Category Archives: Family

Family, Nature, News, Technology, Weather

Fall Back

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It’s that time of year again; Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow and we all (well most of us anyway) in the U.S. get to fall back an hour.

Apparently in all the years that we’ve had DST (starting during World War I and then reinstituted during World War II), no one has been able to do a definite study that proves one way or the other that DST saves energy. It’s a bit of a pain; way too many clocks if you count all the electronics and the clock on the stove is very finicky. Last spring it took me almost 5 minutes to get it changed.

There is one big benefit of DST at our house; we use it as a reminder to change the batteries in our smoke detectors and our carbon monoxide detector. Because of this we know that the batteries are always in good shape.

What are you going to do with your extra hour?  (apologies to Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, USVI, Guam and Samoa)

Family, Food, holidays, Kids, Weather

Trick or Treaters?

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I love Halloween. Not the original All Hallow’s Eve, but what it has morphed into: the costumes, the candy, the jack-o-lanterns. Even as an adult, I love to dress up (today I dressed as the Crocodile Hunter, complete with a large upholstery foam crocodile that draped over my shoulders).  I have a lovely decorative flag of a full moon with bats, a wonderful huge ceramic jack-o-lantern with the letters of our last name as the mouth and a whole bunch of Halloween luminaries that YA and I made when she was younger. (I’m not crazy about all the gory horror films that get trotted out at this time of year, but that’s another story.)

Unfortunately the reality of the trick-or-treat experience these days is not as much fun as I would have it be. I live on a busy street with a lot of folks who don’t leave their lights on; this keeps the foot traffic down. This year has a couple more strikes against it: it’s a school night and it’s REALLY REALLY cold.  I normally only get about 25 trick or treaters.  This year I only got 15 before I finally closed up shop.  The last 5 kids got a huge handful of candy each!

When has a holiday disappointed you?

Family, History, Uncategorized

Strange Happenings

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When she was a little girl of about 5, my best friend took piano lessons. Her father was the hired man who lived with his family in a small house on the farm yard next to the farm owner’s  house.  The owner’s house  was a very old, very large, well-appointed, two-story farm house with an enormous attic. It had been in the owner’s family for several generations.  My friend didn’t have a piano, but the elderly farm owner did, and he let my friend practice on his piano in his parlor.

My friend complained to the farm owners’ wife that she wished the old woman who came and listened to her practice would just go away, as she found her presence kind of upsetting. The owner’s wife asked my friend to describe the woman.  Friend did so, and after that, the owner’s wife came and sat in the parlor while Friend practiced, as the old woman my friend described had been dead for many years and was the owner’s grandmother. Friend had never seen a photo of the woman, and  everyone assumed she had seen her ghost. I am not making this up.

Strange things happen. What have you had trouble explaining?

 

Family, Food, pets, Travel, Uncategorized

Free Time

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Husband loaded his pickup on Monday of this week and headed to Denver to see his dad and stepmom. His dad is in an assisted living facility due to Alzheimer’s Disease, and he hasn’t seen him for a year. Husband returns home  later today.

I am accustomed to Husband spending time away from home during the week when he works on the Reservation.  He is usually home on Friday, and it was strange not having him here yesterday.  Strange, yet somewhat restful,  since yesterday was the first Friday for eons that it was the end of the week, I was at home, and we were not planning what to cook for the weekend.

Husband is a compulsive cook, grocery list maker, and menu planner. I can tell when he is thinking about cooking something.  He has this broody look on his face and gets real quiet. If I ask him what is going on he says “Just a minute”, and, many, many minutes later, he tells me what foods  he wants to prepare.  This only happens when we are at home. He recognizes how odd this is and confesses that he can’t stop thinking about cooking when he is at home.

I got off work early yesterday. I was content to eat ham sandwiches and breakfast cereal. The free time was nice, and I had had a restful afternoon playing with the cats.

What do you like to do in your free time?  What do you find relaxing?

