Pears and Peaches

Look at Dad's photographic composition!

Ok everyone, here are the peaches that Dad and I canned. Dad did awesome helping slice the peaches. Don't they look "Blue Ribbon"? Utah pears and peaches bottled in Pheoenix.!

Busy Busy Days at Work

What a mind boggling last 3 days it has been. My head has a headache. So much to learn about all the new computer programs Sonus has. I probably will have it down pretty good when the old PCC returns from having surgery. I forgot how tired I used to get when I worked before but I even get more tired now as I am older.

If some of you are wondering what I do at Sonus, it is an Audiology company or office that gives hearing tests and fits people with hearing aids. I am always amazed at how many people and little children have difficulty hearing. We also have miscellaneous items to help them hear the ringing of the telephone and TV. My heart is always touched by the little ones and the very elderly that have a hearing problem.

I love being home and doing what I want to do even staying in my nightgown until 1:00 PM doing little catch up things around the house. It is very fun you know.

Finished canning pears when I came home from work. I hope that my granddaughers and granddaughters-in-laws carry on the tradition of canning for your families.. My heart swells with love when I see my family enjoy the fruits, jams, taco sauce, and pies that we can and freeze for the coming winter months.

Well Auntie is here helping fix my blog because I lost this blog last night. So all of you have a nice weekend and I love you everyone of you.

Canning Season

The time has arrived to can fruits and make Taco Sauce. Dad I made Taco Sauce a couple of weeks ago and this week we are doing peaches and pears. Made 15 peach pies which are so easy. Just take a short time to put it all together, mad 7 pints of peach jam and 14 quarts of peaches. Tomorrow we will do the pears as I was just to tired when I came home from hand therapy. Had to wear the Cortison patches for 4 hours today. Daddy has been a real trouper as he has sliced every peach and took the jars, washed them I filled them etc. and he put them in the canner and took them out, and lined all the pie pans with foil and saran wrap etc. I never had so much help and it went really fast.



Tomorrow afternoon, Thursday and Friday I will need to go to Sonus to get updated on their new computer program before I work for the next 2 weeks for them. It will nice to see all the old patients from the Osborn office again.



Have a good evening everyone.

EXCITING SATURDAY MORNING

This has been a very exciting morning. Dad was going to get his pants pressed and he turned on the key to start the car and "THE CAR BLEW UP"!!!! parts and oil were all over, smoke coming up under the hood etc. The tow truck just came to pick it up to take it to the Toyota dealer. It has been exactly 10 years ago this month that we bought that car. It has been a really good car. We drove it yesterday and it was perfect. No noise no anything. This was just a shock. We love that little car it has been good to us. We are still stunned as to what just happened.

What a day. Hope the rest of the day will be good.

Dad's Doctors Appointment Today

We went to Dr. Fishman's office today to futher look into dad's kidney condition and he has scheduled dad for an appointment at John C. Lincoln Hospital this coming Monday for a "Lasic Renal Scan". From what the Dr. showed us today there is some kind of blockage in the left kidney in front of the opening of the tube that passes the urine to the bladder, your kidneys are like a filter that cleanses the blood so that you system does not get toxic. Apparently his kidneys are not doing what they are supposed to do. They will inject some kind of dye and go up through the tube to see what that is or if it is really a blockage or some kind of growth etc. We will be relieved to find out what this is.

Other than that little adventure today it has been a rather nice day. Very dark and cloudy South East of us with rain etc. and we sure would like to experience some of that weather over this way. There was thunder and lighting last night but again it was South East and South West of us. We could hear the thunder.

Monsoon weather in Arizona is so exciting to see all the lighting, hear the thunder, feel,see and hear the rain.

Tonight is Natalie's shower at the Steel home. Have a lovely evening Nat'.

It is rather warm at this moment like 103 degrees so I am going to get some dessert of pineapple and orange sherbet with vanilla ice cream, diced bananas and strawberries all mixed up together. So refreshingly cool, sweet and delicious. This was the dessert that I served last night when we had Arlene and Ronda Reading for dinner. Dear, dear friends from Torrance. We have know each other for 50 plus years. Our kids grew up together, birthday parties, swim parties, eating meals together etc. What a fun evening we had reminiscing about old times.

Larry Bird in the Torrance Stake Presidency said they are planning a 50 year reuion next year. How fun that will be to see all your old friends.

