When I was a sick kid

Back in the day (way back) when I was a child and got sick, the first thing my mother did was make sure my room was clean so I could be sick in a neat, clean place.  Tidy bedroom, brown paper bag pinned to the side of my bed for kleenex disposal and The Jungle Book all prepped and ready for her to read it to me.

On the face of it that might seem like a good thing but in reality it set up a series of conflicts that have endured to this day (way beyond my childhood).

I'm not supposed to be sick in a place that:

Needs vacuuming - but I'm already sick

Needs dusting - but I'm already sick

Has laundry that needs doing - but I'm already sick!

Has dirty dishes in the sink - see above

None of these things can be done retroactively so I'm left wallowing in a miasma of indecision.

Should I try to drag myself together and at least hit the high spots when mostly I just want to sit down and fast forward to "I'm better now, that wasn't so bad"?

Should I try to convince myself that dirty is a relative term?  Years ago my brother told me that my dirty was cleaner than my clean used to be - that's the sort of things a brother says to warp your mind.

In reality I do pretty much not much.  Find a project (my Facebook friends know what that is this time - the great hat explosion) that doesn't require much effort and only a modicum of thinking and settle in for the 3 days that in my opinion is all it should take to get over anything.

Everyone has their own approach to handling sickness by themselves -  who among my no doubt dwindling followers is fortunate enough to have the house in spick and span condition when that tickle in your throat turns into the real deal?  Not a chance, right?

So keep a few ready made meals in the freezer, train the dog to think that 2 short walks a day really is enough and settle in to enjoy whatever affliction afflicts you.

As I'm so fond of saying,

You got this!

A bit of whining

Yup, it got me.  The annual cold - one minute I'm enjoying the idea that I rarely get sick and the next that little tickles starts in the back of my throat.  I jump into action with essential oils, chicken soup and lots of fluids.

The cold wins.

And I think I know why they call it a "cold" - nothing you do gets you warm!  Triple layers of fleece and jackets, hats (in the house even) and a blanket when you sit down - you tend to spend a lot of time coaxing the dog to please come and sit on your lap.

The good news is my "emergency box" has all the right stuff when the chicken soup doesn't make the grade.  And my freezer has enough home made meals so all I have to do is heat them up. 

I love having a little foresight almost as much as I would have loved NOT having a cold!

So I'm spending a lot of Netflix time while crocheting hats for who knows who.  Just the exercise of trying to follow the You Tube videos keeps my mind engaged while the kleenex  piles up next to my chair.

Periodically duty calls and dog and I venture forth for walkies - with the weather the way it's been lately (read: too damn cold) the walks are short and brisk.  I spent them trying to convince dog that he can do it all within 20 feet while he spends them trying to get as much sniffing as possible before his time is up.

Hopefully the few who might still be waiting for words of wisdom from this blog will allow a little whining - I hate being sick and I hate even more having to spend more than 5 minutes getting better!

Enjoy your holidays and keep a supply of chicken soup just in case.

Christmas

It looms on the horizon like a cloud - for some people it's a big fluffy white cloud filled with streaks of sunshine.

They love love love the idea of finding and buying the perfect gift for all the people on their list.  Hopefully at 40% off.

For others it's a time of anxiety and stress.  More like a storm cloud on the edge of their vision.

Sometimes it's because of past holidays that didn't work out as planned and other times it's caused by something as simple as lack of money or time to find that "perfect" gift.

Have we thought of what we can do ourselves to make Christmas more meaningful?  How about the things we can make or do ourselves that our family and friends would really love to have.

Back in the day when money was incredibly tight I used to fall back on the things I learned in 4-H of all places!  I could make an apron (yeah, ok, no one wears them any more but this was a long time ago) out of a piece of leftover material, I could make a pomander out of an orange and some clove buds.

 In a pinch I could always make jam or jelly or cranberry relish.

Or pickles from things out of my garden (or even vegetables bought at the local farmer's market).

I still make the jam, jellies, relishes and pickles and there is truly rejoicing from the favored ones on that list!

If we can't do all of this sort of thing, there is always the gift of time.  This is not an original idea I admit - but an IOU for a few hours of babysitting, or one for "I will help you clean up your house cause I know you've been sick and sore" would almost without doubt bring a smile (and a sense of relief) to the person who opens that card!

How about a pledge to take a friend who can no longer drive to the store on a regular basis - it's not as if you're not going anyhow, right?  Or even a promise to go DO that dreaded shopping (especially if they can give you pictures of exactly what they need).

