More of Cathie's Vacation

On to the next installment from Cathie's vacation!

On Saturday after breakfast at Pete's, Ron, Cathie and I went and did some touristy things .  We started out down at Hot Waters to see the remnants from Hurricane Sandy.  Who doesn't love to take a shot of the lighthouse?  The clouds that day were just phenomenal.  While the sun was out, a storm was still hanging out over us not quite ready to leave yet.

I was surprised that the water was as calm as it was since it was really windy that day.  Lisa told me about the dock being broken so I had to get a shot of that.  This is a launch for boaters to put their boats in the water.  Hopefully they get that fixed soon.

Then, since it was so windy, I thought I'd put my camera on the roof of my car to try to stablelize it.  I own a couple of tripods.  I didn't use one here as you can see.  While I didn't get the shot I thought I would get, I like what I got by accident!

From Hot Waters we headed over to Spitzer Marina.  I had read in the newspaper that the brick walkway was demolished and I wanted to see for myself.  Man, they weren't kidding.

No dead bodies here.  They just didn't want anyone walking down the pier.  Darn me and my fear of authority!  The police line tape was barely knee high!  I easily could have walked over it to get better pictures and I chickened out.  Boo!

From what I could see from here, the pier was devastated.

From what I understand, this is not the first time the bricks have been washed away by the weather.  A little to the right of where I am standing to take this picture were what looked like stacks of replacement bricks.

 
I hope they figure out a better way to glue them down before they put them all in again.  It's a shame, it was a beautiful walkway.  They will rebuild it . . . I just hope they rebuild it better than before. 

On Sunday after breakfast at Pete's (can you tell we love Pete's??  Go there and order the blueberry pancakes.  YUM!), Ron, Cathie, my brothers Jim and Phil and I headed out to do some more touristy things.  Since I've taken pictures at the raptor center and the waterfall behind the Elyria police station numerous times before, AND posted them to the blog, I handed my camera over to my brother Jim.  He was nice enough to allow me to use his pictures, and since he got a few shots that I never did, I am taking him up on his offer!

It was a gorgeous day that Sunday, a good day for being out taking pictures.  Jim was able to shoot a couple of the raptors that I've never been able to get good shots of.  So I am posting a few of his pictures.  It's really hard to get a good shot with the cage bars in front of the birds!

Then to the waterfall.  I was anxious to see this since all the rain we had with the storm, I knew this waterfall would be crazy!  And I was not disappointed!  Jim got a great video of the power of the waster.   Believe it or not, by the time we got there, the water level had already gone down some.  I can't imagine what it looked like a few days before this!

As you can see, there was still a little color left on the trees here.  Not much, but a little!

And now, a couple of chilly sisters!  I didn't know Jim was taking our picture, or I'd have smiled and waved!

Wait until you see the next installment!  There was blood shed!  And it was MINE!!  I'm blaming my sister for that, but I still love her!

Cathie Came to Visit!

And she sure as heck beats our visit by Hurricane Sandy!

My sister Cathie has been in town for a visit.  I have a bunch of stuff to blog about, I just haven't had any time to sit down and blog about it.  Let's try to get caught up on all of the fun stuff.

To start with, I was to pick her up at the airport last Friday the 2nd.  I've done that many times before.  I've been to that airport a BUNCH of times and thought I knew my way around it well enough.  Believe it or not, I was wrong.

In case you haven't met me, I'm a bit of a control freak, aside from being anal retentive.  When I pick up Cathie, I expect things to go a certain way.  In my mind, the CORRECT way to pick up Cathie (or anyone else coming in) is for ME to get to the airport first and be waiting for my party at the bottom of the steps into baggage claim.  I would have already looked at the incoming board so I know on which carousel will be their luggage.  That's how things SHOULD go.

That Friday, things went terribly wrong!  I was at the airport on time, but somehow when I went to pull into the hourly parking garage, somehow I entered through the wrong entrance.  For real, of all the times I pulled into that lot, I didn't know it was POSSIBLE to go into the wrong door!  All I know is that suddenly I was on like the third floor instead of the ground floor.  I probably could have made my way into the airport from the third floor of the parking ramp but that is NOT the way I roll.  I know how to find my way from the ground floor so that is where I needed to be.

