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Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year and here are my "did last year" and the hopes for this new year.


2013 Year in Review
Seemed like a pretty good year.  I think I was a good steward with Sherman’s money.  I bought glasses for a girl who needed them. Made donations to YWCA (Battered Women), Hospice, Memorial Fund, Los Pobres, Scholarship fund at PCC, Tere for her little charity helping indigents, bought flour and oil for 100 families at Los Pobres. 
From my own reserves I made SCAP social lunch and learn happen 10 times.  Also catered  the Christmas Dinner.  I spent a lot more money then I should have helping people, but I am not quite broke.  Replaced the transmission in the car.    Replaced the carpet in my house with laminate.  Attended several church gatherings as representative.  Went to Hutchinson to see my sisters.  Neglected to make the trip to see Mary who is the one I really needed to see.
Went hiking in the mountains twice which seemed to be the high point of my summer and that is sad.

Aspirations for 2014

I plan on going through the volunteer program at Hospice and then working in the 11th hour program. 
I will do at least 10 lunch and learns for SCAP now that there is a director I actually like.  Will entertain the idea of the AIDS Walk in September.
I need to bring my will up to date.   
Go hiking with Tere.
Make sure I get Val and Dale to the mountains for a picnic. 
Check in with Jan at least every 60 days. 
Spend a couple days with Libby and Dave. 
Plan a trip to Dallas to stay with Sam at least a week. 
Go see Shirley in the spring and take a trip on the riverboat.
Start selling excess stuff ie. Spinning wheel, 8 harness loom, list variations of seed catchers on ebay,   scroll saw, sander, molds in trailer.
Publish Long Ago and Not Very Far Away.
Finish Antlion.
Decide if I really want to remain alone in this house until the day I die.  Do I want to move into town?  Do I want to move far away?  Do I want to actually start dating?  Am I really that lonely?
Get a manicure.
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And there you have it!  Oh, I forgot a few things, but I am sure I will remember them when I do them.  I am pretty good at doing whatever I need to do without a note to myself.  I want to figure a way to replenish my SSLBDGWorks trust fund and that is not even written down any where!
So from me to you and yours, have a happy and prosperous New Year and remember
You can not sprinkle showers of happiness on other people without getting a few drops on yourself!
HAPPY 2014! AND GOOD LUCK FORGETTING 2013!

 

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Only 5 days and I can get stoned out of my mind....or not!


I want to go on record as saying I have never smoked pot, nor do I ever intend to do that.  Not because I am a prude, but rather because it was illegal.  Now that it is legal, I have other reasons.  I quit smoking cigarettes several years back and that was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life!  I will not smoke this little jewel because it might lower my resistance to tobacco and I am not going to jeopardize my quit smoking, never going to smoke again status!  But I am happy this is now legal for a myriad of reasons, but the biggest is, this may open the market to production of hemp products.
You should know that hemp and marijuana are the same, but different.  I use Hemp Butter and Hemp Oil in my face cream and lip balm.   I even eat the Hemp butter  which is made from seeds (like peanut butter) on crackers.  It is loaded with all kinds of  omega's .  I can not extol the virtues of hemp enough. 
Do you remember back in the beginning of this country when our forefathers raised hemp as a cash crop?  Rope was made from hemp and it was the strongest rope that could me found.  I have a couple spools of it which I intend to crochet into a market bag and save a lot of plastic bags.  I am not sure that back in those days the were aware of the high that could be achieved by smoking it.  I do know that hemp in it's natural state is a very reliable and renewable product that can replace wood.  Unfortunately our forefathers decided to worship King Cotton and there was not room for both of them to flourish.  As I understand they both deplete the soil and so need to be rotated and the ground restored. 
Don't get me wrong here, I love cotton.  I am going to learn to spin it if it is the last thing I ever do (and at my age it may very well be the last act).  I am not a scientist, but I have been told by very intelligent people that Hemp/Marijuana must be cultivated and nurtured in order to get the thc or whatever it is that makes you high. ( All these facts I throw at you are coming off the top of my head and no research whatsoever has gone into this article!)
But now we come to the glory of this law in Colorado that takes effect January 1.  Marijuana is big business, but all the harvesters are after is the "bud".  Isn't that wonderful?  This means that the big plants are by products of the cash crop and can be used for ropes, cords, fiber, and any number of things.  Do you follow me on this?  I sure hope so and I hope I am not just whistling in the dark here.  First the state will reap the benefits of the tax on the "recreational marijuana" and then the plants will be made into stuff to sell and the state will get the tax on that! 
As for the recreational part, who knows.  I am willing to bet that this is not as hard on the body and mind as alcohol with its side affects.  Guess we will see.  Just wanted to weigh in on this new law and then set back and see how this plays out. 

