More Thoughts Too Short For a Whole Blog Post

I never make meatloaf.  We don't really like it.  If I came to your house and you made it, I would eat it though.  I try very hard to be polite.  Plus maybe I would like your meatloaf.  I feel like there must be a meatloaf out there I would really like.
 
I like that new show on TLC Cake Boss.  DD doesn't like it because, "There's too much yelling!".
 
I do not like riding a bike.  That ridiculously tiny hard seat hurts my butt.
 
I LOVE tote bags.  All kinds - the cheapo free ones given away at conventions and stuff, purse-like tote bags, personalized tote bags, small tote bags, big tote bags, I love tote bags!!  I am especially happy that now the thing to do is use reusable tote bags at the grocery store!  Now I have MORE tote bags!  That stay in my truck so I can have tote bags with me at all times!  For some women it's shoes, for me it's tote bags.
  
In the past DH has been laid off twice.  I am so incredibly thankful the job he has now seems to be secure, but I have tremendous empathy and sympathy for anyone who has been laid off - IT SUCKS.
  
I often waver between thinking I'm doing ok as a mom, and thinking I'm a huge failure. 
     
When DD was little she used to call Franklin "Tea Haan", and she called fruit snacks "doot naks".  Today we still call them "doot naks" 'cause it's a fond memory.
  
Being "frugal" seems like a good thing while being "cheap" does not seem to be something praiseworthy.  What exactly is the difference between being "frugal" and being "cheap" I wonder?  I tried searching on the internet to try to find an explanation, but I really didn't find anything definitive - what do you think is the difference between the two?
  
The end.
 

Surprise in My Driveway

So over the weekend I nearly came to a screeching halt because there was one of these in the middle of my driveway:

It's a box turtle.  This is the time of year when females look for a good spot on high ground to lay their eggs.  We have a creek at the far end of our property and I've seen turtles before down there, but I've never seen one up by our house before, no less in the middle of our driveway.  Thank God I saw it, my stomach turns at the though of running over one of these.

DH wasn't with DD and I when we came across the turtle (I stopped the truck and ran in to get the camera to take a pic) - he was actually at our local park being part of a Geocaching demonstration that was being put on.  Since he tends to be a tad bit of a speedier driver than I, I called him to tell him to watch out for the turtle.  (Yet another reason to add to the multitudes of why I am glad cellular phones were invented - turtle protection! :-)

I have almost hit deer in my own driveway, but this was the first time I almost hit a turtle.  Speaking of deer, our hosta keeps getting eaten by deer but my Dad said he got some stuff called "Liquid Fence" to spray on his hosta and he says it seems to be working.  Anyone have any experience with Liquid Fence or anything else to get the deer to leave plants alone?  Generally I don't even bother trying to deter the deer because nothing seems to work anyway - and I know they love hosta, but we got our hosta from a family friend and it would just be nice if we could see the flowers bloom one of these years before the deer eat them....ya know??

The end.
 

Our Year in Vestal, NY

So after all that had happened, with the fire capping things off (see previous post) we decided to move.  My first and foremost goal was to find a place that felt safe.  We found a reasonable apartment in a very nice area right near Binghamton University in the town of Vestal - I still remember the name of the complex - it was Holly Brook Apartments.  Luckily by now I had a somewhat decent job and so we could afford a place that was a little more expensive.  I believe the rent was $420 but it didn't include utilities.  (The heat and hot water were electric - oh little did we know how expensive those would turn out to be!)

Now when I say a "somewhat decent job" what I mean is that I had a job in a secretarial pool, at a company called Keith Clark that was an HOUR commute from where we lived, and the pay was about $10/hour (minus the innumerable quarts of oil I had to put in my putt-putt car each week to keep from blowing the engine).  On top of it all, here I was with my new college degree in graphic design working as a secretary.  I certainly wasn't looking into administrative careers, but through an interesting chain of events, I wound up getting hired for the secretarial pool, which in life, ended up working out better in the long run I think.  And it was better than the crappy job I had, so I took it.  (Previous to this I had first worked for Artistic Greetings doing endless hours of data entry typing people's addresses in off little mail in forms.  Then I worked for a publishing company called Haworth Press where they paid insultingly low salaries with crappy, unaffordable benefits.)
 
