Convinced By Cats

The cats have persuaded me to take a break and curl up with them...I'll be back in a few days.

Five years ago today: New Thing #124--Listen to the Music

Ma, Mommy, Mom, Mum

M-O-T-H-E-R (A WORD THAT MEANS THE WORLD TO ME)
Lyrics by Howard Johnson, music by Theodore Morse

M Is for the Many things she gave me,
O Means only that she’s growing Old.
T Is for the Tears she shed to save me,
H Is for her Heart of purest gold.
E Is for her Eyes with love light shining,
R Means Right and Right she’ll always be.

Put them all together, They spell MOTHER.
A word that means the world to me.

Five years ago today: New Thing #122--Waste Not Want Not

Garlic Paradise--UPDATED

If you've been reading here for a while, you'll remember that last July and again in November Hubby Tony and I dined at Saleem's West, a local restaurant where they were taping an episode of a Travel Channel show called Food Paradise.  The garlic-themed episode was entitled, appropriately enough,  "Garlic Paradise".

In early April the restaurant posted on Facebook that the episode would air on April 24. However, a couple of days before that the station changed the schedule and put another show in the slot.  Last week I got an email about a rescheduled date...this Saturday (May 11th) at 3 p.m. Central Time.

It looks like Saleem's will be sharing the spotlight with a garlic festival and restaurants in Florida, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and California.  The show is only an hour long, so I don't know how much time each location will get.  I won't be home during the initial showing, but I'll have my DVR ready to record it.  You never know; Tony and I just might show up in the background.

Update-When I was setting up the DVR this afternoon, the Program Guide showed the show airing at 1:00.  Who knows when it will actually happen?  

Five years ago today: New Thing #120--Decorate Me!

Low Tech Remedy

This morning after breakfast I noticed the window seat in the kitchen had quite an accumulation of dust and cat hair.  I grabbed a rag and started dusting. When I was done I looked at the rag, which was yellow, and realized it's oak pollen season.  I moved around the house, dusting the family, living, and dining rooms with the same results.  No WONDER I've had sinus headaches the past few days!

After I threw the pollen-laden rags in the laundry, I left for a chiropractor appointment. When the chiropractor came into the room he asked if I had any issues, and I told him about my headaches. In addition to the normal adjustment (which is computerized), he had me lay face up on an examination table and used a motorized massager on pressure points on the top of my head, between my eyebrows, and on the right and left sides of my neck. When he was done my nose was running and my sinuses already felt better.

As I gathered my things to leave he opened a drawer and took out an empty bottle of water. He told me a low-tech way to relieve headache pain was to fill the bottle with hot water and hold it at the back of my neck.  When I got home I tried it, and it did seem to help.

Five years ago today: New Thing #118--Write-Away Contest

Cute Clothes

Working at the mall Customer Service desk is always interesting...

Shortly after I started my shift today an older man wearing a dress shirt with a Looney Tunes Taz over the pocket came up and said he had a question about women's clothes stores.  He and his wife lived out of town, and came to St. Louis a couple of times a year. Each time they visited, his wife (who was in her upper 70s and used a walker to get around) wanted to shop for clothes at the stores they didn't have back home. She wore a larger Misses size, and wasn't having any luck finding anything she liked. Could I give him some suggestions?

I asked him where they'd already looked.  He told me they had Sears, J.C. Penney’s, and Kohl’s at home. “Plus size” stores didn't excite her (so Lane Bryant was out). They’d already tried Macy’s and Dillard’s (no luck), Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Niemen Marcus (too pricy).

I gave him a couple of suggestions in the mall, then Goggled Plus Size Clothing and the mall’s ZIP code. Even though the woman wasn't really a plus size, I figured that would give me stores that had a range of sizes.

I scrolled through the first three pages of hits, giving him the results I thought were pertinent. He wrote everything down, and then asked what search term I’d used so he could recreate it at home. That impressed me;  I run into a lot of older people who can’t find their way around a computer, let alone the Internet.

When he left the desk he had a half-dozen places to share with his wife. Hopefully at least one of them will work.

Five years ago today: New Thing #117--Stir it Well

I Could Eat Mexican Food Every Day

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Cinco de Mayo celebrates Mexico's victory over France at Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, but in the United States people use the holiday as a good excuse to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas.

This weekend I was out of town attending the biannual business meeting of an organization I belong to.  After lunch on Friday three other members arrived at my house and piled into my car for the drive to the Lake of the Ozarks where the meeting was held.  Despite the fact it rained most of the way there, the three-hour drive went quickly.

