Tonight we went to a costume party that my friend Leah and I put together. We had great food and a good time. I went as King Tut, and Ben went as Nacho Libre. I told my students today that I was going as King Tut and they said "really? He's a boy" Then I told them that once for Halloween I dressed as Abraham Lincoln-- now THAT'S a stretch! I was so proud of Ben because he made his costume himself. At first the mask he wore was really long and stuck up on top and I told him he looked like a KKK member. We had a good laugh about that and then cut it to fit better. My friend Leah went as Miss Alaska- very cute. Good times!
So please vote for me! Just go to the URL below, click on the photo for "Benjamin, Miami Florida", click "Next" and then "Submit"! It's that easy!
My mom sent me this photo. Somebody in the south is getting very creative with their scarecrows. I really like fall time. Here in Miami it is still 90 degrees during the day and no changing leaves, so I get a little fall sick. I always enjoyed October and the leaves and going trick or treating. The town I grew up in was small and so when I would knock on people's houses they would give me things like homemade cupcakes and popcorn balls. It wasn't like it is now when everyone thinks there are razor blades in everything. Why on earth would anyone do that? My friend Leah and I are having a costume party. I've decided that I'm going to go as King Tut. I tried convincing Ben to go as Cleopatra, but he wasn't very receptive. He is determined to be Nacho Libre. (if you haven't seen the movie.. you need to. It's hillarious) So, wherever you are, if you walk outside and see leaves changing and feel a chill on your skin, think of me because I am fall sick.
Dear Hershey's,You can find out more about these wonderful chocolate bars on the Hershey's website: http://www.hersheys.com/cacaoreserve/
I just wanted to congratulate you on the perfection of an incredible
bar of chocolate. I have just experienced my first Cacao Reserve bar
purchased from my local publix supermarket. This was the first time
I've seen the Cacao Reserve bar and I thought I'd try it. The one
thing that sealed the deal for me though was the cacao nibs in the
"Extra Dark Chocolate with Cacao Nibs" bar. About 3 months ago I did
some research on chocolate on the Internet because of a party I went
to that had a chocolate fondue fountain. Several people on the
internet were raving about the chocolate purist afficionado's
affection for cacao nibs. I was disappointed that I couldn't find any
Cacao nibs in any Publix, Winn Dixie or CVS pharmacy. Finally here
they are! And I have to say that I was not disappointed at all. The
rich chocolatey taste blew me away as I had hoped. This is finally a
chocolate bar to rival the european brands I've been buying like Lindt
and Perugina.
Thank you for another life-enriching experiencing.
Sincerely,
Ben
I volunteered to help Habitat for Humanity today. Somehow I overlooked the small but cricitally important detail that I would have to wake up at 6am this morning to meet our group at church at 6:30. After arriving bleary eyed on my scooter we set off to the building site in Liberty city (one of the roughest areas of Miami, Florida).
About 100 volunteers from different churches around Miami showed up to help. We were able to meet the future owners of the homes and lunch was even provided!
I was on "insulation" all day, meaning that we were stuffing sheets of fiber glass ceiling insulation foam into the attic space of the house we were working on. It was pretty grueling being covered in dust, sweat and fiberglass but we were surrounded by encouragement and friends... and knowing that the home is going to someone that deserves it even made the itching on my arms tolerable!
Two things happened to me yesterday that I thought were pretty note worthy. I stay and watch kids at my school sometimes in after care for some extra money. Well, yesterday I stayed and was watching the kids on the playground after school. I was sitting on a bench under a large tree that shades the area. I was fixing my hair and had my arms above my head and then I felt something drop on my stomach. It was a chewed up mango seed. I looked up in the tree and saw a squirrel looking down at me. I thought I would encourage that squirrel to move to another branch, so I started throwing sticks at the branch to scare him to move. I thought it was an accident with the mango seed. Boy was I wrong. After I couldn't get it to move I just said forget it and went back to sit on the bench under the tree. Then, after a few minutes I felt water on me and I said to the girls "is it raining?" and they told me it wasn't. That's right, it urinated on me. Never in my life has a squirrel done that to me. I guess it felt threatened. The lady in charge of after care kept telling me that it was like a rat going on me or something and that squirrels carry all types of disease. She let me go home early. Needless to say, I took a shower.
