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Pick Your Precious: Chapter 4

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Sian (From High in The Sky) hosts a Storytelling Sunday each month. This year she's chose a theme-"Pick Your Precious" and it's given me a chance to think about some of the things I have that mean a lot to me. I'm guessing my children don't know much about them, so I'm hopeful it's meaningful to them as well. 

I grew up in my Great-Aunt Edith's house.  We moved in with her when I was in third grade and lived there until we moved to New York when I was a junior. (Aunt Edith moved with us. She was 93 and had lived in the same town all her life and the same house for over 60 years.)  She never married and lived with her sister, Aunt Lily, until
Lily passed away the year before we moved in with her.

When she and Lily inherited
their parents’ estates they decided to invest some of the money in some fine china. It was kept in a glass-fronted china cabinet, and she always promised me I would inherit it some day.

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They had two sets of Haviland china. One of them was quite ornate, and when I
inherited the china, many of the serving pieces had been broken. The other, a delicate floral
pattern was still nearly complete. There are place settings for twelve with both tea cups and coffee cups. They seemed to
have purchased every size of platter, soup tureen, and serving dish that was available.
Tracy had to add a shelf to our dry sink (another precious item—also from my great-
aunts’ home) in order to be able to store all of it.

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In addition to the china, there are quite a few single dishes and serving pieces that don't match the other sets. This is one of my favorites.

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I love these delicate dessert plates, too.

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I don’t use it too often—it must be hand
washed, and our entertaining style is a bit more casual than this lovely china, but I
treasure it. I wish my kids would be interested in it some day, but I doubt it. They’re even
more casual than we are! 


52/50: Week 14

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It's been a whirlwind of activity since we arrived home (on time!) Wednesday night. It's amazing how much mail accumulates in nearly three weeks and then there's the empty refrigerator to fill, suitcases to unpack, and multiple appointments and errands. So here we are again on Saturday with another week gone by. 

Sarah, Tracy, Caleb, and I hiked the Orson-Todd Trail on Tuesday. There's an entrance to it just down the street from Sarah's house. All the photos were taken on our hike. Caleb alternated between the backpack and walking on his own. I'm guessing he did close to half the walk on his own power (that's about a mile.)

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The view from the top of the trail was simply gorgeous, and it's the pick for this week's 52/20 project which I'm posting on Kent Weakley's P52.

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The light on the mountains/hills is almost always dramatic and beautiful. It's a really wonderful place to live. I'm hoping to get time to visit all of you in the next day or two. I imagine there are a lot of posts to catch up with!

 

Oregon Day Trips

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It's still cold and snowy in western New York, but we've had fabulous weather in southern Oregon. Sarah, Tracy, and I visited Harry and David's flagship store in Medford on Friday and took the factory tour. 

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We had a wonderful tour guide. The production line moves so quickly it's hard to believe how fast some of the basket packers can work! We loved watching them make Moose Munch and arrived just as the caramel mixture reached the right temperature for adding the popcorn and nuts.

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We came home with three different kinds of Moose Munch along with quite a few other goodies.

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I loved their old pick-up on display. Harry and David (and the Medford region) are renowned for their pears which they used as a decoration on the truck rails.

While we were on the tour, the guide asked me what we had been doing while we were visiting here. I mentioned that I'd love to have gone to Crater Lake, but that it wasn't a particularly great time to visit. She said she'd talked to several folks that had been there that week, and that it was wonderful. We checked the weather, and discovered the temperature for Crater Lake on Saturday was supposed to be in the 50's, so after breakfast at The Breadboard in Ashland, Sarah, Tracy, Caleb and I took off for Crater Lake. Adam opted to stay at home and get some quiet time. The drive from Ashland to Crater Lake is wonderful. Despite the warm temperatures, there is still a LOT of snow at Crater Lake. The annual snowfall there is 44 ft. (the equivalent of over an inch of snow falling every single day!)

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After some time at the visitor center, we headed up to the Rim. Crater Lake is reputedly the cleanest water in the world. Crater Lake gets no water from rivers or streams, so all the water comes from the sky. According to the newsletter, it's cleaner than the water that comes from your faucet at home.

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I love this panorama taken with my iPhone!

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Thanks to a kind offer from another visitor we have a nice family photo from the event. 

You'll find my social media and email links on the sidebar now, and here's the signature. Jessica's class was well worth the money not only for the design, but for the confidence in knowing how to refresh the blog!

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