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas Eve, Christmas and damn that printer!

In case you wondered what happened to me,  I went to church Christmas Eve, then a short walk around the Riverwalk, and came home.  Here I remained alone and in solitude until this morning, when I emerged for my morning telephone conversation with Jackie.  This is my first isolated Christmas in years and I must confess, I rather enjoyed the experience.  There were no presents and thus no wrapping paper to sacrifice to the Recycle God.  I did buy a new printer on Tuesday,  not as a gift to myself, but rather out of necessity.  This led to a good cleaning of the office so it could rest in a dust free environment!  I decided to hook this up wireless.  
That led to an evening of trying to find the right button to poke so the computer could recognize this foreign device that had invaded or rather, not invaded the hard drive.  That did not happen until I realized (sometime in the middle of the night) that I had neglected to attach the USB cord so it could be read.  Then this morning Jackie talked me through getting it to bypass OneNote.  Aaaargh!!!  I want it to be wireless so I am going to unhook the USB after I print a label and I think I am good to go.  Hooray!  for technology!!
So now it is the day after Christmas and  I am back in the swing of things.  Need to pick up a very old friend and take her to the library to see the quilt display.  That will probably happen tomorrow.  Need to take some stuff out to Sister Nancy.  Got to get back the Mesa Nails, so I can finish that blog.  I have a little more dusting here in the office and need to wash the doggie beds.  Then down to the weaving room and vacuum that so I can measure out a warp and get to weaving.  I am working on my Aspirations for 2014 list.  Used to call that my New Years Resolutions, but that never worked out, so now I have high hopes and aspirations!  May actually publish that so you can all see that I really mean well.  I just get side tracked by life.  But then, don't we all?
Which brings me to my Words of Wisdom for the day...

Keep your eye on the prize, your shoulder to the wheel, and just try to work in that position!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Update on the clip on earrings and the bubble wrap!

Dear loumercer3,
Hooray!!! Hallelujah! The clip-on's have arrived!!!!! They are beautiful! Thank you so much for your efforts to make sure I receive these earrings. I've left you positive feedback, and I hope we do business again some time!

Amy


- amysue20921

Saturday, December 14, 2013

If the bubble wrap arrives, can the earrings be far behind?

For all you people out there who have come to think of me as someone who can be depended on to do the right thing, I have a surprise for you.  Apparently I am either the most inept woman on the planet, or I have got a poltergeist on my shoulder.  On December 9 (my late husbands birthday) one of my auctions on ebay closed with a $4.99 sale.    As with all my auctions, I went and got the product, which happened to be 5 pairs of clip on earrings.  I put them in a box on the buffet and printed my shipping label.   I pride myself in same day shipping so I  stapled the receipt to the invoice, attached the  label to the package and drove over to the shipping center.  A job well done!
 
 
That evening I was jacking around in the office and low and behold!  The package with the clip on earrings was on my desk!  Damn!  I immediately emailed the intended recipient and told her that I had inadvertently sent her 13 pairs of pieced earrings which was on the same shelf.  I told her I would immediately get these in the mail and she should keep the pierced  earrings as a penance on my part.  She was very understanding.  I told her she would first receive the pierced earrings and the following day would be her actual purchase.  So, I printed the shipping label, stapled the receipt on top of the first receipt on the invoice and the next morning scurried off to the shipping center.
 
A day passed and I got an email from the little lady in California that she had received the first box and it contained, not earrings, but empty jewelry bags.  What the hay!  I went to check on my plastic bag supply and what do you think I found?  Nothing!  I went to the desk and what did I see?  Those wretched clip on earrings twinkling at me in their plastic bag.  Grabbing them in my tight little fist I crammed them in the box.  I showed the box to my daughter and together we sealed the box and held it while I printed yet a third label!  This we attached to box, stapled the receipt on top of all the other receipts on the invoice and decided I must be losing it.
 
