamaica and I can’t say one would be my favorite.  They all are my favorites.  I have been on a beach in the Atlantic side of Mexico, on the Pacific side of Mexico and on Cozumel.  The beach on Lake Michigan in Chicago is pretty impressive. I have also been on the beach at Pearl Lake, Illinois (where we scuba dove) and on two beaches at Lake Summerset where I live.

I’d take any one of the above right now.  And so I have written it down and gotten it out of my system.  I’m off to the beach.

These toes were taken at Washington Island, Wi.  

I just realized that I have done two foot blogs in two days.  Whats with the feet theme, Wilma?

My foot

I have this foot that will probably be the death of me.  In my teens I was a cheerleader.  Okay, so I have a big mouth and don’t mind wiggling my butt in front of people!  Our uniforms consisted of the unholiest smelling wool sweaters, wool slacks (thank God they were lined) and saddle shoes and wool socks.  The saddle shoes wore the back of my heels to blisters which eventually turned into callouses.  The callouses turned into hot, red inflamed hard skin.  The one on MY FOOT, which is the left one hurt so badly that I sometimes cried?

It was during these formative years that I began to develop bunions.  Bunion ache, if you don’t know it, is a burning sensation.  I have put my feet in iced water many times to try to curb that pain.  After many years of suffering I discovered that my bunions didn’t hurt any more.  My feet just looked like something from Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

If bothered by my ugly ass feet, I would always think to myself, “at least they work.”

My husband and I were wrestling in our early years of marriage and I dislocated my big toe on my left foot.  That was quite uncomfortable for some time.

Through the years I banged my foot, broke little toes, and stepped on glass and every damage you can imagine and then some.  I wore heels for a few years but avowed to give them up when I chose to stay home and be a stay at home mother to my two girls.

The year that I took my job as school secretary I was having some strange problem with my left foot.  I couldn’t walk or stand for even ten minutes at a time.  My stupid foot would go numb and I’d have to sit down.  If you know me, you know I am hyperactive.  I can’t sit down!

I had a neuroma.  Not a Morton’s neuroma but between my big toe and the one next to it.  (Does that toe have a name?)  I had to have foot surgery and I was warned that these things do come back.  Oh goody!

The year before I retired from being a school secretary I decided to have my bunion removed from my left foot.  I would recover at my Christmas vacation.  Well as fate would have it the bunion surgery recovery was much worse than I had imagined.  I had had the big toe bunion removed and pinned, the neuroma tied off again, and spurs scrapped from between my toes.  My little toe was also bunion free and pinned.

 I was off during January also and worked part time during February.  When I went back to work full time in March I had to take my lunch break lying on a floor mat with my legs up a wall.  This was to help with the swelling.

I went into compression socks and it hurt so bad just getting the boa constrictor socks on but it did relieve the swelling.  I was in those things until summer when I swore I would not wear black knee socks every day in my swim suit.

Three years later and I now think the stupid neuroma is back with a vengeance.  If I sleep on my left side my left foot goes to sleep as well.  If I sleep on my right side, my shoulder hurts.  If I sleep on my back I snore to high heaven.  Sleeping on my stomach is out because my large American breasts are uncomfortable.  So I toss around all night long, shoulder hurting, foot asleep and snoring.

Oh, well, at least they get me around.

Photo is from my trip to Arizona where younger daughter and I had pedicures and the lady did my toes in a Bengal motif.

Well I had to seal the grout in the new kitchen floor this past Tuesday and I am paying for it today.  My back seems on the verge of going out of place.  When this happens I am in total discomfort.  I shortened my yoga session this morning concentrating on my back exercises.  I took two of my arthritis meds and am feeling somewhat better if I sit still and don’t make any quick movements.

I feel such empathy for people with chronic back pain.  It is like having a toothache all the time.  I have worked through mine with the help of chiropractic care, professional and my own learnings.  Jess used to walk on my back when she lived at home.  I have even had a student at the school where I worked walk on my back once.

I am not much for sitting around and this back thing is awful on my hyperactive self.  I think I will take a short nap and see if it is any better.  And maybe a long bath later.

I had a short nap with my legs and back in the correct position and I do feel somewhat better.  I have just learned that one of my favorite aunts has died.  I am so sad because I know I cannot make the drive to Ohio for her funeral.  This back would not allow it.

I have such fond memories of my cousins and our many adventures.  My daddy’s family was one of the most fun loving people.  Always cracking jokes and playing games.  And such food you would never believe.  I think it was because they came from a simple background and appreciated all of their blessings.

Rest in peace Aunt Limabean.  I wish I had a photo of her to include.

Photo is my cousins, Tim, Gerald, Russ, Sue and Emerson in back row.  In front are Barb, Pam and myself.

