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Archive for the ‘Everyday Life’ Category

Oh, Dear!

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, tagged , on 10 May 2008| 2 Comments »

I went to bed after 5am. Why am I up at 9:15? Steve and Ali arose “early” for a Saturday to pick up Ali’s car, fresh from repairs, and the dogs and Butterball (one of our two cats) thought I should be awake as well. Sleepy and still ravenous after going to bed hungry, I intended to forage as soon as I took care of my morning pet routine. I appeared in the kitchen to find Roomba scurrying around the floor, Ali compassionately feeding him bits of muffin scraps, and Steve accusing her of spoiling him with treats. She said she felt badly that we only fed him lint and hair.

After they left, Roomba scooted into the utility room and abruptly stopped in protest. I would too! The litter box smell in there this morning is quite offensive! I cleaned his brushes and sent him on his merry way, only to watch in horror as he seizured and let out a pitiful cry. What could he have eaten now? After a thorough inspection I found nothing wrong except his usual, aggravating side-brush issue (all the little sweeper brushes broke off, one by one, and replacements have been back-ordered for weeks). Still, that has only ever affected his ability to thoroughly clean the baseboards.

Stumped, I let Roomba rest where he was and waited for Steve to make a diagnosis when he returned. They walked in, pleased with how the car turned out, and I pointed to poor Roomba, explaining his silence. When Steve pushed his start button, Roomba feigned complete wellness for a good three minutes — then seizures recurred, and his “speech” became slow and slurred.

A stroke! This will never do! We think he may have an electrical problem. The poor dear didn’t even celebrate when we put him back on his charger. This is a sad day, indeed.

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Night Owls

Posted in Everyday Life, tagged on 10 May 2008| Leave a Comment »

I’m up late working on a digital scrapbook project that’s bringing out my OCP(D?), as I keep finding things to fix that probably no one else would notice, but they must be fixed! At about 3:15am, Chief decided it was time for one more trip outside before we called it a night. Our owl was back, barking “hello,” and Chief woofed back a couple of times, alerting the neighborhood before I could get him back inside the house.

Now that I’m finally satisfied with my project, I’m too hungry to go to sleep. After careful rationing of my soft bread this week, I find it’s gone and I’m at a total loss.

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Merry Muffins with a Twist

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, Recipes, tagged , on 07 May 2008| 2 Comments »

Merry Muffins with a Twist

Merry Muffins with a Twist

Mentioning buttermilk and cravings in yesterday’s post reminded me that recently I stumbled upon and have been enjoying an old recipe given to me by my sister-in-law. For years, we called her concoction Merry Muffins, but when I rediscovered the recipe a couple of months back, I was craving chocolate. Merry Muffins or chocolate? Why not have both?

The original recipe called for Raisin Bran, but I’m not a fan. I do like plain Post Bran Flakes though, which, by the way, are so extremely hard to find around here these days that I’ve had to resort to buying Kroger generic bran flakes. They’re not the same for regular cereal eating, but they’ll do, and I find other store-brand bran flakes taste like soggy cardboard — or at least what I’d imagine it to taste like. Why don’t stores here stock Post Bran Flakes anymore?! The original recipe also called for buttermilk, but since that’s not something I keep on hand, I began purchasing the powdered variety years ago. If I’m out of that, I’ll *sour regular milk with lemon juice as an “emergency” substitution (1 tablespoon lemon juice per cup of milk).

Julie Muffins

3 cups Bran Flakes (Raisin Bran, if you insist)
3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp. canola oil (if you use slightly less, or substitute part with applesauce, you probably won’t notice)
1-1/2 cups sugar
2-1/2 cups flour (part whole wheat, if it eases your conscience)
2 eggs, beaten (or 1/2 cup egg whites or egg substitute)
2 cups water + 1/2 cup Saco Buttermilk Blend powder (or 2 cups buttermilk or *soured milk)
2-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
———————————
1/2 to 1 cup blueberries (and/or raspberries, if you like them)
1/4 to 1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (or 24 halves, crumbled)

Combine cereal, sugar, flour, buttermilk powder, soda and salt. Add beaten eggs, oil, and water. Mix well. Pour in muffin tins sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, filling each about 2/3 full. Now is the fun part. Before baking, top each muffin with the amounts and combination of your choice of berries, chocolate chips, and walnuts. We all like different blends of toppings. Banana slices and pecans would probably be good too, although I haven’t tried them. If you want a more even distribution rather than having them all on top, gently stir or pat the toppings into the batter in each tin. Bake for 15-20 min. in 400º F. oven.

