Butter Wrappers

Several decades ago, when I was a young girl learning to cook, my mother taught me a nifty trick.  Save the wrappers off the cubes of butter.  Put them in a now-empty cottage cheese container and store them in the refrigerator.  Then, when a recipe calls for a greased cookie sheet or casserole, just pull out one of the butter wrappers. Those wrappers always have some butter left on them and they work fabulously for greasing a dish.

Now days we have non-stick pans and Pam spray and who has time to pull out a butter wrapper to grease a cookie sheet?  But it was a great trick back when.

Apparently, it’s still a great trick.  In a recent issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, on the Total Time Savers page which featured a Homz Hanging Sweater Dryer , and tips on how to clean plastic storage containers, there was a reader’s tip.  “I reuse butter wrappers to grease cookie sheets when baking.  No mess on my hands!”

Mom was right.  Mom is still right.

A Jar of Olives

Last Friday, while rummaging around the canned goods I realized the shelf had to be cleaned up.  Since youngest daughter, who used to be my cupboard cleaner, is not available for such tasks, I took it on myself.

When the mood and time is right I actually enjoy this type of work.  Not too much effort, and no money, is involved and viola!  You’ve accomplished something!  And so I did. The canned goods shelf is now organized, as is the boxed goods shelf, the jam and juice shelf, and the beans and grains shelf.  Even the popcorn popper/blender/crockpot shelf is neat and tidy.  They are truly things of beauty.

And almost as much fun as the cleaning, was the treasure I found in the back of the canned food shelf.  There I found a jar of home canned olives.  Canned in a glass jar, one of the old times ones, with the glass lid.  I have a collection of glass jars, some with the glass lids and some with the metal lids.  They are lovely holders of the bulk grains and beans and coconut and powdered milk I buy at Winco. But here was one proudly holding its contents, olives, canned at home a long time ago, by someone now forgotten.  Canned back when things were properly canned in glass jars with glass lids.

My first impulse was to open it and toss the olives. So glad I didn’t.  I’ll keep it just the way it is.  A genuine memory of the old days and what those glass jars were meant to do. Proudly hold home canned food. 

Free Microwave Oven

Our microwave oven was in bad shape.  It worked, but it was kind of rusting out on the inside which I took as a not healthy option for using.  So we tossed it.  We don’t have $$ right now for another but that’s fine.  We have a stove and an oven and we can live a fine life without a microwave.

A couple of days after the tossing hubby was near his work, on a military base.  Military families come and go and in the process of their going many will find it easier to just leave stuff behind rather than try to pack it across the country or across the world.  And there, in a pile of stuff for the taking, from a family who wasn’t taking it with them, was a new microwave, in its box.

Hubby brought the treasure home, we cleaned it, as you would clean any item you bring home for cooking or eating on.    And viola!  We have a new, free microwave!  It’s smaller than the tossed one.   But it heats our water for tea and our left overs for dinner, which is all I ask it to do. And did I mention it was free?

Fabulous!

Robins

It’s my day off so I slept in til 7:00.  At 7:00 in the morning, on the 21st of January, in my neck of the woods, the sun is still snug in his bed.  But by 7:30 he’s shaking his shaggy head and contemplating getting up.  That was about the time I opened the back door to let the cat out and I heard the most cheerful of sounds.  With the promise of sunrise, the birds had begun to sing.

I’m about done with winter and I want spring to get here. And that is the same message I heard from the robins.  They’ve returned from their winter resort and are here, in this sub-freezing weather, singing their little hearts out, cheering the sun, and spring, on.

I am constantly reminded ,however,  that neither I, nor the robins, are in charge of such things.  I don’t know how you do it, little birds.  It’s gray and dreary and sub-freezing out there.  Somehow you stay warm and you continue to sing.   Keep it up!  I’m counting on you to keep up all of our spirits.  And maybe get spring to hurry up.

Walk a Mile in my Shoes

I’m a high school secretary and  every summer, when I return to work 3 weeks before the kids come back, I have people ask me, What do you do for 3 weeks when no kids are there?  Are you kidding me?  I sit around, file my nails and eat chocolates! What do you think I do?

Well, not really. I’m just being snarky to make a point. None of us realize what is involved in another person’s job until we do it. Which we can’t possibly do because we’re too busy doing our own job.

I just finished reading an awesome book, God’s Hotel, by Victoria Sweet.  Check it out from your local library. It is excellent.  Dr. Sweet has worked for many years at a hospital in San Francisco.  The rest of the story I’ll let you read.  But I will share a footnote from P. 356.  Dr Sweet gives some background about another doctor, Dr. Kay, with whom she worked for many years.

She says, “I was impressed by Dr. Kay the first day I met him.  It wasn’t just his clipped English accent, though I liked that, or his well-tailored suit, or his Harvard degree,….I was impressed by his name tag.  He came into our doctors’ office, sat down to use the computer, and introduced himself formally as he put out his hand.

“‘I’m Dr. Kay,” he said, “MD, CNA”

“I shook his hand. ‘CNA? Certified nursing assistant?’

“‘Yes,’ he replied, leaning forward and showing his badge to me. ‘David Kay, MD, CNA.  I just finished my training as a nursing assistant.  It took me twenty years to realize how little I knew about nursing, and how important it was, especially in oncology, and especially here.’

“‘What do you mean?’

“‘You learn how to brush a patient’s teeth, which isn’t easy, especially if there are mouth sores or yeast.  You learn how to turn a patient how to make a bed, how to feed a patient, and how to give sips of water.  It’s a lot of work, a skill, an art.  Doctors need to learn it.'”

Wow.

