Give me the fruit off the vine

 
The fruit smootie, which I have named the purple slurple

By Scott Beveridge

The like-new fruit smoothie maker came my way 10 months ago in a small inheritance.

I had purchased the white plastic blender nearly as many years ago for my mom when she was first diagnosed with cancer, thinking adding more fruit in her diet would boost her immune system.

She might have used it once, and then left it on her counter to fool me into assuming it had become a useful appliance in her kitchen. She twice beat cancer, though, before dying of complicating factors from the disease and after, instead, choosing green tea as her elixir of life.

Then the smoothie machine sat atop my clothes dryer waiting for me to decide whether to put it to good use or donate it to a charity thrift shop.

The wait ended Friday at the start of a long weekend away from the newsroom. I decided to ingest fruit smoothies as, either a detox, or a road to improving my diet as I approach my mid-50s. A vegetarian diet is not an option because I would need rehab to break my habit of eating an occasional bacon cheeseburger, or deep counseling over a compulsion to toast marshmallows made with seaweed rather than animal hooves gelatin.

I turn to Google to find recipes for the healthiest smoothie recipes only to find many using yogurt as a base. That stuff literally makes me gag, as does tomato juice, no matter how much I want to like those things.

A number of other smoothie detox drinks call raw granola, oatmeal, wheat germ or flaxseed, roughage that sounds better suited for horse feed than a refreshing morning fruit cocktail.

So I decide to concoct the following recipe:

1 lime, peeled

1 large naval orange, peeled

1 unpeeled apple cut into quarters, seeds removed

Small handfuls of frozen blackberries and blueberries

1 banana, peeled

� cup of Ocean Spray 100 percent cranberry juice

2 tablespoons of confectioner sugar, for good measure

OK. The results. The first glass went down smooth, while the second took a bit of coaxing. Sure. I did feel an energy boost, but not one similar to those crash and burn highs derived from drinking a pot of coffee. On the third day I concluded I?d rather eat fruit the way it comes off the tree, bush or vine. The remaining blueberries and blackberries will taste great atop scoops of Ben and Jerry?s French vanilla ice cream.

So long smoothie maker, and your labor intense route to a healthy diet.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/03/give-me-fruit-off-vine.html

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Jumping in with Both Feet

Remember that big dream that I was hoping would come true in the last post? Well, it looks like it IS going to come true after all - hooray!!

I am very excited to tell you that I will be taking a workshop with my #1 favorite artist/author, Sabrina Ward Harrison, this May in Prince Edward Island! I can't wait!! Just a few days ago, I was making my Mondo Beyondo list, and one of the items was, "Take a Class with/Meet Sabrina Ward Harrison." Two days later, I was browsing through my Google Reader, and I saw a post from Papaya's blog that talked about an upcoming workshop Sabrina is teaching! I thought, "This was meant to be," and I decided to jump in with both feet and sign up right away.

I think I first found Sabrina's books when I was a senior in high school. At that time, Spilling Open was the only one out, and I don't remember how I stumbled upon it, but once I saw it, I knew it would be an instant favorite. Sabrina's art and honest deep-down-digging writing was unlike anything I'd ever seen in print form, and it was super inspiring. It also made my own art journals feel a little more validated, making them more of a priority in my life. I eagerly awaited the publications of her next three books, loving each one of them very much. I am so excited to be taking a class with her and can't wait to share photos and stories with you about the trip... May can't come soon enough!!

I feel like I have been doing a lot of this "jumping in with two feet" thing lately. At the beginning of the new year, one of my goals was to focus more on my art and my Etsy shop, so I decided to take two days off of work a week to work on those goals. To be honest, right now it is not paying off financially, but I hope that with time and with persistence, I will find that I made the right choice. If not, I can always go back to full time at work, but I hope it doesn't come to that. The good thing is, I am SO much more happy now that I am working at my day job less, and that has to be worth something even if the Etsy sales aren't quite there yet.

