Confessions of a Grandma

 My sister has had a very rough time of it for the past few years. She has been at the end of her rope a number of times but has found the strength to pull through. Now her husband is dying. He is getting hospice care, but it is still a heavy burden of care taking for her.  I will pick up my niece at the airport and drive her to my sister's. I'll do the same for my nephew if he is able to get a flight. In the meantime I baked a cake and made a batch of chicken salad, which is the ultimate comfort food to my way of thinking. What I do when I feel otherwise helpless. ****** I have seen this recipe as French Apple Cake and Russian Apple Cake , pretty much the exact same. It is the easiest cake in the world to make.  I do have some apples, but I also had some plums that needed using so it's either French or Russian Plum Cake. Oven preheated to 350 (F) Line a springform cake pan bottom with parchment and grease the both the parchment and the sides of the pan. 1 cup sugar 3 eg...

Like my old car on steroids.  The lease on the 2017 Ford C-Max, a plug-in hybrid vehicle, was up at the end of September. I had the option to buy it, but I didn't want to. I liked lots of things about that car but I did not like the fact that the electric battery took up so much space and that a full charge did not give that many electric only miles (25, more bother than it was worth).  They don't even make them anymore so that tells you something. I do drive from Vermont to Florida and back, but once I am settled in one place or the other I don't put on all that many miles. I decided to look into vehicles that would be a comfortable long distance ride and have plenty of room for when I am traveling with the grandchildren. And honestly, I want a car that just might last for the rest of my driving career. I am young at heart, but, let's face it, I am not very young. I bought a Ford Edge. I am mostly a Ford person. I did have a Prius, which I liked. Before that, I did hav...

 As of July 1 of this year (the year that will not be named), food scraps must be used for composting, They cannot go into household trash. This has not affected my life as I have been composting for a long time. Also plastic bags are now banned in the State of Vermont. You can have purchases packed into paper bags, but there is a charge for those bags. I have plenty of cloth shopping bags and I have used them for the grocery store for a long time. I am quickly getting used to taking a cloth bag into other stores as well. I am pretty sure the charge for paper bags is the law's way of encouraging people to use their own cloth bags. I have heard people complain, but I don't think it is a bad thing. Anything we can do to help the environment of our blue ball. I have noticed that stores are using the bag expense savings for greater use of register tape though. Yesterday I went to Staples for an ink cartridge for my printer. One item, This is the receipt:  One item!

 I have had cataract surgery in both eyes, the left in September and the right a week ago. My left eye has always been much lower vision than my right. Both procedures went well. They told me I would be awake for the procedure but I remember nothing about the first one and only a bit about the second. I remember that there was country music playing in the background -- like there always is at my doctor's office. I guess he is a fan. I remember someone remarking about the floaters in right eye and then nothing until I was waking up in the recovery room. I was somewhat disappointed that the correction in that eye was only about 50% but I still have near vision in it. My right eye is not completely healed but I can see as clear as a bell with it. What I was not prepared for was not being able to read! I have been nearsighted all my life. I really never understood people who couldn't read a menu, say, without fishing around for reading glasses. I was wearing progressive lenses but ...

 Recently there were a number "magic" natural ways to clean the oven on Pinterest. Spray on, wipe off! Riiight! It's possible to clean an oven without scrubbing and I have reclaimed swamp land in Florida to sell. But I did take the hint that it was time to clean the oven. I but the oven racks in the tub and cover them with water and a good squirt of dishwasher detergent to soak over night. In the morning I go over them with a Scotch Brite heavy duty green scrub pad. The soak makes the scrubbing easier but it's still scrubbing. If the oven is major bad, I use the self-clean function and wipe the oven out with a damp cloth. If isn't all that bad I use the Scotch Brite pad with someBar Keeper's cleanser and then give it a good mop out with a pile of old rags. And now it is time for a glass of wine and a piece of chocolate.