What I learned in May 2014

It’s already the end of the month of May.  End of the school year routine.  End of the comfortable, warm spring days.  Even as things come to an end, that also means it’s time for What I’ve learned in the month of May.  Joining in with Emily P. Freeman’s Chatting in the Sky for the monthly link up sharing what I’ve learned this past month.

Here it goes…

1. Humans of New York  Check out this Facebook page if you’d like: The About reads:

“Hey there. My name is Brandon and I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010, shortly after leaving my job in Finance. (OK, I actually got fired.) I started HONY because I thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City's inhabitants, so I set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map. Somewhere along the way, I began to interview my subjects in addition to photographing them. And alongside their portraits, I'd include quotes and short stories from their lives.
Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. HONY now has over six million followers on social media, and provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers on the streets of New York City.”

There are some interesting and eclectic people he interviews for sure! 

Ok…that’s my new dream job.  I’m kind of serious. 

2.  There are 83.3 million dogs in the US.  Doggone…that’s a lot of dogs!  I think I heard that random fact on K-LOVE morning show. 

3.  Do you know what a “cousin once or twice removed” means?  I do now.  Our family had the privilege to get away for a weekend to go to my great aunt’s 90th birthday.  She still such a spunky lady.  That night after the party, out on the porch overlooking the lake, my extended family somehow got on the subject of who a cousin removed is.  Not removed from the family but one who is on the family tree.  Thanks to Genealogy.com, we found the answer.

So maybe you leaned that like I did!

4.  You won’t get germs if you hold a owl pellet.  Yes, an owl pellet.  And it’s really not all that gross.  I chaperoned my daughter’s class when they went on a field trip to a huge outdoor classroom at Camp Caraway in NC.  It’s a great children's outdoor recreation and nature study program called ACORNS.  They got to do and learn all sorts of things about science through the great outdoors on that pretty spring day.  They even got to ride a zipline!  But the most interesting fact I learned was about all the things you can find in an owl pellet.  The instructor with his dry sense of humor did tell us beforehand that each pellet was sanitized…in an oven.  The kids tore them open and found all sorts of goodies including bones from other animals the owl ate and their fur. Yummy.

5.  I’m learning how to play the waiting game.  I’ll be honest: I don’t like to play the game called “Wait”.  But what if the purpose of the game is to teach you how to be still and while you do, learn to listen so you’ll know when to step into what’s unseen- a step of faith?  I’m still being taught this one because the word “wait” keeps appearing in many things I unintentionally read or hear almost every day.  Today in the car flipping through stations on the radio the song I Will Wait was on …have you ever thought of using those words as a prayer to God?

6.  Speaking of the radio, listening to the radio on the way to some extracurricular event for our children, we learned from John Tesh’s radio show that Granny apples have most nutrients over any other apple.  The Golden apples has the least nutrients.   The next time I went to the grocery story, I got some Granny apples. 

Here’s a recipe I’ve had for a while for the best apple crisp…and I’ve always used Granny’s!

Quick Apple Crisp

You need:  5 Granny apples, 1 package (9oz) yellow cake mix, 2 Tablespoons sugar, 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon, 1/4 cup butter or margarine (melted) 1/2 cup chopped nut (optional), vanilla ice cream

1.  Preheat the oven to 350*.  Peel, core and slice apples.  Cut apples in half crosswise.  Place apples in deep dish baker.

2.  Combine remaining ingredients, except ice cream.  Mix unti. crumbly.  Sprinkle mixture evenly over apples. 

3.  Bake 35-40 minutes or until apples are tender.  Serve warm with ice cream. 

Delish!

 

Until next time…