Personally at my stage in life I avoid giving gifts for the sake of giving "something" so I can check that person off my list.  And on the receiving end?  I'd rather receive something that is disposable (like into my stomach) than something I feel obligated to display, use and even worse - DUST!

So before you throw money at the situation, think what you might give that is meaningful, thoughtful and, BTW, does not have to be dusted!

New stuff & other things

Ever notice how we (I at least) get in a rut of cooking the same things over and over?  They are usually good, they are easy and they are "known".  No kitchen surprises here!

That can be either comforting or boring, depending on how you look at it.

Lately I've been taking a walk on the wild side - sort of.

Facebook (heaven help us) is a never ending resource of recipes - both ones to make your mouth water and some to widen your hips just looking at them!

Anyhow, here are a couple of dishes that I have tried and one that is still looming on my culinary horizon:

                                                          Black Pepper Chicken

My first thought on this one was it must be steak/beef - can't be chicken.  But it is and it is beef looking from the marinade.  It actually was easy to make and, depending on how much pepper you use, easy on the stomach.  I loved it!  And who would have thought a marinade of 1/2 soy sauce and 1/2 white vinegar along w/a little honey could be so good!

                                                       Garlic Butter Mushrooms

I love mushrooms and what's not to like about garlic?  Win/win!  Mine didn't come out as browned as the picture but still tasty.

                                                                      Garlic Shrimp

This one is still on the future plan - love shrimp, love garlic - gotta be good!

Tried some new jams this fall also - some I'm going to give away, some I'm going to throw away!  That happens sometimes and you never succeed if you don't try.

                                                          Pineapple Habenaro Jam

The recipe said it might take a while to "set" - I don't think I'm going to live long enough to see that happen but still very tasty.  Put a little over some cream cheese on a cracker and you're in a spicy nirvana.

Way too many hot peppers this summer/fall

- so I tried a few vinegar experiments and hot sauces - all guaranteed at the very least to take the enamel off your teeth!

                                                                Tabasco vinegar

                                                                Cayenne Hot Sauce

I still have a considerable number of peppers ripening in the greenhouse - who knew you could cut the plants and bring them in before a frost and they would continue to ripen!

I will probably dry most of them and grind them into pepper flakes.

It's been a fall of experimenting and staying close to home and hearth (well, I have no hearth but you get the idea) and trying to put a positive spin on a world that sometimes just seems like it's spinning with no particular idea where it's going.  Some days I swear I wonder if it's all random.

On a totally different subject, our Rally Obedience instructor's daughter made a wonderful collage of our class and we all got a picture of the whole class along with one of our individual dog.  What a fun and wonderful gift - maybe the world is spinning ok after all!

 A perfect representation of my dog's attitude.    They do say a dog and it's owner grow more and more alike as time goes by - just sayin!

I went to camp this weekend

It's close up the camp for the winter time.

Packed up the dog and the essentials and headed north to get the perishables out before my "guy up north" closed the place up for me.

It wasn't a great weekend forecast - ok, it really looked yucky (I think the guy on CH13 out of Portland actually used that word) but if you wait too long you can end up with things like a frozen (read: broken) toilet if there is a quick freeze.

Also like to get the leaves off the back deck so they didn't just sit and rot the wood all winter.

They claimed the first nor'easter of the season was on the way bringing high winds and snow and rain and sleet and every other kind of crap weather with it so it was a good time to hunker down and wait it out.

It's quiet up there in the woods even during a storm - you hear the rain on the roof and sometimes the wind gets busy enough so you hear it through the log walls, but mostly it's quiet.  You can actually hear the birds flying overhead if you are lucky enough to be outside when they pass.

So everything turned on and the furnace started and a bowl of hot soup for lunch - settle down for the real purpose of the visit.

Doing nothing.

Not totally nothing - rake the leaves away from the deck,  take the dog out once in a while and walk down the hill to the road to move some of the branches driven over on the way in, use the shop vac to suck up the errant fly or dead ant that always seem to be there and settle back down to read.

Somehow if you are home it's not acceptable to just sit and read - your Yankee conscience tells you that "you should be doing something".   The voice of my mother in my ear.  At camp, once the essentials are covered, there is nothing to do so that voice is quieter than usual!

There's no real point to this post - just to touch base with the few of you who actually still read the sometimes drivel that I write.  It was a good weekend - I got a lot of nothing done and waded another few hundred pages through the Outlander series that I'm re-reading.  Joey had a great time napping on the couch and alternating pestering me with his "throw the ball, throw the ball, throw the BALL" mantra.