That was easier said than done.  I got LOST in the freakin' parking ramp!  For real, does this crap happen to anyone BUT me?!!  I couldn't find my way DOWN to save my life.  I can't call Ron as I didn't think he'd be able to help me from home.  I couldn't turn the GPS on because what the heck.  I was AT the airport, the job of the GPS is NOT to find me the ground floor!  I went through a half of a tank of gas trying to find the DOWN ramp.  I saw a ton of signs that said "to parking" but hardly any that said "exit".  When I did find an "exit" sign, the sign immediately after it was "to parking".  What a vicious cycle.  Finally, I found my known territory and parked the car on the ground floor. 

I walk the mile walk to baggage claim.  I look on the monitor to figure out which carousel I need, go there and see a few people milling around.  Good, I didn't miss anything.  I found a chair right by the carousel, sat down and texted Cathie with "I'm at the airport.  I am by carousel 4" to which she replied something like "good!  I'm outside having a cigarette!"  WHAT?!!  How could I have missed her!  So I went running back outside and taa daa!  There was my sister!  I am sorry, sister that I wasn't there to meet you in baggage claim as soon as you came down the steps.  Bad sister than I am!

There you have Cathie not even in my car yet, and I had a story for the blog.

Then the real fun started on Saturday.  I had planned for everyone to come to my house for a fish fry.  One of Cathie's favorite things is Lake Erie Perch which you can't get in California.  Ron worked hard all summer catching that perch so it was going to be up to us to eat it all! 

I had brother Jim come in from Erie and brother Mike and his wife came over for the party too.  We fried up a bunch of the perch and even some hot dogs for the non perch eaters in our family (I'm talking to you, Jim and Phil!!).  We fried up a LOT of perch!

That is a huge platter of some perch!  My thanks and this shout out goes to everyone that helped with dinner!  If I ever invite you over for supper, don't think you're going to come over and take it easy and just be fed.  Everyone had to help put this feast together and for that, I thank you.  Everyone seemed thrilled to pitch in to put this all together.  We had the perch, some spaghetti squash, some hot dogs and my sister-in-law brought a FABULOUS squash soup.  I have the recipe, so when I make it, I will blog about it.  That was too good not to be shared. 

First one ready to eat was Phil!  You gotta love a man who is ready to chow down!

Then a couple of shots of my whole family, getting ready to enjoy family time and a great meal.

That was a great start to Cathie's east coast vacation.  I would also like to thank Hurricane Sandy for getting the heck out of the way so that Cathie's trip went on without a hitch.  We were on a day to day basis to see if her flights were even going to fly.  Not only was she able to fly, she had nothing but good weather while she was here.  Can't ask for more than that!

Like I said, there is more to blog about so stay tuned.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A couple of weekends ago, I asked Phil for a big favor.  Mainly I needed him and the room in his van.

I wanted to make a relatively big purchase.  Without going into too much detail right now (since this WILL be its own blog soon!) I asked Phil to take the back seat out of his car and take me shopping.  I wanted to buy something that wasn't going to fit in my trunk.

Phil, always happy to help, was in for my adventure.  As I've blogged before, if I'm spending any money at certain stores, I like to go to Giant Eagle first and buy gift cards.  That way, I can get fuel perks and then buy discounted gas at Giant Eagle.  If I'm spending the money any way, I might as well work it so I can get those fuel perks!  I just got $1.70 off of my last tank of gas, so I'm good at playing that game! 

Anyway, since I have Phil booked for a couple of hours for his muscle and for the space in his van, I thought I'd take full advantage of it.  We left the house and I wanted to head to Giant Eagle to go buy me some gift cards.  I bought the gift cards for Home Depot as planned, but I figured as long as I was buying and as long as we were going shopping, I'd buy another gift card for Kohls, too!  I deserved something new and I really needed new jeans!

I am in the check out line when it hit me.  I didn't have MY Giant Eagle card on me so I couldn't get the fuel perks!  OUCH!  That's why I had Phil drive all the way to Giant Eagle so I could get the dang fuel perks!  UGH!  I was so mad at myself!  I can't have the cashier look up my account by my phone number since I never put my phone number in the account.  That has been rectified since this fateful day.  AND, for being a good brother offering up his muscle AND his car, he got to suck up my fuel perks.  See?  No good deed goes unpunished!  Or something like that!

Oh well.  Phil got paid for running me around, I bought new jeans AND a Christmas tree!!  There, the cat is out of the bag.  My very first Christmas tree.  There will be more about this to come.  I'm excited!

Please Provide Shelter

We lived through our part of Hurricane Sandy.  I know we had the easy side of Sandy and my heart goes out to the people of New York and New Jersey.  Heaven help them.

