Tootsie Pops

Do you remember Mr. Owl? Mr. Owl asked the burning question...."how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop??
His reply.... One ~ lick, two ~ lick, three ~ crunch, three licks to get to the center! They don't make commercials like that anymore.

A post about Tootsie Roll Pops. Do I need a reason?

Well...they are bright. They are sweet. They are crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. You can suck on them, you can lick them, you can take a big chomp out of them...you can do any combination of the three. Some people say that if your wrapper had an Indian shooting a Star printed on it that you could get a free Tootsie Roll Pop. Some people say that's a bunch of baloney. Others say that an Indian shooting a Star is good luck. I'll go with that.

Because if you are holding a wrapper with an Indian on it you are most likely lucky enough to have a Tootsie Pop in your mouth. Can you argue with that logic?

Tootsie Pops were one of my Dad's favorite candies. Between tooth picks and Tootsie Pops he nearly always had something in his mouth....a side effect from all those smoking years....he quit in 1993. The dentist said that he had cavities like a little kid. That didn't stop him. Every time we drove past the dentists hobby farm my Dad would point out the new shed or side building that he had contributed to with all that dental work. He thought it was funny, I'm not sure that the dentist did! And of course he teased him about it directly. :-)

My favorite is Raspberry. Then Cherry. I don't like the chocolate so much. What's your favorite? You can't remember? Well go out and buy a bag today. Your dentist will love you for it.

Hockey is Cool

You might be from Minnesota if you know what this is.
It's a Zamboni of course. I love that word. And I love watching the Zamboni go around and around smoothing out the ice. Simple pleasures.

You might also be from Minnesota if you can spot what is wrong with this picture.

Six men on the ice....they had pulled their goalie because there was only one second left in the period and they were on the opponents end of the ice.

Did you already guess that we went to the High School hockey game tonight? Neither of the boys play hockey, but it's still fun to go to a few games. Here are a few pictures from the game.

During the first period these little guys were all lined up at the glass, waiting for their big chance to play in between periods. They were so intense, and so cute! Sorry my picture is blurry.

They might be little, but they sure were serious....and did I mention cute?

This guy was either a really smooth skater, or his Dad didn't bring him to the potty before the game. Isn't he cute?

They fell down a lot....but they were even cute when they did that.

This guy could hardly stand all the cuteness. :-)

Then the big boys came back out. #7 is really good...smooth skater...handled the puck really well. Fun to watch. His Mom probably thinks he's pretty cute.Just a hockey action shot that I liked.

The bench was keeping an eye on the game. I don't know if I'd want to be a team manager for a sport where you have to wear a helmet on the bench. I bet you didn't know I was the team manager for our High School baseball team way back in the day. Well, I like baseball...and the boys were cute! There I go again.

Goalies are fun to watch. They have a lot of pressure put on them. Ours played pretty well.

This one fell down a lot. His coach probably wasn't thinking it was very cute anymore.

The home town boys won 6-1. There's nothing quite as refreshing as sitting in a cold hockey arena where the chill sort of settles deep into your bones. And you just might be from Minnesota if you believe that!

My Old Coat

My photo for today was going to be a bird or two at my bird feeder. I almost froze my lens off trying to get a nice picture of a bird. And I didn't get one that I was happy with. So, I settled for the rabbit. Rabbits can be sort of cute...but I've never seen anything poop so much. Yikes. How do you get a nice picture of a rabbit if they are surrounded by poop? What do they do...eat, hop, poop...eat, hop poop? They must do more than that since there are so many of 'em! Oh...I didn't mean to go there. Sorry. On to the coat.

When I was about 5 years old I had this brown coat. A gift from my Grandmother....I think from the Goodwill. I didn't like it much. It was scratchy. It was too girly. It wasn't very warm. Seems like it smelled funny too. My dear Mother took me out after an ice storm to take pictures in my wonderful coat. Oh boy...what kid wouldn't have loved that?? We ended up stuck in a ditch...but my Mom got her pictures. Thank goodness I grew fast and didn't ever have to see that coat again after that one icy winter.

