Monday Morning Staff Meeting

Once again it's time for the Monday Morning Staff Meeting. Wow, the past week really flew by. I gots lots done around the homestead and that's a good feeling. So much more to do before the snow flies!

The Other Mother went out and bought a pie yesterday but I am NOT going to be serving it this morning. Why? Because it's a store bought pumpkin pie and there's nothing worse on this planet. All I can say is EWWWWWWW.

With all this talk of snack food this week I've decided to serve fresh-from-the-fryer potato chips.



These are Jiminy Chips, produced at the compact potato chip factory inside our local Italian food market. Do you remember when we went on a field trip there?

FIELD TRIP - POTATO CHIP FACTORY

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I want to those of you who shared your hurricane Irene story with us.

ELIZABETH said:

We live in Springfield, MA which is about 1 1/2 hours north of NYC. It's raining awfully hard right now and the wind is beginning to pick up. My husband and I have been through a few hurricanes but never one that has come this close to home.

We both are struck by how slow the darn thing is moving...18/20 mph. Feels like it is taking forever to get here and go pass. We expect to lose power at any time and hope that it isn't out to long.

The tornado that went through Spfld. in June missed us but a severe thunderstorm on July 26 with
65mph winds took out 6 30ft. maples in our yard. Between the record snowfall in Jan/Feb, the tornado, the earthquake last week (which we felt) and now this...we are all exhausted with what Mother Nature has been throwing at us.

P.S. On the bright side of things, I now have lots less leaves to rake come October :)


I agree, Mother Nature has thrown alot at you this year already.

Millicent's son lives in Manhattan:

My son lives in midtown Manhattan. He didn't get horrific problems ~ no power outage, etc. He did say that a neighbor across the street didn't have their window unit secured enough, and it fell about 3a.m. Loud bang, cracked sidewalk. I'm not sure how far it fell. A street sign (large one) came off its pole and clanged down the street bouncing off the pavement and into the air many times. It hit a car and broke glass and dented it. Otherwise, all is well for him. Thank God.

We are so glad he is safe.

My friend in Marilyn in Norfolk, Virginia emailed me to say that they weathered the storm without major damage or losing power.

Thanks everyone for checking in.

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If you read Jen Rizzo's blog then you've already seen this. It's so amazing that I had to share.

I've been doing calligraphy for years, and taught it at several points in the last 30 years. I was sad to hear that schools have stopped teaching cursive handwriting but happy to know that some homeschoolers are including it in their curriculum.

Back in the day handwriting was a part of our day and we practiced and practiced and practiced. Something about the act of forming the letters, watching them appears as my fountain pen tracked across the paper. I still use a fountain pen and sometimes clerks look at it as if it was an archaeological artifact!

Fonts and typefaces are an artform in my book. It takes engineering skill to create a new font. Look at my header. That's a favorite of mine called The King and Queen.

Dana Tanamachi is a graphic designer and freelance chalk artist living in Brooklyn. Here's one of her projects:



I sent this along to a graphic artist friend of mine and she didn't quite understand what she was looking at. To her it looked like a label. But no, these are BIG works. Here's Dana standing by one of her designs.



I madly in love with this idea and I'm going to try a small piece myself.

Here's what another chalk artist has created.



Chalkboard architectural elements behind the bar.

Stay tuned. I'll see what I can put together.

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That's all from me today. How about you? Anything new in your life? Is your day as busy as mine is shaping up to be?

Riders on the Storm

Doesn't that song title bring back memories?

Several of my online friends and pen pals are riding out the storm on the east coast. That makes them riders on the storm in my book.

Marilyn in Norfolk checked in to say that they had battened down the hatches and were waiting for Irene to throw her worst at them. They have not yet lost power and she's assured us that her kits ready, including GOLDEN OREOS! That's planning ahead. She is originally from Illinois and is knowlegeable in the ways of Biblical thunderstorms, midwestern flooding and tornados.

We've got the TV tuned in to the Weather Channel and we're watching Irene's dreadfully slow march up the coast. I notice one of the big advertisers during this period is Generac, a manufacturer of whole house generators. (Disclaimer - NOPE, Generac isn't paying me either.... DRAT!).

