Tresa's Blog

We had a great Christmas, 4 of 7 kids were here and assorted grandkids. All was going fantastically, a little problem with scheduling with another set of in laws but it was all proceeding as planned, brisket was cooked, turkey was frying outside, potatoes were on the stove. THEN it happened, the drain clogged because someone stupid (ME) put the potato peelings down the garbage disposal. I actually thought that’s what it was for??
Well it is for that but we had been having minor clogs since Labor Day, the washing machine, kitchen sink, bathroom sink, and dishwasher all come together in one small drain and then go to the big one (thank goodness the back bathrooms are on another drain!!), I’d always been able to plunge it out before but we’d been using every sink and appliance heavily and then about 4 lb of potato peelings just did it in. Plus cleaning the turkey deep fryer didn’t help but I did stop my husband from going and getting a motorized brush of his that he wanted to use on it, but washing it didn’t help the drain situation any. No I didn’t clean the turkey fryer, it’s my son-in-laws and I just hid it behind some shrubbery on the back side of the house, so there you know my secret. Year old peanut oil is not a pleasant sight, we got rid of most of it outside though, well Sissy did.
So there I am plunging and plunging, I thought I had made it clear the drain was clogged but everyone was merrily chatting away in the family room while I plunged in the laundry room. Sissy noticed and went to check the drain to the lagoon, it was fine, she plunged some no dice, turkey is still frying, potatoes are still boiling……. people still chatting……I develop a sore spot from plunging, oldest son notices, he plunges, no dice, everyone else still chatting, oldest son decided to take drain apart and see if we could find plumbing snake, drain breaks in the process and no snake so we used some heavy electrical wire we had laying around. I have 2 large painful blisters and am peeved (insert whatever expletive you desire here) beyond belief. I finally impress on husband that turkey is perhaps done, son mashes potatoes, when he asks for utensils I tell him they are where they should be, I am NOT a happy camper. We do eat……maybe it was the lack of breakfast but then it’s all OK, we sit around and have a good time, I decide there are worse things than not being able to do dishes and it will be there after I get back from work in the morning. I go take a nap so I can go to work @ midnight and the girls have done the dishes when I get up!! Sparing the water but they got them done. I bandage my hand and go to work. Husband and I worked on drain the next day, he got it fixed, @ one point we were draining the water into a cooler held above our heads, I try to hold it, it gets off balance and I literally pour 2 gallons of dirty water on basement floor. It’s all OK though, I learned my lesson or so I thought, we have a dehumidifier, floor is concrete and will clean. And BTW I was in Wal Mart @ 6 am Friday morning after Christmas when they reopened for our 50% off sale. Those people were NOT HAPPY, they had carts and were determined to fill them, I must say usually people are very polite and even apologetic for getting in your way. It was all fine, no one got ran over but I was glad to leave @ 7 am.
So all is fine till Monday when I have to set up aisles and steel with plastic Christmas totes, hundreds of them @ work, the totes keep coming out of the woodwork, management sends extra boys to help but they keep disappearing. I have to have this done by 10 pm and have everything cleaned up it’s 8:30 when I get back from break. I am back in my peeved mood (insert expletive expression). The boys HAVE brought all of it inside and gathered it from other parts of the store but I have like 50 ft of steel to fill, boys are all on lunch now. Miche starts helping me and we get it all out and are ready to clean up by 9 pm, if you read this Miche THANK YOU! The manager who is there comes by and I rant a little about all we have to do yet cleaning up and turning in damaged goods and half of our mess disappears, don’t know how or why but it’s on a cart and then it’s gone! All that high blood pressure wasted, we get through in plenty of time and it looks great.
So when my brother calls yesterday and says he’s on his way up and bringing his son-in-law whom we have never met, I don’t panic even though I’m on my way to work and we have nothing planned to eat, house isn’t dirty but it’s not company ready. One guest bed has clean sheets, I make sloppy joe’s and tater tots and put my brother in the guest bedroom that isn’t the cleanest but he understands.
So what have I learned, SLOW down and enjoy the season, the reason and the people around you. It will all turn out ok. Plus my blisters are almost healed up.
Hope everyone has a HAP HAP HAPPY New Year and today is my grandson Marcus’s 13th birthday.