Believe it or not, somehow we managed to pay all of our expenses out of this, plus what we owed on DH's education as well.  Can you see why we lived on bread sandwiches and Hamburger Helper?  If we were really lucky, sometimes we had $10 left over at the end of the week and we'd get a pizza, or, go to Ground Round and get an order of chicken wings and glasses of water. 
  
We also really could hardly afford to use the heat or hot water - if any of you have had any experience with electric heat/hot water you know it is EXPENSIVE!  The power company used to offer a few cents off for electric usage after 11pm and before 7am, so we used to run our dishwasher late at night and I'd try to take my shower before 7am to save a few pennies.  DH used to type his computer assignments wearing gloves to keep his hands warm.  On the weekends in the winter it was too expensive to turn the heat up (we used to keep it at 55) and too cold to be out, so we would literally spend the weekend in bed, under the covers, watching tv.  For Christmas that year, my MIL gave us as our Christmas present, the money to subscribe to the "Gold" cable package so at least we'd have good movies to watch all winter, wasn't that sweet?  My parents would come to visit and my Mom would bring meat (like roasts and stuff!) and toilet paper.  She'd always say something like, "Oh I got these great deals I couldn't pass up, but I have no room for any of this, so I thought maybe you could use it..."  But we knew they were trying to help us, and we sure did appreciate it!
 
Finally DH graduated his degree in Computer Science and got a job in Tarrytown, NY.  So we moved back to our hometown area and started a new chapter in our lives - saving for a house and then having a baby.  I was very glad to be on to the new chapter.  We had some good times and learned some good life's lessons in Binghamton, but those were some tough years.  I wasn't too sad to see them go. 
  
In fact after that, I couldn't eat Hamburger Helper for years, after eating it so much.
 
However, we definitely still remember each time we say grace how appreciative we are to not HAVE to eat Hamburger Helper and that we have the money to buy the food we'd like to eat, and the money for heat and A/C and basic stuff many take for granted.  We are very, very thankful to have what we have.
 
The end.
 

Our Year in the City of Binghamton

   
I mentioned in the previous post that I had some funny stories from our two years spent living in Binghamton, brought on by the mention of Speidie Sauce, a "Southern Tier" favorite.  That was 15 years ago, but I'll tell ya, some of those memories are as fresh as yesterday.

As I mentioned, we got married and moved to Binghamton so DH could finish his computer science degree at Binghamton University.  It was difficult to look for an apartment beforehand, not only because we lived three hours away, but it was the countdown to our wedding as well, and we were very busy.  We had traveled out one weekend and looked at a bunch of places.  We weren't terribly thrilled with our choices - we tried to look at very inexpensive places since we had no idea what my income would be - and a lot of the apartments there are in old houses, mostly lived in by college students.  We called on our first choice, but it was no longer available.  There was really only one other apartment that we would even consider of those we looked at, so we called on that one and got it.  We rented a moving truck and had friends and family help us load it up (didn't use a moving company, no luxury like moving companies Los Angeles or anything like that - in fact we've never used professional movers).

The one redeeming feature of this apartment was the landlord - a friendly, wonderful woman with whom we're still friends with today.  The apartment was a 1 bedroom, 1 bath 2nd floor apartment in an old house.  Located one street over from probably the worst street in the city of Binghamton.  Which unfortunately we did not know right away.  The rent was $360 and included all utilities.  Because it was created from a house, it had a bit of a weird layout - you had to walk through the bathroom to get to the bedroom.  The kitchen had no countertops or cabinets.  The only "surface" to lay anything was on the drainboard next to the old sink.  We always had plenty of heat (radiators), but hot water was another story.  If someone else in the house (there were 2 other apartments) used the hot water when we were using it, ours went down to a trickle.  We used to keep a large cupful of water in the shower so that when the shower water would go to a trickle, we could still rinse off with the cup of water.  The old house had a furnace in the basement like I've never seen before - our landlord called it, "Big Bertha".  So at least we were warm that first Binghamton winter.  In the summer we suffocated.  The windows were not in a good location for ventilation and I can remember us just laying on the bed with the box fan blowing right on us just to survive.