A couple of years after we moved in here a large house was built further up the hill from us. All of a sudden we started having water problems during power outages. We hadn't had the problem before but when the neighbors house was built it totally changed the way the water flowed, diverting alot of the flow in our direction, and the neighbor behind us. We had a small gasoline powered generator that would never start when we needed it. The Farmer would pull and pull on that cord until I was afraid we'd be taking a trip to the hospital in addition to dealing with a sump pump with no power.

Finally we threw in the towel (literally, a rain soaked towel) and decided we were way too old to be dealing with such issues. One power outage in the middle of winter (minus 40 below evening) was the last straw. We could see our breath in under an hour. We marched over to the local home improvement store and purchased a whole house generator. When the power goes out I start counting.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 .... BAM - power! The breaker switches over to a second panel, that trips the motor inside the generator and it starts providing power. The motor inside the unit is powered by natural gas from our gas line. When the power comes back on it seamlessly switches back to the electric grid. It's a big enough unit to run everything in our house - fridge, computers, lights, furnace, everything except the air conditioner.

I won't lie to you, it was an investment. But it was only 1/6th the cost of a power outage induced flood in our basement so to us it was well worth the peace of mind.

So anyway, everyone on the east coast stay safe. Marilyn, you have our permission to open those Oreos and dive in. Desperate times call for desperate measures. My dear friends in Ocean City, Maryland.... you are in my heart and in my mind, always. I'll be praying for you this weekend.

If anyone has Irene storm stories, please feel free to leave them in the comments sections. We'd all love to know what you are experiencing.

Serious Snack Food Addiction

Trips to the grocery store involve a fair amount of stress. I do my best to avoid the snack food aisle, but if I find myself surrounded by snack foods my ability to resist melts away. I love spicy, salty snacks and one of my favorites is pepper and sea salt potato chips.

My serious addiction is for something that's actually quite odd. It's not exactly a case of pica (an eating disorder that is characterized by consuming non-nutritive materials) but on some level it's strange. Here's one of my favorite snacks:



Don't they look like shipping peanuts? You know, those extruded plastic peanuts that stick to everything when you open a box? To be truthful they have the same texture as those peanuts, but they're butter flavored. Paula Deen would be so proud!

They're corn puffs, Chester's corn puffs to be exact.



They're wildly popular. How do I know? They are very rarely on the shelves and for that I'm glad. When I turn the corner into the aisle I'm holding my breath as to whether they're stocked or not.

I know, it's sad.

How about you? Do you have any unusual snack food cravings? Tell me I'm not alone!

Natural Disasters

I'm watching the Weather Channel's coverage of the approach of Irene. It's certainly not going to affect us here in the midwest but I have lots of postcard pen pals on the east coast and I'm concerned for their safety.

I have readers in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Maine. One of the forecast maps shows the hurricane making it's way up the coast all the way to Maine!

Mother nature can sure cause calamity! My friend in California assures me that thunderstorms are a rarity in Southern California. I don't think I could survive without a good thunderstorm every so often.



The thunder and lightning are energetic and exciting, as long as the lightning doesn't hit my house.

On one of my trips to Baltimore the remnants of a hurricane rolled into the area and sat, literally SAT on the place for days. It was a constant rain the like of which I'd never experienced. It wasn't a deluge but constant, constant, constant for days. My friend took us shopping in a little town called Ellicott City which itself was something totally new to me. The shops were very old and built into the side of a huge rock face. The back sides of the shops were literally rock walls. Amazing.

On the other side of the street was a stream flowing downhill, UNDER the shops! That was scary to me. Inside one of the shops we could hear water rushing. I certainly didn't feel safe. The raging stream continued to flow downhill into a river at the bottom of the hill. A quick look revealed all kind of things had washed downstream, including a full sized refrigerator!

I haven't survived a flood and have no desire to. Moving water is one of the most dangerous forces on the planet. Water will have it's way!

My poor friends on the east coast, the same ones that are waiting for the hurricane to arrive, just experienced an earthquake. Yahoo News ran an article that explained the difference between a 5.8 earthquake on the east coast as compared to the same size quake in California, something about the crust and frequencies.

