Pirate Treasure

I got a catalog with this picture on the cover. I'm guessing someone is wishing they'd picked a different theme for April.

Downsized

We originally got a TV dish antenna because we had no reception at all with just "rabbit ears." Then there were over a hundred channels, most of which were sports and no good to us, but it still seemed like a good deal because even watching a dozen of the hundreds availible was better than nothing at all. But for the past seveal months, I've noticed that whenever I'm in the mood to watch some TV, there's nothing on the schedule that looks worth watching, or worse, I know it's not worth watching because I've already seen it. Then once a month comes the bill. I'm paying THAT much and not enjoying it?????? So last weekend, I went online and "downsized" the TV package. We still get access to some news, the FOOD channel and the Science channel. It's only been a week, but so far what this has meant is a whole lot more time for video games while listening to NPR. Can't let the big screen TV go to waste, can I?? Who knows what I'll do with my time when I get tired of video games?

April 14

Saturdays

Why is it that when you have to be somewhere you're ambivalent about, like work or school, getting out of bed in the morning is put off until the last minute? I can remember waking up and realizing it was Saturday and leaping out of bed. Whereas on a school day, I had to be told to get up several times before I would even think about it. This morning, however, being a Saturday, finds me up early and checking the morning paper, having a bowl of Cheerios, and writing this blog while watching the non-threatening snow falling, and listening to NPR. (I hope pledge week is over, but I'm afraid it isn't.)

A snow storm was forecast for this weekend, so I made sure we had some milk and bread in case we got snowed it. I have a new book, a new video game and a pile of laundry to wash. I have made no plans for the weekend because we were going to get a couple feet of snow, but right now the snow is falling so slowly you could follow a single flake from the top of the window to the ground and time it, and it would take a minute and a half. It is so sparse that you have to look twice to be sure it is snowing.

What a let down. Like getting all dressed up and "no place to go." I feel like I should take advantage of the situation and do something productive, but I'm already set in my mind to make a "snow day" of it.

So I'm off to play Zelda:Legend of the Windwalker, followed by a few chapters of William Gibson's new book and a nap before I start the laundry.

Have a Good day, where ever you are.

Snow Day

Here is what the snow day looks like today. Looks kinda pretty actually. As long as you don't have to drive anywhere.

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud !

It's been quite warm this last few days and the snow is melting on our red clay dirt road. Or should I more acuratly say, our red clay mud road. Having already had to pull me out of a snow bank this winter, my husband decided it would be prudent to just leave my car in town and drive me home in his Jeep. He's not quite sure that even his Jeep could pull me out of the muck that passses for a road this week. The ruts look like they are several feet deep, but I'm not going to measure them until they dry out.

I'll keep you posted.

Sad Day

It was snowing yesterday and I was supposed to go to the dentist later in the afternoon. Midmorning the snow was coming down pretty hard and had been all morning. A coworker came from working at one of the schools with the news that Larry's daughter had been killed on the divide in a car accident. I don't know the daughter, but I have worked with Larry for many years now. I had seen his daughter perform her Jingle Dress dance many times; she was a good dancer. Part of the dance is that the drummers will change the beat without warning and the dancer has to respond in midbeat to keep dancing. The drummers will end the song without warning and the dancer has to stop dancing with the last beat. She did. It takes nerves of steel, legs like pistons, and feet that can flirt with the beat. She had them all, and a father who never took his eyes off her when she danced.

After I heard the news, I cancelled my appointment. Hannah and 3 other young people in our community died on the roads yesterday. It was a sad day.

Sunday Roast

Part I
1. Sometime in the morning, put your family sized roast in a slow cooker.
2. Douse with Wostershire sauce.
3. Cook slowly for several hours.
4. Douse with favorite steak sauce.
5. Slow cook until you are hungry or it's dinner time.
6. Pour out the yummy juices from cooking, save for gravy.
7. Fix whatever else, smashed potatoes, veggies, etc.
8. Make yummy gravy.
9. Eat dinner

Part II
Throw all the leftovers into a caserole dish, add more gravy from a jar if necessary. Cover with biscuit topping and bake until all bubbly.

Part III
If there's any leftover caserole, take it to work for lunch.

Part IV
You may not get to part iv if you have a big family and a small roast. But if you have any left, you can slap it on a couple slices of bread and add favorite condiments.

Winter Blues(Blahs)

It has been snowing fitfully all week, like a baby who is crying for no good reason except that she's a baby and it's her right to cry. It's been snowing because it's winter and it's suppose to snow, but winter's heart just isn't in it this year. It is easily distracted by the sun and wind it's just muddy and cold. Maybe spring will take it more seriously.