 
Last night I received an email that the second box had arrived and it contained bubble wrap!  By this time I am doubting my sanity completely.  Where are the damn pierced earrings that I so carefully sent the first day?  I have a 2400 square foot house which I have turned upside down and not found them!  They have got to be here some where.  I sent plastic bags, bubble wrap, and clip on earrings (I hope).  Now this is a total of $7.14 to send what should have been one item.  I can see where I am going in the hole here.
My daughter decided that I must be wound a little tight so we needed to relax a bit.  She treated me to a pedicure, which I have not had since Marlene went to Las Vegas and stayed!  That will be reviewed on    Hey! I Been There!  in a day or so.
 
In the meantime, I am just letting you know that I am NOT infallible!  So if you make an appointment with me and I don't show up, it is nothing personal.  Know also that your secrets are safe with me, not because I am trustworthy, but rather because I forgot them.  If my house looks like a hurrican hit it that is because I am still looking for my MP3 player and those damned pierced earrings!
And thank you, dear Amy, for being so patient with an old woman!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Aunt Lena

Woke up this morning with Aunt Lena on my mind.  Aunt Lena has been gone for many years, but she still resonates in my mind on a regular basis.  Aunt Lena was my Grandfather Haas's sister.  She was, and I must put this delicately, a "spinster lady who rented rooms to other spinster ladies who were school teachers." 
Back when the Haas family migrated through Ellis Island and settled in and around Abbyville, Kansas things were very different.  The patriarch of the family, Johann Jakob Haas, had already buried his first wife, Elizabeth Beck who bore him 7 children.  This was known as the "first family.  He then married the woman who took care of the first family, Dorathea  Schade and started another family.   This family consisted of 9 children, but one died an infant.  When plans were made to migrate, the two oldest girls, from the first family, boarded a steam ship and then a train to travel to Nickerson, Kansas to stay with their Beck relation who lived on the outskirts of Nickerson.  As a tiny girl, I remember going to the Beck house once.  That is all I remember.  I went to school with a boy named Ronnie Beck, who I am sure was a shirt tail relative.  I never dated in Nickerson because I was a distant cousin to everyone there one way or another and I just never wanted to do the incest thing!
But, I digress.  As a teenager I went to live with my grandmothers in Plevna, Kansas, and became well acquainted with my Aunt Lena.
That was when I learned why she had never married.  Seems back in the dating years. that Great Grandma Hatfield (nee Gagnibien), was at the time married to a man named Franklin Miller.  They had 3 children, Lou Miller and 2 girls, Mable and Josie.  Next farm over was the Haas family with lots of marriageable kids.  Mabel married Goll Haas.  Josie married Christoph Haas.  Uncle Goll was checking out Lena Haas when Great Grandma put her foot down and said her whole family was not going to turn into Haas family and so Uncle Lou and Aunt Lena said their goodbyes and he married a complete stranger.  Aunt Lena embrassed spinsterhood and moved into Plevna and starting renting rooms to school teachers.  Back in those days school teachers were predominately women and more often than not, single.
Aunt Lena always seemed tall.  She stood ramrod straight at all times and talked with her teeth clenched together.  Her teeth were always clenched.  I used to think she might have lock jaw, but I think that is just how she talked.  Expect there was a lot of "Keep that mouth shut!"  with a total of 16 kids running around and her being towards the end of the line they all bossed her! 
Aunt Lena always wore a dress.  Always.  Well, I can't say what she wore during harvest and before I knew her, but I am betting it was a dress.  But trust me, when she wanted to go wade in the creek, or chase a calf across the field, she knew how to modify her dress.  She would slam on the brakes in that old jalopy she drove and jump out of  the car.  "Come on, kids!"  She would spread her legs and reach back between her knees and catch the hem of the skirt in the back, pull it forward and up and tuck it in her waistband.  Instant culottes!  And she taught us the fine art!  She would put one foot on the bottom barbed wire and pull the wire above it up so us kids could crawl through with out ramming a barb in our back, usually.  Then off we would gallop across the field in quest of what ever Aunt Lena had seen.  Sometimes we ended up wading in a creek.  Sometimes we picked Sand Hill Plums.  Sometimes we just walked across the field and kicked clods. 
Aunt Lena kept a horse tank in her front yard.  In the summer it was always full of water and when we went to her house we could jump in and cool off.  The only item of clothing we removed was our shoes.  When we got out we just "dried out."  Kansas gets very hot in the summer and those little dips were always just what us kids needed. 
I remember the last time I seen Aunt Lena.  It must have been about 1992.  She was born in 1893.  She died in 1994. She would have been about 99 years old.  It was at the Auditorium in Plevna where I had gone to high school  The school was gone, but they used the auditorium for reunions and such.  I had a cousin of sorts, Earl Boyd who was at the time 88 and legally blind.  Had been for years.  He and Aunt Lena were talking and it went like this.
"Oh, Lena, I would love to see the old homestead, but I don't have a car."
"Oh, Earl, I have a car, but I can't drive."
"Well, you have a car!  I can drive us there.  It is just a couple miles and it is all dirt roads."
"But, Earl, you can't see!  How can you drive?"
"You can see, Lena!  You can tell me where to go."
"Do you think it would work Earl?"
"Sure!  Let's plan on doing that someday soon."
I don't think they ever made the trip, but it made me happy to know they wanted to.  I thought several times, after I returned to Colorado, that I should make the effort and make that happen for them, but I never did.  It was the procrastination thing that always trips me up. 
And now, I am the older generation.  Now, I am thinking I would like to make a trip back to the old home place and I keep putting it off.  Maybe some day.  For now, I will set here and remember.  I miss my mother.  I miss my husband.  My brother, sisters, uncles, aunts, grandparents and on and on and on.  I can see them all, just like they were.  Is that a sign of old age?  Senility?  Or just wishful thinking?
 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Take time to read this and save your own life!




