Another Story about my Mom!

Ahhhh, it's finally raining, after weeks of teasing with a sprinkle here and there.  Everything was starting to turn brown around here, but now after only a few hours of this slow, steady rain, everything is looking lush and green again!

I love the rain! Actually I can go even further and say, I love a storm!  And the louder the thunder booms and the lightning cracks, the better - especially if I'm tucked away at home.

I credit my mom for this.  (Ah, yes! Another story about my mom! Ha!)

Anyway, when I was little...

Mom didn't take any chances when a thunder storm came up, She'd unplug everything, which meant no television and no lights, and we'd have to be very quiet.  We'd all stretch out together across the bed - me, my little sister Dolly and Mom, and while the thunder boomed and the lightning cracked, mom would soothe us with wonderful stories. 

I loved it!  All of us there together, snug and safe, with the raging storm just outside.  I was always sorry to see the storm end.  And to this day, I've always been comforted by the rain.  Of course a good storm makes me want to turn out the lights and crawl in the bed!  Not because of fear, but simply that I want to be caught up in the moment - sort of like listening to a good piece of music that moves you.

...Well, the rain seems to have stopped as I still sit here at my computer, and the view outside my window is breathtaking.  I just snapped this picture.  Of course it doesn't come close to the real beauty of the earth just after a good rain...

Thanks, Daphne, for the Memory!

A lovely co-worker and FB friend just posted this great picture on facebook and it brought back a sweet memory of my mom.  I just couldn't resist blogging about it.

I've blogged about my mom before and if you've read the blog (July 2010), then you know what a special person she was.  Few days go by that something doesn't remind me of her, and rarely ever is it something that doesn't make me smile.

Mom spent the last year of her life in an assisted living facility pretty much next door to the hospital where I worked.  She was no longer able to stay home alone, and so it was a choice that had to be made.  While all the staff were wonderful to her and she grew to love them, she desperately missed being at home, and so I tried to be in and out throughout the day doing little things for her.

She didn't get around very well and so she spent most of her day sitting in a little rocking chair by her bed.  The chair had a little foot stool which she used religiously, so of course, her feet were always in her direct line of vision.  I begged for months "Mom, let me paint your toenails! They'd be a much prettier site to stare at all day!"

"No", she'd say, "no need to go to all that trouble!"

I kept on though, and finally one day she relented.  I polished her toenails a fire-engine red and she absolutely loved it!!  I never had to ask again.  It became part of our routine and one that we both looked forward to. I loved it ~ laughing and talking with my mom, and painting her toenails red!

It's a sweet memory!

Thanks Daphne!!  Love the toes!

One more shot!

Two summers have just about come and gone and still no flowers!  While I was hoping gardening might turn out be one of my hidden talents, I was wrong!!  I can't tell you how much money I've spent on plants these last two seasons, but I know it's a gracious plenty.  Mostly perennials, too - the ones that are supposed to come back year after year.

I'm telling you this because my friend Jean just gave me a bunch of daylilly bulbs. Tells me to "just put 'em in the ground and they'll grow".

Well, if you say so!

I've tried my hand at bulbs before.  One year I decided to line our front walkway with tulips.  I took great care in planting the bulbs and waited with great expectation. The following spring only the front half of the walkway had tulips. So, I bought more bulbs and replanted the second half.  The next spring, the second half came up, but not the first...

Then a couple of years later, I tried tulip bulbs again - not along the walkway, but randomly throughout our natural area.  As I remember, very few came up.  So I went to the local garden center and cried about my experience with tulip bulbs to some nice young man behind the counter.

"Are you sure you planted the bulbs right-side up?"  I must have looked pretty startled because he then gently smiled.

I know he was joking with me, but I'll never forget it.  To this day, mention any kind of bulb to me and I get this mental picture...

I'll give Jean's bulbs a try, but I'm not really expecting anything.

Kid Fun

Had my grandson Nick over this week - Monday through Wednesday - and had a blast.  He's almost thirteen now and very good natured, so he is agreeable to doing most anything.

On Monday evening we met my walking group at the Greenway to walk three miles. On the way there he kept telling me "I don't know if I can walk three miles, Maw Maw!"  I knew he could though and as it turned out, he did it skipping, walking backwards, and overlapping us. He was quite proud of himself.

Afterwards, we all took him to our usual Monday night restaurant for a beer and sandwich - no, he didn't get to enjoy a beer with us, but he did quite enjoy his hamburger and fries.

