Meanwhile...

What about soybeans and wheat? Iowa Crop Damage

Cotton?  Texas Crop Damage

Shame on you for buying food!  Supply Chains Latest

Not enough cans for food.  Pandemic Shrinks Supply  

Coin shortage? Is There Really A Coin Shortage?

Cashless society?  Will America Ever Go Totally Cashless?

UBI?  From Unthinkable to Universal

Smart Cities.  Smart Cities USA

What's in your canned food?  FDA Labeling Flexibility

Meat hybrids coming our way. FSIS Go Slowly Labeling "lab grown"

USDA approves cancerous chicken. USDA Approves Cancerous Chicken

Do your homework.  More to come.

A Brief History of A Life

My mother-in-law Carol passed away last night.  She thought she had a cold and found out she had cancer.  She was 87.  She was born in Oklahoma in 1932, the only daughter of a rancher who settled in the area when it only had a train depot and a general store.  She could tell you when they got plumbing and when they had to add on to the house because she was the only girl.   What I didn't know about being self-sufficient, she gladly showed me how it was done.  She met her Joe in college after the war, where he had parachuted into Normandy, was captured by German soldiers and spent the entire time in a prison camp until it was liberated.  He had a rough childhood growing up in railroad cars since his father worked for the railroad.  His father placed him and his brother in Boys Town and he was present there when they made the movie.  They ran away and road the rails until he enlisted in the Army.  Joe and Carol married and had two children.  Carol was a pioneer in the sense that she decided to go back to college and earn her doctorate in a time where women just settled down to have a family and raise children.  She didn't just juggle time but also distance.  She wouldn't kiss any one's ass and was sorely disappointed when she wasn't offered tenure at the college where she worked.  So, she opened the first kindergarten in her area.  After she closed the kindergarten, Carol excelled at all things domestic.  How could she not?  Her mother ran the 4H programs and Carol grew up learning to knit and sew and was winning ribbons at eight years of age.  She had a small double wedding with her brother with only 100 people invited to the reception but over 200 people showed up to the church just to see her wedding gown.  Her reputation as a seamstress was famous not just in her hometown but in states where she worked in department stores before her marriage while she was attending undergraduate school.  She was very cosmopolitan and kept up with the latest fashions for herself and her daughter.  She was an active member of her church and community.  She was an incredible sketch artist and a tough task master.  She was her own worse critic.  She loved her garden, that is where she was the happiest.  In her actions and deeds she was forever a teacher.  This post doesn't begin to describe her life with any justice, just sorrow at her loss.  

Time of the Year

This is the time of the year where everyone is anxiously awaiting spring.  I have been struggling with blueberry bushes, do I want to add more and knuckle down?  What plants are going in the garden this year?  I am late with starting seedlings.  Now is also the time to start planning crafted Christmas gifts, I am already taking stock of yarn and various other materials.  I have been saving bits of yarn from socks and hats and have started a large granny square blanket. 

Not large enough yet but it will get there. 
We have also been toying with buying land but have decided to put that on the back burner for now.  The only land cheap enough are in flood zones and with a proposed casino in the works our land prices will go up.  Timing is everything.
So it's Monday, and I always love the question about what I did during the weekend.  My answer is usually, I planned the weekly menu, baked two loaves of bread, sewed some clothes and worked with some yarn.  Pretty exciting stuff for the twenty and thirty somethings lol. The flu and sinus infections are running rampant here, please take care. 

Feels Like Winter

We have had a wet, humid winter here and yesterday morning was one of the rare occasions that we had a freeze this winter.  My recent fails were a hat I don't even want to talk about and over dehydrated mangoes.  I made two aprons over the holidays.  We have a local sewing store with a limited supply of fabric but I had an itch and came up with these:

My daughter and I stopped at the Redwing outlet in the next town. They had a great deal on a very limited selection of women's shoes.  One pair for $15 and if you bought two you only had to pay $20.  No brainer.  I opted for the free shoe jewelry on my pair. 

 

 

We are back to being warm and humid today. 

 









Great Trip

It has taken me a while to post about our trip.  We went to Missouri and I finally got to meet my granddaughter.  As luck would have it, I will be going to Kansas City again on business and can take another side trip to see her again.  This is little Paislee.

Also went to the pen store. 

I also made a new friend.

The quilt we slept under was made in 1939 by my husbands great grandmother.  She made it a series of them for her only granddaughter I have two of them but this one is the most colorful.