One thing that needs to be talked about is our outside pets.  Lisa brought this up recently on our Lorain 365 blog.   I know I probably go to the extreme by bringing in the cats from outside, but I'll have you know I do practice self control here.  There are still at least four cats out there that I HAVEN'T brought in yet!

Anyway, your outside pets and/or friends need protection from the weather.  When Sandy was so bad on Monday, I brought Ava inside.  She was the youngest kitten out of the group I have and she was sitting against the house just shivering and crying.  She had me at hello!

Three of the others were off somewhere, hopefully dry and warm.  But, my Hemingway was sitting on my front porch, looking for shelter.  He has become very aggressive recently, so I am apprehensive about bringing him inside.  This will be his third winter on or around my porch.  But, I still worry about him.  He's proven that he can take care of himself, but since he has attached to me, it's my job to help make sure he's safe, aggressive or not.

I got the idea from the fact that Hemingway was trying to hide under the glider on the porch.  I just ran with his idea.  I knew we had some paint tarps in the garage, so I grabbed a tarp, threw it OVER the glider and tucked the ends under the legs of the glider.  I left the back open, but put the back close to the house so he could get in and out and turned the glider a bit to make sure the opening was out of the wind.  It wasn't the Ritz, but he would be dry and hopefully warm.  I did a good job, but Ron came out and helped and he did a GREAT job!  Here is our make shift shelter for Hemingway or any other of my outside cats.

I know at least Hemingway is using the shelter as I see him come out of it when I take his food bowl out there in the morning.

Don't let what happened to the dog that Lisa blogged about ever happen again.  We all need to be RESPONSIBLE pet owners.  The outside animals need help in surviving the bad weather.  We got through Sandy but we still need to get through the winter.  It doesn't take much to make a shelter.  A plain piece of tarp is doing a great job!  Of course, there is bringing them inside, too.  Ava is MUCH happier with her lifestyle now!

Aunt Mary's Birthday Weekend - UPDATED With New Pictures!

I know I am behind on blogging!  I'm trying to catch up!

On October 28th, I drove to Erie for a BIG and very important party.  My Aunt Mary was turning 90!!  No one should make that milestone without a big celebration!  Now, Aunt Mary was quick to tell you that as of last Sunday, she was NOT 90 yet, even though we were celebrating her birthday.  She didn't actually turn 90 until Monday the 29th.   As long as we all understood that fact, Aunt Mary was jiggy with the celebration.

Hurricane Sandy be damned.   Aunt Mary was important enough to face Sandy for the drive in to Erie.  Aside from some rain on the drive into Erie, I had an uneventful ride in to town.  The drive home was another story.  What a mess.  But, I digress.

Let me tell you a little about my family in Erie.  Growing up, we lived in a flat that was owned by Aunt Mary.  She and her two sons lived downstairs and our family lived upstairs.  Aunt Mary is one of my Mom's sisters.  My Mom and her sisters were very close.  We literally grew up with our cousins.  Aunt Mary's two boys, Aunt Aggie and her two kids. Aunt Annie and her two kids.  Aunt Helen and her four kids.  My Mom with her six kids!  We ranged in ages but each one of us was close with at least one other person in our age group.  Sunday dinners were HUGE.  Holidays?  Forget about it.  Aunt Aggie actually tore down WALLS in her house so that we could all fit in her house for dinner!  You walked in her front door and into her living room.  For a holiday dinner, a table would be set up starting right inside the front door and table after table after table would be set up so that you went from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen.  She easily sat 20 to 30 people for dinner!  Aunt Aggie had the wall knocked out that used to be between the living room and the dining room because she felt it separated the family.  It didn't feel like we were all sitting together for dinner!  Down came the wall, up went the tables and you had family dinner!

This is the kind of family I grew up with.  More cousins than I could count.

Then life happens.  People get married, they move away, you lose touch.  I think some of these people I saw at my Dad's funeral in 2007, others I haven't seen since my Mom's funeral in 1997.  Like I said, life happens.  And like most families, now we catch up at funerals.  That's one of the things that made this party extraordinary.  We were together to CELEBRATE for a change, not catch up at the next funeral.

Let's start looking at the celebration!  First off is the birthday girl herself, on her last day of being 89!!

I don't think I've ever seen Aunt Mary look so beautiful!  She absolutely glowed, especially when the great grandchildren were around!  God Bless Aunt Mary on her 90th birthday party!

