Update!

Shortly after I posted yesterday, it started to snow. It didn't amount to much, about a half inch, but it was still very nice to see. Andy and I took a long walk through the neighborhood in it. At home Tom still got quite a bit more snow than we did, but I was happy to see any at all.

I just noticed my counter at the bottom of the blog page. Evidently when the new blog format switched over, it also began my counter back at zero, so what it's showing now is only actually the count for about the last month or so. Oh, well. The map with locations of visitors next to it has kept a little bit better count. I noticed that a couple of days ago I had visitors from China and Australia. I can't imagine that my ramblings about my boring home life would be interesting reading for an international audience, though!

This week has really gone by quickly. We have been in Delaware this week and will probably still be here for a while longer. Jerry is working on a job here and Andy and I tagged along. This time, though, I brought my old computer (yes, the 747) and my work machines and so I'm working every day from here. It's not really a vacation, since between my work and Andy's schooling (yes, I made him bring his schoolbooks), our days are pretty much like they are at home (busy!), but at least we get to see Jerry in the evenings. I will be leaving this computer here so that in the future I can just pack up my work machines, which isn't too much trouble, and work from here so I can tag along whenever I want to. Andy and I have been making time for a walk each day, though. It's nice being able to walk around without fearing for my life - well, unless we walk on Route 1! The afternoon walks chase away the sleepies that seem to descend on me around 1:00 in the afternoon. It's very hard to take long walks at home because even though you can walk on the individual streets, to get from one to the other you have to go out on the main road which is usually VERY busy, and there are no sidewalks.

I talked with Tom not too long ago, (he is babysitting the pets at home), and he said that there are at least four inches of snow on the ground there, and it's still coming down. Then Jerry just called from where he is working in Dover to ask if it was snowing here, because it was there. All we are having here in Rehoboth Beach is rain and a little ice. I am the only one that really likes snow, but I'm the only one not getting to see any today!

The Mad Scientist!

My mother emailed me inquiring how her daughter became a mad scientist as she didn't recall there being one in the family tree. Just because I take something that looks like a cross between a mushroom and a cow patty, has the consistency of a raw oyster, and ferment it in tea and then actually DRINK the stuff......hmm.....okay, I see your point, Mom.

Anyway, this batch of Kombucha actually turned out very tasty! It did not give me gastrointestinal problems like the last batch did and I find that I like the taste, too. It tastes like a mixture of Lipton tea (the pre-made kind you get in vending machines) and apple juice. I think I can drink this stuff! Oh and Mom - each batch grows a new baby Kombucha culture - and I've got one with YOUR name on it!

Well, not too much time to blog this evening. Jerry has been in Delaware for a week now and is on his way home. Andy and I are making butter pecan ice cream for him. To practice, we made vanilla ice cream the other night with the cream and milk from the farm. That was GOOD STUFF! I made buttermilk biscuits this afternoon (because he really likes those), and am about to make a batch of peanut butter fudge (which he also likes a lot). I have been using one of Paula Deen's recipes and we really like it. I varied the recipe a little last week and instead of using all peanut butter, I used half peanut butter and half chocolate chips. It turned out tasting like Reese's fudge! Last night I made truffles. They're just about gone now, but that's okay. Jerry doesn't like them, but the boys and I have put a hurtin' on them!

Now I really gotta get going. It will be very nice to have Jerry back home again. I think it's great that after 25 years (yes, next week will be our 25th anniversary!) we still miss each other. Some couples I know dread when their spouse gets back from a trip, and that's sad. Anyway, off to make ice cream!

I'm A Prairie Muffin!

In perusing blog links today, I discovered that I am a Prairie Muffin! Not just shaped like one, either! (although I am). This link will tell you what a Prairie Muffin is. (Well, not #35 because I don't currently belong to a church).

Round Two

*sniffle*.....cough......ahhh-CHOO! Arggh. Andy and I have colds AGAIN. I only felt well for a couple of days, and here we go again! At least Tom escaped it this time. I have had too much to do without being sick again.