We checked into our hotel rooms and met back at the lobby to figure out where to go for dinner.  After a bit of discussion we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant several miles away.  There was no wait for a table.  As soon as we were seated the waitress brought chips and salsa to nibble on while we looked at the menu.  I decided to have chile rellenos. My plate held two large cheese-stuffed peppers, rice, and beans. It was quite tasty.

Saturday was a full day of meetings, punctuated by meal breaks.  For dinner, the representatives of the groups in my area decided to go out to eat together.  We gathered in the lobby; by time I got there a decision had been made.  We were going to a new Mexican restaurant that one of the group highly recommended.

This restaurant was a little busier, but we still didn't have to wait for a table.  Once again we started the meal with chips and salsa.  This time I wasn't very hungry, so I ordered two tamales and refried beans from the à la carte menu.  My food arrived on two small oval plates, and was just enough to fill me up.

Today's meeting session was supposed to end at noon, but it was closer to 12:30 by time it wrapped up.  We packed up the car and stopped for a quick lunch at Panera, then got on the road.  It rained sporadically (sometimes a fine mist, sometimes a downpour) during the drive.  Everyone was tired after the busy weekend and the conversation was more subdued.  I was glad when I pulled into the driveway at my house.  The other women gathered their things and left.

Hubby Tony and Son Donald had planned dinner--a special Cinco de Mayo meal of soft beef tacos with tomatillo salsa and guacamole, brown rice, and refried beans.  It was the perfect ending to the weekend.

Five years ago today: New Thing # 115--Rock the House

Ridiculous!

LaMontagne

Last weekend our area was cold and rainy, with lows in the 40s.  (The only reason we didn't turn the furnace back on was stubbornness.)  Starting on Monday Spring teased us with several days of nice weather, but this afternoon a front came through; the temperature dropped and the rain started.  It's supposed to last all weekend. The forecast overnight temperatures are in the 30s!

At least we didn't get snow like they did in the Upper Midwest.

Five years ago today: New Thing #112--Good Will Hunting

Tuesday Archive Link Up

Kenya Johnson, whose blog is one of many that show up in my Reader, is one of the co-hosts of  the Tuesday Archive Link Up (TALU).  The idea is to pick an old post from your blog archives to share with a community of other writers doing the same thing

After reading Kenya's Tuesday posts for many weeks, I decided it would be nice to link up. It looked like there were a couple of dozen other bloggers, who were billed as a "mature group who leave meaningful comments".

My first TALU--I Have A Lot Of Friends At Work. I Just Don't Know Their Names. (I can't believe it's been a whole year since I wrote this!)

Now that I'm linked up I get to go off and discover new blogs among my fellow linkees.  Who knows, some of them may become my new favorites!

Five years ago today: New Thing #110-Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Voluminous Vegetables

Hubby Tony and I attended a potluck luncheon today.  After giving my contribution a lot of though, I decided to bring vegetables and dip.

Yesterday I went to the produce market and left with a bag of baby carrots, packages of cherry tomatoes and broccoli, a cucumber, a large red pepper, and a few handfuls of fresh green beans. When I got home I blanched the green beans and broccoli, then seeded the pepper and sliced it into sticks and cut the cucumber on the diagonal.  Everything went into the refrigerator until today.

When I went to arrange the vegetables I realized I didn't have anything large enough to hold the amount I bought.  The best I could do was an aluminum pan. I knew this would be a pretty informal event, though, so I wasn't too concerned. After I set a plastic deli container in the center of the pan to hold ranch dressing I arranged the vegetables around it.

I think it turned out nice, don't you?

Five years ago today: New Thing #108--Fun With Styrofoam

The Coffee Forecast

There's always something new to learn! According to the Farmer's Almanac, your coffee cup can help you predict the weather:

If the bubbles of coffee collect in the center of your cup, you can expect fair weather. If they adhere to the cup, forming a ring, you should expect rain. If they separate without assuming any fixed pattern, changeable weather should be on its way.

I don't think I'd ever noticed bubbles in my coffee cup, but when I read about it I started looking for them.  Sure enough,  there they were!  On  inclement days the bubbles headed for the sides of the cup, but on the nice days they did stay in the middle

So, the coffee barometer worked.  But why?  I found the answer in a video on one of our local channel's Websites.  The bubble's movement is caused by changes in humidity and air pressure.

fox2now.com

Five years ago today: New thing #107--The Sound of Silence