Yeah, the power did go out around 8 pm that last night but the bed was warm and things actually came back on around 1 am so I was not doomed to leave without even having coffee in the morning.

So camp is closed and a lot of nothing got done - win/win!

On a lighter note

First hard frost last night - actually it's still going on.  Happy to find that the porch was dry enough so it wasn't a skating rink!  Some mornings taking the dog out is more of a challenge than I'm up to in the first 15 minutes of awakeness!

The trees will now be finishing the color changes and, sadly, dropping most of their local leaves on my lawns.  If I'm lucky a wind will come up and blow them all into the woods - I'm still waiting for the year that happens.  :)

Took the leaf tour a couple weekends ago - I haven't seen color this beautiful in a lot of years.

In a change of direction I drove up through Crawford Notch - usually I go the other way for the sweeping views down the notch when you come over the top.  Got to see things in a different way (not always a bad thing).

I've stood at the top of Mt Willard at the head of the notch - it looked a lot higher from down here!

The sky was a blue not so often seen in New Hampshire - sometimes the humidity makes it all "muddy" and not so clear.  Today, not a smidge of anything but clear blue and puffy clouds.

Sweeps of breath taking color everywhere!

Even the side roads had something to offer.

And, as in life, sometimes the most wonderful sights are right under your nose -

These colors pop every year within 10 minutes of my house - and the sun makes them glow.

So the point/motto/whatever this time around is yes, you can travel around the state (or the world) looking for wonderful things to see and sometimes just turning around in your own yard will show you something breathtaking or perhaps just fun.

It's been said by those more eloquent than I but take those few seconds to look around and marvel - it rests your soul for sure.

How many does it take?

Just wondering this morning how many extreme weather events happening in places that "it never happened here before" does it take before we take preparing seriously

And:

Make sure we have enough water stored for our families for at least a week (believe me, when the government says "three days"?  I hear "at least a week")

Doesn't have to be fancy - just store it in leftover juice bottles if that's what you have!

Ways to cook that don't depend on electricity being available.  Again it doesn't have to be fancy, we just have to have it before the "event".

I saw an interview on the Weather Channel yesterday.  Woman out looking for water for her family - and that was the third day from Michael hitting the Florida Panhandle.  She was already out of food too.

Which brings me to my next suggestion (yeah, I know - it's really nagging, not just suggesting):  Have some non-perishable food that you can eat without cooking (in case you missed the part about a way to cook)

Yeah, it's not gourmet but it's food and it can, in a pinch, be eaten without cooking.

And, by the way, even if you can get out to the store, what do you think you are going to find?

Yeah..........pretty much nothing. 

Realize that most stores don't stock much - they depend on daily deliveries and in the aftermath of even a small disaster (which Michael the Storm is far from being) deliveries are often impossible for days if not weeks.

So, it's only common sense (see?  I'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt and assuming you have that valuable commodity) to plan ahead, keep extra food in the house and be able to ride out an extended period of time in relative comfort.

All this would also assume that you are able to stay in your house.  Evacuation is an entirely different subject but the most important part of it is this:

IF THE AUTHORITIES TELL YOU TO GET OUT, YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE GONE!

Don't wait, don't waffle, don't argue - LEAVE!

And on that cheery note, please get a plan in place and be ready for the next time we are visited by something "that never happens here"!

Florence

Florence:  a nice ladylike name for a real bitch of a storm.

Part of the issue with storms like this (yup, up on my soapbox again) is that when they downgrade them from a HOLY CRAP CAT 5 coming ashore to a OH WELL IT'S JUST A ONE is that people let their guard down and relax.

From time to time we all do it:  figure that if the weather guys get paid for being wrong (or at least incorrect) half the time, then the chances of them being right drop to 50%.  Forgetting that it still means they have a 50% chance of being right....not wrong.

For days and days we saw her coming - in living color from weather maps, in news clips from the states that were going to be impacted, even in e mails from friends and family telling how they were preparing (or not) for the event.

But how many of us really took in the potential of this storm?

We focused on the coast and the brightest colors...and by "we" I mean most everyone.  How many of us really looked at the spread of this sucker?  And right now even inland far from landfall, things are pretty much under water four days after she "arrived" with the water either still rising or just barely starting to recede.

My point with this short post is that while Florence may only bring us rain in New England this time, our next storm may be a direct hit on us and even if it's "only" rain (and not snow) we need to pay attention and be ready to weather it (pun intended).

So look ahead and see if you have what it's going to take to get through our storms this winter.  You know they're coming, right?

So by "that guy" who can relax while watching the weather channel cause he's already.....ready!