I had to share these photographs. I was absolutely amazed at these photos. They are taken by a man named Lennart Nilsson. He is a Swedish man that is being compared to DaVinci. He is part artist and part scientist. He is 84 years old. He just put out a new book of photographs called "Life". He is known for his use of macro photography. Taking tiny little pictures. I have no idea how he gets these photos, but I think they are amazing! Some of these photos that I'm showing are as early as 11-15 weeks. To think we all started out this way is mind boggling to me.
They have all kinds of wild and wonderful tropical plants. Wispy desert plants that look like they're from a Dr Seuss book. Giant palms that are about50 feet tall. A petting zoo where you can catch worms from pot-bellied pigs. And a butterfly garden where I think all of the butterflies have been eaten by the local iguana population. (Not sure if iguana's are carnivorous so don't quote me on that one. Butterflies kind of look plant-like though so you never know.)
We even found one of the old parrot cages that was unlocked with some strange monkey species inside!
I do not claim to be the best cook ever, but I'd like it if one day my grandchildren could believe I am. I got a recipe from my good friend Leah for gingerbread. This is a special recipe because Laura Ingalls Wilder used it. (authoress of the Little House on the Prarie books) So I decided I'd make it. As I was taking it out of the oven I realized that I had left out one of the very important ingredients... molasses. So, the gingerbread was a big dry. I took a picture for your viewing pleasure. It's the DRY looking one. I gave it to the people at church. They seemed very happy with it. Then today I thought I'd try it again. Ben thought I was crazy, but I had to know what it was supposed to be like. This time I remembered the molasses and it is much better. I took a picture of it for you to look at the difference. It's the browner one. Since I know all of you are inspired now, I will give you the recipe. Don't forget the molasses!
There's nothing quite like the smell of 15,000 fresh born baby chicks straight out of egg factory. This was part of my experience last Christmas in Alabama at a chicken farm. The chicken houses I saw can contain up to 25,000 chickens and the farm had 5 chicken houses for a total of 125,000 chickens. These chicks arrive in blue pallets on a schoolbus from the hatching factory. They arrive on their birthday and have never had a meal yet. When they arrive they are tossed out of the pallets onto the chicken house floor where there are water drips and food for their convenience! The chicks are not harmed in any way when they are tossed which is absolutely amazing to me. Apparently if the chick has already had it's first meal then it is more easily harmed when they land.
The chicks are all female and only take 6 weeks to grow to full-size. Then they're taken back to the factory for processing on big 18 wheeler tractor trailer trucks as big stinky not-cute-at-all chickens. There are no hormones used and because of the new bird flu regulations they have to have chickens tested for disease in every batch.
On the other hand if the temperature gets too cold, the chickens will bunch together and climb on top of each other to keep warm and smother themselves to death. So next time you eat chicken from the grocery market, remember how much the chicken and farmer have gone through to get to your plate!
Some of the under-appreciated simple pleasures in life include wood-whittling on a front porch, watching beautiful sunsets with the person you love, romantic dinner's with wine and of course, running rampant through a Missouri sunflower field chased by runaway convict killer bumblebees.
Fortunately we weren't wearing yellow that day or we would have been voraciously eaten alive with nothing left but our hair and nails.
This is my first official post on my new blog! I was thinking about a name for my new blog and I thought maybe I would call it by the name of a house that Ben lived in when he was small. It's name (that's right folks... he lived in a house with a NAME) was Hazelmere. I thought it was neat cause it had part of my name mixed in. Then I thought no one would get that, so I chose "BenMere done that". I figure everyone would get that. Here is a recent picture of Ben and I on his birthday, September 2nd.
