Category Archives: home

100 Words, Food, holidays, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Favorite Meals

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Our daughter is home and is relishing being spoiled and waited on. She works hard as an intensive in-home family therapist in Tacoma  and is really burned out right now.  She doesn’t like sea food,  which is unfortunate  given how close she lives  to the sea,  and has been craving beef.  She and I are planning favorite meals for her while she is home.  Roast beef, garlic mashed potatoes, turkey chipotle chowder, and pasta with this special tomato sauce I make are her requests. It is good to have her here.

What were your favorite meals at home?  What didn’t you like?  What special meals does  your  family request?

Family, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Giving and Receiving

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Well, it is Christmas  Day.  We will rendezvous with daughter later this morning in Bismarck  and haul her home. Then we will open presents and she will presumably fall asleep until supper.

We have three presents for her under the tree, and one from her to  her dad. My present from her was a tomten with a 2 feet tall hat that doubles as an Advent calendar.  All we got for each other was our fresh,  mail order  Christmas  tree. Son and family will get their presents next week when we travel to Brookings. I appreciate  that in our family we only get each other simple, useful things. (Daughter believes it is essential that I get something tomten related every year). The cats got nary a present, as they  share the tree with us.

What did you get? What did you give? What were your best and worst Christmas presents ever?

 

 

Art, Family, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Christmas Style

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Our tree is up and decorated, and I am taking a chance and putting out the Christmas  pyramids this year. You can see them in the header photo. The cats have left them alone thus far. I will keep my fingers crossed.  I think we will put the cats in the basement when we light the pyramid candles. I had to put the straw goats up high, since our grey cat likes to chew the wheat berries off their beards.

I never have had a themed tree, one with color coordinated glass balls and bows. No, ours is a mix up of glass, straw,  wood and china ornaments. Some were my parents before I was born. We like having lots of red color in our tree.   I put the tomtens out on the buffet, hang the wreath on the front door, and that is that.  A friend of our daughter who grew up in Stuttgart says our tree looks very German.  It is how my mother decorated  the tree, and I like the style.

What is your Christmas decorating style?

home, News, Uncategorized

Adopt A Hydrant

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Yesterday my city announced an opportunity for the civic minded to demonstrate their devotion to the community.  There are 200 fire hydrants in our city, and we can to select one to care for.  It involves clearing any obstacles from around the hydrant so it is ready to use in emergencies. Only 15 hydrants have been adopted to date.  I can see the wisdom in this, as city workers  are spread too thin to check them all for obstructions, and neighborhood residents are more likely to notice problems.

I don’t know why this struck me as so funny.  I can think of many city excresences I would like to care for: poorly trimmed trees, obscured street signs, vehicles on snow emergency routes that should have been towed but weren’t,  etc. Give me a Bobcat with a snow shovel and I will clear out problematic snowy intersections.  The possibilities are limitless .

What civic problem would you like to adopt and fix?

Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Spaetzle vs Schnitzel

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Our local Walmart store management  tore  out most of the checkout aisles and installed several dozen  self-checkout kiosks.  I refuse to use them, which means I have to  put up with long lines and long waits while my icecream  melts.

Husband and I were in line the other day conversing about a spaetzle-aspragus recipe, when the woman in front of us asked what exactly  spaetzle was. She and her husband had been chatting up the cashier, who happened to be from the same Hispanic community they were from near Bakersfield, CA.  She said she had heard of it but didn’t know what it was. I explained, and then cautioned her that it was different than schnitzel, and then I explained what forms that could take.  She had heard of that, too. Behind us in line was an elderly neighbor from a block over from our house who takes long walks in the neighborhood and wanted to know if we got our produce in. She said she loved watching our garden.

Shopping is a social outing for us, and reinforces our sense of community. We aimed to be Community Psychologists, so I guess things are working  out.

What communities do you belong to?

 

 

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Art, Family, home, Uncategorized

Lost Arts

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Several years ago Husband and I were in a Fargo furniture store where we purchased a pair of lovely table lamps. They are Tiffany  glass and mica and go well with the Mission/Craftsman style furniture we have in our bedroom. They sit on either side of the bed.

I have had some buyer’s remorse since we purchased them as I didn’t take into account how fragile the shades are. Both Husband and I have  accidentally whacked the shades. I even knocked one on to the floor one morning. That resulted in a dent in the base of  the shade.

