Def-y's Categorizing: March 2011 Archives

I have egg on my face in a major way!

Today, I received an e-mail from a friend about children of Congressmen not having to pay back student loans. I had just been listening to a local radio program where the speaker was talking about how much it costs to send students to various colleges for four years. The cost is astonishing! Moderate expenses might be $60,000 or so for room and board and tuition. Most private schools are much more expensive than that for four years. The students or their parents are left with huge loans that have to be repaid, and a years worth of some of the payments could be the equivalent of buying a brand new car for cash each year!

At any rate, I read the opening of this e-mail and saw red. I hit forward, added a personal message, and then sent it to almost everyone in my address book. (Those who live outside the US were spared, as were business contacts.)

So, I started to post the message here, and found myself writing "If the item about not having to pay back student loans is true..." I hadn't checked. Drat! I'm always the one who gently tells friends that they should check with Snopes before sending on rabel-rousing e-mails. So I checked, and sure enough, most of it was false.

I HATE making an error of that magnitude. The only good thing that might come out of it is that I'm bound to hear from a lot of people I haven't talked with for a while. Of course, they will be writing to tell me that they forwarded it BEFORE they read my mea culpa.

For the record, I think an amendment requiring Congress to operate under the same rules as everyone else in the United States is a good thing. They should be required to participate in Social Security, Medicare, and the health care reforms, and they should earn MODEST pensions based on years of service. If there's a grassroots movement out there to accomplish this, I'm all for it!

And for the record, I'll be more careful about what I pass on in the future.

Mea culpa!

There's nothing earthshaking to note today, but I have a lot of tidbits to share.

The amaryllis bloom that I posted about recently has begun to wither, but the bloom on the second stalk is just starting to open! Tomorrow, I'll cut off the first stalk and move the supports to the second. I think we'll have another week to ten days of pleasure from this plant. This summer, I'll put all four of the amaryllis plants outside, in a bid for a Christmas display.

Dear Husband and I had a light breakfast together, and talked about our (read:MY) plans for the weekend. I want his help to clean out the mudroom closet and the shelves under the counter. The hanging things are his, and I suspect there are dead boots and odds and ends that could be thrown out. I need to have him tell me why something should be kept.

I hadn't intended to clean out three of the shelves in the cleaning pantry, but I wanted to put away the food processor, and it seemed like a good time to do the job. I store potatoes, onions and garlic on the lowest shelf, and discovered four sweet potatoes lodged behind the onion bin. Wouldn't you know that I had just sent DH off to buy a sweet potato? I reorganized all the cleaning products, threw out an old iron (there were three stored there, I should really throw out one more), and generally got things into a more usable order. When DH returned I told him where to find the mink oil for his shoes, and he said he had just purchased more mink oil, not knowing it was there. I handed him two containers, and the brush. I think we need to do this reorganization about once a quarter until we've used up all the doubles and triples of things. Note: I did this with the food pantry and the freezers last week!

Mark the calendar. Today was the first day we have seen chipmunks for the 2011 warm season, and they are exceedingly frisky! The gray squirrels have been ruling the roost during the winter, but these little rodent cousins will eat them out of house and home now that they are awake.

My brother-in-law's sister, Karen, is in the hospital. She may have had a heart attack. Prayers and positive thoughts would be welcome.

I've started a book called "The Coffee Trader," by David Liss. It's set in Amsterdam in 1659. I love novels in historical settings. If this turns out to be a good book, I'll post more about it later.

I have to buy a skein or two of red yarn this weekend. I am assembling an afghan for Shelly Tucker, the organizer of "Share a Square." She has organized the donation of more than 12000 six inch crocheted squares, as well as the assembly of these squares into 150 afghans for kids who will be attending cancer care camp this summer. It's been a pleasure to be a part of this effort. If you crochet, or know someone who crochets, Shelly will be organizing a repeat effort for 2012, starting in August. Visit her FAQ page for information on what she needs.

I had a good day yesterday in the sewing room. I have just two seams to sew and I will have finished the second of five or six baby quilts I plan to do this year. YEA!!! I have the parts cut for one, and half of another, sailboat quilt. There are times when it's just comfortable to sit and cut pieces for quilts. I have another quilt on which I've completed the blocks, and just need to sew them together.