Loose ends - that kind of summer

It used to be I thought I had things to say, ideas to share and, face it, warnings of potential problems to come in our everyday world and, hopefully, ways to be ready for them.

Somehow this summer, it all started to either come apart or disappear!

My life is normally pretty structured: go to doggy obedience school (with the dog),  garden,  try to prepare for things not going as well as hoped and somehow in the middle of all that, keep my friends close and my not so friends at least in sight!

A long time plan to go out to South Dakota in August for 3 weeks pretty much derailed the normal flow of my world.  Not that I didn't want to go, I just actually didn't know how to plan for it - me:  the quintessential planner.

Who

Knew

Along with all the non-planning (not much garden - no canning or pickling or relishes to make) there was travel planning to do - meals en route, apps to put on my phone so we could find fuel and RV parks and not just go blundering around hoping one or both fell into our laps.

What I appear to be getting at is I haven't had what I considered to be a shareable thought for months!  Every time I had a few minutes to think, my brain turned off.

So here we go into another fall season (read: hurricane season to be shortly followed by winter) and I would be remiss in my self-imposed duties if I didn't get back on that soap box and remind you:

Lay in supplies for when you can't get to the store or when the stores are empty (check out the Carolinas right now!)

Make sure you have enough water stored so if you can't get your faucet to provide any, it's not such a big deal.  Doesn't have to be fancy, just available!

Have flashlights handy and keep your car filled at least 1/2 full of fuel - if you need to leave, you need to be able to.  And you need to be able to see your way to do it!

You do not want to be "that guy" who never gets even a little prepared and is caught with his proverbial pants down and/or up that famous creek.

This is a little scattered - ok, a lot scattered - but see if you can at least put your mind to being the one who is ready when something like a bad storm hits - just think - you could be this guy!

So, where would you be right now?

It's summer and the living is easy (so the song says) and I think most of us tend to relegate preparing for emergencies to the "bad" weather of winter.

That being said, where would you be right now if the power went out?

It doesn't really take a blizzard or an ice storm to knock out the power to all of us for a period of time that can vary from hours to days depending on the damage a storm does.

Soooooo....do you have non-perishable food stored that won't be destroyed by an extended power outage?  Better yet, do you have an alternate source of power like a generator - even a portable one that would run the essentials?   Do you have at least some water stored so you can flush and wash and perhaps even cook if you have an alternate method of cooking?

How about lighting?  It gets dark at night even in the summer so flashlights and batteries would be pretty much essential.  Don't like relying on candles for a lot of reasons!  How about a battery operated lantern?

None of these things require a degree in rocket science - just the application of a little common sense.  Without any preparation for an unexpected emergency (and are there any other kinds?) we are all apt to end up:

Yup, up the proverbial creek without a means of propulsion. 

I realize you all must think I've given up trying to get everyone in the same boat (the one WITH paddles) but as a famous general once said "I shall return" - well, I'm back!

PS  Some of you are saying that you would just go to a hotel:  that would have been easier except you forgot to keep your car full of gas...

😄😄😄

Damn if it's not still there!

June 6, 2013 I think is the date I originally mentioned this piece of litter.  I was amazed as the weeks went by not only by the fact that no one picked it up but it never disintegrated.

It got rained on and baked in the sun.

Then it got snowed on and frozen.

And it pretty much never altered at all.  Yeah, sometimes it moved around a little - perhaps a passing car made enough wind to move it or maybe a gully washer of a rain storm actually floated if a few feet.

But it never changed.

And now....it's still there.  Hell, guys, we're talking almost 2 years here!  And whoever threw it out of their car for whatever reason probably doesn't even have the same damn car any more!

I haven't been able to walk my dog up that way since probably last November.  Too much snow, not enough edge of the road and too many people in cars who don't pay any attention to the rest of the world.  So I've been restricted to the dead end road I live on.

Today was the first time I've been up that hill and there it was:  THE TRASH FROM HELL!  Still looking about the same as 2 years ago...who knew?

As I said the last time around, I'm sure that none of us go around throwing trash out our car windows.  But do we do all that we can to avoid adding to the trashing of America?  In other words, do we avoid buying/using plastic whenever we can or do we at least recycle everything we possibly can?

Not just plastic - how about cans and bottles (glass ones) and how about things like toilet paper tubes & cardboard boxes - or even making the choice to buy our eggs in a cardboard (recyclable) container rather than the cute ones you can see through (but that are NOT recyclable)?

Do any of us think ahead to disposing of packaging before we buy an item and at least look to see if there is something comparable in recyclable packaging?