Off to get me and dad some dessert.

A Beautiful Day In Arizona

Today is so nice and cool as it was 110 on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Plus we have had some rain and a little thunder. It rained very hard yesterday in Mesa when Ward and I were at the Church Cannery and on the way home. It is so nice to know that we have food items that the church provides us to purchase to keep the Prophets commandments to be prepared food wise, financally wise and Spiritual.

Lisa called me early this morning and asked me if I wanted to go with her to Mesa to pick up the bridesmaids skirts. What a beautiful Wedding Dress and Bridesmaid dress store. We were just amazed how beautiful every dress was. Here we are hundreds of miles away from the wedding party and Lisa and I go to pick up what the brides needs for her bridesmaids. What fun we had this morning. We called Cindy a couple of times while we in the store because they did not have the skirts under Cindy Duffy's name and everyone was a little confused. While we were standing at the counter, Donna called and everything got straightened out. The sales girls and us just had a good laugh. On the way home we stopped in Tempe and we got our special hot dog at the Weinerschnitzel. We savored every bite. My favorite one is just chili with onions. So so delicious. We thought of you Cindy when we ate them.

Ward and I canned our rice today. It is the short grain rice which is like sticky rice. It reminded me of my childhood and of the rice my mother used to cook with milk and then put butter and cinnamon on it. It tasted pretty good. Those were hard times in my life as it was during World War II and food was rationed and that was a staple in our home and that rice served all of us well. Ward was telling me that in there home they lived on a 100 lbs of pinto beans that they brought from Prairie City, Oregon to California and that is what they shared and ate with his maternal grandparents, aunts and uncles in Sierra Madre, California during the war.

I need to write about my father, But will do it hopefully a little later today.

My Mother

My Mothers Name is Wilhelmina (Minnie) Giesewski Abramowski Brown. She was born in Selbongen, East Prussia Germany in May of 1912. Everybody knew her as Minnie, but her family called her Mienku. She had a twin sister, named Anna, who only lived for 4 days as my grandmother was severely sick with tuberculosis. My grandmother died when my mother was only 4 years old and her father died when she was 14 of a massive heart attack. She told me that they ran outside in the snow to get it to put it on his chest but when they got back in the house he was dead. My grandfather Giesewski was a highway engineer. He was a very wealthy man. My mother was born with TB and had been sick most of her growing up years until she was seventeen. She had been in and out of sanitariums during those years and family members were fighting over who would be taking care of her when she was little because they wanted my grandfather's money. Finally my grandfather's sister Wilhelmina Piotrowski said "enough!", that she would be in charge and take care of my mother. And she did. She taught my mother everything she knew about housekeeping, laundry, cooking. My mother even tied her sheets, pillow cases and towels in ribbons, she ironed everything even underwear.

My mother came to America in 1930 through the Pananma Canal and landed in San Pedro California. Her sister Amelia (Aunt Molly) and her husband Uncle Fred Dellenbach sponsored her to come to America.
She was 18 years old.

A special quality about my mother is that she was a hard worker, she was never idle. She loved working in her yard and won several awards for having the most beautiful landscaped yard when we lived in Westchester, which is a suburb of Los Angeles. She also did a lot of hand work, crocheting, embroidery as she would watch television and even before we had television. She loved to can fruit, chicken etc. She taught me many great and wonderful things even when she was so sick in bed as I was growing up. Her hands were busy even up until the time she passed away. One of my mother's traditions that is still being carried on by my daughter, Cindy, and my niece, Jennifer, and by myself, are her crocheted potholders and her Streusel Kuchen.

One of the things she would tell us children when we would fight or have an argument, was to love one another and that the day would come when we would cry for each other because we would not live close together and we would miss each other and we would want to take away the hurt if one of us was sick or having a problem. Another phrase she would always say was "ach du meine gita!" which means "oh my gosh!" in English, and "If you would be so kind... "

She always wore a dress, nylons, shoes and an apron, and always had a hankey or kleenex in her apron pocket. I guess to wipe away our running noses. She loved fashion and was very clean on herself, but we did not have a lot of money as we were living in a time of the 2nd world war. She knew how to save and make a dollar stretch. She was a good wife and mother always striving to do the right thing for her family. We have a very different taste in shoes and I never liked her choice of shoes even in her later life.