I have been trying to finish getting my new computer set up, and also trying to work on my blog site which I intend to convert to a different site sometime in the near future, something that gives me a little more versatility. If I had known that my computer was going to start acting feeble, I would not have gotten my monster mixer and would have gotten a new computer instead. If you remember from a previous post, the computer that I had wasn't that old, but because the one I had previous to that fried it's motherboard, I suddenly lost access to EVERYTHING. My work files, pictures, EVERYTHING. In order to get everything back, I had to open the new computer and put my old hard drive into it to retrieve all my stuff. The hard drive from the old computer still worked; it was just that the motherboard of the computer was toast and the computer wouldn't work. My intent was to put the old hard drive in long enough to transfer all my stuff to the new hard drive in the new computer and then be on my way. Well, in the process of rearranging the innards of the computer to read my old drive, I accidentally bent (and broke) a pin off the back of the new hard drive before I even had a chance to hook it back up. While this could probably be fixed, it would be a difficult process and I didn't have time to fool with it so I just left my old hard drive in and have been using that since then. About two weeks ago I turned on my computer one morning and it sounded like a 747 was gearing up in the living room. I didn't know whether to turn the computer off or run for cover (or both). Eventually the noise died down, but it started happening more often and then started making a grinding kind of noise. Then my programs began acting up and I knew time was short for that ol' hard drive. I didn't want to be caught in the bind I was before, so I decided that this time I'd better get a new one before that one went completely, so that's what I did. I had made a backup disk before so it was relatively easy putting my stuff on the new computer, but there were still a few things that needed to be tweaked to run correctly. I put the new computer in Andy's room on his desk (he currently has his downstairs in Tom's room because they play World of Warcraft and go on quests together and it's easier with both of them having their computers together in the same room). I left mine set up where it was. I used Andy's room internet connection and used our home network to transfer my stuff from one computer to the other. One of these days we'll go wireless, but I'm too stubborn to spend the money on that when our ancient network wiring gets the job done. I did the wiring for the network myself, so there's kind of a crisscrossing of wires across the basement ceiling and it's NOT pretty! It's obvious I don't do this for a living! Anyway, I finally felt comfortable that I had everything transferred correctly and switched the two computers around. I have kept the old one on Andy's desk in case I come across something this week in the course of doing my work that I may have missed. The only problem is that one of the hospitals I do work for is still using a DOS-format WordPerfect and it's very difficult these days to run a DOS program and requires quite a bit of tweaking. Anyway, all's well that ends well, right? Hopefully this will all end well!

I haven't had time to list anything on eBay lately, but I did buy a Kombucha culture! If you don't know what Kombucha is, you can read about it here. I made one batch of it already but it was YUCKY! I only drank a little of it, couldn't stand the taste, and then for the next 12 hours I think my gut believed I had gone to Mexico and drank the water. Needless to say, THAT batch went down the drain. I have another one brewing now that should be ready by Sunday. I used a slightly different variation in making it and so far this batch looks better and doesn't have the sour smell that the last one developed early on. Practice makes perfect, I guess.

The High Price of Milk!

First of all, let me start this by saying that I am thanking the Lord and praising Him that everything turned out all right. That's the most important thing. Now on to my story. On Thursdays Tom is supposed to go by the place to pick up our farm order. He and Sam were on their way home from college yesterday when Tom realized he had forgotten to pick it up. He pulled off to the right side of the road and then was making a U-turn to go back but a car came off of a ramp leading onto the roadway at the exact same time and crashed into the passenger side door of the car, where Sam was sitting. They took Sam to the hospital in an ambulance but Tom declined treatment and rode along with her. They had her in a back and neck brace for precaution on the way there because she was complaining of some pain in her hip where the car had hit. She was checked out thoroughly and had a CT scan and everything was okay. She is just VERY sore and stiff today, and taking the pain medication that they gave her in the ER, so she's pretty out of it today. Tom feels like he was in a fight, just stiff and sore today.