This is a flour sack quilt.  Usually the men went to town to pick up the supplies needed at home but the women went specifically to pick out the feed sacks that had appealing colors and patterns. 
I worked the rummage sale for my church (no conflict of interest there LOL) and came home with this flour sack baby quilt.

Thankfully in fantastic shape!





 

Happy New Year... a bit late

I  am sure the title of this post should be Where the Hell Have I Been, but I will leave it as is.  Well for the past year I have been at work at my first out of the house job in quite a few years.  Getting back into juggling work and home has been quite the challenge, much easier when I was younger lol.  I started off part time which quickly turned into full time.  So many things have fallen by the wayside and I am trying to add more things back as time allows.  I have read blogs when I can.  I miss blogging, all the instant stuff seems so much more impersonal and then everyone points to their blog anyway.
I cannot remember the last time I canned anything that I have grown, or sewn something of use.  A fact I find depressing.  It will get there little by little.  I have been knitting socks.  My husband is fond of his and shows them off.  Here is a pair I am working on now:

It is a simple pattern and with all the colorful sock yarns I don't feel the need to use something with more of a design.  My husband only wears black socks so I like to work on colorful ones for myself when not working on his, it breaks things up.
My middle son is going to State next year (go dawgs!) and he is excited.
I still have three at home and the older two are doing well.
What direction is my blog going to go in?  Well the same as it always has, daily life.  I have been using the crockpot more for dinners, and I have to plan better for that.  We love to eat, nothing has changed there!
On another note, who the hell finally unleashed winter??  This week it finally hit at once!  The socks are coming in handy.  I will post again soon, I hope this finds you healthy and warm.

Cooking From Cookbooks

I think I made an unconscious resolution to cook more from my cookbooks.   I have a lot, it's an addiction, but it has been far to easy to just hop on Google to look things up.  So far the round up this week has been:

Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison.  This book was a birthday gift from my sister-in-law.  It is a beautiful book.  I made the carrot cake recipe.

It even looked like the picture!  Not everyone enjoys carrot cake here but everyone tried it and loved it.

Another winner:

Shell pasta with cauliflower and red pepper flakes.  I am the only one who likes cauliflower and everyone had this and liked it.  My husband said, "It's the best way to choke down cauliflower."  

More of a common sense recipe I made was pan fried potatoes from this book, another gift from my sister-in-law:

The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone also by Deborah Madison.  

Last night I made this in the slow cooker:

From:

Art of the Slow Cooker by Andrew Schloss.

It was good but over cooked due to user error not the recipe.  Even though I increased the recipe my slow cooker runs hot and I have to remember to adjust times not only for this fact but I did not use bone in chicken thighs.   I do look forward to making this again. 

I have had the first two cookbooks for months and the the slow cooker book for well over a year and hadn't cooked from them.  I seem to make more from my bread books. 

Into The New Year

I did not mean to be away for so long.  I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  We are are healthy and well but for a few friends it was not so great and life was a little hectic here.  

I think I have sock knitting down and will have to post more on that another time.  Hats also but I do not have pictures since they have been flying out of here.

I do want to share a gift that my mother-in-law gave me over the Thanksgiving holidays.  

Quilts!

They were both hand stitched by lamp light.  My husband's grandmother made these in the 1930's and 1940's.  The homestead did not have electricity or plumbing until 1954.  My mother-in-law shared stories about having to crawl under quilting frames in order to eat at the table.  The bottom one needs some restoration, they are a treasure and I am happy to have them.  

My sewing hasn't been going well, I think my brain lost it's function to adjust patterns lately so I think I'll take a break from that.  I can hand stitch anything but get me around a machine ......

Also, Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life has new digs over a Word Press.  I finally updated my links to reflect this.  Another post soon!

Knitting Progress and Daily Life

We survived homecoming, the house was rolled twice.  We missed the deadline to register for  MS State open house for my high school junior but will book a private tour later on.  Other than that we are enjoying the cool weather and Cruising The Coast.  
I have been a knitting fool.  I started out with this basic beanie hat:

I have made more than one, some have already walked out the door.  This is the Nice and Knit Beanie.  This pattern is also available for free on the Ravelry website as well.  This will probably be my go to beanie pattern, simple enough for a beginner like me.  

My son wanted ear flaps on his so I found this pattern in a "learn to knit" box I have with various pattern cards:

I shorted the length of the seed stitch to make it a little more .... manly???   He likes it.

I cast on another sock.  I bought this book and extra long circular needle when I did not know how to knit and had no business buying it at the time but I dove in to Socks From The Toe Up by Wendy Knits:

I desperately needed help trying to cast on with a long circular needle so thankfully I found a YouTube video from someone who has the book and a long circular :  Judy's Magic Cast On.  

