Monday Morning Staff Meeting

It's that time again! The Monday Morning Staff Meeting. This week I'm going to be making omelettes for everyone, so put in your order. I've got plenty of fresh eggs and all kinds of fixings. Let me know how you like your omelette. Or, if you prefer, I can whip up some French toast.


Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings kitchen, Cross Creek, Florida.


That kitchen pictured above is one of my favorite kitchens, ever! There's not an inch of granite in sight. Everything is functional, nothing is for show, just for producing wonderful meals from fresh ingredients.

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This week I'm going to institute a new feature called:

The Comment Spammer Comedy Hour

First of all, in all the years I have been blogging (photoblog began in 2005), I can count on one hand the number of spam comments I received until recently. All of a sudden, comment spam is falling down like manna from heaven. Those little spam robots (or whoever) work like little pixies in the night. First thing in the morning I'm got another batch of goofy stuff to delete.

Some of it is actually quite funny. It definitely has that ring of gobbledy gook spit out by one of those online translators. For your amusement I present the two top runners from this week's batch.

Contender #1 -

Yes if the truth be known, in some moments I can bruit about that I agree with you, but you may be in the light of other options. To the article there is quiet a suspect as you did in the decrease delivery of this solicitation.

I noticed the axiom you suffer with not used. Or you profit by the pitch-dark methods of inspiriting of the resource. I suffer with a week and do necheg.

I can honestly say that no one has ever heard that particular combination of words and syntax EVER BEFORE in the history of man.

Contender #2 -

Opulently I acquiesce in but I think the brief should acquire more info then it has. '

UH HUH.

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To balance out this bizarre comment trend I received two really nice e-mails from readers. You know who you are!

I am always happy to get e-mails. Comments too, although I'm under a time crunch lately and haven't had much time to answer your comments. Forgive?

Someone asked about my blog design and "signature" at the bottom. Believe me, I know just enough about the computer to get by, but web design and code is way over my head. My blog was designed by Chelsea at Aqua Poppy Designs. Go over to her site and check it out. She's got plenty of free backgrounds and also offers custom design service.

She was wonderful to work with and she also coordinated the header for my Etsy shop.

AQUA POPPY DESIGNS

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Do you remember when I gave away the book, Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?

Kat was the winner and now I'm happy to report that she's passing the book along to someone else. Now's your chance if you still want to read it. Visit her blog and leave a comment as to whether you prefer to read new books or used books. Do this by Wednesday, February 10th. She'll be drawing on Thursday, February 12.

It's her first giveaway and it's in conjunction with her 100th post. Congratulations on the milestone!

THE BOBWHITES

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There's another new blog on the block!

Sharon promised that she'd let me know when she had her blog up and running. Sharon and her family are dairy farmers and her blog is called, Farm and Fru Fru.


I love her tag line, "Living creatively with cows". It's worth a read to see exactly how you do that. The fru-fru part must come from the fact that she's outnumbered - a husband and two sons and messy cows means you're going to need to assert your feminine side.

Visit her at:

FARM AND FRU FRU

I'm going to mention here that farmers work very, very hard. It's hard, physical work. But almost every farmer I know will admit that dairy farmers work VERY, VERY hard. Whereas, farmers who grow crops have some down time, dairy farmers have NO down time. Think about it. Their crop is milk. The crop comes in twice a day. Every day. On Sunday. On holidays. On the days when your niece is getting married. Vacations? HUH, what's that? Who's gonna babysit a heard of thirty bovines?

Seriously. I'm thankful each time I pour a glass of 2% that these families are committed to what they do.

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I'm going to give you an assigment this week. I feel like the tape recorder voice on Mission Impossible - -

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to use the following phrase in a sentence in the next week."

"It's so good it makes you smack your grandmammy."

Yep, that's it. One of my grandmother's favorite phrases. How would you use it? Well, it's used when you eat something so delicious you need to exclaim the fact, so you say, "It's so good it makes you smack your grandmammy!"

Smacking your grandmammy means giving her a big, thankful kiss.

Try it. Find something delicious. Make the exclamation and see what people say. Will they ask what you mean? I bet they will. It's a conversation starter for sure.

Report back to me next week.

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That's all from me. The meeting is now yours. Do with it what you will, but please, no comment spam syntax please.

We're Not Here

Just a short post this morning because the Farmer and I are hitting the road.

We're traveling about an hour and a half from here to Tampico, Illinois for the annual birthday celebration for Ronald Reagan. He would have been 99 years old and Tampico is his birthplace.