Speaking of Etsy, I will be posting new goodies throughout the day today, so be sure to take a peek at the shop... lots of new clothes, including the buffalo t-shirt below:

Source: http://howtomakeart.blogspot.com/2011/01/jumping-in-with-both-feet.html

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All in a row

In the mysterious shell grotto - ooooooh!
Margate - Kent

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2007/08/all-in-row.html

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Custom Order from Facebook Friend !

Recently, a fellow "Coco-nut" (fan of Conan O'Brien ) ordered a pair of my Starflower Earrings . She wanted me to choose the colors and her only requirement was that the two colors be contrasting. I tried to elicit more info from her, and finally established that she likes metals, so I picked out a copper and gunmetal color scheme. The plan worked ! She loves them ! Whew ! Plus, I included a strip of stickers I made using my beaded Conan logo from the old "Late Night" show...she loved those too :-)

Source: http://ambrosianbeads.blogspot.com/2011/01/custom-order-from-facebook-friend.html

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Some good out of war

U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Mary Rhoads of California, Pa., arrives home in March 1991 days after a devastating enemy attack on her unit in the Persian Gulf War. (Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter)

By Scott Beveridge

The first time I met Mary Rhoads she was dispensing a parking ticket in 1990 while working as a meter maid in her hometown of California, Pa.

The motorist receiving the violation, though, didn't respond with the expected snarl, but rather a smile. He then said it was difficult to be upset about receiving a ticket when it was delivered by someone as friendly as Rhoads, in what was in impromptu exchange among three people sharing the same sidewalk.

I turned to her and said every town should have someone like her in that job.

The next time I noticed her name it was on the list of survivors of a U.S. Army Reserve unit that had come under attack Feb. 25, 1991, in Operation Desert Storm against Iraq.

I was a cub reporter and had suddenly been tossed into an international story because two local members of her unit, the 14th Quartermaster Detachment, were among those killed by a Scud missile that leveled its barracks. The attack took the lives of 13 members of the unit, including Spc. John A. Boliver Jr., 27, whose wife, Paula, was a friendly pizza shop employee near where I worked in Monongahela a short distance from their house. Spc. John Biongorni III, 20, of Hickory, also died in the Feb. 25, 1991, tragedy in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, just hours before the brief war ended. It was the deadliest enemy attack on U.S. troops in the war.

Rhoads had become a symbol of the incident when CNN broadcast her image cradling her best friend, Spc. Beverly A. Clark, 23, of Armagh, immediately after Clark was killed. Rhoads had just stepped outside, taking a break from a card game, when the Scud landed.

The 14th based in Hempfield Township would quickly be returned home by air to Latrobe Airport in an event heavily attended by the press. Rhoads rushed to her husband and daughter upon landing. Flowers were distributed. It was a happy affair if only for a few hours.

Soon many members of this unit would later complain about suffering mysterious illnesses that eventually were attributed to Persian Gulf War syndrome. Rhoads landed in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Pittsburgh in a room down the hall from a comrade who died there during her stay from an unknown heart disease.

There would be thoughts of suicide among other members of the 14th as the Department of Defense investigated a spate of theories the illnesses were caused by such things as exposure to chemical warfare, reactions to inoculations and their having breathed fumes from burning oil wells. Others were convinced Saddam Hussein had ordered the Scud laced with biological warfare.

Rhoads testified about her medical problems before Congress and would become among the first from that war to receive full military disability on a claim linked to the syndrome. She then shielded herself from public attention after being criticized for complaining about service to her country. Back in the newsroom at the Observer-Reporter, I received anonymous hate mail attacking her for being a woman who didn't belong in a war zone to begin with.

I didn't see Rhoads again for more than a dozen years, until being asked to take photographs at a veterans program at a Canonsburg personal care home, where she had been volunteering. It turned out she since has survived cancer and two heart attacks, and was caring for her ill husband, both of whom were in their early 50s.

It seems her critics were wrong, given the bravery she has faced in dealing with the medical problems that have plagued her and her family. She can still muster a smile, despite her bouts with survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Some good has come out of all of this," she said Friday, when the 14th marked the 20th anniversary of the Scud attack. "It's been hard but you make the best of it."

