New Bookshelf

I just found a new application, and thought I would check it out and share it with you. The idea of having an online bookshelf is just funny! I just can’t have enough books.

If you haven’t been to my house you may not have known this about me, but I have a serious book collection. If a collection is ten or more of similar objects grouped together in an organized fashion, then it’s a collection... though my friends have mentioned words like “obsessive” “Huge” and “bigger than the public library”.

I asked my boys to put together a database for me so my books could be catalogued. Ever since I was in first grade and learned about the big wooden box with the tiny drawers I have wanted to have books and organize them. Now that I have enough, we’re all technologically improved. It’s still a lot of work.... to get them all organized. The boys were very excited at first then realized I meant ALL the books... and they became a little wary, unwilling to even begin on a task that looks truly overwhelming. I thought it would still be good to get them organized and inventoried... but they are realistic with the amount of time it would take to accomplish this.

How nice if you could just get the books to pre-organize themselves (which originally I was thinking, buying library copies with the Dewey Decimal coding already conveniently completed. Ahhh.... Which brings me to Kindles. Of course the idea intrigued me immediately. You can download books to the Kindle instantly and carry them around with you. You can carry 20 or 30 books and even more in the same area a paperback used to fit. Ah, now that has possibilities! Since, however, I was raised on paper and ink, I still have doubts that reading from a screen will be quite as satisfying... I am a digital immigrant, after all, and though I do attempt to adjust and learn upcoming technology, it’s not my first language, and reading is for fun for me at this point. I did notice that the downloads are just as much as buying and shipping the same book at times, which of course does nothing to sway the consumer in me.

So until they make it impossible for me to say no, I will keep my old friends on the shelves and take good care of them, since I know they have taken good care of me, educating, entertaining, and enlightening me for many years past and hopefully for many years to come. Enjoy the shelf of my current reads and I will hopefully update it often!

Change can bring fear

It was amazing to see all the presidential stuff and how much Obama wanted to bring change. I think lots of us like some kind of change, but lots of change fast is usually not good. Driving is good, crashing is bad. Sometimes getting a lot of money at one time can even be bad. Who knows. Lots of people see the huge governmental changes and are freaking out. I have had some freaky moments too... Some of it comes to pass, some of it gets bogged down in bureaucracy. Sometimes people vote and judges overturn. Sometimes justice is not possible. You can't do everything for everybody. I am sure everyone has done something nice for someone who didn't say thank you, and you think twice about doing something nice for them again... or we measure who is deserving (ill children) and who isn't (non-working -by choice- healthy person with big screen TV). The government doesn't always have that concern. They want to shower everyone with money. Well, that's nice until you realize it's YOUR money getting showered on big-screen-tv man.
There are other things that upset people lately. The fear that Christianity is being driven out of our country. I got an email today about "in God we trust" not being on the presidential dollar coins. Ok, it's NOT on the coin face but it IS on the edge. Squeezing "God" onto the edge of the money doesn't seem very nice to some... it does look like the next step is OFF. It's a small thing.... but a change that looks ominous. But get real people! If you want to be scared, start reading up on what the value of the dollar is doing and what will happen if we go to the Amero and share currency with Mexico and Canada. If you want to be scared, look at the amount of debt China is holding.
Not to be completely depressing, and I am not a financial advice giver by any means, but there are a few things you can do to try to keep America from becoming something you don't recognize.
1. Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Keep reading all the other amendments that have been put on the books.
2. Read some books by founding fathers and try to discover the intent they had to found our country on solid ground.
3. Start reading legislation. It looks like Chinese at first but try to muddle through and educate yourself. Pick a subject that is important to you or an amendment that stirs you and see what's being proposed that violates the spirit of the amendment... become educated and try to learn why the legislation is being proposed - and who will be hurt, and who will be helped by it.
4. Attend local government meetings. It won't always make sense at first but eventually you start to see the reasons why people do the things they do. Call them when you think they're wrong. At Public Forum time, ask your questions.
5. Look around at websites, news sites, and forums, you-tube etc. but remember it's not always factual.
6. Quit believing all the stupid emails gaged to make the masses terrified, and don't pass them along unless you are certain they are valid.
7. Writing your congressman may seem futile, but every letter counts. Some local leaders get a lot less mail than you might think. Go ahead and write. Please write in such a way that they want to respond to you and won't dismiss you as a "nut".
8. If you do get involved, be persistent and try to see it through. It takes time to figure out how to make legislation happen. It's different everywhere and in every level.

In the meantime I am still collecting dollar coins and watching the news on the value of our money. We've already been working at lowering our debt. It's always a good idea in any economy.

Food Storage

I gave a class at our local newspaper office about food storage and mailed out some info to some ladies who weren't able to attend. Here is a short thing to consider when planning, storing and buying food:

1. Expiration Dates
2. Will we eat it? Is it something in the rotation already?
3. Do we have the necessary other ingredients/equipment to make this food work?
4. How can we find a substitute for some short term storage food (like frozen chicken... canned or dehydrated chicken will work for some things)
5. Where am I going to put it?
6. Now that I'm stocking up how much is too much? How much is enough?
7. Does the food I have stored include items that require little or no cooking?
8. Have I considered an alternate fuel source?