Not too bad so far!  

Knitting on tiny needles with thin yarn takes time.  I love to see the pattern emerge from self striping yarns.  I picked a basic pattern but may try something a little more difficult with the plain sock yarn I have.   I want to say this yarn is from Big City yarns but I lost the wrapper.  

Went food shopping and meat is on the rise again.   I went shopping two weeks ago and my spaghetti sauce was $.79 and now is $1.09.  This is just one example.  I am going to have to make sure I go once a month in the middle of the month from now on.  

Needle in the Eye

Once when someone asked me if I knit, my response was I would rather stick a needle in my eye.  Well, I will have to retract that.  I have been crocheting many years, and have finally picked up needles.  Last year there was the Dr. Who scarf:

This had taken me quite a long time so I swore no more needles. I had also purchased a book on making socks that is collecting dust.  But then I picked up a booklet that teaches how to make socks.  I had to rip them out five times.  The last try I said the hell with it, I am knitting through no matter what and if they are funky, so what!  

They are a little wonky but usable and I did learn to make socks.  I also learned that a pattern that teaches how to knit socks really shouldn't have errors in it.   Right now I am working on a hat.

It is called the Nice and Knit Beanie.  Since it is just a hat and knitted in worsted it should work up quicker than the socks.  This has made me more confident to try the socks in this book:

Socks From The Toe Up by Wendy Knits.  This is the book that has been gathering dust.  My husband joked that it is a good thing that we didn't have to rely on my sock knitting to have socks because they would all have to share one sock and jump around on one foot by the time I made one pair.  Guess who isn't getting socks???

Strike While The Iron Is Hot

A friend of mine is teaching herself to sew, with some help from me.  I bought her the pattern she wanted to try and picked up the Fall 2014 Fleece Concepts booklet from Hancock Fabrics.  This caught my daughter's eye:

This is all tied.  After a discussion she decided she did not want to make a duvet, just a cover, so I did not have to buy an additional 6 yards of fabric.   She also has a twin bed not a full one as pictured.   The printed fleece for this project is 70%  off ($3.29 yd).  The pattern book I bought at Hobby Lobby with a 40%  coupon ($6.49).  The pillow form was not on sale, so the total was $56.    Had I not bought the pillow it would have been $43.  This also includes an extra 2 yards for curtains.  I will still have some scraps left over to make additional things also.  Not too bad and it will give her bedroom a whole new look.  She was excited, so I wanted to get everything together before the next best thing came along.  
Sorry for lack of posting.  The kids are all back at school, which meant a ton of paperwork and running to the doctor for physicals and such.  We are still trying to settle into the new routine of this school year.  Middle son is driving so that makes things a little easier, one less to pick up, but more nerve wracking.  

End of the Elementary Levels

Today my youngest is having his "Promotional Ceremony".  Next year he is off to the middle school.   I have children old enough to make me a grandmother but there is something final about not having one young enough to be in elementary school.  This is on the heels of my middle son getting his drivers license and my daughter getting her driving permit.  It goes by fast.

I did not plant this spring (again) but will plant some containers.  I am determined to get that shady bed ready by next month to plant for fall.  I was shamed by the beautiful garden that my neighbors have in the back.  The squirrels have dug up their corn twice now.  I have been working on my peg loom to finally finish up the rug I started last year.  I will post again tomorrow with some pictures.  

Has it Been That Long?

I guess so.  I would like to say all this exciting stuff has kept me from posting but it is just the day in and day out things.  It is nearing the end of the school year and there are so many things crammed into the end of the year and they are starting things up for next year also.  This winter has been something!  One day we are in the 70's and the next 36.  My son had gotten into the habit of wrapping the dog up in a blanket when he left for school.  I was able to take a picture of her on this occasion because the lazy thing slept like this for over two hours after he left, snoring the whole time:

Nothing like a crumpled pug picture.  I am already working on another post and will be back soon!

Hurricane Season Validation From the Gulf

Tropical Storm Karen is on the way.  Our forecast shows it could increase to 70mph when it hits here but our actual forecast is calling for 20-40 mph winds.  I think our local weathermen are happy to be forecasting a more serious storm and the local news is probably happy not to be forecasting about day 4 of the furlough.  We have two military bases and a lot of people not working.  I have plants and small projectiles brought in so far.  I am not very worried about the storm, it will be windy and dump about a foot of rain on us, which we could use.  It will give the town a chance to see if all the drainage they installed in our flood prone area pans out.   I am definitely more concerned about being cooped up with 2 teens and 1 preteen.