Tuesday we went over to visit cousins, Angel, Cole and Gavin. Nick wanted to see who was the taller now, him or Angel.  Angel just turned thirteen in July and Nick will turn thirteen in January, so they are six months apart.  They've always been close in height. Both are going to be tall. Angel has always been taller than Nick. This time though, Nick felt he might have edged her out.

As it turned out, Nick was right. He was taller.  I told him, though, to enjoy it while he can.  Next visit might be an entirely different story.

Angel and Nicholas

I barely got away from there without bringing everybody with us, but Nick and I had our own plans.  We were going to eat Mexican, Nick's favorite, but not a favorite of the others, so we promised to come back on Wednesday and take Cole and Gavin with us for lunch at McDonald's.  Angel had big girl plans.

Nick gave the Mexican restaurant a thumbs up, and then we decided on a movie.  That's what's so nice about kids.  They are pretty much game for anything. The Green Lantern was playing at the $2 theatre and so we decided to go back and get Cole.

Eight year old Cole with Nicholas

Of course, Cole was thrilled to be going and begged to spend the night with us as well, so now we had new plans.  The Green Lantern turned out not be a good idea, as we ended up leaving about 30 minutes into the movie.  The action was just too scary for Cole and I didn't want him having nightmares. So we packed it in, drove home and got out the old Monopoly game - actually it was NC Stateopoly. By midnight I was begging to  "please, let's go to bed!"

Where do they get all their energy?

Oh, did I mention we had stopped by Krispy Kreme doughnuts on our way home...?

Everybody woke up on Wednesday morning raring to go...well maybe I didn't so much, but I did manage to hang in there.  Nick and Cole wanted to pick back up with Stateopoly, but I talked them out of it.  Instead, we all played computer games (mostly Angry Birds) until time to pick up Gavin for our lunch at McDonald's.

While at McDonald's, I bet I got a a million comments about how cute my guys were.  I couldn't agree with them more!

Cole, Nicholas and Gavin

We left there and went to a local car dealership to look at new Camaros.  That's what Nick wants when he turns sixteen.  I never thought about it before, but they are actually really good looking cars!    Pretty expensive too!.   Nick says he's saving his money - only has about $30,000 to go :)

Cole dragged us over to the Ford Mustangs....

Cole wanted the red Mustang

It was Gavin's idea to drive through the Honda dealership. Ha!  Five years old and already the most practical!

Anyways, that was it.  I dropped off the last kid at 6:30 pm and then hit the sack exhausted around 8:30 pm.  In two days, I had listened to more hard rock and rap than I've listened to in a lifetime. I  learned how to share my desktop in a Skype session.  I saw about 1/3 of The Green Lantern, and ran up a pretty high score in Angry Birds!

Today, the house is so quiet it's deafening...maybe I'll play a little Angry Birds!

Beer Tasting

Well, it's been four weeks since I started brewing my first batch of beer.  Yesterday was beer tasting day. I guess you could say that I finally got to taste the fruits of my labor.

I was actually very excited. I almost opened a bottle last week just to see how it was coming along. I figured I'd video the tasting and didn't want to be surprised if it tasted terrible. I kept thinking about Geraldo Revira when he opened Al Capone's secret vault on live TV several years ago expecting to find great riches, maybe even bodies, but found literally nothing. I like Geraldo, so I was embarrassed for him. Anyway, this is not live TV and I figured if my beer tastes awful, I'll just try another batch!

I actually waited for Bob to go to band practice before I did the tasting.  I didn't want anybody around, just in case it didn't even resemble beer. 

Actually, it was pretty good.  It looked like beer, poured like beer, smelled like beer, and tasted like beer!  I can't say I actually liked the taste, but then again, when I do drink a beer, it most usually contains a piece of fruit or two.  This is an Amber ale and tasted slightly bitter.  I didn't know if it was supposed to be a little bitter or if I'd done something wrong.

Anyway, Bob tasted it when he came in and liked it.  Said it was really good.  Liked the second one even better!  I thought maybe he was just being nice, so I went out later today and bought a six-pack of a very well-known Amber ale and did a comparison test...

Apparently, Amber ales do taste slightly bitter!!

I'll take that as a test passed!! 

Cheers!

Day 8 - Bottling Time!

Well, it's day 8 and finally time to bottle my beer.  I had hoped to bottle yesterday but then watched a few more YouTube videos in preparation and found that most recommended testing specific gravity for two consecutive days just before bottling to make sure all fermentation had stopped.  If there's no change in the specific gravity, then the beer is ready to bottle. So instead of bottling yesterday, I took the lid off, checked specific gravity, put the lid back on and walked away. It was really hard walking away since I'd been looking forward to this all week.