    

Rather quickly we realized we were living in a pretty bad part of town.  We should have realized this the day we were looking at apartments, but after a day of driving all over the Tri-Cities, one street started looking like another.  (Believe me, after this we were always VERY attentive to the neighborhoods we were looking in.)  In fact, the house next door was a "drug den".  Over the course of the year there were regular drug busts.  Luckily the people next door and their customers pretty much left us alone, although we did discover that, "Do you want to buy a women's coat?" was code for "Wanna buy some drugs?".  We had very little money and spent most of our time going through grocery flyers to see where we could get free eggs one week, a 1/2 off loaf of bread another week, coupon for free paper towels, etc.  There was a grocery store next to the laundromat and we'd go pick up whatever "loss leaders" they had going that week while we did laundry.  Conversations between us like, "Hey, there was a shooting next to the laundromat yesterday." were common.  One time I decided to walk to the library from our apartment and I left DH a note with a description of what I was wearing in case I went missing.  I remember waking up early one morning to the sound of a car crash, then tires squealing outside our window.  I looked out the window - didn't see anything - and rolled over and went back to sleep.

Over time I grew increasingly unhappy about where we were living, but we did love our landlord and it was very affordable on my tiny salary.  One night we were awakened by the telephone ringing - it was our landlord telling us to get out of the house, the house next door was on fire.  I can remember walking over to the window and just starting at the flames leaping out of the windows of the house next door.  I can remember standing there in utter calm.  It was like I had become numb to all these scary and horrible things going on around us.  It was after this event I told DH, we have to move - I can't live here anymore.
 
And that, my friends, is how we ended up in a small apartment with electric heat in Vestal, NY.  A story for another day.
  
The end.
  

Spiedie Sauce and a Bit of Carole History

Bonnie from Mama K commented in my last post that she wanted to know what "Spiedie Sauce" is that I mentioned.  So for those of you who are unfortunately unfamiliar with this regional favorite, from Wikipedia:

"The spiedie is a dish local to Greater Binghamton in the Southern Tier of New York State, and somewhat more broadly known and enjoyed throughout Central New York state. Spiedie consists of cubes of chicken or pork, but it may also be made from lamb, veal, venison or beef. The meat cubes are marinated overnight or longer (sometimes for as long as two weeks under a controlled environment) in a special spiedie marinade, then grilled carefully on spits (if steel skewers are used, they are called "spiedie rods") over a charcoal pit. The freshly prepared cubes are served on soft Italian bread or a submarine roll, skewer and all, and sometimes drizzled with fresh marinade. The bread is used as an oven glove to grip the meat while the skewer is removed. Spiedie meat cubes can also be eaten straight off the skewer or can be served in salads, stir fries, and a number of other dishes. The marinade recipe varies, usually involving olive oil, vinegar, and a variety of Italian spices and fresh mint."

DH and I lived in Binghamton, NY for the first two years of our marriage and that's how we met the spiedie.  For years after we left, when we'd go back to visit, we'd stock up on Spiedie Sauce, however, nowadays, there are at least two local places I know of where I can get what is probably the best known spiedie sauce, Salamida's State Fair Spiedie Sauce, pictured above.  We don't usually do the whole skewer thing - we just use it as a tasty marinade.  If you have a minute, go check out http://www.spiedie.com/aboutus.htm - it has a great story of how the company started - a true American entrepreneur.  Or order a bottle to try!  Or you can try checking in your local grocery store by the marinades, you never know.

So what the heck were DH and I doing in Binghamton, anyway?  Well, when we got married, DH still had two years left on his Computer Science degree and had been accepted as a transfer student to Binghamton University.  So pretty much as soon as we got back from our honeymoon in early June of 1994, we packed all our stuff and moved to a tiny apartment in a not very good area of Binghamton, later we moved to Vestal.  We were very poor the whole time we lived there.  My Dad used to joke that we lived on bread sandwiches.  We tried to make the best of it though.  I think as a big treat we even went camping for a "vacation" one year for a weekend in some local park that cost like 2 cents a day to camp there or something (in tents, not luxurious rv camping!).  I have some funny stories from this time in our lives, but that will have to be another post since this one is running long.

So be on the lookout for another post on how we survived those years, AND I also have my very first giveaway coming up!  Stay tuned...
  
