Punch Recipe

Punch Glass by New England Glass Company
Blown glass, circa 1883–88
Gift of Mrs. Emily Winthrop Miles, 1946
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

So far this spring, I've felt like a character in the 13-book set, A Series of Unfortunate Events. First I hurt my back and hobbled around with that for a couple weeks. Then I caught the worst cold and lingering cough that I've had in well over a decade. Then a tooth gave me all kinds of misery before I finally got it pulled.

And, most recently, a fellow from Tennessee rammed his 1995 Ford F150 truck into the back of my car.  Fortunately, I was not hurt. The accident did no damage to the truck, but damaged the trunk, bumper, and back corner of my car extensively. We are still waiting to hear whether his insurance company will fix it or total it.

All will be well. No condolences are necessary. Thank you for allowing me to whine.

Despite all, I managed to attend an estate sale and picked up an interesting little recipe book. The following recipe was handwritten and tucked inside. A comment at the top of the paper says this recipe is over 100 years old. Since it was obviously written down quite a few years ago, the recipe is surely 125 years old by now. One thing that the recipe doesn't really explain is that you need to have 3 quarts of water heating to a boil while you are simmering the spices.

Kentucky Spiced Tea

4 cups cold water
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
1/4 cup tea leaves
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
12 cups (3 quarts) boiling water
Put sugar, COLD water, and spices (tied in a bag) in enamel or stainless steel boiler. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Put in tea leaves (tied in a bag.) Add 12 cups BOILING water and juices. Steep for 5 minutes. Strain if desired. Chill. Serve each glass with a lemon slice skewered by a cinnamon stick.

Just Give Me a Map

A young friend of mine posted a meme on Facebook today that read something like this, "Dad started pulling maps out of the glove box, but I was like, whoa, Indiana Jones! Just let me google it!"

It amused me and also got me thinking about map reading. I love my GPS, and Google maps on my cell phone is extremely convenient, but when I head into unfamiliar territory, I still like to look at a map and have a general picture in my mind of where I am headed.

!794 Samuel Dunn Map of the World

I would rank map-reading as one of the most useful skills I learned in school. What else is on the list? Reading, writing, and arithmetic, of course. And typing -- I can't imagine not knowing how to type. I give Miss Laberdy's Home Ec. class partial credit for teaching me basic sewing skills, along with my mother, 4-H, the Simplicity pattern company, and my own great desire for new clothes.

I don't credit Miss Laberdy with teaching me how to follow a recipe. I learned that long before I got to Home Ec., from my mother and 4-H. My high school didn't have drivers' education and didn't encourage girls to take shop classes, so I learned those life-skills elsewhere, too.

Back to map reading -- when I was in elementary school in the late 50s/early 60s, map-reading was part of Social Studies class.  I don't remember reading maps with the teacher very often, but we did have to write answers to the questions at the end of the chapters, and some of the questions always gave practice on map reading skills.

I got some real-life experience with map-reading on trips with my dad, usually either hauling cattle or going somewhere to look at cattle.  One Christmas, I made my mom and dad an orange felt envelope with the word "Maps" glued on it in brown felt letters.  They put it into service, and it saw a lot of miles. I smile when I think about that humble, child-stitched, felt packet of road maps.

As a young adult, it was empowering to have the ability to read a map and drive myself to new places. I discovered that the rules of map-reading applied to street maps as well as road maps, and city maps helped me find my way through cities on several continents.

When we moved here, I wore out my Christian County map, exploring new roads on summer afternoons with my kids. They were usually willing to participate -- they were game little troopers, my kids. Or, I'd get the Hopkinsville street map and the newspaper and plan a route for Saturday morning garage sales. And of course, going to Kansas and Missouri to visit our families has always required much map reading.  Because of maps and my insatiable curiosity about strange roads, I've taken every logical route there is through the Missouri Ozarks (and some illogical ones, too.)

Even with GPS and Google Maps on a smart phone, I don't like to go on a trip without paper maps or a road atlas in the vehicle.  I forgot to pack the maps when we drove out to Kansas a few years ago, and my daughter was quite upset with me. I was upset with me, too!  So we picked up some maps along the way.

Recent Rag Rugs

Rugmaking has become one of my great passions these last few years. These are a few of the rugs I made this last winter.  As always, you can click on these photos to enlarge them.

Rag rug in rainbow colors

This rug has the colors of the rainbow -- ROY G. BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.) It's a little weak in the orange and yellow section since I'm saving everything I have in those colors for kitchen rugs I'm making for my daughter-in-law next.

I experimented with several new-to-me techniques in this rug.  I used two narrow strips of fabric as the "yarn" throughout the rug, rather than a single strip like usual. This made the transitions from one color to the next easy.

Since the strips were an inch or less in width, I didn't attempt to fold in the raw edges as I usually do, so the rug surface is more thready than what I usually prefer.  I also joined the fabric strips by slit-knots, rather than sewing them together as usual. I don't think knotting is any faster than sewing (with the machine.) But I do see that it's easy to carry my rug-making with me whenever I leave the house, if I don't need sewed-together strips.

The two rugs at left, below, were made in my customary style -- fabric strips sewed together and raw edges turned in. These rugs reside on my daughter's back porch. The rug at right, below, includes remnants from the other two.  It was photographed in different light, but actually, it's a mate, more or less.  I gave it to my daughter as well.

I'm not sure why I was so determined to get rid of every scrap of those fabrics, but it seemed logical at the time. To me, these three rugs will always remind me of my husband's sinus surgery as that was the period of time in which I made them. I don't mean that they are sad rugs. My husband's sinus surgery was a great success, and he's feeling better than he has for a long time.

Two of a set of rag rugs

The third rug of the set