 Gluten free recipe #1 without nuts.  Looks very good, but pretty crumbly.  Moist.  Very choclatey.  A definite to make again.







Gluten free recipe #2 with nuts.  Very good flavor.  Holds together well.  Freezes and travels well.
  This is the clear winner.





Doing the gluten free thing is always a challenge.  When I do find something I really like I make a mental note and then I forget all about it.  When I want to make it again, I can not remember what book it was in or what the name of it was, or why I even liked it.  So I am beginning to wise up.  I now have a notebook for all the little recipes that I like as well as ones I do not use and why. 
Seems like gluten free is now becoming rampant.  Ever wonder why?  I have my own theory.  Years ago on the farm we raised our own food.  Grain was grown with the seed from last years crop.  Beef was raised from the momma cow and the neighbor's bull.  Vegetable seeds were kept from year to year and if your seed was lost, you borrowed seeds from your neighbor.  We ate cream so thick you could put it on toast with a fork and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, it was to die for.  People were skinny cause the worked hard and ate natural.  My ancestors lived to be 90+ and many hit 100 years of age.  When mom died at 80 years old, they all said, "Oh!  She was so young!  Her whole life ahead of her!"  But that was then, when we grew our own food.  This is now. 
Now we have people like Monsanto helping us.  We plant thier seeds and we grow very big crops.  Used to be dad would check the wheat and pick a head and rub it in the palm of his hand.  He would do this several times in a week.  One day it would "shatter" and it was pronounced "ready to harvest."  What I am telling you is that the wheat we grew then and the wheat we grow now are not the same.  It all becomes "ready" according to when the harvest is wanted to happen, which is incumbent on when the machine that harvests the grain will be there to harvest it.  And what all that means to you and I is that the gluten is not the same and we can not digest it.  Couple that with the fact that farmers are now growing corn that will cause a worm to hemorrage inside and die, and we are in some big trouble.
It is amazing that countries over seas will not allow this stuff to be grown in thier countries and will not allow it to be imported.  We call these countries "third world" and backward.  Get on your Internet and check out cancer rates here and abroad.  Check out obesity here and abroad.  Do not take my word for any of this.  Do your own research.  Remember when cancer was something that happened to some one else?  Autism was a rarity?  Casearean births were not an everyday occurence?  Is the world really changing that fast or are we allowing it to be changed by big corporations and thier need for more money and power?
The good old days were naturally organic.  Now we have to make an effort to find organic and we pay a lot more for it then the crap they are smiling and handing to us with a glass of grape koolaid.  All I am asking is that you take an interest in what your government is doing to you in the name of Corporate Greed.  Sure they are pushing national health care.  We are sure as hell going to need it!

Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.    Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed...