I have been very fortunate in my life and am feeling gratitude today.  Here are some of the good things I am noticing this morning:

It’s a beautiful spring day and I can get outside and enjoy it with my husband

We have a yard full of birds I enjoy feeding, watching, and photographing

We had a wonderful evening with a friend we haven’t seen for almost a year

Our friend has a good relationship going with a very nice man and she’s the happiest I have seen her ever

The house is clean and the laundry is done

I have a wonderful Easter dinner planned for later today

I’m having a ‘good hair’ day (rare one, that)

The weather forecast for next weekend looks good enough for bike riding

Since it is Easter and I have lots to do, that’s all the gratitude I can put in writing. But there is so much more it would fill all the pages of the giant dictionary I have by my desk.

Here’s hoping you also have a heart full of happiness and gratitude today.

“To live is to leave traces.”  Walter Benjamin

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to bid on and ‘win’ a wonderful piece of art.  The young artist was a person devoted to looking at the plastic waste we humans produce and turning it into something of wonder and beauty.

Sarah Frost is an American artist working in multi media and typically produces large installations.  She has created works in New York, London, France, and her home town of St Louis, MO.  Her most notable works are made with discarded computer pieces ranging from keyboards to mouse parts to the tangle of miscellaneous electrical cords we all have collected somewhere in our basements or garages over the past 30 plus years.

When you see her wall installations of keyboard components, they look like lovely mosaics.  Your first thought will be, “Oh, those are keys.” And, your second thought will be, “I could have done that.”

But, you didn’t.

You didn’t even think of it.

Sarah did.

Something of fascination for me is that she dismantles the keys from the keyboard and has bins of them that she draws from, all separated by size, color, shape. The keys are not cleaned first. They all carry traces of use. Ewww–you know what I mean. Keyboards get dirty. I clean mine periodically but I know that the ick on them is from my own fingers and no one else uses my computers. Sarah’s take on the ‘ick’ factor is in keeping with her overall philosophy of repurposing and celebrating used computer parts. In her own words:

“Each key has a unique history and bears the imprint of the thousands of taps by countless users.”

I would encourage you to take a look at the beauty of Sarah’s installations. There are several on line locations where you can view her work. http://www.blog.evajuliet.com/2012/12/artist-sarah-frost.html is good and so is Sarah’s own website which includes some of her other ‘recycled’ works on exhibit: http://www.sarahfrost.info/

I hope you find her work as interesting as I do and enjoy discovering the art of QWERTY.

“I see the bad moon rising.

I see trouble on the way.

I see earthquakes and lightnin’

I see bad times today.

Don’t go around tonight,

Well, it’s bound to take your life.

There’s a bad moon on the rise.”

Written by John Foggerty; released April, 1969 by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Do you notice when there is a full moon?  What about when there is a crescent moon?  I don’t pay too much attention to the times of the moon unless I am outside on a full moon night and get totally ‘moonstruck.’ But, I can always tell when there is a full moon by the way people drive.

Although delivery room doctors and nurses and police officers may argue this point, there are all kinds of studies debunking the myths of higher birthrates and higher crime rates during full moons. The one thing that hasn’t been debunked is the increase in auto accidents and incidents. Numerous studies over several decades show there is an increase in auto accidents during two times of the month. One time is the day of and day after a new moon and the other is a several day period before and after the full moon. This makes the full moon period the most dangerous for drivers.

Is this increase in activity because of some atmospheric pull on people or car engines? Or, is the increase during the full moon simply because people are on the roads later at night? Or, maybe because people don’t use their headlights because the moon is so bright? The studies don’t give any conclusion as to why the incidents happen. They only indicate that it does happen.

We are currently two days past the full moon peak and I would suggest you be careful on the roads. Not saying it will ‘take your life,’ but you might end up with a dented fender.

Not me.

I’ll still be sitting on the deck, totally moonstruck.

In my financial advisor work I talk with people about legacy quite a bit.  This is usually in the context of financial legacy but sometimes it will pull towards emotional, family, and community legacy. There is much a person should and shouldn’t do with their estate when they leave this earth, but there are more things a person can and should do while living to leave a lasting legacy. And I’m not just talking about money or the spiritual, educational, and social values people instill in their children.

Recently I read a blog by the co-founder and current President and CEO of Saint Louis Bread Company (known to people outside of St Louis as Panera Bread), Ron Shaich. Ron was saying that over the Christmas holiday he had spent time caring for a very ill, elderly uncle. Ron was his closest living relative as all of the older generation people had already passed away. The point of the blog was that it is not what we have at the end of our life, but it is the relationships we have had, and some of the good things we have done for other people during our lifetime, that really count. His uncle might have had a great deal of money to leave to various charities and it would have been appreciated. But that was money, it wasn’t the essence of his uncle.

