Confessions of a Grandma

When kids came to my parents' door saying "trick or treat!" my dad would always say, "I'll take the treat." Happy Halloween The sun made an appearance today and I was happy to see its face. It wasn't sharing a whole lot of heat though.  I went out for a walk just a bit after noon and I noticed that my shadow was about six feet long as I traversed to the north with the sun behind me.  Coming south at the end of my loop, the sun was shining right in my eyes.  The wind was pretty bitter, but we have not had the dumps of snow that they have had in southern New England, so no complaints.  I was out and I was getting exercise and it felt good. I was tempted to make the trip to Rutland, VT for the Halloween parade.  School bands from that county and area businesses submit floats and my son-in-law put together a float this year.  He has a roofing business.  Grandson Dane was apparently quite excited about Halloween this year and was greatl...

 YUM  Any one who walked into my house right now would think I am busy cooking up a storm, but I am not. I have been slowly working on getting the gardens cleaned up and bedded down for the winter.  Today I cut a bunch of rosemary, some sage, the parsley,  and some thyme.  Yeah, I dug out some old Simon and Garfunkel to listen to as I went about drying these herbs. I don't use a whole lot of sage, but it does make an attractive plant in the herb garden.  I tend to use it mostly to garnish a platter--like for the roast chicken I served the other day. I prefer rosemary and parsley when fresh, but it is nice to have a bit on hand in the spice drawer just in case.  You never know when a spice emergency will occur. Now, thyme is my favorite.  I have two huge clumps of it and I use it all the time...er, a lot.  I filled a colander with cut thyme, washed it and started picking through it to spread sprigs on paper towels before drying it ...

Google image I have had my battles with depression.  Seasonal Affective Disorder?  Yeah, I know all about that. I tried a number of times to get my health insurance company to pay for a February trip to the Caribbean, but I found out they are just not nearly as committed to prevention as they claim to be.  Can't they see a savings from not having to reimburse all those antidepressants? Short-sightedness...that's what is wrong with this country's health care system. My seasonal blips seem to be more about a period of change.  I get anxious when I feel that summer is going to give way to fall.  Then I adjust to fall but get anxious again when it is turning dark and wintry.  Of course I get the most down when it is time for winter to change to spring and it just isn't happening in the cycle of Vermont seasons.  It's the lack of change for the better that gets to me. This year has had my head spinning.  We made three trips to Florida....

This salad is a mixture of garbanzo beans, edemame, corn, chopped red pepper and onion.  I dress it with fresh squeezed lemon juice and olive oil, cracked pepper and sea salt.  I mix up a batch and can eat it for lunch on its own or as a side dish for a few days.  I also add dried cranberries to give it a nice sweetness, but I prefer not to have them sit in the mix for too long. It earns a zero on the Mike approval rating scale. Edamame is the immature soy bean that is often served with Japanese cuisine.  It has a good amount of protein plus nine essential amino acids so it is worth considering if you try for meatless meals.  This is kind of an example of my season confusion.  I ate a lot of this while we were in Florida.  Since I have been back in Vermont, I find I want to crawl into bed early and sleep late.  I want to spend the afternoons roasting and baking, followed by eating.  I want hot drinks and thick, cream...

Sunday dinners...remember them?  Come home from church and mom would be in the kitchen for hours roasting some meat and peeling, boiling, mashing potatoes.  My grandmother was fond of serving turnip and she mad an excellent cabbage slaw with a sweet-tart vinegar dressing.  There was always dessert.  Although if the meal was big enough and late enough, dessert might be turned into Sunday night supper. Later, Sunday dinners were alternated between my parents' and my in-laws with siblings and their children also likely to be attending. My point is that after so many years of being treated to Sunday dinners, I never really got too much in the habit of doing that kind of cooking myself.  This is not to say that I don't occasionally jones for roasted something with all the trimmings in a fit of nostalgia for past generation. I was in the store on Saturday and happened to see a woman hoisting a large roasting chicken onto the counter.  All of a sudden I...

The first things I loved about retirement was that I didn't have to wake up in the morning to the sound of an alarm clock and that I did not have to follow a schedule.  Not having to wake up to a blaring alarm clock--I love that still, pretty sure I always will.  Lately, though, I have been bothered by a lack of schedule--maybe not schedule so much as some kind of routine.  It is almost cliche for retired folks to complain that there is not enough time in the day to fit in everything they want to do, but I have been feeling that. I have been feeling that I have all these "things" to do and yet that I am spinning wheels and being quite unproductive.  I start one thing and then get distracted by something else that seems important to be doing.  I go out to clean out the car and notice that weeds need to be pulled along the driveway.  I sit down to write and get distracted by the beep of the dryer calling me to fold laundry.  I put water on ...

Some people wanted a picture of my feel-good haircut so here is one. My hair is fine in texture but very thick.  As is obvious, it wants to wave where it wants to wave.  Not curl or fall softly.  It is more into the Medusa snake dance if left to its own devices. When I was much younger and wanted a particular hair style--like for a year book picture or a wedding, my hair actually caused hair dressers to break down in tears of frustration.  So imagine how I felt. Now, there are times when I walk out of the salon feeling pretty good about a haircut, but once I wash it myself it is over.  For a time I wore it really short not because I liked the way it looked but because it was wash and go.  Then I grew it long enough to pull back into a perpetual ponytail but that got to be too severe looking. The professional blow out of this haircut was very nice, but this picture was taken after a few washes and it really seems to work with th...