The batter makes about 2 dozen muffins and keeps up to 6 weeks in the refrigerator in a tightly sealed container, so you can bake all at once or save part to bake fresh another day. You can store it with the fruit mixed in, but your batter will take on the color of the berries, which to me is not visually appealing and reminds me of my creativity backfiring when I was a pre-teen learning to bake. Mom will recall the time I wanted cake, but all we had was a box mix for maple cake. I thought the tan batter was awfully bland looking so I added the only food coloring we had — blue. After baking, the resulting color was disgustingly similar to that of bread mold! The cake tasted fine, as long as we ate it in the dark. 😛

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Bread Addict

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, tagged , , , on 06 May 2008| 1 Comment »

We’ve shopped for groceries primarily at Costco the last couple of years, buying in bulk, so I don’t venture into “regular” grocery stores unless I need less often used items that either they don’t provide or we don’t need in mass quantities. Actually, I don’t really care for shopping in general, and warehouse shopping in particular, so Steve, who likes shopping, takes care of our Costco purchases, with me accompanying him just occasionally. Jenna and Ali are out and about driving more frequently than I am, so they often stop by nearby grocery chains on their way home to pick up other needed items, leaving very few grocery shopping trips for me personally. Unfortunately, with both leaving home for college soon, the local grocery stores and I will have to get reacquainted.

Costco offers many fresh bakery items, and the bread addicts in our family particularly enjoy the artisan breads. In addition to that, we’re slowly being converted by our nutrition- and health-conscious children to many whole grain products. Traditional, soft, sandwich-bread varieties are seldom seen in our house these days, which presents a problem when one craves a Jif (reduced fat) Peanut Butter and blackberry jam sandwich. Peanut butter on hard bread just doesn’t cut it for me, and I don’t know if it’s seasonal, hormonal, or what, but all the females in my household, myself included, have experienced strong cravings for peanut butter the past couple of weeks.

On my way home from taking Steve to work yesterday, I stopped at Tom Thumb with intent to buy two things: Saco Buttermilk Blend for biscuit baking and Chocolate Ovaltine. When the first was nowhere to be found, I drove the few blocks to Kroger and bought the last two on the shelf. Is there a buttermilk shortage? Anyway, I decided that while there, I would look around for a few other things and that’s when a loaf of potato bread jumped into the cart, begging to come home with me — as did a beef roast, and several other unplanned purchases.

As soon as groceries were unloaded and put away, I satisfied my PBJ craving. This morning as I write this, I am consuming toasted, soft potato bread, lightly buttered and generously sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. It is a scrumptious, rare treat these days and I’m enjoying it immensely. I’m already planning tomorrow’s delectable breakfast treat: buttered, potato bread toast sprinkled with Ovaltine. Don’t judge me.

Okay, maybe I’ll use Smart Balance Buttery Spread in place of the butter.

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The Almighty Pickup

Posted in Everyday Life, tagged , , on 05 May 2008| 1 Comment »

The less I have to leave the house, the more I’m reminded how rude and idiotic so many (too many!) drivers are when I’m out there among them — and they’re usually men in pickups! Early this morning we needed to get Ali’s car into the shop for body work following her recent hit-and-run incident (with a pickup), so I followed Steve to the repair shop, we dropped off the car, I dropped him off at work, and proceeded to head to a grocery store in heavy morning traffic. When I needed to turn left at a busy intersection, I calmly waited through two green arrows and still didn’t make it through, but was finally at the head of the line ready to try to sneak through at the tail end of the regular green light if traffic offered the chance. However, a very important pickup driver (apparently) way back in line decided he was in too much of a hurry to wait in the left turn lane himself, so he pulled out into the free-flowing lane going straight. Only instead of going straight, he whipped to a stop right in front of me in the middle of the intersection, making it difficult for even oncoming traffic to proceed! When the oncoming traffic finally offered the only available opening for a turn before the light turned red, of course he took it, leaving me waiting for a third green arrow. What is it about a pickup that can turn an otherwise rational, middle-aged man into a road-raged, inconsiderate jerk?