As you can probably guess, not much is going on around here, not when all I can think of to write about is the weather. I did finish the taxes yesterday, got a good start on a new course catalog at work and almost finished my Lego Batman game, a game which I may never finish as only the tricksy things are left. Our elementary school was canceled for the week as they cleaned up after a fire in one of the rooms. No one was hurt and only one room was damaged in the fire, but the smoke was toxic and needed to be cleared out before kids returned. They should be able to come back tomorrow.

It has been a rather meloncholy week as I remembered my brother, Jimmy and found out that my dad had to make a very hard choice regarding "quality of life" choice that must have been very hard to make, and he had to make it alone.

Maybe there will be something "noteworthy" happening this week. I do have a dentist appointment on Friday. (yawn)

February 10

Guess who's older.

CARma

It's been a mild winter so far, and still is for that matter, but yesterday is not a day I'd care to repeat. It had snowed a little bit and then gotten warm and snow had melted and gotten icy. Our road to the highway is dirt and very steep. So it was no surprise to anyone when I spun on the ice and ended up in a little snow drift and a slight decline on the side of the road, within 20 feet of the highway of course. I was never in any danger or discomfort for that matter, it has been a mild winter. I called my husband from my cell phone and told him what had happened. While I was waiting for him, a high school boy driving a pick up truck stopped and asked if I had a chain so he could help pull me out. I told him, "Thanks, but my husband is on the way." Then my husband showed up with the jeep and a tow rope. While he was attaching ropes and developing a strategy our neighbor and his wife drove by and stopped to offer help. He went home to get his "Ranger" that had a winch. Together they still couldn't pull me out. I think I was high centered. While they were discussing alternative strategies, a man my husband works with stopped by on his way to work to see what was going on and thought maybe he could give a push while they pulled. The end of the story is that they got me out OK and every one got to work a little late, but safe and unharmed. And I guess it wasn't such a bad day for me. I've got backup when I need it.

Happy Anniversary to US!

Here's to 29 years! We got these cool mugs for Christmas. The spoons fit righ in the handles and there is a built in coster made of silicon so you can put the mugs down on your coffee table without worrying about scortch marks.

Happy New Year

Hope this year is a least as good as last year. Two new, healthy GIRL relatives!! What could top that?

Monkey Feet for Christmas

What every well dressed data monkey should be wearing this year.

Betty's Ham Chowder

Back in 1995 the school where I was working decided to sell cookbooks as a fund raiser for the PTA. Everyone was invited to contribute their favorite recipes. The PTA would type them up and send them off to a publisher and we would sell them and make money for the playground or whatever else the PTA deemed worthy. My mom contributed this recipe and I make it every winter. Bon Appetit!

Ham Chowder
4 lg carrots
4 stalks celery
1 sm onion
4 lg potatoes
5 c. water
2-3 c. diced ham
2 T btr
6 T flour
2 1/2 c. milk
Salt & Pepper to taste

Garnish: Paprika, Parsley

In stock pot cook carrots, celery, onion and potatoes in 5 c. water until tender. 20 min. Add ham, butter, salt & pepper. Blend flour into milk smoothly and stir into soup. Heat, stirring constantly until boils. Turn heat down and allow to simmer partially covered 10 -20 min. Sprinkle with paprika and chopped parsley. Serve with hot garlic bread and a tossed green salad for a complete meal.
( I usually serve with corn bread, but you know, whatever is handy)

Wheel of Fortune

Click on the title of this post to find the #1 song in the country on the day you were born. For me it was Wheel of Fortune by Kay Star.

Find yours and leave it as a comment to this post.

Storytime

Here are some books you must read aloud to your children, emphasis on MUST and ALOUD. They are in no particular order and some of them are appropriate for preschoolers and some are not. They are mostly for children of school age since I read them to children in grades K-4 primarly. You may add your own favorites as comments if you like and I will also add more as I remember them. I must confess that it has been at least 8 years since I've read aloud to a group of children on a regular basis, so the new books are not on my list.

