It's a good day...

The family is coming in for the weekend, Ryan, Lindsay and Abby will be here this morning. Friends stopping by to say hi, what a great way to spend a January weekend...

A smle for you this morning...

People post the funniest things on FaceBook. This just cracked me up….

GCB (Good Christian Belles)

Looks like there might be some “must see” tv coming to ABC next month. From the creator of Steel Magnolias and the producer of Sex and the City, GCB is the story about a 30 something who is forced to go home and live with mother. Annie Potts, Kristin Chenowith star, and they’re both such good actresses. They’re calling this a Southern Desperate Housewives, Annie Potts says this is a tribute to her late friend, Dixie Carter, it could be interesting…

A warm, fleecy robe on a dreary winter night...

We’ve been out and about today. I used to laugh at Ma because she would always pick her days to run errands, and if the weather was bad she stayed home. Well today we had several things to do, I didn’t even look at the weather, and as soon as we pulled on the highway it started to sleet. The temperatures warmed a bit, but it rained the entire day. I wasn’t dressed that warm, it was windy, cold, miserable, just a raw, January day, and I’m thinking that once again, “Mother knows best.”

We’re at home every day, we don’t have to go out when the weather is bad anymore, but anyway, I come home, take off my clothes and put on my warm robe, turn on the fireplace and it’s pure bliss. Is there anything better than a robe? I think I remember most of the ones I’ve had through the years, too. They’re like old friends, my robes, and I only like loose, long ones. There is nothing worse than an old(er) woman in a wrap robe, it’s the most unflattering thing I can think of. I have one for when I get out of the shower, but once I’m dry, it’s history and I never look in the mirror. Nope, lose robes hide a multitude of sins, wrap robes are totally unforgiving.

I think my favorite robe through the years, actually I had two of them, a gray one and a lemon yellow one, were hooded long french terry sweatshirt styled zip front robes from Vanity Fair. Hooterville had one, too, we both loved them. I almost loved it as much as the football jersey nightshirts I used to wear. *sigh*

Every season I check Vanity Fair, thinking that they will bring back that style of robe, but they never do. With my luck they’ll bring it back as a wrap. :o(

And that’s it from Heavensville tonight. We had chinese for lunch, and I have leftovers, no cooking for me, I’m going to curl up by the fire with the dogs and read…

This robe from Norm Thompson is lovely. They also have a sweatshirt robe, but it’s belted and not nearly as cute as the ones Vanity Fair used to have.

I love this!

Straw Bale Gardening

I’m intrigued with the idea of gardening in bales of straw. You add compost, plant, water well, the straw retains the water, no weeds to pull, the roots finger out in the loose straw and grow quickly, it’s a wonderful idea. You can stack bales two high if you don’t want to bend over, how great is this!

This link to strawbalegardens.com is one of many sites online. Just Google it, click on Google Images for lots of pictures, go to YouTube, watch some videos - it's just fascinating, and a great idea to research while we’re all dreaming of spring and gardening.

I think this idea would work well for flowers, you could do the side plantings I’m so fond of and you wouldn’t even see the straw after the plants started to grow. Can’t you just see a huge mound of impatiens under a tree? Oh, the possibilities…

Dear Diary, how are you, I am fine...

I remember my first diary, I was a preteen, it was green leather and had a lock and key. Every day my entries would always start with “Dear Diary, how are you, I am fine.”

I wasn’t very creative back in the day, but I wish I had that Diary now to see if I could conjure up any childhood memories.

And today, I’m not feeling very creative at all, I’m sitting here thinking, “Dear Blog, how are you, I am fine.”

And that’s how it is today, this relatively warm, 24th of January, 2012. I’m proving Ma wrong, too, it’s the third week of January, and we’ve yet to hit the single digits in Heavensville, and only a trace of snow. The only thing I can figure is that my mother didn’t factor in global warning. Ya think?

Twins Mimic Daddy’s Sneeze…

This is the cutest thing I’ve seen in awhile…

Maxine nailed it again!!!

What I’ve been up to this weekend…

Deanna and John came to visit this weekend, we antique shopped yesterday, they found treasures, and went home with a car stuffed full, including a crystal chandelier for their bedroom.

Abby decided that she wanted to talk a lot to Grammie this afternoon.  We had multiple phone calls with her telling me her opinion about a lot of things.  For some reason she seemed to enjoy me singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to her and wanted me to sing it again and again.  This all started because she was looking at the moon and saying it was “too high,” meaning that she couldn’t reach up and touch it. 

She has a bit of a cold, and tells her parents that her nose is crying. 