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Divisive Pronunciation

Posted in Everyday Life, Vote 2008, tagged , , on 02 May 2008| 5 Comments »


Adjective. Tending to cause disagreement or discord.

It certainly causes disagreement and discord with me! With Bush as Texas Governor and then President, I’m used to mispronunciation of words in his speeches, but since Obama’s words are usually so eloquent, his pronunciation of “divisive” in his speech on race in America weeks ago as though it were “divissive” caught my attention. I didn’t mention it then and thought perhaps he just misspoke, but he repeated it within the same speech and since at other times. Just now, watching MSNBC Live, news correspondent Andrea Mitchell pronounced “divisiveness” the same way! Thinking maybe I’ve been mispronouncing variations of this word my entire life, I checked my online dictionary pronunciation guides, including any available audio. Even British audio indicates a long i sound, and only Merriam-Webster offers the alternate “short i” pronunciation as though the word were spelled “divissive.”

Will public speakers all be afraid to sound stupid now if they don’t adopt this alternate, but less popular pronunciation? I’m “dividded” on this issue. You’ve let me down, Webster.

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Whoo Goes There?

Posted in Everyday Life, Uncategorized, tagged on 01 May 2008| 2 Comments »

I awoke this morning at the crack of dawn — literally. Of course, our “granddogs” want fed and out as soon as I stir, but when Chief ran out the door I heard a great flapping noise. He stopped suddenly beside the pool, postured in a defensive stance, and started to bark. When Sarge followed, he too stayed close to the house, but seemed content to act as a back up and let Chief take charge. With barely any light, I couldn’t see anything. Still not sure what I had heard, there was suddenly a new noise that closely resembled the barking of a wild dog, but was more rhythmic and repetitive like a bird call. What did we have in the yard? A coyote? An owl? Is that what originally woke me? Our lazy Phoebe wasn’t ready to get up and protect me I guess. She slept through the whole thing.

I decided it must have been an owl since the original noise sounded more like fluttering or flapping than anything else and there was a distinctive pattern to its bark-like call. I Googled “owl sounds like a dog” to find that some owls do indeed sound like a dog, and there were even several recordings made of barred owls heard in Texas, and of great horned owls, which are also found in Texas.

Living where we do, we often hear the typical hooting of owls nearby and it’s not my first encounter with an owl in the yard. (No, I don’t mean our fake one to keep birds out of one of our front trees.) Years ago when I was out doing some early morning gardening by our wooded creek, a huge owl swooped almost silently over my head, flying from one tall tree to its hollowed out nesting place in another. It was more the shadow it cast as it flew overhead than the noise that alerted me, but I was impressed with its enormous wingspan, and pleased to discover its secret home.

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They Come in Great Armies

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, tagged on 24 Apr 2008| 1 Comment »

Then came the plague of ants. They came no one knew whence, in great armies… and the housewife and cook were pestered to desperation by them. But the philosophical people are reasoning that the little ant is less bothersome than the fly or mosquito, that he is an excellent and ever-industrious scavenger, and that he has never been accused of being the means of spreading contagion.

The New York Times, August 17, 1902

Each spring and fall for the last several years, much like the infamous red ant invasion of New Orleans in 1902, menacing fire ants assault our lawn, and little, innocent-looking black ants declaring eminent domain take possession of our house. Okay, not billions, maybe not even millions, but at least hundreds of them invade our house — usually marching one by one, but occasionally they double up — and I swear if those little ones didn’t have to stop to suck thumbs or tie shoes once in a while, I’d never be able to catch them! The only harrah-ing to be heard is from me when I finally get those little suckers. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! As nasty as fire ants are, I find them easier to evict than their smaller, non-biting, ever-industrious, scavenger cousins.

My dad will probably recognize that I’m playing off one of his own comments a few years ago as I write this. One day we were chatting on instant messenger and I was seriously ranting about my bi-annual ant problem. He then mentioned he’d found a nest of carpenter ants in his garden shed that week. Concerned that maybe our uninvited household guests were of that variety too, I typed back, “How did you know they were carpenter ants?” Without pause, he cleverly caught me off guard with, “Well, when they threw their tiny hammers and tool belts to run for cover, I was pretty sure.”

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Frustration. $10 Please.