The end.

P.S.  My friendship bread has been faithfully "mushed" and cared for and is making good fermenting smell.  Better yet, my SIL agreed to take one of my starters, woo hoo! :-D

Something I Learned From My Dad About Beer

My Dad always had to fight for room in the fridge to put a few bottles of beer.  My Dad taught me that most men don't ask for much, but they do like to have some cold beer at the ready.  So I vowed when I got married, my man would not have to fight for a beer spot.  In fact, at our house, DH gets the top shelf in the fridge for his beverages and he also gets the top shelf in the freezer for frosty glasses.

 

  

 

  

The shelf was particularly well stocked because of Father's Day.  We had Father's Day here with my father and my brother, SIL and niece. The weather was not great, but it mostly only drizzled on and off which did not stop us from playing some games outside (bocce, horseshoes and croquet).  It was kind of a bummer not to be able to use our outdoor furniture (too wet) and had to eat in the dining room, but at least DH was able to BBQ.  He really had that grill workin' - he made chicken legs marinated in Spieide sauce (it's a Binghamton/central NY thing), buffalo chicken wings, corn on the cob, hot dogs, hamburgers and shrimp.  It was a really nice day and I really enjoyed the company.

  

Anyone do anything interesting for Father's Day?

  

The end.

 

I Can't Escape From the Friendship Bread

 
That, my friends, is a bag of Friendship Bread starter.  Have you ever been given one of these?  My cousin T gave me some in mid May that I made into some delicious bread.  With this particular recipe, you leave the bag out on the counter for 10 days.  Most days you are to "mush the bag".  On day 6 I believe, you add some milk, sugar and flour.  There is yeast in the starter so over the 10 days it grows and ferments and you have to start letting the air out of the bag.  The air it makes smells like fermenting beer, which to me, smells really good.  Then on day 10 you add more ingredients, divide it into more "starters", then make a batch for yourself which makes two loaves.  The bread is really good and for some reason, I really enjoy the process. I wouldn't mind keeping one going all the time if not for the fact that it multiplies and you have to keep making a million loaves of bread.
  
The problem with Friendship Bread is getting people to take the new starters. I ended up getting myself into a situation of being left with a bunch of starters that I felt obligated to continue with.  It's not that I don't have friends, it's that I apparently don't have a lot of friends that like to bake.  Anyway, after what seemed like 500 loaves of bread and three starters in my freezer later, I finally put an end to the vicious cycle of friendship bread.
 
Only to be given one from my daughter's friend's Mom two days ago.  She however, has the right idea.  Don't ask people to take starter - just give it out.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do now that I'm on the Friendship Bread Train again, but in 8 more days my neighbors might be finding a little gift in their mailboxes...
 
The end.
 

Camping Weekend for Geo Jamboree 7

Over the weekend we went camping for the geocaching event "Geo Jamboree 7".  Since it was all geocache-y, I posted about it on my other blog So You Wanna Go Geocaching if you're interested.
 
The end.
 

This Takes Genealogy to a Whole New Level

   
If you're a regular reader, you may recall I've mentioned I've been working on and off on the family genealogy.  In my searching, I discovered that you can actually explore your ancestry dna!  How crazy is this?  Apparently you can do test on either maternal lineage or paternal lineage.  If you're a woman you can only submit your DNA for the maternal lineage test, but if you want to do the paternal also, you can have a father or a brother submit their DNA for that test.  Interesting, huh?  From studying the swab of DNA you send in, they can supposedly determine the geographic origins of your ancestors and even their migration.  You get a report and everything with lots of other info.  It's pretty expensive, but maybe I'll ask for something like that as a gift sometime - I'm pretty fascinated by this.
   
Our family is mostly all from Europe / Eastern Europe, so I guess I'd be pretty shocked if the test results came back showed we initially came from somewhere else.  I recently watched a set of six DVDs when I was deathly ill over Easter about the Celts, I think I like to believe that they were my ancestors. 
 
The end.
 