EAST COAST VS. WEST COAST QUAKES

All I know is that the quake we experienced here in Illinois a year-and-a-half ago was not the undulating wave type. It was the BAM - SLAM - knock you out of bed type. The kind that makes you believe that a snow plow has hit the house. That was not an experience I'd like to repeat. The feeling was seriously creepy. I was creeped out for days.

Wildfires and firestorms do not occur around here. Yet another natural disaster I have no desire to experience.

Tornados? Now there's something I know having been in four of them, three here in Illinois and one in San Antonio, Texas. The Texas tornado left me screaming at my co-workers who didn't have much experience with twisters. The weather turned dangerous. The severity, speed and color of the clouds told me what was coming. My co-workers were fascinated and ran to the large plate glass windows. Picture me screaming at the top of my lungs for them to run into the interior rooms as quickly as they could. Huge Air Force transport planes were flipped over like toys on that day.


Clouds roll in over the fields.

But the take-the-cake tornado was the one that the Farmer and I drove inside. Yep, being the adventurous fools that we are and actually not even realizing that a twister had touched down (rain wrapped tornado, late a night) we drove in the outside swirling edge, driving with the storm as it moved parallel to the highway. It was WILD!

I don't remember being afraid because I wasn't aware we were in a tornado. I just remember saying to the Farmer, "This is the WORST thunderstorm I've ever seen!"

Now, there's an understatement. The lighning was crazy. It was like we were in some type of wild nightclub with strobe lights going off in each direction. The Farmer crept along at 5 mph as I guided him along by keeping my eye on the white fog line on the edge of the road. Lightning struck and transformer just as we passed and the entire thing blew up in a shower of fire and sparks.

I think I'm done with tornados.

My thoughts are with those of you on the east coast. Be like a Boy Scout, be prepared, get outta Dodge and stay safe.

I'd love to hear your stories of natural disasters. I think we've all lived through one or two.

Chores - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

It seems I've spent a lifetime trying to impress upon the Farmer just how much behind the scenes work it takes to keep life rolling along smoothly. The problem is generational. We are stuck like glue to the dynamics of the generation in which we were raised.

Those in the generation before us had less advanced appliances, fabrics that required tons of work and less technological advantages. Women generally did not work outside of the home and were therefore CEO's of the homestead.

For my mother's generation keeping a clean home, managing to put us out the door neatly dressed with mended clothing and putting home cooked food on the table was a point of pride. That attitude spilled onto my generation, although things changed a bit as we moved forward through the women's movement.

I appreciate all the shortcuts and labor saving devices that have been developed, especially the advances in fabrics. I can remember my mother sprinkling the clean laundry with water from a bottle with a cork stopper sprinkler head. The clothing would be folded and rolled up and placed in the refrigerator to keep damp and cool until she found time to iron.

OH.... ironing! I love to iron but I remember it being a task of pure drudgery for my mom. We'd steer clear of her on ironing day. For me it's pleasureable to put a Netflix movie on my computer and iron.

The generational clean-house-pride is probably why I am so baffled by stay-at-home moms who have cleaning ladies. Truth be told I'd probably love to have a cleaning lady but it continues to feel wrong in my world view. Some day I'll get over it and come into the 21st century.

Another pleasurable chore is mowing. We have two acres which requires at least two hours on the lawn tractor. I enjoy being outdoors in the fresh air. The noise of the mower does not allow me to appreciate the quiet countryside but the hum of the engine does produce a type of white noise which allows my mind to wander. I've solve many a problem thinking and riding that tractor.

Within minutes of cutting a path down the side yard the birds appear, swirling and diving from all directions. At times they barely miss my head. At first I thought there was a nest nearby that they were protecting. I walked the property, searching in every tree for the nest. There were none to be found. A quick question on an internet forum produced the answer. The beautiful streamlined birds were barn swallows, drawn by the promise of a quick meal.

The mower stirs up insects in the grass and the swallows dive in for the meal. Barn swallows are just beautiful, with creamy undersides, backs and wings covered with blue/black feathers that shimmer in the light. They're so graceful and sleek, with forked swallowtails.