Today was mammogram day for me.  I understand that there is some question about this screening test, but I go once a year without fail.  I don't even think that I am in a particularly high risk group. I just do it and hope for the best. I once worked with a woman who would not get any kind of screening test--blood pressure, nothing.  She said if there was a problem she would just rather not know about it.  Actually, I understand that line of reasoning but I have not given myself permission to go there.  I also understand the cynicism about all the "pink" merchandise and the issues of awareness versus actual commitment to prevention and real cures but I optimistically hope that good intention prevails in the world.

Whew...a long trip home.  Under the most ideal of conditions, the trip between Venice and Jericho is every second of 24 hours.  We split up the trip over three days.  It is doable in two days, but then we find ourselves out of it for another two--so best to just take it a bit slower. When we find a place to spend the night, I run the bed bug routine.  Strip the sheets from the bed.  Inspect along the seams.  Wait for the whole body itch that starts in my head to subside.  It's pretty worrisome.  I have not ever found  bed bugs, but I have found places that are way too grimy.   At this point, though, we have made the trip enough so that we pretty much stay in the same places along the way and know the places to avoid.  And sometimes, "Under New Management" doesn't mean any improvements were made. The drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia was our best taste of fall this year.  It was clear and sunn...

I have to say--never, ever underestimate the feeling good benefits of a really good hair cut.

I just gotta love having this pantry.  It would probably be much more practical at our regular house than at the winter house.  I do like my VT kitchen for its efficient work space, but storage is a bit tight.   We have plenty of shelving in the basement for after those trips to Costco, but a pantry in the kitchen is more convenient than having to run downstairs for that can of tomatoes. Well, I had to give up running down the stairs after the falling incident last July.  I am reduced to creeping down the stairs while  clinging to the railing.  If only I could learn to be that cautious! Before I took that tumble, I had been out in the front garden snapping a couple of pictures of lovely lavender in bloom.  My shoes were wet which I realized just a bit too late.  When I came in and headed down the stairs, I slid and went rolling noisily down.  What I didn't write about at the time (I don't think, but forgive me if I repeat myself...

As can be easily seen here, we are working with a very neutral color palate in our Florida place.  This is the main entry door.  We added the clock, the key hanger, the small blue rug and the place mats.   The window in the dining area faces directly east so we watch the sun rise over coffee in the morning. The laundry room is off the kitchen.  I will need to get an iron and ironing board, but that was not a high priority for this trip.  I love all the storage space. We got a rug for the screened lanai.  Mike put a new globe over what was a bare bulb on the ceiling fan.  We bought the table and chairs from a consignment shop.  There was an older table and chairs here, but this was more to our taste.  It won't hurt to have the extra chairs available and we can use the old table to hold the little Weber grill and cooking utensils.  The palm tree was left by the previous owners.  It has twinkly lights, but we have no...

I made a trip to a local plant nursery .  Two extremely helpful women helped me to identify the plants in my yard, gave me the Sarasota County Extension service phone number, and steered me to a web site with plenty of information about taking care of the yard. This may be the slow season here as far as tourism, but it is a great time for customer service.  I am glad we get to do the big shopping time instead of during the winter months. Frangipani flowers (a bit spent)--they have a lovely scent. The tree looks like dead sticks in the winter, though.  These white flowers smell so much like an orange blossom that I was guessing it was some kind of mock orange.  The woman at the nursery called it an orange jasmine.  On the net, I found out it is also called a tea tree.  The smell is wonderful (and I thought of you, Arkansas Patti). These are seeds on a crape myrtle, which blooms in summer and shed leaves in the winter. What Florida yard would...

I have been watching Dancing With the Stars  on Monday nights.  This was something I could never get into before, but I have enjoyed watching these past few weeks.  I don't get around to watching the Tuesday night part though so I learned this morning from a peek at Good Morning America  that this week's elimination was a "shocker" for the judges and the eliminated couple. Personally, I did not enjoy the performance of the booted dancers--costume and choreography bordered on soft-core porn in my opinion so am glad that they weren't rewarded for it.  I'm not really that much of a prude, but there were much classier dances and touching stories told through them. Now, I have to admit that I am not much of a Nancy Grace fan and I thought her performance was a bit of a yawn, but did you see the shot of her little girl clone?  Was that kid seriously up past her bedtime or was she just plain scary?  Movie trailers like "I see dead people," and "They...

It's no lie to say that Mike picked out Vermont home for its huge garage complete with its own storage room and its own furnace.  I think that this shed influenced his interest in our Florida home. First order of business was to get this organized.  If you know us, you understand--Mr. and Mrs. OCD (or as a friend likes to call us, CDO, because that's alphabetical order). We scored the peg board at a Habitat for Humanity Re-Store for two bucks a sheet.  Mike's spent a lot of time picking up the extra tools in anticipation of this shed. There is a fan in the shed, but with the temps in the 80's it really could double as a sauna room.

These three sandhill cranes took a stroll through the neighborhood. They stopped to inspect our front lawn. Then they rounded the corner, and kept right on walking down the street.

The public library in Venice, FL has a rather large used book store run by the friends of the library.  It is almost as big as our Jericho Town Library circulation space.  The store is staffed full time by at least two volunteers--an advantage of a large retired population.  They wear  pink pinnies.   One of my volunteer activities is to keep the sale book shelf tidy and supplied, but I don't have to wear any particular uniform to identify me as a library volunteer. Anyway, I went there (Venice library) to pick up some magazines for some light reading in the evenings--since I knew I was going to be pretty worn out by then most nights here for a while.  I got (for $1.00--I am so, so frugal lately!) a September Coastal Living  and October issues of Family Circle,  Better Homes and Gardens,  and Country Living. What are the odds?  I ended up with two recipes, timely for Halloween celebration, for "easy" cake pops.  The proces...