If you know about Panera, you will know their goal is to serve quality food and they have recently starting adding stores, Panera Cares, that allow patrons to pay what they can afford to pay. We have two in St Louis now and they are working out quite well. Some people pay extra for their meals and others pay little or nothing. Ron wanted to establish a model for the ‘Cares’ cafes that would be sustainable financially, and provide a good environment, free of judgment, for people to get a good, healthy meal, even if they didn’t have funds to pay for that meal. I consider Ron to be a big hearted man with an exceptionally good business sense. He also has a very strong sense of family and social responsibility from the corporate view.

Several years ago I read a little book called, “The Last Lecture,” by Randy Pausch (Hypernion, NY, NY, 2008). Randy was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon and was asked to give a final class lecture, a special talk given at the end of a school term. Just a short time before he was asked to give the lecture, he had been diagnosed with liver cancer and knew he had only a limited time to live. He agreed to give the lecture and he did not give it about dying. Rather, he gave the lecture about the importance of living ones dreams, overcoming obstacles, and helping to enable some else to live their dreams.

Perhaps if we lived as if we had a limited amount of time, we would live better and help others live better. We might seek more diligently, and with more urgency, to live our own dreams and enable others to live theirs. We might be able to create a living legacy, not just with our children or those we personally know, but to total strangers our efforts might reach.

And maybe, just maybe, we would be able to leave a good lasting impression.

Or should I say, “About what is all the flap?”

Grammar aside, I have been very interested lately in the photos taken by Stephen Donnelly of birds of prey and more particularly, his photos of owls.  The pictures are stunning and detailed, showing the birds in flight as well as still.  Owls are majestic, like our Bald Eagles, but are completely different in their flight habit. The reason for this is not only in the shape of their body and wings but also of the design of their feathers, some being serrated and some being downy soft. They soar, swoop, and dive almost silently.  A faint ‘swoosh’ is all you hear as you walk through the woods and one flashes by you in a chase for a squirrel or mouse.  By the time you realize the sound was an owl, it is usually out of sight. I am sure for a squirrel or mouse the old war saying about a bullet must be true, “You never hear the one that hits you.”

Another bird I see often in the summer months and encourage to visit by placing many feeders around the house, is the humming bird.  We only have one variety in the St Louis area, but it’s a beauty–the Ruby Throated.  If you are sitting outside, almost dozing off, and hear something like a very, very large mosquito near you, it is usually a hummingbird.  Their wings are designed completely differently from those of owls or other birds and, because of the design and because they ‘flap’ so fast (up to 52 times a second), they create a ‘hummmmm’ sound.  Their ability to hover, dart, dash, and fly a slipside fascinates me.

But, the question about the ‘flap’ is about pigeons.  They not only make loud flapping sounds when they take off, they also make verbal sounds, as if to announce to the world they are leaving.  The timing of the sounds is inopportune I think since they are usually taking off because something threatening is coming near or is after them. Going silently might be more protective but they just don’t seem to be able to do that.

Words of flight are so inspiring we use them in our every day talk to describe human actions or activities. Soaring (this is good), diving (not necessarily a good thing), gliding/coasting (usually bad but could be good), hovering (usually not a good thing), and whiffling (maybe good, maybe bad) are some of the flight terms we use.

I don’t know that there is a term we use when we act like pigeons at take off. I have seen people behave the same way though. Instead of gliding off silently like an owl, they go away cursing and shaking the fist, or showing a middle finger. They complain, whine, and generally make a scene.

There isn’t a one word term for these actions, but it does often generate a question, “What’s all the flap about?”

I didn’t even notice it until we went to an antique and consignment shop last May.

We don’t usually take time anymore to go to this type of shop but we were passing by one Saturday, the front window display was appealing, and we had a little time to kill, so we dropped in.  It was one of those shops with a combination of consignment items for resale but the owner also happens to be an antique sales person.  They are, sometimes, interesting places and sometimes they are full of, and I hate to word it this way but it’s true, junk.

We looked around and it seemed like a pretty nice place. It was full of lots of things we used to own but don’t anymore, and some things we wanted in the past, but don’t anymore.  I was thinking we would just leave without any purchases when my husband said, “Are you sure you don’t want to add to the collection?” 

My first thought was, “Which collection?” but I didn’t say it.  Instead, I turned to him and asked what, in particular, was he referring to?  He pointed to a sphere, about 6 inches in diameter, enameled with deep blue background and gold and red stars. 

Until that point, I hadn’t noticed we collected spheres.  As I thought about it, I realized, my goodness, yes we do.  We must already have half a dozen or so on display, mixed in with our other nick nacks and keepsakes.  Then, as I thought more, I realized we have even more than that.  All this time we had been adding spheres to our ‘stuff’ and I hadn’t even known it.  They just seem to call out to us when we are shopping.