How about you? Are you stuck in a generational rut? Do you have favorite chores and those you dread?

Personally, I'll wash dishes all day by hand rather than unload that dishwasher!

Monday Morning Staff Meeting

Good morning everyone. It's been a long time since we've held a Monday Morning staff meeting.

This morning we're going to be sharing some apple pie a la mode. Help yourself. I apologize that this is a store bought pie but the crust is quite good, flaky and light.

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Grab the September edition of Country Living magazine, or maybe you have a subscription. Fellow northern Illinois blogger Jen Rizzo's kitchen makeover is included. She had a vision and created a wonderful and warm space.

The most important part of the article to me is that fact that they included the budget. I love looking at beautiful kitchens but always tell myself, "That's got to be impossible to accomplish on a small budget." Well, Jen shows how it's done.

First she shows you how to build a kitchen island.

KITCHEN ISLAND

Here's her original "oak cave".


Source: Jennifer Rizzo

They saved money by painting the cabinets themselves and installing wood countertops rather than granite.


Source: Jennifer Rizzo

It just goes to show what you can accomplish with a vision and some hard work.

Congratulations Jen on your article in Country Living!

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The Help..

Have you read it? Have you seen the movie?

A friend and I are going to see it tomorrow. I finished reading the book in two days. Well, I wasn't working and just couldn't help but engage in a reading binge.

I liked the book but it was fiction and you know the problems I have with fiction. It seemed very true to the times, believe me I remember them vividly but I kept referring in my mind to Stephen King's book on writing. He bemoans the fact that authors rely on plot mechanisms that they chart out ahead of time and in this book I could see all those mechanisms at work. YIKES!!! A mind like mine can really pull all the enjoyment out of something. I can't help myself. HA.

SPOILERS AHEAD....skip down if necessary.

The "pie" part of the plot simply did not work. I could see that she was building a way that the maids could escape unscathed from their actions. That's not how life, revolution and progress work. There was a price to be paid and at the time it was bitter and dangerous. Someone like Hilly would never keep that a secret, certainly not from her husband who would have exacted revenge.

I do applaud the message that it was people who were brave and willing to put their necks (literally) on the line for equality. In some cases it was not an act of defiance. Rosa Parks was not a revolutionary. She's stated many times that she was just TIRED. She just was bone tired and didn't feel like giving up her seat. She never got on that bus to become a hero or to propel a movement.

By the way, the civil rights movement was actually sparked by the murder of Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who was killed in Mississippi in 1955. His mother insisted on a public funeral, open casket with journalists present. Her insistance propelled the movement into existence.

The Help did bring back memories for me because as a kid being raised in the Chicago area, going to the deep rural south in the 50's was like going to the moon. The culture was so foreign to me. Don't me wrong, racism existed in the big city north but we lived in an integrated community and racism was more underground.

I'm glad that author Catherine Stockett was able to give the help a voice. I am anxious to see the movie because I believe in the hands of talented actors this story will be awesome.

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Do you sew? Would you like to help some neighbors in need?

I'm speaking of our neighbors in Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. They're not right around the corner from us, but they are still our neighbors in need.

There are upwards of 14,000 families who have lost everything, including all their holiday decorations. Think about how you would feel if all those ornaments your children made over the years were destroyed? Christmas is fast approaching and these families could use the comfort of a handmade Christmas stocking.

Craft Hope has launched the Christmas in Dixie for tornado survivors project. You can help by creating a handmade stocking and mailing it off before September 23rd. The project coordinators will make sure they are delivered before Christmas. They are asking for standard size stockings (not minis) with a loop on the top and possibly a blank space for monogramming at a later date.

Complete information can be found here:

CHRISTMAS IN DIXIE PROJECT

There are plenty of free stocking patterns online.

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Have a great day everyone. Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to visit with me.

Chicken Scratch

Yesterday we talked about aprons. Vee had a question about the aprons in this photo.



This apron is an examples of what is called chicken scratch embroidery. This involves doing cross stitch embroidery on a piece of gingham and creates different effects.