Jerry and I were just sitting down to dinner last night when my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number calling, but I answered it anyway. It was Tom, and this is how the conversation went:
"Mom? Okay, don't freak out. Okay?" He was shouting to be heard over the sound of sirens in the background which were blaring in my ear. I asked him what was going on, not comprehending yet. He said "Is Dad home? I need you to do me a favor. Can you meet me at the hospital?" I started getting upset and he said, "Mom - MOM! Everything's okay. We've been in an accident. I'm okay but I'm riding with Sam in the ambulance. They think she's okay but she needs to be checked out because the car hit on her side. Don't freak out, Mom. Mom? Could you and Dad please come to the hospital?" By this time Jerry had figured that something was wrong, so he took the phone and talked to Tom while I hurriedly grabbed my shoes and coat and had Andy do the same. When we got to the hospital we had to wait a while but eventually Tom came out to talk to us, and Sam's parents arrived to see her. Understandably, Tom wanted to wait until they were finished checking Sam out, so we waited with him. We were very relieved to see Sam and her parents walking out of the ER and into the waiting area where we were. Sam was very shaken and very pale, and she looked like she was going to fall over any minute! Her mom was kind of holding her up and she said that they had given Sam so much pain medication that it was surprising that she was even awake! Anyway, thankfully, everyone is okay (well, except for Sam's car which is probably totaled). I neglected to mention that they were in Sam's car - not Tom's. Sam's parents do not allow her to drive, but they bought her a car and since Tom drives every day, they switch cars between hers and his on alternate days, which I thought was very nice of her parents. Well, yesterday was a day to drive her car. When Sam's dad came out to the waiting room, Jerry told him how sorry we were about Sam's car, but he was very nice and understanding, and said that is why they call them accidents. No one plans for this sort of thing. The policeman on the scene determined that it was Tom's fault, though. Even though he didn't see the car coming off the ramp until it was too late, and a U-turn was not illegal there, the policeman said it was still not yielding the right of way to oncoming traffic. He was very nice though, and told Tom to go to court with it and it would probably help lower his points and/or fine. He got a $150.00 fine. We haven't seen Sam's car but Sam's mom is going to get pictures and so I will post them if I can. And after all of this, we still needed to run by and pick up my farm order on the way home because I couldn't let the food and milk sit in the shed at the pickup point all night! We finally got home at around midnight. *Yawn*! I feel badly that all this happened just because of my milk!

For one of his school assignments this week, Tom had to take a picture of his shoes with his digital camera and then use the picture in a software program to draw them.

Blog owner here - I don't mind this picture being passed around the world, but could somebody please clue me in as to WHY it is so popular? Please refer to my latest post on the home page of my blog for a full explanation. I am extremely curious as to why my son's drawing is making the rounds all over the world. I would greatly appreciate anyone who can tell me how it's being used and why! I'm not looking for royalties and I'm not angry that it's being used all over - I just want to know why. Please someone - clue this clueless blogger in!

Here is Tom's drawing of his shoes. He hasn't finished the shading on them yet, but this is the neatest drawing! (You can double click on the picture to enlarge it).

Last week's first snow of the season. Note one of Tom's friends peering in the window.

Andy took our toboggan-riding cat outside for the first toboggan ride of the season. He actually stays in it and rides, as long as you don't push it too hard - then he bails out and runs across the yard!

The one on the left is from the farm; the one on the right is from the local convenience store. You can't clearly see the label on the farm milk, but it says "Raw Pet Milk (for cats and dogs)". Meow, and woof.