Pat Tabor baked the cake last year.



Here are two of the volunteers, Shirley and Bertha.



I'll be sure to post a road trip entry when I process all the photos and write the story. It's a slice of Americana and maybe a piece of pie.\

If you'd like to read about the birthday party we attended last year, go here:

RONALD REAGAN'S 98th BIRTHDAY PARTY

The Firestorm

The perfect firestorm of Karmic Kraziness has descended upon the American midwest.

I have no idea what is going on in the grand scheme of things, but it seems my entire group of friends and my family have been dumped on by the cosmic garbage dump. I'm seriously afraid to talk to anyone for fear of discovering yet another negative scenario playing itself out.

An extended family member has suffered terrible calamites (personal and medical) in the past week, the extent of which are somewhat unbelievable. Let's just say last Friday he lost his job, Saturday an emergency situation arose in which it was determined he needed quadruple bypass surgery and today, one week later he's fighting for his life. If you pray, can you pray?

Having devoured the three real-life adventure books, I'm on another journey. This time with Elizabeth Gilbert.


"Eat, Pray, Love", by Elizabeth Gilbert, 89 cents at Goodwill.

It's no secret that I've got the "Eat" subject covered. In the book "On the Water" the author paddles his way around the eastern half of the continent fueled by nothing more than peanut butter and crackers. It must be a guy thing because I could not imagine paddling a hundred miles without the reward of Linguini Carbonara at the end of the day.

Elizabeth has it right.

Eat.

Eat wonderful food and take pleasure in it's comforting powers. Be a naysayer to those who urge you to abstain from butter and gelato in an effort to promote health. Mental heath and soulful health require that occasionally you immerse yourself in a large plate of chicken and dumplings.



When I called my mom yesterday morning it was obvious the recent events have left her rocky. The elderly are fragile in way that I'm beginning to understand all too well. She's in a senior building with hundreds of apartments. Death stalkss the halls at night and coffee hour mostly brings more bad news. Although she was not particularly close to this extended family member, his youthful age (53) and the painful circumstances shatter the thin shell she's constructed.

She was contemplating a trip to the hospital to sit with his family members.

"No, no!" I said.

"I'm coming out there. We're going to go to lunch and eat chicken and dumplings."



"And biscuits with real butter and honey. We'll share a small dish of fried apples."

She agreed, with little reluctance in her voice. I think she was happy to relieve herself of a self-imposed obligation that would only shatter her further.

"And then we will pray," I continued.

"Not for a whole and undamaged body to be restored because that night not be an option. We'll pray that everyone who loves him will be given the strength to handle whatever comes next and he will be given strength to face his challenges."

After lunch we returned to her 14th floor apartment. I mentally swept the hallway of those deathly spirits and we sat in silence, looking out over the monotonous winter landscape,



...... and thought about love. A daughter's love for her father, now lying in a hospital bed, a mother's love for her daughter who is facing the loss of her father in his whole and untouched self, the love of a grandmother who feels for both of them.

Eat.

Pray.

Love.

Repairs-R-Us

One of the problems with buying a new home is that at some point in the future everything begins to break down, usually at the same time.

Our home is 20 years old and things need to be replaced, repaired or updated. We've tried to stay ahead of the curve on these issues but it can get away from you very quickly. When we started the work on the basement we decided to be proactive and replace the water heater before it decided to die of it's own accord.

A broken water heater is the first homeowner disaster I faced in my tiny condo. I came home from work one day to find a flood of water in the kitchen and dining room. The water heater had broken and all the contents were soaking the floors.

I'm amazed when I think of that place because it has occurred to me that the entire condo would fit in our three car garage. I don't remember it feeling cramped. It was a nice space for one person and certainly an improvement over some of the apartments I'd lived in.

Every disaster increases your knowledge and my second learning experience was when I noticed the floors in the living room were damp. The mystery was that the dampness was only in a narrow area under each window. DUH.... the windows needed to be caulked on the exterior of the unit. Who knew? Certainly not a 26-year-old single woman.

Unfortunately for me, the same breakdown rule applies to my collection of cameras. When I got back into photography about 7 years ago, I started buying some cameras and now, one by one, they are breaking down. As I've mentioned many times I'm a big, BIG fan of low-tech. The old film cameras, with heavy materials and few moving parts, are the workhorses. But the digitals provide speed and low cost operation. Working with film can get quite expensive.