I made yummy corn chowder yesterday and posted the recipe on Jan CAN Cook.  And now it’s back to quiet evenings, dogs, a warm fire, and lots of wonderful family memories.  Life is good this Sunday evening, I hope you all had a great weekend as well…

Cooking with oil in an iron skillet, a blast from the past…

I remember back in the day when fried food was the norm in our house.  When the boys were young, I bought oil in gallon containers, and dumped several inches in a skillet to cook with.  Fried chicken, pork chops, potatoes, you name it, I fried it.  But today, I’m more enlightened, and would never do that.  We’ve all learned tricks to compensate for frying, my favorite being to pat dry chicken breasts or pork chops, then Pam a skillet, I use one with grill marks, brown it on top of the stove, flip it over, and immediately put it in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, uncovered.  When you take it out of the oven it looks and tastes like fried, but without the grease.

But back to my story.  In all those years of frying food, I always had a mess when I finished, my cooktop was greasy, and that was before smooth cooktops so it was a pain in the patootie to clean.  On the occasion that I do fry something these days, an egg,  bacon, etc., I’ve learned to never use a small skillet.  Even if I have just one egg, I fry it in a 14” skillet, that way it never spatters on the cooktop.  It’s a great tip, and no, I don’t put oil in the skillet, of course I fry that egg with Pam.  This morning I’m making corn chowder, and I needed bacon drippings, so I pulled out the big skillet, fried the bacon, with no mess.  It’s a beautiful thing, frying in an oversized skillet, took me years to figure it out, but better late than never.

I’m seriously losing it ladies…

Earlier today I posted about tweaking that 3-2-1 cake, and something wasn’t quite right with the picture of the cake.  I kept looking at it, and finally tonight, several hours later, I had a (bankrupt) Kodak moment and realized that I had posted the picture upside down.

Oh law-dee, what a bimbo I am.  I had taken the picture with my iPhone, and emailed it to my computer.  I’ve had pictures that came sideways in an email, but never upside down, well, not until today anyway. 

Boy, is my face red.  Why didn’t I catch this?  So, if some of you looked at that post earlier and thought it looked strange, that’s why.  I flipped it right side up as soon as I realized what I had done and reposted.  Geezy Pete, I am totally hopeless!

Tweaking that 3-2-1 cake

Yesterday when I made the cake and gave hubby a bite, he wasn’t a fan, but I haven’t been married to the man for forty years not to know a thing or two about his food preferences.  He’ll eat pretty  much anything that has a sauce on it, so I decided to try making him a mini pineaple upside down cake, his favorite.  BUT, I didn’t have pineapple, so I tried it with peaches.

I put some peaches in the bottom of my mug, added some brown sugar, a dab of butter, a few sliced almonds and a dash of almond flavoring.  And whlie I was making a double batch of the cake, substituting peach juice for the water, I nuked the peach concoction for one minute.  I took it out, gave it a stir, put in the cake mixture that I had whisked on top of it and nuked it for an additional 1:35 minutes.

This time he loved it.  He said it was a 7-8.  I don’t know if I would give it that high of marks, but it’s fast, easy and a no brainer.  Just thought you would all like to know…

And no, the cake isn’t molded, those are blue sprinkles in the picture.  That white confetti cake mix was the only one I had in the pantry.  Sometimes you just gotta roll with what you’ve got.  Know what I mean, Vern?

My favorite things today…

Hubby bought me a primrose, and it’s sitting on my desk, making me smile. 

I found this iPhone cover on Amazon yesterday.

My iPod cover is the same mint green color, and I love it, it reminds me of an Easter egg.  So it’s on my wish list, hey a girl’s gotta have a dream, especially in January.

I do believe I have a touch of spring fever, but I need to curb my enthusiasm for another six weeks.  So here I sit, listening to a Splendid Table Podcast, looking at the birds on the feeder, just wasting away an afternoon.  But that’s okay, what else is there to do in January.  I’m counting my blessings, at least I’m not staring out the window at snow!

Update:  I just looked at my iPod cover, it’s not mint green, it’s robins egg blue.  Oh dear,  I think I’m having a senior moment…

3-2-1 Cake

Two ingredients, angel food cake mix and any kind of cake mix.  Put them in a bag together, shake well, scoop out 3 tablespoons of the mix, add 2 tablespoons of water, then put it in a ramekin and nuke it for 1 minute.  The recipe didn’t say whether or not to spray with Pam, but I did because I didn’t want a mess. 

Ha, you can see how well that worked for me.  But, if I wasn’t Miz Piggy it would have been fine.  I made it, nuked it, and it was just this itty bitty amount of cake in the bottom of the ramekin.  So I doubled the recipe, at least I think I did, I was talking to my friend, Nisha on the phone while I was making this and since yours truly can’t chew bubble gum and walk at the same time, who knows what I did.  All I know is that it started to run over in the microwave so I quickly put a saucer under it and finished cooking it.  It took about a minute and a half for the larger batch, but remember, I have the microwave from hell, so my timing is never accurate.