We got our first farm order on Thursday. I was pleasantly surprised that there really wasn't that much of a difference in the taste or texture of raw milk compared to what we buy at the store. I was a little afraid that no one would want to try it, but all of us are drinking it, even Jerry - he's like Mikey from the Life cereal commercial. He hates everything. I did a lot of reading about it before I made the decision to buy it that way. Here is one article, but there is a lot more information out there. I also ordered a quart of cream. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't realize it would be so thick! Today I used my whisk on my mixer (yes, my new toy) and mixed half cream and half milk to make my own half and half for coffee. Tom had some in his coffee and was surprised that it actually tasted like half and half from the store. I'm not sure what he expected - that's generally what "half and half" means, isn't it?! I am anxious to see if changing our dairy products will have an effect on Tom's stomach troubles. He was born with reflux troubles and seems to have had stomach or digestion problems all his life. He has been on Prilosec and Ranitadine because sometimes the acid and reflux just got overwhelming for him. Milk gave him a problem if he had it on an empty stomach. His taking Advil for headaches certainly didn't help his stomach, but this was another one of those times he didn't think mom knew what she was talking about. At least one report every day that I type has to do with someone who uses a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory for headaches or pains and has stomach trouble. Anyway, I started doing some research into it and started thinking that maybe between his avoiding dairy and taking acid-reducing medications, there wasn't enough good bacteria in his gut to help him digest things. I had him eat yogurt that had live cultures and I bought lactic acidophilus tablets for him to take. It's entirely possible that the problem resolved on its own, but now he rarely needs any antacid - not even an occasional Tums, so I wonder if it is due to the "good bad guys" in his system now. We shall see, I guess. Tom said that Sam's family asked him how his pinkeye cleared up and he told them about my chamomile tea eye wash. Then he told me, "but I didn't tell them that my mom was a witch doctor!". He is always making fun of my home cures, but guess who he goes to first when he's feelin' poorly?!

As if I don't torture Tom enough with "Mom's home remedies", we played a good joke on him a couple of weeks ago. Jerry and I went to BJs which is a warehouse store, and they had lots of Christmas clearance items. Standing all alone and looking lonely were two of those yard display metal deer with lights whose heads move back and forth. I kind of liked those deer, but all I saw were the two on the shelf on display. Just then a worker came by with a flat cart to start clearing things out of the Christmas aisle. I asked him if there were any more deer anywhere and he said no, that the only ones left were these two display deer. He also said that those two had been their display for a couple of years now and didn't work so well, so his manager had told him to throw them out. I looked closely at them and didn't see what would be so hard about figuring out what was wrong with them. I asked him why he couldn't just "throw them away" in the back of my truck! He said he couldn't do that but would ask his manager about a discount. While he was off doing that, I summoned Jerry over from another aisle and asked him to look over the deer to see if they were worth having. He didn't see any problem with fixing them up, and so when the employee came back, he and Jerry began haggling. Finally they agreed on $8.00 for both of them - $4.00 apiece. Free would have been better, but we could live with $8.00. As we were on our way home with our bounty, Tom called from Sam's house. I told him about the deer and he was not as thrilled as I was, to put it mildly. He said that he hated those things, that there's just something eerie about them silently moving their heads back and forth in the dark. He called them demon deer. I didn't realize he had such a thing against metal deer! Anyway, we got home before he did. Jerry unloaded the deer and then positioned one in front of each of Tom's bedroom windows, as if they were looking in at him. When he came home and saw them he chuckled, but not as hard as we did! You can see one still in front of the window in my snow picture. Tom says that one of these days they are just going to "mysteriously" disappear!

Snow! And Stuff.

I was so glad to finally see snow this winter. It really hasn't felt like winter at all. Well, except for the cold or flu or whatever it was that made the rounds here. Tom was the first to get it and missed all last week of college because the pinkeye basically blinded him. He kept in touch with his teachers and they gave him his assignments so he wasn't behind in his work. Now hopefully I'm nearing the end of it myself, although last night I was up coughing most of the night. Andy has it a little but mostly just feels really tired and icky. When you have a cold/flu, icky most definitely is a word. Thankfully I only got a touch of the pinkeye and it cleared within a day or so, and Andy never got that at all. I had Tom wash his eyes with chamomile tea using an eye cup and it cleared quickly and his eyes felt much better. It probably would have cleared sooner but he wouldn't listen to me - he couldn't get past putting tea in his eyes! I knew that antibiotic drops wouldn't help because it was viral and not bacterial. Finally he was desperate and said that he'd try anything and lo and behold, in 24 hours it was gone. Sometimes ol' mom knows what she's doing. Not often, but sometimes!