Fairy Bells

A blogger I follow, The Sugarlump, reports that the weather has been in the 70’s in her neck of the woods, which is Nashville, 2000 miles,  and currently, 50 degrees away from my neck of the woods.  We haven’t been out of the 20’s for several days and the not-really-to-be-trusted weatherman isn’t holding out much hope for the next several days.  The  consolation prize is that we have seen the sun most of these sub-freezing days, making the frozen snow sparkle and look very pretty.

Which isn’t a bad consolation prize.  But then I saw the Fairy Bells!

Down a piece, around the corner where the stream runs along side the road, I saw the Fairy Bells.  They were made of ice, delicately fastened to the end of a thread of grass and hanging over the water. There were dozens of them of various sizes and they swayed gently in the breeze created by the rushing of the stream.

I don’t know much about fairies and I’ve never before seen fairy bells.  But it looked to me like these little creatures were preparing for a bell concert which I would’ve loved to have heard.  But even if I missed the concert I knew no one would believe I’d even seen the bells unless I had proof.  So I hurried back home, afraid that in the 10 minutes the trip took to get my camera, the bells would disappear.

But I was in luck. The bells were still there when I got back. So I quickly took a few pictures. Then I stood very still and listened.  And I’m sure I heard the bells tinkling.  And I may have even caught a glimpse of one of the fairies.  But even if I didn’t actually see a fairy, I did see their bells.

Why Do You Blog?

Why do you blog?

If you are a blogger, or a writer of any sort, do people ask you why you do it?  Have you asked yourself why you do it?

Ezra Meeker never blogged. He died in 1928, long before computers or the internet or the word blogger were ever thought of.  But he knew why we would be blogging (even though he didn’t know that he knew this) 85 years after his death.

Ezra Meeker was one of the Oregon Trail pioneers who left the civilized midwest and traveled by covered wagon to the Puget Sound.  54 years after his arrival here he repeated the trip, in reverse, and then he wrote a book about his travels,   The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail .  On page 227 of his book Mr. Meeker gives us the answer to the question (that he never knew would be asked), Why do you blog?

Said Mr. Meeker, “No apology is offered for this writing although no very apparent reason may appear to call for it.  I am aware that the life of an humble citizen is of not much importance to the public at large;  yet, with a widening circle of friends following my advanced years, I feel justified in recording a few of the incidents of a very busy life, and of portraying some customs long since fallen into disuse, and relating incidents of early days now almost forgotten.”

Why do you blog?  Why do I blog?  Because we can.  Because we believe we have something to say.  And because we believe someone out there will care and read it.

And sometimes we’re right.

A Host of Golden Daffodils

Christmas is over, the new year is here, and even though winter officially arrived just 20 days ago, I’m ready for spring.

And so are my daffodils. Those brave souls are sticking their noses up out of the ground and taking stock of the situation.  Which isn’t great, I’m sorry to report.

It was in the 20’s for several days and right now it’s snowing.  A few days ago the sun made a couple of appearances but, like a politician, it touched  down, then left.

But I know that my daffodils are made of tough stuff.  They will continue to grow and just at the right time, close to when I’m about to despair of seeing sun or sunny yellow flowers, they will unfurl their glory and I will be blessed.  Just like Mr. Wordsworth was.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

William Wordsworth

Snap, Crackle, and Pop

The burn ban, of the past few days, has been lifted.  It was tough, but I went without a fire for 3 days, being very legal and conscientious.

Having no fire did free up some time that would’ve been spent starting the fire, going outside and fetching more wood,  stirring the fire, adding more wood to the fire.  Having no fire meant the rest of the house actually got some heat, that it doesn’t get so much of with the wood stove. Having no fire meant the floor around the wood stove stayed very clean.  Having no fire meant I could sit in my window seat, in the room without a wood stove, and still be warm, because the furnace was heating the entire house.

But having no fire meant the main part of the house wasn’t nearly as warm. It meant no ambiance.  It meant the house was clean, and warm, and tidy but it wasn’t nearly as much fun.  No flames to watch, no crackling and popping to listen to, no woodsy smoky smell.

The ban has now been lifted, I verified when I got home from work.  And there’s now a fire in the wood stove.

A Clean House is the Sign of a Wasted Life

I had the past two days totally to myself.  Hubby was out of town and I was still on Winter Break.  And being winter there is next to nothing to do in the yard.   You can’t shovel rain.  (Just kidding.  We haven’t had any rain for a day or two.)

So, no yard work, hubby is gone, no job to go to, no appointments, no chores to run, just me and myself for two days.  My day normally begins at 4:30, so I decided for these two days I’d stay up late and get up late.

I accomplished the staying up late part but the body said 5:00 a.m. was late enough for sleeping in. So I was up before it was even close to bright. But it was early. And since I was up I did what anyone would do who has two days off and is up way before they want to be up.  I cleaned my refrigerator.

Which then necessitated washing lots of dishes and taking out the garbage. And while I was it I decided to  get some laundry done.  And why not paint that little table that is all chipped, and since I have the paint out, I  might as well fill in the no-longer-used-nail holes on the bedroom wall and paint them,  and while I’m standing on a chair to reach those holes I’ve  also got to get rid of those creepy cobwebs all over the ceiling.

But I did get in a couple of hours of “not doing”, meaning I gave myself permission to sit for awhile, in my window seat, and read.  This book is due back at the library on the 11th and I have two others to read, too, so I had to spend some time reading.  Then, as I found myself starting to drift off, I’d get up and sweep and mop and dust and make lunch.

But as I’d pass my computer, on my way going hither and thither, I’d also sit for a spell and write and blog.

If this is what retirement is like, I’ll say it’s pretty good.  But it definitely needs some appointments and schedules and things to do and places to go and people to see.  Otherwise my house will be way too clean.

And that flies in the face of my motto: “A clean house is the sign of a wasted life”