Family, Fifty Words, Food, Travel

Iguana Joe’s!

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Found Iguana Joe’s on our first full night in Aruba. Close to the hotel and a few vegetarian options.  After dinner YA chose a dish with Oreos in it for dessert; she thought it would be a pie with Oreos in the crust.  Turned out to be deep-fried Oreos!

What dessert would be a pleasant surprise for you?

Family, pets, The Future, Uncategorized

Surrender

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Today’s post comes from Crystalbay.

Tonight, I lost the battle. I’m defeated. I give up. For one month, I’ve kept my two kittens blockaded in the bedroom.  I have a big door on one side; no door on the other.  Because I felt they should only be kept in one room for a while, I moved a big bench to close off the opening without a door and nailed in a throw a few inches higher than the bench to fool them into thinking there was no way out.

This worked for a while, then “Trouble” found a way over it, so I nailed the blanket half a foot higher. That worked for a while until tonight when I nailed the blanket up so high that only one foot was still exposed. Trouble climbed over it in seconds, even though I repeatedly squirted him with a water bottle. He’d dart off, then return to finish his task of penetrating the barrier to full freedom in seconds. He didn’t care that I yelled “NO” or that I’d pick him up and toss him back in the room or that I squirted him.  He had no respect or fear at all.

That’s it: they’re both on the loose, terrorizing my old cat upstairs and doing anything that their feline instincts lead them to. I’m defeated. The vet was right about this male Ragdoll and now I’m under their control. Poor old Izzy, whose world was upended a few weeks ago. In just one week, she lost her only friend, Peanut, then was scared into the dungeon below the cottage for days. A few days later, I brought the kittens home, so she lost having me in the bedroom she’d always come into for affection. She spotted the kittens for the first time only two days ago, and spent hours hiding in the bedroom upstairs. Her only comfort in life has been having me, out of guilt, going upstairs to sleep with her every night after the kittens were safely closed in the downstairs bedroom. Now, she’s lost even that.

Now, Trouble, followed by his copycat sister, has claimed the entire cottage as his territory. I’m struggling right now with feeling owned rather than owning these pesky fur balls.

What is the best way to turn defeat into something postive? When have animals or people got the best of you?

Family, Stories, Travel

Airplane Adventures

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Many years ago a client and I had a challenge to each read Hawaii by James Michener before a trip to Maui.  The description of the ship voyage from Boston around the tip of South America to Maui and the space that passengers were allotted made me vow to never complain about air travel.  So the following is not complaining, just a detailing of our adventure.

We left the house at 5:15 a.m. so that we would be at the airport 3 hours ahead. All the industry talk for the last couple of months has been about how long the security lines at MSP have been due to re-vamping of the system.  Well, I’m here to tell you that they are now re-vamped and 3 hours is about 2 hours too long.  Thank goodness for solitaire on my laptop and Candy Crush on YA’s phone.

Discount ticketing meant we had 3 flights and I was on edge a little about flights departing late. Luckily our first flight went off without a hitch.  When we got to Dallas our connecting gate was the farthest gate from our arrival gate.  We had carry-on luggage so it was a long haul.  But that flight was on time as well.  So far so good.

Then we got to Miami, where things started to get interesting. Again our two gates were really far apart (no moving sidewalks in Miami).  Then a few minutes before boarding came the announcement about maintenance.  Then came the announcement that they were taking our plane out of service and were looking for a new plane.  Then came the announcement that they found a plane but it was at a different gate – the one we had originally arrived at earlier in the afternoon – on the other side of the airport!  Carry-on luggage was getting really heavy at this point.

The thing that kept us going was that this was our last flight of the day so we didn’t have to worry about missing a connecting flight. It was a bumpy ride and about 2/3 through the flight, a woman got sick and they asked for medical assistance.  YA thinks the woman was having a panic attack – they brought on a paramedic when we arrived, but didn’t ask us to stay seated while she was taken off the plane (yes, I’ve had that happen).