The aftermath of an attack on temporary barracks shared in the Persian Gulf by members of the 14th Quartermaster Detachment in Greensburg.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/02/some-good-out-of-war.html

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Crazy eyes

Donkeys always make such easy photography subjects. Odds on they'll wander up to the fenceline, pull a stupid face and the rest is up to you...
One of the problems with photography in England is the extreme narrowness of a lot of the rural roads. While I'm driving around with one eye on the road and the other on potential photo ops, I need a third eye to spot any potential spot where I can pull up. The size of some of the roads here can make driving a very interesting gamble...

Source: http://microcosmic.blogspot.com/2008/02/crazy-eyes.html

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Some good out of war

U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Mary Rhoads of California, Pa., arrives home in March 1991 days after a devastating enemy attack on her unit in the Persian Gulf War. (Scott Beveridge/Observer-Reporter)

By Scott Beveridge

The first time I met Mary Rhoads she was dispensing a parking ticket in 1990 while working as a meter maid in her hometown of California, Pa.

The motorist receiving the violation, though, didn't respond with the expected snarl, but rather a smile. He then said it was difficult to be upset about receiving a ticket when it was delivered by someone as friendly as Rhoads, in what was in impromptu exchange among three people sharing the same sidewalk.

I turned to her and said every town should have someone like her in that job.

The next time I noticed her name it was on the list of survivors of a U.S. Army Reserve unit that had come under attack Feb. 25, 1991, in Operation Desert Storm against Iraq.

I was a cub reporter and had suddenly been tossed into an international story because two local members of her unit, the 14th Quartermaster Detachment, were among those killed by a Scud missile that leveled its barracks. The attack took the lives of 13 members of the unit, including Spc. John A. Boliver Jr., 27, whose wife, Paula, was a friendly pizza shop employee near where I worked in Monongahela a short distance from their house. Spc. John Biongorni III, 20, of Hickory, also died in the Feb. 25, 1991, tragedy in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, just hours before the brief war ended. It was the deadliest enemy attack on U.S. troops in the war.

Rhoads had become a symbol of the incident when CNN broadcast her image cradling her best friend, Spc. Beverly A. Clark, 23, of Armagh, immediately after Clark was killed. Rhoads had just stepped outside, taking a break from a card game, when the Scud landed.

The 14th based in Hempfield Township would quickly be returned home by air to Latrobe Airport in an event heavily attended by the press. Rhoads rushed to her husband and daughter upon landing. Flowers were distributed. It was a happy affair if only for a few hours.

Soon many members of this unit would later complain about suffering mysterious illnesses that eventually were attributed to Persian Gulf War syndrome. Rhoads landed in the Veterans Administration Hospital in Pittsburgh in a room down the hall from a comrade who died there during her stay from an unknown heart disease.

There would be thoughts of suicide among other members of the 14th as the Department of Defense investigated a spate of theories the illnesses were caused by such things as exposure to chemical warfare, reactions to inoculations and their having breathed fumes from burning oil wells. Others were convinced Saddam Hussein had ordered the Scud laced with biological warfare.

Rhoads testified about her medical problems before Congress and would become among the first from that war to receive full military disability on a claim linked to the syndrome. She then shielded herself from public attention after being criticized for complaining about service to her country. Back in the newsroom at the Observer-Reporter, I received anonymous hate mail attacking her for being a woman who didn't belong in a war zone to begin with.

I didn't see Rhoads again for more than a dozen years, until being asked to take photographs at a veterans program at a Canonsburg personal care home, where she had been volunteering. It turned out she since has survived cancer and two heart attacks, and was caring for her ill husband, both of whom were in their early 50s.

It seems her critics were wrong, given the bravery she has faced in dealing with the medical problems that have plagued her and her family. She can still muster a smile, despite her bouts with survivor's guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Some good has come out of all of this," she said Friday, when the 14th marked the 20th anniversary of the Scud attack. "It's been hard but you make the best of it."

The aftermath of an attack on temporary barracks shared in the Persian Gulf by members of the 14th Quartermaster Detachment in Greensburg.

Source: http://scottbeveridge.blogspot.com/2011/02/some-good-out-of-war.html

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