There was one time I did think about it cognitively.  We, in St Louis, live near active fault zones, particularly the New Madrid fault.  There was a time when I was arranging things on our shelves and in our china cabinets with the possibility of a medium level earthquake.  The spheres were on my radar then because I thought they could do some major damage in a big trembler. I imagined them all breaking loose from their various domains and rolling like bowling balls, taking out masses of other nick nacks along the way. With that in mind I took some time to stabilize them and make sure none were near anything of too much value, just in case.

But, beyond that, I had never really done a ‘head count’ of the spheres and never really thought of them as something on my radar list to collect. They seemed to self collect, silently reaching out to me as I walked by them in a store or flea market. It all seems very mysterious to me now. Are they spheres or should I be thinking of them as orbs? The word ‘orb’ is used sometimes to suggest a range of supernatural paranormal phenomenon without varifiability (as in the unexplained dots or lights you might see in a photograph). In scary movies, you might see an orb or two following a person through a house or chasing them down a stairwell, certainly trying to harm them or scare them to death. They indicate spooks, ghosts, energy from the ‘other world,’ spirits, or–maybe even angels.

If I have to think of this not-intentionally-collected collection as a group of orbs, I am hoping they are of the energy ball type or maybe even, if I am very lucky, angels.

Millionaire. A word that used to inspire awe and envy.

I say ‘used to’ because being a millionaire just ain’t what it used to be.

The word was first used in French in 1719 by Steven Fentiman and was originally spelled with 2 ns. One n was dropped when it was first recorded in English in an 1816 letter of Lord Byron’s. It finally broke into print in an 1826 novel, ‘Vivian Grey,’ by Benjamin Disraeli. Another version of the word, ‘millionary,’ was used by Thomas Jefferson in 1786 while he was serving as a Minister to France. The first American printed use of the word was possibly used in the 1843 obituary of New York tobacco manufacturer Pierre Lorillard II. (Wouldn’t you just know he would be a tobacco manufacturer?)

Millionaires used to be able to buy and furnish exquisite mansions. They used to own private planes to travel between their exquisite mansions. Now, as they currently report, being a millionaire isn’t enough to get you through retirement, unless you have a very good pension, and we all know pensions are quickly vanishing.

Other great words have come along to replace the impact of ‘millionaire.’ They are ‘mega-millionaire,’ (having over 2 million dollars), ‘hyper-millionaire,’ (having over 100 million dollars), and ‘billionaire.’ You know, I have worked in the investment and estate planning fields my entire career and have worked with very wealthy people as well as some of modest means. Still, I have a hard time wrapping my arms around the thought of having a billion dollars. Where in the world would you keep it? Hopefully, not at a bank in Cyprus.

I had a wealthy client a few years ago that was in the ‘mega’ range. He wanted to see what a million dollars in cash looked like. The local Federal Reserve bank helped us out with that one. Interesting to take a tour of the Federal Reserve and have them be so accommodating. FYI, that person was a lottery winner, and like me, had a hard time grasping that amount of money.

For now, the words ‘millionaire’ or ‘mega millionaire’ are enough for me to still be in awe. (No envy here. I am not a material girl.) But, it won’t be long and we’ll be coming up with words to replace ‘billionaire.’

Wealthy, by any other name, is still wealthy.

No, not Chicago.

Although I love that toddlin’ town, with it’s broad shoulders and tower, formerly known as Sears, I am talking about my adopted home town, St Louis, MO.  It’s right on the banks of the mighty Mississippi and bordered by the great Missouri River and the Meramec River.  Kind of an island, if you will, even though I am the only one that sees it that way.  It’s a great monolith of small cities–over 80 total–making up St Louis County.

The actual City of St Louis is an entity unto itself, not a part of any county, and has quite a few unique properties.  It is governed in many ways by the state of Missouri and not by local government.  Its police, schools, and fire departments are all state controlled, a practice started during the Civil War because St Louis was sitting on a demarcation line between north and south. But, that’s a piece of history for another discussion.

When we moved to St Louis, we treated the area as if we were tourists. 20 year later, we still act like tourists. There are so many fun things to do, so many festivals, museums, parks, sports, bike trails, and free activities that every weekend is packed full of entertainment. There are historic sights and great monuments, like The Arch, to see and discover. The bike trail system connects to the Katy Trail, a former rail line turned bike path, that you can get on and ride almost all the way across the state. It also connects to trails on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River allowing a person to bike along the Great River Road.

Forrest Park is the icing on the St Louis cake. It’s a city park larger than Central Park in New York City. The major museums are located in the park, including history, art, and science center, as well as the world famous St Louis Zoo. All are free to anyone wanting to walk through the doors. But the park offers more in the way of lakes to fish in (catch and release) as well as miles of pedestrian and bike trails. There are baseball, soccer, and rugby fields along with tennis and handball courts. An outdoor ice skating rink is operated from November through February each year and then there is Art Hill, crowded with sledders when even an inch of snow falls.