In the middle of putting our daughter through college I managed to scrape together money to buy a Nikon D70. At the time, my camera was superior to those being used by the photographers at the newspaper where I worked. I was in heaven. With a large memory card I could take 1,000 photos. I became more selective after I realized that upon returning home I'd need to deal with 1,000 photos.

I also bought a mid-range digital Fuji to take on vacations and a small point-and-click to keep in my handbag. The cameras have been trusted friends but their life and their workings were ticking away. The salesperson at the camera shop warned me that the Nikon would be incredibly expensive to repair, up to $400 for the simplest repair and $75 for a simple cleaning. Of course he was pitching some type of extended one-year warrantee plan. The chances of the camera breaking down within a year were slim and the cost of the camera was dear and my budget could not accomodate the cost.

Of course, the expensive Nikon was the first to develop a problem, six years into it's life. It has been sitting in it's camera bag for many, many months as I dreaded the idea of repair. There was simply no wiggle room to support a $400 repair.

Then one day I accompanied the Farmer to a doctor's appointment. While he had his ears checked, I read magazines in the lobby. In the back of a National Geographic Adventure (or travel) publication was an ad for a camera company based out of nearby suburban Chicago town. The touted themselves as being the choice of professionals, that they repaired cameras and had them back to you in 3 or 4 working days.

That sounded expensive.

The ad included their website address, which I scribbled on a scrap of paper. It certainly didn't hurt to check them out. I was surprised that they offered a free estimate. You describe the problem and they estimate what the repair would cost. To my amazement the estimate was only $100 and to my further amazement that included cleaning.

The Best Boss Ever always told us that in order to be successful you need great customer service and you need to EXCEED your customer's expectations. United Camera has certainly achieved both of those goals. For $10 they send you a shipping kit. This arrived two days after deciding to have them repair the camera.



It includes a shipping box, peanuts, bubble wrap, pre-paid UPS sticker and instructions.



I packed up the camera and dropped it off at a one of those pack-and-ship offices. The next day I received an e-mail that they'd received the camera and confirmed that the fix would only be $100.

That was Friday. Yesterday (Monday) I received a follow-up e-mail that my camera was on it's way back to me. Unbelievable service.

The Best Boss Ever also told us that a happy customer will tell 4 or 5 friends about their experience but an unhappy customer will tell up to 30 people. I've always strived to tip that scale in the opposite direction, telling everyone about a good experience and always, always, complimenting employees and businesses on a job well done.

I am now a huge fan of United Camera. The little Fuji has now given up the ghost and he'll be sent off to United in the very near future.

Got a broken camera? Check them out.

UNITED CAMERA IN CHICAGO

This post is all about repairing things and extending their life. Have you had to repair anything lately?

Do you live by the old saying....

Use it up
wear it out
make it do
do without.

Monday Morning Staff Meeting

Thank goodness the Farmer's alarm clock was set, otherwise I would missed the staff meeting.

First thing on the agenda, as always, is FOOD.

This morning we are going to have one of the simplest and delicious concoctions ever invented. It's called Stawberries Chantilly.

Many years ago I was invited to a co-workers apartment for brunch. At the end of the meal she brought out Strawberries Chantilly. I sat there, feeling like the provincial who just fell off the turnip truck. I'd never heard of this delectable delight and it was something in the hostesses attitude (disbelief perhaps?) that made me feel like the unsophisticated twenty-something that I was.

NOTE: Never, ever make your guests feel like they're out of the loop. Inform them with delight, include them, encircle them. They may forget what you served but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Here are the makings of Strawberries Chantilly.



Strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar. That's it.

How can these three simple ingredients add up to such a wonderful treat? They just do.

I dug through my vast collection of serving pieces and was able to find a miniature sugar bowl for each and everyone of you. That way you can double dip to your heart's content. Double dipping is paramount when you have large strawberries such as these.



Dip the strawberry in the sour cream and touch it into the brown sugar.



Do it again and again until everything is gone.



Dig in and let me know what you think.

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I'm finished with adventure for awhile. In the past two weeks I've walked the Appalachian Trail with Bill Bryson, rowed around the entire eastern half of the United States with........... and been dragged as an enslaved shipwrecked sailor across the Sahara desert.

I am seriously worn out. My feet hurt, my hands hurt and I've decided that extreme heat and hunger is not my thing.

The snow covered landscape of northern Illinois is quite inviting after all.