Last winter I was shopping and came across a coat that was on sale...it was over 50 % off. It was just what I needed so I swooped it up. A few weeks later I saw a matching hat online, marked down to around $10.00. I'm not much of a hat person, but I couldn't pass up the price. There might be a time that I'd need it. I wore the coat quite a few times. It was soft, it was warm, it felt comfortable and familiar somehow. I was pretty happy with it. But then, one night I woke up with a start...memories of that old scratchy brown coat came flooding back to me.

Oh my God...what did I do??? It's that horrible old coat coming back to haunt me! Ahhhhh!

They say that if you wore something the first time it was in style that you should never wear it when it comes back. I think that they were right. Especially if you didn't like the style the first time!! The funny thing was, I had made copies of the pictures for my Mom. My brother saw them and asked me where I found that (wrinkled nose) "old brown coat". Umm...it's actually a new coat and I sort of liked it. :-)

Anyway, I'm thinking that I should replace my coat with some kind of fur. Maybe rabbit.

I think I know where I can find some.

p.s. I actually do like my coat and am still wearing it. I don't and won't own a real fur coat. And no animals were injured in the making of this blog.

Cold Sunday

Seems like it's always really cold just in time for the weekend. Just like in the summer when it seems like it only rains on the weekend. Bad luck? Perspective? I don't know, I only know that I'm tired of the cold. But the half of my glass that is full of frozen water can see that there are some good things that happen when it's cold.
Like the frost on the church windows in our little home town.

I was distracted by them during the whole sermon. I behaved myself though, I didn't get the camera until after the service. :-)

They really are beautiful, they look like ferns, or little forests. Click on one of the photos to enlarge it and see the cool details. Who needs stained glass when you have this!

The winter has also brought ice dams to my Mom's house.

Or is it that damned ice? Well...I know what my dad always called it.

It wasn't too cold for a dog reunion today. My Mom's dog is Murphy. My brother's dog Rusty (Murphy's dad) comes down through the woods to visit sometimes....it was one of those visits with their old dog Kelly that led to 13 puppies 6 1/2 years ago! Penny is our city dog that loves to go to the country. Here comes Penny now.

Those are snow buggers from the car in front of her, not horse manure! Aren't you glad you asked? What do you call those clumps of dirty snow/ice that accumulates behind the tires?

Here comes Rusty...he loves reunions. And he loves breakfast. And lunch. Supper too.

Here comes Murphy. He's big and lovable. If he could talk he'd say "Huh?" a lot.

They run in circles....

...they sniff each other. They chomp on each other. They tackle each other. All with pure dog glee.

And they have dog piles. Because what fun would it be to be a dog if you couldn't have a dog pile once in a while?

Hey Murphy.... "Huh?" "Are you talking to me?" "What you lookin' at?"

Then there's this guy..."uh...aren't you that food person?"

And this one...he was so hungry his drool froze his lip to his teeth. Oh, not really.

He's just horsing around. :-D Hope no one froze their tongue to the flag pole today! Try to stay warm.

Typical January Saturday

The boys friends that had stayed over last night have headed home...I almost said "slept over" but that would have implied that sleeping had occurred. Teenagers. Seems that our afternoon plans got scrapped...so we are having a lazy cold Saturday afternoon. The boys are jamming on Rock Band. It's pretty serious business that Rock Band stuff.

Can't you tell by their expressions?? I like it that they have music from the 80's. It reminds me of my youth. Until they mention that they are playing along with really old songs. Punks.

They let me play the drums sometimes. They set it on easy. And then they say, "it's OK, we'll rescue you Mom." What? I thought I was doing good!?! Punks.

It's more fun to just watch them though. Can't you feel the beat? Ummmm...maybe it's just because they have the bass turned up too loud here. Hey...turn it down you punks!

Yes Mother. Eric's relaxing today too. Converting old video taped movies into digital movies to make into DVDs. We haven't looked at the movies in way too long...sure is fun to see and hear the boys when they were little! What the heck happened to all that cuteness? :-)

Me...I'm just dreaming some of my cowgirl dreams and looking at some of my favorite cowgirl mail order catalogs wearing my favorite cowgirl slippers. It's good to have a lazy day here and there...

...unless you are a dog....then you wonder why oh why no body will play with you or pay you any attention at all. It's tough to be a dog....even if you have a stuffed lemur baby to play with.

The cat seems to be unaccounted for. She's probably trying to sleep somewhere. Those boys kept her up all night. Karma isn't always a such good thing. Ha! Here kitty kitty.