The quest for a grain mill has been put on hold at least for a little while. Tom just started a new quarter in school and was just told what books he would need, so my eBay funds will be going to pay for those first, before the grain mill. For the most part things have been going smoothly selling, but I have had a couple of unfortunate experiences this time around. They both involved people who had never used eBay before and didn't know how to use it. There is plenty of help and information on the site to show you what to do and how to do it, but evidently these people weren't into reading instructions. Nor were they into reading my full listings where it says that PayPal is the only form of payment that I accept. One man had clicked on the "Buy It Now" button for one of my books and thought he was at a regular store. He actually called me on the phone (that was kind of creepy) and told me that my "store" wasn't working because there was nowhere to put his credit card information. *Sigh* I told him that he needed to register with PayPal but he didn't understand what I was trying to explain to him. Then I didn't hear from him for several days, so I emailed and told him that if I didn't hear from him by noon the next day, I would have no choice but to relist the book. Well, the book is relisted and currently has two bids on it. Now I am waiting to hear from the person who won the Wii game. The auction ended Saturday. Ebay automatically sends an invoice at auction end but when I didn't hear from the winner by Sunday night, I also sent a copy of the invoice and asked them to acknowlege that they had won the auction. First thing Monday morning I received an email stating, (and I am typing this exactly as it was written), "hey this program won't take my card or something how can i pay you is there another way? *sigh* *again*. I wrote back and asked what "card" he was referring to, and reiterated that I only accept PayPal. I didn't hear back from him, so last night I wrote and told him that since I saw that he was new to eBay (he just registered the day he won my auction), that maybe he wasn't familiar with the workings of it, so I told him that I would take a money order this time, provided that I received it by Saturday, and I gave him a few pointers on being a good eBayer, for the future. I asked him to write back as soon as possible and tell me how he wanted to handle paying for this game. Well, as of now I haven't heard from him. I am going to write to him one last time and let him know that if I don't hear from him by noon tomorrow that I am offering the game to the next highest bidder or relisting it. I realize that I risk negative feedback this way, but SHEESH! This just gets exasperating!

I have been sneak-reading "Nourishing Traditions". Yes, I know that The Giant Killer is next on my list but the book arrived and I couldn't help sneaking a peek. I highly recommend this book to everyone. It is definitely an eye-opener about food that is supposed to be good for you. Ever wonder why if everyone is eating low fat and low cholesterol that we have the highest rate of heart disease ever? This book will really make you think. After reading the section on dairy, I decided that I definitely wanted to find a source of raw milk for us (as in fresh-from-the-cow). I had been looking for the past couple of years anyway because I wanted to try making cheese, but I couldn't find any (and we just don't have room for a milk cow out back!). It turns out that there are laws that make it illegal for farmers to sell their cow's milk without it being "factory-ized" first. That's pasteurized and homogenized. I read in one of my Countryside magazines how people were circumventing this by buying "cow shares", wherein they buy a share of a farmer's cow; the farmer houses the cow and feeds it with the money you provided, then once a week or so you go and pick up "your" cow's milk products. Technically the law states that if you own the cow, you can drink it's milk; hence the cow sharing. Well, turns out that cow sharing is illegal in Maryland. Gotta love this place. Anyway, to make a long story short (kind of late now, I know), I found a co-op where I can order stuff weekly directly from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania and I pick up my goods every Thursday evening. Well, actually Tom is picking them up on his way home from college because it's right on his way. Our first order will be in this Thursday and I'm anxious to see REAL milk! I also ordered some REAL eggs and REAL ham steaks. Well, the meat we're kind of used to because for the past two years we have bought our own cow and pig for slaughter, but we've never had REAL DAIRY before! In order to protect the farmer though, all of our items have to be marked Pet Food. Oh, well. I've been called worse!

Arrrrrgh. Haven't posted in a few days because Flu Bug and Pink Eye showed up uninvited at my house a few days ago and haven't left yet. Jerry is in Delaware this week and missing all the fun. I'd write more, but my arms are too weak to hold up to the keyboard. Like I said, Arrrrrgh.