Her siblings, my Mom's siblings, all came from near and far to celebrate with Aunt Mary.  Out of 11 children, here are the living siblings:

From left to right is my Uncle Steve from the San Antonio Texas area, Sr. Margaret Elaine, from the Pittsburgh area, Aunt Mary from Erie, Sr. Rose Ann from the Pittsburgh area and last but not least, my Uncle Mike from the San Antonio area.  What a lovely group! And, so nice of everyone to make the trip to celebrate with Aunt Mary!

The birthday girl was treated like a celebrity all day, complete with photo ops!  Everyone had a camera and everyone wanted group shots with the birthday girl.

First, Aunt Mary with one of her favorite nieces and some of her favorite nephews!

Aunt Mary was always a second mother to all of us, living so close.  She watched over us almost as much as our own Mom.  We love our Aunt Mary!

Here is Aunt Mary with the men in her family.

From left to right in the back row:

Aunt Mary's son, Bill.  Bill's sons Kyle and Sean.  Dan, Matt, Marty who are Aunt Mary's son Marty's sons.  My cousin Marty is on the far right.

At Aunt Mary's sides are two of her great grandsons.  Unfortunately, I know the boys are my cousin Marty's grandsons, but I'm really not sure which of his sons they belong to.  Once we get down to that generation, I am a little fuzzy.  But, I will tell you that Dan and Matt are my two godsons.  I can't believe these kids who's diapers I changed and who I babysat at every opportunity I could are now grown men.  It's amazing that these kids went and grew up when I wasn't looking!  Beautiful family!

I somehow missed the pictures with the women in her family!  Her daughters-in-law and the wives of the grandsons and of course the great granddaughters!  Sorry for the omission.  I'll try to go back through the pictures and add more later.

It's later!  And now here are the pictures of the ladies of the family!

First it's Aunt Mary and her son Marty and his wife Jeanne on the left.  On the right is her son Bill and his wife Sue.

And here is Aunt Mary and her girls!  I told you that I got confused once we got beyond my generation!  In this pictures is Aunt Mary, her two daughters-in-law, two great granddaughters and one granddaughter-in-law!  I know the granddaughter-in-law is married to Dan but I didn't get her name.  My apologies to my whole family!

So there you go.  Aunt Mary and the ladies of her family. 

I actually played the social butterfly which it totally out of character for me.   During the festivities, I ended up sitting at every one's table at one time or another!  I had a coffee cup sitting at every table it seemed!  We all hugged and tried to catch up.  I thought everyone still looked great!  Maybe a few gray hairs, maybe a wrinkle or two.  It was like I went back in time with everyone.  What was really hard to wrap my mind around is all of these people in MY generation that were talking about being GRANDparents.  WTF.  These people are MY age.  I remember all of their kids.  They were all small little ankle biters, some of them still in diapers.  How can THAT generation now be doctors, lawyers, get married and have kids of their own.  For real, that is mind blowing.

It was great to get face to face time with so many family members.  I have a ton of email addresses.  Now it's up to me to keep those lines of communication open.  I hope I don't drop this ball.

So, happy birthday to one of our favorite aunts, Aunt Mary!  I can't wait to see what happens at next year's birthday party!

Thanks to Jim and Phil who provided some of the pictures I used here today. 

Hi, I'm Ava

Hi.  I'm Ava.  I was FINALLY adopted by my new kitty mama!  My new kitty mama was telling me that she liked to blog, so I took over her computer for a bit to introduce myself.

A few months ago, I heard through the SCN (Stray Cat Network) that there was this house where the crazy cat lady fed any and all strays that came along.  That sounded like just what I needed!  I signed up for a spot at one of the food bowls and I moved to the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, being one of the kittens in the group, I had to fight a little harder for any food.  You have to be fast some days to get a few bites.  The bigger kitties (like Hemingway) would swat me aside so some days if my new kitty mama wasn't watching out for me, I wouldn't get anything to eat.  Some days, my new kitty mama would stand there over me and keep the bigger kitties away from me long enough for me to get something to eat.  I knew if I worked on her hard enough and gave her my cutest looks and my loudest purrs she'd fall in love with me.  It took me awhile but it finally worked!  Last night when the big storm rolled in, I just sat there, trembling and crying, giving her my sad kitty eyes.  I knew I had her!  They opened the door and carried me right in where it's warm and dry and there are many food bowls! It was a great night last night!  But today was another story.

That's me up above.  I know I look a little ticked off but that's because my new kitty mama took me to what she called "The Vet".  Trust me, that is not someplace I want to go again. 