I want to thank reader Orlin for his tip that TWO gallons of milk should not be stored in the fridge door. He's right and if I'd put some thought into it I would have realized that the weight will indeed cause the door seals to fail. Heck, I love my sponsor but I'm not wanting to order anymore parts just now.

Barbara questioned the leftover wine. The guests didn't drink it all and to tell you the truth, I'm not much of a wine lover. It never fails to give me a headache, no matter how expensive or fine. I'd prefer some hard liquor, specifically a nice cold Tanqueray and tonic with two limes, on the side.

I do love sauces made with wine though so feel free to share those recipes with me.

Speaking of recipes, I have four file boxes filled with recipes and four shelves in our in-home library filled with cookbooks. So tell me, why do I prepare the same things every night for dinner? I think it's because I don't plan menus ahead of time. If I wanted to make one of those recipes in the file, I never have all the ingredients.

Perhaps I should cook along with someone. SCHNITZEL (Susan) would be a good choice. She makes wonderful and interesting dinners for the Trout. Yesterday she was cooking some Rancho Gordo beans from Mexico. I've never heard of them but they sound delicious.

Or the Mennonite girls. Holy cow, those women can cook. Their blog is aptly named MENNONITE GIRLS CAN COOK. Today they're making chicken noodle soup.
Heck yeah!!!

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I truly appreciate each and every one of my readers. Well, except for the comment spammers. I'm preparing a large cauldron of hot tar for their visits.

I do apologize though that my responsibilities around here currently don't leave much time for answering comments. I'm trying to work on that because I believe if you are kind enough to read and leave a comment, it's only polite to acknowledge that.

The Farmer is still unemployed and as you well know, jobs are pretty scarce. I've been looking also but without a degree and at my advanced age the scarcity level goes up. And so, I work to create my own job, make my own luck and affect our future in the best way I can.

I have little tolerance for people who sit around and bemoan their fate. Yes, life can throw you some unexpected and sometimes crushing blows, but we must at least get up and push forward in whatever way we can. There are entire nations of people who do not believe they have any power say in their future and having traveled to some of those places I can attest that it is true. The climate and conditions under which they live dictates that they accept the status quo and they wait endlessly for someone to do for them, instead of doing for themselves.

This is the can-do spirit that Tressa, from AMERICAN IN NORWAY talks about. If you are raised in a culture that is steeped in the idea that you be the architect of your own future, then you are given the gift of hope. At times Trisha is driven to distraction by the laid-back nature of the culture that has a different mindset, not bad, just different.

OK, I don't know where all that came from but I've been thinking lately about how lucky I am to simple be able to fire up a sewing machine and sit in my room and make a difference in my family's life.

It's huge.

Immigrants will tell you.

It's huge.

I am thankful and I'm keenly aware that this is not possible for some women and that I why I donate a portion of my earnings to TRICKLE UP. They provide small loans to women in third world countries so that they can set up a sewing machine in their home, or the supplies to operate a fruit stand in the market. A hand up not a hand out.

Hope. Empowerment.

It's huge.

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Why do my thoughts always return to food?

Yesterday's newspaper contained an article about waffles. I'm not a huge fan of waffles because they always seems so dry and bland. But the author assured me that the waffles served in tiny cabins at the bottom of ski slopes in Vermont, were waffles to die for.

The company is called WAFFLE CABIN and they have locations at ski slopes in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York and Massachusetts.

Drat. I don't ski, I don't snowboard and I don't have the money to travel to Vermont. The author of the newspaper article did provide a recipe that she felt replicated the Waffle Cabin waffle. I'm e-mailing her to request permission to share the recipe with you.

In my kitchen I simply beat some wet and dry ingredients together and slap them on the griddle. Her recipe calls for two different mixtures, a sponge and a paste. There you go, once again I'm feeling like a rube because I've never heard of a "sponge". Well, you learn something new every day.

How about you? Waffles or pancakes when you're out for breakfast?

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Meeting is now in your hands. Let's get to work. What's on your agenda this week?

New Job Descriptiobn

Do you remember when I went down the list of my job description here at the homestead?

JOB DESCRIPTION

It's OK if you don't want to jump over to that post, I'll run down the list.

LAWN CARE SPECIALIST - Mowing and weed whacking 2 acres.


CARPET CLEANING SPECIALIST - We have one of those vacuum cleaner type carpet cleaners. With all the comings and goings and animals, we need it.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER & LABORER - You'd be surprised what skills you've got hidden inside. I leave the plumbing and electrical to the pros but I'm willing to attempt just about anything else.