Photo from the Oz Parade in Chittenango, NY

 

  

Here's a shot from the parade we were in (see previous post).  This is a tight shot - the float itself had another trailer attached to it that is not shown, there was a pickup truck pulling it with a frog band in the bed of the truck, and there were more frogs and Oz characters as well, but you get the idea.  As we marched along they played the Macarena song, but they had some version that had frogs in it - it was pretty funny.  I have only seen the Wizard of Oz Movie - I have never read the book.  Or I should say, books.  I was unaware that there are apparently a number of books written about Dorothy and the Land of Oz and one of the later books has frogs in it, thus the frogs as part of the float.  I actually don't like the Wizard of Oz movie much at all.  DD loves it though.  I think it's kind of creepy.  Especially the flying monkeys part.

  

The end.

 

The Wizard of Oz, Homeschooling and Donuts

 

L. Frank Baum, Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress

   

CHITTENANGO, N.Y. - Oz-Stravaganza continues in the Village of Chittenango. Hundreds lined Genesee Street Saturday to watch the annual parade.

There were plenty dressed as their favorite characters from the classic film the Wizard of Oz. Chittenango is the birthplace of L. Frank Baum who wrote the book "The Road to Oz."

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publishing. The festival runs through Sunday afternoon.

A lot of good guesses as to what we were up to last weekend (see previous post), but I guess no one knew about the big "Oz-Stravaganza" in Chittenango.  'Cause Chittenango is such a big metropolis, ha ha. :-)  Anyway, would you believe thanks to my best friend M who we were visting, we were IN the parade?  It was SO MUCH FUN!  There were even three of the original Munchkins there from the film - that was pretty cool.  Can YOU say you've seen actual Munchkins?  Ah, I thought not.  :-D  Here's a little more info about the significance of Chittenango and the Wizard of Oz:

L. Frank Baum, author of the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was born in Chittenango May 15, 1856. His family owned a barrel factory in Chittenango. In addition to his many "Oz" books Baum also wrote other children's stories and he wrote under other names as well as L.Frank Baum. His most famous book the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was made into the 1939 MGM classic film the "Wizard of Oz". Baums's books and the "Wizard of Oz" movie are timeless and can be enjoyed by young and old alike.
   
And yes, you folks did figure out I was at the LEAH homeschool convention which was in Rochester.  No, I didn't decide to homeschool, but it was informative, interesting and a lot of fun being there with my best friend and her husband.  I did buy some books for DD and a 600 piece puzzle of the world which we did already (the world is on my kitchen table right now).  I also got a cool book with photos of Laura Ingalls Wilder's real homestead locations.  I love the Little House books.  I would love someday to visit the actual sites though they are all quite far away.  However, I hope at least to visit Almanzo's childhood home sometime which is near Malone, NY, which is a lot closer.

Tomorrow I have to try to mow our lawn in between the raindrops.  Tomorrow might be a good day to start off with a Dunkin Donuts coffee roll for fortification (plus I'll be getting some exercise to work some of it off, unless you know of a diet pill that works??).  The coffee roll is my favorite treat from Dunkin Donuts but lately when I've gotten it, it seems different.  Not as "fluffy" and attractive as I remember it looking.  I don't know if it's "my" Dunkin Donuts or they changed the formula or something.  Still very tasty, just a bit sad looking.  Oh, and speaking of donuts - I went to a Tim Horton's for the first time!  I had the frosted cinnamon roll and butter caramel (I think that was it?) flavored coffee (we don't have any Tim Horton's near where I live).

What's your favorite donut or treat from the donut place?

The end.
 

A Photo Hint About What DD and I Were up to This Weekend

DD and I traveled to my best friend M's house near Syracuse, NY (we also visited M back in April, you can read about that if you wish here, and I know where the windmills are now. :-). 
    
There were two events we came for - both were great!  More later...
 

  
The end.
 
P.S.  I waved to you again Rebecca, as we passed your part of NY! :-)
 

 

Sometimes You Really Should Send a Real Card

Have you been sent an "evite" to something yet?  You know, I'm all for trying to save trees and time and money, and I personally love online greeting cards (they are such an easy way to brighten someone's day) but there are times when you really should just send a real card.  I've gotten a couple of "evites" to a couple of events I thought were somewhat formal-ish, and I'm sorry, but it just seems cheesy and impersonal to me.  An evite to a home party or a BBQ or a birthday party - fine.  But I even heard that people are now sending online invitations to weddings.  Really?  Wow.  And please, there should not even be such a thing as an online sympathy card.  I'm sorry - sometimes you should just take the time and spend the money on a real card and a stamp!
 