Vee asked, "Have you ever tried the chicken scratch embroidery for aprons?"

No, I have not. This is also on my list of things to try. I love doing hand sewing so this would be pleasurable and relaxing. Here's a close up.



This apron came from a church rummage sale and it's different than any others I've seen because this one has white rick rack applied to the fabric using embroider stitches. This was alot of work!

Have you ever tried chicken scratching? Have you ever sewn an apron? There are tons of patterns available and the fabric stores run sales that allow you to pick them up for as low as 99 cents. If you are a novice sewer, an apron is one of the easiest things to sew but still allowing you to gain some skills.

Here are a few of my favorite patterns:

Simplicity 4282 - Vintage style half and full aprons. One view includes directions for chicken scratch. Another view is an old fashioned smock-type apron with pockets. (six different aprons)

See & Sew B-5411 - Two styles of half-aprons. One has a ruffle at the bottom.

Butterick B5436 - Four style of aprons, two half aprons and two full. These aprons are sized from small (8-10) to large (16-18). This is a go-to apron pattern for me because of the larger sizes.

McCall's M6366 - Two full circle skirt half aprons and two full aprons. More modern style.

McCall's M6255 - Is your child wanting an apron, or asking to learn how to sew? This pattern is for you. It includes three different views that include patterns for both adult and child sizes. Very cute.

McCall's M6334 - Three styles of aprons, both half and full. This pattern has a twist. It include appliques designs including an owl on a branch, a chicken, tulip and a dress. Fresh and retro-modern style.

My favorite pattern? Mary Mulari's Church Ladies Apron Pattern.
The traditional church ladies apron is a classic and just screams "good food - nurturing found here"! This pattern is one size fits most and can be made reversible. I found the pattern at a quilt shop but it is available online at Mary's shop:

CHURCH LADIES APRON

Challenge yourself. Make an apron!

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Disclaimer: No, I'm not paid by Simplicity or McCalls. Downy fabric softener doesn't pay me to say good things about their Downy ball either. DRAT! It's OK. I don't have enough readers to be a paid product endorser or get my own cooking show on TV but I can assure you that it's better to be small and actually KNOW your readers. Many of you are pen pals and I appreciate your support and friendship.

A Yard or Less of Fabric

I sew alot. My vintage sewing machines have thousands and thousands of miles on them. They are my trusty steeds.

The main focus of my sewing efforts are aprons. I was so happy to see them make a comeback because my grandmother and mom my always wore aprons. My grandmother's apron was utilitarian. My mom had a workhorse apron in the kitchen but I distinctly remember her changing just before guests arrived. She'd don a fancy hostess apron.

These aprons were made of dressy fabrics such as voile or netting and were more of a fashion accessory than clothing protection.

Aprons are symbols of nurturing, sustenance, love and the solid base that is a home.

My friend sent me the following piece, knowing my love for aprons, both new and vintage. I do not know the author, but I wanted to share it nonetheless.

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I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few. It was easier to wash aprons than dresses and the used less material. But, along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying childrens tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.



When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

When the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot stove.



Chips and kindling wood were brought into the house in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had falled from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dush in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out on the porch, waved her apron and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields for dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace the old-time apron that served so many purposes.

Did you cringe a little bit at some of these uses? Did you think about how many germs were on that apron?

Well, I can tell you I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron.

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Did this piece bring back some memories for you? It did for me and not just of my grandmother but also my mom and my aunts. I'm grateful for alll the wonderful, strong and talented women in my life.

My aunt in the panhandle of Florida cooked fabulous meals on a wood cookstove, bringing in the wood and kindling in her apron. She didn't even have electricity!


Florida panhandle - Circa 1953

My other aunt was horrible crippled by a virulent form of arthritis and yet she'd don her apron, make butter in a glass jar churn and cook a huge midday meal for all the farm hands.

Here's to the apron and what it represents.

The Lowest Low of High Tech

If high tech is a ladder, I'm on the lowest low rung.

My cellphone is positively high tech to me because when I was growing up even the idea of a cellphone was in the realm of science fiction. No, not in the realm, it WAS science fiction.