What the rest of the country may refer to as ‘fly over’ territory, I call the rare jewel in the heartland of America. I’ll probably always act like a tourist and continue to enjoy the rich diversity of the area.

Yes, sappy as it may sound, simply put, St Louis is my kind of town.

The vegetable of the day is the carrot.  Not those tiny cocktail type carrots you buy for lunch boxes all bright orange and cute.  Not the ones that come all ready cleaned and 50 to a bag. 

No, I’m talking about good old fashioned carrots, 8 to 11 inches long, medium orange in colour, with a fancy, frilly bouquet of greenery on the top.  So good raw or roasted or ‘coin’ sliced and boiled or steamed with olive oil or butter and a little salt.  If you are an old movie buff (I mean the movies are old, not you), you may remember Scarlet O’Hara in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ on her knees in the mud, holding a carrot up to the heavens.  “As God is my witness, I will never be hungry again!” She was pretty darn grateful for that dirty stick of a carrot.

I would suggest that you don’t need to be near starving to appreciate a good carrot.  One way I prepare carrots to give them yet another dimension of deliciousness is to turn them into soup.  Here’s all I do:

Wash 8-10 carrots and cut off the ends.  Cut the carrots in to 3 inch chunks.  Put them in a pan of cold water, just enough to cover them, and bring the water to a boil.  Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes or until the carrots are tender.  Take them out of the pan with a slotted spoon and retain the cooking water.  Let the carrots cool to room temperature.

When the carrots are cooled down, put them in a blender or ‘bullet’ and add about half of the cooking water.  You could use vegetable or chicken broth if you like.  Blend and add extra water/broth to thin down the soup to the consistency you desire.

Put the mixture back in the pan and reheat.  You can add milk or some cream to this soup and make it more decadent.  I season mine with some nutmeg, a little salt and some white pepper and serve it with a little sour cream and some pepitas on top. 

Very fast recipe, especially if you prepare the carrots ahead of time.  When you get home from work, you can just toss the carrots in the blender and get started.  The process will only take about 20 minutes, including reheat time.  Another great thing about this soup is that it is very inexpensive.  I usually get either a 2 lb bag of carrots for $.99 or a 5 lb bag for about $2.  

Simple, yummy, inexpensive, and so very good for you.  All that cartoon watching when I was a kid did pay off.  Love my Bugs Bunny.

I admit it.

When I first started making pancakes, I used the best pre packaged mix available–Aunt Jemima.  My Mom always made her pancakes from scratch but I thought it would be way easier to use a mix, and a mix I did use.  It was good.  It had a bit of sweetness to it.  It was easy.  It only needed one ingredient added–water.  Who couldn’t do that?  And, you could still say it was home made. Tongue in cheek here.

But, I have evolved.  I now make most things from scratch and try to avoid anything pre packaged.  Not to say I wouldn’t use something in a time pinch, but I do try to cook from scratch these days.  It’s the only way I can really (kinda) know what is in the food I prepare for myself, my husband, and guests.

This evening was declared ‘breakfast for dinner’ night and I had decided to make pancakes and toss in some sausages for my company.  Two kinds of pancakes were in the offing and one of them I will share with you here.

The special one was for the non-meat eaters.  Full of protein, vitamins, and good taste, it was bound to be a winner.  I think at the end of the evening, it was a full thumbs up.

Here’s what I did:

2 cups of shredded potatoes (you can do these fresh or use freezer hash brown shreds that are thawed out, preferably ones without added oil)

1 cup of shredded or finely chopped zucchini

1 cup of shredded or finely chopped carrots

1/2 cup whole wheat flower

3 eggs

seasonings of your choice (I used salt and pepper and chives)

You can add minced onions and/or peppers to this if you like or other minced vegetables.

Let the mixture sit for about 15 minutes before starting to cook.

I did the cooking with two different oils to see if I could determine a difference. First, I put olive oil in a fry pan and heated it and added enough batter for one pancake. When the pancake starts to bubble all over (including the middle) flip it over. Let it cook about another minute, then remove it from the pan. I also tried this with coconut oil. Same process. Although the pancakes didn’t taste any different, when I was cooking them, I smelled a difference. Coconut oil certainly smells like coconut and smells sweet to me. I thought when I tasted the pancakes they would have a sweetness but they did not. I couldn’t tell one pancake from the next.

When I served the pancakes, I offered butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, sour cream, and Greek yogurt–unflavored. The comments were good. Everyone seemed to like them.

I think they are a versatile dish. They can be used as a main dish or side dish and they could be served with a meat course if that would work for your family and company. Because they contain protein, vitamins, fiber, minerals, and great taste, they can be a great addition to any meal.

So, Aunt Jemima, move over. Vegetable pancakes are on their way.