They gave me a good once over head to tail.  Then they put me on a scale.  For REAL, what girl wants to be put on a SCALE with people looking?  I won't tell you that I weigh 5 lbs and 2 oz because ladies don't tell that kind of information.  "The Vet" said he thought I was born this past spring which would put me at 7 or 8 months old.  Hey, only I know that information and I am not telling!  A girl has to have some secrets!

I am pretty healthy aside from those few fleas I have hanging on to me.  I don't have feline leukemia nor do I have feline AIDS.  I could have told you that but it took all these big scary people to stick one needle in me to take some blood and another needle in me to give me my shots.  To add insult to injury, they even trimmed all of my claws.  That is not what I expected when they said I was getting a manicure.  I was thinking more of maybe some French tips or some color.  I guess my kitty mama is tired of bleeding already and of me scratching her woodwork.  Dang, see why I looked ticked off?  It wasn't my best day.

So, now I'm inside with my new kitty mama and what she calls my "two siblings".  The little boy they call Benny is kind of cute.  He hisses at me a little and tries to give me his mean look, but after putting up with Hemingway, he's nothing!  If he hisses, I just brush up against him and give him my best purr.  He caves and quits hissing!  I know we're going to be best friends before long.

The other little girl, named Penelope, may be another story.  I get the feeling that she doesn't like me too much.  She hisses at me too but when I try to rub up against her, she just moves away from me still hissing.  I'm going to try to keep working on her but we'll see.

Before we left "The Vet" today, my kitty mama and "The Vet" talked about something called a spaying and a declawing.  I don't know what all that means but I have a feeling that in the middle of November, I'm not going to like it!

Now, I can't have my kitty mama thinking she can just have people be mean to me.  I liked all the love and attention I was getting last night with NO needles in me.  I need to teach my kitty mama a lesson.  As I give her back her computer, I'm going to sit close to her so she can pet me, but I'm gonna turn my back on her.  She needs to learn that while Penelope is the Queen of this house, I am the Princess!

I think once I get my kitty mama trained a little more, I'm going to be very happy here!

We Rescued Her

You knew it was a matter of time.  Hurricane Sandy did it!

We've had a kitten, Ava, hanging around here the last few months.  Today with the weather so bad, I couldn't take it any more.  I worried about her all day, wondering if she was ok in the weather.  I told Ron I wanted to bring her in tonight, and he put his coat on and went right out and got her!

So far, so good.  Benny is a little irritated with her but he has not acted aggressively against her at all.  He follows her around, sniffs at her but hasn't hissed or growled at her yet! 

Penelope may be another story.  But so far, she won't come downstairs to meet her new sibling.

So, here we are.  The newest member of the family!

AVA!!  Home at last!

Rescue Me

Yes, I needed rescued.

And that sucks.

When the light comes on in my car that tells me I'm low on gas, it kinda lies.  When that light comes on, I still have 120 miles or so to go before I'm REALLY out of gas.  I think the older my car gets, the more I'm leaning towards the "or so" part rather than the 120 miles part.

My light came on Friday evening.   From my calculations tonight, I should have been only at about 90 miles since the light came on.  I was trying to make it to Thursday so I could gas up at Giant Eagle while I was shopping and use my $1.70 off a gallon of gas from fuel perks!

I thought I was at 90 miles out of 120 or so that I had.

Um....

I was wrong!

I wanted to go to Walmart after work today.  I usually go to the Walmart on Leavitt Road in Lighthouse Village.  I don't know WHAT came over me but I decided to head across Route 20 and hit the Walmart on Route 57 in Elyria.  I can count on one HAND how many times I've been to the Walmart on Route 57.

I pulled in to Walmart, did my shopping and got back in my car.  I started my car, pulled forward out of my parking spot, made it about 50 feet and my car died!  I had enough momentum to glide back into an empty spot and shut the car down.  What do I do?  Ron is in the middle of Lake Erie over by Cedar Point fishing for Walleye.  I figure he's not coming to get me.

So, I called my brother Michael.  I figured Michael probably missed me by now! The poor guy tried to take a day off of work to get AWAY from me!  So, I called Michael and said HELP!  Michael said he was on his way.

So, thank you my brother for rescuing me.  I know, it's not the first time you had to do it, but at least this time you didn't have to go all the way to Texas to rescue me!  This time I was only a few miles from your house!  Not once did I hear one joke or bad remark about being a bone head and running out of gas!  Thanks, brother.  I appreciate that.

So, here is what it looks like being rescued by your brother Michael.  Um, pay no attention to him flipping me the bird!

Thanks Mike.

Bone Head Move of the Week

Some times I can be a real bone head. 