Our oceans are full of trash - most of it plastic if not all of it.  Everywhere we look there is plastic - probably never going to get rid of it all but at least we, as individuals, can do our best to avoid it.

There is a place just outside of Bangor, Maine that I refer to as Mount Bangor - it's a huge manicured grass covered pile of  garbage/trash/whatever you want to call it.

And I bring it to you using the wonder of the Internet:

And I can tell you it's a lot bigger now than when this picture was taken.

So along with remembering to keep out gas tanks at least half full, how about see what we can all do to cut our "plastic footprint". 

P.S.  If you follow the link to the Sunshine Guerrilla blog on the side of my page, my niece Barbara has a ton more good ways to go green.

Even though this year....

Here it is spring again.  At least the calendar says so.  I find it hard to remember a colder more miserable March and April myself.  After the lying promise of February with it's warm weather and sunny skies, it's pretty much your basic cruel hoax to see what the weather has turned into these past few weeks.

I admit to being a Weather Channel junkie - every morning when I am down on the floor trying to convince myself that somehow these stretches and bends and so forth are actually going to miraculously fine tune my body into a lean, mean flexible machine, I watch my buddies on the TV try to convince me that they are actually in the know for at least the next 24 hours. 

(By the way, how's that for a run on sentence?)

Anyhow, it's spring no matter what the weather - the days are getting longer if not that much better and although I swore that this year I would not "garden" with as much enthusiasm as I normally do, I find myself planning where things would grow the best.

Looked at last year's calendar and find that apparently this urge to plant strikes me at about the same time each year.

So, sometime today I will plant at least the peas.  I have a lot of seeds left from last year so the germination may not be all that great.  That just means I'll plant extra and probably end up with too many plants in a small space!

On the other hand, I may plant the beets too - maybe not carrots this year although they've done so well the past couple of years it's worth the extra effort to thin the plants.

And I'll probably make a stab at some greens.  After all, otherwise that little planter will just sit there alone and lonely with nothing growing in it.

And I know that small area will produce almost more greens than I can eat up as they grow.

So, here's your spring nudge:  if you have a little bit of dirt or a couple of big pots, you too could be thinking about where to plant at least a few things.  The seeds are relatively inexpensive considering you end up with actual food that you know (hopefully) isn't covered with pesticides.  Container gardening particularly takes very little effort compared to plowing up the back 40 (even if you have a back 40) so why not take a little while now and make a plan.

I might (later) plant some hot pepper plants out in front of the greenhouse after all.  Shame to let those gardens go to waste.

And pickled peppers are really easy to do....

At any rate, you see how it goes - during the winter I swear I will be more sensible in my gardening - come spring?  Not so much!  So how about take a few minutes to think about an easy place that you can grow a few things to enjoy - be it a small plot of dirt or a couple of pots. 

And don't forget to keep your gas tank at least half full - just sayin!

Little of importance

It's been very quiet here recently.  It seems that in the face of the national news (or non-news, your choice) and the horrific actual news of yet more school shootings that my encouragement for you to keep your supplies up and your gas tanks full rings a bit hollow.

How does a person absorb the hate and discontent that seems to be rampant in our country & translate it into something that doesn't eat their guts out?  Offering reminders of being prepared for bad weather seem, if not puerile, then at least to be avoiding the larger issues.

In all my life I have never seen so many supposed adults who have nothing better to do than pick apart the survivors of the Florida school shooting - call them names that I reserve for my most annoying enemies and suggest things far worse than the words to that old song:

"May the bird of paradise fly up your nose"
"May an elephant caress you with his toes"
"May your wife be plagued with runners in her hose"
"May the bird of paradise fly up your nose"

I am not a praying sort of person - I sometimes send up a few "hopes" for family and friends who are going through hard times and I certainly agree that there is probably some higher power.  All that said, I certainly wish I could believe that all the prayers and hopes that people are slinging at their choice of "those who may be listening" will actually do some good.

So I go to the gym and wish I didn't always have to lighten the load on each machine before I can get it to move.  I go to aerobics, stand in the back so no one can see how little I'm doing.  In between times I try out new and exotic ways to make my back stop hurting and ponder how little I have really learned in all these years about what makes people tick...or tock!

In the meantime, maybe we all go back to the basics as enumerated by that wonderful philosopher  TC who writes the Bangor Police Department Facebook page:  Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people's things alone, and be kind to one another.

That and a full tank of gas will at least get us out of town!

You gotta admit, that flying up your nose would be pretty uncomfortable...just sayin!