The Wonderful Soup Stone

And I swear you could taste the chicken and tomatoes, 
And the noodles and the marrow bone. 

Have you ever had stone soup? If you haven't, well, you're missing out! The recipe is quite simple!

A while back I was lucky enough to have some of the Littles over for the week. They hiked around the mountain, examined all the new trees, played at the ranch and just had fun.

One day I asked them if they wanted to make Stone Soup. I got a look that said, “Mamye has really lost her mind. Doesn’t she know a stone is a rock? You can’t make soup out of rocks!” I sent them outside to each find a good ‘stone’.

“Stone Soup” is an old folk tale. I remember hearing it in second grade. Throughout the years there have been many variations. Basically, it goes like this. A traveler was making his way through a village one day. He was tired and hungry. He started a fire and got ready to set up camp for the night. He pulled out a pot that he filled with water. Then, he added a clean stone that he’d taken from his pocket to the pot. . Finally one of the villagers came over to see what he was doing. He told the villager he was making stone soup. The curious villager questioned him and he said it would taste better if there was a little cabbage to add. So the villager found some cabbage to add. This continued with the curious villagers asking about the soup and the clever traveler suggesting ingredients to add that would make the soup better. Soon he had an aromatic, tasty soup that he shared with the villagers. When everyone had their fill he gifted the stone to the villagers so that they could make stone soup long after he was gone.

The kids came in, each with a ‘stone’ in hand. I washed and scrubbed them until I was sure there wasn’t anything foreign and filled a pot with water. I put all of them in the pot and turned on the burner.

Clean stones to start the soup!

They went off, doing what they do, and I snuck some beef bouillon into the pot so there would be some flavor when they sampled their concoction.

After a bit of hesitation, making sure they weren’t eating dirt, they each tasted the broth. Because of the bullion, it had a nice taste. They approved.

Next we proceeded to see what would make it better. We loaded the pot with extra vegetables, some pasta, some tomato juice and even some meat that was leftover from another meal. The fun thing was I let them pick what to add.

The kids loved it! We all had a lot of fun. And they got to take their ‘stones’ home so they could do it again!

The verdict? Yummy!!

But it really wasn't nothing but some water and potatoes, 
And the wonderful wonderful soup stone. 

The kids were impressed with the Stone Soup we made. As soon as possible, Caleb went to the school library and checked out the book!

Is he checking to see if I told the story correctly?

Not to be outdone, Belle checked out a copy the next day!

Whatever it takes to make them read!

Little did their mom know that she would soon get to join in the fun! Guess what they wanted for supper? Right. They made Stone Soup!

Stone soup at home!

It’s good to know they will remember the time we all made Stone Soup with Mamye and Pap. It’s great to know that together we made a memory.

Just add a little love to the wonderful soup stone, 
And everything will be alright.
Oh, the wonderful wonderful soup stone...

Rikki Don’t Lose That Number

We hear you're leaving, that's OK.

I thought our little wild time had just begun. 

I guess you kind of scared yourself, you turn and run. 

But if you have a change of heart… 

When my daughter was small, like most little girls, she had a doll. This doll was a typical ‘baby’ with a cloth body, plastic head and limbs. The baby didn’t have hair but had paint symbolizing hair on the top of its head.
When she first got her doll she wanted to name it. We suggested a few things but she wasn’t interested. One day she proclaimed her doll’s name was Richard. And Richard was a girl.

Richard and Callye were always together.

First off, we didn’t know anyone named Richard at that time. I was a stay at home mom with her so I tried to think of a movie or television show that might have had someone named Richard as a character. Nothing came to mind. But she was adamant. Her doll’s name was Richard. And Richard was a girl.

Richard became part of the family. She had dresses and little booties to wear, but most of the time she was nude. She was very durable, too, as sometimes she was held by the leg or the arm and she still stayed in one piece. It was probably lucky that her features were permanent, or as permanent as paint can be. She had many adventures, some good, some not so good!

A doll like Richard. And it's a girl doll.

One morning as I was folding laundry, I had a movie playing in the background. There was a fight scene and the two men involved were yelling at each other and one said, “I’ll beat the hell out of you.” Richard and Callye were playing house in another part of the room and I glanced over to see if she’d heard. She was busy feeding Richard and had not even glanced at the television. Later that night as we were sitting together, Callye picked up Richard by the leg and started pounding her on the floor. I said, “What are you doing?” She calmly said, “I’m beating the hell out of Richard.” She’d heard.