Recently I had to get a new battery because the old one simply wouldn't take a charge anymore.

"Hmmmmm," said the very young girl at the phone store. "I haven't seen one like this in a very long time."



That's right honey. It's old, it still works and I haven't had a contract in probably five years.

"Did you know you can get the latest phone for free? Just sign up for a 20 year contract and you can have a phone that does everything for you. Why, you can get an app that allows you to simply speak into the phone and it will do a web search for you. Watch this...... Kim Kardashian. Look at all these hits."

"Ummmmmm, no thanks," I assured her. "I'm not going to live 20 years anyway and I kinda like doing my own web searches, certainly not for any Kardashian."

My phone takes calls and makes calls. Oh, and occasionally gets a voicemail. That's it. I did figure out how to take a photograph and save it as a screensaver. This is a cool apron I saw in the bathroom of a kitchen shop in Hot Springs. I give myself an A+ for somehow figuring that out.



Low tech extends into the house also. I'm very happy to have a modern washing machine. My grandmother would have killed for one in her youth. She was the one in charge of scrubbing the clothes on a washboard in the nearby stream where she grew up in Tennessee.

Last year our old faithful machine finally gave out after 25 or 26 years of faithful service. Todd, our appliance repairman, came out and pronounced the machine beyond hope. I had been spying those slick, beautiful front loaders. I was dreaming about them, in fact. Todd warned me off. He said that he's doing $$$$ repairs on them as soon as three years into their life. He suggested buying the bottom of the line Whirlpool. Does the work, no bells or whistles.

It worked for us because, at the time the Farmer was newly unemployed. An $1,100 washing machine was not in the cards for us. So off I trudged to the local Sears appliance store and soon the bottom rung of the high tech washing appliances made it's way into our home. They forgot to mention the noise. This machine sounds like a machine gun when it's in the wash cycle. Ditto for the rinse cycle. OK, I can just close the laundry door and think about all the bucks we save.

There's just one more problem. No bells and whistles, remember? The handy-dandy fabric softener dispenser was non-existent. Drats. I hate having to catch the machine between cycles.

That's where this cool little thing comes in.



It's a fabric softener dispenser and it's positively, fabulously, low-tech and wonderful. You put in the correct amount of softener (store-bought or homemade) and pull the plug shut.



You toss it into the washer at the beginning of the wash cycle and magically it opens and dispenses the softener during the rinse cycle.



I just LOVE inventors. I guess that the motion of the spinning breaks the seal and allows the softener to escape. It's just a crazy little amazing piece of plastic.

I think it was $1.59.

How about you? Are you lower rung high tech or top of the ladder high tech?

"

Past Little Egypt

Thanks to everyone who took time to think about the geography puzzle I posed in my last post.

Susan, I wish we'd gone to Italy or cruised the Mediterranean. I mention a different continent to throw a red herring in the mix. It's just so funny to me that all those exotic sounding names are towns right here in the middle of America.

Sandra, you got it right! We drove down the far eastern edge of Missouri, following the curve of the Mississippi River. Along the way we pass towns in Missouri and across the river in southern Illinois.

Herculaneum, Missouri
Sparta, Illinois
Vienna, Illinois
Thebes, Illinois
Karnak, Illinois
and.... Cairo, Illinois

That's just a few of the names. Southern Illinois is known as Little Egypt. The name may have come about when poor harvest to the north forced people to Southern Illinois to buy grain. Other people claim it was because the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers resemble the Nile Delta.

We passed through New Madrid, site of four very large earthquakes. The largest caused bells to ring in Boston and Toronto, and topple chimneys in Maine! The earthquake changed the course of the Mississippi River and also created Reelfoot Lake.

We headed on down to Memphis and turned west to our final destination - Hot Springs, Arkansas.

It's a heck of a drive to buy some Blue Plate Mayo, but nothing else will do.



Our trip this time was packed with things we needed to do but I managed to squeeze in a massage and the Farmer got in a round of golf. The Mother (my mom) went with us and visited with some of the friends she made while living there. The Other Mother stayed home and tore her rooms apart in a kind of delayed spring cleaning.