When I bought groceries last week, I bought a package of sliced turkey.  I pulled it out of the refrigerator over the weekend to make myself a sandwich for lunch.  So far, so good, right?

Yesterday, only Ron and I were home for dinner and I was too lazy to cook.  We were going to call out for sandwiches so I went to the top of my refrigerator to grab the coupons I have up there.  Guess what was there on top of the coupons?  MY CONTAINER OF TURKEY!

What the heck.

I'm not going to say I've never done bone head things before.  I will readily admit that I have put my TV remote control IN the refrigerator before.  Whatever, at least I found it eventually!  But the lunch meat on TOP of the fridge?  C'mon now.

The remote control I can see happening.  You walk away from the TV with the remote in your hand, put the remote down on the shelf and pick up a cold soda from the same shelf and shut the door.  That's how a remote ends up inside of a refrigerator.  How in the heck do I leave the lunch meat on TOP of the fridge. I swear I have no recollection of putting it up there nor can I think of why I would have done that.

What makes me even more angry is the fact that I just wasted that whole container of meat.  There was no way that turkey was any good after sitting out for three days.  I hate being wasteful.

I also hate being such a bone head.

Share and Relish - Crock Pot Applesauce

A big thank you to Lisa for sending me the link to this recipe!  HERE is the link to the original blog with the recipe.  I pretty much followed her recipe, but I added my pictures!  But please go check out Burgh Baby's blog as she has some great recipes and some great ideas over there.

So, let me tell you about applesauce.  We grew up on home made applesauce.  My Mom and my Aunt Mary canned apple sauce every year and they canned a BUNCH of it.  And we went through every single jar.  They made the best apple sauce I've ever had.  When they stopped canning (or maybe when I moved away) I stopped eating applesauce all together since store bought was horrible next to home made.  After years of going without, I finally caved and started to buy some at the store.  It was in no way as good as Mom's, but it did finally get to be better than nothing.

I know how much work Mom and Aunt Mary put into canning the applesauce.  We kids always had to help with the grunt work and trust me, there was plenty of that.  But it was worth every drop of sweat that went into making this nectar of the gods.  For real.

I know I'm not a good cook and there is no way I'm smart enough to figure out canning.  That's why I thought this recipe was genius and seemed easy enough for even ME to do!

The original recipe calls for you to use four or five different kinds of apples.  But, I wasn't willing to put that much financially into a project that I wasn't sure was going to work.  I thought this first batch I'd start out small and see how it went.  I have been buying Gala apples for awhile now.  I take one to work almost every day to have at lunch.  They are sweet with a little tartness to them.  Since I had some Gala apples, I just bought another bag of the same kind and was ready to go.  Here is what you need:

As with any new project, you should start with a steaming hot cup of fresh coffee.  That's for you, Georgia!  Coffee in hand, you now need:

The combination of the size of my crock pot and the size of the Gala apples, I used about a bag and a half of apples.  Peel, core and cut enough apples to fill your crock pot.  The apples will cook down to about half of the volume of the apples with which you started.

It looks good already, doesn't it?!!  I could have added a couple of more apples but trust me, I was DONE peeling, coring and cutting.  Whatever.  Now I added:

1/2 cup of water and the juice of 1/2 of a lemon.  I juiced the lemon right into the measured water because I always lose a seed or two.  That way I could easily pick it back out.  After I juiced the 1/2 lemon into the water, I poured it over the apples in the crock pot.

If you'd like to throw a few cinnamon sticks in now, help yourself.  For me, I prefer mine without the cinnamon.

Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours.  Really, can it GET any easier?  Cook until the apples turn themselves into applesauce when you stir.  Easy peasy.

I left mine a little chunky because that's how I like it!

The three of us tasted the applesauce at this point and voted on whether we needed to add any honey to sweeten it.  I did end up adding one tablespoon of honey and it was then as perfect as we were going to get it!

I'm telling you, I can't believe how good this was AND how freakin' easy this was!  Did it come out as good as Mom's?  No, but it was a hell of a lot better than anything you can buy in the grocery store.

I didn't can what we yielded but I did put it in a few Rubbermaid containers.  The original recipe states that you can freeze the applesauce and use when needed.  Yeah, that will be a good plan on the next batch that I make.  To be honest, there wasn't enough left of THIS batch to freeze any! It was really good!

So there you go.  Crock pot applesauce.  It took me probably 1/2 of an hour to peel and cut all of the apples.  After that, I goofed off all day while it cooked away.  I went and gave it a little stir about once an hour and it was done in about five hours.  I will definitely be doing another batch this weekend!