I had a lovely adventure with two of my very favorite people, Mike Kelly and his daughter, Noeha.  We met up at Mike’s house in Freeport and set off for Clinton, Iowa.  Mike grew up in Clinton and he and Noeha had many memories to share with me.

We drove through Shannon and I shared my story of when I was a little girl I always said when I grew up and had a daughter, I would name her Shannon.  I didn’t name either one of them Shannon.  We went through several other small Illinois towns and as we drove further west the terrain became hillier and more beautiful.

I think boulders were a theme of this trip.  I love big rocks and spied many along the way.  When I was a baby we lived at this house that had a HUGE boulder next to it.  I have a photo of myself standing on the boulder.  One of my favorite poems is:  “This is my rock and here I run, to steal the secret of the sun. This is my rock and here come I, Before the night has swept the sky.  This is my rock this is the place, I meet the evening face to face.”  David McCord

I confessed to my companions of my fear of heights.  I didn’t really want to go overlook the Mississippi River from the peaks above.  I had tried that once before and it scared the crap out of me.

We got to Mt. Carroll and Mike took us to Raven’s Grin Inn.  It is a really scary building with cars and junk tucked in and around and into the building.  I guess you can take a tour of it.  It wasn’t open when we were there.  I imagine Halloween to be a bit of a frightening party there.  I took a bunch of photos and Mike had me take one of him and Noeha and her bulging pregnant tummy.

We headed on down the road and came to one of our destinations – The Heirloom Market and Café in Thomson on IL Route 84.  It is a market, seed and plant nursery and café all in one.  Their food is all organic and grown outside in their green houses.  The serving plates and bowls are made of some kind of palm leaves.  The utensils are made from potato starch -- all biodegradable and organic.  I loved it!

I had a wonderful garden salad with one cucumber (boo hoo) two tomato chunks, some julienne carrots and raspberry vinaigrette.  It was delicious and yes, I licked the bowl the dressing came in.  I also had a cup of 9 bean soup.  They didn’t have any vinegar on hand so I ate it as it came.  It was pretty good but a big splash of cider vinegar would have made it extreme.

Our next stop was at a big park on the Mississippi River where Mike had learned to play guitar and had partied big time as a teenager.  It was closed as the road were full of pot holes and so we just chased once around the parking lot.   Mike said a lot of German POWs were kept close by here and they used them to build various structures around the park.  There were some very nice boulders.

There was a cool cemetery where Mike said his grandparents were buried.  We didn’t get to explore that but if Garnet and I go sometime, maybe we will.  I just love a good cemetery.

We did the big bridge thing and went to the lock at Dam 13.  Mike scared me to death pretending he couldn’t’ stop at the edge and I emitted a mind boggling scream.  We thought the guy next to us called 911.  The sight was mighty impressive.  The pelicans were soaring overhead and landing in the water near the dam.  Pretty good fishing I imagine.  They tried to coax me up onto the lookout ramp and I had to remind them that I am deathly afraid of heights.  I told them they might as well feed me a snake as to get me to climb heights.  I’m afraid of snakes too!

We cruised the town of Clinton, Iowa, home of the famous rock star, Mike Kelly of the band Prime Time Live.  If you every get a chance to see them, do so.  They are so good and so much fun to dance to.

Mike drove by the house where he grew up and just down the street was the ice cream parlor that he would go to for his treats.  I suggested we stop and have some ice cream.  He turned around in a driveway that had a no trespassing sign and was at a mansion.  Noeha pointed out that at one time Clinton, Iowa had more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the USA.  There were some huge and lovely mansions and of course, big boulders abounded.

We got soft serve and noticed the walls were plastered with photos of people eating ice cream.  I asked our server if she would take our picture and she did.  She also took one with her camera to print and put up for the next time we visited.  I had raspberry soft serve dipped in chocolate.  It was quite good.  I usually prefer hand dipped ice cream.

We drove to a downtown area that was quite neglected.  There was an old building with a walkway in front and on the walkway were various etched blocks with the names of famous people and companies that had contributed to Clinton’s history.  One name in particular and the reason we were here was Clyde Kelly who had lived to 106.  He was Mike’s grandfather and I wanted a picture of the block with Mike’s shadow next to it.

I also admired a huge boulder that was nearby and asked Noeha to take my picture trying to steal it.  We got a good laugh.

As we were heading back to the river we came across an area with a billion boulders covering the area.  Mike stopped and told me to get out and take one.  I gave him my mother’s reply.  “Mike, if everyone took a boulder, soon there wouldn’t be any left.”  Mike got out and stole a boulder for me.  It will go into my fairy garden.

We made it back to Mike’s place without any haphazards.  I had to look at Mike’s garden as he didn’t know what a plant was that was growing.  It was a thyme and a really nice specimen.  We gave hugs all around and promised to see each other soon.

On my way home I had to stop and take a photo of one of my favorite trees.  I think it looks like a smiling troll or a hairy Gumby.  What do you think?