* Hester in the Wild by Sandra Boynton - It's funny.
*Max's Chocolate Chicken by Rosemary Wells - It teaches you to not take yourself too seriously by being funny.
*The Talking Eggs by Robert San Souci - you get to say "You got a spirit of "do right in your soul" , "trail train dresses" and "she took her head off to comb her hair." A classic fairy tale set in the deep American South.
* Brave Irene by William Stieg - Irene qualifies for a heroine by any standards and Stieg can make you weep with pathos while he's making you groan at his melodrama.
* Dr. DeSoto by William Steig. The small mouse dentist, out of compasion, treats a fox with a bad toothache. You get to say "mmmmm how good they would be sauted with a dry, white wine" , "permeate the dentine" and "frank u berry mush." Steig's books celebrate the power of the small and powerless to overcome evil by being armed with their innocence and their native wit.
*Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" ditto on the pathos and melodrama. I swear one little boy was near tears over the plight of Sylvester, a donkey who had turned into a rock by wishing on a magic pebble. I had to rush to finish so he would know it had a happy ending. (Stieig's style is simple and eloquent)
*CDB by Willam Steig - read this one as soon as your child learns his/her alphabet so s/he can read a book by him/herself.
*Redwall by Brian Jacques. The first two chapters are a study of style by describing ultimate innocence and ulitmate evil . Also read the chapters about the hero living with the sparras. I can still remember the battle and I haven't read the book for 15 years.
*Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli - Huck Finn channels Ulysses. Afer running away from a loveless foster home, Maniac looks for a home of his own. You get to say " Maniac, Maniac, he's so cool, Maniac Maniac kissed a bull."
*Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman. I have no idea why the kids liked this book. I hated it. They would listen spellbound, I was internally yawning.
*BFG by Roald Dahl. You get to talk funny because the big, friendly giant says things backwards and he drinks fizzy lifting drinks. The bubbles in the drink go from top to bottom, so instead of making you burp, they make you . . . . .
*Witches by Roald Dahl. You get to talk with a Swedish accent as the grandmother and then do some really nasty, evil accent as the Witch. Plus the little boy in the story is brave and clever and a good role model.

The Night the House Didn't Burn Down

First of all, there was no fire, never was a fire. Relax.

About a week ago, the end of the Thanksgiving Weekend, we were sleeping soundly when an alarm went off in the house. Thinking that it was the alarm clock, I reached up to turn it off. I hit the button that usually turns it off and then hit a few other buttons. My husband finally said, "I think it's the smoke alarm." Then the alarm stopped. I went back to sleep. It had been a long weekend. I was tired. It went off again and again I tried to turn off the alarm clock, hitting buttons in a futile attempt to stop the noise so I could go back to sleep. Once more the noise stopped and I went back to sleep. When it happened again, my husband got up to turn off the smoke alarm. It had happened before, that the alarm went off when there was no reason for it to go off. Before it had been a big bug or dust or something like that. The alarm is plugged into the wall, so there are no batteries to change. When he came back to bed he said, " I unplugged it." "Good. Was there any smoke?" "I didn't check." So he got back up to make sure there wasn't any smoke. There wasn't. We went back to sleep until the "real" alarm went off at 6:00. I turned it off with no problem and I went back to sleep. It had been a long night. I was tired. About 6:30, my husband came in and said, "It's late, 6:30." I groaned and got out of bed, took a shower, got dressed and went to the kitchen to see if I had time for breakfast. My husband took his turn in the shower. I looked at the kitchen clock to see if I had time for breakfast and it was 5:55! What! Don't tell me the battery int he kitchen clock died ! I check several other clocks in the house and they all had variations of 5:55. It seems that in my attempts to turn off the alarm clock I had reset the time. So not only was the night's sleep broken by smoke alarms, but we were up, showered and dressed an hour early!!!!!! It was a long day.

But the house didn't burn down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Who's bringing the cranberry sauce?

D'oh!

So I get to work about my usual time, 7:45. The clock on the wall says about 5:50 or there abouts. I notice it and say to self, "Huh, the clock must have stopped. Probably the battery died." I go into my office where I have an "atomic" clock and it's about 7:50. I get my computer fired up and check mail, voice messages on the phone and the phone rings.

It's my fellow office worker who lives in Lame Deer. She says, "I'm running late, the power was off last night, my alarm didn't go off and I overslept."

"Oh," I say. "That explains the clock being off." Then I notice that the clock now says 6:oo and there is a cord hanging down the wall. Not dead batteries. Back to my desk I go. Gotta get things done. Phone rings again. It's about 8:00 by now.

"Hi, Ann. I'm trying to log on to READ 180 and it says it can't connect."

"Oh,the power was off. Maybe the server didn't reset yet. I'll get it." D'OH!!!!! None of the servers are on yet! They're all waiting patiently to be turned on, logged on or reset. The phone starts ringing in ernest now. Nothing is working and people are starting to log on.

Moral of the story. Next time I get to work and the clock "died" CHECK THE SERVERS! On the other hand. If no one knew the servers were off, how would they know how clever I was to turn them back on?????