Polly Castor’s Blog an online journal of art, photography, spirituality, ideas, books, movies, food, poetry, and hope

Blog Going Offline for a Month

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:59:47 -0400

I’m going on vacation, camping in Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Tetons National Park, with my thirteen year old daughter. My husband and sixteen year old son are staying home, and the later will start his homeschooling online classes without me. My daughter and I are taking three weeks to drive out west to stay 8 days in the mountains. We’ll also visit my Ohio sister in Amish country on the way out and back. From Connecticut, this is a 36 hour drive, costing $250 in gas each way. We are squeezing this in an already tight schedule, and endeavoring to keep it very low budget. The day after we get home, my daughter starts homeschooling with some outside classes, and I leave to go to my yearly church retreat at Creative Arts Camp in Maine, where I’ll take an oil painting class for a week. Then I’ll return to my regular schedule of work and homeschooling, and to upload the intervening month of blog content! So you will have a vacation from hearing from me for a whole month, but then be warned, the week I’m finally back you’ll be inundated with posts about my adventure until I’m caught up, and then regular daily blogs notices will resume.

Please note that I will have my iphone with me and am available and on call for most of this intervening time, wherever I have service, by either phone or email, so don’t hesitate to try to contact me if you need to.

I hope you have a great month to come; we are excited about ours! We are looking forward to some awesome scenery, time to pray, paint, photograph, and play, as well as meaningful bonding time together.

The photos on this post were taken a few years ago at Creative Arts Camp....

Book Review: Backpack Gourmet

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:26:07 -0400

This is a wonderful book of how to make delicious food to dehydrate in your drier to be reconstituted and reheated for camping. This approach will not only be less expensive for our (fast approaching) camping trip out west, but quicker and easier while there, while definitely more delicious than store bought options. Many of these recipes will also be great options for hikes closer to home. Who doesn’t want to know how to make salmon jerky? Check out this five star book for some great backwoods food.

A Nice College Room

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 10:02:44 -0400

I’ve been moving my oldest back to college into her new off-campus housing. Below you can see her leaving our house in the van, being greeted by her sweet landlord who she knows from church, her finished room along with some of her books, as well as the hall downstairs and some of her friends. If you want to see a “before” picture of her room you can click here when last spring we dropped off some stuff from her dorm before leaving for the summer.

We worked very hard cleaning up this room. This second floor room is enormous –15 x 17– which as about four times bigger than her room at home, and has really high ceilings. It had in it a lovely bed, a dresser, a chest, a comfy old rocking chair and two wonderful wardrobes. With no desk available, the landlord offered two side tables and my husband bought and beautifully refinished a door to lay across them. It turned out this was too low so we cruised around Home Depot looking for a solution; we got sidewalk pavers to prop it up with some rubber above and below to protect the wood surfaces from the concrete. It works great; it almost feels like it is floating in a contemporary way, even though the wood is finished to match the old pieces. We also bought two bookcases in a dark wood tone from IKEA which I assembled. My daughter’s bedspread from last year matches the velvet of the rocker: what is the likelihood of that? A closet in her room, that also holds the central air-conditioning handler, we made into a pantry. Then we hung three of my paintings, two mirrors, a bulletin board, along with our housewarming present: a framed photo that my daughter took in Kenya this summer. The overall effect is the nicest college room I’ve ever seen, a true sanctuary. Thank you God!

Turning 16 with an iphone

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:56:39 -0400

August 27 is the right day but only 2/5 of us will be around then so we celebrated early. As usual, we made cookies instead of cake, an extra large one frosted by the honoree. My son’s approach to this task is applying as much frosting as he can, as you can see below. We served him his favorite homemade parmesan chicken fingers for dinner.

Our family rule is you can’t have a cell phone until you are 16, and this techy kid REALLY wanted an iphone. We’d paid for a phone for his older sister without a data plan, so we settled that he’ll be paying for his own data plan. Getting the phone wasn’t as easy as we’d expected, since we learned they are in such demand, it is hard to get your hands on one. After long deliberation and comparing service plans, I upgraded and got one too, since it is cheaper with more than one user. It will be very helpful for my work to be able to answer my email remotely. What a world this opens up!

Tomato Harvest

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:23:15 -0400

The tomatoes are coming in fast. They are so lovely and delicious. Here see them on the vine, picked in piles, in a salad with bermuda onion, cucumber and pesto, and being dried in the drier. Tomorrow we’ll try making “tomato leathers” (like fruit roll-ups) and will again make yummy roasted tomatoes (see here). What a luxury to be over flowing with heirloom tomatoes!

Beautiful Clouds

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:19:08 -0400

Here are some beautiful summer clouds in Connecticut...