I work @ Wal Mart part time. Have for 6 months now. After having a “desk job” (running my husbands business) for the last few years it’s been a culture shock. I had to cashier yesterday @ the front of the store but as they say @ Christmas EVERYONE is a cashier. For awhile the store manager was behind me cashiering, they don’t lie, everybody does what they can to keep everything running smoothly. Here in the mid-west we are gearing up for another round of ice and snow, that coupled with the Christmas season made for extremely long lines @ the cash registers but everyone was patient and curteous that checked out @ mine. I don’t cashier most days so I may have been slower than some but most of the people left laughing, don’t know if that’s in the job description or not. I have to work marking down Chrismas items in the early am Friday, trust me I will NOT be standing by the doors when the store opens Friday morning.
My husband was @ home asleep in his recliner when I got home with the three kittens curled up on his lap. Anyway the wild kittens were hissing @ everyone when they came in the house after their mother disappered right before Thanksgiving, now they stand up and beg like the dog for attention. Here’s a picture of them asleep in my dads old office chair, Ok Crusoe the survivor isn’t asleep, he’s begging for food or me to pick him up. My husband keeps saying they are really wild cats, they think they may be dogs and I may be their mother but they aren’t sure, they really don’t like those big cats outside.
I confess this is for 3 blogs, have to leave for work in less than an hour, haven’t had much time to read but I’m still working on The Toss of the Lemon which is an excellent book but just too much going on this time of year. Plus Wal Mart fed us yesterday, good ole holiday meal of bar-b-qued pulled beef and pork and ribs, plus salads and beans and desserts, it was excellent.
I hope all are safe in their traveling this season. Hopefully we won’t lose electricity with the storm and those still without get it back soon in the northeast.

In Britain the recession deepens just as it does here and it seems to be effecting the number of abandoned pets also as it does here. Remember your local Animal Shelter and if you can’t adopt or aren’t so inclined please take a minute and think about donating.
Here’s a link to the story about British animals.

Much closer to home there seems to be a lady in Ardmore Oklahoma who cares for 100 stray dogs. Not a big deal you say, the lady lives in a van, has for years, it seems she cares for these animals on her $700 Social Security check and she is 71! She was employed for years, used to work for the humane society in TX but fell on hard times and landed in Oklahoma. A local animal shelter sometimes takes part of the dogs but she is always getting new ones.
Link here.

If you have a pet and are getting it a Christmas present, think twice, go ahead and get the present but maybe a smaller or cheaper one (trust me the pet won’t care, he/she/it thinks you hung the moon anyway ) and donate the rest in the form of food or cash to the animal charity of your choice. I think I read that 75% of animal owners give their pet a gift for Christmas and a google search of “Christmas presents for dogs” gives 11 pages of returns.