We brought two souvenirs back home with us, a $12 pipe wrench which was used to retrieve the Farmer's partial plate from the drain, and an Arkansas state ccokie cutter!

Stick Horse Cowgirls - I promise that on our next visit to Arkansas we'll meet up and have ribs at Shorty Smalls.

What have I been up to?

No good, that's for sure!

I have a job. More about that another day, just know that it's seriously cutting into my creative time. I'm feeling the itch because I'm just not sewing and crocheting as much as I'd like. My hands need to be busier than my brain. That's when I'm the happiest.

Want to play a little guessing game? It's fun. You get to guess where the Farmer and I went on vacation. I think I mentioned that we went south but that could mean alot of things. There are thousands and thousands of places south of northern Illinois and just because I said south doesn't mean that it was on this continent.

I'll give you a couple of clues. To get to our destination we passed through Herculaneum, which was west of Sparta, northwest of Cypress, Vienna, Karnak and Thebes!

We also passed through the place that felt one of the strongest earthquakes in written history.

How ar eyour geography skills? Can you guess? It's tricky.

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Finally the incredible heat has dissipated and the cooler temperatures mean we're not as cranky. I'm really afraid to look at the next electric bill, it's going to be ugly.

Thanks to Tess who has alerted me to the Russian spam bandits who have left comments in Cyrillic text. That's scary because I have no clue what it says. I think I've deleted them all. It's strange because Bloggers spam net catches most of that stuff but for some reason the Russian is sneeking through. Hopefully they're not trying to sell the Farmer a Russian bride! He don't need no bride, that's for sure.

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OK, it's date night around here which means we're headed to the free concert in the park. Does your town have something similar? We love these free concerts and it's such a treat for everyone who's feeling a pinch in the wallet. Unfortunately, the entertainment budget is the first to feel the hit.

Thanks for you patience because this blog has been languishing a bit while I struggle to get my creative voice back. Some of the bloggers on my reading list are taking and break and that's something I can understand. But, I was thinking, wouldn't it be sad if the only ones left standing were the paid bloggers, or those who are earning money by blogging? I just think the bloggers-without-agendas are much more interesting.

Have a great day everyone. Talk to you soon. Don't forget to put your thinking caps on.

Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation

Do you remember that vintage movie? If not, please try to rent it because it's a funny look at what disasters can strike a vacation.




Did we have a Mr. Hobbs vacation? Yes, we did!!

Consider this a vacation postcard without the photo. The Other Mother has moved a ton of furniture into my sewing room because she's having her carpets cleaned. She's jammed stuff into the nook where my old computer sits. This is the machine that I use to process my photos. Darn.

Some of you might have guessed we went south for a week. It was HOT but it was equally hot at home too. We rented a house that allowed pets (there were only two available) and from our experience these pet-friendly houses are quite basic. The home had been somewhat remodeled but the laminate floor had a definited downward slope in the kitchen. Thankfully I did not spot a single spider in the place.

The bathroom had an odd shower that required you to walk into before you could turn the water on, meaning that you got a blast of cold water. Yikes. This bathroom also had another problem. The sink was missing the drain stopper. This is the kind of black hole that swallows beautiful diamond rings or expensive dental work.

What do you think happened? Do you think my diamond went down the drain while I was washing my hands? NO....... the Farmer lost his partial bridge when he was brushing it clean. That's over $1,500 of dental work down the drain. OOOPS.

He immediately shut the water off and forbad anyone from using the sink. A quick trip to the hardware store and $14 dollars later he had a pipe wrench in hand and went to work retrieving the bridge. Can you imagine it sitting in the bottom of that drain? Yuck.

Plunk.... out it fell and I went to work sanitizing it without melting the plastic because we didn't want to compound the disaster.

Disaster struck again when the Farmer went to put the plumbing back together. The plastic pipe cracked. Back to the hardware store and a few bucks later all was well. For awhile, that is.

Food poisoning followed soon after. More about that later.

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Thanks to all my loyal readers who have sent me postcards from their summer vacations. I feel like I've taken more than one trip this summer and that's a good thing.