Stained glass artisans are not very common out here. We had one in Hettinger, about 80 miles south of us, but she retired a couple of years ago. She worked a lot on stained glass windows in local churches. I am fortunate that one of my coworkers is an artsy person and does some stained glass work, and was able to fix my shade.

We used to have furniture refinishers  and clock repairers out here, but no more.   There are a couple of  upholsterers in town.  They are old guys who I assume will retire one of these days. Then what?  I worry about too many arts lost.

Where do you get things fixed?  What lost arts would you like to see revived?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baboon Achievers, Family, Food, holidays, home, Seasons, Uncategorized

Cookie Making Machine

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Normally I spread holiday baking out over a week or so, but this year with Thanksgiving being so late this year along with a work trip next week, I don’t have as much time as usual. So yesterday and today I am a cookie-making machine!

I marked all my recipes in their various books and then went through and made an ingredient list. The shopping went pretty quickly, although I did need to hit two stores.  No Andes Mints or good peanut butter at the first store.  Except for getting our tree on Friday (the only shopping I’m willing to do on Black Friday), I’ve been doing pretty much nothing but measuring, stirring, shaping and baking.  The tins are starting to pile up on the front porch; it’s like having a walk-in freezer.  I don’t know if I’ll get all of them done before my trip, but that’s my goal.  Here is this year’s list:

    • Anna’s Chocolate Chip (yes, our Anna) – using mini red and green candies
    • Pecan Meltaways
    • Vanilla Walnut Crescents
    • Peanut Butter Bon Bons
    • Peanut Butter Blossoms
    • Soft Gingerbread
    • White Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprints
    • Spritz
    • Mint Surprises
    • Derby Cookies
    • Milk Chocolate Fudge
    • Milk Chocolate/PB Fudge

That should keep us in cookies until 2020!

Tell me your very favorite holiday cookie.

Baboon Achievers, Family, gardening, Gatherings, holidays, home, Kids, Nature, Seasons, Stories, The Baboon Congress, Uncategorized

Day of Thanks

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It’s Thanksgiving.

  • I’m grateful that thanks to Mother Nature, I don’t have to worry about any more raking for awhile. Or pruning.
  • I’m thankful that although I don’t have a working chimney right now (until repairs in spring – maybe), I do have a working chimney liner, thus heat.
  • I’m grateful that Nonny is still spry and vibrant, and coming to visit in a couple of weeks.
  • I’m thankful that YA’s foot is healing nicely and she can now get around on her own, drive and go back to work.
  • I’m grateful that most of my friends and loved ones afflicted with the big “c” have beat it back with a stick and am thankful that this community was able to surround the friend and loved one who didn’t with caring and support.
  • I’m thankful that I haven’t thrown my new cell phone out the window (yet).
  • I’m grateful that usually once a day a stranger shows me kindness (even if it’s just stopping on Lyndale so I can either pull into or out of my driveway).

Enough about me. Anything good on your grateful list this year?

Business, Family, Food, home, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized, Weather

Preparedness?

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It’s Tuesday afternoon and folks all around me are panicking. In the last hour I’ve overheard at least 5 different conversations about how much snow we’re likely to get in the next 24 hours.  Our boss has declared tomorrow a “work-at-home” day so the office will be officially closed.  YA has texted me to please stop on the way home to pick up a couple of boxes of macaroni and cheese.  Even Nonny has called from St. Louis to tell me she’s glad she’s coming to visit in December this year and not this week. And I see from the Weather Channel that the coming storm now has a name – Dorothy.

I just can’t get worked up about this. There have been many times that extreme weather has been forecast and then never arrives.  Or arrives in a dribble.   I’ll take my laptop home just in case and will probably stop and get YA’s mac and cheese, but I don’t think I’ll be investing any emotional energy in a winter storm.  I live in Minnesota – we get winter storms.  Snow shovels, snow blower, salt – all at the ready for whenever they are needed at this time of year.

How will you be entertaining yourself if the big snow comes?

100 Words, Family, Food, holidays, home, Kids, Seasons, Stories, Uncategorized

Ask Me Why

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If you asked YA if traditions were important to her, she would emphatically say “No”. So ask me why I am making a whole batch of iced sugar cookies in the shapes of leaves this week (and airbrushed in autumn colors)?  Or trying to find the iconic green bean casserole recipe for Thanksgiving day?  Or why we’re going to get a tree on Black Friday, even though I’m going out of town two days later?

Any traditions you’d like to leave by the wayside?