Biting off more than I can chew...no....freeze!

Ever think about something your parents did years ago and think, "That should be easy. I can do that."

I've always been secure in my ability to cook the old-fashioned way, from scratch. I make lots of old favorites just by throwing ingredients together: biscuits and gravy, chicken and dumplings, beans and ham, etc.

So when we changed a Tuesday night event to "Ice Cream Social", I figured I could easily mix a few batches of that old-fashioned home made ice cream we always made at my Grandma's house every 4th of July. I even remembered the old argument that always accompanied the mixing of milk, cream, sugar, eggs and such in the kitchen: "The junket tablet kind is better" was always my Dad's argument. Ice cream was the ONLY thing culinary he'd ever make. Maybe a pot of coffee if he got really desperate... But he prefered the "boiled" coffee!!

I decided to forget that old argument and just find recipes on the internet. (After all that's what Google is for!) and go for it.

I knew we wanted the custard kind of ice cream...so I have spent several hours mixing milk, cream, sugar, eggs, vanilla, in varying quantities and have come up with three batches of ice cream. Only one is actually frozen. The other two are in various stages of cooling down to be put in the freezer.

So tomorrow I shall spend with ice, salt and an old fashioned ice cream freezer in the hopes of coming up with two more batches of frozen stuff! It tastes good, so I've been more or less successful.

But let me tell you....it was not easy the way it always looked.

Maybe...if I had just opted for the "Junket" kind. . .

Best Laid Plans

Headed out to school today to get the room organized. And here's what I found:

A Mess: Most stuff in the halls. Time to strip and wax the floors. Boxes stacked high on top of one another. My stuff and the previous occupant's stuff mixed... A mess.


I don't think this is a good idea. On to Plan B!!!! Back home.

Let's work on curriculum!!!

Out and About
Vehicles and drivers

What is it that happens to people behind the wheel of a car? Some guy today wanted my attention so badly he nearly ran me off the road trying to get me to look at him ... I think. The road is unfamiliar to me and suddenly the right lane I'm in is closing down. No notice that I could see. The left lane had just enough space between the car just ahead of me and a truck with a landscape trailer just behind me (Both in the lane beside me!). So I schooch over to get in the lane. The guy in the pickup lays on the horn. I politely ignore him. We're sitting at a 4-way stop. First thing I know traffic has moved up, and he's right beside me, half in the one lane, half in the oncoming lane.

I'm sitting there thinking, "How rude." But I won't look his way.

Then a hear the window roll down and a voice yelling, "Hey! Hey, you."

Politely, I refuse to look his way. I mean obviously he's not going to yield to let me in even if he hits the oncoming traffic. He keeps yelling. Demurely, I keep my head down and don't even listen. So I turn right. I don't play chicken with a vehicle twice as big as mine....no, make that my son's car!! Soooooo. Pretty much the only thing left for me to do is make that right unless I want to get in a screaming match with the pickup truck!!! Shish!! What gives a guy so much adrenaline behind the wheel of a truck??

PHONES

I get a phone call today. After "dissing" me on the phone by pretending I was an answering machine, "Tell Pastor.... blah, blah," the guy rattles on. I made him acknowledge who I was.

"Oh, sure I remember you," I said. He then said hello. And of course he wants a favor.

Why would someone think I had forgotten him when he ditched on a project he volunteered to help me with? It's easy to forget mediocrity. But if you do a really bad job, you'll be remembered! Or, if you do a really excellent job, you'll be remembered.

But I didn't say any of that. Only that we were really booked up in July and August, but I'd pass the message along. And I did. I didn't even "forget."

And that's the news for today from Elgin's really beautiful Gail Borden Library.

A problem to solve!

I have a diagnostic problem for you.

After I played volleyball for an hour and a half in 90 degree weather, even jumped my max 3 inches off the ground a couple of times. I knew I'd have to quit when the familiar pain of my right hip started. Muscles spasms that bring joint weakness. Soon the choice would be fall down or sit down.

I went to cool off. I polished off my bottle of water and started another. Had a few strawberries with watermelon. Then grabbed a hot dog....no bun, just the meat. Sitting down to rest and cool, I began to feel nauseous. We were getting ready to leave. Since I wasn't feeling so good, I didn't help load up the stuff, just sat there. Bad, bad pastor's wife. Sitting when there's work to be done!

Somebody said to me, "You look like you're ready to pass out."

"I feel like it, too."

So we leave. Immediately my tummy starts rumbling. Pain! And the nausea! I lean back in the seat, and before I know it, I'm only half conscious.

"Do you need to go to the hospital?" asks hubby.

"No. Just get me home."

So I pray and groan the rest of the way home, still just barely conscious. As we're doing the circle off the tollway just a few blocks from the house, I'm wishing I'd opted for the hospital. I feel THAT bad. (I really don't like hospitals!)