The big problem for me is that my alternate fuel source is the grill. I love me some burned food. My dh has bbq'd chicken down to an art form. It's beyond science. But canned chicken isn't good on the grill and neither is anything else shelf stable (with the possible exception of Spam. We'll let you know.) Of course I can still boil water on the grill but it's not ideal. SO it's a work in progress.

Tip: Put a bay leaf in your flour and in your rice. It keeps any little nasty buggies from hatching somehow. Cool huh!

Surprises in the Food

I made the chocolate chip cookies a few weeks ago and they were a big hit and I mixed up a double batch to make into a cake today. It was so thick I added a half cup of water. We had talked about how much they tasted like Snackin' Cake... so I decided to try it out. I think the 4 cups of chocolate chips were too much. If there can be too much. But it's another FAT FREE RECIPE!! I put an ad on the bottom of the blog for Funwithfoodstorage.net, check it out! There are more too... I am interested in trying the Twinkies... that involves yellow squash! Next time someone gives you a squash you'll know what to do. They even sell this stuff canned. And you're eating your veggies!! Gotta keep this small. Don't want to let the word get out too big! If this gets back to the kids my secret will be out!!

Pyromania!

Any art that involves FIRE is welcome at Pyromania, a local arts project that offers lots of free stuff. If you live in a place that offers a Pyromania, ours is terrific. They raffle chances to make glass beads,

everyone makes glass tiles, cuttlebone casting (make your own necklace), and clay work for free. You can observe live pot throwing, bronze casting, building a kiln, blacksmithing with wrought iron... and buy some of the offerings as well. It's a lot of fun and gets everyone Fired Up about Art!!

Flower Show

We had a very busy weekend. Among the other items on the agenda we went to Pyromania which was next to the Flower Show. A friend treated me to admission so I had to go. What a wonderful gift! I haven't been before but it was truly fantastic. If you know me, you know I am a sucker for taking pictures of flowers. Always have been since my first 126mm camera. I've gone through a lot of cameras since then but I have really enjoyed taking and giving away my pictures. Here are a few of the 200 I took! Kind of randomly chosen too, they were all spectacular. The grape looking ones really were interesting... little balloon flowers... and of course the orchids were incredible... I just love them. A great outing you may be surprised how much you enjoy!

Scavenger Hunt

Ok tonight we were supposed to have a family activity and it ended up being my turn to plan it (I plan all of them. Sigh.) So while I was in traffic on the way home I came up with this idea.
Scavenger hunts are still fun... I was making a list of things to go see and take pictures of, when I decided it would be more fun if the kids had some input here. So I went home and made sure dad hadn't made plans (he hadn't) and passed out little scrapbook paper rectangles to everyone. (I am thinking ahead here. I should have passed out acid free pens too. You have instant titles for your pages. But I digress.) Everyone had to write an adjective on the paper. To my delight no one, not even my 9 year old, had to ask me what an adjective was! They all passed their papers back and a few wanted to do two so I let them. I did'nt do any myself because my hands were full getting the camera together. SO we got in the car and pulled out the first word.

Ornery.

Ok that would be my sarcastic teenager. We went immediately to his girlfriend's work (where she was) and took her picture, the person who wrote that word had to take the pic.. He said she was ornery. We jumped back in the car and drew pretty. Instead of jumping back out and taking another picture of this pretty girl, we went to River Ranch, a very pretty center of town/subdivision and took a pic in the gazebo as it was starting to rain. First we thought a pretty car but were unable to find one that qualified!
The next word was Delicious. Dad had keenly planned ahead for this since he had not made dinner tonight. So we all went to Pizzaria Venti where dinner is guaranteed to be delicious.

Colorful. That was McDonalds with their bright indoor playplace. Then

Smelly. Right around from McD's was a dumpster with stacks of cardboard outside. We all (except dd11 who took the pic) stood in front of the piles of trash with our noses plugged.

Next was purple. We could not think of anything so we went to Target and everyone was commanded to find something purple for under $2.00. We came out of there with an eggplant, some Easter grass, purple peeps (which, no doubt, will provide the entertainment for our next Family Evening, MORTAL PEEP FIGHT! It involves the microwave.) and several foam swords they saw and could not resist. They had a fight in the Target foyer, which qualified for the next word, Beastly.
The last one was Memorial (I know, wierd) and it was dark so too late to be puttering around the cemetary so we went home. Dad celebrated that it was a great Family Evening! The kids all had a great time.
You can do lots of variations on this theme and still have a fun evening together as a family. Certainly eating first would have lightened the budget and we didn't have to buy stuff at Target, I originally planned on everyone holding up purple clothes but hey. Dad got involved and that's good too.