However, I bumped into a site called Big Heart Cards that is actually a very clever idea I think - it's the convenience of online greeting cards because you do it all online, but then they actually print out your card and message and mail an actual paper card or invitation for you!  Now THAT is the perfect solution for the lazy/busy/forgetful person!

I wish I would come up with good ideas like that.  I was watching that new show "Pitchman" last night on Discovery with Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan and they were at an inventor's convention and the ideas people had come up with amazed me!  There was some guy who invented this harness thing that enabled a person to lift great amounts of weight easily.  I was definitely not born to be an inventor.  I do like to watch informercials for gadgets though.  However, luckily I rarely buy stuff like that except I did buy a "sweepa" at our county fair last year, and it actually is fantastic.
  
Have you ever bought anything from an infomercial?  Or been invited to a wedding with an evite?

The end.
 

Here's What Was in the Box of Freecycle Glasses...

If you recall, about a month ago I mentioned we snagged a box of "bar glasses" off of Freecycle, but we hadn't unpacked them to see what they were, but I promised when I got around to it, I would show you.  (In case you don't know about Freecycle, it's a website message board where people can post items they want to get rid of.  Everything that's posted must be free.  I believe each county has it's own Freecycle website - try searching for your county and "Freecycle" and you'll probably find yours.  You can get some really amazingly good stuff, but you have to be quick.  I swear it seems like there must be people who do nothing but wait by the computer for the next batch of postings.  Anyway, you might remember I got a big tv for my daughter off Freecycle last fall.  There was a pool table up for grabs yesterday!)  Anyway, to refresh your memory, here's the box I went and picked up:

 

  

And here is what was inside:

  

 
Kinda tough to see in the photo, but there were a lot of really cool glasses!  We'll keep a few here, the rest are being packed up for the "cabin".  Here are a few of the glasses I thought were cool:

 

   

 
We laughed when we unwrapped these (photo below) - we HAVE these same glasses!  Not only that, we hate them!  Heh!

    

It was not easy trying to get decent photos of these glasses, but there you can see this one has polka dots, which I thought was fun.

This next one is my second favorite glass from the box.  It looks like the Princess House pattern, but it might just be a cheap knock off.  Who cares, I like it.

Ok, here's my favorite glass from the box:
  

 

  

Ok, just kidding.  But I hope you had happy lives Sigmund and Evelyn! :-P

  

The end.

     

Finally - My Anniversary Ring!!

 

  

My apologies for this saga, but....

So on Friday I decided to go to the Danbury mall in CT because that was the last place I could think of looking for a special ring - I'd been everywhere else I could think of, and I just couldn't find the right thing.  There are a bunch of jewelry stores in that mall and I just felt like I was looking at the same rings, over and over.  I guess the last time I shopped for a nice piece of jewelry was 15 years ago when we chose our wedding bands, and I didn't remember or realize that a lot of the stores have the same exact stuff.  I guess somehow I thought each jewelry store had it's own "suppliers", but it seems like they must all use a lot of the same ones.  And at this point, what was supposed to be a fun thing - picking out a nice piece of jewelry for our 15th anniversary - was starting to become about as fun as looking for Mesothelioma lawyers, ya know?

  

However, I walked into a Helzberg Diamonds store (which I don't think I'd ever heard of - they don't have a store in my local mall), and right away I was taken with some of the jewelry they had in their cases - it was different!!!  A really nice saleslady came and asked if I'd like to try anything on, so I started pointing out rings.  They had the loveliest selection of vintage looking rings (and necklaces, earrings, etc.), and I just fell in love with the ring I got, pictured above.  I just love, love, love it!!!  (The picture doesn't do it justice, and it's oh so sparkly in the sun. :-)  It's pave diamonds set in white gold.)  And would you believe it WASN'T even one of the priciest rings in the case??  When does THAT ever happen??  In fact it was so reasonably priced (in my opinion, of course) that I got the matching necklace as well.  I am totally, totally thrilled!!!!!

 

THANK YOU, THANK YOU DH!!!! :-D

  

The end.