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.

 Is it just me or is the "new and improved" blogger really glitchy? I guess we hang on for a bumpy ride? My reading list is not suddenly showing the blogs I read. I have a fine list of things written written six years ago. Making comments can be a gamble. If I mark a comment as spam, it gets published anyway. I don't mind change unless it is a giant step backwards and that is what this appears to be. Why, yes, yes I have.

I can't even tell you how long I just stood staring at this branch of maple leaves and the blue sky behind it. And then there was the bark on this locust tree that captivated my attention. I take a lot of random pictures by accident. I often see these little library boxes, but I was of course delighted to see this one dedicated to poetry. Residential streets were lined with these signs. Remember when cars mostly looked like this? Mercury Blues I took a picture of this hedge because it was such a mish mash of trees and shrubs and vines but someone obviously spent time to  keep it clipped and trimmed. Ducked down an alley way I love doorways and windows. The alley way brought me to the river that flows behind the town's main street. A foot bridge crosses the river. Where the Wild Things Are  was reproduced in signs along the path. And the path  lead to the Marble Works, once actual marble works but now small shops. An entire yard full of hydrangea at the museum. On the way ...