Public Service Announcement # 5 - ZAP!

Have you ever been walking through a store, pushing a shopping cart and got ZAPPED in your hands by the cart?

It happens all of the time to me at Sam's Club.  I hate that.  You really have to be careful that your hands are only touching the plastic cover on the handle in front of  you.  Heaven forbid your hands are off to the side a bit because ZAP.  It's not enough to curl your hair, but it's enough to let you know you've been bitten.

As far as I can remember, Sam's Club is the only place that's happened to me.  Until today.

Ron and I went to Walmart today for a few things.  I'm walking through the store pushing the cart that contains one new cat toy.  (Don't judge me, I KNOW I need a 12 step program for cats or something!  But, I digress.)  Suddenly, ZAP . . . ZAP . . . ZAP.

Now I'm pissed.  It hurts!  Shopping at Walmart shouldn't be THAT painful.

I said something out loud to Ron that I was getting shocked from the cart. Some random stranger walking the other way stopped to talk to us to explain why I was getting zapped. 

It had something to do with the cement floor, but the bottom line was that some of the carts had a grounding strip hanging down the front of the cart and that will prevent the electric shocks that were biting my hands.  Sure enough, the cart I had was missing its grounding strip.

This sounded like a believable story, so I thanked him for explaining that to me, and I left my cart right there for Walmart to put away.  I don't do things like that in a store but I had had enough.  I carried my cat toy (that will be a new blog!) to the cashiers and got checked out. 

As we were walking out, I saw all of the carts lined up at the exit/entrance.  Being a blogger, of COURSE I have my camera on me.  I went to the first two carts in line and sure enough, one had a grounding strip and one didn't.  This one has a grounding strip:

And this cart is missing its grounding strip.

The above cart was the first one in a line and you can kinda see that the cart behind it has the grounding strip.

Now, being a blogger who carries a camera almost everywhere, I can tell you, I get looks from people.  Especially when I'm bending down, taking pictures of strange things!  Some guy had just come into the store and went to take this cart without the grounding strip and of course asked me what in the hell I was doing.  He said it nicer, but that was the meaning of his question.  I explained to him what the other random stranger told me and that since I am a blogger, it is my duty to get this information out to the public.

I pulled this cart off of the line and had him take the second cart since it had a grounding strip.  He took the cart, but walked off muttering something to himself.  I might have heard the word "crazy" in there but I'm not sure.  So, of course, I yelled back at him "you're welcome!  I just saved your LIFE!" 

I am hoping I can save another life with this handy bit of information.  This was your public service announcement # 5.  I know from now on, I will be looking at MY shopping carts a little closer before just grabbing the first one in line.

We Had Visitors!

My niece JoBeth and her boys came for a visit!  We were part of their whirlwind tour of Ohio and thanks to all of them for making my house a stop on their tour!

They came in Friday night.  One thing about Jo, she not only brought dinner with her, she COOKED it too!  For real, you guys are welcome ANY time!!

After a yummy dinner, we sat down for some family game time.  One great game for the whole family is Pokeno.  We grew up playing this game and it's always a great time playing with the young and the old.  Pokeno is like playing bingo, but instead of numbers on your Pokeno card,  there are pictures of playing cards on your Pokeno card. 

Thanks to my brother Phil for providing these first two pictures.  As you can see, we are all having a great time!  For as hard as Isaiah and Ron were concentrating on their games, I think JoBeth and Noah walked away the big winners!

I set up the air mattress on the living room floor for the boys.  While they were upstairs taking a bath, Benny came up to check out the new living room arrangements.  I think they met with his approval.

After breakfast, we had some coloring and art time.  This is my favorite time.  They boys have supplied me previously in refrigerator art but I haven't had any in awhile.  It's not good to have a naked fridge!  The four of us has a serious art session at my dining room table and now I have a complete refrigerator!

Now, I join in during art time.  However, since I am not an artist, I usually stick to the coloring books.  I'm jiggy with coloring between the lines!  So, I colored me a picture of one Sesame Street character, then when I turned the page, I saw an activity in the book.  The activity was to draw a picture of my favorite bird.  Now THAT sounded easy!  I can DO this!

What kind of bird I was going to draw really didn't matter.  I was going to draw a bird and if it LOOKED like a bird, I'd consider it a success.