So the anticipation was that much greater this morning. I got up, poured a cup of coffee, said hello (and goodbye) to Bob and headed downstairs to my beer.  I can't tell you how excited I was when the specific gravity read the same as yesterday - 1.020.  I had been given a green light! 

So, I started by sanitizing all the equipment I'd be using - the bottling bucket, the siphon tube and hoses, bottles, bottle caps, even my bottle tree.  This is probably the step I like least but one that can ruin your whole batch if omitted or not done properly.

Next, I boiled the corn sugar mixture - this is to be added to the beer once it starts flowing into the bottling bucket.



There, everything is ready to go!

Since I needed to siphon the beer from the fermentation bucket to the bottling bucket, I set the bottling bucket on the floor so it would be lower than the beer level.

Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the siphoning process but I had my hands full at the time.  I couldn't rest the siphon tube in the bottom of the beer since there is a heavy layer of sediment on the bottom and I didn't want to siphon that up with the beer.  So, I had to hold the siphon hose the whole time so that the tip was always below the level of the beer but just above the layer of sediment.  It wasn't so bad though. It actually went a lot faster than anticipated.

Once the beer started flowing into the bottling bucket, I added the corn sugar mixture.  This is a very important step in that without it, the beer would be very flat.

It was recommended that a small amount of beer be left in the bottom so as not to risk pulling up the sediment.  I probably left more than I needed, but why take a chance.  Not that it would hurt anything to get a little sediment in your beer - it's just largely yeast and hop residue.  Craig on YouTube says a little sediment in your beer just proves it's a natural beer!

Still, it's not very pretty!

Thankfully, the beer looks a lot better. Smells pretty good too!

Next came the bottling...

I raised the bottling bucket off the floor onto the table and then attached my bottle filler tip to the spigot via a long flexible tube.  The bottle filler tip is a neat gadget that when inserted into the bottle and pushed down lightly on the bottom of the bottle, the beer begins to flow, and then when the tip is lifted off the bottom, the beer flow stops. Makes it really easy!

Not the most flattering picture, but... I'm down in the basement brewing beer, for Pete's sake!

Each bottle is filled to a level just above the shoulder leaving approximately 1 - 1 1/2 inches of air space in the neck. This allows space for the CO2 that is generated as the yeast consume the sugar that I added as the beer flowed into the bottling bucket.  Once the bottle is capped and the yeast start consuming the sugar, the CO2 will build up.  Since it has no place to go, the pressure will build up, the bottle will become pressurized and the beer will become saturated with CO2. In other words, the beer will become carbonated.

I actually tasted the last little bit of beer that was left in the bottling bucket.  It wasn't bad, just a little flat.  That's because it's not yet carbonated.  Hopefully, in about three weeks, there won't be anything flat about this beer!

Anyway, the last step was capping each bottle - much easier than I would have guessed. This really neat bottle capper came with my beer kit.  I only messed up one cap out of 49.  Not bad for a rookie!

Now!  The beer just needs to stay in a cool dark place for 3 more weeks. Then a taste test!  Hope I can wait!

Oh! One more thing,,,Happy Birthday Mom! I still miss you!

Day 3 - Beer Brewing

Well, it's Day 3.  I was distressed this morning to find that the bubbling in the airlock on my fermenter had stopped completely. I know what I read yesterday - basically to just get over the bubbling.  My police sign is still on my fermentation bucket telling me to back off, but I like for things to go exactly by the book. The book says I can expect bubbling to go on for 2 - 3 days.  Mine barely bubbled 24 hours.

 
So of course I turned to Craig on YouTube.  He recommended that I first check for leaks and  explained how.  I followed his instructions.   I may have had a small leak, but I'm not 100% positive.  He then said I could take the lid off and check the brew. That made me a little nervous, but I did as instructed. He said if my beer was fermenting,  I would find a ring of sediment around the sides of the bucket just above the surface of the beer.

Well, when I finally got the lid off, there it was - this beautiful ring of sediment, right where he said it would be!!!  What he didn't mention though was the wonderful scent of beer that suddenly filled the room!  Why haven't I noticed that before - that beer has such a wonderful smell? 

Anyway, I feel better about everything tonight.  I'm gonna try to quit focusing on it until Monday afternoon when I plan to check the specific gravity. Craig says if specific gravity is 1.010 or lower, then I can start bottling.

Now that's something to look forward to!

PS: Sorry I didn't get pictures of that beautiful sediment ring, but I was so nervous about taking the lid off, I didn't even think about pictures.  Maybe when I'm a more experience beer brewer.