 

Plan Everything, Do Nothing

I have planned for several projects to undertake and have burned myself out before even starting.  Ever happen to you?  This is even more true if the savings between buying something and making it myself are marginal.

I cleaned out the container garden the other day and put the pots away.  I still have some pepper plants waiting for cooler weather to produce, but the container garden was a bust.   I find it a little depressing to become more of a consumer but you never know what the future will bring.

We received a visit from Rocky, the other night.  No, not Rocky from Big Food, Big Garden, Big Life, Rocky nor his cohorts would connive to make a trip that long just to eat dog food.  This Rocky would:

It is a rare occasion that my dogs would leave dog food in the bowl but Rocky was waiting to clean up after he thought (and normally) would be in bed. 
 

Ready for Fall Weather

I know I have a couple of months before we have fall weather, but I am ready.  School has been in full swing for over a month now and there have been all sorts of fundraisers, parent meetings, and whatever else.  Furlough was cut short by six weeks with an ominous side note as to how much expenses will be next fiscal year if we do not have a budget set in place. 
It was a wonderful day to find Vladimir Putin giving advice on democracy,  and the President at a meeting with cabinet members actually said that they had to return to figuring out a budget and something to the effect of improving customer satisfaction.  Comparing Americans to customers doesn't make a lot of sense to me.  Can we shop somewhere else??  I guess if we wanted to be Ex-pats we could. 


I am still crocheting away and here is my new favorite hat:

 

 

 

This uses a self patterning sock yarn.  I am working on scarves and hats for the homeless at the moment.  I sent the shawl off to my pen pal and now she is having warm weather.  I also have to start on blankets for the winter.   Hope all is well!

 

 

Quail Eggs

Friends of ours decided to raise chickens and quail.  Their chickens haven't been doing well thanks to their dogs.  They like chicken.  The quail have been multiplying very quickly and they have an abundance of eggs.  I have received a gift of two gallon sized bags of quail eggs.

So far we have had them boiled and fried.  I think a breakfast casserole will be in order to use them up also.  We are not big on pickled eggs.  It's a little tougher to crack a quail egg than a chicken egg.   The easiest way is to cut across the top of the egg with a serrated knife or you can crack the egg like any other and carefully break the inner membrane with your fingers.  I would go with using a knife if you want to keep the yolks whole.  

It has been pretty warm here, temperatures reached 105 yesterday.   School begins this week also.




 

Where the Hell Have I Been?

No where really.  I had a nice two week visit from my son, he left, furlough started, and I am getting the rest of the children ready to go back to school.  The powers that be are alluding that the furlough will last longer than 11 weeks.  We have income and that is a bonus, compared to an article I read here:   Signs of Declining Economic Security.
Sheila Jackson Lee (D) Texas wants to limit federal funding to states with stand your ground laws and have neighborhood watches register with the police department.  So you would have to run and hide and not have the right to look out for your neighbor unless you are registered.  The Congressional Black Caucus is recommending Sheila Jackson Lee for Homeland Security Secretary. 
Is everyone tired of hearing about Anthony Weiner or is it just me?  I don't think his biggest fear should be his ever shrinking campaign, I think that since his wife is a top aide to Clinton, his fear should be taking a dirt nap.  If the Clinton campaign is going to try to minimize Benghazi, they certainly do not want to be done in by Weinergate.
Lawmakers in the South and on the East Coast have blocked further rate hikes of the 2012 reform of the Nation Flood Insurance.  It had unintended consequences......yes it did, people, like my neighbor, have lost their homes.  I was disgusted by a Mississippi representative who said that people will walk into banks and hand over their keys, when it has already happened.  While too late for some, maybe it will help others. 

I have been baking, crocheting and playing around with the dehydrator.
 
Small bag of carrots:

This is in a sandwich bag.

Ten pounds of potatoes in a gallon freezer bag:

Hash browns!  I will be doing more but I was mainly concentrating on things that I use a little bit of and will go bad by the time I use it up.  Carrots and large bags of potatoes fit into this category.  I am trying to eliminate food waste as much as I can.

I have been crocheting quite a bit, another coping mechanism.  Having a lot of yarn that doesn't add up for a big project, such as blankets, has been put to use in making hats, mittens, etc., for the homeless. Soon everything in the house will be covered in crochet.  The loop on the lock remote for my van broke so it could not hang on the key chain, I was not about to order another so here was my fix:

As you can see not even the van is immune to the crochet hook!