I stumbled out of the car and staggered into the house. Hubby trying to help, but I'm almost delirious and shake him off. My anti-gravity chair. He guides me there. Instantly I know it won't work.

"No. The bed!"

So I collapse onto my bed. Relief. A cool, dark room.

Then the hallucination/dream starts: My hip tendon jerks the liver sideways which turns the stomach to a horizontal position. This kinks the esophagus so that passage is impossible and the entrance to my stomach is now on the side. A hot dog keeps pounding at the stomach trying to get in. It can't, so it runs circles around my stomach there in the cavity, but keeps pounding on the stomach. Finally, the hot dog finds the entryway into my stomach and slides through. My stomach contracts a few times and relaxes.

I fall asleep.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Hubby goes to take his afternoon nap. He says he was praying. I'm sure with the experience this senior pastor has, his snores are counted as travail!!

An hour later I wake up feeling so much better. The pain is gone, no more nausea, only a little dizziness. Later I manage to eat some chicken noodle soup, toast and tea. Still feeling weak, like a newborn kitten.

Hubby says it was divine healing. His prayers were answered.

Today I'm slightly headachey, weak in the knees, and prone to bits of dizziness and nausea.

So.....Question. Sunstroke?? Heatstroke?? Reaction to over-exertion? General insanity??? Food Poisoning? (The hot dog had been cooked more than the recommended two hours ago.) from which God healed me? (No actual output from that rumbling stomach--in either direction!!!) Other???

You be the DOC!!!! I'm waiting to hear from you!!!

NOT-SO-MODERN DOOHICKEYS
Hillbilly ingenuity!!!!

In them thar hills wheres I grew up, we didn't have no keylimes!

So this here Hillbilly ain't got no fancy lime squeezers.

But them hills does sport a fair 'mount of nuts, like pecans, walnuts, and hickor' nuts. Thus, I al'ays have a nutcracker ta hand. Whatcha think 'bout a nutcracker and them keylimes? It done the job!!

People who live in the lime-growing climate have something similar to this!!

Modern Doohickeys

Just as I have learned to turn my new phone off and on, to answer a phone call (usually) without cutting off the caller, I have a new car to figure out. My youngest borrowed my Ford Edge (three years old) to take on vacation. Meantime I'm driving his new Nissan Altima. My car does have remote start, and remote locks. That's pretty newfangled for me!! However, his has key-less driving. Key-less??? My Lord, what's this world coming to! What will be next, tire-less driving?? He gave me a crash course on how to use it. I listened...or thought I did.

So this morning I go to start the car. I have the little remote in my purse, so it's supposed to work. I push the start button. Nothing. I get the remote that I know has the chip and lay it on the seat. (Who knows maybe my purse has steel lining that blocks the zapper ray! It's heavy enough!) Push the button again. Still nothing.

Now understand, there is no key option. There IS a key option for the door should the battery on the remote fail. But the same remote has a chip that the starter reads and lets you start the car. Huh?? What if the starter doesn't feel like reading that day? I guess it didn't. I sit and think. Nothing occurs to me. I could call my son, presuming that I can get my phone to work. But that would admit defeat. I don't do defeat well. What's the rule? If it doesn't work at first, just keep pushing!!!

Try again. Push once. Nothing. Push twice. Nothing. Oh, wait!!! There's a light. It says "Brake". This car is not moving. Why do I need to brake? I hate electronic chips talking to me! But like an obedient humanoid, I obey the electronic order. I hold down the brake, push the button and . . . voila'! The car starts!! Whew!!!

To appreciate the depth of my ignorance, you have to know that in my childhood, a dial phone on a party line was a luxury we didn't have. It wasn't available in the country. My grandma had one in the city.

We had one TV channel, with a fuzzy picture on a snowy black and white set with rabbit ears on top. And I was thirteen years old before we, personally, had one. Previously we'd go to an Uncle's house to watch Saturday night TV.

In those days computers took up an entire room, a pretty big one at that, and were used only for military applications. Mostly for aiming armaments correctly. They had less power than is in that little zapper in my purse.

More to the point, I grew up with cars with WIRES. You could hot wire a car if the key was lost. You could have fun by reversing the position of the wire to the horn and the one to the brake light. That was especially fun if the professor in question was driving in the mountains followed by a busload of students howling every time he hit the brakes and the horn honked!

What we did NOT have was a little doohickey that sent out a little ray and zapped the starter to tell it to start at the push of a button. Nope THAT we did not have!!!

And that, folks, is a Modern Doohickey!!!!

TODAY IS JULY 1
I'm shouting that! I thought late August was the earliest I had seen such things before. There are how many days before....??? One hundred seventy-six days 176!!! Unbelievable!!!


Here I'm trying to get revved up for the beginning of the school year and in a very forward thinking mode. But my thoughts do not go THIS far!!!!

For real! This was today in the store!
Well, it's less than 6 months! :)

Happy Fourth of July!!!!

Happy Independence Day!!!