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, tagged , , on 23 Apr 2008| 2 Comments »

The girls are getting medical records together for Northwestern and Texas Tech, so I went to our family medical center two weeks ago to get copies of their records, for $10 each, mind you. Ali’s information was to be put on a specific form for the university and signed by her doctor. I was ready to provide a stamped, addressed envelope for them to mail them to me, but I was there accompanying Jenna to an appointment, and the medical center receptionist said Ali’s would be ready when we left. Jenna’s records, however, had been archived and she could pick up a copy in 2-3 days.

After Jenna’s 3pm doctor visit (which lasted well beyond expectations), I picked up the envelope containing the form, paid the $10, and then when leaving, discovered the university’s form was BLANK, but they had included an UNSIGNED digital copy of her records. This wasn’t what I asked for, but it would probably be accepted if the doctor would at least sign that, so I returned to the receptionist’s desk. She said I could personally go to the doctor’s office and get it signed, but when I went to do that, the doors between their office and the waiting room were open only to exiting patients and I’d have had to WAIT for someone on the inside to open it (if they would — it was already after 5pm)… and then WAIT AGAIN for him to be available to sign it.

Jenna was starving after fasting for her physical and had already scheduled a follow-up appointment for this last Monday, so she said she’d take the form with her to have the doctor sign it then. When he saw it, he noticed missing records so he wanted to review it and then mail it back to us. Today I got a call saying they didn’t have ANY record of Ali from 2002-2007 and that if she’d had one, she must have received her tetanus shot elsewhere. Where else would she have gotten it, and was she completely healthy and absent from their medical center for those five years?! I don’t think so. She did see specialists (that they referred us to!) for leg injuries during that time, but they wouldn’t have given her immunizations.

So, this afternoon I appealed to the school for help. I know her immunizations are current and they surely have her records, as they would not have admitted her without them. Then, I emailed my dear friend Teresa suggesting she move back to town and resume employment with the medical center. This has not been our first issue with patient records and nothing has been well organized there since she left. Getting medical records seems like a simple request, but for $10 and hours and hours of time, you can apparently get nothing that you ask and pay for.

Jenna now has her records, but hasn’t yet opened them. After that call, we’re afraid to.

Update: The school has come to my rescue and Ali informs me since she arrived home from school today that she may have gotten her tetanus booster at a CareNow facility — but that doesn’t excuse the missing chicken pox information and other miscellaneous issues in the past few years. If I didn’t personally appreciate my doctor so much and all he’s been through with us, I would no longer deal with that medical center.

I don’t know why this bothered me so. But, in fact, IT DID.

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*@#%!

Posted in Everyday Life, Family, tagged , , , , , on 22 Apr 2008| Leave a Comment »

Ali’s had a rough week. She stayed home from school today to attend the funeral of her boyfriend’s maternal grandfather, but left before I got up this morning. Then the phone rang…

“Mom, I just got rear-ended and that made me run into the car in front of me. The guy who hit me just drove off without stopping and I don’t know what to do!”

Words to panic any mother. Various parts of her car were crumpled, but SHE WAS OKAY, and that was the main thing.

“I’m stopped in the middle lane and the car I hit is stopped ahead. I’m scared to get out of the car in traffic and I’m afraid if I continue to exit and pull off, it’ll look like I’m just leaving too.”

“Try to pull over, but stay in your car and call the police, then call me back.”

“Okay, but I’ll have to exit to pull off anywhere…”

Then I heard her yelling to the driver ahead what she was about to do, they agreed to pull off at the first exit, and she said she’d call me back.

But time passed and she didn’t call back. I didn’t want to tie up the phone, so I used Internet instant messaging to contact Steve, who said he’d head out to find her. Apparently she called him as well, and she was handling it. Someone had already alerted the police as to what had happened by the time she called them herself and they were on the way; however, no one got the license tag number of the hit-and-run driver.

I didn’t want to call her boyfriend if the funeral had already begun, but I also thought he needed to know why she was late — so assuming he probably had his phone on silent, I text messaged him with my cell phone. Soon after, he called. He had not yet gotten my message, but she had already called him too.

I know she was stunned and late for the funeral, but she handled it very well. Cell phones, when charged and needed, come in very handy. So does instant messaging.

A hit-and-run driver — why would somebody do that to my kid?! Er… youngest adult offspring.

Photos: Aliology

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