I’m almost to tired to blog, made a regular batch with raisins and 1/2 of a batch without raisins, due to my husband thinking raisins are not fit for human consumption. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without lep cakes but I hadn’t made any for like 3 years I know. My oldest daughter requested them, she says I spoil the dog??
I started out by buying molasses which there were only like 6 jars left in the store which shows it’s more popular this time of year, it’s on the top shelf too, thanks Mary for the boost if you read this. (Super Center Wal Mart where I work) I reground the ground pecans I put in it because they just weren’t fine enough. The nut grinder was my mothers, I have washed it yes but it works soooo much better than any of the new ones. The molasses just didn’t seem as dark, we used to have molasses from my great uncle (Peggi’s grandpa) I can vaguely remember going over there while they were squeezing the cane. Not sure if they did it with a something motorized or a mule but he grew the cane. They lived in a log cabin by a creek and the only way to reach it was over a footbridge or maybe that was the backyard, an artesian spring ran water through the kitchen sink all the time which was really cool. They moved “up the hill” to a more modern house later but the log cabin was like a child’s paradise, I’m sure the adults didn’t view it that way however. Anyway this sorghum isn’t like what we used to have. I naturally started out with too small a bowl and had to get the biggest aluminum bowl I own. Mom used to make lep cakes on the kitchen table in a granite ware dishpan and I would stir. BTW this recipe isn’t for you if you don’t have some muscle. It says add flour but not too stiff. You notice there aren’t any baking directions? I think 15 min @ 350 and then another 15 or 20 @ 300 is good, this made 3 9×13 pans and actually if I’d had them the next size larger would be good, you’ll have to pat it out with your hands. 3/4 of a 5 lb sack of flour is what I added but that might be too much. Recipe reads if you can’t read it….
1 pt. each mollasses, shortening, sugar, raisins, nuts, sour milk with 2 T soda, 1 t baking pow. 1 t salt, 1 t. nutmeg, 1 t cloves, 1 t cinn, 1 t allspice, Flour, but not too stiff. Recipe was copied by me when I was 20 and made my mom a recipe book out of her old old passed down recipe cards and I needed practice typing for college, like before computers if you can imagine? And yes I do have a harvest gold stove and range hood, I’m getting a black refrigerator and stove just as soon as these quit, already have the dishwasher.
Anyway I didn’t add as much cloves and nutmeg as it called for and increased the cinnamon and allspice and the salt because that’s the way everyone likes things, oh yeah, I had part of a box of raisins left so it probably had like 3 C of raisins in it instead of 2, and for shortening I used imperial margarine melted. If you notice I don’t follow recipes very well? My mom was an excellent cook but my dad said he would like it if things just turned out the same twice because she was the queen of improvisation. Sometimes things didn’t turn out but when they did it was heaven.
The icing is a simple powdered sugar icing, I’m like pretty sure Mom didn’t put butter in hers or I didn’t because I usually ended up being galley slave for these operations but I like a little butter in it. I melted it and then used like 3/4 of a bag of powdered sugar for 3 pans of cakes. Milk and vanilla finished the recipe till it was pourable but not a glaze, just a thin icing. For some reason these HAVE to have sprinkles on them like angel food cake? but I was out of red sprinkles so I added red food coloring to sugar, the green sprinkles are the cakes without raisins.
Don’t tell anyone but I cut the edges off and am taking them to work tomorrow for the Christmas dinner. We don’t have to bring anything and they might get eaten right away that way. They used to go in a granite ware refrigerator pan but have gone in Tupperware for years although it might be an antique by now too? We usually used waxed paper to separate the layers and they won’t stick after drying a bit but I had no waxed paper, I had LOTS of saran wrap though so that works.
BTW I’ve had a piece of cheese and these today to eat. Not low calorie and the longer they sit the better, I’ve been obsessing about making them but procrastinated till the last minute. OCD and avoidant personality disorder make me a miserable person obsessing but then procrastinating quite a bit??!!
Enjoy!

Being from Florence (population 75 last time I counted) my views are very midwestern but I’m probably more liberal than most in that I did a nude painting once, hung it on the wall of my bedroom, someone was in there helping my then husband move a heavy piece of furniture and asked if that was me. I promptly took it off the wall. It wasn’t me, it was more Rubenesque by far, chubby if I spelled it wrong, and blonde to boot which I am obviously NOT.
Back to the story, seems this guy Bruce Elliot did a painting of Sarah Palin earlier to hang in his wife’s bar. A nude painting. Bruce decided to do a nude governor series for the Old Town Ale House which is in Chicago the Illinois governor was the next logical choice. Blagojevich being arrested and up on corruption charges just made the painting have a slightly different subject matter.
This is a family blog so we won’t go into detail but suffice to say it has something to do with a rubber glove, read the rest here.
What do I think? Art is art but I was mystified by the whole Frieda Kahlo thing so my midwestern upbringing must be popping up again? And as far as being in a bar drinking staring @ a nude picture of Rod? Just doesn’t seem to be what would make a happy drunk but………..

According to Google here they are, now can I get them all in a blog? In the description, will they change in a month? You betcha!!

Well it seems that the government is using part of the bailout money for the automakers. Cnn story here.
I was opposed to a full fledged bailout because I didn’t think it would work and although I am not pro union or anti union I think the union should have given some concessions, goodness knows the rest of us have. On the other hand if it’s an orderly bankruptcy later on and something good comes out of it, it sounds like a good idea?
Ford evidently rejected the offering, link here. They do evidently want a 11 billion dollar line of credit which should keep even ford running I would think? Makes me proud of the old f-150 I have sitting by the house. Guess what I will buy if we EVER dig out of our own personal economic crisis? Since I’m mad at GM and my husband is like phobic about Chrysler it looks like it’s either a ford or a toyota tundra pickup. On a side note 90% of tundras were owned by pushy drivers in my estimation when they first came out. Sorry Bocko Dave, you weren’t one of em.