SUN!!! OMG, the SUN IS SHINING!!! I understand that we are supposed to have a week of gradually warming temperatures, with some sunny days. THIS is what I have been missing for the past two and a half months. I think that I experienced a little SAD this year, and I'm very happy to have this glorious light around me!

And with that, I think I'll open the shades in the studio and sew for a bit. I hope you're all having a great weekend. Don't forget to turn your clocks back!

Why is it that when you want to try a new recipe, it seems that you are always lacking just one ingredient?

I am a new subscriber to Cook's Country magazine. I've been a part of the America's Test Kitchen family for a long time, but I've used the cookbooks and the Cook's Illustrated magazine.

So, my first issue arrived and I sat down to browse through it. YUMMY recipes, a lot of comfort food, not especially oriented toward someone on a diet, but great older recipes updated. There were several recipes I wanted to make immediately!

No....I need smoked paprika for the paprika potatoes. Hmmmm, no half-and-half for the cheese sauce for the broccoli. Darn! I need HOT Italian sausage for the "Quick Sunday Gravy," Dutch-processed cocoa and milk chocolate chips for the chocolate pudding. Ooops...that's two ingredients. Oh nevermind, it calls for heavy cream, too. I don't think I have clam juice in the pantry to do the popcorn shrimp, and there are no Granny Smith apples for the apple fritters!

I've been told that if the local grocery store runs out of anything, they could call on me, but I can see that I'm falling down on my motto of "Be Prepared!" I don't mind having to wait on most of this, but the potatoes and fritters are really talking to me! *G* Maybe it's a good thing I don't have all the ingredients.

We have a daytimme racoon, which is a bit unusual. For the most part, raccoons are nocturnal. However, this raccoon seems to have a problem. The first thing you notice is that it walks oddly, protecting it's back right hip and leg. The second thing you see is that it's missing a large part of its tail. The guys in this household have taken to calling it "Bob."

I've watched this animal for several days. It comes to gleen what it can from under the bird feeders. Its winter fat has faded, but it's not gaunt. When he, or she, walks, she puts the right foot down carefully, so I think the damage might be higher up. She doesn't limp as much as she shuffles.

Either this animal has been clipped by a car, or a larger preditor may have hurt it. We have learned not to feed the raccoon population, but it's very hard to keep from helping this one. I really don't want to encourage it to stay. I suppose it would be best to let it sink or swim on its own, but I hope it recovers.

I HAVE to find a job!

How do you go about figuring out what to do, especially in THIS job market, when you have done only three jobs in your adult life? I know my strengths, but I also know my weaknesses, and I'm having trouble believing that someone would care to hire someone my age, with the skills I have to offer.

I feel a bit overwhelmed.

I knew there would come a day when my husband and his partner disbanded their company. Our partner is older, and has already reached retirement age. Dear Husband is coming up on it quickly. Unfortunately, I'm a bit younger than they are, and still need to work.

My youngest sister suggested that I might be working for MickeyD for a few years. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be able to do a job that requires I stand all day.

I can remember driving my mother somewhere, talking about this situation. It must have been eight or ten years ago, so I was concerned about it even then. At the time, I was worried about having to work away from home, when Mother might need me. I turned to her and flippantly said, "Pehaps I'd be a success at phone sex!" Not a rise......not even an eye roll.

I am so envious of those of you who can reinvent yourselves and move on with your lives. I need to get out of my rut, and figure out what I might be able to do that pays more than minimum wage.

I presently manage an office of one. I use Quick Books (with occasional help from the CPA), Word, and Excel. On the right keyboard, I can probably type roughly 60 wpm. (I plan to ditch the streamlined keyboard I have and go back to an older model with higher keys and a caps lock light.) For my present company I am responsible for Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, banking, filing, and I am the back up Payroll person. I determine expenses per job and provide material waivers. I am a notary public. I also manage an LLC which rents two business condos. I can do double entry manual bookkeeping, but I doubt there is a company left that doesn't do it's books electronically.

In another life I was a grade school band director. I don't wish to substitute. It's a whole different world out there since I last taught, and I'm not prepared to deal with kids on a daily basis. However, from that experience I bring the ability to organize large groups of people, to plan goals, and determine the steps necessary to reach those goals. I'm trying to apply those abilities to my current situation, but it's easier to do when you are not focusing on your own needs.

I have the feeling that this is going to be an on-going series of posts. Feel free to jump in with suggestions, or tell me to stop whining. The door is open.