And how did it taste, curious minds want to know?  Well, all I had was a confetti cake mix to mix with my angel food cake mix, so it’s kinda vanilla tasting.  But it’s not bad, but I’m also desperate.  I don’t have anything in the house that isn’t healthy, and this is the only thing I could come up with fast that didn’t involve actual work.

Would I do it again.  Sure, I would.  If this was topped with a sliced banana, a drizzle of chocolate sauce, or some fresh fruit, or my dilly’s favorite, lemon sauce, it would be pretty good for a quickie.  A bit of almond flavoring would be nice, too.

But I think I would like it better using a chocolate cake mix.  Or I could just stir some chocolate chips or cocoa into this.  It’s not knock-your-socks off people, but it’s not too bad considering that it only takes 1-2 minutes start to finish.  Except for the mess…. Ughhh!!

Tweaks: I made this again, doubled the recipe, put it in a mug, did NOT Pam it, nuked it for 1:30 and it came out perfect.

Jan visits the Insurance Agent

We just got our condo insurance bill, they raised it $100 this year, with no claims, so hubby and I decided we needed to visit our insurance agent and have a talk with him.

Well, the guy that we always did business with has retired and turned our account over to a twelve year old girl with a squeaky Minnie Mouse voice.  Now, in all honesty, I have to admit that I was defensive before I even walked in the front door, but when we laid everything in front of her and started asking questions she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with her information.  She actually sounded like a politician, never answering a direct question with a direct answer.

It only took me a few minutes before I had enough of that crap, and I told her she was really tricky, but that I was really old so that stuff didn’t work with  me.  She looked at me and said “oh, it’s not your first rodeo, huh.”  And then she proceeded to calm down and work with us.  But the damage had been done, I don’t trust her, maybe after she goes through puberty she will have more creedence, but  to be perfectly honest, I just don’t enjoy children telling me what I do and do not need with my insurance coverage.  And I won’t even get into the bad information she gave hubby, a misquote of over $200, but he caught it, and she wasn’t able to explain her mistake.

Our appointment was at 10am, she was going to get right back to us, email me with updated information, and it’s now 5pm and I haven’t heard a peep from her.  Jeesh, enough already!  We’ve had State Farm Insurance for almost forty years now, and never had a problem, but me thinks it’s time for a new agent.  A grown up person.

So, if any townies know of a good State Farm agent on the West Side of Heavensville, let me know.  And in the meantime, if I don’t hear from her, I’ll check with her tomorrow after she’s home from school and maybe she’ll have some prices for me.  I know, I know I sound really old, well I am really old!!!!!

Paula Deen has type 2 diabetes

Yesterday, Paula Deen announced she had type 2 diabetes and the internet was all over her like mayo on white bread.  I have never read such negative posts in my life, people were absolutely gleeful, making fun of her, her “supposed” eating habits, and I thought it was just horrid!

Sure the woman is over the top, she cooks with fat, butter and grease, it’s her shtick people.  She’s a broad, not a lady, had she been a lady we wouldn’t be seeing her on television.  I’ve always found her funny, outrageous and her food divine.  I’m a southern woman, I’ve known versions of Paula Deen my entire life.  I cooked exactly like her back in the day, as well as most other people I know.  And it was wonderful, satisfying, glorious, wonderful food.

So for all the naysayers out there that are ridiculing her and the fact that she now has diabetes, shame on you.  This could be your mother, or aunt or someone you love. 

I’m off my soapbox, but I was just livid and had to vent. That is all…

Mother always said….

I find myself saying that a lot to my family and friends.  As I grow older and remember the things she told us, I realize how much she knew just observing nature and the world around her.  My boys talk about Grandma every time we’re together.  It’s the best part of her, I think, reliving  her memory from their perception, because a grandparent is so different with their grandchildren than it is with their children, something I’m finding out with Abby.

Some of the things that she always “said,” we’ll see if they come true this winter.

• You don’t get big snows when it’s really cold, the biggest accumulations come when the temperatures hover in the high twenties and low thirties.
• Winter doesn’t really kick in until about the third week in January, then look out.
• If you have a mild winter on the front end, you pay for it later and spring will be late.

So we’ll see how this pans out, we’re getting snow this morning in Heavensville, 1-3 inches predicted.  It’s not quite yet the third week of the month, but it looks like nasty weather is beginning.  And it’s 32 degrees right now, hmmmmm, just the right temperature, maybe it will be more in the 3” range than the 1” if ma’s predictions hold true.

And, we have had a mild winter thus far, so I hope it doesn’t bring a late spring. It’s only been snowing for an hour, and I already have cabin fever.

We’re tucked in for the day, glad that hubby doesn’t have to drive back and forth to work in this nasty weather.  I  made soup yesterday, so it’s a lazy day here, just playing on the computer, listening to some smooth jazz with a dog in my lap, works for me…