WATER TREATMENT FACILITY MANAGER - Two words - well water. Yes, we have an entire water treatment facility in our basement. I'm in charge.

SECURITY SYSTEM SPECIALIST - As the furnace repairman said on a recent visit, "Oh, I see you have one of those low-tech, old school security systems. Yep. Two Chihuahua's. If you think anyone is getting in here without all hell breaking loose, you're wrong.

Now I'll add one more item to my job description. It's a surprising one.

APPLIANCE REPAIR PERSON - Nope, not a specialist, just an intern in this department. Normally for appliance repairs I call Randy. He lives nearby and runs the business out of his home. His honest and he doesn't charge an arm and a leg. He gives good honest advice about whether to repair or replace. I like Randy.

But recently I had a problem with my fridge.

The crisper drawers derailed!!



I'll admit that we had them loaded with some pretty heavy stuff during the holidays.


Leftover wine from our holiday parties. Save it and use it in cooking.

The drawers slide on a track that's attached to the upper shelf. The track is pretty sturdy but it finally cracked under the weight.



What to do? Since the Farmer is not working I was dreading a service call. Our budget can't really afford it. And then.....

I received an e-mail from a company that wanted to be a sponsor on my blog. What do they say about serendipity and being at the right place at the right time?

But first, let me tell you that I've had some advertising nightmares on my blog. In an attempt to raise some revenue to upgrade and provide you with interesting field trips I allowed the company that rhymes with "Boogle" to advertising on my blog. They have little computer bots that "listen" to what you're talking about in your posts and then supposedly place appropriate ads.

That's the idea but one day it went terribly wrong. I think I told a funny story about my grandmother's "underpanties". The next thing I know my sister was calling me on my cellphone asking, "Have you seen what's on your blog today".

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"There's an ad on there. I'm pretty sure you don't want that on your blog. You better get home and check it out."

I ran home to discover there was an ad from the "Naughty*Panty*Man". Seriously!!!!

"Boogle" ads were outta there as fast as I could trash the code.

Now I only accept a few sponsors and only those that I personally investigate and would support. Which brings me full circle to the broken rail on my fridge. The very day I was contemplating calling Randy-the-appliance-repairman I opened an e-mail from a company that was looking to partner on my blog.

They sell replacement parts for appliances. Hmmmmm. I checked them out and discovered that they stocked a replacement rail for the fridge and, with shipping it was only $11.00. I ordered the part and it was here in TWO DAYS!



A piece of the plastic on the upper shelf had a hairline crack that we repaired with Gorilla Glue. (More about Gorilla Glue another day). The new rail snapped in place.

HOORAY. The fridge is repaired for $11.00.

They also carry other stuff, like the door shelving, just in case anything happens to them.



If you look at the very top of my sidebar, above the Craft Hope Haiti button you'll see something that says, "Whirlpool Parts". That's my sponsor. Don't be fooled by the title, they carry parts for all models including my Maytag french door fridge.

I found another great company that repairs cameras. I'll you about them another day.

The One that Got Away

Actually, it's the second one that's gotten away in the last year.


The Pink Beauty

About a year ago I had a chance to buy one from the sewing machine guy who sold me Beverly.



But the Farmer had just lost his job and I had a tuition payment looming so I took a pass. I knew that there would be another one appear from somewhere. I haven't seen one on Ebay for quite awhile but I did find one (very affordable too) on Craigslist, but in another state.

I e-mailed the seller and he agreed that he'd be willing to ship it. I asked him to compute the shipping charges and let me know, I'd transfer the money via PayPal. That was the last I heard from him. I didn't follow up. Why? Because something inside told me he wasn't really committed to following through and I have learned over the years to listen to my instincts. And so, she slipped away.

There will be another one on the horizon, one with my name all over it.

Why do I need another machine? It will help me work faster if I have two sisters side-by-side, threaded with different colored threads. Most of my projects take two or three different thread colors and constantly stopping and starting is annoying.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. HA.

Now...... if I have three machines, things will positively spin out of control and I'll be a one-woman factory. That's what I'm telling myself because I have a 1950's LAVENDER machine in the garage that I picked up at Goodwill about a month ago. I've got to get it out to Zoltan-the-retro-sewing-machine-repairman out in Rockford so that he can tune it up and add a new belt.

Three machines. Oh.....four if you count the modern-plastic-multi-stitch-machine that won't sew through anything thicker than toilet paper.

But, who's counting?