Here is my bird:

 

Now, I'm going to explain a couple of things about this picture.  First of all, I was VERY proud of that picture!  For real, that LOOKS like a bird, right??  Since my audience is a 6 and an 8 year old, I added poop there to the back end of the bird.  Here is the same pictures now with labels for those of us that aren't art critics.

When I told the boys that was POOP, I expected a few laughs.  But no, I was told that I had to draw GROUND underneath the poop or else the poop would just be floating in the air.  Hence, I had to draw the ground beneath the bird.  I hate it when an 8 year old is WAY smarter than I am but he was totally correct.

I added the ground and handed the picture back over for assessment.  In a straight face and I'm sure meant as a compliment, I was told that for a bird with a round head, it was a pretty good picture.   That is sooo a compliment!  He could at LEAST tell it was a bird!!!  BONUS for me! 

After art time, we went out bumming.  We hit a few of the awesome spots in our neighborhood!  We started off at the local library where we read books and played checkers on the table sized checker board.  That is NOT one of my best games so I begged off of challenging the boys.  I'm sticking to Pokeno!

We wanted to go play at a park after the library so we headed to Lakeview Park.  Holy crap was it COLD outside yesterday!  While it was too cold to play there, we did walk down to the water and take a quick look around.

Then we came inland a bit and went to play at Central Park.  Central Park has the BEST sliding board I've ever seen!  Instead of a single piece of metal to slide down, this sliding board has a series of rollers that sent you down hill.  No more getting stuck on a hot sliding board half way down!  Ok, this one isn't so easy to walk back up but I guess that was half the fun.  The boys seemed to like it since they went down this slide a gazillion times.  Noah was a little more by the book in his sliding experience.

Isaiah went down that slide just about every way imaginable!

In spite of the cold and wet weather, we had a great time!  Or at least I had a great time!

Thanks to JoBeth and her boys for coming to visit!  I did have a great time and I appreciate that you added me to your visit list.  Also, thanks for the cooking tips!!  :)  You guys are welcome back any time!

Share and Relish - Part 2 of Brussel Sprouts

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do this recipe with the brussel sprouts as well.  It's more work but so worth it.

I changed up my original recipe for this dish to make it a little friendlier on the points.  Adjust to your liking.  This is how I made it on Sunday.

Ingredients:

8 oz uncooked egg noodles
1 lb (or there abouts) of brussel sprouts
1 medium sweet onion
1 Tbsp minced garlic
2-1/2 Tbsp butter
2-1/2 Tbsp olive oil
4 Tbsp Parmesan cheese (out of the can, last minute idea so I didn't have fresh on hand)
1/2 cup walnut halves, toasted
Salt
Pepper

The longest prep time is getting the leaves off of the heads of brussel sprouts.  Trust me though, put the time in to this because it really IS worth it!  I keep trimming up the stem so that loosens more and more leaves.  I do one head at a time.  If you know an easier way, please tell me!  I didn't measure the brussel sprouts, I just kept going until I had a big bowl full.

Adding the butter and the olive oil to the pan, I chopped the onion and started them sauteing.

I probably let them cook 3 or 4 minutes and then added the brussel sprout leaves to the onions.  Stir occasionally and let the leaves cook down, about 30 minutes.

Salt and pepper to taste.

While this is cooking, I get my water going for the pasta.  Any pasta will do.  My original recipe called for fettuccine but I like to use the wide egg noodles for this one.  I also started toasting the walnuts now.

I like to just put them in a pan

and cook them on the stove top.  It takes maybe 5 minutes for the oils to start releasing and the smell to come out of them.  I had a full stove top though so I put them in the oven for maybe 10 or 12 minutes.

(Note to self - when you put the frying pan in the oven to toast something, don't just use it right away on the stove top to cook something.  I freakin' burned myself TWICE by grabbing the handle before it cooled down enough.  But, I digress.)

Pour out the walnuts on a cutting board to cool.  Once cool, chop them up finely.

Here is a Weight Watchers tip:  When you are adding something into a recipe for flavor and it's high in points, use a little but chop it finely.  1/2 cup of walnuts went a far way in this recipe.  That was 11 points just for 1/2 cup of walnuts!  But, I pared this down from the original amount stated in the recipe.  And, chopping them fine, they went all through the dish and I was able to still taste walnuts in every bite.

Drain the pasta, put back in the pan and add the brussel sprout mix and the walnuts.  I added then 4 Tbsp of Parmesan cheese and mixed well.  I forgot about taking a picture of the finished product until after Ron and I scooped some out for dinner!  But you get the idea!

Totally one of my favorite ways to make brussel sprouts.

Enjoy!