Richard went everywhere with us. Well, almost everywhere. One Sunday, Alan was on a hunting trip and Callye and I were getting ready to go to Sunday school and church. We were dressed but Richard’s clothes were nowhere to be found. We searched high and low but alas, there was no outfit for Richard. Being the resourceful mother I am I suggested that Richard lay in mom’s bed while we were at church. It took a little negotiation but that’s what was finally decided, and Richard stayed home.

Years later, in the teacher’s lounge, a colleague, who had at one time been Callye’s Sunday school teacher, and I were visiting. We were talking about our kids and their old toys and I mentioned that Callye had loved a doll named Richard but Richard was a girl. She got a funny look on her face and said, “So that’s it!” I asked what she meant and she told me this story: One Sunday morning, a long time ago, Callye had gone to Sunday school. She told her two teachers that Richard couldn’t find any clothes and stayed at home in mom’s bed while daddy was gone.

I was mortified. We lived in a small town and you know how small towns are. She reassured me that she hadn’t thought anything bad, that Richard must be a cousin or something. Yeah, right!

Richard, who was a girl, was a part of Callye’s (and our) everyday life for a long time, but as it happens she eventually outgrew Richard. And I eventually lived down the story that quickly circulated through the school.

Richard isn’t lost. We still have her, packed away somewhere, probably without clothes, waiting to sleep in somebody’s bed! But she'll never be forgotten.

Rikki don't lose that number. 

You don't wanna call nobody else. 

Send it off in a letter to yourself...

Well, I had to tell my sister the shawl wasn’t going to be on time. I’ll finish but I can’t make the deadline. I haven’t had much time to work on it and it seems for every two inches I finish I take out three. I just need some down time and I can whip it out. So, in the meantime I decided on some instant gratification! I saw a scarf on a lady in Ruidoso, probably last year or maybe the year before. I really liked it but she was a stranger and I didn’t want to ask if I could look at it. I should have. I went home and sketched out what I thought it looked like. Then I got busy on other things and lost the paper and didn’t really think about it again.

Loops is a great yarn store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My oldest boy used to live there so I got to visit occasionally. But he’s moved so I just get updates by email and Facebook as to what’s going on there. The other day I got a note about a simple, Neck’s Best Thing scarf. Voila! That was it! That was the Ruidoso scarf! Or at least it was close enough. They were even so kind as to give a FREE pattern! I love when that happens. And it’s a real pet peeve when something says it’s free only to be free if you BUY a bunch of yarn first. But I digress. Anyway, I had some bulky yarn I’d picked up for something or other so I took it out and gave the scarf a try. I used a size 19 needle and cast on 7 stitches. I liked it fairly well but something was missing. I took it to work, for an impartial opinion, and the verdict was, MORE FRINGE! So, that was easy enough to fix, and I did. It’s kind of cute, don’t you think?

The first try. Added more fringe.

It was fun and I liked getting something finished in a short amount of time so I couldn’t stop at one. But this time I thought I would change it up some.

Cast on 7 stitches

US 19, 15mm needles

I found some other yarns I had around and added them to the fringe. This one looks kind of Christmasy.

A little sparkle.

 These are fun and I am already thinking of some other variations.

Up close--yarn is Charisma by Loops and Threads

Fringe a little longer too.

Thank you Loops for sharing this fun pattern! If you’re interested in seeing other creative projects head over to Our Creative Spaces and look around!

The Christmas season brings back memories; Memories of people, places and things that are packed away, maybe not thought of often, but never forgotten.

Rikki don't lose that number,

It's the only one you own. 

You might use it if you feel better, 

When you get home...

Thanks for The Memories

Thanks for the memory,
Of things I can’t forget.
Journeys on a jet.
Our wond’rous week in Martinique,
And Vegas and roulette.
How lucky I was…

“Oh yeah, I remember that. She had on a blue dress and she was talking about how she liked the summer days.”
“What? No, it was a blue dress.”
“It wasn’t a red dress, it was blue. Yes it was summer.”
“It was not fall. It was summer. And she had a blue dress. Not a red dress.”

It always amazes me when I talk to someone about something that happened a long time ago and they have a complete different memory of the event than I do.

My mother doesn’t forget anything. She can tell you what I wore to school on my first day of school in first grade. I might remember if she told me, but I don’t know for sure. She knows every place she’s lived by address, everyone who ever gave her a present and also everyone who ever said something she interpreted as bad. She’ll tell me something that happened and she’ll say something like, it’s John Brown, you remember, he lived over by the school and his cousin was Jim Green. There were two kids in the family and they had a blue car. One time both kids had the measles. Well, he married Jan White the other day and they moved to where the Anderson’s used to live…and I won’t have a clue. She’ll add more details. I still won’t have a clue. But in her defense, it’s hereditary. Her mother never forgot anything either.