We landed in Aruba at 10:15 p.m. making a 17-hour travel day. But compared to 6 weeks in a cramped, damp space on a rocking ship – NO PROBLEM!

Tell me one of your travel adventure stories!

Family, pets, Uncategorized

Surplus

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Today Husband and I brought home our new kitten, Millie, a 5 month old tortie terror who loves to climb and is very, very active.

 

 

I have always maintained special play towers for cats are a waste of time, money, and space, and that cats will just ignore them and play with a paper bag instead.

We picked this up just after getting the kitten from the vet. I know in my heart it is an unnecessary purchase, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if she climbed all over it?

I regret buying more things as we think about downsizing and reducing our possessions.  We just can’t keep this up (but what if she really likes it and climbs all over it?).

How do you talk yourself into unnecessary purchases?  What is your plan for simplifying and reducing?

Family, Food, History, Uncategorized

Pin Feathers

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My mother didn’t cook much, but she was a good cook who really cared how her dishes turned out.  She was particularly fussy about her chicken. When I was a very little girl, mom would buy chicken from the meat man in the back of Nelson’s department store. The chicken came whole and was wrapped in white butcher paper.

She usually cut up the chicken she bought and baked the pieces. I have vivid memories of her holding each piece over an open flame on the gas stove to remove any possible remaining pin feathers that were missed when the chicken was processed.  There usually weren’t any such feathers, but it was something she had learned growing up on the farm, and she always did it.

Husband and I like to get big roasting chickens, but they have been hard to come by lately. In desperation the other week we took a chance and bought a “Southern Hen” in Walmart. It was indeed from the deep South in Alabama. It was the right size (about 9 pounds), and we decided to cook it whole in the slow cooker.

The roasters we usually buy are nicely processed and have clean skins with no pin feathers.  I would have needed a blow torch to remove the feathers and quills from our Southern Hen. I tried a lighter to no avail, and ended up laboriously removing it all with a needle nosed pliers.   My mother would have been appalled.  I guess they have different standards in chicken processing in the South.

The meat was tasty, but I made sure every bit of skin was removed and discarded once the chicken was thoroughly cooked. Husband has indicated that it might be nice to keep a few  chickens in our retirement. Our experience with our Southern Hen makes me think otherwise.

What do you remember about family food ways  from your childhood?

Family, Food, gardening, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

A Hill of Beans

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Husband and I returned home from Minneapolis last Sunday to find that it was time to harvest our pole beans.  We had covered the four bean towers with a tarp before we left, and hoped we could forestall the effects of a killing freeze until we returned.  The very hot weather we had in July pushed the entire garden behind schedule, and the beans needed as much time as they could get to mature. We grew Good Mother Stallard and  Petaluma Gold beans.

We first encountered shell beans when we lived in southern Indiana.  Shell beans are like dried beans  (think cannellini and pinto beans) before you dry them.  They are fat and sweet and buttery. The pods are long and bulging. Our favorite is Vermont Speckled Cranberry Beans, but there seemed to be a shortage of seed last Spring, so we grew the two other varieties.  Good Mother Stallard is the quintessential New England  heirloom bean.  Petaluma Gold was a good variety that we grew several  years ago.  People sometimes let them dry on the vine and store them in bags, but  we like to harvest them before they dry and store them in the freezer. They are terrific in soups and stews.  They are also so pretty before you cook them. The header photo is some of the Good Mother Stallard we harvested.

It got so cold here while we were gone that the bean vines died despite the huge tarp we covered them with. The pods did not freeze, however, so we spent Monday night shelling the beans and blanching and freezing them.  My thumbs hurt from shelling them.

I realize that our obsession with pole beans is sort of odd, but they are such good beans. Husband gets gout from beans, but he insists we have them in the garden every year.

What are you obsessed with? Who have you known who had obsessions?