The remains that were found close to Caylee’s granparents home have been identified as hers. Cnn link.

The weather is nasty period. Snow in Las Vegas and Malibu, Chicago residents told not to drive, 5 inches in NYC, in Boston state workers told to stay home. Links to all these stories here. Cnn story. Here in Florence it’s cold, 33 degrees, scuse me 29 degrees, the wind gusted to like 45 mph here earlier today. Garbage cans blew over and makeshift dog house (dog crate with blankets and a tarp covering it and blankets inside) sort of came apart. Gimme a break, dogs have a nice cozy log cabin with straw in it if they get cold but they prefer to stay by the house. Like touching it. Link to NOAA here, type in your city and state and go…..

The electricity went out here last night, the elec company (como) was out here in less than an hour I think, got turned back on and was on like 15 minutes and then went off again. It started going out when it rains? Wasn’t really icy last night but was hovering around freezing. Finally about 10:30 it came back on for good. I got a window in my OLD OLD pickup so I can drive it to work so no excuses now for not going to work but it’s supposed to be sort of nasty next Tuesday too. My CTS will slide I found out Monday night, someone was on my tail and I hit the turn to our state road too fast. No biggie, it corrected really fast but if the pickup goes in the ditch it’s got so many boo boos it really doesn’t matter.

On Change.org there is a metaphorical reference to a “craiglist for service”. One of the founders of Craigslist has something to say about it.
Mr. Newman recommends going to Change.org to look @ healthcare and what we can do.
Here’s the link to the total post.

On a side note my husband was stuck on I-44 in NE Oklahoma this morning, seems two trucks had jackknifed in front of him. All was OK, one truck drove away. Roads are like white outside so I have to go clean off windshield and ATTEMPT to make it to work 25 mi away, forecast tomorrow is for freezing rain, oh joy.

Wikipedia definition of Middle Aged:

According to Collins Dictionary, this is “… usually considered to occur approximately between the ages of 40 and 60“.

The OED gives a similar definition but with a later start point “… the period between youth and old age, about 45 to 60“.

The US Census lists middle age as including both the age categories 35 to 44 and 45 to 54, while Erik Erikson sees it ending a little later and defines middle adulthood as between 40 and 65.

We won’t go into what brought on this discussion but I’m still pretty safe except by the census bureaus young definition.

UPDATE: The temperature did drop from 63 @ 2 pm to 38 @ 3 pm. Stuff falling from the sky looks sort of white too. Time to do things that require electricity, I did go get kerosene.

This from the National Weather service.

FINALLY...A DRASTIC DROP IN TEMPERATURESWILL OCCUR ONCE THEFRONT PASSES THROUGH ANY PARTICULARLOCATION TONIGHT. AS AMATTER OF FACT...A ONE HOUR TEMPERATURE DROPS OF25 TO 35 DEGREESCAN NOT BE RULED OUT.LINK

I don’t think the forecasters are smoking anything wacky so it should be an interesting evening. It’s 65 degrees here now, the wind is gusting up to 45 mph and it’s just cloudy, by this evening we are supposed to have freezing rain changing to sleet and snow, 1/4 inch of ice possible with up to 1 inch of snow and sleet on top of it. Of course last winters ice storm took care of most of the weak branches on trees but I know the temp drop can cause problems of it’s own.

So it’s a holly jolly pre Christmas season. Think I will sweep the floor (the kittens have discovered what fun it is to drag stuff out of trash cans), take out the trash, and head to town after some kerosene for the heater after I make sure it’s in the basement. Oh what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight!!!!!! Oh and husband is unloading in Oklahoma City tonight and then going to try to make it home, if it’s too bad he’s just heading up I-44 and trying to go pick up the next load in IL. I remember MS, nothing to worry about but weak tornadoes and hurricanes with bigger tornadoes. OK flooding but that wasn’t like ICE.