I haven't posted recently because I've been busy playing with my new toy. I unexpectedly got a Kitchenaid mixer and have been making all kinds of stuff with it. I say that it was unexpected because Jerry and I had talked about getting one for Christmas but we both agreed it was too expensive right now and we would wait, but then Kitchen Collection had the kind that I wanted for $100.00 off, plus a $30.00 mail-in rebate on top of that, so we talked ourselves into believing that we really shouldn't pass this up! It's amazing what your mind can talk you into. Actually, it's kind of funny because over the past several days as I was getting back into tightwad gear, I had intended to write a sidebar item about my tightwaddery, but I never got around to that and instead played with something new that I (*gasp*) bought!

This mixer is a beast. I had no idea from looking at the pictures how large it really was. We got the Professional 600 because it was the biggest that they make and can handle bread dough. I have been researching these for over a year now and had been debating between a Bosch and a Kitchenaid, but finally the sale on the Kitchenaid made my decision for me. This thing is so big that sitting on my counter, there is only one inch between the top of the mixer and the underside of the cabinets over the counter. The flat beater that is shown in the picture is bigger than Jerry's hand. I had a recipe in my Mennonite cookbook that made four loaves of bread (something I never would have attempted with my old mixer), so I tried that. We set the timer, and using the dough hook the dough for four loaves of bread was done in four minutes. That's it. When I get around to writing about my tightwaddery, I'll explain about the breadmaking. Now I want to buy the grain mill attachment for it, so I've listed some things on eBay for my fundraising for that.

I decided to try out a new program that eBay offers (well, new to me anyway) called Turbolister, where you can write the descriptions and get pictures of your items all offline and they just stay in a file on your computer until you're ready to sell your stuff, then you can upload it all at one time and start your auctions. I used that for the first time yesterday but when I uploaded my stuff and started my auctions, the format hadn't stayed the same as when I wrote it in Turbolister, and my counters for page visits were missing. Right after the auctions went live I went in to fix these things and as I was making my way down my list of items putting counters on all of them, I noticed that one of my items was missing. I had listed five things, now only four were showing up. I thought that somehow one listing hadn't made it to the auction so I went back to check, and then saw that one of the books had sold in the three minutes that the auction had been live. That's why it wasn't showing up when I went back to add a counter! Someone had bought the book and paid for it and the money was in my account in Paypal all in five minutes' time. I can hear the grain mill grinding away now!

Also, just in case anyone's wondering, I decided that my schedule didn't need tweaking. It needs a major overhaul!

My new toy.

PLAN isn't supposed to be a four-letter word, is it?

Well, here we are in the new year. I have decided to try to get myself organized this year. Again. Only this time I actually took some steps in that direction. I made a book for myself with all the stuff in it that I thought might be useful. I'm sure it will undergo some tweaking, but I'm hopeful that it will be a help to me. Before Christmas I bought an inexpensive binding machine in order to make photo albums. We thought it would be a good investment anyway because Tom needs something with which to make portfolio books. So, I have been perusing forms on websites and templates on microsoft.com during the past week. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I found a few forms at DonnaYoung.org which were also helpful.

The first section is Andy's school schedule. Andy collaborated on that. While I'm all for "eclectic" homeschooling and learning what you want, when you want, we did need a little more structure to our days. The fact that we have a board of education review in two weeks had absolutely nothing to do with that decision, either. No sir. None at all. Huh-uh.

I'll write more about my book in future posts. I have allowed myself a half hour per day to blog, but you can see what time I finally got to it - it's now 9:57 PM. My schedule says I should have done this at 4:00. Hmmm. Did I mention that I would probably need to tweak it a bit?

What a beautiful sunrise! I caught these pictures on rehobothbeachcam.com. The sunrise was so pink and bright here at home that morning, that I figured it had to be beautiful on the ocean.

Here is the same view, about six hours later.

It's That Time Again!

Here is our tree in all it's splendor - pre-toss!
Here is Andy with the first toss. You can't see much of him in the picture, but you can see the mighty heft he gave it, as attested to by the airborne tree!
Next it was Tom's turn. I think he was aiming for height more than distance!
Here is my tree-tossing attempt. It went a respectable distance, anyway!