All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2022, Food, home, Uncategorized

Borrowed Cookies

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I made brownies and cookies for a funeral luncheon last week (and, of course it was the hottest day of the summer so far).   I just did the basics and was happy that my friend didn’t insist on lemon bars, which seem to be a funeral luncheon staple these days.

The chocolate chip recipe that I used is one that I got from our Anna years ago, which she got from the Betty Crocker Boys & Girls Cookbook, which was published in 1957.  Since Anna shared this recipe, it has pretty much replaced every other chocolate chip cookie recipe that I’ve ever used.  Great taste, great texture and really reliable.  What more could you ask for in a chocolate chip cookie?

Betty Crocker’s Boys & Girls Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients
2⁄3 cup shortening (I used butter-flavored Crisco)
2⁄3 cup butter softened (but not too much)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1  cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions

  • Heat oven to 375 degrees.
  • Mix thoroughly shortening, butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.
  • Stir in remaining ingredients adding chips at the end
  • Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.
  • Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown.
  • Cool slightly before removing from baking sheet.

Yield:  I use an ice cream scoop so this recipe makes approximately 3 dozen larger cookies.

At the luncheon THREE different people asked me for the recipe.  Luckily since I had just made 3 batches the day before, I still had it in my memory.  The yesterday another friend texted me, asking for the recipe as well.  I’d feel proud except that I feel Betty Crocker and Anna should get all the credit!

Do you have a recipe that just always works? 

 

 

2022, Business, Food, Uncategorized

Mel-O!

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Last week YA and I had dinner out with friends of ours.  In the course of the evening I mentioned that my last program was coming up – a warehouse run for which I always buy donuts for the warehouse crew.  This led to our friends sending us a Star Tribune article from a couple of weeks back that listed the top donut shops in the Twin Cities AND a lengthy discussion of their favorite donut place:  Mel-O-Glaze.

Mel-O-Glaze has been around for sixty years and I’ve driven by it numerous times but never in the morning, which is when my donut-desiring genes normally kick in.   Most of my routines are south and southwest of my place, so I have to make a decision to go someplace east and it doesn’t happen on a regular basis.

But after listening to rave reviews for a good ten minute, I determined to make a different decision.  I went east the next morning, timing my trip to about the time they opened.  This turned out not to be the best time to go…. although they were open, they weren’t really up to speed yet.  An hour later would probably have been better.

There were enough to choose from however.  When the owner, Paulette, came out from the back I told her it was my first time.  She quickly ran to the back and when she returned she had a donut hold that she gave me as a sample.  It’s easy to see how people say these are addictive.  In fact, even though I’m not usually a donut-hole fan, I bought six, along with another donut for myself and one for YA.   The donut holes didn’t even make it back home.  So now in addition to Sunrise Donuts, Bogarts Donuts, Sunrise Breads and, of course, Dunkin, I’ll be adding Mel-O-Glaze to my roster of donut place. Guess I’ll be going east a little more often now.

Any embarrassment of riches in your world?

2022, Art, books, Family, Food, Games, gardening, Gatherings, home

Retiring? Who Me?

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Photo credit:  Aaron Burden

The announcement about my retirement has finally been made (took my boss and her boss about three weeks to try to talk me out of it).

One of my co-workers, in a very serious tone said “but what are you going to do with all your time”.  She wasn’t joking (although I had assumed she was).  How could she not know me after working in the same department for 20 years together.

Without even a thought I rattled off:

    • Reading
    • Gardening
    • Cooking/Baking
    • Crafting
    • Walking the dog
    • Volunteering
    • Home improvement projects
    • Travel
    • Hang with friends

I put an app on my phone that is counting down for me.  Kinda fun.  Right now as I’m typing it’s: 1 month, 18 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes and 32 seconds.

Anything I’m missing on my list?

 

2022, Business, History, Kids, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

Flair?

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The other day, when we were talking about ads, I had the tv on for a bit in the afternoon and I looked up just in time to see a young woman sporting a pair of jeans that were definitely flared at the ankle.  I actually backed up the ad to confirm I had seen it correctly.  Not only were the jeans flared out but the word “flare” actually flashed across the screen.  After fifty years it was a little hard to believe that flare jeans have become retro.

I called YA to confirm that flare jeans are “in” but she was very quick (and very vehement) in pointing out that it’s just a little flare that is in, not the huge wide flare jeans that were popular back in the 70s.  I remember the outfit that I put together for the first day back of sophomore year in high school.  Wide faded flare jeans with a “Make Love Not War” sweatshirt and a watch with a huge white wristband.  I thought I was the cat’s meow.  During the time that flared jeans were popular, I altered a few of mine by slitting open the leg and expanding the flare with bright patterned material.  All the rage!

YA tried to get me to promise not to purchase any flare jeans for myself.  She said “just keep your seventies memories to yourself.”  I’m pretty sure I should be insulted but I can’t quite figure out how.

Anything you’d like to come around again?  Or not?

2022, Business, Food, Gatherings, Music, Seasons, Uncategorized, work

Summer of Love

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Today is the first day of “Summer of Love”.  Ten years ago, the owner of my company unveiled a summer employee appreciate program.  The main components are no dress code (seriously – the printed instructions say “if you can’t get arrested wearing it, it’s good”), 7 half Fridays off with pay, food trucks on Wednesdays and dogs allowed on Fridays.  There are usually three summer concerts as well on the big lawn of Building One, complete with snacks and beverages (of the alcoholic sorts).  Most years we’ve received t-shirts or hats.  It’s a lot of fun.

For opening day of Summer of Love I’m in shorts and one of my State Fair t-shirt collection.  YA actually went to the Memorial Day Mini State Fair yesterday.  Friends had gone the night before and said it was more robust than last year.  But in looking over the website, it didn’t look that much more robust to me, so I passed.  I don’t need any pretend state fairs… I can’t wait.  (I already have tickets for this year – bought them in January.)  YA has reported that the mini state fair was exactly that – mini.

And, of course, zories (flip flops).  To get ready for spring and Summer of Love, I got my zori bin out and straightened it up and re-organized it by color.  My current zori count is 45, although unbelievably enough I don’t have any red ones; the red ones bit the dust last summer.   Guess I’ll have to make a trip to Old Navy soon!

What are you looking forward to this summer?

2022, Baboon Achievers, Baboon Blog Redux, History, Mysteries, The Baboon Congress

Memorial Stats

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I got a tour of the farm on Saturday.  It’s bigger than I was expecting although I think if I laid out all the photos that Ben has taken over the years, I should have probably realized its actual size.  We got to talking about the blog and how many followers we have now and I thought I’d do a Stats Update.

We have 12, 672 followers.  Of course I don’t really know what this means on a day-to-day basis except that at some point in the past 12 years, since Dale started up the Trail Baboon, 12,672 folks have hit the Follow Trail Baboon button.  One of the things I do know is that having all these followers does NOT mean that 12K folks are reading the trail every day.

Most days we have somewhere between 200-240 views from 60-70 visitors – that includes us.  The average number of views is 2.46 to 3.25.   The average number of comments the last couple of years is 50.  Sunday is the slowest day on the Trail.  And for reasons that pass understanding, Wednesday is typically the busiest.  I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the days that generate the most comments are book days, music days and food days.

Over the years we’ve had visitors from 202 countries.  Pretty remarkable since Google says there are currently 193 countries in the world!   US has the highest number of visitors, followed by India, the UK,  Canada and then Spain.  The countries with the least are Gabon, Sint Maarten and Chad (just 1 visitor each).

The Trail is a more subdued space these days, but relatively stable.  Our least busy year was 2016, when Dale was cutting back and preparing to retire from the Trail.  2021 was the most active year since baboons took control.  One of the most interesting things I discovered while researching the stats is how many of us kept the blog going while Dale was on sabbatical the summer of 2015 and then during 2016 when he was tapering off.  This is not meant as a heavy-handed hint – although any pieces would be happily accepted by me and Renee – just an interesting phase of our history.

Any fun memories to go along with the Stats on this Memorial Day?

2022, animals, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Corn is Up!

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Corn is up! The first stuff was planted Saturday the 14th, saw it poking out of the ground Wednesday, the 25th.

I planted it 2.5” deep. I’ve heard a lot of guys saying they only went about 1 ¾” deep because it’s late. Valid point, however, there’s a lot of summer and fall to go yet before we know what the crop will amount to. You don’t want it too shallow or it won’t develop the brace roots later on.

Remember, corn grows out of the seed and the growing point on the corn is still down in the seed and will be for several weeks yet.

A soybean pushes the seed up out of the ground as it grows.

Been cool and rainy the last few days. A wet chicken is a pathetic looking creature. Especially the roosters with their tail feathers all flopped over. Missed the photo, but trust me. They look terrible.  With the hot weather predicted, everything will take off. 

I need about one day yet to finish planting soybeans, whenever it dries up. I had the co-op spread fertilizer for the soybeans and it was incorporated with pre-emergence herbicide. That’s the best way to do soybeans; a pre-emerge spray for grasses, then a later application for broadleaves and whatever else is growing. Never used this method before so I hope it works.

Most guys, after planting soybeans, they go over the field with a big roller to press the rocks down into the dirt, and firm up the seed bed, and just level out the field so that you can cut closer to the ground when harvesting this fall. I don’t have a roller, but last year I used a drag and went over the field to kind of do the same thing, or at least, level it off. This year, I was just trying to get everything planted first and then was going to go over it. Now that there’s about two weeks between the first field and the last field, the first field might already be growing and I don’t want to hit that with the drag as it would rip all the plants out. So that may not get done this year. 

Using my ag cameras system again to monitor the beans in the drill. It’s pretty slick. 

We got the baby chicks outside on Friday. Kelly built an awesome fence and I sat in the gator and offered unsolicited advice.

The lilacs are lovely this year.

We’ve lost one of the black ducks and that’s a bummer, we really like them. 

I’m leasing straw bales to a friend to use for seating at his daughters wedding. We really hope the weather is nice, both for getting the bales picked up here, lying on the ground there, and picking them up again after the wedding and returning to me. We don’t want them rained on. 

It’s been pretty quiet here this week with all the rain. Not much to report. 

Kelly’s Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill used to have a big picnic and all the families were there. We tried to keep it up after they passed but people get busy and, well, it doesn’t happen anymore. 

Enjoy the weekend!

Talk about a memorable Memorial weekend.

2022, Business, Speeches, Uncategorized, work

The Presentation

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Photo credit: Ben White

In the Events division at my job, the process of getting a travel program going is divided into lots of pie pieces.  We have the folks who source the hotels and write the programs, the folks who program the program websites, the folks who book the air, the folks who write and design the communications, the folks who manage the participants, the folks who go on site and run the program.  Then there’s what I do; from the time a program sells until the participants arrive at their destination, I oversee all the other pieces of pie, getting all the details wrapped up tight so the program runs successfully.

Over the years I’ve been corralled a few times into doing work in other departments; I’ve been successful but I don’t like it much.  A couple of months ago we got the opportunity to bid for a big piece of business with a client that I’ve worked with for 15 years – in fact I’ve done 46 trips for their various regions.  As you can imagine, this opportunity has taken on a life of its own – specs from the client, questions back to them, a preliminary presentation made.  The number of meetings has been alarming, especially since I really don’t have that much input.  Others involved are excited to be doing the work, love the corporate lingo and are happy to be jumping through all the necessary hoops.  I completely understand this work has to be done but it doesn’t ring my bell.  So I smile, answer any questions asked of me and multi-task.  It really makes me appreciate zoom meetings.

The notification that we made the initial cut and have a presentation date slated came down on Tuesday.   We had a meeting on Wednesday – I knew this would be the meeting in which decisions were made about who would be part of the presentation.  I’ve been dreading this prospect for weeks; while I certainly wouldn’t be tasked with heading up the presentation, I worried that with my overwhelming experience on the account, they would think I would be handy to have in the room.  Not my cup of tea and the idea of flying to the east coast for two days for this presentation doesn’t excite me at all.

They didn’t ask me.  I can’t tell anybody at work how relieved I am not to be part of the presentation team.  But I can tell you all – I am very happy to stay home.  I’m not even going to grouse about the fact that there are two “practice” meetings that I have been asked to attend, even though I’m not practicing.  Phew!

What topic could you give a 30-minute presentation on without any preparation?

2022, animals, Business, home, pets, Technology

The Dog Gate Conundrum

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Last week I bought a fold up free-standing gate.  The dog behaviorist has finally made me realize that I am not going to “fix” Guinevere so that she doesn’t wake up violently when the kitty jumps down from the windowsill in the middle of the night.  That means I have to solve how to keep the kitty safe.   It’s always a pretty short scenario; Nimue thumps down on the floor, Guinevere startles awake and lunges.  Then Guinevere wakes up and it’s over. 

We tried keeping Nimue in YA’s room but kitty does not like being imprisoned all night.  After all she does her best hunting in the wee hours.  Then we put Guinevere in YA’s room but then the dog whined all night and scratched at the door.

So now we have a pretty white, fairly heavy free-standing gate in my room that separates where the kitty jumps down from my bed, where the dog hangs out all night.  It’s only been a few days so Nimue hasn’t quite figured it all out, but I expect in the next few days, she’ll have it worked out.

That’s not really what I’m here to talk about.  What I’m here to talk about is that it’s been over a week since I ordered this thing and today I have seen at least SIX ads recommending various dog gates.  Oh and an ad for a pet door.  I’ve probably said this before, but if the computers are so smart and connected into my life to know I’m looking at dog gates, then why aren’t they smart enough to know I already bought the darn thing.  Do they think I need lots and lots of dog gates?  I hate to think what would happen if I returned it – what pop-up ads would I get then?

Have you ever worked retail?  Any good stories?

animals, books, Fantasy, Food, Mysteries, Nature, pets, Uncategorized

Large House Cats?

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Last November there was a post that I clipped part of and have kept on my desktop.  I don’t remember what we were talking about but this string always intrigued me:

Part of the reason it has stuck with me is that it reminds me of two books.  My dad loved everything written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, especially the John Carter/Mars series, so I’ve read quite a few as well.  In the Gods of Mars series, the Therns have bamboozled another species, the Barsoomians, luring them with the promise of a journey to paradise, when in fact, they just get captured and eaten.  My father and I had some long conversations about this; he thought it was the best justification for being a vegetarian he had ever read.

The other book that our conversation reminds me of is The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell.  Also science fiction and a similar scenario in which the traveling Earthman discovers that the dominant species eats the non-dominant, although to his eye, they are both sentient beings.  There is also a VERY disturbing sub-plot in which the Earthman is basically kept as a pet and from his (and the reader’s) perspective, abused and maimed, although his “owner” fairly easily deflects and explains those actions away.  And it was believable.  Way too believable.  It took me a few years to work up the nerve to read the next book in the series.

Even though all these memories got dredged up back in November, I still thought it was a funny exchange. Although I’m pretty sure I’m already the pet of my cat Nimue….

What’s the most exotic animal you’ve ever fantasized about getting as a pet?