I, on the other hand, have apparently developed very selective memory. I have too much real stuff to think about to remember some of the trivial things there are to remember. A friend of mine called one day wanting to know what happened to our friendship. I didn’t really know anything had happened. I was busy, she was busy, and we just kind of drifted apart. She started in talking about when we did this, when we did that, what I said, what she said…none of it rang a bell. I felt kind of bad but I didn’t know what she was talking about.

My youngest son was here for a visit. I asked him why he thought people remember the same event differently. He said it was a matter of perspective. I agree with that. But I also think that personal experiences play a part. Everybody sees things slightly differently. Even something seemingly with only one answer can be interpreted differently. I have a brown car. My husband thinks it’s silver. He says it looks different depending on the light. The color on the owner’s manual is burnished bronze. If we saw a car, just like mine, in an accident and were questioned by the police, I’d say it was a brown car. He’d say it was silver. One person's brown may be another's silver.

 When people begin to talk about events, things can really get rearranged. Some details get lost, some are added, and some are completely changed in the conversation. It reminds me of that game we used to play as kids, where the first person whispers a sentence or phrase into the ear of the person next to him and they whisper to the person next to them and so on until it’s the last person’s turn to say what he heard. When you ask him what the message was, most of the time they say something completely different than what the first person whispered!

I read an interesting blog the other day that told about people imagining themselves performing an action, and later believing they actually did it. Have you ever had a great idea about doing or even about how to do something, and suggested it to a friend? Days or weeks pass, you see your friend and they tell you about this great idea they had and what they did. But it was really your idea. If you even suggested it was your idea in the first place, you’re shot down. They would remember distinctly that it was their idea and you aren’t anywhere in the picture. I wonder if that’s how memories of the same event get distorted. We adopt the stories we’ve heard and make them our own.

Memories are formed through associations. Sights, sounds, smells, and impressions are tied together to form a relationship. The relationship helps form the memory. Think about a smell you associate with ‘home’. When you smell that certain smell, all kinds of memories are awakened. Mention that same smell to a sibling, and a whole other group of memories, which they have associated with that smell, come about.

Your memories are your experiences that become a part of your identity. These experiences make you who you are. Your mind keeps a scrapbook of things that happen. I think memories contribute to your personality as well. I think remembering certain things can make you act differently than you would have acted had you not remembered. Regardless, you can't know who you are if you don't know who you are. If you don’t know where you've been you can’t tell where you’re going, if you’ve already been there or if you even want to go. Now remember the time we went to Martinique. What? We’ve never been to Martinique? Well, as I remember it…

And thanks for the memory,
Of summers by the sea.
Dawn in Waikiki.
We had a pad in London,
But we didn’t stop for tea.
How cozy it was…

Day 194 of knitayear, October 11, I headed to work to head to Andrews, a town about sixty miles from my house. We heard a great speaker. It was also knitting night. I felt refreshed and I was glad I went to both. I used blue variegated cotton because it reminded me of water and freshness. On day 195, I was tired out by the end of the day. It was October 12, and I was tired and it was my late night at work. The session was okay, I think I was just still tired from the weekend. I chose peach and black cotton. It’s pale and seemed like a tired color to me. October 13 was day 196. I am amazed at how dumb people can be. I don’t know why, and I should be used to it now. I picked a shocking hot pink velour yarn. I wasn’t shocked but it seemed fitting. Day 197 is October 14. I’m getting a bit apprehensive about the trip. I have some brown thread left over from the Citron and that’s the color I used today. Day 198, October 15, is my day off. I’m carefree until later. I have the kids for the weekend, all three of them. I’ll enjoy the calm while it lasts. Sure enough, confusion when I bring them home. I found a loopy pink/brown floret yarn that I used. It’s got little puffs on it that stick out. A little crazy after they get here! October 16 is day 199. I’m a little overwhelmed, to say the least. The kids are good, just busy, busy. I have some rust colored ribbon. It’s pretty but it reminds me of being inundated for some reason. And I am. Day 200 is October 17 and it’s beginning to get a little crazy around here. I’m tired and they are still busy. It’s fun and I wouldn’t trade for it. We watched the Munster’s and they aren’t convinced it’s a funny show and not a scary show! I picked a furry orange yarn. It’s winding down. Mom and dad are coming soon. This weekend we made some memories. I won’t forget.

And thanks for the memory…